TONY MILLER – BOB JONES UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL ASSISTANT COACH & HOST OF A QUICK TIMEOUT PODCAST – EPISODE 758

Website – https://www.bjubruins.com/sports/mens-basketball  https://aquicktimeout.com/

Email – awmiller@bju.edu

Twitter – @tonywmiller

Tony Miller is a Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. He began his career with the Bruins as Director of Basketball Operations in June of 2012. As a member of the coaching staff, his primary duties include player development, scheduling, game film analysis, and summer camps.
 
During the summer, Miller runs Christian school basketball camps and coaches at Duke University Basketball Camp. He also participates in the  National Hoops Ministries’ Basketball Camp, serving as a camp coach.
 
In 2014, Miller earned a doctorate in Sports Management from the United States Sports Academy (USSA). He also has two degrees from Bob Jones University – a bachelor’s degree in Health, Fitness, & Recreation and a master’s degree in Secondary Education. Since 2007, he has been a member of the BJU Health, Exercise & Sport Science faculty, teaching courses in coaching, sports management, and sports marketing.

Miller is also the host of his own podcast, A Quick Timeout. 

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Grab pen and paper as you listen to this episode with Tony Miller, Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach at Bob Jones University & Host of the podcast, A Quick Timeout.

What We Discuss with Tony Miller

• Moving from Georgia to North Carolina between his 9th and 10th grade year
• His favorite memory from playing high school basketball
• Admiring Coach K and John Wooden from afar
• How wanting to be a teacher first shaped his career in coaching
• Getting his master’s degree from Bob Jones University just as the University was starting a basketball program
• Acting as a volunteer assistant for five years at Bob Jones University
• The uniqueness of his teaching and coaching position at Bob Jones
• “Great teachers know how to take something that’s complex and make it simple.”
• Acting as the interim head coach this season and seeing the bigger picture
• “The worst thing that somebody can say is no, and that doesn’t hurt really bad , so why not just ask?”
• Spending time on non basketball issues as a head coach
• Making the team and players part of your life
• The transition from assistant coach to interim head coach and why it went smoothly
• Why delegating is so important and how it serves multiple purposes
• “In a drill, there’s always something clear that we’re trying to do or trying to emphasize.”
• “The only way you’re going to get better is actually getting reps in.”
• “I don’t think they’re going to get any better at five on five unless you play a lot of five on five.”
• “The fact of the matter is your kids probably aren’t going to get better at basketball unless you practice basketball.”
• Being in balance as a coach and knowing what your team needs on a given day
• “Know what each kid is ready to hear, when they’re ready to hear it.”
• “What your players think is important is what you emphasize. I’m not emphasizing everything because then I’ve got an average team that just thinks that everything matters and everything doesn’t matter equally.”
• How he settled on the format for his podcast, A Quick Timeout
• “I think that if you’re going to be the best coach that you can be, it has to be yours.”
• The process of making a podcast and giving coaches just enough so they can go out and learn more on their own
• “When you have so many responsibilities, you want to make sure that you’re not just doing all of them average.”
• “Give the right attention to the things that are the most important.”
• “Championships are cool, the wins are cool, the losses are cool, but really the things that last forever are really the people.”
• “Making sure that the game doesn’t become more important than the people that are playing the game.”

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THANKS, TONY MILLER

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TRANSCRIPT FOR TONY MILLER – BOB JONES UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL ASSISTANT COACH & HOST OF A QUICK TIMEOUT PODCAST – EPISODE 758

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight. But I am pleased to be joined by the men’s basketball assistant coach at Bob Jones University and the host of a Quick Time Out Podcast, Tony Miller. Tony, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:14] Tony Miller: Coach. I appreciate you asking me to come on.  I enjoy doing these and have enjoyed your guys’ podcast for a long time, so this is an honor.

[00:00:22] Mike Klinzing: Well, thank you. The feeling is mutual. Excited to have you on. Looking forward to diving into your career, learning more about all the things that you’ve been able to do in the game of basketball. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid.

Tell me about some of your first experiences with the game of basketball, what you remember from an early age.

[00:00:39] Tony Miller: Oddly enough. I was a baseball guy to start out with. And there was at our school, one of the parents of actually a couple of the girls that play on the varsity girls basketball team, he held a couple clinics, day clinics for younger kids.

I think I was in about the fourth or fifth grade, I think. And that was really the first kind of organized anything that I did. I don’t even remember that we played any games, but it was kind of the old school. I remember dribbling around cones. I remember doing some shooting, that kind of thing.

But I think that was really like the first time that I did anything basketball related outside of just messing around with cousins in the driveway or anything like that. And from that point had the opportunity, like most just JV basketball played varsity basketball. Didn’t play college basketball.

I’m five 10 and slightly above average in probably every skill category. So there was nothing that stuck out that was going to get me any kind of you know, college scholarship. But I loved basketball and, and oddly enough went to a school that didn’t have a college basketball team at the time.

So it was any kind of college basketball that I was really a part of or really interested in was just observing other college programs. And I was from North Carolina, so I had the triangle there with Duke and North Carolina and NC State. And so had a chance to be around those programs, but it was more of like an outsider’s perspective, I guess, that that.

Really learned about the game and just observed other coaches doing it. And so probably a little bit unconventional, non-traditional as far as my road to being a college coach. But one that was, I look back and I’m thankful for how it came about and really cool opportunities that I’ve had along the way.

[00:02:29] Mike Klinzing: What’s your favorite memory of being a high school basketball player?

[00:02:32] Tony Miller: Oh man, my family moved from Georgia to North Carolina and in Georgia it was a small school, small private school. And so I was on the varsity team in ninth grade. And when we moved to North Carolina I got there and it was a program that like they had won at their level, the state championship and they had like a national type tournament they went to and they had won that as well.

And so , they were coming off of that. And I came in as a 10th grader. And they very quickly said, oh no, you’re a JV player. This is not, you’re not for varsity . So I kind of went back to being a JV player and we played some really good, good programs. I mean word of God for people that remember that was John Wall’s High School.

He wasn’t there at the time. It was just a few years before that. But we played really good program as a JV team. And that year we went 18 and two. Were in the state championship final game. We’re down by two. The other team, our rivals, who had already beat twice that year kind of thought things were already wrapped up.

It was the other team’s ball with literally about 1.3 seconds left, I think. And they thought the game was over. So they just chucked the ball towards half court. Well, our six foot four, probably about 250 pounds center, caught the ball at half court, bounced it once. Chucked it from half court.

I was guarding the inbounder, so I’m watching this all from underneath the basket he’s shooting towards. And it was a swish. Wow. That’s, that’s incredible. Winning the state championship that year. Partway through that season, they were like, oh, this kid’s decent. So pulled me up for a varsity game in that one varsity game when we were playing a team that they, they got out to like a big lead and so they threw me in there and I scored like 13 points in about four minutes.

So, it was one of those where you’re like, you have no pressure. I was shooting the ball before I was catching it and just switching everything that I shot. So that was like that was I want to offend people, but at the private school level, at least Georgia and North Carolina don’t really compare.

North Carolina at that time had considerably better high school sports. So like for me, moving to that state and then obviously just kind of being around North Carolina basketball and everything that was probably a big year for me. I did go on and do some other neat things in high school, but as far as like memorable, that was probably the two things that stick out.

[00:05:00] Mike Klinzing: Those are two pretty good ones. That’s pretty cool. Both of those experiences getting to win a game.  Buzzer beaters are probably more rare than we all think. The opportunity to be a part of one, especially on the winning end of it is pretty special. To be able to look back and have that in your memory bank, I think is pretty cool.

You mentioned. Obviously growing up around North Carolina, Duke, NC State, did you have a favorite player? Which of those teams did you like the most? Coaches, obviously there’s a history of great coaching at all three of those schools, clearly. So what do you remember about just being a college basketball fan in that area at the time?

[00:05:36] Tony Miller: We’ll probably lose people with this. I really liked Coach K the programs. It was something that my, my, my grandfather and then also my uncle were really instrumental in kind of pushing me towards basketball and kind of encouraging me with things. And you know, I remember back in the early nineties, he was telling me about, I was a small point guard.

