Foreign Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

I'll ask our assistant coaches a lot of times what are three things that we need to absolutely focus on because there's some things I have non negotiables with like we're always going to start cracking with a team drill.

We're going to do our stretch and we're going to get into a giddy up drill, which is a full court drill of some sort, and then we're going to do our rebounding.

Then we're going to go defense, offense and kind of flow into a lot of five and five.

So that's kind of our structure and then plugging in the right drills in between that's going to separate it.

So I just kind of lean in on my assistance and kind of get their input to what they think for best make our practice a success Keith.

Hack is entering his third season as the men's Basketball Head coach at Fairleigh Dickinson University Florham.

The Devils improved their win total by six in Hack's second year.

Prior to FDU Florham Hack spent four seasons as the head coach at Madai College.

During his time there, he coached the team to a 2022AMCC conference championship and an NCAA Tournament appearance.

Before his time at madi, he spent six years as the Associate Men's Basketball Head Coach at Ursinus College.

Hack joined the Ursinus coaching staff after serving three years as an assistant at SUNY New Paltz.

Keith started his coaching career in 2010 with Niagara County Community College.

During his playing career, he was a four year starter at Madi, where he's ranked fourth all time in career rebounds, fourth all time in games started and sixth all time in points scored with 1,211.

Hack was the 2010AMCC Player of the Year, an NABC First Team All Region, three time all conference selection and two time team captain.

He also led his team to two AMCC tournament championships and two NCAA tournament appearances.

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You want to have a notebook handy as you listen to this episode with Keith Hack, men's basketball head coach at Fairley Dickinson University, Florham.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sule tonight, but I am pleased to be joined by Keith Hack, the men's basketball head coach at Fairley Dickinson Florum.

Keith, welcome to the Hoop Headspot.

Thanks, Mike.

I appreciate you having me.

Excited to have you on, Keith.

Looking forward to diving into all the interesting things that you've been able to.

Do in your career.

Want to start by going back in time to when you were a kid.

Tell us a little bit about your first experiences with the game of basketball.

What made you fall in love with it?

Yeah.

So growing up, I grew up in upstate New York, about an hour outside of New York City.

And, um, I remember going to the gym at a very young age because my father at the time coached some CYO basketball, local church, so kind of fell in love with it was just around the gym all the time growing up and was able to watch my older sister play growing up.

And then, you know, back in the day, I was a big fan of Michael Jordan and being able to watch the Chicago Bulls games on NBC growing up, whether it was on the screen porch in the living room and just kind of always kind of drifted towards basketball, no matter what.

I remember, you know, waiting for the school bus at the bus stop and getting shots up and until the, you know, get the last shot up until the bus came.

And it was, it was always something I just gravitated towards.

And I was very fortunate that parents that kind of supported me along the way and kind of provided me opportunities to be around the game I love.

Trying to butter me up right off the top by bringing out your Jordan fandom.

So that was a good move by you, Keith.

You're getting off on the right foot for sure.

What's your, what's your favorite, what's your favorite, what's your favorite Jordan moment?

Oh, I'm honestly, the one I can obviously remember the most was the Utah Jazz when he hit that.

The famous shot where his homeless follow threw up.

Yeah, great shot, obviously with Brian Russell.

But I remember watching that game and I remember exactly where I was.

I was on the screen porch on the deck, my dad seeing him at that shot and just seeing kind of how he played.

And, and obviously you follow more guys as you get older in terms of Kobe, you know, LeBron and all the great players we have now.

And it all stemmed back from, you know, for me, from Jordan.

So it was, it was awesome.

I just remember watching and I was actually fortunate enough to go see MJ play live when they were playing at the New Jersey Nets back in the Meadowlands.

And that was quite the experience.

So I would say my number one memory of Jordan is exactly the same as yours.

And I can still remember exactly where I was and I was in.

Let's see, probably that was my, maybe my second or third year of teaching.

I was sitting in the living room of my townhouse by myself watching the game on my old style big screen TV that weighed like 2,000 pounds that I had used my first year teacher's salary to be able to afford.

And I just remember he made that shot and I stood up out of my chair and kind of just put my hands on my head and walked around my living room like I knew what to expect.

You knew the shot was going to go in.

And yet I just felt like.

And the word I always use with Jordan was it was just inevitable.

Like you just knew that he was going to figure out some way to be able to win games.

Then you think about the lead up to that shot with the steel and the strip on Malone and just everything that went into who Michael Jordan was and the combination of the athleticism, the competitiveness, the, the effort, just the mental toughness, everything that he is or was as a basketball player, all the types of things that you want to instill in any player that you're coaching and just he was just the most special combination of all the things that it takes to be great at the game of basketball, the best that, that there's ever been.

And I think it's again, that was one of those Moments, just like you said, there's not very many sporting moments where I know exactly where I was when they happened, but that one clearly was one for you and.

And one for me as well.

So.

All right, let's move off Jordan and talk a little bit about the influence of your dad.

You talked about him coaching cyo.

When you think about your dad as a coach and you think about yourself today going into the coaching profession, what's something that, when you think about your dad and just the way that he was with you around the game, what's something that you took with you from that experience of being with your dad?

Something that you look at yourself today and you're like, yeah, that, that particular characteristic or that aspect of me as a coach or as a person definitely comes from my father.

Yeah.

I mean, my dad helped me so much growing up and obviously I think the biggest thing for me was his ability to never sugarcoat anything for good or for bad.

Right.

He always told me the truth, being a truth teller in terms of how I played or how I helped the team or if I didn't help the team in anything.

So what I try to do is kind of learn the lesson that he taught me.

Hard work and making sure that I was dedicated to basketball and I was fortunate.

When I was, I think 11 years old, my father actually put a basketball court in our backyard.

So we had about, I think it was about 60ft long and about 30ft wide.

So we had know, two hoops up there and he put it in with, I think one of his work bonuses.

So I was able to have a court to go back.

It was able to shoot non stop.

And, and honestly it was, it was the best thing.

Not just from a bonding standpoint between father and son, but also from a standpoint I had a place to go and just kind of ease the mind.

Right.

And when you get.

Something goes on, you go out back and shoot some hoops.

And he was, he was very.

He was good about making sure I always had the right opportunities and he pushed me the right way and not to the point where we get burnt out, but he was just very supportive and I appreciate the most that he never sugarcoated.

And that's what I really try to do with the teams I coach is just telling the truth, tell them where we are, tell them what we got to improve upon and kind of the pieces we need to get to.

So with him, it was just, it was great having him around and he kind of stepped aside, I would say probably more towards when I Got into high school and you, you know, you want to hear a different voice.

And I would then played for, you know, a high school coach who I loved a lot named Ernie Vertis.

And I also played a U learning for two years.

But it was good getting different coaching, different kind of voices in me so I can learn different, you know, different techniques and whatnot.

So talk to me a little bit about the truth telling piece of it because I think that that's something especially when I think about myself as a young coach or other coaches that I've talked to that are early in their career.

Sometimes that's not always easy, but it sounds like you grew up with someone who was able to do that for you and how much you appreciate it.

Was that something that came pretty naturally to you when you started your coaching career in terms of being honest with players about where they're at and not trying to beat around the bush of.

Well, you know, because sometimes coaches get into that situation and then you end up creating more trouble than what you started with.

So was that ability to have those difficult conversations as a coach, was that something that you felt like you were pretty good at right away or was it something that you had to work at?

I think it's something I had to work at.

You know, you always try not to want to hurt people's feelings and you want to be kindness and be empathetic towards what's going on.

But I don't like wasting time.

I'd rather just be direct and to the point.

