E54 | Charles Stephenson: Changing the Performance Model

[00:00:00] Donnie: Welcome to the team behind the team podcast. I am your host, Donnie Maib. This is the monthly show focused on building conversations around the team based model approach to athletic 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 podcast. I’m your host Donnie Maib. And today, before we get to our special guests. Who I’m super excited, pumped up and ready to hear from. We got coach Joe Krawczyk, the co host in the house today. Joe, what’s going on, baby?

[00:00:43] Joe: Oh, it’s good. It’s good. It’s February.

A great time of year, I think. Every single team I work with is in season in some capacity. So it’s a really fun time of year. You know, you grind all fall, then, and you get to see the kids go compete and hopefully dominate. So it’s, it’s fun. I’m, I’m, I’m enjoying watching them

[00:01:00] Donnie: compete. So what’s, what’s your one word or one thing for 20, we’re in 2024.

What you got, Joe, what you got? My one

[00:01:07] Joe: team for 2024,

[00:01:09] Donnie: one word, give me

[00:01:11] Joe: one word. I kind of just said, uh, dominate. Let’s go. Let’s go. I’m going to dominate 2024 coach.

[00:01:20] Donnie: Mine is shift. Mine is shift. So I’m just trying to grow and change. So awesome. Well, let’s get our guests on board. Uh, without further ado, you guys are in for a special treat.

Uh, reconnected with his coach recently. I’ve known him for years. Super successful, very well known coach, Charles Stevenson. Welcome to the show coach. How are you doing?

[00:01:42] Charles: Hey, I’m doing great. And it’s definitely an honor. I’m super excited to be here, Donnie. Thank you, coach Joe. Thank you. Pleasure to meet you today, Joe and Donnie.

It’s, it’s been great to reconnect here recently. Yes, sir.

[00:01:54] Donnie: Coach, you’re in Central Florida and I will get into that in a minute. How’s things in your world? I know you, you just kicked our butts, so we won’t talk about that on the show, but how’s things in the, in the, the world down there in Florida for you

[00:02:06] Charles: now?

I’m loving it, coach. It’s a beautiful day today. Uh, we, we have a roll top door right out here in our weight room. We had that thing up today and we set up some conditioning circuits outside for our tennis teams and, and I love it. Absolutely love it.

[00:02:20] Donnie: Joe, coach Joe, that we just said that is like strength and conditioning performance.

You’ve died. If you have a roll up door, we’re in a basement here in B2 in Austin. It’s probably been rainy here, but it’s probably sunny out and like you’ve got heaven there. We need to come visit you. We’re in the wrong spot. So

[00:02:40] Charles: welcome, please, please do. We’d love to have

[00:02:42] Donnie: you. Well, good stuff. Coach. We’ll, we’ll jump right into this first question.

I’m dying to hear just some of your. Wisdom and unpack this. So first question for you, you know, you’ve been doing this 35 years, right? You’ve been some great places. You’re, you were at NC state for a long run, very successful, Utah, uh, Auburn working with basketball. You’re a central Florida. You’ve started this huge basketball symposium.

You’ve been at some phenomenal places, very successful. What have you seen over the years change with the NIL right now? The transfer portal technologies on the rise, especially in court sports, conference realignments. How have you seen the performance game change? Talk to his coach.

[00:03:27] Charles: Well, Donnie, thank you for those kind words that you mentioned earlier to your question.

You know what we’re seeing now here in basketball for me here is we’re getting an older athlete, an athlete that is. that has played college basketball. And I think that’s what coaches are after. They want to see the proven product. Can it play at this level? And they want to go out and get these guys that have played even four and five years graduate transfer.

So we The predominant amount of our team is that is juniors, seniors, and grad transfers and super, super seniors, whatever you call them now. So that’s what we’re getting an older athlete. So along with that comes. Sometimes there’s some dudes that have, they’ve been at great places with great strength coaches.

They have developed their bodies are strong and you kind of run into, I know it’s a catchphrase word now, athlete profiling, but you know, with our force plate and our technology, we are seeing some things where. You know, this dude’s pretty strong and how can I really help him? And maybe I can swing him, you know, just do more velocity work than I do strength work.

And sometimes it’s not that way, coach. Sometimes you got a guy that’s old and, and, you know, maybe isn’t the best squatter, even though he’s old, right. And, or just a good, you know, person that, so now you, you go to things that can actually locally. Train that knee extensor in a way, and I’m finding myself doing that.

I’m almost finding myself relying on machines more, if you will. And, and because you have less time, right? Coach, you and you, so that’s, that’s the change for me and that in the basketball world,

[00:05:19] Donnie: coach, that that’s good question. I have to add to that. Um, you know, I’ve been, this is my 30th year doing it.

You’ve been 35. For our audience is listing you guys, some of the younger audience, you don’t realize this, but Charles and I remember coach Charles, we remember a day where one guy did it all, we did supplements, we did diet, we did, you know, you did all the adjustments, you communicate with the coach. We’re in a day now that it’s so complex and very specific in your role.

How do you operate in your performance team? Like, how do you do that now? You’ve came from this like top down, probably you ran everything, but now you’ve got these other pieces that you kind of got to work with. How do you work with that team behind the team now, coach?

[00:06:03] Charles: Well, to me, it’s exciting because there’s no greater pleasure than working with others and others trying to help each other get better.

And it is. You know, collaboration is slower, right? It takes time. It takes time to have meetings. It takes time to tell other department areas heads that have about string training and the level that we’ve seen it and know it. So you be patient with that, but you know, it certainly has been a thing that I’ve embraced.