My grandfather was a small point guard and in the early nineties, college basketball, the main small point guard was Bobby Hurley. And so I remember my dad, my grandfather telling me about Bobby Hurley, and then years later we moved to North Carolina. And so I think it was just kind of fate or whatever that I would become a fan of Coach K.

And so just watching him and we went to a lot of clinics. They used to have the old coaching clinics that you could go and observe practices and that kind of thing. And so had the opportunity to do that. And then years later it was kind of cool. I ended up going and working his camps and worked his camps for somewhere between six and eight years.

I can’t with Covid, I lost a couple years in there. But so it was kind of cool to go back there and, and, and be a part of those and learn from those. And so it was, like I said at the beginning, it was, it was a lot of like observing coaches from the outside. I wasn’t in, in a part of those, I didn’t go to, I wasn’t a manager for any school or ops guy or anything like that.

But. Coach K and then really, I mean, my uncle got me started on John Wooden, and so I am a I’m a lifelong John Wooden fan. I’ve got probably every book that he wrote or that he was a part of. And so those two I know a lot of coaches, they talk about like their mentors that they had and they had the opportunity to be around guys and they worked for, or they were from the same town or whatever.

And I didn’t get that opportunity, but like I said, it was still something that I was able to do with those coaches. You know, and then when clinics online or videos, I remember ordering on eBay DVDs CDs of like ripped copies of probably some of the listeners don’t even know what that means, like ripped copies of old UCLA games.

And so I would watch old UCLA games from the 1970s and the 1960s and that kind of thing. So I’ve always been, I’m a teacher now, college professor and learning is something that I love. Teaching is something that I love and so I, that kind of thing was just kind of natural to me, just kind of learning, even though I wasn’t necessarily a part of those things.

[00:08:04] Mike Klinzing: It sounds like you knew pretty early on that you wanted to coach. Was there a moment that you remember where you’re like, oh yeah, I want to be a coach? Was it something that was just maybe floating around you that maybe people around you knew that, Hey, someday Tony’s going to be a coach, or just how did you get to the idea that coaching was where you wanted to end up for your profess.

[00:08:28] Tony Miller: I think it was more so of like wanting to be a teacher. Both my parents were in education and teachers for years. And you know, it was something that I feel like God has gifted me with as far as being able to teach. And I wanted to be actually be, I wanted to be a high school athletic director and a high school like PE teacher and also a high school history teacher,

I had a lot of things that I was interested in. So I went to college for our school didn’t have a PE major, but it was very similar to that. And then I minored in history so that I could teach as well. But things kind of changed a little bit. Plans kind of changed.

I didn’t have any aspirations really to even think about being a college coach. I, I really just wanted to be a teacher and my love for sports you know, again, going back to John Wooden and his emphasis on the coach as a teacher, a teacher, as a coach, I just kind of always assumed that those were the same things.

And my classroom was the gym and my subject would be basketball. So I’m probably at the point in my career where I am self-aware of strengths and weaknesses and that kind of thing, and one of my strengths is the teaching component of it. I’ve always wanted to be and viewed myself and believe that I’m gifted to be a teacher.

I don’t know that I was necessarily ever thinking about I want to be a coach. But I did love basketball and, and I think that’s what really kind of drove what ended up becoming a career in coaching.

[00:09:57] Mike Klinzing: So how does that happen? How do you go from the idea that I’m going to be in teaching and maybe at some point I’m going to coach high school basketball to getting an opportunity to coach at the college level, and as you said, use the gymnasium and use the game of basketball as your venue for teaching.

[00:10:18] Tony Miller: Yeah, so it’s kind of a longer story. I’ll try to keep it short. I graduated with my undergraduate degree and was asked to stay around to be a graduate assistant. Again, no sports team at the university. But to work on a degree to get my master’s in education so that I could teach, the undergraduate degree, just, I didn’t feel like really prepared me to be in the classroom.

And so my parents, again, with their experience were like why don’t you stay around, get a master’s degree in secondary education, and that would kind of prepare you for what’s coming next. And what ended up happening was the school asked me to stay, the university asked me to stay.

There were some older faculty members. And it was kind of cool to see those older faculty members, a couple of them, one in particular, I remember after a class one day was like, have you ever thought about staying around here and, and teaching here at the university? No, I’m planning to go out and teach high school PE somewhere.

So I ended up staying getting my master’s degree. And then as I was finishing my master’s degree, they asked me to stay and to teach at the university. And part of the agreeing to stay at the university was, they said you have to go on and work on a terminal degree. So at the time I was young, didn’t have a wife or family.

And so I agreed to that. So fast forward, I’m working through my Doctorate degree, and it gets to the end and there’s an internship that I have to do, and that is the right, at the time when the university was starting a intercollegiate athletic program. And so brand new head coach, new athletic director, he was the athletic director and then was going to be the head coach.

And he always reminds me of the conversation, he and I met in the lobby of the field house there that we have at the university. And I knew how college athletics worked and I said to him, I said I’m not asking to be on your staff. I know college coaches bring who they want with them, and that’s something that’s usually a big deal.

And so I’m not asking to be an assistant coach or anything like that. Well, he had kind of gone through the process with coach Thompson over at North Carolina, Wesleyan, probably some of your viewers know him, but he was like I was a director of ops over there and why don’t you do kind of a director of ops role for us?

And so I did that. And that only lasted about half the semester as far as like me getting in the hours that I needed for the internship. And then it just kind of, kind of just molded, kind of just phased into a volunteer assistant position. So I was a volunteer assistant for I believe it was five years for him.

And then he is the, the department grew. He became the full-time athletic director and they hired a new head coach and you bring in a new head coach and he usually brings in and hires his own staff doesn’t keep old guys a lot of times from older staffs, but. The guy who they hired was actually a friend of mine who had known me for years, who had gone to the Duke clinics with me, who had, he had actually for a time, been a member of the church that my dad was a pastor at.

And so he knew my family. And so that’s kind of how he knew me coming into the situation and he was comfortable with me. And so he ended up keeping me on and so I became his assistant and that’s where I’ve been for the last six years. So, kind of a crazy story, kind of like next step, next step, next step.

Not really like planning out a five year plan or anything, but it’s been kind of cool to see how one thing has led to the next.

[00:13:56] Mike Klinzing: Was there a moment where in that experience getting to be able to coach college basketball? Your mindset shifted or was it more just, Hey, here’s where I’m at and I’m just going to continue down this path and see where things take me.

Just what was your thought process of, of staying for the length of time that you did? Obviously it’s a good experience, but just talk about maybe how your career plans sort of shifted over the course of that time.

[00:14:27] Tony Miller: Yeah, I mean, I love the classroom. I love teaching at the university. And I get people asking me when you going to get your own program, when you go about being head coach.

I really do love the teaching side of it and the way that it’s set up allows me to do the assistant coach position and our head coach, some I know of if they’ve followed along. He’s been on a guest on my show a couple times, but coach Burton Uwarow is the head coach and there are not a lot of coaches that do things the way he does, and I’m very grateful for it.

He’s not one of these coaches where he basically does everything and you’re the assistant, you show up and he’ll throw stuff that he doesn’t want onto you. He, empowers you. He you know, he, like I said, we knew each other beforehand. So he allows me to do a lot of things because he trusts me and we work very well together.

We think very similarly about things. We spend a lot of time together. You know, him and his wife have gone on vacation with my family. And so from like, from that perspective, the situation that I’m a part of is very unique and I don’t necessarily know that I could get that somewhere else.

And as it transitioned from me being a volunteer assistant to a paid assistant for him. You know, the opportunities that I had, I knew were unique and something that allowed me to do the teaching side of it that I loved. And then also the coaching side of it that I loved. And the two things really complimented each other very well.

I think that like the teaching made me better coach and then the coaching gave me the experience that of things that I could take into the classroom and give to my students and make things very practical. So I think it was more so like the situation reaffirmed or encouraged me to stay where I was and kind of, this is what you need to be doing rather than like a moment in time.

[00:16:29] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that makes sense. What’s something that. When you think back to just getting started, what’s something that you were pretty good at as a coach right out of the gate? And then we can follow that up with what’s something that was maybe a struggle or something that you’ve had to grow in your profession at when it comes to coaching.

So something that you were pretty good at, something that you took too naturally, and then maybe something that you had to really work at to get to the point where you felt comfortable.