And I found that with that approach, you kind of get more respect from not eating around the bush.

You get respect from the players who you coach and they appreciate the feedback as opposed to dancing around whatever topic they're speaking of.

And I still remember to the day the hardest, the hardest truth telling moment was my senior year in high school, my first game of the year.

I shot horrible.

I think it was 3:15, 3 for 16.

And normally after the game, my, I meet my mom, my dad outside the locker room and we just discussed things quickly and then head home, eat dinner together.

And I specifically remember walking out of the locker room and my, my father wasn't there after that, that game.

And, and I looked at kind of my mom and said, he's mad, huh?

And she goes, yeah, a little bit.

And remember getting back home.

And he made a very clear point to me that, you know, you're gonna have off night shooting the basketball.

But for me, I let the shooting aspect affect every other component of my game, whether it would rebounding defense, turning the ball over, just being careless.

And he made a point saying he goes, I don't, I don't really care if you miss shots, but you can't let it affect other parts of your game.

You have to be more mentally tough.

So those are, those are little stories I can even share with our guys now saying like, I'm just going to tell it how it is and in the long run you're going to respect it.

And it's holding true throughout my coaching career so far it's being directed to the point with, with our players.

Amazing when I hear you tell that story.

And just the fact that here you are all those years later, still remembering that story, still remembering the impact that it had on you.

And I think we all, whether we think back to the time when we were players or maybe early in our coaching career, we all have things that people have said to us that they probably don't remember at all.

Even saying those things.

I don't even remember the conversations.

And yet we take those things to heart, whether again as a player, as a coach.

And it always reminds me that whenever we're talking and this could be in your role as a parent, could be in your role as a teacher, could be in your role as a coach, that everything you say, somebody somewhere is listening to that.

And it may end up being a story that Keith tells on a podcast 20 years from now that when you ask, hey, well what.

I don't even remember, I don't even remember saying that.

And there's, there's things certainly that I remember.

And just to piggyback off what you said about your dad giving you advice after that game, I remember a game that I played in, I don't know, it was probably an late, late elementary school, fifth or sixth grade.

I'm just playing in community rec basketball, which back in the day, that's just the way you played.

All the travel and AAU and all the stuff that is around today certainly didn't exist at those lower levels.

And remember played this game and had a bunch of passes during that game that either went through guys hands or my teammates dropped the ball out of bounds or they missed the layup.

And I remember after the game I was just so mad.

I'm like, these guys, like they can't, you know, they can't catch the ball and they can't score.

And I was frustrated and I still remember my dad saying to me, and I tried to internalize this, he said to me, you know, all you can do is keep throwing those passes, because eventually you're going to play with guys who are going to catch the ball and are going to make the layups.

And I took that.

I took that with me for the rest of my playing career.

And I bet if I talked to my dad today and said, hey, dad, do you remember when you said this to me?

He might remember the general theme of saying that, but I doubt he remembers the when, the where, the why, the context of it the same way that I do.

And.

But it's something that he told me when I was 10, 11 years old, and when I was a senior in college at 22, I was still thinking about those things when I'm out there playing and making decisions and just influence the way that I play.

And it just always reminds me that as teachers, as coaches, that what we say matters, because ultimately our players, even though we might not think they're always listening and might not always feel that way, they are.

And they take some of those things that we say, and it just shows you the impact that you can have as a parent or as a coach or as a teacher when here you and I are swapping stories of things that happened to us 20 plus years ago, for sure.

Absolutely.

All right.

As a high school player, your dad obviously has a huge influence on you.

When you're younger, you're in your backyard, you're working on your game.

As you said, your court is a place for you to go and got things going on in your life.

It's kind of a little bit of an escape for you as you started getting into high school and getting more serious about the game.

What did you do to work on your game?

What were you doing?

How were you doing it?

Are you working out mostly by yourself?

Are you finding pickup games?

What's the balance between how you're trying to improve yourself as a player, as a high school athlete?

Yeah, so actually I was.

I was very overweight when I was in.

Early on in high school.

I. I like to hit the snack cabinet after.

After high school, that's for sure.

So I remember sitting down with my dad one time after a JV game in 10th grade, and we were watching the varsity team play, and he goes, do you think you could play at this level?

And then of course, I was like, yeah, of course I can play at this level.

I got.

I could do it.

And he looked at me and he's like, well, if you're going to want to play at this level, you're not going to make some changes.

And he was clearly talking about Eating habits and doing the right things and taking things more seriously.

And over that summer, my sophomore to junior year, summer, I actually lost about 40 pounds and, and grew obviously about 4 or 5 inches, which helped, and, and really thin now.

But for me, it's like I didn't, I didn't play much when it came to AAU.

I think I stopped in 10th grade and I really just kind of focused on my conditioning and I kind of came up first about making sure I was always in the best in shape anywhere ever played.

So I kind of just was more of a lone wolf.

And you know what, worked with a couple guys on my game in different facets.

But my dad was also a big believer in not being the best person in any gym in the summertime.

So when I would go to the park, actually, most of the time you go play against better players and you'll also laugh at this.

I remember when I was, when I was younger, probably 10th, 11th grade as well, my dad would just take me down to Rucker park down in Harlem and, and he thought sometimes I wasn't tough enough.

And he goes, you're gonna learn some toughness down there.

And I think there's something to that.

But just being able to kind of work on your craft and I think today it's hard, man, because kids play au, obviously, because they're trying to get recruited and they think that's the only way.

But reality is like, I'm probably more benefited by working on my body and working on my skill level more than I was playing, you know, four games and a day or two days or whatever the tournaments are now.

So for me, it was more just the driving force.

Let's get my body right so I can play at this next level.

And most importantly, skill wise, because I think that's really important.

I also think it's kind of lost more today than ever.

I think the tough part about what you said, Keith, is that I'm not sure how open the pathway is today for kids who don't get into the AAU system, how difficult it is to be able to find good quality pickup games, to be able to plan.

I know that just like you, when I was a kid, high school, college, I'm getting in the car with my buddies and we're driving to this gym or this playground or this park, and we're finding games and to your point, trying to find games with good competition.

And in all honesty, back in the late 80s, early 90s, when I was trying to do that, it was pretty easy.

You could go to.

There was a whole bunch of parks and gyms and places that you knew, okay, on Thursday nights this is where people play, and on Sunday nights this is the spot to be.

And.

And you kind of knew where those places were.

And you could always find good high school players, good college players, good adult players that could challenge you again, especially when you're a 15, 16 year old kid.

And I look at where we are today and it's really, really difficult to find.

You can still find an occasional pickup game, but most of the time the quality of those games is nowhere near approaching the level of the games that I was able to find much more easily.

So I know, like my son this year, Keith is going to be a sophomore.

He is a sophomore, I guess, at Ohio Wesleyan.

And this summer, trying to find pickup games, I get a text thread going with maybe 30 guys in the Cleveland area that play college basketball and trying to get guys to just get together and play in a gym somewhere.

And they really only were able to get games together like two or three times in the whole summer with, you know, 30 dudes on this list.

And it just, it's just not as easy to be able to go and work on your game in that way as it used to be.

And so I think then you get into the whole, guys are working with trainers, guys are in the gym working by themselves, guys are trying to find places to play and it's just not as easy as, as it used to be.

And so I'm sure that the guys that you're coaching right there, their experience in the game in terms of pickup basketball, they just don't do it as much as I'm sure you did, as definitely as much as I did for.

No.

And I think the most valuable thing back when, I mean, I was playing in high school or growing up, is the value of like a winner's court, right, where you're staying on until you lose a game, but when you lose a game, you gotta wait your turn all over again.