It’s, it’s been, it’s definitely has made me better, has elevated me.

[00:06:42] Donnie: Coach Joe, I got one more question. Sorry. I’m kind of ball hog right now a little bit, but this is a topic like. You’re just seeing such a multi generational divide in, you know, Generation Z now, millennials, you know, some of the older guys like us, right?

Some of the boomers, my kids call us that, right? How do you take, what have you seen that works to take a, you got younger people, older people, middle aged people, those different generations in blend and make that work so that you stay relevant, connected? Because I think, again, my specific kind of reason I’m asking that.

I’ll see a lot of younger coaches come in or professionals, whatever area they’re in, and they struggle to work with an older coach. You know, so how do you, what would you, how would you speak into that, Charles?

[00:07:31] Charles: Well, it’s, it’s multifaceted, right? There, there’s all the pieces of relationship that we have to rely on that we’ve learned over the years through mistakes, uh, the value of building that relationship and how to build it.

And I think the biggest thing that has helped me lately is, is to really work on my ego and really try to. You know, say like, why am I getting tense right, right now? Like, uh, like, whoa, whoa. So when I feel that I’m like, uh, and I mean, like, if I’m having a conversation with another professional in an area, it’s like, why, if I’m getting tense right now, it must be, must be me problem.

You know, and I think I definitely enjoy letting them make decisions and Hey, it’s your plan, it’s your decision. Let let’s rock it. Right. And, and, and even though I’ve may have seen a better way in my head, like I’ve seen this done at other places and we did it probably better, but this is close enough, let’s roll with that.

Right. And without. That’s what’s in my head and I’m not saying that and it’s and I think that’s there’s power in that too. That’s that relationship thing.

[00:08:44] Joe: That’s good. That’s good word. Yeah. And speaking of relationships, you know, when you communicate with athletes now, and you know, we kind of talked about NIL and transfer portal, older athletes are essentially So, you know, Getting money through NIL, getting paid now, have you kind of had to pull some of the communication strategies that, you know, they use in, uh, in the pros and NBA to communicate with the collegiate kids?

Cause I feel like we, we transitioned from this almost militaristic style of training where everyone comes in a group, they’re all wearing the same thing, all this to now we’re, we’re shifting to this, you know, modelers, older athletes, longer seasons, they’re getting paid now. Um, is, is there any difference there or is it still generally the same?

[00:09:28] Charles: Hey, Joe, you nailed it. Exactly. You talked about more of a pro model in some ways, right? You nailed it is, is It’s like my, my warmup, for example, for pregame all through the year and summer. I’ve taught them foam roll. We’ve used bands. We’ve used jump, you know, we’ve done all these things to help warm them up, help them prepare.

We’ve done dynamic flight, everything, you name it. Right. And prior to that game, they choose how they prepare themselves. You know, we have our team warm up plan, but there’s if they want to jump rope, if they want to do hip circles and many band work, if they want to foam roll, it’s up to them, right? And we try to teach them the best methods, but we leave, I leave that totally up to them.

And then that’s one way of, and then I talk about it, you know, you know, be a pro, be a pro because most, most of my guys next year, they may be at a spot. They don’t have anyone like me near they’re going to, or any athletic trainer. They’re going to have to take care of themselves. They’re gonna have to warm themselves up.

They’re going to have to do these, these things that we are doing for them now. So that’s

[00:10:39] Donnie: good stuff. And I wanted, I wanted to kind of dig in because of your experience too, coach. You’ve transitioned through jobs. You know, thankfully you’ve had a lot of success and been able to settle down in NC State, Utah there for a good long run.

Now you’re at Central Florida. How, so what’s been a key for you to transition cities, staff? Programs, athletics department, maybe even I would even go like under the hood a little deeper, like structure, like how reporting lines and stuff like that. I mean, I can’t imagine the upheaval and change that you’ve had to navigate when I just read your resume, not everybody can do that successfully, but you’ve obviously done a great job with that.

Give us some advice, like what’s, what’s been a, some key success, key success traits to do that.

[00:11:29] Charles: And Donnie, I have so much respect for you as a person and also your leadership abilities and skills. I’m almost tempted to say like, what are some things that you would do? Cause I’m sure there’s some nuggets there, right?

If you were uprooted and put in a school that you almost go back in time, 15 years. So think about that, like, because this one school may be never been in a power five, right. And there’s no, no, that’s just facts. And it’s, it’s in the school is amazing is, and maybe it’s only been 50 years old, the school in general, only 50 years old, right.

It’s like, and there’s, you know, so there’s, there’s a lot that comes with that. So, um, um, You know, I don’t want to turn it back on you. I definitely have an answer, but I also would you like to throw something in there that something that you feel would be important based on all your experience and your and your knowledge of leadership and relationships?

What are some tips you think would be helpful as well? Coach, is that fair? I ask you a question.

[00:12:34] Donnie: I got you. I got a visual for you. This is going to expose me a little bit. I’m a dad of four daughters. So the movie, I love movies and the movie A Bug’s Life. So if you’ve ever seen the scene, the bug, they put the little lantern in this one scene and it’s a bright light and the bugs flying at it.

He goes, it’s so beautiful and he’s flying into it and he gets zapped and he dies. What I have seen in Texas, I’m just gonna be candid. We get these brand new coaches out though. We don’t have a lot of turnover, but what I’ve seen, somebody comes in, they come in hot coach. They got their Their values, the way they’re going to do practice.