[00:17:00] Tony Miller: Yeah, I think just as a teacher making the great teachers know how to take something that’s complex and make it simple.

And so I knew from being in the classroom and being able to communicate ideas and concepts and theories and making those things simple. Why couldn’t you just do the same thing with the basketball side of it as well? And so making those things simple. And then I’ve always been very, very big on making things practical so that the students can then go out and actually use those in real life.

And you know, coaches now are understanding and thinking more about, okay, how can we make this more game applicable or how can we add game context to the practices that we’re doing? And so that’s kind of evolved into how I even teach now with probably people following me, like the small sided games and that kind of thing.

That serves a very, very important role in how we teach the game. And that stems from me understanding how learning happens in the classroom and things that I learned from my educational back.

[00:18:13] Mike Klinzing: What’s the hard part of, of coaching? What’s something that didn’t come quite as naturally to you?

[00:18:19] Tony Miller: Yeah. There’s one thing that I’m still working on, and it’s not necessarily like the motivational side of things, but just the psychology behind it.

Being able to correctly motivate your players, knowing what they understand actually implementing the culture with a group. Even I didn’t talk about this actually before we got on here,  I’ve actually been since December the interim head coach at the school because Burton has been out with some physical problems.

And so it’s one thing to be an assistant coach and to know X’s and O’s and you have a solution for every situation because it’s very, really simple for you. Like there’s a 1, 2, 3 checklist. If we do this, then we’ll be fine coach. But when you are the head coach, you kind of have a, you have a 30,000 foot view on things and you understand that it’s not just the X’s and there’s that one kid who’s a freshman who’s not getting much playing time that will be something someday, but you have to keep them motivated and focused.

And then you have the group dynamic as well. And then you have you played three games in a week and now they’re physically tired and they’ve got a lot of stress with school as well. And so how are you going to plan practice for this day? Like, you get a, a much. There’s a, just a different perspective, and I think that nothing can really prepare you for that until you actually have to go through that.

And so I think in the last 12 weeks or however long I’ve been the acting head coach, like that’s something you don’t know what you don’t know. And so I think like now that I know and I’m aware of it,  just trying to improve upon those things, that’s something that I’ve been aware of and I’m not perfect at it.

I do think I’ve gotten better at it in the last 12 months, but I also am aware of the fact that there’s still a lot of room for growth in that area.

[00:20:22] Mike Klinzing: So as you’re trying to grow in that area, obviously there’s different ways that you can learn and try to figure stuff out. Part of it is just being immersed in it where, okay, here you go Tony.

You have to start to figure this stuff out so that you can do what you have to do. But then, What are some other resources or ideas or things, places, people that you go to try to learn those things? Obviously, just like we’re sitting here on the podcast, the things that I’ve learned from talking to guests is obviously invaluable, and I’m sure that’s the same case for you.

But when you think about trying to internalize or bring into your own mind the things that are required of a head coach that weren’t required of you as an assistant coach, what have you done to try to accelerate that learning curve?

[00:21:13] Tony Miller: I ask him a lot of questions. Even though Burton hasn’t been there for the last two months very much you know, when he does come in, we communicate while he’s not there, we text message.  I call him and we talk on the phone. I’m very fortunate to have, there’s an older gentleman who’s, who’s actually at our level. He’s a hall of Famer and he moved here about three years ago and another guy who goes to our church and has kind of like him and his wife have taken our family under, under their wings.

And so he’s actually, he came back, he retired this last year, but when Burton went out, he came out of retirement and has been on my staff. So he’s been somebody who’s been great, has been a great encourager. If I have questions about things he, he’s more than happy to answer it. He’s got a story for everything because he has been around.

So there’s practical things that he gives. But I think just like really listening to people and, and asking questions. And like you said, even with the podcast I’m sure we’ll talk more about that a little bit later. But a, a large part of that is I do that selfishly so that I can, I can ask questions to other people.

It’s a free 30 to 45 minute sit down conversation that I can have with D one coaches or assistant coaches and that kind of thing, and can ask them questions that I hope benefits my listeners. But really, it, it, those are things that I want to, I want to hear about and I want to learn about. So I think just asking questions that, that’s one thing that I love so much about this profession is that there are so many people that are willing to.

You just have to ask. And especially if you’re a younger coach and they find out that you’re a younger coach, like they want to help, but you have to be willing to kind of to at least ask them. I learned a long, long time ago from one of the guys that I was assistant with early on, like, the worst thing that somebody can say is no, and that doesn’t hurt really bad , so why not just ask anyways?

And so I’ve kind of tried to live that out and it’s been beneficial because a lot of people say yes and then they’re a wealth of information that, that have has been a help to me in these, even these last two months.

[00:23:26] Mike Klinzing: It is something that, I don’t know if it was completely surprising to me, but it’s definitely something that I’ve found to be just so gratifying in terms of doing the podcast.

And it just goes back to what you just described, which is there are so many people out there. That are willing to share what they’ve done to achieve the success that they have. And I think that’s one of the, I don’t know if it’s completely unique to basketball, but it’s certainly something that you can feel, because the number of people that we’ve been able to talk to that just open up and share, and not only share on the podcast, but then are like, Hey, here’s my email, here’s my cell phone number.

Just call me up, hit me up anytime. And I’m more than willing to give back to a young coach or another coach, or just the number of people that cite how much they love the game of basketball and how much it’s done for them and that they want to give back to the game, whether that be through another coach or their own experiences with their players, whatever.

I mean, to me, it’s just such a hugely powerful thing. As you said, to be able to have that, to be able to ask those questions and Sure. Are there occasionally people that say no? Yeah, absolutely. But the number of people that say yes, far out numbers, the number of people that say no, and I think that’s really what the game of basketball and the coaching profession is all about, is trying to make it better for everybody.

Let me ask you about your experience going from the assistant coach to the head coach. Is there one thing, if you could think of, Something that was the most surprising to you about the transition from being an assistant coach to a head coach? Maybe it’s just the way it felt. Maybe it was a task that you didn’t realize you were going to have to spend so much time on as a head coach that you never really thought about as an assistant.

What was the most surprising thing in the transition?

[00:25:24] Tony Miller: I was mildly aware of this, and I kind of alluded to it, but you’re responsible for everything. And I think it’s exemplified in this, but it’s not just this, but during the game you as an assistant probably are thinking about these five things and those five things, you really feel like if we do those, we win or these are the things that really matter.

Or if you’re on a bigger staff and you’re assigned one of these assigned offense, the other one’s assigned defense, then maybe you are just thinking about offense. But when you’re the head coach, like you have to think about everything and. That’s tiring, when the game is over, there’s a, last week we were driving to an away game.

It was only about an hour and a half away. And you know, the game’s at seven and so it’s over by nine and then you’re driving an hour and a half back and man on that, on that hour and a half drive back. We were driving vans that night, so I was driving van. I wasn’t close to falling asleep at the wheel, but I was sitting there looking out the front window, just kind of eyes glazed over.

My brain was tired and it was just having to think and consider everything. And, I feel like I spend as much time being a psychologist and a psychiatrist and a mental health coach and about four other things as much as I’m thinking about X’s and O’s and strategy and like the actual basketball side of it. And that’s the thing that I was aware of and I hear coaches say, but until you actually have to go into that, that you don’t really understand where you’re spending your time and what needs your attention in order for your program to be successful,

[00:27:08] Mike Klinzing: What does that look like on the ground when you start thinking about, cause clearly if you’re talking about Xs and Os, right?

You’re going and you’re watching film or you’re taking something from somebody else and then you’re putting it in on the plaque practice floor. And I like, I think coaches have a pretty good understanding of what that process looks like versus I think trying to institute something from a culture standpoint or trying to impact your team psychologically.

A lot different. I think there’s a lot of different ways that you can go about that. So when you think about what it looks like or what it’s looked like for you on the ground where now, okay, I’ve got to, as you said, I’ve have to spend some time as the team psychologist. What does that look like? Like when are you doing that?

When are you doing the thinking about it? And then how are you talking to your team or trying to get the things that you’ve thought about down to the ground level where it’s actually impacting the athletes that are on your team?

