ETHAN QUINN – DENISON UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL ASSISTANT COACH – EPISODE 1153

Website – https://denisonbigred.com/sports/mens-basketball

Email – quinne@denison.edu

Twitter/X – @quinne76

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Ethan Quinn is entering his 5th season as a Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach at Denison University in 2025-26.  Last season the Big Red recorded a program-record 24 victories, propelling them to their first-ever NCAC regular season championship title. They finished the season ranked #18 in the country. Denison earned an automatic bid to the 2025 NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Championships by winning the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament. 

Quinn previously spent two seasons as an assistant coach with the men’s basketball program at Ohio Dominican University.  He has had a unique journey getting into the college basketball world after being a college football player for four years at Ohio Dominican, graduating in 2017 with a bachelors degree in sports management and a minor in coaching. 

On this episode Mike & Ethan discuss the rise of Denison’s program from a 5-5 COVID season to an impressive 24 wins, culminating in a historic North Coast Athletic Conference title last season. Ethan hits on the importance of recruiting tenacious players who embody both skill and resilience, a strategy that has catalyzed Denison’s success. The conversation also touches on the necessity of instilling a culture that emphasizes hard work and commitment, ensuring players understand the standard of excellence required to become a consistent winner. Furthermore, we explore the nuances of evaluating talent, distinguishing between potential recruits in both high school and AAU settings, while reinforcing the significance of academic criteria in shaping the roster. Ultimately, the episode serves as a testament to the belief that a dedicated coaching staff, complemented by outstanding recruits, lays the foundation for sustained success in collegiate basketball.

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Get ready to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Ethan Quinn, Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach at Denison University.

What We Discuss with Ethan Quinn

• His father’s unique opportunity to play college basketball at age 35
• The effort needed to recruit exceptionally talented players who embody a strong work ethic and competitive spirit
• The critical relationship between talent and coaching outcomes
• Establishing a culture where success is not viewed as a one-time occurrence, but rather as a new standard for the program
• Last year’s 24 victories and first NCAC title for Denison
• His journey from being a college football player to a basketball coach reflects the importance of adaptability and perseverance in pursuing your passion
• Prioritizing toughness and competitiveness every day
• The transition from being a volunteer assistant to a full-time coach
• Why strong defensive play can lead to victories even when offensive performance falters

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THANKS, ETHAN QUINN

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TRANSCRIPT FOR ETHAN QUINN – DENISON UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL ASSISTANT COACH – EPISODE 1153

[00:00:00] Narrator: The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

[00:00:20] Ethan Quinn: We feel confident that we as a staff can go out and recruit the best players on the floor, and we keep it simple and we believe that our standard will allow us to play harder than anybody on the floor. And that set us up for success.

[00:00:33] Mike Klinzing: Ethan Quinn is entering his fifth season as a men’s basketball assistant coach at Denison University in 2025 – 26.

Last season, the Big Red recorded a program record 24 victories, propelling them to their first ever North Coast Athletic Conference, regular season title. They finished the season ranked number 18 in the country. Denison earned an automatic bid to the 2025 NCAA Division three men’s basketball championships by winning the NCAC tournament.

Quinn previously spent two seasons as an assistant coach with the men’s basketball program at Ohio Dominican University. He has had a unique journey getting into the college basketball world after being a college football player for four years at Ohio Dominican, graduating in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in sports management and a minor in coaching

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[00:02:04] Mark Downey: Hello, this is Mark Downey, the head men’s basketball coach at Arkansas Tech University, and you’re listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

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Get ready to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Ethan Quinn, men’s basketball assistant coach at Denison University. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason sunk tonight. But I am pleased to be joined by Ethan Quinn, men’s basketball assistant coach at Denison University.

Ethan, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:03:17] Ethan Quinn: Mike, thank you so much. I been waiting for this. I’m excited for the opportunity.

[00:03:21] Mike Klinzing: For those of you that are, we will give you the backstory. So Ethan and I connected and talked about doing the podcast back during last year’s basketball season. He’s at Denison and my son Cals at Ohio Wesleyan.

So after a game, we talked today, let’s make this happen. And then Ethan sent me a message on Facebook Messenger, which I check as I told him once every six months. So here we are, well after the fact that we originally planned to do this, but nonetheless, Ethan, we are glad you are here. Excited to have this conversation.

Wanna start by going back in time to when you were a kid? Tell me how you got into sports as a kid who was a early influence on your sporting career.

[00:04:02] Ethan Quinn: Yeah, so this, this story is crazy. It’s a little lengthy, so I apologize, but it just gives total context on where I’ve gotten to at this point. So. my dad was a state highway patrolman growing up.

His dad was a major 30 plus years, retired as a major. My uncle was the patrol. So he is just like the family dynamic every male in the Quinn family was a state trooper. So what comes with state, being a state trooper is you’re going to move every year and a half, two years, whether it’s a promotion or a transfer.

So I lived in Ohio my entire life growing up, but we moved, it just, it felt like every year and a half, two years. And so I say that I never got to play sports growing up because we just moved all the time.  I remember the first time I tried to play football when I was younger. But I actually was over the weight limit for my my grade level.

And then didn’t make it through a full season ’cause we ended up moving. And I just, I never got a chance to actually get settled and really like, dive into the youth sports. Like, it just, it just never really worked out. So, dad gets out of being a state trooper and this is like, I’m around 10 or 11 years old.

I’m like starting middle school. We moved down to southern Ohio where my mom is from. She’s from like the Rio Grande area. And so I bring this up because my dad, who played college basketball, had a year of eligibility left. My dad actually went back to the University of Ryo Grain and played basketball when he was 35 years old with his last year of eligibility.

And so I wasn’t, this isn’t a story when I’m five or six years old. My sports journey started at 10 when my first encounter with sports, like my real encounter with sports was being in a college locker room. And I at 10, 11 years old, I’m like, I get to eat for free. I get the free Nike gear.

I get to travel the country for free and stay in hotels. These college guys are treating me like I’m their little brother. So I’m. I’m getting to hang out with these college guys like you’re teaching me about rap music and trying to help me talk to girls and learn how to dance. Like they tried, but it was, it was, it was so awesome.

How they embraced. A 30 5-year-old has been, who hadn’t played college basketball in 10 plus years. They embraced me and my family. And so at 10, 11 years old, I fell in love. I’m like, this is the greatest thing ever. I’m like, coach French, the head coach, he wears gym shorts to work every day.

That’s incredible. And I’m like, his job is to coach basketball. And I saw what the sport did for my family’s life. And so from that age, I was like, all right, I got it planned. I’m going to play high school basketball. I’m going to play college basketball. I’m going to coach college basketball and I’m going to sail off into the sunset.

And that’s all I ever wanted. And all I ever knew things didn’t work out that way. But that is where it all started for me. That was the first. Settled, consistent sports experience that I had, and it was being in a college locker room when my dad at 35 years old went back to play college basketball.

[00:07:06] Mike Klinzing: That is crazy. And a very cool story in the fact that for not only you, but for your dad to be able to have that experience and to go in and to play with 19, 20, 21, 22 year olds and try to navigate that age gap. It’s funny because we’ve had so many people on who obviously are young coaches, and they talk about, well, some guys get a job in the program where they just got done playing.

And so then you have to navigate. The last year I was hanging out and going out with these guys, now I have to be their coach. And you have that, you have that thing, or then you have the coaches who get a job as a head coach young at 27, and they have to be the leader and run a program. And now here’s your dad who’s.

10 years older than those guys. And he’s not, he’s not the leader. He is right there in the locker room playing and going through all’s the same. That coach,

[00:07:58] Ethan Quinn: he’s the same age

[00:07:58] Mike Klinzing: as that coach. Yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. Kudos to your dad for a wanting to do that. Did I wonder what his, did you ever talk to him about like what his thought process was of when Yeah.

