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

Email – jermaine.kimbrough@gmail.com

Twitter – @jermainekimbrou

Jermaine Kimbrough is in his second season as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Loyola University Chicago. A native of northeast, Ohio, Kimbrough spent the previous three seasons as an assistant coach at the University of Wyoming.

Before heading to Wyoming, Kimbrough spent one season at the University of Nevada, where he helped the Wolf Pack to a 24-win campaign in 2015-16.

Kimbrough spent the bulk of his career at Cleveland State University, where he served nine seasons as an assistant coach under Gary Waters. During his tenure with the Vikings, Kimbrough was a key part of four postseason appearances, including a NCAA tournament and three trips to the NIT.

Jermaine was a prep standout at Shaker Heights High School in Cleveland, earning all-league honors on four occasions and all-city accolades three times.  He began his collegiate playing career at St. Catherine College before transferring to Virginia Tech, where he played two seasons (1998-2000) before graduating with a degree in psychology.

Upon graduation, Kimbrough moved right into the coaching ranks, first serving as an assistant at Howard College from 2001-03 before moving on to Cleveland State as director of operations. After a season at CSU, he spent one year (2004-05) as the director of operations at Massachusetts and then one season at Purdue Fort Wayne as an assistant coach before returning to Cleveland State.

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Get ready to listen and learn from the experiences of Jermaine Kimbrough, men’s basketball assistant coach at Loyola University Chicago.

What We Discuss with Jermaine Kimbrough

• “You find out very quickly as an assistant that your time is not your time.”
• His passion for the game after 21 years as a D1 assistant coach
• Starting his daily routine with his own workout
• “Nighttime is when you study and during the day is the test.”
• How Coach Moser solicits input from everyone on the staff
• “Get Better Tape” for players to watch
• A day in his life as a D1 assistant coach
• What makes the 20-21 Loyola Ramblers a special group
• “Our culture is something you see in how we play.”
• Why high character players make it fun to go to work each day
• “The culture actually picks the player” when it comes to recruiting
• Evaluating a player’s character during recruiting
• Why players must learn how to bounce back from failures
• Coach Moser – “How you think is how you feel, how you feel is how you act, and how you act is what defines you.”
• “We strictly deal with basketball. And that’s the reason why our program has been very successful because we have the right type of young men in our program that want to be successful on the basketball court, but they also take care of the business off the court and in the classroom, and in the community.”
• How he balances a player’s high school performance vs. his AAU performance
• “What are you doing every single day to separate yourself?”
• “I don’t recruit players. I recruit programs. I want to know the best high school programs.”
• Why he wants to give back to young people through the game of basketball
• “You should be the same player every night, regardless of whether the ball is going in the hole or not.”
• His high school playing days under Bob Wonson at Shaker Heights (OH) High School
• The great coaches he learned from grade school up through college at Virginia Tech
• His unique relationship with Al Slawson, the tennis coach at Shaker Heights
• “It’s a 40 year relationship for me, not just a four year relationship. When a kid comes to a campus, it’s a bigger picture for me. And that’s the reason why I do it.”
• Coach Moser wants to recruit guys and coach guys that he’s going to be friends with for the rest of  his life.
• His first day on the job with Coach Chris Jans at a JUCO in Texas
• Working for Mike Garland at Cleveland State, Steve Lapis at UMass, and Dane Fife at IPFW, & Eric Musselman at Nevada
• What he learned from Gary Waters at Cleveland State
• What is Sister Jean really like?
• Biggest COVID Challenge? Lack of intimate conversations with players
• Why connecting with players and player development have been two of his biggest strengths
• “The most successful coaches are two way coaches. They’re great on both ends of the floor.”
• Using a video database and journal to store and keep track of his coaching portfolio and new information
• “I’m a firm believer that to be great. You have to continue to learn.”
• Why watching film is critical to improving a player’s basketball IQ
• Getting everyone using the same terminology makes you more effective as a coach
• “Don’t criticize the person, criticize the act.”
• Why no one takes things personally in a strong culture
• “Everything we do is about competing… everything. So if you’re not ready to compete, you’re probably not gonna make it.”
• The challenge of getting a head coaching position in the future

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THANKS, JERMAINE KIMBROUGH

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TRANSCRIPT FOR JERMAINE KIMBROUGH – LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO MEN’S BASKETBALL ASSISTANT COACH – EPISODE 437

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle. And tonight we are pleased to welcome to the podcast at long last Jermaine Kimbrough from Loyola of Chicago.  Jermaine, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:00:14] Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I’m honored to be a part of this and anytime I can give back to the basketball community is great. And I’m super excited to be here. And hopefully you can tell by the passion and excitement in my voice, I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time.

Mike Klinzing: [00:00:33] We’ve been working to try to get this thing together. And as we will find out as we go through the episode, the life of a division one, Assistant basketball coach.

Sometimes your life is not your own. Sometimes your head coach makes decisions about what you’re going to do and where are you going to be? And sometimes that precludes you from joining a podcast that you’ve been trying to get on the schedule for awhile, right?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:00:55] Yes. Yes. It’s one of those things where.

You [00:01:00] know, you find out very quickly as an assistant that your time is not your time you’re on everybody else’s time, whether that’s the players, your head coach, who you’re working for and just putting time into it. The good thing about it is when you love the game and you’re passionate about it and you love what you do, you don’t count the clock.

We just don’t punch the clock as time goes by, but you still have fun doing what you do on every single day. And for me, it’s always been about impacting young men. And I love the game of basketball. Love breaking down, film, love working guys out, love getting guys better. And it has been a big, big part of my journey.

This is my 21st season as a division one assistant. And I’m still going at it, man. I’m still learning every single day and I’ve been blessed to be a part of a staff that we have here at Loyola, Chicago and, and learning under Coach Moser.

Mike Klinzing: [00:01:52] All right. So I’m going to break from protocol here.

And instead of going back in time to when you were a kid as my first question, [00:02:00] just take us through your day today as an assistant coach, so that people have an idea. You and I were talking a little bit before we started recording about the sacrifices that you have to make and the amount of time that you have to put in in order to have a successful program.

So walk us through your day today from when that alarm went off to sitting down and do a podcast with Mike and Jason at 10:41 PM Eastern time. Just give us an idea of the things that went into your day as division one, assistant college basketball coach.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:02:31] Well every day my alarm goes off at five 45 in the morning and I get up, I work out, like jump on a Peloton bike.

And I do that every single day, just to try to stay fit and eating right. And because  you need to take care of your body mentally, you gotta burn that extra stuff off man, you need it every morning.  I’ll probably work out for about an hour. And then I head into work and [00:03:00] once I get to the office we’re normally in there around  8:00 AM and we’re working from sunup to sundown.

And we probably meet as a staff around 9:00 AM. And it’s funny because nighttime is when you study and during the day is the test working here at Loyola, you got it. You got to come in with thoughts and ideas and how you going to make the program better. And the great thing about working for Coach Moser is he wants to hear from everybody.

So we study into the night watching film and then we get up, work out, go in to the office and we’re meeting probably from nine, 9:30 AM till right, right up until about five minutes of practice. And it’s crazy because we got six guys in our office, seven guys in our office and they all got laptops and we’re all sitting in the coach’s office with laptops, with something on your computer to show him or how we can get the program [00:04:00] better offensively and defensively player development.

You know, whether it’s studying different teams or they’re studying our team and we’re in there. I mean, we’re just breaking down film. We’re talking basketball, we’re game planning, we’re talking about the scout, we come up with a practice plan and it’s almost like a think tank room. And we’re just bouncing ideas off and then we come up with a game plan and then we go downstairs and, and coach is a very passionate high energy guy. Like he doesn’t lose. Doesn’t lose. That is not one day go by that he doesn’t have the energy at a high level. And we’ll watch film with our guys for about 30 minutes. Our get better tape, we call it. Get better tape from the day before whether it was a game, whether it was practice. We watched film every single day with our guys. Our guys watch film and they learn from it and we grow them as basketball players, we expand the IQs here at Loyola and you gotta be a basketball junkie to love this because we spend a lot of [00:05:00] time on the court and in the film room and we practice our normal hours.

And then afterwards, we go upstairs, back into the office and we watch film again, we watched practice as a staff. We take notes. And then we start our day over tonight. It’s funny because tonight Drake played, we play Drake this weekend. So we all got together. We went to  coach’s house and we sat around as a staff and we watched the game and we game planned together.