[00:28:08] Tony Miller: Yeah. Again, I’ve only done this for two months, so I do not consider myself a veteran

I think as I look over the last two months though, I would encourage coaches, To make some room for themselves or be a little bit easier on themselves from this standpoint.  I’ve heard coaches, they schedule weekly meetings with their guys or they’re meeting in groups or they’re going through this leadership program or, and all of those things are great, but I would encourage a coach out there that’s listening to do things, what is maybe comfortable for you or unique for you, or that fits within who you are or your schedule.

Those things need to be done, but, I’m a father of three young children. I’ve got a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old. I’ve got responsibilities at school as a teacher. I’ve got the coaching now, and the podcast.

I’ve got like five or six things that I’m doing and I don’t have time to meet with, with players for an hour. I’ve got 16 players right now. I don’t have time for 16 hours worth of meetings every week. And some coaches maybe listen to that and being like, well, you need to have that much time.

And maybe for some that, that’s the thing for them. But I just can’t do that. But I can find time to do those things still. And so those bus trips or the van trips or eating in a. McDonald’s, or we don’t really, well, I guess we did this last week eating a McDonald’s or a Zaxby’s or, you know before in our team room before practice, if one of the guys is in there just hanging out, this morning I had a 15 minute conversation with one of our seniors.

Like, I think it’s just finding opportunities to talk and to connect with your guys. I think the informal sometimes are maybe more valuable than the formal times that you have with them. The informal times, they’re maybe less guarded and you can just talk to them. Speak to them. We talk, I know everybody talks about their program being a family.

We have really attempted to make that a part of our program is having the family atmosphere. And one of the things that I do, I just did it today, like my son got done with school at 2 45, our practices. At three o’clock, I went over to the elementary school that’s there on campus, picked up my son, came back and he was at practice with us.

And he comes into the locker room and hey, they’re hanging out with him. And during practice he’s out on the court and he’s, we scrimmage for a little bit and he’s over on the sidelines three goggles and everything else. When a guy hits a three and kind of in the middle of the huddles and there’s pictures online of him being in the huddles, he actually sits on the bench with us.

Nice. And the guys come over to our house for team meals and I think it’s just like, Maximizing your time or just being smart about your time rather than feeling like you have to schedule everything out. And by doing that, that allows me to do those other things that I just talked about because I’m in tune with what they need because we’re just a part of each other’s life.

It’s not something that’s only dedicated to the basketball practice time or the game times or whatever. They really are just a part of my life from August to, or October, excuse me, until till March. And that that fits who I am and that fits the schedule that I have. And I think that’s one of the things that’s valuable about being a teacher.

I have several of them in my classes, so I see them in class and I don’t have to ask for a grade report. I know what their grades are. So again, I’m just very blessed with the situation that I have. And I know not everybody has that kind of situation, but. For your situation, whatever your situation is, if you’re a listener, maximize those times that you have and really make that program and those players a part of your life because that will then allow you to do those things that I just talked about that are needed to be done in order for your program to be successful because it, it is more than just the Xs and Os.

[00:32:35] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. There’s two things that stand out to me there. One is just the balance of keeping your family and making them a part of the program where it’s sort of this just seamless introduction, right? Where you’re, it’s not Okay. Now’s family time and, okay, now’s basketball time. The family time is bleeds right into the basketball time.

And, and that, that allows you, I think, to, to maximize both and get the most out of both. And man, the memories that you’re going to have and that your son’s going to have of being around the gym and around the team and talked to so many guys that have coached that talk about, Hey, my dad was a college coach, my dad was a high school coach.

And all the memories that they have of looking up to, again, no matter what the level is, guys saying, well, I remember this high school kid was like a god to me. You know what I mean? Like, that guy was just such a, an important part of my life when I was younger. And here he was just a high school player or you’re talking about a college player, whatever, that nobody’s ever heard of.

And, and they become some of the most important people in your family’s life. And I think that’s really cool. And then the other thing that struck me about what you said was talking about having your players in class and I think back to. You wanting to be a high school teacher. And obviously there’s a lot of high school coaches and teachers out there who have that experience, right?

They have a kid in class during the day or they’re seeing them walking around, and then you get to see them at practice. And I think that’s one of the things that it’s maybe not as prevalent as it used to be. Cause there’s a lot more coaches now at the high school level that aren’t in the, in the building.

But you talk to so many coaches who actually are teachers and are in the building, and they all cite what an advantage that is to be able to have those touchpoints with their kids all throughout the day. And obviously that’s the same case for you to be able to have those touchpoints. And just, again, it’s another way to integrate your team into your daily life.

And I think when you do that, that’s when you really know that you’ve got something to put something together. Mm-hmm. . Yep. Yeah. For sure. For sure. All right. So when you think about that, Transition from being an assistant coach to a head coach. I think one of the things that’s always a challenge, and you obviously had to do it on the fly, but going from sort of the trusted assistant that the players come to maybe for conversations as opposed to, there’s maybe a little bit more distance between the players and the head coach, because the head coach is controlling the playing time and players I think have a tendency to look.

They’re coaching staff in one particular way. And so then when you’re changing roles, obviously the way the players look at you is a little bit differently. So how do you, how have you bridged that gap and tried to maintain the relationship they have with them and as an assistant yet also sort of take that role on as the head coach?

What was that transition like, just in terms of your relationship with the players?

[00:35:46] Tony Miller: Yeah. Again, everybody doesn’t have this situation. I really do credit Burton with setting this up and, and there were some things that had happened in his life previously coaching and health related that had kind of.

He wanted to make sure if something like this happened again, that his assistant, and in this case me, was prepared to be able to take over and it wasn’t as big of a deal as it was the last time. And so he has all along the way really empowered me. He gives me large segments of time.

He’ll give me part of the offense defense coordinator type thing. He’s in charge of the defense. I’m in charge of the offense. So there was already going into this, the guys were comfortable with me being the person that was out there leading segments of practice. And so I think that really helped things because they.

They already knew that I was capable of it, of this because I was already doing that. And again, that that just goes back to credit Coach with him kind of foreseeing that if this happens again, they need to be prepared for this, he needs to be prepared for this. And I mentioned that because I know not everybody can do this.

Not everybody even has assistants that are able to do this or they get a guy that shows up after work and that’s the only time they ever see him. And so their coaches meetings last five minutes before practice and then that guy kind of knows what he’s doing or he is just a parent that’s volunteer.

I get all of that, but I will say, if it is in your power to do so, Delegate things to your assistants, prepare them. I know a lot of coaches that are out there that, especially older coaches, I think as we get older we kind of are more alert to this, but like prepare them to be a head coach someday, even if it’s not you know, taking over for you.

Because you’re out for health reasons. Like a lot of those younger coaches, they want to, they want to take over. So can I give them a little part, like even if it’s like give them the out bounds plays, like let them let them be in charge of that. You know, that kind of experience was invaluable for me because then I was able to just slide over into that position and yeah, I had more of a role, but it wasn’t dramatically different than before.

And so that I, I don’t know that the players really thought a whole, I will say this, a few years ago it was, we do get this even from time to time. You know, freshman when they come in, but they’re so used to the head coach being the only person that speaks. I’ve had times where the first week of practice he hands stuff, it’s my time to talk or my, my segment of practice.

And so I step up and they’re almost like looking at him and then looking at me and then looking back to him. And they’re not saying it out loud, but they’re like, do you know that he’s doing this or is he supposed to be doing this? And, and he’s had to have, we’ve literally had to have the conversations on several occasions, a couple years.

Like, that’s not how this works at the college level. Like this, this is his time to talk. Like he knows what he is doing. He’s supposed to be doing this, you need to listen to him. So I think if you prepare your players for that, But yeah, if it’s like brand new and they’ve been over at the side, just kind of like standing over there saying good job and being kind of the team friend the entire time and then they’re thrown into that head coach, like that’s probably not going to work out very well.

For you. For you or for the kids.

[00:39:20] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. It’s a good point. It’s funny because I think back to my time as an assistant coach at the high school level, and I know there were times over the course of my career and I worked with the same, we had basically the same coaching staff for the first 12 years of my teaching slash coaching career.

So we got to know each other. Pretty well, and, but there were times where our head coach would, it would be my turn to take over a drill or whatever, a certain segment. And not only would he be quiet, but he’d pretend like he’d have a phone call and he’d go and walk off the floor and go into the coach’s office and just kind of let me sort of do my thing.

