E59 | Championship Cultures, Coaches, and Career Considerations

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.

Donnie: Hello and welcome back to the team behind the team podcast. I’m your host, Donnie Maib. Donnie Maib, and this month, man, oh man, we are in July and I have saved this guest for the summer because not only is this guest today a great friend of mine, but a tremendous colleague I’ve worked with probably the longest in my career.

Donnie: So it’s a special, special guest day. I want to welcome to the show, Deann Koehler. Deann, welcome. Welcome.

DeAnn: Thank you, Donnie. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m pretty excited about this. It’s my first time doing something like this. So, I’m looking forward to it and catching up with you and seeing what’s going on.

Donnie: I appreciate it. Uh, Deann, just a little side note, Deanne knows all the bad things about me, so we won’t talk about too many of those today. But if you do, it’s okay. It’s okay. So Deann, obviously we’ve worked together a long time, but our listeners, uh, this is the team behind the team. You’ve got anybody from coaches on here, athletic trainers, sports scientists.

Donnie: Um, you could have some sport coaches listen to this, leadership people. Give us a quick, brief synopsis of your career path of where you started and how you got to where you’re at at Texas today.

DeAnn: A quick synopsis of, uh, I would say that, you know, I kind of, my career path led me, I was always interested in sports, you know, in high school I played all different sports, you know, basketball, uh, tennis, track, you know, just dabbled in everything.

DeAnn: And then I went to college at a small school, uh, Fort Haye State in Kansas. Um, and Kansas was, is, is, uh, Is a very basketball oriented. And so again, great basketball there and tennis. And I dabble a little bit and tennis and basketball and, um, injuries led me to a training room. And I’d never been in a training room.

DeAnn: I mean, in my high school days, the coach stuck you in a room, put it in a put you in an ice bath if you got hurt. So I got in the training room and worked with a man who is my mentor to this day, Brad Brown. He was the athletic trainer at Fort Hayes and kind of went through Colorado, worked at Denver with the Broncos, and then was at the Oilers.

DeAnn: And so he got me interested in it. And from there, I just kind of went to graduate school at Old Dominion. My first job was a D3s job, um, in Maryland, and there I learned to work all kinds of sports, um, things I hadn’t seen before, like lacrosse, field hockey, um, they don’t have those in Kansas, so it was, uh, quite interesting.

DeAnn: And then from there, just kind of like worked my way through, um, just different universities, spent a little time at Kansas. Um, I got an opportunity to go to LSU and work with men’s sports, um, worked my way into men’s football, men’s basketball. And then, um, I went to Georgia, um, and was head women’s trainer there for a short period of time and then had the opportunity to come work with Tina Boncey here at Texas.

DeAnn: And that, um, is where I have, you know, stayed since then and kind of grown into my, my sport that I have now.

Donnie: Yeah. You know, I, I’m glad you shared that. I, the one thing that is, I keep listening and you and I talked about this a little bit earlier. And you’re not seeing it in strength conditioning or in athletic training, the diversity of sports and coaches you work with, right?

Donnie: And staff, you’ve worked with football. I mean, that’s rare to find a day to find a female that’s worked all those different. You’ve worked basketball, right? What other sports you I’ve

DeAnn: worked. Um, I’ve worked short time with like gymnastics. Um, I worked with field hockey, um, and men’s lacrosse when I was at, uh, Um, Salisbury.

DeAnn: Uh, and then again, like you worked pretty much all the sports there. I’ve worked with soccer. Um, I’ve worked softball, um, here at Texas, basketball, soccer.

Donnie: Yeah. So you mean to that point, like it’s getting harder to find staff that has that diverse background in a range of sports. I think that again, I think the more You can do that.

Donnie: It just makes you a better rounded technician to a professional. I’ll never forget. Um, and, you know, you know, coach Eddie Reese here. We’ve known him for a long time. He’s retiring after the Olympics this year. My first day at Texas. He said something to me. He always has these one liners, right? Master Yoda.

Donnie: We call him. He’s like, you need to work with other sports because you’ll learn more from those sports than you do football and he was so spot on. I’ve learned more working with other sports than I have just being like with one sport the whole time. So,

DeAnn: you know, I tell young students that too. It’s not only just working with different sports, it’s exposure, like also working at different places.

DeAnn: You know, it, it’s. You know, I’ve worked at a lot of different places and early in my career, I may have stayed, you know, at least three to four years. Sometimes it might have been a short stay. Um, but you learn so much from not just the individuals that you work with, but the places that you are. The administration, it’s like you said, you’re exposed to a lot of different things.

DeAnn: And so changing that environment, sometimes it’s the easiest thing to do is stay where you are, but it doesn’t help you grow as an individual. You’ve got to kind of like get outside of your comfort zone and sometimes you just have to like take a leap and go someplace different and see how you can learn from that.

Donnie: What have you enjoyed the most? You know, you’re 40 years veteran in the field, seen a lot, been through a lot. What though have you enjoyed the most? What’s a thread through all your stops and places? Some things you’ve enjoyed the most?

DeAnn: I think I’ve enjoyed, um, Just learning about, um, and I’ve been at some fun universities is just kind of embracing that culture at each, you know, like each place.

DeAnn: Um, you know, when I lived in Louisiana, it’s not someplace that I think that I would have stayed forever because everything’s a party or a parade or a celebration. But it was fun while I was there, like all the foods and the things that you get to eat. And then you go to a place like Georgia that’s got so much tradition, um, and just, you know, it’s a small, a small university town, um, maybe not so much now, but it was back then.

DeAnn: And so it was like, you know, like kind of like going into that and embracing that culture and everybody there was, you know, about the University of Georgia. And then you come to Texas and, you know, everybody, it’s all about Texas. It’s about Texas. It’s about hook them horns and, and learning that to embrace that and, and that that’s recognized everywhere you go.

DeAnn: People always know and are talking about Texas.

Donnie: Yeah, the, the one thing you kind of talked about there too, that is intriguing to me, and I’ve worked long enough with you. You’ve been a part of some really good high level championship scene. We have, we’ve worked together through some of that. And I think culture is really like this buzzword today.

Donnie: What have you seen? Not just in, obviously, volleyball, but just other sports too you’ve worked with over the years. What kind of goes into, like a, what do they call it, like a toxic or a bad culture? What, what are some key, you know, it’s off the top of your head, what kind of goes into that? Because you’ve had to navigate those.

Donnie: Because I think sometimes you get in those situations, you can’t always change the culture. You have to navigate and manage it. So talk to that just for a second. I

DeAnn: think, you know, whenever I’ve been exposed to what I would consider a toxic environment, um, sometimes it has to do with, um, accepting, um, a person or people that don’t fit the culture.

DeAnn: Um, and it’s trying to change for them rather than understanding that sometimes as talented as someone might be, they don’t fit the culture and they don’t fit what you’re trying to do. And it’s better to sever those ties and to move on. Even with myself, if I don’t fit in, if I’m in an environment where I don’t feel like what I’m doing supports what they want done.

