GREG CURLEY – JUNIATA COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 872

Website – https://www.juniatasports.net/sports/mbkb/index 

Email – curleyg@juniata.edu 

Twitter/X – @JuniataBSKB 

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Greg Curley is in his 23rd season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.  Curley has amassed 291 wins at Juniata, the most of any coach in program history.  

Curley’s coaching career began in 1995 when he served as the graduate assistant coach at Allegheny College for the 1995-96 season. One year later, he became an assistant at Juniata for three seasons from August of 1996 to July of 1999). 

He left Juniata in July of 1999 to become the assistant men’s basketball coach and head golf coach at Penn State-Behrend, however before the start of the 1999-2000 basketball season, Curley returned to his alma mater, Allegheny College, as an assistant varsity coach and head junior varsity coach for the men’s basketball program. 

A native of State College, Pa., Curley was a four-time Allegheny College Scholar-Athlete and earned four varsity letters on the men’s basketball team. Curley was elected as a team captain and received the Glen Thompson Award for Leadership as a senior. 

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Grab a notebook and pen as you listen to this episode with Greg Curley, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Juniata College in the state of Pennsylvania. 

What We Discuss with Greg Curley

• Growing up in State College, Pa. watching Penn State Basketball and the influence of his Dad
• Having gym access on the Penn State campus as a kid
• “We don’t try to make the game too complicated. I think sometimes that happens.  It’s still kind of the same things that win. And I think that all comes from our dad.”
• The joy of pickup basketball and what’s missing from a player development standpoint today
• “The whole point of the game is figuring out how you can contribute to the success of the group.”
• “When you’re playing against a cone, everybody can make a move and it doesn’t fight back.”
• “Setting the screen or playing defense or passing the ball or moving and finding an open guy or having great vision. Those are things that still to this day, those are what define our best players.”
• “You don’t just come back and slot yourself in. There’s new guys coming in and guys that developed and got better.”
• Compete don’t compare
• Building competitiveness in practice while still building great teammates
• “We had a great practice today and we just drove nine hours to get to Ottawa, Canada. And I told my assistant, said, I’d do that just for a good practice.”
• His decision to attend Allegheny College and his experience playing college basketball
• Having a brother who also coaches college basketball
• Transitioning from player to coach at Alleghany College
• “At the division three level you have to do everything a little bit of everything and I think that really prepares you.”
• “There’s still nothing like competing. There’s nothing like being in a locker room, like in an intense game, and that kind of atmosphere, man, it doesn’t get better than that.”
• His experience as an assistant at Juniata
• “The hardest working team in basketball is our catchphrase.”
• “My brother and I always tell young guys, our best advice is just do this long enough to where you don’t have another choice to do anything else.”
• His 3 months at Penn State Behrend before he returned to Allegheny as an assistant
• “I tell people in recruiting all the time, like these are relationships that build over three, four years.”
• “I think when you’re a little off the edge, but close, you’re probably at your best.”
• “Having success builds confidence, just like as a player.”
• “Constantly curious, always thinking there’s a better way.”
• “You’re never too far from the top…or the bottom.”
• “Everything is a growth opportunity.”
• Learning from coaches in other sports during his time as an AD at Juniata
• The importance of having assistant coaches that will challenge you
• “I think the art of it is, it’s never what we know. It’s what we can communicate to them.”
• “There are the days you want to give it up but then there are the days you never want it to end, that’s the whole idea, that’s what the experience is supposed to be.”
• “The only score we care about is the final one.”
• Recruiting players from small high schools vs. big high schools
• “Avoid the pitfalls of immaturity or lack of confidence.”
• The benefits of his team’s pre-season trip to Canada
• “I don’t agree that defense is just playing hard. That is a lie. That is absolutely not the truth. There’s just as much skill and technique to defense.”
• Developing great practice plans
• Team, toughness, and execution

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THANKS, GREG CURLEY

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TRANSCRIPT FOR GREG CURLEY – JUNIATA COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 870

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, but I am pleased to welcome Greg Curley, head men’s basketball coach at Juniata College. Greg, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:12] Greg Curley: Hey Mike, thanks for having me.

[00:00:14] Mike Klinzing: Thrilled to have you on, looking forward to diving into all the different things that you’ve been able to do in your career thus far.

Let’s go ahead and start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about some of the first experiences that you had with the game of basketball.

[00:00:27] Greg Curley: Yeah, so I grew up in State College, Pennsylvania obviously home of Penn State, and it was myself and I have an older brother, Kevin, who’s actually the head coach at McDaniel College.

It’s just the two of us, but my dad was the oldest of six boys and they all stood and he grew up in State College as well. And he was a walk on at Penn State for a couple of years. So as far back as I can remember, we’ve been kind of attached to basketball. Saturday afternoons for us at the time, we would go up to rec hall and watch practice.

The guy, when we got a little older, Bruce Parkhill became the head coach at Penn State, and he was a State College native, too, and actually grew up with my dad and my uncles. And so, I mean, going to gyms, going to games. We’d season tickets. We’d go watch practices. I remember One time we got to go in the auxiliary gym and my brother and I got to watch Penn State scrimmage William Mary when Barry Parkhill was the coach there.

So we just kind of always had a front row seat to it. As I said, my dad was the oldest of six boys. They were all, the youngest are only about 10 years older than my brother and I. So we grew up watching them play. My dad still played. So we would tag along with him when he’d go play pickup on the weekends, or he played kind of on a travel team for a while then too, and we’re part of that.

So it’s always been a part of what we’ve done. We played basketball, or played baseball, soccer, other sports, but always kind of came back to basketball.

[00:01:54] Mike Klinzing: How did your dad influence you? As a player, as you started to get a little bit older and take the game more seriously, how’d your dad, what did his influence mean to your career?

[00:02:01] Greg Curley: Well, I mean, I think that he has two sons that wound up being college basketball coaches kind of says it all. Now he did not coach. He actually graduated from Penn State on a Saturday and started work there on a Monday. He was an accountant and worked in the business office and worked his way up.

But he coached us through Biddy basketball in those days, did some of that. But the biggest thing for us was just he took us to the gym all the time. It was kind of cool growing up at State College in those days before these days you could get into any gym on campus. And I think there at one count, there were like 36 hoops, indoor hoops, that we could access at Penn State’s campus anytime we kind of wanted to.

And he kind of grew up knowing how to walk to different gyms. My grandparents lived right across the street from rec hall. And so we could go there and ride our bike there and then walk to the different gyms, see what was open and play. So it was I mean, for a basketball person, you can’t kind of grow up any better.

But my dad’s influence, I mean, he was a kind of a no-nonsense guy with it. You know, the game’s have to be played the right way. You know, the harder you work, the more you get out of it. Growing up again, the influence of like Coach Parkhill, Coach Tichella, some other people. Those guys were coaches, coaches.

It was slap the floor, get after it. Like, there was no messing around. And so I think that’s kind of influenced both my brother and I are both really defensively focused. We don’t try to make the game too complicated. I think sometimes that happens.

It’s still kind of the same things that win. And I think that all comes from our dad.

[00:03:30] Mike Klinzing: How do you compare and contrast the way that you grew up in the game compared to the way that the guys who play for you today grow up in the game? Just what do you see as being the pluses and minuses of sort of the two different systems that obviously things were a lot different when you and I were kids growing up?

[00:03:46] Greg Curley: Yeah, I mean, it’s funny. I was talking to my assistant about this yesterday. We’ve already started practice. We’re actually in Canada right now. So we got to play, practice a little bit early, but I think now I think guys are better now because of personal trainers, kind of the commitment to fitness.

Like they’re really great in the weight room. They’re great at individual workouts. You can’t get them to go any harder. I mean, they love that stuff, but I think the connection to just playing the game and just learning how to play, move the ball, play with other guys. I mean, because the pickup world is gone and just the chance to just go play.

And I think when we came up, you had to kind of go do it on your own. And you had to decide to go do it on your own. I think the weight training getting guys to do skill work, that was always the harder things with the guys I played with. And the guys when we first started but you could get them to play, they could play forever.

And now we even have guys sometimes make comments. Well coach pickup’s not very good basketball. It’s not very good. And, it’s like, oh, come on, man because they’re so used to always having a coach. Or somebody telling ’em where to go. I think they’re obviously more skilled.

They’re way better with the ball probably. But I think the essence of the game is five guys playing together and really understanding how to play. And I am a bit afraid and where we go or where we’re going, that could get lost. But I guess that’s where coaches come in and hopefully guys like us talking to people about what it’s still really about. I almost, honestly, am a little bit sad for these guys because they don’t really know what that experience was to just walk into a gym and find nine guys you never even met and establish a pecking order in the gym that day. Who’s better than who and how do you play together and how do you find a way to win?

