KIP IOANE – FOUNDER OF TEAMS OF MEN – EPISODE 842

Website – https://www.teamsofmenmembership.group/

Email – teamsofmen@gmail.com

Twitter – @kipioane  @teamsofmen

Kip Ioane is the founder of the Teams Of Men Character Development program, which has garnered national recognition for its work in developing a healthy version of manhood.  A tiered, progressive calendar takes players through education in sexual assault prevention, victim advocacy and healthy relationships.

An NCAA DIII men’s basketball coach at Willamette University for 14 years (22 overall in the profession) Kip launched the original “character development” work a decade ago. Now, he has compiled his proven curriculum and team interaction calendars into the #TeamsOfMen system.

Ioane also attended Willamette as a student-athlete and played for the Bearcats from 1997-98 through 2000-01. He was a two-year captain who earned a total of four letters while playing at Willamette.  As a senior, he was a finalist for the Josten’s Trophy, given to the NCAA Division III men’s basketball player of the year.

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Get ready to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Kip Ioane, the founder of Teams of Men.

What We Discuss with Kip Ioane

• His adjustment to being let go as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Willamette University last spring
• “It is weird being an alien in places that used to be so comfortable to me.”
• “So often we demand that growth from our players, right? And sometimes us coaches, we are the slowest adopters of our own mantras.”
• “I have a fundamental core belief in the power of a coach with a group of players in a team room.”
• “That team room is really the last space where men, especially in today’s society, get regular intentional time with other men towards a common goal, but also where the goal involves sacrificing for each other.”
• “Coaches are uniquely set up to demand more from young men.”
• “The why behind Teams of Men is to get coaches to ask them to do more in their humanity, as well as their athleticism.”
• “You’ve created curious, reflective people. They have a mirror in their pocket figuratively that they’re always pulling out. Like, why do I think that? Why did I say that? Why did I do that? And if they don’t like the answer, they’re willing to change.”
• “I couldn’t sleep because my answer was simply, well, it’s not my guys. But I knew I had done nothing to live up to what I was preaching in recruiting sessions.”
• “Give me your son. I will use basketball to make him a great man. I wasn’t doing that.”
• “Sport is education. Coaches are teachers. The game is meant to give young people skills for life.”
• “If I had to stand up and be embarrassed, that would give them permission through the modeling that they too could be less than perfect.”
• “Truth over harmony.”
• “I’m going to hold you to the man I think you can be.”
• The research that shows young men want to be part of the solution
• “Young men don’t want to be painted as perpetrators. They want to help, but they don’t know how.”
• Enlisting the help of experts to build Teams of Men
• Helping players improve and build healthy relationships
• “It was always about more with you. It was always about who I was going to be coach. I’m the man I am today because I had Teams of Men in my life.”
• The lack of deep friendships in young men and the impact on their mental health
• Share your stories in the third person sometimes to better relate to players
• “Reimagining masculinity to make sure it doesn’t harm women.”
• “We talk about things. That doesn’t mean we solve things.”
• “A great question is more powerful than a good answer because a great question drives you towards discovery.”
• How discussing deeper issues like sexual assault, pornography, and relationships breaks down the barriers of communication on a team
• “Do they have courage in the moment and the ability to stand in their power and say something?”
• Breaking the locker room code of silence and teaching players to recognize harm
• “Once you have this culture of victim advocacy, survivor advocacy, standing in your power, now you’ve eliminated a climate of silence.”
• “Intent never equals impact.”
• Scenario/role playing to learn how to handle difficult situations
• “I thought the guys would be more honest with you on these deep topics if I wasn’t in the room and I have to push back and say coach Thank you for that thought But do you have a culture of trust if they can’t be honest with you on the things that matter most?”
• How coaches can get started with Teams of Men

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THANKS, KIP IOANE

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TRANSCRIPT FOR KIP IOANE – FOUNDER OF TEAMS OF MEN – EPISODE 842

[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 Kip Ioane, former men’s head basketball coach at Willamette University and the founder of Teams of Men. Welcome back to the Hoop Heads Pod. Appearance number two, buddy.

[00:00:18] Kip Ione: Hey man, I’m moving up in the world when I get number two with you guys. You guys are exploding everywhere. I’m very grateful, man. I appreciate you letting me back on and sharing your platform.

[00:00:27] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Thrilled to have you on and looking forward to diving into a topic that is one that I don’t think is talked about nearly enough.

And I know it’s one that you are totally passionate about. So we will get into that in just a minute. But before we do, just kind of give people a quick update where you’re at, what you’re doing professionally, and then we’re going to dive into Teams of Men and what that means and the impact it can have.

[00:00:50] Kip Ione: Yes, sir. So like you mentioned in the intro, I spent the last 14 years and really the last 26 years of my life as a Bearcat in Salem. So I was a player, assistant coach, last 14 as a head coach of Willamette University. In April, like happens to a lot of us, there was a decision made by the athletic department to go in another direction.

And while I think that’s a soul wound that I will struggle to ever heal. I think it’ll scar and scab over a little bit. I think I’ve really embraced in the last four or five months that it didn’t happen to me, it happened for me because what it allowed me to do was put all my attention, all my energy and focus on, like you mentioned, Teams of Men.

Where we’re trying to empower coaches across the country of male sports teams to enlighten their young men, to read you re imagine manhood and really take advantage of the, of the, of the trust coaches have with their team and the environment that is a locker room, which I think you and I both agree is such a special place.

And I also run, I’m the. President of my father’s non profit foundation, the Cass Ioane Foundation, which raises money to combat Alzheimer’s and dementia in all its forms. My dad was diagnosed a couple years ago, and my brother Kane and I have started that foundation. So it’s very strange to not have my own team this time of year, right, with school starting and everybody coming to campus.

It’s very weird. I’m not going to lie to anybody out there. But it’s also I’ve got a schedule and a new calendar. I’m learning with helping other teams across the country and raising money for something, obviously I really believe in fighting dementia and Alzheimer’s and helping people that are going through the same thing my family is.

So it’s a different space, it’s a different role. But still there’s tons of competition. There’s tons of successes, tons of lows. And so I’m feeding that while also having time to be a dad and a husband in a new way that I didn’t have in the last 14 years where my schedule dictated our house.

