JOE WOOTTEN – BISHOP O’CONNELL (VA) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 1095

Website – https://coachwootten.com/

Email – joe@coachwootten.com

Twitter/x – @Wootten_Camp

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Joe Wootten is the Boys’ Basketball Head Coach at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia.  Has averaged 25 wins per year in his 26 years as head coach and led O’Connell to 5 Virginia State Independent Titles, 3 WCAC Regular Season Titles, 4 Alhambra Catholic Invitational Titles, and 2 WCAC Tournament Titles in the past 14 years.

Joe has been selected as the Arlington County Coach of the Year four times, WCAC Coach of the Year once, and Virginia State Independent Coach of the Year three times.  Known for developing coaches, he has had one college head coach, nine Division 1 assistant coaches, and ten head high school coaches work with him before advancing in their careers.

100 of Wootten’s former players currently play or have played college athletics.  Ten of his former players have played professional basketball overseas and two are currently in the NBA.

Wootten was named by Silverwave Media as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Men’s College Basketball in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Joe played and started at DeMatha for his father Morgan Wootten on a team that posted a record of 30–0 and finished the season ranked No. 5 in the country.

Wootten serves as the Chairman of the McDonald’s All-American Basketball Game Selection Committee and Games.  His wife Terri Lynn, who joins us for this episode, also assists with both the Coach Wootten Basketball Camps and the McDonald’s All-American Game.

On this episode we discuss the illustrious career of Joe Wootten, the head coach of the boys’ basketball team at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia. With an impressive record of 25 wins per year over his 26-year tenure, Wootten has cultivated a reputation for excellence in coaching, evidenced by multiple championships and accolades, including five Virginia state independent titles. The episode delves into Wootten’s philosophy on coaching, emphasizing the importance of teaching fundamentals, fostering a love for the game, and establishing meaningful relationships with players. A significant focus is placed on the integration of fun into rigorous training regimens, as Wooten discusses various drills and scrimmage formats that maintain an engaging atmosphere during practice sessions. Furthermore, the episode highlights the critical role of the McDonald’s All-American Game, of which Wootten is a longstanding committee member, underscoring its impact on youth basketball and the importance of selecting players based on merit rather than external pressures. Wootten’s wife, Terri Lynn, joins the conversation which ultimately encapsulates Wooten’s enduring commitment to shaping not only skilled athletes but also well-rounded individuals, reiterating the profound influence that coaches can have on the lives of their players.

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Be ready with pen and paper as you listen to this episode with Joe Wootten, Boys’ Basketball Head Coach at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia. 

What We Discuss with Joe Wootten

• Growing up as the son of legendary DeMatha High School Coach, Morgan Wootten
• The importance of youth sports camps in developing both basketball skills and fostering a love for the game among participants
• The Wootten basketball camp has impacted over 275,000 kids, focusing on teaching basketball fundamentals while promoting camaraderie and personal growth among participants
• Youth players should focus on efficiency over flashy skills
• Keys to building strong relationships with players
• The McDonald’s All American Game, where Wooten serves as a committee chairman, showcases the top high school talent and focuses on their future potential in basketball
• The McDonald’s All-American Game’s selection process is unique, based on a democratic committee system that values player performance over shoe team affiliations
• The Ronald McDonald House visit is a highlight for players, emphasizing giving back
• The evolution of coaching practices and adapting to changes in the game
• Insights into the structure and organization of practice to maximize player engagement and learning
• Starting practice with shooting to build confidence
• Incorporating toughness drills to teach physicality
• Why his coaching philosophy revolves around simplicity, fundamentals, and building a love for the game among young athletes
• How simplicity in coaching leads to success
• The need for players to understand their roles on the team
• The impact of a supportive family environment on athletes
• Success in coaching is about the collective, not the individual
• Reflecting on practice sessions to improve future performance
• The importance of emotional control in coaching
• Communicating belief in players while also challenging them
• Practice sessions are structured to evaluate players in competitive situations

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High school and middle school basketball program directors, listen closely. Coaches are expected to do far more than just coach. You know this. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing the coaching yourself, or you have a full staff of coaches with you. You know very well that coaches handle scheduling, academic issues, parent communication, leadership development, and even mental health concerns for athletes. A lot to deal with, and they haven’t even gone home yet to balance those responsibilities.

No matter the passion for the game, and burning desire to help athletes develop, this level of responsibility can lead to burnout, inefficiency, and less time spent on actual coaching. You know it’s true.

When coaches are stretched too thin, it impacts the development of athletes, team morale, and the overall success of the program. Now here comes the outsiders throwing their two cents in about what’s happening. Then come the parents complaining about how you’re running things, as if they know what they’re talking about. When’s the last time you went to their place of work chiming in from outside their window?

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Are we offering planners that you can get at the dollar store as a solution? Of course not, but we are starting a conversation with you to see if our programs can be a compliment to what you’re already doing. Let’s find out. To learn more visit https://playmakerplanner.com/stop-is-this-for-you

THANKS, JOE WOOTTEN

If you enjoyed this episode with Joe Wootten let him know by clicking on the link below and thanking him via Twitter.

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And if you want us to answer your questions on one of our upcoming weekly NBA episodes, drop us a line at mike@hoopheadspod.com.

TRANSCRIPT FOR JOE WOOTTEN – BISHOP O’CONNELL (VA) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 1095

[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 be joined by Joe Wootten, head boys basketball coach at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia, among many other things that we’re going to get into here tonight with Joe. Welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod Joe.

[00:00:19] Joe Wootten: Good to be with you.

[00:00:20] Mike Klinzing: Excited to have you on looking forward to diving into all of the interesting things that you’ve been able to do throughout your basketball life. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. For those who don’t know, Joe’s dad, Morgan Wootten, longtime coach at the DeMatha High School.

First Coach to be elected from as a high school coach to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Joe, tell us a little bit about your first experiences with the game. What do you remember from being a kid and just being around your dad and being around the game?

[00:00:51] Joe Wootten:  I remember being around his teams, going to the games, going to practices.

 I think you pick up a lot as a coach’s kid through osmosis, you’re surrounded all the time. My wife actually, Terri Lynn, her dad was a 30 year high school basketball coach. So our kids were inundated with it. So I think a lot of it was through osmosis as a young kid.

But I remember being around and when I was a kid, people would always come up to me and say, oh, your dad’s a legend.  and obviously he was just your dad. So it didn’t always ring true. But obviously in hindsight I was very fortunate and we were great friends. I probably did more things with him and more capacities than probably most sons do.

I was his assistant coach, I played for him. I was his opponent. I coached against him. I was a business partner at camp. Great friend. He was our mentor. So just so many great things.

[00:01:40] Mike Klinzing: When you think back to that time and being around his teams, do you have. A player or two that you remember that sort of gave you the special treatment that you looked up to, or somebody that kind of gave you a little bit of special interest when you were younger?

[00:01:58] Joe Wootten: I mean, obviously all the, all the guys were really good to me when I was younger.  I when I was really young, I used to like carry the balls onto the court and I used to kind of be like a manager and then  obviously worked my way up. But Danny Ferry was a senior when I was probably middle school.

And  and, and obviously Derek Wittenberg, Sidney Low we’re always at our house. And  Hawkeye Whitney who played at NC State  he he lived with us and, and, and and I remember we went to my dad’s uncle who down in southern Maryland had a great family Thanksgiving.

And  I’m the youngest of five and we’re all arguing the way back. From the great Thanksgiving and, and Hawkeye had come from a  a tough, tough tough part of town. And, and, and he turned us and he unloaded us. He said, I’ve never had at Thanksgiving like that. And you guys were the most selfish kids.

 you got, you should be appreciative. And my dad was so excited and he’s like, that was awesome, because we didn’t say word the rest of home because Hawkeye said, my dad had said it, maybe not as much. So we looked up to the players we loved them and they, they were part of the family.

[00:02:56] Mike Klinzing: When you were growing up, were you thinking about the game of basketball from a coaching perspective? Did you always know that you wanted to coach or were you somebody that you loved to play, you loved to be around the game, and even though you sort of had this coaching lineage, maybe you were just focused on being a player.

Where was your mindset? What were you thinking about or were you even thinking about it at all in terms of as you got older, what maybe where you wanted to end up in terms of basketball? You

[00:03:25] Joe Wootten: know, I, I, I honestly never consciously thought of it. I’m sure maybe again, I was around it.  my freshman coaches, he always called me Hewlett Packard because  what if,  what, what if this guy comes down the left side?

How do we rotate on defense? I would always ask all these questions, but I, I didn’t obviously recognize that that was maybe kind of the coaching me. I never really thought about consciously coaching. And then I was a walk with the University of Maryland my freshman year in college. And then afterwards my high school teammate who ended up being following my dad at Matha, coached against for many years.

A good friend of mine, Mike Jones and I were working his day camp and he lost his JV coach who had gotten a head job. The freshman coach was going to move up, and so I said to him, I’m still in college, and I was not going to you, you assistant, he.

He said I don’t know. I said I, I’d like to do it. I’d never thought about about it before. And, and then I coached the JV summer league team, kind of the B team the, the better sophomores from the varsity Riley Gore Summer League at, at Suland High School. And I just absolutely loved the connection with the kids and that’s why you coach.

And, and soon me after that I fell in love with it decided to become a teacher and a coach and, and the rest is history. And then I was 19, I’m 52, do the math.  many years later I’m still doing it.

[00:04:40] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I think when you talk about those relationships, right? I think that’s when I think about coaching, obviously there’s so much that goes into it, but so many coaches on here, Joe, have talked about the fact that when they were younger, maybe they thought about just.

They were consumed by the basketball side of it and maybe they put aside that relationship piece. And it wasn’t until they were older that they started to realize that, yeah, I have to understand the basketball side of it. I have to understand the X’s and O’s. I have to understand how to run a program. But ultimately the way that I have my biggest impact is through those relationships.

And it definitely sounds like that’s something that you were immediately connected to when you first, first took the job.

