MIKE TAYLOR – INTERNATIONAL BASKETBALL COACH – EPISODE 701

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-taylor-5b3a51223

Email –  miket_15@hotmail.com

Mike Taylor has coached basketball at various levels all over the world.  He most recently served as the Head Coach of the Fraser Valley Bandits professional team in Canada.  From 2014 to 2021 Mike was the Polish National Team Coach where he led Poland from FIBA world rank #42 to #13.  He also guided Poland to their first World Cup in 52 years and only their second overall.

Mike served as an assistant coach for the Czech Republic National Team from 2009-2013.  He has coached professionally in Germany and England.  In addition to his experience overseas has coached with the Maine Red Claws in the NBA G League, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the Kansas Cagerz, and the Dodge City legends.

Mike started his coaching career at a graduate assistant coach at Clarion University followed by stints as an assistant at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Pittsburg State before heading overseas to coach professionally in Germany.

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Take some notes as you listen to this episode with Mike Taylor, International Basketball Coach.

What We Discuss with Mike Taylor

• Being the ballboy for his father’s teams at Clarion University
• The discussions he and his Dad would have around coaching strategy
• How he ended up playing college basketball at Indiana University of Pennsylvania after initially playing college baseball at Florida Southern
• Thinking like a coach even while he playing
• Working 11 camps a summer while he was a GA at Clarion University to build his network and learn from great college coaches like Rick Pitino and Billy Donovan
• His college coaching stints at Clarion University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Pittsburg State
• Getting the opportunity to coach teams that traveled overseas through Planet Basketball Tours
• How he got his first chance to be a head coach in Germany when a friend turned down the job and recommended him
• “A lot of guys are like, Oh, I’d love to coach overseas, but they want to go overseas at the top level and that’s not realistic. I went over and started at a lower level.
• How his success in in Germany that first year led to an opportunity in England
• Helping his his team in Ulm, Germany move from the second to the first division
• Being an assistant with the Czech National Team for four years
• The difficulties American coaches face trying to get into France and Spain
• Returning to the US to work as an assistant for Nick Nurse with Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the G League
• His time as the Head Coach for the Maine Red Claws working with both Doc Rivers and then Brad Stevens
• Lessons learned from Doc Rivers and his Celtics staff, especially on defense
• “Doing a self assessment and asking how can I really get better? How can I really use this opportunity?”
• “I was just always trying to build a positive environment and have good relationships with players.”
• “You’ve seen the best, you’ve seen how the best work, you’ve seen what they do. You try to take some of the good things from them and try to build yourself up in your own image.”
• Getting hired as the National Team Coach in Poland
• “The Polish National Team did not have a star mentality. It was not about one player, it was about the team.”
• “I’m coming in with creating a positive environment. I’m coming in communicating, I’m coming in building positive relationships. And I think it was like a breath of fresh air to some of these guys.”
• Qualifying for the first World Cup in 52 years with Poland
• As a national team coach – “You’re not a threat to other coaches or other teams. You’re a, you’re a friend, you’re a positive guy. You’re there coming to support the players on their team.”
• “Can you maintain that positive relationship, that positive energy and still be respected?”
• Fun with Discipline
• “I do really believe that we as people are at our best when we love what we’re doing, when we’re having fun with what we’re doing.”

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TRANSCRIPT FOR MIKE TAYLOR – INTERNATIONAL BASKETBALL COACH – EPISODE 701

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle this morning. But I am pleased to be joined by Mike Taylor, International Basketball Coach, who has been all over the world coaching the great game of basketball. Mike, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

y[00:00:13] Mike Taylor: Thank you, Mike.  Happy to be here.

[00:00:15] Mike Klinzing: Excited to have you on. Looking forward to being able to dig into all the things that you’ve been able to do in your coaching career. Let’s go back in time to when you were a kid. Tell us about some of your first experiences with the game of basketball.

[00:00:27] Mike Taylor: Well, growing up in our family, my dad was also a coach and I think he was obviously a great role model, a great example for us.