And, and that teaches you a lot too, because you don't want to be coming on the court for the first time and laying an egg and then you have to sit down and wait more time to play.

So I kind of miss how it was.

And I get.

Things evolve and change consistently, but it was, it was a fun time back then and obviously you just got to adapt the way things are now.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there's positives for sure to the systems that we have today.

Kids have way more access to gyms than I ever had, which is a great thing.

And I think if you get with the right program or the right people, you can get access to much better coaching at a younger age.

Now, you can find worse coaches, but you can find much better coaching if you know where to look and then get with the right people.

And so I think those are two huge benefits.

And then obviously, if you're talking about being recruited, what the AAU circuit has become makes it much easier for players to be seen.

And then on the coaching side of it, it's much easier for you to show up at an AAU tournament for a weekend and get a look at a whole bunch of kids as opposed to while your season is going on, you're having to drive to a bunch of high school games just to see and check kids out to see if they even fit with you.

Most of the time, I'm guessing when you go to a high school game at this point, it's somebody that you've already identified through a you and you're showing up their games just to show them, hey, we're interested, we want you to come, and that kind of thing.

And so it's just there's a lot of positives to what has.

How the, how the landscape has changed.

And yet I still feel like I always tell people I'm so glad that I grew up in the era that I did, because despite the fact that I played high school basketball and I played college basketball, so many of my best basketball memories didn't take place in those organized settings.

They took place on the playground and just the funny stories and the characters and the people that I met and all that stuff.

And I wouldn't trade that for.

I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Although I'm sure I would have enjoyed just the ability to test myself in AAU against high quality competition from all over the place.

I know that I really had a good time just being in a park or being in the playground, as you said, trying to win and stay on and play five or six games and keep making guys sit and all the things that go along with the, the competitiveness of, of playing pickup basketball.

What is your favorite memory from being a high school player?

I think I had to come during my junior year.

We were a program at John Jay High School that never really had a ton of success when it came to basketball.

But my junior year we won the league championship for the first time and want to say 10, 15 years and it was a special group and being part of that team and contributing in ways of a Meeting pool was a lot of fun and I still remember and we, we had a big time win over our rival and it was just a surreal moment.

You know, it's funny being around coaching as long as I have now, and there's still nothing like a Friday night atmosphere in the high school gym where the whole community comes out.

And when you're part of that and you're able to have won a big game, you feel like the big man on campus.

So those are kind of, that's probably the biggest moment to stick out.

Winning that league championship my junior year and just playing with guys I really enjoyed.

And also just having a community come out and support you.

And I think that's something that you miss it from time to time, right?

When you're coaching in a small college basketball, it's not always like that.

So when you have a Friday night stadium packed and you're able to go out, perform, I think it's pretty special.

So for me, I think that's the biggest high school moment I take away.

And then obviously my senior year was.

We were, we were okay.

We lost a lot from that previous year, but it was still a fun experience.

And you know, like I said, I played for a great guy named Honey Vertis, and he kind of had a huge impact on me going through kind of my two years on varsity.

So those are kind of the moments I had.

But honestly, I like, I tell my players, it's like you're not gonna remember moments like you won't tell me what happened to result on January 15th in 2025, 10 years from now, but you're gonna remember like the locker room moments, the goofing around moments, the bus trips, pre game meals, you remember all that stuff.

So like, that stuff sticks with me a little bit more than specific moments, I guess.

Yeah, no, that's really a good point.

It's something that I've thought a lot about since I've become a parent of kids who play sports.

You start really starting to think about what does it all mean, what's the purpose of playing sports?

And I think back to my playing career and what you just described is, I think, a natural phenomenon in that each moment, right.

You're really concerned about how you're going to play and how you're going to perform and is your team going to win or lose.

That's what's most important to you day to day.

That's what I'm focused on, is I got to make sure I play well in this game.

I got to help My team win.

We got to try to win this game.

You're focused on those wins and losses and your performance, and that's really what's most important to you in the moment as a player.

And then, as you said, when you get removed from it and you look back and you reflect, there's very few individual games over the course of my high school and college career that I can remember those games vividly.

Especially, again, you play in your conference, like, if you're in college, you might play the same team, play them in the conference tournament, you might play them 10 or 13, you know, 10, 12 times over the course of your career.

And people come up to me like, hey, you remember that?

Oh, you game when you're a junior?

And I'm like, well, I don't know, can you give me some details, maybe refresh my memory about that?

Because they all kind of.

They all kind of run together.

But to your point, what you do remember is those stories that are.

That happen in the locker room or those things that happen on road trips or just in general, your teammates and your coaching staff and the whole experience is what you remember as opposed to those individual games.

And yet it's funny because like I said, in the moment, as you're going through it, you're not necessarily thinking about those experiences.

You're.

You're so focused on your performance and trying to win games and trying to play your best.

And yet ultimately, once you get removed from the day to day as a player, what you tend to remember are those experiences.

And so it sounds like for you, that's a similar thing where there are games that's.

There are games that stand out, winning the league championship and whatever.

But ultimately, if you look back, how many of the 45 high school games that you played as a junior or senior, how many of those games do you remember?

The details of the answer is probably very few.

Right?

Yet, you know what, you know what your junior year felt like, you know what your senior year felt like, you know who those guys were that were your teammates, and you know the impact that your coaching staff had on you.

And just it's really interesting how the perspective of time changes and makes you think about what's important.

And I certainly think about that as a parent in terms of how I approach conversations with my kids and how you get them to want to give their best and.

And do whatever they can to be successful, and yet at the same time, helping them to understand that, hey, you also gotta pour into your teammates and you gotta be there and be Be present for the things that are going on and not just always be worried about, hey, this next game, you gotta, you gotta enjoy the ride while it's there.

Because as we all know it, it ends, it ends way before most of us want to, let's put it that way.

Absolutely.

So since you did not play much aau, what was the recruiting process like for you and when, when did you know you wanted to play college basketball and then what was the recruiting process like for you?

Yeah, so it was, it was different.

I actually was a two sport athlete.

I played soccer as well and I was probably actually recruited more for soccer than I was basketball.

I had a few schools, probably two that were interested in basketball.

I'm about, you know, seven or eight soccer opportunities, a couple low level Division 1 stuff.

But I didn't love soccer.

Right.

I liked it.

I, I love basketball.

And I kind of came that realization after my junior summer that I wanted to kind of pursue basketball and play it in college if I was fortunate enough to.

And at the time in school up in Buffalo Madai College and my cousin was attending the school there and we always kind of wanted to play together because he was out from Indiana.

So for us to kind of meet up and be able to play on the same team was something that we talked about from time to time.

And, and when I got into school up there and, and went up there on a recruiting trip and met with the guys on the team, it just kind of felt like a school I'd thrive in and feel comfortable with.

And I'd made the decision to go to medallion and quite frankly I was the best decision I ever made.

But it's funny how it works out because I didn't really have much.

I was today.

I would have been the most under recruited kid.

Like just not having opportunities and not playing AU and obviously everything's grown so much with social media, promoting yourself, promoting your brand and having highlight films made.

I didn't have any of that stuff like, you know, you show up at like a five star camp or Eastern Invitational, maybe that helps you get recruited.

But for me it was just more.

A few schools reached out and I ended up taking medallion.

Like I said, it was the best four years of my life.

Like it was, it was unbelievable my experience there.

So the recruiting for me wasn't too complicated.

It was more, I have two opportunities, I want to go play with my cuts, I want to go up and work and that's kind of what I did done.

There you go.