And it’s unique because that’s the reason why we’ve had so much success here over the last four years coming off of the final four and two NIT’s. And, and then what a chance to, to get back to the NCA tournament this year. We just got to take care of business the next five games.

So it’s a journey I  literally just got home and I got to the office around eight o’clock this morning, so it’s every single day, but you know [00:06:00] what? You love it you learn and you grow from it. And it’s the reason why we are successful. And I’ll tell you, it’s nothing like winning

Mike Klinzing: [00:06:08] isn’t that isn’t that the truth. That makes all that work.

That much more enjoyable clearly when you can put some W’s on the board and you guys have put a bunch of W’s on the board this year, what’s been the key to your success this season? What’s special about this group?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:06:24] That’s a great question because everyone is trying to compare it to the final four team.

And you can’t really do that right now until after the season. If you really want to compare, but what makes this team unique is we get high character, young men in our program. We got five seniors that believe in not buy-in, but they believe in everything about our culture and our culture is something you see in how we play whether it’s a culture play, whether it’s given a verbal whether it’s how [00:07:00] hard we practice.

It’s very enjoyable when you can spend so much time watching film as a coach and your players do the same. Technology is great because now we can see it. Whatever I’ll watch tonight. I can send that to our guys to watch on their own and you know what, they’re all going to watch it.

And they’re all going to have an answer. We got great leaders, you know our team GPA is a 3.5. Those are the type of young men we’re around. I heard a coach say one time I either want to coach a pro or I want to coach guys that are going to be CEOs and run their own companies one day.

And I tell you, man, we get 13 scholarships and there’s no doubt. I think all 13 guys. One day can run their own business and be CEOs or doctors or whatever it is that they want to be. There’s not a better group to be around when you’re around high character, young men, it’s enjoyable to come to work every single day.

It’s enjoyable [00:08:00] to prepare these young men every single day, whether it’s for the game or for the game of life. And it’s enjoyable as an assistant coach to be here at Loyola, Chicago

Mike Klinzing: [00:08:09] What’s the balance? When you start thinking about that and the quality of the kids that you have that are part of your program, what’s the balance between recruiting for those characteristics of kids that are going to fit into your culture versus having that culture established where you bring a kid in, and then you’re able to acclimate them to the culture. If that question makes any sense. So what’s your balance between what the kids’ natural tendencies versus how much does the culture of the program influence the kids once they’re in the program?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:08:44] Well, the culture has a lot to do with it too. And to be honest with you, the culture actually picks the player.

You know, before the COVID hit, normally you can bring guys on campus, they can spend time with your players and our guys are, [00:09:00] They’re like assistant coaches, man. Like if you bring a kid on campus, they’ll tell you right away, because if you don’t fit our culture. You know, our guys want to hang out with recruits when they come on campus for official visits.

And I tell you, we have so many layers to our culture that it’s hard for any guy. One guy to come in and try to penetrate that with being negative. And we just got the right guys in our program, the right leaders, and as an assistant coach, when you out recruiting for us and just talking to Coach Moser on a day-to-day basis and how we vet and go through so much information in detail.

You know, it’s, I don’t want to use the word ridiculous, but we go through it with a fine tooth comb. Like we, we sit down, we evaluate the character, the basketball piece. We talk to everyone around the kid. We spend a month, we spent as much time with [00:10:00] their kid, not just one coach, but everybody that can, that’s able to talk to this young man.

We talked to him. We gang recruit man. And you know, we all come back with our own evaluations and we try to get the, we try to pick the right guy that’s going to come in and fit our culture and actually take our culture to another level. And we got young men in our program right now. That’s probably that came in as the best player on the high school team.

And right now they’re probably not playing a lot of, not a lot of minutes as a freshmen, but you know what? They show up every single day and practice and they work hard because our seniors do a great job of leading them. Our seniors do a great job of showing them the way so when they’re gone, They can pass that torch on to them.

And that’s how you keep your culture strong. And our guys do a great job at it.

Mike Klinzing: [00:10:49] It looked like from a recruiting standpoint, when you’re out on the road or you’re watching film, what are some of the things? And again, we don’t have to talk basketball skills. Cause obviously there’s a level of [00:11:00] talent that a kid has to have in order to be able to play at the division one level.

But let’s think more along the lines of those intangibles. What are you looking for that is going to help you to understand whether or not a kid’s going to fit into your culture there at Loyola.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:11:13] They’re externals. What I mean by that is I want to know where they come from. I wanna know the parents. I want to know what type of parents they have, the home, the upbringing you know, who they hang with, who they’re around, because that tells you a lot, right there.

If they’re coachable are they a multiple sport athlete? Do they just play one sport? Can they, do they play baseball? They play football. What else do they do? And, and an extra time is, a lot of things that go into that you can, the externals are the most important thing because. everybody’s gonna miss jump shots and everybody’s going to I always tell young man, man, you probably gonna fail at the game before you succeed.

It’s the guys that learn how to continue to bounce back. [00:12:00] Like, you’re not just going to be successful like you were in high school. Even when you try to play professional, you’re not going to be as successful in college as you were in the NBA or Europe is like, it’s a learning curve. But the most important thing you gotta have is character.

You gotta have guys that got drive and passion  that know how to bounce back from adversity as willing to put the time in. And again, it’s not going to be perfect, but you know what. They are for the team. I’ll give you an example. We got a young man on our team. Two guys on our team who was all conference.

Pre-season all conference all conference last year started the first seven games for us this year. He’s coming off the bench right now and not because he did anything wrong, it’s just something we needed a different spark. And you know what, he’s still cheering and he’s still coming off the bench right now.

He’s still scoring. He’s still playing minutes. He’s for his teammates, he’s happy and he’s still playing defense. Like it’s no issues. And those are the young men that you win [00:13:00] with. That’s not selfish. And the more you can find those types of guys, they are very rare.

But if you can get a group of them together and then bring those guys into your culture and we spend a lot of time on culture. Every single day, we’re trying to build our culture up. We give our guys some type of information to get them to understand a strong culture. We’re always educating them on that.

And that’s something we really believe in.

Mike Klinzing: [00:13:29] What does that look like? Is that sharing a story with them? Is that giving examples is that. Pulling out a quote and talking about it, is that having the guys communicate with each other, with the coaching staff, what does that daily culture building look like at Loyola?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:13:43] Well, for us every single day we spend time with our guys and I always always go, I always think of this. And when I think of our culture now, coach Moser always talks about one of, one of his famous quotes is. You know, how you [00:14:00] think is how you feel, how you feel is how you act and how you act is what defines you and everywhere in our locker room, there’s a coded message.

When you look on the wall, whether it’s a basketball, a message, whether we’re giving them quotes, and it starts from the top down, our culture starts from the top down. It starts with coach Moser and he’s culture every single day. It’s not a day that he takes off. And it’s not about culture. We treat every, everybody with respect and we care for each other.

We love each other. It’s a brotherhood, it’s family. Our guys love hanging with each other. They trust each other on and off the floor. You know, I’ve been doing this for 21 years and It’s hard to find a culture or coach teams that don’t have any hiccups. And. If we got film at three o’clock, everybody’s there at 2:45.

Everybody’s there getting treatment. Like, we don’t have, we don’t worry about or have to deal with any off the [00:15:00] court issues. We strictly deal with basketball. And that’s the reason why our program has been very successful because we got the right type of young men in our program that want to be successful on a basketball court, but they also take care of the business off the court and in the classroom, in the community.

And when you can spend less time worrying about saving someone’s life and helping them become a better basketball player, you get the results that you see right now at Loyola Chicago.

Mike Klinzing: [00:15:26] Yeah, absolutely. I think when you, as a coach are able to put your faith and your trust in the young people that are part of your program, that they’re going to make the good decisions that they need to whether or not you’re there as a coaching staff by their side, or whether they’re just out in the school community.

It just makes everything a lot easier and it makes your program have the opportunity to have the kind of success that you guys are having this year. When you think recruiting, this is a question that I always like to get people’s takes on [00:16:00] and you’re going out to evaluate a player. Obviously there’s two settings where you’re going to watch that player.

You’re going to see him play with their high school team and you’re going to see him play with their AAU team. So when you look at those two different environments, how do you weigh what you see in those two environments? And what are you looking for? Do you look for specific things in each one of those settings, maybe something different in AAU that you look at in high school.

