Website – coachmattdoherty.com

Email – coachmattdoherty@gmail.com

Twitter – @DohertyMatt

Matt Doherty, the author of the new book, Rebound: From Pain to Passion, played and coached basketball at the University of North Carolina. He started on the 1982 National Championship team coached by Dean Smith while playing alongside NBA stars Michael Jordan and James Worthy. He is the former head coach at the University of Notre Dame and University of North Carolina. He was named 2001 National Coach of the Year.

And then in 2003….he was forced to resign!

Matt wrote Rebound to help you become a better leader. Leadership is a learned behavior. It can be studied and developed. Not everyone is a born leader, but EVERYONE can become a better leader!

Doherty provides a game plan to help you navigate the rough terrain of leadership. He shares his journey in an authentic manner that will engage you with riveting stories of tremendous successes and……failures! Coach Doherty chose to turn his “Pain into Passion”. He went on a leadership journey studying at The Wharton School and The Darden School. Along with the help of top leadership executives, Matt learned many valuable lessons that he shares with us on this episode of the Hoop Heads Pod and in his new book Rebound.

We recently launched the Hoop Heads Mentorship Program.  We believe that having a mentor is the best way to maximize your potential and become a transformational coach. By matching you up with one of our experienced mentors you’ll develop a one on one relationship that will help your coaching, your team, your program, and your mindset.  The Hoop Heads Mentorship Program delivers mentoring services to basketball coaches at all levels through our team of experienced Head Coaches. Find out more at hoopheadspod.com or shoot me an email directly mike@hoopheadspod.com

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Get your pen and paper ready so you can take some notes as you listen to this episode with Matt Doherty, author of Rebound: From Pain to Passion.

What We Discuss with Matt Doherty

• Why now was the time to write about his experiences in Rebound: From Pain to Passion
• Why he believes leadership is under taught
• “You need to practice leadership just like you need to practice your ball handling or your foul shooting.”
• His love for Carolina started with the 1976 Olympics
• Being recruited by Dean Smith and Michael Jordan to come coach at North Carolina after a successful first season at Notre Dame.
• His 6 KNOW’s of Leadership – STEVIT – S stands for self. The T is for team. E for environment. V for vision. I for industry. T for truth.
• The difference in how change was perceived at Notre Dame as opposed to North Carolina
• Getting the job at Carolina in July which caused him to immediately hit the road recruiting which turned out to be mistake
• His decision to remake the Carolina basketball offices and his choice of which Michael Jordan picture to have hang in the lobby and why both decisions became controversial
• The decision to not retain any of the previous staff from North Carolina
• Why the first 90 days in a job are so important and the first impression you make can stick with you no matter what you do
• How he felt when Dean Smith told him he was the fifth choice for the job
• “Choose your words wisely because they can really be damaging or they can really be encouraging.”
• “You could never really improve on what Coach Smith did. What I wanted to do was keep it current. I wanted to modernize it.”
• Why, looking back, he should have either run everything past Coach Smith or stayed at Notre Dame
• The conversation with Coach Smith about how the program was his to run as he saw fit and how Matt misinterpreted that conversation
• The story of allocating game tickets as the head coach and how that went wrong
• The stress of all the non-basketball related issues that led to most of his difficulties at Carolina
• “As an assistant coach. I worried about recruiting and scouting, maybe camp, as a head coach, you worried about everything and you had to be responsible for everything.”
• The feeling of isolation that can creep in as a head coach
• The need to delegate and empower assistants
• Don’t let insecurity or ego get in the way of what you need to do
• Why he kept a list of potential assistant coaches
• Hire smart people and mine for the truth
• Why everyone needs a truth teller in their life
• Encouraging healthy debate within your staff
• Why loyalty is such an important trait in an assistant coach
• “If someone can do the job 80% as well as you, let them handle the task.”
• His core values of respect, trust, commitment, and positivity
• “I’m going to coach you just like I’m going to coach our players. I want you to get better. I need you to get better. My job, I feel like is to help you grow, to help you advance your career.”
• How Jerry Sloan and Chuck Daly would delegate responsibility to others so their voice would only be heard when necessary
• The importance of high energy to success
• Some of the financial lessons he’s learned along the way that can benefit other coaches

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THANKS, MATT DOHERTY

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TRANSCRIPT FOR MATT DOHERTY – FORMER PLAYER & COACH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA & AUTHOR OF REBOUND: FROM PAIN TO PASSION – EPISODE 429

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, and we are pleased to be joined by Matt Doherty, the author of a brand new book entitled Rebound. Matt is a national champion as a player at the University of North Carolina. He is a former head coach at the University of Notre Dame, at the University of North Carolina, at Florida Atlantic and Southern Methodist University.

And Matt has a lot of great things to be able to share with us tonight that he put into what I have to say Matt is a tremendous book. So just give us the why behind writing the book. What made you decide now is the time to do that?

Matt Doherty: [00:00:37] Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on the show, by the way. I think a couple things.

I started to do more corporate speaking. I started a leadership practice and I went and spoke at places like bank of America and these different companies Wells Fargo. And they would say, Hey, do you have a book? And I’m like, no, I don’t have a book. And so they were like, you [00:01:00] should have a book and I’m like you know, like, well, I don’t know if I have anything like to offer and I don’t, I don’t want to seem like I have this ego to write a book and people like, listen as a speaker.

It gives you credibility. If you have a book it’s like a business card, you leave it behind. It gives you credibility as an author. And almost as if it’s okay, if it’s not a good book, because most people aren’t going to read it. Anyway, author a book gives you credibility. And so that really got me going.

I had put Mike some words to paper a long time ago. Ever since I lost my job in 2003 at North Carolina, I’ve put some chapters together, put some notes to paper, almost in preparation for a book, but more for therapeutic reasons. Like just to get it out because an anger [00:02:00] turned inward, least depression, and I needed to release some of that to paper.

And then. When I was encouraged to write a book, I went to a couple of good friends, mentioned in a book, John Black and Scott Cabbage. And they’d be both thought it was a good idea. And they’re truth tellers. I talk about truth tellers all the time. They would tell me the truth. And so I started working on it and Scott had written a book before gave me the publisher.

The publisher hooked me up with a publicist. And all of a sudden I had a team together and they held me accountable because it’s hard. You know, it’s a lot of work if you’re going to do the book yourself in terms of writing it. I tried to read today. I want to do the audio version I got through about.

Six chapters in two and a half hours. And that’s a lot of work to read out loud in front of somebody else. And then you get, I call it the yips. [00:03:00] It’s like standard over five foot putt. You can’t make them. And you start getting tongue tied, so, Oh, that’s iPod. I can’t put over five feet, so don’t get don’t even Jason, Jason, Jason.

Just because I bring up another sport besides golf. I mean, basketball doesn’t mean you could just interject.

Mike Klinzing: [00:03:20] See that was automatic, man. I told you what other sports he’s jumping in. He’s in.

Matt Doherty: [00:03:25] Oh, gosh it’s like he’s Ed McMahon there’s Johnny Carson and ed McMahon. He’s the Ed McMahon. Now I just dated myself.

