TERRY AWLS – GLASS CITY WRANGLERS GENERAL MANAGER & DIRECTOR OF BASKETBALL RECRUITING FOR HOPSON ELITE AAU BASKETBALL – EPISODE 1271
Website – https://glasscitywranglers.com/ https://www.hopsonelitebasketball.com/
Email – coachtjawls@gmail.com
Twitter – @tjawls
If you listen to and love the Hoop Heads Podcast, please consider giving us a small tip that will help in our quest to become the #1 basketball coaching podcast.
Terry Awls is the General Manager of the Glass City Wranglers, an affiliate professional basketball franchise of the Basketball Super League. Awls also serves as the Director of Basketball & Recruiting for Hopson Elite, an AAU Program based in Toledo, Ohio. TJ previously served on the Lourdes University men’s basketball staff and as the state director in Ohio for US Amateur Basketball, one of the largest travel/AAU associations in the country.
On this episode Mike & Terry discuss his transition from coaching to an administrative role, highlighting significant achievements such as leading the Wranglers to the playoffs after a challenging previous season. Terry emphasizes the importance of community engagement and the positive impact of affordable family entertainment in professional basketball. Furthermore, the discussion delves into the intricate dynamics of building a cohesive team and the challenges posed by player retention and sponsorship consistency. Through his experiences, Terry stresses the need for integrity and commitment in nurturing talent and creating pathways for success in basketball, while also highlighting the challenges faced by organizations in today’s competitive sports landscape, particularly regarding sponsorship and community engagement.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @hoopheadspod for the latest updates on episodes, guests, and events from the Hoop Heads Pod.
Make sure you’re subscribed to the Hoop Heads Pod on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and while you’re there please leave us a 5 star rating and review. Your ratings help your friends and coaching colleagues find the show. If you really love what you’re hearing recommend the Hoop Heads Pod to someone and get them to join you as a part of Hoop Heads Nation.
Jot down some notes as you listen to this episode with Terry Awls, General Manager for the Glass City Wranglers and Director of Basketball & Recruiting for Hopson Elite AAU Basketball.
What We Discuss with Terry Awls
- The importance of community engagement in professional basketball organizations like the Glass City Wranglers to foster a loyal fan base
- The evolving landscape of basketball recruitment, particularly the impact of NIL on player opportunities
- Player development and maintaining roster consistency are essential for cultivating a successful minor league basketball organization
- The need for effective communication between general managers and coaches to align strategies within a basketball organization
- Why accountability and shared goals lead to greater success
- The value of grassroots basketball programs in shaping players’ futures and connecting them to higher levels of competition
- His transition from coaching to a managerial role with the Wranglers
- The Glass City Wranglers goal of establishing a professional basketball culture in Toledo, enhancing community engagement and improving fan experiences
- Why sponsorship acquisition is crucial for sustaining the team’s financial viability and operational success, reflecting the importance of community partnerships
- The introduction of themed game nights and community events has significantly enhanced fan engagement and attendance at the Glass City Wranglers’ games
- How his challenging upbringing in a low-income environment shaped his passion for basketball and his professional journey
- The significance of educating parents about the realities of recruiting and the various levels of college basketball
- A focus on mental health support and character development within the AAU program is crucial for fostering well-rounded athletes
Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!
Your first impression is everything when applying for a new coaching job. A professional coaching portfolio is the tool that highlights your coaching achievements and philosophies and, most of all, helps separate you and your abilities from the other applicants.
The key to landing a new coaching job is to demonstrate to the hiring committee your attention to detail, level of preparedness, and your professionalism. Not only does a coaching portfolio allow you to exhibit these qualities, it also allows you to present your personal philosophies on coaching, leadership, and program development in an organized manner.
The Coaching Portfolio Guide is an instructional, membership-based website that helps you develop a personalized portfolio. Each section of the portfolio guide provides detailed instructions on how to organize your portfolio in a professional manner. The guide also provides sample documents for each section of your portfolio that you can copy, modify, and add to your personal portfolio.
Aiming to go D3? The D3 Recruiting Playbook gives you a clear, step-by-step roadmap to the recruiting process – what coaches value, key milestones from early high school through application season, and how to build a target list of schools that fit your needs.
We’ll demystify researching D3 programs and how to stand out without chasing every camp or showcase.
The modules cover things like writing emails to coaches, building an effective highlight tape, using social media well, planning ID camps and visits, and navigating application strategy.
You’ll get templates, checklists, and an outreach plan to communicate confidently, learn how to compare financial packages, and avoid common missteps. By the end, you’ll have a prioritized school list and a decision framework you can use to land your best-fit opportunity.
Give With Hoops is a groundbreaking initiative that fuses basketball analytics with modern sponsorship. Built for teams who see data as opportunity, from AAU programs to college powerhouses.
By tying on-court performance directly to community and sponsor engagement, Give With Hoops help programs raise more while deepening support from those who believe in the game.
Traditional fundraising disconnects donors from the action. Sell candy bars, wash cars, beg for donations, it’s exhausting and ineffective. Players perform better when their stats matter beyond the scoreboard. That’s why Give With Hoops was created.
Give With Hoops connects game performance to community support. Every basket, rebound, and assist becomes a chance to raise funds. Transparent, exciting, and proven to raise 3x more than traditional methods.
THANKS, TERRY AWLS
If you enjoyed this episode with Terry Awls let him know by clicking on the link below and thanking him via Twitter/X.
Click here to thank Terry Awls via Twitter/X
Click here to let Mike & Jason know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
And if you want us to answer your questions on one of our upcoming weekly NBA episodes, drop us a line at mike@hoopheadspod.com.
TRANSCRIPT FOR TERRY AWLS – GLASS CITY WRANGLERS GENERAL MANAGER & DIRECTOR OF BASKETBALL RECRUITING FOR HOPSON ELITE AAU BASKETBALL – EPISODE 1271
Narrator
00:00:00.160 – 00:00:21.180
The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.
Terry Awls
00:00:21.180 – 00:00:31.690
We’re talking to some kids. I’m like poor kid in the projects. My mom raised us on 400amonth.
I’m involved in a professional basketball organization. It’s like you gotta pinch yourself because I’ve been blessed along the way.
Mike Klinzing
00:00:32.810 – 00:01:56.100
Terry Als is the General Manager to the Glass City Wranglers, an affiliate professional basketball franchise of the Basketball Super League. Als also serves as the Director of Basketball and Recruiting for Hobson Elite, an AAU program based in Toledo, Ohio.
TJ previously served on the Lord’s University men’s basketball staff and as the State Director in Ohio for US Amateur Basketball, one of the largest travel AAU associations in the country. Are you or an athlete you know. Planning to go D3?
Check out the D3 recruiting playbook from D3 Direct.
Their playbook gives you a clear step by step roadmap to the recruiting process, what coaches value, key milestones from early high school through application season, and how to build a targeted list of schools. That fit your needs.
The playbook demystifies researching D3 programs and how to stand out without chasing every camp or showcase.
The modules cover things like writing emails to coaches, building an effective highlight tape, using social media well planning camps and visits, and navigating application strategy. You’ll get templates, checklists and an outreach plan to communicate confidently. Learn how to compare financial packages and avoid common missteps.
By the end, you’ll have a prioritized school list and a decision framework you can use to land your best fit opportunity. Click on the link in the show. Notes to get your D3 recruiting playbook from D3 direct.
Jason Harris
00:01:59.700 – 00:02:05.700
Hi, this is Jason Harris, men’s basketball coach at UMass Boston, and you’re listening to the Hoop Heads podcast.
Mike Klinzing
00:02:09.300 – 00:03:19.620
Give with Hoops is the first platform turning basketball analytics into fundraising impact. Every stat tells a story and now every every story drives sponsorship, engagement and team growth.
Programs nationwide are transforming basketball stats into funding power. Learn to use performance data to attract sponsors, engage fans and raise more with every play.
Give with Hoops will help you raise three times more money for your program as their stat based pledges consistently outperform traditional fundraisers. Visit givewithhoops.com hoop heads d podcast to learn more and take your fundraising to the next level. Give with Hoops.
Jot down some notes as you listen to this episode with Terry Alls, General Manager for the Glass City Wranglers and Director of Basketball and Recruiting for Hopson Elite AAU Basketball.
Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast It’s Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason S tonight. But I am pleased to welcome back to the Hoop Head spot for his second appearance. Yes, Terry tj Alls. Tj. Welcome back, my man.
Terry Awls
00:03:19.780 – 00:03:29.620
Hey, how’s it going? Pretty. I’m pretty excited to, to be back on the show, so, yeah, thanks, thanks again for having me.
Trying to decide if I want glasses on or glasses off. So there we go.
Mike Klinzing
00:03:29.700 – 00:03:49.080
There you go. I always, like, I can’t see anything. If I’m looking at you there, I would just see, like, this big blob. I wouldn’t see anything.