And he coached us not only in basketball, but other sports as well. Little League baseball, helped us a lot with football, but obviously being around his teams. In practice and I was a ball boy during his time at Clarion University. So I have all these wonderful memories about being around my dad and being around his team and the game, going to camps and just all kinds of things.

So, I loved all sports growing up, but at the end of the day, I just felt like there was something special with a connection with basketball. And because of my dad’s example, I always was like, Hey, you know what, when I get older I really want to get into coaching like my dad. So that’s kind of the way it all started and I’ve had wonderful life experiences with the game and I think the earliest memories growing up are really centered around my dad.

[00:01:27] Mike Klinzing: When you think about all the opportunities that you had to be around your dad and watch him coach and be around his teams, and then you think about your own development as a coach. Are there one or two things that you can point to that you feel like are a part of your coaching today that came from the influence of your dad?

[00:01:47] Mike Taylor: There’s no doubt. He’s been my biggest influence and he’s been my biggest example early on. I remember watching him scout games on tv, sitting in his chair with a notepad, writing down notes, writing down ideas, and then of course I would go upstairs and do the same thing.

I would kind of imitate that and there’d be a game on TV and I’d try to write down different things. So, he challenged me at a young age in terms of understanding the game. And then in terms of coaching what, how do you think practice should run? What do you think your team should do offensively?

What should you do defensively? And we would have all kinds of conversations as I got older. In terms of managing a team and running a team and handling personalities and players and I mean all, all aspects of coaching. And I think this was the biggest, let’s say positive and, and biggest advantage I had is just a regular day conversations that would come up just about basketball and sports and how you handle all the different situations that a coach needs to be able to handle.

So, All of those things I think were really, really important in terms of me being able to develop my own philosophy early on.

[00:03:04] Mike Klinzing: As a player, were you thinking about the game more from a coaching perspective maybe than some of your teammates, or were you not even processing it that way as you’re playing?

What was your thought process as a player compared to how you’re looking at it as a coach? Did those two things bleed into each other?

[00:03:22] Mike Taylor: Well, I think that if you, like most of the times when you associate, Hey, this is a coach’s son, you just understand there’s an understanding of the game.

You expect the coach’s son to have a real, let’s say, high IQ or good feeling for the game because they theoretically, or you would think, spend a lot more time around it. So growing up playing other sports, I actually went to Florida Southern to play baseball as a freshman.

And I was like, Hey, I’m going to try to be a baseball player and work as hard as I could. But at some point I realized like, Hey man, I have to spend a lot of time to get better in baseball. But I knew in my heart I wanted to coach basketball, so I ended up transferring back up to IUP, Indiana of Pennsylvania.

And at that point I was not a great basketball player, right? Just a guy that loved the game and really understood how to play. So I walked on the team there and basically turned into a three year captain at IUP. And it wasn’t because I was a great player, it was because the leadership aspects and just understanding of the game and I think the work ethic and everything just kind of fell in place.

But I think everybody at that time knew like Mike is going to be a coach. And I think that was kind of my perspective. My perspective was always trying to get playing experience. So I would have the feeling of handling players, handling teams, handling the situation. And that’s kind of the way things worked out.

Immediately after IUP, I went in to be a graduate assistant at Clarion. And that’s what got me started in coaching,

[00:04:54] Mike Klinzing: We’re you always always thinking college coaching?

[00:04:57] Mike Taylor: Yes, I was. And what’s interesting is again, with my dad’s example as a role model, I would just imagine myself coaching at a college and for three summers while I was a graduate assistant and into my first assistant coaching job at IUP.

I would work summer camps and I worked 11 camps a summer all over the USA. Every school you can imagine, I kind of targeted a coach. Oh, I’m interested in Pitino’s press system. So I’m going to go to Kentucky. I’m going to go to Florida where Billy Donovan was. I tried to build up a network and target different coaches that I liked or that I was interested in learning because at camps at that time, there was always the chalk talk on Thursday or Friday night and you would have that chance to sit down and talk to the coaches and talk to the staff and ask questions.