I take that as a high compliment. If you can compare me to ed McMahon, I’ll take it. We, we work. Do you work at publishers clearing house? We just lost half the audience, but anyway, so that’s why I wrote the book. And you know what. I’m glad I did. It’s very therapeutic. I wanted to take the high road I didn’t know make it a bash, anybody book.

I really was wanting to make it as a leadership book that [00:04:00] people can use as a reference. So they don’t step on the same landmines. I stepped on. Mike and Jason. Leadership is a learned behavior. And it’s the most under-taught topic of significance, maybe in our country.

You know, we go through school, we learn about math, English, history, sciences, but at the end of the day, we all lead. You lead your home, you lead your basketball team. You might lead in the community. You know, somebody might become the principal of the school, the governor, we all lead in some way, shape or form, but it’s never taught.

And I emphasize that it needs to be practiced, not taught. I sounded like Allen Iverson and that’s why my PR company is called the Doherty coaching practice. [00:05:00] The motto is learn and grow because you need to practice leadership just like you need to practice. You ball handling your foul shooting. If you don’t practice it under pressure, you’re not going to be able to perform.

Mike Klinzing: [00:05:16] And I think that’s a great point that you made during the book is at one point, I know you said that, man. If I had taken this deep dive into leadership prior to. Becoming a coach prior to getting a head job, whether it was at Notre Dame or eventually the job at Carolina. If I had had some of this information in my mind prior to getting those jobs, things probably would have turned out completely differently than the way that they did.

So let’s start by going back to. I think one of the things that runs through the book, a theme for me is just the tremendous amount of love that you have for the university of North Carolina, both obviously starting as a player and then the opportunity to go and be the head coach. [00:06:00] And you can almost feel palpably the pain that you suffered when you ended up losing your job as the head coach at North Carolina.

So let’s start back with. What about Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina is so special to you going back to the time when you were a high school player and made the decision to attend Carolina as a player.

Matt Doherty: [00:06:21] Well in the book Rebound it’s, the title is rebound and I try to stress that it applies to not only basketball, but rebounding in life, rebounding from failure, and then from pain, the passion and the pain being my lack of leadership.

The lack of leadership that costs me my job, and then that becoming my passion to learn and grow  on a leadership journey. So my love of North Carolina started back in probably 1976 when Coach Smith coachd the Olympic team, there were four [00:07:00] Tarheels on that. Olympic team.

And then in 1977, right, right into rolled into the next season, they went to the final four and they had a freshman named Michael O’Koren who was six, seven from New Jersey. We’re number 31. I was six, seven from New York or 31 both white guys, both good passers,  handling and shoot the ball. Mike was just a better player, better athlete than I was.

But that’s when I fell in love and you fell in love with the color, you’ve the style of play the ACC, it was the best league in the country. And I dreamed about playing there someday. And then Coach Smith chose me he recruited me and I just fell in love with everything Carolina because it fit me.

The way I could play them. Like I knew what I wasn’t Mike and Jason, I knew I [00:08:00] wasn’t a great athlete, but I knew that Coach Smith would appreciate me for what I could bring to the team. And that was what he would always call savvy. I was a savvy player. I knew how to play. I could pass the ball.

I was alert. I loved the things that he did as a coach. It stimulated me and So that’s why I fell in love with North Carolina. Then he’s such a great coach and recruits great guys that you fall in love with the place. And you dream about making an impact on young men like he made on me and my teammates, and that’s why I got back in that’s why I got into coaching and then Notre Dame and I’m thinking I’m going to be there forever an Irish Catholic kid from New York.

And Bill Guthridge retires. And Roy Williams doesn’t take the job. And Coach Smith starts recruiting me and he gets Michael Jordan to call me. And Michael said and this is coach Smith. You [00:09:00] know, Coach Smith was a great recruiter and he was very smart. Michael said to me, if you don’t take the job, Coach Smith might have to go outside the family and hire Rick Majerus. And that was the button pushed that I’m like, nobody’s going to take this job that hadn’t played or coached at North Carolina.

Mike Klinzing: [00:09:24] And I think when. It comes across clear in the book, just how important that Carolina family is. Not only to you, but to anybody who is a part of it.

And when you think about me from the outside, looking in you hear the stories of guys who are playing in the league to come back and play pick-up games with the current players. And you just think about what coach Smith did over the years when he wrote and sent a $200 check to every player who had ever been a part of the program, it was just.

Clearly a giant in the college basketball world. And so when he calls, obviously you had what probably for you, other than [00:10:00] Carolina, you had your dream job. I’m guessing that the Carolina job was the only one. That in the country that you probably would have left Notre Dame for?

Matt Doherty: [00:10:10] Yeah, there was probably two.

I might’ve left for Kansas and because I was there seven years under Roy Williams and North Carolina, but besides that, in terms of fit there’s really no better fit than Notre Dame for Matt Doherty, looking back the type of kids, the institution Basketball is very important, but it’s not over the top.

And you can recruit really good kids and make an impact. And they’re kids that could play in the NBA, but there also could be lawyers and doctors. Not that they can’t do that from other places, but that’s kinda the lure to a place like Notre Dame is kids go there for more than just. Hey, I want to be a basketball player and again, [00:11:00] it probably sounds like that’s what they do at North Carolina, but North Carolina is recruiting the best of the best we were recruiting maybe the second tier.

And if they played four years your player could be a high school American that’s at North Carolina.

Mike Klinzing: [00:11:19] And you talked about in the book, how. When you came into Notre Dame, you wanted to be able to upgrade some of the facilities and the locker room and all that kind of thing. And, and obviously you were able to get that done and made the program a sort of modernized it in a certain way.

And then you get to Carolina and you were kind of surprised that, Hey, they don’t have these same things that I just accomplished at Notre Dame. This is North Carolina. Why don’t they, why don’t we have these same things? And so you immediately come in. And make changes and those changes. I think that’s one of the things that as I’m reading the book and I’m kind of trying to dive into your mind [00:12:00] at that moment, you’re coming in thinking, Hey, I’m going to do something great for the program for our kids.

I’m going to get the locker room upgraded. I’m going to make sure that the offices are laid out correctly so we can get kids stopping in. And just again, modernize. The program. And yet at the same time, I think looking back your biggest regret I’m guessing is that you didn’t necessarily run that by every single stakeholder who had you maybe discussed it with them.

They would have been like, okay, let’s do it. I understand completely why. Instead they were kind of taken aback that here’s this guy coming in and changing everything because obviously the program had been under coach Smith for years and years and years. Coach Guthridge takes over. So it’s sort of a continuation of the same program that has been there in place for whatever 35, 40 years.

And now here comes Matt Doherty with a completely sort of different idea, even though he’s part of the Carolina family. So just talk about what you did, why you did it the way you did, and then [00:13:00] if you had it to do over again, how you might approach it different.

Matt Doherty: [00:13:03] Yeah, no, you’re spot on and thank you for reading the book and be prepared.