So if I’m gonna see whether you’re smiling or frowning at me, I got to make sure that I could see with the glasses. So it’s always a, it’s always a challenge. That’s how I know I’m getting old. That and my gray beard are the two things man are tipping me off.
I’m like, you know, good thing.
Terry Awls
00:03:49.080 – 00:03:49.640
I feel you.
Mike Klinzing
00:03:49.640 – 00:03:52.080
I feel young, though. That’s what it’s all, that’s what it’s all about.
Narrator
00:03:52.879 – 00:03:53.440
Yeah.
Mike Klinzing
00:03:53.520 – 00:04:14.520
Let’s start out by going back to what you’ve been up to since you last came on the show. We talked before about kind of your role in AAU basketball and the things that you were doing there.
And now you’re getting into some professional basketball with the Glass City Wranglers there in the city Toledo. You’re still doing your hops and elite stuff, so just kind of give us an update on where you’re at, what you’ve been up to for the last year or two.
Terry Awls
00:04:14.600 – 00:06:00.870
Yeah. So last time we talked, I was at, I was working with Dennis Hobson as assistant basketball coach at Lourdes University. Come full circle.
Two and a half years later, I am, I’m still working with Dennis Hobson, but I, I, I stopped coaching and I got into the administrative role. So I’m the director of basketball operations for Hobson Elite, and I oversee all the recruiting.
And then I, I, I, I got, I got asked to be an assistant coach at Glass City Wranglers, which is Toledo, Ohio’s pro basketball team. I got that job last year. And, you know, we were, we.
Well, I’ll talk about our year last year to this year, but I was like, okay, if I come back, I, I want to be behind the scenes, if I can be behind the scenes and kind of make an impact that way. So the, the owner says, how about you become gm? And I was thinking more of a scout or something like that.
And he said, yeah, you you got a great love for the city. You know, you got great connections. You know, we, we’d love you to take a bigger role.
And I’m like, so first thing I did, I, if anybody’s married out there, you, I talked to my wife. Hey, what do you think? You know, I’ve got, I got three boys and I, you know, I think I’m missing it to my boys.
Hey, you know, this is what I’m going to be doing. But yeah, it’s been the last two years from assistant coach to gm.
Obviously two different roles, two different perspectives of how I view pro basketball. But it’s been a great ride. I gotta give a huge shout out to, to Josh and, and, and Jess for, for, for one, for, for taking a chance on me.
And so I’m trying to make that chance pay off.
Mike Klinzing
00:06:02.630 – 00:06:38.170
So I’m guessing, and I think we’re going to talk about obviously both roles with Hopson Elite and with the Glass City Wranglers.
But I see there’s, to me, it feels like there’s a natural connection between being the director of recruiting for a high level AAU program and then being a GM for a professional basketball team, which is in essence being able to scout and recruit and get guys to be able to come into your program. So let’s start with Hobson Elite and talk to me about your role there and what it means. Director recruiting.
How do you go about identifying the kids that you want to try to bring into the program? What does that look like?
Terry Awls
00:06:38.250 – 00:07:58.630
Well, we, we look at kids that want to play in college, just like I did unofficially when I was coaching. We look at kids that want to play in college. We get kids from Indiana, from Michigan, from Ohio.
The last six years, Mike, we put 45 plus kids in college programs. We’ve got three of our guys that are actually playing in pros overseas, playing professional basketball.
And then I oversee all their recruiting when they set up visits or stuff like that. We put in about 80 hours per kid when it comes to recruiting and so it’s pretty intense.
And we’re, we got a new coaching staff that we’re rolling over.
So that, that’s a huge learning experience for these guys because a lot of these guys think coaching at the AAU level is just coaching and it’s a lot of administrative work. We put together a board of directors which has been fantastic. We got an amazing board.
So we’re doing a lot of good things for Hobson Elite that will affect a lot of kids for the future to come. We started a Girls program, which is led by Tiffany Blackman, who’s a phenomenal. I can’t say women’s or men’s coach. She’s a phenomenal coach.
And Dennis has given us his blessing. And we’ve got, like I said, we got a fantastic board. It really supports us through every aspect of the AAU spectrum.
Mike Klinzing
00:07:59.830 – 00:08:52.190
How has the current landscape of college basketball with the NIL piece of it, Obviously the portal impacting how high school players are being recruited or even if high school basketball players are being recruited in some cases. And then you have sort of the rise.
I’ve been talking to a lot of coach, college coaches, and they’ve told me kind of the rise of the player agent and just those agents being able to have an impact and negotiate. I mean, I’ve had college coaches say, I don’t really even talk to the kid’s family anymore or talk to the kid very much.
I’m a lot of times just talking to the agent. So what are you seeing from the administrative side of aau? How have things changed?
How are you guys continuing to try to have a positive impact on the kids that are in your program and help them to reach the goals that they have to play at the next level?
Terry Awls
00:08:52.350 – 00:11:14.310
Well, so we, we. We were smart in getting people on our board. So I, I have a NIL certification. I went through it with, with my.
My son plays football at Iowa State, so he went in a transfer portal. So I was able to experience that firsthand from the football side of it.
But we have an NIL attorney on our board, so we actually have a huge insight and try to help parents negotiate that. One of our kids, his name is Steve, Stephen weiderhold, he’s got 2 nil offers where he gets services and stuff like that.
So he’s a freshman and he plays. Plays up on our 16U team. So what we try and do is just educate the parents because a lot of parents don’t know. And we, we had.
So we obviously in aau, it’s, it’s amazing how, how unethical some of these guys are, especially in our area, which is ridiculous. There’s enough to go around. But they, they, they try and well, we, we can do this for you. We can do that for you.
And my argument to them is like, ask them how many kids they put in college in the last five to six years. And that, that just kind of shuts that conversation down. But the NIL has made it almost like a pay to play.
And a lot of parents are, you know, I’ve got a friend who coaches down at the Villages in Florida and they got high school kids making $75,000 a year in high school nil. You know, I know this. Some of the stuff that my son went through from going to Toledo to Iowa State, he, My son has an agent, I have an agent. So.
But it’s great to have an nil attorney on our board to kind of help us navigate through these pitfalls because we got, we got a really dynamic 8th grade girls team with a couple girls that are really, really will easily play at the D1 level. So their scouts already looking around, hey, and so we try and manage it as best we can.
And the parents, I would say 90% of the parents trust us with this because we’ve been doing it for so long. Some of the parents think they know better than us and they, they, they haven’t. And you know, well, I’m going to take my son to go play here.
We, we’ve had kids quit in the middle of the season that have been with us for three or four years because they, you know, somebody said that they could do something better for them. And so it’s, it’s amazing how, how the, the, the lack of loyalty, it really shows up in this day and age.
Mike Klinzing
00:11:14.310 – 00:11:25.990
Now I think the biggest thing that you said right there is parent education. And I think you can take that across the board in so many different directions.
Terry Awls
00:11:26.230 – 00:11:26.750
Oh yeah.
Mike Klinzing
00:11:26.750 – 00:13:22.860
If you start out. The simplest idea to me of parent education is understanding what makes for a good AAU program, a good AAU coach and a good AAU experience.
What are you trying to get out of it? So many parents are chasing, like you said, somebody says this or that or maybe a team, whatever, has won this tournament.
But again, maybe you’re on a 12 person team where you’re the 12th player and you’re only going to get two minutes a game. Well, that’s not going to help you. Even if your team is winning a lot of games, you’re not going to get any better.
You’re not being developed, all those kinds of things. So I think that’s number one.
And then the second part goes to more of what you were talking about, which is you need to have an AU club that has some experience with helping kids to get to that next level. Right. And, and having relationships. So, so much of, I think being a good AAU coach is the relationships that you’ve developed with schools.
So that when schools either reach out to the coach or you as the AAU coach proactively reaching out to schools and coaches that you have a relationship with about a particular kid. Those relationships are invaluable. And it’s so easy for. And I think this goes across the board in the basketball world, T.J. that.
How many people do you know that just hang out a shingle and say, I’m a basketball trainer. I’m an AAU coach. This is my AAU program. I’m an agent. All these different things, right. That people can just be like, hey, I’m putting up my shingle.
I’m building a website. I’m going and I’m talking to people and telling them I’m this and that. And I do think that the parent education piece is huge.
Helping parents to understand what makes for a good program, a good experience for their kid that’s going to help them to reach their goals in the game and then consequently in life. But it’s hard because there’s so much misinformation, as you said. Unfortunately, there is bad actors out there.
Terry Awls
00:13:23.180 – 00:15:44.760
Yeah.
Mike, I tell you, the, the one thing that we tell parents all the time, if we’re using your kids just for basketball, don’t come to our program because we, we’ve got, we’ve got mental health coaches, we’ve got tutors, we have, we have professional shooting coaches. They, they have access to chiropractors, they’ve got access to different things. I mean, we had a, we had a sponsorship with Enterprise, with Delta.
All those things that kind of help you do that. And, and the goal was to, to make them better people. I talk about the boy side.
