T.K. GRIFFITH – ARCHBISHOP HOBAN (OH) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ VARSITY HEAD COACH – EPISODE 375

T.K. Griffith

Website – https://www.hoban.org/athletics/teams/team-page/~athletics-team-id/144

Email – griffitht@hoban.org

Twitter – @JimmyChit89

T.K. Griffith has been the head boys basketball coach at Archbishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio since 1993 when he was hired at his alma mater at age 21.  Griffith has an overall record of 424-196 in 27 seasons as the Knight’s head coach.

He has been named North Coast League Coach of the Year five times as his teams have won seven NCL league championships since 2006. In addition, Griffith has earned honors from the Touchdown Club (1998, 2008), the Plain Dealer (1999) the OHSAA (North-South Coach 2009) and has been chosen to coach the GABCA all-star game multiple times.

T.K. was a member of the 1989 Hoban state championship basketball team as a player. He is also the host of The Teacher Coach Podcast. 

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Get out your notebook right now so you can jot down some wisdom from T.K. Griffith, Head Boys’ Varsity Basketball Coach at Archbishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio.

What We Discuss with T.K. Griffith

  • How basketball changed his name to T.K.
  • Being coached by his Dad in CYO basketball
  • The impact being cut from the basketball team at Hoban as a sophomore and his determination to make the team as a junior
  • Dave Jamerson telling Steve Barnes “You’re a million or a million shots behind, you’re a million shots behind dude.” when Barnes said he wanted to shoot like him.
  • Winning a state championship as a player at Hoban in 1989.
  • Why St. John Arena was such a special place to host the state tournament in Ohio
  • Coaching high school freshmen and Jv’s while he was an undergrad at St. Edward University in Texas
  • The story behind him getting the Varsity Head Coaching job at Hoban when he was 21 years old
  • Trying to connect with Tom Penders at Texas to get into college coaching
  • Working camps at Kent State, Akron, and Metro Index to connect with college coaches
  • Why he ended up staying in high school coaching rather than pursue coaching in college
  • His early mistakes as a young coach and the lessons he learned
  • The insecurity he still feels as a head coach
  • Understanding his team’s strengths and weaknesses
  • Knowing what you can control and what you can’t
  • Why the summer is so important in assessing and building his team
  • The challenge of developing team chemistry at a Catholic High School like Hoban
  • Being adaptable can both help and hurt
  • Going into every game with a plan A and a plan B
  • Utilizing all his free time during the school day to plan and work on getting ready for practice that day
  • Playing in chaos during practice
  • Why he believes in so strongly in scouting and preparation
  • One of the worst things you could do is lose a game on special teams
  • Adding music to the beginning of his practices, somethinghe never thought he would do
  • Utilizing his team managers to score and chart at practice
  • What he looks for when watching film and what film he shares with his players
  • Why he doesn’t scout in person anymore
  • Evolving as a sports parent with his own kids
  • Why it’s hard not to bring the game home when you care so much
  • Starting his podcast, The Teacher Coach
  • The challenge of sustaining success at Hoban
  • The joy of building relationships with his players

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THANKS, T.K. GRIFFITH!

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TRANSCRIPT FOR T.K. GRIFFITH – ARCHBISHOP HOBAN (OH) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ VARSITY HEAD COACH – EPISODE 375

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle. And tonight we are pleased to welcome to the podcast, the head boys’ basketball coach at Archbishop Bishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio TK Griffith. TK, Welcome to the podcast.

TK Griffith: [00:00:15] Hey, thanks for having me guys appreciate it.

And I listened to a lot of your episodes and it’s always good stuff.

Mike Klinzing: [00:00:19] Appreciate that. Thank you for the kind words we’re excited to dig in with you and learn a little bit more about your background in the game of basketball. Learn how you built your program at Hoban. 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.

TK Griffith: [00:00:35] Wow. Well, I grew up in Stow and I have to say still youth basketball was, was a big thing. They had junior junior pro basketball up at Kimpton, which was a junior high. there’s it’s still those junior high and they had the eight foot hoops. And I believe it was funny. I always went by Kirk.

Kirk was my name, my dad’s name was Tim. My name was Tim. My birth name’s Tim, but I always went by Kirk, my middle name and, in junior pro [00:01:00] basketball, the coach, inadvertently put T period Kirk on the back of my shirt. And that’s when I kind of became TK. It was weird beause basketball kind of changed my name, I guess.

literally cause my name became TK or T Kirk, but anyway junior pro basketball at Kimpton was, was really where it of got started and the guy I wish I knew the guy’s name and  I’m gonna hit myself when this is done, but for at least 20 to 25 years, he ran that program for Stow parks and rec.

And I can’t tell you how many and I wasn’t one of them, I was just an okay player, but I can’t tell you how many great players came through that system. So it started there and then it very quickly went to CYO. And, my dad, Tim Griffith, and his best friend, Tom Goodall, they both had gone to Hoban.

They both were, were okay. Athletes. Tom was actually a pretty good baseball player. He actually played division one college baseball at Akron U my dad had a heart murmur and was born a blue baby. So he could never participate in varsity sports, but he was a decent, probably an okay athlete, I guess, but they coached me in [00:02:00] CYO, as soon as we could start CYO, which at that time, I believe was fourth or fifth grade.

So playing for Holy Family  was basically my upbringing in sports. and, and you would play all sports. We played baseball. My dad coached baseball.  We would play football for Holy family, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade CYO football. Where I got killed every night.

I think I weighed in at like 72 pounds as a seventh grader. And we had like seven division one guys on our football team who ended up playing college football and I just got murdered every night. It probably made me tougher, but I don’t think, I thought I remember one time I actually tackled somebody and the kid was like, Hey, great tackle. And I couldn’t feel either shoulder my head or anything. And I was like, wow, that’s what a great tackle feels like. No wonder I should do this less. Not more, but, yeah. So Holy family for sure, shaped me in every way, shape and form, growing up.

Mike Klinzing: [00:02:53] When you were a kid was basketball number one or did something else take precedence early? Just [00:03:00] how did basketball end up being the being the main thing

TK Griffith: [00:03:02] I grew up in the time when the seasons whatever season you were in, like, my dad helped run the still youth baseball league. So we had all the equipment at our house and, so we would put the catcher uniform on and go on the back and pitch to each other.

I don’t know. Have you guys ever made up the games in the backyard, but you know, even if there was only two of us, we would have an imaginary batter and, and try to strike them out and all that stuff. So if it was baseball season, I would have the baseball stuff on football. You know, we weren’t studs as far as our physical builds.

So, but we loved football. We would play a lot of backyard football, but I always had a hoop in the driveway and basketball was probably my first love. And I was always pretty, Oh, I have good hand eye coordination, but I’m not really at all that super athletic, but I could always shoot the basketball. So that always helped me kind of find a place.

Mike Klinzing: [00:03:47] Yeah, that’s a good skill to have.

TK Griffith: [00:03:49] Yeah.

Mike Klinzing: [00:03:51] As we know, as a player and as a coach, it’s funny, you were talking about playing in the backyard and inventing games. So when I was a kid and basketball was my number one thing, but [00:04:00] I was just like you, I played everything, especially. Especially neighborhood, everything.

Like I never played, I never played organized football, but I played a lot of backyard football and I probably gave up organized baseball maybe about, I think maybe I was 11 or 12, whenever curve balls came in. That was the end of it. That was, that was the end of my baseball career. I’m like, yeah, that’s enough.

But I used to play backyard baseball with a buddy of mine, just, just one on one taking the ball, throwing it up and hitting it. We had, yeah. We had like a neighbors yard in our backyard that their garage kind of backed up to the, to the back of our yard. And so that was, if you hit it over the garage, that was a home run.

And I used to be. I used to be the 1979 Baltimore Orioles. That was my team. So I would go through we’d go through, but we’d go through the lineups and you know, I’d be John Lowenstein all these guys, Eddie Murray and

TK Griffith: [00:04:46] yeah. Pitcher who was the great pitcher. They had Jim Palmer, Jim Palmer.

I had his baseball card. I love Jim Palmer,

Mike Klinzing: [00:04:52] Mike Flanagan. they had the, I think they had both. I think that Tippy and Dennis Martinez, it’s crazy that I can remember this from [00:05:00] whatever it is now, 40 years ago. But nonetheless, I think when you’re a kid and it’s one of the things that I always feel bad for my kids.

And I’ve said this before on the podcast that I think kids miss out on just that ability to kind of hang in the neighborhood and be inventive because yeah. We as parents and coaches. And again, there’s a lot of positives to the situation now, but I think kids do miss out on that creative aspect of sports that you and I and Jason, even, although he’s kind of at the top male end of our generation, you miss out on those things as kids, I feel bad for her.

For this generation that they don’t get to experience that. Wait, you’re a little bit here with your generation.

Jason Sunkle: Mike, hold on a second. I’m saying I’m 33 years old. Come on.

Mike Klinzing: [00:05:42] saying you’re on the, you’re on the T, but you always talk about how you get, how you played outside a little bit. I’m just giving you these kids.

I know today’s kids don’t play outside.

TK Griffith: [00:05:51] No, they don’t. It was a whole different world. one fond memory was, the family, who lived up the street. We actually made our own wiffle ball field. But with [00:06:00] dugouts and everything, we have, we had a green monster and right. Which was his house. We had a fence that was already there in left field, but we actually build dugouts and stuff one year and had our own like wiffle ball kind of stadium, up at his house and, and, The end of that story is his children are now at home and they’re really, really good baseball players.

In fact, his son smacked the double against Saint V’s and scored a couple of runs. And I felt like I had something to do with it somehow, just because we experienced all that together. And yeah, we would say after that I don’t know if you guys remember playing war or guns at night.