[00:05:20] Joe Wootten: Yeah, no, it was, it’s dumb why you’re getting coaching, but then you get away from it too. Like you start to focus on that, on, on those things. So you have to constantly remind yourself, why am I coaching?

And  kind of referring to our camps my father would always say everybody wants to do these new innovative things.  I, I feel like there’s, there’s always a new drill  you have 17 cones versus two cones. You’re a great coach in a drill, but, which I say that facetiously, but  the idea is that obviously the fundamentals, like teach kids how to play, build relationships, build great k great teams.

It’s not a complicated game. And, and so it’s kind of like success in business. It’s not complicated  providing good service, follow through, do what you say you’re going to do. And so one thing we always say at our camps, which are, which are really big camps, and we say we have two simple goals.

There’s, excuse me, we have one simple goal. We want to to love basketball and more at the end of the week, and they do at the beginning of the week. And the way we make that happen is teach in the game and have fun. So keep keep it simple and, and do the fundamentals.

[00:06:19] Mike Klinzing: That’s perfect. I, I always say I have three things and I always kick this off with parents and with kids.

I’m always like, one, we hope you have fun. Two, we hope we teach you something about the game of basketball. And three, we hope that when you leave camp that it makes you want to play more basketball and not less. And so it sounds like being a similar theory of, of what you’re talking about. And, and I think when you do that, then you’re doing right by the game.

And ultimately that’s what all of us are trying to do. I always say that there’s, there’s no way this, this little silly podcast that I do here is a small way of being able to give back to a game that there’s no way I can ever give back. What, what the game has, has given to me. It’s impossible. When you look back on your experiences with your dad and in all those different capacities that you talked about, and then you think about yourself as a coach, as a person who you are, are there one or two things that stand out to you that.

You can still think of, Hey, this, this part of me, this part of my coaching style, this part of who I am as a person came from my dad. Are there one or two things that stand out for you in that area?

[00:07:22] Joe Wootten: If I reflect, I don’t think about him every day, but  obviously, like I said, I I, I learned a lot from him and, and gained a lot from him.

I would say this, his ability to keep, keep things simple. I think there’s a genius in that the old theory, keep it simple, stupid  is that it’s, it’s not complicated. And he, and he would always say he had a few statements to make. He’d say, good teams do a few things well. Good teams control the tempo of the game.

 you have to really control the tempo of the game. And I would always kind of go back to what his favorite one was, was feel for the game.  and, and you mentioned Shane. Shane before, one of my good friends and member of McDonald’s committee.  I always called the field of the game story, which he, which he passed on to me.

Read ARB back who’s the great coach of the CELs was his good friend. Never lived in Washington, never lived in in Boston, always lived in a hotel, lived in Washington. They started the day camp in 61 and Damath in 64 or 63 as the, the nucleus of the team that’s going to be Power Memorial luau, cinder.

And they played the inner high All stars, the inner high. All Stars were the DC public school teams, and they, the math had gone undefeated in the, in the Summer league. And so they’re playing the inner high all stars who have eight future pros. So it was an outdoor court it’s like Rucker Park.

It’s, it’s packed three rows deep. There’s no place for red r backs. There he is sitting on the bench. Hot rod Hunley from West Virginia sitting on the bench. Bill Bradley, who was with the Nixon at the time, sitting on the bench. And Bud Milken, who was the coach of Maryland, so they lose in double overtime.

And, and my dad felt really good about it. So Red came up to, to to St. John’s the next day where him and Joe Gallagher, their did their day camp. And you walked by and wanted a cigar and going to go play tennis and says, Morgan how you doing? Good morning. We have things, anxiety. He said, he didn’t mention the game.

I thought the game was great. So he says red, what’d you think of the game? He said, I’m a young coach. You my dad always go fishing for a compliment. And he said, what I think of the game, Morgan, I think it’s a shame you cost your team the game. I said rev, what do you mean? He says, you lost the field of the game.

You turned spectator. You love the game. So you start watching all the great players make great plays, but you didn’t see what was impacting the outcome of the game. If you’re going to be a good coach, you have to have a feel for what’s impact. Don’t be a fan, be a coach, coach. So that’s probably one of the biggest lessons I learned from him.

And my dad always called it the field of the game. And that can be a business that can be off the court, on the court. We have to constantly adapting, constantly be communicating and constantly leading. How long did it

[00:09:45] Mike Klinzing: take you to develop that? Obviously it’s something that I’m sure is ongoing, right?

You never, we never completely have a handle on the game. We never, we’re always learning. We are, we’re always evolving as a coach. But how long into your coaching career were you till you felt like you were able to do some of those, those things, see some of those things that maybe someone else couldn’t see that would enable you to, to give your team or, or tell your team something that they needed in order to help them to be successful?

[00:10:12] Joe Wootten: Well, I think you always look back and say, man, if I had known last year, would’ve knew this year we’d be better. It’s funny I’m also the athletic director at O’Connell and, and so I’m in charge of the, the hall of Fame committee and, and my 2014 that I was fortunate to coach just got elected and they’re going to be inducted this fall.

So saying ’em all last night we were communicating via text and, and to hear their, their perspective was mind blowing in, in terms of like, you think they, they wouldn’t remember that. They wouldn’t, they wouldn’t remember those small details, but boy do they remember ’em so often, say like, it’s the comradery, it’s the relationships.

It’s getting through a hard practice together. Those are the things that are special. And they weren’t talking about who the Lean score was. They weren’t talking about who the Lean Rebounder was. It was, it was them as a team. And so I, and, and that, that’s really special which is great, but obviously I thought I did things well.

Then you adapt, you adjust. And I think I do,  a few things better now, but maybe not then, then you have to say, did I, did I get away from what I did? Well? So I think you’re, you’re constantly evolving, constantly challenging yourself to, to look at what you’re doing well and, and constantly growing.

[00:11:18] Mike Klinzing: Back to that first experience right. As the JV coach back at the matha. And then walk me through sort, sort of the steps that get you to the opportunity at O’Connell. I know when your dad stepped down, trying to figure out what was going to happen and how that was going to work. And then just, just take me through the, just take me through the stages,

[00:11:40] Joe Wootten: ?

So, so, so my, I was 19 going into my sophomore year at Maryland. I was a freshman assistant coach, so I started, I, I always say I, I have a guy come and say I want to start on the varsity. I started on the freshman assistant coach, like my dad started coaching an orphanage. So  if you get, if you, if you, I would say good players present their value.

Good coaches present their values. You don’t have to tell what you do, you show what you do.  and so I think obviously that’s a great opportunity to do it. So I was a freshman coach one year. Then the next year I was the JB assistant. And then my, what would’ve been my fourth year of college, I graduated early.

And I went and was an assistant, a restricted earnings coach, if you, that, that ring a bell. The NCAA and infinite wisdom named a position restricted earnings, which w was sued by the coaches. And, and I got a check for $48,000 like 10 years later. But neither here nor there. I was a cop assistant for year, and then I came back and was a freshman head coach in year four.

Three years, my dad’s varsity assistant, and then obviously he was ready to retire and obviously wanted me to kind of follow in his footsteps. And so that was kinda his plan. And, and obviously at that time the principal really wanted to open up the search and, and really do kind of  kind of what kind of, he was the one that wanted named the coach, which was fine.

And obviously he had the right to do that. So I decided to move on to O’Connell and and I, I got the opportunity there. And I’ve been there ever since. I just, just finished my 26th year. And  it’s, it’s been great.  I’m proud of my dad, proud of, of the math that I played there, but I’m an O’Connell man.

And really have loved being at O’Connell. So you, so you obviously have different experiences in your life, but all three of my children are either going or have gone to O’Connell. So I have a daughter that’s a senior at Maryland graduating broadcast journalism. She’s an O’Connell graduate girl that’s graduating this year is going to go manage for Kim Walkey at LSU, and then a son who will be on the be on the varsity team next year.

He’s been on the JV the last two years. So  it’s exciting.

[00:13:34] Mike Klinzing: Thought when you were at Furman that you were going to stay in college coaching, or what was the thought process at that point?

[00:13:40] Joe Wootten:  again, kinda my dad wanted me to come back and kind of,   take a look at, at, at, at the Dam Matha job.

And it’s funny, like the thing I liked about I, I feel fortunate for that year, Joe and Tapio was my head coach and phenomenal guy. What I loved about that is it kind of gave me a, a, a look into the college world, which, which was enjoyable. It was a lot of fun, but it was different than, than high school.

 it was kind of, I felt like you had a greater impact in the high school level. because they were kind of boys coming into manhood. Were a guy in college is more of a man already. Not saying you can’t have an impact, but that, I just really liked that. So so I, I’ve obviously really enjoyed that, but I also enjoyed, like with the McDonald’s,  selection, the, the evaluation and, and doing stuff.

So I think there’s fun in every part of basketball. And so obviously I, I’ve been for, to do a lot of different levels.

[00:14:26] Mike Klinzing: Get back to taking over the O’Connell job. What do you remember about your vision in terms of what you thought the program could be, how you wanted it to get there, and how close were you able to sort of follow your blueprint in actually carrying out what you wanted to do?

A lot of times I think we as coaches have an idea of, okay, this is what I want it to look like, and then I get to a place and there are things there that either prevent or cause me to change paths in terms of how I want to get to where I need to go. So what do you remember about that initial year or two, taking over the job and what you needed to do in order to get it going in the direction that you wanted it to?

[00:15:08] Joe Wootten: I mean, I, I’m sorry. I was very fortunate.  I probably got two good pieces of advice, surround yourself with good people which is really important. And and I, I think you do that and then obviously you want to make sure that you’re, you’re taking care of the people that you’re working with.

So,  so ironically, you I, I took the job in, in the spring. I got married in July and my, my wife always jokes that like every date night was going out recruiting good young, young players as we built the program. So  I was fortunate to have really good assistant coaches.

