RYAN BARRY – FAIRVIEW (OH) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 738

Website – https://fairviewathletics.com/teams/3394673/boys/basketball/varsity

Email – rbarry@fairview.k12.oh.us

Twitter – @FPHS_Basketball

Ryan Barry is in his 6th year as the Head Boys’ Basketball Coach at Fairview High School in Cleveland, Ohio.  During his tenure with the Warriors Barry has compiled 93-36 career record.

Ryan is a 2-time Greater Cleveland Basketball Coaches Association Coach of the Year for divisions 2-4 and was the Northeast Lakes District Division 2 Coach of the Year in 2019.  His teams have won 3 Great Lakes Conference Championships and Ryan is a 2-time Great Lakes Conference Coach of the Year.

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Grab a pen and some paper to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Ryan Barry, Head Boys’ Basketball Coach at Fairview High School in Cleveland, Ohio.

What We Discuss with Ryan Barry

• Playing CYO Basketball growing up in Lakewood, Ohio
• “Our coach was tough on us. He made us work. He told us what it took to be successful. Instilled the work ethic, but also found ways to make it fun throughout.”
• Growing up a three sport athlete and the challenges kids face today when playing multiple sports
• His decision to only play football after his freshman year of high school
• The balance between encouraging kids to play other sports and also wanting them around in the off-season for workouts
• “Coaching’s all about relationships. It’s knowing your players knowing, knowing what they want and having conversations with them and not always talking about basketball.”
• “Those silly days where you just don’t feel good, don’t want to come up and work, or you’re tired or whatever. I would say those are the ones that hurt you. It’s not the week with your family on vacation”
• Why it’s important to him to show up when his players attend a college “prospect” camp
• “Show up for the kids that you asked to show up for you.”
• “They show up for you for four years or five years or however long you got ’em. The least you can do is try to show up to some of their important moments.”
• “Are you a man of character? You say you are. Do you still love the kids now that you’re losing games?”
• Always put the kids first
• “I care about your kids more than I care about basketball.”
• Building out the locker room at Fairview
• “I just want to do things for them. I want them to feel special. I want them to know I appreciate the work they put in.”
• Building relationships with kids from 6th grade through the high school in his job as the middle school pe teacher
• His first job at a charter school coaching a co-ed middle school team in the charter school basketball league
• How his path eventually led to coaching basketball after coaching multiple sports at various levels
• “Surrounding yourself with coaches that can make up for your weakness and then entrusting them to do it.”
• Learning from coaches on Twitter
• His great uncle, Mickey Barrett, who helps him to critique himself
• The number one thing he looks for in a coach on his staff…they have to be a positive coach
• “I need coaches who can be calm when things get crazy.”
• “Be the same person every day, even on tough days, even when things aren’t going well.”
• “The greatest compliment is that we’re hard workers.”
• “You’re going to have a hard time beating us because we’re never going to give up and we’re never going to stop fighting.”
• “The we is definitely bigger than the me.”
• “The open guy is the right guy.”
• “If your goals are to win, I know how to do that, but if your goals are something else, we’re going to have a hard time winning.”
• “Essentially, players sign a contract as soon as they tell me they want to win. Well, guess what? I’m going to show you how it’s done. And when you’re not holding up your end, I’m going to let you know.”
• “Nobody’s exempt from our standards.”
• “Simple movements with skilled players goes a long way.”
• Using coaches as defenders so that players have to learn to make the right reads
• “Summer league’s important. It’s not important to win in Summer League, but it’s important to play those games.”
• The youth program at Fairview and how important it is to develop players who can handle it and shoot it before they get to high school
• “If I make this place something special something that the kids feel that they belong in and that they want to be a part of then I think I’ve done my job.”
• “I don’t think people realize how hard it is to win. It is so difficult to win high school basketball games.”
• “When those kids put it together and they play as a team and they win and they succeed and they accomplish goals the pure joy and excitement in their eyes, man, there’s nothing like it.”

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THANKS, RYAN BARRY

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TRANSCRIPT FOR RYAN BARRY – FAIRVIEW (OH) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 738

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Head Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight. But I am pleased to be joined by the head boys, basketball coach at Fairview High School here in Cleveland, Ohio. It’s Ryan Barry. Ryan, welcome to the Hoops Heads Pod.

[00:00:14] Ryan Barry: Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you having me on.

[00:00:14] Mike Klinzing: Excited to have you on. Looking forward to diving into all the things you’ve been able to do in your coaching career. I want to start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell us a little bit about your first experiences with the game of basketball.

[00:00:29] Ryan Barry: So I grew up in Lakewood, Ohio, and I started off by playing CYO Sports, so I was a public school kid.

I’m 38 and I feel like back when I was a kid, the best options for sports at the time were cyo. So I started in fourth grade playing basketball for St. Clement’s Church. So that’s kind of where it all started for me.

[00:00:50] Mike Klinzing: Certainly a different way of growing up back in that time compared to the way kids grow up today with travel basketball and all that stuff.

And we can get into that a little bit here as we go along, but when you think back to that time with cyo, it was really your only option if you wanted to play organized basketball in elementary school. There really wasn’t another option except, unless again, you were playing for your city recreation department.

[00:01:13] Ryan Barry: No, absolutely. That was all we had. And thankfully as a member of our church, my family was involved and kind of pushed us to start getting into sports and that was our first kind of go at it for basketball. And you know, to this day it’s kind of funny. My first coach Pat Hyland his son and I are still really close and I see him about two or three times a year.

I was in his son’s wedding. So those relationships, as silly as it may seem back in forth grade, are some of the strongest ones you build growing up.

[00:01:47] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. It starts early, no question. And you see as you move along in the game, whether it’s as a player and eventually as a coach, you see that those relationships are really important and, and building those relationships from the get-go really help you to, again, it’s what makes the game special.

And when you think back to some of those early coaches that you had in those years in c y o, is there anything about those coaches in terms of their coaching style or how they approach things that you feel like had an influence on what you do today as a coach?

[00:02:19] Ryan Barry: Yeah. You know, fortunately for me, I was a three sport guy, so I had a lot of different coaches between football, basketball, and baseball.

But specific to basketball our coach, he was tough on us. He made us work. He told us what it took to be successful. Instilled the work ethic, but also found ways to make it fun throughout. I think a lot of times I’ve played all sorts of different coaches in sports and sometimes you get caught up in focusing on everything has to be hard work and everything has to be a competition to win.

And sometimes you forget they’re kids. And the one thing I thought my coaches always did a good job of was there’s never a day where I was like, man, I really don’t want to go to basketball practice. And I think as a young kid, if you have a coach that gets you excited about going and working your butt off for an hour and a half and sweating and sprinting and getting in a defensive stances and you still want to come back for more, I think that coach is doing a heck of a job.

[00:03:18] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That’s 90% of it. Right? With youth coaching is look, the technical aspects. Teaching a game and that kind of thing or or stuff that, especially nowadays with video and you can learn all that, but it’s really about how you relate to the kids. And as you said to me, one of the biggest ways that you can judge somebody as being successful or not as a youth basketball coach is, do the kids want to come back and play again?

And if they do, look, you might not have been the best X’s and O’s coach, or you might not have taught the fundamentals perfectly, but I can guarantee that if those kids want to come back and play again, that those are the kids, we’re going to continue to get better and improve. And as a youth coach, that’s really, that’s really what it’s all about.