It that’s where I talk about leadership. Excuse me. And in the book I talked about the six know’s of leadership. K N O w. And I have to have acronyms so I can remember things and I use the name  and I just made that up. And I jokingly say, it’s a kid. I recruited that it was concept because I Googled STEVIT and somebody in Wisconsin popped up.

So I just, so anyway, the S stands for self. The T is for team E for environment V for vision I, for industry T for truth.

And you got to know yourself, your [00:14:00] strengths, your weaknesses, your blind spots, you got to know your team, you got to know the environment and your vision, the industry, and the truth. And I think that. The couple of things, the environment is so key. So when I took over at Notre Dame, they wanted to change.

They embraced change, they knew they needed change. So when we came in and changed the locker room they gave us a million dollars to renovate the locker room.  I helped raise it. We changed the offices. We changed the energy of the program. We cleaned up things, we cut down trees. It was all embraced.

Now a couple of things. I got that job April 1st. When I got to North Carolina, I got that job July 11th. Mike. So what’s your coach. What’s the most [00:15:00] important thing in a college coach’s calendar.

Mike Klinzing: [00:15:03] You immediately, you immediately have to be out recruiting. I mean, that’s obviously the number one priority at that point.

Matt Doherty: [00:15:09] Right? So my first day, full day, there’s a press conference. We’re on a phone call with recruits the next day, I’m on a private plane going to see Carmelo Anthony practiced.

Looking back. I probably should have spent time with the secretaries. I had four and a half secretaries, a lot of basketball programs and lucky to have one. I had four and a half and I had Coach Smith and Coach Guthridge in the building. So I’m out on the road recruiting. I say to my assistant, Doug Wojcik.

Hey Doug. You know, I’m looking through the office. There are stains in the carpet. There’s [00:16:00] trophies on the ceiling, on the wall from when I played in the rainbow plastic, the Stanford invitational tournament. And there’s no picture of Michael Jordan in the lobby. There’s a dead plant in the corner.

I’m like, well, we need to clean this up because I think of everything through the eyes of a recruit. So Doug does what we did at Notre Dame. Yes. North Carolina had one for 35 years years, and these people considered my staff outsiders because I didn’t retain the previous staff. I said, I’m going to bring my staff.

With me, is that okay? And I was told yes, by the athletic director, so I really put them in harms way. And looking back, I probably should have gone slower with the change. It wasn’t as important to clean the office. I [00:17:00] probably shouldn’t have gone out and saw Carmelo that first day. I probably should’ve sat down with the administrative staff and, and, and just ask for their input and how we can work together. And looking back, I should have retained the previous staff be as immediately. A lot of the former players felt like I was being disloyal to the program. We talk about the family and I didn’t take care of my brothers.

But I didn’t want to put my staff that I was loyal to out in the streets. And I told the idea, I said, listen, it’s okay if I can’t bring my staff, but I’m staying at Notre Dame. So, the interpretation and in the book in front of mine and Scott said interpretations for the masses your intent is one thing, how things get [00:18:00] interpreted is for the masses and it gets on a life of its own.

And that’s what we should be concerned about. But that was my lack of experience as a head coach. I was the head coach for one year.

Mike Klinzing: [00:18:12] Yeah. I think that there’s no doubt that you learn things along the way that you can apply to your next situation. And because. You had had that one year of experience. And obviously things went really well at Notre Dame.

The year you were there, both from on the basketball floor, the changes that you made, as you said, they were open to change, and then you get to Carolina. And again, it’s been the same program winning program, mind you for 30, 40 years. And now you step in and all of a sudden you’re wanting to change everything around and tell the story about the picture.

Of Michael Jordan that you mentioned, there were two, there were two versions of the picture. So tell us, tell us the decision making process of which one of the pictures that you chose and then how there was, [00:19:00] I guess, some fallout from the picture that you ended up choosing. Yeah.

Matt Doherty: [00:19:04] Yeah. There’s that picture right there.

Can you see it? Yes. Okay. I’m at the foul line I’m wearing in the white Jersey wearing number 44. So there’s two versions. There’s a more popular version of the benches in the background and there’s that version. So I told Doug Wojcik, I said, Doug, we need a picture of Michael and I want to put a picture of him hitting the, that’s one of the more iconic shots in all of all basketball.

Absolutely. And I’m in the background and there’s 63,000 people. There’s Patrick Ewing. So I said, I want that picture in the office because we need a picture of Michael. And then with me in the background, we can show recruits that I played with Michael, because it’s all about recruiting. It’s not the [00:20:00] Xs and the O’s is the Jimmy’s and the Joe’s, right?

Yeah. So.

There was lot of rumblings through the years and about me making changes. And one of the things that came back to me was that I was taking down pictures and renovating the office and putting up pictures of myself in the office. And I’m like, what? That’s a picture of myself. I mean so

Mike Klinzing: [00:20:33] did you wait, did you, did you like blow on the ball as it was on its way to the basket?

Trying to get it to go?

Matt Doherty: [00:20:38] Is that what happened? I had my hands up people who were like, Oh, you were open. I’m like, no I’m saying don’t pass me the ball. Like Patrick Ewing’s between me and the goal do not,

Mike Klinzing: [00:20:49] it’s not happening. Right.

Matt Doherty: [00:20:50] So that’s why the first 100 days on a job. Or for, I talked [00:21:00] about first 90, but in the presidency like Joe Biden, he’s now our president, his first, a hundred days on the job are very scrutinized.

Right? He’s writing these bills, he’s undoing things that Trump has done. So people are now scrutinizing everything he does. When you take over a new position. You know, it’s like what you always hear. It’s important to make a good first impression because that’s what sticks with people.

And people will then discount any behavior that counters their initial impression down the road. So if you come across as a good guy, very caring, take time with people, and then you have a bad day and you blow somebody off. People say, Oh, he’s just having a bad day. But on the other side, If you come in and you’re just businesslike and you’re not taking any time for people, people think you’re a jerk.

[00:22:00] And then when you do have a good day and maybe that’s who you really are, people say, ah, I wouldn’t trust that he’s really a jerk. So that first impression that first 90 days is critical. So my first 90 days, what am I known for? bringing my own staff, Not retaining the previous staff, redoing the facilities without any input from a staff member.

You know, making all these, putting up pictures of myself, making all these changes. That’s on me. That was my lack of experience. However, the only excuse, really not excuse, I guess, but I got the job July 11th. You know, why, why was there change July 11th? Why wasn’t there change in March?

Mike Klinzing: [00:22:56] Coach Smith told you at one point that you were the fifth [00:23:00] choice, correct?

Matt Doherty: [00:23:01] Yeah.

Mike Klinzing: [00:23:02]. Yeah. You could tell from just, I mean, those, those words, those words stung me coming off the page

Matt Doherty: [00:23:10] Yeah, that that really hurt Mike. He’s a father figure. I had a dad, but he was had a great dad, but you know, we all looked up to Coach Smith with reverence and I run as I said, a leadership practice and we talk a lot about words matter.