Do you put the whole picture together? Just talk about how you balance seeing a kid play with their high school team versus seeing them play with their AAU team in the summer.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:16:34] You know,  that’s another great question because you know, so many people put so much on AAU nowadays and AAU is good. It’s a great environment because you get a chance to see a young man compete against talent that you probably wouldn’t compete against in high school.

But I think high school is the foundation piece. I’m [00:17:00] old school, so I always start with high school because. I think your high school coach knows you a little bit better because of the classroom setting because of the other teachers that’s involved you know, dealing with. The leadership skills, cause you’re probably a little bit better of a leader in leading your own program at a high school level, as a player, more so than AAU , because you’re playing with so much more talent in you.

And I think you really get a chance to know who you are with your high school team. And I think the AAU is a big component of it too, because I think you also get a chance to see the young man compete at a higher level in AAU. So I try to balance both of them. But I also take with the high school coach is saying a little bit more seriously because of the academic pieces there. He sees the kid every single day, he’s involved with, and he knows the parents. He knows his home life. He [00:18:00] knows who he is in the classroom. And so they spend a little bit more time, but also value the AAU coach. You know, who are you when you’re uncomfortable, when you’re not in your environment?

Who are you? And I think the AAU coach can give you a really good picture of a young man when he’s not in his own environment. And he’s uncomfortable. And  I think  that plays a big part in that and some of the things that I look for are leadership, toughness and how hard you play. I know that’s very simple, but it’s hard to find and today’s game where you can get a young man to play with a high motor every single day and played with some toughness and play through some adversity. So I try to start with that foundational piece first, and then it’s obvious you gotta have the basketball skillset depending on what program you’re recruiting for.

And I know here at Loyola, we really want skilled guys, guys that can dribble pass and shoot. If you watch us play. Everybody [00:19:00] on the court can  pass  and Shoot. We play with four guards and the big, so we got to play with size. We’ve got to play with guys that can shoot the ball. If you can dribble the ball they can pass.

And I think the X factor for us is IQ. We run a ton of plays. We run a lot of offense and our guys gotta think quick. We’re very detailed in our Scouts. We’re very detailed in how we run our program. And we got to have guys that can think quick and got a high IQ basketball IQ that can also do the work here as a student athlete here at Loyola Chicago, and, and that’s a big part of who we are and what we look for.

Mike Klinzing: [00:19:34] All right. So share with the parents of high school basketball players and maybe with high school basketball players themselves. One of the things that you just said is how important basketball IQ is. And I think anybody. Who knows the game. You can walk into a gym and sit down. And within the first, probably 30 seconds to a minute, you can watch the game and you can tell me who the [00:20:00] best player is on the floor, regardless of whether that player missed two shots or made two shots or whatever, it’s just the kid.

I always describe it as that. Kid’s a basketball player and those are the people that you’re looking for. So if you had advice for. A kid who’s a high school player or for the parent of a high school player who wants to play college basketball. What’s some advice that you would give to them about what they should be doing as an AAU basketball player in the summertime.

Cause that’s, I think probably where we run into the most problems of kids playing selfishly to try to get the attention of college Scouts. So what advice would you have for players and parents of high school athletes.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:20:43] Well,  I would tell them I tell my two sons, one of them, one of my sons played at Washington State for Ernie Kent and ended up playing at Wyoming too.

And then now I got another son that [00:21:00] just left prep, prep school, and now he’s going to junior college and, and always tell them, I say, look, here’s the deal. You want to play division one basketball? But what are you doing every single day to separate yourself?

And think is obvious. You got to work on your basketball skills, but what are you doing every single day to separate yourself? And then the advice, the advice I will give young people today is I think you’ve got to have a motor, a high motor. I think you got to play hard. I think you gotta be in the best condition.

I don’t necessarily think you gotta be the best shooter. But I think that it helps to be able to shoot the basketball because that’s the way the game is going. So I tell young people all the time, really work on shooting a basketball really work on being able to handle the basketball. Passing the basketball, but more importantly playing the right way.

How hard do you play on defense? Do you pick your [00:22:00] man up 94 feet? Do you turn them? Offensive rebound andn boxing out all the little things, all the little things add up. And sometimes I think young people get thinking it’s just about scoring points or being the main guy on the team.

And that’s not necessarily what college coaches look for. When we come into gym, depending on what program and I’ve been recruiting for 21 years and I always tell people I don’t recruit players. I recruit programs. I want to know the best programs in Ohio. That that wins the state, the St Edwards, the shaker Heights you know, the Garfield.

I want to know the best programs because it’s a reason why those programs are winning. And we want winners as college coaches. You know, if you think about, if you think back to our 2018 final 4 team, they had nine guys on that team that won state championships, not necessarily double [00:23:00] figure scores, but nine state championship teammates all together on that final 4 team, those guys were winners. They come in from winning programs. So when you look at a young man today, I’m not necessarily looking at the skill. I want to know what program is he coming from? Who has he been under as a player? Who is he learning from? Because now if I bring that winner from that program into our program and I’m coaching them hard and I’m doing the things that I need to do as a coach, a coach here.

Hey, I know he’s not gonna fold. I know he’s not gonna fold on me. I know he’s going to give me everything you get. And when it gets hard and we hit adversity, I know he’s gonna fight through. You want to build your team and be around winners. And we got right now, we’re 17-3,  12-1 in the Missouri Valley.

And we got one guy in double figures. We’ve got one guy in double figures. Everybody else is like nine, 10. You know and then I think there’s one guy at [00:24:00] 16, we got one guy. So that should tell you everything you need to know about our program. We don’t care who scores. We don’t. You gotta build your program around unselfish guys that care about the program, the culture that want to win. And that’s the most important thing for us when we go out and we look for that and that’s the best advice I can give parents. You want your son to be around a winning program. That’s what they’re going to look for.

Mike Klinzing: [00:24:28] Yeah I think that that’s so underrated is that winning mentality and whether or not it’s translatable to the next level. When you think about players who put up big numbers on a losing team and. At a certain point, you become, you become almost immune to the losing. You just don’t, it doesn’t bother you as much as it probably should.

Jason, I actually have this conversation all the time about, about our hometown Cavs. And when you’re [00:25:00] tanking as an NBA team to try to get a high draft pick and how damaging that could be at a certain point, you might be able to do that for a year, but if you try to lose for two, three, four years in a row, Man, that gets tough to be able to try to overcome that and have the kind of culture that you need, especially with, especially with young players, it becomes a huge, huge challenge.

So let’s go back in time. To when you were a kid growing up and your experiences in the game of basketball. Tell us a little bit about your first memory of the game of basketball growing up. And we’ll kind of work our way through what you were able to accomplish in the game as a player, and then we’ll get into the beginning of your coaching career.

So we’re going to kind of spin it backwards.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:25:45] For me I grew up. Early on, on the West side of Cleveland and Cudell recreation center on West Boulevard. And that was the first time I actually picked up, picked up a basketball [00:26:00] and that rec center you know, literally saved my life, man. I spent every single day in the summertime.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with Cudell rec center,

Mike Klinzing: [00:26:12] I lived on a hundred third Baltic. Okay right down by West Boulevard. So I lived there for like two years, so yes, I know Cudell

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:26:19] I spent a lot of time there and that’s where it started. That’s where the love for the game started at a very young age and you know, Playing near Cudell and then playing throughout the inner city of Cleveland growing up in the rec center, the rec centers in Cleveland helped me turn into the player.

I was when I played at shaker Heights high school. And it’s just, it’s one of those things. I we all have a love for the game and that’s the reason why we’re on this podcast tonight because we just, we love it. We are passionate about it. And for me literally I feel like basketball was a vehicle for me to get to where I am today. And, [00:27:00] and, and the reason why I coach today is because I want to give back to the game. And the way I give back is by helping young people, because I felt like my coaches did the same thing for me. They helped me and it gave me a path.

They gave me a blueprint to be who I am today. And it all started at Cudell rec center. Man is as funny as I was actually there at could deal about a year ago. And I took some pictures and time flies, man. It flies and that’s where it all started for me on the West West Boulevard.