One’s actually now the athletic director at firm, and he was my freshman head coach my first year at O’Connell. Left after four or five years of great success, went with Jay Wright and then obviously his great success there. And, and  still a good friend, one of the assistants a couple years later, still a good friend.

So I was really good.  have, have kind that family atmosphere and as I, I mentioned my wife met several times in this colleague she obviously is very into basketball, but she was an athletic trainer. And still is, but obviously she does so many other things now. And so we always had that family atmosphere and, and she was always very supportive.

So I think we always wanted to build a family atmosphere. I think we did that. I think we, we and my JV coach at the time would say if you build it, obviously the field of dreams, they will come. So we just built the infrastructure, . The training the camps, the clinics, the national schedule, the intense practices the placement in college.

And so you just really build that and, and work to, to, to build them. As young men, I always say, you want to use basketball as a vehicle to develop them. And and so I think we, we did we, we did that to the best of our ability and I took O’Connell the year before I got there. We got there with six and 20, and then we, we went six, won 16 the first year and 17 the second year, and then won 30 in a breakout third year.

And then it shows you kind of expectations get big. I had somebody come up to me and say, at school the, the fourth year we won 25 games and they said, tough year. I was like, again, I’m sorry’s going to be a victim here in success. So really proud and, and  love the people at O’Connell.

Love the love the job and, and love the impact on the kids.

[00:17:17] Mike Klinzing: From a basketball standpoint, as you look back over the course of your career, obviously the game has evolved and changed tremendously over the 26 years that you’ve been coaching. Just in terms of the way it’s played, how much the three pointer has impacted the game, how much the pick and role has become so much more prevalent than it was probably when you started.

I think back to my college experience playing college basketball from 88 to 92, and I could probably count the number of ball screens I defended in college on one hand, and now you look at the way the game has played, it’s just so different. So when you think about how the game has changed over the time that you’ve been coaching, what are some of the big things that you’ve had to adapt to or adjust to in terms of your philosophy offensively and defensively?

I don’t know if there’s, again, one or two things that you could maybe hit on that, that jump out, jump, jump into your mind there.

[00:18:09] Joe Wootten: So I think there, there’s stuff obviously from an X and O standpoint that I think you definitely have to always keep in mind the team that controls the tempo. So how are you controlling the tempo?

Whether that’s on the backboards, whether that’s your defensive pressure, whether that’s your offensive pace, you always have to evaluate that. Another I’m a big believer in is you have to get cheap buckets. What I mean by that is good teams get cheap buckets,  an out of bounds play.

 put backs posting up the right guys at the right time. because as much as the game changes, the it stays the same.  now guards post up smaller guards and so you don’t have the traditional post player, but that’s still a really important part of the game defensively. I think.  the idea of you.

We probably would’ve helped off the shooters early on. Now you’re probably going to stunt and stay. So there’s, there’s, there’s some differences there. I think because you can carry the ball and they’re not going to call it, it’s just not part of that. You can’t pressure the ball the way you once did.

Obviously they when it was a little bit more stringent on the carry, I think that was a little different. So those are some small adjustments. I think probably the biggest adjustment is every, and I always, I was laughing with, with a parent today, and then I’m I’m talking to about looking at the program is, and everybody says like, let’s play like Steph, like the Golden State Warriors.

Do you need Steph and Clay to play like the Golden State Warriors do. So like everybody loves Luca and, and LeBron and, and   Tatum and, and Jalen Brown and, and Celtics, those players.

You need to make sure that you’re giving roles to guys and help helping them be excited in the role accentuate the role and, and play to their strengths. I think that’s a really important part of the game. I think communication’s really big.  I think that it’s, it’s amazing.

Parents will listen to a guy in the stands that’s never coached an ounce his life, but has run drills, never makes sub whatever it is, and won’t listen to maybe a coach that doesn’t tell ’em what they want to hear. So I think that’s a challenging coaching now that trying to educate the parents.

I think you have to, it goes back to surround yourself with good people. You have to get people that buy into your program. And that really understand the long term. If it’s, and I say this in, it’s like in business, if it’s all about the, you as an individual, you’re not the bus, the company’s not going to be successful.

It’s about your success along with the company’s success. We can, we can work with that. So you, you won’t be able to that bring up the entire group, but also can fulfill their role.

[00:20:34] Mike Klinzing: How much year to year based on the type of personnel that you had, did you change your style of play offensively or defensively based on just the talent that you had on hand?

Or were you running your system and getting your players caught up to that particular system and kind of going through as they go through your program, they eventually get to the varsity level and now they’re equipped to play the style of play that that you want to play. Obviously there are some tweaks you make every year, but just curious as to how, how you went year to year.

[00:21:06] Joe Wootten: So, so, and, and that’s where I think we’ve adapted, like so early on, we, we really wouldn’t take a transfer.  we, we, everybody threw the freshman team up. That was kind of the standard. But now in high school basketball, kids are transferring all the time, so you kind have to adapt. And so I think you’re probably bringing your role guys through the program, but maybe that kind of difference maker maybe transfers in.

So I think you have to again, adapt there. Number two, I think you have to adapt in terms of your ability to really value certain things. IQ value.  and I always say this, if you, if you want to find somebody that’s a, a little bit better than Joe, you can always find somebody a little bit better than that guy.

But if we’re going to bring out, we want to find something that’s significant. Impact the kids, respect an impact player. They, they respect that, but, but we want to respect the roles that guys have. That’s number one. Number two, I think it’s really important that you adapt to, to be the strengths of your team, but certain things that are always true have to be really efficient.

Like people over dribble now, I think really good players are efficient. And the thing that I’m finding, especially when you talk to the NBA, they’re not looking for what the kids are being taught all these, they’re being drilled to dribble the ball 25 times. They want guys that are one too efficient get off it at one point there was a be a two second guy in the NBA, now it’s be a 0.5 guy, which I’m not sure if that’s possible, but, but the idea is efficiency, quickness, shoot a pass to drive it so, and understanding that spacing.

So to me, I think those are things you have to work on, but you also have to have guys that are, like, I always say to guys that you have to want to be coached. You have to be embrace it. And the, the equivalent I would give is this. If your mom comes to you and says, take out the trash, and you’re like. I guess so that you’ll do it, but you’re doing it begrudgingly.

If you’re, if that’s what you, you’re going to be coached, you have to be eager to be coached. And so to me, like, mom, I want to take the trash out. No, maybe not a great example, but, but you see, my point is you have to be eager to be coached and if you do that, you’ll be in good shape.

[00:22:59] Mike Klinzing: Take what you just said about the NBA in terms of what they want and what they’re looking for.

It’s interesting. I had a conversation, this was a couple years ago now, and it was the first time I ever heard had somebody express this to me. It was Mike Procopio, who at the time was with the, the Dallas Mavericks. And what Mike said to me was that so often when you think about. Youth basketball, high school basketball.

You think about sort of the, the, the trainer environment that we have now in modern basketball, and to your point, a lot of times when you see guys working with trainers, they are working on these 25 dribble moves and there’s 17 cones and all that kind of stuff and whatever. And what Mike said, he is like, guys get to the NBA.

Or let’s say they’re in the G League and they’re trying to make it to the NBA. And what they don’t necessarily understand is that for an NBA team, there’s maybe one guy on the team who gets free reign to kind of do what he wants, right? And everybody else is a role player. Everybody else has to do something really, really well.

And then they don’t really want you to do anything else. And it’s kind of the reverse, right? When we’re teaching youth players or when we’re coaching high school players, we’re trying to develop all those skills and then it’s almost like the higher level you get, the more. Specific that skillset has to be to fit into a role with your team.

And I think that’s kind of what you’re describing there. And then the other thing that I think goes along with that, that you talked about is being able to communicate as a coach to your player, what is your role and then why is that role important to the team? So maybe if you can address a little bit of how you talk to your players about, Hey, this kid over here is our leading score.

This kid’s going to get 15 or 20 shots in a game. You may only get four shots and they may all be put backs because whatever your role is to defend and and rebound or whatever. How do you have those conversations with your players to get that buy-in so that players want to be coached and aren’t just going through their role Begrudgingly, as you talked about.

[00:24:59] Joe Wootten: No, first of all, I love all the points you just made. I think that’s really, really important. And I think it also goes back to this is like,  so for example, I’m not a doctor. And so for example, if my son is a doctor protege, like he’s going to be a great doctor. I don’t now become an expert on how to become a doctor.

I need to go out and make sure I find the experts and become educated on those things. And, and obviously not just one person, but obviously look at all.  I think it starts with the parents making sure that, that they understand that who they’re talking to, what experience do they have, and really go to the source.

So, for example, and I’ll talk to my parents a lot about it, this is what NBA scouts are telling me at the McDonald’s practice. I literally had,  dinner the other day with the wizards GM and, and, and two scouts. They’re not talking about dribbling the ball to depth. They’re not talking about,   guide dunking on somebody.

They’re, they’re talking about length, they’re talking about space, and they’re talking about all the things we just talk about. So, to me I think that’s one of the big things that I, I always encourage parents to do is, . If your child’s interested in something, support them, but make sure that you’re you talking to the right people, that you’re not just talking to people that are telling you what you want to hear.

I think that’s number one. Number two is this. I think it’s also important to, to say to yourself is be their parent. I think what happens is a lot of times a really good player the player becomes the most important thing. No, they need to be treated like a young man and, and raised and, and challenged and get better what you want your own son to do.

If you do that, the basketball will take care of itself. One thing the NBA the Spurs did is a study that basically showed that the late bloomers. Are the best long-term pros because they’re, they’re not coddled. They’re, they’re, they’re, they may have maybe had to work and, and develop and, and have a little grit to do it.

Maybe had a resiliency to do it. So I think that’s really important. But kind of now jumping back, and I kind of did a long-term answer to your question, but now one that I think you do that is, so you need to educate the parents on that so that they’re getting the right information to the kids and understanding that they don’t have to score 25 points to, to play to get a scholarship.