As you think about being a multi-sport athlete, as a kid, how glad are you that you grew up in an era where that was, not that it’s impossible anymore, but where it was certainly more possible and more common in the time when you were growing up? Or even, I’m a little bit older than you, but even back in the time when I was growing up, it seems like kids could play multiple sports and excel.

In multiple sports, whereas nowadays it’s really tough for a kid to excel in more than one and certainly to try to play three is almost impossible. So just talk a little bit about your experience as a multi-sport athlete, as a kid, compared to what kids have to go through today.

[00:04:37] Ryan Barry: Yeah. You hit nail on the head with that one.

When I was growing up, football season, middle school and earlier it started in August and it was over in November and then you went right from football right in the basketball season. And basketball season didn’t start until football season was over.

So there weren’t a lot of options for kids. And then after basketball it was baseball season and in the summer you tried to do a little bit of everything with baseball, basketball and some football, but seasons didn’t really overlap. They’re almost structured to encourage kids to try other things.

Now it seems a little more difficult for our athletes because there’s so many opportunities to play. So for example, basketball they can play basketball year round if they want to and if that’s the one thing they truly love doing, that’s what most kids do. And I’ll argue that they’re missing out on experiencing other things.

And there’s a balance somewhere in there. I don’t know if we do a good enough job with it. But kids need to understand that you can go play football and still be a good basketball player. You can go play baseball and some of those added breaks from the other sport can help you out a little bit.

But when I was a kid, you played three sports. One cause your parents wanted you out of the house. And if you wanted to compete year round, that was your only option. So you couldn’t be a basketball player and compete year round. You were just competing in the winter. So if you’re a competitive kid that wanted to go out and compete and try to win at everything every day, you had to play other sports

[00:06:11] Mike Klinzing: And you were out in the neighborhood right? Playing. And that’s just, it’s just a different way of growing up than the way that kids grow up today. Did you have a favorite when you were young? Was basketball always your number one? Or how did that, how did that sort of evolve over the course of your childhood and on into high school?

[00:06:27] Ryan Barry: It’s kind of funny.

This is where I’ll get interesting for you. No, basketball was never my number one. It is now. Football was my number one. I really enjoyed baseball. I liked basketball. And actually when I got to high school after my freshman year I didn’t play basketball ever again. And it had nothing to do with my freshman coaches or the high school coaches.

I loved football so much and I’m one of those multi-sport kids that said, you know what, I’m going to spend that five months in the winter. I’m going to lift weights and get, get better and stronger for football and then I’ll play baseball in the spring. I had it all figured out And the funny part about it is and I had some opportunities to maybe play college football and I never took ’em.

And when you look back at it, it’s like, why did I do that? I could have been a part of all three and really enjoyed it. I put all my eggs in one basket and then I still ended up just going to college and having fun with my friends and playing intermural sports. So what did I sacrifice for?

So that’s why I see both sides of it with, with multi-sport kids nowadays and why it’s so difficult because it’s hard to really feel like you’re giving your all to something if you’re doing other things too.

[00:07:35] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that’s a really good point. It’s one that I think sometimes it’s lost. It’s not necessarily a perspective that I think a lot of people are able to look at things from when you start talking about.

Hey, if I’m only doing basketball or I’m only doing football or whatever it is, am, am I sacrificing being the best at that one thing, that maybe is my slight number one. Maybe I still love one of the other sports, but, but I do have a number one, am I really going to maximize what I get? So I think there’s a piece of that.

And then the flip side to that is also what you said, which is if you do put your all into one thing, then ultimately what are you trying to accomplish? Right? Because I think there’s a lot of pressure on kids and I think on parents when it comes to sports, because everybody is seeing what everybody else does on social media.

Everybody feels this pressure of, I’ve have to be a college athlete. And I always tell people that, and this is really hard to do. I think it’s hard to do as a player. I think it’s hard to do as a coach and I can speak to, as a parent, it’s hard to do. Is you have to kind of keep yourself in the moment and enjoy whether it’s the sport that you’re doing at the moment.

So if you do have if you are a multi-sport athlete or you’re a parent of a multi-sport athlete, you have to enjoy the season that the time that’s in front of you. And so many people I see that are so worried about what’s next, that they’re sophomores in high school and they’re already worried about, well, am I going to get a scholarship?

Or, where am I going to play my college basketball? Or where am I going to play my college football? And it’s like, you still got two and a half or three years of high school left. Don’t be wishing that away, because once that’s gone, you’re going to, you’re going to wish you had it back. And I think it’s hard to do, but I think as a coach and as a parent, it’s important to help people to understand how important it’s to enjoy the moment and not always be focused on what’s next.

[00:09:32] Ryan Barry: No. That’s difficult. And us coaches we’re guilty of it at times too because we want our kids to be at the workouts and they’re missing this because they want to go and have fun with their friends because they’re burnt out because they were at football lifting in the morning and then basketball came at night and they didn’t want to be there or vice versa.

And you know, as coaches, there’s times where I find myself stepping back and I try to Fairview’s a D three school, we’re a small school. I try to encourage my kids to try other things. I go, if you have any interest in football, go play it. It’s an awesome game. You’ll love it. I go, your ability to play football is not going to affect what we do in basketball.

But when you do multiple sports, you have to find a way to do both of them. So during football season those football kids better be texting me to get in the gym and just shoot on the shooting machine and handle the ball for a little bit, you know? And vice versa, when we’re in basketball season we lift during basketball.

But I always tell ’em, don’t let the football become a foreign object to you. Don’t let the basketball become something foreign to you, but as coaches we want to win. So we want our guys at all times, at every workout. And we have to catch ourselves sometimes and we have to do better as coaches to sit back and understand basketball is not their life.

It’s a part of their life and hopefully it impacts their life, but it’s not everything. And finding that balance to understand, hey they’re going to go do other things, but as long as they’re giving you the time and effort that you need those three days a week in the off season then you have to respect that every once in a while they’re going to miss a day because they’re a kid and they want to go do something.

And that’s tough as coaches. It’s a tough pill to swallow and I think we can all be better at that.

[00:11:12] Mike Klinzing: How important when you start thinking about that? Cause I obviously I can relate to that on a lot of different levels, how important. From your perspective, the communication that you have with your kids and the relationship so that you can have those conversations about, Hey, I know you’re doing this, or I know you’re doing that, or, Hey, we need you here for this.

I’m guessing that the better the relationship is with the player, the better those conversations are in terms of getting the outcome that’s good for both the player and for you as the coach and the programs that are.

[00:11:46] Ryan Barry: Yeah, I mean, coaching’s all about relationships. It’s knowing your players knowing, knowing what they want and, and having conversations with them and not always talking about basketball.

And I always tell people I kind of have the cheat code I’m the middle school PE and health teacher at Fairview. Our middle school and high school building are one building. So I have these kids in sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade. And then if they go and play basketball for me, I have ’em for another four years.

If I can’t develop trust then I’m the problem. And I do like to think, and I’m not perfect at it, but I do like to think that my kids know that if they tell me, Hey, coach I got something going on, I can’t be there. That I’m willing to respect it. You know, if it happens every week on Wednesdays, then we need to know why it’s happening every week.