And now my kid’s schedule does, my wife’s schedule does, and I’m the one that needs to adjust what I’m doing to be where they need me to be. And that’s something that I’m not great at yet, but I’m proud to be undertaking the attempt. I’m trying to understand the assignment.

[00:02:50] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. That is a journey that is going to feel very very strange. I know just for me and I wasn’t coaching at the same level that you were coaching, but when I stepped away from being a high school assistant coach, when my kids started to do some activities and I decided I wanted to spend more time kind of watching them play and coaching them.

And that first year when I didn’t have a season, that was probably the first time that I didn’t have a season for, man, I don’t know, 30 years, right? It was, it was a strange It was a strange feeling to not have, okay, well, where’s, where’s the team, either the team I’m playing on or the team I’m coaching.

And what do you mean? I’m just going to go and watch a game here or there and not really be invested in a team. It was a weird, it was a weird feeling, Kip. It was very strange.

[00:03:38] Kip Ione: And brother, I tell you, I’ve been in gyms since the decision was made and it is very strange for me to show up into a gym where my voice and my whistle the figurative and literal whistle is not in charge. And I know it’s a good exercise for me. It’s a good dose of humble pie and a good dose of sometimes you just need to be the support and Kip. You don’t have to be in charge of the space, but it is weird being an alien in places that used to be so comfortable to me.

[00:04:12] Mike Klinzing: There’s no question. It’s just a strange feeling when you think about, right, you’ve almost designed your life around the rhythm of what a season is. And for you, doubly so, because you’ve been at the same place in the same environment for so long.

And as you said, you kind of have set your, your family life, your own life to, to the rhythm of those seasons. And then now taking that away, it’s, It’s got to be a weird feeling. Like I said, I know for me, when I stepped away, it was very strange, but the good thing for you is…

[00:04:43] Kip Ione: I’ve used this in discussing with some close friends of mine.

You know, I think Willamette, like you mentioned, since I was 18 years old, that was my identity, some version of a Bearcat. Right. And like you mentioned, where’s my team, where’s my us so I can go test it against them on a scoreboard. But in a lot of ways, what I. was my castle was somehow, was in some versions of cage because it was preventing me from some other exploration and some other identities, right?

So it’s not like I regret any part of that 26 years at all. But also I am very much now in a better space where I can be like, Holy cow, what, who are you without that identity and how exciting is it to be able to chase it? Now there’s some nights too, where I stare at the wall, like, yeah, who are you?

But I am enjoying the growth because I think as a coach, so often we demand that growth from our players, right? And sometimes us coaches, we are the slowest adopters of our own mantras in our own teachings. So this move has forced me into some things that at the end of the day, I think I’ll look back on and go, that was a pivot point for me.

[00:05:49] Mike Klinzing: All right, let’s start with the why we’re going to use the old fashioned high school newspaper for the podcast tonight.

[00:05:57] Kip Ione: One of your teachers is really happy you remember it.

[00:06:00] Mike Klinzing: All right. So we’re going to, I don’t know if we’re going to go in the right order or not, but I want to start with the why.

So. Yep. Why Teams of Men? I think that’s a good place to start. And then after you answer the why, then we can get into the what of what it actually is. So let’s start with the why.

[00:06:13] Kip Ione: Teams of Men, the why behind Teams of Men is because I have a fundamental core belief in the power of a coach with a group of players in a team room.

Because I think it’s one of the last. for any young man, whether they’re a high school athlete and that’s the end of their career, a college athlete, that’s the end of your career. You could go all the way through professional and that’s the end of the career. That team room is really the last space where men, especially in today’s society, get regular Intentional time with other men towards a common goal, but also where the goal involves sacrificing for each other.

Like that’s just the norm. We’re so used to it. We don’t recognize when you get out in the real world, like literally my therapist will tell me, go find community, go find a team. And they’ll tell that to men that are searching for help and all the things that we know are hurting us in mental health, anxiety, stress.

But we have that with our teams when we’re coaching, no matter the sport. We have that space that is so unique and potentially powerful that I just believe for myself when I was doing it and for others that I’m helping now, we cannot miss the opportunity to stand in that power. And help change lives because coaches are uniquely set up to demand more from young men and the young men are receptive to it.

They’re like, yeah, coach is the one that asked me to change. And I believe in the change he wants me to do. I believe the why behind Teams of Men is to get coaches to ask them to do more in their humanity, as well as their athleticism.

[00:07:46] Mike Klinzing: Let’s talk about the what. So the why is that there’s an opportunity in front of us as coaches because as you said, we have a captive audience that we’ve built trust with that looks to us for guidance. So what are they getting when you start talking about teams of men?

[00:08:06] Kip Ione:They’re getting the opportunity to give their players the mirror training skill set, self reflection. And the reason I go there and not directly to, hey coach, Teams of Men is going to help prevent all the harmful actions young men get in trouble for and we read about in the news or we see in Twitter, we see on YouTube, whether that’s sexual assault, domestic violence, bullying, hazing, all the things that we know are isms that we can’t stand.

It’s all rooted in the fact that young men often aren’t sure who they are, and therefore they buy into the man box of society, telling them, well, you’re a man, you have to be X, Y, Z. And then our young people, because they haven’t self reflected on their own self worth and who they want to be and why, Perform towards conquest, perform towards sexual encounters, perform towards domination in any space, perform towards cutting off their emotions.

And we know those performances wind up harming others, women, LGBTQ community, younger men, special needs communities. So rather than say, don’t, don’t, don’t, Teams of Men is going to provide them with why I want you to look in the mirror and know the why behind you because you authentically yourself are great.

You don’t need these performative behaviors. So that’s our number one thing we want to leave teams with and coaches is for the rest of their lives. You’ve created curious, reflective people. They have a mirror in their pocket figuratively that they’re always pulling out. Like, why do I think that? Why did I say that?

Why did I do that? And if they don’t like the answer, they’re willing to change.

[00:09:40] Mike Klinzing: Let’s start with you having these conversations with your team initially before. Yep. You even come up with the curriculum before you put this whole thing together as something that could be expanded beyond your locker room.

You have to take this idea for yourself with your team and you have to stand up in front of your guys and you have to talk about, let’s face it, some of these. Topics are topics that are not necessarily talked about in public very often be topics that 18, 19, 20 year old kids feel tremendously comfortable talking about any parent who’s had a difficult conversation with.