DeAnn: it might be best for me to move on rather than stay and, and, and be grumbly and not happy and, you know, and just kind of like make it toxic within myself and the people around me. So, I just feel like you have to kind of like assess that and kind of move away from it, um, but understand like, what, what the culture is, what you’re trying to build.

DeAnn: And sometimes, like I said, you have to sever ties to, to do the right thing.

Donnie: Yeah. You made me have a visual when you were saying, I kind of had this visual of, you know, think of like somebody going shopping for clothes. If you try something on that doesn’t fit. Right. Maybe it’s too baggy, too tight. It doesn’t, um, maybe the waistline fits good, but the pants are, are too big or too tight, whatever you want to start too short on the feet, we’re quick to like, I’m not wearing this, but we’re not always that quick with our, our culture.

Donnie: Right. Like if it doesn’t fit to your point, I’ve seen it too. We try to bend and shift who we are and change who we are. to meet this person because they have, whether it’s a demand or a personality or they just don’t, um, you know, they’re really talented. We don’t want to lose them. Out of fear of losing them, we change who we are.

Donnie: So it impacts everybody else. And so we don’t change the culture and it becomes toxic. So that’s spot on. So good.

DeAnn: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that

Donnie: stuff. Little shift of topic here. You know, the one thing that I have learned personally from you a lot over the years is on this topic of recovery. And it’s a it’s definitely a buzz right now.

Donnie: I mean, it’s a big people and what it is people and you know, they’re just making millions of dollars off of it. So let’s kind of yeah. Unpack that with you because you’re obviously very good with that. It’s something you’re passionate about What kind of got you into that and then give us a little bit of your philosophy

DeAnn: You know, I think what got me into that is You know, it is huge in prevention of, you know, injury, um, and it’s huge in keeping people healthy and on the court, um, or field of play, whatever that might be, and so, you know, I just had to figure out ways because we’re going to take, or the athletes that I’m working with are stressing themselves to, they’re going to push themselves, the coaches are going to push them, we’re going to take them to the, you know, And what I have to do in my job is I feel, show them how they can recover so that every day they can get in the gym and go back to that, get back to that edge.

DeAnn: And so, um, you know, it’s trying out different things because if I don’t, then they’re going to end up with some type of injury. Then they’re going to end up in the training room where they don’t want to be. They don’t want to be in there. They want to be on the court. So if I can do things preventatively.

DeAnn: Um, either like three, before practice with a kind of what we call a warm up, but it’s really more of a prehab type of workout, um, getting them ready, pumping them up body wise, um, to be on the court, and then how do I bring them down after a practice? Like, how do I teach them what their body needs? when they’re done to prepare for the next day.

DeAnn: Um, and so I’ve just kind of dabbled with different types of things and, you know, looked at the research and it’s funny how like, you know, things just kind of repeat, you know, going back to do we use ice? Do we not use ice? Do we use cold tubs? Do we not? Do we get into the hot tub or we not get into the hot tub?

DeAnn: And, you know, It’s all kind of cyclic, but I think really what you’re trying to do is figure out what that individual needs. And what I have learned is that everybody’s an individual. And I can’t write a prescription for you, Donnie, that’s going to work for everyone on the team. I can, I can kind of like teach them what their body needs.

DeAnn: But a lot of it is teaching them to kind of be focused on listening to their body and kind of getting feedback so that they know what helps them to recover.

Donnie: Yeah, no, it’s, I distinctly remember one of our former All Americans volleyball. This is where I was like, Dan’s on to something here because, you know, whether it was a cold tub or massage did not have a good feel to this individual.

Donnie: And I want to say they, what I remember that it made their legs feel heavier. And you had to switch up the modality and again, some of the girls. Would feel great doing I think it was massage or kota, but this individual did not and so you switched it up and found something That worked for them. It was very individualized.

Donnie: Yeah, and you’re I mean you’re your spine everybody responds differently to Therapy and stress, right? I mean some athletes carry stress a lot harder and longer So maybe they do need more Uh, well, it’s cryotherapy or more like meditation or mindfulness stuff to kind of bring them down for that to work.

Donnie: And so I’ve definitely seen and learned that from you over the years. It’s big. What’s your go to? If you had to, your go to protocol and therapy, again, not to blanket everybody, but kind of what’s kind of been You’re what you’ve seen this work. The most had a bigger impact.

DeAnn: You know, my go to and it’s the hardest thing to teach is sleep.

DeAnn: Um, you know, it’s and over the years, you know, just kind of like teaching them. But my go to is I can get them into a really good, um, Sleep habit, um, which is super difficult, especially the age group that we’re working with Um, it takes them a long time to kind of like understand that i’ve got to have a good sleep hygiene But in addition to that, you know, like after the pandemic I kind of um, you know We did a lot of massage prior to that but after the pandemic and during the pandemic when we were kind of like hands off Um kind of went back to using cryotherapy Um, and then also have really gotten into infrared therapy therapy and kind of a combination of that, um, cryo and infrared compression tights, um, nutrition and sleep, all of those things

Donnie: fundamentals

DeAnn: really, really play a part.

DeAnn: So it’s kind of like teaching. It’s kind of like you have to work with them. You got to get them to kind of understand their body, um, getting them to kind of like come down because they’re just, their neurological system is just. overloaded when they’re done with practice. So trying to find a way to kind of get them to kind of bring that down so that they can get their heart rate down, slow their mind down, and kind of that really helps as well.

DeAnn: So those are kind of the things that I hone in on. We do a unique thing after practice. We take five minutes and so at the end of practice we take shoes, socks off, we just lay flat on the floor and we take five minutes and just kind of focus on our breathing um and kind of Try to like shut your mind down.

DeAnn: Um, and it really helps a lot.

Donnie: Yeah, no, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve watched that. And, and to your point, these kids today, they’re on their phones, they’re, Now we’ve got the NIL stuff going on. So they’re working deals. They’re running camps, photos. I mean, they’re constantly just being pulled on. And to your point, if you don’t do something to bring them back down, they’re going to be overreached and then that’s where the injuries kind of happened.

Donnie: But I agree. I think the, the sleep that’s, dude, that is so hard to get athletes to sleep today because they got so much going on.

DeAnn: Yeah. And to your, you know, just like you and I, we can stand at practice on Monday, and we can look at who’s got slow, dead legs, and we know exactly what they did that weekend.

DeAnn: They don’t even have to tell us. And we can kind of, both of us, look at each other and go, Well, I’m not sure what they did this weekend, but it didn’t help them come back fresh.

Donnie: Right. We have, uh, Deanne and I have this funny saying, we’ve We’ve worked together, but we’ll use it occasionally, but it’s like you can’t be all American and all Sixth Street.