And I made a lot of great friends, friends to this day during that time. And also too, the experience and being able to talk basketball with some great college coaches. So I was really focused on coaching in college. I was a graduate assistant for two years at Clarion University where my dad was.

He was not coaching anymore. I was under Dr. Ron Rider at the time. But at the same time then I went back to IUP was there for three years. And then I went to Pittsburgh State in Kansas and was under coach Gene Iba for a year at that point. I had the opportunity to go overseas and with my focus being completely on college coaching at the time, I really didn’t know what I was getting into.

I was into helping guys get into the pro game. This was at the division two level, so I took several of our players to different tryout camps in Virginia and Utah, different places where they could get some visibility and, and pursue those professional dreams. And one of the things that I did was through a group called Planet Basketball.

I took as an assistant coach in 97, 98 I went to Caracas, Venezuela as an assistant coach. And then a couple summers later, I went as a head coach to Finland and the Czech Republic. And that was my first experience really being in Europe and seeing the European basketball game.

So I had a friend that was from Portland and he had a chance to go to Portland University as a director of operations Aaron Christian. And the coach he was working for at the time had placed a coach in Germany. And this coach wanted to come back home to San Diego. So they offered Aaron the job and Aaron was like, No, you know what?

It’s great. Thank you. But I want to go to, Portland where my wife and I are from. So he knew me, we met at camps and things like this and he knew like, Hey Mike, would you be interested in this? Yeah. Sending my stuff. And, and that’s kind of how I got my opportunity to go to Chemnitz, Germany. You know, I went over in the third division, it was a regional league at the time.

And I think this is the point, a lot of guys were like, Oh, I’d love to coach overseas, but they want to go overseas at the, at the top level . And that’s not realistic. You know, like I went over and started at a lower level. Even to this day, some of the greatest memories I have are of that lower level coaching overseas, where you have a couple students, you have a couple guys working in town, you have a couple pros, and it’s just kind of a fun level. You’re practicing and it is just not on a really, let’s say high level. So that was 2001 in Chemnitz But I clearly never really thought about overseas basketball. And then when I got there, it was like, Yeah, this is great. I’m really enjoying not only the basketball side of it, but the life experience side of it too.

And that’s something I really never thought of growing up. It was always like, I just want to be a college coach, kind of like my dad.

[00:08:48] Mike Klinzing: Was that something when you pack up and you’re going overseas for the first time, was that something that as you were going through the process of making that decision. Was living in another country, going overseas.

How did you feel and process that? Was that something that you knew you were going to like because just of who you are or was that something that you were a little nervous about?

[00:09:11] Mike Taylor: To be honest, it was like, Hey I want to be a head coach. I want to have head coaching experience. If I’m going to be in the college game, I’m going to have to wait for it and I’m going to have to work for it.

So what I planned was go overseas, get head coaching experience, build my international network, be able to know some players and things like this, and then come back and get into the college game. But, from Chemnitz we won our league.  We basically moved the team up from the third division to the second division.

They wanted to sign me back the night we won  the championship game. I was going into the old USBL as an assistant in Dodge City with the Dodge City Legend. Took coach in the summer. I was going to be the assistant coach out there. Cliff Levingston was the head coach at the time, and basically I told him, Hey this will end July 1st, July 2nd.

At that time I’ll have a real clear picture. Let’s talk. Then they just moved on. So I was kind of like looking, Okay, I need to find something. And this is when the Essex leopards, the London leopards basically they called and they brought the team back. And they offered me the job later that summer.

And that’s how I ended up going from Germany to the UK. That whole situation was a great experience. You know, Nick Nurse was coaching the Brighton Bears and Chris Finch was coaching the Shefield Sharks. I loved the the league. It was really cool. And instead of like in Europe, you’re playing basically a Saturday or Sunday game.