And, and I just sit there and watch them and I go, yep, that’s not going to work. I was like, you do not change Texas, Texas changes you. My point of that is I think anywhere you go, every athletic department has a kind of an ethos and a culture, and I am not going to change my position, my greatness or whatever, like you, I think you nailed it on the head.

If we circle back. You got to come in with like a, just a curious, just willing to learn and understand what’s going on around you. And then adjust your methods and adapt your training and leadership style and philosophy to fit that. Not compromising who you are as a person, your character, but just being flexible, right?

Um, John Maxwell’s got a book called leader’s shift. And he talks about a cheetah can run 80 to plus miles an hour at top end speed, but a cheetah can also run sideways 30 plus miles per hour. And today things in work, we just talked about it, NIL, uh, conference realignments, restructures, lawsuits with the NCAA, all that stuff’s blowing up.

The one, the one key trait we’re all going to need is adaptability. You ain’t going to make it if you’re not adaptable. And it goes back to coach, you nailed it. You gotta, you gotta check your ego at the door and be ready to learn, ready to reinvent yourself. And not always be the main leader. You may be a supporter of second fiddle, right?

Nobody wants to play second fiddle, but if you can play second fiddle really well, you probably can make some good changes. And I guarantee you’ve had to do that in your career. That’s why you’ve been so great.

[00:14:50] Charles: Well, thank you, Joe, with your experience and, and, and you’re in the military and that, and it can’t be said enough.

Thank you so much for what you’ve done. For our country, do you, you may have been in a similar situation, uh, possibly when changing, I’m sure I’m guessing units or whatever. Do you, what do you, what are you seeing? You have a perspective there on what could help guys? Yeah.

[00:15:19] Joe: Um, in the, in the, I I’m from the Marines side that that’s my background in the military.

So, um, there’s a lot of change, you know, you kind of break in 18 months. You work up to a deployment for about a year, then you deploy for six months, come back, and there’s a big change in leadership, about half of the officers go out, new officers come in, same thing with the junior leadership Marines. And so, you know, half your battalion will be gone, and a new half comes in, and it just does that over and over again, and the same that a lot of the older Marines.

told me was the big green machine keeps moving, whether you, you know, you like it or not. Cause I think I made a comment one time, uh, we all, you know, a couple of good officers left to go to their next unit. I’m like, man, you know, it’s going to stink losing those guys. You know, they were great officers.

They made great things for the unit, you know, and they left behind some good products, but, um, yeah, the big green machine keeps moving and you just get it. You got to get on for the, you know, the ride or. Or it’s going to kick you off. You know, if you sit there and watch, um, you just have to keep pushing and keep doing, I think what’s best for your Marines or what’s best for your athletes.

I think if you put those people you serve first. Like you won’t go wrong, you know, and as long as you kind of keep perspective and vision, um, on all of that with, with all the changes around you, um, it keeps going. So that’s kind of the take I’ve always had. Um, it is, it is nice in the collegiate setting, at least for, for our staff.

It’s been relatively the same, uh, since, since I came on under Donnie and Clint, um, we’ve all been able to be together for almost five years now. So we’re, you know, we’re, we’re kind of humming and everything, but, uh, it’s, it’s not like that everywhere. So I think, you know, a lot of people have to kind of learn to, to adapt, uh, in, in their situations.

So, so yeah,

[00:17:15] Charles: that’s really good. You know, peop serve, you know, people first serve them first, you know, your athletes. And then, uh, you know, coach may have talked about lead shift. Be be ready to shift. I, I’m gonna add, um, a co a couple mistakes that I’ve made. I, I came in and even you would think I wouldn’t make this mistake, but I did.

I came into UCF. And I assumed that there were like mindsets in different departments in, in, in that were at Utah, right? There was, and what I mean by like mindset, just the same, they had the same objectives, like, I almost said, okay, our sports science department has the same objective as the one at Utah, sports medicine does too, right?

But, but as Johnny, as Donnie mentioned earlier, It’s, it’s, it’s the universities set up, it’s the universities, uh, already in place, these cultures are in place, and you almost have to get in there and really, uh, don’t assume, that you, don’t bring the other school with you. I’ve made that mistake, and, and, and the other thing is, it’s a great opportunity to reinvent yourself.

If you, if you have some stuff, like you lost your head too many times, you know, maybe screamed at some people, whatever, had a bad relationship with the department, it’s an opportunity for you to, they don’t know that the slate’s clean. So I’ve always, I even told my kids, Hey, they don’t know you as anybody.

You can be whoever you want to be. And if, if you feel like that’s what you need to get better at something, it’s a great opportunity to do that. I like

[00:18:49] Donnie: the part about the reinventing. I think that’s. So powerful, but it takes, you know, what I’ve noticed it takes work, you know, and I don’t know that some people aren’t willing to do the work to do that, but that’s, that’s a powerful point.

That’s, that’s good stuff, coach. I think there’s

[00:19:04] Joe: a lot of value to working with a lot of new people. I still remember when I, when I left my first duty station in Hawaii, I had the same company commander for all three years that I was there. And, uh, I remember one of the last things he said is like, you know, as well as we work together, um.

You know, me being your CEO, I, I almost wish that, um, you could have worked under somebody else for the second half of the time you’re here, because now you’re going to leave here and you’re going to work for someone else, but you don’t really know any different than what I’ve taught you, you know, and so you’re going to have to adapt.

Right away as soon as you get to, uh, Washington and in your new command. So, um, yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of experience and value to get in that early in your career too, but yeah, coaching and, you know, and discussing a lot of this stuff and, and, um, you’ve done a great job of reaching out. Cause it’s kind of like how you did here.