Donnie: For all you listeners, Sixth Street’s like the big college hotspot where everybody goes out on the weekends. And so, um, not, we do believe in athletes having a good time, but there needs to be some boundaries there and be smart, especially when you’re training to be a high performer. So, but yeah, you cannot be all American and all Sixth Street.

Donnie: You got to pick one coach. You got to pick one.

DeAnn: Exactly. Exactly.

Donnie: Um, you’ve worked with a lot of high performing female athletes. I mean, your resume is stellar. It’s deep. Um, you’ve had a lot of success with them. What is your thought process working with female athletes? And what have you seen that helps them be more consistent?

DeAnn: I think that, um, my number one goal is to, when I get female athletes, is to teach them how to listen to their body. Um, because, you know, I think once they learn, everyone’s an individual. And I think that’s the great thing about Texas that you and I have, is that we’re working with, um, We’re working with female athletes, volleyball athletes, and that’s, um, we can specialize in that.

DeAnn: And we can look at them as an individual, not as a collective. And so, um, taking them and teaching them, like, to understand, like, when they might need and what a chiropractic adjustment might do for them. Or when they need. Um, they need to go get a massage or when they need, you know, a specialized treatment like an Airrosti treatment, like letting them as a freshman, introducing them to those types of things and then letting them learn to come to me and go, Hey, I think this would really help me.

DeAnn: I need to tune up this area. Um, but I have to say that the other thing, too, is just with females, you have to change things up. You can’t do the same thing over and over and over again. And I kind of feel like you have to do that, um, you know, you know, every four to six weeks you got to change the stimulus a little bit.

DeAnn: Um, and, you know, that leads me into, like, just working with someone like yourself. I mean, it, it, it is nice to work with a colleague that, you know, I totally trust, and that I know, um, is great at what you do, and that makes me better at what I do.

Donnie: Yeah, and I think, you know, Thank you for saying that. But also there’s like, if you look at our program, there’s definitely a lot of collaboration, right, um, between you and I.

Donnie: And I, and I think that’s what makes our situation so unique. You’ve worked long enough in this. I’ve worked long enough. We’ve seen some really, how would you say it? Uh, high levels of conflict and disagreement, maybe even to the point of disrespect between whether it’s a trainer or or strength coach, just not working well together.

Donnie: And we know that doesn’t go well. Um, what, what do you think, um, you’ve seen that helps make us be more instead of, uh, compete against each other, a staff, but to complete each other. Speaking to that a little bit, I

DeAnn: mean, I think that The fact that, you know, like, I know I can learn from you and that, and I feel, I hope that you feel the same way, but I can walk in and feel like, number one, you respect me as an individual and you respect my talents and I respect your talents.

DeAnn: Um, and there are areas where we cross over and I’m not challenged by that because I know that what you do. Makes me better and you are better at that. You have taken classes in it or you know, like it might be um, like sometimes like i’ll say donny like will you take a look at this back for me because you’ve done a lot you Specialized in looking at the hips in the back and I feel really good about like, you know, help me out with this Let’s collaborate on this like what can you do?

DeAnn: What can I do so that we can kind of get this person back out on the court? And i’m not challenged. I don’t i’m not challenged by you. I just feel like it You It makes me better. It makes my treatment protocols better because, um, you’re another tool in my, you know, toolbox and I think that I’ve learned a long time ago.

DeAnn: I have strengths. There’s areas where I am really good and there’s areas where I might be weaker. But if I can find another individual that is stronger and I can collaborate with them, all I’m doing is giving that athlete the best chance to be healthy and out on the court. And that’s what my goal is.

Donnie: Yeah, I think the first of all, I 100 percent um, Feel the same about you. So thank you about I trust and love working with you. I think for our listeners to We’re specifically talking about a strength coach and a sports matter athletic trainer working well together It could be it could be any scenario doesn’t have to be exactly this scenario could be Somebody in your office that you have to collaborate with on something.

Donnie: And what you see, I think is what, here’s what, here’s what my lens is. I can tell from the years of working with you, you love your job. You love your, you’re very passionate about your craft. But even higher than that, to me, you care about these kids. And when I know that’s the center target that you have that, and we share that same, I’m like, dude, whatever, if I need to change something, let’s talk about it.

Donnie: Or if you don’t like this and let’s do it a different way. I mean, I, I mean, I’ll give you a ton of credit, like. We had, I think it was last summer, we had an intern and I’m not going to say what they were from one of our bigger schools. We are, that’s a, um, not a rival, but in volleyball and they, she had worked at that school and seeing how they ran stuff in the weight room and sports med.

Donnie: And then she came here and her eyes were opened and she’s like, Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that all these girls, they got different sheets and stuff. I’m like, yeah, like. Every one of these girls are different girls. They have different needs. Yeah, they have positional needs. But then, like you said, Deanne, everyone responds differently to different exercises and stress.

Donnie: And so anyway, I just credit that to you, honestly, because over the years, you’ve challenged me in those areas, too. That’s made me think differently on how to view the body and then what training program is best for that athlete in that point in their career. Because you know, and I know, you know, They’re good this year, but next year we have to change some stuff, right?

Donnie: Especially as the athlete gets older, they can’t do the same stuff they did usually when they were 18. That’s just part of it. So kudos to you, Deanne.

DeAnn: Yeah, you as well, Donnie. I mean, like I said, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It’s, each one is an individual, um, and I think that we’ve learned that over time, too, that we can’t just cookie cutter a program, and And we also have the luxury of doing that.

DeAnn: And both of us, because I think we are passionate, and we do want to help that athlete achieve whatever is in their dream, sometimes we have to change things around. Because they might have an injury that says, you know, they come in with a back injury, and we know they just are not going to be someone that’s going to be able to do a ton of heavy squatting or, or, Or it’s not good for their body to do that.

DeAnn: And I feel very comfortable walking into your office and just saying, Hey, this is what’s going on with them. We have to adjust this program. And you make those adjustments.

Donnie: But I think kind of this is a little side topic to what we’re talking about, but the return to play protocols, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anybody better than you as far as, and what I mean by that is you’re very, you know where you’re going.

Donnie: You, you, you’ve done this millions of times. It’s like, how do you get from here to Rhode Island? Like, you don’t want to go with somebody who’s never been, but you’ve been to these different destinations talking about whether it’s rehabbing a knee, or a back, or a shoulder, or something in the ankle. You’ve done the research.

Donnie: You’ve actually done the rehabs. You know the therapies that help those the best. And so your, your timelines on when they can be reintegrated into whether it’s strength training or plyos or running is very specific and very clear. And I know you’re not going to put them out there unless they’re ready.

Donnie: And so there’s a lot of trust there and belief in that. So I think sometimes return to play stuff can be a little dicey and fuzzy if you don’t really know, if you’ve never done that or know what the goal is. And so I think that’s another strength of yours that you do a phenomenal job with. It helps me.