A weekend game with every once in a while, a Friday, Sunday double header in Britain at the time you would play any day of the week. So I would run a practice in the morning or in the early afternoon and then drive to scout games where we were just outside London. It was a great location to just get to different places.

So I was spending a lot of time live scouting and, just really working on all the different aspects of coaching. And I think that’s one of the things about coaching overseas is in USA many times you have a big staff, a big support staff, and I think overseas you may have one assistant, two assistants if you’re lucky.

You end up doing a lot of things yourself. So, and again, around the year 2000, 2001, 2002, there was not the big, let’s say scouting online with let’s say synergy and some of these other possibilities. So I was doing a lot of live scouting, driving to games and things like this.

Our team in the UK was not very good. We basically crashed at the end of the season and the team folded, came back a year or two later with the support of the fans as a first division team, so not the British Basketball League. And they’re still there. But basically they brought the team back, the team crashed, and then I was basically, they’re like, Hey, you can help us bring the team back.

Stay here. And I’m like, Man, I want to coach basketball. I, I don’t want to stay here and, and try to save the franchise so. That’s when I got connected with Germany and Ulm, that’s where I kind of made my name.  I was there for eight seasons, 2003 to 2011. We moved the team up from the second league to the first league.

We built it into a playoff team. And then basically at that, When we had the team in the playoffs they came to me and said, Hey, look, there’s going to be a new arena in a couple years. We just want to keep the team in the league and we want to focus on young players. So we basically let our all, most of our veteran guys go.

And we brought in some young prospects, some really talented guys who are, a couple of them just finishing their careers in, in, in basketball in Europe, and they’ve had great runs. So I was there for eight seasons and basically you go to a team and I really am a big believer in you as a coach have to have the value system and it has to match the values of your management and organization. And when you can find that, then you can really do some great things together. And I just was a really good fit for all at the time. You know, they really wanted to move the team up.

So as a young coach, I was able to take on that challenge. It took us into our third year. Our third year we went 29 and one and won our league and moved up and in Germany and Europe, the promotion relegation system in Germany, it’s called the ote. That’s like a, a really big deal for these, these teams and towns and you know, so, okay, I’m in Chemitz.

We have the OTE from third division to second division. I’m in Ulm. We go from second division to first division. So now you start to build a, a really positive reputation. Towards the end of my own time let’s say not the end, but let’s say two, 2009, 2010, when we started to really refocus on the younger players.

One of my good friends, Pavel Budinski, a coach from the Czech Republic, was named the National Team Head Coach of Czech Republic, and I met Pavel when I was in Chemnitz, the team he was coaching in the lower division in in check was 40 kilometers from Chemnitz. And we got to be really good friends. We would play friendly games.

We had a training camp and I would go visit his family. He would come up and watch my games. So we got to be really good friends in coaching. And so he gets named the Czech National team coach and was like, Mike, would you like to be an assistant with Czech Republic?

And of course I was like, Yes. We had a couple players, Conrad Basak Para Gunther and then Robin Bening and own these guys were a part of the German National Team program. So we were developing some national team caliber young players through our program. And I got to see the national team game for the first time in Ulm, and I was like, Man, this is really cool. I really think this is great. I would love to be involved someday. And I think the other factor for me was as a coach in Europe, the market is not as big as you think it is, right? It’s like, oh, there’s all these countries, there’s all these teams, all these divisions.

But a lot of these countries are really difficult to get into, Let’s say France is very protective and they, they really support the domestic coaches and, and that’s not bad, It’s not wrong, but as an American coach trying to coach professionally in Europe it’s hard to get into France, it’s hard to get into Spain.

So my mentality was, Let me go be a national team coach in the future, and then those guys will respect it and I’ll have these opportunities to get into some of these countries and places that maybe they wouldn’t look at you or consider you before. So I jumped at the chance to be with Pavel and we started in the B division at the time, the lower division, and then they revamped the whole national team system.

