E25 | Tyler Friedrich: Becoming a Director in Athletic Performance

E25 | Tyler Friedrich: Becoming a Director in Athletic Performance
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Welcome to the team behind the team podcast. I’m your host Donnie Maib.. This is the monthly show focused on building conversations around the team-based model approach to ethic, performance, strength, and conditioning, sports medicine, sports science, mental health, and wellness and sports nutrition.

Hello, and welcome back to the team behind the team. I’m your host, Donnie Maib and man. Oh, man. This month, this episode is fire. I can’t wait to you guys to hear from our guests, but before we get to our guests, we actually have one of our staff in the studio coach. Anna Craig is co-hosted a not Mike Hanson.

Coach Craig say hello to. Hi everyone. So coach Craig, give us a little bio for our listeners. They’ve never heard from you. Who are you? How long have you been here? What’s your title role? Give us a little snippet of all. Yes. I’m an assistant strength coach here at the university of Texas. And I specifically work with women’s soccer, women’s tennis and men’s and women’s diving.

And I’ve had those sports for anywhere from the past five to the eight years. I’ve been with each of those sports. Before that I was in a different role. I was an assistant strength coach for the football team under the Mack brown era. And prior to that was a graduate assistant here with the men’s basketball team worked under Todd.

Right. And prior to that started out my career in string the conditioning as a humble intern at the Texas tech university football program. She’s the boss for sure. So coach Craig, thank you for filling in for coach Hanson. I know she runs our clinic as well, uh, that we host every year. So thank you for helping with the show today.

So glad to have you on board. You got it. And now to our guests drum roll. Coach Tyler Friedrich from Stanford. Say hello to everybody. Hey everybody. How’s it going, coach? How was the flight in this week? It was okay. It was lovely. Have you had any Texas barbecue yet? Not yet. I’ve been here before. I’ve had it before, but not this term, either text me.

Or the barbecue one, the, to make sure you get a good workout before you do all that super into his calories. So coach Tyler, thank you so much for being on the show. He is the director of Olympic sports and applied sports science at Stanford and oversees multiple teams, but he’s here for volleyball this weekend.

And, uh, that’s how I’ve, I’ve known Tyler. He’s been kicking our butt for years. And so, uh, definitely I’ve been humbled, but uh, learned a lot from him. And so glad to have you in studio. Thank you for making time. Yeah. I will not apologize for the, the beat downs. That’s okay. That’s right. So we should have hopefully a fun match center, so glad you’re in town.

So, and with that coach, Craig, let’s get started on that. I decided to see you in person, Tyler. I only met on zoom and it’s very nice to be face-to-face again. So you’ve been in the field for over a decade now, which is probably weird to think. So what’s kept you going, you know, I think the same reason why I got into it is what’s kept me going and that’s working with student athletes trying to have an influence.

Uh, I’ve obviously in a positive way, both physically, mentally, emotionally, and establishing those connections and, um, you know, wins and losses are great and championships are awesome, but. End of the day when you know, a senior leaves and there’s feels that there’s a void when they leave. Like that, that to me is what keeps me, keeps bringing me back.

You guys know this it’s so much fun just being, being a part of their lives, even though it’s short and then seeing what they go and do. And they go on to be doctors or play professionally or do whatever it is they do. And it’s just really fun to see, see them grow up in our time with them. So that’s, that’s definitely what’s coming here.

Um, you know, I’ve had the, I’ve been really lucky to work with a pretty wide writer sports, which I think has also kept it very fresh. Everything from fencing and sailing to volleyball and football, you know, so everything kind of in between. So that variety has been, has been awesome as well. Just kind of keeps you sharp.

It keeps, keeps me on my toes. So that’s. I think that’s a really interesting point is the variety that you’ve worked with. So you’ve worked with everything from, did you say fence? The fencing? Yeah. I mean, I’ve worked with rowing fencing, sailing, golf, tennis, football, volleyball, beach, volleyball, uh, basketball here and there.

Um, You know, uh, soccer, both men’s and women’s water polo, swimming, diving. It’s quite a bit, it’s quite a bit. I love it. I mean, that’s, I think the, you know, I know it’s made me a better strength coach from a programming standpoint, because I’ve had to think just outside the box as for, um, non traditional sports, like a fencing or a sailing, and then also like having a program.

Things like speeding conditioning for a soccer or football or apply measure programming for the liable. And so just, I feel like through the years of skills have been sharp because of our state sharp, because I’ve had to think in very different ways and, and plan, um, for different sports. Plus you see different injuries, you deal with different coaches, different athletic trainers.

And so you just kinda, I like having my hand kind of in everything and just kind of being, being involved with a lot of sports. Yeah. I would like to kind of add to that. I think. Kind of to Anna’s coach Craig’s point and your point. I know I played football in college and then when I started string coaching, when I came to Texas, I came here in 98.

When I met Eddie. Reese was the first time, like, I really started understanding, like, you learn more from a sport coach than you do sometimes in your own career and professional field. And I mean, coach grade, you know, coach Reese. I mean, he’s won 14 national championships swimming in the, if you ever sit down with this head coach, I mean, this guy knows more about strength and conditioning than most people in the field.

And so to learn swimming and then learn the field and bring those together. You’re right. You’re totally makes you a better coach. So, yeah, I’ve, it’s been fun. It’s been a lot of fun. How do you feel like you’ve navigated some of the challenges to have longevity in our field? Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question.

I, I, I think, uh, Uh, a couple of things, number one, and this may be kind of cliche, but just communication. You know, I think that’s everyone says that, but I think it’s way easier to say than to do, and just, um, be willing and open to communicate with coaches, training, staff, athletes, whoever it is just, um, on, on a frequent basis and, and be willing to be a little vulnerable in that communication.

