JOHN SHULMAN – UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 977

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

Email – Jshulman@uca.edu

Twitter – @coachjshulman

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John Shulman is entering his first season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at The University of Central Arkansas.  In his previous five seasons at the helm of the University of Alabama Huntsville, Shulman posted a record of 112-39 and led the Chargers to five consecutive D2 NCAA tournament berths. Overall, Shulman has a career coaching record of 257-185. Shulman also served as the head coach at Tennessee Chattanooga from 2004 to 2013. While at Chattanooga, the Mocs earned two D1 NCAA tournament appearances following a pair of Southern Conference championships. The second winningest coach in Chattanooga history, Shulman also won four SoCon North Division championships.

In 2005, he was named as the top collegiate coach in Tennessee thanks to a season that included a NCAA tournament berth and Chattanooga’s first win in 80 years over in-state foe Tennessee.

Prior to taking over the top spot at Chattanooga, Shulman served as the team’s associate head coach from 2002 to 2004, and that came after stints as an assistant at Wofford, Tennessee Tech, and East Tennessee State.

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Grab your notebook as you listen to this episode with John Shulman, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at the University of Central Arkansas.

What We Discuss with John Shulman

• The desire to do things differently at the D1 level after he was fired at UT-Chattanooga
• The opportunity to rebuild the program at Central Arkansas
• “We were together. We loved each other, had great culture, and we won a lot of basketball games.”
• “I learned some stuff when I was at Chattanooga, realizing that the world didn’t revolve around me and our team and that everybody else had other stuff going on too.”
• ” Let’s just do the right things with our kids and quit worrying about the outside world.”
• “All players care about is how much you care about them.”
• Creating a sense of belonging for players
• Looking at the transfer portal from a different perspective
• “I’m so thankful and grateful and excited and fortunate and blessed to have this opportunity.”
• “I think you got to be really careful in the months of June and July, wearing your team out.”
• “We’re married to winning. We’ll figure it out. We’re not going to put you in a box right now. Let’s see what everybody can do. And then we’ll figure it out.”
• “Don’t look at me anymore. Look at our players. Look at our staff.”
• Helping an assistant become a head coach
• “The more sweat equity you put in your program, the more you care about it.”
• “It is not a job that we do. It’s a calling, it’s a passion.”
• Hiring Brock Widders at UCA, who was not one of his guys
• Why he still believes in recruiting high school players
• “We don’t recruit like everybody else. We recruit in a very uncommon way. We want winners. We want state champions. We want skill.”
• “We’re going to do what we do. Now, if it works, great. If it doesn’t work, at least we did what we do and we’ll have no excuses.”
• “Make the decision now. Don’t make it in the game.”
• “We won today. We had a great day today. We got to win tomorrow.”
  

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TRANSCRIPT FOR JOHN SHULMAN – UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 977

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, but I am pleased to be welcoming back to the pod for his third official episode, but if you’ve listened to him on the round table, you’ve probably heard him 50 times or so. John Shulman, head men’s basketball coach at the University of Central Arkansas. John, welcome back.

[00:00:20] John Shulman: I appreciate it. That’s a strange intro to me. I don’t, I don’t, it’s strange when you say John Shulman head coach at Central Arkansas, that’s strange to me, but I really Mike listen, I appreciate it, excited to be, have an opportunity to, to visit with you, always have a good time and think Mike like you’re committed to helping the game and we all Mike the basketball purists of the world appreciate that.

[00:00:49] Mike Klinzing: Well, here’s what I’ll say, John. And I think I mentioned this a couple of times when you and I have talked before, but I still go back to, and I can still picture the first conversation that you and I had after Allen Stein connected me to you and I was sitting in my little office. And we jumped on the phone and you and I were talking and about maybe five minutes into the conversation.

You said to me, you go, man, you’re one of my guys. You’re one of our guys. You’re, you’re a basketball guy. And it’s funny how quickly you realize and make the connection of who’s a basketball guy. And who really cares about the game. And that’s something that again, as I, and at that point, obviously, I didn’t even know you.

So getting to know you over the course of the last five or six years, I, that means even more to me, that conversation. And I don’t even know if you remember saying that to me, man.

[00:01:43] John Shulman: And also, I remember the first time we did, we, we did one of these podcasts. It’s Mike certain guys have Mike I actually, I talked to a guy named Kevin Cantwell yesterday, and Kevin Cantwell was Bobby Cremin’s assistant at Georgia Tech for many years.

Kevin Kanton was 75 years old and was working a camp in Charlotte, North Carolina yesterday and sounded like he was like 22 working in this camp, and, and certain guys just have given their life for it. In their whole career and their life to the game of basketball. And we’re all not perfect by any means and we, we try our best and we learn from our mistakes, but love the game and love what it’s done for me and my family and my life.

And hasn’t been easy at times and ignore it should, is it supposed to be easy? But it’s been quite a journey and. And that journey has taken us to Conway, Arkansas. And just be honest, I’d never been to the state of Arkansas and but have actually met some of the nicest, friendliest people I’ve ever met in my life.

And we’re awfully fortunate and blessed to be out here.

[00:02:56] Mike Klinzing: Well, what’s interesting about Arkansas is I have never been to the state of Arkansas. However, if you look back through the Rolodex of episodes that we’ve had, we’ve actually interviewed a ton of Arkansas. high school basketball coaches because Greg White, who was previously up until a month or two ago, the head coach at Bentonville West, and now just took over at Thayden School in Arkansas.

Greg was kind enough to be able to connect me to a ton of people that he knew from the state. So when I look at the number of high school coaches that we’ve talked to, I would guess Arkansas is probably second to our home state of Ohio in terms of the number of high school coaches that we’ve been able to talk to.

So when you took this job, I was like, man, it’s, it’s, it’s, Kind of interesting that John’s ended up in Arkansas, which is a place that again, I’ve never been, but we’ve just had a ton of people on from the state. So interesting.

[00:03:47] John Shulman: It’s amazing. You come out here, the state really feels Mike remember I’m a Southern boy, all right, and growing up Kentucky and Indiana were like the two states that everybody in the country felt like cared about basketball the most I’m talking about.

You know, you had Kentucky basketball, then you had Bobby Knight in Indiana, and you had all this stuff going on. And, and Arkansas feels a lot like Kentucky. They take their basketball very serious. It’s very important to them. The, the kids, the kids, I think for the most part want to stay in state if they can but Mike, you, you should see these facilities out here at these high schools.

I coached in the Tennessee private league for many years at McCaullie and, and you’d run into Brentwood Academy and Montgomery Bell Academy and the Briarcrest Christians of the world and the elite of the elite. Now the ends worst of the state of Tennessee. You go to Mike we’re in Conway, Arkansas, you go to Conway high school.

And they got about a 2, 500 seat arena with video boards, all chair back seating. It’s ridiculous. And, and you go to you know, we, we signed a young man named Ty Robinson from Lake Hamilton down in hot springs, Arkansas, you go down to his facility. They have Stores, like, like gear stores in, in the arena with video boards and in tables, like picnic tables, like open air suites.

And, and it is shocking how nice these facilities are out here. They’re, they’re smart with their athletics. I think everybody, I think every high school has a 60 yard indoor football facility. I mean, it’s amazing how important athletics is to this state of Arkansas.

[00:05:39] Mike Klinzing: All right. So tell me how this job grabs your attention.  What makes you even consider. Going to a place that you had never been before in your life.

