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Michael Raniak is a senior recruiting specialist at NCSA, the GM, head coach of the We Are D3 team in the TBT Tournament, and a former college coach.

Rainiac began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the College of New Jersey from 2004 to 2006.

His next stop was as an assistant coach at Plymouth State for one season before he joined hall of Fame coach Dave Hickson as an assistant at Amherst for four years from 2007 to 2011, coach Reg got his first opportunity as a head coach at SUNY New Paltz, where his teams recorded the most conference wins since 1999.

During the 2013 and 2015 seasons, he coached five all conference student athletes and four 1000 point scorers.

Off the court, his teams performed equally well in the classroom, receiving the NABC Academic Team Excellence Award for a cumulative team GPA of 3.0 in his final three seasons.

Following his six year run at SUNY New Paltz, Michael served as an assistant coach at Vassar College under BJ Dunn for one season before joining NCSA.

Coach Reg has been the GM and head coach of the WER D3TBT team since 2018.

The team competes annually in the TBT and is comprised of former Division III All Americans who are currently playing professionally.

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Take some notes as you listen to this episode with Michael Rak, senior recruiting specialist at NCSA, the GM, head coach of the WER D3 team in the TBT tournament, and a former college coach.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sunkel tonight.

But I am pleased to be joined by Michael Raniak, recruiting specialist at ncsa, former longtime college basketball coach, also known as Coach Reg.

Michael, welcome to the Hoop Headspot.

Hey, looking forward to it, brother.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Absolutely.

We are very excited to have you on.

Looking forward to diving into all of the diverse and interesting things you've been able to do in your career.

Let's start by going back in time to when you were a kid.

Tell me about some of your first experience with the game of basketball.

How'd you get introduced to it?

What made you fall in love with it?

Yeah, like, well, growing.

God, going back, I may look like I'm 10, but I'm going back like a long time here now, I gotta think.

No, like, I, I think, you know, I got introduced to it through my, through my father and my mom.

And you know, I just remember I actually got into it.

You know, I kind of always played sports as a kid, but I, I just remember like so many people in my generation, you know, I remember just one day watching, you know, Michael Jordan on NBC and I, and I just, I think it was one of those games where he like, hit one of his billion game winners.

And, you know, then I thought that, well, that's pretty darn cool.

And then, you know, I got to learn more.

And then my dad, you know, saw that I took a vested interest and like, literally he would take me.

My dad was a machinist and every day after work he would get home late and then we would just play and he would just teach me how to play and, and that kind of really fostered a love of the game, you know, and Obviously, you know, I really enjoyed that time with my dad and, and teaching me how to play.

And he used to always play a lot of ball.

Growing up with the UMass players.

I grew up in Western Massachusetts, so it kind of all fostered that.

And you know, then I just.

As I got to grow within the game, it just really kind of fostered.

And you know, I, I've.

It's been a lifelong passion of mine, just like you and I kind of never have left.

Yeah, it's amazing how the game gets in your blood and it does not go away.

There is no question about that.

I always say, Michael, that, you know, without basketball, I mean, almost every relationship, person, positive thing that's happened to me in my life, somehow I can tie it back to the game of basketball, which is crazy.

Same thing here.

I, I would be.

Well, now that you say that, like, literally, I, I would be probably single, living in a cardboard box.

I'm right there with you.

So as you grow up in the game and you start to take it a little bit more seriously and you think about the way that youth basketball looks today versus the youth basketball environment that you grew up with, maybe compare and contrast and just talk about what you liked about your own development, your own opportunities in the game as a young player.

Yeah, I think we're growing up late 90s.

That was back when AAU was true regional.

Basically we had one team in Western Mass.

It was the Western Mass team.

That was it.

You didn't have 90 billion teams.

Like, basically you had to work your butt off to make this one team.

And if not, you were, you were sitting on the sidelines for a whole summer.

And actually like, I got cut and that was probably the best thing for me.

And I, I think that I look back at my career just, you know, now over 30 plus years, like every failure that I've had, it's, it's, it's been amazing growth for me.

And I think like, that's the biggest thing, like growing up, like we had local town ball and one AAU team in western Massachusetts.

That was it.

And so like growing within the game and kind of having those goals to achieve and I was able to achieve them.

And it was then, you know, regionally and kind of moving forward through college and things on those lines.

I was the first one in my family to go to college, so we didn't know what we didn't know.

And I think like, that's where like the recruiting process, my current job, what I do with.

We are D3 and you know, just coaching in college like it is, if you've never been through, like you and I are coaches, like, and our kids are going to be better because they know the process.

I didn't know the process at all.

Like, like I wanted to play in college.

I thought like maybe I would just try out.

I don't even know, you know, I didn't even know recruiting was a thing, you know.

You know, growing up on a dirt road in Massachusetts, like literally I was an only child, so my best friend growing up was a squirrel.

So it's not exactly like I'm getting a lot of guidance.

So I think like that, you know, growing within that, the, the youth sport dynamic has vastly changed.

Now where there's a, everybody has, has their own team, the coaching is, is very hit or miss.

But I, I think we could argue that across all levels, quite frankly.

So I think like it's one of those things where today's day and age, you got to find quality instruction.

You know, I'm, I'm old school so like I believe in practice.

Like, like that's where I forget who said it.

It might have been patino or, or somebody where they, overseas, they have it right where you're practicing six days a week and you're only playing once.

We got it all messed up over here where we're playing six days a week and only practicing once.

So, you know, I, I think that's where it's really kind of changed significantly that I hope we get back to.

But who knows?

Yeah, it's.

The cat is out of the bag, I think on a lot of that in so many ways that when you just look at the youth sports business empire and trying to figure out, okay, how do we get that to back where kids are playing?

And it's funny because I was just having this conversation earlier tonight with my wife just in the course of talking about our own kids experiences and just the fact that if you grew up in the game today, you'd never play a game without a coach, without parent in the stands, without a scoreboard attached to that.

And you think about the way, at least for me, that I grew up and sure, I mean I played plenty of games with the scoreboard, but most of those didn't happen in the summer or the spring.

Those were times where I was at the playground or I was in my driveway or wherever.