It may be, I don’t know much about fencing. And so I talked to that coach has had, I don’t really understand your sport, explain it to me or help me so I can be better for you guys. And I think that’s a. I think a lot of strength coaches as we get started, now I’m a victim of this and guilty of this is football or basketball, or, you know, some sort of big high-profile sport.

And I think we get, yeah, I think we get caught up in doing it thinking that’s the best way to do it, which you know, is not the answer. You know, we were just talking on the way over here that there’s so many ways, you know, if anything covered showed us, we can do this. We can do our jobs in so many unique and creative ways.

And so, um, you know, I think that that. You know, thinking with that mindset and communicating, be willing to say that you don’t have the answer, I think is something that, um, a lot of young shrink coach, I wish I knew when I was younger. And that’s something that I try to, when I talk with interns or GA’s who have whatever, like that’s something that has helped me a lot, you know, navigate those challenges of just creating buy-in with coaches, creating buy-in with the athletes buy-in with athletic trainers.

Um that’s. Yeah. So I, I find that to be really, really important. I got a fun question. I’m just dying to ask this a little bit. So fencing, benzo, you ever put the suit on? And I actually did not. I wanted to, but I did not. I did not. Cause I would not want to fence your, you got your tall, cute. I wouldn’t want to fence any fencers or one of them.

Some of the most explosive athletes I’ve worked with. Yeah. I mean, they are in this like quarter squat, squat, a position their entire time, and they’re literally just like bounding forwards and backwards the entire time. Some of the strongest habits I’ve had have been fencers. Pretty cool. I have to imagine that your experience in multiple sports has helped you tremendously.

And just your philosophy of training. I mean, like you said, as they fencers have some of the most explosive lower bodies you’ve seen. And being able to take that and apply it to sports that look nothing like fencing. Yeah. I’m sure it’s really helped you a lot. No doubt. And you just, I mean, it, you just, again, there’s different things you learn and, um, as you see different sports doing different things and, and you know, there’s some sports, I may try something out or something I saw with volleyball.

I may try with fencing or try with a water polo team and it doesn’t work. And so. Dissecting why they didn’t work, why it works for wa for water polo or not for volleyball or vice versa, I think is also part of the process too. And understanding, um, just how each athlete in each sport, why they move the way they do, why they have deficiencies, where they have deficiencies.

Um, and then also understanding the culture of the sport. I think kind of like all of this feeds into, for me, it all just feeds into how I designed my program, how I approach a training session with the athletes, how I communicate with the coaches, you know, everything top to bottom. I think. Um, feeds in to all of that.

Okay. So I have a little tangent off of that. You mentioned the word experimenting. So we are at the university of Texas and you were at Stanford two high level universities. How do you realistically experiment and grow with high levels with high level athletes slowly? I mean, it’s. The way I approach it is I never just uproot everything we’re doing because that’s obviously like, I don’t know, maybe it’s crazy.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s maybe it’s normal, uh, but finding little ways here and there throughout the years, it maybe it’s an off season. So we’re going to try something a little different or maybe it’s the in season. Yeah. It’s very calculated. And then as time goes on, um, you know, you look back five years, my volleyball program five years ago, it looks way different than it does today.

And some of that is because we have a new coach than we did five years ago. Some of that was because the team, obviously the team has changed. Um, but also some of that is because I’ve, I’ve seen and done seen stuff. You do see. So if everyone is doing and, and try to incorporate those things and all of a sudden, like the program changes, that’s how they get better as a strength coach in general, right?

Like just, we have your gear, your core philosophy, but over time you are slowly adding things in and building and you look. You know, when I started 10 years, 10 plus years ago. And I’m completely different because of that. I got a funny story on this. So my first couple of years at Texas and I had volleyball, I just had picked them up and not had a ton of experience.

We hadn’t been to the tournament consistently up at this point. And I decided, you know, Hey, I’m going to change the cycle for NCAAs, you know, in the weight room and just was excited and enthusiastic. Didn’t calculate the risks. The coach comes down to me, the next thing goes, what did you do to the girls?

They couldn’t move yesterday. I’m like, uh, we changed cycles. He goes, yeah, you might not want to do that next time. And we ended up winning and it was fine, but it’s like, you know, just one of those mistakes you kinda like you just make. And thankfully it wasn’t like a big one huge one and we did fine. But again, you gotta be careful when you do it.

Yeah. What’s the phrase, aim small, Ms. Small or something like that. Like it’s. Knowing that if this doesn’t work the way I think it will, we’re going to be okay. You know, it doesn’t really change, but if it does work, we’re going to be better. X, Y, and Z. We’ll be better because of this small change, going back to Eddie Reese, he has this, he’s at these one liners and he he’ll say this to us when in doubt, take it out.

It’s true that if you, if you’re on the fence on it just let’s leave it out. Fine. For sure. I that’s. That’s a great advice actually, right? So in your career path so far, you’ve been fortunate to take some, some steps along the way up. And, uh, it seems like you’ve continued to grow in the last, how many years have you been in a 13, 14 county in your undergraduate?

So what do you contribute to the continued career career growth? You know, some of it is well, Some of it’s right place, right time. Some of it is luck. Some of it is connections. Some of it is, um, just never willing, willing, or wanting or to be, to be, um, complacent. Um, I’m old. I’ve always tried to I’m I’m a tinkerer.

I think that’s why I think we’re all probably tinkers. Like this field is kind of like that. Right. And so I, I’m always trying to push the envelope and I think that at times that’s put me in positions to be the next logical choice for. For a promotion or it’s put me in positions to where I can interview and speak to the experiences that I’ve had or things I’ve tinkered with that, um, made me more viable candidate than somebody else.