He came to the realization of when, when, when? And why did he wanna do that?

[00:08:14] Ethan Quinn: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s more to the story. So basically how it worked is, so like I said, my mom is from the R Grand area, so really cool backstory. So my grandparents, my mom’s parents grew up on, so Bob Evans, like the restaurant.

He’s from Rio Grande. My grandparents lived next door to Bob Evans, like Bob and Julie. And so kind of cool story. So University of Rio Grande is on the farmstead. It’s on the homestead right there in Rio. And so we moved down with my my grandparents. My dad is six 10. My grandparents’ farmhouse, seven foot ceilings, one bathroom, crazy.

So they knew the athletic director at Rio. So they went and met my mom and dad. Neither of them finished college.  my dad was playing college ball. The academy called him when he was in his start. He actually went to Ohio, Dominican at this point. They called him and the, when the academy calls, if you don’t go, they ain’t calling you back.

And so he left. They had me, they got married young, had me very young. So my mom stayed home with me, so neither of ’em graduated. And so when my dad got out of the patrol, it was like, what do you do now? So they met with the athletic director at Rio o, hoping he could just kind of navigate and help them, like, how many credits do we have left?

Can we just finish it since we live down here, yada yada. So Ken French was the assistant coach at Rio who had just gotten the head job. He’s at Oakland City now in Indiana. He had just got the head job. And so dad and mom are meeting with the athletic director and coach French walks in and doesn’t really pay much attention.

Well, Jeff Lanam, who’s the athletic director, he had joked with my dad of like, Hey Aaron, you have a year of eligibility left. And  my dad’s like, ha ha whatever. Well, when Coach French kind of poked his head in, Jeff was like, Hey Ken, I’ve got you a seven foot recruit for next year’s team.

And so Coach French was obviously asking like, who dad is, yada yada. So he asked my dad, he was like, why don’t you come in tomorrow? We have open gym at five five o’clock. Why don’t you come in tomorrow, bring your high top Chuck Taylors and just show these young guys how it’s done. And my dad’s like, no.

Like I haven’t, I haven’t played competitive basketball in forever, ? And coach French kind of begged him. And dad’s like, all right. So Dad thought the whole time he was going to ask him to coach. And so he goes to play in open gym. And I’ll never forget dad came home and I asked him, I was like, what did you guys talk about after open gym?

And he said long story short, coach French asked, would you consider coming to play for me for your last year? And dad said, no. Like, I have a wife and two children. I don’t have a home. I don’t have a job. I don’t, I need a degree. I don’t have any money. I like, I just, I need to get this degree and be done.

And Coach French said, well, what if I pay for the rest of your schooling? And dad said, okay, I’ll play. And so that was kind of the end of it. So my dad, he actually played, it was kind of wild. Like he was not a bench like locker room guy. Like he played and he, like, he’s diving in the stands after loose balls and just acting a fool.

He’ll still tell you that his, his knees remind him that he went back and played competitive basketball at 35. So yeah, so that’s how it ended up happening was it kind of was a joke. And then it turned out where Coach French paid for his schooling. He finished it and then he coached there for multiple years after.

So  that first year going through I’ll never forget these two stories. So one locker room my dad is lathering from his size 14 toes all the way to the top of his six 10 head in Biofreeze. And all these 19 to 22 year olds are getting smoked out of the locker room from the Biofreeze smell.

And just that was super funny. I’ll never forget that. And then the other one was so this was back when the. Mid Midwest or the a MC conference was the huge NAI conference, so all the D twos in Ohio used to be NAI. So it was that huge power conference. Like all the GMAC schools were all on this, the NAI conference.

So anyway they were playing at Findlay and student sections just let my dad have it. And unfortunate for him, he was not a great free throw shooter. And I know when he watches this, he’s going to let me have it about that. He’s not a great free throw shooter. And so he is at the free throw line at Finlay and one of the students was like, Hey, old man, where’s your wife and kids at?

And  everybody’s like, ha ha. Well, I’m sitting on the bench, my mom and my sister in the crowd, and my dad just takes the ball, looks at him and just points to all of us, and then goes to shoot the prerow. So yeah, those are two stories that I remember from that year, but yeah, that’s, that’s how it ended up happening.

[00:12:47] Mike Klinzing: That’s great stuff. Had your dad played, had he been playing like in men’s leagues and stuff, or was he just like cold Turkey.

[00:12:55] Ethan Quinn: So I kind of cold Turkey, like the patrol, they still, they still played like at the academy. Like they, they would still have runs, but he had not played actual competitive basketball.

So my dad went to Cambridge High School and was on their state Final Four team state in 88. I always remember him talking about that. And then dad went and played, he was at ou played for Larry Hunter capital, and then started Otterbein or Otterbein, good lord, Ohio, Dominican and then left Ohio, Dominican to go to the academy.

So that was kind of his, I don’t remember the exact timing of the years of those, but those were the schools he ended up at, so pretty much cold Turkey.

[00:13:33] Mike Klinzing: Got it. That’s impressive, man, to go back age 35 and be able to do that. I know that’s about the time my kids were born, right about the time I was 35, and that was pretty much the end of my basketball career at that point.

From that point on, it was like I could play. Sporadically, but eh, it kind of, it kind of ended right about, kind, kind of ended right. About that point. So. Alright. So his career is rejuvenated. Your athletic career is just kind of starting. So tell me how it progresses from that opportunity to be around those guys.

To be in the locker room, to watch your dad go through is a very, very unique experience. So just talk about how then that sort of catapulted you into what you did athletically moving forward.

[00:14:16] Ethan Quinn: Sure. So I always joke, I was the big kid who couldn’t chew gum and walk at the same time. Like, that was me. I just, athleticism did not run through my veins.

And so I’d moved all the time and when we ended up moving, I ended up enrolling into Jackson middle school and in southern Ohio. Football’s the only thing that matters. It’s the Friday night lights. The town shuts down, they’re shuttling people up to the stadium like. That’s, that’s it.

And I, when I get there, I’m the biggest kid in the middle school and the youngest, and they realize I don’t play sports. I’m like the outcast. Like they never, they never knew anything to be like that. And so me trying to make friends, I was like,  what, I’ll, I’ll play basketball. And then somehow I got suckered into football while I was horrible at both.

I mean, just absolutely horrible. Middle school was a rough time for Coach Quinn. New school, just trying to make friends. I was horrible basketball, football. And so with dad coaching at Rio, the only happiness I had from athletics was being in that ru locker room at Rio. Now dad’s coaching, so now he’s letting me go scout with him.

Now I’m going to recruit with him. That’s back when we used to scout in person.  he would pick me up from school and take me on a trip to Cleveland to go scout a high school game and like whatever. Recruiting trips with him and the R Mobile is what he used to call it.  the guys still loving on me as their little brother coach French, giving me more responsibilities where something as simple as mopping the floors, keeping the scoreboard.

He’d let me jump into drills and practice like, so the only happiness I had was sports, was basketball at the college level. And so I get through middle school really rough, like I said I get to high school and so I had made the decision after eighth grade. I’m like, I am not playing football. I have no desire to play football.

I’m a basketball player. I am going to figure it out. I’m going to coach college basketball. I’m going to play it like I have this dream. So I get to high school and they hire a new football coach. And so we had a meeting, or they had a meeting with everybody that was interested in playing football in high school at the time.

Well, my mom’s the high school secretary, so I didn’t go to the meeting while I’m in the office and my mom’s in the office and this youth football coach sees me asked who I am and I I. Nonchalantly. Tell him, my coach, I wish you the best. I’ll be at as many games to support you as I can. And he sees the biggest kid in the high school in the ninth grade tell him he is not playing football.

He goes, what do you mean you’ll be at as many games as you can? And I’m like, well, I don’t play football. And he said, well, that’s not going to last long. And so I met with him. He’s a really awesome guy. And so once again, I get sucker to football. So freshman year, basketball and football, still terrible. Can’t move.