I mean,we would, and now you’d get killed if you did it, somebody would probably just shoot you in the backyard. But I mean, we were in people’s backyards at 10, 11 at night. And I’ll play in what we called war I don’t know what it was, but we just called it war. so yeah, that, that creative, that creative force it’s gone.

Mike Klinzing: [00:06:49] Yeah. It’s amazing. The amount of time that I spent, like in trees and on people’s garage, people’s garage, roofs, running through creeks and going under the underneath culverts and all these things that [00:07:00] now you look at and my kids would go out on the driveway and sometimes be like,

Hey, are you out there by yourself?

You know, it’s just amazing how different things are. And I think that does, when we talk about it from a basketball standpoint, I think it does have an impact. And I think the one thing that I always say that I feel like kids today, miss out on is because you only play as you’re coming up with kids your own age and in a gym with officials and your parents in the stands.

I think that there’s some creativity that’s lost. And conversely, on the other side, I do think that there’s a lot better coaching for the most part, in terms of teaching kids, the technical skills of the game and giving them opportunities. Right. And there was when you and I were kids.

I mean, I didn’t get exposed probably to really good coaching from a technical aspect until for sure high school. And then I know I got to college at Kent and that was the first time I had ever heard the term closing. And so now you think about like, my son was in third grade, my daughters were in [00:08:00] third grade and they were already hearing all this stuff and beginning to learn it.

So there’s a trade off between the two systems, but yeah. Again, as an old school guy, I kind of miss, I missed the system that I grew up in the playgrounds and not spending so much time playing. Travel basketball and AAU. I, I, I missed the playground.

TK Griffith: [00:08:17] Yeah, one thing that was kind of fun for me, once I went to Hoban, I did make the freshman team, which was a huge, accomplishment for me cause we had a lot of talent up there, but then sophomore year I actually got cut, at Hoban.

So I was bound and determined to make it the next year, which I ended up doing. But. I would get up in the morning and throw some ankle weights on at five 30 and try to run two miles was which I thought was going to make me faster, actually come to find out that just makes you slower. The point of the matter was then at night I would go up to Lake View high school in Stow.

And kids would fold their car up. They had courts over by the football field over there, and there were just incredible games with older guys over there. And that’s where I really learned how to compete like occasionally Jamerson or bill sellers or some of those big [00:09:00] names would show up. A lot of times it was just more younger guys,

And if you got picked or if you did something good you felt really proud if you were on the team, older guys and you made a couple shots, you got steal. Absolutely. You kind of earned your keep out there a little bit and maybe the next time they knew who you were. And you had to learn how to play a role.

Yeah. Yeah. So that, that was, that was an experience that I don’t think kids get any anymore, either.

Mike Klinzing: [00:09:24] Was Mr. Jamerson ever there on the courts?

TK Griffith: [00:09:27] Yes, absolutely. Well, we would go to Lyons and Oakwood and the falls and that’s where he would be. He was always either aligns or Oakwood or Valley Vista, so yeah.

Yeah. He was still shooting it well, well into his fifties or sixties.

Mike Klinzing: [00:09:39] Absolutely. There’s no question about that. I used to play with him up at the gym and Kent during the off season when we weren’t in season and yeah. No, that guy could, I could shoot it. and he, he definitely, there was something to be said for the shooting gene that he passed onto Dave, no question.

I got to, I got to have a few of his shots put in my face during my, during my, during my college career. So I’ve never, never played against [00:10:00] anybody who shot the ball as well, being welldefended as he did. I think one, I think the one game I’m trying to think what his total was. Man. I want to say he had like 52 against me and I seriously, I seriously feel like he might’ve made only like two or three shots where I wasn’t we’re against any normal mortal person.

I feel like I would have been right there. And he was just, I mean, he was just bombing from everywhere. And I think about him and the context of what would he be like in today’s game? Where, I mean, he had free reign to launch back then, but clearly the game was so much different, if he played today and you know, clearly his injuries cut short his pro career, but he was as good of a shooter as I’ve ever been on the floor with for sure.

TK Griffith: [00:10:46] Yeah. He had a famous line that I always use, because a good friend of mine, Steve Barnes, who went to OU for a couple of years, his daughters. Solei Barnes played basketball with my daughter in AAU. So I coached Solei for a couple of years.

[00:11:00] Mike Klinzing: [00:11:00] Steve played with me in the Cleveland Pro-Am for a couple of years.

TK Griffith: [00:11:04] Oh, okay. Yeah. Good guy. he told me that when he was out at OU playing ball for a year or two with Dave, That he said, man, Dave, I just want to shoot like you I want to shoot like you, he was coming through after one of Jameson’s workouts. And, this is the funny one Jamerson said to him, Steve, you’re a million shots behind dude.

You’re a million or a million shots behind. And I think there’s so much truth to that. That’s awesome. You’re a million shots to be high. And I mean, That’s what makes you great, right?

Mike Klinzing: [00:11:31] It is. I mean, there’s no doubt. The only guy, the only guy I’ve ever had to guard for like two possessions out. Right? What did he retire?

In 2013? Earl Boykins was playing in the Strongsville rec basketball league. And for some reason I had to draw him

TK Griffith: [00:11:44] for two possessions

Mike Klinzing: [00:11:45] and then I said, I’m not guarding. I can’t buy anymore. So what else take him please. He’s I think, I think he scored 66 in that game.

TK Griffith: [00:11:51] Pretty sure that was about

Mike Klinzing: [00:11:53] it sounds about right.

TK Griffith: [00:11:54] That is a special, that’s a special challenge there. His quickness was unbelievable.

Mike Klinzing: [00:11:59] I can, yeah, I [00:12:00] can. I would. Cause I played against, I played against Earl, I think once or twice in the, actually in the late in the Lakewood. Why league? There’s two things I remember about it is one is just, even if you try to stay in front of them, which is nearly impossible, but basically you’re just, you’re just backpedaling the whole time.

And then. He can stop be going 90 million miles an hour and just stop. And so even if you are still in front of them, you’re still going backwards by the time he’s already shot the ball. And then the other thing I remember about him is, and this is something that I don’t think I ever really learned about myself as a player until I don’t even remember how old I was.

I was probably at that point I was probably 27, 28. I don’t know it just playing kind of in the men’s league circuit. And I remember him. Yelling at his teammates when they were playing against me, make him go to his right. And I mean, I’m a right handed player. And he would say, make them go to his right.

And I had never had anybody said that. And then I started kind of looking at, well, why is he saying, why is he telling me to go? Why is he telling everybody to force me to the right? And [00:13:00] then I kind of self-evaluate, I’m like, yeah, I do feel a lot more comfortable putting the ball on the floor with my left hand and shoot and go in that direction and kind of get to the basket.

And it was more natural for me for whatever reason, but I had never. Never in my entire playing career. Had I ever had anybody say that to me or about me? Which again, speaks to his basketball intelligence. We finally have someone to comment that we guarded at some point in our lives. There you go. It’s like the connection to what isn’t there still a connection of guys who have played with Shaq that are still making it to the NBA finals.

So there’s some thread of connection here. I think the only team that has a shot at this this year is the Lakers, right? I think it might end if LeBron doesn’t win the title or get to the finals and that could be it. But yeah,

TK Griffith: [00:13:45] it is what it is. And you said that Mike, I’ve always felt like I’m a right handed shooter, shoots it better off the bounce to the left because he can gather the ball from his left hand to his right hand.

Whereas when you’re going, right, you can’t really gather the ball. there’s something, there’s [00:14:00] something about that. I don’t know what it is kinesthetically, but there’s something there. I agree. And

Mike Klinzing: [00:14:04] it’s funny cause I obviously had a pretty decent left hand, but I would love to go to my left and then kind of turn my body to protect.

I was never what you would call a jumper. So I had to be able to protect the ball when I was going up. So I’d like to go in with my right hand and kind of turn my body into the defender. But again, it was, that was not anything that I was consciously aware of until again, long after my real playing career was over and I was just playing as you know, I was just playing in some rec league.

So it’s interesting what you learn about yourself over time. Yeah.

Jason Sunkle: [00:14:38] I need to cycle back. I need to cycle back. Mike, you Udonis Haslem also played with him, so he still is technically clear Miami heat. So there you go.

Mike Klinzing: [00:14:44] Alright, so we got two guys. Good work. Nice job, Ryan, crack research staff there. Good job, Jason.

All right. So talk to me a little bit about your high school experience. Just give me one or two memories that stick out for you as a high school basketball player.

TK Griffith: [00:14:58] Yeah. well, I mean, the big thing [00:15:00] was I’m someone who got caught. so it makes it I don’t want to say it makes making cuts even that much more sensitive, although I’ve been doing this for 28 years now, so it gets less sensitive as you go on, but you do feel for those guys.

Cause basketball was really all I had my mom and dad did not live together and were divorced and basketball. I don’t want to say it was all I had,  I had a good family, but basketball was my main thing. So when that’s taken away from you, that’s something that always sticks with me.

So I guess one thing personally that maybe I’m proud of is coming back and making the team, and then. Ironically two years later being part of a state championship team. So my senior year at Hoban, which would without a doubt was my, my best memory. We won the state championship in division three, down at st. John’s arena. and we went, we were a team that was 12 and Oh, then lost seven of our next eight, which is crazy. The kid quit the team, maybe a couple of other things happen. Some, some drama on behind the scenes that I [00:16:00] probably didn’t know about as a kid. and then we went on a seven game winning streak and won the state championship.

So without a doubt, being a part of that group, feeling like I contributed in practice more so than in games, although this is kind of funny, I was kind of a role player. I didn’t get to play a whole lot of guys, so I don’t want to act like I was a star. I’ve listened to your podcast, Mike, and I know you played for Coach Grube and Coach McDonald, and I know you played college basketball.