Um, a lot of it’s luck. I mean, my job at a university of Dayton was, um, th that position I had there wasn’t a thing, but I had been working with my, with my strength coach and, um, cause I, I went to undergrad there and I was, I was working with him and they kind of create a position for me. You know, that’s kind of lucky my job at Arizona.

I had no connections just applied, interviewed, well, luckily the other guy’s not interviewed very well and I got the job, you know, I wouldn’t be at Stanford if that didn’t happen, you know? And so there’s just, uh, you know, and then at Stanford, you know, there was some of that was right place, right time as well.

Like my boss had left and there was kind of a void that kind of filled it. And then I was a director, you know what I mean? And so I think, um, not to downplay, like things that I’ve done or the work I’ve put in. Sometimes you gotta get lucky sometimes, you know, that doesn’t mean you don’t work hard. That doesn’t mean that if, you know, if someone’s listening, it’s like, oh, this guy just got lucky.

Like I definitely put in the work and definitely have been striving to get better and better. And I’m in a position now where, you know, I’m at one of the best institutions, you know, academically and athletically and in no way, has that made me feel comfortable. If anything has done the opposite, you know, I want to keep pushing and keep growing.

And, um, so discover new ways to keep. Yeah. So tell me about your tinkering. So you said your tinkering has set you up for success in some ways, and maybe even made you more visible when positions came open or, you know, so tell us a little bit about what, what that looks like. It’s kind of, we just talked about maybe making little changes to programs here and there.

Um, other examples would be maybe making modifications to a weight room, just having ideas. Like I dunno, we at Stanford, we just, I kind of had this idea one day that we should bolt like an old rogue yolk rack into the ground and use it for another, a commit ISO pull for our force plates, little things like that.

I think, um, Have helped when I was at Dayton like we, um, with, with tinker, with, and, or, or fix our broken boxes and Sandra platforms every summer and, and seal them up. And that was, you know, I think it was little things like that as you kinda, when you’re in an interview and they ask like, how do you troubleshoot?

How do you problem solve as like, oh yeah, I know exactly. Here’s how I would do it. You know? And just, uh, I guess maybe just, uh, acquiring more common sense or utilizing common sense, maybe. Not a great answer for tinkering, but that’s kinda my, my view. I mean, I think you’re spot on too is so throughout the year, you know, as you get further, along in the field, you have more experiences with interns and the quality I would take in an intern is just being proactive and the ability to figure it out.

And I don’t think that ever changes. I think that that always is a quality that people are looking for. I think administration showing that you’re someone that can figure it out, showing that you’re someone that identifies a problem and goes after that problem and tries to fix it. And so I think you’re spot on with those answers.

Every time I’ve hired somebody. That is something that I try to identify in the interview process. Like, how are you as a problem solver? Are you a problem solver? And then bring the problem to somebody else or you’re a problem solver and then are, or find the problem, find the solution. You know what I mean?

And that’s, that’s what I, that’s what I put a lot of value in is being able to take initiative. And, and when you see something’s broken fix it, don’t come tell me it’s broken. Go fix it. You know what I mean? And then if you can’t then let me know, Hey, I tried to fix this. It’s it’s really broken, you know, I, but a lot of stock in that.

Yeah. I think too, I keep hearing both of you guys is kind of coming up in your questions and answers, but there’s a curiosity too, that you kind of got to feed a little bit and there’s a create creative side of what you do that. There’s a book called creative, Inc. I think it’s about how they started Pixar.

I don’t know if you’ve ever read that. It’s a really fascinating book on how they would actually. The way, when they first started Pixar, they would build these teams of individuals. They’d put them together. And this, this what happened when I get in these rooms and start trying to build these movies and cartoons out, this intense creativity process would come from them working together.

So it kind of goes back to your point, Tyler, about you’ve got to hire people that are wired like that. Yeah, they gotta, they gotta be a good coaches, but there’s gotta be a curiosity and a creativity to them. Cause if they don’t have that, they’re not going to try to find. Solutions, like you said. And so it’s, it’s, it’s definitely something to look for.

Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I think even if you’re a little raw on the strength conditioning side of things, I believe that if you have a staff that’s you have a solid staff, someone can come in and, and learn from us as a staff, right? Like, so if I’m hiring an entry level position or someone who is, is younger, like you said, like, Donnie you need to have.

You need to have a basic competency of being a strength, conditioning coach to come do the job successfully. But at the end of the day, like if you are a, if you, if you go and find solutions and you are a curious, and you’re always trying to get better, you’re the other stuff just by osmosis, you’re going to become a better shrink coach by just seeing what other people do.

Reading the things we re talking with us, you know, things like that. So I’m a firm believer in and, you know, the curiosity and going and finding, and I’m going to brag on her own Ana for a second. She’s super like, that’s the way she’s wired too. And she knows that. So how have you used your creativity at Texas animal?

Put it back in you on your plate now. Like how have you developed that? How has that kind of served you to be? Cause you’ve been very successful with. I think that the art of coaching is just as appealing to me as the science of coaching. And so something that I would say is one of my top thing, top qualities is I love to play and I love to play in a sense of enjoyment.

I love to tinker. I love to find creative ways to do things. So I’m a little bit like you, Tyler. I think the engagement of coaching and being able to continue to grow in ways where I feel challenged in a creative sense is really important to me. And that comes out in my coaching. And so for me, I’m never bored because my mind is always trying to find different ways to engage itself.

And I think that that’s one of the things that I really love about the field. I’ll tell him, I know we’re kind of a tangent here, but I got to share this as fun. You made me think of this. There’s a little book called the red rubber ball at work, and it’s just a simple little book about what you just said, how, when your kids, kids love to play, when you become older and an adult, you, you lose that kind of fun aspect of your work.