But we have great attendance in the off season. And I think a lot of that’s because I push them, their parents, I tell ’em, go on family vacation, please go somewhere. I go somewhere every summer with my family and there’s nothing more important than that. But then when you’re here, we work. But I don’t want you to stop your lives and not enjoy time in June and July because we’re worried about winning a game in December.

So having those relationships and really being honest with them and sticking by your word. Because it’s hard sometimes when kids are missing for this or that and we don’t have a lot of it. But it’s hard as a coach to sit back and go, it’s okay, I’m glad you’re on your second vacation of the summer.

You’re like, gosh, now you’ve missed two weeks. So the one thing we talk about is those silly days where you just don’t feel good, don’t want to come up and work, or you’re tired or whatever. I would say those are the ones that hurt you. It’s not the week with your family or the two week vacation with your family.

It’s not because you had a football passing scrimmage. It’s when you take those days off because you just don’t feel like it throughout the course of the summer and off season. You know, that could be 10 days on top of your two weeks and now you’re really missing half the off season. So getting kids to buy-in and show up no matter what mood they’re in or how they’re feeling because the work’s important.

But then having the balance and understanding that there’s more to life than just working out in a gym for two hours in the summer.

[00:14:11] Mike Klinzing: And that impacts other kids too, right? Because they see, hey, whatever, Joey’s on vacation. All right? We get that versus, Hey, yeah, I texted Joey this morning and he decided he was going to sleep in and miss the workout.

There’s a difference in terms of how that impacts their teammates and the culture and everything that you’re doing. I will say, full disclosure, one of the things, Ryan, that most impressed me, and I had talked to you about it when we saw each other at the, the couple of college camps that that we were at this summer, that you were there watching a couple of your players at Wooster College and then at at John Carroll.

And when you and I struck up a conversation there, I just, I told you, and I’ll repeat it again here, like to me, that that was so impressive that here you are getting a high school coach, you’re going to these college exposure camps with some of your players just to, just to be there to support ’em.

And I think what, what that speaks to, to me is kind of the two-way street version of what we were just talking about, where as the coach. You know, you expect the players to, to be committed and to do things. And conversely, I think if you’re going to expect that of your players, you have to, your coaches, your players have to be able to expect that of you.

And I think you showing up at those things, to me, again, seeing it as a parent, I mean, speaks volumes about the kind of relationship that you’re building with those kids.

[00:15:24] Ryan Barry: Well we as coaches, we want ’em to show up for us, right? You know, show up, come to our practice, come to our skills, show up to the weight room, put the work in.

We ask a lot out of them. And I think it’s the least we can do is to show up for them when they need us. And those prospect camps, I never went to anything like that. But I have to imagine they’re a little nerve wracking. And my thought process is as simple as this. If they walk in and they see me, gimme a fist bump, say, Hey coach, thanks for coming.

And if that relaxes ’em just a little bit, it’s worth a trip. A hundred percent. You know, is it every weekend? No, I had to miss one and I was upset about it. . because I was on my honeymoon or whatever. I felt bad.

[00:16:08] Mike Klinzing: I think you probably had a good excuse there. Probably in the long term going on the honeymoon is probably a better move.

[00:16:14] Ryan Barry: Yeah, but showing up for the kids that you asked to show up for you. And that can be other things. You know, they play other sports, go watch them play, show an interest in them, tell ’em you’re proud of them. As we get older and we’ll have players that graduate college here coming up and being there for them.

And one of the cool things a former player, Luke Howes graduated in 2020. He’s playing at Walsh now. He is injured. But, we got eliminated from our district final game last year. And there’s nothing more I wanted to do than sulk. , but the next day he was playing for his conference championship in college and making the trip out to Walsh to see that happen.

And it puts you as a coaching perspective too, why are you doing it? Yeah, we want to win, but like, if you really care about these kids and me sitting in the stands after our season and seeing him celebrate something special it really puts in the perspective like you’re there for them, it’s about them.

They show up for you for four years or five years or however long you got ’em. The least you can do is try to show up to some of their important moments.

[00:17:19] Mike Klinzing: It’s a fine line there in terms of keeping it all in perspective, right? Because on the one hand, wins and losses are important to anybody who’s competitive as a coach or as a player.

And in a lot of cases, unfortunately or fortunately, that’s the way we’re judged. In terms of our coaching is by our one loss record. And yet, at the same time, when you talk to former players, when you yourself think back to your experiences as an athlete, when you think about your experiences, you don’t think about, well, our one loss record was this.

Or maybe you remember a really memorable win or a really memorable loss. But for the most part, all that stuff really starts to blend together. And ultimately what it comes down to is you remember the people, you remember the experiences, you remember the relationships you built. And so it’s really, as you said, you gotta keep it in perspective.

Because the honest truth is what’s your biggest game of the year? There’s. Whatever, 7 billion people that don’t care at all about your biggest game of the year that you’re going to lose sleep over and worry about and this and that. And what’s more important is what that relationship is like with the kids. And that’s hard.

It’s really hard to do as you know in the moment, you’re trying to win every time you step foot on the floor. But at the same time, I think if you can take a step back like you’re talking about, and get outside of yourself and realize that it’s a bigger thing than just the wins and losses, I think that’s what you really start to find yourself as a coach.

And that’s, that’s hard to do. I’m sure. I’m sure you’re better at it today than you were when you started. Let’s put it that way.

[00:18:54] Ryan Barry: Yeah. I mean, I’ll tell you what I still obsess over losses. I don’t. Neither do my kids, but my obsession is did I do enough? Did I prepare ’em? Did I give, I can? It’s rarely the effort out of them.

I always get the effort. But yeah, it’s tough and that’s the balance of coaching. I, I’ve gotten better at it, but I also was fortunate when I started, this is year six for me, where we had instant success. We had really talented players. With that came really high expectations, but we were able to win and I was able to, to love the kids up and try to do everything I can for ’em.

And it’s a little easier when you’re winning to also focus on the other side of it, right? When we have a season of some real adversity the covid year we went 11 and 11 that’s the worst record I’ve had as a head coach. And we’re dealing with Covid and we kept dropping close games and…

You know, are you a man of character? You say you are do you still love the kids now that you’re losing games? And, and that’s a challenge, but if you always put the kids first, I really believe this. It’s so cheesy, but I always try to put them first. Do I always do a good job?

No, I don’t. You know, I’m learning, I make mistakes, but I tell the kids and I tell the parents I care about your kids more than I care about basketball. With that being said, we’re going to do everything we can to win games, but at the end of the day, it’s about an experience for them.

It’s not an experience for me. I’m selfish. I get it every day by them showing up and giving me everything they have. But how can you create something special for them? And you have to always try to remember to put ’em first, as tough as it is at times.

[00:20:35] Mike Klinzing: What does that look like? So, on the ground, give me an example of what it means to put the kids first.

[00:20:42] Ryan Barry: I mean, simple things in the day-to-day just having those side conversations with them when we’re stretching and we just came back today was our first practice after Christmas and just asked him how the break was. I gave them four days off, which I’ve never done. So that’s growth on my end right there.

You, we don’t play until the third thankfully, but just letting them know and then asking them what’d you do? How many of you touched a basketball? Be honest only a couple hands go up. And they were looking for me to yell them. I go, that’s great because I only thought about basketball for a couple hours.