[00:05:49] John Shulman: Number one and we’ve talked about this quite a bit, me and you. I was, I was disappointed in John Shulman as the head coach at Chattanooga. You know, we went to two NCAA tournaments. We won four regular season titles in the North division.

I just didn’t do it the right way. I was not real proud of myself and not real pleased with how it ended and how I. at Chattanooga. I didn’t do it. Even winning didn’t feel real comfortable. And I was disappointed. And you get one shot at this and one crack at it. And you know, even though we Mike it looks on paper, it looks good.

You know, we went to two NCAA tournaments. We, we won We won a bunch of regular season titles, but I, it just didn’t feel good. And you know, we, we, we did a couple of different things coming out of Chattanooga. We decided to stay in Chattanooga and that’s where me and you kind of hooked up. And then coach, I was dying to coach and coached at McAuley for four years of private all boys school and, and thought my time in college was done just to be honest, and got very fortunate to become the head coach at Alabama Huntsville.

And all credit goes to those kids and our staffs that we had there. We had an amazing run. We went to five NCAA tournaments in five years. We went 112 and 39. We won four championships. It was an unbelievable run. Last year, Mike, I almost got the Wofford job and came in. I don’t know if it was second or third.

I know I didn’t come in first. How about that? And so, so I didn’t get that. And, and I, I had a lot of connections to Wofford the athletic director I worked for at one time when he was the basketball coach. So I knew my time. It coaching division one was probably over just to be honest, those jobs are hard to get.

And so Mike if I can’t get a Wofford where I’ve been and I you know, East Tennessee state where I went to school, probably not going to happen. And Tennessee tech where I’ve, I coached at one time, probably not going to happen. And you just kind of come to the realization, Hey man, You’re very fortunate to have this job at Alabama Huntsville.

Let’s put two feet in and two hands in and continue doing what we’re doing. And, and that’s what we did. And, and never thought I would in the life of me got a phone call in January from that same guy, Richard Johnson, who was at Wofford college and said, Would you ever consider ever going out of your comfort zone, out of your region and to be a division one head coach?

And Mike I said, yeah, I’d consider it. I don’t know what, what you’re talking about. And that was it. And he just happened to be a really good friend with the athletic director at the time at Central Arkansas. And I get a text from the athletic director and we did a zoom call the next day.

And eight days later we’re on the campus. My wife, Amy, and myself are on the campus. And you know, it’s strange how this thing works. We were not in a good frame of mind. We had, we had just gotten beat by West Georgia in the championship game of the GSC tournament. We were exhausted, selection show Sunday night.

And, and we come out here on Monday. And we were not coming to Conway, Arkansas, and we got off the plane and met some of the friendliest, nicest people that we had ever met in our life. And it was a beautiful day and saw so much promise and Mike the facilities were nice and you had a chance to win.

And, and just be honest one winning season in 18 years, one winning season in 18 years. That was not a detractor. That was attraction. That was attractive to me. That was that made me excited. You gotta rememberMike you, you take the Chattanooga job, you take the Chattanooga job right after Matt McCarthy went to the Sweet 16 in 96, and then you follow Jeff Lebo.

It’s not a lot of fun for John Shulman to follow Matt McCarthy and Jeff Lebo. You take over at Alabama Huntsville. And you follow Lenny Acuff. It’s not a lot of fun to follow the legend Lenny Acuff at Alabama Huntsville. So, soMike that’s a lot of stress. You know Mike how are you supposed to be the man following the man?

It’s hard to be the man following the man. And so we got an opportunity to go to a program that hadn’t had a lot of success for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter, but haven’t had a whole lot of success. That was attractive to me. And to take over a program, we can kind of put our stamp on and do it in a very similar way that we did it at Huntsville.

[00:10:27] Mike Klinzing: What questions did you have for The AD, the administration. What were some of the things that you wanted to know about central Arkansas before you felt comfortable taking the job?

[00:10:38] John Shulman: When can I start would be the first one. How about that one? There you go. Can I come out tomorrow? Listen, you know. I guess when you’re younger, you have to look at jobs and is it a good job?

Is it a bad job? What, what is the definition of a good job? What’s the definition of a bad job? You know, a bad job is what’s the Mike everybody’s going to say the administration, they haven’t had success and facilities and this and that. Listen, man, there’s only what 362 of these. Jobs that are division one.

And so Mike is this a good job or a bad job facilities and this and administrate at my age? And I’m not old, but at my age I don’t Mike this isn’t committing professional suicide, going to central Arkansas. This is a great challenge coming out here. And so Mike I mean Mike they, they told me all I need to hear.

They were committed to winning. They got a 5,000 seat arena and you play on the floor. That’s named after Scottie Pippen. Enough said got a practice facility, enough said got apartments for the players right beside the practice facility. Great. Give cost of attendance. Great. You know, travel Mike we travel, we fly everywhere, except I guess Lipscomb and I think North Alabama, everything else is the flight.

That’s great. Brand new locker room, 300,000 brand new locker room, team meeting room, a nutrition center and player lounge, weight room inside the facility of our basketball arena. That’s pretty good. And, and. I didn’t need to hear what, listen, we Mike I guess through my whole career is you try to do more with less and, and you, you quit griping about the things that you don’t have and just do things, do what you have with the things that you have.

And we, we had success at Alabama Huntsville had the time of our life in Huntsville, Alabama at UAH. And did not have a shower in our locker room. We had a couple of players have to share lockers because we had a bunch of guys on our roster and it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. Those things didn’t matter.

We were together. We loved each other, had great culture, and we won a lot of basketball games. All this other stuff to me is superficial. And as long as Mike as long as we got away to the games and listen, I used to think, When I was at Chattanooga, I mean, we’d go play anywhere. We’d go play two hours away.

Well, we had to go the night before and we had to do shoot around and we had to do this. Man, pregame meal, you better have tablecloths and you better, everybody better be quiet and we better focus on the game. Well, I learned at Huntsville that there’s another way to do it. And my first pregame meal.

Hey man, where do we eat pregame meal? Do we go to nothing but noodles? Well, I mean, we eating pasta. What are we doing? Well, coach, we go to Tenders. Well, what’s a tender? It’s a chicken tender place. We go there for a pregame meal. Yeah. Coach, it’s tradition. Well, do they have a room in the back? No, they don’t have a room in the back.

Well, where do we sit? Just sit in the back there. Well, I went, I went and showed up at this pregame meal, like prepared, man, prepared, and I went and everybody’s got their phones out and everybody’s eating chicken tenders, everybody’s laughing, having the time of their life. Oh my God, what a bad idea to enjoy and have a, have a time of your, well, I just kept my mouth shut and, and we ended up going 26 and five eating chicken tenders before we played the game.

You know, well, how do we go, where do we stay when we play at West Alabama? I mean, it’s a three hour trip. Where do we stay? We stay in our, in, in our apartments when we get back home that night. . What? What do you mean we don’t go down the night before? No, we don’t go down the night before we travel down.

We, we’ll stop in Birmingham and, and get Jim and Nick’s or something, some barbecue or, or in, in full moon barbecue or whatever. And then we’ll head to the game, play the game, get back on the bus, eat some bad pizza, and come on home. And it’s all good. And you know, it got to the point where I’d asked my oldest son who was playing for us at the time, Hey man, we can go down the night before if you want on this trip.