[00:05:29] Mike Klinzing: Man, that is well said. I mean, I couldn’t agree more with everything that you just said there, especially when you said that you feel bad for your guys today. Like, I say this all the time that I feel bad for my own son. Like, he’s my son’s a senior this year. And I just, I look at the way that he came up and I think about.

Comparing and contrasting it to the way that I played. And to your point, I mean, I showed up at gyms, I showed up at playgrounds, I showed up wherever with sometimes guys, a lot of guys I know, and sometimes very few guys that and guys of all different ages from all different places and all over the world.

And it’s just like, I feel like that piece of it, as you said, learning the game and just kind of understanding how you make. Basketball work with different personalities and different people and different styles of play. And obviously you’re not always finding the greatest games and the greatest players, but you can always figure out a way to make it beneficial and help yourself to get better.

And kids today, when they grow up and they are always playing in front of mom and dad, there always is a scoreboard. There’s always a coach on the sideline. And I just think that something is lost. And I agree with you a hundred percent players today are way more skilled. If you think back, I’m sure you can do the same.

Exercise that I do, where you think about some of the players that played in high school that were the 11th, 12th, 13th man on high school teams when you and I were in high school. And I mean, those kids were maybe they set screens or maybe they’re at rebound or maybe there were a football kid and, but they had really no discernible basketball skill.

And now you look at the 12th player on a high school team and those kids can all handle the ball and they can all shoot and you put them in a gym by themselves and they all look really good. And then you sometimes, I think, does that translate in the same way? It’s just again, it’s Not necessarily better or worse, but I definitely feel bad that kids today don’t get to experience that pickup basketball culture of me being a 14 year old and kind of going up to the park and sitting down on the bench and some guy who’s 26 kind of putting his arm around me and saying, hey, this is kind of what it takes to be successful in the game.

Kids don’t have those same types of relationships that you and I were fortunate enough to have as part of that playground culture, which as you said, is completely gone. I mean, even if you’re a good high school or college player. I don’t even know where you go to even find a pickup game that’s worth playing in.

[00:07:46] Greg Curley: I think the other thing that happens is the kind of the nature just even of individual training or being trained is it the focus turns inward and what you do and how you play and how you fit. And that’s not what the game’s really supposed to teach or what the game’s about.

And that disappoints me. I mean, I think we get you can’t play the game that way and be really successful or a few can play that. Let’s put it this way, unless you’re exceptional. Right. You know, if you’re the exception to the rule, then you can kind of go about it. What’s best for you. But the whole point of the game is figuring out how you can contribute to the success of the group.

And I think when the focus is about, well, I can do this, I can do that. And sometimes the kids are so skilled, but they’re not athletic enough to apply it to a team concept and there would be a better way to go about it. And that’s, I think, created some challenges for coaches because it’s really hard to convince anybody well, I can do this and do that.

But even in our day it was hard to understand you weren’t as athletic as somebody. If you’re a competitor, you’re not believing that, right? But I think as everybody kind of becomes more skilled, that separation, it’s harder to come by, number one, and then it’s probably less likely somebody realizes where their limitations are.

When you’re playing against the cone, everybody can make a move and it doesn’t fight back. And then when you get athletic guy, the game changes and it’s about athleticism. It’s about guys that can do that, but there’s a place for those other guys, but, they’re already setting the screen or playing defense or passing the ball or moving and finding an open guy or having great vision.

Those are things that still to this day, those are what define our best players. And so I think it’s a little bit in danger, but I also give those guys credit. One of our guys that played for us is a high level trainer and does a lot of stuff and their creativity is great.

But I think the creativity that’s put in the game is really from the trainers that come up with different moves as opposed from guys watching the game, playing the game. And I think the art of pickup, you play in a bad pickup game and you’re the best player. That’s a different experience than when you’re playing a great pickup game and you’re the worst player.

Those things, I think those extremes really help you develop and get a sense of yourself and grow real confidence because you know when you play the really good guys that you probably can’t keep up with those ways you can be effective and that’s and then when you play others you know it’s good to feel like you’re dominant sometimes and you’re really good and when you’re always with a coach.

You’re always in the role of coach once, you’re always dealing with the coach once. And I think it stifles some of the development at times too. So we try to, as much as we can, we try to enforce playing in the offseason and get them to play. And we still make our guys play to seven and winners stay.

And like you got to pick teams and they resist it. They hate it. Well we want to get, hey man this isn’t about everybody playing right now. This is teaching some other things and some different kind of approaches to the game.

[00:10:38] Mike Klinzing: How do you approach trying to, I don’t want to say fix is the wrong word, but how do you approach trying to combat that in a practice setting?

I mean, obviously in the, in the off season, you kind of put kids in that environment. That’s not the same as going to the playground, but there are playing pickup basketball and there’s things that they obviously have to do that you’re not dictating to them. But how do you think about it in terms of, in your formal practices, trying to instill that creativity and instill some of that competitiveness and those things that you and I learned on the playground?

[00:11:11] Greg Curley: Well, I mean, I think you start there. I mean, you can try to keep as many drills as competitive as you can. We tell the guys all the time you have to establish your own pecking order. And with every team, every year it gets reestablished.

You don’t just come back and slot yourself in. There’s new guys coming in and guys that developed and got better. So I think creating competitive opportunities and practice are super important. You know, we’re still a motion team. There’s not many of us left and I mean a screen and cut motion line screen line, like we’re a pure motion team play without the ball.

So I think. Naturally with us, we’re playing a ton of two on two, three on three, two on one, three on two, those kinds of situations, down a man advantage situations. And I think that that helps, right. And I think defensively that’s really where we hang our hat too. Same thing, putting yourself in disadvantage situations, trying to make it.

Play through competitively you got to get certain number of stops, seeing different things. But it’s a challenge. And then I think the other thing is just constant conversations with guys about the game and trying to identify what our culture and what we’re going to be about. And here’s how we see it and here’s why, and this is why the game is beneficial over time.

No one remembers in 25 years, how many points he scored, but they’re going to know what kind of teammates you are or how you work with others and trying to encourage and trying to emphasize that stuff.

[00:12:31] Mike Klinzing: How do you keep the competitiveness at a high level and still keep your guys tightly connected and being great teammates?

Because we’ve been in all, we’ve all been in situations where yeah, it’s super competitive, but then guys are kind of at each other’s throats and builds up that animosity. And then we’ve been in other environments where. Man, these dudes are going at it. And then two minutes after practice, they got their arm around each other and can go and just sit down and eat and still be buddies.

So how do you think about that piece of it? Keeping the team concept together and also keeping the competitiveness high.

[00:13:01] Greg Curley: Well, I mean, I think number one, you have to lead with that. You have to be consistent. We know you are what you emphasize. So if you’re always talking about team, team, team, and that’s what your values are based.

I think guys pick up on that. I think for us we recruit. So talking to guys that you need to be a team guy to be here. If you’re not, this isn’t the best place. So I think that helps us a little bit. I think the other thing is like the compete don’t compare we’re trying to beat whoever we play next Saturday and the purpose of competition for us is to make each other better.

So you need to appreciate that in each other and kind of emphasizing that and working through that stuff. It can be a bit of a challenge. I mean, I think the more mature kids you have, the better or easier all this stuff is, the less mature you’re going to have to work through some stuff, but I just think just being consistent about it.

I think how you build your groups when you when you compete, who’s where, who you’re playing against, how are you doing it? I think when you do it, I think there’s got to be a teaching blend and, and kind of concept based stuff. And then there’s like, Hey man, this is all out, like mano a mano, who’s got it, the guts and the grit and stuff and mixing those things together.

[00:14:20] Mike Klinzing: Well, let’s work backwards. You and your brother obviously end up as college basketball coaches. When did you know you wanted to coach? Was that something that you knew early on in your playing career? Or was it something that you didn’t get to until after you were done playing?

[00:14:35] Greg Curley: I mean, it was always in the back of my mind.

I think my brother, it was more on the top of his mind. I remember in those days Brian Hill, who wound up being the head coach for Atlanta Magic, was an assistant at Penn State and his son, Chris, was my age. So we lived in the same block. So we were really good friends. But my brother actually, I remember him going to the house to talk to them about how he can become a college basketball coach.

I mean, he really, when he’s two years older than me and I always had it in my mind but growing up, I thought about, like, I was a history major in college and I thought about law school, kind of FBI, CIA kind of stuff. And I sort of thought about it, but I think I always knew coaching was going to be a path and not too long after I got into college, I knew that was the direction I was going to go.

It might have been one of those I got towards the end and I didn’t want to go get a real job but I think a lot of it is just leaving the locker room, leaving kind of that competitive space is, I’ve never not had a season. And that’s something I’d say with a lot of pride.