And when you're just playing with your friends or you're playing pickup games, you learn to do things and adapt and try stuff out because nobody's going to Yell at you, nobody's going to talk to you in the car on the way home.

And it's just, it's a completely different environment.

Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to have had when I was a kid the gym access that kids have today and as you said, the quality of coaching, hit or miss.

But if you got a hit, right?

I mean, I never had the type of coaching that some of the kids that are growing up today get an opportunity to be coached by people who really know what they're doing and are able to instill good skills.

So it's, it's a totally different world.

Ask a kid today what the game 21 is, chances are he might have like, and by the way, that's where I would get my edge.

I would click him on the tip back to get him back down to zero.

But that's like, you know, like those skills, right in today's day and age, how to kind of deal with contact, how to kind of go one on two.

Like, like these are how to fight.

Just in general, like, I, I think like that's a, that's a game like I was talking about with a couple of my other coaching buddies, right?

Like, they don't play that anymore.

It's all like, hey, let's get shots up on the gun.

And, and we're good with, with mom or dad filming me from the sidelines so that I can post it on Instagram.

There's no doubt.

It's just, it's a totally different experience for kids today and nobody knows.

Only us old guys know what it was like back in, you know, back in the day.

So tell me a little bit about that then, how you went about without having any recruiting knowledge, because I'm going to tell you my, I'm going to tell you the story of my recruitment after you tell me yours.

Because I feel like I was in a very similar position in that, like, I had no idea what the process looked like.

My parents had no idea.

My high school coach had never had anybody recruited at the level that I was.

So I, I, I was completely unrealistic.

So I'll tell you my story, but just go through and kind of talk about how you tried to navigate.

Again, there was no, you're not on the line searching for all this information or whatever you were.

You were completely flying blind.

So I'm curious how you.

And it was crappy dial up.

Um, so basically, you know, I was, I wanted to play similar situation.

My high school coach, very knowledgeable about the game but it's not exactly like my high school churned out college athletes, like, across any sport, really.

We were good in our area, but that's.

That's it.

I literally was like, okay.

I knew I wanted to be involved with basketball post high school.

That's.

So I asked my coach.

I was like, well, what did you major in?

You know, to.

To be a coach?

And he goes, well, I majored in phys Ed.

And I was like, okay, cool, I'm gonna major in finz Ed.

And, you know, I looked up my parents.

You know, we.

We drove to, like, a couple local schools, like, in.

Around me in Massachusetts.

I didn't want to go to a big school like UMass, which was close to me.

And I knew obviously I couldn't play there, because at that point, they're coming off the caliper era, you know, and it's, like, not looking good for me there.

So, you know, it's like, you know.

But then I started doing just.

I went to an open house at Springfield college, which was 40 minutes from my house.

You know, I wanted to leave immediately when I got there, because I was like, this is.

You know.

But then my dad said for me to stay, and he always says, like, it was the most expensive decision he ever made because, you know, it's a D3 private.

But I stayed there.

I got to know, like, hey, they had a phys Ed degree.

I found out that it was the birthplace of basketball.

So, like, that's right in my wheelhouse.

I was like, 100% all in.

Once you said that, I was, like, done.

And I talked to the.

The.

The grad assistant who was there, Ryan Eand.

I remember at the time was just there just handing out brochures for the basketball program.

And I was like, cool, let's do that.

And.

And, you know, at that stage of the game, also at that time, there was JV programs and typically freshmen, you went on the JV program and at.

At Springfield.

So that's kind of how it happened.

Like, it wasn't like this, hey, I'm entertaining seven offers.

It was like, no, hey, phys Ed.

Cool.

Birthplace of basketball.

Awesome.

I love basketball, and I can continue to play.

And it was like 40 minutes from my house, where I could get home if I needed to.

So it was just like, kind of like the stars aligned.

And literally from there, that decision set everything else in my life in line to where I'm at today, which is crazy to me, but that's just how it kind of really happened.

Super low level, but that's, you know, we didn't know anything.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, no, I know exactly.

I mean, it's just, I.

So I'll tell you my, I'll tell you my story.

I'll try to do it quick because I've told it on the story, I'm told it on the pod, but I think it'll be worth us having a conversation about it.

So I was being recruited by, you know, a couple Division 1 schools and Kent State was one of the schools.

That's where I ended up going.

But they were recruiting me in, I guess it was a Ben coming out of my, coming out of my junior year and they're like, hey, do you want to come down and take a visit?

I'm like, eh, you know, you know, you know, Duke and North Carolina and Ohio State I'm sure are going to be calling me soon.

And so, you know, I can't waste one of my five official visits, you know, going to Kent.

So I told him, yeah, I'll come down, but you know, we'll just make it an unofficial visit.

So I remember my mom and I went down and, you know, we talked to the coaching staff and then we took ourselves out to lunch at Wendy's because, you know, obviously they weren't paying for anything.

And so sitting there with my mom eating a hamburger and then we come back after the, after the visit and boom, nothing.

I mean, I didn't hear.

They were, they were obviously done with me.

They're like, who's this kid think, you know, think he is?

And so went through my senior year and I had a very minimal interest from like one or two other places besides Kent.

In all honesty, I felt like Kent would be probably the best fit for me.

So I called him back up.

I'm like, hey, you guys still interested?

And they're like, well, you know, maybe.

I don't know.

And the head coach came out and saw me play in my last game as a senior and then they had somebody transfer out.

So I became the seventh freshman in a seven player class.

And again, if I probably hadn't reached back out to them, they certainly probably wouldn't have reached out to me.

But I just didn't know any better, you know, I mean, I had no idea that what level I could play at or whatever because again, I just, I had no, I had no idea.

I mean, I felt like guys that I was playing against, that I felt like I was as good or better than were signing with Division 1 schools.

I'm like, I'm better than this dude.

But again, you don't know.

Like I was an unathletic, not very fast, couldn't jump, you know, a six three.

There's not many six three guards in Division one that aren't dunking the ball.

And certainly I was, I was not doing that.

So it's just interesting how again, today with social media and all the awareness, like, I would have had a tremendous idea of exactly what level I could play at, who I should have targeted.