You asked us for our advice. You’ve done a great job of bringing coaches together and creating a performance, uh, symposium for basketball. Uh, we just had our own performance clinic. It’s one of my favorite times of the year. What made you want to start a high performance basketball

[00:20:09] Charles: symposium? Joe, I wanted to begin this event because I needed to get better and now I did it for mostly me is, is I’ve felt like there was, I was attending a lot of conferences and events and most of them were, were football dominated, which was, which was great to learn about as well.

Cause you can apply. You know, these, the things you learn, but I needed to have something where I got around people and coaches that had the same problems I had, and this event became that, that piece of the puzzle that I needed. So,

[00:20:41] Donnie: uh, this, I have been dying to ask coach this question. Um, I’m just going to be, I’ll be honest, I’m just a little envious of your conference.

We’ve been doing, uh, we celebrated 10 years on our clinic. So I’m going to be a little bit of a spy here. Coach, what goes in to making a great symposium? What are the big things you look for when, when your people come in, they it’s coveted, they want to come, they want to spend their money. They come in.

What makes them go, man, this was an amazing symposium. I got to tell everybody about it and I’m coming back next year. Go for it. What you got?

[00:21:19] Charles: Coach. Thank you so much. I, that’s a, that’s a difficult question, but here it goes. I think that the biggest thing that I want, we have this mantra, whatever, is we want this to be a great experience for everyone.

So, how do you do that? Well, you make it a great experience for the, as soon as they walk in the door, you want to, you want to greet them. It’s kind of, you break out your old southern hospitality, you know, then you invite them into your home, right? If someone’s, you have them over for dinner. You know, you’re going to open the door for them.

You’re going to bring them in the house. You’re going to make sure they got a seat. You’re just going to take care of them. And you’re going to be excited to see them and happy and happy they’re there and, and hate to see them go when they leave. You want to walk them out the building and if you can, right?

So I think, I think where I’m going at it is we want that experience for everyone. Not just, we want it for the presenters. We want to put the presenters in a situation where They have their greatest chance to succeed. We want them to be in a situation where they, they feel like they’re able to deliver their best presentation ever.

And we, and I tell them that it’s not out whatever you need, because I want I want you to walk away from this event feel like you just delivered one of your best presentations ever. So it’s it’s kind of everybody elevate right everything elevates and always whether it’s the experience so that means and that’s that’s that’s kind of.

What where where I wanted to go and where I wanted to continue to

[00:22:49] Donnie: be what about so that’s good stuff That is so good. What about the attendees? So if you were gonna say hey, you’re coming to my symposium or you’re coming to whatever Conference what advice would you give an attendee to make sure to really just squeeze every drop out of a conference or symposium?

That they can when they go what what are some things they should be doing obviously listening to the content But is there anything else you would recommend?

[00:23:16] Charles: Oh, absolutely. So it’s a great question. We, as an attendee, the, you want to, you’re around all these professionals from all ages. And all experience, all levels of experiences, right?

And you want to build relationships, just break bread with them, ask them questions, tell them about your problems, uh, and how would they solve them? Right. And, and one of the things we do is we have these round table discussions that are really fun. And we’ll put eight or ten people around a table and you get to meet seven or eight people you’ve never met before and then you guys get to talk about things, right?

And it’s Kind of this connection. It’s kind of like this social event that that adds to this relationship piece We want you to walk away. You need to walk away relationships.

[00:24:13] Donnie: Yeah, you know, it’s funny this this year. That’s so good Joe You you can you were there for this We had a speaker dinner the first night and it was at this place called machine works.

It’s absolutely phenomenal Place they got food. They got drinks. They got music. They got fire pits. It’s huge It’s packed what I felt this year to your point the more you can build in that social experience and like just Human to human the content to me. I’ve done done a ton of conferences just like you have we’ve led some but man the part where I really come back and I am fired up is where I’ve spent time like when I saw you in Orlando for the NSCA.

Like that kind of stuff fires me up more than like hearing periodization talks, you know, and I like to, I like to listen to content, but man, it’s the relationships and hearing what you’re doing and what’s going on with your family and your work and that what you’ve been struggling with their work, what the creative solutions you got.

And we get on different topics since like that stuff. really fills my cup. And I think that makes a great, great conference or symposium. What do you think, Joe? I’d have to agree. I

[00:25:21] Joe: think, you know, we have being fortunate to be on the staff. You know, we even have a, um, uh, like an in staff on Friday, the day before the clinic.

So our staff kind of gets to have a little bit of a preview of what’s to come the next day. And we’re usually kind of running around trying to make the conference. The clinic, uh, go along. So sometimes we miss some stuff on Saturday. So it’s, it’s really nice to have a kind of like that. I don’t know how you call it, uh, just close up and personal presentation.

And we get to spend a lot more time with presenters. And to me that that’s the part I value a lot. Um, and then obviously the dinner as well, you know, the, to get to know them and, uh, develop those relationships and connections, because, um, if we never did that. You know, some of the people I know today, I probably wouldn’t know at all if I had just gone to the clinic because, you know, every clinic there’s a line of people that have a ton of questions for the speaker and you only get probably so much time with them, uh, in that, in that moment, you know, it’s an eight hour a day, but that’s, it’s like the fastest eight hours ever.