Their own child who they’ve raised and lived with for X number of years, whether you’re talking about having a discussion of the birds and the bees or with drugs or drink, whatever, whatever kind of discussion you want to think about as a parent. Now you’re talking about you as a coach standing in front of your team and having to talk about some things that may be uncomfortable for you initially as a coach and then for your players. So what was that process like for you of kind of getting yourself comfortable and then getting your team to a space where they were comfortable enough to be able to, to truly open up and share and talk about all the stuff that is so endemic to the program?

[00:10:59] Kip Ione: Right.  No, I appreciate that. In my lived experience was I arrived because I couldn’t sleep at night. I arrived because over the course of a four month span in 2013, things were happening on the campus that I was the coach at. We’re like, we’ve said ad nauseum, I’ve been there forever. I was Mr. Bearcat. So alumni call me and go, how is there this toxic, misogynistic, racist Facebook group on this campus?

How are there players in that? How are there athletes committing heinous acts against women? How are there people in the Salem community causing harm to the LGBTQ community around campus? What the hell’s going on, Kip? And I couldn’t sleep because my answer was simply, well, it’s not my guys. But I knew I had done nothing to live up to what I was preaching in recruiting sessions.

I’ll give you a good human being back. Give me your son. I will use basketball to make him a great man. I wasn’t doing that. I was doing scoreboard curriculum. If we win, stay humble. If we lose, stay resilient. Back to weights, back to film. That’s it. Lying to parents in my estimation, not living up to my values.

My behaviors weren’t aligned with the values my parents instilled in me. My dad was a 35 year coach. My mom’s a Montessori school principal. They taught me sport is education. Coaches are teachers. The game is meant to give young people skills for life. Yes, we’re competitive. Yes, we want to win. But at the end of the day, the skillsets they take away, the connections they make are more important. So that was my, Oh, I’m not doing it. Right. My next hurdle and you’re a hundred percent, right. And I so appreciate you putting words to it is can I stand up and be vulnerable in front of these guys? Can I talk about things that I know very well, I am not living to. The epitome of them being acted out.

I know I have shortcomings as a husband. I know I have shortcomings as a man. I know I have beliefs that need to be realigned and I decided, and it was a huge leap of faith, but I’m so thankful I did it. And I know coaches can do it because we ask it of our players. I had to put my trust in the team that when we said we had a family.

We had a family in truth. We were going to love each other to the truth. We were going to have truth over harmony. And if I had to stand up and be embarrassed, that would give them permission through the modeling that they too could be less than perfect. That they too could say, you know what, coach, thank you for saying how you did that wrong with your son.

Thank you for saying how you let your wife down. I’m willing to share now. And it wasn’t instantaneous. This isn’t some magic pixie dust. That suddenly turns into your team room into a one time greatest therapy session that’s ever happened. And you go about your days and never have to worry about behavior again.

What it was, was remolding the space, creating the expectation was what we do in here, we love each other up. So yeah, we’re going to come up short sometimes. We’re going to demand that each other improve as a passer, as a shooter, as a defender. And you know what else? More importantly, I’m going to hold you to the man I think you can be.

I’m going to hold coach to that. I’m going to hold the assistants to that. I’m going to hold the 19th guy to that. And that’s how we did it. And then to be honest with you, we did what coaches are great at Mike. And I think they, they undersell themselves in this area is we went and found people that do it well.

We went and found best practices on all the topics that I knew I wasn’t the expert in, whether that was healthy relationship skills, whether that was the history and the, and the preventative best measures for preventing rape and assault. Any of these things, there are experts on college campuses that literally do this for a living and would.

Absolutely throw a party if basketball, football, baseball, soccer coaches came to them and said, I want to give you access to my young men because they know the research shows young men want to be part of the solution. Young men don’t want to be painted as perpetrators. They want to help, but they don’t know how.

And oftentimes as coaches, we’re so tribal about our teams and I get it. We’re loving them like this. These are my guys. These are my guys. We forget we would bring in the best ball screen defensive coach in America. If he said, Hey, I’ll come to a practice. We’d let him in in two seconds. If we were going up against Syracuse and somebody came and said, Hey, we beat, we put 85 on Syracuse with 60% field goal shooting.

You’d let him come see your guys immediately. We got to do the same thing with prevention experts, with readings, with speakers, with books for these topics that will matter for so much longer for our young men. And then that allows us to sit in there and sit side by side with our guys and be like, Hey man.

We’re all masters in the making. So let’s say students engaging. I’m sitting right here with you. I got my yellow pad. You got your notebook or your laptop? Cause you know, young people don’t take notes with their hands anymore. Right. And we’re learning together and the power of that I experienced. I mean, the people Google me right now, Mike, they’re going to be like, who the hell is this guy on Hoop Heads?

He’s got a lot of damn losses. And I stayed there for almost 15 years, despite not being as good a coach as the coach is listening to this right now, because the value we added to young men’s lives was through the roof. And that’s not because I’m God’s gift to this material. It’s because I embraced it.

And that’s what I’m trying to get out to the coaches in the country and all the levels. And I know there’s so many good people out there in this profession. We’ve done some of this leg work so you don’t have to. So there’s a lot of what we do where coach, you can sit right next to your captains. You can sit in the third row with your freshmen and you’re learning with them.

So when I leave, you guys are growing as a family together rather than somebody dictating one off and then leaving.

[00:16:29] Mike Klinzing: Can you talk a little bit about the studies that you sent over to me and cite those in terms of the fact that, cause I think a lot of times, right? We think that guys don’t want to talk about this stuff, like they’re not, they’re not comfortable.

They don’t want to hear us talking about this or that, but, but you sent over a couple of things to me that stated otherwise, that there’s, there’s definitive data out there that, that young men and boys are looking for this kind of guidance. So just walk me through some of that research that, that you’re aware of.

Thank

[00:17:00] Kip Ione: you. Thank you, sir. And this is so timely too. And once again, it’s almost like film study, right? For coaches, like what’s it’s the off season, what’s the best practices, who was in the final four, who was in the state championship game, what they run. I’m going to watch that all summer. And that’s what, let’s start with the it’s on us study.

It’s on us is a national organization. A lot of folks are probably seeing their infomercials and they did a study of young male athletes across the country. Expansive study, huge credit to Tracy Vickers, Kyle Rashard, all the people over there at It’s On Us that really came out with five key findings that I think coaches will, it will relax coach’s idea to, Oh my gosh, if I bring this up, my kids are going to hate me.