No, why would we do that? Why would we do that? That’s ignorant dad. That makes no sense. I would rather just sleep in my own bed, just go down and play the game, coming back. Well, it’s a different mindset. You know, it’s, you get catered on that division one level. And I was catered at Chattanooga and I was used to that 15 years in assistant, nine years as a head coach, 24 years.

And then all of a sudden you are, you are Mike sharing one court with women’s basketball and volleyball and, and P. E. And just trying to figure out a time where you can practice and understand that probably life doesn’t revolve around. You and me as the basketball coach. And that was very refreshing to me.

And I learned some things that I don’t know if we talked about it before my. But I learned some stuff when I was at Chattanooga, realizing that the world didn’t revolve around me and, and our team and that everybody else had other stuff going on too. And, and I learned that the hard way. And I learned that by trying to please everybody and then realizing thatMike I will say this.

It’s a great story that everybody needs to know. The year after I left Chattanooga I was with some high level business people in Chattanooga and, and Will Wade took, took over for me at Chattanooga and they got upset by, I don’t know who they got upset by, but they lost a home game. They shouldn’t have lost.

And at that moment, I was very bitter instead of getting better. I was bitter and, and I was acting like a little child and I went in the next day and I told these business guys, Hey man, how about Chattanooga last night? How about Tim, man? And every single one of those guys looked at me and went, what about them?

They got upset at home. Did y’all not see they got upset at home. You can’t get upset at home. If you’re at Chattanooga in the Southern Commonwealth, you have to win that game. And they all look back and went, oh, okay. Like none of them cared, none of them cared. They all had their own issues and everybody else got their own issues doing their own thing.

And so I realized right there, oh my gosh. What was I doing all those years? I was just trying to please everybody. I thought every, the world revolved around me, nobody cared. And, and so when we approached the Huntsville job, we just realized let’s just do the right things with our kids and quit worrying about the outside world.

And it’s not easy to do, but I think it’s really important. And that was a lesson that I took from Chattanooga.

[00:17:50] Mike Klinzing: Okay, so that being said, how does that then apply to the relationships that you build from day one at Central Arkansas when you walk in the door? How do you approach those relationships with your kids?

Because I know that’s one of the things that we talked about before that you felt like maybe. Yeah. Yeah. You were more transactional with your players at Chattanooga where, hey, what can I get out of these guys? And I wasn’t necessarily building the kind of relationships that you wanted to build. So how do you approach the guys that are part of the program that you’re coming in new?

You’re a brand new guy. They don’t know you. You don’t know them. How do you start to build that relationship so that you can, again, build that family atmosphere where, yeah, you guys are concerned about each other, but you’re not concerned about those outside influences and what anybody else cares about?

Because as you said, Not very many people care anyway.

[00:18:39] John Shulman: Well, I will say this this past summer, I went to two weddings for our players at Alabama Huntsville and those are meaningful and I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand at Chattanooga. I didn’t understand that going to a player’s wedding or getting invited was so important.

It’s important. And so I do realize. You know, I don’t know if we talked about it, but you know, the, the, the number of on, on Christmas day from your players, coach, have a great Christmas, Merry Christmas. At one time I was getting a lot of those and then I stopped getting those. And that’s when I knew I had lost my way.

And, and I don’t know if we all lose our way, but I had lost my way. And, and I have a great wife to keep me on. On the, I guess the the tunnel of success or the, the, the highway of success and don’t let me get off the rails any and because it’s hard not to lose your way, but, but all of a sudden you come into central Arkansas and you think Mike you’ve got this great credibility and, and you know, they, they wanted you there, those kids don’t care.

They don’t care. All they, all they care about, and we talk about all they care about is how much you care about them and they can sniff you out and, andMike in this day and age of the portal and day and age, everything is better somewhere else. And. Very transactional and one year here and one year there.

And what do you do? And you do what we did at Huntsville and you try to get to know these kids and the kids that are staying and the kids that are leaving. And Mike I, the best thing I know to do is, Hey, Glory one of our players where’s your favorite place to eat? Zen Thai. You mean we got Thai food and Conway Arkansas coach is really good.

Let’s go get something to eat. JV on where you want to go eat Japanese steakhouse. We got one of those here. Yes. Let’s go get something to eat. Elias coach, pasta grill. Let’s go. And so Ben Fox, where do you want to go walk on? Well, go sit down on a meal and eat with these guys and tell them what they’re, what you’re about and what you see, the vision of the program.

But just sitting down and, and eating and Mike these kids have been through a lot Mike what you don’t understand is Mike they had they had a coach and now they don’t have a coach. And now these kids, they have. You know, no sense of belonging. Where do I belong to? Who’s going to be our coach?

Should I leave? Should I get in a portal? Every day I look on social media, someone else is getting in a portal. It looks pretty cool out there to get in a portal because that one day in social media, you get a bunch of hits and should I do it and what’s going on with the NIL world and there’s so much for these young guys and young females to have to deal with right now.

It’s. I think the NCAA thought they were doing them a favor. And I think they have done the opposite. I think there’s too much for these kids to deal with right now. And it’s not, it’s not, it’s hard enough for mature adults to have to deal with this. Now, young kids are dealing with it and you know, some are making.

Great decisions. And some are making some bad decisions. I would just Mike just went to the J. Billis camp, guy named Barkley Radebaugh spoke and Barkley was the head coach at Charleston Southern and Barkley is now with Nations of Coaches. And he did an amazing job of, of that’s your next podcast, by the way, is Barclay, right?

He’s amazing on what he does. But he did an amazing job of talking to us about what these kids really, really, really need Mike right now, a sense of belonging because they don’t have that. And then let me ask you this and he put it to me and put it to us. If you take a freshman Mike he was like, Shulman, why are you in coaching?

I want to impact kids. I want to impact young people. All right, Shulman, you’re going to take a kid. You’re going to take a freshman and you’re going to work with them and you’re going to play them and you’re going to, you’re going to impact him and he’s going to get better and he’s going to average 10 points a game for you.

And then someone’s going to come in the next year and offer them 500 grand to go to their program. Are you going to be happy about it? Well, I don’t know. And should I be happy about it? He’s leaving our program. Well, let me ask you this, Shoba, did you impact the kid? Yes. What if his family needs that half a million dollars?

Didn’t you do a great service for that kid? Yeah, I did a wonderful service for the kid. Well, congratulations. You impacted that kid and he makes you look at it a little different. You know, it Mike if we want to impact kids and we losing kids every year, that means. You know, that’s a negative, right?

You just keep losing kids and lose. Well, he flipped it. He was like, maybe it’s a positive. Maybe you can now impact more kids in less time. Maybe you can impact more kids instead of just impacting 13. Every couple of years, maybe Mike you lose some and maybe you’re going to impact Mike 30 kids.

And so he made me kind of look at it a different way. And, and I’ve got to evolve as a coach in this world that we’re in, but still. Hold down some roots that I firmly believe in.

[00:24:17] Mike Klinzing: Well, how do you think about the NIL piece of it in terms of helping your guys to manage that and then also helping them to get more of those opportunities, which again is something when you were at Tennessee Chattanooga, obviously was illegal and now it’s just sort of the wild, wild west.

So how do you just go about having those conversations? And as you said, a lot of times as adults, we don’t necessarily handle. Those situations. Well, you have dynamics, I’m sure within the locker room of this guy has this, and this guy has that, and this person is talking to this guy. How do you just deal with that stuff?