I really don’t believe they do. I think they have the ability have to, have the ability to show they can do a few things. Well for example, if you can really shoot the basketball, that’s a game changer.  if you can really handle the basketball and understand how to, how to distribute that can change, change the game.

There’s certain things you can’t control. The height, the length. I think one thing that I’m seeing at the high school level, you have to have the physical size because with the portal now, they’re just not taking the high school guys. They’re skinny, even if they’re a good player, unless they’re a top 25, top 50 player.

So to me, those are things that obviously we we’re trying to always emphasize, but I think you need to get buy-in. And that’s why I started with that from the family to say like, this is what we’re trying to do. So that, and, and,   I, I actually talked to him this morning, but Melo Trimble’s in Russia now playing, played for me, played was a McDonald’s American, played at Maryland.

And he had 30 more times than I can count in an individual game. And his mom was always like, keep working, keep getting better. And he had 11 turnovers in one game as a sophomore and said, keep your head up. I sent him a text and said, you keep your head up. His mom said, thank you so much that you needed that.

But don’t  if you want players that are, you see steady growth with, I’ll show you a steady parent, I’ll show you an unemotional parent that, that’s long term, not short-term.

[00:28:20] Mike Klinzing: It’s a hundred percent right. And I think that anybody who’s gone through it as a parent, that you try to figure out what that looks like from your perspective as a parent.

And so I have three kids. I have a daughter that stopped playing basketball when she was in ninth grade. I have a son who’s playing division three basketball at Ohio Wesleyan as a freshman this year. And then I have another daughter who is a high school freshman who played on the varsity this year.

And even though Joe, like I know the pitfalls of trying to push my kids and have conversations and all those kinds of things, there’s still times where I think to myself, man, I’m pretty involved in this situation. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what it takes to be a good sports parent and to be able to do some of the things that you just described.

Right. And yet, I. I still sometimes find it hard not to maybe push too much or not to say this thing or that thing. And, and I know, I mean, and I, I’m as educated as anybody about it. And so I can only imagine how challenging that is for a parent who maybe doesn’t have the background in athletics that I have or that I’m fortunate enough to have and then be able to be fortunate enough to have those conversations with my kids.

I know it helped my son going into his freshman year this year of going in with expectations of, Hey, look man, it’s like this isn’t going to be easy. Like if you think you’re going to walk in the door and be able to play you got, you have to a whole nother thing coming. You have to work. And there, there’s a process to this whole thing and there’s roles and all and all this stuff.

And so I think that helped him to be in the right frame of mind as he went into that season. But I know, and  just as well that there are. Tons and tons of parents out there saying, oh man, you should be get, you should be getting 20 shots a game. And  this coach doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

I mean, you, you,  well that there are lots of those parents out there too, unfortunately. Right,

[00:30:19] Joe Wootten: right. And, and, and, and to me, they’re doing, I mean, do you go to your son’s or your daughter’s business and say your boss doesn’t know your team’s talking about like Right. Exactly. You’re not prepar for life.

And, and don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with every coach. It doesn’t mean a player has to stay with a coach forever. But I think obviously we learn from every situation. Some coaches aren’t as good a coach. They maybe, maybe they do things you don’t like, but you learn from everything.

But teach them that I’m a big believer. Control what you control. Control your attitude, control your effort, your energy  your attitude, your resiliency, because that’s a lot more important than what a coach. Absolutely.

[00:30:57] Mike Klinzing: All right. Tell me a little bit about your practices. How do you design them?

What does it look like? Do you have a similar flow to the practice every day? Where you go offense, first defense in the middle, player development? How do you just, how do you practice session?

[00:31:11] Joe Wootten: So, so you and I, I did take this from my daddy. He would’ve three boxes at the top of his, of his practice plan, offense, defense and other.

And so obviously you’re focused on the defensively offense and then obviously other might be out of bounds, plays time and score, fast break offense, fast break, defense kind of specials, if that makes sense. Shooting things like that. So those in, so we always kind of, I always try to start with an emphasis of the day, and I’m a big believer in that you, I like to start with shooting because everyone loves that feeling when they shoot the basketball and it goes through the net.

I mean, it’s just a great feeling. It didn’t happen for me very often, but when it did, I felt good. So the idea is that.  you had a bad day with your a bad day with your teacher, whatever, get in the gym and shoot feels good. So I think it’s a great way to warm up. It’s a great way to get loose.

It’s also adds up you get 10, 15 minutes of shooting it before every practice. I think it, it, it, it, it breeds rewards down the road. That’s number one. So we always try to do that. And then obviously we go right, right into what we call our toughness drills. So  so that would be Jamie Dixon is a good friend of mine who’s at TCU.

So we call it TCU. Some rebounding drills, charge drills. Box out drills physicality, because I really believe this, you have to teach kids to be physical, even if they’re a big kid. If they’re a small kid, you can teach ’em how to be physical. So I think the consistency of that is really important.

So we’re going to go, we’re going to go. So I, I kind of did what we do shooting. We then stretch. because I think obviously it’s important. Once you’re a little loose, we fall of the day, then we go into our toughness drills. From that point we usually go to de to defense. Start with transition defense.  try, try obviously some people call it conversion, we call it changing ends.

So obviously we able to change ends and, and pack the paint. We’ll do that with several different drills. And then we get into all our defense and we basically build from like one on one to two on two, three on three four and 4, 5, 1 5. We’ll then put doing different different things like shell man down shell, we call it fogler, which is a cutting shell.

We’ll do  let yourself get beat to work on the rotations, and then obviously close out after that. So we’re doing all kinds of, of those things. Switch of our defenses, and then up. Excuse me. And then then we moved our, our transition. So then we go our, our fast break, our three on two, two on one   convert  two on one, three on two, four on 3, 4, 5 on four, five on five, all those different things.

And then obviously we’re going to shoot some free throws, kinda the middle of practice. And then we’re going to break down our, our offense assembly. We’re going to go, we call post perimeter. So, and, and  that’s changed a little. It was, it’s probably more  guards hybrids now you get people that, but we’ll actually sometimes just mix our team up half and half, and we might work on guards posting up and we might work on bigs,   DHO and, and roll into the basket.

So doing some, some skill work in there for 15, 20 minutes. And then we get into kind of  whether it’s, really working our fast break as we did, maybe playing some fast break games, maybe working on our out of bounds plays, maybe working on our half court offense, man, half court offense zone.

And, and we do a lot of 10 point games, which we call controlled scrimmages. So you play the 10 and and they’re pretty quick games but basically they go, you go up you start on the offensive end, they go defense gets to stop. They fast break, come back, and then we’ll kill it.

And then obviously we assign points. So you just kind of trying to teach but also keep practice up tempo and and fun. And then obviously we always end with time and score. And and I think that’s a really important thing to get the kids to think goes back to IQ and, and making sure your kids I don want, one of my bad, my father’s big things was you can’t draw a play up at the end of, at the end of a game, expect a kid that’s never been through it, for them to execute it.

It’s just not going to happen. So making sure that you’ve gone through those, you can draw it up again to remind them, but at least they’ve gone through it.

[00:34:50] Mike Klinzing: Divide up the roles amongst your staff during practice in terms of what each one of your staff members is focusing on, what they’re doing. Just how do you, how do you utilize your staff during a practice?

[00:35:01] Joe Wootten: So, so one of the big things I always say I’m the lead voice, so obviously we’re all coaches, but I take that lead voice and I’m trying to get the overall feel and the leadership I want one of my, one of my coaches working on, on post play. So and, and that again could be different for each team that we have.

So they’re going to start off on the baseline every time because that’s where they’re going to be closest to the post players. And I have a guard guard coach that’s going to obviously be the trail. And then obviously from there we’re, we’re going to build from there.  in terms of, obviously they’re actively coaching.

So like, for example, I might come in and make a point, Hey, I thought we did a great job of driving, making a playoff too. Finding it and then attacking the closeout. And then what I love for them to do is go up and get, getting a guy’s ear, Hey I saw that you, you sealed really well there, but you could’ve, you could’ve stepped out and swung around for a high low just getting a guy’s ears individually.

I think sometimes when I was a young coach, my very first year being the freshman coach at the math, or I was the head coach. I went to my dad and said I have two great assistants, but they just talk every time I stop the and, and not nothing bad, but we’re all talking. It’s empty. And he said our rule is when the whistleblowers head coach talks first and either talk to individuals after I’m done or say, Hey coach, I got something to add.

I think it’s important they’re not talking at the same time that we’re talking and I shouldn’t talk when they’re talking. So I think it’s an important  coach your coaches, get them to do that. Also, I, I want them to not I think they need to hustle. So, for example, if, if, if it’s, if we’re doing a game, they need to referee and get up and down the court  they need to make sure that they’re, they’re showing, given their best physical effort as well as their best mental effort.

Also don’t want coaches to stand next to each other. They end up talking. I don’t need them to talk. And we may come together when they’re shooting free throws and talk about something before practice, after practice in the middle. But when we’re actively practicing, we’re coaching.

[00:36:43] Mike Klinzing: Great point. I mean, I know I, I found myself at times, right?

In a practice, you stand next to somebody and all of a sudden action’s going on and you’re having a conversation and things are, things are getting away from you. So I can certainly understand where that’s a, a good coaching point, right? To be able to make is a simple one, right? Simple, simple. To be able to convey that to your coaching staff.

And then again, it alleviates an issue that isn’t intentional, but certainly can take away from the value that you’re getting out of a particular practice. Do you guys film your practices?

[00:37:13] Joe Wootten:  my, my film guy, we, we have the, the huddle  auto camera. I don’t look at it. I mean, like, to me, like I’m, I’m going to break down our games.

I’m obviously going to do those different things.  I’m not going to practice to me is, is the time we’re teaching, we’re getting better. And then obviously from there we’re going to the games are, are kind of are tests, if that makes sense.

[00:37:34] Mike Klinzing: Are you taking notes like on your practice plan in terms of thinking about, Hey, I noticed this during practice and we have to make sure we address this in the next one.