And it still to this day, man, there’s nothing like it. We had a great practice today and we just drove nine hours to get to Ottawa, Canada. And I told my assistant, said, I’d do that just for a good practice. We’re kind of crazy, not kind of, I always say you got to be a little bit crazy to be good.

But I think that’s kind of where we are. So yeah, nothing changes with it.

[00:16:01] Mike Klinzing: Well, talk about the decision to go to Allegheny when you graduate from high school. What’s the process like? Are there any lessons that you took from your experience that you utilize as a head coach when you’re recruiting guys, whether it’s things that you say, questions you ask?

Just talk a little bit about your own process of choosing Allegheny.

[00:16:22] Greg Curley: Yeah, I mean, I learned a ton. I mean, I think all those experiences shape us. But I mean, I went there because they responded to me. You know, I was in a unique situation. My high school senior year, we had a very good team.

We had 12 seniors on my high school team. So we went all the way through with 12 seniors. I’m probably one of the rare guys. I never started a high school game. I was basically a six man the entire time. We lost to the state runner up at the time that had Danny Fortson and some other guys. We beat them in the districts and then we lost in the first round of states.

So we had a good team. Very good team with a lot of players, but I was the only one that actually really wanted to keep going and playing. We had some guys that did some other things. And it was one of those where I recruited other places. And Allegheny gave me a response and said I had a chance.

First and foremost, they fit what I wanted academically. I wanted a really good school. I wanted that kind of experience growing up kind of in the footprint of Penn State, pretty much everybody that goes there, goes to Penn State. It’s kind of, if you grow up there, you don’t think there’s anything beyond that.

And I think part of the basketball experiences I had, I knew there was. And so when I went to Allegheny, Phil Ness was the head coach there at the time. He was an all time great at Lafayette and is in the Hall of Fame now at Allegheny as a head coach. And they just gave me a chance. In those days, there was 17 guys they brought in my freshman year recruiting class. They brought in 17 recruits, JV team. And I was just happy to be playing I was there at 6 AM and I remember doing medicine ball, three man weave with like eight guys. And I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I was one of those.

Kind of a journeyman experiences out of the 17 guys. I was probably 15 on the list. I was a late bloomer My senior in high school. I didn’t turn 16 till December. So when I was a freshman in college I have my parents signed the NCAA paperwork because I wasn’t 18 So I grew I grew four inches put on about 50 pounds in college a lot of work a lot of eating a lot of working out and kind of developed and I think the guard skills I had from high school really helped me with that.

I was a point guard under size one and playing at a high level high school so that helped me in college. And I remember my sophomore year at Allegheny, I played both. You can’t do that these days. I played JV and varsity. I practiced at 6 a. m. with the JV and then I practiced varsity in the afternoon every day.

And… Load management, huh? Yeah, those days. I mean, how about it, right?

[00:18:48] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, things were… Things are a little bit different. No one was really concerned about your recovery time or your rest or any of that. That did not exist back in our day.

[00:18:54] Greg Curley: No, and our trainer Jamie Plunkett, He’s a Canadian.  He played hockey at Cornell. He was an athletic trainer. They won multiple state championships in hockey there. So he was the old, hey, tape an Advil on it. Tell me when you got a real problem. You know, he’s the best. And the old ice bucket, you remember that. Like if you had an ankle, you got a choice, keep going and put it in an ice bucket.

But yeah, it was different. I don’t know. Always good. I wouldn’t have changed it. And I think that shapes where you are. Working through my sophomore year, we had a really good team. We won the NCAC, which is a heck of a league. Great. I mean, I don’t know how many top 10 teams that year.

And then going into my junior year. We just had crazy stuff happen and I actually wound up playing. I wound up being sixth man on the varsity and my senior year wound up being a starter and captain from being where I was. But we didn’t really have much success my junior and senior year because of some injuries and some losses of guys.

That’s probably what my opportunity was to play. So all of that has shaped me. I’ve been in every situation. I’ve been a guy that wasn’t going to play, a guy that might play. I’ve been a guy that was relied on. And I think those experiences have been very, very important for me to understand kind of psychologically where guys are.

[00:20:10] Mike Klinzing: Were you at any point during your playing career, were you thinking the game at all as a coach, or were you still just strictly looking at it from a player’s perspective? Because I know that when I was playing, I never really thought at all. about the game from a coaching standpoint. I was just focused on what do I have to do as a player?

And it wasn’t until after I got done playing that I looked around kind of like you like, what? You want me to get a real job? I better figure out, I better, I better figure out how I can work some basketball back into this thing. So.

[00:20:40] Greg Curley: Yeah, no, I think I actually did. I just wasn’t a good enough player not to I mean, my thing was I was a defender.

I was kind of a jack of all trades. I mean, the thing I always say is I played all five positions in college. I played five minutes at center. So I say I played every position which rare few guys do. So that was kind of my niche and I figured that out early. You know, I could past from being a point guard in high school when I grew.

I was willing to guard guys. I wasn’t afraid that I got the diving on the loose balls, winning sprints. You know, it’s kind of what you always think about with those guys. That was me embraced it. One of those guys probably worked like crazy, shot as many shots as any guy that can make them all, but probably wasn’t going to in the game, even though I thought I would because I put the work in.

I think I did and my senior year really cool. My brother, two years older, he had started coaching and he was a GA at Bethany and we went down there and played them actually on my 21st birthday. So he was in college coaching. We beat him by six. It was kind of cool.

He had just started. So like him being a coach and that kind of like planted the seed that I was going to do it too. It’s kind of something we’ve done all the way through, which has been really neat. This job at times can be pretty lonely, right? Like it’s hard. Not many people quite get it. Everybody thinks they do, right? But very few really understand. And so it’s kind of cool to have somebody to go through with. And it’s kind of always been that with us. When you’re younger, it’s about chasing the next big job, or you might wind up here or there, get a little older. It’s just about how you’re going to manage a team and have good practice and get through the next day.

How much do you talk to your brother? You know, not as much as you might think. They’re actually in Canada too. They’re in Toronto, but like he called me yesterday and I was busy packing, so I never called him back. So I’ll catch him when I catch him. It’s probably one of those, like when we need each other or we know something’s going on, we catch up.

We both follow each other all the time. Neither one of us are great to talk to when it’s not going well. So then when it’s going well, we don’t need to talk to each other. So but we’re still very close. I mean, our families are close, so we see each other all the time, but we’re not like call every day about a practice or a game.

It’s really more kind of like you need me. We’re here. And if we do talk, it’s more about what’s going on with his kids and what’s going on with my kids and what the plans are for how are we going to figure out a Christmas or a Thanksgiving when we can never, ever match up schedules.

[00:23:06] Mike Klinzing: Exactly.  Yeah, try to coordinate that. I can only imagine. I can only imagine. All right, so you graduate and you get an opportunity to come back to the program as a GA. Tell me a little bit about that process, what that looked like going from. I graduate, I’m in the program as a player. Now I’m going to transition over to the coaching ranks.

How’d that happen then? What was that transition like for you?

[00:23:31] Greg Curley: I mean, it was actually like a really simple thing. I remember going in you have your end of the year meetings and after senior year I go in and I was talking to Coach Ness and he’s like, what do you think about doing?

And I was like, well, I want to try to coach. I mean, look for a GA and stuff. And he is just like, well, if you want to stay, you can stay here. He is like, I don’t have anything to. Hey, I’ll see if I can get you a meal plan or something. And, but if you want to, if you want to work and I think that’s a little different these days than it was then you probably, you just kind of said, okay, I said, all right.

So I think my first job was literally, I got two meals a day. That was it. I wound up going to Edinburgh for graduate school and, and paid for my year with more at graduate loans so I could coach. And I did that for years. Probably the best thing I ever did. He got me a job in the summer working like parks and rec doing that kind of stuff.

I worked at a hardware store and I’m the worst guy. And I mean, I’d go in there Sundays, the hardware store, these guys built their own houses and stuff. I’d have to fake it. Tell them all. Yeah. You need these nails, right? You need this saw. Say, Oh, I was probably good. You learned something. I didn’t learn anything other than ducking cover.

But you know, I did that and you didn’t know any better. You’re just chasing it. I remember that first year it took me the Final Four in New York City. It was when it was in New York City. My brother’s there like you see all the guys, you go to the rock party or whatever it was back there and you do that stuff.

And man, it wouldn’t, didn’t get any better than that. You know, just thinking about coaching hoops and doing that stuff. So it was a lot of fun. I mean, the transition to being a G. A. with the guys I just finished playing with was challenging. But I think through Coach Ness and then my brother I just knew you have to be the coach, not their buddy.

And I was still their buddy, but like I did a pretty good job of drawing the lines and those guys were great guys. And I think respected what I needed to do. So it helped me and you’re spending enough time recruiting and doing other stuff. I mean, it, it worked out and we had two really good seasons, so I was really happy to be part of it.