Mike Klinzing: [00:27:35] It does go fast. There’s no question about it. You can look back and part of you feels like, Oh, that was just you know, that was just a day or two ago. And then there’s other parts of you that like, Oh my gosh, that was forever. And a lifetime ago, back when I was back when I was a player, what’s one piece of advice that a coach gave you as a player that still stands out to you in your mind today, something that you remember the exact [00:28:00] conversation where they said it, what they said, who said it what’s something that you remember that one of your coaches said to you over the course of your time playing with them?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:28:10] You know? It’s funny. Cause I had a lot of coaches that meant so much to me growing up I just didn’t play for one coach. And, but the one  coach, I I want to talk about is actually two of them. Bob Wonson used to be the head coach at Shaker Heights high school, and he coached college basketball with George Raveling at Washington State and USC and Iowa, he was an assistant coach and then he took over at Shaker Heights high school.

And you know, the one thing that I learned from, from coach Wonson as a player and the one thing he always told me was your identity as a ball player, who are you as a ballplayer, when a coach or your teammates see you every [00:29:00] single day, what are they going to say about you?

Or are they gonna say you’re somebody they can count on or  somebody that they can’t rely on? Like it’s, it’s either one of the two, like. Like when I show up and I come to practice, I want everybody to know I’m gonna have, I’m gonna have passion. I’m having energy. I’m a bring it. I’m gonna play hard.

Regardless of whether I score zero points or a score 20 points we win, or we lose, you’re going to get the same person every single night. And that’s something  that has always stuck with me about, regardless of the situation, whatever adversity situation you’re in. It doesn’t matter, you should be the same player every night, regardless of whether the ball is going in the hole or not.

You should, you should be the same guy every single night. And nobody should never question your heart and your toughness playing the game of basketball. That’s a great piece of advice.

Mike Klinzing: [00:29:55] Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. And I’ve heard that said a lot [00:30:00] of different ways be, be the same person every day.

I’ve heard it said where being that being every day guy that you’re showing up, regardless of what happens. And I think that there’s, there’s a tremendous amount of value in that. And I think it’s, it’s one of those things that it’s very easy to, to say that that that’s the kind of person I am.

And as you know, it’s very, very difficult. To, to live up to that standard as something that if you can hold yourself to that standard, you’ve really got something.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:30:27] Right, and I think as a coach right now, I mean, when you come to practice who’s going to show up every single day. You know what you’re going to get from them.

I think that’s all coaches really ask for. I know what I’m going to get from that individual, you know? And then you have some times where you got guys in your team, you don’t know who’s going to show up. You don’t know who he’s going to be today. You know, it all depends on if the ball is going in the hole or if things are going right for him, he might show up.

But if not, he might not show up. I never wanted to be that guy. And I learned that at an early [00:31:00] age my ninth grade year at  shaker Heights high school playing football.

Mike Klinzing: [00:31:05] It’s amazing. When you think about that as a coach and we’ve all, no matter what level you’ve coached at, everybody’s coached players who are like the ones that you just described that are everyday guys that you know what you’re getting day in and day out every single day.

And then conversely. We’ve all coached guys, who you have no idea one day to the next we’ll kind of move that player’s going to be in and what kind of effort they’re going to bring. And those guys are really, really difficult to deal with. And when you start talking about build the culture, you either have your culture where it kind of weeds those guys out from your program or.

You get a guy who maybe has a difficult background, who maybe wasn’t an everyday guy, but you get them in your culture. You get them surrounded by the right kind of people and you help them to turn your life around. And I think that’s something that when you’re talking about whether it’s middle school [00:32:00] basketball or high school basketball, especially where you’re not getting to recruit kids to your program, but you’re getting who walks in the door.

And I think that’s one of the big responsibilities that high school coaches have is to be able to relay those kinds of messages that coach watch and share with you there. That just, Hey, you gotta be, you gotta have an identity and be an everyday guy that your coaches can count on. And that’s transferable to everything you think about any profession.

You know, just think about what you’re doing now. Coach Moser expects you to be who you are every day expects you to bring that enthusiasm. And it’s not like, Hey, I wonder which Jermaine’s going to show up today. Is he going to be the guy who’s clapping and bringing enthusiasm or is a different day, you can be standing over in the corner.

And I think it’s a lesson that’s applicable to every walk of life.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:32:43] For sure, for sure. And it’s something that I think every young man needs to have in their life and in their culture and their characteristics of being an everyday guy.

Mike Klinzing: [00:32:57] All right. So talk to me a little bit about [00:33:00] your recruitment as you obviously have a very, very successful high school career at Shaker Heights.

So you play four years of varsity basketball for coach Wonson. And at what point does college basketball come onto your radar. Was it something that you always knew you wanted to do? And then just tell me a little bit about the recruiting process and that we can get into talking about what went on in your college career?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:33:23] You know for me, I always knew I wanted to play college basketball. And again, I played for a guy who played in college. I mean, who coached in college at Washington state, Iowa And USC for George Raveling. Who’s a Hall of Famer who’s a legendary coach. So I used to hear all these stories and the times I used to go over to you know, coach Wonson’s house, I used to see all these plaques and photographs of teams from Iowa and Washington State and winning championships.

And I’m like, man, one day I want to play at a high level and play in college. [00:34:00] And it’s something that I worked on every single day in high school. And I knew from the beginning, I always wanted to play in college and I’ll end up leaving Shaker Heights and finishing my career at Virginia Tech and came across some great coaches at Virginia tech I played for  Bobby Hussey and Ricky Stokes at Virginia Tech.

And then also play for some  great assistant coaches at Virginia tech Danny, Maurice, and Dean Keener and I’ve just been blessed to be around so many great coaches. And my, and my life Randy Peal,  Mark Klein. I had all those guys as assistant coaches at the division one level.

And I think for me, the reason why I felt like I was always successful and had a great career is because my foundation was great for my high school coaches and my AAU coaches.

Mike Klinzing: [00:34:52] Did you always know when you were playing that when you were done, you wanted to coach, was that always on your radar or was that something [00:35:00] that once you got done playing, it came on?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:35:02] No, I’ve always wanted to coach and the reason why. And I said this earlier in the podcast, I said it was two coaches Bob Wonson and the other guy name is Al Slawson. Al Slawson was the head tennis coach at shaker. He’s in the hall of fame for high school tennis in Ohio.

And he’s the reason why I wanted to coach. He was the best man in my wedding. You know, and much older than me, but he was a guy that as a coach, he influenced so many people at Shaker Heights high school in so many different ways. It, he just touched lives. He transformed lives and the way he carried himself as a coach, as a teacher as a professional is something that I always admired and always wanted to be him.

Whether I was coaching college basketball, the coach of high school basketball. Or teaching in high school, I’ve always had [00:36:00] that burning desire to teach and whether it was a high school or college, he was the guy that influenced me. His name is Al Slawson. I still talk to him to this day. He’s a hall of Famer, a tennis coach, and he’s a great coach, a great coach.

And he actually. You know, my 11th and 12th grade year, I spent a lot of time with him and talking to them about what is coaching all about? What is it, why do people coach? Why do you want to coach? And he influenced me. And when I got finished I went right into coaching because I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Mike Klinzing: [00:36:34] How’d you build that relationship with him?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:36:36] He was my high school math teacher. And I always tell people this, I don’t know if they make teachers like this when I was growing up, but teachers are, I don’t know how the teachers are today, but when I was coming up in high school, we had some of the best teachers you can find.

You know, I still have personal relationships with my high school teachers today. I can literally pick up the phone and [00:37:00] call them, and that’s the type of culture and the community that we had at Shaker when I was going there and I always told them, man, I had that relationship with him in the ninth, 10th grade where we can sit and talk.

He used to work me out in this in terms of the weight room and strength and used to come in and talk to the team on leadership. He used to give us books to read throughout the summer and it was just, he had a mentor relationship with me. He used to, he drove me down to basketball camps.

He came to visit me while I played at Virginia tech. He was just there in my life and that’s what teaching is all about. And that’s why he was the best man in my wedding. And he played a huge part of that. And that’s the reason why I’m coaching today. It doesn’t have anything to do with basketball.

It has something to do with transforming and helping young men get to get to where they need to get to in life. So it’s a 40 year relationship for me, not just a four year relationship. When a kid comes to a campus, [00:38:00] it’s a bigger picture for me. And that’s the reason why I do it.

Mike Klinzing: [00:38:03] That’s a great story. And it’s one that when you think about what you do as a coach, Jason’s a teacher, I’m a teacher. When you think about what you know, we try to do as teachers, as coaches, your impact has to go beyond the basketball piece of it, which anybody who’s listening to the podcast. And I can hear your passion for the game of basketball, come through loud and clear.