If I bring this up, my kids are going to shut down. They don’t want to do it. Number one, male athletes want to help. Our findings conclusively show that male athletes want to do all they can to prevent acts like sexual assault on campus, but feel like no one has shown them how. Athletes said in the study, we’re unaware of what healthy and unhealthy relationships truly look like, but we want training in these.

We want to show up better for our partners. We want to show up better in our relationship with our parents. That’s a huge one, Mike. Where guys, coaches tell me a lot, Kip, I don’t want to be involved in their love life. Well, coach, when we say unhealthy or healthy relationships, we’re not talking just about intimate partners.

We’re talking about mom and dads. We’re talking about siblings. We’re talking about relationships with their professors, with their roommates, with you. A lot of these characteristics bleed over besides just to their girlfriend that they may have. A lot of male athletes identify, you know what? The current trainings I get, I don’t feel like they’re practical.

They’re not speaking to me in a language that I can really relate to, and they’re not reflective of the campus cultures, the school climates that I live in. Coaches are in those climates. Coaches are in those spaces. They can speak to those better. And then young male athletes admitted, Hey, you know what?

I’m learning a lot about sex. I’m learning a lot about how I’m supposed to behave with women from porn. And I know that’s not ideal, but no one else will speak to me about it. And so as the study found, young men need accurate sex and consent education. And I know that is so like you mentioned, like I have had to look in the mirror as a dad, like, am I doing this for my 16 year old son?

I’m doing this for all my players. And I think a lot of times, Mike, you might’ve saw me put this up. We always say as coaches, Hey, let’s make sure we treat our players like they’re our kids. And that’s awesome. But I don’t know if we do the inverse as well, either. Do we treat our kids as well? And as intentionally?

As we do for our players. And sometimes I know I came up short, like Kip did all this work with all the things for Teams of Men, for your team at Willamette, you got two boys at home. You got a daughter at home. How are you taking this home? So I think this embracing what the study asks of us, not only helps us as a coach in those relationships.

It can’t do anything but improve you as a husband, as a father, as a brother, as a son, as a friend. So that’s the it’s on us one that I think really speaks to what you said that coaches get. stuck on is they don’t want this. Oh, no, no, they do. They absolutely want this. And probably one of the few people they’ll take this training from is you, coach, because you already are pulling new out of them every single day.

So that’s the first big one.

[00:20:09] Mike Klinzing: What I think about that, what I think is that in a young man’s life, that there are very few people that have the type of gravity to be able to have those conversations where you can build that atmosphere of trust. Like in a lot of cases, you would hope that the parents.

Right. Have that type of relationship, but we all know that in many cases that doesn’t happen and that relationship isn’t as strong as we would all like it to be in this idyllic world. And so, how often do we hear that, Hey, the reason why I love my coach, he was like a father to me, right? He was a father figure in my life.

He was the one who guided me and he was the one who helped me over these difficult hurdles in these times of trouble. And then you think about what it’s like. Just in terms of the intensity of what you go through as a high school athlete, certainly as a college athlete in the locker room. Throughout the season, the amount of time that you’re spending, especially like when you think about basketball, right?

Football, if you’re at a division one football school, you got a hundred guys on the team. It’s a little harder to be that close to everybody, but on a basketball team, I mean, it’s personal, man. Everybody’s wearing a tank, everybody’s wearing a tank top and shorts. You know, you’re right, you’re right there.

You’re spending time with guys. And so. There’s really very few people that are in a better position to be able to have these conversations and have this kind of impact. And I think it’s been interesting, Kip, that as we go through and I think about the years that we’ve been doing the podcast, I think about the conversations that we’ve had.

And I think if I had to identify like the number one theme that coaches talk about. If I think of the number one word, to me, that word is always, it always comes back to relationships. And coaches talk about the relationships with their players. They talk about their relationships with the coaching staff.

They talk about their relationships with their administration and all the relationships that go into being able to have a successful basketball program. And so I think when I think about just how close. And again, how intense the experiences are that you share that there’s really, and I know you’ve said it, there’s no better place to be able to do this. And it’s also, when you think about the relationships, it’s. I use the game of basketball and those relationships to be able to have an impact on the kids that are in front of me.

And we talk about life lessons and all these things. And really what you’re talking about here is, I don’t know if taking it to another level is the right way to say it, but you’re talking and you’re doing things that not a lot of people are willing to address. And yet we know societally that there are huge issues. And so I think you’re 100% spot on that. There’s just no better place to be able to do it. And I think when coaches hear that, Hey, it’s not something that, yeah, maybe they’re a little hesitant at first, only because. It’s not something that happens all the time. It’s not a conversation that you normally have, but hey, I’d really, I’d like to know more about that because I’m a little bit freaked out or I’m a little bit weirded out or I don’t understand what’s happening here and I need to know how to do better.

[00:23:49] Kip Ione: Yep. No. And I thank you for naming a lot of that. I mean,  I’ll use once again, my lived experience and I know that it doesn’t encompass everyone that listens to your podcast, but when I was let go, you know how it was already devastating, but when it, I would have been tripled.

If my young men that all reached out to me, which was awesome. If they texted me, coach, Hey, I heard what happened. Thank you for my 12 points a game. Hey coach. Thank you. Hey, I really remember when we beat that one team that one time on the road trip. Thank you for that. Not one of them said those things to me.

They texted me, coach, it was always about more with you. It was always about who I was going to be coach. I’m the man I am today because I had Teams of Men in my life. You know, those types of things that really reaffirmed to me. Hey, you know what? The coach that connected with those kids, that guy did a hell of a job.

The guy that couldn’t solve defense, yeah, he had some shortcomings. We gave up too many points, but I can go to bed tonight because I know these kids felt impacted just like you said, for life based upon our relationship. And there’s another study, Mike, that I think speaks to what you were saying and hopefully emboldens coaches.

To take this on, Equimundo is another fantastic organization that combines outreach and programs with research, highlighting what’s going on with men in the world. And they’ve got a study that came out that said 65% of men age 18 to 23. So if you’re a college coach listening, that’s your team room. 65% of men say, no one really knows me.

I don’t have someone that really knows me at all. And that is terrifying. I mean, I asked my own son this. He’s a junior in high school. I was like, bro, if you were mad, sad, stressed, who would you go to? He was like, nobody. What are you talking about? Nobody. I was like, what? Not your boys? He’s got a good group of friends.