So I was with Czech Republic for four years and we built it up. We qualified for Euro Basket 2013 in Slovenia, and we won the first two games there for the in 17 years for Czech Republic at Euro Basket. We had a great upset win Poland, and that would later help me when I was applying for the Poland job, right?

So that’s kind of how that thing all came together. But after my time, in Ulm let’s say when my contract was not renewed, Nick Nurse was leaving Iowa Energy and going to RGV the Vipers in Rio Grande Valley in the D League. And he hired me to come down there and be an assistant. And he really helped me out a lot in terms of understanding the D league and I don’t think it was the best year for us.

Obviously there’s high expectations with RGV trying to win a championship, and we did not that year. But in terms. Learning the league and understanding it and being around the rockets and rocket ball and everything. It was really great for development that next year I got a chance to be the head coach of the Maine Red Cross.

The Celtics hired me. And basically these were two really important years developmental wise. I was around Doc Rivers and his staff their last season in Boston. And Doc was really good to me. And basically I was around the Celtics a lot and with them for their playoff series and against New York and just on the European trip playing Fenner Bache in Istanbul and Milan.

So we had great experiences there, but the chance to work on my game.  I spent a lot of time talking defense with those guys and tried to really improve myself defensively. I think in Europe I was known as kind of a guy that was really good with players. People say players coach, but I just think a guy that was really good with players positive motivator but then at the same time, just a pretty creative offensive coach.

But to be honest, let’s say maybe not the best defensive guy at the time. So kind of doing a self assessment and like, Okay, how can I really get better? How can I really use this opportunity? That was kind of the way that ask questions and try to build your defensive system and take it to the next level.

And one of the best things happened to me when I and I’ll get back to the Celtic stuff in a minute. A guy that I coached against, he was coaching for Al Berlin, Luca Veic. We got to be really good friends. We beat Al Berlin  in 2007, 2008. We beat him twice, once in Ulm and once in Berlin, and then we took him to double overtime ina cup game in Berlin.

And from that time, We just had their number and, and Luca was a great coach there in the Euro league at the time. He’s looking at this and he’s like, So we got to be really good friends. I would go visit him for Euro league games when I had free time and, and we would be out late in Berlin talking basketball.

And what I liked about Luca so much was, His background from the former Yugoslavia coaching and former Yugoslavia school. And this was really interesting to talk basketball with him and get his perspective and philosophy. And we were just very different.  He was very methodical very I just really.

Coach is in charge. And you do it this way. And again I’m, I was a little different I was just always trying to build a positive environment and have good relationships with players and things like this. So I think we had mutual respect from different perspectives. But he was coaching the Montero team my first year in Poland, and we played them in a friendly game.

And after the game we met and went out and were talking like we had done many times before. And he’s like, Mike, It’s different now. Your team is different now, and I thought that was one of the best compliments that I could ever receive coaching wise, a guy that knew me, that was, I think a colleague and mutual respect could see there was difference in the way we defended, the way we played, the way we were structured.

And coming from the former Yugoslavia school, I thought that was really, really respectful. I took that as like, Hey man, I’m on the right track. So getting back to the Celtics, Doc. After my first year and a lot of his staff went out to LA with him, and then Brad Stevens came in.

So I had the good fortune to be around the Celtics and work closely and observe these great coaches. So you look at some of the great coaches in the game right now, You talk about Nick Nurse, what he’s doing in Toronto and Canada, and then you talk about Doc and, and you know, Brad.

I think these are fantastic guys. So it’s like, okay, you’ve seen the best, you’ve seen how the best work, you’ve seen what they do. You try to take some of the good things from them and try to build yourself up in your own image, in your own way to be yourself. But you know what the best is, you know how they are. You know what it is. You have a clear picture. So after two years with Maine we made the playoffs for the first time in team history. My first year, second year we struggled a little bit, obviously the changeover from Doc to Brad.