I have never lifted a weight in my life. It’s just bad. And so I’m starting to realize like, this is a lot harder than I thought. And like, why is it coming so natural? So many people, but once again, my dad’s still coaching at RO. It’s my happy place. And my dad and i’s relationship growing up. It wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows.

This, the patrol job was really hard on him. And I think that’s another reason why I do what I do, is like when I went to basketball at RO with him. Like nothing else mattered. Like, it didn’t matter how bad of a day we had or how good of a day we had, it didn’t matter when we went to practice, it was, it was the best day ever.

And that was huge for me. And so the happy place was r it was, it was being in college locker room. And I my dad gave me more responsibilities. Coach French gave me more responsibilities. It was, it was awesome. So I get to sophomore year, I tell the football coach, I’m like, please don’t bother me.

I’m not playing high school football ever. You just saw what happened. You don’t want me to play. He’s like, trust me. I’m like, I don’t trust you. I ended up playing again ’cause I’m, I’m a yes man. I’m I hate telling people no. So I was so bad my sophomore year of high school football that he actually asked me a couple times to play on the freshman team.

Once again, I’m the biggest kid in the high school, so at this point I’m miserable. I’m like, I will never put on shoulder pads ever again. This is stupid. Football is stupid. I get to basketball. So high school football in Jackson is really good. High school basketball was horrendous. Three coaches in four years, four or five wins a year.

One winless season amid ugly, really ugly. Sophomore year I start varsity as basketball. I’m still not very good, but I’ve been in a college locker room for four or five years at this point. I know what I’m doing, I know what I’m good at and I can make it work. So I’m starting as a sophomore. I’m like, okay, I’ll figure it out in the next two years.

This is what I’m doing. We get to junior year football coach is on me and I’m like, don’t talk to me. Please don’t talk to me. The changing point or the, the switch for me was our arch rival high school was five minutes down the road. Their best player transferred us his senior year. So he is one year ahead of me.

And  I’m the kid who, I’m still struggling to make friends. I’m not very good at sports. I, I didn’t get invited to the cool parties like that just wasn’t me. This kid comes in, he’s the stud of Southern Ohio. Everybody knows he is, he is getting highly recruited. Transfers to us is going to be our starting quarterback.

And he found out I wasn’t playing and kind of took me under his wing and I’m like, buddy, you don’t want me protecting you. I’ll tell you that you don’t want me protecting you. And he was plugged in with this training group. It was like five or six Southern Ohio kids who were either committed playing college somewhere or were already playing.

He took me to a workout one time and I’m like, this, it was the craziest thing ever. I’m like, I didn’t know your body was supposed to bend in those ways. And I didn’t, I didn’t know you could lift over a, I mean, I just, it was the craziest thing ever. I was so out of place and I was like, please don’t ever take me back to that again.

Long story short, he stayed with me. He took me under his wing. He took me to the, the cool invitations I never got invited to. He kept taking me back to this training group. Jason Prater is who ran AP Prep completely changed my life the trajectory of my life. Our football coach told me, you don’t worry about anything other than getting to those sessions.

He said, you don’t worry about paying for it. You don’t worry about if you’re going to miss anything with me. You go to those sessions, you go and you go and you go some more. And Austin Osborne was the kid’s name, and Austin took me under his wing every single day of that summer. And I remember the first time I did like a foot ladder speed drill through the speed ladder.

And I did it correctly. And I was like, okay, I, this is, it’s coming together. And so junior year, I start at left tackle. To be the blindside guy. And I thought, oh, I’m going to get him killed. I’m going to get him killed. And we went 10 to, oh won a conference championship, went to the second round of the playoffs, and for the first time in my life, sports outside of Rao specifically football was fun.

And it kind of clicked. I’m like, oh, I can, I can grab this guy and throw him in the dirt and that’s okay. I’m like, this is kind of fun, right? And so I figured it out. I still was not very strong, but I at least figured out how to move. I at least figured out how to bend. And football became fun. I was like, this is awesome.

So one thing people didn’t know about me is Jason Prater, the trainer every Saturday morning at 8:00 AM after a football Friday night where I barely could wake up in the mornings. The next day he brought me in for a one-on-one session that he didn’t have to do every Saturday morning at 8:00 AM at our high school.

So after we lost in the second round of the playoffs my junior year, I get up the next morning, I go to train with him, and I’m doing explosions off of a box jump. And I come down on one leg and you just hear this pop. And I look at him and he looks at me and I’m like, that’s not good. And I try to put weight on and I just dropped to the floor.

Ended up breaking my foot. I had messed it up the night before and I should have never went to train, but I did. So I broke my foot. So I missed the entire first month, month and a half of basketball. Then conditioning wise, getting back into it, I finally got back after a couple games. I run into one of my teammates.

We blindsided each other. I broke his collarbone, he knocked me out cold in a concussion. So then I’m out another like three weeks. So I completely missed for the majority of my junior year basketball. So now I’m panicking. Because the 6 7 270 pound back to the basket, great screener, great rebounder, great teammate, but can’t score outside a three foot can’t dribble.

And I definitely couldn’t blitz a ball screen. That guy on a three win high school team is not getting recruited and I started getting football letters. And so, like I said, at this point I’m, I’m panicking because my dream, my high school career is going to the tube. There’s no way I’m going to college.

And so then I’m, I’m, I’m scared at this point, so get to senior year and I make the incredibly hard decision knowing what’s happening. I decided not to play my senior of high school basketball. We had been on our third coach in four years at this point. The job was so bad they couldn’t get anybody to take it.

They had to hire the athletic director and. High school football was getting to the point. I was good. I’m, I’m all the way in with this training group, I’m starting to get strong. I’m moving, like I’ve never moved before. I’m going on recruiting visits for football, which I, every time I win I was like, I can’t believe these people are recruiting me.

I remember I got my first division one scholarship offer from Eastern Michigan and the Max School, and I’m like, I am getting division one football. I mean, I just, it was crazy. So senior year I’m dominating in southern Ohio. Like, I think I remember my senior year of high school highlight film.

It was just pancakes. The entire thing was just pancakes. So ended up realizing that college football was where I was going to end up because that was my ticket to college. Like basketball was just not going to be my ticket to college. And so from that moment on, I dove completely into football knowing I was going to have to sacrifice and work really hard to get into college basketball.

And so going through the recruiting process thought I was going to end up at Eastern Michigan. They had a coaching change really late. I didn’t want to go play for Joe Schmo who didn’t know me. I didn’t know him. And so after everything, I ended up at Ohio, Dominican from 2013 2017. Playing four years there.

[00:25:04] Mike Klinzing: I mean, it’s an incredible story, first of all. And when you think about just your development as, as an athlete, but also kind of between the lines, is your development just from a confidence standpoint and a, a self-esteem and believing in yourself, sounds like that was part of the transformation, not just the physical transformation of what you did, but also just the ability to believe in yourself on the football field.

Was there ever a thought during your time on the football field that coaching football was a possibility? ’cause obviously. If there’s coaching basketball, there’s coaching football, but they’re, they’re both coaching and you’re still able to have an impact on young people regardless of which sport you choose.

And I can see where your initial attraction to basketball was right through your dad and your, those experiences that you had early had an impact on you. But then eventually as you transitioned over to football, no thought ever of, Hey, I want to coach football or basketball just always stayed at the forefront because of the positive experience you had early on.

How do you explain that?

[00:26:16] Ethan Quinn: Yeah, so the answer to that is never I’ve never ever had a desire to coach football. I will say I love football. I still watch it very passionately. I think the game of football, and this is coming from a college basketball coach who, that’s all I’ve wanted to do since I’ve been 10 years old.