So for example, Can you talk about in that little book about you, go ask a kid to sweep the porch. You ask an adult sweeped, Portugal, sweet porch, and be grumbling, and maybe go ask a kid to do it. They’re going to be dancing with the broom and circles and spinning it over the hand, sweeping the porch and playing with this broom and sweeping the porch.

Maybe not sweeping the porch, but sometimes, you know, so I read that and I was running our camp. The first summer I ran our camps back 10, 12 years ago, I was taking these, you know, 12 to 17 years. Young boys through this normal warmup dynamic world war movement, prep. They hated it. I hated it. They hated it.

It was early. It was no energy. I’m like this camp is like the worst camp ever read that book. I said, I’m throwing my warm out, up out done with that. Took physio balls out for the warmup in may, just movement games. They had a blast in the warmup. My coaching was a lot easier. They had fun. They played in the warmup, but we got done what we need to do, and we had a much better session.

So I think it leads to, you know, we forget to do that. I know Tim polo, I know, you know, Timur. Well, he does a good job of that. You do a great job of that. And with your team at times, just having fun. Right? I think it’s hard because it takes effort. Sure. You know, it takes, it takes extra planning. It takes, it really does take that extra little bit of time.

The extra little bit of brain power. But as Tyler said, I think it’s important and keeping us engaged in our field. And it’s unfortunate when we’re overloaded so much as coaches, that we don’t have the ability to, to play anymore, that we don’t have the ability to tap into our creative space. And I do think that’s a problem because I think that most people get into our field because they love some of those aspects and because they love the art of coaching.

Um, but I think sometimes we lose it along the way. We do have a lot of other responsibilities and, and we get stretched thin. We’re going to shift gears a little bit. I got a, I want to been dying to ask this question because this watching you over the years, Tyler, but, uh, so one of your titles is director of applied sports science.

So just over the years, you, you know, looking at your resume, you’ve gained a lot of experience with technology. I think you kind of started reading your resume. Um, it was it Arizona state football with catapult that’s I think where you kind of cut your teeth a little bit. So you wear those hats as a strength coach in a sport scientist.

Give us a little bit of background on kind of, how did that evolve for you and what were the benefits or challenges along the way? I know I’ve always been super interested at being able to objectively know or understand like what it is we are doing. To our athletes physiologically, um, whether it be a practice or a lift or whatever.

And so I think I’ve always kind of had this like draw to like this, you know, quote unquote sports science like world, um, and Arizona state was the first time when really. A nice, shiny expensive object, uh, with our catapult GPS units, uh, we were kind of demoing them, kind of had ’em, didn’t have ’em demoed them, you know, kind of back and forth, but just that little small subset of time, it’s just the one season.

Um, learned a ton, nobody what I was looking at, but also at the same time, learned a ton because you’re just, there’s so much data, you kind of figure it out and that’s kind of that moment just kind of sparked, like I got to know what’s going on because. No, this was, you know, it wasn’t that long ago, you know, six, seven years ago.

And. Caterpillar was popular, but it still wasn’t everywhere. Like it is now or a GPS or something, you know, it wasn’t as accessible as these technologies are now. And so I knew that I had to, I had to figure this out because it’s going to be the thing, you know, force plates or GPS or whatever is gonna, everyone’s gonna have it.

Um, so I’ve always kind of had this edge to keep pushing and acquire these things. And I’ve been lucky to be at Arizona state and be at Stanford where we can afford a lot of these products. Um, so at Stanford, like we, you know, we have. W w we have everything you could possibly want possibly want. I mean, we’re lucky we have GPS, both for our indoor and outdoor teams.

I’m not all of them, but for a lot of them, we have force plates. We have a Nord board, we have grown bar. Um, so a lot of objective data we’re collecting, um, Which can be overwhelming. And I think when new staff comes in, there’s always kind of a learning curve and figuring stuff like that out. But we use the data we have identified, or we are working to, um, or each sports kind of identify like what is important to for them.

Um, whether it be some sort of velocity based thing or force velocity profiling. Um, you know, looking at force plate data, looking at the GPS data for load management, things like that. And, um, so every sport’s kind of got their own flavor of how they’re applying this stuff. How they’re, what did they look at?

How they collect it, how they apply it. Um, but it’s all very. I don’t know sport-specific I guess if you want to phrase it that way, I think it’s all benefit, you know, um, there are challenges for sure, in terms of like, it’s, it’s it’s time, you know, you need to be, we want to put in the work, there’s a learning curve.

A lot of the data can be, can feel overwhelming. And the guys you’re, you know, our force plates, it’s like 175 metrics. If you look at every metric, it’s like, like, how the heck do I sift through all this stuff? And so there’s definitely a learning curve and there’s definitely. But if you want to put in the time, I think it’s all benefit in terms of, you know, we can profile your athletes.

We can, uh, You know, as simply as just see how they create powers, the other create force, see if they’re symmetrical, um, see what a match or a game looks like from an external loading standpoint. Um, you know, and those things to me are, are kind of critical in how we program our strength coaches, but also how our head coaches can, um, create a practice plan.

That leads us to a point where we are at the end of the season at our best, and not just trying to hang on, whether it be, um, from overuse or. You know, what other soft tissue injuries and things like that. And so, you know, I think the sky’s the limit. I think the technology is getting better. It’s getting cheaper, it’s getting more accurate, um, getting more reliable.

And so, you know, I think that, um, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the way we’re going. How do you decide what you give the head coach? How do you make that? How do you do that? What’s that process sifting of? I know Anna has to deal with that too. A little bit. Um, how do you do that? I’d love to hear from both of you actually, the way we do it is a lot of that is dictated kind of by our head coach, how they like to see it.