Donnie: I

DeAnn: appreciate that. And the other part of that, too, that we have to play with is we oftentimes have athletes that want to push that knob a little bit quicker. They want to do it faster than what you know that we know is safe for them. And that’s also where they come in and they want to play mom against dad.

DeAnn: And our communications is very, very good. And we’re usually, you know, like we don’t have to have that problem because they’re not going to get between between us.

Donnie: No, they’re just not. That’s not how it works in the Yeah. That’s definitely helped make us successful. So little change here on topic as well.

Donnie: I love, this is one of my favorite topics, um, that I’ve seen you handle with such grace, you know, at Texas, a lot of pressure here, a lot of expectations from your head coaches. You’re in that hot seat. I always feel like all the time, you and a lot of other trainers in the country where. You’ve got a star athlete.

Donnie: You know, this is just a an example. This ain’t specific Scores a lot of points. They got to be on the court But they’re not ready and you’ve had to be that kind of like what I’ve seen just very courageous But also just very professional and how you set down boundaries of like no we can’t do that How what have what it’s been some of your successes?

Donnie: You felt like or how you’ve managed some of these head coaches over the years to kind of keep those boundaries What what advice would you have?

DeAnn: You know, I, I think you have to get to know the person. Like, for me, I have to know the head coach. I have to understand his philosophy. I have to understand his culture.

DeAnn: And you have to understand their pressures, like you said, like, you know, Texas, at Texas, you’re expected to win. Um, but I also, um, understand. And, you know, like working with Jarrett, an example is that he doesn’t want someone to be hurt life or life threatening. So I guess like for me, I set down the boundaries, um, understanding like what he wants, but, but I’m not going to bend when it’s something that is, um, life altering.

DeAnn: Um, if, if, if, If it’s an injury that could, um, be with them for the rest of their life if we don’t do things the right way, or if it’s life threatening, um, I make that very clear to him. But there are also areas where there’s, you know, there’s gray areas. And so, learning how to, like, give, I mean, I think that’s the hardest part is knowing when you can give a little bit.

DeAnn: Like, you know what, the protocol says maybe you shouldn’t be doing this. But I know that you probably can and you’re not going to hurt or make yourself worse. So let them in there and let them do those things. And I think once you have the trust of your coach, knowing that you’re going to, I’m going to do everything in my power to put them on the court because I don’t want them sitting in the training room.

DeAnn: I don’t want them sitting out. They didn’t come here to be in the training room. They came here to perform on the court. So I think once you can establish that with your coach, let them know that that is my goal too. Um, you can have credibility with them and then you can have the hard conversations and you’re not in this business, you’re going to have hard conversations and you have to have thick skin and understand that it’s not personal, but you know, you have to understand that.

DeAnn: When I put my foot down, it is because I have to put my foot down and I can’t sway from that. And, um, Jarrett respects that, so it makes it a lot easier.

Donnie: That’s so good. I think the other topic that kind of, kind of parallels this is what I’ve seen you do well. The kids today need it, is how to be an advocate for themselves.

Donnie: You know, especially, you know, the group that we deal with, right? Um, I mean, I’m a parent myself. I have four daughters, and I’m guilty of this. So before I get into this topic a little bit, um, most kids come here and their parents do everything for them. And so now their parents not here. So you’ve almost got to, I’m, I’ve just seen you mentor a lot of these, these girls about how do you in a very polite, respectfully advocate for yourself.

Donnie: So I think that’s one thing you’ve done a good job with as well.

DeAnn: Yeah, and I, and I think that’s really important because going on in life, it’s, it’s like I said, like, when I’m working with female athletes, my goal is that when they leave here, they know how to take care of themselves. They know when they need to make an appointment with, you know, their, their GP, they know when they need to go get a massage, they know when they need to go see the gynecologist or go see the dentist.

DeAnn: That’s my goal, is that they should know that. They shouldn’t just go, uh, I didn’t, you know. I don’t know. Or, or what vitamins they should be taking. As simple as that. They need to be educated and I know I’ve done my job when they leave and they know how to do those things.

Donnie: That’s good. I think, again, I think it was early on I worked with you, Deanne.

Donnie: I forget what year that was. It’s been, it’s been a while now. So the years kind of run together. But I remember one of the first times ever working with you that The big rule that they all had to learn is like, hey, speak up to Coach D if something doesn’t feel good or, because I think it was early on, somebody had something bothering them and they didn’t say nothing to you or, uh, you or myself for like two weeks.

Donnie: I’m like, girl, you got to start speaking up because if, if we don’t know something’s wrong, we don’t know how to make adjustments. And so, and kids today, because their parents do so much for them or they’re on their phone so much, they lose a lot of that social, you know, Uh, ability just to have a, a, what we call like a crucial conversation.

Donnie: It’s not that they’re being negative, it’s just that they got to speak up and take good care of themselves. Advocate for themselves before we can move forward. So anyway, it’s, it’s a good topic. Oh yeah,

DeAnn: I mean we see it, I mean how many times do we, you and I look at each other because we see the panic in their eyes because, you know, I’ve told them like, well, you need to tell him that you can’t do that.

DeAnn: And some of it too is just like, they’re afraid that, oh my God, if I don’t do this, I’m, I’m going to be in trouble. And that’s not how we operate and kind of have to like break that down too, is that you got to speak up and you got to like, let people know where you are so that we can meet you in that place.

Donnie: Yeah, there’s, um, I meant to bring this up earlier in our talk. Um, I think one thing that kind of goes into this. is confidence. When a, when a young female is confident, she can change the world. You have dealt with over the years of young females that lose their confidence. How do you help them with that, Deanne?

DeAnn: That’s, that’s really difficult when they get to that spot. I mean, I think one of the things you have to do is you have to listen and then you can kind of see when you observe them. Um, when you’re with them, you can kind of see that and finding those spots when you can. Give them confidence in the group.

DeAnn: You know, you can call them out when they’ve done something and earned the right to be told by the group that like, wow, you know what I’ve seen you do this week is amazing. Um, where you’ve come, how far you’ve gone, and it’s amazing how that will lead them to do more and kind of help them behind the scenes kind of feel okay about themselves.

DeAnn: But um, it, it’s, it can be a challenge, but again, whenever we can, build them up, um, so that they can kind of see that they are a confident and strong individual. That’s kind of what my philosophy is with that.

Donnie: Yeah, it’s good, because When an athlete, especially a female going, we’re talking about volleyball specifically, they’ve been the, they’ve been the number one recruit in the club, in high school, and then they come here and then all of a sudden, oh man.

Donnie: Everybody here’s, the gym’s competitive. They’re not as successful early on. Coach might be on them about something. They lose their confidence, but to your point, you gotta help them, you gotta listen, and then you gotta find ways to kind of bolster that a little bit until they get to a healthier spot. So, it’s, confidence is, um, it’s a powerful thing.