In terms of 100% even earlier, you know, you would be on it even earlier.

Like I started halfway through my senior year.

I.

It's just the, the awareness and you know, like, we talk about information, but yeah, like think about how the basketball as a game has grown because of information.

Like, how many times do.

Do you or.

Or me or whoever, like, see, we go on our X or we go on Instagram, we see, hey, oh, wow, that.

That play from Ball State.

Wow, that's pretty baller.

I like that.

And I'll run it with my grand scheme and I'll run it with the TBT team and it like kills.

I'm like, yo, that dude knows what's up that Ball State, you know, things like that.

It's crazy just how information in the game now is just so acquired.

Yeah.

And everybody shares too.

That's one of the things that when I started the podcast, I guess I kind of knew that.

But the number of people that are willing to share pretty much anything, I mean, obviously now you can't really keep anything a secret with the way video is.

Maybe 30, maybe 30 years ago you could have said, oh man, I'm not going to share my film with you.

Or yeah, we're keeping the, we're keeping the doors to our practices closed and we don't want to let our secrets out.

Don't exchange the tape, don't exchange the vhs.

Okay.

You know, exactly.

Right.

But now, I mean, everything's out there, so there's no point in trying to hide whatever it is that you're doing.

So everybody just, I think, is super willing to share.

And to your point, obviously, that's grown the game in so many ways and brought some of those things that you see at a higher level that now it's easy.

Like you said, I can just, boom, I could take this.

I can steal that.

Now suddenly I'm running it with my 5th grade girls team or whatever it might be.

And it made coaches better, it made me better significantly, because now.

And I got started coaching early 2000, right on through and you had to now almost plan for counters and counters to the counters and it made you think 10 steps ahead and you either did it or you didn't.

And if not, then you got cooked because the other team knows what you're running.

So then you hold everything out like it was just a whole.

The, the game of cat and mouse got, got a lot more depth.

So as you enter school, are you pretty sure obviously you're going to major in phys Ed?

You kind of have this life plan that you've stolen from your high school coach of what you're, what you're going to do.

Are you thinking at that point for sure that coaching is where you want to go or is there ever a thought?

Yes.

I knew playing wise, prototypical 6:2 white guy that could shoot okay where my, you know what?

But I wanted, like, I, I did love being involved in the game.

I loved the strategy of the game.

I love the game just period.

And I was very fortunate.

Charlie Brock at that program, he's a, you know, D3 hall of Famer and he's head of the rules committee for the, the NCAA and nabc.

His mentorship kind of really fostered it.

And when I came to, when it came to graduation, I wanted to stay at Springfield to be a graduate assistant coach.

And he had a spot for me, but it didn't pay much.

But I had another opportunity.

He helped me connect with the College of New Jersey.

And he's like, reg, you gotta go.

You can't just stay at Springfield your entire career.

And that was another piece of advice that, you know, I had never really been, you know, kind of on that.

You know, I consider New Jersey national.

But like, you know, like, I never kind of really got out of my home kind of state pretty much outside of for games.

So like, you know, to kind of do that and become a graduate assistant at the College of New Jersey, that was another piece of advice that, that was awesome.

I got my master's paid for in athletic administration and you know, really, really kind of helped me diversify my portfolio and, and learning as a coach.

Did you know right away that it was what you wanted to do?

I mean, when you get in there and you start doing the job, because obviously when you're not doing the job there, there may be things that are different than what you perceive as a player, but when you first get in there, are you sold right away?

Yeah, 100%.

You know, I think I, I love the interaction and, and the growth and the same reason why like, I love coaching my kids and and love coaching their teams and and, and and just helping the growth of of of the game within a person I think is so cool.

And I, and I think I, I always kind of knew it, you know, and, and from there on in, you know, it just really I, I wanted, I got a taste of it and then I wanted to do more.

I wanted to be able to do more on the court and I want to be able to learn more about the game and, and, and understand it more because it is such a beautiful game.

Like when you, when you kind of all of it is, is just so unique.

So I just wanted more and then, then I kind of was like all right now what do I got to do?

I'm graduating.

What am I going to do to now be to be like paid or at least somewhat get something paid for, you know.

You know like and, and nowadays like you're a full time assistant spots but like when I was at the College of New Jersey you got your master's degree paid for but and you only got a three thousand dollar stipend which is like nothing for apartments and things like that.

And so like you had to be real creative, you know, with it.

But it was one of those things where kind of just cutting your teeth and like being on the road recruiting all the time.

I love the interaction of coaches like you and I talked about like you would see the same assistant coaches at different events.

You start to get to know them, you start to be your homies, all that types of stuff.

And you know, I really enjoyed, enjoyed that and it kind of just fostered that love.

Yeah, that love for the game is what pushes me to work so hard on this podcast.

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Jan, what were you bad at initially?

Everything.

No, no, I, I think like, I always had a good, good teaching background because of Springfield College.

Like, I could teach in terms of knowledge, though that's different because I was so young and quite frankly, dumb in the game.

So, like, I really was.

I was good at tactics, I was good at X's and O's.

I was actually not very good early on at the training aspect to get you better as an individual player.

And that's something like I knew how to do myself.

But to teach it to a center or a big, to teach it to guard, how to create your shot, that wasn't my shot, you know, so like that individualized training aspect, I really had to study and learn and, and because like, I, I could really read screens, I could teach X's and O's.

But as far as that individual training aspect, that was something I had to really learn and, and get better at and then do myself.

So ultimately I think I was way better basketball player, like around 25ish.

Way better than what, than what I was.

You know, because I, I taught myself all these trainings that I had to learn so that I could teach it to my players.

So like, I think that's where I really had to grow as a coach.

Where did you go to learn that stuff?

How'd you go about gaining that knowledge?

Were you going to video?

Were you going to have a lot of camps?

I worked so many camps when I was a graduate assistant.

My summer was straight camps like Coop Group down in New Jersey.

I would be literally day in, day out for two and a half months straight, not a day off, working camps.

And they would bring in these great speakers like Bobby Hurley senior Dave Hopla, who's like the best shooter of like all time, in my opinion.

Like, I learned how to teach shooting from him.