And yet at the same time, you also have a realization that it’s about more than just basketball. It’s about developing young people into the best version of themselves, whatever that’s going to be. They could be, maybe they’re going to stay in basketball and they’re going to be a professional basketball player.

And they’re going to end up being a basketball coach or a basketball executive or whatever. Or maybe they’re going to leave the game behind when they’re playing career’s over. And go and be a doctor or a lawyer or own a business or whatever it might be. But ultimately as coaches and as teachers, what we try to do is we try to have that [00:39:00] impact.

And the fact that coach Lawson had that impact on you is, I mean, that’s incredible. It’s an incredible story, especially considering that he wasn’t a basketball coach and I mean, that’s right. So that’s an amazing, that’s an amazing story that somebody who cause you think about. Most kids. You probably tell you weren’t a tennis player.

I’m assuming. No, I wasn’t. Okay. So you know, most of the time when you make a connection with an adult, as a kid, you’re probably making a connection with somebody who has. Something directly in common with an activity that you’re doing. So I’m sure that that’s a pretty unusual relationship. I doubt there’s very many coach of a sport that I didn’t play athlete relationships out there.

Like, like the one that you just described

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:39:47] That’s correct. Yep. That’s hard to find. And you know, he was like that for not just me, for many students. His name will always go down in history at Shaker Heights high school [00:40:00] and those hallways, because he meant so much to, to, to everyone in that community, like I said, that community is big time, and the students that they develop, the people that hey develop are successful. And it’s funny, we were talking about this because I always hear coach Moser talk about when we recruit guys here at Loyola, he wants to recruit guys and coach guys that he’s going to be friends with for the rest of  his life. He just don’t want to coach them. He actually wants to be friends with them afterwards. Like he wants a relationship, it’s a friendship. And, and I think that’s a very, a very unique perspective on it because you know, some guys coach you just to coach you.

And then when your four years is up, is up I’ve been very fortunate to work for coaches like Gary Waters and Porter Moser, and those guys, man,  these guys are high character [00:41:00] coaches that really believe in developing young people, but also having a relationship with these young men.

And hopefully one day I’m at your wedding hopefully hopefully one day I know your family. That’s what this whole thing is about it’s not about basketball. Basketball is a minute piece to it. It’s a bigger picture and a bigger picture is it’s a 40 year relationship, m

I want to be there on your wedding day. I want to know your children. I want to be able to speak to you afterwards after this man is, and we’re talking about this and if Swanee, because I just heard the head coach at temple the other day, talk about John Chaney and what he mean for him as a mentor. And those are organic man, it  is natural. It’s. You know, old school coach and man, they had relationships with their players for a lifetime.

Mike Klinzing: [00:41:56] Yeah. I think that’s one of the things that is really, [00:42:00] really critical to having a good experience. And I look back on my time playing at Kent state.

And one of the things that I always, I don’t know if regretted is the right word, but I always felt like our coaching staff while I was there, we didn’t necessarily build that type of relationship that. You’re talking about. And for me, one of the best experiences of my life occurred in this past year, I got reconnected to actually three of my coaches from the time I was at Kent and I probably haven’t talked to, I maybe ran into one of our assistants, coach Dave Grube. I had maybe run into him one time actually at a Cleveland state game, probably I don’t know, 15 or 20 years ago, and got reconnected to coach Grube through coach Steve Moore at Wooster who we had on the podcast.

And he’s like, Hey, coach Grube is right here in town and let me connect you back to them. And so I ended up getting on the phone with coach Grube and probably talking to him [00:43:00] for an hour and a half. And it was like, we had been apart, I hadn’t talked to him for whatever 20 years.

And it was like, it was just like yesterday and made you feel like, Oh man, we should have reached out to one another mutually to be able to reconnect. And then I also got connected back with Jay Smith, who was my assistant, my freshman year. Who’s now at Michigan. With Juwan Howard?

And he was that he was a coach at central there for a while at central Michigan. And then Jim McDonald was my head coach at Kent. And I think coach McDonald is about, he might be 83, 84 years old. And I gave him a call this summer and I sat out on my deck and he was a guy who, I honestly, I haven’t talked to him in whatever 32 years or whatever, since I since I got done 30 years and had a two hour conversation with him and the things that he remembered about my career about my family. Like I think about all the [00:44:00] players that played for him. And he was asking me how my sister was and you know, these different things. And it just made you realize that there was there obviously was a connection there. He obviously did care about it, but I’m not sure at that time that he necessarily knew how to foster that relationship. Whereas one of those conversations that I just, I mean, I walked away from that conversation feeling so good that I had called him up and that we had gotten a chance to talk and reminisce and it was just a, it was just a lot of fun and it makes you think, and it made me think, I felt this way kind of at the time.

And immediately after I graduated that I wished there had been a tighter relationship and probably some of that was on them. And probably some of that was on some of that was probably on me as a player. And but I think those lifelong connections, what you go through as a coach and a player, especially at the collegiate level is so emotional and so intense that it’s almost.

[00:45:00] I don’t want to say it’s easy, but it feels like it’s, it’s almost easy to be able to build those relationships just because what you’re going through is such an intense experience. And I’m sure that you find that both went back when you were a player. And also now I’m sure as a coach.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:45:14] Yes, I do. And again, I  feel like I’ve been blessed man too, as a coach, as an assistant coach to be around some high level coaches that got it and understood what culture was and relationships and coaching basketball  and great coaches. And now I don’t think everyone gets that, but I’ve been blessed to be around coaches like that. And I was blessed to be around as a player.

I was a blessed to be around really good coaches that understood that it was about relationships and the Reason why I’m, where I’m at today and the type of coach I am now. And I love when I get text messages or emails, coach I’m looking to get into the [00:46:00] business. Can you help me? Hey coach I’m getting married, man.

Here’s the date? Can you come? It’s just one of those things that I get a joy out of that. More than being ranked 22nd in the country this way because, because the rankings come and go nobody cares about that at the end of the day, but at the end of the day, When this is all said and done, and I’m done drawing up plays it’s about relationships and the impact that you’ve had on young people.

And for me, I think the biggest achievement that I can get as a coach is when a parent calls me or parents, a mom and a dad called me and said, thank you for helping my son he was struggling. Thank you for helping him grow. He’s maturing. I’m seeing that he’s maturing. I’m seeing that he’s different.

He told me about the conversation that you had with him. I mean, as a coach, that’s what you, that’s those, the feedback that you want to have. And again as [00:47:00] basketball and we use basketball as a vehicle to get guys better and to move on with their lives, but how are you impacting the next person?

You know, how are you serving the next person? And that’s what it’s all about for me.

Mike Klinzing: [00:47:11] I think it does come down to you’re balancing those two things. You’re balancing building that relationship with that young man and trying to get them to understand how they can be at their best and be at their best on the basketball floor.

Be at their best in the community, be at their best as a student. And when you do that, Then you’re going to build that relationship. And as you said, it’s just extremely valuable and it’s extremely gratifying when you have those kinds of conversations. I always say that there’s nothing better than when the phone rings or you get a text message.

And the first thing that you hear, or the first thing that you see is, Hey coach. And yeah. You know, that’s just, there’s, there’s nothing better than that. And I felt like when I called and spoke with coach [00:48:00] McDonald this summer, and I said, Hey, coach, and I could just hear kind of in his voice, how appreciative he was that I had picked up the phone.

And again, this is whenever I graduated from college in 1992. So it had been a long, long time, but by the same token, You had that conversation and it’s kind of like an old friend, like you immediately fell back into shared memories and experiences that you had. And I just, I left that phone conversation feeling I couldn’t, I can’t even describe the feeling.

It was just, it was just a special feeling that, to know that. You know, I had spent four years together with him as my head coach and part of me during that intervening time between my career ending in that phone call, part of me felt like there was, there was something that was missing. Like it was, it was a little bit sad to me that that connection wasn’t maybe as strong as I would’ve liked it to be.

And that phone call just made it all, [00:49:00] made it all come back. And, and I think that was one of the, like I said, it was one of the richest experiences of my life, just because. I hadn’t, I hadn’t spoken to him in years and years and years. So let’s go back to, let’s go back to you getting into coaching. What was your first experience like you go to Howard college.