You, you, we want your, your son to be a, he’s going to be a husband someday or father someday, girls, a mom someday or a wife someday. We want them to be better people. That’s. What if we use a kid for basketball. I, I, I don’t want to do it. And a lot of these.
And I, I’ll call these guys out in our area. A lot of these guys in our area do that. And, and it’s so sad. They could care less if the kid goes to college or anything like that.
They don’t put that, that investment. It. I can pick up the phone and call Howard University. I can call ufcf. I got connections with friends at Duke. I got connections.
I mean, and then Dennis has a wider reach, Ohio State and all those. I mean, we’ve got access to 5,500plus coaches. We can pick up the phone and call from, from D1, D2, D3 NAI.
And we have a good following because we have name recognition, and I think that helps a lot. But again, I mean, we’ve. And again, I mean, you touched on coaching.
We’ve had some serious hiccups in the last couple of years with some of our coaching.
So we’re addressing that from the board standpoint to make sure we get guys that are qualified to know what they’re doing, that are USA Gold certified. We want to make sure they know what they’re doing. Everybody can’t coach everybody that says, you know, this one, this isn’t cyo. We don’t.
You know, not every kid gets a trophy.
But you, you got to understand how to, how to manage kids, manage games, how to coach, how to be strategic, have a practice plan, have a game plan, all those things. And, and we’re. We.
We’ve had some, we’ve had some growing pains, I’ll tell you, in the last couple years with that. So we’re getting back to what we’ve done when I was coaching. And, and so it’s.
The goal is to make us a better program, not to us to kind of recess and be on the slide. And, and some programs are kind of taking advantage of that.
Well, they’re not as good as they used to be, but, you know, the, the rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated. So there you go.
Mike Klinzing
00:15:46.040 – 00:16:42.330
Well, here’s what I will say.
I think that anybody who runs any kind of a basketball organization knows and understands what, what you just talked about in terms of being able to find good, quality coaches who are in it for the right reasons and who are able to do the things that you just described. It’s never easy.
Everybody thinks they’re a coach until they actually have to coach, and then they find out very quickly that it’s a lot harder job than what they think it might be.
And I’ll tell you that one of the things that whenever I talk to parents, and I end up usually talking to parents of kids just because of the camps and the things that I run. I’m a lot of times talking to parents of elementary school kids, maybe middle school, that, that age more so than the high school kids.
But I’ll have parents come to me all the time and ask me, hey, what about this a program? Or what should I be looking for? Or hey, I got an opportunity to attend this tryout and that try out and that tryout. What do you think?
Terry Awls
00:16:42.330 – 00:16:42.650
Which.
Mike Klinzing
00:16:42.730 – 00:17:15.600
And I’m always like, look, the organization is very important, right? It’s probably more important as you get older because of the connections that you described earlier. If you Want to play in college.
But I always tell people, look, the most important thing that you can make a decision based upon is who is the coach of that team.
Because if you have a coach of that team who is going to do a great job, who’s going to develop your son or daughter, who cares about them as more than just a basketball player like you talked about, but actually cares about their life and who they are and all those kinds of things, then you’re going to have a good experience.
Jason Harris
00:17:18.160 – 00:17:20.560
Is really important. Yeah, it really is. Yeah.
Mike Klinzing
00:17:21.600 – 00:17:45.060
So many coaches or so many parents, I think sometimes chase, oh, this is the biggest organization in our area. Or this is the organization that does the most advertising on social media or the shooting, whatever. Correct. Right. Or they got one.
Or they got one really good team, and then they got 25 teams that are just collecting people’s checks.
Terry Awls
00:17:45.140 – 00:17:45.460
Right.
Mike Klinzing
00:17:45.460 – 00:18:42.180
I’m always like, you gotta find the right coach that’s gonna help your kid to develop, and they’re gonna coach their team like a real team. And when you find that, then you’re gonna end up having a really good AAU experience.
And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t find that because again, going back to what we talked about a second ago, they don’t have the necessary understanding. They haven’t gone through and under understood the parent education part of the knowing what to look for.
And then they end up kind of getting burned by it.
So I think when you have people that are doing it right, like what you and Dennis are trying to do and do right by kids, that’s ultimately where we start to make a change, where we have more kids getting a positive experience out of a basketball.
And to me, again, I come back to everything that I try to espouse on what we do here on the pod and what I talk about, the people I try to bring on are people who I think are having a positive impact on the world of basketball. And ultimately that to me, what is what it’s all about.
Terry Awls
00:18:42.740 – 00:18:50.980
No, I appreciate that. I don’t know if you heard of social media. Dennis is the new head coach of a Polytech in Sarasota, Florida.
Mike Klinzing
00:18:51.620 – 00:18:53.380
Oh, good for him. I did not hear that.
Terry Awls
00:18:53.460 – 00:19:11.550
Yeah, so he’s, he’s back to coaching college basketball. So. So we’re, we’re gonna get, we’re gonna keep everything running. Uh, he’ll. He’ll be here a few times a year and check in. But the.
With the board, it sets us up for a really great future for, for the organization. So I’m really happy about that.
Mike Klinzing
00:19:12.350 – 00:19:31.630
Perfect.
All right, let’s jump to the Glass City Wranglers and let’s start by just giving people an idea of the history of the team where you guys play in terms of the league.
Just give people the big, high, high level picture of what this is and then we’ll kind of dive into the nitty gritty of your role and how you got involved.
Terry Awls
00:19:32.120 – 00:22:23.800
So Glass City Wranglers is a professional basketball team. Our guys have contracts, they get paid.
It’s, it’s, it’s kind of along the lines of anybody loves about the Toledo Mud Hens or the Walleye, you know those guys get called up. We had one of our players second week of the season get, get called over to league in Argentina.
So you know some of our guys, we have a 12 team roster. Five or six of those guys are going to go play overseas. So it’s, it’s high level basketball. Last year we won two games. The, the two games we won.
Mike was the team that won the league. This year we, we, we, we went to the TBL which is a big league, big baller brand is, is involved in it. It’s a 32 team league.
So it’s, it goes from east coast all the way to west coast out in Vegas, really competitive play. We, we were fortunate to get a lot of good sponsors play at the Glass City center made the playoffs this year.
So going from two wins to making the playoffs as a four seed was really big for our organization. Like I said, Jess and Josh reckon were just unbelievable to work with.
And we got a lot of good people that are in the organization that are phenomenal to work with. We had a professional dance team this year. The young lady that oversaw our dance team used to dance for the Pistons.
So we brought that atmosphere of family, fun, entertainment to the Glass City center and fans were very appreciative a little bit of my role from coach last year sitting on the bench and not being able to make an impact on the game as an assistant coach really I don’t like losing so my thing, it really bothered me only winning two games. So this year as this role, I mean I, I was strategic on, on, on how I gave advice and in and who, who we should get, you know.
And I, the owner and I have a really good, really, really good rapport and really good relationship. We bought in a first year head coach, had never been a head coach at this level.
He was an assistant a couple years before and again helping him grow as a coach. He had some learning pains and growing Pains with that, but I’m really happy where the organization is positioned for the future.
We have a chance to really, really be an impact in our city, to get to that Mud Hens level and to the walleye level with a lot of fan engagement. So, yeah, you know, year, year two down going into year three. So we’re already starting for year three. So super excited.
Mike Klinzing
00:22:25.320 – 00:22:34.920
How do you get involved in the first place? Where do you make the connection between what you’re doing before at Lords and with AAU into this opportunity?
Terry Awls
00:22:35.000 – 00:24:14.340
So some, so somebody called me and said, because I, I had stepped down from Hobson Elite and I was two years removed from it, say, hey, give, we’re looking for an assistant coach. Somebody said, we call Terry all, see if he’s interested. And I’m like, I get the call. I’m like, Freddie Zamora was a guy that, that I called.
He was the head coach at the time. Say, hey, I don’t know if you’re done coaching, but would love to have you as assistant coach.
You know, and obviously he had checked my background and my resume and all that stuff, and I’m like, coach at the pro league. Wow. I mean, you know, so, so I got, I got grade school check, junior high check, high school check, AAU check, college check, pro.
So it checked, it checked all the boxes for me. So I was like, that’s my dream to be able to get into something like that.
So gave me a chance and gave me a shot to, you know, we played in Canada and played some really good arenas and I learned a lot by first year. I learned a lot this year transitioning from, from the coaching role to the GM role.
I, I, I opened my mouth a little more this year, Mike, and some, some things that I didn’t like, some things I did like. But I, I’ll tell you, I, I’m, I, I’m blessed. I, I can’t imagine from where I came from or where I grew up at to be able to do something like this.
And I tell kids, we’re talking to some kids, I’m like, for a poor kid in the projects, my mom raised us on $400 a month. I, I’m, I’m involved in a professional basketball organization.
I mean, I just like, it does this, it’s, it’s like you got to pinch yourself because I’ve been blessed along the way.