I wasn’t that right. Well, I didn’t even make the team so you’re ahead of me. So you’re good. but in the state championship game, we’re down three in double overtime and the coach threw me in and that was my first action. and, and I actually caught the ball on the left wing. And luckily I was smart enough to shot fake.

And, and, and give it up to a better player who made the three. And we went, we went into another overtime and then one nice. But, but it was, it was kinda cool to, just to have a, a small part of that. but, and then throughout the season there was other stuff that happened that was good, both individually and team wise, but more importantly, the relationships and just the memories.

[00:17:00] So without a doubt, winning the state championship was my fondest memory.

Mike Klinzing: [00:17:04] How much do you miss St. John arena as the site for the high school championship

TK Griffith: [00:17:09] I will always been crushed that they don’t have at a st. John to me, they should have never left st. John’s arena. That that is the only place that the state championships should be played.

In my opinion. I mean, it’s not even close. I don’t like the Schott. it’s just way too spaced out people. Aren’t on top of each other. I mean, I’d rather have a Canton McKinley field house than the Schott. And, and just sell 5,000 tickets, but not st. John’s arena is by far. And I had the pleasure of, coaching a final four there in 98.

And so I got to experience, and that was the last year that they were ever at st. John’s. So I always felt like God, God gave me a, a nice, a nice gift there by allowing me to, to have a chance to coach a final four game.

Mike Klinzing: [00:17:47] Yeah. To me, I mean, that’s just, I mean, it’s a perfect college venue and I know why.

The corporate boxes and all the things that modern arenas have that st. John or Rita didn’t have. Right. But still you put, you go down there [00:18:00] for an Ohio state game. You put 13,000 people in there, or as you said, you go in there for a state championship, high school game, and you pack everybody, students and fans right around the floor and with the balconies hanging, hanging over.

And just, again, it felt like it felt like Ohio state basketball, it felt like. High school basketball. And it just, there’s not the same feeling

TK Griffith: [00:18:21] The only place it reminds me of is, is Henkel field. I was in Baltimore, but my daughter lives in Indianapolis. And then I finally got a chance to go into that arena, man.

And I, I actually kind of cried. I had some tears to me, to me, that’s kind of like a chapel or a church. As much as it is I didn’t realize John Wooden played like one of the first games ever played there in a state championship game. I mean, right. When it was built, let me think about that history.

It’s crazy. And the score was like 12 to eight and he had like seven points or something. The final score was like, I don’t know, something like 16 to five or 12 to eight. but just think about that place. The impact with John Wooden play into the high school game.

Mike Klinzing: [00:18:58] Yeah, it’s amazing. It [00:19:00] really is the history of the game.

And just the connection between, like we always say that ball just is, it’s incredible how it connects people and just the history and everything that goes along with that. It’s amazing when you look at how interconnected people are and how one person that knows this person that knows that person, and you can be quickly connected to.

Just about anybody in the basketball world through just a couple of people. It’s always incredible to be. And I find whenever we’re doing the interviews that you’ve talked to people that you have no idea prior to talking to them, that they had a connection to this person, or they knew this person, or this person helped get them their start.

Right. And that’s, what’s, that’s, what’s amazing to me is just the stories that people tell. So along those lines, When did you start thinking about coaching and teaching as a profession? Was that something that you kind of always had in the back of your head? Or was it something that sort of grew on you over time?

How did coaching and teaching become get on your radar as a career?

TK Griffith: [00:19:55] Yeah. You know, it’s weird. I went to Saint Edwards university where my mom and dad [00:20:00] had gone to college. I’m sorry. My dad was from Hoban too. And he met my mom down in Texas. So we kind of continued the family tradition.

I was the oldest brother to go. but when I went down there, I was close. I mean, I, I guess I feel like that was the day where. When you went to college, at least in my family, nobody told you what to major in. And they didn’t like, I just went to college. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I majored in English, writing and business just because I was pretty good at English class.

And I thought I throw business in there so I could maybe somehow get a job, but I mean, I was clueless and I would sit in class. Sometimes I’m embarrassed to say it and draw a flag. Football plays up cause we had a pretty good intermural flag football team. and I just love the X’s and O’s of stuff I’ve always been into the X’s and O’s of stuff.

So I kinda knew right away, I was the, I was the dorm rector for the basketball team. and I had tried out for the team, but, but st. As was one of those NAI schools, they got a ton of big 12 transfers. So we had like a seven, two kid from Africa who was at UT for a year. We had three kids from tech we had some studs.

and I wasn’t going to fit that [00:21:00] athletically. So I did go to a couple we’ll try outs and it never really worked out, you know? and so, but being a part of the dorm, a and B in the hall rector for the basketball team, even in the second semester of my freshman year, Kind of got me a little bit closer to it.

And then I immediately probably that spring went to a local high school st Michael’s Academy and asked them if I could start helping out. So from my sophomore year to my senior year, I was their freshman coach, then their JV coach. and then by the time Saint Edwards was done. My wife and I went down there together.

We were kind of dating and we had our usual pack to come back to, to Kent state, to go to my master’s program. My mom was a professor at Kent state, so I could go there for free to get the masters at teaching and, Anyways, the U haul was packed and we were about to leave the next morning. And my friends had a goodbye kind of little get together for me and st Michael’s called and offered me their head coaching job.

So I had like three hours to make my decision. And, that was a, that was a horrible night cause I really wanted to stay because basketball is all I [00:22:00] cared about. but we, we, because we were in the program, the program was going to be free for me too. So it was hard to pass it up. And Amy was on the program too.

Coming back here. My wife’s at Kent state. So we, we just made the choice that, I guess we’ll just go back home. And then lo and behold, three weeks later, it’s a long story, but I’ll cut to this. I’ll cut to the chase. I ended up getting the Hoban job, kind of by default. Cause my dad kept pushing me.

He kept saying hoping can’t fight and a coach. I mean, maybe you should call them. I said, dad, they’re not going to hire me. I mean, I had applied for the freshmen job. But I said, they’re not going to hide I’m 21 years old. And he goes, Oh, just give him a call. So I called and they said, thanks, but no, thanks.

And then about two or three weeks later, they said, Hey, why don’t you come in for an interview? You know, we still haven’t found the coach. We have about five people coming in that day. We’ll we’ll squeeze you in. And the interview went great. And seven people who are, were a huge part of the home and family we’re on the interviewing committee.

And I got the job when I was 21. so. It kind of got it by default because of the Catholic schools, as you guys probably know, it’s a little bit hard to find [00:23:00] somebody who wants to give up their public school salary to go teach and coach at Hogan. And they really wanted somebody in the building.

Mike Klinzing: [00:23:07] Yeah. Being in the building I think is so important. And I think that’s one of the challenges that you see around today. There are a lot of coaches. Aren’t in the building, whether they’re just hired out because they’re not teaching or maybe they teach at a different school or they’re in a different system.

And you see that a lot more frequently, I think, than you did 20 or 30 years ago, just because of the shortage of good coaches that are out there. So I think there’s definitely a huge advantage to being in the building. We could talk about that a little bit. as we get into it a little bit more, I want to go back to kind of your decision to pursue high school coaching when you were at Saint Edwards.

Did you ever think about. Trying to volunteer. So when you went to st Michael’s, did you ever think before doing that about trying to get involved with the college coaching?

TK Griffith: [00:23:48] Oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, I went up and met with Jamie Campaglia at the University of Texas. And I was so scared. I I’ll never forget, Tom Penders was a head coach at [00:24:00] UT Jamie CamPaglia was the assistant and I went up and I kinda.

II kind of pretend that it was for a school project if I could interview them, but I really want, I really wanted him to kind of know what could I do to get into college coaching and could you help me? it never, I mean, he was intimidating. if you remember, he’s the guy that ended up getting fired for the per diem stuff.

I don’t know if you remember that he had a nickname. He was called like the golden arm or something like that. He was a really good shooter at Weber state or Wagner say, I can’t remember one of those too. He’s a pretty well known guy, in the coaching ranks. And he ended up getting, let go of something happened with per diems down there, but he was intimidating and it didn’t really go anywhere.

that I thought maybe it could. I mean, I would go and watch their practices at least three times a week. They would let me yet. so I kinda got to know them, but I never got to know them well enough. And I was, I wish I would have been a better networker back then. Cause I was a little afraid, to make that next step and st Michael’s was more comfortable and easier for me to get into, but I would go back and [00:25:00] work.

The Metro index camp who was really nice to me was Coach Grube and his assistant, Chris Davis.

Mike Klinzing: [00:25:06] Chris is a great guy. Chris was there for, I think he was not there my freshman year. Cause Jay Smith, who ended up going to Michigan. And then was the head coach at Central Michigan, Jay left.

After my freshman year coach, coach Davis came in when I was a sophomore.

TK Griffith: [00:25:20] Yeah. Yeah. SoI’m one of those guys, I wrote letters to every camp in the country Dan Dakich, at Indiana, I was trying to work that camp. I kind of got a whole letter there cause of a lot of people, one of the work that camp.

but Chris Davis kind of hooked me up with the guy that runs Metro index, who I think his name was Butler. And I can’t remember his first name right now, Joe Butler. I’m pretty sure ran Metro index. So I would go down there and work two or three weeks of Metro index camp. then I would work the Kent state camp and Coach Grube really took us in, I mean, we went to his house just because we worked camp.

We went to his house at least two or three times for like an end of the camp week party and stuff like that [00:26:00] for several years. so he was, he could not have been any nicer to me. And Chris Davis was great. And then I would work other camps, Coleman Crawford’s Akron U camp I’m like the young coach that they would have stretch out everybody.