They’ve been hanging out ever since elementary school. And he’s like, nah, we don’t talk about that stuff. Then I said, what about me? And he goes, no, I think you’d be disappointed in me. And I was like, what? I wasn’t mad at him. I was like reflective of me, like what the hell? I do this for a living.

I tell coaches to build relationships. And here I am with my own junior in high school saying, man, dad, I’m afraid to tell you these things. So I think the freedom in that moment between him and I, for me to say, bro, I will never judge you. When you feel less than is something that so many coaches could give their players to give them permission to do the same with like coach, man, I’m having, I’m having a tough go of it.

Like even, even that I think is really hard for young men across the spectrum. And in, in our team rooms, if they can’t do it in our team rooms, they are never going to open their mouths in life. So I think taking on these conversations, making space and making this the norm. At the very least, and I don’t want coaches to think that I’m preaching that, oh, every single kid that played for Kip is happy and loves him.

Absolutely not. But at the same time, I think every single kid felt permission to be authentically them. And then just like in the real world, we’ll have to meet each other as we are and find out how we navigate going forward. But that’s one of the things that I really want coaches to know.

These young kids, you are the last bastion, the last space they will have that is meant for them to rep these connection skills. It is absolutely vital. Like you’ve said, and you’ve had so many winning coaches on the pod, we’re connected. We’re five as one. We’re a family. And all, I believe all of them. But if that skill set isn’t translated and intentionally framed by those coaches for when they have their own wife and kids, when they have their own going through it with their parents as they age up and they’re turned into the caretakers of their parents, when they get their first job and they’re having to relate to an office that hasn’t been in a team room.

Those connection skills, they need to be able to name them. They need to have emotional fluency, range, agility, to take that same success from connection that they had on the court to their lives. And that’s what we try to do.

[00:27:42] Mike Klinzing:  Even just being able to be conversational on these topics, right? Like I think about your son or as you were talking about that, I was kind of thinking about my own life and I’m like, okay, if that were to happen, who would I go and talk to?

And I’m not so sure my answer wouldn’t be exactly the same as your son’s answer. I mean, there might be some topics that I might go to a friend or there’s obviously topics and things that you talk about with your spouse or with your kids or whatever. But I think ultimately that it’s interesting because I’m not sure my answer is different than the answer that your son gave.

And part of that is if that’s true, then the next part of that is I have to know how to start that conversation. I have to know what are the ways, what are almost the rules of engagement of that kind of conversation where I can be vulnerable. I can say the things that I need to say. I can get it off my chest.

I can share it with somebody and then we can hash that out and hopefully come to some type of resolution where we reach an understanding about what it is that we’re talking about and how that can impact our future. And especially again, look. As somebody who’s 53 years old, there’s, there’s probably at least some degree of life experience that allows me to have a slightly better chance of success if I’m just kind of internally self reflecting.

But if I’m 18, I have no frame of reference for figuring any of this stuff out. And so, and then I’m sure on the other hand of it too, right, is you, how much did you yourself benefit from? the young people that you talk to and their perspective and being able to hear what they’re thinking and then how that helped you to clarify your thinking.

To me, it’s just, I think the conversational skills is a huge part of this as well.

[00:29:33] Kip Ione: You’re so right. And I think when you’re asking, Hey, kind of the nuts and bolts of the first one, right. That kind of sets the stage for the second one. And by the time you get to the sixth one, it’s the norm in your program.

It’s the norm in your household. I think where we sometimes. And I did this too. I know I did. Number one is I do think our lived experience should matter and we should use our stories, but I think it’s a simple change of verbiage instead of saying all the time to them when I was, or I did this, just making it a third person story and using the word imagine if and saying, Hey man.

Guys, let me imagine this. Let me paint a picture for you and don’t immediately assign yourself to every single story because I think there is power in the vulnerability and sharing who you are. Absolutely. But I think sometimes they assume you got your shit handled, right? Like you show up every day.

You got your printouts. You’re so organized. I can’t learn from you. Look at you got it figured out. So I think sometimes we can shut them off. When we do too much, I did this, I did this. And then like you said, sometimes they’ll be like, like my guys, by the time I, by the end of my run, I couldn’t believe it because I got the head job when I was 29.

So I was like the young coach that knew every cool thing. By the time I was done at 43, these dudes didn’t know who Tupac was, and I couldn’t believe exactly. I had no, they, Allen Iverson was old to these guys. So some of my stories. Weren’t timely enough. It wasn’t out of a, it was a place of love. I was sharing them, but I think if coaches just switch to imagine if or paint scenarios in the third person and then let the young kids sit with it, don’t give them the answer or the lesson immediately.

Ask, I think embracing curiosity is a superpower and then using, I think one of the best things coaches do, and Chris Oliver says this a lot, is when we frame it and contextualize, that’s our value. Cause we can’t play for them. Obviously we can’t live for them, but if I can frame and contextualize, Hey, where might the lesson be here?

Let me see if you guys can get to it. And then maybe. Like you said, they’ll take it in a place that I didn’t even ponder. Like this current event that just happened with this player in the NBA. Here’s what I originally thought was going to be the lesson and my guys took me to three other places that helped me really kind of adjust my lens.

So I think creating the space is paramount. And I think coaches sometimes think, Kip, I don’t got time in my life for an hour long lecture every day. I’m not telling you that. I’m telling you, the effective dosage that I’ve learned from all the professionals in a lot of this, Mike, is I’m standing on the shoulders of women who have done this work in prevention and done this work in reimagining masculinity to make sure it doesn’t harm women.

I’m standing on their shoulders and I want to recognize my privilege because I get access to coaches because I was a coach and I’m a male, gendered, athletic person that these women never got to. So I want to make sure I’m giving Credit to them for teaching me. The correct dosage to have impacts is about five.

So if coaches start with Teams of Men or they hear this and they want to take it on themselves, it’s about five sessions to start, to start to have an impact. Now, when I was, by the time I was done with it, I was doing 20 sessions a year, but that’s a calendar year. That’s not that often. There’s 52 weeks in a season.

I’m telling 20 as a quote unquote expert. That’s not even once every two weeks. So I think coaches sometimes stumble on, Oh my God, this is such a huge lift. Not really. It’s intentionally picking a month where you’re going to say, all right, this is the month that I put five sessions on the calendar about something I care about.