Choose your words wisely because they can really be damaging or they can really be anything encouraging. So when he said that to me, it was, it was hurtful. You know, I took the job just a month earlier. He recruited me and now he’s saying I was the fifth choice. And it was his way of controlling me, putting him in my place. [00:24:00]

Like I was a player and that’s the dynamic that I probably never could get around was I always felt the player, coach relationship and versus coach to coach.

Mike Klinzing: [00:24:18] Yeah, absolutely player to coach. For sure. I talk to coaches on here all the time that. You know, finishing a program as a player, and then they come back as a coach, but typically they’re coming back to their program as an assistant coach working for their former head coach.

And so you still have the dynamic of the head coach is still the boss. And even though the relationship has changed from more of a collegial. Relationship. It’s still, the head coach is still the boss compared to the assistant coach. So you still have that sort of again, authority figure. Whereas for you here you come into the same [00:25:00] position that he had occupied for the entirety of his career at North Carolina.

And now suddenly you’re making changes and you’re looking at it as saying, Hey, we’re going to make this program. We’re going to take it. And continue to build on it and make it even better than it’s been. And I’m guessing that in his mind, in some way he felt like you were undermining or disrespecting the things that he had done over the course of his career.

I’m just guessing, but that’s the way, that’s the way I took it.

Matt Doherty: [00:25:29] Yeah, no, I wasn’t. You could never really improve on what Coach Smith did. Right. What I wanted to do is keep it current. I want it to modernize it. No, there was no mandatory weight training. The weight room was the size of a small office.

You know, I knew what other programs had because you know, I’ve recruited at a high level at Kansas. And so I know what we were going up against and we did [00:26:00] need to have anything over the top. We just needed to be Carolina and. And then to make it current. And I think that he did take that as being disrespectful.

And this is where I I learned like I’m a literal person. So if you tell me something, I take, if this fact like that’s, you’re telling me. You Hey Matt, I’ll be here, I’ll do this. I’m like, okay. Taking your word for it. So when I interviewed for the job, Coach Smith said, it’s your job, run it.

How you see fit.

Mike Klinzing: [00:26:48] There you go. There’s your answer.

Matt Doherty: [00:26:52] But deep down, he didn’t mean that looking back, he was recruiting me. Right. And  [00:27:00] that’s where I say, now you have to listen for, what’s not being said, you have to listen for what’s not being said. So how do you do that

Body language, tone? Because 50% of communication is body language. 35% is tone. Only 15% is content. And I learned that from Dr. Jerry Bell, who I talk about in the book. Well, that’s hard to do, especially in that situation. And then maybe take time and talk to people. Like maybe I shouldn’t talk to him.

Roy Williams after that, or talk to Eddie Fogelson. Hey, coach Fogler. It’s my program. Run it. How I see fit? Do you think that’s like legit, but Coach Smith, [00:28:00] like he was like a blanket to us, he never lied. Right. You would never lie to us. So, that right there, that little conversation.

Had I interpreted it accurately. I probably would have either stayed at Notre Dame or took the job and let everything be run through him. That’s what I should have done coach. I’m thinking about bringing, I want to bring my staff, what should I do? Okay. Let’s make this work coach. I’m thinking about changing the physical layout of the office and clean it up or put in a new waiting room. How, how should, what do you think’s best? That’s what I should have done.

Mike Klinzing: [00:28:55] When he’s in the building every day. And obviously coach Guthridge was in the [00:29:00] building every day as well. And the building is named after him besides I can only imagine what that’s like trying to go about your job and.

Making decisions with somebody who you have such a tremendous amount of respect for. And you love looked up to from a very early age as a role model, as an authority figure. And now here you are trying to figure that out. And another story I love in the book is about the. The tickets and parking passes and how you kind of got put on the spot to, Hey, figure out who’s going to park where, and who gets the tickets and you kind of went through it.

And then that ended up being a big issue. Just because again, you did it on such short notice. So tell that story people.

Matt Doherty: [00:29:43] Well it goes back to what you just touched on, and this is my blind spot. My mistake. You know, coach Smith deserved, [00:30:00] you know, I mean, he was, I think he’s maybe the best coach in all team sports where he was up to that point.

If he’s in the top when there’s a conversation he’s in the top 10. Okay. Let’s just put it that way.

I trusted everything every decision I made for my career and coaching, even non coaching, I went through coach Smith, so I trusted him with everything. So when he did tell me, it’s your program run it how you see fit? I believed that. And I looked at him as a perfect man and we’re all flawed, right?

I mean, we’re all, I’m a Christian and we’re all flawed. We’re we’re flawed people. So maybe that was his flaw, but I never thought like I thought nothing, but held him in such high regard. [00:31:00] And then the whole ticket thing, it was a day I was not looking forward to. I had access to 300 tickets as the head coach at North Carolina, and let’s say 150 parking passes.

And we’re got to sit down in September and go through that list as I brought in a new staff and I needed access to tickets. So we had to go down the list one by one, but say through a, let’s just say 150 names. And they’d say all right, John Adams, four tickets center court, eight rows up parking lot.

And I’d say, I don’t know, John Adams, you know? Right. And so we’d say, all right, give them two seats and move them up top.

Woo. That was [00:32:00] stressful. And. Looking back. I should have said, coach, you do what you want with 270 of the tickets, give me 30 for me and my staff, the players get their tickets. You can do what you want with the rest because it’s a form of currency in the state of North Carolina. And that was a big mistake.

Michael that I made there it’s interesting that the mistake I made were non-basketball mistakes.

Mike Klinzing: [00:32:37] I know. That’s what, that’s one of the things. Yeah. That, again is a theme that runs through the book. When you start talking about what it is that allows you as a coach and not just in your specific situation, but so many coaches when they get into coaching, especially for the first time.

One of the things that they always say, or they always answer a question. When I say, what are you surprised about when you get into coaching? And it’s [00:33:00] always all the things that I have to do off the floor to manage my program and make sure that the program is running the way it should, that have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with basketball.

And you had a pretty good handle on what you thought was going to happen. At North Carolina, as far as out on the Florida, he thought your first year, you’re going to be pretty good. Your second year you thought, Ooh boy, we’re going to struggle and it’s going to have to be rebuilding. And then obviously you bring in a tremendous recruiting class with Sean Bay and Rashad McCants and Felton and that whole group.

And then they ended up winning a national title with Roy Williams after you’re gone. And so it is amazing as you go through thinking about it really. Was things off the floor that kind of spun out of your control and it wasn’t what was going on on the basketball floor. So how do you, how do you reflect on that as a, as a coach, as a human being, when you look back on that time?

Matt Doherty: [00:33:52] Well, it’s management, it’s leadership. You got to manage the whole [00:34:00] thing as a coach as an assistant coach, you worry about. You know, it’s a, it’s a, a narrow and deep river you’re worried about as a head coach, it gets wider and I’m still pretty deep. No, as an assistant coach. I worried about recruiting and scouting, maybe camp, as a head coach, you worried about everything and you had to be responsible for everything. And you didn’t understand the stress of the job until you were out of the job. Then you were like, man, how did I, how did I do that? How do I hold up under that? You know, and you see coaches age, you see presidents age. It’s a lot of stress and that’s why I do executive coaching now because we need isolation relief.