Sold was a pretty easy, pretty easy Sales job, it sounds like.

Very much so.

All right, so going into school at this point, are you thinking coaching at all?

Is it on your radar or what are you thinking about career wise as an 18 year old?

Do you have any idea where's your mindset as you head into College?

Like most 18 year olds having no idea.

But it's kind of funny.

I, I went to school for sport management and I kind of always knew I wanted to be involved and sports.

I just can't see myself doing anything else.

And I'm not really built to sit behind a desk all day.

So I kind of had an idea and then, you know, I kind of knew as I got further along in my college career that coaching something I want to do.

Especially the guy who I played for in college, a guy named Mike McDonald, you know, the, the head coach at Damon University.

He gave us such a good experience and I saw kind of the, the relationships he formed with us as players, but just as people.

And that kind of rubbed off on me.

And I kind of knew I wanted to get this professional with helping young people kind of achieve their goals, applying college basketball, but also growing them as people in four years because they're, they're ready for the real world.

So I kind of knew probably after my sophomore year I would want to pursue something in coaching.

Did your.

Way of thinking about the game shift at all during your college career, in other words?

I always tell people that while I was playing, I simply thought of the game as a player.

I kind of thought about what I did and not that I didn't know what the other guys on the floor were doing, but I knew my role.

I was focused on my role.

I was trying to do the best I could in it to help the team win.

I did what the coaches asked me to do.

But then there are other guys who really start thinking about how the entire picture fit together.

And that was never me when I was playing.

I was strictly always a player from day one all the way through until my career ended.

And I never really once thought about being a coach.

And I know there are some guys that think about being a coach from the time they're seven, eight years old.

And then there's other guys that don't think about it all like me until the they get done playing.

And then there's sort of that transition for some guys where they're playing and they start to say, hey, at some point maybe I want to coach.

Let me start thinking about why are we running this kind of offense or what are we really trying to do defensively beyond just my role.

So I don't know if you started thinking more like a coach as your college career progressed or you just strictly were focused on being a player.

I'd be lying if I said I thought like a coach when I was playing.

I think you kind of tunnel vision about what you're doing.

And you know, I was pretty fortunate with my time at madi, like my freshman year.

We're my freshman class.

I would say we were coming into a situation that wasn't very good.

We were born 46 the previous two years.

So we're kind of sold on being the change and that was going to take place.

And it's always hard to believe sometimes when you hear that from a coach because you don't know if it's like lip service or what the vision actually is.

But Coach McDonald was pretty thorough with how he was going to get the job done.

And my freshman year we were, you know, 11, 14 and that's a huge improvement from where the program was.

And we, you know, missed the conference tournament.

And it kind of drove us differently over my sophomore year we finished 15 and 13, lost in the conference semifinals.

My junior year were 21 7, win the conference, go to NCAA tournament.

And then like my senior year, we're nationally, right?

Most of the year I think he finished 24 and 5.

And we're pointing away from the sweet 16, which I turned the ball over to end all of our, my teammates careers, which I get reminded about.

But I, I just, I was living, trying to live in the moment.

I was always trying not to get too far ahead of myself and I wouldn't enjoy the time I had playing.

So I had to think too much big picture stuff until like you said earlier, I got done and I was more like, okay, here's the transition time, like what do I want to do and how do I do it?

What are some opportunities I'm going to have?

Hopefully coaching when I was done playing.

So I was, I guess I was more television focused on just being a player than big picture.

So what did that first job search look like then, when you get ready to graduate?

Well, I had two opportunities.

One, to return to Badai Cob, an assistant coach and help Coach McDonald's.

For me, that was probably a little bit more of a trickier situation because those are guys I just played with on the team and I just kind of wanted to get out away from that shadow and try something different.

And my assistant coach my junior season, a guy named Billy B.

Line, is the head coach at Niagara County Community College.

When I got done and I graduated, he just finished his first year at Niagara County Community College, and he was looking for an assistant coach.

And I, I was like, Billy, like, I wanted, I want to do this.

Whatever you need, I'm happy to do it.

And I was fortunate he took me on and obviously I was actually making, I think, only a thousand dollars for the year.

It was actually not for coaching.

It was just cleaning the gym floor every day.

So to make end of need, I actually worked at a motel in Niagara Falls from midnight to 8 in the morning.

And I, after shift, I check myself into a room for four hours sleep and then go, you know, work kids out.

And I loved it.

I kind of fell in love with it.

And working for Billy B.

Was probably one of the most fun experiences I've ever had because he's, one, he's unbelievable what he's done, that program.

And two, he's just basketball royalty, where he comes from and his knowledge of the game.

So I was pretty fortunate on my first stop at, you know, Niagara County Community College and kind of getting my first taste in the coaching.

As somebody who hadn't thought a ton about coaching growing up, what's something that, what's something that you took to right away as a coach that really made you feel like, oh, yeah, this is, I'm in the right spot.

Was there something that really grabbed you about coaching that again, having not done it before, but then getting into this experience, what was it about it that grabbed you?

I would say two things.

The first being the recruiting piece.

I, I really enjoy getting to know people, and not just the person you're recruiting, but their family.

I think it's really neat that we come across so many different types of people on all different walks of life.

So that was always something that intrigued me.

And going to different recruiting showcases and, you know, I still remember my head spinning.

The first time you go to like a hoop group event, there's, you know, 40 ports going on at once, trying to maximize time and figure it out, but.

But I enjoyed that.

I really did.

And then I think that the tactical side of sitting in the office, when, when you're a player, you get handed a scout, but when you're on the other side and you see how much time and effort goes in the scouting reports and like, you're trying to figure out what's, how's somebody going to guard you and what's your counter to how they're going to guard you and, and what's the best way to attack them on both the offense, defensive side of the ball, and really kind of hunkering down and watching film and understanding it in a deeper level.

And obviously this is before the luxury of synergy.

So, you know, you have to clip tapes up and get the right clip shown and all that kind of really fascinated me.

And I kind of was like, yeah, I think this is something I want to do from just one, a relationship piece, but also a tactical piece that I just kind of really enjoyed.

All right, going back to your family, when you graduate from college, you tell them, all right, I'm taking a thousand dollar a year job to coach and go work at a motel.

What's the conversation like with your mom and dad?

Why do we pay this money for you go to school?

No, they were supportive.

They were very supportive about my dreams and, and you know, they, they knew I kind of, we talked about getting into coaching and they were very supportive enough.

I'm extremely lucky too.

Like at the time with girlfriend now, why she was very supportive of my, my goals and aspirations of getting into coaching.

And they're like, this is what you want to do.

Like, can you figure out how to make ends meet?

Like, we're all supportive and if there's a hiccup, we'll help you out.

So I was lucky.

I had a great support net of people wanting me to pursue my dream, and they were very on board with it.

Probably after the fourth year of being an assistant, they're like, okay, maybe you should try to make some money now.

But to start, it was good.

All right, so what's your best piece of advice for other young coaches who are taking jobs who don't make a lot of money?

What's your best piece of financial time management?

Just life lessons that you learned during that time when you weren't making very much money.

What advice would you have for somebody who's in that same spot?

Because there are a lot of guys who are in that spot, starting at their careers who listen to the pod.

Yeah, I think for one, don't eat out every night because you're gonna have to save some money.

You have to learn how to, you know, find groceries and cook dinner yourself.

But, you know, if you really want to do this bad enough, like, you're gonna have to put some time and start at the bottom with the totem pole and the people that kind of are willing to embrace the grind and kind of work their way up, make it.

And other ones that don't want to make that commitment, like, you're gonna think outside the box and be creative.