The guys that finished behind me I felt like I had a little influence on kind of with my leadership to help them get there. So it was nice to kind of see that follow all the way through.

[00:25:44] Mike Klinzing: What did you know right away that you’re like, man, I love this part of being a coach? Was there one or two things that stood out that you were like, man, this, this is what’s really going to push me over the top.  And I know I’m in the right place.

[00:25:58] Greg Curley: Yeah. I mean, it’s crazy. I still actually kind of enjoy most parts of it. There’s not a lot I don’t like. But I probably starting out like I liked scouting I liked watching film and learning the game and just diving into it. I remember in those days, Princeton offense, they were secret if they wouldn’t tell you what it was.

And I remember breaking it down. I got to still have the binders where I broke the whole entire thing down and had it. It was pretty close. You know, now it’s kind of wide open and a lot more simplistic than I could get it. But I just liked that kind of stuff. I liked that opportunity. And then the coaching, just being in the gym, working with guys, I think as a young assistant, I liked the individual work stuff.

Just cause it was a chance to kind of put your footprint on it. And coach was great. And I was able to coach the JV team too. So I was doing my own practice plans right away. I saved those. I even used some of them when I first started coaching. So back in those days, even now, especially at the division three level there’s one or two of us and you got to do everything a little bit of everything.

And I think that really prepares you. And I’ve been fortunate the only things I really didn’t like sometimes like. Sometimes doing some of the travel stuff and those kind of things is a bit of a drag, but nothing you can’t really handle to get to the other stuff. And there’s still nothing like competing.

There’s nothing like being in a locker room, like in an intense game, and that kind of atmosphere, man, it doesn’t get better than that.

[00:27:26] Mike Klinzing: So after that season, You get an opportunity to maybe get a paycheck here, right? So, which is always a positive. So you’re looking at any opportunity, I’m sure that comes to the paycheck.

So what did that look like for you as that season was wrapping up? You’re obviously at your alma mater, which is great, but what did it look like?

[00:27:47] Greg Curley: Yeah. So between like, I would work camps in summer, try to make enough to get through the year. But I was home I was just home for a weekend or something.

And in those days you looked in the paper and I saw that they hired, or maybe in the old NCAA market or whatever, I saw Juniata hired a new head coach. And previously, the coach had actually been a part time, high school teacher and they went to a full time coach. They sort of committed to it.

And so I just called. I just called and said, Hey, I saw you just got hired. Rick Ferry, who’s now the head coach at Albright, who’s had a great career. I just called him and said, Hey, have you hired an assistant? And he’s like, No, I don’t have an assistant yet. And it was one of those, I got in the car, drove down, like, that day.

And within two days I had the job and it was a big, big pay raise. I think I made $3,000, but I was an RD of a dorm. So I got full meals and I got room and board. So honestly it was, Hey man, nothing like it. It was a good deal. And so that was a cool opportunity because we inherited a team that was not good at all.

And the first year that we were there, we were three and 21. And really struggled, but the three games that we won, I can remember a lot of them and those kids really worked hard, but we were just so far behind their league. It was a good league and we had had a part time coaches for 20 years when everybody else had full time coaches.

So there’s just a lot of work to do. But that was the same thing. It was Rick’s first head job, my first kind of assistant away from Allegheny. So again, I had a chance to do everything, literally everything I was involved with, like, what are we going to run? How are we going to do this?

We had to go recruit everywhere all the time. I remember those days. When Rick did it, like I had to wear a shirt and tie or shirt, tie and a jacket to go recruit at high school games. And that doesn’t happen very often. So I’m a 22 year old guy rolling in there and all my other coaching buddies are laughing at me.

But that’s what you did back then. And you try to get players and so it really, really helped a lot and a lot of the connections with guys I met then that played at Juniata, I still have. My assistant now, Nick Hager, his older brother was who, one of our first recruits out of that group because he was from near Allegheny, his mom was an assistant AD there.

So it’s kind of a full circle deal, but it was a really, really, really good experience to be a part of kind of building a program again. And I had a chance to see probably what I’d do and what I wouldn’t do if I had an opportunity to walk into that job. And eventually sure enough down the road, it became an opportunity.

It really helped, I think, us kind of jumpstart what we’re doing here.

[00:30:24] Mike Klinzing: You mentioned something that maybe you wouldn’t do. So what’s one or two things that you knew you were going to do as a result of that experience? And maybe one thing that if you had to do over again, when you look back, maybe wasn’t.

The best thing to do, or maybe it was something that didn’t work as well as you hoped.

[00:30:39] Greg Curley: Yeah I mean, I think when I came in the first thing we did is we just wanted to identify establish an identity. And our whole thing was we are the hardest working team in basketball is our catchphrase.

And it was the old a little bit of James Brown, but a lot of it was just we’re going to deserve the win, whether we can or can’t. I don’t know. We have enough. You know, we didn’t have kind of the horses in the barn to probably win a ton, but we just wanted to establish kind of an identity.

And I thought that was probably the best thing we did from day one. Like this is who we’re going to be, we’re going to work the hardest, whether we literally could do that or not. We were going to feel like no one outworked us and we deserve the win. I think that was a really good thing. I think with that a little bit you push, you push, you drive, you drive, you’re young, you’re going after it.

I think that was a mistake. I think the one area that the real growth took place for us was really kind of settling down into what we were going to be from an X and O standpoint. And kind of sticking with what we’re going to be and understanding like evolving. It doesn’t mean wholesale change with that or trying everything everybody under the sun did.

It’s just adjusting and just constantly adjusting, but still having a base set of values and core that it wasn’t that I didn’t know we needed that early. It’s just that you’re young and you don’t know what those things are. Right? Like I got binders full of stuff that I wanted to do and you go through all those things and you realize, Nope, Nope, Nope.

And I think that’s just time and that’s just working through it.

[00:32:11] Mike Klinzing: All right. So you’re there at Juniata for three years as an assistant, and then you get an opportunity to go to Penn State Behrend. How did you find out about that opportunity? What was the interview process like? What do you remember about that transition?

[00:32:24] Greg Curley: Yeah, that was interesting. So I knew Coach Nyland from my time at Allegheny. He had just, I believe it’s 30 years later now, but he had just come in. To Behrend at that time played against them. My brother knew him obviously because he was in kind of the division three circuit in that world too.

And when I was, when I was my second or third year at Juniata, I kept looking for jobs like most assistants do. And I actually called Coach Nyland about an assistant job in Lemoyne. Cause my brother was an assistant at Colgate and Dave Paulson was up there then, and I was trying to look at the Lemoyne job.

But there’s another job that paid $2,000. And I was just like, I don’t know. I can’t keep doing it. Like eventually you got to get a job. So I interviewed for the job at LeMoyne and was fortunate enough to be offered it, but I just literally ran out. I was like, I don’t know that I can keep doing this.

And I think all of us that have been in this a lot of times, my brother and I always tell guys, young guys, the advice, our best advice is just do this long enough. to where you don’t have another choice to do anything else. Like you get five or six years in, you have no other skills, you got to make it.

Like that’s part of the deal. But so in the course of that happening Coach Nyland’s assistant left right when that happened and his job was a better situation. It was more financially secure. It still wasn’t great, but it was a piece together an $11,000, $12,000. And the big thing is either one of those guys, I mean, playing working for Coach Paulson or working for Coach Nyland, I just, knew what I was going to learn and how great those guys were going to be.

So I know Behrend was a better situation, more secure for me. And I was like, I can make it another couple of years. If I take this one, that was really the crux of the choice. That was it. And so I went there and as luck would have it within three months. The assistant job at Allegheny opened again, and that was a full time job and it was full time with benefits.

It was a real job and God bless coach nyland. It was a really tough choice for me. You know, do I stay, do I do it? And coach Ness was great about it too. And a lot of the mentors I talked to, and I think collectively everyone understood like the opportunity out there is great. You don’t want to let anybody down, but that’s not going to buy a loaf of bread if you’re going to do this, you got to do it. And so after three months, I never even got to practice with Coach Nyland which was tough and we still have a great relationship.

And I appreciate that from him. That tells you what kind of. Man, he is what kind of coach I wind up going back to Allegheny for coach. Part of it was my alma mater. Part of it was my coach. A lot of it was just, I had to make a life. And it was a good decision for me. It was a great decision in terms of it’s kept me in it this long and if not, I don’t know if it would have.

And so went back to Allegheny for a few more years with coach Ness and you know, had other experiences, was able to bring that to our program there. And then after a couple of years Rick wound up leaving Juniata and I was fortunate enough at 26 to wind up getting the head coaching job at Juniata.

[00:35:21] Mike Klinzing: What kind of questions do you remember them asking you? Obviously, it’s going to be your first head coaching job, so they’re going to vet you pretty strongly. What do you remember about what they asked you?