Mike Klinzing
00:24:14.340 – 00:24:48.850
So goes to show you that there are so many ways, if you love the game, that there are so many avenues that you can take to stay involved in the game or to make it your profession. And I think that’s something that not a lot of people understand when they’re young. Right. Is everybody thinks, well, I got one path, right?
That’s, I got to make the NBA. That’s the, that’s what everybody’s dream is when you’re 10 years old. That if I’m going to be in basketball as an adult, that’s what I have to do.
And the reality is, is that there’s so many other different ways that if you love the game that you can stay involved in it.
Terry Awls
00:24:49.090 – 00:25:50.240
There is that and I’ll go back to even college. A lot of kids, a lot with the AAU stuff, a lot of parents think their kids are D1 kids. Every kid’s not a D1 kid. Every kid’s not a D 1 kid.
And that’s okay. When I was at lords, we had D1 players that played Nai for us. My son won a national championship at Trine University to D3.
They got the same watch, the same trophy, you know, and he’s a national champion. Can’t take that away from him. So I mean, it’s amazing. A lot of these parents try and live through their kids way too much and that’s, it’s just sad.
Let the kid be a kid. Let them grow, let them learn, let them fail and let them learn from that. Teach them that lesson. Not, not, not win at all costs.
That’s, that’s, that’s the thing that’s wrong with our society and, and it translates to the college and some of these guys from pros. It’s translated over to the pro level, I mean, which is ridiculous. We’re not going to pay you and put up with your mess. That’s not going to happen.
Not gonna happen.
Mike Klinzing
00:25:52.000 – 00:25:59.870
It’s interesting just to think about what you just said because my son’s playing Division 3 at Ohio Wesleyan right now.
Terry Awls
00:25:59.870 – 00:26:00.310
Oh, yeah.
Mike Klinzing
00:26:00.310 – 00:28:22.860
And I think about, yeah, and I think about his experience and I think about me playing at Kent State again a long time ago. But Division one experience, Division three experience.
I think about what he goes through, what I went through, what I got an opportunity to experience, what he gets an opportunity to experience.
And ultimately you made a great point about trying to help people to understand that there’s all different levels of where you can play and you can have a great experience at any of them. And I look at it and I say, sitting here Today as a 56 year old man, what did I get out of my experience as a player?
And I played in what 110 college games.
I’m lucky maybe if I have memories of 10 of them, maybe people be like, hey, do you, people say to me, hey, do you remember that game you played against OU and you were a junior? I’m like, I don’t know, I played OU nine or ten times during my career.
I don’t, you know, like, I don’t remember, I don’t remember the details of every game, but I do remember the locker rooms and the trips and, yeah, all those kinds of things.
And so ultimately, what I’ve come to, what I’ve come to realize is sure, we all want to be able to help our kids or if we’re a coach, we want to be able to help our players to be able to excel, right, and reach their potential. That’s kind of what we want to try to help them to do.
But ultimately I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the experiences that you have in the game that ultimately are the thing that have the greatest impact on your life and the day to day, the wins and losses, all that stuff, it kind of fades away. But the things that you learned as a part of it really are, I think, what you carry with you.
And so to hear you talk about, again, just helping guys at every level, right?
You’ve done it at the grade school level, now you’ve done it at the pro level to help people understand what the game is all about and ultimately what are you trying to accomplish within the game. And I just think that that’s something that’s a perspective that you don’t hear all the time.
Unfortunately, people are so focused on, I got to get to the next thing. Like if I’m a high school player, I got to get to the D1 level. If I’m a D1 player, I got to try to maximize the amount of NL nil money I’m making.
If I’m a pro player, I got to get this next contract or I got to get so many points per game or whatever. And it’s, you got to stop and realize that it’s also about the experience as well.
Terry Awls
00:28:23.180 – 00:29:55.060
Be in the moment and understand like I, I, I, I love it. Like, you know, one of my former players that coach aau, he, he, he’s a dad now, he’s a husband. And, and so he, he’s going to dental school.
So he took me and him, he’s best friends with my son. Cameron took me at the lunch and I’m like, he said, coach Oz, I’m so proud of, you know, Everything you taught me.
And so those things, you know, he’s. He’s 24 years old, and, like, he remembers back when. 17, 16, When. When he played AAU. And it’s. And I learned that from. From. From.
From talking to Coach K. Building relationships. That’s. That’s all that matters. I mean, I’ve got.
I’ve got players that have text me, happy Father’s Day, happy, Happy Birthday, and stuff like that, that I’ve been coaching 10 years, Mike. And it’s like, it just. It means so much. And I was like, okay.
And if you can have an impact on that kid’s life, I mean, I think I talked about this last time. I mean, that’s. That. That. That is worth more than the wins and losses easily.
And we’ve had some amazing teams, but the fact that you turn on productive young men and their parents are like, hey, we appreciate everything you’ve done for him. And, you know, so it just. It means a lot to be able to impact that kid’s life now. They’re, you know, they’re. They’re grown up.
They’re taller than me now. And so. I mean, they were probably taller than me then, but, I mean, it’s just. It’s amazing to be able to have that impact.
Mike Klinzing
00:29:55.940 – 00:30:57.760
Yeah, it really is.
And I think, again, ultimately say this all the time, that the privilege of being able to use basketball, something that you love, something that I love, to be able to have that kind of impact, to have somebody come back and take you out to lunch or. I always say that the best thing that happens is when you get the phone call, and on the other end of the line, you hear, hey, Coach, there’s.
There’s nothing better. And I’ll give you. I’ll give you a great. I’ll give you a great story, Terry.
So my daughter’s playing AAU basketball, and we’re at a tournament and walking around and getting ready for the next game. And I see a kid that played for me when I was coaching at Richmond Heights, and I haven’t seen him for a while.
He worked my basketball camp for a year or two after he had graduated, whatever. And I probably haven’t seen him in, I don’t know, 10 years maybe. And I’m walking by and I look and I’m like, wanna cook?
And he turns around and he looks at me. He comes over, he gives me the biggest probably adult hug I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. And he’s just squeezing me, and, like, he’s not.
He’s not. He’s not.
Terry Awls
00:30:57.760 – 00:30:59.280
That’s love.
Mike Klinzing
00:30:59.280 – 00:30:59.760
Yeah.
Terry Awls
00:30:59.920 – 00:31:02.560
That’s not that right there. Yeah.
Mike Klinzing
00:31:02.560 – 00:31:21.090
Yeah. I’m like, this is what, you know, like, this is what you do. Why you do it is for that.
Because again, and I don’t know exactly what the impact was and I don’t know exactly what his thought process is about, what kind of impact I had on him or didn’t. But I can tell you what, whatever it was, it was something.
Terry Awls
00:31:21.330 – 00:31:22.090
It was positive.
Mike Klinzing
00:31:22.090 – 00:31:24.610
You don’t get that reaction. Yeah, you don’t get that reaction.
Terry Awls
00:31:25.410 – 00:31:33.170
He could have been like, dude, don’t you know the fact that he did that, that, that shows that you made a connection in his life. Death. That goes beyond basketball.
Mike Klinzing
00:31:33.330 – 00:31:45.730
Yep, exactly. All right, so let’s jump back to Glass City. All right, tell me about, as a GM in your role, what’s the biggest thing? What’s your number one.
What’s the number one bullet point on your job description?
Terry Awls
00:31:46.320 – 00:34:27.630
Sponsorships. Sponsorships. Because we have jersey sponsorships, we got floor sponsorships. That’s the thing.
So, and, and, and what that does, it keeps us relevant within the city. We’ve had some amazing sponsors. Oh, my gosh. I, I, to me, that was the biggest thing I had to learn.
Uh, but I already had connections with people like that in the city. So it’s essentially I told my boss, so I just turned into a professional beggar.
You know, I just, you know, but to be able to just sit down across some people, that’s that, right? 15, $20,000 Checks, you know, that, that, that, that, that shows you that they believe in you. They believe in what you’re doing.
They believe in the process. They believe in what we do to represent the city. That’s probably number one.
Number two, I think just obviously players, whether you bring in local players and whether you, you draft a couple rookies, there’s an actual draft for the tbl, so we actually do a draft. We had two rookies this year. One actually played for us, played for me at Lords with Dennis, Kendall, Perkins, really good rookie.
Another rookie, Kevin Sorrels, had a really good rookie year. All these guys played in college. We had a big seven footer that played at Tulsa that, that played for us.
And so to just be able to bring all these guys together, I think our first year, I would call it a success with, with an asterisk because we, we had some, you know, obviously being in a pro organization, you. We had some, we had some hiccups where the chemistry wasn’t there. I’m not passing him, the ball and stuff like that.
I’m like, guys, the only stat that matters is winning. Only stat that matters is winning. I mean, and they need.
These guys are, you know, and, and that’s the thing that kind of took away from what we could have been. The selfishness started to creep in towards the end of the season as we were headed to the playoffs.