It’s lonely at the top. [00:35:00] Who do you talk to like as a head coach at North Carolina, where do I turn? Do I turn to Coach Smith? Do I turn to the athletic director? Do I turn to my staff? Do I turn to my wife when I’m worried about a player who might’ve done something wrong or a parent who’s being difficult or a booster or an article is going to come out.

Where do I turn with that? And I think that you need to have someone who’s not emotionally involved in your job in the institution where you are, that can be a thinking partner for you and a kind of a board of directors that is not emotionally attached, so they can give you sound advice and you can talk to them and be vulnerable and know that it’s not gonna be used against you.

[00:36:00] Mike Klinzing: [00:36:01] So who were those people at that time? Who did you go to when you were the coach at North Carolina or did you just isolate yourself and try to make all those decisions internally?

Matt Doherty: [00:36:10] It depends It depended. It was hard. That was hard. You know, If you went to your assistants, maybe they’d get distracted and get nervous that there’s a problem brewing. And if I went to the AD maybe he thinks the job’s too big if I went to coach so you start to get a little, I don’t want to say paranoid, but you start to again, isolation. And then you keep to yourself and that causes stress. So you don’t sleep as well.

And then you probably don’t manage intense situations as well. You need to release that and sometimes by just voicing it, [00:37:00] you hear it come out of your mouth and you can come up with the answer on your own. There’ something that’s powerful about expressing how you’re feeling about a situation verbally to someone else that’s not emotionally involved, that won’t judge you and there’s almost like you can just figure it out on your own.

And that’s what executive coaching is all about. And that’s why I love the space.

Mike Klinzing: [00:37:27] Yeah. I think when you get an opportunity to talk with someone who has used, that is not in the moment, it’s amazing how much clarity. That can bring to you as again, it doesn’t have to be coaching. It could be business. It could be just within your family.

I know that’s one of the things when you start to look at I love the concept of having that personal board of directors. I think that that’s a great concept for whether it’s coaches that are listening to the podcast and are thinking about it in terms of running their program, or just, I think about that as a parent.

Are there people that I can go to, [00:38:00] that I can talk to beyond my spouse and say, Hey, here’s a situation that we’re trying to figure out. How do we deal with it? And sometimes as you said, just by talking it out, you can get that answer. You can come to the, the realization yourself, but as we all know, it is so easy to get caught up in the day to day moments that you rarely, rarely have time.

In such a high pressure job when you’re talking about being a high major division one college basketball coach. I mean, I doubt there was much time for you to sit down in your office for 30 minutes and just reflect on what was going on. And I’m guessing that most of the time there was I’m guessing most of the time there was you probably weren’t meditating back then I’m guessing

Matt Doherty: [00:38:43] No, I wasn’t crossing my legs. And doing this and lighting candles,

Mike Klinzing: [00:38:50] I’m sure you weren’t. I’m sure you weren’t. And so again,  it’s one of those things that it’s valuable. I know how valuable it is. And [00:39:00] yet I find myself when I’m doing things throughout my day, the idea of taking 10 or 15 minutes to just sit and kind of stare at a wall and be with my own thoughts.

Sometimes that 15 minutes seems like, man, that’s overwhelming for me to give up that much time. And yet I’m guessing that when you do your executive coaching. And you’re talking to people who are in these high power positions that have a lot of stress. I’m guessing that one of the things you tell them is, look, you gotta be able to step back and reflect on what you’re doing.

Otherwise you just end up plowing down a course that if you just stopped to look at it, you would recognize, Hey, I’m going in the wrong direction here. So talk about the advice that you start to give to people that are in these high pressure jobs.

Matt Doherty: [00:39:40] Well, I think you’ve hit on a lot of it.

I think that You need to delegate. You need to allow your staff to handle, manage up to the top of their job [00:40:00] description and trust and coach your coaches in and allow to make them mistakes and, and create a safe environment, you help them grow and you create a loyalty. I think that’s a big thing.

And I talked to somebody today about that. That’s the biggest challenge because when you start a new company or take over a new job, like when I took over a Notre Dame, it was me and Doug Wojcik the two of us, then we hired a third guy. And that’s kind of cool and fun. There’s an energy, but once you add a fourth guy, then a fifth guy.

Now I call them termites that could start to eat at the organism, the foundation of the house jealousy, ego, pride, all those insecurities that pop up that can eat [00:41:00] at the foundation. So you got to manage those things. And part of that is just like you do with your team. All right.

You’re the point guard? You’re the two guard. You’re the three men. You’re the four main, you have the five men, you’re two guard. You’re the best. You’d run a team. You get to take the most shots. All right. Do you hear that? You’ve got to explain that to everyone else. And, and so then people’s feelings can get hurt.

And I think that’s where the emotional intelligence part of it for me, Mike, I didn’t know about emotional intelligence until I got let go. Never heard of the term until I was sitting in a class taught by Fran Johnston at Wharton in Philadelphia and I’m sitting in the class, I’m like, Oh my God. If I took this class before I was the head coach, I might still be at North Carolina [00:42:00] because I’m blunt Myers-Briggs assessment.

This is about blind spots. Instead of it know yourself, my blind spots. I’m an EMTJ. Okay. And I jokingly sat been called a lot of four letter words at the Cameron indoor stadium, but EMTJ was never one of them.

And so Carol Weber who gave me the assessment said only 2% of the population are EMT JS. And I immediately thought that North Carolina just fired an elite coach. Yes. 2% of the population. And she said, no, no, no, no, you don’t get it. That means 98% of the population don’t think like you think, and I’m like, Oh my God.

Now I get it. So understanding, you know that. Yeah. I’m blunt. I can be to the point like [00:43:00] Mike dammit, tuck your shirt in, tie your shoes, double knot and get your butt back in practice. You know Hey Mike you shoot 30%, Mike. You’re not a good shooter. Okay. Pass the ball.

You can be our best defender, you know? And so sometimes I was too blunt, too direct, and some people can handle that. Some people can’t. And that’s where I talk about STEVIT the T instead of it, this first T, excuse me. Unless you firstly know your team. So some, some guys, you can be brutally honest with Jimmy Dillon, who I coached at Notre Dame.

I can be brutally honest with him, but another a player, maybe I couldn’t. And so those are keys to leadership and that’s where leadership is a learned behavior. And some [00:44:00] people are born on second base. Some people are born on third base I might’ve been born on first and then all of a sudden you know, at home, you get to learn as you round the bases.

And I went from first base to home plate I didn’t. No, I use the analogy it’s like going from being the general manager of your local ACE hardware store to the next day. You’re the CEO of GE, big jump.

Mike Klinzing: [00:44:37] That’s a big, that’s a big jump,

Matt Doherty: [00:44:40] Mike, big jump.

Mike Klinzing: [00:44:43] And I think one of the things too, and tell me if I’m wrong here, but I get the sense that especially when you are. Early in your coaching career. And you’re trying to figure out who you are as a head coach, that [00:45:00] all of us probably have a tendency to.