Was it everything that you expected it to be? Was it different? Did you immediately love it? Just what was that first experience like when you go from I’m transitioning from playing to coaching, how are you feeling about that transition? Is this something you’re immediately like, Oh yeah, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:49:34] You know, I got thrown right into the fire. When I graduated from Virginia Tech, Randy Peal, who was an assistant coach at Texas Southern used to be the head coach at Winthrop. He was an assistant coach at Virginia Tech at the time he connected me with Chris Jans who’s the head coach at New Mexico State.

And I worked for Chris. Chris gave me my first opportunity as an assistant in junior college and I drove from Ohio, from Cleveland, [00:50:00] Ohio to Big Spring, Texas. And I pull up in Big Spring, Texas at around 7:00 PM. The sun’s going down and Chris Jans brings me into his office and he says, Hey, we got five kids that need to get picked up in Texas.

Here’s the keys to the van. It’s a 15 passenger van and it’s gonna take you three hours tonight. Probably about four or five hours to get to where you’re trying to go. So I’m driving. I get in a van around eight o’clock, 8:30, my first day on the job of pulling in.

And I’m making trips around Texas picking up young men to bring them back to campus. And It was a great experience, man. I knew right then, you know that this is something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And it’s a great experience, man, when you can get thrown into the fire like that, and you got a chance to start building those relationships right [00:51:00] away, I’m talking about from the first pickup.

I’m having a conversation with a young man about his life, his family, his basketball career the expectations, what it’s going to take, how you going to get there, giving them a vision, helping them through his problems. Like. It started right away. And that’s something that I always wanted to do.

And we had special teams when I worked for Chris Jans. So he’s a successful coach at New Mexico state, everywhere he’s been he’s won. And then from there left and I worked for Mike Garland, who was, who was a long time assistant for Tom Izzo. And learn everything I needed to know about Michigan state basketball and coach Garland was a great mentor of mine.

And I left Mike Garland and I went to go work for Steve Lapis at UMass who worked for Rollie Massamino at Villanova and won a national championship, left Steve Lapis and worked for Dane [00:52:00] Fife, who at the time was the youngest head coach in division one. I think he got the job in 25 years old 24, 25 and helped them turn that program around at IPFW. And then I went back to Cleveland State and I worked for Gary Waters for 10 years, who was a big mentor of mine. And he taught me so much about basketball.

Taught me so much about character and what type of coach you need to be and how to build a program and how to turn around a program and left there and ended up working for Eric Musselman at Nevada and knew Eric prior to that, knew the history of his father who used to be the head coach for the Cavaliers.

Eric kind of grew up in Ohio for a short time. And just all the coaches that I’ve touched over the years. I mean, it’s has been a journey and I leave Nevada go work for Allen networks who played at Kentucky for Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith. And what the [00:53:00] three straight final fours and won three national championships.

He was a winner. So I just been blessed to just be around unbelievable coaches, unbelievable people. And then I left Wyoming and came to Loyola and here I am the day and I’m working for a final four coach in Porter Moser who turned this program around. So I just been blessed and it has been a great journey, has been a great experience.

And if I, if I had to stop coaching tomorrow, I tell you, I had a great time doing it. I made a lot of connections. I won a lot of games. I helped build programs or helped turn around programs. And it’s just been a great experience. I met, I worked with great, great assistant coaches, friendships that’s going to last forever. And I talked to those guys every single day.

Jason Sunkle:  Jermaine. I have to just germane. I have to ask you, you’ve met all these great people. I want to know what is sister, Jean really like?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:53:55] like sister Jean is you will never [00:54:00] meet a person. who’s a hundred years old with so much energy and passion before COVID-19 hit you know, when I first got to campus and I’m like, wait a minute.

So we have an all staff meeting and she’s running the meeting. At a hundred years old like this Lee, I couldn’t believe it. She’s a hundred years old and she’s running the meeting and speaking and talking as if she was still 50 years old. And and I’m like, man, I, I pray that I can live to be a hundred years old and to be able to think.

And still have the right state of mind and still be able to do the things that she was doing. It’s unbelievable. I’ll tell you, I hear a prayer. I hear our prayers, every, every game she prays for our guys every game. And I never thought I would hear this before, but I mean, she’s pretty funny.

And you know, she, she, when she’s praying, she’d always say she she’ll say you know, dear God I hope. [00:55:00] I pray that our guys come out and, and shoot a 102% are afraid at our guys are pray that the other team doesn’t make a shot. You know, so is fun just to hear all the great things she’s done and, and, and how much she’s impacted our program here and how much she means to our program.

And. Our guys still see her on FaceTime. She FaceTimes the team before every game and she prays for it. So, and she’s 101 years old. Like it’s amazing that she’s still going strong and God bless her soul and hopefully she stays safe throughout this pandemic,

Mike Klinzing: [00:55:41] She’s technologically advanced using FaceTime.

That’s impressive. That’s impressive. At a hundred years old. I don’t know if I can figure it out half the time.

Jason Sunkle:  So I tried FaceTiming Mike one time and he was like, what are you doing? So pretty impressive.

Mike Klinzing: [00:55:53]  I got to stay up. I gotta stay in my lane on technology. I can figure some stuff out. You throw some new stuff at me.

I [00:56:00] could be in trouble. So it’s been interesting. What’s been the biggest challenge with COVID this season. What’s the biggest challenge that you guys have faced this season as a coaching staff and as a program?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:56:12] Really, probably social distancing probably not spending as much time one-on-one because of The COVID probably not it’s you’re not touching it as much. Everything is organized to where you see them at.

They gotta be distant, six feet apart from each other. You gotta be distanced from when you’re talking with them you gotta have a face mask on. So it’s probably just an intimate conversations to be able to after practice, to sit down. You know, kick your feet up a little bit, coming to office or talk on the floor and you just, just hanging around a guy and just spending that time with him at his apartment, you can’t or going to see him and walking them to class meeting them after class, bringing them back to [00:57:00] them, like you’re missing all those.

Situations where you’re a little bit more intimate and a little bit more one-on-one I think that’s been the biggest challenge. You know, for us, even though we still practice every day, you just don’t touch them off the court as much because of the color.

Mike Klinzing: [00:57:15] Are you guys, are you guys having class in person online?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:57:19] Some combination of it. Yeah. Online everything’s online right now for guys. But school is starting back at Loyola. We got a few students on campus, but right now everything is still online.

Mike Klinzing: [00:57:31] Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, I mean, everybody’s trying to figure out and trying to navigate it and it’s just been, it’s been a challenge and I think we’re all thankful at this point, if you’re involved in basketball in any way, shape or form, whether you’re an athlete, a parent or a coach, any games that.

You get in at this point or just, I feel like it’s all icing on the cake because even you go back to September, October, and I think there was a chance that. We weren’t going to have a season, especially at the high school [00:58:00] level. I think college, it was probably more likely that they were going to push forward and figure out a way to get it done.

But regardless, I’m sure that every day you’re thankful that, Hey, at least we’re getting a chance to get out on the floor and compete.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:58:11] Right. Correct. Correct. And then that’s, that’s the big thing you get out on the floor you can compete I know some of the games are postpone where we had to miss.

Miss some games, but you know, everything’s going to be caught up hopefully by the end of the year where everybody can be on the same page and getting ready to play.

Mike Klinzing: [00:58:32] All right. So when you look back over the totality of your career, what’s something that you think that you were really good at coaching wise, right from day one.

And then what’s something that you feel like you came in and maybe weren’t as strong at that over the course of your career, you’ve developed your ability in that particular area?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [00:58:54]  For me off the court felt like I was always a natural at building [00:59:00] relationships with the guys and mentors mentorship with those guys.

I had a natural connection. I always had a natural connection  with players and just understanding them, kind of walking through their shoes before and can relate to him. And just always having a relationship open door policy, where guys can come talk to me about anything.

And I think on the court, I’ve always taken pride in pride in player development, getting guys better. You know, one of my things, one of, one of my big responsibilities at Cleveland state was working our guys out Norris Cole, Cedric Jackson you know, Bryn Forbes all these guys had a cup of tea in the NBA.

Norris Cole is a world champion. I’ll work with those guys every single day. I mean, we had four NBA players at Cleveland state during my time there. So player development is a big piece of it. And I think as I went on I’ve always had a love for the defensive side of the ball. And as you continue to grow, [01:00:00] you know, in today’s game, you start realizing, I think the most successful coaches are two way coaches.