The game of football teaches you things that no other sport does. It’s, it’s just different, man. And it’s, we could do an entire podcast on that. Football is just different. My best friend, my best man at my wedding he coaches high school football. He swears to me when he gets a head job that I’m going to be on his staff.

And I’m like, listen, I’ll take a headset and I’ll stand on the sidelines and I’ll just tell you how crappy of a play call that was. But I’m not coaching. No, I love football. I have a little 2-year-old boy and my wife and I are pregnant with another boy coming in the on the way. And if they wanna play football, I hope they do.

Like, I hope they do. But no, I never, ever once thought, well, maybe I’ll just give up on this basketball thing and just go the football route. I, honestly, being out of it and going to play college football just made me crave wanting to get into college basketball even more. And at that point, I honestly was willing to do literally whatever it took.

So yeah, love football, but never, ever switch to think about coaching it.

[00:27:27] Mike Klinzing: When you kind of, as you’re playing, are you doing anything during those four years to keep your basketball roots and your basketball mind sharp while you’re on the football field? Yeah,

[00:27:42] Ethan Quinn: so I remember when I talked to my dad had the original conversation my senior year of high school with my dad.

He had told me, he was like, Hey let’s be creative when you get to college of how you can help yourself from the basketball side of things. So that way when you graduate, there’s at least something there that you’re just not coming from the way the ground up. And I remember he recommended to me, why don’t you officiate?

And I’m like, you are out of your mind. You’re out of your mind. He was like, make some money. Be around high school coaches. Referee a a u college coaches are there. Connect with them there. I was like, referee. No, but then I started to think about it and I’m like, I can make money by getting a workout best seat in the house.

And I get to be around the game and connect with people and I’m like, all right, whatever. So I rolled with it. And so my four years at Ohio, Dominican playing football, I was a basketball official and lo and behold, I was pretty dang good at it. And I ended up getting on staff for one of the a a U Assigners that I got to travel the country and referee on those Friday, Saturday, Sunday weekends that I was doing 25 games in a weekend.

And that completely changed things because now I’m in front of a lot of college coaches and so, yeah, so I refered high school games. I connected with all these high school coaches. I am, I’m a referee going up to anywhere from John Beeline at Michigan at the time to Chris Sullivan at, or Bob Gooney at Dennison at the time.

And saying to both of them, Hey, my name’s Ethan Quinn. I’m from Columbus, Ohio. This sounds kind of crazy, but I’m going to be a college basketball coach one day and just wanted to introduce myself to you. And that was it. ‘Cause I just had no idea what was going to do for me. So, obviously being at the scholarship level it’s literally your full-time job being an athlete.

So I didn’t have a chance to do much else. But yes, I officiated basketball

[00:29:48] Mike Klinzing: another, again, very interesting route and it totally makes sense based on your circumstance. But of all the stories that I’ve heard on the podcast going from. Basketball official. The basketball coach is a story that I don’t think, unless my memory is failing me, I don’t think I’ve heard that story before.

So we’ve got a lot of unique pieces here as we go through. Did you have any conversations with the basketball staff at Ohio, Dominican, while you were there, just in terms of talking to them or being, picking their brain? Anything kind of leading up to graduation?

[00:30:23] Ethan Quinn: Yeah. So I always have to brag that I’m a two time intramural champion at Ohio.

Dominican my first year we actually won with six offensive linemen and two quarterbacks. So I always had to bring that one up. It, it’s, it’s funny we talked before the podcast about how small the basketball world is and things always come full circle. So a little bit of backstory.

So Dan Evans was the head coach at Ohio, Dominican at the time. He’s at North Georgia now. Kelly Winter was his assistant coach. I knew Kelly and Dan just from Ohio, Dominican, such a small campus. Anyway they knew I loved basketball. They knew I wanted to coach one day, but like that was about it.

So two years post-grad at Ohio, Dominican Dan leaves, ODU to take the North Georgia job. So this kind of transitions into how I get into coaching. There’s a little bit more to the story, I’m happy to share, but after two opportunities that I had had that I thought were going to work out, they both fell through and I was thinking literally my dream is over.

Dan left and I hit Kelly up and I said, Hey, are you going to apply for the job? He said, yes. I’m like, okay, cool. He ended up getting it and so I hit him back up and I said, Hey, I know you’ve got a lot to process. I’d love to just come meet with you at some point in the next couple weeks. I’m still in the Columbus area.

I would love to meet with you. So I go in his office his two assistants are already there, his staff is full. And I just told him, I said, Hey, I am ready. This is what I want to do. You don’t have to pay me a penny. I will wash the laundry. I will do whatever dirty work you don’t wanna do. I’ll go get your lunch.

I don’t care. So you put the one thing, and the reason you wanna hire me is I just graduated from here two years ago. I could talk to anybody and I will tell these student athletes legit, tangible, like data on what it was like to be a student athlete here. And I was like, that’s valuable to you and I’m willing to do it for free.

And obviously as a new head coach, you get a guy who’s willing to do whatever you need for free. And I was just there, obviously he’s going to take me up on that offer. So that’s how I got into coaching was I told Kelly, I was like, I’ll, I’ll do whatever. You don’t have to pay me a penny. Like I’ll do it. And so I jumped in there and  kind of took off from there.

But yeah, so that’s how the mutual connection got me. The job was. Kelly knew that I was interested and then I, once again, I offered to do it for free and nobody’s going to turn down getting their laundry done for free

[00:32:51] Mike Klinzing: in the midst of doing the laundry for free. How much access did you get to be able to sit in on meetings and to be, even though you’re obviously not paid and you’re volunteering and you’re doing some of those tasks that maybe other coaches don’t necessarily wanna do and somebody who’s going to do it for free, they’re always willing, as you said, to take that on.

But how much did you get to go and sit in on meetings and sit in on things that sort of wet your appetite for what it was like to be a college basketball coach?

[00:33:19] Ethan Quinn: Yeah, so I was really lucky Kelly allowed me to be a part of, as much as I wanted to be a part of, he didn’t allow me to do a certain things right away.

Obviously, it was my first time doing it. But I was lucky he allowed me to recruit go on trips. He allowed me to help with scouts and film and player workouts and recruit workouts. And so one part, part of the story that’s super cool you hear, especially in small college, like coaches starting literally from the ground up and sleeping on couches and all this, all this stuff, just making ends meet.

So I, at this point, I don’t have a job. And I was substitute teaching at the time, but then I realized when I took this job, I’m like, I’m substitute teaching. I’m, I’m in the school from eight to three 30. I’m going to miss everything. And I’m like, I have to learn and I have to be there. And so I remember walking with Coach Fairhurst, the head assistant at the time to the dining hall.

There was a career fair going on. And the new outlet mall that had just been built in Sunbury, just northern of Columbus, there was a Nike outlet up there, and I saw their, like posting on this job fair that they had like, I can’t remember how it was worded, but like 24 hour, like shifts or whatever. And it just like clicked with me.

I was like, Hmm, I wonder what that’s about. So I talked to the manager and he said they have one of the shifts they had was from arrive at 4:30 AM but the shift was basically 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM The store opened at 9:00 AM and this shift was being there to get stuff off the trucks, all the boxes off the trucks, and then getting all of the clothes in, hanging up on the hangers, putting those little fricking bead pieces on there organizing the shoes and getting the store prepped or it’s open.

And I was like, all right, well that sounds terrible to get up that early. But then I’m like. If I get off work at 9:00 AM all I need is enough money to pay my rent. That’s all I need. I was like, I’ll eat peanut butter every day. I don’t care. Like, I just, I just need to pay my rent to keep a roof over my head.

I was like, four 30 to nine, I’m in the office by 9 45. I’m like, okay. So I got a job at Nike. I worked three to four mornings a week, and then I worked from four 30 all the way to when the store closed at 6:00 PM on Sundays to make some extra money. But I get in the office at 9 45, 10:00 AM and I learned, sat in meetings, I took phone calls.