[00:35:31] Greg Curley: I mean, the standard ones like program philosophy, what’s your program philosophy, what’s your, you know it might’ve been like a scenario, like this happens, what’s your philosophy on discipline, how would you approach it?

You know, what’s not too much the strengths and weaknesses, not so much, but roundabout ways. What would we see if we watched Juniata play under your leadership? What makes a good coach? Those kind of things. I was really fortunate at Juniata at the time. Larry Bach, who is the all time winningest volleyball coach at any level, Division 3 was the volleyball coach there.

And he just really got it. He understood how to win, he still has the best NCAA record in history. They did not lose a conference match in 30 years. And so his consistency and how to do it. And he really, really got it. He was a Penn State guy, played baseball there. So there was a lot of connections there.

So going back to it, the hardest part was actually the players. I had been, I’d recruited the guys that were still there, but then there were two assistants in between and they were trying to get the job too. Right. So it was a unique. And, and going in and interviewing those guys as the assistant that I was and now trying to be a head coach was unique because I was still young.

I was 26 going on 27. You think you know it. And so that was a little, that was interesting. I don’t remember the questions as much as just kind of there’s personality fits and they probably had an idea. And I was open with them what you saw me as an assistant, this may not be the way we go I’m going to be a head coach.

And now the buck stops here, the line changes and it should and there’s a difference. And I don’t want that to damage our relationship. And I want it to strengthen our relationship, but it’s going to be different. And fortunately, I think that transition was pretty good, but all transitions, those are always tough.

When somebody’s recruited you to go play for them and you get somebody new in, no matter how close they are to the situation, it’s going to be different. And these are relationships. I tell people in recruiting all the time, like these are relationships that build over three, four years.

They’re like anything else. Like not everything is compatible. Not everything’s perfect. Not everything we just see things differently and that’s okay. But when you have those changes there can be some bumps in the road.

[00:37:53] Mike Klinzing: What had you seen during your three years as an assistant that made you feel like you could build this program into What you envisioned as being a great division three program.

What were some of the characteristics that you saw that you thought, Hey, this is, this can be what I want it to be?

[00:38:12] Greg Curley: Well, I thought Larry Bach, number one, I can work for a great boss and a guy that I really wanted to be good and understood what being good was and was going to support us to do that.

They made a commitment. They realized they hadn’t made a commitment. And when he became AD, that’s when they went to a full time coach, they added the assistant. So I knew there was a desire there to be good. And I think that’s very, very important. And I knew we were going to get backed and I was going to be able to coach and have the latitude to make some mistakes, but get better and also have a good mentor there.

I think the other thing is I grew up in that area. You know, Juniata is only about 45 minutes from state college. It wasn’t a place that I ever would have considered out of high school. I think part of being at Penn State, it just takes over your world and you don’t see it that way. But I thought you know, there was this idea there weren’t any players kind of in central Pennsylvania.

There weren’t any players you could do anything with. And right or wrong at that age, I just, I saw myself in that a little bit. And I was like, I didn’t agree with that. I thought, We had to go about it different.  We couldn’t play the same game as the other teams in the league were playing.

You know, Lev Vowel’s coming off the National Championship, ETown went to the National Finals. So, like, we couldn’t be there, and we might not be able to go in the same living rooms and get the same kids, but… We could find some kids that others maybe never came out to see play. It was a smaller world then there wasn’t a lot of the AAU, you could go kind of get to a gym that no one else would ever show up at, find a kid.

That was tough. And so I just thought, Hey, that’s how that’s our end. We can do that. We can part of kind of the space in our area. It’s a long way from Philly to Pittsburgh and no one wants to come in here. So if we can really control this area, we call it the state of Juniata. You know, like if we could just within two and a half hours radius.

Particularly right in central PA, north and south of us, we can go find whatever kids there are, a little smaller maybe not quite as quick, but tough, like tough kids in this area. We can just build a brand based on that, which also led itself in the hardest working team and kind of our approach to defense and those kinds of things.

And just try to find an identity that we play to, that we’d have a chance to improve. I’ve also thought sometimes you take over a program that hasn’t been very good. There’s no expectation and it’s a little easier transition. Everybody, Oh, you got to, you can’t be afraid to take on the challenge of a great program and blah, blah, blah.

But there’s a lot of pressure that goes with that too, particularly for a brand new young coach. And there’s not the latitude to make mistakes and kind of grow into being a coach.

[00:40:32] Mike Klinzing: What do you think when you look back on those early years, what’s something that when you look back, you maybe weren’t that good at that you feel like you’ve gotten a lot better at as a head coach?

[00:40:45] Greg Curley: I think basically everything it’s funny. I don’t know how you feel, we’ve had a couple of really good teams, my first team went to conference finals, we lose at the buzzer, just really good players.

And whenever those guys are back around, I’m like you guys made it that far despite of me. You know, I wish I knew what I was doing now, if I knew what I knew now, it could go back. I just, I literally look at how much better we could be and just small things, just like not sweating the small stuff, staying more consistent.

More confidence in your beliefs and your values. Game experience just knowing like Don’t overreact to stuff. Experience and seeing different styles of play. And I think that feeds into how you have to prepare you don’t really know and how consistent.

So it’s kind of an odd answer, but it’s the truth. It’s probably everything just a little bit better. We’re not markedly different. And you know how it is. Every player comes back and says, Coach, you’re a lot easier than you used to be. You’re a lot softer than you used to be.

Yeah, exactly. It’s called wisdom. None of that. Believe me, it still burns. It’s in there. You still cross certain lines. We’re going to have problems. But. Part of it then is also you’re fighting for your life and you’re fighting with everything you got. And I think you get a little older, priorities change a little bit.

Not that it’s not there, man. It’s just that blend. And you don’t want to be on that edge so much all the time. I don’t think you’re as good. I think when you’re a little off the edge, but close, you’re probably at your best. And I think that helps with age experience, probably a little bit of security. Having success builds confidence, just like as a player.

And when you don’t have it, you’re just kind of grasping at straws and hoping.

[00:42:31] Mike Klinzing: When did you feel like you had the program in a spot where it was living up to the vision you had before you took the job? And obviously there’s. ups and downs during the year and you’re never satisfied with where you are and you’re always trying to get better.

Was there a point where you felt like, okay, now we’ve got it. Now it’s more about sustaining what we’re doing and trying to grow incrementally as opposed to like, man, we got to have this we got to have this big turnaround?

[00:42:57] Greg Curley: I mean, I don’t know. I’m not sure we’re still, we’re where I still want us to be.

And I know that’s a tough answer. I mean, we’re unique. I said we we’ve lost in six conference finals. We’ve never been in a NCAA tournament in the history of the school. So we still have work to do. You know, we’ve lost two times at the buzzer in the worst possible way, both times with the lead.

We’ve got everything that’s happened. And we keep getting up and keep marching through. So it’s almost a good thing. We still have a lot of work to be done and steps to take and places to go. But I think, getting to the first conference finals and then being able to do it back to back years.

And we’ve had a few of those where you’re seeing pockets of more sustained success and where we can consistently get to the playoffs. Like hopefully we can get to our conference playoffs this year and only the top half of our league gets into playoffs and that’d be the first time in school history that we do it four straight years.

So we’ve looked at those as benchmarks. I’ve always been more of a consistency guy, I think. When we recruit, I talk to my assistants like, man, we need to set the floor. We need to make sure the floor, like, I know everybody wants to shoot for the moon, but man, my experience has taught us we got to have a certain level and maintain that.

And then our best years were going to be even better. And so I think that’s what’s kind of come with it and kind of the comfort and security with that. And then knowing like you can’t be everything. I don’t know about you. I get coach envy all the time and my assistants, I drive them crazy. Because like, I’m like, you’ll watch a team do warmup drills.

Like COVID was awful because we’d go to gyms and we would be sitting there for an hour beforehand, no fans. And you’d watch all the pregame warmups. And I never did that. And I’d be like, why are we doing all this like, and then I’d drive them nuts. I’d sit there and talk about it for two hours, sleep on it, come back in the next day and say, we can’t, I know coach you know, and so.

I’m still in that place, like constantly curious always thinking there’s a better way, like honestly impressed with kind of the creativity of a lot of the younger coaches and kind of what I call their daring they’re not afraid and they’re going to go after things. I think that keeps us honest on our toes.

So we’re always moving forward, never satisfied. I’m as nervous today to start our season we got our first exhibition game tomorrow and I have no idea what kind of team we’re going to have and everybody, oh coach, you got to know, you’ve seen, I have no idea, there’s too many pieces that go into it and it’s really more about a million small choices that all the guys need to make every day.

And you can’t ever take those for granted. You got to keep working at them. And I think that’s kind of the art of staying consistent in coaching and sticking around is not sliding into all this will just work out. I do think there’s some places that can happen. I think you can just amass enough talent to be all right.