Want to have our hands in every little thing that is going on in our program. And you mentioned a second ago about the ability to delegate too, your assistance or to your administrative assistants or to somebody outside the program, like delegate the tickets to coach Smith instead of trying to do that all yourself.

Right. And I think that’s something that is. Hugely challenging, especially for young coaches that are just getting into the business. So what advice would you have for somebody who’s early in their career about how they could, how they could better manage that ability to delegate without feeling like, Oh my God, I can’t give this up.

I can’t give up this control. Try to share with them why they should and how they can go about doing that.

Matt Doherty: [00:45:45]  I think one of the biggest things is insecurity, you know and fun. Like the first thing you want to coach everything because you’ve only done a drill maybe as an assistant coach, you did the [00:46:00] scout team and a drill or anything else the head coach might’ve been doing. So now you get to coach everything, and sometimes you want to show people that you’re the head coach. And I think a lot of times coaches would be better served by hiring some experienced assistants to help them with some of the finer points of coaching, not only practice, but managing all the other stuff.

But I think a lot of people are afraid because they don’t want to be viewed as weak. Like, Oh, he can’t do it. So he’s high or maybe somebody now they, they really look to this assistant who’s a little older and more experienced as the one who gets all the credit. That’s where you need to be secure with yourself and hire the right people and, and have [00:47:00] relationships.

I mean, it’s important to have relationships with all kinds of coaches and plan your staff before you need them. When I was an assistant coach and I still carry around a Franklin planner. Okay. I mean, now I’m still a little old school. I do have an iPad and iPhone, but I like to write things down sometimes, but I would always keep a list on the road recruiting.

If I saw somebody that I liked and I got to know them, I put them down as their name as a potential assistant coach. So I would get to know them before I needed them. You don’t want to start figuring out your staff after you get a job, you want to have it. Like I knew I was going to hire Doug Wojcik, probably wherever I went because Doug and I were good friends and he was an awesome assistant.

One of the hardest workers [00:48:00] I ever saw at Navy. And then the other guys, I would kind of figure it out a little bit, but I think that’s important. Know what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are. Again, I go back to step know yourself, know your team, know your environment. Where’s your vision. Where do you want to go?

Where do you want to go with that program? Maybe you feel like you need to play a different style of play. Maybe you’re okay. An assistant coach at a program that always gets the best talent. Now you’re going to an academic institution that. It needs to play a different way. Maybe play the Princeton style.

Maybe play matchup zone. You’ve never done that before. So I think that you know, your vision, know the industry, but you also need to surround yourself. And I think this is so important that you hire smart people.

[00:49:00] And mine for the truth. The two most important knows in the six things of STEVIT, know yourself and mind for the truth. If you don’t mind for the truth, if you don’t manage the truth, the truth will manage you. The truth is coming, that wave is coming, man. And it could be a tsunami. If it’s not managed properly.

So you need to, I say this, have someone on your staff that has a business card and on the business card, it says truth teller. So if you’re my truth teller, might I allow you in, someone said this the other day, it’s not your right, it’s your obligation to come to me whenever you feel I need to [00:50:00] hear something.

And when you come to me, I need to be calm. I need to listen. I need to thank you. I don’t have to act on anything you say, but what you’re doing is now trying to close up that blind spot that I have by telling me the truth. I’ve been around people that bully someone who’s trying to give input in a staff meeting, you should encourage debate in a staff meeting, healthy debate, argue about how to guard a pick and roll.

Argue about a recruit, argue about something in a healthy, respectful manner. But then when you leave the office, You are aligned with the head coach and that’s your job as an assistant, you don’t have to agree, but you better [00:51:00] be aligned and, and show loyalty because if an assistant coach comes to you and says, if a player comes to you with practice and says, man, coach Mike, I don’t know why we’re guarding the pick and roll that way.

You’re the words that come out of your mouth, they’re gonna make or break our defense absolutely might make or break our team. And you could say one or two things, Hey man, we’ve been talking about this for two days. This is the way we’re going to guard it. All right. Listen to what coach has to say. Or you can say, yo man.

I’m not cool with that either, but listen, let’s give it a shot. Now that goes on more than all it does. I agree. I agree. And that’s because of what ego? Yep. Lack of loyalty. That’s why it’s so important. Larry Brown [00:52:00] called me when I was at SMU. And he said, Hey, I got to, I want you to consider.

And I said, Hey, Coach Brown, man. You know, I’m sure he’s good, but I don’t know who that is. I’ve never been around him. And he stopped like dead in his tracks. And he said, he said, yeah, he says, he almost apologized. He’s like, you can teach people how to guard the pick and roll, but you can’t teach them how to love you.

Mike Klinzing: [00:52:33] Yeah, that’s a great quote from the book. I mean, it’s one of those, it’s one of the ones that jumped out at me when you start thinking about it. And I spent a lot of my career as a high school coach working for the same head coach. And I’ve said this a couple of times in the podcast, but I think it’s worth repeating here years after we got done coaching together.

And we had a conversation and my head coach said to me, he said, one of the things that. I respected about you more than anything else is the entire time while you [00:53:00] were my assistant coach, I had a hundred percent faith that you were going to be loyal and you were going to be back me in any decision that I made.

And I said, nothing makes me feel better or prouder than you saying that, because that was certainly my intention going in as an assistant coach. And as you said, it is very, very easy and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it where a coach, it doesn’t take much to undermine. The authority of a head coach. It doesn’t take much to sow those seeds of dissension within a team.

And whether that be a coach or whether that be a player it’s really easy to upset that balance. And I think that quote from Larry Brown is, is huge.

Matt Doherty: [00:53:40] Yup. 100%

Mike Klinzing: [00:53:43] Another quote that I love from the book that, that really, as I was going through when I was reading it, that I thought really is. I think it’s important for coaches to understand.

I think it’s important for people in business to understand. And I think it’s something that I’m really terrible at, which is why I wanted to, why, [00:54:00] why it jumped out at me. And that is if someone could do the job 80% as well as you let them handle the task. And I’m really bad at that because I like things to be done a hundred percent correct.

And so for me to give something up and say, Oh, they’re only going to do it 80% of the time. I have a really hard time with that. And I actually got that same piece of advice from a guy named Matt King, who was a basketball coach out in Arizona. He works with USA basketball and he told me basically the same thing.

He’s like, look, you gotta be able to release. If you want to grow as a program, you want to grow as a business, you can’t do it all yourself. So you have to be willing to let somebody else do an 80% as well as you can. And who knows? They might fill in that 20% with something different. From what you ended up doing, and it might even end up being better, but you have to be okay with that.

So talk about what that quote means to you and why you included it in the book.

Matt Doherty: [00:54:51] Yeah, because I think of what you just said. I think a couple of things I think a couple of things, the it [00:55:00] shows trust in your people. You want them to grow? It’s your job as a leader, not only to help your players grow, but let your coaches grow and just put yourself in their shoes. Imagine if you were only given little tasks that didn’t challenge you and didn’t stimulate you and the coach tried to do everything, it would be dysfunctional.