And I was a little bit disappointed because if you’re a pro, be a pro. Be, be a pro. I mean, you, you don’t talk about your paycheck, you don’t talk about this.
If, if you’re, if you’re taking bad shots and a teammate calls you out, be accountable because if he, if he does it, you’re going to call him out. And so that, that’s the one thing. And, and being able to, to, to.
To deal with grown men that are getting paid to play a sport that they, they love, it’s a different, it’s a different mindset to it, Mike. It really is.
Mike Klinzing
00:34:29.390 – 00:36:07.430
Do you think that a lot of that quote, unquote, self, you know, the selfishness piece of it, do you think that comes from guys who are scrapping and seeing or thinking in the back of their mind like, I have to do X, Y or Z in order to parlay this into my next contract? And they don’t necessarily see, right. The idea that the rising tide lifts all boats of if we’re winning, that’s going to give us more attention.
Here’s what’s interesting to me and tell me if this is the right mindset from you at the level where you’re coaching professionally.
I think that so often, right, when players are coming up, we teach players from a player development standpoint to, we want them to be well rounded, right? When you’re working with a kid who’s 12, 13, 14 years old, you’re trying to give them all the skills, right? You want to be able to handle the ball.
You want them to be able to shoot it. You want to be able to, you want to be able to rebound.
By the time you get to the pro level, there are very, very few guys at any level of game who, the coach just hands him the ball and says, hey man, go do your. Go do your thing. Do. You’re.
You’re our straw that stirs the drink. Most guys, especially by the time they get to the pro level, they have to figure out, what is it that I do well, what’s my role?
And then I’ve got to play that role ultimately, and especially for guys who want to Move up right from your league to the next opportunity. Like they’re, they’re probably not going to be good enough where at the next level they’re just going to be the do everything guy.
They’re going to be get to the next level because they’re a great three and D guy or maybe they’re an incredible offensive rebound or whatever. So how do you help to kind of balance that and think about that piece of it?
Terry Awls
00:36:07.590 – 00:38:25.870
I think a lot, a lot of these guys and there’s a lot of truth to what you said. A lot of you guys have that I got to get mine mentality and like I said, lord sat that matters is winning so mean.
We’ve had, we had scouts at our games and, and obviously our, our games are televised. And so you know the, the one young man that got caught up a second week, he’s 6, 7 long, can defend, can do it all. He goes to plays in Argentina.
And then like I think a lot of these guys don’t understand. Like I think everything you do is being watched. Especially we have kids at our games.
You’re supposed to be that role model if you’re whining when you come out of the game and stuff like that. I just, it’s, to me it’s a bad look and I think, I think a lot of these guys need to learn how to be a professional basketball player.
I mean if you look at, if you look at the Knicks who won they all nobody cared about who scored what, you know, who your players are. And I think that a lot of these guys trying to get to that level don’t understand that you still got to be coached.
And if you can’t be coach or you can’t take criticism or if the coach is telling you something, you’re making, you know, to me, I, I when it comes to even AU recruiting I’m passing, I’m going to the next kid and the pro is the same level. They’re, they’re, you’re not caught. We don’t want to lose our jobs. You know, no, no A or no college coach or no pro coach wants to lose a job.
So I’m not taking a guy that’s going to cost me a job because he’s whining about something.
I’m going to go on to the next player because one that there’s nothing like that culture in any organization or program that’s going to now you know, you know, exactly. If you got and we’ve played teams in our league, their culture was horrible.
They’re they’re talking trash and they’re doing this and the fans are bad and the coaches just stand there, they don’t hold them accountable. Any good player worth his salt wants to be held accountable. From grade school au, high school, college pro, they want to be held accountable.
And, and I think a lot of our society, we, we kind of, we kind of dismiss it, oh, he’s just being this or he just being that, or, you know, he, no, don’t, don’t let that go.
Because now it perpetuates a cycle and that, and when, when you get, when, when your culture is, is, is gets permeated in an organization where everybody’s got a me culture, you’re never going to win basketball games.
Mike Klinzing
00:38:27.230 – 00:39:14.310
You cannot agree with that statement more. Right?
It’s a case of if you let things go, then even the guys who naturally would do the things that you want that would help you to build a good culture, if you’re letting things go with the guys who aren’t like that, guess who wants to leave then? Not the guys who are doing damage to your culture. It’s the guys who are the good culture guys. They don’t want to be around that.
If they know you’re going to let that other stuff go, they don’t want to be around that.
I mean, I think that’s a tremendous lesson for any coach who’s listening is if you let things go, it’s not just the damage that you’re doing with the player that you’re allowing to get away with things.
It’s the damage you’re doing to the guys who have bought in because they’re like, well, you might be preaching this over here on one side, but exactly what they’re gonna do, you let stuff go. Yeah, yeah. I just don’t think that works.
Terry Awls
00:39:14.310 – 00:39:44.090
And yeah, they’re gonna be like, what? I love Minnie. Well, he, he came in late.
You didn’t say anything to him, but you saying something to me, I mean, and the rules have to apply to everybody. I mean, I mean, I, I, you talk about the Jordan rules. Michael Jordan was the first one in, last one out, and he understood that.
He, if you’re not at this level, okay, Kobe had the same mentality. LeBron, the same mentality.
I mean, if, if, if you’re a coach and you have a star player and your star player does something wrong, if you don’t hold him accountable, I’d rather lose a game than, than lose my team.
Mike Klinzing
00:39:45.770 – 00:40:31.270
Absolutely. There’s no question about that. And, and I think the thing Is. Is that sometimes, especially for young coaches, they find that hard to do. Right.
They find it hard to hold that young player, that. That star player accountable. Especially in today’s world where everybody’s transferring, everybody jumps from one AAU program to another.
Everybody jumps high schools. And so a coach feels like, man, if I get on Star Player X for, I know it’s Star Player X is going to be suiting up for my rival across the city.
But ultimately, the bottom line is that when you let stuff go, then you’re going to attract people who want to be in an environment where stuff is let go. And if you hold people accountable, you’re going to eventually attract the right people who want to be held accountable.
Terry Awls
00:40:31.270 – 00:40:31.630
Yeah.
Mike Klinzing
00:40:31.630 – 00:41:14.600
And then you’re going to have the kind of culture that’s going to help you to win. I love that you brought up the Knicks, because I just think.
And look, I was rooting for the spurs, in all honesty, during the Finals, especially after the Cavs had lost the Knicks.
But after having had a couple days to kind of reflect on what the Knicks did, I really think that they kind of captured to me what basketball really should be about. In that every guy bought into their role. When one of those guys had a down game or didn’t play well, somebody stepped up and filled the void.
There was no selfishness. Every guy was pulling for every other guy on the roster.
Terry Awls
00:41:14.600 – 00:41:17.320
Mike Brown, clearly phenomenal job.
Mike Klinzing
00:41:17.320 – 00:42:04.770
Confidence. Yeah. Confidence in all the guys that he brought in.
You think about the difference between, look, Tibbs set the foundation, right, in terms of the discipline and the hard work and the things that needed to be put in place to have a winning organization.
And then Mike Brown just came in and gave the bench guys the confidence to be able to come in and do some of the things that they did in order to be able to help the Knicks win the title.
I think that moving forward, I think coaches would be well served to look back at some of the video of that, but also look at the video of the interviews that the Knicks have given since the championship, since the win, some of the quotes and the things that they’ve talked about in terms of just how they went about their business. I think there’s a lot of coaching gold and some of the stuff that. That the Knicks did.
Terry Awls
00:42:04.850 – 00:42:19.730
There’s a lot of. A lot of that. And I. Mike, I need to give a shout out to my guy, Gene Cross, who’s a guzzle friend of mine.
He actually used to coach at the University of Toledo here. He’s. He’s the director of scouting for the, for the Knicks. So I got to give him a shout out.
Mike Klinzing
00:42:20.050 – 00:42:20.330
He.
Narrator
00:42:20.330 – 00:42:21.930
He’s the NBA champion now, so.
Mike Klinzing
00:42:21.930 – 00:42:34.780
Yeah, that’s kudo. That’s awesome, man. Again, I just think they, they, they were phenomenal.
And I kept waiting for them to come back to earth, and they just, they just never did. And they just, you know, it was a magical, magical ride.
Terry Awls
00:42:34.780 – 00:42:41.420
Oh, man, it’s. I mean, if you think about where they were two, three years ago, Mike. To where they are now.
Mike Klinzing
00:42:41.420 – 00:42:41.980
Yeah.
Terry Awls
00:42:42.219 – 00:42:43.580
Wow. Yeah.
Mike Klinzing
00:42:43.660 – 00:43:00.990
Never, Never would have saw it. Never would have saw it coming. I mean, never would have saw it coming. Even. I mean, again, even heading into the postseason.
I mean, people thought, certainly the east was kind of goofy, and I think people thought that, hey, the Knicks can get to the Finals, but not necessarily because the Knicks were great, but more just because the rest of the east was so goofy.