And the funny thing is I’m not limber at all. And so you have 300 kids in front of you and you’re doing like the light touches and I’m like, Holy crap. And you know, they take the coaches out the night before too. So you’re feeling a little groggy there at 6:00 AM, stress stretching all the campers.

And you’re not that flexible to begin with. but I learned a lot. I learned a lot from all that. And you know, it puts you out there in front of people where you had to lead. but no, no, I all, I’ve always had the dream of being a college coach and that’s always what really, what I wanted to do. I just kind of fell into the high school thing and then sort of having a family and it kinda just worked out where that’s where I’ve been.

Mike Klinzing: [00:26:47] Yeah. I think when you look at, and you compare the lifestyle of a high school coach versus a college coach, I think you can engineer your life. At least a little bit easier as a high school coach in terms of the [00:27:00] responsibilities you have for being on the job and you know, the recruiting piece of it. And just the year round nature, although as you well know, the year round nature of high school basketball coaching, probably since you started compared to where we are now, the amount of time that’s required has increased dramatically.

Just to be honest, right? Just to, just to be average. Yeah. The amount of time yeah. You have to put in is, is huge. And certainly if you want to be exceptional, it’s gone right. Even more so the other way, right. Work in campsite. I think that’s one of the things that struck me that you talked about there. It was just.

Thinking about networking. And I think about myself when I was younger and again, I started out and got my first job coaching. When I first got done with school at Kent, I went back to Cleveland state to get my, to get my master’s in teaching. I had a similar situation to you. My dad was a professor at Cleveland state, so I got to go and get my masters for free.

And that’s how I got my teaching certificate because I had a business degree from Kent and kind of looked around after I graduated. And I was like, Well, you want me to go to work in July and put on a suit? I’m like, I never, [00:28:00] both my parents were in education, so I had never really seen anybody do that. So it was really a foreign concept to me.

So I’m like, maybe I’ll go back to school and become a teacher and become a coach. And so that’s what I decided to do. And then. my first job was with, rich voyeurs out at Bay village. I was, I was the JV coach out there for two years. At that point, I kind of came off my playing career.

Really had no idea what I was doing as a coach. The only thing I knew was what. My high school coach had done and what we had done at Kent. And so that was what I based, everything that I did was based off of those two experiences. Right. And I think back on it now, and I’m like, God, I was, I must’ve been, I mean, I know looking back on it, I wasn’t very good, but the more I know and think about it, the more I’m like, God, I must have been terrible.

TK Griffith: [00:28:41] I think the same, yeah.

Mike Klinzing: [00:28:43] I didn’t go to, I mean, I didn’t even go to clinics. I didn’t network. I didn’t do. I wasn’t watching film. I wasn’t trying to figure out. I was just like, well, this is what I know is what worked for me. I was a good player. I’m probably a good coach. And here we go. And it’s one of the things that if I look back on it and I’m like, I really regret that.

[00:29:00] I didn’t take advantage more of the networks that I had. And even like you talking about coach Grube and coach Davis, and I recently reconnected with coach Grube and coach Smith and coach McDonald, who probably collectively the three of them. I mean, I don’t think I’ve talked to them for. 25 years. and it was great to be able to reconnect them, but those are relationships that you wish you would have cultivated more as a young person, as opposed to just waiting as opposed to waiting till you’re 50 years old to cultivate those relationships.

TK Griffith: [00:29:28] Yeah. Yeah. And, and that’s something, I was the oldest in the family and I feel like my younger brothers, when you grow up in the house and you’re the younger one, you kind of see your older brothers or sisters. And you mature a little bit faster, as far as your networking skills. I worked my butt off, but I could have been a better politic or let’s put it that way.

And I grew into becoming pretty good at that, but that’s, that’s a skill I wish I would have. I mean, I wish I could have taken advantage of that more if I really wanted to get into the college ranks, but like I said, things worked out and we started having a family and Hoban soon became a [00:30:00] home.

Mike Klinzing: [00:30:01] All right.  So talk about being a head coach at 21. First of all, what’s it like coaching as a 21 year old, and you clearly had experience from coaching, the JVs where you were very close in age to the kids that you were coaching. So talk a little bit about what maybe what were the challenges of that. And then I think there’s probably some benefit to it as well.

And the fact that you can more closely relate to kind of what they’re going through. So maybe just talk about what that first year experience was like in terms of what was good, what was bad about it?

TK Griffith: [00:30:27] Right. I mean, First of all, you have to figure out who you are. I mean, you’re still a kid when you were 21 or 22, but I had to play as if I was an adult, which I did have to grow up a little bit faster.

Like I said, my parents were together. I kind of helped raise my, my younger brothers a little bit. So in a way, and I worked a lot of jobs paid for my own college tuition, you know what I mean? Stuff like that. So I was a little bit ahead of the curve as far as my maturity and we got married when I was 22.

So I mean, we were I wasn’t going out every night It and being a kid in that way. So that helped a little bit, [00:31:00] however, I was clueless and then what I was doing as far as, coaching, I mean, I thought I had a clue, but when I looked back at it, what I thought when I looked back at it, I’ll never forget.

The assistant principal said something to me. Like it was my second or third game. And he was like, Hey what’s this team look like tonight? You know, did you what, what’s your scouting report looking like? And I’m sitting there thinking to myself, I have no idea. Like, I didn’t scout them.

My first year we would go out and maybe scout a few teams if we could. And we knew that was a part of it, but I didn’t realize it was such an important part of it. Let’s put it that way. So I don’t want to say, I don’t want to say if we did a scout at all, because that would be horrible for my players who played back.

Then they go one, you never scouted, but I guarantee you the first half of that season, I don’t think we scouted much at all. We just went out and played, which, which, which is kind of funny because, when I’ve talked to Jack Reynolds jr. About his dad’s teams, he said his dad never scouted. He said he could care less.

What the opponent did. You know, it [00:32:00] was, this is Barberton basketball. This is how we’re going to play. You adjust, you know? And I thought, Oh, okay. Maybe, maybe I was off.

Mike Klinzing: [00:32:06] Right. I’ll do that. Just like a hall of fame coach right?

TK Griffith: [00:32:07] Yeah. But that’s not why I did it. So I’m not, but I’m just saying that there’s more than one way to skin a cat, but I certainly scout the heck out of everybody now.

And I’m very, very prepared for every game, but  I think the most important factor at that age was I wasn’t sure who I wanted to be. My biggest influence growing up as far as high school influences was a football coach at home and named coach caribou lad, who was like an incredible speaker, a great motivator who could get the whole place, fired up.

And he loved classical music. He loved rock music. He would play songs and give talks about songs and, I just kind of showed up and I thought I was going to be him. So like before our, before our first game I had the guys huddle up in this little closet and I played some pink Floyd song.

And, and these guys are looking at me like, who the hell is this kid? You know? And what’s this, what’s this, [00:33:00] what does this have to do with our game tonight? You know? So. I was trying to figure out who I wanted to be. I was probably trying to be like other people and it takes a while to settle into who you are and what you’re good at.

So I guess that, that would be and the good news is I was willing to work hard. I was willing to have camps and stuff, and we weren’t that good for two or three years, but they had patience with me and then we were able to turn the corner like in year four and five.

Mike Klinzing: [00:33:25] How long did it take before you felt comfortable in your own skin of not just.

Imitating or doing the things that I’ve seen other people do, but maybe I’ve taken those things and now I’ve made them my own. At what point did you feel like you settled in, it has nothing to do with your one loss record, but just when did you, when did you settle into the job and feel like, Hey, I’m doing, I’m doing a good job.

We may, we may be 10 and 10 this year, or we may be 19 at one, but I know what I’m doing at this point.

TK Griffith: [00:33:51] Yeah. I’ve never settled in. I still, I still don’t feel good about it. I [00:34:00] mean, people don’t understand when you’re the head coach there’s a lot of insecurity involved in it, man. You’re going out there like, Holy crap, we’re going to get our ass kicked tonight.

I mean, these guys are so much better than us you know, these are some of your internal thoughts, and you’re in charge of it. You know, it’s a whole different ball of wax when you’re the guy that’s in charge of it. And if it, when it doesn’t go well, and the team looks bad, man, everybody even if they don’t really care and it’s high school basketball and they go home and don’t think about it, you, you think they do.

So I don’t think if you ever get comfortable in that, in that chair, then maybe it’s time to get out. So I’ve never gotten comfort. but I, I feel. I mean, I bet I’ve coached because I coached my own kid in CYO for about 16 years. I coached CYO after I would go from my high school practice to my kids practice and I would coach their team.

I was their head coach. and then I would go right to HR for about 16 years. I coached their AAU team. So if I think about the amount of gas James I’ve coached, I probably have coached I don’t know, 5,000 basketball games. [00:35:00] So. I feel more comfortable with the rhythm of a game and knowing how to make some adjustments and I feel comfortable, not having to control a game.

You kind of know after a while that you can’t control everything, but you can see it and you can have, you what’s going on, but you might not be able  to change it. You see a game and you’re reminded aw crap. We didn’t work on boxing out as much as I wanted to this week.

And we’re getting our butt kicked on you know what the problem is, but you can’t always fix it. so that’s where I feel more comfortable and understanding the game and understanding where our strengths and weaknesses lie. But it doesn’t mean that you’re ever ready or you ever have the time to be ready with your team.

Cause there’s always something that you’re focusing on that maybe. Which leaves something else that you’re not good at. You know, we’re a great transition team, but now we’re playing the green Bulldogs and they’re playing phenomenal three point line and in D and they’re not letting us run, you know? and, and they’re not, they’re not giving us those lanes that somebody else’s.

So now we have to adjust so I like problem solving and [00:36:00] adjusting, but I don’t think I ever really feel comfortable. There’s always that nervousness.