Donnie: Especially in sport, you know, you got confident, man, you can, you can go on a streak and do great. But, you know, and it goes back to a little bit, you know, I’ve kind of got into this, that mental kind of resiliency, right? But I think you, uh, when did you say this? Or, you know, I’ve talked about this. It really comes back to the home front, right?

Donnie: The parents. Like if they’ve had a really good upbringing and both parents have been there and they’ve, they’ve been supportive and, you know, loving with that kid, but also push them, it’s usually pretty healthy. You know, they don’t take it so personal, but you, you know, we’ve seen it where maybe that wasn’t the case.

Donnie: They didn’t have the luxury of having that, uh, stable home growing up, but they’re just gifted. Those athletes can struggle with confidence. So that, that’s a different scenario, right?

DeAnn: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, for sure. I mean, they’ve got. You got to take all of those things into account and we get, you know, kids that have been, you know, brought up as a blue collar kid, you know, that they’ve had to work along the way and, and you can see that in their work ethic once they get on the court.

DeAnn: And then you have those that have just been just physically talented, but at the same time, someone’s done something for them. all the time and they just don’t know what to do when the tables get turned. And they get here and there’s a lot of physically talented individuals. And so you kind of have to coach them along the way.

DeAnn: You have to like, um, as women, young women, encourage them to go talk to their coaches. I mean, that’s another thing behind the scenes that, you know, our coaches have open doors and they want them to come talk to them, you know, not just about volleyball, about things in general, but Boy, you can see them just like, just get all like tight and tense when they’re like, well, go talk to coach, go tell him about that.

DeAnn: You know, that’s not, you know, that’s, I understand that. And I think that you have a, a good, a good opinion here. So why don’t you walk in and have a discussion with him about that? Um, and it’s very interesting on, on how they each take that and how they can kind of grow and by the time they’re senior can kind of work into where they can walk into his office and have a conversation.

Donnie: Yeah. But see though, to me, then that’s what it’s all about. Like those life skills that they’re not, you’re not going to get that anywhere else, you know, not hiding behind the screen or whatever you got to get in the fire a little bit. So that’s good. If you could take your crystal ball, so to speak, right.

Donnie: If we could look into the future in five, 10, 15 years from now, what do you see coming down the pipe? What’s changes in whether it’s the job, um, technology structure. The way things are done, what would you kind of, your

DeAnn: future? I think the future is going to be real, there’s going to be a lot, a lot of change.

DeAnn: I mean, especially with, you know, like the athletes that we’re dealing with and the possibility of pay to play and what that does for, you know, um, insurance. I mean, because right now an athlete comes in to Texas and, and, um, they don’t have to pay for anything. You know, I mean, we take care of everything medically and nutrition wise and, and, you know, we, we take care of them, strength and conditioning and, you know, tutors and everything.

DeAnn: Um, so I think that that is going to, that whole area could possibly change, um, where, how does that work? You know, do you, how do they, You know, do they have to have insurance, you know, based through the, are they an employee, you know, that type of thing. I think the other thing too is that, you know, technology is going to change things.

DeAnn: I think you’re going to see at some point in time where you kind of walk in and just get your body scanned and it’s going to tell you, like, what’s going on, like, and then you’re What you need. what you need. And you know, it’s going to, you’re going to walk in and do a scan, it’s going to say, oh, I see like, you know, your hips are kind of red today, so we better get in there and get those all, um, stretched out and, and look at those joints and before you go into practice or you’re going to come in.

DeAnn: And we kind of have that technology now to kind of, to kind of tell if someone is not recovered and that they probably need, um, and we kind of base our practices off of those types of things to kind of looking at. where they are as far as their loads and go. And maybe we have to adjust that because the team did not recover the way that we thought that they would.

DeAnn: And it may have been that the match was extra hard, that we had hard, it was hard to get home, our travel didn’t go very smooth, they didn’t get a bunch of rest. And so I think that that’s all going to continue to grow and, and we’re just going to have a lot of technology that tells us more and more specifically what we need to do.

DeAnn: And then I think that, you know, with AI, I think, You know, and they kind of do this now, they’re going to type in this is what’s going on with me, these are my symptoms, and it’s going to spit out, it could be this, this, or this, you need to go do these things. So I think that we’ll see a lot of changes along those ways.

Donnie: Yeah, you, we were at a conference, um, In May recently, and I was talking to, it was a strength coach and we were just talking about just kind of what’s going on with all the changes in NIL and pay to play and the conference realignment. We were just having a chat about all that. And it was like, I said something to this, he was an older strength coach, been doing it a while, like myself and like yourself, we’ve been doing this a while.

Donnie: And I said something to him and he, he made a comment to me that kind of like made me stop in my tracks goes, this isn’t the same job that we signed up for. And I was like, And maybe there’s one that’s kind of like, wait a minute, that has, that’s some good depth to that and it’s not the same job. It’s not that you and I got into, you know, however many eons ago, it’s so much more complex.

Donnie: There’s so much more challenges and difficulties. Um, I think I got here to just, you know, the mental health piece is becoming so important. Um, kids are, you know, sadly taking their lives. You know, right here in our own, you know, in this time and era of sport we’re living in. It’s not from, you know, it’s not from, um, something maybe at home.

Donnie: It’s probably got at some point, right? Our bodies have Uh, boundaries, like we can’t do everything. We can’t just keep taking more, you know, more, more stuff to do more, you know, whether it’s a NIL deal, I’m doing this for this company, the coach has got more pressure on him because he’s got a big contract.

Donnie: I’ve gotten a higher academic load and now they’re going to be getting paid. And now you, you just start adding more and more to their plate to manage. I mean, I can barely manage myself with the little bit I have. Can you imagine these 18 to 22, 21 year old kids? It’s just gonna be more complex. They’re gonna, at some point, have to figure out the boundaries on this, you know.

DeAnn: I agree, and I think that it, all of that, goes into me or them. In other words, like, how do I look? How do I feel? How do people perceive me? And they are so sensitive about that because that’s what we’re doing now. I mean, it’s not just team, it’s I. And so they have, like we’ve talked about before, like, we always talk about, like, when you walk out of this building, you have Texas on your chest, and you have to make Texas proud, and as we talked about the other day, in our little, like, book group, um, they not only have Texas, but they have their name.

DeAnn: on them. And so when they walk out into the public and the persona and what people perceive, that follows them around. And if they make one little mistake where I would have never survived doing some of the things that I did growing up, if I had the kind of magnitude on me or magnifying glass on me at all times, I mean, It’s kind of scary, the things that they have to think about and make sure that they don’t do and they can’t make a mistake because it’s all over the world that they make one mistake and that can be humilifying.

DeAnn: And I think a lot of these kids are just, they’re scared of that. And I think that it puts a lot of mental pressure on top of all the other things that take all their time. Like, when do they get time just to be a regular person and just do something that they want?

Donnie: Yeah, I mean, to your point. They haven’t done the research, but it’s going to be interesting the more we keep doing this, the research is going to come out of just adding more and more and more because it can’t be healthy, right?