You spend time with your family, what did you get? Just little side things that’s the simple side of it.  This off season there’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a few years and I build them a locker room in my garage, wooden cubbies painted black and I decked out this locker room and that’s a bit extreme, but I have a skillset and I’m pretty handy and I always wanted them to feel special when they walked in our locker room. So I spent a big chunk of this summer knowing that my wife’s pregnant and I bought March 13th to do anything I want to do for others right now. And I spent a big chunk of doing that. And to me I thought it was cool for them.

I think it’s special and I think it’s nice and being able to do things for others, build something with your hands and put your sweat into it to me is the ultimate gift for people. It’s as simple as when you’re a kid and they tell you handmade cards are better than a store bought.

And then we make cards until we’re about high school and then we buy ’em. . But that’s my version and that’s a bit extreme, but that’s my version of things. I just want to do things for them. I want them to feel special. I want them to know I appreciate the work they put in, but on the day to day it’s talk to ’em, ask ’em how they’re doing, joke with them, talk about not basketball, those are kind of the simple conversation.

I think conversation goes a long way with kids. I know a lot of people think that I can’t talk to my teenager and I don’t have kids, so I, I don’t know what’s like to be a parent yet. . But I, if you can force ’em into about 30 seconds of something that they want to talk about, kids will open up and talk about it.

And I think conversation’s key for those situations.

[00:22:53] Mike Klinzing: I know you already talked a little bit about being in the building and being able to build relationships because of the special situation that you have of the buildings being connected and getting them in sixth grade as a teacher.  Could you ever imagine, I think this is always a challenge.

Could you ever imagine trying to coach a team where you weren’t in the building?

[00:23:11] Ryan Barry: No. That’s hard. You know, that’s always it’s like everybody always wants to know, like, for me, oh, would you ever leave and go somewhere else? And again, like it’s easy to say no right now. No, I think for me, the coolest part about it is I get to watch them grow up. And I know it’s silly to some people. I get to watch ’em grow up from sixth grade through high school and I get a front row seat and I have ’em for three years in class and then I get to watch them grow up from like little boys and to young men and watch them mature and watch ’em make these mistakes and have a year where they’re acting like idiots cause they’re eighth grade boys

To me that’s the gift. I call it the special sauce is like, I get that I hats off to coaches that aren’t in the building and they can still build those relationships, right? Like that to me is more impressive than the way I can build one. Cause I got all the time in the world with those guys.

We get a new player here or there, or a kid that comes to us from high school that was a private school kid. And it’s a lot easier for me to spend time getting to know them because I got a good relationship with the rest. But I think you have to be in the building. And I don’t see the kids in class, the high school kids that I’ll see ’em in the hallway here and there, and I have a weightlifting class at the end of the day, which I pretty much make mandatory for the basketball team to be in.

So I see ’em here and there. It’s just more about seeing what their day-to-day is and knowing what they have going on. And if they do get an all call to the principal’s office I get to hear it too. So there’s some perks on that end.

[00:24:47] Mike Klinzing: Well, yeah, it’s a daily touch, right? That you’re getting it beyond the practice floor.

So when you talk about building a relationship, you’re talking about being able to build a relationship off the floor around something in their life besides basketball. And so having those touchpoints at school, in the hallway, in the cafeteria, in the weightlifting class, those are all ways that you can build those relationships and have those conversations and not necessarily have them be talking about.

The varsity basketball team and how things that you’re doing impact that. It’s more about just, Hey, who are you as a person and getting to know you. And by being in the building, to me, you just have such a big advantage when it comes to communication and being able to have those daily touch points with your kids working back in time.

When did coaching get on your radar? When was it something that you thought, Hey, I know that this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. Was there a, was there a light bulb moment or was it something that you just kind of, as you’re in college, you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to do and eventually you just settled on, Hey, I think I want to teach and coach, how’d that decision come to you?

[00:25:51] Ryan Barry: When I was in high school I really didn’t, when I thought I wasn’t going to play football in college, I was kind of like, what am I going to do at college? Like, what am I going to study? You have to go learn something. And it’s funny, I had a conversation with our athletic trainer who unfortunately my senior year, I got to know a little too much.

Great guy. And I was telling him I thought about doing athletic training cause I want to be around sports. And he actually talked to me about being a PE teacher and he said that way you can coach, you’d be more impactful in terms of the sports side of things. Your schedule’s better.

And he pulled out pay scales. And so once I got into the idea of teaching, I was like, well, if I’m doing PE man, I have to coach, right? And I made it through college without doing any coaching. Made it, I graduated, it took me a year and a half to find a teaching job and I got one at a charter school in Cleveland and they had this charter school basketball league.

And I have never coached anything at this point. And it was sixth, seventh, and eighth grade and it was co-ed. It was something to get the kids down to the downtown Y and play. We didn’t even have hoops. I was using like garbage cans up on movement, something going and I enjoyed it. We were not very good as you can imagine.

We don’t have hoops to play on, but the experience of kind of working with kids and seeing how excited they were to play a game and how excited they were to try to do what was asked because they thought it was what’s going to help ’em win. That’s kind of when it got going there.

After that, spent two years there and then I ended up taking a year off to go get my health teaching license. And in that time a friend of mine was coaching baseball at Lakewood high school, and I did freshman baseball with him. He had just been in an accident in couldn’t do the physical parts of baseball, couldn’t swing a bat for a couple months, stuff like that.

So I was like, Hey man, I’ll come be a dummy and I’ll hit ground balls and throw bp. And then I got around the Lakewood baseball staff and how close they were, and started to see what it took really to be a coach. That got me excited. And then I hopped over to University School for two years after I got my health license and did middle school basketball there for a couple years.

And it’s funny because I always saw myself as someone who would be coaching football. And the first thing I coached was basketball. And then the second thing I coached was baseball . And I didn’t actually get to coach any football until I got to Fairview and I was the eighth, seventh grade or eighth grade boys basketball coach.

I even did eighth grade girls that year. I was an assistant middle school football coach, and then I was a varsity baseball assistant. And then by year two I was the head football coach for the middle school. I was doing JV basketball, JV baseball. And then by year three I was the head varsity baseball coach and then became the head basketball coach.

And basically in the same year So I’ve coached a lot of things in a short period of time, and it’s kind of settled on basketball, which is great, and trust me, I enjoy it. It’s very challenging for me still learning. But the way I got to where I am was just, I kind of a series of like dumb luck or falling into things and just being willing to try stuff that I wasn’t ready to be doing.

And then trying to learn it. And to me that’s been the exciting part for me, is trying to learn new ways to teach things or try to learn the game a little differently than the way it was taught to me. And now I’m hooked and I think my wife’s okay with it,  She tells me she likes it.

She goes, I know I married a coach. I get it. I try to leave the film and stuff at school when I leave school and I come home, I’m present. I tell her I’m not watching film at home, but if I need to get more film in, then I’m staying at the school a little longer. So it is a wild ride to get to where I am, but I guess that’s the long answer to everything.

But I kind of just got a taste of coaching at the smallest level and saw the excitement in the kids’ eyes and thought, you know what, if I can create a cool experience for them and if I can be a part of, of their success, that’s all I want. So that got me hooked and here I am.