Have you thought that through? Have you, what’s, what’s the, what’s the process for, for helping your guys to navigate? That piece of it, which I know is something that you never would have thought of when you started your coaching career, that this was going to ever be something that you would have had to have helped kids with.

But again, when you talk about impacting, this is an area that is new for everybody that certainly is having an impact on kids lives. So how do you help them to maximize it, get the most out of it?

[00:25:21] John Shulman: Well, first of all, I would think that this new age coach and these young guys coming up, this is all they know.

So, so it’s a lot harder for an old man like me to have to deal with it because paying a kid, giving a kid 25,000 eight years ago was taboo. You didn’t do that. You couldn’t coach a kid. You, you paid for a kid that was one that was cheating. And then if you did something illegal, how are you going to coach it?

You know, and I’ve asked my coaches like, how do you coach these kids if you’re giving them money? Well, because coach, they all expect money. They, everybody, everybody wants an NIL deal. All their friends are getting NIL deals. We, we, I don’t, I can’t. You know, the locker room chemistry is important to me.

All right. And, and I don’t know how other people are doing it and nor do I care, but, but let, let’s say I’ve got a, let’s say my, I’m going to give you, I’m going to give you a 5 million NIL pool. All right. So you can go get whoever you want for 5 million. You can go put a roster together. Now these are 18, 19, 20 year old kids, right?

So you’re going to go get those kids and you’re going to, you’re going to get a couple of big boys for probably. 750 to a million dollars. Got it. And then you’re going to fill the rest of your roster with guys making 400 and 500, 000, that’s what’s going on. Right? So that’s great. But the guy making 250 is your leading scorer.

And the guy making a million is your seventh leading scorer. or your fifth leading scorer, and you screwed that part up, and now the guy making 250 is pissed off because he’s not making a million, but he is making 250, but compared to that guy making a million, that’s a problem. I don’t know how you deal with that in the locker room.

I don’t know. I all I know is that we’re not gonna have to, we’re not gonna have that problem number one. Alright? We’re not going to have that problem when all others are losing their minds. We are not going to lose ours. Alright? So what I wanna do is come up with a program that I can take care of one through 13 scholarship players on the same level.

And that everybody gets the same level. It may not be a ton of money, but it’s going to be something to put in their pocket. Now, I don’t believe in Mike Hey man, we’re going to get this kid a car to come to central Arkansas so he can help us win games. That’s pretty transactional to me.  I don’t really believe in that.

I do believe in trying to help these kids. Now we’ve all been of belief our whole careers of maybe you’ve got some kids in your program that don’t have a ton of funds and don’t come from a lot of money. We’ve all wanted to help those kids our whole career. All right. And now that’s an opportunity to do that now.

So I don’t mind that part of it. The, I don’t even think it even matters Mike what is NIL? Let’s remind everybody. What does NIL stand for? Do you, do you have any idea what NIL stands for?

[00:28:38] Mike Klinzing: Name, image, and likeness.

[00:28:41] John Shulman: Name, image, and likeness. All right. So, so here’s the deal, Mike. All right. Name, image, and likeness.

So, so you think I’m a good player or I think you’re a good player and I own a car lot and I’m gonna get Mike Klinzing to come do our commercial for our car lot. All right, because you’re a good player and people know you. That’s what it was for. That’s what it was for, that we’re going to help these kids get, get these unbelievable deals because they’re a good player.

And maybe we can help them Mike maybe get five or 10, 000. I don’t think it was for, I’m going to pay this kid 2 million to come play for one year. And so it’s kind of pay for Mike play for, for pay. And I get it. I’ve got to evolve. And I do have some beliefs that are not popular in this day and age, but I do have to evolve.

I got a phone call from Charlton Young, associate head coach of Missouri, when I first took over and he was, he’s my guy now, I love him. And, and his first phone call, he said, coach, I know, I know who you are. You have to evolve in this world and you got to have roots. You got to have your beliefs, but you do have to evolve.

And I do understand. I do have to evolve because it is crazy out there. But like I said, when all others are losing their mind. And having locker room issues. I don’t think we will. And I think we’ll as close to our Huntsville days is just try to get better and try to outwork people every single day and love each other and care for each other.

And like I said, I’m old enough that it, if it does work, It’s going to be really fun and refreshing. If it doesn’t work it, nothing else has worked out here at Central Arkansas. So I’ll be okay. I’ll just, I’ll just miss seeing these people around here. I understand that too.

[00:30:30] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. It’s funny. I, when you talk about the locker room dynamic, when this first came to pass.

That was kind of the first thing that just popped into my head when you consider what a locker room looks like without the, the challenge of guys making different amounts of money and get different amounts of playing time and just how the interactions between players potentially can go in a negative direction.

And it just adds another layer of what you as a coach have to make sure that you’re managing and keeping on top of and understanding what the dynamic is that’s going on between your players Within that locker room. It just speaks to, again, the importance of, as you said, when you take your guys out to dinner and you’re talking to ’em and you’re getting to know ’em, right?

That’s, that’s how you start to be able to identify, well, here’s where we’re doing things right in terms of relationships, and maybe here’s where something’s starting to fray, and now you can start to talk about that and then figure it out. And I just. Every time I talk to somebody who’s coaching in college, John, I just, it just seems like the, the, the added layers of complexity that are there.

And regardless of whether you look at them as being a positive, negative, you’re neutral about it. It still is one more thing that You as a college coach have to make sure that you have a handle on and figure it out. And that’s really, I think the bottom line for me is it’s not, it’s not necessarily that, Hey, this is super positive, or, Hey, this is super negative.

It’s, it’s one more thing that’s layered on that you have to make sure that you’re dealing with in a positive way for your kids to help them to, again, impact them in a good way.

[00:32:03] John Shulman: Absolutely. Absolutely. And the locker room was hard enough. And I, it was hard enough dealing with playing time and, and who’s playing and who’s not playing and this guy get long.

And but I will say this you know, I wanted this opportunity to do this one more time on this level to try it, to do it in my eyes, the right way that I did not I did not do that. I felt like at Chattanooga. And so someone called me the other day and they were like, Hey man, are you okay?

This thing’s a disaster out here. It’s a disaster. It’s a wild, wild West. It’s. It, this is ridiculous. And, and you know, just be honest. I told him, I was like, I’m, I worked too hard to get back to this level. I’m not going to sit here and complain and whine and that, man, this sucks. And it’s just hard.

And absolutely it’s hard. It was also hard at Alabama Huntsville to go beat West Alabama at West Alabama. All right. That was hard. It was hard to go to Montevallo to win. That was hard. It doesn’t matter. Levels don’t matter. I’m not going to sit here and get back to the Division 1 level and say, man, this stinks because you got to deal with that.

Listen, man, I’m so thrilled. You know, as long as we got, as long as we got 13, 14 guys, 15 guys that believe in what we believe in, Man, what a great opportunity. What a cool opportunity to go coach these kids and, and to see if we can we open at BYU on November 5th and then go to Utah. We got Oklahoma, we got Arkansas on the schedule and then January 1, the thing I’m happy about.

In the GSC at Huntsville, we were playing league games in November. We get to wait all the way to January. It’s really cool. Nice. There you go. All right. We get to wait all the way to January to play a league game and that’s going to be exciting for us. But I’m so thankful and grateful and excited. And fortunate and blessed to have this opportunity.

You’re going to hear no complaining from me.