So, um, yeah, I think. Making a great symposium. I really like what you’re doing coach with the, the, the round table, seven, eight people sit at a table. Um, I’ve done that at a similar, uh, clinic, uh, coach McKee free, who’s now up with the Huskies. He used to put on some of those stuff with play and we had to do that.

And I sat there with seven or eight other guys and girls. And, um, it was cool. We, we had a set of questions we had to answer and get. Discuss at the table, and then we all shared our answers with the group, and that was pretty fun, you know, and, um, made some great connections doing

[00:26:57] Charles: that as well. At your event, Donnie and Joe sounds amazing.

And wow, I mean, the place you just described where y’all had that dinner. I mean, that’s exactly it. And Donnie, I love your thought process is, is, is really we should think that our events are just a day and a half social for me or one day or. Or, you know, the night before and a whole day the next day social and that there’s, there’s great education content that surrounds it, but it’s about the, the social aspect and building those relationships.

[00:27:31] Donnie: Yeah, and I was talking to one of our staff to Charles just recently, um, and she was drained, you know, not there’s different department, but just staffing and athletics here. And I was like, our jobs, we give out so much, we pour out, we’re always serving, we’re helping, we’re assisting, we’re problem solving, we’re, we’re encouraging, we’re challenging people, and that’s coming out of us, right?

That’s our energy. We’re taking out of our deficit. But at some point, Charles, your point, you’ve got to feel that cut back up. You’ve got around Pete, get around people and have life giving conversation. Things that, that, that, Oh man, I’m in this trench together. Like you’re struggling with that too. And when you, man, when I do that.

Like that just makes me just fully energized again. And like, I love my job. This is why I do what I do because of the people I’m around, like minded people that are striving to get better and push the envelope and they’re struggling just like me. So I feel a normal person still. And, and, uh, you, and again, like you said, you get around different people from different walks of life and different.

Um, different departments and man, that, that team approach is, it makes, I love working with a team. And so it’s, it’s such a good thing. Yeah.

[00:28:50] Joe: And if I could just piggyback off what Donnie said, I think the way, at least for ours, when we have it, we would come right off of a Christmas break. And then, um, so we got a little bit of rest from a, from a tough fall as we all experienced.

And then it’s almost like that, that clinic is like a jet pack and it just kind of like just blasts you right into the spring, you know, motivated, energized. New ideas, things like that. So that personally, that’s why I love, um, the clinic we have. And then in the summer can do the same thing for us when a lot of the bigger clinics go down too.

So, um, but yeah.

[00:29:25] Donnie: So if you have not been Charles clinic, get your butt to that symposium, that’s what we’re talking about here. So. I’m sorry. I’m going to give a little shameless plug. I’m good, coach. I got you. Uh, we’re going to shift the topic here. We’re kind of getting near the end, but a couple more here.

I’m going to take one and Joe, we’ll get the next one. Coach looking through leadership, the lens of leadership. Again, this generation of kid is different of athlete with NAL. The kids are carrying more autonomy than they ever have. How do you hold your athletes accountable? Charles, how do you do that?

[00:30:00] Charles: There’s several ways, right? And, you know, one, one way is, is we let, you know, I stole this from the military. Early is on time. On time is late. Late is forgotten. So they’re giving that speech day one. And if you’re late, you just go get on the treadmill. I’m not going to tell you what you just start Running on the treadmill and because you’re forgotten and because sometimes if I got to go taking a go put him through a workout on a treadmill or go, you know, then then you’re taking up my time.

You’re taking from the people that were there on time and I say all these things. You’re forgotten. So just go over there and when I’m ready to come get you, I’ll come get you. And you’ll see some jogs and some walks, but it rarely happens, right? It’s going to happen a time or two in the beginning, right?

And then it gets really good and it doesn’t happen too much as far as being late. So I think. The one thing that’s really helped me is this mindset is elite athletes. They, they, they want to be held accountable. They want to be pushed. You think about your, your best athletes, Joe, your best athletes, Donnie.

If, if, if, if they want, they’re just dying to work hard, be disciplined, do the right thing. So, and they want to understand, right? So I tell our interns, elite athletes want to be held accountable. They want to understand the training and they want to be pushed. Right. They want to be elite. So that’s, that’s what I tell the team and I tell the players that so you want to be thinking about what’s it that that mindset.

Right. And, you know, it’s, it’s not a beautiful world. A lot of them don’t grab that message as much as you like, but there’s some that have already dialed in and got it. And there’s some that will move towards that direction, right? But that’s just one story that comes to my mind or one way to hold them accountable.

[00:31:54] Donnie: Yeah, I love that. Uh, I’ve never heard that. That’s different. I love that. Like, you know, if you’re late, you’re forgotten. We’re kind of, you know, the one challenge, uh, you know, I kind of talked about it, athletes today. You got to be careful. And I think that’s so good what you just said. You got to be careful with, you know, punishing athletes today.

I mean, they got social media, they got blogs, they got, you know, they got the power in their hands. And kids have a voice today, and so you want to do something that not only, I think, that sends a message, but it’s not an unfair or unjust way to do that. It’s not embarrassing, but you’re, at the end of the day, you’re trying to teach a life lesson about the importance.

Uh, putting your teammates first and not just thinking of yourself. That’s so good. I’ve never heard that. That’s great.

[00:32:46] Charles: You know, and the reason why I really like it too, Donnie, and thank you, is that they can walk, they can jog. Like the ones that are really pissed, they’ll go over there jogging. Like they’re pissing themselves, right?

And the ones that are just putzes anyway, they’re over there, you know, trying to fiddle with it and work it out, right? But it’s, it’s, there’s one athlete this year that he’s only done it once and he was fairly new to our program, but he went over there and he was running. He was pissed at himself, right?