I was working, you know, the motel shift.

You work camps in the summer.

Hell, like you even try to teach a class sometimes when you're on campus if you can.

Like there's different ways you can make money, but you gotta hustle and that's how you're gonna make it early on.

Because most jobs, probably 85, 90 of them, like you're not stepping into a lot of money.

So you gotta figure out, make a beat whether something through teaching, graveyard shift work, whatever it may be.

But I would tell everyone, like don't, don't make it about the money early on.

Just find the right fit and try to surround yourself with a great coach and a great program that you can learn from that that's going to be beneficial to you down the road.

The money stuff will work itself out eventually.

That's great advice.

And let me ask you about the JUCO experience.

So looking back at that first job and coaching at the JUCO level, what's a lesson that you took from that first experience that has impacted you moving forward and all your other stops?

The ability to adapt and change quickly.

I think from the aspect of you might have some kids ineligible, you might, your roster might change it mid semester, your whole scout might change mid semester because you might have scouted a team in December ready for January, but their roster different.

So I think the adaptability piece and always being prepared to do more with less I think was awesome because you didn't have all the bells and whistles and you just went out and did the job to your best of your ability.

So I think the JUCO level taught me that.

And it gets a bad rap sometimes junior college.

And I don't really understand because some of those kids are absolute unbelievable kids that are workers and they're there for different reasons, right?

Maybe they're, they're saving money because they're paying their own way through.

Maybe they're trying to improve their academics or maybe they thought they were under recruited and that's really theirs.

The best part is just kind of how they adapted and how we adapted to what was happening.

So I think that's a big lesson that I was able to take from the junior college ranks.

There's a ton of guys that we've talked to that are either still coaching at the JUCO level or have JUCO experience in their background.

And almost everybody that we talk to just talks about what fun and positive experience the ability to work at the JUCO level was or is for them.

And for some of the reasons that you just mentioned in terms of being able to help kids to reach their dreams.

Right?

So you have somebody that maybe academically was a little shaky or maybe they felt like, as you said, they were under recruited and come in, you get an opportunity to work with them for a year or two years and then you get to get to see them move on to a four year institution and suddenly they're having success and boom.

So so many people talk about just that ability to impact lives, which is what again, as coaches, we're trying to win games, we're trying to do all the things that we do on a day to day basis.

But kind of going back to what we talked about with the experience piece of it, you're trying to give those kids a good experience, you're trying to help them to reach their immediate goals, but also to reach the goals that they have for their future.

And so many guys that have coached at the JUCO level say the same thing that you did.

Like, hey, it gets a bad rap.

And there's so many good kids and good people that are involved in JUCO basketball and there's so many great stories that come out of it of players who start out at the JUCO level and then all of a sudden things go right for them, they start to blossom and they figure it out and then all of a sudden, boom, they're at a four year college, they're graduating and they're going on to have great lives as a result of the impact that a coach or a program or the game of basketball had on them at the JUCO level.

So I always think that guys who start there, as you said, there's not a ton of resources always.

And so you kind of get to dip your hand into I got to do this, I got to do that, I got to do this.

And you learn all these different aspects of the program and all these different aspects of coaching while you're kind of trying to figure it out off the floor as well.

Right.

And by, by doing all those things, it really helps you to grow and mature as a person and as a coach.

And then it sets you up for what you have coming next in the, in, in your career.

So after Niagara county, you get an opportunity to go to SUNY New Paul.

Let's talk a little bit about how that happens and what the transition was like for you from going from going from juco to D3.

Yeah.

So, you know, I kind of want to get back in the four year side of things and maybe feel Closer to home, just being away for four years of college and two years up in Narco Falls or being away from home for six years.

It was a job.

One that's in a, in a great league and super in the act.

But two was also close to home and I was able to, you know, kind of save a little bit of money if I'd be fortunate to live at home.

Which is funny, right?

When you're growing up you're like, I want to get away from home, I want to get away from home.

But when you get older you're like, I want to go back to home.

Right?

Yep, yep.

So for me it was kind of a no brainer opportunity and you know, huge pay raise.

I think I was up to $8,000 a year.

So for me it was kind of like, let's get back in the four year side of things and, and pursue it kind of in a level that I played at and the level I believe in in Division 3 and kind of just see how I enjoy it in the Division 3 level as opposed to the JUCO and what differentiates both kind of divisions.

I'd say.

Did you think about that experience as an assistant coach and just what your role was there compared to what it was like at Niagara?

How would you compare the two in terms of your responsibilities?

Yeah, I think similar and different in juco.

There wasn't much film sharing back in the day at Division 3.

Right.

Like we were sharing film, but obviously there was no synergy software.

So you had to actually like burn the DVDs and mail them out to different colleges and you know, they're on the, you can send this to them, tape, you send it to them.

But I think the responsibilities changed a little bit more just in terms of encore.

I was tasked probably with doing a little bit more as I was more comfortable in my coaching career encourt teaching, doing study hall check ins, running study halls for the department.

I was kind of a jack of all trades when I was at New Paltz and I think that really kind of helped me as I progressed in my career from two years there, then eventually going to sinus work.

That was probably my biggest job in terms of growing as a coach.

So there's very similar things and very different things, but it's all just kind of falls under one umbrella, to be honest with you, when it comes to JUCO level and obviously being at New Pals where you kind of deal with a little more travel responsibilities and coordinating things of those natures as you're developing as a coach.

Not only are you getting that administrative side of it, right, the off the floor coaching, but clearly you're growing through the film room and being on the floor with players and that type of thing.

Was there one side of the ball that you sort of gravitated towards that you like coaching more than the other?

Did you like offense over defense, defense over offense equally?

Which one, which one of this, the X's and O side of the ball excited you more?

No, I hate defense.

I gravitate to offense.

Like I know a lot of coaches come on and then defense default.

Not me.

It was like, that's figure out ways how to attack opponents, what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses.

I really enjoy like the adjustments other coaches make against you when you're talking about they might be guarding the ball screen one way or they're guarding two different guys on the off ball screen as you're coming off differently because they're great shooters.

I really enjoyed the tactical piece of the offensive end and then also, you know, designing and in coming up with different ideas for sets, plays, motion offenses and just kind of tinkering with things non stop and how would defenses guard that?

So you kind of get a little of both though I think on both sides of the ball, whether you, you know, prefer defense more, prefer offense more.

The benefit is if you're thinking offensively, I diagram certain things.

Well, great.

Your mind then shifts to how would you guard this if you're a defense?

Like what would you do to defend said offense or said set?

So I think kind of you get the benefit of both worlds.

I wish I was probably a little bit better defensive coach, but I just gravitate more.

And luckily I'm surrounded by assistant coaches that are pretty good on the other side of the ball.

So after New Paltz, you get an opportunity to go to Orinus.

You're there for six seasons again, continue to develop your craft.

At some point during that tenure there, you start probably thinking about, hey, maybe there's, there's going to be an opportunity to run my own program or I'd like to do that at some point as an assistant coach.

One of the things I always find fascinating is just how guys begin to prepare themselves for that opportunity by thinking about what their head coaches have done, what the programs that they've been involved in, what they like, what maybe they would change what they would do differently and start sort of compiling their ideas, their thoughts of what they would do if they had a program.

So did you have an organized system for collecting your thoughts, ideas, concepts that you felt would be important if and when you got an opportunity to be a head coach.

And if so, what was.

Would that system look like for you?

Yeah, actually, when I.

When I got the job at her sinus, I remember Coach Small and I were going to a.

An open gym for recruitment visit.