Now if you were given a task that was somewhat significant and the coach trusted you, that creates a loyalty, a trust. I talk about core values of respect, trust, commitment, positivity, and now I’m showing you that I respect you. I’m showing you. I trust you. I show that I’m committed to your growth and you know, the [00:56:00] positivity may not fit there, but maybe does Hey, here’s this opportunity.

This is the result I want. I’d love it to be A, B and C do it and have it to me by Friday. Now you will make mistakes. You may do it. But if I hired smart people, you’ll show me something that I didn’t know, maybe in the format, maybe it’s a video. Maybe it’s a scouting report. I might be.

Wow. You know, that’s really good. Let’s do it that way from now on you made surprise me. It takes it off my hands. It gives you trust. If there’s something that’s done only 80%. The other 20% we sit down and I coach you. I said, this is what I really want. Now you’ve got that [00:57:00] gap from 80 to a hundred percent closes.

So the next time you do it 90%. And hopefully at some point it gets to close to a hundred, but that’s the only way you’re going to grow. So now, if I’m challenging you and stimulating you to grow, what are you going to tell the other coaches, what are you going to tell another coach when you leave to take another job.

So yeah, he’s great to work for. He gives you a lot of responsibility that helped me grow. So I’m going to hire better talent when you leave.

Mike Klinzing: [00:57:38] Yeah, I think as a leader, that’s one of the things too, that I guess when I look back early in my coaching career, that I didn’t necessarily understand in terms of the responsibility of a head coach to not only.

Create a winning program, but also to develop their assistance because a lot of times those assistants have goals of their own and their career. They may want to eventually be a head coach and take [00:58:00] over their program. And I didn’t necessarily always look at it from a standpoint of, Hey, the head coaches is looking to help me develop.

And I think about my own experience where the head coach would suddenly step out and go to the coaches office in the middle of practice. He’s like, Hey Mike, you take this drill, let’s get them into some whatever we’re working on this particular offense. Let’s get him in a drill. That’s gonna work on how we’re going to get shots out of this particular set or this particular, this particular action.

And all of a sudden he’s gone. And now I got to take it over. And part of me at the time, it was like, what’s he, what’s he doing? You know, why is he doing that? And now looking back on it, you realize what he was doing. Like it was intentional that he was giving me an opportunity to grow and to step into those shoes and to gain respect from the players for doing something myself.

But I don’t think I realized that back in the day, when that was happening.

Matt Doherty: [00:58:49] Yup. No, I mean,  that’s the beautiful thing. And I, I think that as a head coach, when you’re hiring coaches and you have your coaches, you’d say, listen, [00:59:00] you know, I’m going to coach you just like,I’m going to coach our players.

I want you to get better. I need you to get better. My job, I feel like is to help you grow, to help you advance your career. And you know the other thing is, as I touched on earlier, creating a safe environment where you can be challenged and you welcome conflict in a respectful manner.

Let’s argue about pick and roll defense. Why do you think it’s this way? And as long as it doesn’t get personal, I enjoyed those meetings, man. I mean, I had some good coaches that had played in the NBA like Rex Walters, Larry Mangino really knew the Princeton offense. He worked for Joe Scott at Air Force and I had him, I let him run the [01:00:00] offense.

I sat down in practice. Mike, I’d never done that before. Roy Williams never did that. I sat down and let him coach. And, you know what that saved my energy and, and gave him credit. The players loved it. I just wanted to know what he was doing. I wanted to know the offense and I didn’t want to put anything I wasn’t comfortable with.

So we would go over it. And now was probably some of my favorite coaching experiences and it made it easier for me. My body, my voice. And so then when I did talk, my voice had maybe more of an impact.

Mike Klinzing: [01:00:48] I do think as a head coach, it’s important sometimes to step back, especially I got to imagine today, even compared to when you finished at SMU, just the amount of [01:01:00] time that.

A head coach and their players. And obviously with COVID, it’s been a little bit different, but at the division one level with the summer workouts and everything, the way that that has gone compared to again, when you were a player, even when you finished your coaching career, the amount of time that a head coach in their staff can spend with those players.

I think about that a lot and equate it back to my experience where. Man the summertime you needed a break, you needed a break from, from the coaching staff adherent from the head coach. And so just what you’re talking about there, where the head coach takes a step back and you hear a different voice, even if it’s just for 10 minutes during a drill.

I think there’s tremendous value in that both for your coaches, but also for your players.

Matt Doherty: [01:01:43] Yes. Yeah, I think it was helpful for me too. When I got let go in North Carolina, I traveled and looked at some NBA practices and had a lot of respect for Jerry Sloan and Gordon Chisea was a friend of mine, is a friend of mine.

[01:02:00] And I went out there and I watched practice. Now walk into the practice facility and I got a garment bag and another bag. And. The door kind of opened up to almost mid-court and here comes Jerry Sloan walking, like every bone in his body is broken and he’s got his John Deere hat on and he’s yelling at a rookie on the baseline.

And as he’s yelling, he looks at me and I may have met Jerry Sloan once before he goes right into a handshake. Hi, Matt. And he sat next to me during practice. And one of his coaches coached the defense, the other one coached the offense. And he said, I’m just the Dean of discipline. He says, I like the discipline.

I let them coach. And then you read about Chuck Daly, who was with the Pistons. He coached in the pre-season and in the playoffs, [01:03:00] in the season the player’s coach, the assistants coach. And he said it’s like a gun, you have six bullets to use during the season. You want to save some of the bullets. So there’s a lot of truth in that.

And I think that’s something I learned. Absolutely. And I think it takes time. I think it’s hard for first year head coach to do that.

Mike Klinzing: [01:03:27] It really is. And I think another thing I want to, I have two more things I want to hit on with you, Matt. And one is you added a core value recently to your core values of positivity.

And talk to me why you decided to, because obviously you don’t change your core values. You don’t do that lightly. So talk about why you decided that it was important to have positivity as one of your core values.

Matt Doherty: [01:03:54] Yeah, no, I think that you can sneak that in with RTC, right? Respect, [01:04:00] trust, and commitment.

Those were my three core values that I started using at SMU. And I still use in everything I do. And you could say, well, be committed to being positive. You could slide that in there, but I think that positive energy is so important to success, optimism, that energy that people can feel when it come to work, work is so important.

Jack Welch talks about his 4 E’s  and I talk about it in the book. The first E that he looks for in an employee is energy. Do they bring energy to the workplace? The second E is, can they energize others? You know, energy was important to him. And I talk about Donnie Walsh, longtime NBA, executive sitting at, sitting on the bench before a game in Indiana.

And he says, he’s a New York guy played at North Carolina, [01:05:00] worked for Frank McGuire at South Carolina. You know, Matt after all these years. And he’s probably been in pro basketball, like 40 years, 45 years. The most important thing to me in a player, his energy. It’s pretty simple.