[00:34:11] Mike Klinzing: All right. So hitting the ground, running from the basketball side of it. Tell me a little bit about you get the job. How do you put together the plan for what summer looks like for you and your guys? And I know, look, division one level, obviously the amount of time that you guys have access to your players obviously gives you a great opportunity to be able to, to build those relationships, to get them better, to But in a lot of ways, man, it’s, I, when, when you first jumped on, you’re like, man, I’m tired from, from the summer.

So just tell me about the plan. What’s, what was the plan basketball wise?

[00:34:43] John Shulman: Well, there was no plan basketball wise. We had four guys on the roster. We didn’t talk about basketball at all for a long time. We’re trying to fill a roster. We’re trying to get, we’re trying to get 13 guys on scholarship. And, and that was the plan.

I’m just telling you from, from March Mike that’s the other thing Mike normally Mike after the season, the season is exhausting and, and you end up taking Amy Shulman and, and the boys to, to spring break and you go down to the beach for a week and you kind of decompress. We played Saturday against Embry Riddle.

It was a disastrous moment for Alabama Huntsville this past year. And got beat. It was, it was a tough week. We were exhausted from the GSC tournament. Word started leaking out about me. Our point guard got sick the morning of the game. Disaster. Anyway, you look at it, we get whipped. Sunday, I have to tell the guys that I’m leaving.

Monday, I’m in Conway, Arkansas, Monday night. I have not had a break since not complaining. I’m just saying, that’s why it’s exhausting. But then all of a sudden you get your roster and then all of a sudden it’s June. And when you got some guys coming in now, I only wanted them here for, for one semester, but we had some guys that wanted to be here.

So we, we did some workouts. I don’t, I think you can probably overdo it in the summer. I don’t want to do that. You know, I remember going to watch East Tennessee practice a couple of years ago with Steve Forbes, it was in October and, and I went to practice and like, they were all hurt, like he only had like seven guys practice.

And I said, Steve, where’s your team? He was like, this is our 63rd day of practice. We’re exhausted and we’re beat up and we’re hurt. I want to be good in January and February. And, and I think you just got to be really careful in the months of June and July, wearing your team out, just to be honest. And, and we wanted to introduce some offensive stuff and we are, and we’re in the process right now of doing that.

You know, I gave our kind of our whole coaching staff and everybody off last week, get out of the office, go do something else. And told them to get away. You know, Ken Duke, Ken Duke’s a professional golfer. All right. He’s actually a big Arkansas guy and he’s a great friend of mine. And you know, he told me a long time ago, he came watch this play one night down at Florida international when I was at Chattanooga and we got whipped down there and I was like, we got to go back to work and we got to get this done.

We, he went, you are exhausted. Your team’s exhausted. If you’re exhausted, you cannot learn and you cannot get better. And I’m just telling you. Kind of reading the room and reading your team and reading your situation. You know, we’re all, everybody’s freaking out because, oh my gosh, we only got three and a half hours on the court last week or two weeks ago, or, oh my God, that 30 minutes Mike somebody else, those women had a basketball camp.

Oh my God. We. Hey man Mike we’re not going to gripe and complain about that in February. So we just need to Mike we are installing some offense and it better be fun for them right now. And, and we’re not doing a whole lot of defensive stuff right now, if any. We’ll probably start that sometime in September.

It is a long year and, and Mike how do the guys that we kept at Central Arkansas, how do they fit? You know, we, we very Mike we ran Princeton stuff for five years at Huntsville, all right, because we had to how does that fit into our plans here? We’ve very simply told them we are married to winning.

We’re not married to Princeton. We’re not married to our flat ball screen stuff. We’re not married to running Carolina B plays. We’re married to winning. We’ll figure it out. We’re not going to put you in a box right now. Let’s see what everybody can do. And then we’ll figure it out. We brought two of our coaches from Huntsville.

We brought a young man we used to compete against for many years that was assistant at Palm Beach Atlantic. And then we kept two young guys from, I’m the only old guy on the staff, Mike. We kept two young guys from central Arkansas who are very hungry when, and they’re, they’re, they’re phenomenal. I just.

I’ve done a really good job of making sure that I’m the dumbest guy in the room. And I’ve got really smart guys on our staff. I don’t, at Chattanooga, I’m just telling you at Chattanooga, I wanted to be the smartest guy. I thought I was the smartest guy. Look at me, everybody. I’m the head coach. That, that didn’t work.

And I’m just very thankful that you got, I’ve got another opportunity to make sure that. Don’t look at me anymore. Look at Mark. Look at our players. Look at our staff. They bust their tail end doing what they do. And I’m, I’m fortunate that I get a redo just to be honest.

[00:39:37] Mike Klinzing: That’s one of the things that I’ve learned on the podcast, John, that I don’t think I had necessarily any idea before I started was just how many guys expressed that sentiment that you just talked about where, yeah, I might be the head coach, but ultimately my program and my team is more successful when I delegate and give more responsibility to what I do.

The coaches who are a part of my staff and when they’re doing more and when they’re taking on more and when they’re bringing me their intellect, their ideas, their creativity, that that ultimately ends up making the program better. And again, I don’t think that’s something that I would have ever thought about when I first started the podcast, but there’s been so many guys that have told me that as I’ve, as I’ve gotten older and I’ve realized that I don’t need to micromanage.

every aspect and I don’t need to be the guy taking credit for every single thing that goes on. Myself as a coach and my program got way better when I was able to sort of let go of some things. It sounds like that’s kind of what you’re talking about.

[00:40:39] John Shulman: Well, I think one of your responsibilities or all of us as head coaches and older head coaches is to help the younger coaches.

You know, help, help an assistant, help an assistant become a head coach. That’s what they all want to do. Make sure it’s not your job, but help your assistant become a head coach. And empower these guys or young ladies, empower them. And they’re either going to sink or swim. And if they sink, help them swim.

You know, just throw them out there. And, and I learned the hard way. I’m just telling you, I learned when I was at Huntsville, I learned you had them on your dealMike Anthony Camara, all right. And Anthony Komara if I did not have Anthony Komara put in the Princeton offense and teach it step by step my first year at Huntsville, they would have fired me after a year because I would have been an absolute disaster.

And so he, I learned it on the fly. I’d never run the Princeton offense. Why would I, I didn’t have to have guys that do that. And, and that, that just taught me a valuable lesson right there. I empowered him. And let me tell you something. He’s a flipping dude down at Montevallo and he’s going to get that thing going.

But let’s say I didn’t empower him. All right. Number one, he would not be the head coach of Montevallo and I would not be the head coach of Huntsville because we were not going to win, we were not going to win with my ideas, with the type of kids that we had at Huntsville. And so you know, call me a genius or call me an idiot.

All right. I was at least smart enough to know that I know what I didn’t know and I let him do it. And when I did that, when I did that so much fun, and then now my oldest child Max Shulman is kind of our office coordinator, kind of took over last year at Huntsville and now he’s out with us at Central Arkansas.

You know, Mike I had Ezra Pinser today who came with us out from, from Huntsville. Give me every baseline drive. What happened when we were playing man last year and every middle drive last year. And I went, is this from any head West Florida up there? I said, is this from the West Florida gate? He said, no coach.

I dissected every middle drive of our entire year last year and every baseline drive. And here’s the points we gave up and here’s the fouls we gave up. And here’s the threes. Mike, I didn’t do that. Ezra did that. And, and so that’s whyMike I think the more power you give them and the moreMike they just take pride in it and they want to be better and they want to do better.