So it was cool to see that.

[00:33:20] Donnie: That is cool. Yeah. You get to find out what, you find out what somebody’s mad at, made out of when they make a mistake. Right. And what really matters to them.

[00:33:29] Charles: Yes, and I got to add one more thing and sorry, I think it’s more powerful to do it right there immediate punishment to sit on it for 24 hours on next morning.

You’re getting up at 6 a. m. We’ve all done this stuff, right? And it’s like now they have time to like sleep on it. And, and they wake up the next day and they may have a different mindset, you know, I got this. I can do this, you know, but if it’s right, right here, right now, you’re getting punished for screwing up.

I think, I think it has a greater impact. No,

[00:34:00] Donnie: it does. The, I mean, you know, you’ve got kids, we’ve, we’ve got four daughters, my wife and I, Joe’s got a young son, but whenever you’re trying to change behavior, which is what we’re talking about, behavioral change. It’s got to be swift, it’s got to be immediate, it’s got to be fair, and you’ve got to, they’ve got to know why, you know, cause that resonates and they remember.

The longer you let that drift, the less impact it has. That is 100 percent spot on, good work coach.

[00:34:29] Charles: That’s great. Rod, think of an acronym. You have one for that? Swift, immediate, fair, and why? Yeah,

[00:34:34] Joe: I don’t know.

[00:34:35] Donnie: Yeah. I don’t got one coach. I just, that’s just how we parented our

[00:34:42] Charles: girls. You know, and yeah, by hearing that Joe, this This, you know, the, the discipline that’s required to be a Marine and, and I know there’s, there’s, there’s probably, I’m guessing, and you can help clarify this, there’s probably level of Marines, just like there’s level of athletes, like there’s the best one, the hardest fricking working one, the most dialed in, and you got the ones that are not as dialed, but they’re still pretty good, right?

Um, how do you handle? The discipline that you’ve seen that you’ve done in your life, the, the, the sense of purpose that you’ve had in serving, how do you handle this accountability piece? Yeah,

[00:35:23] Joe: it’s funny. Your, your story, uh, you know, putting guys on a treadmill and they can watch the team lift. It’s. It’s very similar to kind of something we do, you know, I was an infantry Marine.

So we’d go to the range a lot and, uh, and the guys, they want to go to the range, they want to shoot, they want to train, um, that’s the fun part of what we do, uh, but if you’re late, uh, we also have a job for that too. You can organize the ammo table and pick up brass and. Watch the rest of the platoon shoot.

Well, you can kind of be our janitorial staff and make sure the range is nice and clean for us to train on. Um, and that, that, uh, usually, you know, and there’s, I don’t, we didn’t, wouldn’t yell at them or anything. It was like, okay, good. We needed a guy for that. Um, so you just volunteered yourself. Uh, that, that was one way.

Um, yeah, I think the military is a little different, you know, there, there’s definitely other forms of discipline. You know, there’s the girl fashion, uh, military whoops, military style, uh, yelling at them, uh, with things I won’t mention on this podcast. Uh, some guys just need it. You know, I think the biggest difference is that there’s a lot of guys who came up from different backgrounds that they didn’t join the Marines necessarily to be the greatest at their sport or what they do.

They did it because they, they’re probably trying to stay at a juvie or something, uh, or, or, or not go down a path. That maybe some of their, their role models did in their life, you know, and we’re fortunate in D1 sports, kids show up, they want to win, they want to be the best, you know, and they’re going to be go getters.

And so there’s, there’s an awful lot of kids that you, you kind of got to motivate differently. Uh, sure there’s a lot of discipline. I think that discipline is instilled through your procedures and the way you do things. On a daily basis. So that way you don’t have to constantly play catch up and, and, you know, take the, take the extra time out of your day to, to, to get after them.

But it’s, it’s, uh, it’s a little bit controlling, you know, it’s just a little different, it’s a little micromanaged, so that’s kind of how it operates in the Marines. But yeah, the go getters though, the way to kind of keep them going is you fuel them, you give them more leadership opportunities, you, you give them more responsibility.

But it’s because that you can tell that just really fires them up like any opportunity can have to lead really gets them going and it’s almost like You get residual effects off of it. They, they, they’re never late all of a sudden. They’re, they’re taking initiative all of a sudden. And, uh, and by, by kind of fueling the fire, their accountability just goes up to the roof, so.

[00:37:55] Charles: And, and you’re referring to your athletes as, in that situation, right now? Or, or in, in, in,

[00:38:01] Joe: Oh, no, I was, I was, I was kind of, uh, sorry, I was still talking about, uh, military

[00:38:05] Charles: guys, but, Yeah, but, so, you know, How have you applied these, these things that you, Um, As far as holding athletes accountable, or whatever you want to say as far as leadership.

Yeah,

[00:38:13] Joe: similar to athletes, I think, uh The best ones want to be leaders. They want to represent their team. They don’t want to just be a part of the team. So with them, uh, you know, I’ll try to give them certain things that, you know, certain tasks, like, Hey, I need help warming, warming them up. You know, if we have multiple groups in at a time or things like that, or some, some groups came in a little bit later or half the team came in later, Hey, can you warm that group up at, you know, as if they’re like taking on a captain role.

That really seems to get them going, Hey, can you please help me make sure the room’s cleaned up? You know, there’s only one of me, but if I got two of you, there’s three of us, we make sure it gets done. And we’re the best group on the floor, making sure everything’s cleaned up. Um, that seems to kind of fuel them too.