Mike Klinzing: [00:36:04] All right. So two things I want to ask you, I’ll go to the first one that I’ll come back to. I have a, I have a parenting question for you, but I want to talk about what you just said in terms of making adjustments and figuring out what it is that you need to focus on.

So when you look at trying to build your team year in and year out, how do you go about figuring out what, what the focus is going to be for your season? What’s the focus going to be for a particular practice? What’s going to, what’s the focus going to be for a particular game? How do you go about. Just planning out.

What you’re going to do. Is are you looking at personnel? Are you looking at opponent? Are you looking at, these are the things that we’ve done in the past. How do you go about figuring out what you’re going to emphasize day to day? What’s going to be important to you.

TK Griffith: [00:36:47] Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, other than this summer, summer basketball is huge for me because it gives me an opportunity to try a lot of different combinations. And I always get a really good feel of our team [00:37:00] because  we go hard in the summer, like in June and part of July, then I let them go. you know, we’re in a bunch of summer leagues and basically Monday through Thursday, we’re, we’re in a league every night or we’re doing something.

So that gives me a month to experiment with our new combinations. Our new personalities are our, are in Hoban’s a weird we’re, we’re kind of a weird, private school in the basketball area, at least in that we’re not Saint V’s and we’re not, Ed’s or Ignatius where I’m not getting the best five kids from the area. We might get one of those, but then I’m getting a lot of CYO kids. I’m getting a couple random kids from who knows where maybe, maybe can’t maybe, I don’t know, maybe Medina, maybe, maybe there’s a kid from Coventry who you’re getting some random kids who have never played together.

So our chemistry is always really hard to develop. It’s not hard to develop, but it’s the key to develop some, some chemistry. So, I’m a procrastinator too, but I use the summer to kind of figure out what I want to do. And then that first month of the season, we’re [00:38:00] going to do a lot of decision making things.

We’re going to do a lot of scenarios. In practice where I can kind of figure out what we’re good at. and then for the first part of the season, like December, I’ll go with what my gut instinct is on what I think we need to do. And then I’ll kind of reassess around January and, and it makes some final decisions by February 1st, but  I’m not afraid to change, to win a game.

I’m not, we’re not Green in the fact that I don’t have homogenous parts.  I don’t have guys who are gonna screen the heck out of you like a soul bulldog, for football guy who convinced three 80? you know what I mean? I don’t have guys like that and we’re not homogenous.

So we can’t, I guess we could maybe a different coach could, but we don’t do the same thing every game. And that’s a strength and that’s a weakness. so we’re not going to just play a pack line defense on D and just run a whatever flex on offense, we’re going to be a little adaptable.

And I think our adaptability over the years has helped, but I also think it’s hurt. and if I can critique [00:39:00] myself, it’s probably something that I wish we could just stick with something a little bit more, but I’m not afraid to adapt. And I think it can get us a couple of nice upsets. but perhaps we need to do it less so that we can be a little bit better at what we do.

If I had to self assess where we are.

Mike Klinzing: [00:39:13] So how do you figure out what those things are that you’re going to do? In other words, if you’re going to be adaptable within the course of a game and you say, okay, well, if this is what the opponent throws at us, we’re going to do this. Where do those, where do those come?

Where do those come from? Where do those ideas come from? Where do you go to learn? And then how do you go about making sure that your players are. At least somewhat prepared for that ability to adapt, because we all know that trying to draw something up in one minute, during a time out with high school kids, isn’t always successful.

So you got to have at least something in there that allows them to adapt. So how do you do that?

TK Griffith: [00:39:48] We always, I don’t want to say we always, cause again, I’m not an always type of guy, but we generally speaking, we’ll put a plan a and a plan B on the board before the game. And sometimes the C we’ll have [00:40:00] a, B and C and the kids will know that this is our plan.

We want to stick with this. Let me just make something up. We don’t run diamond press, but let me just act like we do. if plan a is we’re going to diamond press, back into our, our man, the man, and we’re not going to let 12 catch the ball. You know. Okay. Let’s just say it’s 20 to 10 after the first quarter.

Okay. Well guess what, that’s not working. so maybe plan B is to get into a little a, a little half court, maybe trap, something that we’ve practiced whenever we’re going to do anything, we haven’t practiced. I mean, this is something that we have in our package that we do all year. and, and that’s how we’re going to adjust.

And then if that’s not working okay. maybe we’re just going to go full court, run and jump and just throw everything, but the kitchen sink at them and see if we can get back into this game all offensively we might mix in dribble drive ball, screen motion, or maybe more of a passing and screening motion, depending on what kind of team you are.

You know, if you’re a team we can blow by, we’re just going to go dribble drive. Yeah, it does. I like that. To me, that’s wishbone. Wishbone offense whichever office and football is here. We are. We’re coming at you, you [00:41:00] know, dribble drive to me here we are. We’re coming at you. You can’t guard us. When you slide over to help, we’re going to make the past, it’s going to beat you.

so dribble drive could be plan a perhaps one year and maybe ball screen motion could be plan B and maybe plan C could be a couple sets or maybe like a motion offense. That’s more cutting and screening and reading.

Mike Klinzing: [00:41:18] All right, let’s break it down a little further and talk about you’re into the season and you’re putting together a practice.

What does your practice planning look like for you? When are you doing it? How long are you doing it? When do you incorporate your staff into it? Just talk a little bit about the process of putting together a practice plan in season.

TK Griffith: [00:41:37] Yeah. During the season. Well, first of all, I’m the head of the English department at Hoban.

And so I teach all the honors classes on the sophomore and junior level. and I also teach the school newspaper. So I’m pretty busy during the day, but they usually give me the last period free. so like we get five minutes between classes and I get a 25 minute lunch. So any five minutes, any five minute period I have.

[00:42:00] And I don’t eat lunch in the faculty lounge. I’m in my room, I have to work all day to get this stuff done. so long story short during those five minute increments, which might be five of them. So that’s 25 minutes. And then during my lunch and then during my free period,  I’m doing everything I can to get ready.

and my practice schedules  I will always have every practice schedule I’ve ever written since, like, I think, Oh, maybe. 01 on my computer. I save everything. And so sometimes I’ll go back to the previous years to see what we did, but generally speaking, I like to create a new one each day. I don’t like to really look at the past.

so I’ll kind of know what we need to do. I’ve got like 10 to 20 defensive things that maybe I know are good. Go-tos. we, we have a cutthroat thing and that’s very, very competitive where we’re running some of our half course sets against a D for punishment or for reward. However you want to look at that.

We’ve got some transition kind of chaos things that we do, that our advantage disadvantage plant playing in chaos, we call it Hilltopper. It gets, it gets it’s JV versus varsity, [00:43:00] and it’s just mass chaos. There’s no out of bounds. And it’s, it’s, it’s the whole game of basketball to, to try to explain.

It might be complicated, but let’s just call it like a four on three with a guy chasing in, but it’s continuous. and there’s teams on each side and, and you, you, you get scored on different things. when, when we’re playing the Hilltop or game, which is a time 10 minute game, not only are we keeping score, but the varsity always starts down 20.

Oh. So the varsity score is down 20 points, they have to win it. So they have to come back down 20. secondly, JV and varsity were playing for certain identity points. So let’s say identities are deflections charges, great box outs and hustle plays. If we get 20 of those, then we don’t have to run, you know?

So, so that, that’s a part of like our DNA of what we want to do generally speaking in most years. And then I’m really, really big on preparing for the opponent. I’ll know my opponent inside and out and I’ll know everything that you’re going to do on offense.

And we’ll be ready for it. No, that doesn’t mean that doesn’t mean we’re going to execute that, but I mean, I’ll know every set you run and we will have an answer for it. Now I will say this, some of the guys and some of my assistants have critiqued that, that, that maybe we do it too much. but I just like to be ready.

so if you’re running a set where maybe you go one, four high and you enter to the right, we may trap that first we’re we’re either going to blow it up. We’re either going to blow up your set or, or, or we’re just going to stop it. So if we blow it up, we’re going to trap it for stop. That, that first pass.

If we just want to stop it, we’re not going to do anything crazy, like trap it. We’re just going to know how to guard it. so our kids will know kind of are we blowing this up coach? Or are we just going to stop it? And so we’ll go over everything the opponent does, and then we’ll also get ready for any wrinkles that they might do defensively.

You know, if they play, if we’re playing st V, and they sometimes play that two to one, or that two, one, two, I want to make sure that we’re very comfortable with how [00:45:00] we’re going to break that what we’re looking to get out of it. You know what I mean? And then, and then I have a whole segment for special teams.

I want to make sure. To me, one of the worst things you could do is lose a game on special teams. so special teams and basketball to me is I line outs and their baseline out of bounds and what we’re going to run against them. And I’m very, very particular about how work we’re going to guard their based on out of bounds plays.

I never want to get scored on a baseline out of bounds. So you know, all those little strips where guys are slipping, and this is what they want, what we gotta be able to stop that so. and then of course shooting the first 20 minutes that this is where, I don’t know if any young coaches are going to listen to this, but this is where I guess I’ve changed.

I was a guy who, if I would have played music and practice about six years ago, I would’ve said, shoot me. I would have never, ever or thought that music should ever be played in a gym. and about six or seven years ago, I decided the first 20 or 25 minutes of practice when we dosome skill work, which is not only shooting, we call it drifts.

Shooting is up and down. It’s not traditional shooting. It’s more shooting on the move where [00:46:00] we’re going to attack the pain and kick. And you have a partner and you’ve got some goals you’re taking on the other side of the gym, the gym, these are like one minute drills and there’s a bunch of them. and then there’s also some footwork drills, how to come up and get into a turf battle off your pivot, how to attack a ball screen on a hang dribble, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I’m not going to get into all of that, but while we’re doing that stuff, I figured, you know what, but the guys choose a playlist and just listen to some music. Cause it, it kinda makes it fun. So we do, we do for the first 20 minutes for the first 20 minutes of almost every practice we do stuff like that.