I learned how to like, the defensive tactics from all these coaches that would come in.

And like, I was very fortunate that hoop group would do their.

At that.

It was also called Eastern Elite there, East, East Coast Elite.

And they would, Their home campus was at college in New Jersey.

So they would work, they would run like seven different sessions, but I would still sleep in my own apartment at home, which was sweet.

I didn't have to stay in the dorms or anything because those dorms suck.

They didn't have air conditioning or anything.

It was all beautiful.

But, but they were bringing all these speakers.

So I would continually pick their brains.

I would Continue hang out with them during the week.

I would be their host.

I would really.

And I would learn a lot from all the old time coaches that would come in repeatedly, kind of like the generation above me work and, and pick their brain.

And it was just such a, like a sponge moment for me in the game because I had all this knowledge.

And here I was thinking, you know, I, I was pretty good, but I didn't know anything, you know what I mean?

And, and I think I still feel that way in my 40s.

You know, I'm still learning.

But I, I, I think like at that point it was all these speakers that would come in and it was typically the coach that maybe got let go.

Like, you know, you know how it works in those camp circuits.

Like, right, for sure, it's the coach.

That gets let go, but still a high major coach.

So what they do for the summer is they're the speaker at all the camps.

Same thing here.

So it was like one of those things where all those great minds I got to pick from during that time.

And it was, it was such a, I asked him specifically, Dave Hoppolo, how do you teach shooting?

Because I'm a pretty good shooter.

But how do you teach it because you're the best or defensively?

Bobby Hurley, like, what do you do training your teams with minimal resources?

I'm at a D3 school.

We have to do the very similar types of stuff.

What do you do to get them better?

You know, things like that.

So after that experience at the College of New Jersey, what's the job search like now?

You got your master's degree.

What do you remember about the process of finding that next job?

I sent over, I think the, the final tally, okay, the final tally was 226 Personal typed and then handwritten notes to every college program I wanted to work for.

A lot of them were Division one.

Don't, because we all want to work Division one and things like that.

A lot of them were some local D2s and D3 is kind of in New England and everyone.

I didn't know how the job process worked.

You know, at that stage of the game, you know, you have coaches kind of help you, things like that.

But everyone I, I, I kept getting like, oh, I gotta, I gotta, I got a letter from Duke.

Okay, well, I still signed, I still got it in, in my back of my office here.

Hey, thank you.

We're filled.

Best of luck in your search.

Stay hungry, you know, hey, we're filled at this time, blah, blah, blah.

And there Was a.

What ended up shaking out was I got a notice a school I didn't even email, but.

Or send the.

Sent the note to was Plymouth State in New Hampshire.

And literally coach called me, you know, he.

He knew my coach and said, hey, you know, I got a spot.

You know, you'd have to work at a local elementary school.

And I was like, well, I can either.

I really don't have anything else.

So I'm going to middle of New Hampshire.

And I worked for John Simon up there and.

And it really.

I worked that year with another assistant, Jay Harris, who's now him.

And I work together with TBT and he's the head coach at UMass Boston.

And that fostered my lifelong friendship with him.

And.

Yeah, and then it's just kind of a random, you know, kismet type of moment.

When you think about that time at Plymouth State, what do you do take away from that experience that helped you or that you utilize for the rest.

Of your career appreciating having nothing.

And like, literally, it's a.

It's a great school, but it was in the middle of nowhere.

Like, I remember going recruiting, and New Jersey's easy recruiting.

You drive like two hours.

You hit up like 30 high schools.

It was sweet.

Plymouth State is in the middle of New Hampshire, and you have to drive four hours to see kid, a kid who's even relatively talented, just to be completely honest.

Like, Cooper Flag did not exist.

Like, there's just nothing.

You had to go out of state to find good ballers.

It just was what it was.

So, like, I remember one day I was dry.

I got in the rental car and it was negative 5 degrees.

I was like, oh, well, that's.

That's pretty cold.

When I.

I went up to Saint Johnsbury, Vermont, when I got into the car back after the game, after seeing the kid, it was negative 10.

When I got back New Hampshire, it was negative 20.

It is so cold for negative 20.

I've never experienced in my life where literally I spit and on the ground it just froze.

It was the craziest thing ever.

And I was like.

At that point, I was like, I don't know how long I could stay up here, you know, but I love this game of basketball.

But at that point, like, I think just being humbled and just cutting your teeth, I think, like, Coach Simon was a very demanding coach.

And at the time I was like, what is going on here?

This is crazy.

If this is how coaching is, I don't know.

But what I realized later on in Life like we always do, like very similar, like with our own parents, probably a lot of it.

He was preparing me for the grind that was coaching and, and I think like learning how to handle that by yourself because my parents, your parents aren't going to save you, you know.

So like if this is something you want to do, what does that look like?

I think that was kind of understanding that the kind of how to thrive an adverse situation when literally your coach is demanding a lot out of you and you just got to figure it out because he doesn't take no for an answer.

So I think like that was a big moment.

How much do you credit working at the levels that you have in terms of.

I know that some guys that start out at the Division 1 level where the jobs are more specific, in other words, you don't necessarily get your hands into as many things as you do at the lower levels.

How important do you think that was or how, how do you reflect on that piece of it when you look forward in your career from just getting an opportunity to I'm coaching on the floor, I'm recruiting, I, I, I've got my hands in almost every aspect of the program.

I think I, and, and this is where I, I fell in love with Division three is you do everything, you literally do everything.

And that's where like that's a chip on my shoulder that I've always kind of worn and that's why like I do with TBT and our brand with We Are D3.

Like nothing is better to me than taking a team of non scholarship kids and a coach that had to do everything from ground zero and, and go up against schools like Kansas, Syracuse and, and, and, and, and do pretty damn well.

So like I think like that's where I give Division 3 coaches and I will further be their advocate.

They're the best coaches around.

I mean don't get me wrong, there's great coaches, but I mean as far as like coaches that have to do everything, that are hungry and that have stayed at this level for a significant amount of time, not just use it as a going up to Division one type of thing, I think those are the true best educators of the game.

And I worked in my opinion for the best at Dave Hickson at Amherst.