[00:30:05] Mike Klinzing: All right.  So I’m going to ask you, it’s sort of a two part question. I can predict what the first part of the question, I can predict your answer for the first part. The second part I’ll be curious to hear what you have to say. So part one is what do you think is something that, and again, this isn’t specific to basketball, but just in terms of coaching, what’s something you think you were pretty good at from a coaching standpoint, right from the very beginning?

And I think I can predict the answer to that. And then the second part is what’s something that when you look back on at the start, you’re like, Ugh, I was pretty bad at that and I’ve really gotten better at it.

[00:30:41] Ryan Barry: Yeah. I mean, relationships for me, creating a fun environment, I know it’s not hard, but I really, I value that I had some coaches that weren’t the most fun coaches and it wasn’t enjoyable.

And I had a coach in high school for baseball that he actually coached me in middle school too. And then he ended up being a high school coach. And he had such a good balance of we’re here to work, but we’re also going to have a little fun. And so that’s kind of the way I’ve learned a lot from that experience and I just want kids to see that I was telling ’em the work is the work.

Like it’s not going anywhere. It takes what it takes. But with that being said, it doesn’t mean the work has to be miserable how can we make it something that at times can be enjoyable? And then the second part, what was I bad at? Second part is,

[00:31:29] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, What were you maybe not so good at that you’ve gotten better at?

[00:31:32] Ryan Barry: aOh my goodness. Just acts x’s, and o’s, I played freshman basketball and that’s still always going to be my weak point. And I understand that and I’ve been fortunate in my time of surrounding myself with assistant coaches who have lights out X and Os or skill and drill guys?

I would say probably skills and drills still is a weak point for me. Xs and os I feel like I’m getting a better hang of, but I’m not there. But then surrounding yourself with coaches that can make up for your weakness and then entrusting ’em to do it. Now I’ve been super blessed with very talented, very smart, very basketball oriented guys that have really helped me.

And I always say this to ’em and they all move on at some point, but I feel like I get more out of them than they get out of me. Sometimes I feel like I’m stealing but they ensure me that they get plenty for me. But  I just think it’s invaluable to have those guys that just know that game on that side of things and then are able to kind of almost teach it to me and I can see it from a different perspective.

So. Yeah, definitely. Skills and drills, Xs and O’s, but I think I got the relationship going. Okay. We’ll see, we got a new group this year, so we’ll see what they think of me in about another few weeks.

[00:32:48] Mike Klinzing: All right. I want to come back to the staff part of it, but let’s talk a little about the growth from an X’s and O’S skills and drill standpoint.

Where do you go besides your staff? Where do you go to try to improve that aspect of your coaching? Is there, are you going online and watching stuff? Are you watching film, college, other high schools? Are you, are you reading, are you talking to mentors who are what? Just how, how are you going about doing that?

I’m sure maybe a little bit of all the above, but kind of what are your go-to sources as you’re trying to grow as a coach?

[00:33:19] Ryan Barry: So you know, even to go back to those college visit things for the prospect camps, like when I’m there, I’m paying attention to the drills they’re running, to me it sounds terrible.

That’s like a free coaches clinic I get to see that and some coaches at those prospect camps do all sorts of cool stuff. Some are bland. But it’s a cool opportunity to see some stuff live and in terms of drills and the way they do things. I’ve gotten on Twitter lately and any coach that listens to this, if you want to know where I get anything just go look at what I like on Twitter.

I usually end up running at some point. So there’s your free scouting report on Fairview. I’ll find some, just some actions and sets that I like through Twitter, and then I’ll try to recreate ’em. I also come up with things where I implement some stuff that I’ve seen that I think would work nice with my kids my personnel you know, not everything’s for everyone.

And then my great uncle he hates when I talk about him, my uncle Mickey. Mickey Barrett. He coached college basketball at the D one level as an assistant and was a head girls coach at the University of Detroit for a few years for like 30 years. He’s bounced around. He’s since retired.

And I probably don’t utilize him enough, but if I ever have a question or need a conversation I can always reach out to him. He’s come to practices and he just sits there. When I first started out, it was great. He would come anytime he could and he’d sit there and he didn’t even pay attention.

I’d ask him questions about my players, like, I’m here to talk about your, I’m here, talk about you, and would critique my whole practice plan, every drill, the way I worded, the way I taught it, and he would give me feedback on me and what I can do to relate better to the kids. He’s retired and I know if I get him in the gym too much, he’ll never leave.

But I do have those resources. And, and then in the coaching community Kyle Johnson’s now the head coach at North Olmstead. He was my first assistant when I started out. And we always call and vent to each other throughout vent to each other in the middle of season and bang our heads against the wall.

And making those relationships with former assistants, current assistants. That’s kind of the route I take. I’ve come to find, I’m very analytical. I’m one that sits back more and listens. And then try to adjust and try to learn. I’m not very fast at processing stuff while it’s really happening.

So for me it’s like a photographic thing where I’m jotting notes down to learn stuff, and then I need to sit and, and look it through and, and play it through in my head. And I draw a ton of pictures and that’s how I get it to memory, how I learn it or through video. Coaches clinics, if I can get to ’em, I always enjoy to try to get down to one or two of those.

But, it’s usually right to the source, to people I trust.

[00:36:15] Mike Klinzing: All right. Let’s talk staff. When you’re putting together your staff, what are some of the characteristics that you’re looking for in somebody that you want to work with you on a daily basis as part of your coaching?

[00:36:29] Ryan Barry: Have to be a positive coach, and that can look different for other people. We’re not ones that want to tear our players down. I don’t do that. I don’t believe in it. I don’t jump up and down and scream like a lunatic at games. I need coaches who can be calm when things get crazy, because I believe that players are going to be the way their coach is in a tight time.

And if they’re coaches are freaking out and yelling at the officials and complaining about everything then the players are going to do it. And then nobody focuses on what the actual solution is to fix the problem. So I’m big on a positive coach. I’d like ’em to compliment the things that I’m poor at, which I mentioned earlier, or that I think I need work at.

I love a guy that can do skills and drills. Xs and Os is honestly, it’s become kind of the last thing for me that I for in an assistant. If I got some young old, doesn’t matter. But if you’re positive, understand what we’re trying to do in terms of. Build these kids up, put ’em in position to win and can live by your words.

So be the same person every day, even on tough days, even when things aren’t going well. That’s really what I look for. I’m big character based. And you know, right now, which is one of the cooler things, my current JV coach is a former player that graduated in 2020. He’s 20 years old.

I can’t even take him out for a beer after his first win. I’ve always been hesitant about young, like that guys who played here because some of these players know him or have looked up to him. But one of the coolest things with Ryan is Ryan Eckert, nobody steal him, he’s mine.

Is that he knows, he was part of the most successful teams we had here, and he knows what I want. He knows how it should look. He knows how everything should sound, like he gets it because he was a big part of it. And it’s nice to have somebody that maybe he’s inexperienced, but his playing experience for me has really kind of helped mold him into knowing what to look for with these kids.

So that’s kind of a cool journey for me. Again, being able to give back to kids. He is an education major and you know, he’s going to be a teacher one day and he’s going to have coaching experience when he graduates. So for my coaches like I said, positivity we care about kids first and, and we can work around and we can all develop and learn the rest.