Mike Klinzing: [00:46:31] Yeah. I gotta believe that helps with the energy. Getting kids coming on the practice floor after school and just kind of getting things going. I would think that that would be a huge benefit. I can certainly see where your resistance to that would be just in terms of you’ve got loud music playing, then obviously you’re not able to be very vocal in terms of players being able to hear you.

So you got to trust that your guys are doing the things that you want them to do, but I’m sure it gets the energy, energy level up.

TK Griffith: [00:46:55] Yeah, my managers will have fun with it and [00:47:00] they’ll play a couple of songs that they know. I’m a karaoke guy. I probably, when I was like 35, I decided to be bold and saying New York, New York or whatever the heck it was so well they’ll play some songs.

It’d be funny sometimes like if the kids are running suicides or whatever, they’ll, they’ll play chariots of fire, you know what I mean? They’ll have some fun with it. So it’s kind of become something to lighten the mood a little bit.

Mike Klinzing: [00:47:23] That’s cool. All right. I want to ask you about a couple of things that you said while you were kind of going through your practices.

So first is when you talk about charting and we hear a lot of coaches today talking about sharding different things, and you mentioned charting some of the, sort of the intangibles that you’re looking for, whether that’s deflections or charges or offensive rebounds, those kinds of things. So one of the things that I always think is.

A challenge for a coach. And I’m thinking of it more from my perspective now where I’m coaching like a youth team and it’s me and maybe one other assistant. And I’ve always kind of tried to say, okay, I’m going to implement this system where I’m going to keep score and I’m going to track these things.

And after like two [00:48:00] minutes, I’m like, okay, I can’t keep track of any of this. I cannot keep track of any of this. It’s a waste of my time, because then I’m just trying to keep score. And it’s just, yeah. So just tell me a little bit about your process. Okay. In terms of how you, how you score things and what the mechanics of that looked like.

So from how is the data collected to then what do you do with the data once it’s collected?

TK Griffith: [00:48:20] Well, first of all, you’re on exactly the same way. I hate to waste time doing that stuff. So my managers, they will score that game. and so if, if a kid gets an I, okay, so it was a 10 minute, it’s a 10 minute chaotic game  that’s kinda, typically it’s JV versus varsity, but it could be white versus blue.

It doesn’t have to be JV versus varsity. And, the managers will know we’ll, we’ll, we’ll call out identity and, and they will chart that in the middle. You know, where the quarters are on the scoreboard. That’s where the identities go. And then on the sides of the, of the scoreboard, that’s where the scores go, blue verse white.

So the managers do that and when it’s over, we don’t do anything with it. We either got our identities or we did it during [00:49:00] that, during that drill. And then we either run or we don’t run. And if we got the identities. so yeah, you’re right now, the only time I do keep something charted is again, I’ve always had incredible managers at Hoban and maybe some years it’s one kid, some years it’s three, three kids.

Dom Damasio was our last guy. And he’s a phenomenal kid. I’d love to tell you about him sometime, but it’s not for this podcast, but he won the beacon journal courage award. His mom fought cancer. His brother fought cancer. He’s a phenomenal kid. But Dominic will keep, we do something called 50 and five during our shooting series.

And he has a Google doc of a running count on how kids are doing on that. Cause that does matter to me. if you can make 50 the shots with one rebounder. So it was a partner rebounding the whole time and you’re shooting the whole time. If you can make 50 threes in five minutes, to me, you’re a Greenlight shooter.

which means when you’re open, sling it. now  we don’t necessarily tell guys not to shoot, but it does help me understand statistically who’s the best shooters in the gym.

[00:50:00] Mike Klinzing: [00:49:59] Yeah, I think tracking that’s something that is becoming more prevalent. I would say probably in the last five to 10 years.

Think back prior to that, and even if you were working on shooting, which I think a lot of coaches probably at that time, didn’t spend nearly as much time working on the skill development side of it and the. The shooting, it was much more team oriented stuff, but certainly even if you were doing that, you weren’t, you weren’t charting the way you hear somebody coaches are doing it where they’re keeping track.

And they’ve got to, maybe it’s a shooting ladder of this guy’s number one, this guy’s number 15. And we use that to determine who’s going to get a chance to shoot. And obviously with analytics and everything, that’s coming to the game, the ability to. Be able to utilize statistics. And then you think about just what huddle has done and crossover before that.

And just the ability to break down film. And we could probably do a whole podcast on how different it is. If somebody is a young 25 year old coach, they have no idea what you used to go through at age 22, to try to watch film as a player, as a coach, it was just disastrous. So yeah. Things have definitely changed in that respect.

And then the other thing that I want to talk about that you [00:51:00] mentioned when you were going through and talking about your practices is when you’re thinking about special situations and making sure your kids are prepared for your opponents. So clearly you’re going through and you’re watching the opponents film.

You’re trying to probably get out personally, at least see him one time, maybe in person, if you can, if you can make that work. How much of that, how much of the novel knowledge that you have and your staff has. Are you sharing with the players? One to make sure that they understand the things that you want them to understand to try to avoid.

Getting them overloaded. I think about myself as a player and I always felt like Manny scouting reports, like I got enough problems trying to figure out what we’re doing, let alone worrying about what this opponent’s going to do and how this guy is more. Like, I was more interested in like, what does my guy do well that I’m going to guard?

And if I know that, then I can kind of figure out the other team stuff. It’s just, how do you avoid overloading the players and yet still taking advantage of the things that give you an advantage as a coach.

TK Griffith: [00:51:59] Right. [00:52:00] Well, number one, I think we probably do overload them sometimes. So I don’t know that that could be a sin that we commit, that I’m trying to work on.

and there’s ways that I’m trying to, for instance, if you don’t play me and a man on base on out of bounds, you simplify your life a little bit. And there are some teams who like the Akron zips play that one, three, one where there’s a guy over the ball, three guys kind of taken across the middle area.

It’s more or less a 1- 3-1. And they played that on their zone out on their baseline, out of bounds. D you know, Walsh plays a two, three zone on they’re based on out of bounds. I mean, those are ways to kind of simplify it, right. That way you don’t have to get ready for their 15 out of bounds place.

however, I do think that with anything we do, there’s gotta be detail and work and preparation. So I think the way that I maybe don’t overload them is I don’t do paper scouting reports because I think paper scatter reports are useless. Cause I think, I think reading a piece of paper, it doesn’t help me be a better basketball player.

I do all of ours on hudl, [00:53:00] so we will come in and watch film before the game of all the clips that I just spoke of. All of the stuff that we practiced the day before on how to guard. So we have chapel at 3:00 PM the day of a game. We then have our team meal and then we come in and watch film and I have clips ready of, of everything that, that we went over the last two days.

So  that’s how I simplify it for them. Cause I think people are more visual learners than they are a piece of paper. And so then they can see the out of bounds play. They can see the set that they’re going to run. They can see the defense that they’re going to run and they can see some of those, tendencies that, that other, that, that, that those players might have he goes left and then pulls up like you mentioned.

and so we’ll go some we’ll try to get as much as we can, but that’ll overload them too.

Mike Klinzing: [00:53:44] How long is that film that you show them?

TK Griffith: [00:53:46] I’ve tried to keep that, but you know, no more than, especially on a game night where you don’t want to totally fatigue them mentally.

Maybe like 20 minutes, 15. Yeah. On the game that we don’t do, we can’t [00:54:00] keep them there too. Too long sometimes will be 10 minutes.  

Mike Klinzing: [00:54:04] how much film do you watch in preparation for an appeal?

TK Griffith: [00:54:09] Oh, too much. I mean,

Mike Klinzing: [00:54:12] okay. Let me ask you this before

TK Griffith: [00:54:14] five to 10 hours. For mean maybe if it may be 20, I don’t know, man. A lot. I watch too much. All right. So

Mike Klinzing: [00:54:21] let me ask you this let’s go back 20 years ago, right? Are you watching more film? Because it’s now easier to watch film out of time that you’re spending, watching the film the same, but you’re just.

More efficient, getting more volume of film watched, or how would you characterize the distinction between 20 years ago versus today?

TK Griffith: [00:54:45] Yeah, I mean, I think I use my time more wisely now. Cause I’m not down in the faculty lounge, trying to be best friends with everybody, you know? And I don’t care who likes me and who wants to go out and get a drink on Saturday or whatever, because I’m almost 50 years old. I just want to do a [00:55:00] great job in the classroom. And I want to do a good job as I can to help our kids win. so I use my time more wisely. I mean, anytime I have any free time, I’m watching the film, but I will say this. I hate to admit it. I’m not an in person scouter anymore.

My ADHD kicks in I’ll go get a hot dog, eat a Kit Kat, talk to somebody, 10 people will know me on the way in somebody I had in class last year. You know so-and-so’s mom walks by and she’s good looking. And then next thing you know, I’ missed half the game. So I need to be in front of that computer and I love to get four to five game films and I can rewind it and I can rewatch it and  I can learn everything about a team that way.

So I. I just tend to do a better job with film.

Mike Klinzing: [00:55:45] Yeah. I could see that. I mean, as you said, when you go to a game, inevitably you walk in and there’s 10 people that know you and that sit down and want to talk to you and you’re not gonna, you’re not going to put the blinders on and be like, Hey man, I’m not talking to you.

I’m trying to watch the game. I mean, clearly you [00:56:00] can, you can send subtle messages that that’s what you’re trying to do, but we all know there are lots of people that don’t get those messages quite as clearly as we think, or as clearly as we think we’re sending them. So yeah. So, yeah, I can totally relate to.