So I start with this. How do you like to see data? Are you a tables and numbers person, or are you a charts and colors person, or are you a tables in colors, person, things like that. Um, because if I present you with a bunch of pie, charts and bar graphs, and you’re like, I have no idea how to read that.

That’s not going to work or vice versa. Most people like colors and charts because it’s, you can, you don’t have to like read it, um, over as opposed to tables and numbers. Um, so that’s number one, figuring out how you like to read, how, what is the best way for you to be presented the data? Like how do you want to see it?

And then I ask our coaches. When you were in a practice, if you could know anything about it, what would you want to know? How hard, how long, how far, like what and those generalized definitions I think are what I can then take those and, and find specific metrics, which then kick back in a report and, and then speak to the coach in that same general manner.

This metric. Yes. It’s high metabolic load distance, which is confusing, but this is basically how intensive. Um, this number, player load. Yes, it’s weird name, but it’s um, like how much volume we did. So the higher this number is the more, you know, work that we did and kind of explain it and explain it in ways that are digestible.

Because again, the head coach, they have so much going on, recruiting and practice planning and scouting and maybe discipline or academic issue, whatever it is, there’s so much going on. And so. Understand definitions of kind of complex metrics. It makes no sense. So if I can present it to you in a way that makes sense, I can present it to you in a way that’s quick to read.

Um, and you know exactly what you’re looking at. That’s a win in my book. So let me kick it to coach Craig. You’ve dealt with this over the last, what? Four or five years, maybe longer than that. I think we’ve had catapult maybe six years now. Yeah. And I would say if I could sum this up in kind of the way I like to say it is like, With data and technology it’s I would say the approach is more evolutionary, not revolutionary.

So I think coaches think, oh, we’re going to change this big change. We’re going to be all better this year, but I know just listening to you over the years, Anna, it’s been evolutionary, but it’s slowly changed. So maybe speak to that. Like how have you guys changed over the years? It has, I think at first it was data overload.

We all need everything. Right. Every piece of technology out there, every team needs it. Every team wants to use the newest and best, and we’ve really whittled it down to what are the important things that we can test for this sport. So what are the things that actually impact the key performance indicators or injury prevention in this exact sport?

And actually whittled it down. And when it comes to the coaching staff and communicating coaches want to be able to control the controllables. So it’s not, what is all this abstract data it’s tell me what I can actually control. And then tell me what the impact is that I’m actually having on my players.

And so for us with, with soccer, we’re looking at, like you said, distance, we’re looking at high impact player, load, change of direction. And sprinting speed. Right? Right. So, okay. So coach says, I’m looking at my pie chart and I have this, this amount for the week and I have 75% left of my sprinting load that I need to do well, that’s easy.

Okay. Now I can top up at the being a practice. I see there’s a lot of sprinting left that I can do. There’s not much change of direction left that I can do. So I’m going to not do as much change of direction. So it’s just this very easy communication and con and telling a coach or showing a code. What are things that I can actually do to make small impacts in my practice to change the way that my players are performing or recovery.

And it’s not information overload. It’s what are the controllables? What is the coach in control of? How can it be easily communicated? And I think who, who is it said that, uh, maybe Einstein said that it, or somebody that if, if you can explain a complex issue, To basically a person that knows nothing about it.

You know, that, that person’s actually intelligent. And it’s like, how can you, how can you take all of this data overload and information overload and whittle it down to someone who doesn’t really care about the data they care about the impact in house. And I think that that’s part of our job when it comes to technology a hundred percent for me, it’s it’s one, if I could make one change.

Or if we can start thinking about one metric in a different way, a season or in a year, that’s a win. Like if I can just, if I’m working with a coach and I’m, we’re talking about just global load or high speed running or whatever it is, and I can just get them thinking about it differently or in the, in the correct context, which is correct.

Very vague term, obviously. That’s a win, because now they’re thinking more holistically about their practice planning. It’s not just, you know, it’s not just, oh, I need to, you know, we got to play small set of game sets or we’re doing, or we need to play 11 on 11 it’s. Oh, I’m thinking about sprint distance.

I’ve got to make sure I get enough or I got to make sure I don’t get too much and right there, to me, that’s a great start because now they’re thinking beyond just the sheet of paper that tells them their practice plan. And once you start going there in my experience, coaches, like they kind of fall into.

I guess on accident, maybe like, uh, just thinking about the whole practice holistically, and then thinking about things like topping up at the end of practice or limited change of direction with all those things. I think it’s, I have so much fun working with coaches on stuff like this. I think it’s, it’s a huge challenge.

It’s a huge challenge putting the data in context, um, and, and showing them what they can get or what the showing them what the impact of the data is. But for some, I love that process, you know, educating, working with working through like those struggling moments when. They thought they planned to practice a certain way.

It didn’t go the way they thought why it kind of is working through those problems. I think it’s, I think it’s fine. Just troubleshoot. I think the best metaphor this guy, I forget his name. I got to spend time with him. He was a sport scientist for an MBA team and he talked about a budget, you know? And it’s like, the athlete has only so much.

Their body can adapt to with whatever low, whether it’s practice or weight room or whatever. And that if you know, kind of what you were saying to Anna, you’ve got that pie chart each, each day, that if you spend that budget, like you’ve only got so much left for the week. I think coaches, they tend to understand that concept better and they cause they want their athletes to be ready to roll on game day.

They don’t want to be a have them overreached or too fatigued. And so I think that’s, uh, it’s cool to see coaches in this era of technology. When you can quantify what they’re doing in practice, where they couldn’t do that, it was more of the art, the art of coaching, not the science, they’re almost getting educated and you can see it kind of happen, which is good for them.

And it’s been, it’s made all of us better. So yeah. I try to phrase everything as it’s how we can maximize every day, not pull you back, because I think there’s a fear, like an inherent fear of coaches that this data will have us doing less and have solved. Yeah. And I don’t want to do less. I want to do more, actually.