[00:38:46] Mike Klinzing: I think if you’re going to have an alum, I think that always is something that is a unique situation because those coaches who played at the school, again, whether they’re young or old, there’s just an affinity that they have for the program because there’s that one little extra tie, that one little extra bond.

It just gives ’em that extra special, it’s just, it’s just important to ’em because that program has been a part of them for as long as they can remember. So I always think that if you can have an alumni staff, it makes a lot of sense to me just because of the pride that they have in the program. As you’re putting things together and you’re talking about how he knows what the culture is and kind of what you want to do and how you want to say things and how you want to put everything together, have you sort of solidified when you think about yourself as a coach, have you solidified your philosophy and kind of what you want to do?

And you can take that from either a culture standpoint or a style of play or however you want to approach the question, but just when you think about yourself as a coach, do you feel like you have an identity as a coach in your own mind? Maybe not necessarily to your opponents, because you may vary up your style play depending on your personnel, but just in your own mind, when you’re thinking about what’s my identity as a coach, do you feel like you have a pretty good feel for what that is now?

[00:40:03] Ryan Barry: One of the compliments that our teams always get and if this is the only compliment we ever get I will take it. And if we can be that team, I want to be that team always is after every game. Summer League doesn’t matter. Every coach says, your kids play so hard all the time.

And to me if that’s our identity, I’m all for it. You know? Cause we talk about showing up and being accountable and putting the work in. I’m competing hard. And I think one thing Fairview’s been over the years and, and whether that has anything to do with me or not, I don’t care.

But it’s the greatest compliment is that we’re hard workers. We’re going to show up and we’re going to give it our all, will the shots always fall? Maybe not. Are we going to win every game? No, but you’re going to have a hard time beating us because we’re never going to give up and we’re never going to stop fighting.

And when things get tough, we’re going to join together and buckle down and do it together. So if I can have an identity, it’s that work, we play hard and we play together then I will gladly take that. It’s always a work in progress though. Finding ways to stay motivated keep kids motivated, finding ways to get ’em to play together and understanding the we is definitely bigger than the me because we have really talented players that come through here and there’s other programs they could probably go to and their coach would let ’em score 30 points the game.

But we don’t do that here. You know, the open guy is the right guy and I think we’ve done a good job of that. In terms of what’s the secret to that? I drill that in their head nonstop.  We talk about it. Everyone gets a night. If you don’t do the other things, then you’re not going to play.

And trying to be better at it, actually when we talk about accountability, holding ’em accountable not bench ’em for making mistakes but not being afraid to point ’em out. You know, it was it a couple weeks ago we played a game against Westlake and I didn’t think we played our style.

I didn’t think we played hard and I didn’t think that we were unselfish. And I was up till 12:30 on that Friday night clipping every quarter of every situation, which I felt we were being selfish. And then I showed film to the whole program nine through 12 that next morning. And guys got called out and I said it’s not cause I don’t love you.

but you’re either not seeing the game or you don’t want to see the game. And some of our more talented players were part of that being called out a little bit. And then the next game was we played Lake Catholic and we were missing actually a starting guard who was real sick. And we ended up losing, but we lost 86 to 82.

We scored 82 points because we moved the basketball and we shared the ball. So as tough as that is, but I always tell the kids in the beginning of the year, they tell me what they want to accomplish. I said, listen, if your goals are to win, I know how to do that, but if your goals are something else, we’re going to have a hard time winning.

So reminding them of, Hey, remember those conversations we had? You said you want to win, you want to win conference, you want to win every game, you want to compete? Well, you’re not doing those things we talked about that’s going to help us win. So you need to start playing the way that we play and not the way you want to play.

And those are tough conversations and it doesn’t feel good saying that and it doesn’t feel good calling kids out. But to me, essentially they sign a contract as soon as they tell me they want to win. Well, guess what? I’m going to show you how it’s done. And when you’re not holding up your end, I’m going to let you know.

[00:43:39] Mike Klinzing: It comes back to communication and relationships, right? Like you have to be able to first have that relationship so that the kids trust you, that hey, coach Barry does know what he is talking about when he talks about doing what you need to do in order to win. And then you have to communicate with them that, hey, these were our expectations.

These expectations weren’t met, or look how we rebounded in the next game and played so much better and were able to score the basketball so much easier because we did play together and we did play for each other. We did play unselfishly. And I think those two things go hand in hand when you start talking about relationships and communication.

And to me, from a coaching standpoint, like those are the things that everything else stems from. Like you can talk philosophy, you can talk Xs and Os, you can talk, Hey, we do this, we do that. But it all starts with you have to have relationships and you have to have communication because without those two things, you’re really not going anywhere.

You’re just beating your head against the wall.

[00:44:35] Ryan Barry: Yeah, a hundred percent. And you know what? As much as it hurts to point things out and maybe call some guys out there was no better feeling. We weren’t happy about losing the next game, but there was no better feeling. After that next game, going to practice and pointing to those same guys and pointing out how great they responded.

And everything that they corrected. And that if you play that way, we can be great. You know, although we lost, but there’s no better feeling than when they do respond. And I said as a teenage boy, it is not easy to be called out in front of your teammates, which we consider family. And then most kids would probably cower down or get upset and just say, oh, well, if Coach Barry doesn’t always talking about, I don’t care.

I’m going to play the game the way I want. But thankfully our kids responded and they made the extra effort, made the right passes, made the right plays. And being able to praise them for that adjustment and showing again the younger guys that are around they’re learning too.

It’s not their time now for some of them, but it will be. And they need to understand that. This isn’t, nobody’s exempt from our standards. And no one’s exempt from what we’re trying to accomplish. So you can get on board right now and we can make these adjustments like these seniors did, or these juniors did or you might want to go play somewhere else.

So I’m glad it worked out and that the kids responded the way they should. And that’s always my expectation, but you never do know. And to me, that’s our standard. That’s worth fighting for. That’s worth doing whatever I have to do to point it out and get the change because that’s who we are.

[00:46:10] Mike Klinzing: So, yeah, obviously you can play hard and you can play unselfishly within any type of offensive and defensive system. So when you’re thinking about how you put together the way your team’s going to play in a given season, how much of that is the same year to year, and how much of that is personnel based once you get to know your team?

[00:46:32] Ryan Barry: You know what’s funny? I feel like every year I try to go with a four out one in offense, and I’m just obsessed with the idea of the bigger gaps for our guards who are really good at handling to drive through and then kick, and then after a couple games or during the preseason, I always just switch to a five out and, and I always tell them like, I don’t know why you guys can’t make the four out work for me.

But we’ve had some talented guards and the five out, although the gaps get a little tighter there’s that extra guy in the corner, that extra pass that you can really collapse a defense on, a pinch and a step up. And we haven’t had much post wise in years past. We got a little more height this year.

But our heart’s mostly skilled. So philosophically I feel like I always want to try and I will spend hours trying to recreate or make up better, and I keep finding it comes back to just like the very simple pass, cut, a screen away, curl, a pick and roll. Just simple movements with skilled players goes a long way.

So I love to get out in transition. We haven’t been great at it in the last two years and this year I thought we’re going to be awesome at it to start the year. And I found out we really aren’t right now. Doesn’t mean we won’t be, but so we’ve really put a point emphasis on scoring in the half court.