And I think he did that. You know, again, I’m not sure that we ever really necessarily even talked about it. Mm-hmm. in the moment. But looking back at it, I could see exactly what he was trying to do was to get me to be able to establish some authority and be able to sort of take. Things on my own and to try to prepare me for whatever opportunity I might have.

Either to, again, maybe just, it was as simple as maybe there was going to be a day that he wasn’t there, maybe he was sick for a game. Just to have me be prepared for that opportunity. And then for also, again, as you said, to have the players look at you as more the than just a guy who’s standing over on the side saying, Hey, good job, good job, good job.

But actually somebody who’s bringing some knowledge and and value to what is is happening. And I think the delegation piece, and I’m sure you’ve talked about it with lots of coaches, the number of guys that I’ve talked to that have said to me that early on in their career when they were young, they wanted to do everything themselves, and they only really started to have success when they understood.

They had to hire good people and then empower those people to do the things that they were good at, and that’s when they really felt like their program took off. It’s almost like that statement, right of the business kind of runs itself. It’s almost like the coaching staff runs itself once you kind of allow it to and get out of the way, but I think that’s something that’s hard for.

A lot of people to do and it’s especially hard for young coaches.

[00:41:37] Tony Miller: Yeah, I will say this from the assistant perspective, like if you’re going to be somebody who is trusted, then you’re going to have to listen a lot and make sure that what you are doing and what you’re saying is what the head coach is saying.

And, and that’s where it’s been really big for Coach and I, is that we go to clinics together, we talk a lot about things, how we want to do things like we. We don’t think similar just because we happen to think similar like we have grown together and the things that we value and the things that we’ve learned about, we’ve learned about together.

And that’s different from just having a guy that randomly shows up and you hear me say like, you need to delegate to him. Like he may not be, he may not be worthy to delegate too, and that’s on the assistant coach to make sure that you know what the head coach wants, that you’re communicating. Like, you can’t say like, we’re three quarters fronting the post.

And he just got done saying like,  we’re full fronting. Like, you can’t go down on the other end and run a drill. Do it your way because it was your time to shine in that drill like that. That’s not what we’re saying. And from what you just said, as far as the delegation piece for younger coaches, I have in just two months, like I can see very easily how coaches get burnt out or the fact that maybe they just don’t do it very well because there are times segments in practice where I’m thinking and where I schedule a time where the assistants are splitting up on both ends and taking the guys just to give me a break, right? Yeah. Like, just to, like, I, energy wise, I can’t do it all. And I think, so it serves like multiple purposes.

I think it’s good for your players to hear another voice. I think that they can provide perspective. Like one of the guys that I have, I just told you about was the, the guy who’s in the hall of fame. He’s an older guy, but he’s he knows what he is doing. And then I’ve got a, a younger guy who’s only been out, this is only his second year out, but he played college ball and so, and he was a good player and so he, he knows our offense now and I can just say to him, Hey John, you, you take this and you know, here are your choices of seven things that you can do in this shooting.

Just make sure that you, you have the seven minutes that we’re getting a lot of reps and they’re, they’re running part of our offense and so it is on you to delegate, but it’s also on them to make sure that they know what you want as well. But I think when you do, like you said, when you have the two groups that are working together well, it’s going to only improve your practices and probably improve your team’s performance.

[00:44:18] Mike Klinzing: I agree. I think that it’s not easy to do. It’s something that, as you said, I like the point you made about making sure that as an assistant, that you are prepared and having that consistent message. I think that’s something that is really hard for players and I’ve seen it where I’ve been at a practice or a lot of times what I’ll see.

At a youth practice where you might have two coaches there and one coach kind of knows something, and then the other coach goes out there and tries to teach it and doesn’t necessarily know what it is that the head coach wanted the offense to be, or this particular out of bounds play. And then everybody’s confused and then the kids are looking in.

So you’ve kind of lost your team. Now obviously that doesn’t happen at the same regularity at the high school or college level. Let’s hope. But nonetheless, I think the point here is is that you have to be prepared as the assistant to be able to accept that responsibility that the head coach is going to give you.

And when you have both sides working on the same page, that’s when you really start to have that success that we just talked about, where your program starts to take off because everybody’s on the same page and every. Is respected and everybody can teach this or teach that, or run this particular aspect of it.

And now you’ve got a well-oiled machine of a bunch of people and a lot of good minds working out. As opposed to if the head coach keeps everything for themself, yeah, maybe they can do that, but to your point, you’re going to get tired, you’re going to get exhausted. And that doesn’t even include all the stuff that Yeah, you’re talking about on the floor during practice or games, but as you well know, there’s so many other things that go into it from an administrative and all these other things that you have to do that if you’re not delegating you could see how people get burned out really fast.

Obviously you’ve experienced what that’s like over the last two months. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Let me ask you a little bit about just being able to, as a new head coach, sort of figure out. What it looks like when you’re putting together a practice plan. Cause I know that’s something that you’re passionate about in terms of building the right way, the right environment for your players, your students to be able to learn.

So when you sit down and you’re writing a practice plan, what’s your process for trying to come up with the most efficient and effective practice to be able to get your players to learn the things that you hope to be able to have them learn during a particular practice session?

[00:47:01] Tony Miller: We always reverse engineer everything from the things that matter most to us.

And we are really big on the four factors. We even have a board in our room that is our four factor board. And so those are the things that we talk about on a daily basis. Those are the things that we emphasize. Andm really everything that goes into practicing is based off of those four things.

And so I’m a big believer in when it comes to segmenting, planning grouping things that are similar. I think, again, from the teacher learner perspective once I get the kids’ mind on one thing, if I can build on that thing or teach it in a couple different ways that just kind of re emphasizes things and helps with the overall learning.

So for instance I’m working on, typically we will kind of segment things more offense or defense focus. But because of the, typically the small side games that we’re playing, a lot of times there’s the opportunity for us to focus on both sides of the ball, but there’s always something clear that we’re trying to do or trying to emphasize.

So you know, based off of what we’re providing as an incentive or consequence it’s very clear that we’re working on rebounding and not turning the ball over, or it’s very clear that we’re working on. You know, touching three sides of the floor and offensive rebounding or whatever. But really trying to make sure that, that the players know what’s important.

I always break things up with a free throw water break type session, and that kind of just allows things to kind of reset. You know, there’s studies that are done as far as with focus. You interrupt kids focus and typically you’ve lost them for a minimum of about 30 seconds. So one of the, the biggest comments that observers of our practices get when they come is, man, you guys, you move from one thing to the next and get a whole lot done.

I’m not a big talker. Which some might not believe after this interview, but like, I’m not a big talker during practice. It actually starts to annoy me when people start talking for longer periods of time. The only way you’re going to get better is actually getting reps in.

So we move very quickly. Segments are usually only about five to eight, eight minutes long. And then we’re onto the next thing and then the next thing. And so we group usually about four things together. And then there’s one of those breaks that I just said like, we do 30 second free throws and water. So that’s about three minutes of a little bit resting time, and then it’s right back to it.

And then we’ll do three, five segments of four to eight minutes, and then it’s time for another water break and free throw time. And then we finish. You know, it could be a shooting drill or it could be you know, a, a late game situation or something like that. So there, there’s never necessarily a, oh, you guys were working on offense or you guys were working on rebounding today, or you guys were working on your zone defense today, like, we are always working on basketball and the basketball that we’re focusing on is those four factors.

And you know, some days will be more specific than others as far as like what we’re trying to accomplish. But yeah, it’s probably not anything too special. When you come, most people will probably be like, well, you guys are just practicing basketball today. And I think that’s the point. So again, this goes back to like my teaching roots.

I’m really big on more of random practice than I am more of block stuff. So you very rarely see any block outside of just shooting. A lot of things are I don’t think. They’re going to get any better at five on five unless you play a lot of five on five. So we play a lot Five five. If that’s too intense as far as stimuli goes for younger guys, then we break it down and play a little bit three on three and build up to four on four and then play five on five.

So yeah, probably not super impressive if you were to look at one of my practice plans, but I think basketball is a simple game and we make it more complex because it’s more fun to draw plays and come up with cool drills and that kind of thing. But the fact of the matter is your kids probably aren’t going to get better at basketball unless you practice basketball.