How are you reflecting on what you did during a practice session to be able to prepare for the next one?

[00:37:49] Joe Wootten: So one of the things I, I don’t, I don’t take notes, but after I always leave at the practice plan on my desk, so the next day I’ll reflect on it the next day. I think I’ll, I, I think one thing that I probably do better now is  obviously fired up, excited emotion pass by the game of emotion, but un uncontrolled emotion’s not good.

So I think we basketball and, and I know the guy that got my dad started coaching is something I’ve always learned. Joe Gallagher, he would say sports bring out the best in us, but they also bring out the worst in us. And so we have to obviously be measured in our response. So we need great effort, we need coachability, we need togetherness.

But  if you, if you make a shot of the buzzer, did everything go right and we missed that shot? Did everything go wrong? Some of us were too emotional. So I think obviously taking a, a day to think about it is can be really effective.

[00:38:38] Mike Klinzing: Great point there. I, I think that the emotional side of it and that example of the buzzer beater is one that I’ve often reflected on in my coaching career, both when I’ve been the head coach of one of my kids travel or a a u teams.

You think about that, and then I know that I spent a long time as a varsity assistant coach, and certainly there were times where there were games where we played well and we lost, and then there were other games where we played poorly and.

As a young coach, I don’t think I understood that point that you just made, that we can win and play poorly versus we can lose and play well. And I think as a young coach, I didn’t necessarily always understand that. And that’s something that I learned over the course of the first couple years of my coaching career was just being able to understand and have conversations with my head coach of like, Hey, this game, yeah, we won.

But man, there’s a ton of things that we didn’t do well that we have to work on. I think sometimes we get caught up, right? That that scoreboard, that scoreboard carries a lot of weight and power for us as coaches. And sometimes it takes a little bit of time to get a feel going back to that feel of the game that you talked about, right?

You have a feel for, Hey, what did our team look like? Are we, are we doing the things that we’re teaching that we’re trying to accomplish? And sometimes the scoreboard doesn’t tell that whole story.

[00:39:56] Joe Wootten: Absolutely. And, and, and, and to kind of piggyback on that, like I think one thing that I’ve adjusted is letting the kids know I believe in them while I’m challenging them.

And so, because I think sometimes I assume, well, they know that I believe and I’m good, that’s why I’m coaching them. But you need to tell them that. So like I, I probably have done that more where I, I communicate, this is why I’m getting on you. I think your assistant’s also doing a good job of that, of saying, Hey he’s getting on you, but understand why he’s getting on.

You

[00:40:20] Mike Klinzing: felt like since the beginning of your career that you’ve had to maybe explain the why a little bit more to kids? Are kids looking more for the why than they did when you first started, or, or No, I don’t think kids are different.

[00:40:34] Joe Wootten: I think ki I think parents are different. Like, like for example, like, like Jason Clark who played for me, played at Georgetown, great player, just finished a 13 year career around the world and he came back and saw me and he said he said after three weeks I went home and told my mom, this is too tough, like I can’t do this.

And she said, you’re staying right where I, you are. We worked hard to get here and parents maybe don’t do that as much now. So, so I think it’s interesting. Everybody talks about development. But they really don’t. The developmental elements going good. I mean, in every developmental situation, whether like my daughter’s graduated from college, I, I just talked about this and she was telling me all, I’m really encouraging her to be active.

She wants to get into broadcast journalism. And, and it’s, it’s not a, it’s not a field where there’s a job every minute, but it’s networking, networking, networking. I think she’s doing all the right thing. So the point is just there’s going to be setbacks. Like accept that, that’s part of it. It’s kinda like in recruiting, people are going to tell you no, but you, you, you have to be able to, to respond.

So I think development doesn’t always come in a positive way. Development comes sometimes when you, you get knocked down, you have to get back up.

[00:41:37] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. There’s no doubt about that. And I think that it goes back to right as you said, parenting. And I think about my experience both as a kid and with my parents and then me trying to do the same thing as a parent is giving your kid an opportunity to things don’t always go perfectly.

And how do you react as the parent? Do you blame somebody else or do you look your kid in the eye and say, well. Maybe this isn’t fair, or maybe it’s not the way that you want it to be, but what can you do to change it? Right? It goes back to what you said about controlling what you can control. And if you share that message, even though something may not be the way that you want it to be, there’s still a lesson to be learned that I think can make you better in the long run when something doesn’t always go your way.

Because let’s face it, in life, things don’t go your way in every particular situation. And so that’s a lesson that if we can use sports to teach that rather than real life to teach it we’re that much better off in terms of producing better citizens for, for our world. Without question.

[00:42:38] Joe Wootten: Absolutely.

[00:42:39] Mike Klinzing: Let’s jump over to the camp side of it. Give people who maybe don’t understand the history of the Wootten basketball camp. I know you mentioned that started in 61, so just kind of take us through the beginnings of it, what your first memories are from camp, and then kind of how you took it over and, and where it stands today.

And then we can dive into some of the particulars.

[00:43:00] Joe Wootten: Yeah, so, so 1961 my dad and Joe Gallagher, his mentor got started day camp and people said to him, kids won’t play basketball in the summer. Which obviously is not true, but that was their opinion. It was always basketball camp in, in the country, and I think therefore the world.

And it started as a day camp with 20 kids each week. And it, it ballooned we have about 4,000 kids come through our camp each summer, overnight camp, day camp. Wootten won 50, which obviously we, we do in the fall. So and, and obviously as we mentioned before, it’s, it’s, it’s life experience.

It’s obviously getting kids better and, and it’s amazing. Like we always say pay it forward.  as a coach you get to impact people’s lives in a positive way. And we’ve had over 275,000 kids come through our camp over the last 50 some years. And the ama amazing thing is, is like the impact the coaches have and then the impact those guys pay, pay it forward to someone else.

So again, giving back to the good of the game, giving back to our, our greatest resource in America, which is our young people pouring to them. And, and we’ll be in good shape.

[00:44:03] Mike Klinzing: What’s been the biggest challenge in running a successful camp? When you think about what you have to do in order to make that camp successful, what are some challenges that you have in front of you that you have have to overcome?

[00:44:19] Joe Wootten: So I think o obviously the, the overnight camp, I mean, it is literally like Terry Lin and I Terry particularly does all the administration year round. So it’s a year-round project advertising and, and doing clinics to promote it and brochures and all those good things and the website.

But then I think obviously running camp, I mean, it’s all encompassing. It’s like, it it’s, it’s 6:00 AM till two in the morning, putting kids duty.

Greatest resource for young people. So I think you owe them that be best ever. But it’s a tiring experience. But it’s a rewarding experience. So, and  so we grind it all summer with, with overnight camps and day camps. And  to me I was actually saying to my son the other day on, on the ride home, in the car, I said embrace it.

Life is a grind. Life is hard work. And usually it’s not the smartest guy that always wins the race. It’s, it’s the guy that’s willing to stick in there and work the hardest. So  take pride and, and, and, and making it a great experience for each of the kids. And I always say camp at my favorite time of the year because it’s teaching kids basketball, which is why you get into this and there’s no parents.

So  it is just, it’s having fun. Like it’s really kids loving the game, competing and enjoying the game. And it’s not about winning. We compete to win, but it’s about having fun and, and, and not about who shoots the most and all that good stuff.

[00:45:40] Mike Klinzing: How do you put together the camp staff?

I’m guessing at this point people are coming to you more than you’re going to reaching out to people, but just tell me about how you put that together.

[00:45:48] Joe Wootten: So, so I think we’re, we’re a little bit different the way we do our camp, like where people do stations, we don’t do that as much. We do what we call fundamentals.

So like I’ll teach the fundamental and so I think. Not that it’s the, it’s the only way, but it, it, it’s, it’s our way of teaching in a very succinct, direct way. So coaches like to come to learn how to teach the game from a fundamental perspective, not a play perspective, but a fundamental skill perspective.

So we do things like finishing school and ball screen basketball and move without the basketball and  footwork and all those different things. So we’ll break it down and they get to see how we teach the game, and then they do it with their, with their players. So it’s kind of like teach it, show it, do it.

And so obviously we, we do a good job that’s, we’re always looking for good people.  and, and obviously we have the veterans and, and the guys that have been there and the girls have been there for years. But then you always want new, kind, new blood to kind of invigorate and one of basically.

Best way I can say it. We have like five or six camps that operate within a camp. So I teach ’em all, but they might go play games together. And so there’s a commissioner who’s kind of the leader of that group who doesn’t have a team and they kinda lead the coaches and make sure the coaches have what they need, support what they need.

 orient, orient orientation for a new guy that obviously is, is George for the first time.

[00:47:05] Mike Klinzing: You found that over time? because if you go back to, so like we talked about, my camps have been around for 30 some odd years and when I first started back in the early nineties, there was still the camp mentality, right?

Kids had grown up going to basketball camp. When I was a kid, I went to camp at Ohio State, I went to camp at NC State, I went to camp at Denison University. And those were just things that kids of my generation, your generation, we kind of grew up with the sort of the traditional, right? The traditional basketball camp.

And then as time has gone on. We have so much more now, a a u basketball and kids playing games and the the camp circuit, it, it has, has changed. It’s just, there’s just, it’s just not as prevalent as it used to be. And I’m curious to, how did you guys navigate that? Obviously you continue to do the same thing, but maybe from a marketing or advertising standpoint to, to be able to convey the value in what you guys are doing.

Because so many people just want to be on an AAU team or a travel team and play games, and the traditional camp has been there, there just isn’t as many of ’em out there, so you can’t compare yourself to a, there there’s 50 other camps. So how did you guys handle

[00:48:21] Joe Wootten: that piece of it? I think that’s obviously really true, but again, it goes back to fundamentals.

It goes back to doing things the right way.  I always say this for a week of camp you get 13 games. You play in half of every game. We do one-on one, two on two, three on three every day to work on iq. There’s 6:00 AM rising grind, 9:00 PM gym rat stations. There’s stations once a day.