And my kids are working hard at it. And I’ll tell you what, we got some guys who can knock it down, which always helps everything. But yeah, philosophically on the offensive end, we’re mostly always going to be a five out team. We’re going to want to push. We like to drive and kick.

We always talk about drive and kick and a re-attack. If you can get a drive and the kick and you don’t have that shot, you get that guy closing out, you get a good re-attack to the hoop or another kick you can really get defensive scrambling. So and then defensively whatever you have to do we’ll pepper in some zone here and there.

We’ll change things up for certain teams. If we think we have a better advantage or they have weak guards, we’ll pressure more if they if they have more size we might go in a little bit of a zone and try to make them work to get their rebounds and their buckets.

As much as I say we’re some mastermind on offense, I tell the kids every time I go, as long as it’s the right pass, I don’t care if you kick the ball in the hoop, if it goes in. Just make sure you’re making the right play and we’ll live with the percentage and the results of that.

[00:49:01] Mike Klinzing: What does teaching look like in practice in terms of how you get your guys to be able to recognize, cause obviously you’re, so how do you set up your practice to make sure that they’re getting opportunities to read the game and make decisions?

[00:49:14] Ryan Barry: We used to do a ton of breakdown on just the simple action, right?

So like three players and you’ll pass and you’ll do the screen away curl and we’re just reading that kind of that curl pop or you know, the back cut of it or you know, just the one action. And what I found is like we get pretty good at just that part of it, but we have a hard time incorporating with all five parts.

So what we started doing this year more is taking my assistant coaches and myself and we’re the read defenders in everything. We don’t let kids make those decisions because they’ll be lazy on the defense, they won’t make ’em work. And just trying to create situations where you know, whether the guy digs on your drive.

If there’s a pinch maybe the top two guy, the guy doesn’t pinch, but then you have to step up from the help side defense. So then where are we looking for the pass? So just kind of creating reads as much as possible. And then as, as defenders mixing in what we want to see. So if we’re doing some pick and roll defense, yeah, we’ll have the kids do it against each other.

And then we’ll throw a coach in and maybe we’re switching now, or maybe we’re blitzing it. The coaches know what we’re doing or the players know what they’re doing on defense, but the offensive players don’t have an idea. So trying to just create as many opportunities for them to read and react as we can.

And then ultimately it comes down to doing it in summer league. Summer league’s important. It’s not important to win in Summer League, but it’s important to play those games. Shootouts open gyms an open gym, we’ll slow ’em down or I’ll tell ’em, Hey, okay, we have open gym, but you guys are only allowed to play half court.

You work on getting open in the half court putting in some three on three stuff. So just as many opportunities to get them to read and react.

[00:51:00] Mike Klinzing: I think you made a great point about putting the coaching staff in on defense, just so you get some different looks. Obviously sometimes kids start reading the play and they know what’s coming, and then you get into this whole thing of, well, they know where we’re going to be.

And I think by throwing ’em, mixing, mixing in some coaches, especially when you got some young coaches on your staff, that makes it nice that you can just give ’em a, a different look and, and surprise ’em. Or again, they’re trying to make reads to me that’s so much of what basketball is today. I mean, you just, you just don’t see, you go back 15 or 20 years and everybody had a big, thick playbook of set plays and things that they were running, and now it’s just everybody’s teaching ’em how to play instead of teaching ’em plays.

And I think that when you’re talking about what a practice looks like, it, it just looks totally different than what it would’ve looked like even 10 years ago. Whereas you said you were doing lots of breakdown stuff and I think just about every other coach in the country probably was doing that same thing.

And now you’re talking about situational basketball and just getting ’em to be able to read and react to things that are going on. And it’s just interesting the way the game has shifted. Obviously the screener roll has become a huge part of it. You have to be able to. Do that on offense, you have a defend it on the defensive end of the, of the floor.

It’s just, to me, it’s incredible how the game has morphed and changed. And as coaches, that’s one of the things that we have to continue to do is just be able to study the game as we talked about earlier, and get, have good mentors and be able to watch film and see what people are doing and be able to adjust and, and grow your program.

And I know one of the things that’s really key to being able to have a good public high school varsity program is, is your youth program. Can you talk a little bit about kind your philosophy when it comes to youth basketball and then what your level of involvement is with, with the program and how you set things up?

[00:52:42] Ryan Barry: Yeah. Full disclosure all the success that Fairview’s had in my time, there is a direct relation. The work that everyone’s done in our travel program and I’m not just saying that, and I tell them this all the time, I don’t know if they believe me, but the very first group of kids that played in the Fairview Park travel team, the very first team was a 2020 team that graduated with Luke Howes, Martin Lowy, Noah Maros, these really good players. Ryan Acker, who’s on my staff. Those kids played it. That was the first group. And when they got to high school, they were so skilled and just had such a great feel for the game of basketball at a level that usually don’t see even at the high school level.

And that’s because of that work. And every class after that has been extremely skilled. I don’t really know how they do it. But when I get kids at high school that go through our travel program, they can all handle the ball and they can all shoot it. And, and they have a basic understanding of just court awareness and how to play the game.

And my involvement is I have a good relationship with John Link, who’s our president. John played at Padua back in the day and played at Case Western. Gosh, he’s in incredibly talented and has a very high standard for those kids. I’m open to help with anything, so our youth camp that we run, he gives a lot of kids to come sign up for that.

So I’ve gotten know him through that. We run probably three or four during the season, Saturdays where the youth comes in and our high school kids it could be, it’s grades three through six, so we could have 30 to 60 kids in there and our youth kids will run ’em through a clinic for an hour.

And then we’ll practice after they leave. And then I actually just went last weekend or two weekends ago and, and watched our sixth grade team. I watched our fourth grade team and one of our fifth grade teams play. And, and it was just so cool to see ’em in their element and watching those coaches, which are mostly parents the way they prepare ’em and how well coached they are at a young age.

Our travel program is the key to the success that we’ve had and hopefully we’ll continue to have because I was watching fourth graders and I was really impressed at the ball handling they had in fourth grade. So the key to a good public school is your travel program. I’m not the director.  I do not run it. You know, that is John and John deserves all the credit for that. I’m there to help and support and do anything I can to help make his program stronger. And we have a really good relationship and It’s been really cool. I just worry. His youngest is in like fifth grade.

I’m like, what we doing kids not in the youth program. Like, does that mean I have to step up? How to recreate this? We have a lot of dedicated parents that are very involved and man, if you don’t have skilled players by the time they’re freshman, if they can’t handle the ball and they can’t shoot it, you’re going to struggle.

You’re not going to win games without skilled players. You are not. You can have some success and you can grind games out and play defense and do what you can. Yeah, you’ll win some games, but you will not have a very successful win loss team. If you don’t have guys who can handle it and shoot it.

[00:56:08] Mike Klinzing: You have to build that base. John’s a great guy. I’ve known him for a while. His kids have come to my camp, so again, I could speak for the type of person that for sure, what he’s bringing to the table is something that I know what he’s done for you guys there in terms of building that program and I have a lot of respect for John and who he is.

So I think when you start talking about the youth program, one of the other things that I love that you said is talking about getting your players at the varsity level and in your high school program, working with some of those youth players. To me that’s always a piece that I think is really important because it just builds a connection between those kids who are in elementary school and they look up and they’re like, Hey, someday I want to be able to run out for warmups, just like this kid who was coaching me.