Brad was learning a lot about everything. And our team, we basically had some good things happen along the way, but it was you see the good parts of the D league, you see the tough parts. I coached in the All Star game the first year and then made the playoffs, and then the next year we couldn’t really put it together. So during that time that’s when I got the Poland job. I think I was hired in January of my second D League season. So after that, it was just like, all right, I’m going to focus on being the national team head coach in Poland. And I kind of went over there really on a mission to really take Poland to the next level.

I kind of went in there and I mean, a lot of these guys, they were in a tough spot at 2013 Euro basket. They really struggled. They had high, high expectations because of  Marcin Gortat, Machi Lampe, two NBA players were playing on the team together. And it’s like, oh, you got these great players. But those two guys really didn’t work together well at all.

And in fact we never had them together. During my seven, eight years in Poland, we would have one guy, one year, another guy, a different year. We only had Gortat once in 2015. And then he kind of retired, but you know, they were in such a bad spot when I went into Poland. They’re like, Who is this guy?

So we had a, some, some really good players not play. And I basically had to prove myself. From the beginning and that first year we won our qualification group. We beat Germany twice. We had really good experience and it was not a star mentality. It was not about one player, it was about the team.

We brought a let’s say an NBA system with terminology, and I think modern game the players were super responsive to the coaching style, which was in Poland, the tradition, the history has been the former Yugoslavia, the Balkan way where coaches are dominating their teams and just fighting their players and doing all kinds of stuff.

My mentality was I’m coming in with creating a positive environment. I’m coming in communicating, I’m coming in building positive relationships. And I think it was like a breath of fresh air to some of these guys. A lot of these players have played for a lot of different coaches and have seen a lot of different things.

So when you get these veterans that really respond in a great way  you’re making a positive impact with different coaching styles and ideas and for Poland the Euro basket 2015 with Gortat. We won three games in the first round. We advanced to the second round and we played Spain.

We hung with ’em for three quarters and then they had a big run,  if you’re familiar with it. Pau Gasol had 32 points in the game and hit six of seven, three point shots, and this was before he was really known as a three point shooter. At that time Gortat was like an inside defender.

He wasn’t used to guarding on the perimeter, but we didn’t expect. Gasol to come out there and bomb threes like he did so you just tip your cap to Gasol and he played amazing in that tournament. So they ended up winning. The next year we came back and won our qualification group again.

So the first three years of Poland were really successful, really fantastic. Could not have gone better in a lot of ways. And then, excuse me, unfortunately, In 2017, Gortat was no longer with the team, and we basically were trying to incorporate Shamick Kovski as the main center from the former Gonzaga big man.

And that really put the team in a difficult situation. We weren’t all on the same page. We had some internal stuff going on at the time and combined in Helsinki, Finland, we won one game at that group. We were up nine against Finland with 90 seconds to go and basically turn the ball over foul to three point shooter, pat turn the ball over from the sideline that everything was like, everything you could imagine you don’t want to do.

We did. We ended up losing to Finland. Lauri Markanen played great and they won and double overtime. But like I said, in 2015 from France, we lost by three to France with Tony Parker and, and Boris Diaw and all these guys Goebert. And then that game in 2017, those two games playing on the host floor and losing I think eventually helped us get our biggest win in China.

But after 2017 You know, there was a lot of heat, there was a lot of pressure. National teen jobs are very political. And I think that at that time there were some people that were working against me. And this was where I first started to see kind of, let’s see, the reality side of it.

The first three years really successful. Everything great. And then you have to protect yourself. You have people coming after you. I’m very fortunate during that tough period, the president of the Federation, Jaguar, Baranski, we had a meeting. We sat down, he wanted to hear my vision for the future.

We talked about everything. And he stuck with me. And from that point forward, we kind of got the guys who had their hearts in the national team. It, and this was maybe not the best known players. We had a player named Adam, her, we called him Beast. Big, strong physical post defender. He played at the University of Cincinnati in college.