And all of a sudden they kind of start holding themselves accountable and then they hold their team gets accountable and it just kind of like a trickle down effect. So that’s kind of some of the things that I’ve taken from the military and brought over to, you know, how I, how I work with the athletes.

[00:39:14] Donnie: I think just to add to Joe, Charles, I think what I’ve seen with our volleyball team here, they’ve had a really good, successful run. I think what we see with this generation of kids, they’re so used to being liked on social media, praised that they have, sometimes they struggle, you know, holding their teammates accountable.

You know, I think it’s one thing for a coach to do it, but it’s a whole nother level to teach kids to do it. So what I’ve had to kind of do is I’ll pull up the group after a session or in the middle of a session and go, Hey, how are we doing right now? Because I’ll have girls coming to me and go, so and so is not adding weight or she’s not doing this.

I’m like, well, why don’t you tell them they don’t want to. So you have to almost kind of create that environment where it’s not attacking and it’s not so confrontational, but you are calling out the standard. And so that seems to work well for that group. It may not with some groups, but, um, they seem to be open and receive that more and call out stuff they see that needs to improves.

So that’s kind of, you know, I’ve kind of like almost primed the pump a little bit. It’s been very effective

[00:40:19] Charles: And that’s, that’s really good for both of you guys. It’s a, it’s real life. It’s what we face every day and, and holding athletes accountable every day in some way, saying it the right way, you know, and it could be just Little things like, and how you say it, did you eat breakfast today?

Uh, you, I think you can do more, whatever it is, you got to say it the right way sometimes. And, and Joe mentioned the Marines, you know, it would be, I become less and less, uh, yelling. I was pretty fired up this morning though. And, uh, and, but you try to. You know, if you’re yelling all the time, you’re just the guy over there yelling all the time, right?

And the message is lost. Uh, so sometimes I had to actually say to myself, okay, you got to change your tone.

[00:41:11] Joe: Yeah. And, you know, coach, I had a question more from a performance standpoint. Uh, from what I’ve heard talking to, um, other coaches who worked in basketball and things like that, you know, basketball.

It can be kind of like a year round sport. They’re always playing. They’re always, um, somehow or some way finding themselves on the court. How do you kind of manage? Their workload throughout the season or throughout the year because, because some of them, you know, I, you know, some coaches I’ve talked to like, Hey, you know, how, how would you condition a basketball player?

And they’re like, well, uh, you know, you have to be careful with that because if you condition too much, you know, they’re, they’re just always playing, you know? So, uh, I was kind of wanting to hear your, your, uh, piece on that. Well,

[00:41:57] Charles: any tracking device really helps. It really helps you understand the demands of the game, which is what I’m most interested in, that helps me.

So we do, we do monitor, uh, loads. And what when you go back and look at some of that data is in our program, and I’m sure there’s others. There’s many out there is we work really hard. And when we go look at the data, the times that we. Run into little knickknacks or more rash of injuries with your little, little injuries, right?

That, that actually people mispractice is, is, is early in the season when, early in the year, actually in preseason, right? When you’re really, you know, you go from four, we, we go four hours a week, right? When you go from four to 20. You know, and, and it’s hard, you know, it’s great to have data that supports, Hey, when we did that, we, we can still get there, but let’s go a little slower to get there and, and that’s it.

I mean, I think the biggest thing that I’m swinging back towards more Joe is that it’s really important to create this highly conditioned, highly, uh, robust athlete that can take a lot. Right. And you know, yourself as a. As a Marine, how much work you did and at some point I’m sure your body just like adjusted to doing a lot of freaking work.

That’d be my perception anyway. And that’s, that’s what our basketball program here is like, is, is we, we can tolerate a lot of work. And I talked to other coaches and we have, we’re sharing catapult data a little bit and he’s like, really? And even catapult saying like, really? And yes, you get really is good.

If you get there the right way, right? And, and, but it also can be bad, right? Cause so what I think the power to really answer your question, and I’m sorry, I danced around so much is our athletic trainer in myself, share the data enough and our coach trusts us enough that if we want to pull, we, he pulls a player out of a drill or two, or tries to figure out.

Where, hey, I don’t want this player to go over this low amount of load today or, and it’s not perfect either, then maybe I’ll pull him out of this drill here or have him sit, you know, and maybe when we do scrimmages, I’ll tell the coach, hey, don’t, don’t play him as much as this guy. Right. And it’s not a perfect world.

It kind of works. And some days it’s like, you know, it’s one of them bad days and everybody needs to, you know, it doesn’t matter what we say or do. It’s not tolerated if the person is out, but I think that’s monitoring, load monitoring is great. But, but look at it in the eyes of training and build this really resilient, strong athlete that can tolerate a lot of loads is, is the key and, and that’s maybe enough said, I’ll, I’ll leave it at that.

Yeah. Appreciate

[00:45:01] Joe: it, coach.

[00:45:02] Donnie: We’re going to close. We, we’re kind of at the end here, but I want to say one thing to what he was just saying about the loads. It’s, it’s kind of like. If your car was overheating, you would always course correct. You do some intervention. So, you got to do the same thing with your athletes today.

You want to build a big engine, a great athlete, but you also still got to, you got to have some markers, so it’s good stuff. Um, Coach, one more question and we’ll wrap it up. What’s your top two or three podcast books? You got for us today. What you got coach?

[00:45:35] Charles: Okay. You’re going to share yours. I got some.