Each and every Saturday during the basketball season. And I think that there’s just a better connection when the kid sees the actual player from the varsity program working with him. Then they get to know him and now there’s a relationship. And now when that kid goes to a game on Friday night, they’re not just rooting for a uniform or they’re, they’re not just showing up to eat popcorn.

They’re like, Hey, I’m there. I’m there to see Billy. You know, Billy coached me on Saturday and now I get to go and I get to watch him play. And I think that’s something that is really cool. I’ve experienced that a little bit with my son when he works my camps. And then kids will come, and now that he’s playing on the high school team, kids will see him and then they’re like you’re on the team and then we go and see see the games.

Then people come to me like, Hey, hey Coach Mike. And then there’s I, I see Cal out there and it’s just, it’s kind of cool. You realize how important those connections are. I think, think sometimes as adults, we forget how important that, that connection, that aspiration is for those young kids to someday want to be a part of the program.

To me that’s critical when you’re talking about building a good youth program.

[00:57:59] Ryan Barry: Yeah. You know, our kids to some of ’em are they’re little celebrities to those little guys, to go through a drill, run by ’em and get high fives and we got great kids here and I think a lot of it’s because they’ve been through that a little bit.

But when those little guys are in the stands before a game and JVs playing and varsity’s waiting, our kids will go say hi to ’em, they’ll fist bump ’em. It’s a really cool dynamic and it helps to have you know, high school kids who don’t think they’re too cool to say hi to a young kid and to dap ’em up and thank them for coming.

And I tried to do the same too. I mean, we’re tipping off the other day and I saw some of my sixth grade students in the front row and we’re going stand for the national anthem. And I saw ’em sitting there, so I ran over, gave ’em some high fives and got line. I think just the appreciation for the work that they do as young kids and giving ’em something to look forward to and not being too cool or think you’re above them.

Our kids do a great job of being kids and saying, Hey thanks for coming out. Appreciate you coming. Keep working. Can’t wait to watch you one day. And I think that goes a long way.  I’m blessed that one John’s created such a good program down there that we have a good relationship and we’re willing to help each other out and support each other.

I think I’ve done a decent job, could always be better at making our program inviting to our youth players and to the outside people and making it something that when they’re sitting there watching, they tell their parents I want to play here.

I want to go here, and people talk about kids leaving and going to other schools  and inevitably it will happen for us, but we haven’t lost a kid to a private school in my time here. And it may be common and, and that’s fine, but I’m going to create an environment that they want to be a part of and a culture that they want to be out there and they want to play for us because they know we care about ’em.

And that’s all I can do. I can’t worry about where kids want to go after that. But if I make this place something special something that the kids feel that they belong in and that they want to be a part of then I think I’ve done my job.

[01:00:14] Mike Klinzing: That stuff matters. That little stuff of giving a little fist bump or saying hello before a game, or not taking yourself too seriously that you can run over before the national anthem.

Like that starts with the person at the top and then it trickles down. And like you said, if you have good kids and you set a good example, then the kids who are even younger who are a part of the program are going to feel that and eventually they’re going to want to be a part of it. And look, we all know as a public school that you’re fighting that battle constantly.

It’s almost like you’re recruiting your own kids. And the way, the best way to recruit your own kids is to build the kind of program where they’re going to have the experience that any high school kid would dream of to be a part of. Whether you’re a starter and you’re scoring 20 a game, or you’re guy number 12 on the bench.

I think as a coach, if you can create an environment, Both your number one guy and your number 12 guy are, again, as happy as you can be as the number 12 guy who wants to play more. But you know what I mean. You can have the kind of experience that everybody’s going to look back on that fondly. And if you kids see that, like your high school kids see it, and your youth players see that, just in terms of the interaction in the community.

And that makes people want to stay at home. And ultimately, if you’re going to have success at a public school, you have to  be able to do that. You have to be able to build that program. I want to wrap up here, Ryan, as we’re getting close to a little past an hour and 15 minutes or so, I want to give you a chance to answer this final two part question.

First part is, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? And then the second part, when you think about what you get to do every day, waking up, going into school to teach, and then being the head varsity basketball coach at Fairview, what brings you the most joy?

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

[01:01:55] Ryan Barry: Ooh, those are good ones. Biggest challenge, and it it’ll be for me just because it’s going to be new, is, I have a daughter due March 13th and I have no freaking clue what I’m going to do with that. But being able to balance being able to be there for my players the way I should be and be able to be a good father and a good husband at.

I’m confident I’m going to be able to do it I’m going to continue to do this. But it’s scary cause it’s uncharted territory for me.

[01:02:23] Mike Klinzing: You’re going to fly by the seat of your pants like every other parent, and you’re going to try to figure it out and you’re going to do the best you can.

And there’s going to be definitely times where it’s scary and definitely times where you’re like, I have no idea what I’m doing. But the key, we already talked about it. Your wife knew what she was getting into, marrying a coach. And so that’s, that’s 98% of the battle right there. And then the rest of it, you’re going to figure it out and you’re, you’re going to do just fine.

But it is, its definitely a life changer and it’s definitely scary at times.

[01:02:50] Ryan Barry: Yeah. I’m so excited about it. But absolutely, if you know the balance, everything I think that’s always a challenge, being able to be present at home and still give what it takes to your players and your program who deserve a hundred percent of you as well.

I’ve done a good job so far. I plan on continuing do that. I just might be bringing a baby to our summer practices a little bit . But that’s the biggest challenge. Cause that’s life. Right? Trying to figure things out.  The game of basketball, we can always figure that out.

We can always learn stuff. But being present and authentic showing up for the kids the way you want ’em to show up for you and continue to do that while being able to do that for your family, I think that’s, that’s always going to be the biggest challenge. And there’s a lot of good coaches that can do it.

So I got a lot of resources. And then my most, what was it? Biggest joy? Biggest joy in coaching? Yes. Man, just, gosh, the excitement that these kids have when they accomplish a goal. You know, the genuine joy that they feel. I think a lot of people don’t understand the work that they put in not just with us, but on their own, at the rec center with skills trainers or AAU and how much time they put into winning.

And then I don’t think people realize how hard it is to win. It is so difficult to win high school basketball games. And when those kids put it together and they play as a team and they win and they succeed and they accomplish goals the pure joy and excitement in their eyes, man, there’s nothing like it.

And, and that’s the reason why you always come back for more is just to see these kids get what they worked for. You know, it wasn’t handed to ’em, they had to earn it. The hard work paid. And that’s a life lesson for ’em. And there’s nothing better than that.

[01:04:41] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. That’s very well said. Before we wrap up, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, reach out to you, whether you want to share email.

I know you mentioned your Twitter before, but just tell us how people can reach out to you if they want to. And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:04:59] Ryan Barry: All. Yeah. Twitter account is @FPHS_Basketball. Email rbarry@fairview.k12.oh. Contact me those ways and be willing to talk basketball with anybody that’s interested in hearing what I have to say.

[01:05:23] Mike Klinzing: Ryan cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to join us tonight. Appreciate it. Wish you the best of the luck for the rest of the season. Wish you the best of the luck with the birth of your daughter. That’s going to be an exciting change for you.

And again, there’s nothing better than being a parent. And again, appreciate your time tonight and it’s everyone out there. Thanks for listening, and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.