And when we get to the gym, he has this little black notebook with him, and he was jotting things down left and right.

I finally looked over him, I was like, what are you doing?

And he told me, he's like, I'm taking notes of the players.

But he goes, I'm also seeing different drills and writing different things down that, like, pops into his brain as he's watching stuff.

Something.

And I thought it was fascinating.

And it.

The cool part was, the very next day, I walk in the office and he handed me my kind of own little black book that started to carry around me and write things down.

I wouldn't say it's always the most organized because you're just getting a ton of ideas together, but I go through it every single year when I'm done and just kind of read my thoughts, organize my thoughts, and kind of write it down.

Because when that time does come to become a head coach, like, you want to remember some of the things you thought about, and you're never prepared for it.

You get thrown in the fire.

You live and you learn.

And I know everyone says it, but when you move to the next chair, like, it's a huge adjustment because you make every single decision and you're not always going to make the right one.

But if you have stuff to fall back on and your experiences and stuff that Coach Moll taught me just with a little simple black notebook about writing things down in an open gym visit, I thought it was really cool.

So I also kept every practice plan that we ever had and would write kind of my own version to the drills that we did.

Because I might not call it the same names, but scouting reports, same thing.

You know, you try to save as much as you can, and what you like, what you don't like, what you can tweak, what you can change, what are your kids going to retain.

So all that goes into play.

So for me, it was more just like, let's try to save as much things as possible.

Now, eventually things get cluttered, so you have to throw some things out or start saving on hard jobs.

But so for me, that was probably the biggest thing, is I was trying to prepare for the next opportunity, and.

That next opportunity comes to you at your alma mater.

Yep.

So clearly that's a job that when it comes open, that you're interested in.

So just walk me through the process of how you find out the job's going to open up.

Who are you calling to talk to about the job and then what was the process like going through to.

To do the interviews and the things that were necessary in order for you to be able to get that opportunity?

Yeah.

So, I mean, it opened late because I know Coach Blaine, who took over after Coach McDonald.

He left in, like, September, I believe, for Plattsburgh.

So it was kind of a quick turnaround, I would say.

And my wife's from western New York.

He grew up in Buffalo.

And for us to have a chance to go back to a place that one where we met, but two is giving us both a lot of people, was.

Was important to us.

And she's made a lot of sacrifices, you know, moving around, you know, the Northeast for me.

So for us being able to move back and.

And her being around her family was pretty important to us.

So the job opened.

I remember hearing about it through the grapevine, the coaching grapevine, and I threw my name in the middle.

I asked Coach McDonald to call over because he was still friends with the AD and people over at Madai from when he goes there.

I was able to get an interview.

And that process was very quick.

It was probably like a two week process.

And I remember meeting with everyone on campus, driving up the Buffalo, and it just, you know, it felt like deja vu walking into a place that already spent so much time in.

But there was a lot of comfortability for me and my family, so that was important.

And I remember I got hired.

I think I technically got hired October 12, which season started October 15.

So I literally just threw some things in a suitcase, and I was sleeping on a buddy's couch for two months while my wife was yet again packing up all our things by herself.

Because I'm a terrible husband, for sure.

My dream until our lease was done, and then she moved up to Buffalo with us, and that was kind of the first year.

It's kind of a.

Kind of a whirlwind experience.

And the interview process is insane.

Like, you.

You got to meet and talk with so many different people and being prepared, and you're kind of saying the same thing to a bunch of different people.

So it's a long day.

It's a grooming day, that's for sure.

Was it surreal to walk back into a place that you had spent so much time as a player and suddenly you're walking into the coach's office and obviously, as you said, there was some comfort there and it hadn't been a place that you're familiar with.

But at the same time, I'm guessing that had to be a little strange to walk out onto the floor as the coach, as opposed to the last time.

You're walking out on the floor, you're walking out there as a player.

So how did you just think about process that in the early days of having a job?

I think what helped was the timing of everything.

I didn't really have time to think too much about anything that was going on just because I was.

I literally showed up two days later and I just met the guys on the team for our conditioning test.

That was the first time we met each other.

So I think not having the time to really like, ingrain myself.

But I do remember our first home game.

And you know, you walk out of the locker room and you walk to the bench, you know, like, you stand in there and you just kind of look around, you're like, this is full circle moment, right?

Like, I, I went to school here, I played here.

I was able to win two championships as a player.

And then it also comes with responsibility because you want to be the guy who went and played there and screwed up as a head coach.

So you kind of feel a little bit more added pressure.

But the moment was unbelievable.

Just looking around and it just felt, it felt comfortable when the ball was tipped.

But I definitely said there were some butterflies early on.

When you first get the job.

What are one or two things that you thought, hey, these are going to be the key things.

Obviously your first time head coach, right.

So you're not only a first time head coach, but you're also at your alma mater with a program that you're familiar with.

So you're walking into that.

What do you remember thinking in the first month or two of, hey, these are the key things that I have to get done if we're going to get this program to where I think it can be.

Yeah, I think for one is developing the relationships with the guys on the team.

And I think that was my whole emphasis.

Year one is kind of understanding, like, because the timeline was so screwed up, like, let's get to know each other, because I don't think we're gonna get to the place if we don't trust each other and developing a real chemistry and a real bond.

So for me, it was developing those relationships with our current roster while also trying to hit the ground running Recruiting and finding the right pieces for what we're trying to build and finding people that do it the right way.

I think that was a big thing for us, finding those the right type of people.

And for me, that was a big thing.

And well, also having a staff that I can lean in on who's been there for a little bit as well.

Yeah, I would think having guys that are familiar with the program right on your staff was helpful.

So you were able to keep a couple of the guys that had been there previously to ease that transition.

Yeah, so I actually, I was very fortunate.

One of the guys who actually played at Madai and graduated back In, I think, 2016, kid named Johnny Belton, he was around the area in Buffalo and he was, he's.

He did some coaching at Madai, the previous coach for a year or two, and then he decided he was trying to get a job as a state trooper.

So while he was waiting to do his, you know, exams and you're staying fit for it, he actually decided to come help me out for the year once we're in such a bind.

So having him back and the current players on the roster knew it because they played either with him or they coached with him on the roster.

So having him around was.

Was unbelievable.

And until the next year, he leaves to go to the academy.

Then I was able to hire Joe Long, who was probably one of my favorite people I've ever worked with.

So I've been.

I've been blessed with really good assistance.

What's your philosophy on how you divvy up the roles and responsibilities for your staff?

And you could talk about what you do at FDU or talk about what you do at Madai.

Just what's your general philosophy on how you divide up roles?

Yeah, I mean, I remember as an assistant, I wanted as much as possible to kind of prepare me for the next job and the next job being the head coaching job.

And so I delegate a lot.

And especially once you get to know now in Division 3, you might have some guys that are just helping out save other jobs.

You're some guys that are really want to pursue this thing and become a head coach.

So you kind of figure out how much you want to divvy up in that regard.

But for me at fdu right now I have three assistant coaches and for the recruiting aspect, I have one of them strictly junior college transfers.

One of them deals with just the state of New Jersey and the other assistant deals are t out of state recruitment.

And then during the season we all split scouting Reports, I'll always do the film and the editing.

So I'm showing that I know what I'm teaching or explaining to our guys.

And then in practice, that was the biggest thing for me as an assistant.

Like, I wanted more practice, I wanted to teach more, I wanted to integrate more.

So I. I give a lot of time to my assistant during practice to teach different drills, especially as we get later on in the year, because obviously November, December, October, even, like, I'm going to do a majority of the talking, but I'm tired of hearing myself speak in January and February.