There’s competitions, there’s contests, there’s speakers. So it’s all basketball all day. And I think one of the big things that, that you need to challenge yourself is this is the same thing, the same steady dose day after day after day gets, gets mono. I think camp’s a great life experience. It’s a way for them to get away and, and be on their own.

And, and, and so I think that’s a, we really sell that. And I really believe in that. Like that, that obviously that it’s a life experience and that you want to you want to obviously get, get involved in terms of teaching them how to be good people that can grow and into becoming healthy adults.

[00:49:18] Mike Klinzing: Makes a lot of sense. And it’s interesting just when you think about the experience that basketball camp, what, what it’s meant to me, not only just, again, haven’t run a camp for as long as I have, but then thinking back to my own experiences as a player and going to camp and the memories that I have of the guys that I went with and, and the, the coaches that I met there that maybe I knew him when I was 12 and then now I still know him when I’m 55.

And so it’s really interesting just to be able to have those experiences. And I think that’s something where, especially in a case of like what you guys do where it’s year after year, right guys, as you said, you got a veteran staff of guys who come back and they’ve been working it together and now they’re friends as a result.

Kids who went to camp and then now they become parents and now their kids are coming. And there’s just this whole generational thing that, it’s really interesting. I’m sure you experienced this, but I’ll be walking down the street in my hometown and I’ll have some guy who’s whatever, 35 come up to me and be like, Hey, I remember when I came to camp, one of the things that I always did was I, I would give away basketball cards as prizes, and then at the end of camp, we’d always sell the cards.

Back in the day when cards were cheap, I could sell ’em two cards for I’d, I’d sell ’em two cards for a quarter. And so I’d have kids that are whatever, now they’re adults, but they’ll come up to me like, man, do you still do the, do you still do the cards? And this is like whatever, 25 years later when this kid came to basketball camp.

It’s funny what kids, what they remember and what has an impact on them. And I think, again, when you have that sort of generational feel that’s one of the things that I love about coaching and camps and all that stuff in general, is just the amount of people that again, do remember. Something that you said or did with them that still is impacting them 20, 30 years after the fact.

That’s one of the most powerful things about the game of basketball for sure.

[00:51:17] Joe Wootten: And to kind of piggyback on that one of the things that I found is that like we’ll go out in the area like, so we’re, we were actually in the airport the other day and my wife and I were there and we were, we were going on on a spring break trip and the kid’s wearing a Coach Woottens basketball camp T-shirt.

And I said to him, I said, I like your shirt. And, and he didn’t realize it was me. And then we’re in the, in the security line, he comes race, says, I didn’t know it was you. So it was pretty cool. And that’s obviously that’s a lot of fun and like kind of like what I said about the O’Connell O’Connell basketball program.

Like it’s a family, it’s a family affair. Like obviously my wife runs the administration. We actually met at the camp. She was an athletic trainer in college. So those are, those are things that  we, we try to make it a family atmosphere. And honestly like the, the commissioners are like family to me.

They we, we’ve worked together for 25 years and so I think that people get that sense of that.

[00:52:03] Mike Klinzing: Another big thing that you guys are involved in is the McDonald’s game. So let’s bring your wife in and talk a little bit about the, your involvement, how you guys have taken over that process, what it’s all about.

Go back. Everybody knows what the McDonald’s all American game is, but they may not know the history behind it. They may not know the connection that your family has to it. They may not know exactly what are the behind the scenes things that need to happen in order for that game and that process to take place.

So just kind of walk us through for maybe somebody who doesn’t know Terry, how you doing today?

[00:52:45] Terri Lynn Wootten: Good. And you?

[00:52:46] Mike Klinzing: Excellent. Thank you for thank you for jumping on and being being a part of it. So I’ll let, I’ll let you guys take it from here. You go in whatever direction you want to take it. Educate us a little bit more about just what the game is all about and what it means to you

[00:52:57] Joe Wootten: guys.

Right. So, so my father started with John Wooden and, and Bob Gagan many years ago. In 1977, they named the first team. And in 78, the first game was played and we’re on year 48, just completed. And our family’s been honored to be the, the chairman of the selection committee, my father and myself, since the inception of the game.

So we picked every McDonald’s team and all the 48 boys years in the 20 three girls years. And so then Terry Lynn obviously is now directs, she’s the director of the nomination selection process. So she really leads the committee and has done a phenomenal job. As I mentioned before, earlier, her dad’s was a 31 year high school coach.

And so she grew up in the game. She’s as an athletic trainer, so again, she’s used to being in the gym. And so and I always say this like kind of you, you, you brought from camp right? To the McDonald’s game. To me, that’s like what I, I say to everybody is like, I love teaching basketball to a 7-year-old.

I love working with McDonald’s, all American, like it’s all basketball. Like obviously they’re all and Lin always says to everyone that works, the games is like, they’re kids, like they’re big kids. They’re, they’re, they’re talented kids, but they’re kids. So treat ’em with respect, treat ’em any, you treat any 18-year-old and you’ll get respect back from ’em.

They’re good kids. So I think, obviously one thing we’ve always prided ourselves in is getting the right players, because really that’s what it’s about.  that’s, that’s the legacy of the game is getting the right players and  and it’s, and it’s for charity. So I think that’s been really special.

So  Charlie maybe can comment on, on, on like the, the democratic part of it, which I think is really nice.

[00:54:24] Terri Lynn Wootten: Yeah. So we’re very fortunate. We have a great group of committee members on the female side. We have 21 committee members. And then on the male side we have 20, it’s a great comradery of individuals that are made up by high school coaches, tournament directors national media and the national evaluators and scouts for talent.

And we are the only high school all-star event that is done democratically, meaning that it doesn’t matter what shoe you wear, what a a u team you play for, what high school you play for or what college you’re going to it’s simply a vote process. And it’s great because we are able to pick players based on their credentials, not everything that surrounds them, or the ancillary items that are in their lives.

So it’s, it’s just a great place to be and it’s, it’s a great event to, to represent. As Joe said, it’s for charity. It’s the only event that’s for charity, so  every dollar that is made outside of paying your bills for the event. It’s gone to the Ronald McDonald House charity. So again, we’re, we’re blessed to be a part of this.

It’s a legacy that we take very seriously. And, and the kids are wonderful. Like they’re just great kids all around.

[00:55:35] Joe Wootten: And, and, and to kind of jump back into that as well, I think one of the things that always we’re really proud of is that if you if you’re a McDonald’s American, you have a 70 over 70% chance of having a significant NBA career.

The next closest indicator is below 20%. That’s more than three years. In the B obviously, 70% make b.  it’s such high indicator and  the McDonald’s practices are the number one event, pre-draft to evaluate the players because it’s where the 24 best players are. And, and one thing I think she referenced the Democratic committee is really important is that  that obviously we, we make sure that that we pick the right players.

So sometimes the rankings don’t always match the McDonald’s. And one of the reasons for that is, is because rankings are done by one person. And obviously some of the rankers are on our committee, but I think the beauty of the McDonald’s all American, you have to have your, your have to have the body of work by the majority of the committee, which I think, again it takes out that, that individual bias and, and really puts you in a position to be,   kind of be, be stamped by everybody on the committee,

[00:56:38] Mike Klinzing: each individual on the committee.

Sort of bring the initial list of, Hey, here’s five players that I’m familiar with that I think are potential nominees for the team. Or how does the initial list. Come to be.

[00:56:52] Terri Lynn Wootten: Yeah. So we have a nomination period that starts on September 1st and runs through December 1st. In order to be nominated, you have to be submitted by your head, high school varsity coach, your athletic director or your principal from your high school.

From there we create a nominee list and then we go through an eligibility verification process within that nominee list to make sure that you meet all the creden criteria of being selected to the McDonald’s all American games. And then around December 15th, we certify that nominee list, and then on December 16th we start with the selection process.

That process is a balancing system. From there we get our top 50. I’m sorry, that’s our.

Which is collectively voted on by our committee. Sometimes it’s 105, sometimes it’s 1 25. It just depends on where we are that year and, and who of the nominees who we’d like to put on that list. Then we go into our first round of voting, and that is our top 50. So we pick them by position, so it’s the top 10 kids by selected by the committee by position.

Then we go to our top 40, then our top 30, and then we kind of come down to picking our final 24 from that 30 list. And then there’s going to be discussions after we get there because there’s always going to be on that final list. 26 to 27 kids, maybe 28, the tie because they’re tiebreakers. So  when we go through our, our process, if we end up with 54 because of ties, those 54 move forward until we can collectively agree on 24 candidates as the final team for both girls and boys.

[00:58:41] Mike Klinzing: Once you have those teams in place and you’re preparing for the event itself, gimme an idea of some of the things that go along with being selected to the team in terms of. What the players experience.

[00:58:55] Terri Lynn Wootten: So once we get the 24 candidates for boys and girls, Joe and I sit down and decide on the team breakdown.

East, west. And a lot of it is regional, so where they’re from, where their high school’s from, not necessarily where they’re from, but from state. because some kids are boarding schools are away. But where they are from, from a high school standpoint sometimes. We might have two kids that are from the same high school, but we split them because one’s going to Duke, one’s going to Carolina.

That’s a matchup. We want to see we also talk a little bit to ESPN on the girls and the boys side to find out what matchups that would be great for tv what we’re looking at to get out of the game and to make the two teams balance right. So you’ll see sometimes, every once in a while you have a kid from Texas on the east, or you might have a kid from Texas on the west or vice versa.

We’ll, a kid from Oregon just depends on how it breaks down from the 24 that are there.

[00:59:45] Joe Wootten: Right. And, and, and to kind of jump in there as well, like the two best point guards the country are from the East coast, we’re going to put a two different teams. Right. So it’s a good, it’s a good, right. Yeah. And

[00:59:52] Terri Lynn Wootten: then when the kids  when they come to McDonald’s, we generally fly them in on Friday.