I just want, when we do more, I want to be smart about how we do it, you know, because that’s how you want to be fit at the end of the season. It’s not by doing. It’s not by doing less it’s by doing more. Right. I love it. When you look at the day and you’re like, let’s send it today. You have way more than you thought you did.

I love that. Yeah. So we’re gonna, we’re going to talk about your sports a little bit. Okay. So you have a variety of sports. We touched on that. How has that impacted you as a coach to work with such a diverse group of sports athletes, genders? It’s something that I. I’ve absolutely loved, you know, both, both working with both men and women, sports aquatic court, field, sports, beach, sand, you know, like the whole, the whole spectrum.

I think it’s, um, it’s, it’s definitely like just put things into context. And what I love the most about working with the Friday of teams is, is understanding like how the culture of each sport is something that I think I’ve really, um, Like find most intriguing. Cause every, you guys know, every sport is so different and it just how the culture, how the, you, how you get into it, how you grew up in the sport, how you get recruited in the sport.

And then like just kind of what, like the, the culture of the sport is. And, um, I think just having been immersed in those and then having, um, obviously comparing side to culture of sports, I decide and just like kind of the, the way sports are. I think it’s just giving me a better idea. The sport is so unique, our jobs are so unique and there’s, um, You know, it’s, it’s the best job in the world because we get to be just involved in so many and see so many different types of kids and the way they do things.

And I think it’s, I think it’s awesome. It’s kind of like, yeah, I think it’s the best thing ever. So I love it. I think it’s, I’m not sure I answered your question or not, but, um, yeah, it’s, it’s definitely made me a better coach. I would say like, uh, again, just having. You know, you work with the men’s water polo team, overhead sport, but the way they throw is much different than a volleyball swing.

So two over overhead sports, but very different, different mechanics. Um, and understanding that, I think from a, like a, like the science side of things is okay if I do this with volleyball, but is probably not gonna work with men’s water polo because the actual action is different. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And so you can’t just apply, but. Relate similar concepts. And then going back, I think it’s been a theme here, the art of coaching, you know, um, relating to them, having, like understanding their culture, understanding their lingo. Um, you know, that just creates more buy-in with the kids and with the coaches.

Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that a lot. I think, you know, just athlete buy-in it’s really about hit coach buy in. Totally at first. I mean, you ain’t go hit him. I was going to say, I agree with you on the personality of each team. Yeah, it’s funny because I don’t have children, but Donnie has four. So he can probably relate to this, but I feel like every athlete is like a different child.

Like you have the oldest, the li the most self-sufficient one. Then you have the middle child who doesn’t need much. The, you have the wild child, you know, all over the place. And I feel like each team just has such a different personality. And it’s cool because you’re not a different coach. You’re not a different person, but parts of you as a coach get pulled out.

Yeah. That’s a great, that’s a great way to describe it. Yeah. That’s, that’s so true. Yeah. It’s funny. Right? You even get, I’ve gotten to where you can even, like when you meet a coach, you could almost tell what sport coach. Yes, it’s true. You don’t know who they are. Happened today for me on something, an elevator.

I just knew, I knew just kind of like this, the way they carry themselves, the way they dress, you know, it was pretty, it was pretty funny. Yeah. That’s so true. So you’ve been a coach for a long time, be even a director for three years now. Yeah. So how has you as a coach changed since you became a director?

Not a lot. Um, I still like the way, you know, my coaching, my coaching style and philosophy is I feel like has it’s changed through the years, but I think the core of it is still there. You know, I think as a director and Donnie, you might speak to this, you know, the, the impact for me when I became a director was like, oh, it’s not just.

Me and my teams, it’s about my staff and their teams and all their relationships that happen there, then how people are relating with other departments and things like that. And so I think that that’s something I didn’t realize when I came here, I knew it, but I didn’t really understand the gravity of it until you become director as like, oh wow.

I’m responsible for a lot. You know? And so I think as a coach, it’s, um, you know, I guess that mindset of just kind of like trying to see the whole picture is, is just, is this clearer? Um, and my whole picture, I mean, whether it be like the athlete as an individual and what they have going on in their lives, like whether it be class, family, um, sport, if they’re playing, if they’re hurt, if they’re not to how a weight room schedule may operate to and teams interact with each other.

To how staff interacts with each other to how we have to interact with other departments on campus. And so I think it just, the whole picture is a little more clear. Um, or I’m thinking more about the whole picture pretty much constantly, maybe Donnie. I mean, I’m sure it’s the same for you Donnie his point of view on that also just how have you changed as a coach, since becoming a director?

I mean, you’ve been a director for quite a few more years, but you wear a lot of hats. You’re a coach, you’re a director for the coaching is. For me at least. Yeah, no, it’s more, I always kind of say, you know, the thing, I think as a director, there’s this one kind of principle, and I forget where I got this from over the years, but it’s like the biggest problem when you’re leading anything typically is people.

But guess what? The biggest solution, when you’re leading something. And so as a director, you, you really, you know, ah, you know, here, you read these books here, these speakers who you surround yourself, it’s cliche. But man, when you, when you start leading something you really really value in, in just have such respect and admiration for quality.

I think number one, high character, a high integrity people like coach Craig here is definitely like that. And our staff, you are definitely like that. Tyler obviously, but. That’s one, but then having a high level of competency as well. You know, I think I’ve been around, you know, I’ve worked with, with, with individuals have great resumes are good at what they do, but maybe they’re not high care.

They’re great at what they do, but you know, maybe you don’t trust them as much. Yeah. So that makes things a little bit more difficult. You still accomplish a lot, but just, it’s more stressful. Yeah. And so there’s, there’s a piece in a, in a synergy when you got really high quality, high character, people on your staff that are good at their jobs and they, they love their job and they love the kids they work with.