Okay. You probably do. Well, I do read a lot of books on leadership and I’ve read a lot in the past and I think discipline equals freedom, um, leadership strategies and tactics from Jocko Willink has, you know, a couple of his books have been great sources for me. I think as far as researchers, uh, Tim Sukumel has really advanced me with the weightlifting derivatives.

And, and understanding what, what they actually do and give and, and now he’s, you know, digging deeper into AEL training and, and we have a better understanding of that. I think, uh, Paul Comfort has been, been an amazing influence on me as a researcher, John McMahon, uh, Martin Bukite. These are all researchers that, that have definitely advanced me in the field.

That’s, that’s comes, what comes to mind right now.

[00:46:30] Donnie: I’ve met some of those guys. Those are sharp cats right there, man. Oh, Brian

[00:46:34] Charles: Mann. Let’s mention Brian Mann, too. Uh, you know, he was at University of Miami. I don’t know where he is now. He’s at

[00:46:39] Donnie: A& M,

[00:46:40] Charles: so don’t. I, I got you. He stuck me into that one. I set him up, Joe.

Yeah, no, he’s awesome. And, and he’s practical. And, you know, and I just watched his. Presentation on three, on the three T’s that the NSCA did, whatever, I can’t remember, it was a virtual conference and, and he brought up a study that, uh, Matt Ray, Dr. Matt Ray, and even Joe Kim was a part of is about this. It was done in 2016, but it was, it was really cool research and, and, and, you know, Brian Mann, the pioneer in advancing us with velocity based training.

I mean, I can go on, but I’m really influenced by a lot of

[00:47:25] Donnie: researchers. Yeah, that’s cool. I’ve not done as much reading on the research stuff. That’s interesting. I need to, I need to do that. That’d be good for me. So that’s different for me. Good stuff for me. So coach Joe, you got anything else before we wrap up here?

No, I

[00:47:39] Joe: was just going to say, I love anything written by Jocko. I think it’s a great source. Any leadership, uh, he, he definitely humbles himself talking about a lot of his mistakes he made, which is a little different than what I think a lot of most Navy SEALs are. guys write about. So, um, it’s, it’s always good stuff.

But coach, if, if our listeners wanted to find you on social media or anything like that, email, where could they

[00:48:02] Charles: find you? Okay. It’s high performance basketball and you know, the website is highperformancebasketball. com. Uh, the Instagram is high performance basketball. I don’t have a personal handle. Uh, I, I do need to do a better job of posting content.

Uh, I do. I, it’s a lot about the event and which is good to know. And And but yeah, that’s how they can follow me

[00:48:22] Donnie: awesome good stuff coach. I uh looked that up just now so I got you Well, that’s all we got today coach. It has been a just a pleasure to to chat with you And thanks for being patient with us today coach charles Um, best of luck to you guys.

Rest of the season. No, except for when you play us again. Sorry, got us already. But, uh, wait, man, you guys, it sounds like y’all got it going down there a little bit, so keep it

[00:48:49] Charles: rolling. Oh, thank you, coach. We’re excited to be in the big 12. It’s so much fun and just a different circuit to reconnect with some coaches.

I just saw Sean Brown from West Virginia the other day and. And getting the chance to go to Austin and, and, and hang out with you for a little bit, it’s been phenomenal. So it’s, it’s, I’m, I’m excited for all that.

[00:49:09] Donnie: Yeah, man. That’s, that’s the best part is just, again, it goes back to connecting with people.

So you’re there it is. Coach, anything else before we wrap it up, baby?

[00:49:17] Joe: Oh, it’s great to meet you coach and good luck for us this spring.

[00:49:20] Charles: Hey, same, we’re going to meet in person. You guys come to the symposium. I’d love to have you, uh, you know, to Lando in May. It’s not a bad time. Where’s

[00:49:29] Donnie: it at? Give us a date on that coach date.

[00:49:31] Charles: It is May 9th and 10th. We have a social May 8th the night before, uh, we, you know, we do a social or May 9th as well, but. Uh, it’s, it’s May 9th and 10th. It’s here in, on the campus of University of Central Florida. It’s, it’s a, it’s a great, it’s a great experience. It’s a great time. Where’d they, where do they sign up at?

Well, you can go to the website, high performance basketball.com. You can register there. Um, so yeah, and, and, and Donnie and, and you know, one thing. for us doing as long as we have, you know, one of the things is, is we want to elevate even the most seasoned, uh, professional in some way. Like I tell all the presenters, how are you going to challenge the person that’s been doing it?

And then what I mean by challenges, how are you going to lift or how, how are you going to help impact or impact in some way, the most seasoned professional in the audience? So that’s, that’s the mindset of the presenters. Like they’re going to, they’re going to try to bring something to elevate everyone.

And, uh, man, I appreciate you guys talking about it.

[00:50:29] Donnie: We’ll put that in the show notes. And again, uh, I know that’s on my bucket list to get out there. We usually have regionals for tennis who I trained men’s tennis here. It’s hard to get out as you know, when you’re in full season, but Hey, to our listeners, you got to get out and connect with Charles, his staff.

I’ve heard nothing but just rave reviews over the symposium. So get your butt out there and coach again, thank you for your time today. I know you’re busy too.

[00:50:55] Charles: So awesome. Thank you. Honor. Appreciate it. Hey,

[00:50:58] Donnie: that’s it for the team behind the team podcast. I’m Donnie Maib coach Joe and big Charles. Stevenson in the house, coach.

We appreciate you and sorry, we got to do a coach. Hook them horns. Hook them. 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.