So they arrive on Friday. The only time a, a player would not arrive on Friday is if they’re playing in a championship game. So their high school is in the state finals region, finals championship, whatever it is. They might come in as soon as they, end the tournament or their team lose. So like last year we had kids in the throne.

Some of them played on Friday. Unfortunately their teams lost. They came in literally Friday night. Other kids didn’t come in till Saturday or Sunday. So  it, we kinda work with their high school so that they don’t miss out on their state championships. Friday we do a lot of logistical stuff, going through photos, getting their head shots done.

We, do a lot of their media stuff. Just kind of just getting them logistically, handing out uniforms, getting their room assignments. We do a team get together. This year we took them to the to the nets. They went to a, a game over at Brooklyn to the game. And so they had a nice kind of team bonding, getting to know each other.

90% of them know each other, but there’s always going to be an outlier that might not. But they had a great time over there and we just kind of get, get to know them. That’s the kids portion. The coach’s portion is Joe and I have a staff meeting with the coaches. And then we have a breakout meeting with everybody.

So we talk about the expectations of what’s going to happen, media training. Joe talks about the, the reset button, and I’ll let him take that from there.

[01:01:17] Joe Wootten: Yeah. So, so obviously like one of the big things is we mentioned about is obviously the 70% indicator in the draft room. The number one question is, was he, and now with the w is she a McDonald’s all American?

I think so. One of the things we had talked, talked to them about is that you’ve made it, but now it starts all over. Now you’re being evaluated by the professionals. And so obviously one thing we want to do is we want ’em to put them in a, the best po possible position. So ly and I do, I think a really good job of.

A career coach is at a great high school career, but maybe doesn’t know the kids. And one that we’ve had maybe a game or two in the past, maybe 15, 20 years ago, where they kind of didn’t coach. We get ’em to coach. because then that puts ’em in the best position. We want the practice to be competitive. We lay out how the practice should be so that it’s not just scrimmaging, it’s, it’s seeing ’em in two on two, three on three.

Offensive defensive conversion drills,  no dribble drills, two dribble drill  so again, putting them in positive situations because the first obviously day is, is logistics. The next day is practice. Is the second part of the day. But the most impactful part of the day is the Ronald McDonald House visit.

And one thing we do is that we, we do a great job, I think, of getting feedback and, and  I was talking to Ko Pete this year while practice was going on. He’s going to, Arizona great player, but he had a wrist injury so he couldn’t play. And I said, what, what’s been the best part of the week? He said, McDonald’s house visit without a doubt because they’re giving back to those that are less fortunate and it really impacts ’em.

because they’re kids and, and, and, and they, they, they’re impacted by what their basketball talents are able to help other, everybody else with. So I think that’s really good. Moving into the practices. And then  and, and it’s a lot like camp, like I mentioned, like you mentioned camps all day all day, every day.

So we’re, we’re constantly on the buses, off the buses, but it’s, it’s great relationships and  and then obviously

[01:03:04] Terri Lynn Wootten: yeah, so like day two as Joe said is practices and the Ronald McDonald House experience. Day three is the scrimmage. So we have practice in the morning and then two scrimmages for one for the boys, one for the girls, and then we head over to whatever venue that we’re hosting the ring ceremony at.

And we have the player celebration and ring ceremony where we announce the Morgan Wootten National Player of the Year and have a great time, kind of just partying with the kids, celebrating the kids day.

[01:03:32] Joe Wootten: And just to kind of jump in the rock, the McDonald’s American ring is kind of the graduation.

Yeah.  it’s their, their diploma. And so it’s, it’s a, it’s a it’s a very special ring. Only the only the, all Americans get it. No one else gets it. They have one

[01:03:43] Terri Lynn Wootten: here.

[01:03:44] Joe Wootten: And  and so it’s an amazing,  ring. Very cool. Which is really neat. So it’s it’s special and it’s, it’s one of those things that j Jalen Rose was our, our guest speaker this year.

And I think he’s a great example. Obviously Fab Five, McDonald’s, all American Great pro. And then so successful after he put the ball down. So I just said like, he’s a great example. Like he, this guy was the, he, this guy’s one of the best in the country, best at Michigan. Great. In the pros. And then he reinvented himself and you got that great vivacious smile and just a really good, humble guy.

So that was really special for the kids to see. And and, and, and his teammate Chris Robert had spoken a couple years before. So just, I’m big fans of the Fat Five.

[01:04:26] Terri Lynn Wootten: And then day four we have an, this year we added something to our practices, invited all the alumni in. And,

[01:04:32] Joe Wootten: and I want to brag on Terry ly.

She got the, she really connected because the NBA’s always come, I don’t mean interrupt, but really got the W to come in because the W’s three or four years down the road. But  now obviously as the girls game’s become more intuitive and advanced and athletic the w really was great to come in.

Yeah.

[01:04:49] Terri Lynn Wootten: So we were fortunate. We, we had the W come in, NBA was in for the three day three practices prior to that. And then we have the Jam Fest. So this year, the Sprite Jam Fest where they do a skills event knockout dunk contest. Just have a really great. Atmosphere. We were fortunate this year.

We had, gorilla came in, we had Angel Reese came back and as,

[01:05:11] Joe Wootten: as a judge, as

[01:05:12] Terri Lynn Wootten: judges. So they just make it real special in front of the kids. Ronald McDonald and Grimace was there. So it’s funny, the kids were they obviously know Ronald McDonald. They recognized Grimace, but they kept calling this like this purple puff.

Okay. Like they they just didn’t recognize him as as a character. So it was kind of neat to see them interact with that. And then we finally have day five, which is game day. So we have the shoot around in the morning and do all of our team photos and do our college photos. So if we have a group that’s boys and girls, or just boys or just girls going to a specific college, we pull ’em together and do a big team like a Kentucky or Villanova or Notre Dame pitcher.

And then we have game night.  and, and game night’s awesome. It’s, it’s, it’s where their dreams come true. It’s, it’s from the time they were little and wanted to be a a burger kid, they, they come out on that floor and just to watch their smiles and  they, they’re funny because they try to be too cool for school.

 like they, they kind of joke all week that they’ve made it and we have a great time with them on the buses and they just are great kids. But then they get out there and you watch and their eyes light up and they’re looking around in the stands and they’re looking at the floor and they’re just excited to see their names and some of these kids have played in larger venues than that just throughout their high school career.

But this is where they, they walk out there and they, they realize that they’ve actually arrived.  that they, they’ve actually completed something that a very small group of individuals have done over the 48 years.

[01:06:40] Mike Klinzing: I think what’s interesting hearing you guys talk is I’ve had. A bunch of different episodes with guys from, that have coached at USA basketball events.

And I do a regular feature with Rob bro, who he coaches at Bolingbrook High School in, in Illinois. And, and Rob consistently talks about something that you guys mentioned, which is you look at the talent of the players that are involved, whether it’s the McDonald’s all American game or team USA or whatever it might be.

And you watch these guys on the floor or you watch the young women on the floor and you’re like, the, the talent level is just astronomical. And he’s like, but as soon as the ball stops bouncing and they walk over onto the sideline, he goes, they’re doing the exact same thing that my players are doing at Bolingbrook.

They got their phone out, they’re hitting each other with shoes they’re doing it’s just you again, they’re, they’re, they’re 18-year-old kids. They’re extremely talented as basketball players as 18-year-old kids. But. They’re still 18-year-old kids. And I know that that’s something whenever I have a conversation with Rob, when he gets an opportunity to go and work a USA basketball event, that’s always one of the things that comes through is just he feels the connection with those kids.

Because again, they’re just kids. They’re just like this high school kids that he’s coaching. They just have whatever physical tools and the, the, the mental makeup and all the things that you guys know that it takes to be at that level that we’re talking about here. And I think sometimes people forget that, right?

You see, you see a kid 17, 18, 19 years old now, we see ’em on tv, whether it’s at the college level or the McDonald’s all American game, or  they’re one and done and they’re in the NBA and we forget that they’re just there, there, there’s people back there, there, there’s 19-year-old kids. There’s 20-year-old kids that they’re still just like the rest of us, just, just, just with a lot of, just with a lot more basketball talent, physical tools.

And than most of us were gifted.

[01:08:33] Terri Lynn Wootten: Absolutely. And  you’d be surprised at how shy some of them are.

[01:08:37] Mike Klinzing: Yeah.

[01:08:37] Terri Lynn Wootten: I mean you see him on the floor and, and that’s their game personality. You, everyone jokes coach Kowski, he was they, he, they said he was loud and he was monstrous on the floor.

But then in life he’s actually pretty quiet. Right. ? Right. And it’s funny, like some of ’em are just so super shy and you don’t expect it because they are full of life on the court. And like I would say, and I think Joe would agree with me, this group of 48 crossed the board were the most appreciative and talented, the most talented, the most respectful and gracious group of kids that we have dealt with in a long time.

I mean, I can’t tell you every morning they would shake our hands. Good morning, coach. Good morning, Mrs. Wootten.  hugs like Eli, Elijah, arenas if he hugged me one more time. I think he and I might have been dating, like it was just he’s, he’s, he’s such a great kid and across the board they just to a t could not have been the most polite, gracious, appreciative, nice group of kids and to each other, like they were just very team oriented and, and, and enjoyable and fun to be around.

[01:09:48] Mike Klinzing: I think that goes back to Joe, what you and I were talking about, right? In terms of the parent influence and not just the parents. But I think that if you look at players at that level today in 2025 versus maybe players in 1992, the, the advice and just the, the resources that are in place for those kids to be able to learn how to deal with people and how to handle the.

The fame and maybe eventually the money and with NIL and all these things that there’s, there’s just so much more information out there to be able to have those players have that kind of training to be able to come into it and experience what you guys experience with them, that they seem like they, they’re, they’re better able to handle those situations than maybe a 17 or 18-year-old kid back in the time when all of us were 17 or 18, if that makes sense.