The program cares about the guys care about, and we’re going to see what happens. And I think that’s a great starting point. And obviously like, like we know that’s where I come in. That’s where I help coaches and help them do this work.

[00:33:21] Mike Klinzing: What I like about what you just said is the fact that. It’s not just you talking at somebody or at your team for an hour.

It’s the same way when we think about how coaching on the floor has evolved, right? You go back 30 years ago and it was, Hey, my way or the highway, this is what we do. Everybody’s going to do it this way. You’re not going to question the coach. You’re not going to have anything. It’s just going to be, this is the way it is.

And you think about now where coaches ask for players input. How many Coaches today on the floor, instead of saying, Hey, you should have passed the ball here when the ball came from here. Instead it’s, Hey, when you caught the ball here, what did you see? And help me to understand what you saw in coaching with questions.

And I think that that’s a trend that we’ve seen in coaching on the floor is coaching with questions. And what you’re talking about here is teaching this lesson with, yeah, there’s some guide posts and some things that you kind of have to do and go through. But at the same time, ultimately what’s going to happen is you’re going to ask a question that’s going to spark a discussion and then it may end up to your point going in a completely different direction where it’s no longer about you having.

Memorized or whatever the curriculum, it’s about now we’re just two human beings talking about a situation. And that’s, I think, where I’m hearing you say the real learning occurs.

[00:34:44] Kip Ione:  Oh my gosh. And think about the translation of that, and you brought this up later, the translation of conversational intellect or reading the room.

How important is that for our players going off into the world, whether it’s on the first date with their potential partner, whether it’s in their first interview, whether it’s with their friends at a bar debriefing on a Friday. Being a good friend requires listening, give and take, right? Because we all have that buddy that’s the question and answer guy that never lets anybody get anything in.

That’s a discussion point too, right? I mean, embracing silence, if that’s a lesson plan you do, will help them in so many areas. And it’ll help you as a coach reflecting on that. So I can’t champion enough the power of creating the norm is. We talk about things. That doesn’t mean we solve things. I think sometimes Mark Trumbo author of the Dream Project taught me this at a conference in Syracuse in June.

A great question is more powerful than a good answer because a great question drives you towards discovery, drives you towards being hungry for more. An answer, even if it’s right, is a shutdown point. It’s a stop point. So I mean obviously in the right and wrong carrot category there’s answers to some of these questions that I think our young men know.

But in terms of how did we get there, how do you think others get to these behaviors? There’s so much discussion and let me tell you something, Mike, like I know we all struggle with playing time discussions or role discussions or shot selection discussions when you’ve talked to your team about pornography.

You’d be amazed how many of them are willing to talk to you in honesty about basketball stuff because it doesn’t have the stakes anymore. You remove the barrier. And that doesn’t mean because we talked about heavy things like sexual assault, my guys came to my office and said, I want to play more. And I said, cool.

No, that’s not it. But I tell you what the barrier was down. I did have more couch conversations. I did have guys come to me and we might have still had some loud disagreements, but I always felt great that there was a steady stream of my dudes coming to see us because I don’t think that was the norm before we did it.

And I think this gives young men permission because the studies show, man, I don’t have a place for this. 22% of men say they have three or fewer people they feel close to in their entire life. That’s crazy. I can’t espouse the benefits of this altruistically.

And I also, I want to hammer home, there are great coaches listening, as far as X’s and O’s. You combine your acumen with the stuff I know how to do, you’re going to be unstoppable. And I think that’s, that’s one of the things that I’ve got to figure out a better way to get people to understand is my record is my record because of my shortcomings as a basketball coach, not because of Teams of Men.

I kept strong culture, climate. I kept my job because of Teams of Men.

[00:37:38] Mike Klinzing: How long into the process were you before you realized that this was something that you needed to not just share with your team, but that it became a part of your mission to share it with other coaches, how long into the process were you?

[00:37:51] Kip Ione: Such a good question. You know, the answer is player driven again, because my players, so our capstone project as seniors, once you completed the four year program for us going into your senior year, you had to find a community space to go start a discussion. So most of my guys would pick a local high school team.

Some of them went back to their own high school teams, but I had two players, Jordan Jenkins and Trent Callen, that an NCAA rep from the inclusion and diversity office of the NCA was on campus. And they knew it coming in that coach. Why don’t we talk to this dude? I said, cool, fellas. I got a hold of Yannick Kluke was his name. They gave their presentation to Yannick and he said, you guys have to come to the inclusion diversity forum the NCA puts on. And so once I went with those two and we’d get, gave our whole 30 minute speech and we had our own platform at the. Diversity and inclusion conference, I was like, holy cow, there’s an appetite for this.

And there’s also a huge, market’s the wrong word, but it’s probably accurate now that it’s my sole source of income. But there’s a huge opening because no one else is doing this. There are a ton of awesome people in the world of reimagining manhood, but they either are gatekeepers from teams or they’re intimidated to go work with teams.

And a lot of coaches are intimidated by the credentials or the bona fides of experts in the field who are more likely to talk to me first. So I was like, there’s a synergy here where I can really impact more. I mean, there’s more, I mean, let’s be honest. I wasn’t going to be at Syracuse university in the carrier dome for a conference on aspiring manhood because of my record at Willamette university as the basketball coach.

I was there because of Teams of Men. So I think that’s where I started to think to myself, I can do this because I’ve done it with my guys. I have stuff I can share already. And if I continue to execute with my guys, I’m always going to have new material. And really I’m training my next best employees with my players.

I mean, I’ve got guys right now that I know they make more money than I can offer them. I’d hire them tomorrow to be facilitators because they’ve been through so many of these things.

[00:39:52] Mike Klinzing: When you look out at the world and one of the things that you sent me in the prep work was Just the fact of what’s recently been in the news with Northwestern and you think about what went on there.

You think about how long it went on. You think about what it’s like, again, you weren’t there. I wasn’t there. We don’t know completely the dynamics of what it looks like, but I’ve been in enough Locker rooms and teams and things to know that the things that were going on there, that it’s pretty hard for everybody not to know about those things.

And when you start really looking at it and diving deep into it, it comes down to, I think, what we’ve been talking about, which is. People knew it was going on or they suspected it was going on and for whatever reason, people just didn’t want to talk about it. And I think what. You’re talking about and what we’ve talked about tonight and what your program allows is for people to be comfortable having those conversations.