Talk about that experience with Coach Hickson.

We were fortunate enough to have him on right after his election to the Pro Basketball hall of Fame and I mean obviously what he's been able to accomplish in his career.

And I just came away from that conversation incredibly impressed.

We've had several of his former players that played for him and just the experience that they had.

And what basically, and I'm curious if your experience is the same, but what everyone told me was just that his ability to connect with people.

And again, not just players, not just assistant coaches, basically anybody that he's coming in contact with and making that person feel like they're the most important person in the room, setting aside whatever is in front of him in the moment when somebody walks into the office to talk to him.

And that was kind of.

Everybody had some type of story along those lines of, hey, Coach Hickson will drop everything when you as a human being show up in his office to, to show you that he cares and to demonstrate that, that the relationship part of it is most important.

And that's what I came away, I think, the most impressed with in terms of my interaction with him.

And then just what the people that were around him have had to say.

100%, that is, that is Coach Hickson to the T.

Now, one thing I didn't mention earlier was growing up in Western Massachusetts, my house is about maybe 30 minutes from Amherst College.

And I used to go to his camp all the time.

Like, that was like, my family didn't have a lot of money to send it, send me to five star and things like that.

I went to Western Mass Basketball camp where the trophy is a cup.

It's not, it's not even a trophy.

It's a plastic cup that I still have.

And I won several of those.

And if you were, if you were like good in western Massachusetts at that time, everybody knew you had a, you had a white and purple cup and that was it.

So flash forward when I'm leaving, I put my name in the hat for the Amherst College assistant job.

And they just literally came off of winning the national title.

So it was basically, I don't have a shot in hell of getting this assistant job because everybody wants it.

You know, I'm coming from Plymouth State and we had a, a grinding year.

It was like one of those, like learning years, like where you hover around 500, you lose a, you, you win some games that you shouldn't have, you lose some games you shouldn't have that type of year.

So it wasn't like we were like rock stars completely, you know, and I show up and, and I've, I, I interacted with him and, and, and he goes, ah, Mike, because I remember you used to come to our camp all the time and, and, and I'm one of a, you know, about A billion kids that have gone to his camp, you know.

Right.

He remembered me from, as a seventh and eighth grader camp.

That is crazy to me of all the interactions that he's had.

And I've been so fortunate enough.

Like, I started working for him when I was 25, I'm now 42 and, and him and I, we talk frequently.

We golf when he's up here in, in the Northeast, when we can, we get together all the time.

And, and I'm just for so fortunate to have him as a mentor and, and as a friend because he's, he's been there for me when, you know, certain people weren't and things like that.

And he's always provided me that coach advice, coach father advice.

And I've been very fortunate enough to kind of grow.

And all the accolades that he received, they're still not enough for what he's done for me and what he's done for his players and other assistants.

So going beyond that relationship piece, when you think about his success as a basketball coach, obviously building the relationships critical.

But when you think about him as a basketball tactician and what his teams did on the floor and what you guys did during the time that you were with him, what were some of the keys to the basketball success?

Again, beyond building the team culture relationships.

It was, it was.

Well, first of all, he, he's always thinking the game of basketball like we would do.

I would come up with this like, great play in my head and I'd be like, oh, we can do this kind of tweak here, coach here.

And he would, he would just rip it to shreds.

Like, this is what, where the help is going to be here.

What about here?

Da da, da.

And like, I must have been over my first like 200 play calls that I was going to call at Amherst College with, with a national contender team, by the way.

So like, I'm pretty sure like anything I put in that team would have done great with.

But he would just rip it to shreds.

And then I started to think the game better.

And he would say, oh, that's pretty good here, what about this?

And we would have open dialogue about how to make certain tweaks, like, okay, we're playing Williams here the first time, we're going to show this type of look.

And then we got to start teaching the game, teaching some different counters to it because when we face them two weeks later, when it matters for conference play, we're going to have to have something in the bag.

So like, he's always.

He never was satisfied with where we.

He had a system in place offensively that everybody knew we ran.

But he was further thinking and tweaking that game and tweaking the X's and O's.

So, like, we would have awesome discussions, I would like, on his whiteboard, in his office, continually thinking the game.

When you add that in with his ability to have relationships, like, that's why he won national titles, quite frankly.

But his ability to continue to challenge X's and O's and, and tweak certain things and have discussions was.

Was awesome.

Absolutely awesome.

So that experience, obviously, with Coach Hickson and with the success that you guys were able to have at Amherst gives you an opportunity to become a head coach.

At what point are you thinking about becoming a head coach?

Is that something that you had been actively seeking, or was it a situation where that job at SUNY New Paltz opens up and somebody says, hey, you should take a look at that.

Where were you in terms of your thought process, your mindset, as far as being prepared to be a head coach at that point?

Yeah, I was.

I.

I thought I was ready.

And I, and I.

And I and I.

And, and.

And you never, I think moving that six inches over from assistant to head coach, that's a, That's a big six inches.

And, and was I ready at the time?

Absolutely.

I think if I just.

In retrospect, if I went from Springfield College to Amherst College being my first coaching endeavor, I would have had a fast sense of what coaching was because we.

I had to really grind at College of New Jersey and Plymouth State.

And I think, like, that's what led me to be a head coach.

It was something I was actively searching at the time.

Like, I started dating my wife at that time and, and things on those lines.

And, you know, I wanted.

I wanted the challenge.

I saw some of my peers.

You know, I was starting to interview for a lot of jobs and I was always going to be the bridesmaid.

I was, I was perennially second place.

And so many interviews and they said I was great and blah, blah, blah types of stuff.

You know, the usual thing, ads say.

And, you know, I was very fortunate to get hired at SUNY New Pals.

And that was another kind of learning piece for me as well, because the resources at a state university versus private are different.

Admissions is different.

I think at that stage in my voice, of finding my voice as a, As a head coach, I think I tried to be somewhat like Coach Hickson, Coach Simon, Coach Castaldo, Coach Brock all in one and not be coach Reg.

And the minute I let go of all of that, that's when I started to become a really good coach, when I started to become comfortable in my own voice.