I ran workouts. Like I just learned. I soaked it all up. I asked questions and I was not very good, but I gave him my best. And  we’d be in practice and Kelly would be like, Hey, can you head to. Shaker Heights tonight in Cleveland to go watch Joe Smoke.  I, yeah, absolutely.

I get in my car, I go seven 30 tip game’s over at nine 30. I get home at midnight. That alarm’s going off at 3 30, 3 45 the next morning to go to Nike. And it was horrible. But I didn’t have a choice and I’m like, I have to do this. And it, it was, it was so worth it. So I did that for a year and then when I realized I, something’s going to fail me if I don’t do something different.

So I was really lucky. I ended up getting plugged in with a remote sales job that I did completely from the office. The owner of the company knew I coached, he supported it. And so then that second year at Ohio, Dominican I got to do the remote sales job, actually had a full-time income did it for free again, and then the pandemic happened and everybody’s job got cut.

And that’s kind of how I transitioned to Dennison. But but yeah, Kelly was really good to me. So let me in those spaces that I hadn’t really earned yet. But he allowed me to do that and that’s really how I learned so much.

[00:37:13] Mike Klinzing: What’s the most valuable thing or two that you learned during that experience at Ohio, Dominican, that you took with you to Dennison that you still feel like is impacting who you are as a coach right now?

[00:37:25] Ethan Quinn: I’m tougher than my anything. I tell myself I can do more than I tell myself. I can, I can give more. I can do more. I can last longer. Like I’m, I’m tougher than any of my excuses. I, I can do anything. I’m tougher than any of my excuses. Second thing is. The players are what matters. The people is what matters.

Like take X’s and O’s out of it. Take wins and losses out of it. All of those are important, obviously. Like, I wanna win, I want to win, I wanna compete for championships. I wanna win. I am the competitive person, but like the players and the people behind those players, like that’s what matters. That is why I do what I do.

I have a special bond with the college age kid. I just have to remind myself in those moments at Ohio, Dominican, we weren’t very good. Kelly’s a young head coach. He’s got a lot to figure out, and I realized that those guys just needed, they needed me at that point, that positive influence, that, hey, I wasn’t the best basketball coach in the world, but I frigging cared about them.

And that’s the reason that a couple of them, and I still have dinner once a month together. I get invited to weddings. They’re calling me for advice and. Things that have lasted when I wasn’t a great basketball coach, but I showed them genuinely what, what they meant to me and that they mattered.

So I can accomplish anything. I’m, I’m stronger than any of my excuses and the people and those players is what matters.

[00:38:54] Mike Klinzing: So taking those lessons from Ohio, Dominican to Denison, how does that opportunity come to you?

[00:39:00] Ethan Quinn: Yeah, so once again, basketball world’s small, right? So we finished my second season at Ohio, Dominican.

It’s one of those things that I knew towards the end of the season. I’m like, it’s time for me to leave. It was, it was the best thing I could have happened to me to go there. And I’ll always be grateful for that opportunity. But some things were just moving in a direction that I just, I wasn’t ready to be a part of or willing to be a part of anymore.

And that’s okay. But I got to the point I was like. I don’t know what’s ahead for me here. I was engaged at the time but I was like, I need to leave. I need to leave. And so I resigned after the season in April of 2020. 20 21, 20 21, 20. I can’t remember. April the pandemic. And when I left there so Sully, Chris Sullivan took over for Bob Gallini or Lonni, sorry, at Denison.

And his assistant that he hired was Devin Price, who was at Bluffton, who played for my dad at Royal. So Sully hired him. And then Stu Hartenstein was at Dennison for a long time. Bob’s assistant. So it was Stu and Dev and then Sully. Well, dev and I had reconnected with him being at Bluffton us out coaching.

Well, when I left Ohio, Dominican, he called me and he was like, what are you about to do? And I said, unfortunately, I think I’m about to coach high school basketball. And that sounds terrible. But there were no college opportunities open. Nobody was going to take a two year volunteer from a bad Division II at that point.

And my fiance wife did not wanna relocate. She had a great teaching and coaching job, so I was kind of stuck. And Dev was like, well, what about Denison? And I’m like, well Dev, I know literally nothing about division three. I definitely don’t know anything about the high academic space. It’s by the miracle and the grace of God that I graduated high school and college.

I was like, I know nothing about that space. And he said, well, our head coach is wanting to add a spot on staff to specifically like target recruiting. And I’ve already told him that you are the guy for the job. I’m like, well, that shame on you for telling him that. And. I said, Deb, I just, I don’t know man.

I, I don’t know. He said, do you want to coach college basketball or not? And I was like, I do. And he said, he just looked at me. I’m like, okay, I’m in. So had a Zoom interview with Sully. He offered me the job on the spot. I didn’t know how much I was getting paid. I didn’t know my role was going to be, I didn’t talk to Haley.

I didn’t tell her anything. I told Sully, I said, yep, I’m in. When do I start? How do I get to Denison? And so from there Stu had to, to leave the middle of my first season for some health issues. He was battling. So I go from figuring out where Denison is, what the high academic space is, what Division three looks like.

And my job was to just figure that stuff out and help recruiting to Stu left. And Sully goes, Hey, you and Deb wanna split all scouts, all film, all court instruction. I trust him and I trust you. Okay. So then I rolled with it. And been there since. And just this past year I got promoted to the full-time assistant.

Dev ended up going to the Ivy League to be the operations guy at Brown. And Sully told me there was no one he could imagine taking that spot. And I got my first ever full-time spot.

[00:42:21] Mike Klinzing: Nice to get a real paycheck, huh?

[00:42:24] Ethan Quinn: Man, I I never thought it would happen but after working so many jobs every year, this is, this is a nice change of pace.

[00:42:31] Mike Klinzing: All right. So talk to me a little bit about how the role changes when you go from being a part-time to a full-time. Clearly, obviously the money’s a piece of it, but just talk about the day to day-to-day role of what you do, how those responsibilities changed.

[00:42:49] Ethan Quinn: Got it. So the transition from like, the part-time to full-time, to be honest with you, it wasn’t a terrible transition because Sully really allowed me to do everything.

Dev and I worked really well together. I joke all the time. Dev and I went to war together. We did everything together, scouts, film, on court instruction, recruiting. I mean, we did everything together. Slowly sometimes as the part-time had to tell me like, Hey, a lot of part-times don’t typically go out and recruit, or they don’t typically do what you’re doing.

And I’m like, well, that’s weird ’cause I don’t know why you wouldn’t. I don’t know why you wouldn’t wanna do these things. I don’t know. I was like, Hey, all, all I wanna do is win, so I’m going to do it. And so the transition to full-time, it was honestly not hard attending staff meetings, that’s not been my most favorite thing in the world, but that’s okay.

And then just getting to spend more one-on-one time with Sully, that has been really, really special for me. But from an actual coaching standpoint, the transition for me was not hard because I was really lucky that Sully kind of gave me free reign to jump in. And I think I gained his trust and his respect.

And then I kind of just kept moving forward.

[00:43:56] Mike Klinzing: Let’s talk about the program at Denison as a whole. You and I were talking a little bit before and for people that don’t necessarily know the history of the program, you were talking about how five years ago program wins five games, and you guys have obviously turned it around.

You win 24 games last year, you win the league. What’s been the key, what has allowed you guys to revitalize and get the program to where it is? What have been the key components to that success?

[00:44:27] Ethan Quinn: Yeah, so I think what happened was Sully being Bob’s assistant for so long, I think there’s a lot of things that Bob did that I think Sully really enjoyed.

And I think there were some things just Bob had been coaching for so long and Sully was the young guy and I think there were just some things he wanted to do a little different, but just didn’t have the opportunity to do so. And so when he brings me in and Deb and I are, and Sully are sitting in the room together and.