And now suddenly a topic that maybe somebody saw something or felt something, but never felt like they had somebody that they could go to confidently to have that conversation and say, Hey, here’s what’s happening. Like this needs to stop. This is not. What should be going on. And at the same time, you can see how it happens.

You can see how a locker room I’ve been in these kinds of locker rooms too, where people are, everybody’s kind of for themselves and people are afraid of this or that or whatever. And so I’m not going to speak up because that might have repercussions toward me and this and that. And so there’s just so many layers to it, but just talk about how the Northwestern situation kind of got you thinking about how valuable this.

Teams of Men program could have been maybe in that situation to prevent future situations of similar, similar incidents.

[00:42:04] Kip Ione: I know you’ve had some great guests that talk about culture creation, right? And the one thing I would, I always counter, and I take this from essential coaching conversations with Aseem Rastogi and Kyle Kavanaugh is climate exists with culture.

Like coaches are experts at the process creation, how we do things as culture. We go from A to B to C. This is our regimen, our guys buy in, but how I feel in that either allows me to participate fully authentically as me feeling great, feeling seen, feeling valued, or if the climate is awful. I cannot possibly be great at the culture that you asked me to do because I feel invisible, I feel shunned, I feel shamed, I feel harmed, and I also feel like I can’t say anything.

So, in looking at this Northwestern thing, I think we have, number one, when are we When are we identifying to our young men? When do we give them skill sets to identify harm? And when they can identify harm, and I’m not talking purely physical, hey, I can watch somebody get punched, coach. Yeah, I’m not an idiot.

No, I’m talking about social, emotional, mental, all the types of harm that are out there that they’re going to face, that others face. And then do they have courage in the moment and the ability to stand in their power and say something? You know, every bystander intervention training requires you to stand up in the moment and say, that’s wrong.

To stand up in the moment and say, I don’t want to be in this space if you’re going to continue to use those words. And I wonder how many coaches really rep those. Because we would, right? Mike, we do, but you got to talk. You know, I can’t do what I want to do if you don’t talk. So we have this skill set.

We already fight this battle in terms of on the court, but it’s even more triple important to take that same demand of using their voice to make others better. Off the floor. And just like you mentioned, Northwestern, I wonder how many kids said, well, this is normal, like you said, because it does happen a lot.

I don’t want to say anything because the climate here is one of silence. The climate here is one of, if I say something, I might be next. To get these things happen to me and no one’s taught me. No one’s given me phrases. No one’s given me tools to use. Cause I’m not saying it’s easy either. There’s a young man that works for it’s on us, Kyle Rashard.

And you might know this story, Mike, he was a D three linebacker and he actually took a bullet. Preventing a rape on campus at a party, and I’m not preaching. Kyle’s amazing. That’s amazing courage, but that’s not the toolkit I’m talking about, coaches. I’m saying you give your kids three phrases that they can use.

You give your kids eyes to see in front of a situation where people have used too much alcohol, people you saw drugs being used, you know consent’s not involved. You actually give them the tools the same way you would never send them out against a press without having repped chaos and stress and traps and press break all week.

You would not sleep at night if you thought you didn’t prep your team for the defense they were going to see. So how can you sleep at night, not prepping them, knowing they will listen to you for these things they’re going to see on the weekends. And then finally, I think once you get to that level of, we talk about emotional identification, we talk about what harm looks like.

We talk about courage in the moment in a bunch of scenarios. We also talk about believing survivors. Women, other men, LGBTQ, children. We talk about, we believe people. And so once you have this culture of victim advocacy, survivor advocacy, standing in your power, now you’ve eliminated a climate of silence.

And I think you get to a point where this never gets past first occurrence. And I think in doing that, you’re also educating your staff. Right, we rely on our staff, of course we do. We probably spend more time with our assistants than we do our partners, but we can’t have an assistant that’s not on the same page as we are, and we can’t have an assistant that has a clouded idea of what I, as the head coach, hold as moral principles, what I believe our men should hold to.

And so I think all those combined into the disaster that we all saw and I do think it’s preventable, but I do agree with you too. If coaches are not intentionally… What’s the word I’m looking for of an assessing their own situation, you can have an ostrich response and plug your head in the sand and say, I don’t know, but intent never equals impact.

[00:46:25] Mike Klinzing: It’s so true. I think it’s, it’s just easy to, I mean, it’s sad, but it’s easy for me to envision what went on there in terms of people looking the other way and just not wanting to say anything for fear of. The repercussions. And you just want to avoid those kinds of situations that are eminently preventable if somebody speaks up again.

Is it easy to speak up? No, it’s not easy to speak up. Is it easier if you’ve had practice? Yes. With those conversational skills? I think the answer to that is clearly yes.

[00:47:03] Kip Ione: And here’s one they can use, Mike. First of all, 16%. Only 16% of men say they’ve called out a friend who made a joke about women. Only 16%.

But like you said, I don’t want to, I don’t live in this pink colored sky world either. I know I am putting my status in the crew up for debate when I call you out for talking about the sex you had with your girlfriend. I know I’m putting myself squarely in the crosshairs, right? But if my coach and my teammates, we have repped this, we’ve done scenario training, just like we do walkthroughs.

We did scenario training in September about, Hey, my seniors presented to me at parties on this campus. This is what you can expect to see. Here, watch how we diffuse it. That’s easy. That’s not hard. That takes 20 minutes. And your seniors want to do that. And so I think exactly what you’re saying. I want to honor young men when they think to themselves, Dude, you’re crazy.

That will cost me. I know it will. But I can’t say I’m building new men. I can’t say I’m building quality human beings. If you’re not willing to sacrifice something. Where’s the line in the sand? Right? Coaches talk about that all the line. We have a line in the sand. We have the standard. We have the expectation.

I love it. Does it include this stuff? Does your line, does your standard include this. Have you discussed that? And that’s what we try to help coaches do.

[00:48:30] Mike Klinzing: All right, we’ve got the who. I’m sorry, we got the what and we got the why. We need the who. Who’s this for? Who’s this for? Who’s the market, to steal a word from you?