[00:51:28] Mike Klinzing: I remember, I can’t recall exactly where I read this, but it was a couple years ago and it was something that really stuck with me. And basically it was the author of this article that I read was describing that you can either have a practice that looks really pretty. where you’re running block practice drills where they’re doing the same thing over and over again, or you’re showing them and presenting them with the same situation over and over again.

And eventually they learn that situation or they learn to execute that particular skill. And if somebody comes in and watch your watches, your practice, so like, oh yeah, look, boy, those, that team has really got it together. Versus the learning theory of you’ve have to make the game and make practice look like the game.

And the game is chaotic and it’s dynamic. And so if you come in and you watch a practice that’s more random as you described, it’s not going to look as beautiful. You may have a harder time articulating exactly what it is that somebody is seeing, but ultimately what we’re looking for is transfer of the skills that we’re working on into actual game conditions.

And that’s what you’re talking about, where you better. Play some five on five and practice if you want that to translate into a actual five on five basketball game. And I think that’s something that I think we’re better at it, Tony, today than we’ve ever been in the past. I mean, I think that there’s, there’s so many more coaches out there now that have subscribed to, to the, again, the theory of, hey, we’ve have to make our practices more game-Like we can’t be just doing these block practice drills.

So I think we’re, we’re definitely headed in the same, in that direction. I’m sure you’ve seen that in, in your conversations with coaches through, through your pod as well.

[00:53:24] Tony Miller: Yeah, I think the word balance is what I would encourage coaches to be. You know, there’s not a lot of nice straight lines of people or there’s not a lot of you know, large streaks of made baskets because we’re all in our neat layup lines or whatever.

Like, but on the reverse side of that, it’s also not chaotic all the time. You know, it’s different even at college level than it is. I would not be doing necessarily this exact same kind of thing at the junior high level. There would probably be tweaks to it, but there would be a balance of block versus random, there would be balance. Does that mean it would be equal balance? No, probably not. But you know, I do think there’s a time and a place for all of those different types of practices. And that’s where you as a head coach need to know and to be observant of, okay, what does my team need right now?

I think if we acted more  in balance you know, there’s always the, I love the Twitter coaches who come on and when somebody asks about how much do you guys play? I love the one that goes do you guys run plays or do you guys run conceptual offense?

You’re like, no, we never practice any plays. We just run conceptually like a hundred percent of the time. I find that hard to believe. Yeah, like there, there’s probably a balance that needs to be ha to happen there. But in practice, do you guys do small sided games only or do you do like block. Like, oh, we only practice with small side games, we just play the entire time.

There’s no way that you just play the entire time and your team is great. It’s not possible. I think like the best teams, they’re in balance and the coaches are aware of what your team needs on any given day. I would love for as much as I talk about conceptual offense, there’s times in games where I’m just calling play after play after play because our conceptual offense ain’t doing it for us.

Like the concepts aren’t there. No, the concepts are not clicking that night. And like, I don’t want to play that way, but I have to live in balance. I think that’s the biggest thing, like going back to your question about being the head coach. Leadership is multidimensional and there are factors that, that you don’t think about until you’re in that position and then you’re like, oh shoot, that’s going to change the way that I had planned things.

And you know, when I was an assistant, I acted more like a manager. A manager is, this is the job that needs to be done and these are the 10 things that are going to help us get the job done. We need to do those 10 things and we’ll have. When you’re the leader like it’s not that easy, dude. Like there’s a lot of other factors that are going into whether or not we’re going to have success as an organization.

So I’d encourage assistant coaches to have more grace for your head coaches and head coaches. Make sure that you’re coaching in balance.

[00:56:19] Mike Klinzing: I think from an assistant coaching perspective, I think that it’s really easy to sort of only see through tunnel vision what Yeah.

You see from your perspective and not be able to see the head coach’s entire scope of vision. And just when you think about dealing with personalities and dealing with other human beings that are outside of the locker room and all these different things that we can say. Maybe we shouldn’t take that into account, or maybe that’s more important than we think it is, or whatever the case may be.

And I know that when I was sitting on the bench as an assistant coach, that it’s so much easier, as you said, cause you just focus in on one or two things and you’re like, Hey, if we just did this. Meanwhile, the head coach has 47 things going through their mind at the exact same time that you might have one or two.

And so it’s definitely a balance. I want to go back to your practice setting, and this is one of the things that I always find to be an interesting question because it’s one of the things that I always struggle with and I’m still, I would say probably not very good at it today, is how do you balance the teaching and coaching during practice versus stopping play and keeping the flow of your practice going?

So you see something that. You feel like needs corrected. How do you go about making sure that you are coaching that point and yet not, as you said, stopping it and talking every 30 seconds and just interrupting the flow of practice so that you’re cutting into your players’ reps? How do you think about that particular issue?

[00:58:04] Tony Miller:  Yeah, it goes back to what I said before. I think your players aren’t getting any better unless they’re doing, and how can I get them to the doing as quickly as possible? And that has helped me with economizing my words. Again, I think from a teacher’s perspective, if I can take the complex and make it simple, part of the simple is not just making it simple so they can understand it, but it’s also a conservation of awards.

So I’m being very concise in what I say, and then it’s onto the next thing. And if you’ve coached for any length of time, you probably know like the most effective that you can be is operating in like these bite size bits. And also timing too. There are times where if somebody was at our practice when they are at our practice, I sometimes wonder, if they think that we stink as coaches because  there’s something that goes on and it’s clearly not right, but it doesn’t matter in that moment like that’s not a good time to address it, or it doesn’t need to be addressed right now.

Or there were like 15 things that need to be addressed. But there’s not time to address 15 things or I think like we were talking about as the coach, the head coach or even assistant coach, like, I know that eventually we’re going to get to that, or that’s going to improve over time because I know that we’re going to work on this.

I don’t need to address it right now. And so there are times where again, you have to be okay with the sloppy and part of being okay with the sloppy is being. Some coaches aren’t going to like this either is being okay with it not being right. And that doesn’t mean that I’m ignoring it or that I don’t think that it’s important to be corrected, but I’ve got a week to work on this, or I got a month to work on this, or I know that it’s going to get better because this kid’s going to, to learn to make the right read, or that kid’s going to keep going behind his back and either he’s going to keep being a dufus or he’s going to be like, man, I have to quit going behind my back in a situation.

Like I don’t have to correct it. I think that’s big for, especially younger coaches, and I have to stop myself sometimes with this, but like, as a coach, we want to, we want to make sure that the bad stuff gets pointed out so it can be corrected, not just because we like to point out bad stuff, like we have a really good heart.

We want it to be right. But then if you start correcting everything or pointing out everything. Your players end up turning you off. And so I want to be able to have a voice that’s heard. And so I want to make sure that when I speak, it’s something that’s important, that it’s something that’s timed right, that my players are ready to hear it again.

There’s just a, there’s multi multiple factors that go into it outside of just that what just happened isn’t right or what just happened right there needs some teaching. I need to jump in and say something about it. I think even knowing like your players, like there are times where, again, because we play small-sided games, you get a rep and then you’re off for 30, you’re off for 13 seconds and then you get to jump back in.

Well, that kid goes through that rep, Hey Sam, come. I talked to that kid while the next group is doing their rep. I talked to him in 13 seconds. Hey, next time come to a Stride Stop instead of going off your foot, because now that’s going to give you more options to make a play. Got it. Okay. Got it, coach. All right.

He goes back in, he gets another opportunity to do that exact same thing and to correct it right away. So I think it’s just like how you coach, how you organize things. You know what each kid is ready to hear, when they’re ready to hear it. Some kids I remember even hearing coach k talk about this with guys like Christian Laetnerr and that kind of stuff.

There is one kid on my team, I don’t do this on purpose and this sounds extreme, so I don’t really do it like this, but like, I think that if I got him angry on most days, like he would turn into like the incredible Hulk and just be dominant. But if I get off onto another kid the same way that I get onto that kid, I’m going to lose him for the rest of practice.

Yeah. And so like, I need to know my players so that I know when to give that feedback to know what kind of feedback they need to know that he only got three hours of sleep last night again. And the kid comes up, kid did this to me. The day came up to me coach, I’m sorry, I only got three hours of sleep last night.