Terry Awls
00:43:00.990 – 00:43:01.550
Correct.
Mike Klinzing
00:43:01.550 – 00:43:10.430
Nobody had any idea what was going to happen.
And then, you know, then whoever, whoever was coming out of the East, I think everybody thought that the Western Conference, myself included, way better.
Terry Awls
00:43:11.070 – 00:43:11.630
Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Klinzing
00:43:11.630 – 00:43:32.320
That the west was going to end up winning it. And it’s obviously not the way it turned out. And it’s just, again, it’s a testament to playing basketball the right way.
If you share the ball, you’re unselfish, you don’t care about what your role is. You just do it to the best of your ability, and you compete every single moment you’re on the floor. A lot of success can be had that way, tj.
There’s no doubt about that, man.
Terry Awls
00:43:32.320 – 00:45:20.700
I, I, you’re appreciating the choir.
I would try and tell some of the guys that, that, that play at our level if, if you get five minutes a game, make those the most impactful five minutes you play every single game. So now that five minutes turns to seven minutes. Make that the most. Seven. Make that seven minutes the most impactful.
And you don’t have to impact the game by scoring, rebounding, passing the ball, getting the assist, diving on the floor.
And so now you’ve gone from playing five minutes, and now you’re playing 15, 17 minutes a game because you, you, you’ve taken that little speck of time, and you made it the most impactful. And, and that’s at all levels. At all levels. Aau, college level, the pro level. Whatever time you get, it has to be the best.
Okay, for this two minutes, I’m going to do everything I can to get three minutes. So three minutes I’m gonna do. I mean, and it’s got to be a cycle every single time. And. And parents don’t see it that way.
Adult men don’t see it that way. I’m like, okay, what? You know, and try and tell parents, well, well, so. And so only played the first week of aau. I’m.
I’mma reverb and I’ll get back to this. First week of aau. I got parents calling me, talking about that they. They want to quit. I’m like, are you serious? It’s the first weekend. Well, he.
He didn’t play. I, like, we’ve got a 10 tournament season and you’re worried about. He played five minutes, one game and three minutes. I mean, I just. That.
That boggles my mind. And then we got adult on Glass City. Like, well, only play seven minutes this game.
Well, if you’re adjusting to the game, okay, sometimes that requires you just play seven minutes if we didn’t need you. And then you’re. You now you’re playing, you know, the 35 minutes because, you know, someone who was hurt or somebody didn’t do that or somebody.
And so you got. You got to. You got to understand that. And I think people. People want it now. That microwave got to have it now versus. Okay, earn your spurs. No, no.
No pun intended. But.
Mike Klinzing
00:45:23.260 – 00:46:07.210
Yeah, I think you’re 100% right on that. And it’s just the secret to winning basketball. It’s not really a secret. It’s just.
It’s really hard to get people to buy into it and do it and have everybody on the same page. And I think that’s what made the Knicks run so special. And I think that’s what is going to be something that people are going to refer to.
Coaches are going to look at that and cite it as an example. Again, all up and down different levels, and certainly at your level, it’s a. It’s a.
It’s a lesson that you can pass on to your guys about, hey, look, Cale Bridges wasn’t necessarily the leading scorer in the finals, but, man, you ask him, when that thing, when that buzzer went off, how good did he feel winning that, you know, winning that championship? Because he did the things that he was supposed to do.
Terry Awls
00:46:07.210 – 00:46:08.170
And nothing beats.
Mike Klinzing
00:46:09.630 – 00:46:37.320
Yeah, absolutely nothing. Nothing beats winning. That’s 100.
So talk to me a little bit about the scouting process that you guys go through as you’re trying to determine how you want to put together your roster. You talked a little about, hey, you got the draft.
Obviously, if you have a couple local guys that people know and are Recognizable that can draw in some people to get people to attend your games. So just talk a little bit about kind of the roster building, scouting piece of your job.
Terry Awls
00:46:37.320 – 00:48:59.130
So we kind of wrote. Built our roster from the inside out. From, from local, meaning inside out.
A couple key local stars that were in high school, stars in college and built the team around them. Went to the draft and grabbed, grabbed a couple rookies. We wanted to be longer, faster, to be able to defend all five levels.
So we, we, we got guys, we, we had a tryout, brought in 30 guys and say, okay, like, this guy. Don’t like this guy. Like. And so that, and that’s, that’s, that’s how we built it.
We added a couple of players during the season that we thought could help us that, that, that, that weren’t, that didn’t get signed or left their other team and that, that was, that was beneficial to our organization as well. So the year before we had, I don’t know, 13 roster changes. This year we only had three.
So I, my goal was consistency to make sure we got, we were consistent. Our owner was on the same page with that. But again, now, now we made the playoffs as a 4 seed.
Next year we got to take the next step up and, you know, keeping, keeping a core group of our guys.
And then obviously, you know, we got some guys, a couple of guys that said they were going to retire that are, that are, you know, late 20s and stuff like that. So we’ll have to replace those guys.
But we, we always want to, you know, we want to keep a couple local guys because like I said that, that interest locally draws, draws a lot. But then we will evaluate, okay, who had an impact on the community. We do a ton of community events.
You know, when, when, after the games, you know, kids will come up and sign autographs. Okay, they like this guy, they like that guy. And then we look at their attitude.
Every guy gets evaluated on the team because if you’re a cancer to our culture that you can only do that for so long and then we’re, we’re not doing that again. So, yeah, that’s, so that’s how we construct it. The draft is held in Indianapolis, so it’s, it’s, it’s a really good league. The TBL is a good league.
I gotta, gotta give a shout out to them. But yeah, this, we’re gonna be back next year better than ever.
I mean, if you got some eligibility left, Micah, we’ll put you, we, we’ll put a contract in your hand.
Mike Klinzing
00:49:00.730 – 00:50:13.530
I would have Loved to have done that back in the day and gotten an opportunity.
It’s funny, man, back when I was playing, it was just, again, I’ll say this in all honesty, I think that the back, back when I was playing you, you had overseas, you had the two player, you know, two American limit and I was a six, three non jumping white guy who could shoot, which they got a lot of those Terry over in Europe. So I don’t know that my player type was in huge demand. I went to a couple different little tryouts.
I went to one in Cincinnati and I went to, to one with the Global Basketball association actually in Detroit. And nothing ever really became of it. And so I decided to just kind of move on.
But it’s interesting again now just how many opportunities there are for guys who have finished their college career to be able to have a chance to continue playing. And look, I say it all the time as, as an old guy here. There’s one of the things that I miss is being able to play the game at a high level.
I don’t miss playing it in a 56 year old’s body, I can tell you that. But in, in my mind I’m still, I’m still 25 and I could still, I could still move and whatever. But yeah, it’s, keep playing for as long as you can.
Anybody who’s out there listening, man, play, play as long as you can.
Terry Awls
00:50:14.010 – 00:50:45.490
It’s a beautiful game. I still think I’m good in my mind, but I got two bad knees that told me differently.
So, but yeah, I, Mike, I, I really want to give you a big thanks for all you do and you know, basketball community and everything you do. I don’t think a lot of people know the, the leverage and the reach that you have and the things you do.
So I personally want to say thank you because I, I see it behind the scenes and I, I, I, I look at your social media stuff and everything you do. So appreciate everything you do and, and who pets and you know, you, you guys are doing some good stuff. So thank you.
Mike Klinzing
00:50:45.980 – 00:52:34.650
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the thing that I’ve always said is like I can never give back to the game what it’s given me.
Whatever, whatever meager contribution I’m making through the podcast, it pales in comparison to what the game has done for me in my life. And so much of what makes the podcast valuable, sure, I play a role in that.
But it’s the people that come on, like yourself and the coaches that we have as guests that are willing to come on and share.
And I always look back to the beginning of the pod when I first started, and I kind of knew that the basketball world was open and that people were willing to share, but I really had no idea the number of people at all the different levels from all over the country, and in many cases all over the world, just the willingness of people to share their story, what they love about the game, how they got to where they are, what they do in their role. And to go back to what we said earlier, there’s so many different ways that you can be involved in the game.
If you love it, you got the business side, you’ve got coaching, but you’ve got coaching at all different levels, right? There’s guys who coach aau, and they love that right there. I’m coaching elementary school aau, and I just love working with that age kid.
And then you got guys that are Division one that are on TV all the time, and then you got the graduate assistant who’s living in somebody’s basement on a mattress and making, you know, fifteen hundred dollars for the year and trying to figure out where they’re going to eat. But they just love it because they just want to coach. And to me, like, being able to tell all those stories is something that it really.
It really means a lot to me to be able to give people a platform to be able to share, and then consequently, for people to be able to listen and hear those stories and hopefully find some inspiration and some knowledge from. From the people like yourself that come on and share their experiences.