Donnie: To your point earlier about training, uh, you and I both know this. There are different, uh, every one of us, we, uh, perceive stress differently. We manage stress differently and we relieve stress differently. Right? And I remember, I’ll never forget, I saw, um, it was a kind of a picture of, uh, operate. Right. And it was this, if you could imagine if you, if you bought two, like, um, wooden horses that you’d work shop, work with, right.

Donnie: And you put them, you put those wooden, wooden horses really far apart. And then you set planks on there and you take weight and put the weight in the middle of that plank. And that plank starts to bend. And you keep putting more weight on that plank at some point it snaps. Right. And. That’s kind of like, that’s how people are.

Donnie: There’s some people that can carry a lot of weight before they snap. But you know, you’ve seen it. There’s some people that are more mentally fragile, and they can’t carry that weight. So, just how they’re changing all the structure and the paradigm of sport, there’s going to be some repercussion and fallout to, I think not only athletes, but coaching and staff.

Donnie: Our kind of generation, right, of, of, of workers, um, you know, one of our topics today too is just burnout from work. The hours have not gotten less as we’ve gotten into this. It’s made it more difficult for everybody. And so what have you done to avoid you? I know you’ve probably experienced burnout. I know I have before.

Donnie: How would you, what advice would you have for somebody, hey, here’s how you keep from burning out from your job.

DeAnn: You know, I think you have to find, you have to find outside activities. And you have to find time for yourself and you cannot feel guilty about taking time for yourself. Um, I think that we’ve talked about this.

DeAnn: I mean, I, You know, have always said that, um, I can work hard. I can go weekends, no days off, as long as I know that I’m going to have some time off. And I think that when you can have time off, um, you have to slate that and make that time off and kind of get away from it all. Um, I think a lot of times, you know, I, I like the way that we do our summer conditioning.

DeAnn: I like the fact that we, get them in here and, you know, late May and June and we go really hard. And then we have a couple weeks where we are off before we start preseason. And during that time, it’s like, I need to schedule myself away. I need to make sure that I, I’ll work and get everything prepared, but I’ve got to get away.

DeAnn: And during that time, you’ve got to catch up with, for me, I got to catch up with family. I got to like maybe get away and do a beach trip. I got to see friends. Um, I’ve got I want to like get into make sure that I and then kind of like make sure that I spend time with the people that you know are important in my core group too.

DeAnn: Um, and just kind of enjoy that and relax a little bit. Um, and then finding like I said outside hobbies. I mean like I this this year I’ve picked up I always try to pick up something new you know I like to cook. This year I started doing um the sourdough thing. So I’ve got these little sourdough babies that I have to feed once a week and make something and I was never a baker.

DeAnn: ever. I like to cook. Baking, you have to measure things. It has to be precise, and that just was not what I wanted to do. And I’ve kind of gotten into it, and I’m having a blast making sourdough bread and all kinds of different sourdough things.

Donnie: No, it’s good. You made me think of, because you and I, we’ve worked together enough, I’ll never forget when I transitioned out of football completely in, uh, That was 2010, 11.

Donnie: I’ll never forget the end driving down the road. I was going to go meet you and some of the coaches at one of our restaurants here. We had a we were hiring somebody and I was out in the middle of day and I felt so guilty and Because I didn’t have football, I was done with football. I was working with Olympic sports only where we’re starting to build a new weight room.

Donnie: And I started to get my time back. And I started to realize how unhealthy I’d been living for all these years. I kind of like the metaphor is like, I was kind of starting to unplug from the matrix, but you know, this, and I know this, if all you do is work all the time, and that’s just the norm, you don’t really realize how hard that is on you.

Donnie: And you don’t realize, um, That you just kind of accept it and kind of keep going versus what you’re saying, get outside, find something outside of this weight room or your office or the training room or sport that helps you get healthy mentally so that you can be better physically. professional work.

Donnie: It’s so crucial. I couldn’t agree more.

DeAnn: I think you’re absolutely right on that. I once had a friend that did this forever and got out of it. And she said the hardest part for her was, uh, having a nine to five job was she was always in the habit. She’d go home and she just like, Turn on the TV and eat something and feel like it was time to go to bed because she was so used to the this career where she got home at seven thirty eight o’clock at night and you ate something, maybe watch a little TV, read a little bit and you went to bed the next day you started all over and so she’s like, I had to figure out like, wow, I have like another half of the day I can go find something to do, go to the gym or go out to a movie or something.

DeAnn: So yeah, you have to do that.

Donnie: Yeah, there’s got to be you. You know, the word, but you’ve got the one book that kind of talks about that I read years ago was, uh, it’s called Give and Take by Adam Grant, and they’ve actually done research on this. Um, they call it the 100 hour rule, and they did this study out of, um, Australia.

Donnie: I cannot remember the university, but it’s a university out of Australia. They studied 100 and something people over a long period of time, and what they found out was that if you took, um, at least two hours a week. You just did something completely different than your job, right? Volunteer at a shelter or get involved in, you know, a hobby or something.

Donnie: Over time, they found out that that two, two and a half hours a week has so much more of an effect to keep you from burning out your job. And, you know, going back to what there was a time like when I work football, we’re working seven days a week. I mean, you still do that to sometimes of volleyball. You work seven days a week and sees it’s a grind.

Donnie: But if you don’t, so you can work those extremes, like you said, but if you don’t swing that extreme the other way and kind of recover, it’ll catch up with you fast.

DeAnn: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. And I think that that also leads into what we were talking about the other day is loneliness and like people don’t know how to go out and meet other people, um, outside of their job.

DeAnn: So sometimes you get that point where like only people you really know are people at your job. Um, so you’ve got to get out and reach into the community. And I think that that can also be and help you from being burnt out.

Donnie: Yeah, we kind of hit on it. But just I want to kind of circle back. What are you seeing in mental health with the athletes today?

Donnie: What are you saying?

DeAnn: I mean, I think that you see a lot there. They’re barely we see a lot of high stress with the athletes. And I see two things. I see the athletes that now realize that you can’t ask for help. But you still also see athletes that don’t understand that. Um, yeah. It is okay to ask for help that you might need to go talk to someone outside to kind of like get a different perspective on how and what you need as an individual.

DeAnn: But mental health, um, it’s, uh, plays a bigger part than it has, um, previously for sure. And I think that a lot of it has to do with they just have no time or they don’t have the ability to say no to things. Athletes, a lot of our athletes do not like to say no. They don’t want to disappoint someone. They don’t want to lose out on an opportunity.

DeAnn: And sometimes you have to teach them that you have to say no because that’s what your body and what you need in order to do your craft. And if you can’t do your craft, these other opportunities will eventually fall, fall away. So I think that they have to learn that balance and just kind of also, Trying to introduce them to the fact that you do need good mental health and there are areas that you can go to and there are different techniques to kind of like get your mental health and it doesn’t mean you have to talk to someone but sometimes just like teaching them how to just have downtime.