I’d do laundry and I had homework and I, I just wasn’t performing very well. It’s all right, man. I, I completely understand. I didn’t know that you only got three hours of sleep, but I can see it on your face. You probably didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Don’t worry about it. You’ll make those you’ll make those bunnies tomorrow.

You ran the play the right way. That’s all I really care about right now. So, again, I think there’s just a lot of factors that go into it. You being aware of what, what your kids need to hear, when they need to hear it, and how they need to hear it.

[01:03:06] Mike Klinzing: Do you go into a drill or a practice with an idea of. The things that you’re going to focus on that you feel are more worth stopping on a particular day.

So maybe let’s say you’re coming out of a game where your team struggled to box out. So the next practice, that’s something that you’re going to put a focus on and you might be more likely to stop play as opposed to, let’s say, a poor turnover or poor health side defense or whatever it might be. Do you find yourself coming in with that focus that sort of drives when you stop it versus when you don’t?

[01:03:44] Tony Miller: Yeah. I mean, I’ve even said out loud like, I don’t even care that that happened. Don’t worry about that. What you just did right there. That’s what I was looking for. I make it very clear to them like, what matters in that moment or yeah what are you wanting to do? Like if something happened today, we were playing a late game situation.

You know, the other team grabbed the ball and the kid fell to the ground and he probably traveled, I don’t know, he probably should have been the blue team’s ball, but it was at the very end of practice. I wanted practice to get over with, but I also wanted them to execute a end of clock situation. So I cheated and gave it to the white team , like that, that wasn’t the right thing to do.

Like that wasn’t what happened. But I didn’t care at that moment. Like he probably got pushed to the ground and it could have been a foul on the white team. Well this score was tied. There was no benefit in giving it to the right team. I just wanted the white team to execute an end of play, end of clock, because we’re going to probably have some close games here in the last three final home games or final regular season games we have, and then we have the regional tournament.

So, again, I’m going into it knowing this is what I need to, that what I, what we need to get better at today. These are the kinds of things I’m going to talk about. The other kinds of things. It’s not that it’s not important, but like, A phrase that I use a whole lot if anybody’s listening to stuff that we’ve talked about and like what actually matters to winning. And if you poll most coaches, you’re going to get like 10 things. And probably five of those things will be different. Like if I ask a coach is taking charges, is that important to winning? Like a hundred people are going to say yes, but is that the most important thing? For some people, they’re going to say yes for other people.

Like they’re going to be like, no, I would rather spend more time shooting. I would rather spend more time doing whatever. And I think that just goes to our point, like what? What matters to you winning that day? What matters to you winning the next game. Because the old adage like what your players think is important is what you emphasize.

I’m not emphasizing everything because then I’ve got an average team that just thinks that everything matters and everything doesn’t matter equally. And I think that idea should be reflected in how you coach, even in a single practice.

[01:06:03] Mike Klinzing: Where you put your focus is where your players are going to put their focus.

Exactly. I mean, let’s face it, right? I mean, that’s exactly right. Yeah. That’s the bottom line is if you’re all over the place, your players are going to be all over the place. And that’s something that, like I said, I know early on in my career that I was not very good at that because I would look at a practice setting and I’d be like, There was just on that one possession, there was like 17 things that I want to fix, right?

I learned pretty quickly that if you try to fix all 17 of those things that you just end up standing around. And to your point about attention spans, nobody’s listening after the first one, and you’re just talking to thin air. So you have to learn how to be judicious with your time and be concise and all those kinds of things that you talked about.

I think that’s all really, really important. Let’s talk some podcasting. Tony, tell me about the origination of a quick timeout. Where’d the idea come from? And then just what do you remember about trying to get that thing started?

[01:07:01] Tony Miller: It started with me. It was even quicker than it is now. I mean, it was only like five minutes and it was just me by myself, and after about two episodes I thought, man, I don’t know enough about anything to be worthwhile for anybody, and there’s no way that I could, I think that anybody that started a podcast.

I teach a class now that that has to do with, there’s elements of podcasting in it and social media and that kind of thing. And one of the guest speakers comes in and says basically like, if you, if you can’t put together like 10 episodes, you don’t have a podcast. Like, you are not going to be able to continue talking about things if you can’t even put together like 10 episodes.

And I didn’t think about it from that perspective, but I did think very early, like, man, I don’t have enough. And like, who am I, I’m just like assistant coach at a small college. And so that’s when it kind of pivoted to talking to guests. And you know, again, I probably use it selfishly for my own benefit as I do for just giving somebody else an opportunity to hear something.

Networking is a big part of the sports industry, and especially in coaching. And networking by the way, is not just shaking somebody’s hand or asking them to even be on your podcast. And then hey, six months later, a year later, hey, can I have a job? Or can you set me up for a job?

It’s really building relationships and there are a few people that I’ve had on podcasts that have gone on and like, I’m good friends with them now and I see them at conventions or clinics or that kind of thing, but it’s just an opportunity for me to learn. And I think that’s one of the benefits of like me being a coach and being in it, is that a lot of times I can come to it asking questions that I know other coaches are thinking about and want to know about.

And so even though I do it for my own benefit, I know that probably other coaches are wondering about those things as well, and so I really try to ask the questions that others would, would think about, would care about. The name is just as a teacher and as a father and whatever, I having something that I can, I can do in 30 minutes is, it fits into my time schedule again, I know other coaches are busy and they only have a free period or a 20 minute drive to work or driving to an away game.

So trying to stay with like a shorter format, getting in, getting in, talking about one thing and then ending it. That’s kind of the idea of it. And it’s been fun. It’s been fun.

[01:09:43] Mike Klinzing: How’d you get started with guests in terms of going out and, and talking to people? Obviously, the longer you go, the easier it is because people recognize your brand and they know who you are.

But when you were initially starting, did you start with guys that you already had a personal relationship with or did you try to reach out cold calls? Just what was your process initially for getting guests?

[01:10:09] Tony Miller: Yeah, a lot of them were, were people that I knew even though we are a small college, we usually play two to, I think we played up to like four D one schools a year.

And so I’m the, I’m the guy that’s does the scheduling and so I’m the guy that’s interacting with the assistants from the other coaches, from the other teams, and So those have been relationships that I’ve been able to build. You know, and as you know it once you get somebody on, they know somebody else.

Yep. Or they know somebody else or I’m able to say, Hey, I’ve had this person on my podcast. Oh, okay. That you must be legit. So you can kind of sometimes get people to come on that way. Others just asking. It’s like we said before, the worst thing I can say is no. And a lot of people in our industry say yes.

So it’s kind of been just a little bit of everything.

[01:11:01] Mike Klinzing: what’s the feedback been like for you from coaches in your audience? What are some things that you’ve heard that people like about what you do?

[01:11:11] Tony Miller: I think the quickness of it. They can get in, get information, and then get out.

Part of the reason I do it too, the, the quick nature of it I feel like coaches sometimes they should be introduced to things and then they should go out and find out more on their own. And I think that by doing the quick part, the just shorter information that kind of sometimes forces them to like, if they want to go learn more about five out, like go do your own research.

I think that’s been something that’s been big for me personally and my own coaching is making it my own. You know, we run elements of different types of offenses, but. If you were to come and watch us play, it’s not identical to any one team. And that’s because I’ve done a lot of research and what fits me and what fits our team and our program.

And so I think that if you’re going to be the best coach that you can be, it has to be yours. It can’t be your favorite coaches or what you heard on, on one of our podcasts, or you know, somebody that you heard at a clinic here. You, you need to take what you got there at the clinic or on the podcast and like go search it more, go dig it out more.

And that’s when I think that that benefits you in the long run as far as being a teacher because now you know the material better. You’ve learned about all the, the intricacies and the details that go along with that rebounding system or that defensive system or that offensive system. And now you’re able to teach it better.

And so I probably thought more about it than. Than just it being quick. And I’m hoping that it encourages coaches, not just to get, gain more information but to learn more about the game on their own and, and then hopefully become better teachers of the game so that their players can become better, more informed, better performers on the court.