And I think that the added voices that you can get from your assistance once you develop that trust is beneficial to not just the group, but also for me because I can kind of sit down and watch and talk to them on the side as if I was almost the assistant coach again.

So we're very hands on and giving up our duties and making sure that guys are feeling challenged and they're enjoying their experience as assistant coaches with us as well.

I want them to be prepared for if they ever want to run their.

How do you think about designing a practice and putting together your practice plan?

Is that something that you like to sit down and think about individually as the head coach and then share it with your assistants?

Is it something that you're doing in a coach's meeting where you guys are all kind of bouncing ideas off of each other and then obviously you make the final call and put it all together.

But what's your process for sitting down and designing a practice?

So generally what I like to do is for us in the preseason, like for this year, we already have our teaching calendar ready for, you know, our preseason of what we want to implement each day and teach each day.

And so when we walk in and we're creating a practice plan, we have an idea.

Like, I want to have an idea of what we're teaching that day so I can plan accordingly.

What I generally do is like, at night I'll go right out of practice plan.

And sometimes I get in the office in the morning after watching the thermal practice and I'm like, what the hell was I thinking?

We need more work on xyz.

And I think it helps because now you have a draft of what you want to do.

You sit down, you kind of ramp it up.

Or you might just have different things.

Like maybe you didn't like the way your team competed defensively or you didn't like the way they competed on the glass.

So now you're gonna put more of an emphasis on competition and making it more physical, whatever it might be.

So what we'll do is like I'll, you know, write my rough draft, go on in the morning after watching practice film and kind of revise it and see what's next that we're doing or what we're teaching and kind of create a plan together.

My one assistant coach, Andy Florentine, he'll, he'll come my office because he's kind of my full time guy and we'll kind of hash things out.

And what I'll also do too is I'll ask our assistant coaches a lot of time, like what are three things that we need to absolutely focus on because there's some things I have non negotiables with like we're always going to start practice with the, with the team drill.

We're going to do our stretch and we're going to get into a giddy up drill, which is a full court drill of some sort.

And then we're going to do our rebounding.

Then we're going to go defense, offense and kind of flow into a lot of five and five.

So that's kind of our structure and then plugging in the right drills in between, that's going to separate it.

So I just kind of lean in on my assistance and kind of get their input to what they think would best make our practice a success.

Yeah, know that makes total sense.

I mean, I think again, as you go through and think about what does your team need?

I always say that there's right an art and a science to coaching and the best coaches know the science, but they also have a feel for on any given day or any given moment, what their team, what their team needs more or needs less of.

And again, that's kind of having a feel and just an understanding and having an experience both just in terms of the number of years you've been coaching, but also just having an understanding of your players and, and what they're all about and what your team's all about.

And so I think it's such a, there's, there's, there's a balance there between the art of, of, of basketball coaching and the science.

And there's obviously some technical knowledge that you have to have and X's and O's and all that stuff's really important.

And then sometimes there's just got to have a feel for like hey, team needs this today or hey, they need a little bit less of that today.

And I think the best coaches are the ones that can, can balance those two, and do it well so that their team is getting technically what they need, but then they're also getting exactly what they need from.

And, you know, an emotional and just an understanding of what.

What it is that we've got to do on a.

On a daily basis to be best prepared to.

To play and be our best on game day.

Right.

Obviously, you want to have great practices, but the most important thing is that you got your team ready to play when it comes time for.

For games.

So at Madai, I'm sure that when you went there as your alma mater, that it was a place like you felt you could be there for a long time.

And then your tenure at Madai ended in a way that not too many people have to have to experience the way that you experienced losing the.

Losing.

Losing the job at Madai.

So I'll let you walk through that for us.

Just kind of explain everything that happened and then how you ended up at FDU Florum.

Yeah, I mean, like you said, you know, we were happy.

We were very happy in Buffalo, my wife and I, and we were just coming off a championship that we won back in 2022.

Things were kind of aligning where we were going to stay there for a long, long time and not leave.

And then all of a sudden, my wife and I decided to go down to Myrtle beach and kind of a little family vacation.

And we were called into a meeting about two hours before we were leaving for South Carolina, and kind of got told in the meeting that our school was closing down due to financial reasons, and it couldn't just keep the doors open anymore.

And it was.

It was a tough time.

And.

And I. I mean that sincerely.

Like, it's something I hope no one has to go through because it affected so many people, and there are so many great people that work there, from, you know, faculty and staff to dying home workers to custodians to, you know, the kids.

Like, it's a hard process to go through.

And I just remember driving down on the drive from Buffalo, South Carolina, calling all my.

My players and letting them know the kind of situation, and I told them I'll be their biggest advocate and kind of helping them find a home that they want to try to find.

I'll do whatever I can.

And I also know it's May, so it's a little bit tougher because coaches are, you know, they're particular about trenchers they're bringing in and it being late that it was gonna be hard.

But luckily for us, we found every kid that wanted to continue playing a home that whatever school they wanted to choose or were able to play at.

So that was something I took great pride in, making sure our kids can still have an opportunity to play.

Because at the end of the day, I was jobless.

Like, I didn't know what was going to happen to me.

And some of them were like, well, coach, if you get a job, can I come with you?

And I was like, yeah, but you can't wait.

Like, if you have an opportunity now, right, you gotta go take it.

And I remember coming back from South Carolina, my wife was kind of like, what, what's the plan?

What are you gonna do it?

Like, well, apply for a couple jobs and.

And she was incredibly supportive of my dreams and aspirations to want to still coach.

And she's like, you were meant to do this and I want you to coach.

So whatever it means if we have to pick up a move, like, we'll do it.

We'll figure it out.

So I end up interviewing at three different schools.

And when I was at fairly Dickinson and kind of walking around campus and the investment I felt from them in terms of academics and athletics, it was something that aligned with me.

And I remember leaving the interview process and I was calling my wife and she's like, what do you think?

I was like, I think this is a place that we'd have to seriously consider because it's kind of like madai, like it has a similar feel.

You're working with a certain type of student, which is something that fits me more blue collar, like just kids that grew up with a chip on their shoulders.

So I remember after that phone call with her, I, I interviewed, I did the whole thing.

And I'm driving back to Buffalo from, from New Jersey.

And probably an hour after I got phone, my wife, the ad from FDU called and she offered me the job.

And I was like, I appreciate it.

I need some time to talk it over with my wife.

And reality was like, we were going to take it just because I didn't have.

Have a job.

We had no money coming in, right?

Yeah, well, my wife and I sat down because it also is a big move.

You know, we just bought a home a couple years ago.

So now you're talking about selling a home and having to buy a new home.

And ironically enough, I accepted job.

And literally two days later we, we find out my wife is pregnant with our first, our first kid.

So I was like, life comes at you pretty quick where you have to, you know, buy a home, buy doctors, you know, make sure My wife's in a good spot because she's going through all these different changes where we need comfortability.

So it was, it was a big change for us.

And I remember I was.

When my accepted, I was actually living on campus for six weeks, and I would, I would be on campus from Sunday night through Thursday, and then Friday midday I would leave the office and I would drive back up to Buffalo to help try to pack our house up until we moved down, you know, six weeks later.

So it was definitely a transition and it was hard.

And I still miss all the guys on my MADAI team.

And we actually are still in a group text that we talk pretty regularly.

It was a special place with a special group, and now I actually have four of them that transferred back into FDU to kind of play for me and finish out the careers, which is pretty neat.

I'm sure that that's a bond.

Again, not many people have to experience what all of you guys went through in having the university close right from under your feet and to be able to stay connected.