[00:48:37] Kip Ione:  The market is, I believe, is coaches of male sports, middle school through college, where we’re currently at in our execution and the partners we have is I do a lot of the facilitating upfront. And I’m fine with that. Cause selfishly, I love being around young people. Right. And I, and obviously from from having me on the podcast twice, I like to talk.

So that doesn’t phase me, but I don’t think I will accomplish my vision until more coaches undertake Kip. I want to do this for my team. I need you to teach me first. Because what’s currently happening, Mike, and I’ve had great people to work with who are really well meaning and they bring me in and I appreciate their goals, but they leave the room when I’m talking.

So they step out the back and it’s not because they’re intentionally trying to belittle what I’m talking about, but we both know kids are very cognizant. Kids are aware. If they see coaching staff go out the back door, they immediately think there’s something going on here. They don’t really believe in this or there’s something wrong with this speaker.

Maybe their attention span drops. But then when I confront coaches about this, they’re like, Kip, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that, but I thought the guys would be more honest with you on these deep topics if I wasn’t in the room and I have to push back and say coach Thank you for that thought But do you have a culture of trust if they can’t be honest with you on the things that matter most?

And so what I need to do is a better job of engaging the coach in Learning the skills Kip can do it. Ideally Kip would launch with a you know Kip’s the greatest presenter for 30 minutes ever, but then the next five I’ve helped and given best practices and lesson plans to the coach and his staff to do, and then I can come in at the end of the year and wrap it up with another framing and get motivation for the next time going forward.

So that’s where we’re at. It is to impact young people, but it is basically almost like a playbook for the coaches. And I also think the power comes there because some of these coaches out there have such great personality. You’ve got great guests all the time. The kids are enthralled by their words.

They’ve got these kids at the edge of their seat. Imagine if they were taking the stuff that we give them and putting their personality on it, putting their stories, their spin, their persona, suddenly it truly is that program’s identity. And so it’s an evolving process and I’m very grateful for everyone that’s had me in.

It’s awesome. I’m not bad mouthing them at all. I just need to be better at showing coaches, Hey, I can get you to do this work. When I’m still in Salem.

[00:51:09] Mike Klinzing: All right. Talk about how, how, if a coach is listening, wants to get involved, wants to bring you in, wants to get started with this, what’s the process? How do they reach out to you?  How do they find out more? How do they get started?

[00:51:21] Kip Ione: Yep. You can email us TeamsofMen@gmail. com. You can DM me on Twitter. We’re @teams_men, or just me. You know @KipIoane on Twitter. I think that’s where we’re most active when we put up our most content, our website, you can click on teamsofmenllc.com and go immediately to how we help. And you’ll see links in there for Kip in person, which I’m always willing to do. We have a player interactive guide called champions of change, which we’ve built five concepts that we think could address every team in America could start there. And we give facilitator notes to the coaches, like this is a literal booklet your guys can bring in five times this year and there’s assignments and reflection prompts that you can run coach without us there. We can always come in and do one of them. But I think the power of the interactive guide is that the coach can put it to their schedule and trust that the stuff they’re rolling out is vetted, has worked, and will cause change in the dosage is right. It’d be five lessons minimum. And then also there’s, we do climate assessments. So if there’s athletic directors that listen, there’s coaches that like, Hey, listen, I’d love to have a second eye on what we’re doing. We do climate assessments.

So we’ll come in and do word trackers, phrase frequency trackers. And I think that’s a powerful tool for coaches to get back. Like these are the most said things that your practice. These are the most things we heard in the film room. And some of it will be activating like, man, that’s exactly what we want.

That’s our language. And some of it will be shocking. And you’re like, Oh man, we haven’t finished that learning for our guys and unlearning. A lot of this is embracing unlearning that we don’t say those things. We don’t use those phrases here. And that’s another tool we have. We’re also running some in person coaching seminars this fall.

You can find those on our website as well. Saturday coaching clinics here in Salem that are just exactly what I mentioned staffs at a time. And my goal is instead of doing a lot of preaching to say, where are you worried about your guys? How can I help you build plans to assess it?

[00:53:24] Mike Klinzing: Well done, Kip.  Well done. I think that for anybody who’s listened to this conversation, and anybody who’s been in a locker room, and anybody who wants to use their sport, and again, obviously we’re talking basketball here, but it can be applicable to other sports just as well, if you want to use the sport that you love to be able to have an impact on your athletes that extends way beyond what they do on the basketball floor, out on the field, And way beyond the time that you’re actually going to be quote unquote, their coach, where you’re actually going to be in front of them in the locker room.

I think that the program that Kip has put together here, Teams of Men is well worth your time. It’s well worth you reaching out and investigating it, taking a look at it. And as you’ve heard from the conversation that Kip and I have had tonight, I just think that to be able to equip young men with the opportunity to.

Have these types of conversations to build these kinds of conversational skills to touch on topics, which as Kip cited from studies that has shown they want this stuff. They need this stuff. They get a lot of conflicting messages. We know how much time they spend on social media. We know how much time they spend in front of a screen and the images and the things that they see.

And it doesn’t always equate to what they have to deal with in their real life. And to be able to give them that opportunity to me. Tremendously valuable. Kip, is there anything that we didn’t hit on that you want to mention before we wrap things up?

[00:54:56] Kip Ione: I’m so thankful again for the platform and for the work you guys do and growing the game in so many aspects of your guys guest list is speaks for itself.

I would just leave with this, Mike, there is a great coach listening right now who is far superior schematically in getting his team ready to play basketball than me. That if they win while performing Teams of Men, we all know our brethren are the best thieves in the world. Whatever we think contributed to the final four team, you’re going to see copycats of that the entire next season, right?

It’s only going to take one championship level coach to hoist a trophy and credit the authentic, engaged young men they have with Teams of Men for us to start changing. I think the world changes one influencer at a time, not one person. One person’s too damn slow. Like you said, we’re getting old, Mike. I want to see this now.

And I do believe somebody listening right now is a hell of a coach and if they take on Teams of Men, they’re going to change the world.

[00:55:50] Mike Klinzing: Kip, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to join us tonight, but even more so, can’t thank you enough for Taking the time to think this all through and put it in front of your athletes and trying to put it in front of other athletes to have a bigger impact again than just what happens on the basketball floor and just what happens in your locker room while you’re coaching your team to have that greater global impact on somebody’s life and something that’s going to affect them and affect the people that they interact with for years and years. So for that, Kip, I say thank you and to everyone out there. Thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.