 I, when I got there, the way that it was being treated, it was kind of like Denison was finding the smartest kids they could find that kind of liked basketball. And I’m like, this isn’t intramurals. Like we’re, we’re competing for champion. We’re in a league, there’s a league championship on the line like this.

We can play in the NCAA tournament. Like this is not a charity, this is not intermurals. And I thought, I think we can go still find the smartest kids we can find that are also some tough sobs that wanna frigging win. And I think my mindset coming in there, I think it was crazy. So I’m on the high intensity spectrum, the football coming out of me spectrum.

Like, I just wanna win. I’ll do whatever it takes. I don’t wanna stop. I’ll do whatever it takes. I think Dev was a mix of me and Sully and, but Dev didn’t wanna say anything or really push it. And then I got there and I just said, whatever came to my mind. And Sully, I don’t think he, I think he had a vision.

I’m not sure if he fully believed we could do what we’ve done. I think he thought we could fix the program, but I don’t think he thought we could do this, which is cool because now he, he wants more of it. Like I, he, he, he’s like me sometimes. I’ve even kinda looked at him, I’m like, I don’t even know who you are anymore.

But the biggest thing was we came together, we’re like, all, how do we do this recruiting? Like we have to bring in better players across the board. And it’s funny, I’ve gotten to know a lot of the alumni at Dennison, they’re great dudes, but they will even tell you, they’re like, I wouldn’t have sniffed a floor if I played for Dennison now.

Like they, they joke about it, but they know, and that’s a beauty to where the program is. And so we talked and we’re like, let’s, let’s work a little harder. Let’s go in some areas that maybe Dennison hasn’t recruited in the past. And let’s find the smartest kids we can find that are tough. Let’s not just fall in love with the smartest, most talented kid in the gym.

Let’s take the kid that is willing to do what it takes all of the time. And so recruiting, that is the number one thing that’s changed The program, like the guys we have on our roster have turned down scholarships, have turned down opportunities that Dennison five, 10 years ago would’ve never had an opportunity to get.

But we have scholarship guys across the board. We have guys that want to come get an unbelievable degree and also compete and win for championships. And so at the end of the day, we think we’re great coaches, but we’re not the best out there. But it doesn’t matter if we have the best players on the floor every single night.

And to be honest with you, Mike, like that’s what we feel like we’ve gotten to The point is I feel like we are the best deepest roster on the floor every single night. I mean, you got to see it. Last year we played 10 guys every game and there’s no drop off. And that’s the biggest thing for us is I’m playing number eight.

Number nine, they’ve only played 12 minutes. They’re juiced, and the other guy on the teams played 30 and he is dying. It’s like the recruitment aspect of it that has completely changed it. And so will tell you, like, I just, I don’t stop in that area. I’m in gyms that I could have taken a break, but I won’t do it because at the end of the day, if we bring better players in than who we play against every single night, I don’t have to be the best coach in the world.

Now. I feel like I prepare our guys better than anybody else, and I’m confident in that ability, but I don’t have to do that if we just have better players. And so the recruitment aspect of it has been the biggest game changer for sure.

[00:48:27] Mike Klinzing: So where does that list start? When you start putting together the list of guys that you wanna recruit, where does that start?

What’s the process at the very beginning? How does the funnel begin? And then you guys begin to narrow it down into guys who are going to fit into your culture and what you want to do.

[00:48:46] Ethan Quinn: So if this tells you anything, when we started early spring for like AAU season for 20 sixes, it’s probably 250 kids on the list and we’re down to probably like 40 and it’s September.

And so we obviously have to cast a wide net of connections because the academic standards, but we are very, very intentional when we do cast that wide net on getting to know kids getting them to campus, who we wanna recruit. And so right now for 20 sevens we get emails from 20 sevens.

We’re throwing ’em in a spreadsheet, we’re not really touching ’em till the spring, that 27 spreadsheet, when February, March, April comes around, there’s going to be 300 kids on it. But now we’ve gotten the point that the 40 dudes on that list we’ve either already offered or we’re going to offer, or they’re that next tier kid where, hey, if we, if we shoot a couple of those shootings for the Stars kids that we probably shouldn’t get, but we’re going to sure as heck try.

If we strike out on those kids, that second tier list, we’re diving right into you. We’re ready to go with you, like you’re, you’re next up. And so it comes through a lot of intentionality on getting to know the kids. I’m in gyms a lot, Sullys and gyms a lot, like we’re really evaluating kids.

And that toughness aspect, like when I say smartest kids, we can find that are some tough sobs. Like, I mean that like, our guys play hard. They are gritty, they are tough. They will, they will get after you for 40 minutes. And so we find that by going to watch ’em and having conversations, asking their high school coaches, like what is their coaching?

Like, how are they able to get coached? How do they handle it? How do their parents handle it?  we’re asking hard questions. And so we get on recruiting calls with a kid and I’m like, man, it’s kind of like talking to this brick wall over here. It’s like, you probably not going to fit with us.

 I go and I watch the kid play and I really enjoy ’em, but then his mom’s losing her ever loving mind on. The referees that we all know aren’t very good, but they’re there.  at least they’re there so you can play the game.  we take that into consideration. We take, how do they treat their teammates?

Like? Well, there’s so much that goes into it because at the end of the day, we’re not going to mess with the dynamic we’ve put in our locker room, and that is, Sully has two little boys under five. I have one and another one on the way. We have to be able to trust our boys to be able to be in the locker room with our guys, not have to worry about anything.

Our guys enjoy college. They have a great experience. I don’t worry about my phone ringing at 3:00 AM on a Saturday. So we have to be very intentional in that, and that’s how we go from 250 kids in April to 40. Right. Now,

[00:51:21] Mike Klinzing: when you think about the evaluation process, a a u versus high school, in terms of watching a player in those two different environments, do you use one environment for one purpose and one for another?

Or is it just all kind of thrown into this is all part of the evaluation process?

[00:51:37] Ethan Quinn: It’s all part of the evaluation process. But there’s different phases. There’s different levels to it, right? I’m coming to watch a a u to figure out who the heck you are. Like that’s, I’m, I am, I’m taking the entire spring and honestly some of the summer to just figure out who you are.

If you’re actually someone we wanna recruit, I’m using the high school. If I come to your high school games, I’m actively recruiting you.

[00:52:00] Mike Klinzing: Right?

[00:52:00] Ethan Quinn: Like that’s how we do things is if I come to your high school games, I’m actively recruiting you. You’ve probably already been on campus. We’ve probably already offered you, like that’s where we stand.

But AAU is super beneficial. But you also know this Mike, ’cause you’ve been around so long and just the experience with Cal, like there were kids I’m sure on Cal’s team playing with Mac that looked way different playing with Mac than they did in high school. Absolutely. Like,  this, you, we’ll watch kids April and May, and then they go to June with their high school team and it’s like, it’s not even the same kid.

And that’s a very interesting part of our jobs to evaluate. It’s like, okay, who? Who is the kid actually? Who is he? Is it the high school kid or is it the AAU kid? I mean, there’s a kid obviously I won’t give too many details, but there’s a kid from the Cincinnati area that I saw him with Zau team this spring.

I’d seen all the hype about him, saw him in his AU team the spring. I’m like, this kid’s not very good. I’m like, there’s no way he’s good enough to play for us. Same with his high school team at Midwest Live at Cedar Point. And I’m like, oh, I might be an idiot. I’m not very good at my job. This kid’s cooking it, killing people.

And I’m like, okay, all right, all right, all right. I go watch him in July au terrible. And I’m like, man, okay. Is it the situation? Yeah. Is it the AU coach? Is it he’s he’s only able to push through specific environments. Like I’ve had to have those honest conversations and honestly, we’ve made those decisions and sometimes it’s worked, sometimes it’s not worked because you make the wrong evaluation.