He was just blue collar, just tough. And he wasn’t a great offensive player. But you know, everybody’s like, Oh, you have to have Gortat, you have to have Lampe, you have to have these other. You know, the guy that fit our team the best was because he just didn’t need the ball. He executed, he defended, he did all the little things, all the dirty work, and basically his heart was in it.

So it was guys like this, you know there was a player that. We called. He never really thought he was ever going to be on the national team. We called him and he’s like, Oh you know, starts crying because he really wanted to be there. Yep. All of these things kind of came together and we got it right And this was when we went on our big run and qualified for the World Cup, The First World Cup in 52 years for Poland, the second of all time and not only did we go, but we won our group, we won against China in overtime in Beijing. That’s probably my most memorable win. Then we beat Russia in the next round to qualify for the top eight, excuse me. In the top eight. We kind of reached our peak.

We reached our limit. We lost to Spain then we lost to Czech Republic. And then we finished up playing Team USA in China. And of course that was a great, great experience. But after that I finished out Poland for the next two years, actually, the next three years. We qualified for our third Euro basket.

We beat Spain in Spain for the first time in 48 years. So there was a lot of other good things that happened. We developed the guy, we brought in Jeremy Sochan, who’s now with the San Antonio Spurs. So there was a lot of positive things the last couple years as well. We lost in the Olympic qualifying tournament last summer to Slovenia and Lithuania and our Olympic dreams stopped, but nobody was beaten Slovenia at that time. They, with Luka Doncic, the way he played last summer was unbelievable. Yep. So from that standpoint, that’s kind of like when things ended for me in Poland and what I’ve most recently been doing I was up in Canada in, in the Canadian C E B L Canadian Elite Basketball League with the Frazier Valley Bandits.

Now the Vancouver Bandits. Love the league, love the experience, really good people. And then I also did most recently some TV for FIBA at Euro Basket as as a game analyst for the most recent Euro basket. So that’s kind of where we are right now.

[00:29:12] Mike Klinzing: What’s the day to day like as a national coach?

Like, so obviously people know, hey, we’re going into this tournament, or we’re trying to qualify for that, but just day to day as a national coach, what are, what are some of the things that you’re doing on a daily basis?

[00:29:27] Mike Taylor: Well, I think the most important thing you’re doing in the big picture is building relationships.

You’re tracking your players, you’re tracking the prospects. You’re organizing trips that, that to go visit. Not only teams and games in Poland, but players that are playing all over the place, and this is one of the things I loved about the job. You’re not a threat to other coaches or other teams.

You’re a, you’re a friend, you’re a positive guy. You’re there coming to support the players on their team. I’ve seen so many great coaches run practices and, and then gone for a coffee or gone for a lunch or dinner with great coaches and great managers, and I think it helps build your network. I think basically relationship building is a huge part of the national team job.

So I think that’s number one. Number two, the federation will have you do all kinds of different little things. You might have a clinic here you know, they might have a, a public appearance there. So these things are always on the agenda. We lived in Warsaw for, I think three years of my time.

And then of course with Covid. I was only going there for the windows and things. But you build connections, you build networks, you build these relationships and you kind of really get to know the environment, the landscape of basketball in the country. So the time that I had with Poland was wonderful.

I’ve got some friends for life. You know, we accomplished a lot in, in all of those things. I guess I would say it’s more of a general manager type position, day to day in terms of planning and organizing and, and different things. But in terms of the coaching aspect of it, that comes in when you’re in a training camp or along those lines.

So these were really good experiences as well in terms of building career and, and having a chance to build up the national team, build up the organization, track all the prospects and just be involved with all aspects of it.

[00:31:25] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. You’ve been able to have your hand in a lot of different things, as you talked about earlier in your career, where you don’t have a lot of assistants and you’re doing those things that maybe a head coach has somebody else. If you have a bigger staff that can do that, but because you got the opportunity to do those things earlier in your career, I’m sure that that benefited you as you move forward. One of the things that I’ve heard you say a bunch of times is talking about how you wanted to build an environment, a culture where it was player friendly, and where you were trying to build those relationships with your players.