If they don’t have anything to do with their program, I don’t think they’re going to work real hard. I think the more, the more sweat, you know I did a little painting around the house. The more sweat equity you put in your house and more sweat equity you put in your program, the more you care about it.

[00:43:43] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, there’s no doubt about that. I don’t think there’s any question that when you empower your assistants and you give them that ability to, like we talked about earlier, impact kids, right? If they can do things and they take responsibility for certain aspects of what you’re doing, whether that’s on the floor, off the floor, in the film room, whatever it might be, then yeah, they’re going to clearly be more invested in it without question.

Tell me about Coaching with your son, what makes it so special to have your son as part of the staff? I mean, clearly it goes without saying that Mike you love your son and just to have him around in terms of just the time you guys get to spend together. But beyond that, what, what’s so special about working with him?

[00:44:20] John Shulman: Well, one, he’s a lot brighter than I am, which is nice. He’s a lot smarter than me. He’s taller than me. He’s better looking than me. There’s a lot of positives there for his, on his sake. But just seeing himMike I’m, I’m, I don’t think I’m at the end of my life or career. But I’m on the other side of it and watching him have this opportunity to be a division one assistant watching him go the final four with the central Arkansas stuff on knowing that he’s probably doing the same stupid stuff that I did when I was 24 going to the final four.

And it is just, it’s interesting when we, when we were had an opportunity to get this job out here. I said, Max, you’re going to go from, I hope you understand this. You’re going from playing CBU Lee and in West Alabama to playing BYU, Utah, and Oklahoma. I hope, hope, hope you’re ready, son, get your tail end going.

And you know, that’s, but I trust them. I trust him. He was a coach on the floor. He’s been around me my whole life and his whole life. And he has seen the goods and the bads. I text my wife or called her after this one comment he made. We had, we didn’t lose two games in a row, a whole lot at Huntsville in five years.

And we won 21 games this past year. Wasn’t one of our best, better teams, but we battled and got the NCAA tournament, but we lost at home to Lee and we lost on the road the next game to Delta state. And, and we had lost our starting five man with a concussion and our backup four with the concussion.

And we were in a bad place and we were going down to Jackson, Mississippi to go play Mississippi college. And we’re a place that we hadn’t won in four years. And, and we had this come to Jesus meeting on Friday morning. It was an amazing meeting and kids got emotional. And then we went to practice and we had an amazing practice.

And then we had an amazing day. And then we went in the next day and we, we just jailed and we bonded and we led start from finish at Mississippi college. And I text all my coaches and I went, Hey man, well done guys. And Max Shulman said, dad, that was addicting. And he said those words to me, dad, that was addicting.

And I called my wife and I went, sweetie, we have lost our child. We have lost our child to this game because. It is not a job that we do. It’s a calling, it’s a passion. And, and when you get that sense of accomplishment. With a team it’s hard to beat. I don’t know any other profession that, that, and I’m sure, listen, when a, when a doctor saves a person’s life, I’m assuming they feel that same way.

And it’s way more important than us winning a game. All right. But when a businessman seals a deal or a lawyer wins a court case, I’m assuming that’s the same deal. I hope it is because that feeling that you get when you’re on the road at Mississippi college and you make a couple of last free throws and you’re up seven with 10 seconds to go, and you know, the game’s over and not a whole lot of better feeling than that moment right there.

And that’s what we do it for. And we all, but we also do it to see Tommy Murr get married in Alamo, Alabama this summer, and. Malik Cook getting married up in Indianapolis. And we do it for a lot of reasons and they’re all pretty good reasons because it’s about those kids.

[00:47:52] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely.Who on campus at Central Arkansas has been. an advocate that maybe you didn’t see coming. Somebody that you met that’s part of the campus community that you feel like, man, this person is behind me a hundred percent, even though six months ago, I never knew who they were.

[00:48:11] John Shulman: Well, I will say this. I’m very big on hiring assistants that I know.

Okay. And that I know that our family, that I trust. All right. No doubt that that is a major league deal for me. I, I came out here. I did not know the state of Arkansas. And I, the, the first day that we were out here that I came out, I met with one of the assistant coaches, a guy, a guy named Brock Widders and Brock Widders had been at central Arkansas and he had been here during some lean, lean, years and I just sat down with them for about two hours.

On that morning, on that Tuesday morning. And I ain’t gonna lie to you. After that second hour, I went, I gotta be around this guy. This guy’s phenomenal. I, I hadn’t, I never had met him in my life and I fell in love with this guy. He was a dude and, and I made very Clear to him. They had two kids at central Arkansas, a young man named Cam Hunter and a young man named Tucker Anderson, who were really good players, really good players.

Tucker’s at Utah state now and Cam’s at Wisconsin. And I wanted him to know, and I wanted Brock to know, Brock, if we decided to do this and get married, And, and you come with our staff. Bringing Cam and Tucker Anderson is not part of the deal. I’m not keeping you for that reason. I’m not keeping you so we can keep those kids.

I don’t do that. It’s not good business. And he has been, listen, that night. I think it was that Tuesday night. We went up and saw some kids and then ended up at his mom and dad’s house, meeting his mom and dad that night in Alma or Alma Arkansas. And the guy made some unbelievable salsa for my wife yesterday.

He’s like part of the family. And if we don’t have Brock Widders, there’s no way we have the number three player in Arkansas coming to central Arkansas and the number four player in the state of Arkansas coming. One of them was a Florida Atlantic signee who left. Got out of it after Dusty May went to Michigan.

And the other one is the 23rd point guard in America. Brock Widders is unbelievable at what he does. And I didn’t know him. I didn’t know him, man. There’s some really smart people and some really good people out here, but there’s really good people out yet. Sometimes. You know, and I don’t think we talked about this and I’ve got to do a way better job.

But I try to watch Ted Lasso and learn from Ted Lasso. I love the show. I love the guy. I love the deal. You know, sometimes you gotta be a little bit more curious and less judgmental, and if we’ll all do that 10 years ago, there’s no way I would have hired Brock Widders. I didn’t know him. I mean, why would I want to even get to know this guy?

He’s not one of my guys. It’s called growing up. It’s called growing up and being a big boy. And, but I just be honest. I try to grow up every day and I still got a long ways to go.

[00:51:13] Mike Klinzing: All right. On the recruiting trail, when you think about how you recruited at Tennessee Chattanooga and how the portal has impacted your ability to recruit and the impact that it’s had on recruiting high school players, and then for you as a head coach, I think about let’s say you had come to Central Arkansas 20 years ago where your relationship with high school coaches in that area would have been extremely, extremely critical, right? You would have immediately had to start building those relationships. Not that you’re not going to try to build those relationships now, but just tell me a little bit about the process of how you think about the recruiting and how you went about filling your roster this summer.

What was the process like and maybe how was it different from what you might’ve done in the past?

[00:52:05] John Shulman: Well, probably I haven’t evolved enough. All right, because I still am dumb enough or crazy enough to go get high school kids. I’m not, I’m not playing the game. I’m not going to be in a panic for my job. And you got to get old, stay old, be old.

You got to get old, stay old, be old. Oh my gosh. All right. And I may regret saying this. Because we’re not old, we’re not staying old. I, it Mike that, that, that portal’s a tricky thing and they got good players in that portal. And those, those guys in those portal and that portal are demanding a lot of money to go to your place also.