[01:13:10] Mike Klinzing: That’s a really good point, I think about getting coaches to maybe be introduced to a new idea or a new thought or something that maybe they hadn’t considered, and yet also giving them that inspiration to go out and want to do more and continue to grow. I think about, whenever I’m running a camp, I always tell kids, I have three goals for you.

One, I want you to have fun. Two, I want you to learn something. And then three, I want to inspire you to go play more basketball. And in a lot of ways, the podcast is a similar thing, right? That you want. The coaches that are listening, you want them to be able to learn something, but then hopefully you’re also inspiring them to go out and learn more about whatever it was that your guest is talking about.

I think that’s a really good way of kind of looking at it and thinking about it. And obviously you know better than anybody that you’ve got guests and you’ve got content, you’ve got all these things. But I think the thing that people don’t always understand about doing a podcast is just the work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that it sounds good and that it gets where it’s supposed to go and all those kinds of things.

So when you think about your journey as a podcaster, what about the backend of it has been the most challenging for you? Or maybe there’s things that obviously we’re way better at it, 700 and whatever episodes into it. It’s way easier than it was back when we started, but just what’s been the most challenging piece of, not the front end of the interviews and the content and all that, but what maybe on the back end, what’s been the most challenging part?

[01:14:41] Tony Miller: Yeah, I’ve just been a one man crew. I mean, I do all the recording, I do all the editing, I do all the uploading, I do all of that, and it’s just the time that goes into it. Yep. But the thing that has been, has been good is that I mentioned earlier that I teach in the sport management department, and one of my classes is a social media and sports class.

And so I have, every year that I’ve taught that class, there’s been times where I stand up in front of the class and I’ve said I negotiated a sponsorship last night and this is how I did it. And that’s a lot more powerful than just standing up and talking about podcast that gets sponsorships.

I make them record a podcast. I make them edit a podcast. I tell them here’s the, you can use Adobe Edition if you want, but this is how you use it. And these are some of the things and features. And so I’m able to stand up there and I’ve been through the process and a lot of that I learned on my own.

There were hours of YouTube video watching. So how to, I didn’t take any classes. I didn’t sign up for any courses. I literally went on and found it out on my own. And so I think just going through that process, it’s like I was telling you what the offense or the defense or whatever you want to learn about, I think going the process is as important or maybe even more important than the product you get at the end, or the thing that comes out of it.

And the hard work that goes into it. I think it’s rewarding from that standpoint. It’s something that you kind of have, you end up with like a portfolio of things that you’ve done. How you’ve gone about doing them. Sometimes you only know the, the hard work that goes into it. Right.

But it’s something that I’ve enjoyed in the process that I’ve enjoyed, and I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t mind an assistant that edited the podcast and did some of that stuff, but Yep. You know, it has that even that process has, has benefited me and I think hopefully this has benefited my students as well.

[01:16:43] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I’m sure from your standpoint there, to be able to, not only. To benefit you as a podcaster and as a coach, but then also be able to have it benefit you as a teacher is a whole nother thing. And I think being self-taught when it comes to understanding how to make a podcast episode sound good.

All you have to do, if you’re out there listening to our podcast, just go back and listen to one of our episodes from the first, first 10 or 20, and you want to hear some bad quality sound and you want to hear Mike say the word and and 400 times you can go back and listen to that and realize that there’s a lot of time that you kind of put in just trying to figure this thing out and make it so that.

Anybody who tunes in doesn’t think, God, I have to turn that thing off because the often the, the audio quality is so terrible and this host has no idea what he’s talking about. So it’s definitely a process and that, as you know, it’s one that, as you said, you end up with this portfolio of things that are pretty amazing.

And then, as you also stated, that one of the most gratifying parts of this that I had no idea was going to become of it was just the relationships that you build and the genuine friendships that you have with people. I mean, it’s amazing to me that you can have a podcast and talk to somebody for an hour and a half, and the next thing you know, you’re in their city or they’re in yours and you’re.

Having a coffee or a beer with them. And yep, that is something that is just immeasurable in terms of the value that it’s provided to our lives. And that says nothing about the value that hopefully, I think part of the reason we’re doing it is selfish, but there’s also a reason why we’re trying to give back to the game and hopefully that somewhere out there there’s people that are listening that are finding benefit to all the stuff that you’re doing clearly with a QuickTime out and what we’re trying to do here with Hoop Heads.

So kudos to you because I know it’s not easy to, to keep cranking out episodes and I know the amount of time it takes and effort, so whenever I see somebody who’s doing great things like what you’re doing and doing it on a consistent basis, I don’t take that for granted because man, I know how hard it can be.

[01:18:50] Tony Miller: Yeah. I appreciate it. The, the old the old saying, like, half of the half of the whole job is just showing up every day. All right. Yep. Sometimes, sometimes that’s difficult, especially in this industry, but like you said, it is rewarding.

[01:19:03] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. All right. Final two part question before we get out, part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge from a professional standpoint? Obviously taking over the job and seeing where that’s going to go. I’m sure it’ll factor into it, but your biggest challenge. And then the second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do every day, what brings you the most joy about what you get to do day in and day out?

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

[01:19:34] Tony Miller: I think just biggest challenge is balancing everything and doing it well. When you have so many responsibilities, you want to make sure that you’re not just doing all of them average and hope coach was able to, to come back full force and completely healthy.

And I told him like, this experience I think I would hope has made me, or will make me the most empathetic, if not the most empathetic assistant coach? Just because you have a different perspective now, and hopefully that can make me better at maybe foreseeing things or taking things off his plate or just helping him better in what he does or just being better for the whole program.

So I think just, again, just like living in balance, that’s the thing that you often hear with coaches. Some part of their life ends up struggling because there’s an imbalance there. But making sure that you don’t have too many irons in the fire so that you’re not doing things just average, but also making sure that you give the right attention to the things that are the most important.

For me, that’s obviously, that’s my family first and foremost. And then responsibilities that I have at school, whether that’s the teaching or the coaching. You know, there’s something that I’ve talked a lot about with my players even here recently, is the fact that a lot of the championships are cool, the wins are cool, the losses are cool, but really the things that last the forever are really the people.

And so really investing in them and making sure that the game doesn’t become more important than the people that are playing the game. But you know, just, just living that life imbalance and having the right priorities for everything, I think is really important. I’m sorry, what was the second part?

Biggest joy. Biggest joy. Yeah. I think the biggest joy is just the people and I really love what I’m doing and where I’m at and the people that we have there, and so enjoying them. And when we’re recording this, I’m not sure when you’re airing it, but when we’re recording this, we’re like, towards the end of the season.

And you think about the fact that this is the last few weeks that you’re going to have with this particular group of players just maximizing the time that you have with them. We’re going to full division three membership this next year. And if you know anything about division three, like you can’t really be with them basketball related until October 15th. And then when it’s over, when your season’s over, it’s over. And so those, those few months that you have with them are, are precious and are, are more valuable when you are limited that way. And so just maximizing your time with them and, and really enjoying the time with them.

[01:22:16] Mike Klinzing: It’s well said Tony. I think that anybody can relate to just the opportunity to. Have an impact on people and, and those relationships. Clearly the wins and losses are something that are important to us in the moment, but ultimately those relationships are what we carry with us for the rest of our life.

Before we wrap up, I want to give you a chance to share how people can get in touch with you, share emails, social media, share how people can find the podcast, and then after you do all that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:22:47] Tony Miller: I appreciate you having me on. This has been great, and like I said, I’ve enjoyed listening to you guys and just honor to be on here.

Twitter is probably the easiest way. Just go on to @TonywMiller, and you can shoot me a DM if you have any questions about anything. The podcast is A Quick Time Out. You can find that on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever podcast platform. And you can go to aQuickTimeout.com if you want to go there and listen to it as well.

So yeah, variety of, of conversations and enjoy doing those. And also do some, throw some in with my friend Randy Sherman Radius Athletics on Twitter. And have some topics specific to things that you might find enjoyable. But yeah, it’s just about sharing the game, growing the game, helping each other improve, and hopefully somebody can find some value with those.

[01:23:36] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. If you haven’t already, make sure you go out and subscribe to A Quick Timeout. Tony does a fantastic job with that. Our episodes tend to run on the long side Tony’s got the quick side of it taken care of. So together we got a good balance. Again, Tony, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule.

Wish you nothing but the best of luck for the rest of the season and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.