But to be honest, it took a while to figure it out, and I'm still figuring out, and I'm in my 40s, you know, so I think it's one of those things where I had to let go of a lot of, you know, 20.

You know, I was third.

I want to say I was third, little shade under 30, 29, 28 at the time.

So I was like, on that list of youngest head coaches in America.

That's not a good list to be on, by the way.

I, I used to, I used to think it was as, as a, as a badge of honor, but that just like, is, is like, no, you're gonna, you're gonna get, you learned here.

Nobody went national title, being youngest head coach in America, all divisions, so.

But I, I think once I let go of a lot of those insecurities that I think you have of constantly trying to prove yourself, and I, I, I got better.

And I think, like, that's kind of just life in general.

Like, as you get older, like, ego starts to kind of disperse, you know, like we talk about as coaches.

And then you start to, you know, the service of others, not yourself, and you're not chasing the, the, the coaching at Duke dream and things, and you're comfortable.

The ego leaves.

And I think, like, minute that started happening to me, that's when I started to get good and start to kind of be where I'm at today.

When you think about taking over that program, what were some of the first steps that you felt like you had to take?

Obviously, the finding your voice piece.

I think for anybody who is going to become a head coach for the first time, I think that is obviously critical because you're, you're making the decision.

You're, you're, you're the end maker in terms of this is it.

I, I'm making the decision, whereas an assistant, you're giving suggestions, and somebody else is ultimately going to make that decision.

But beyond, beyond finding that voice, what do you remember about thinking, hey, I've got to make sure that if we're going to be successful, I've got to get X, Y and Z in place?

What were some of those things you.

Have to have players?

I, I think, I think recruiting is, is paramount.

I, I think no matter how good a coach Coach Hickson is, if you give him my son's second and third CYO team, they're not going to win no matter how good.

And that's a Hall of Fame coach.

It just is what it is.

And I think like I learned that early on, you've got to have players.

And if you don't have an admissions department that supports that, it is, no matter how good or motivated you are, it is very difficult to win.

And that's something that I wish because I would battle back and forth as a young head coach.

And that's what I think, if I could give another research to young head coaches is do your research on kind of what the support is within the program.

And I think that's where a little bit of ego is too.

Right.

Like you think you're, you're this hot, hot commodity coach.

If you don't have the players, you ain't going to win.

It just is what it is.

So I, I think that's where I learned really quickly.

No matter how good X's and O's, I, I was, no matter how good educator I was, if you don't have players that can compete, I, I think that's, that's, that's a difficult thing that I had to learn because quite frankly, we lost a lot.

And so like I had to learn how to, how to lose and get better and like what, what I had.

So I think like that's, that was a big piece.

I think understanding the landscape of the.

At that stage, I, I think and it's still evolving, but just today's student athlete is way different than what it was when you and I bald very different.

And I think how they think the game, how, how you connect, how you coach with them is different.

You can't just put them on the line now repeatedly just because you said so and they would listen.

Right.

Nowadays you got to get out your own pilot point.

You got to say, this is why you got to do it.

This is the important thing.

And hey, tapped on the back, you're still a great person.

You know, all this types of stuff, you know.

So like that's a.

I think evolving with today's student athlete is important.

I see it with my own kids as well and their peers and how you interact with them, you know, is important as well.

Yeah, I think when you, when you start talking about the changing landscape of what players are like today versus again players back in the day, there certainly is a change in terms of the way that we coach and you think about the sort of that fire and brimstone, as you said, get on the line, my way or the highway.

We've certainly evolved in the coaching profession in a way to be able to meet the needs of the kids that we're coaching.

And I certainly think that that's been a positive development for.

For the game of basketball without.

Without question.

And so being able to adapt to that as a head coach and get that in line so that you can deal with, as you said, the players.

And ultimately you got to have the right players coming into your program.

How long did it take you in each one of your stops to get a feel for the type of player who a was going to fit the basketball part of it, but also fit the school, the institution, all the things that go along with that?

Because obviously each school has a little bit of a different culture, a little bit of a different kind of kid that's going to thrive in that environment.

So how long as you go to your different stops, how long does it take you to get a feel for.

This is the type of player that we're looking for for our institution.

I mean, College of New Jersey, I did a little bit of recruiting with Springfield College is on the road with their assistance just to learn, you know, Plymouth State.

That took some time because to figure out kind of the landscape of the person.

Where do we draw from the academic criteria that we can work with, types of stuff.

Amherst College was, was literally easiest for me because I would go into a gym at some academic elite camp or something.

I would say, all right, who is literally the best player here?

And I would go after that player.

Like.

Like, I remember one time I recruited a player, Peter Casilla.

He got MVP of an academic elite camp that Hook group was running in Pennsylvania.

Okay.

He played at St Mark's in Worcester behind two kids, Murphy, which ended up playing at Florida, and another kid that played at Georgetown, the coach's kid.

I'm blanking on the name right now, but he basically got two minutes a game at that high school.

But he was the best big at that gym.

And I called him for months and didn't hear anything.

And then literally the night before Thanksgiving, he called me back finally and said, hey, I'm thinking about taking a visit to Amherst, you know, like, so, like, Amherst was easy, you know, just kind of because they won the national title.

So, like, you know, you don't want to be the assistant that really messes it up, you know.

And Coach Hicks, it will say, like, oh, I did miss out on a couple, but, you know, you know, we really had a good kind of vibe recruiting as a team as a coaching staff and coach was just the ultimate closer and, and he was tenacious with it.

But I think like Amherst was the easiest.

Even though some people might think it was the hardest, it was actually the easiest.

And they also had a great admissions department that supported athletics which is why they continue to win and do well and all that types of stuff that they do.

But at New Pulse it took me a while as well because it's kind of, it's a state run institution that you know, caters to the higher academic, but they're not, if you're super high academic you're going to go private.

If you're not high academic then you can't get in.

So you're living in this really gray area if you have in its state.

So like you're dealing with price to as well.

But you can't recruit out of the prep schools because if you're, if you're paying money to go to a prep school, you're not paying money to go to a public university.

Right.

So.

Right.

It's very, it's a very unique niche.

And, and at that time, and at that time of New Boss's history, they were very stringent on transfers.