But it’s all encompassing. It all matters. But I would say the easiest way to relay it to you is a you. I’m trying to figure out who the heck you are and if I actually wanna recruit you, and then if I’m coming to your high school games, I’m actively pursuing you. We want you to come to Denison.

[00:53:58] Mike Klinzing: That makes sense.

I mean, I think that’s the experience that I was able to see. And it’s interesting because I remember Ethan back, let’s say 10 years ago, right? As my kids were kind of getting into the travel basketball, young, upper elementary school and having a conversation with somebody that, hey, AU basketball from a recruiting standpoint of being noticed is more important than high school basketball.

And of course I’m an old guy, so. My experience, my lens is through that. And so at the time I remember going, you’re, you’re crazy. Like there, there is no, there is no way that a a u basketball is more important in recruiting or is ever going to be more important in recruiting than high school basketball. And I can still remember the conversation as clear as day and I just walked away from it being like, this guy’s an idiot.

Like this is like, what’s he even talking about? Like there’s no, there’s no possible way. And then in going through it with Cal and just having the experience of the A a U and playing on a team that had a bunch of good players and played the right way and was coached by somebody who knew what they were doing and ran it like a real team and all the things that went into a allowing somebody to be able to see not just my own son, but all the kids on that team in the context of what they could be playing with other really good players, but also playing, not just rolling the ball out and.

Going down and one guy gets the ball and it’s one-on-one. It’s, we’re playing. We’re playing as a team. And clearly in my experience, in my experience with Cal, and this is what I’ve tried to relay to other parents or people come and talk to me, I’m like, look, the a a u piece of it is really important. And it’s also to your point, talking about the 2020 sixes versus 2020 sevens and whatever, there’s so many people that’ll come up to me be like, well, what about this?

Or, we’re not traveling when we’re in ninth grade, or We have to go to this tournament when we’re in 10th grade. I’m like, look, like if your kid is a surefire Division one player, then everybody already knows about ’em by the time they’re in ninth or 10th grade. And where you are for a a u, it matters. But they know.

They know where you are already.  they know who you are. They know where you are. And if you’re a division two or division three. You guys are focused on that year, you’re focused on that recruiting class. You’re not looking at ninth graders and 10th graders like Cal’s team the year when he was going to be a junior.

So yeah, I guess this the the spring after his sophomore year, our team, I think we were 37 and three and nobody watched that team play. I mean, there’s, you’re at, you’re at the gym and there’s, there’s, there’s nobody there. Maybe occasionally somebody’s taking a break and is sitting on the side or whatever and yeah, but nobody was actively, nobody was actively watching those teams play.

And then you get around to the next year after their junior year heading into their heading into their senior year and now suddenly that’s when the eyes are there. And it’s just, again, it’s interesting when you look at the way that people perceive how this all works and to be able to understand here’s even me again, now gaining experience and have an understanding of it.

But if you go back. Prior to me being involved in it, my answer would’ve been completely reversed or different than what the honest truth was. And so I think to your point of being able to evaluate and just getting as many looks at ’em as you possibly can. And then for you guys, obviously the high academic piece of it is acts as a filter, right?

It helps to be able to, hey, we know there’s a level of kid that we’re trying to get to be able to win and have the success that you guys have had. And yet at the same time there’s this academic piece that, okay, well here’s this kid, we think he could play here. But unfortunately the grades and the things that need to be in place aren’t there.

And so that just gives you guys a, makes it harder in a way, but also in some ways probably makes it easier too. ’cause you can look at a kid and be like, okay, this kid’s GPA is two four we just, we have to move on to the next person because they just it’s just not going to work. So

[00:58:04] Ethan Quinn: I’ve had to stop fighting that and for my first two years at Denison, I fought it and I just get pissed off and I’m like, yeah, this is, this is terrible.

A kid is a 3.3. That’s a good, that’s a good GPA That’s better than anything I’ve ever had. I’m like, that’s a good GPA. And then they’re like, oh, we just had 15,000 kids apply to get into dentist and they’re going to take 700. And I’m like, oh, that 3.3 really stinks. So I had to stop fighting it because I was driving myself nuts.

And so now, like that’s why the kids having their Twitter bios is so important to have that information and actually have real information in there. It’s like, if I look it up, I see you have a 3.0. It’s like, unfortunately, if you’re the next LeBron James, but you’re not going to play for me because the admission team doesn’t care.

And like that’s no, that’s no discredit to anything we’re doing at Dentist. It’s just a reality. Like they don’t, they have 15,000 kids trying to get in. They don’t, they don’t care. And that’s okay. Because we’re at a place like, but. That makes my job very hard. So now I’ve just gotten the point that I only fight it a little bit but the majority of the time I’m just like, oh, he has 3.0.

I’m not even going to watch this highlight film. I’ve have to move on to the kids that have better grades than that. So,

[00:59:14] Mike Klinzing: yeah, for sure. I mean, totally, totally makes sense and completely understandable. I think what’s interesting about the last 10 or 15 minutes of our conversation is you started out by saying, Hey, how do we turn this thing around?

And we didn’t turn it around by our brilliant X’s and O’s. We didn’t turn it around by, Hey, all these fancy things we’re doing in practice. You’re turning it around by saying, Hey, we’re starting with better talent. And ultimately, deep down inside, right, anybody who’s ever coached a team,  that your ability to coach starts with the talent that you have on the floor.

Does coaching make a difference? Obviously it makes a difference. There’s a reason why we’re all in the profession, but at the same time. If you start out with better raw materials, it makes your job as a coach much easier. Now you’re talking about, you’ve have to put together that leadership, you have to put together the ability to build a culture and get guys to believe in each other.

And if you do all those things in the talent level here, there’s one level of success. If you do all those same things and the talent level starts here, now all of a sudden your ability to achieve becomes much, much higher. And I think that’s something that we dance around sometimes, I think in the coaching profession and everybody knows that.

But I don’t often hear people say that, Ethan, that, hey, like, we just need to get better talent in the door and then that’s going to make us better coaches. And I think that’s so true. I know that any team that I’ve ever been involved with, whether way back when as a player, whether as a coach, even whether as a parent sitting in the stands, teams that have better talent.

More often than not, those are the teams that, those are the teams that win. And I always used to laugh when you’d play AU tournaments, and not so much when they get to high school, but thinking back to AU tournaments with both my daughters and my son, when the kids are in third, fourth, fifth grade, and you’d play a team and maybe your team would kill another team, or maybe your team would get killed by another team because you’re just looking at it and you’re like, the talent level, the disparity between the two teams is just glar.

Yeah. Like anybody, anybody sitting in the stands can look and go, this talent versus this talent. It’s not. And then you get the coaches who, if they would beat your team, and then they would kind of strut around after they beat, ? And you’re like, okay, so I can give you some credit for being a recruiter, like you’re a good recruiter, but I’m not sure that you’re.

Your coaching is what really pushed your, it’s not your, it’s not your 2, 2, 1 zone trap that’s really pushing you over the top. It’s the fact that your kids are six inches taller than anybody on the other team. And it’s just, it, it’s kind of amazing when you really think about it. And again, I think it’s something that, it makes total sense, but it’s not often talked about.

[01:02:05] Ethan Quinn: Yeah, no, you’re right. I mean, at the end of the day, like I will jump in the recruiting ring with anybody. Like I get in rings that people are like, what are you doing? And I’m like, until that kid tells me no I’m not, why would I tell him no? Why would I make that decision? Even Sully, I’m sure when he listens to this, he’ll laugh.

Like, he’s even told me, he is like, I don’t know if it’s really worth our time. I said, Sully, if that kid is still asking about coming to a campus visit, why would I tell him no? Because all we can need is one of those, all those kids, we just need one. Yeah. And it’s like I don’t have to be the best coach.