And maybe they’re leaving for the right reasons. Maybe they’re not leaving for the right reasons. You can get it Central Arkansas. You can get high school kids that 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you had no shot at getting no shot. I mean, we just got the 20th ranked point guard in the, in the, in the country coming to Central Arkansas, the number 34 ranked two guard in the country coming to Central Arkansas.

We just signed Mr. Basketball out of the state of Tennessee at, to Central Arkansas. There, there is, we shouldn’t be getting those guys. And, and now we can get those guys, we can get those guys. And I understand what people are doing. Hey man, Shulman, you get those guys, you get them ready for us. And then we’re going to come in there and we’re going to offer 500,000 for those kids.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. I can’t worry about that, Mike. All I can worry about is coaching kids that I can coach and that we can coach as a staff and that fit what we do. We don’t recruit like everybody else. We recruit in a very uncommon way. We want winners. We want state champions. We want skill.

We want guys who can pass catch. They can shoot. That’s important to us. We want to put a whole arsenal of three point shooters out there. We may not be able to getMike my first year, my first year at Huntsville. Honest to God, I think we had. Maybe four dunks the entire year. And we went 26 and five and, and we probably had four dunks in the first half of my first game at Chattanooga.

It’s different. We recruit skill. If Tyler Lee, who is Mr. Basketball in the state of Tennessee, he is skilled and athletic Mike that’s a bonus for us. But, but we’re not gonna, we’re not just going to go try to get athletic and not get skilled. And so Mike we recruit a little different that way.

And so what do you do? You go get Mike you go get high school kid. We got, I think we’ll have six or seven freshmen in our pro. We got one senior. Well, that’s nuts, man. What are you doing? Well, we’re going to coach the kids that we can coach. And Mike I fully expect Mike I’m, I’m, I’m not real intelligent, Mike, as you know, that, all right, I fully expect to have a chance to win here and I fully, I don’t care that we have freshmen, I do care that Mike we’re going to throw them to the wolves in January one, my goal is January one, be sophomores and, and we’re going to throw them the wolves and they’re going to play huge minutes against, you Oklahoma and Arkansas and all these people were going to play early.

So be it. So be it. That’s what a strength coach is for. That’s what practice is for. That’s what coaches are for. And, and just to be honest, I understand a 24 year old kid, but remember this, you know what you said before we got on here, you’re freshmen, you’re your daughter’s a freshman, correct?

[00:55:46] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. My son will be a, my son will be a freshman. My daughter’s a freshman in high school. She’s gonna be a freshman in high school.

[00:55:52] John Shulman: So your daughter’s a freshman in high school. What is she doing this weekend?

[00:55:55] Mike Klinzing: She is in Louisville playing in an AAU tournament.

[00:55:58] John Shulman: All right. Now remember all these freshmen that we have coming in have played in all these tournaments and they’ve played all these games and this is different bringing in freshmen for many years ago.

These dudes are experienced. All right. And even though they’re, they’re 18, 19 years old we got to help them get their bodies right. You know, if we’re going to go, woe is me, and I’m going to use that as an excuse. That’s bull. I shouldn’t have done it. All right. And, and, but we we’ve done it and I believe in it.

And while everybody else is losing their mind, we’re going to get some kids that we can coach. And, and when we tell them to sprint to A to B, they’re going to sprint to A to B. They don’t know better. They haven’t been coached by other people in college and we didn’t do it like this.

And Mike we’re not taking a charter flight. No, we’re taking a bus. All right. So we’re going to do it kind of, that’s why I said, and I’ll tell you about my kid Mike we, we our first week we were out here, it was, it was nonstop. It was seven in the morning until 11 at night, looking at the portal, looking at film, looking at this, looking at that.

Tape looking at that tape and I was on my way back to Huntsville after that first week on that weekend and in my oldest son called he said, Dad Mike what was our motto at Huntsville? Well, we’re going to be uncommon. We’re going to be different. Well, it doesn’t seem like we’re being real different.

Looks like we’re doing exactly what everyone else is doing. And like I said, sometimes it’s good not to be the smartest guy on your staff. Even if it’s your son, who is a lot smarter than I am saying, Hey man, why don’t we wake up and why don’t we do what we do and do it how we do it. And then if it’s good enough, it’s good enough.

If it’s not, at least we did it our way and that’s how we’re going to do it.

[00:57:48] Mike Klinzing: I think there’s two really good points there. One, what you said earlier is going to stick with me in terms of impacting kids, right? And that’s really what it’s all about and getting the opportunity. And all these things that we’ve been talking about tonight are all things that you as a college coach have to handle that are part of your job.

The job at this point. And so they all impact the way and the amount of time that you have to be able to impact kids. But I think what I hear you saying and from what I know about you and just our relationship is that that’s, that’s what you, that’s what you believe in at this point, that you’re going to be able to impact kids and by impacting kids, that’s going to enable you to put together a winning program.

So I think that to me, is number one. And then number two, when I think about just you saying that, Hey, we’re going to be uncommon, we’re not going to do things like everybody else is doing them. And ultimately, I think that you have to be able to, as you said, look yourself in the mirror, put your head on the pillow, however you want to say it at night.

And know that, Hey, we’re doing it the way that we believe in. We’re not trying to fit into some container that everybody else wants us to fit into. We’re trying to do things the way that we believe is going to make us successful. And I think that that’s not always easy to do, right? Because there are a lot of outside voices and influences, and depending upon where you are in your career can sometimes be hard to tune out.

what other people are saying, and, oh man, you’re doing it wrong, or, oh, you should be doing this, or, oh, this is the right way to do it, or, oh, this is wrong. And ultimately, I think what you have to do, and it’s, again, it’s not easy. It’s not easy to do, but you have to do what you think is right. And those are the two things that I took away from what you just said.

[00:59:32] John Shulman: Well, let’s say you try to do it a different way than you’re used to. And let’s say you, you change because now we’re division one. And now we got the portal and now we got this. Now we got that. So we’re going to do it a different way than we’re used to. And let’s say it doesn’t work. Do you think you’ll have regrets?

I would think, I wouldn’t, I would think that you would just say at the very end of it, when it didn’t work, I would think you went, why didn’t we just do it how we know to do it? This is stupid. Why don’t we just do how we, what we know to do? And so instead of having no Mike that’s the thing about being a little older, Mike is I know the end of the book. I know, I’ve already read the end of the book. I’ve already seen the end of the book. And, and so we’re going to do what we do. Now, if, if it works, great. If it doesn’t work, at least we did what we do and we’ll have no excuses. And so Mike I learned that my first year at Chattanooga, we doubled in the post from the top.

That’s what we did. That’s who we were. We gave up records, Mike. We gave up 22 threes to Georgia Southern. We gave up 23s to Creighton. We gave up 18 threes to Appalachian state. We gave up 15 threes to Ohio state. We gave up records. Did I deviate? No. Did we get better? Yes. Did we keep doing what we do?

Absolutely. We also won the regular season title that first year. We also won the Southern Conference Tournament that year. We also should have beaten Wake Forest in the NCAA Tournament with Chris Paul. We led at half. up in Cleveland. All right. We did what we did. All right. What’d we do the next year?

Then I started, everybody was like, well, Shulman can’t guard a three point line. They can’t guard a three point line. Well, then we started making adjustments. I started listening. We started making adjustments. We got to do a better job guarding a three point line. Now we started giving up threes and we started giving up twos and we started fouling more and we started getting hurt on the glass.