But this is not one of those. We’re always as close to the top as we are the bottom in our league. And it’s one of the things we recruit to, we talk about as a team that never forget that we’re just as close to the bottom all the time. And so don’t think the bottom is so bad. Don’t think you’re so much better than that, but we’re just as close to the top.

So don’t be intimidated by that, just be the best we can be. Stay focused on it. Keep working.

[00:46:10] Mike Klinzing: To learn. What are you looking at? Where do you, where do you, do you go to other division three schools that you’re watching when you’re watching film? Are you going, watching other levels of college basketball?

Do you watch any NBA stuff to pick things up? Just where do you go to learn to try to pick up new things that you can kind of add to what you guys do?

[00:46:29] Greg Curley: I mean, a little bit of everything, right? I mean, just always having your phone or used to be a notepad next to my bed, taking notes, but now it’s probably more phone.

I mean, the world has changed with that. You remember how it is. I mean, there’s so much more access to information now. It’s crazy. It’s almost too much sometimes. I mean, there’s always so many ways to do it and you can’t do it all the ways you got to pick and decide. And I think that’s a major mistake and I had that.

And so a mix of all of those. I’ve also I think a lot of coaching is more about. relationship and team building, which I think you get into it long enough. You probably have your philosophy on how to play. You probably know how you want to do that. Now it’s about getting better in all the other spaces.

I spent 11 years as the AD here as well. That’s probably the biggest learning experience I ever had. I mean, just exposure to so many people, so many different coaches, administrators people in other leadership roles for good and bad. And so I just look at. Basically, everything is a growth opportunity.

I think hiring assistants that will challenge you, I think as you get more experience as a coach, you’ve been around longer, you got to make sure you’re hiring people that have similarities and it will share a common value, but have had different experiences to help shape and inform, and you got to hire guys you can trust to evaluate and say, Hey, coach, this is wrong, or this is the right way. Or and I’m still the guy that sometimes needs them to say, no, coach, the way we do it, it’s the right way. I told you, I struggled with that a lot. Now we can have one bad day. We’ve done what we’ve done forever and I want to scrap it but I would say, I would say that that’s probably healthy.

You got to have that to keep you on your toes, keep going and never kind of get complacent.

[00:48:17] Mike Klinzing: I think that self reflection is really important. I think, I think the best coaches, and I think people in a lot of different professions and even just, just your personal life, right? I mean, you can talk to people that you’re like, doesn’t this dude perceive like what is going on?

Like what we see. I mean, we all know people that are like that, that it’s seeming like, do they ever think about. What they’re doing or how they’re doing it or how they come off. And I think the best coaches are constantly reevaluating and self evaluating and thinking about, is there a way to do this better?

And like you said, it’s not necessarily that, okay, from game to game, I’m totally switching up what we’re trying to do, or even season to season, what we’re doing in terms of X’s and O’s and the basketball philosophy. But it’s more just, I think in those margins, right? Where you’re looking and say, okay, could we, could we do this better?

Could we gain a little bit of an advantage here? How could we tweak the design of. Practice and this drill to make it just a little bit more effective. And I think the best coaches that I’ve been around, that’s what they do. I mean, they just are always thinking about how can I get better at what we’re doing to make my team better and make my players better and build those relationships and the culture and all that stuff.

It just feels like you have to self reflect in order to get there.

[00:49:28] Greg Curley: I think this whole thing is kind of the art of taking the complex and making it real simple. I mean, I think I listen to every podcast I used to read every book. I don’t read, I unfortunately don’t read as much and should because of the way things are delivered now. So now I’ve listened to some podcasts, listen to every other podcast, and I really have always just tried to listen to coaches of all sports and listen to how they, because I think the art of it is, it’s never what we know. It’s what we can communicate to them.

I probably reflect more on a conversation I had with a guy or how I interacted at practice and how could I do that better. And I think sometimes in the world they think, well, how could you do it gentler, nicer? I don’t mean that. I mean, more effectively, right? Like you have to be, and how can we be more effective in what we do?

That’s the cool part about our job. It never changes. Like this is a brand new season to be 23 years here. And it might as well be year one, because for our guys, my freshmen, this is our eighth practice. They don’t know any different they have no idea. They’re still just as clueless as the freshmen we had 23 years ago.

It’s a blessing. And to see our veteran guys now that have been through it a little bit and how they carry themselves and where they go. I mean, that’s kind of the whole, whole deal, the whole thing. But yeah, I mean, just, constantly. And I think what happens now, because I’ve been in it, I’m always on my coach’s like, we can’t settle.

We can’t get stale just cause we do it the way we do it. And I think a lot of people that play us think we’ve done it the way we always do it. And you know, I got guys calling me up, Hey, curl is doing this this year, doing this. They start laughing. Probably not. But believe it or not, it was probably on my board that summer.

And we probably legitimately thought about it. Right. Like we legitimately thought about it until we thought we had more of a compelling reason to stick with what we are. I always say it’s kind of like if you’ve got a really good classic car or a race car after a race season, they take the race car completely apart.

Completely apart. And then they put it back together. It might wind up being the same car. It might be almost exactly the same car, but they’ve gone through the work, right, of taking it apart and deciding if that’s how they want to put it together. They might change two or three parts to make it a bit faster.

They might overhaul so we have never stopped with that process and I don’t think we will. That’s probably what I really enjoy now more than anything. But I think that’s really important for everybody to do. And then being careful of every new idea being the best it’s kind of like the individual work he said.

I mean, we have a lot of kids that are sort of skilled, semi skilled, but  when we put 14 guys together, there’s a first best shooter and a 14th best shooter. It doesn’t matter.

[00:52:09] Mike Klinzing: Right. Exactly.

[00:52:11] Greg Curley: There’s still a pecking order, so you have to be a little careful of that.

And but like I get one of the year we got new young coaches that are really good in our league and I just hope we can keep up and I think that goes just to where we are and who we are, that humility piece and man, we better the lining is, oh man, we better get up running or we’re not eating or we’re going to get eaten.  So that’s the way it is.

[00:52:38] Mike Klinzing: All right. Talk to me a little bit about recruiting and what are some of the things that you look for beyond the players? What are the kinds of guys that you’re looking for that you know are going to fit in well with your program?

[00:52:51] Greg Curley: Well, I mean, I think the guys who want what we have to offer Juniata you know, I would say like we’re top 75 of the broad school.

We’re very, very good school. We’re located in central Pennsylvania, Huntington, PA. So I mean, it’s kind of a place where we get guys that I think are serious about what they’re doing, but they don’t take themselves too serious. I mean, I think there’s just the humility of going there. So I think part of it is finding guys with that and being very open and honest with them about the experience they’re going to get when they get here. We tell the guys it takes three things to play. One, you got to really love what you’re doing. You got to love the game. And it’s not just like everybody likes to shoot around, but we’re, we’re kind of the game and the competitiveness meet and kind of that grind and that kind of everyday grit.

Like you got to love that, or you’re not going to be happy. I think you got to love being a part of a team and you got to be a team guy. Non-team guys or guys that are stat sheet checkers, and I know we all do it a little bit, but guys that are really into that just don’t work with me.

It just doesn’t work. I don’t see the game that way. I don’t see it through those eyes. It never changes, so it’s not going to work. And, and then the last one is you have to be tough to play here. I say now I own it. I’ve been coaching 23 years. I’m probably old school. You know, I’m still going to challenge it.

I’m still going to make it be better. We have to be tough here because we’re not a blue blood. We’re not one of the top schools. That’s part of being kind of in the middle. So I think just being direct and honest with guys about what your expectations are, what you expect. I think being someplace for a long time, I think helps guys make good decisions about you.

I think that may be more what it is. I think we get guys that make better decisions to come to us because there’s more information on us and what you see is what you’re going to get. So I think that helps guys soon cut bait sooner. No way am I going there. I don’t want to be there.

There’s a better option for me. And I think there’s also that comfort. Like we tell guys, I think there’s a place for everybody. I really do. I think everybody can be successful. And I don’t think that takes away from us having a great product either, if they go somewhere else. I just, I think the big thing is get a group of guys who want to be in the gym together and at least have that starting point and then realize that the roller coaster makes the ride the ups and downs and twists and turns, the days you don’t want to do this anymore, the days you want to give it up but then the days you never want it to end that’s the whole idea, that’s what the experience is supposed to be.

And trying to get guys to understand that this isn’t going to be rainbows and lollipops every day, nor should it be if we’re doing things the right way. When you

[00:55:13] Mike Klinzing: When you think about the environments that you recruit in, do you think about high school environments versus AAU environments any differently in terms of how you evaluate kids. Do you have a preference of one over the other when you’re trying to take a look at a kid and see whether they’re going to be a good fit? Are you looking for different things in a kid’s high school with their high school team versus their AAU team? Just how do you think about those two arenas?