I’m. Every game we go into. Like, I don’t think I’m the best coach. I don’t, but I am confidently believing in myself that I can out recruit you. And like I’m just confident in that ability and what we have to offer myself. Like that’s, there’s no shame in that. I love getting recruiting battles. Like Vogel and I talk, smacked each other all the time.

I’m like you. I’m like, Hey, don’t talk to him. ? ’cause we end up at the same games anyway. Right, right. For sure. There’s another, there’s another assistant in the conference that called me today on my way home. He saw, there was a kid we had on campus the other day and he called me and he was like, Hey, he’s coming next week.

Do you, you have anything you wanna give me about him? I was like, yeah, he’s kind of a loser kid. Like, kind of a bad attitude. Mom was, mom was nuts. You don’t want to deal with it. And like, we laughed about it and joked and then he was like, you think you guys are going to get ’em? And I was like, yeah, absolutely I do.

So like I love going to gyms and seeing four other coaches that I know and we just smiled each other and it’s like, it’s fun. And you have to have that ability and that confidence to be like, I can get that kid. I can get that kid. And like I said, I don’t think I’m the best coach in the world. And Soli and I talk all the time, we’re like, let’s not overcomplicate this.

It might just be you for tangible, for you for last year, throwing Ricky Rocky, the ball in the post. Let’s not make it harder than it has to be. Let’s throw the all region thousand point score that’s he shot 70% around the rim. Let’s throw him the basketball and then, oh, let’s let our thousand point score all league player point guard.

Let’s just go send him a ball screen. Let’s not make it harder than it has to be. And so we’ve really quote unquote dumb things down where we tell each other that all the time we’ll be in practice trying to do some stuff. And he’ll look at me. He is like, let’s not make this harder than it needs to be.

And so it’s kind of a running joke that we have, but it’s like we feel confident that we as a staff can go out and recruit the best players on the floor. We keep it simple and we believe that our standard will allow us to play harder than anybody on the floor. And that’s set us up for success. And like I said, it’s a fun competition when you get in these recruiting battles that  you might not be in.

And  in the past people never had to worry about losing a kid to Denison. But that’s been fun. Like Sully and I have just been diving into that and it’s, it’s been a really, really fun challenge.

[01:04:53] Mike Klinzing: Well, here’s the thing too, right? It’s competitive, right? You talk about the recruiting process, it’s competitive, and then you’re looking for competitive kids.

Then you bring that into your program and so now you’re taking kids who have talent and you’re taking kids who are competitive and you’re just putting ’em in this environment where, as you said, you guys are going to play hard for 40 minutes. And if you can get your team that’s talented and you can get ’em to compete and play hard.

Let’s face it, you’re 95% of the way there and then the last 5% is kind of what you can put together, right? To build the culture and the things that you do with your schemes and all that kind of stuff. But if you have talent and your guys play hard, it makes up for a lot of potential problems that anybody can run into in a program.

And  sometimes I think you’re right, that when you talk about coaching, we can dive into a million different things and schemes and X’s and O’s and we do this and that. And obviously it’s an important part of, of what we all do. But at the same time, sometimes the game just gets simplified of, you’re in front of me, I’m in front of you, and let’s go at it and let’s be competitive and let’s put our players in the best position to be able to take advantage of what they do well.

And I think sometimes we forget that.

[01:06:05] Ethan Quinn: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, last year we were holding college basketball teams in the forties and fifties and it’s like, alright, if we’re that good defensively, because we play that hard. We don’t have to be great every single night offensively, like Soly says this all the time, and I love it.

He’s like, defense determines if you win or not. Offense determines by how much. And at the end of the day we tell our guys, I’m like, Hey, if you hold a college basketball team to 51 points, you’re going to win. Yeah. And there’s going to be games that you win by 40 points because you’re on it that night offensively.

 not the sore subject, but the O oh woo game at our place last year. Like that was one of those offensive explosions. Right? And then we guarded the crap out of, and it just, those games are fun. The flip side, like we played at Wabash, and I swear to you, I think the halftime score was like 21 to 18.

We couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean, but we were guarding the crap out of them. And I think the final score was 50. It was like at 54, 56, something like that. Like you hold a college basketball team to 54 points, you’re going to win. Like we beat wit at wit this year on a buzzer beater. And the final score was like 53 51.

We own a team to 51 points. You’re going to win. And so like that’s the thing we’ve done with these, the way we’ve recruited. It’s toughness, it’s defense. We are aggressive. We’re going to full court press, you we’re going to be aggressive. Like we’re not going to let you be comfortable. And the offensive side of things with Sully and his genius mind offensively, we’re going to be fine.

He’s going to put us in a every chance to be successful. But the defensive side of things, on top of the recruiting is where we keep it simple and where we feel that we’re very, very successful and also where our advantage advantages.

[01:07:53] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I think again. Just watching you guys play and seeing all three of the games last year that you guys played with my son’s team at Owo.

I mean, again, the first game was just a barrage close game at halftime and then a barrage from there. And then the last two games were, were, were pretty hard fought on both sides of both sides of those games. Could have, could have easily gone coin flip flipped the coin flip, could have easily flipped the other way.

A couple plays go here and there. But again, it’s a testament to just, again, if you keep competing, right, if you keep competing, if you keep competing, sometimes the breaks go your way. Sometimes they, sometimes they don’t. But you put yourself in a position to be able to have success and you guys have certainly been able to do that.

All right, I wanna ask you one final two part question, Ethan. So part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? And then the second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do every day, and I already know the answer to this, but I’m going to have you repeat it anyway, your biggest joy.

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest.

[01:08:53] Ethan Quinn: Sure. I think the biggest challenge over the next two seasons is going to be showing we don’t care about anybody outside of our locker room. We care about the guys in the locker room and showing them that, hey, last year it wasn’t just a Cinderella year, like this is the new standard of this program.

And getting them to believe that. And I think they do. I really genuinely do. I think our guys all believe that this is the new standard of this program, but just finding the way to get them to understand that, that it is, it wasn’t just a Cinderella year. And to go back to what we talked about, 15,000 kids trying to get into Denison.

And so it’s only going to get harder. The cost of school is getting more and more like there’s challenges just getting recruits to be able to come to Denison. And so I think that’s my biggest challenge is continuing to fight the battle of just the admission process of Denison. On top of really challenging our guys, everybody in that locker room making sure they understand, Hey, last year wasn’t a Cinderella year. This is the new standard of this program.

[01:09:56] Mike Klinzing: And your biggest joy,

[01:09:58] Ethan Quinn: My biggest joy is the people that I get to work with the guys that I get a chance to share life with. And I think something that Sully has done that has allowed me to grow exponentially is not being afraid to show our guys that I’m human.

And like I have emotions too. I have good days, I have bad days. And so I get to express to them at times that I’m feeling really good. There’s other times, Hey guys, I’m struggling right now, but, but I’m here for you and I’ve got your best interest. And my biggest joy is, is being around the guys obviously living out the childhood dream that I never thought I’d finally get to.

But it’s, it’s the players, it’s the people. They bring me the greatest joy in this profession.

[01:10:38] Mike Klinzing: All right. Before we wrap up, I want to give you a chance to share how can people connect with you, find out more about the program, share emails, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with, and then after you do that, I will jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:10:51] Ethan Quinn: Sure. Twitter is probably the easiest way. Follow dms. I check those pretty frequently. Email is quinny@denison.edu. You can find that on the website. So yeah, email or Twitter. Instagram is fine as well, but Twitter, dms or email would be the best way to contact me.

[01:11:09] Mike Klinzing: Awesome. Ethan, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight.

Really appreciate it. Looking forward to catching up with you this winter at a couple games, both home and away. And yes, sir. Should be a lot of fun. Should be a great season for both teams. Looking forward to it. And again, to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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[01:12:23] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.