So is the glass half full or half empty? You know, you’re faced with a challenge. Are we going to get through it or not? To me like, yeah, man, we’re going to get through this. Like, let’s do this. Come on, Mike, come on, Jason. Let’s kick some ass, energy, energy, energy, man.

Mike Klinzing: [01:05:42]. There’s like, I mean, you can you can talk talent all you want.

You can talk X’s and O’s, you can talk all these things, but ultimately. If your team could bring energy and you’re a player or you’re a coach and you bring energy, you change the entire mood [01:06:00] of what goes on. And that’s one of the things that I’ve tried to teach to my kids whenever they plan a team, is that, Hey, look, if you bring energy, your coach is going to love you.

And he’s going to put up with, or she’s going to put up with more mistakes. If you’re bringing a level of positive energy, as opposed to you’re somebody that every day the coach has to. Light a fire under you bring your own energy. If you have to get your energy from somebody else better than anybody, those guys are hard to coach.

Matt Doherty: [01:06:32] There’s two kinds of players. And I have this in the book, Rebound From Pain to Passion again is the name of the book. Kevin Stallings said there’s two kinds of players, energy givers, and energy suckers. And I don’t want to be around energy suckers and life’s too freaking short Mike. That’s why I put positivity as a core value.

Mike Klinzing: [01:06:55] Yeah, it makes complete sense. All right. I want to wrap up going a little unorthodox [01:07:00] and you put it in the book and it’s something that we haven’t necessarily talked about in here, but it is something that I personally have an interest in, and that is you put some financial things that you’ve learned over the course of your career. So when we’re talking to coaches, it’s not often something that we touch on as a topic here on the podcast. It’s probably not something that is incorporated into every basketball book, but just maybe pull out, I don’t know, two or three of the things you’ve learned financially that could help somebody who’s a high school coach right now, or a young assistant at the college level who’s making $500 a month. And living in somebody’s basement, what are some of the financial things that you’ve learned that along the way that can help coaches that are out there listening?

Matt Doherty: [01:07:48] Well, I think that a couple of things that come to mind that I talk about in the book, but you know, you want to keep your overhead low you’ve fixed costs low, you fixed fixed expenses [01:08:00] don’t, don’t have credit card debt.

There’s a different need and want I need to eat dinner. I want a big steak. You know, I, I need transportation. I want a brand new BMW. You know, what do you need versus what do you want live within your means? I think try to keep enough money at develop a savings account that you can live a year without a job.

This is a coach you might get fired and you don’t want to have to scramble and be desperate for a job you want the next job to be, you know hopefully a good position and not just any old job. You know, with that, I mean, especially young people don’t drink and drive. You know, don’t get someone pregnant before you’re [01:09:00] ready.

I mean, no life is nothing but a series of decisions and dealing with the consequences, the better decisions you make, the better your life for me, you know? So and then how can you earn out income passively? You know, maybe get a real estate license, maybe piggyback on somebody. Who is doing real estate and throw in some money there invest in some stocks.

You know, it doesn’t take much your money doubles every seven years and safe, safe save, be disciplined. Coach Smith always say a disciplined person is truly a free person. And that never made sense to me until I got older, but the better. Disciplined decisions you make. Now, the more freedom you will have later to choose, but if you make undisciplined choices, now [01:10:00] you’re not going to have the freedom to make choices later on.

Absolutely. Yeah. So you know, equity. Don’t go into debt. I don’t like debt. I mean debt is smart with certain things. Like obviously when you buy a house, you have to have debt. Right. That makes sense. I, I, I bought a smaller house to all cash. I didn’t want debt. I just didn’t want debt. I only, I don’t like debt.

But Yeah. So I think those are some credit card debt, man. I tell players all the time, that’s like the worst, but that thing in the freezer, that is the worst as my parents would say, if you don’t have the money in the bank to afford what you’re getting ready to purchase, you don’t purchase it. So I’ve never, I’ve never in my life paid less than the full amount of the credit card.

[01:11:00] Never. Yeah, listen, there’s regrets. I wish I saved more. You know, I wish I saved more. I wish I’d always take out the max. You can on your paycheck and put that into retirement. Take the max. You won’t miss it. If you’re not getting it, it’s hard to. It’s hard to put it in on your own. Take the max. Yup. So those are some things,

Mike Klinzing: [01:11:30] Good stuff.

And I think it’s something that here in our country, I think the, the financial literacy that we have as a society. Could, could you use, could use a little work? So when I was reading through the book and I got to that little small section, I thought, wow, there’s a lot of little gems in there that if people could just read that and go and search out some more details on some of the things that you said.

I think it’s tremendously valuable again, not just for coaches, for players, for anybody who reads the book. And so. I [01:12:00] want to just say to you, Matt, that again, the book is tremendous for people who are out there. I highly, highly recommend going out and picking up a copy. You will. When you read the, the recommendations that Matt has, the list of people that have endorsed the book it’s like a who’s who of the basketball world.

And I think the phrase is much deserved and so mad. I want to give you an opportunity to just share with people. Where they can find the book, how they can buy the book. Just give us the elevator pitch for the book one more time. And then I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

Matt Doherty: [01:12:37] Sure. Well, the  the book is entitled Rebound: From Pain to Passion – Leadership Lessons Learned. It’s basically about my leadership journey that started in 2003 after I was forced to resign at my alma mater the University of North Carolina. Then foreword is written by heck it’s worth getting the book just for the foreword. Michael Jordan wrote the [01:13:00] forward.

He was so gracious. I texted him, he texted me right back, said, sure, I’d be glad to do it. And you know, then I had endorsements from guys like, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, John Gordon, famous author. Jim Nantz, Dick Vitale. Fran Fraschilla, Roy Williams. You know, former players, executive coaches really honored.

I hope that my book is worthy of their praise and then it will be a successful book.

Mike Klinzing: [01:13:33] It definitely is. And like I told you, when we spoke earlier, before the podcast today, I dug through it and read it in, basically in 24 hours, I did two shifts. I read maybe two thirds of it yesterday and then finished up the second third of it this morning.

And I came away with a bunch of nuggets, things that I feel like could impact me in my life currently where I am. And certainly if I was more active in coaching, I [01:14:00] think there’s a lot of things that I could pull out that make the book tremendously valuable. And not only is it valuable, but it’s an entertaining read, especially if you love North Carolina basketball, the way I do.

And even if you’re not a North Carolina guy, I mean, if you’re a Duke fan, you could read the book and get a lot out of it.

Matt Doherty: [01:14:16] I got Jay Bilas has to endorse it. I had to cover Duke too.

Mike Klinzing: [01:14:22]You got it. And you did that very, very well. So Matt, we cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to jump on with us, share the wisdom that you learned over the course of your journey and relive some of those moments, which I know were not easy moments in your life.

And I commend you for being willing to put that on paper and then come out and talk about it. And the fact that you grew from your experiences and came out of it on the other side, a better person and somebody who’s willing to share those lessons with others. To me, that’s really what it’s all about. So again, thanks for jumping on with us and to everyone out there.

Thanks for listening. And we will catch you on [01:15:00] our next episode. Thanks.