[00:55:36] Greg Curley: Yeah, I mean, I think a little bit for us is probably the level of the high school. So one of the things about it around us is we have a lot of small high schools. So like single A, double A in Pennsylvania is the lowest level or smallest level, size. What we found is, and we can get in early, particularly access a lot of those guys, which you find with those guys, the really most talented guys they’re just better and they might be the best kid in their town since they’re in eighth grade, you know?

And so I think sometimes they have kind of holes in their game that you don’t even see until you get them. Because they just haven’t been challenged in the same way. So. I think we’ve got to be really intentional about that. So we want to see probably those guys in different AAU situations with some better AAU teams, if they have access to that, to see them against better, more complete players.

Whereas like, if we’re going with our other guys that are at big high schools, 6A high schools around here, those things, I just think those guys, there’s more competition, their game’s more complete and it translates more directly when they come as freshmen. And so. I think it’s a little bit of a blend.

So if we see those kids, we feel better about what we’re seeing. The other guys, we want them because that’s been an edge for us. What those guys often bring is a confidence. They’ve been the man. They know how to be the man. They know how to win games. And sometimes you get a kid from a 6A high school that was their sixth guy or fifth guy who doesn’t know what it means to actually carry the load and have to be on every day.

And that’s a different transition. So I think trying to see them in different environments as much as possible. You know, trying to understand and meet them where they are, like what’s their background and where it is. And I think that’s the other thing experience we have experienced to play on here with just kind of knowing a field like, Hey, this academic profile, what they’re interested in studying, meeting the family.

This is going to be a really good fit. Like I said, if, if guys come at it a different way you know, we’re, we’re going to play defense here. The only score we care about is the final one. And that’s a certain kid and you can get a feel, you get a feel for like, who’s going to be a better fit than others.

But also being open that the one great thing about no scholarships at Division III is you can take a couple more guys, right? We don’t actually have to say no. We don’t have to weed guys out. We just have to know coming in, right? And so not being afraid to take some risks on some of those guys.

And hey, some of the guys we weren’t ever sure have turned out to be the best. Some of the guys we thought were surefire kids didn’t really work out. But I think that’s where at our level, we got to build in a margin. So you might be right or wrong and always keep going. You always have to get the next class.

It never ends. And that’s probably the biggest thing you have to keep in mind. You have to always get the next class, no matter what. When you look back

[00:58:19] Mike Klinzing: When you look back retrospectively, obviously it’s hard in the moment to identify. And a kid, as you said, there’s some hits, there’s some misses, and you can think a kid’s going to be great and ends up not being so, and you can think a kid’s going to be eh, maybe, and then that kid ends up being one of your better players.

But when you look back at the guys who have had the most success in your program, what are the characteristics of those guys that have been the most successful players that have come through your program?

[00:58:46] Greg Curley: I think it’s their everyday approach. They’re always the most low maintenance guys.

They’re just guys that come and go to work, get it? Take coach and listen and it never, it never feels hard, right? It’s like any relationship. It’s like putting on a glove, like it fits like a glove. It just works from day one. And I think we all wish we could just identify exactly what that is in every situation.

But you can’t, but man, when you get those kids, there’s nothing like it. Like it’s just you’re on the same page all the time. And I think those are the ones that turn into those great relationships that we all appreciate as coaches that last a long time. I mean, it’s just really hard if a kid doesn’t get everything they ever wanted, if they don’t get more than they thought they could get, it’s really hard to always have a great relationship with that kid.

You could have a good one, but not have the one at depth where. Maybe you provide something for that kid that the parents and the kid didn’t see coming. You know, they never thought they’d get to that level. And so, and you get it as a parent, like I get it. Like so I think it’s, yeah, they just from day one.

But if I had to say anything, it’s probably their ability to listen and apply concepts and be coached and avoid kind of the pitfalls of either Immaturity or lack of confidence. So there are confident kids that are comfortable in their own skin that can fail and learn and get better and grow and listen.

And I think sometimes you get guys that, that maybe listen, but aren’t as confident with failure and those kinds of situations. And so then they’re always looking for a reason why. And then that’s I just think those guys that come in and from day one, now they have to have the prerequisites with the skill and size and athleticism.

Right. Absolutely. But even some of those guys that don’t quite have that have a little less, but just have that sense of self like confidence that they’re okay. They know there’s better players out there, but they don’t care. They can be a good one. Those guys are those are their leaders.

Those are your guys that make an impact on the overall success of the team. I think otherwise the pieces don’t change a whole lot, right? It’s those guys that, that. And if you get a collection of those guys, that’s when you really have good it’s great. And trying to identify as many of those guys as you can get.

What have you guys done with your eight days? well, because we went to Canada this year, we got 10 extra practices too. But nice. So we have to be careful about making the season too long. So that’s the other thing now so but the eight practices we’ve really try to do more kind of concept stuff.

So we’ve not done as much of the skill stuff we’ve asked guys to do that on their own, but we’ve tried to do more defensive and offensive concept to try to get big picture in so that they have context for the small stuff that we do when we get into it. So when we can go more live now, we haven’t done any in those eight practices, we didn’t do any live stuff at all.

But we might take closeouts all the way up to one or two dribbles, but not play it through, or we might do kind of shell. All the way up to where it could go live. So I don’t think it’s any less taxing, but we wanted to make sure we were in condition and shape. We wanted to use it that way.

So we want to make sure we’re in a stance and moving laterally to really hit the ground running. But we wanted them to get a big picture view of all the things we’re trying to do. And some of the base fundamentals and concepts so that when, once we started practice kind of that whole part, now we get back to the part stuff and, and, and now we kind of fill in the really competing, going one on one, doing those kinds of things, but they know where it’s going to go.

But we’ll see where it goes. We talk about that every day, like as much of this year is trying to evaluate how to use those days. Right. And it’s kind of cool. It’s fun. To have that change now after this long, you get so used to how are you going to do it, pull the practice like in different teams, younger teams, we do it a little different, but I’ve enjoyed it.

I’ve enjoyed kind of the idea. It’s been amazing. Even though we didn’t go live in those situations, we didn’t even play. The same kind of dynamic after eight practices and they were two times a week for four weeks. is the same dynamic we had after eight full practices where we were going live in terms of the development of the team, stages where guys were.

It was kind of, it was really interesting. It’s been cool. I just hope we manage it right. But part of that is we have a veteran group and we knew we were going to lengthen the season. So we didn’t want to bang them up. We didn’t want to put them in those situations. We didn’t want to expand it too much.

So I don’t know if we’ll change in the future or not.

[01:03:06] Mike Klinzing: You know, you kind of be a good case study over the next couple of years, right? As you try different things and look at what works and what doesn’t work. And just, again, that self reflection that we talked about earlier. How do you put together a trip to Canada?

What’s it like when you do that? How does that process work?

[01:03:21] Greg Curley: Well, I mean, for us, we just kind of email some places you want to play? And the reason we do it is because we’re able to just pay for it. We don’t have to ask the guys. I mean, I think at our level, Hey, we’re going over to wherever And kids are fundraising for three years and parents are writing checks.

And I’ve always I’ve been a part of that and not everybody can always go over the summer because of summer jobs and stuff. And then I always felt like this kid’s paying as much money and he’s not, you’re not going to play him. So like we want to use everything we do in our program, we want to use to help us be better and win games.

So we try to match it with that. And so we’re able to pay for it. It’s only about eight hours for us. to get six, even if when we’ve gone to Toronto area in the past. So it’s not really much more than an extended road trip. And so we just find teams that want to play and then like everything else, you know do the division three way, we’re the ones that are our own travel agent and we’re the ones putting it together and doing the fundraising.

It was an awesome city is the capital city here. So it’s a great place. You can park the bus, they can go everywhere, walking everywhere. goal to get out of it Our is just to really become closer as a team, get to know each other, have that experience find out about ourselves and then be able to hit the ground running when regular practice starts.

[01:04:36] Mike Klinzing: Talk about putting together a practice. What’s your philosophy on how you design it? Balance between offense and defense. Do you keep the same structure every day? What does your practice plan look like?

[01:04:45] Greg Curley: Ours is pretty much, I mean, our guys wouldn’t know that. I mean, I think because I’m always emphasizing defense, whether we’re playing live or not so they feel it, probably feel it tilts.

But actually, like time wise, we’re about 50/50. You know, so we’re going to we’re always going to start early probably. Depending on the time of year, we might do a pre practice where we’re doing some kind of skill concept thing for maybe eight to ten minutes, but not a lot. We try to keep our skills separate of practice.