TK Griffith: [00:56:11] I miss scouting though. I miss going out and doing that. It was fun, but you know, I have a family in my last kid. My last three of them were out of the house and my last ones here. I just want to be home with them as much as I can. And I can at least be on a screen, but be 10 feet from him here at home. I don’t know.

I don’t mind going on. And if I have the time I will. But until last year I was coaching CYO basketball for my youngsters. Now my kid’s going to be a sophomore. So I may start going back out more, but I’ve been doing a lot of films

Mike Klinzing: [00:56:38] you’re out of that world. All right. So this will take me back to the parenting question that I had for you.

And when you were talking before, you said how you’re coaching your own kids and CYO, you’re coaching your high school team and. Clearly as the head coach, you are completely wrapped up in the game. You’re wrapped up in the outcome. You’re wrapped up and everything because it reflects [00:57:00] completely on you when you sit in the stands and maybe it wasn’t basketball, but maybe it’s watching your kids play another sport.

What is your experience like as a sports parent who is not a coach when you’re just stay at one of your, just sitting in the stands, what does that look and feel like for you compared to. When you’re coaching your own kids?

TK Griffith: [00:57:21] That’s a great question. And I hope if anybody, I hope somebody might listen to this episode because, cause I’ve grown so much as a parent of athletes because my oldest daughter was female athlete of the year at home and she was a pretty good athlete and she played basketball, soccer and, track.

And I would say, especially in basketball, I allowed myself to get sucked in a little bit, too much. I never bothered anybody with the information, but I got sucked in. I was negative with her if she didn’t play well, in a way I wasn’t overly negative with her, but I could be negative. Let’s just put it that way.

And maybe I saw her too much as a reflection of myself [00:58:00] and that wasn’t really fair to her in a way. And, and we weren’t we didn’t have a negative experiences as far as the way her and I communicated or anything like that. I’m not trying to say I was an idiot parent. I wasn’t, but I think, I think I got sucked in and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have.

And then as it went down the wrong, so my, to my third, who was also a daughter. We finally just got to the point where we didn’t care at all. I mean, I didn’t care if my third daughter even played. If she got into the game, we were like, Hey Abby, you said, this is crazy. Hey my wife would Elvis. Hey Abby’s then because she wasn’t quite, she wasn’t expected to be as good.

But because she had less pressure, she just always played pretty well. And she was a little shooter. You just kind of came off the bench. But when you get to that level where you’re just there to enjoy your kids, it’s so much, it’s so much more enjoyable for everybody. she, she was kind of a scrub came off the best, pretty much like her dad, but she shot at while she actually has the school record for most threes in a game.

She made eight and they came one time, which is pretty [00:59:00] hilarious because again, she wasn’t. Yeah. She wasn’t a stud athlete and just kind of played sometimes when they had leads, but she did end up helping them a couple of times here and there. but, but, but the, the point of the matter there is. I think we developed and grew as parents and, and had that, that distance.

So with the third that I didn’t have with the first one, and the first one still had a great experience. It’s not like anything went wrong, but I, I wish I would have known that earlier and, and just backed off over the letter, had a great experience. So I do feel bad for my son because you know, being a coach’s kid, we net we’ve never played daddy ball and I’ve always been hardest on him.

so one of my goals is to not make his experience miserable. I don’t want to be unfairly hard on him cause he’s already not going to be in the top rung of he, he’s not a number one, two or three guy on a team. you know, he’s going to be a role guy. He knows basketball extremely well. He shoots it pretty well, but we also know his limitations, but I don’t need to keep telling him as limitations every day because he kind of already kind of already know how many times you tell [01:00:00] your kid you’re slow and you can’t move laterally after awhile.

You know, is that going to help them? So like, I got that. I got that dad, you got that. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I do I do want this one to go well, I want to be hard on them and we get each other and he loves basketball. I mean, he does work at it every day, but, but he’s not physically gonna go dunk the basketball or anybody in it.

He’s not going to run the a hundred and in nine seconds or anything like that. So I hope I can make it a positive experience for him to be a part of the team and enjoy giving back as a leader. So.

Mike Klinzing: [01:00:32] Yeah, that perspective I think is so important. I think it’s one of the things that, as you said, you learn and grow as a parent, and I think you have ideas.

Before your kids are born about what you think they’re gonna be and who you think you’re going to be, who they are, who you think they’re going to be and how you think you’re going to raise them. And you realize as you go on that, certainly your kids and I’m sure my kids have gotten far more exposure to basketball just because of.

Who we are [01:01:00] than a normal kid, but I found again, you can’t force a kid to like anything, either they like it, or they don’t, they get exposed to it. And then they make a decision about whether they want to pursue it, whether they’re passionate about it. And I think you grow in that experience. And I think it’s a challenge as a parent, especially if you’re someone who is competitive and who had a passion for a certain thing, it’s.

It’s hard sometimes to not try to instill that same passion in your kids when they’re, when their path when their passion may lie elsewhere. And one of the things that I found to be very interesting for me is when I’m coaching, even I go back to coaching all my kids at very young ages, third and fourth grade, and we’d play in the travel game or an AAU game and we’d lose.

And I would be like until the next game. Came, I would be distraught, like just trying to figure out what can we do? What could we do differently? You know, forgetting that they’re eight years old what did I, [01:02:00] what did I do wrong? How come we can’t? How can we can’t figure this out?

And literally it was literally like chew me up and I would think about it and all these things.

And then, and then when my son started playing in middle school and I obviously wasn’t his coach during that time and he would play. And I mean, I would just sit in the stands and I want him to do well. I wanted his team to win. Yeah. But literally that game would end. Yeah. And five minutes later, I could care less what the outcome was.

I didn’t, I didn’t think about it again. I didn’t go back in my head and replace it, this or that or whatever. And so it was a very liberating feeling for me. And I think it helped me to have a better perspective as a coach is just, you know what, and like you said, something that stuck with me too, is that you think that everybody’s thinking about it.

And the reality is nobody’s thinking about it. You’re the only person as the coach. There’s no parent that’s going home and reliving the third grade basketball game and saying, Oh, if only coach would have done this or done that we could have had this happen. [01:03:00] And it’s just an interesting perspective that you gain, I think over time and something that I’m guessing all parents.

TK Griffith: [01:03:06] Yeah. So sometimes I just think if I get out of coaching. In a way, how nice it would be to get away from that pressure of being possessed by the game. I know what you mean. You know what I mean? Because it is you’re right. When I just go to a game that I don’t care about, I just leave and go home. I don’t even think about it, but if you’re the coach of that game, you might not even sleep that night.

You know, and, and it’s two different perspectives. So I have to be careful. I think all coaches do to not let it impact the rest of your life, your health, and it but it’s hard when you care about it.

Mike Klinzing: [01:03:42] Yeah, I think there’s no doubt about that. That the fact that you’re so invested in it, and we can tell from just talking tonight, how much time you’re putting into it.

When you put that much time into something, there’s no way that you can step away and say, I’m just going to drop this. And. You’ll completely not think about it when [01:04:00] I’m not there. It just becomes something that becomes critically important to you if for no other reason than the time. And we know there’s a lot more reasons why you do it then just the time and trying to win games.

There’s a whole lot more to it than that. Let’s shift gears for a second. And talk about your podcast. Tell me a little bit about. Why you decided to do it, what’s been fun about it. And maybe some things that you’ve kind of learned along the way that you’ve taken from it that were kind of, that were, that were surprising to you that maybe you didn’t think about before you started your podcast.

TK Griffith: [01:04:28] yeah. It’s a great question. first of all, it was coronavirus and we were stuck at home and I like to go, I don’t run too much anymore. I do play tennis. So if I’m playing tennis, I’ll run. But if it’s singles, but otherwise I’ll go, I’ll walk. I’m a Walker and a hiker now with an occasional run in between.

But, and I love a couple of podcasts. You know, yours was one of them. the basketball podcast from Chris Oliver, the Dan Dakich one, I mean, I’ve got a bunch of them that I listened to and I just thought to myself, I really miss creating in the classroom teaching. English [01:05:00] has kind of become my passion, in addition to coaching basketball.

And I just really enjoy the classroom experience, but I feel like when you’re teaching the class, you’re kind of creating content every day that that’s not there until you show up. And in a way, cause I always I might differ from the lesson plan or I might deviate from it and just make up something new every day.

And that relationship with the classroom, you learn a lot from kids. And so I guess maybe I was missing that. and I just decided, you know what I’m going to make. We should do our own. So I called Scott Callahan, who was our girls coach at Hoban for 10 years. He’s a phenomenal coach. He and I coached our sons in AAU from third to eighth grade.

And his boy Solomon had a great season at wiser. The last year as a freshmen, he was always one of our better players on our AAU team called the gurus of go. And Scott said, yeah, I’m in, let’s do it. So we started and it’s been a great experience. I can’t imagine I would never have guessed how much I would have learned from it.

From the hockey club coach at Akron U was just a really interesting guy. Dave [01:06:00] Phillip Povich, the air force Academy head coach was somebody that I think I respect to a man more than maybe anybody. the, the, what he did at the air force Academy with how difficult it is to recruit to there and the, the rules that they live under.

I can’t believe he got fired. I’m so sick about that. Cause, I mean, you go 18 and 14 in that league with the kind of students that you have to get at air force. I mean, if, if you’ve ever had an allergy or a broken bone, you can’t go there. You know, it’s like that right there and knocks out half the guys for sure.

Especially nowadays. Yeah. He was raised above a bar and PA I mean everything about his story, I just really appreciate it. He’s and he had recruited one of my players that every episode is kind of interesting Scott. Scott got out of coaching for a year. And our first episode is talking about that.