They’re great on both ends of the floor. I don’t, I don’t think you can be a coach. That’s just one off or offensive minded. I think you  gotta be great on both ends. And that’s something that over the last three to five years of my career is just really having a better understanding of the offensive side and the defensive side.

And, and just also having a better understanding of how to continue to develop the right culture. And having the right people around the culture and that fits the culture and developing, developing the staff to help you win at a high level. And, and that’s the biggest thing. I think you gotta be a two way coach, and now I’m glad I’m working under coach Moser because I think coach Moser is one of the best offensive genius coaches I’ve ever been around. And he’s a two way coach. That’s why we are one of the top defensive [01:01:00] teams in the country this year. And one of the best offensive teams in the country, we work in on both ends of the floor.

Mike Klinzing: [01:01:06] So you’ve been at a lot of places and you’ve worked under a lot of great coaches and. At each one of your stops, you’ve talked a little bit about some of the things that you’ve learned from each of the programs and coaches that you’ve been fortunate enough to work with as you’re going through and you’re working for them as an assistant.

How are you cataloging the things that you’re learning and are you cataloging those things and starting to think about what you might do if you were to get an opportunity? As a head coach to run your own program. So how are you sort of preparing along the way for maybe it’s just your next assistance job, maybe it’s the next opportunity that might come your way to be a head coach.

How are you organizing all of the things that you’ve learned? Do you have computer files? Do you have old [01:02:00] fashioned three ring binders? Are you taking notes in a journal? Just what’s your way for keeping yourself. Organized as you look at your professional life and where you’re headed in your career.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:02:11] Well, for me have a video a video database of everything that I want to teach, whether it’s our all offense and our defense and our drills. I have a video database of all, probably from Cleveland state to Nevada, to Wyoming, to Loyola, Chicago. A video database, but also have every practice.

And then I have a journal. And in that journal, I have it broke down based off offense, defense player, development, culture, and offensively. Each tab would have transition secondary the type of offense I want to run. And then from defense based off your shell or positioning, whether it’s press.

Pressing [01:03:00] half-court defense philosophies, terminology. All of these things are in a journal, a three ring binder, and it’s not a lot, but it’s enough to get started because I’m a firm believer to be great. You got to continue to learn. And I think I got a great foundation of what I want to be and who I am.

In terms of my identity on the defensive end of the floor and on the offensive and on the floor if you watch our teams play here at Loyola, I think  I’m pretty sure that’s how my teams are going to play. We defend, we’re tough defensively and if you watch us play, we, our offensive philosophy is based off how you guard. So we just don’t run offense. We run on offense to offset what you do defensively. Each game is different.  I think that’s how you, I think that’s when you become a great offensive coach. When, [01:04:00] regardless of what your plan against whether zone, whether it’s switching, whether it’s not switching, depending on what ball screen coverages that that team is showing you should have something off offensively to be able to offset that.

And then I think for me, I think you have to grow your kid’s mind. Your player’s mind to be able to understand how to play the game, not just a play, but how to play the game the right way. And to have feel for the game. And I’m a big, big, big component of that as a coach, teaching your guys how to play the game the right way.

Mike Klinzing: [01:04:35] How do you do that? Like, what does that look like? And when you’re trying to help a player increase their basketball IQ, which is kind of what you’re talking about here, how do you help them to develop a better feel? What does that look like from a player development standpoint, from a team development standpoint?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:04:50] You gotta watch film.  We watched film here every single day. You know, we call it get better. And as, as assistant coaches, yeah, we might watch it [01:05:00] as a team, but each assistant coach have two to three guys that they watch film with on an individual basis. Like if you see us going to practice here at Loyola, Chicago, we got no books and computers with us on our way down to the floor, everybody.

So when practice is over with, before we go watch film as a staff, we might spend five or 10 minutes every single day with our players just having clips. And it’s funny, you’re talking to me about this because our video coordinator Pat, we were talking today. I’m like, we got seven video coordinators, we just don’t have one because everything is about video nowadays. And we actually are sending video to our guys to watch individual clips with notes on them and, okay, this is how this cuts should look like. This cut needs to look more like this. This is a bad cut. So you need to take, like, we [01:06:00] are so attention to detail, whether how to cut, how to pass.

Stepping into your shot the right way, setting screens on what half of the body do you want to set the screen to be able to get a better angle for the ball handler? Whether it’s the outer third or the middle third or the inner third of the body? Whether we sit in a tilt screen, like everything is detailed and, and that’s how guys learn.

Like, if I’m gonna be honest with you, our terminology and what we do here at Loyola. If you know, we got a wall of culture here. And for our culture, the way we teach you, regardless, whether you’re watching our game or the Drake or Northern Iowa game tonight, our guys can be able to look at that game and use our terminology to dissect that game and still know what’s going on in the game.

So you’re not just watching the game. So our culture might say, reach for the lights. If I text the guys or I’d [01:07:00] say something to our guy and practice a player in practice, they reach for the lights. He know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t need to say anything else. I don’t need to teach you because you already know the technique.

Mike Klinzing: [01:07:11] I got two questions here. So one let’s go with that terminology piece. First, when you’re talking about teaching that terminology, is that something that’s just done? Because repetitively through practice through meetings, through film, You’re just repeating that terminology. Or do you guys have like an actual, for lack of a better way of saying an actual dictionary that you put on paper for guys and say here here’s some of the terminology that we use or here’s all the terminology that we use or is it more organic?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:07:41] It’s both. Our wall of culture. You’ll see. Every term that we use in our locker room is on paper and is also on video. This whole summer, we spent so much time on zoom with our players and we went through our terminologies, just so they have a better understanding, [01:08:00] you know, through you through the rim what does that mean?

Okay. Here’s is a great picture of it. And through this video, we’re going to show you this as a great threw you to the rim, edit and then reaching for the lights, escape the paint it was just so many different things. So when we add it all up, Now you get what you get right now, because now it’s easier for us to coach our guys because all I have to say is reach for the lights or throw you through the room better, or strong chest where resist.

It’s like they just get it and they understand it, and that’s the great thing that I’ve learned here with, with coach Moser, man. And he worked for Rick Majerus and you know, Rick Majerus is a hall of Famer and everybody’s learning every single day is something new.

Every single day and our guys get it, they understand it. And that’s how we teach.

Mike Klinzing: [01:08:53] That’s something I’ve been terrible at is coming up with terminology. I’m the guy who likes to give the two minute [01:09:00] explanations of the same thing that I just explained two minutes ago.

It’s so valuable to have terminology that, as you said, you could take what could be a concept that might take two minutes to explain and just boil it down to three words that are cues that players automatically know what it is.

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:09:24] That’s just a code. It’s a coded message. Absolutely. It’s a coded message.

As long as you know, the coded message. You can be successful.

Mike Klinzing: [01:09:34] Yeah I don’t think there’s any, I don’t think there’s any way. Like when I look back on my coaching career and I’ve really never been a head coach, except for just coaching my own kids, a few teams, but even on those teams, like I’ve done a bad job at times of.

Naming drills, like, all right, we’re going to do this drill. And it’s the one. Remember where we set it up like this, instead of just having a name for it and teaching the kids are, here’s what we got to go. I always end up being the guy. Who’s the [01:10:00] long-winded explanation. I’ve gotten better at it.

Jason Sunkle:  Hey, Mike, I got to interject here. Hold on a second, because I’ve worked with Mike for many years. Jermaine I’ve worked for many years at basketball camp. I think he does a fantastic job explaining it. I don’t think he does a bad job. I think he does a great job. And I know maybe  it’s because I’ve worked for them for many years when he says we’re going to do this.

I know exactly what he’s meaning  is he’s probably better at it at camp than I am in a practice. But, I want to be clear. I think Mike does a good job and that’s all I’m gonna say.

Mike Klinzing: [01:10:32] Thanks for joining. Thanks for jumping in and defending me against myself. I appreciate that.

All right. So the other question I had about film, how do you guys balance out the positive versus the negative? In other words, when you’re showing your guys. Film and you’re sending them clips. How much of what you’re sending them are, Hey, here’s a great job. This is what this cut should look like.