[01:10:49] Joe Wootten: Yeah. I think no doubt, I mean, obviously they’ve been through more experiences and, and I think we need to continue to educate them on obviously as much as things change things, things stay the same obviously now it’s a DHO. Before it was you

fun. Learn how to meet people treat everyone with respect, obviously educate yourself on, on new topics.  find, as we mentioned before earlier in the podcast, like finding out people that are good at what they do. Like like we O’Connell have a really good team of doctors who work with John Tobacco and Christian Nunziata and the Tara Lynn set up and, and, and just phenomenal.

And so they’re the experts when it comes to that. And so obviously lean on them and, and, and getting the right experts in the, in the right areas is really important. And don’t be afraid to say if you’re a parent, I don’t know.  I’m, I’m just trying to figure this out and, and obviously seek advice.

And I, as a head head coach, one of the biggest piece of advice I’ve had, I’ve had 16 guys become head of high school coaches that coached underneath five in college. And I’m really proud of them and I, they always call me after. The first couple weeks and they say, this is really lonely, because I always had suggestions and now make some decisions.

So it’s lonely. And and so I think one of the big things that we obviously need to do is have a board of directors. And so obviously not an official board, but who do you talk to as a head coach when you’re, you’re not sure how to handle the situation? How I still to this day talk, to, talk to people I respect obviously my dad till he, till he passed, obviously Terry Lynn Tear, Lynn’s dad  former guys that, that I worked with how would you handle the situation even if you don’t know the kids, how would you handle the situation?

How would you,   better this situation. So I think always having your board of directors is.

[01:12:37] Terri Lynn Wootten: I think you have to treat the kids as people.  I, I think you get the best out of ’em when they’re not just commodities or players.  we tell our players all the time that we want to know them as a person.

We want to know their likes and dislikes, and we want them to feel comfortable to come talk to us outside of basketball. Like there has to be a relationship there of mutual respect. But more importantly, the players have to know you care about them. Whether they score 20, take a charge, give up. Five turnovers or just have a bad day at practice.

And I, I think that too many coaches out there spend so much time on what they do well and what they don’t do well. And don’t really get to know ’em as people and find out how they click and how they are coached. Not every player likes to be yelled at, right? Not every player likes you to talk to ’em in a soft tone.

And some of them need to be that yell fiery type coach. And some need to have more of a one-on-one conversation. And I think that we teach them by mentoring them and also teach them by showing examples of how to be good people. You’re just going to create better young men and women out there.

[01:13:49] Mike Klinzing: There’s no doubt that you have to figure out each individual player right.

And understand what buttons you need to push with them to be able to get the best out of ’em. And I think that’s what the best coaches do, right? Is you build, goes back to what we talked about right off the top, Joe, that the, the relationship side of it is, is so important because you have to get to know your kids, you have to get to know the players, and then you can be in a position to help them to have the most success that they possibly can.

And, and I think that’s what, that’s what every coach we’re all striving for, that we don’t always get there every single time. It’s hard, it’s hard to be, it’s hard to maintain a perfect record in that area. But that’s certainly something that I think most coaches try to do is to get an understanding of, Hey, what does this player need from me in order to be at their best?

And I think that’s something that coaches are constantly working to be able to do. Gimme a behind the scenes story from a. The McDonald’s all American game. What’s your favorite behind the scenes? Maybe not necessarily related to the game itself, but just something funny or something memorable that happened outside of the, the view of the public.

[01:14:55] Joe Wootten: Yeah. I mean, I obviously always had back in the, in the  in the player lounge, like a ping pong game going on, or the the kids playing Xbox or PlayStation, whatever. So I think that’s always fun. I always find it funny on the bus, like things that go on and if you get ’em talking and   sharing thoughts and, and things like that.

So I think that’s always fun to, to kind of see, get to know miss people. That’s always a neat thing. So I mean,  those are kind of things in, in the modern day. Anything you’d add to that? And I, I’ve one from the beginning.

[01:15:25] Terri Lynn Wootten: Yeah. I mean, I’d say  we’ve had things from, .

Kids, just being kids and, and forgetting things or wearing funny things to, like the banquet we had this year we had a player on the bus who, he’s, he’s full of spirit. I mean, he’s full of spirit and he was just he was baiting everybody on who’s that was funny, who the best college team was going to be and how they were all going to play and how he was going to win.

And it just happens to be that his team that he’s going, the school going to, they unfortunately, coach left and they lost everybody on the roster. So he had declared that he was. Yeah, he was the only one they needed. They did not need any other players. And if he did bring a couple other players, they could just play defense and he would play offense.

Yeah, yeah. That’s right. Yeah. He just, he was just, and he was funny because he was like dead Sears, and of course the other players just needling him, ? And then we had one time with Garfinkel about 10 years ago. Were sitting at the scores table, and it’s myself, Joe his dad Bob Gagan, sunny Hill and Sunny Hill.

And this woman walks over and she starts slapping Garf on the side. So I turn and I’m like, what are you doing? And she’s like, his pocket, there’s smoke in his pocket. He is on fire. I looked down and there’s smoke coming out of his pockets. I’m like, Garf, whatcha doing? And he goes, I had sneak my smokes in.

[01:16:45] Joe Wootten: So

[01:16:45] Terri Lynn Wootten: he was smoking his cigarette and then sticking it in

[01:16:48] Joe Wootten: his pocket and putting in his pocket, our five star s on our committee. And I’m

[01:16:52] Terri Lynn Wootten: like, God, were you serious? And he’s like, yeah, I, what’s the problem? I’m like, you can’t smoke in here.

[01:16:58] Mike Klinzing: Well, you could back, back in the day when kids played outside and you could go to Robert Morris and you Absolutely.

You could smoke outside where you were while you were playing on the tennis courts. You could, you could get away with that. You can’t get, can’t get away with that stuff anymore. No.

[01:17:12] Terri Lynn Wootten: So we’ve had

[01:17:12] Mike Klinzing: Oh, that’s good. We’ve

[01:17:13] Terri Lynn Wootten: definitely had a lot of fun. We’ve definitely had a lot of things where the kids just, they’re kids stuff that comes out of their mouths.

You’re just like, really? And then you have to remember they’re kids.

[01:17:26] Joe Wootten: And part of it, I think one is that we have new coaches every year that are really great coaches in their own right. It’s always fun to meet them and their personalities and makes each camera a little different. Each of the kids different.

And so we’re very honored to work with them. I

[01:17:38] Mike Klinzing: want to ask you guys a final two part question. You guys can both answer it. because again, with the camps, with the McDonald’s All American game, and then obviously with the family involvement that you guys have at O’Connell. So here’s the question.

Two parts. Number one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? And then the second part of the question, when you think about what you guys get to do each and every day, what brings you the most joy? So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

[01:18:08] Joe Wootten: Well, I’ll take the big, the biggest joy. because I think you always want to start with the positive is obviously like I get to work. Every day I, I get to go to work and I, I love what I do and people always and I, a friend of mine, Chris Arney, who’s the coach at St. Mary’s College, always last night, I say at, at a cocktail party, but I mean, at a social gathering, people say what are doing?

I’m a basketball coach. And what do you do for a living? Well. That’s what I do.  so, so I’m very fortunate do that. I get to work with young people, get to work, impact people’s lives.  and  the impact when you see ’em 10 years later is really amazing. So that’s the Joel at her, or Joanne?

Yeah.

[01:18:41] Terri Lynn Wootten: So I mean, same thing.  I’m very blessed. I get to work with girls and boys that we meet a lot of them when they’re 9, 10, 11 years old. We watch ’em grow into teenagers and then we watch ’em grow into successful young men and women. And they come back and that’s wins and losses are great, but what really matters in 10, 15 years when they come back and they, they give you a hug and they thank you and they say, thanks so much for being a part of my life.

So I’m very blessed there. I’m blessed that I get to work with my husband.  there’s a lot of families out there that. You come and go, get up and leave at six, come back at eight, and you go to bed. I’m blessed that all three of my kids have grown up in the system, have had great mentors and great role models through the McDonald’s kids to our own personal high school kids and coaches and campers.  So those are the things that I’m very blessed and enjoyed and thank God for every day.

[01:19:33] Joe Wootten: And I would say the biggest challenge is obviously for her has have to be working with me, but No, I’m just kidding. Yeah. But no, no, obviously  I think one of the biggest challenges obviously is, is that always trying to adapt, but yet maintain the fundamentals. And, and, and that could be on the team, that could be in the McDonald’s game. That could be our camps. And so I, I kind of would go back to this is like the McDonald’s game is obviously we never had a a, a halftime performer, which, which obviously is fun. It’s, it’s great, but it always goes back to making sure the players experience and getting the right 24 players.

So to me that’s the challenge of balancing what matters with the fun part. Basketball camp teaching kids how to play, having fun that’s important. And then it’s fun to do to go to Chick-fil-A at the Lane Center and things like that. But what matters is that, and then obviously going to our team, it’s like remember the comradery and.

Terry Lynn has been an athletic trainer and assistant coach, but always goes on the road with us which is phenomenal. And, and so balancing,  that. And then, and then obviously just making sure that we’re, you’re always prioritizing every day. I always say this like, good people prioritize what they do.  Because you’re always going to have things you have to get done. But if you prioritize every day, you’ll be in good shape.

[01:20:52] Mike Klinzing: It’s well said. Joe, before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how can people connect with you, find out more about what you guys are doing on the camp side, the McDonald’s all American side, the Bishop O’Connell side, just what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you, email, social media, website, whatever you feel comfortable with.  And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.  

[01:21:12] Joe Wootten: So you can reach us at joe@CoachWootten.com. And Wootten has two Os, two Ts, Terrilynn@coachWootten.com or camp@coachWootten.com. And our website is coachwootten.com. So we’re always available. Our phone numbers on that website as well.  So you can reach out to us and we’re all basketball all day,

[01:21:37] Mike Klinzing: Easy enough. And we’ll get all that in the show notes so that everybody will be able to see it. Joe and Terri Lynn cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us. Appreciate it. And to everyone out there we’ll catch you on our next episode. Thanks.