DeAnn: Maybe they go do some yoga, maybe they do some meditation, maybe they find something that just kind of like lets them breathe and relax a little bit.

Donnie: Yeah, the one thing I’ve seen you do super well again over the years is just Getting a young female to get help, what are some signs, like what, what, what is your kind of like in your mind as you’re talking to this kid that you say, okay, I need to kind of recommend this and see if she’s open to it.

Donnie: What are some signs you see there?

DeAnn: Um, you’ll, you, the signs that I see often is a change in behavior, um, someone that’s kind of, it doesn’t always bet they’re outgoing, but someone that you kind of see them still. pushing back further and further in the back of the line. They don’t want to be noticed, um, maybe they just kind of have like a, uh, kind of a wilted, they’ll get kind of a wilted posture, um, they may not be eating as much, um, or, um, they may not have the energy level that they’ve had before, or they may have the opposite.

DeAnn: They may have all of these different injuries that. Really, they don’t have an injury at all, but they’re just always in there worried that this is wrong, or that’s wrong, or this is wrong. So you kind of have to look for those things. Um, you kind of see them kind of being a loner. Not like really, because, you know, most, most of the time girls are always in packs.

DeAnn: Or they’re at least have one buddy, that type of thing. But you’ll see them kind of isolating themselves. And once that happens, you really need to like keep an eye on them. And most of the time it’s just having conversations. You doing all right? Like, how are you doing? You need some, you know, like, need talk about anything or, you know, um, and we do a good job.

DeAnn: I think you do a great job of encouraging them to talk to their teammates, to go get coffee, to go do something outside of volleyball, or go talk to your teammates about outside of volleyball, um, and just kind of learn about one another. But, um, oftentimes in this day and age, we don’t, ask enough about that person.

DeAnn: We just let people tell us. So sometimes it’s a matter of just like them understanding that you care about him. And by asking about their family, asking about their friends, their boyfriends, their girlfriends, whatever it might be, just letting them know that you care and you want to know what’s going on in their life.

DeAnn: That helps.

Donnie: Yeah, yours is so true. It’s there’s some kid. Well, I’d say a lot. To your point, you don’t know unless you get to home. Like they’re just not gonna entrust you with, uh, they’re not gonna share their heart with you. You know, and it, and it’s, whether it’s a fear of, you know, being perceived a certain way or being weak.

Donnie: You, you never know. The parent could have instilled something like that in them. But, but, um, ’cause if you, when you really look at a lot of the, the, some of the deaths in the, the current day athletes, one theme you see a lot is that nobody knew and. And to me, this is just me, and I think we’re on the same page.

Donnie: It’s not just about filling out forms and checking boxes, you know, red tape. You’ve got to have the contact hours with kids before they actually trust you enough. And I think that’s, again, you’re, you spend so much time with these young ladies and they trust you with their life. And I mean, to me, you really can’t put a price on that, on that staff person.

Donnie: If you’re going to be in sport and you’re going to take care of people at a high level, you got to have people that, that you can’t have a revolving door, basically. I agree. With staff coming and going, you got to have people that they trust, familiar with, and then, then you’re, you’re more quicker to not just diagnose, but like, here, here’s what I think would help her the most, and you can kind of cut some stuff off, off early before it gets bad, so it’s huge.

Donnie: Um, let’s get into some fun topics here on the end. You like to cook? Talk to us a little bit, like, what got you into that? And then kind of spill over into what’s good nutrition for females?

DeAnn: I think that I got into cooking and I think cooking for me, um, was, um, as I go back, my grandmother, um, she was, um, on the farm and then she was always cooking for everyone.

DeAnn: And, um, she could, make a meal out of nothing, um, and make it for an army. And, um, she never wanted someone to leave her house not satisfied. And, um, in doing so, there were lots of conversations, you know, as, as they cooked in the kitchen and then, you know, everybody sat around and, and could enjoy fellowship type of thing.

DeAnn: And for me, that’s what I think why I enjoy cooking the most is I enjoy preparing the food, but I enjoy, um, I enjoy when people really, like, enjoy what I’ve just made, and then the fellowship that happens with that. So, for me, um, and then, like I said, just cooking with my sister, um, trying different types of things, um, trying to recreate places I’ve been, like going over to Italy, trying to come back and recreate, you know, some of those dishes that they make, or, um, That’s so

Donnie: cool, yeah.

DeAnn: Yeah, I mean, it’s just, and see if I can’t, you know, Um, do that, and I like to do it by taste, as opposed to always following a recipe. Um, so I might, I, do what I call a lot of immersions. Like I’ll see this recipe and that recipe and kind of like think about it and kind of put those things together.

Donnie: See, I’ve got your next show, Deanne.

Donnie: It’s going to be dinner with Deanne when you’re done and it’s going to have your own TV show and you’re going to have famous guests and you’re going to cook for them. There we go. There we go. I like

DeAnn: that. I like that for sure. And, you know, and then the other part of it is I think that, you know, just the nutritional part of it, like learning to eat, you know, healthy, like it’s, it’s, It’s easy to eat unhealthy.

DeAnn: It’s hard to eat healthy.

Donnie: So true, yeah. You know,

DeAnn: I mean, from one, it can be expensive, um, but it’s also, like I said, you just, when you actually do get into and eat healthy, how much better you feel, um. But it takes time. I mean, sometimes you don’t always like get past that sugar craving. Um, in the first week, you know, you kind of have to like, you know, uh, challenge yourself a little bit.

DeAnn: And so like with nutrition with the kids, I mean, that’s the other thing is that they come in from all these different backgrounds and all these different places. And, and some of them have had good nutrition. Some had bad nutrition and you know, some of them parents can’t afford to, you know, feed them.

DeAnn: Like I said, it can be costly to eat healthy. And so they’ve grown up just, you know, eating whatever was cheap. And that’s not always good for them. So you’ve got to have that transition. You’ve got to kind of have that education. And you’ve got to also have that understanding that it’s not going to happen overnight.

DeAnn: You know, like, I might, you know, like, hound them, like, I just don’t think you should be eating a lot of fried foods, and, you know, and then trying to, like, educate them on why. Like, you understand that that contributes to the inflammation that you’re going to get in your body, and you were already doing that by the way that we’re training.

DeAnn: So trying to, like, tie those things together so that they can kind of, like, slowly understand that. That’s one of the hardest areas to work with, but it’s probably also the most beneficial an athlete can ever do, um, and the most gains come from when they pick up that nutritional piece.

Donnie: And I’ve seen the changes, especially with a lot of our younger freshmen.

Donnie: They have no idea how to fuel in their first or second workout and they get all lightheaded and like go pale white on this. Those are always fun workouts. Uh, like girl, you are not eating enough. So, yeah, but you almost have to like, not only educate them, but you have to untrain them because they’ve made such bad choices and habits and to your point, those are ingrained.