Or here’s what this screen, this is exactly what it [01:11:00] should look like. We need to see more of this versus sending of stuff. Hey, here’s where you should have executed this backdoor cut like this, but instead you made this mistake. What’s the balance between them seeing what they’re doing well, versus what, seeing mistakes that they made, that they need to improve on?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:11:17] Well, I think the most important piece to that Mike is educating you guys. That is no such thing. As you know, they’ll have the mindset of it’s negative, how the mindset have the mindset of getting better and using words like improvement over. You can improve here. You can have better, you can have better effort here.

I learned this from coach Edwards a long time ago, when I first started working in Wyoming, don’t criticize the person, criticize the act. And I think once, once you, once, once they understand that concept, that you’re not criticizing them. You just trying to [01:12:00] correct the action. That’s all you’re trying to do.

And so when we send these tapes or these edits out, or we’re watching film with our guys, it’s, nobody’s taking anything personal. We can, we can sit there and be truthful and have an honest conversation that that’s not good enough. That’s not how you win, you know this will get you beat.

You know, these are the things that we talked to you about, you have to be transparent with everybody. If you, if you’re going to have a strong culture like we do here. And, and I think for our guys, that’s why I love coaching these guys because we don’t have those issues where guys take things seriously.

I mean, to take things personally. So we just send it out. We get better. We move on. It’s done.

Mike Klinzing: [01:12:52] How long does it take you to build that level of trust with a new player that comes into your program? Because obviously [01:13:00] if a kid’s been there for a year or two years, they get to know you, they get to know what the staff’s all about.

They get to know what the culture is all about. But when you’re talking about a freshman that comes in or you get a transfer that comes in, how long does it take for you to build that type of relationship and that type of trust where. You can have that brutal honesty with them about look, here’s where we need better effort.

Here’s what we need you to do. X, Y or Z. How long does that take?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:13:27] To be honest with you, I think it has a lot to do with the relationships you already got established within the program with your seniors and juniors, your upperclassmen, your veteran players, because those are the guys that’s going to bring those guys into the fold because those freshmen are going to spend more time with those seniors in that upper-class, more than they are with you.

In a bit, the better your relationships are with your veteran players and they see how you coach them and everybody’s treated equal. And everybody’s getting coached hard, regardless whether you [01:14:00] Cameron Crutwig or Lucas Williamson everybody’s going to get coached.

And then once they see the transparency, the honesty in that and how you coach your veteran guys, your best players. They don’t have no choice, but to buy in. And I’m sorry, I don’t even want to use the word buy in. I want to say believe in, right. We, they believe in what we’re doing. Not buy-in they believe in what we’re doing.

And sometimes you can have some freshmen that kind of come in and they still strong minded a little bit, and they think the average 26 points, a game of high school that they’re going to average 20 points a game in college. So you gotta bring those guys into the fold. Right.

But I think once they see how hard it is and how hard you coach your upper upperclassmen, your veteran players, and see how tough you are on them and film, when you’re watching film with the team and you hold those guys accountable. I think those guys will be more willing to buy in because they see you as a coach [01:15:00] coaching everybody the same way.

Mike Klinzing: [01:15:02] I love that we’re going to coach everybody hard. That’s a great line. When I was an assistant coach at Richmond Heights, were Phil Schmook for many, many years. And I can remember numerous conversations that. Phil had with parents where we’d be talking about some issue or something with the program. And Phil would always come back to that line.

And he would just say, look, if your kid’s going to be a part of our program, whether they’re the 12th man, or they’re the number one player on the team, we’re going to coach them all the same way. We’re going to coach them. We’re going to coach them hard and we’re going to have demands and we’re going to make them get better and we’re going to get them to buy in. And that was just something that stuck with me. And I think if you can, if you can get to the point where as a coach, as a program, as you said, you’re coaching everybody the same way, and you’re putting demands on all your players to get better.

Then, as you said, players have no choice, but to believe in what is going on, when they see [01:16:00] everybody being coached hard,

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:16:01] Right. Right. And that’s just a competitive environment that we have. You know, people ask all you know, people ask all the time, man, your environment, what is it like? It’s competitive.

Everything we do is about competing everything. So if you’re, if you’re not ready to compete, you’re probably not gonna make it. So where the desks in the classroom, we were always talking about competing get better. Whether it’s fashion, whether it’s player development whether it’s practice, whether it’s an, a game is a competitive environment and it’s a lot of passion and fiery moments and you gotta be able to handle that.

And I think you handle a little bit better when you see everyone else, everybody else getting treated the same way and coach the same way.

Mike Klinzing: [01:16:46] Absolutely. Do you guys chart, do you guys chart wins and losses and stat and you stat practice? Just what do you guys do with, in terms of that, in terms of creating a competitive environment within your, within your team?

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:16:57] We follow a [01:17:00] process. Everything is about the process. Yes. We do keep charts as shooting drills and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, it’s about competing inside. You know, we just want to have that energy and that passion and that competitive edge every single day.

And I think that’s the most important thing because sometimes when you start charting things, it just becomes a practice run out. And I think for us, what we’ve always tried to have was energy, passion, enthusiasm. That’s the hardest thing to bring every single day to practice where it’s not just a rollercoaster ride we’re trying to continue to move that needle to the right, as much as possible on having a competitive environment.

Mike Klinzing: [01:17:50] We are just about to start another day in your life as an assistant coach at Loyola of Chicago. So we are [01:18:00] coming close to an hour and a half. I want to wrap up with one final two-part question. And this is a question that I’d like to end the show with a lot of times, because I think it gets to the heart of who you are as a coach.

And the first part of the question is what is, as you look ahead, what is your biggest challenge? And you can put that in terms of. Short term, you can put it in terms of longterm, but just what, as you look ahead in your career, what’s the biggest challenge that you think you face. And then number two, when you get up out of bed tomorrow morning, what is the biggest joy?

What’s the thing that puts a smile on your face. When you think about being an assistant men’s basketball coach at Loyola Chicago. So your biggest challenge and your biggest joy,

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:18:46] I think for me personally as an assistant coach I got into this business to be a head coach one day and as assistant [01:19:00] coaches, sometimes the biggest challenge can be moving six inches over to the right and being able to run your own program one day.

And I think the biggest challenge is having another institution or athletic director and president believe in who I am as a person. My character, my talent and my ability to run my own program one day. I think that’s the biggest challenge for me. I don’t know how I don’t know about other assistant coaches, but I think that’s the biggest challenge.

I wake up every single day and I’m thankful that of my family You know, my wife and my kids and, and my relationship with God. And that’s the first thing that comes to mind when you say joy and then secondly will probably be the opportunity that I have in front of me to impact the young man at [01:20:00] Loyola and have the opportunity to coach them, but going to work every single day to be able to work with the staff and coach Moser is a joy because I’m always learning. And those guys are preparing me to one day, be my own head coach. And that’s hard to find in this business when you can go to work and spend that much time with the staff for eight, nine, 10 hours a day. And you’re with them probably a little bit more than you are  with your own family.

And you got to have joy. And you gotta love those guys. You gotta be in a foxhole with the foxhole, with those guys. And I love being around them. I’m always learning and it’s a great relationship here and it’s hard to find, and that’s something that I covet every single day.

Mike Klinzing: [01:20:49] That’s a great answer. And I think it speaks to the theme that kind of came through the whole podcast.

I think anybody who listened to that. The whole entire episode is not surprised at [01:21:00] all by your answer. And before we get out of here and wrap things up, I just want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, how they can connect with your program there at Loyola Chicago. So if you want to share some social media or website, and that will put all that in the show notes as well.

And then once you’re done with that, I’ll jump back in and we’ll

Jermaine Kimbrough: [01:21:20] Oh, they can connect with me any way in terms of. My email Jkimbro@luc.edu, and then they can also I’m on Twitter. My Twitter handle number, his name is one second Jermaine  @JermaineK I M B R O U. As my Twitter handle name and they can, they can reach out to me via Twitter, too.

Mike Klinzing: [01:21:50] Perfect.  That’s awesome. And like I said, we’ll throw that in the show notes so people can find it if they want to connect with you and just pick your brain or talk some hoops or whatever it might be. Maybe you got some [01:22:00] Loyola, Chicago fans out there that want to just you know, say hello and, and touch base with you and Jermaine.

We cannot thank you enough for spending almost an hour and a half with us tonight at the end of. What, as we know from listening to the episode, a very busy day for you. So we don’t take your time lightly and we really do appreciate it. And as a fellow Cleveland guy it was an honor to be able to talk to you and we really appreciate it.

And to everyone who’s out there listening, we appreciate you and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.