And I'm sure that's something that will keep you guys bonded for the rest of your lives.

And the, again, it goes back to what we talked about earlier in the conversation, right?

The experience of what you guys went through collectively and the individual games melt away, but clearly the connection that you built with your players there is something that you're going to carry with you and for the rest of your life.

And then you were fortunate enough to have some of your guys come with you to be able to, to play in your new spot there at fdu.

And it's, I'm sure, again, the message that, the message that you internalize from that, right, is, hey, I must be doing at least something right by a few of these guys that they want to, they want to fought, they want to follow me, you know, which again, when you think about the impact that coaches have on players and what it's all about, right, the, the.

The ability to use the game of basketball, the, to impact the young people that, that you're put in charge of.

And I think that's a clear.

So, I mean, that's just the, that's just a clear recommendation of, hey, Coach Hack's doing the right thing, he's doing good things because guys want to follow him.

And that, that's, that's really what it's all about.

So tell me a little bit about building the culture at FDU form, what have you done?

What have been the things that, as you started to look at over these first couple years, obviously, you start out, you win four games the first year, you win 10 the second year, so you got it moving in the right direction.

What have been the keys so far to developing the program and getting ahead of getting it heading down the road in the direction that you want it to go?

Yeah, I think the big thing for us was creating a culture of accountability and making sure we have the right guys on the bus and the wrong guys off the bus.

And my first year we won four games.

And you know what, those kids that we had on that roster, they gave me everything they had.

And in a situation that we had, like, we made the best of it.

And I give them a lot of credit because it's really hard to come to practice every day when you're just taking losses.

And I think it shows a true reflection on the kids in our program that they showed up every day and kind of still competed their butts off in practice.

They competed hard in games.

We just weren't talented up.

We were too young.

We weren't.

We weren't there.

We weren't where we needed to be.

And we kind of looked at the roster over after year one and like, how can we can we overhaul this thing?

And we want to try to find some really talented freshmen that were probably a little bit further along, whether it's physically or just skill wise.

And luckily we did that while also adding, you know, three or four kids that played for me at Madais that transferred in.

So we were fortunate in creating this culture of work and accountability and, you know, stops with our list.

I want to see who's really serious about trying to turn this thing around and having success.

And I think we're on the cusp of doing that.

So, you know, we have our 6am lifts Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, along the skill work that the kids are doing and playing pickup.

And when we get in the season, we have individual workouts and film and you got to go see the trainer to get treatment.

We make things kind of regimented in a way where we want to see who's about this life because we want the kids that choose fun.

And we tell kids when we recruit them, like you might be getting recruited by different schools that are in different spot than us.

They might be a little bit further along in their journey and they're probably winning a bit sooner.

But you're going to come here because you want to choose hard and it's going to be very rewarding and.

And I think we've done a good job of creating that deal, we're gonna weed kids out pretty quickly, and you're gonna see if they're really about choosing hard, because they might look to mom and dad like, what the hell is he talking about?

Or they lean forward in that chair and they kind of give you eye contact saying, yeah, I want this.

And those are the kids we're trying to attract.

So for us, it's more about finding the.

The accountability to work and kind of stay about your business.

And I, along with all the.

The social media, like, showing everything you're doing.

I hate it.

I just want kids to show up and do their job and have fun doing it.

And I think we're on the right path here.

Knock on wood.

I think we'll have a pretty good year this year.

Would you say that it's those daily conversations and just the constant emphasis on, hey, we're putting in the work.

It's going to be hard.

There's going to be a reward at the end of it.

Because I often think that when you're playing on a team that isn't winning, it's easy for everybody to get down.

Right.

And you got to maintain and keep that enthusiasm and keep that eye looking ahead to what you know, to.

To what's ahead of you in terms of winning and turning things around.

Would you say it's that daily conversation about, hey, we're working towards something.

This is a special place.

We're.

We're putting in the hard work.

We're going to see it pay off.

Do you feel like it's that daily conversation, that daily reinforcement that enables you as a coach, but then also enables you as the coach to influence your players to be able to continue to go through and battle and show up every day with enthusiasm, even though you might not necessarily be getting all the results that you want on the scoreboard early on?

Yeah, I mean, I think the.

The old adage is fake it till you make it right, and we're going to have fun doing it.

And going through that first year, we would still show guys metrics that we deemed important and shown how far we come now.

They didn't result in wins, but our games were exponentially more competitive and where we were going.

And now, as I've done this a bit longer and have gotten more seasoned, I try to focus less on the actual results and more about the type of basketball we're playing playing and how we want to play in value.

So when we do talk about these things daily, they understand what's important, what's the expectation to practice how are we supposed to carry ourselves?

What are we supposed to do in that situation?

So I think this content is repetitiveness of beating them over the head, but also making sure they understand that it's going to be fun and we're going to have fun doing it.

But these are the things we expect if we want to turn this program around and not just be and be one of the better teams in our league.

Makes a ton of sense, right?

I think you have to continue to push, continue to be able to impress upon your players each and every day what they're doing, why they're doing it, and helping them to keep their eye on what is coming down the road.

If you continue to put in same amount of work and do the things that you're describing, certainly that's, that's the way to be able to, to turn around a program and get it headed in the right direction and, and win eventually a lot of games as you get that culture instilled and get the talent level to where you want it to be so you can win and compete and win conference championships.

I want to ask you one final two part question, Keith.

So part one of the question, when you look ahead over the next year or two, you're heading into year three, what's your biggest challenge?

And then part two of the question, when you think about what you get to do each and every day, what brings you the most joy?

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy?

Yeah, I think the biggest challenge just kind of as a, as a program is taking the next step, right?

We went from four wins to 10 wins.

When you go from four to 10, you can kind of sneak up on people.

And I don't think that's going to be the case much more this year and hopefully years going forward.

So to get that next jump, to try to get to 15 wins, the amount of effort and resolve and fortitude our team is going to have to have, along with some emotional maturity, is kind of a challenge that I think we got to beat and we got to beat it head on.

And I'm excited because I think we have a really good group that is eager to take on that challenge and they want expectations.

So for me, it's also okay.

We might have some slip ups early on.

How do we handle that while keeping our focus on the main goal of conference play?

So that's kind of the challenge piece, I think from a team standpoint, a challenge point for me personally is just making sure the strain it puts on your family in terms of how much Time you're away from home is always a hard part.

Even last year with my daughter just being born, you want to be around as much as possible and helping your wife out or your partner out and kind of raising your family.

So that's always hard.

But I think that the biggest joy for me is continuing to being able to work.

You know, in college athletics, it got taken away from me once being in the die and I was fortunate enough to land on my feet where that's not always the case.

So I walk in every day knowing that I'm the luckiest man in the world, that I get to coach a kid's game for a living and be around young people that have the same kind of passion that I do and be a part of their lives and, and kind of help them grow and mature in their journey and be a lifelong advocate for them.

Because if we're not, you know, we're not doing our job right if we're not going to the weddings when it comes to that time.

Well said, Keith.

Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you.

Find out more about your program.

So share email, social media, website, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

Yeah, so I think the best way to reach me is via email and That's KHackdu.edu on Twitter.

My Twitter handle or X handle is at keypack 21.

Haven't changed it clearly since I was in college.

Those are probably the two best avenues to follow me.

You can follow @fdu nb on on twitter and Instagram.

We're kind of updating kind of periodically.

He'll pick up more season gets going but that'd be the best way to reach me and I'm happy to talk hoops with anybody about anything.

So whatever young people need or coaches need in terms of the business, I'm happy to talk.

Perfect.

Keith, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us.

Really appreciate it and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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