Was that something that you knew you wanted to do right from the start, or was that something that sort of evolved over time as you got the opportunity to watch and connect with all these other great coaches that you had an opportunity to interact with?

[00:32:06] Mike Taylor: I’ve always been a naturally positive person.

I’ve always kind of been a leadership type person in teams and sports, and I think a lot of it has to do with my faith and things like this. So the values that I have as a person, the values that I bring, I think those things just naturally show through. But in terms of coaching, again, you go back to my dad’s example.

How do you think the team should be? How do you think? And when you’re around good coaches, who communicate well and who create this good environment and who have good relationships with players. I think this is the key for coaches. You have to be who you are. You have to be. But can you maintain that positive relationship, that positive energy and still be respected and things like this?

And I think that this is where the personality comes in. I’ve always kind of had the mentality of fun with discipline. I want players to enjoy coming to the gym. I want people to have fun with basketball. But you can’t just have too much. Because then you’re not going to win. You’re not going to worry.

So you have to have that discipline. And the point is, I feel like a coach, as he’s reading the team, if you’re having too much fun and messing around too much and you’re not locked in, that’s where the coach comes in and in the right way, addresses it and adds the discipline. And sometimes the other way, you can have too much stress, too much pressure too on the team.

That’s where you have to kind. Find a way to ease it and find a way to help the players enjoy it and have fun. So this fun with discipline has kind of been always what I’ve tried to build. But again people do what they know. So if you, as a, you want to be a coach, you’ve been around the old school in the usa yellers and guys that are trying to dominate their team.

If that’s what you know, that’s what you’ve seen, more often than not, that’s what you’re going to do unless you say, Hey, I think there’s a better way. I want to try to do something else. You know? But again, We all have to be who we are, and for me it’s just being a naturally positive person, being a good communicator and trying to help guys have fun.

But I do really believe that we as people are at our best. When we love what we’re doing, when we’re having fun with what we’re doing, when we’re enjoying what we’re doing, I think that’s when people are at their best. And the point is, how can you get not only one person, but a whole group? How can you get a whole team with the whole team dynamics how can you get that team to that point where everybody’s really enjoying it?

And we know you have a big win and there’s always one person who’s not happy. You know, you can’t, right? You can’t waste your energy on that one person, or you’ll never enjoy it. So you have to be able to detach a little bit from it and just be like, Okay like we’re doing the very best we can.

We’ll manage the situation as it is, but that’s just part of it. That’s how it is.

[00:35:10] Mike Klinzing: I love that idea of connecting fun with the game, right? Because you think back to when you were a kid and why does anybody pick up a basketball? Because it’s fun. And I think sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day minutia of what coaching is or what planning is and forget there’s supposed to be a fun aspect to it, and I think we’re moving in that direction in the coaching profession. Certainly, as you mentioned earlier, You think back to what coaching was like in the seventies, eighties, early nineties, and you had much more of that dictatorship style of coaching.

And not that those coaches still don’t exist, because they do, but I think certainly the way the coaching profession is moving is towards that relationship building and that creating an environment where people can flourish. And as you said, when you’re doing what you love, you’re probably going to do it better than when you’re playing out of fear.

And I think that’s the direction that the coaching profession is headed. To me, that’s a huge. Before we get out, Mike, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, find out more about you, what you’re doing, so whether that’s you want to share social media, email, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things.

[00:36:18] Mike Taylor: I appreciate that, Mike. I’m not a big social media guy, you know, no Twitter, nothing, nothing like this. No Instagram. So basically fans or friends or people interested in coaching or connecting, people can reach out to me. Just old school.

Email is mike t_15@hotmail.com and my phone number you know, email me first and then we’ll get to that next step in terms of contact with, with numbers and stuff like that

[00:36:45] Mike Klinzing: Perfect, Mike, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule this morning to jump on with us. Really appreciate it, and to everyone out there thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.