Terry Awls
00:52:35.450 – 00:52:50.970
Well, I’ll give you a graduate assistant who’s got my last name, who I’m super proud of. My son, Cameron is now a grad assistant at Defiance College, and obviously he won a national championship, but he loves coaching the game.
He’s going to have a really bright career.
Mike Klinzing
00:52:51.050 – 00:53:38.660
So, yeah, yeah, and it’s hard, man. People see the glamour, right?
They see the coaches on TV during March Madness, and they see the millions of dollars that coaches are making, and they don’t see the guy like your son that’s a graduate assistant that’s making nothing and has to write and has to learn and is starting at the bottom.
And that’s where, again, 98% of the people who end up getting to a high level end up doing it by starting out at the bottom and working their way up and doing the things that, quite honestly, a lot of people aren’t willing to do in order to be able to have coaching as a career.
And so I give a Lot of credit to those, those young guys and young gals that are out there grinding to try to, to try to make it in the, in the coaching profession. It is, as you well know, it is not, it is not easy.
Terry Awls
00:53:38.740 – 00:53:39.300
Not easy.
Mike Klinzing
00:53:39.300 – 00:53:55.780
Tell me about that. Tell me about you guys playing downtown. And I know originally that you kind of were moving around at different venues.
You were at Owens for a while and then at some high schools, and eventually you get an opportunity to go and play downtown. Why has that been so important for you guys as an organization?
Terry Awls
00:53:56.180 – 00:55:53.490
So, I mean, so playing at a high school level, we weren’t able to get sponsorships. They were like, well, we’re not sponsoring, you know, you’re in a high school gym and played at Owens. Again, people weren’t interested.
I think, I didn’t think people took us seriously till. And the organization is going through the sixth year. So they were, they’ve been around and, and Josh has really built it.
And Josh has went to different. He went to Bowser High School in this area. He went to another high school in that area. Went to.
And what he wanted to do was kind of be able to touch all these areas so people get to see who we are. And then when we mentioned that we were going downtown now, the sponsors just started lining up. And so it, it really built our fan base.
I mean, Josh was giving away tickets and people were just throwing them away. Now they got to go online to Ticketmaster and buy tickets.
And so it, it really built our fan base because I, I, I related to like a, a DJ first starting out. You know, he’s handing out tapes. He wants everybody to listen to his music now.
And then when he turns platinum, everybody’s like, wait a minute, we got to go see. You know, Josh really, he was a grinder.
And I’m super proud of the fact that he, he kept the grind and, and is building the organization to, to another level. The, the, the sponsorships have been big for us, but they wouldn’t have come if we weren’t in the Glass City Center.
Huntington center is a great place. Great, I would say, partner with us. Glass City center is a beautiful venue to play, play games in.
And you, you walk in there and it’s how they have the seating set up and, and now if somebody wants to grab a hot dog or a burger or a beverage or something like that, they can do that. Halftime shows and family fun, entertainment, it’s, it takes on a different life versus being in a high school gym.
You’re in a professional arena, and so that the setting in the mindset changes drastically.
Mike Klinzing
00:55:54.930 – 00:56:26.780
So when I think of minor league professional sports, whether it’s basketball or any other sport, right. I think of the, the promotion, the things around the game to be able to attract people, to make it a fun night, a fun evening.
You talked about having a dance team. You talked about being able to have access to refreshments. Two key things. Yeah. In any fan experience.
What are some of the other things that you guys have done promotion wise in game halftime stuff to try to draw fans in besides just the basketball product that you’re putting on the floor?
Terry Awls
00:56:26.780 – 00:58:57.370
We, we had theme nights. We, we had Country Night. You know, we had, we had Michael Jackson night where we had a young man dress up. We, we was phenomenal.
We, we had great partnerships with, with Texas Roadhouse where they would come there, they bring their armadillo and get, get give out stuff. The theme nights have been really big, you know, rodeo night. And then we do. What we did was any.
If you’re a veteran or something like that, we did a, like a veteran of the game or something like that to honor those, those veterans that have served in the armed services, which is really big. A lot of high school engagement. We touched base with a lot of high schools.
If you’re, you know, if you’re a high school team, we would invite those guys to the game. We would reach out to, to certain singers that were coming up and coming. Hey, you want to see, come seeing the national anthem.
For us those things are really critical in our growth and we, we’ve learned a lot, you know, in this first season. But again, it comes down to partnerships. It really does.
Partnerships and being able to, to, to be, to be an impact on our community because we, we were able to go to different venues, high schools and, and different organizations to speak to the kids about, you know, what it’s like to be a 10 year old. I’ve been a 10 year old. You haven’t been me. So this is what you’re going to learn along the way.
And we, we’ve had some impactful guys on our team in our organization that, that are really going to help us moving forward. But our work’s not done yet. I mean it’s, it’s.
We’ve got, we got restaurants that, that we were able to partner with that, that were where you know, would feed our team and stuff like that. We have pre game prior to, to, to our home games, Hilton Hotel.
We’d have, you know, if you wanted to be a sponsor, you could do a pregame party at the Hilton Hotel. So Farmers and Merchants bank and all those great, great sponsors. Hollywood Casino was a major sponsor. You know, Salinas was a big sponsor.
You know, so we, we’ve got obviously 20, 20, 22 sponsors, Mike, that are really, just really, I mean, we wouldn’t be here without them. So I, I want to thank them all because I know Josh would say the same thing.
We couldn’t have had this season without some amazing support along the way.
Mike Klinzing
00:58:58.250 – 00:59:04.050
Yeah, it’s great. And I think you made a great point earlier when you said you became the, you became the beggar.
Terry Awls
00:59:04.050 – 00:59:04.250
Right?
Mike Klinzing
00:59:04.250 – 00:59:52.680
And I think that that’s one of those things where I think people underestimate how challenging it is to be able to get people to sponsor anything that you’re doing. I don’t care what, I don’t care if it’s the Glass City Wranglers, I don’t care if it’s a high school team. I don’t care if it’s a basketball camp.
Trying to get people to sponsor T shirts, Whatever it is, going out there and trying to get people to sponsor is always, is always a challenge.
And yet when you’re able to do that, then, as you said, it makes such a huge difference in what you’re able to do as an organization to be able to put the product on the floor that you want to put on the floor. Let me ask you about your role as a GM with your coach.
How does that relationship work in terms of you two working together to try to put the best product on the floor? What does that working relationship look like?
Terry Awls
00:59:52.680 – 01:01:36.300
So it was, it was a pretty much a three person effort. Myself, our owner, Josh, and our coach, Ben. Ben did a really good job in the first year. Obviously he learned a lot.
Josh and I wanted to see a particular style and we would talk to him after every game, good, bad or indifferent. I would pick up the phone and call him and be like, hey, look, I, I don’t like this. Maybe we should try this.
I tried not to micromanage because I, I wanted him to kind of develop his own style. But we, we, we talked about it at the beginning of the season. This is how we want to play. This is who we want to get.
So we’re, we’re, I mean, Josh and I will evaluate him and come back and say, okay, this is what we like. We didn’t like and, and kind of put pieces around him to help him succeed.
I really tried not to, to be that, you know, looking over his shoulder every single time.
But when when, when things were, were to the point where I didn’t like him or Josh didn’t like him, we, we, we were definitely, I guess kind of, it was kind of tough love at times because we, we, we lost to some teams, Mike, that we shouldn’t have lost to, that didn’t make the playoffs and that to me that was frustrating. I think that starts with the coach. That means we’re not prepared and you know, we, we didn’t scout well. We didn’t do something right.
If the team’s not ready. If you got a team that’s below 500 that’s coming in and beating you, it’s, and, and you just beat them the week before by 20 plus points.
That, that the coach is responsible for setting the tone of how we’re, how we’re going to attack people.
So he, he, he, he held himself accountable on, on all this stuff and so he, he’s going to get better and he, he’ll, he’ll be, he’ll be back better than ever next year.
Mike Klinzing
01:01:37.840 – 01:02:11.560
Yeah, I do think that that two way communication or in this case three way communication in terms of laying out what the expectations are and figuring that out.
And then obviously coach’s job is to be able to pass that along to the players with your support and figuring out, hey, this is the kind of team we want to put on the floor. This is what it want, this is what we want it to look like. We want a certain style of play obviously again attracting fans and attendance.
So you want to play a style of basketball that people are going to want to watch and, and get up and down the floor and that kind of thing. To be able to be an attractive product to, to compete in the marketplace.
Terry Awls
01:02:11.560 – 01:02:11.680
Right.
Mike Klinzing
01:02:11.680 – 01:02:57.260
Because again, look, man, there’s so many, there’s so many different entertainment opportunities for people sports and, and beyond that, I think that’s always a challenge. Right.
When you’re talking about minor league sports is how do you garner the attention of fans who can go to high school games or go to college games or go to a pro game, whatever it may be. Yeah. And then that’s to say nothing of the things outside of sports that you’re trying to do.