Yeah. And they get and what will end up happening that person? You guys mentioned, personalities of teams. You guys know this. Some head coaches are really hard to get along with. And of course, no, Texas, no texture, Stanford. Yeah. Right. Definitely not character people. They know how to navigate those without causing a huge uproar, you know?

Yeah. And that takes, that’s a big, important piece of being successful. I feel like. So, yeah. That’s a great point. Couldn’t agree with you more. All right. I have a fun question. We’re kind of getting here to the end here, but, um, this for time. So let’s talk a little, just one. I know this is cliche and it’s a buzzword today culture, but dude Stanford, I mean, you guys are at the pinnacle.

I mean, thankfully we finally got that director’s cup from y’all, you know, I didn’t want to stay with that, but. 20-something years, you guys have won that thing one a year. I mean, you guys are on top, uh, all my time. I’ve been coaching 27 years. Any interactions that were had with you or your staff or your team’s high level of athletic excellence, as well as academic.

I remember Anna, we played these guys in tennis. I think it was two or three years ago and we ended up barely beating. I mean, you guys hammered us almost, and we normally have lost you guys with. Pulling this one out. I don’t forget leaving the tennis facility late at night. Those guys were in the hallway studying.

Yeah, I’m sorry, Texas guys don’t do that. Like we’re on the computer doing their, I don’t know what they were doing, but so to have that pressure of academic excellence and athletic excellence, that’s pretty special. Um, so speak to that. How would you define culture for you guys at Stanford? And then.

Second part. How do you build that championship culture? So speak to that. Yeah. There’s no doubt that the Stanford student athlete is a, is a high achieving individual. I mean, that’s, you can say that a lot of schools, but the things that our, our student athletes are doing, like in. Obviously like with athletically, you know, many teams in championship contention year to year, and then also academically, you know, their summer internships or their summer like research things they do are crazy.

Like they’re like trying to like, uh, like solve cancer or, you know, it’s wild that th the things our kids do. And so I think that, um, Stanford is just kind of, we’re really lucky to have these overachieving individual. That strive for that. So that’s, I think that’s inherently like the Stanford culture, you know, I think in, uh, in my department, Olympic sports performance, like we have set pretty clear guidelines of what our culture will be in our culture is we look at that as how we’re interacting with each other and interacting with others.

Um, and so that, that’s kind of how we’ve kind of come up. Our our, our, our tenants or pillars, whatever phrase you want to use. And I know for us, it’s, it’s, we want to, um, have open and honest communication, which is very buzzwordy. But by that we mean like not afraid to have the hard conversation, but you’re always going to be always in a respectful tone.

Um, we, we’re going to bring your best every day and I want to harp on, it’s not bringing the best every day. It’s bringing your best. Cause we have days where we’re tired, where we’re sick, where our kids were up all night, where, uh, you know, we came back from a late travel trip, whatever it is. And so. You may not be able to be the best on any given day, but if you are bringing your best, um, we’re all better because of that.

And the last one is just serving others, which, you know, it’s a service-based industry that we’re in. But I think sometimes it’s easy to get caught up and just thinking about yourself, how am I using them? My forced by data, how. I, you know, Mimi me, like, how am I, how is mighty effected by the schedule? How you know?

And so I think it’s about serving others and I feel that if we are and my staff and myself, if we are constantly feeding into these pillars and embodying what those means and, and, uh, behaving in a way that supports that the fosters that, that we, as a department will be. Uh, work at a high level at a championship level.

And, and hopefully that contributes positively to the Arthur department culture, you know, and, um, that that’s our goal and Olympic sports performance. And I think, again, we’re a small piece of the puzzle, but I think a lot of departments at Stanford and in athletics, uh, operate with similar mindsets. And I think that’s, you know, everyone’s kind of the bottom is coming up and I think we all operate, um, and are striving to, to win.

You know, I have a question for both of you as directors. So you talked about being a service industry. How do you guys make sure that there’s a balance between fulfilling our, our job as, as a service and as a support staff member, but also preventing burnout and creating boundaries for your staff members?

Okay. For me, I can go out this one, this one’s a near and dear to my heart, but I’m definitely an a, I think for me personally, over the years, it’s been. Obviously, you know, I grew up in a home where my mom and dad divorced when I was real young. So family life is huge for me, not just for me, but for, I mean, family for me, but really for you, for staff at Texas, like if you’ve got something that’s in passionate about, or you’re excited about outside of work, do you need to put time into that in the book?

Uh, Adam Grant, I think is the guy’s name. The book is called, give and take. He does all this research on that, that they’ve done. They did this. It was an Australian research paper they did on about 60 employees and they found out that they call it the 100 hour rule. And over a year, if you can contribute 100 hours to something outside of your.

It could be non-profit could be a hobby, whatever. So that’s about two hours a week. If you can contribute that and not be focusing on your work that actually helps prevent burnout in your career and your job. And I think for me, that’s something, I’ve definitely whether it’s my family, my kids sports. I know I’ve done some stuff with ministry over the years.

That’s really helpful. Kind of grow in a different way and kind of pulled me in a different direction. It’s made me a better coach, but it’s also brought some well-roundedness and balance in my life so that I don’t. So I look forward to my job and I think that’s important. That’s what’s kind of helped me.

Yeah. I would echo a lot of what you said is I I support any and all external or outside hobbies or. Things interests, you know, whatever it is, you know, I, I made sure that my staff has those opportunities and they make sure that they are, that they have the opportunity to do it, you know? And, um, whether it be everything, oh, I, what comes to mind is rock climbing.