And then I was like, why didn’t we just do what we do? What, what’s the deal? You know, we gotta make a lot of changes, man. We’re going to vision one. This is big time, man. We just went 112 and 39 playing a defense in multiple defenses, but really a D that we had three non negotiables. No layups, no free throws, no second shots.

And we gave up too many threes. We did. I admit it. We gave up too many threes. Well, we just went 112 and 39 giving up too many threes. So now we’re going to make all these adjustments. And oh my god, we can’t, we can’t help as much here. And we can’t do this. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to make all these adjustments.

And then probably January the 1st, we’re going to say, why don’t we just do what we know and how to coach and know what to do, and this is what we believe in. And so then if it doesn’t work, it’s kind of like this, are you going to foul up three or you’re not going to foul? Make the decision now. Don’t make it in the game.

Make the decision now when you’re unemotional so that you make, so that you can sleep at night. This is all about sleeping at night. How do you want to guard a ball screen? You better be able to sleep at night. Once we started switching all ball screens, I was able to sleep at night. It’s all about getting a good night’s sleep, and if you’re worried, which I did, about everything when I was at Chattanooga.

Man, you can’t even function. You can’t even think. And so, I have learned in my old age, just, I’m not smart enough to, to be somebody else. I have to be who I am. Everyone else is taken. Right.

[01:03:20] Mike Klinzing: Last question, and it kind of piggybacks off of what you just said. When you sit down next March and you look at your team and you look back at the season, how are you going to define success for your team and your program this year?

Not listening to what other people’s definition of success is, what are you going to look at? What are the markers that you’re going to be thinking about as you look back?

[01:03:48] John Shulman: What side of my brain, what side of the brain is talking to me? Because I’ll just be honest, I have, I have, I will be, I can tell you this right now.

We’re going to win this year. We’re going to win this year. Now, what that means on the right side of my brain, I don’t know what that means. All I can tell you is that we’re, we’re going to tuck our shirts in at practice. We’re going to touch every line. We’re going to do right things. We’re going to run great offense.

We’re going to box out. We’re going to play solid D. We’re not going to get in foul trouble. We’re going to keep you off the foul line. We’re going to do right things. Under OBD is going to be great. Under OB, under OBO is going to be great. We’re going to do, we’re going to win. Got it. Now, I don’t know what that means, W and L.

I don’t know what that means, but so then I will tell you on the other side of my brain, on the other, other side of my brain, if we don’t cut down the nets. I’m going to be disappointed. And, and whether that’s realistic, I don’t know whether that’s fair to us and our kids, I don’t know. Oh, nor do I care.

I did not come out here to finish upper echelon in the league. I didn’t come out here to have a winning season. To me, there’s, there’s one dream that you have on this level. It doesn’t matter what league it, the one dream is to cut down that net and to get One shining moment in the play in the big dance.

There’s nothing better. So if there’s another goal, I don’t know about it. And so Mike I’ve been a head coach for 14 years, D1 and D2. We’ve been to seven NCAA tournaments in 14 years. There’s nothing better. We gear everything around it. That’s why we’re not going to panic in, in June and July. On, Oh my God, we’re not boxing out good enough.

We don’t need to box out good enough in June and July. We need to box out good enough. Really? In theory, we need to box out for those three days in March, just to be honest, but we’ve got to do a good enough job to get to the dadgum a son tournament to get to those three days in March. All right. Because that, that’s not a given for us.

So Mike what’s sitting down in March. Very simple. I want to be exhausted again because I want to just play in the NCAA tournament. No, I don’t want to play in that first, that first game on that Tuesday. I want to be a, I want to be a 14 15 seed. Is that crazy? Absolutely. It’s crazy. It’s nuts, but you gotta be a little bit of nut to do what we do.

But Mike on the other side of my brain, we’re going to have a winning basketball program, whatever that means, W and L. And, and how we you know, I look at us today on film and we’re arm and arm in, in the huddle before practice and after practice, that’s a win. And, and we looked the part and.

We’re shaking hands the right way with people coming to practice and we’re doing good things and we’re encouraging each other. And those are W’s and how are we going to win November the 5th? We got to win. I don’t even know what day it is. July 10th, maybe. Is it, I don’t know if it’s the 9th or the 10th.

[01:07:05] Mike Klinzing: It is, it’s, it’s the 10th, still the 10th. We got a half hour, at least here on the East coast until the 11^th.

[01:07:11] John Shulman: July the 10thMike we won today. We won today. They played pickup after practice. We got in the weight room today. We won today. We had a great day today. We got to win tomorrow.

We got to stack those days and, and we got to eat, right. We got to do all those little things. Cause we got to get older and we got to get bigger and stronger, faster. And like I said, if, if we’re going to cut down those nets. And you say, I’ve already told my AD that was smart, wasn’t it, Mike? I told my AD, I said, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but if we don’t win the league, I’m going to be royally pissed off.

And he’s like, do you understand we’ve only had one winning season in 18 years? And I said, I didn’t, I don’t care. that doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters to me is what we’re going to do this year. And that’s what we’re going to try to do. And if we fail, we’re going to try to do it again the next year.

And if we fail the next year, we’re going to try to do it again the next year. There’s only one goal, just to be honest on the court and that’s to, that’s to cut down those nets in March.

[01:08:09] Mike Klinzing: All right, John, how can people follow you, follow your program, give me websites, social media, anything to remember?

If not, I’ll just look it up and put it on the, put it in the show notes, man. We’ll see how much, how much you have memorized.

[01:08:22] John Shulman: Listen, I don’t have a lot memorized. All right. I don’t even know how to find books. I don’t even know where I live. It’s funny. I finally figured it out. How to get to my home from the gym and how to get back to the gym.

All right. But, but I will tell you this Mike  my email address is on the website. It’s jshulman@uca.edu I am on Twitter. I think that’s @CoachJShulman

[01:08:56] Mike Klinzing: That’s right.  See you early guys in a podcast that came on, you’re in the first 50 episodes when I used to. Put the Twitters out all the time. I know I got every guy like in the first 50 episodes memorized. So you are definitely @CoachJShulman I can vouch for you.

[01:09:13] John Shulman: But I will say this. Listen, at heart, I’m a JV basketball coach at University High School in Johnson City, Tennessee.

And that’s where my first four years of coaching. I was a JV basketball coach at University High in Johnson City. We were 4-19 my first year. We should have been 3-20, but somebody forfeited and we took the W. That’s why we were 4-19. So why I say that is that my cell number is, is available. And so my cell number is 423 667 8101.

If you got a question and you got a concern, you got a question, you want to. Get something. I’m not smart enough to answer all of them. I’ll send them to my coaches. But we’d love for anybody to want to come to a practice or come to a game. And, and just listen, all we’re trying to do is help others. And we have failed in a lot of aspects along the way, but we’re trying to make up for it and be better coaches and be better humans.

[01:10:12] Mike Klinzing: John, cannot thank you enough for taking the time tonight and through the history of the Hoop Heads Podcast to be a part of it. And like I referenced earlier in our conversation tonight, I think back to our first phone conversation and you know, you said, Hey, you’re one of our guys, you’re one of our basketball guys.

And I certainly feel the exact same way about you. This podcast would not be what it is without the support of great basketball people like yourself. So. A heartfelt thank you to you, John, for everything that you’ve contributed to what we do and what you contribute to the game of basketball. Truly appreciative of that.

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