Donnie: They don’t happen overnight and it takes a lot of reinforcing and encouragement and stuff like that. So it takes time.

DeAnn: Yeah, I mean, it’s my nutrition thing has always been when I talk to people is they always want to change their body. And I’m like, you know, you, you didn’t wake up. With this body, you can’t go to sleep and expect to wake up with a different body, right?

DeAnn: Like, you can’t take a pill and tomorrow you’ll have the magic body that you want to have. It takes time and it takes effort. And, um, and that’s, in this world, we’re not very patient people. And when it comes to body changes and those types of things, we are definitely not patient. We want it. and we want it now.

DeAnn: And so, unfortunately, it goes back to the old, it’s hard work, and it’s learning new habits. And, you know, as we know, it usually takes four to six weeks to break a bad habit and to gain a new habit. And that’s what you kind of have to emphasize.

Donnie: No, I always, the quote I like is this, there’s no such thing as a drive through breakthrough, right?

Donnie: I can’t pull into the window and go, hey, I’ll take breakthrough number four, uh, to go, please. And it’s done in like two minutes. You know, it’s, it’s crazy to me with all this technology and stuff we have. You know, I’ve seen it comes back to the fundamentals. You need to sleep eight plus hours a night. You need to hydrate so many glasses of water a day, right?

Donnie: You’re, you’re meal planning, the fuel consistently with clean, healthy foods, a lot of color on your plate, definitely some, uh, protein in there, especially if you’re training hard and just, you know, you go from there to the nutrition and you need to do the recovery things, whether it’s sleep being one, but then whether it’s massage, stretching, foam rolling, uh, and then outside of that, you need to have.

Donnie: Healthy social habits if you wanna be mentally strong, right? And so when we start getting away from those and getting into these extreme behaviors is when performance drops. And so really our jobs become more educating and just kind of making sure there’s, they’re, they’re doing what they said they’re gonna do.

DeAnn: Exactly. Real

Donnie: easy to talk about it. Very, very hard to, to execute consistently. Absolutely. That’s the difference. Absolutely. Um, one, one more fun topic here. You know, you and I share a common bond. We love puppies.

DeAnn: Mm hmm.

Donnie: Tell us about your dogs a little bit.

DeAnn: Well, I have two dogs. Let me tell you a funny story.

DeAnn: I’ll, I’ll just do this, because usually Donnie and I talk about our puppies, and uh, this weekend I have a Sheepadoodle, his name is Owen, and then I have a Gordon Setter, and his name is Duff. Well, This weekend I was making a birthday cake for Miss Lisa and the birthday cake called for a buttercream frosting.

DeAnn: Okay? So I thought that, well, the buttercream, the butter has to like soften up. So I put the butter over to the side, way back of the cabinet and thought. It was still in its, it was two and a half sticks of butter, and it was still in the box in the paper wrapper. And then I got busy, and it was like, oh, we were going to go to dinner.

DeAnn: I was like, we don’t have time to do the frosting first. So we go to dinner, and um, I had set stuff in front of it. So we come home from the dinner, and I’m going to make the frosting. And I go to look, and I’m like, well, I wonder where, Someone, I was like, did Lisa put that in the refrigerator? So, no, she, no, I didn’t.

DeAnn: It was right there. I was like, it’s not there. The butter’s gone. And so, she’s like, it was in the box. I said, I know it was in the box. The box is not there. I can’t find it. I can’t find it anywhere. We’re looking all over. Can’t find this. I’m like, I bet Owen ate it. I’ll bet you he got up there and ate it.

DeAnn: Cause he likes, he likes, he likes butter. He got up on the counter somehow. I wish I had, I wish I had cameras. And he ate that whole box of butter. And there was not any butter on the counter. There was no butter to be found on the floor. Holy cow. Box and all. And, well, the way that I know this is the next day, the next morning, very early, someone was sick to his stomach.

DeAnn: And what came out?

Donnie: Butter.

DeAnn: Butter. With a box.

Donnie: Holy cow. Yeah. Yeah. He was gonna get him some butter.

DeAnn: Oh, yeah, so that’s mr Owen, he’s mr Sheepadoodle that likes to get himself in trouble and I think duff just kind of sat back and was like Oh, you’re gonna be in big trouble.

Donnie: Oh, I would pay to get that on video and put some like voiceovers behind that.

Donnie: Oh, yeah Oh, yeah, that would go viral. That’s hilarious. He

DeAnn: he is he is that’s his second You know, last time it was like six cupcakes he got into and ate all that. So there are always something when you have these puppies, aren’t you? I love,

Donnie: yeah, you’ve, you’ve kind of had that influence on me. I was not a big fan when we first got, we have, we have two Cavaliers now.

Donnie: We have a Westie, uh, that we got from my stepdad, but, um, I was not feeling them at first, but they have, I’m softy now. I love these dogs. So you’ve changed me. But, um, well, cool. Uh, anybody visiting Austin, where would you say, where should they go eat, Dan? What you got for them? Your favorite go to eat, eateries.

DeAnn: Well, if they like pizza, I like to go to ABGB. I think that’s a great place for some pizza and, um, different, a different type of thing. Um, I also think that, um, I just went this weekend to Brand new place that was fabulous. It’s called Nomad, and it’s a Yucatan, uh, Mexican fusion, and I’m telling you, it was amazing.

DeAnn: Yeah, I’m saying it

Donnie: again. You got me salivating over here. I’m ready to go now.

DeAnn: Yeah, I think, I think you, you would like that. Nice, some, some really good ceviche and this 24 hour marinated and roasted, uh, shortbread rib. Okay. It was amazing.

Donnie: Well, cool. If, uh, our listeners want to follow up with you at some point, reach out.

Donnie: What’s the easiest, best way to connect with you?

DeAnn: I would say probably the easiest way is, um, well, always the easiest way is pick up the phone and either text me or give me a call, but you can also email me, um, and my email is my name, which is D A N, D E A N N dot Koehler, K O E H L E R at athletics. com.

DeAnn: utexas. edu.

Donnie: Yeah, we’ll drop those in the show notes when we post this. So, Deanne, thank you so much for taking time to do this.

DeAnn: Thanks, Donnie. This has been a blast. I mean, I’ve really enjoyed it. And, uh, it’s kind of like our daily, uh, work chat.

Donnie: Right. And just so you know, uh, again, we’re going to end this episode, but Deanne and I have worked a long time together.

Donnie: Um, Deanne, you’re somebody that I don’t only I truly look forward to coming to work with you every day. So thank you for making my job so much fun and for what you do for Texas. Thank you so much.

DeAnn: You’re welcome. And you as well.

Donnie: All right. Well, that’s it from the team behind the team podcast. Hey, you guys have a great summer and drop this episode.

Donnie: Leave us a rating and review. We’ll catch you on the next side. Hook ’em. 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.

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