Cause like five of my staff members love to go rock climbing. And so like whenever they have a chance to go, like, I, I mean, sometimes I ask them about it, but multiple, I want you to go, go do rock climbing. Right. And, and, you know, Because again, if, if it keeps you fresh, if it’s enough of something different than.

Macy well-rounded and, and makes you look forward to your job. Like, I support it, I support it fully. So, um, and then if you don’t have to be in the office, I do not be here. Like I’m not, I, I had a job where I, it was like, you waited and you had to be there before the director got there and you had to wait till he left for you can go on.

And some days he’d leave at three, some days he’d leave at seven done. That’s not fun. It’s not fun. The garden, your desk is not fun. And, um, you know, I don’t want anyone to do that and I try to live that life as well. And not just be there at work from 6:00 AM until 6:00 PM if I don’t have to be. And so I think try to lead by example, but also I’m also speaking those words.

Like if you don’t have to be here, if your team has gone for the month of August, Go for the month of August, you know, you don’t have to be here. Actually. I really try to push that, uh, with my, I think that’s, I’m gonna, I’m gonna brag on Donnie for a second as our director, but that’s something that I’ve noticed.

That’s a huge contributor to longevity in our field is the wasted hours is if you can eliminate the wasted hours where you’re just sitting at your desk, because there’s some sort of unspoken pride rule that you have to be there. If you can eliminate that. There’s so much that you get back from that just in, and being able to leave for two hours in the middle of the day, or being able to not be there for a day, if you don’t have any teams training or, you know, and for us.

So this is, this is my part I want to brag on Donnie for is something that I would highly recommend. Every director does is have a backup for every team. So we have a designated backup for every single one of our strength, condition coaches. And so therefore, anytime I’m out or let’s say, I need to go to a wedding.

Or, you know, I’m, I’m trying to take a vacation at a, at a strange time. Then I have a person that is designated to back me up. My head coach knows that person, they know the program. And so, yeah, the team knows them. So it’s not just this stranger being plugged into a strange situation. It’s someone that everybody knows and we actually encourage each other as staff.

It’s like, oh, you need to be gone on Friday. You’re going to a wedding. Great. Like I got you covered. Like we do not. We encourage each other in that space. And that’s really helped because how many weddings have we all missed? The first couple of years we were in the field. How many, you know, special moments with our family, how many holidays, how many, and those are the things that you have to have in order to have a healthy family in order to have longevity in the field.

And so I think that that’s one of the things I really love working with Donnie for is he’s really good about that with our staff. Got to make time. Yeah. I mean, it’s so easy to get lost at work and to be there forever and it just doesn’t have to be that. And it kind of keeps you fresh. If you get to go home or you don’t have to come out on a Friday or you can attend those weddings, like it just, it keeps it fresh and it makes you want to come to, this is a, this is a great, a great job.

I mean, we’re, we’re in shorts and t-shirts and you know what I mean? Like it’s, it’s a great job. And we’re working with college athletes at division one top division one universities, like there’s nothing better and it’s just going to work. We spent so much time at work anyways. It sucks when you’re miserable.

So we might as well have some fun, you know, work and keeping. Go ahead. Coat. We got one more time for one more question. So the thing, the question that I don’t like is where do you want to be in 10 years? Because life is fluid and it takes us kind of where it wants us to go. But what I do like is who do you hope to be in 10 years?

How do you hope to grow? I held them in 10 years. I am in a role or in a job where I can still play. Play a supporting role in somebody else’s development, whether it be athletically, emotionally, mentally, whatever it is, something where, you know, I don’t want to say having an impact. I feel like that sounds like overly dramatic, but having a small piece of someone’s journey to whatever it is they want to go.

Um, right now that’s athletically. And, and I, I kind of like we’re going to in athletics. So in 10 years, maybe, hopefully athletics, but that doesn’t like you said, life takes you where you want to go. And so I think if I’m in a role where I’m working with people, um, And we’re striving for greatness and we’re, and we’re pushing each other.

I think that’s, that’d be a great place. Awesome. Good stuff. Well, coach Tyler, this has been a pleasure to have you on the show. Coach Craig, um, Mike Hanson. He’s got some heat on him. You’re going to take his job too. So no, it’s good. Thank you for helping out. Um, coach Craig he’s in Austin. Where would you recommend him to go eat?

Give him one spot. Oh, this is hard. Do you have. So, you know, that we’re like the taco Capitol. Okay. So if it’s breakfast time, you got to go get breakfast tacos. If it’s lunch time, you got to go get lunch. You got to get dinner tacos.

Spot for him. Coach breakfast tacos tomorrow breakfast taco deli, taco deli does love that place. Don’t love it. I’ll think it’s got cracked sprinkled on there somewhere. Get the ingredients, put ’em cause started working people. If they want to reach out to you, connect, talk to you more. What’s the best way can email me at any time.

My email is on our way. Um, I’m on Instagram and Twitter. I do not know that my, either my handles off the top of my head, but I’m, I post an Instagram relatively well, I used to be frequently now. It’s not so social media, but if anyone has a question wants to connect. I always respond. We’ll definitely do that to our listeners.

Uh, Tyler’s only a great guys, a phenomenal coach. And, uh, again, we connected with them over the pandemic as a staff over zoom. So thank you for that again. Absolutely. And so reach out to Tyler, but, uh, from Austin, Texas, this is the team behind the team podcast. Donnie Tyler, and Anna,. Appreciate your time. We’ll catch you next month.

Y’all have a good one. Hookem.

go-kart!

Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this episode of the team behind the team podcast for future episodes, go to iTunes, Spotify, Google podcast, or Stitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guests on the show and great content. So if you have a moment, please go to iTunes, leave a rating and review and let us know how we’re doing.

I’m Donnie Maib, and thanks so much for tuning in.