So it’s definitely I think key to be able to have a good working relationships among, among the front office and your, and your coaching staff. How do you, when you look at your job and you think about what you do day to day, what’s the most fun part of what you get to do?
Because I think always.
Terry Awls
01:02:57.260 – 01:02:57.500
Right.
Mike Klinzing
01:02:57.500 – 01:03:05.970
We think about like, oh, man, this is so difficult. And that would. What’s the part that. When you’re like, okay, I get to do this part today. What puts a smile on your face?
Terry Awls
01:03:06.050 – 01:04:22.110
I think being at the games, seeing the fans smile, and I’m walking through. You know, I rarely sit, you know, during the game. I’m.
I’m sitting for five minutes or something like that, or if my wife comes, I’ll talk to her or something like that. But being able to just engage with fans, and I think the thing that helped me this year, that we’re winning, so fans are coming to the games.
If you’re losing, fans aren’t coming to the games. No. Nobody wants to watch a loser. I don’t care what anybody says. But I’ve talked to so many fans and, like, oh, my gosh, you know, this is so cool.
I. I think half the time they didn’t know what the score was, but they had a great time at the game. And that. That made me smile because, man, I. I was. I was a small part of that. You know, being able to.
To speak to kids at a school and then have that entire school or that grade come to the game and they’re holding up signs and doing all this stuff. I mean, that. To me, that’s. That’s like. I. I, like. I pinch myself, Mike. I’m like, this is so cool. So, yeah, that’s. That. That. That was.
That’s been the most rewarding. And that’s the thing where I’m like, oh, my gosh. I mean, it’s just like, again, I use the word blessed all the time because he provides for. For us.
And that’s. You talk about a great blessing, and it’s like, that’s. It’s. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing feeling.
Mike Klinzing
01:04:22.110 – 01:05:30.020
Yeah, that’s very cool. Do you get feedback from people? I’m just curious.
Like, this year, I went to a couple of Cleveland Charge games at Public hall, and you get to sit close.
Whereas if you want to sit close at an NBA game and watch professional players and you want to take your family, you’re looking at a pretty hefty financial setback in your wallet.
If you want to go sit five or 10 rows up to watch a Cavs game, for example, versus I go to a Charge game, I can get in there for 30 bucks or 40 bucks total.
As a family, I could sit right there and see the facial expressions and realize that the guys who are playing are actual human beings as opposed to just little dots or the guys that I’m used to seeing on tv.
And so I think that, to me that’s one of the biggest attractive things about a more intimate setting where you get, you get close to the professional players, where you see them not just as players, kind of like a video game type thing, but they’re actual human beings. I always think that there’s tremendous value in that. I don’t know if you hear that kind of feedback from fans.
Terry Awls
01:05:30.020 – 01:07:15.620
Yeah. So we, so a lot of the floor seats, we, we have floor seats, which is really neat.
Those went to our sponsors and then obviously me and the owner had floor seats right there. But we, I mean we were to, to be able to, you know, if you got people in the sans general mission, you know, they’re, they’re four rows behind you.
So I, I made it a point to go up and talk to fans and Josh made it a point. And we got a great mascot named Buckets, which was very engaging and all that. But to be able to sit on the floor, be able to watch that.
I remember my wife and I were first dating years ago. We, we went to a Pistons game. She flew up from Florida and it was a Pistons game and it was, it was 250 bucks, Mike.
And so that, the thing with us, like our tickets are $15, $15 for, for general admission and we have some reserve seating that, that we charge 20 something bucks for.
But I mean you can bring the entire family and, and if you’re out of 100 bucks because you bought popcorn or something like that, you can do a family of four for 100 bucks. That’s what we want to do. Josh says this all the time. Family, fun, entertainment. That’s what we want to do.
And, and, and that, that makes us an attractive product because now you’re not like you said, you go to a Cavs game, family of four, parking, food and all that. 500, 600 Bucks. I mean, not everybody can afford that.
I mean this, I mean, and so now you, you want to be able to reach people at their level and that’s what we’re able to do within our organization. We’re able to reach the common person that man, I really like basketball, but I can’t afford to pay you 60, $70 for a ticket.
Okay, how about you pay 15, come watch us grab some popcorn, grab a soda and. Not now you can come watch our games.
Mike Klinzing
01:07:16.740 – 01:07:48.120
Yeah. And you see them as real people and you see the facial expressions and you get to hear them talking and all those kinds of things.
And you get to see and hear what the coach is saying. And I, I think it’s a, it’s a totally different experience.
Again, a lot of people and a lot of people who are fans of your team probably have gone to high school games and sit close and whatever, but it’s still not the same as watching professional players with their size and athleticism and all those things. And again, just to be able to see that up close I think is something that is, is really unusual.
Terry Awls
01:07:48.200 – 01:07:48.640
Yeah.
Mike Klinzing
01:07:48.640 – 01:08:24.839
When you think about what you guys are building. Right. And you have a vision. Josh has a vision for what you hope that this team and this organization can become. Pie in the sky.
What’s the ideal vision when you get it? And it’s never over. Robin, obviously, right. Sports is never over. It’s always a continuous trying to build and grow, rebuild or whatever it might be.
Yeah, it’s, it’s always, it’s always changing. But what’s the, what’s the pie in the sky view of what you hope that this can become in its idealized version?
Terry Awls
01:08:25.239 – 01:09:09.939
So the glass City center sits in right in the middle of the Walleye Huntington Center. Big arena, Mud Hens Stadium right over there. We want to become that third wheel to where we have our own stadium.
You know, we’ve got the nice locker rooms and we, we, we are, I mean we’re coming off the, the, the Walleye season is kind of ending and Mud Hidden season is starting to. So we got a perfect window to where we can capture audience. I know downtown Toledo is building a soccer arena.
We, we want to, we want to be able to have our own arena and our own gym to really kind of put, put our mark on City of Toledo. And I think City Toledo needs a professional basketball team. Absolutely. That’s, that’s the pie in the sky right there.
Mike Klinzing
01:09:10.739 – 01:09:44.369
There we go. That, that would be again, you, you’ve, you’ve accomplished it to a degree and you’re going to continue to continue to build it.
So, so let’s go with a final two part question which will kind of take us down that road. When you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being the biggest challenge to accomplish that goal that you’re talking about?
And then second question.
What brings you the most joy about the two roles that you have right now currently in your professional life with Hobson Elite and with the Wranglers? So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.
Terry Awls
01:09:44.369 – 01:11:12.290
Our biggest challenge is maintaining a consistency within our organization with players and, and as well as sponsors and then been go back to those sponsors, year two, year three, year four, and they’re still riding and dying with you. And then building a consistent, you know, our roster, we can’t have roster changes that are, you know, 8, 10, 12 players every year.
We got to have consistency in our roster.
So, you know, if, if, if I’m a 5 year old kid and I grew up watching Mike play, you know, I want to see Mike in year three as I get older because, man, he’s my favorite player versus, okay, who’s coming in next. So building that consistency and then maintaining sponsors and building on our sponsorship.
I know next year already we got Susan G. Coleman coming in. Next year we got the union coming in. So we’re going to do some union stuff. So we, we, we’ve got the trades and all that.
So we’re super excited about what next year is already bringing. So we’re already building on that.
The most exciting part about the two rows, I get to impact the game of basketball at different levels from the AAU side to helping these kids get in college and then some of these kids in college. Now I’m bringing over to the pro level. So it’s coming full circle. And if you want to go play overseas, okay, we make a phone call here or there.
Okay, now we can get you overseas. So it’s really birthing their careers. And to me, it’s pretty exciting. It’s pretty exciting. Yeah.
Mike Klinzing
01:11:12.290 – 01:12:55.340
Again, impact, basketball impact. Two things that you can do in both of the roles that you love me. And like I always say, there’s, there is nothing better than being able to do that.
And tj, I, I can’t thank you enough.
I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to jump on and join us and to educate me and to educate our audience about what you guys are building there in Toledo with the Wranglers. Again, it’s always fun to talk AAU basketball with somebody who’s in it for the right reasons and doing it the right way.
As you and I both know, that’s not always the case.
And I think the more, the more good experiences that we can have out there for families and for players, the better off we are in the basketball space. So kudos to you and Dennis for what you guys are doing with Hobson Elite. And again, thank you for your time tonight.
Truly appreciative and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.
Your first impression is everything when applying for a new coaching job.
A professional coaching portfolio is the tool that highlights your coaching achievements and philosophies and most of all, helps separate you and your abilities from the other applicants. The Coaching Portfolio Guide is an instructional membership based website that helps you develop a personalized portfolio.
Each section of the Portfolio Guide provides detailed instructions on how to organize your portfolio in a professional manner. The guide also provides sample documents for each section of your portfolio that you can copy, modify and add to your personal portfolio.
As a Hoop Heads pod listener, you can get your Coaching Portfolio Guide for just $25. Visit coachingportfolioguide.com hoopheads to learn more.
Narrator
01:12:59.270 – 01:13:03.670
Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.