Nowadays like with COVID and admissions to like, if you look at the squad, they do a nice job of getting some really high quality transfers.

But that wasn't the case when I was there.

So like I, I, it took me a while to figure it out, but Amherst was the easiest.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I mean I think when you start talking about a school with Amherst, obviously basketball reputation and then you talk about the academics, I mean clearly one, the pool that you're drawing from is pretty small right.

To begin with because of the academic requirements.

And so now you're looking at, okay, we just have this pool of players that we're, we're trying to look at from an academic standpoint.

And now again because we're one of the better programs in that niche now, as you said, you can go and be like, okay, we're going after the best guys who fit sort of that criteria.

Or do you want to come out and win a national title?

Or.

We got lucky one year.

Aaron Toomey was national player of the year for us.

I helped recruit him.

But that was Coach Hickson's recruit.

But we got lucky with Aaron Toomey because Columbia was on him.

They had a coaching change at that time.

The new coach dropped the ball and he had nothing going on.

So Toomey came to see us and you know, it's it's all said and done and that's the all time leading scorer at Amherst history, you know, so it's, you're dealing with the Ivy League type of deal and you're either going to start or you want to win and play.

You know, the degrees are pretty much the same.

How has the recruiting process changed from when you started to your role now at ncsa?

In terms of when I think about the recruiting changes in college basketball, I think about the fact of how important a high school basketball was and the importance of, to a recruit of their performance in high school.

I think about college coaches coming to watch players play in high school.

And I remember saying back when my kids were young.

So I'm talking about this is my, my kids are whatever 20, 19 years old.

So I'm talking 15, 20 years ago telling people that in high school basketball is what that's, that's the season that's important.

All this silly stuff in the summer.

And AAU like that stuff doesn't matter.

And yet I can tell you that my own son's recruitment had zero to do with his performance as a high school player.

Now coaches came to see him play when he was a senior, but those were coaches that already had seen him, already decided they were going to recruit him.

They were not there to evaluate him as a player.

They were there to make sure he knew that they were interested in him as a player to get them to come.

And so the shift from high school to AAU in terms of evaluation, just tell me a little bit about just how that's changed over the course of your career and how you view that.

Yeah, well, information is different, right?

It's, it's more accessible.

So as a college coach, you can do a lot of recruiting from your desk.

You know, I saw it from just the evolution of my career.

You know, you can do a lot of recruiting from your desk.

So you can do a lot of pre evaluation where you're not sitting in a gym looking at bums for eight hours.

You know exactly who you're going to see.

All that type stuff, which has allowed with the amount of AAU tournaments and travel tournaments coaches don't like, they still recruit during their own seasons.

But as far as like head coach evaluation talent, I know I can see you play against some really good talent in the summer when I have time where I'm not having to worry about how to teach, you know, Johnny, how to read a screen.

Like I can really focus in and evaluate you and there's opportunity for me to evaluate you against better players than what I'm going to see in high school.

It just has significantly changed because I look at, like, my own experience here in New York, like my daughter and son's high school.

They're in solid.

But as far as, like, the best competition that they're going to face, quite frankly, is going to be in travel ball and cyo.

And it didn't used to be like that.

It used to be high school was like the town, you know, all this type of stuff nowadays.

It's like, are you on the Nike circuit?

Are you on Under Armour?

Where are you playing?

Nationals.

You're going to be in Vegas, you're going to be in Orlando.

What time are you in the gold bracket?

You in the silver bracket, or you in the crappy bronze bracket?

Okay, I don't care if you're in the Browns bracket because that means you're not a winner.

Blah, blah, blah, types of stuff.

So that evaluation has.

Has drastically shift now.

I think a lot of things have been lost in transit.

Translation with that, I think sometimes coaches do rely on too much on film.

I think film is the one that gets you in the door.

Live evaluation.

And this is where I'm going to be getting on my soapbox, where you got to see who's going to be able to fight in that foxhole with you.

And the only way you can do that is by seeing that player play in person in a game that like, where they're going to be challenged.

And I think a lot of those opportunities happen in the summer, you know, not so much in high school anymore where it didn't used to be the case.

Yeah, I think that's definitely true.

And then I think the other thing too is from an efficiency standpoint, right, I can go show up at an AAU tournament and there might be 15 kids that I could seriously consider recruiting versus I could show up at a high school gym and the kid I'm going to watch is in foul trouble and plays, plays four minutes.

And there's nobody else even remotely close to anybody that I would be interested in in that game.

And so when you just think about it from an efficiency standpoint, it makes sense.

I think that's one of the big reasons why there's been the explosion of AAU is just because again, kids can all be in that same venue to be able to compete and coaches have the opportunity to evaluate so many kids in one fell swoop.

And that's where for me, with TBT and the We Are D3 team, it took me.

I, I, I, I think we figured out the key to everything.

The, the, the, the, the code.

I, I think I cracked it.

But you got to, you gotta have kind of that, that evaluation of a, of a, of a dog in you, you know, like what everybody says.

A dog, What's a dog?

You know?

No, it's like that person, like when you're in that foxhole, when your back's up against the wall, they're not gonna, when an arena of 30,000 or 20,000, whatever, how many people we played in front of, whatever, is like, you're not gonna crap your pants and you're going to be cool and you're going to be confident in yourself.

That is a tough thing to quantify.

And that's where, like, these coaches, I think some of these AAU events, they can start to quantify that, like, Cooper flag.

All right, you're a baller no matter where you are, whether you're training with Brian Scalabrini or like in the national tournament, you're, you're awesome.

Okay, but what about like, that, that seventh, eighth person?

Like, that might be their only time where they're going to play in front of that crowd.

How are they going to react and things on those lines?

And that's something that I've had to really focus in on and evaluate with my pro guys that I coach.

Like, how do you quantify that so that when we're playing a team like Kansas or Syracuse that they're able to rise to the challenge?

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Let's talk a little bit about the tbt.

How do you get involved in that?

How does that opportunity come to you?

And then just tell me a little bit about that experience, what it's been like, and how you guys go about putting together the team and just kind of walk me through the process.