We don’t shoot a lot. We don’t do a lot of skill in practice. It’s really team stuff, team concept stuff. A lot of that I just think is we have a, we’re a defensive type team. I think that’s harder to do if you’re a defensive team. You know, the defensive fundamentals are just as important, I think, sometimes neglected.

I don’t agree that defense is just playing hard. That is a lie. That is absolutely not the truth. There’s just as much skill and technique to defense, I think, as there is offense. I think that’s sometimes just an easy… Easy out if you’re an offensive minded coach. But we’re 50 50.

We’ll start though, our first portion of practice will be defense and then our second portion will be offense. And then we’ll finish with like our play five on five stuff for the last portion. And so when I’m 50, we’re 50 50, that’s our breakdown kind of periods. And then it’s probably our last half hour, 45 minutes is all five on five, working on both.

[01:06:06] Mike Klinzing: When you guys are going five on five, how do you keep the flow going and still make the coaching points that you want to make? Are you guys focusing in on, okay, today we’re working on one or two things. What do you try to get your guys to focus on in the five on five setting?

[01:06:23] Greg Curley: Yeah, no, I’ve never been great on the let’s focus on one or two things. It’s always been hard for me. I mean you coach what you see, right? Exactly right. I mean, and I don’t really, whatever the drills aligned to, like, let’s always be getting better at whatever we’re getting better at, which is the game whatever we’re doing.

So, yeah, I’m probably not great at the flow stuff either. I think I’ve gotten better. I would say that would be one of the things younger when I was younger, guys said it’s tough to get a rhythm in practice because I was probably I am still fairly breakdown heavy.

But in the play stuff I will interrupt. That’s where I’ve gotten better. I’ve gotten more patient, let guys go understand and know when to stop a little bit better. I think it’s more an art. I mean, we do a lot of like half court games, like five on five on five. We’d like to carry more guys so we could play a lot four on four on four.

So even though I call those breakdowns or three on three on three and just keep rotating teams in, but we want kind of chaos up-tempo in terms of like transitions. Maybe not up and down before, but in terms of transitions and different scenarios, and we want it to be a bit chaotic in there because I think that’s the game.

I think learning to think that quickly and that fast, and we want to put pressure on guys to do that. You know, and then we don’t do all our stuff is pretty much controlled scrimmage stuff. Like it might be play at one end and go to the other, or where we would play at one end, go down and come back.

We’re not doing a lot of like five minute scrimmages or put 10 minutes up. We got rid of like inter squad scrimmages a number of years ago. Those after 15 minutes, everybody’s tired and now you got two teams playing terrible and not getting a lot out of it. And I think we play enough games to get good at games.

So that’s where we’ve gone and I don’t, again, I’m telling you, I don’t know if that’s right. I listen to all these podcasts and I don’t know if I know anything I think that’s okay. It’s just more, I think it’s what works for us and what I know I can stand for.

I can’t stand for that right now. So that’s it. We’re not doing it. And that’s kind of where I am.

[01:08:35] Mike Klinzing: This particular season and you think about the team that you have, what do you think are the keys to this team’s success heading into this year?

[01:08:43] Greg Curley: I think consistency. I think we’ve talked about that.

I mean, we really return probably six of our top eight guys. Now we’ve got some key losses and it’s that kind of uncertainty. Did we replace those guys with developing others can. Do we need to sometimes going to this six, playing more and being in those spots helps you there.

Sometimes it doesn’t if you don’t have quite enough size or whatever you need there. So, but for us it’s really been about being consistent and efficient. And I don’t mean just in games, I just mean I think a lot of times. Teams get themselves in trouble by wasting effort and energy early in a season because they’re not focused and not working through things as quickly or as efficiently as they should be.

And I think there’s just only so much in an emotional chest for an entire season. There’s only so much in an energy bank. And you need it in those biggest moments. Like when it really gets rolling, you got to have that reserve to get up and get going. And if you’ve wasted it early in the season, if you got to really fight them to do things the way they need to or be locked in the way they are, make the progress the way they need you’re going to be in trouble.

So I think that’s the same thing for us. How consistently can we do everything and how efficiently can we do it? Are we consistently rebounding? Are we consistently taking care of the ball and more of it for us? We’ve talked. We think three things win here and team toughness and execution.

And I think we studied every conference championship team. They’re always usually the best in those three areas, whatever they’re doing. It doesn’t even matter. Style play, just those elements. And so we’re really focused on that. And the big thing for us, I think that we weren’t as consistent on last year was our execution.

It was up and down.  Even in our playoffs we win our semifinal game. I thought we were as consistent as we were. We turned around that Saturday and Scranton just handed it to us and that was a lot them, but we weren’t as consistent as we needed to be in what we needed to do.

And so we’ve got to take a step with that, which I hope Veterans can do. Well, I’m

[01:10:40] Mike Klinzing: I’m sure that getting you guys together to do this preseason trip, I’m sure it’s going to be tremendously valuable just in terms of, again, that extra practice time that you guys were able to get and then getting on the road.

I know that whether you’re a player as a coach, I think that going on the road always tends to bring teams together.

[01:10:54] Greg Curley: Yeah, no, I think anytime you just get in the bus and… Getting off rest stops or going here and just downtime to see each other in a different light. It’s just really hard when you really get rolling into games.

I think that’s been the blessing now of these eight practices too. There’s just a less, a different sense of pressure than when you’re going live from the 15th and you got to get it going. And you got to make lineup decisions. And I think just being in those situations, but it’s like everything, we got to use it the right way.

If we miss that opportunity right now then it’s going to cost us. And so I’m trying to get guys really focused on that. You got to take advantage of every opportunity. Young guys, they don’t see a practice in October whatever, as an opportunity.

But man, it is. It is. And the longer you do it, the note that’s probably more valuable sometimes than some other things. And I’m really getting guys locked in on that stuff. And I got a really good group of guys and more of it is not for me. It’s for them. I got eight seniors you know, really four of them are in the rotation, but they’ve got one chance and they’ve got to play their best and whatever happens, we can live with.

But are we going to walk away feeling like we played our best and maxed out our team?

[01:12:11] Mike Klinzing: All right. I want to ask you one final two part question. Part one, when you look ahead in your program over the next year or two, what do you see as being the biggest challenge? And then part two, when you think about what you get to do every single day, what brings you the most joy?

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy

[01:12:27] Greg Curley: Well, I think our challenge is we just added two new teams in the league. So now we’re at 10. Both very good programs with very, very good coaches. I think the depth in our league is real. I think actually eight teams could probably win our league this year.

So our biggest challenge is just staying in the mix, keeping right there. When we got to be a playoff team every year, we got to be there and it never ends. And so it’s our challenge for my 23 years has never changed at all. It’s the same thing all the time. Like I say, we’re as close to the bottom as the top.

You know, we got to be fighting up out of our weight class all the time. We got to be in that kind of mode. So really it’s a huge recruiting class for us. We lose a lot of guys. But also I think we’ve got younger guys here that are good, but we’ve got to you’ve got to string classes together.

You miss recruiting class and you’re in trouble. I don’t care what program you are or where you are and you just got to keep going and you can never kind of get complacent with that. And we got to make sure we don’t and we just got to make sure we keep working that way.

Biggest joy. Yeah. I mean, it’s cool for me now, like my our kids are six and nine a little later to life to have kids, but having them around the gym and being around the team you know, The first Tuesday we did a skill workout. I had to get them out of school because we didn’t have a choice.

They’re in there rebounding for our guys and that that kind of connection and kind of the full circle nature of this is really cool about my six year old loves hoops. My nine year old daughter loves hoops and seeing what they’re in love with about the game that I still love.

That it’s still the same thing, seeing a freshman come in and, and kind of have the same sense of joy about playing. And it’s a great thing about being on a college campus, right? You know, they never get any older and they still look at, look at life the same way. They still do the same dumb stuff.

But they do it with a joy and kind of an innocence that, man, if you can’t get excited by that stuff or your first game or your first competition or seeing them play for the first time tomorrow night. I mean, I just still love the whole thing. That being said, man, I still like winning the best of all.

So like going Unless you really do it man, you don’t have any idea. So hopefully we get enough of those this year. You never know. That’s why we got to keep working and give ourselves the best shot. Absolutely. Well said.

[01:14:53] Mike Klinzing: Before we get out, Greg, I want to give a chance to share how people can connect with you, connect with your program, whether you want to share a website, social media, email, whatever you feel comfortable with.

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

[01:15:05] Greg Curley: up. Yeah, I mean, obviously our website www. junianasports.net or www.juniana.edu. My email, curlyg@juniana.edu. We’re all, I’m also on Instagram Twitter. Those are two easy ways to get a hold of us. And you can also just give me a phone call.

[01:15:27] Mike Klinzing: Greg, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule. A lot of fun, man. A lot of fun on this episode, to everyone out there. Thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.