And people say to get out of coaching to spend more time with your family, but you end up, sometimes you ended up not spending more time with your family or, perhaps you miss what made you feel like you were alive and Scott feels alive when he’s coaching. So he’s going to be back in at this year.

[01:07:00] It was, it was so that was cool. Jackie went and  so many great every episode in and of itself was, was. Was fun to be a part of my Tom Heil, who I coached Dan Decrane guys that I coached that we reconnected with Dave Close is phenomenal. Just had him on, Ralph Orsini. So we’ve had 36 episodes.

And the only thing that stinks right now is I don’t have time to do them unless I do them late at night. And, we’re pretty worn down right now. So I want to get back in the flow.

Mike Klinzing: [01:07:26] Yeah. Wait, you don’t have time. You don’t have time through all this learning virtually

TK Griffith: [01:07:31] and come on, man.

Mike Klinzing: [01:07:35] Yeah, we, we definitely have, we have embraced the late nights, in terms of podcasting.

And I can definitely relate to, to what you just said in terms of one of the things that I miss the most about stepping away from high school coaching, which I did. And now it’s probably been more than 10 years, which is incredible to me. But the thing that I miss more than anything is. Just the conversations that you have in the coaches [01:08:00] office after practice, before a game, after a game where it’s just you and your friends sitting there and talking, whether you’re talking through the game that just happened, or whether you’re talking about college basketball, or you’re talking to NBA, or you’re just talking about life.

And those are the conversations that that’s probably the thing that I missed the most when I first stepped away. And in all honesty, the podcast has. Replace that in not the same way, but right. An opportunity to talk to so many different people at so many different levels of the game that have so many different ways of looking at things and approaching it.

And it always makes me, I come out of every episode thinking about something that somebody said that is going to stick with me in whatever it might be. It might be in my coaching life. It might just be in my regular life. It might just be something that I. Sock away that I could put to use at some point.

Like, I, like, I can already tell you right now, the thing that’s going to stick with me from our episode right now is the Dave Jamerson. You’re a million shots behind, like I’ve [01:09:00] already, I can already picture like 25 scenarios where I’m going to use that line with people already. So that’s a line plus I have a personal connection to it.

So that’s one that’s going to stick with me

TK Griffith: [01:09:10]Yeah, sure. I’ve used it a lot. I believe it.

Mike Klinzing: [01:09:12] Sure you have. And it’s just you can see there’s, there’s just tremendous value. And it for, for the podcast or, and I feel like, sure, the PR person who’s coming on, the guests, it’s all about them, but I feel like I get as much out of it as hopefully as, as the guest does.

And it’s just a blast. And I’m glad, I’m glad that you’ve had an opportunity to get yours to get your started. And it’s something that, like you said, it’s. I think people just, it’s kind of like coaching and a lot of ways that people don’t necessarily understand and the amount of time that it takes to put it all together and make it sound good.

And yeah. Get yourself prepared for the interview so that you’re walking in. And there’s some idea of what you’re talking about as you go into it and you get better. You get better too. I know Jason, I’ve gone back and listened to some of our first episodes and you’re just cringing on, on like, Yeah, we were, we were [01:10:00] so terrible.

Right. And you learn to improve. It’s just like anything you work at your craft and you try to get better at it.

TK Griffith: [01:10:05] Yeah. It was pretty neat. you know, it took me like a two week rabbit hole to figure out how to do the whole thing. But I will say when, when, when that podcast popped up on Spotify or iTunes or wherever I got it from, and it felt like I had achieved something.

Yeah. Even though we only had one or two episodes, but you know, when you’re a little symbol pops up on there, it’s very cool. And when you get this episode, 363, you’ve got it all, figure it out. I promise you, you guys are now

Mike Klinzing: [01:10:32] three 63.

TK Griffith: [01:10:33] Oh my gosh. Last night was three 63. So

Mike Klinzing: [01:10:37] now we’re probably, we’re probably about four or five

TK Griffith: [01:10:39] ahead of that.

I got to play the pick three, then let me know what my number is, guys.

Mike Klinzing: [01:10:44] There you go. Yeah. All right. I want to wrap up, we’re getting close to our time limit here. I want to ask you just one final question, a two parter. And it’s one that I’ve kind of been going to as my last question for the podcast and the last couple episodes, because I think it gets out, it’s [01:11:00] kind of the heart of what a coach is all about.

So tell me one, what’s the biggest challenge that you see going forward at Hoban and then two. What’s the biggest joy. The one thing that when you get out of the morning, the one thing about being a coach that excites you more than anything else.

TK Griffith: [01:11:16] Ooh, that’s a good one. what was the first question? The first part

Mike Klinzing: [01:11:19] was your biggest challenge.

Second part, your biggest joy.

TK Griffith: [01:11:22] I think to me, the biggest challenge at a Catholic school at a private school is, I don’t want to circumvent the rules to be good.  I don’t want to take 17 transfers to be good. I don’t want to go to AAU games and recruit your son to be good at Hoban. I just want to do it the right way and try to be good.

And that, that, that doesn’t really happen that often. and so I want to continue to be really good and, and have, have a, a program that can challenge the best teams, but I want to do it in a way that mixes, I guess, integrity [01:12:00] with kids wanting to come the whole Hoban. Cause they think it’s a good program.

So I don’t want kids not to come to Hogan. I mean, Federal good basketball players, but I want to do it the right way. So I think the challenge is moving forward. Can you have a team that can win a state championship or do you have, can you have a team that’s going to have a great year. We’re where you can develop them through the process of the four years and not necessarily just take kids who come in.

Cause I don’t know if that’s winning to me. And then the second question is it was the second question. My biggest joy, There’s so many little joys all added up. I mean the obvious joy is the relationships with the kids. And when they kind of come back and appreciate you or come back to a game or connect with you or ask you a question a lot of it is, I guess, one joy is when a kid asks you for a, I don’t want to say a favor, but maybe like a, a life moment.

They give you a call. And, and they want your advice to me, that’s the greatest compliment anybody could ever give. me as a teacher or a coach is kinda wanting to pick my brain [01:13:00] about something because you feel like, Oh, okay. I must be somebody that they can trust. That’s a good feeling. So that that’s one in a, in a, in a basketball sense, I guess a huge joy to me is when you can make a bunch of kids feel a part of it.

and, and you don’t always achieve that by the way, but there’s those certain nights where everybody is so excited after a game and they didn’t play, or you could tell even after the season, they, they, they thought this was a good experience at the banquet. like if you can find a way to make everybody feel a part of it, even when they don’t necessarily achieve the, the, the, maybe the, I don’t want to say the selfish role, but maybe the individual glamor that they wanted to, that’s like a huge joy and, and those moments are rare.

Cause, cause typically you don’t achieve that. But when you do, man, that, that that’s really special. And then. You know, the big one is I love beating somebody that you’re not supposed to be. and, and I, I hope we can. I hope we can, again, you don’t get that too often either, but when you get those, those nights, when you beat somebody, you’re not supposed to be that [01:14:00] that’s a really good feeling.

Mike Klinzing: [01:14:01] Yeah. I agree with you there. That’s a huge. Thing. I’ve always said that to me, one of the hallmarks of really good coaches is they beat the teams that they’re supposed to beat. And then they beat some of the teams that they’re not supposed to be. And I think if you do that year in and year out, yeah, you’re going to have a pretty successful career.

And then if you can combine that with what you just said of having an impact on kids, that they want to call you up and share things that went on in there life, and they do feel a part of it. Even if they maybe weren’t the leading score, even if they weren’t a starter or maybe they’re a kid who doesn’t even play right.

That really is what coaching’s all about. And clearly X’s, and O’s and wins and losses are important. We all spend a lot of time on that, but ultimately our success, you have to win some games in order to be able to have that other impact that you go hand in hand, because if you don’t win, you can’t really have an impact when you don’t have a job.

Mike Klinzing: [01:14:52] So there’s certainly that, but I think then when you get beyond that, then I think all of us want to realize that there’s a bigger picture here. And I think as a [01:15:00] teacher, you see that same thing that you want to be able to have an impact in the classroom. You want to be able to have an impact on the court and when you do that, right.

That’s when you’re winning. That’s really, to me, what it’s all about. So TK, I cannot thank you enough for spending some time with us tonight before we go. I want you to share. How people can find out more about you and your program share where they can find them cast and just tell them a little bit about where they can get more information about all the great things that you’re doing down at Hoban.

TK Griffith: [01:15:27] Well, thank you. Yeah. hoban.org is the Hoban website. I don’t know if anybody has kids in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade that were interested in Hoban, but they have to work through Sarah Handy, our admissions director, or a new lady who just joined us named Cheryl. you can find them on the website, but more, I don’t want to say more importantly, if you want to email me about anything regarding teaching English or coaching or just youth basketball stuff.

Cause God knows I’ve tried everything in youth basketball. Griffith.org is my email and G R I F F I T H [01:16:00] t@hoban.org. And then our podcast is called the teacher coach podcast. With TK Griffith and Scott Callaghan. And we’re on all the podcasts apps, the teacher coach podcast with TK Griffith and Scott Matthew Callaghan.

Thanks for asking me.

Mike Klinzing: [01:16:14] Absolutely. So definitely when you’re done listening to our episode, make sure you get over and check out TK and Scouts. Podcasts, they do a great job with what they’re doing and I know they’re building it. And as you heard tonight, DK is looking for more time to get that thing up and going and continue to build it.

And I know as we talked about tonight, it’s a lot of fun. So again, TK can’t thank you enough for spending some time taking it, get out of your schedule to jump on the hoop heads pod with us. Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there. Thanks for listening. And we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.