Yeah, well, like, I, I was a couple things I was looking, I had younger kids at that time.

I wanted to stay involved in coaching, but the way Landscape was my wife had a great job around the area.

I was looking to be spend more time with my family.

I wasn't ready to move all over the country and kind of chase it.

Like I started to let my ego go a little bit.

I didn't need to kind of chase as much.

And I was watching it, you know, previous summer, you know, and I was like, I was sitting with a couple buddies, my fellow assistant, Matt Droney, who's now a head coach at a prep school, Dexter, in Massachusetts.

But he was, he won a national championship with Babson D3.

And I was like, you know what?

I think a lot of D3 guys, because they're hungrier, could do well in this million dollar tournament.

And I just started and he's like, you know what, you know, you're, you're right.

And you know, it could have been the, the coolers like talking, but like, I was like, okay, you know, let's do this.

And because I've always.

One thing that has always stayed with me was even when we were at our best at Amherst College, we had Nashville players a year like Andrew Olson, who's a trainer, obviously with the Cavs and things like that.

Getting him to be looked at the national player of the year because of the stigma of Division 3 was like crazy to me.

He was the best player I've ever seen in my life.

And we couldn't even get him a sniff from some bum town in Bosnia, you know.

So like, that has always stuck with me, that kind of negative connotation.

This was the best our division had to offer.

So I've seen the best of what our division has to offer and I know it could do well against, for lack of a better term, Division 1 primadonnas and several, you know, we, we.

I started talking with the TBT guys and I was like, you know, I'm thinking of putting a team together that will only be Division 3 alums.

We're not going to have the high profile names, I'm not going to tarnish the brand and we're going to keep it D3.

They said, we love that idea, but you got to get in.

And at that point in time, you had to get voted in.

And Division 3, we have a lot of support.

We got voted in.

I called every one of my coaching buddies, all that types of stuff and we got in.

And then from there on in that first year, like we played UCLA at ucla and we were up or we were tied.

We were up at halftime, tied at third quarter, and then we got the Doors blown off, you know, at the front court.

But at that point in time improved a concept that we could hang with certain things and I knew I could do certain pieces.

Then the next year, you know, first of all, this is like, you know, tbt finally last year gave us, gave us some good seating.

Like listen to this.

So first year we played ucla at ucla.

Second year Syracuse at Syracuse, Wichita State.

At Wichita State.

So Basically a Division 1 All Star team which, you know, which was challenge Als, which went to the finals and then Kansas at Kansas.

And then last year we played a team sweet home Alabama in Diggin and then we played the defending champs but like they gave us the gauntlet, right?

So like in those environments, NBA draft pick versus somebody who basically went to a Division 3 school and did really well and now plays in Ireland, you know, things like that.

So that was it.

It proved the concept and then it's grown every year since then like.

And it's been my mission to kind of further help out with the Voice of Division 3 in those regards.

Whether now we run two pro combines that last year we had 16 of our people that attended of 32 Get Pro contracts.

Awesome.

Love that that we can do that.

This year we're running two of them and then we're further kind of helping the brand and we have NIL stuff going on.

So the brand is growing to help kind of this big mission and we've been very fortunate to have a great supporter in Hardy Strong, which is the foundation where Justin Hardy, the Wash.

Washington University player that passed away from cancer, his family and us have been.

They've been so supportive of us and kind of that mission when second year in maybe I was talking with Justin about potentially being with us on the team and then unfortunately, you know, we passed and kind of we've taken him with us because I think his story deserves to live on forever and who he was as a person and so to have him kind of with us kind of right here all throughout has been awesome.

And it wouldn't have been.

They've continued to help kind of fundraise for us and they've been great supporters.

But it continues to grow and it's been absolutely an awesome experience and a ride and you know, I.

I can't wait to see where it continues to take us.

Tell me a little bit about the NIL piece.

I'm curious as to how you guys have approached that because I've talked to several people in different roles about nil, about their experience with it, about how people can take advantage of it.

So I'm just curious, from your perspective, how are you guys thinking about that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So with us, first of all, I can do and say a lot more things now that I don't work for an ad, so it's awesome.

But like, I don't, like, I, I vote for the top 25 and things like that.

I can tell them my speed, not even care and be political, all that stuff anymore.

So it's a lot easier now.

But with the nil stuff, like, I had an idea, we had an idea kind of like with the team, we wanted to grow the brand.

That's just the way the landscape now.

And there's nothing out there for helping support Division three athletes.

There's nothing.

So like with us, you know, Coach Harris, who's head coach at Boston from my time at Plymouth State, you know, he does a great job, you know, with gear and, and branding and things on those lines.

And I was like, well, what if he had a great idea of kind of like bringing it to the masses of Division 3?

So we have, you know, I reach out to, you know, several athletes and, you know, they, they get a cut of, of what they sell or whatever and we give them the money so that at least then like, they can get at least a little bit of something, you know, for what they do and their, their brand at their school.

So it's been just a way for us to give back.

It's, it's mostly on the student athlete.

Like, it's not like we're like going crazy with it.

It's just another avenue for them to help support their own selves.

Like when they're in season, they can still be making some money on the side.

And I, I think nowadays, like, that's the way it's the land I don't necessarily agree with.

Kind of where it is with all these extra years of eligibility, nil, all that types of stuff.

I think the two we squeezed the toothpaste out and now we can't get it back in.

And they're trying to, but like juco now, you know, no, it doesn't count against you.

Like, I mean, crap, like I could go back to school, I think, and have like eligibility left.

I'm sure some, some team in middle of Arkansas will take me maybe, but like, so it's, it's a landscape that we're figuring out as well, just like I think the rest of the country is.

But for us specifically, it's been a way for us to get back to Division 3 athletes, not just Basketball, we work with football now.

A couple football players, a couple women's basketball players, just to kind of help support kind of the mission of what we're about.

No, that makes sense.

It'll be interesting to see where nil ends up 5, 10 years from now because as you said, that toothpaste is clearly, clearly way out of the tube.

And I don't think anybody anticipated that, what that landscape looks like.

Nobody thought it was going to become what it's become.

And I just, every time I talk to a college coach, especially when you start talking about guys at like the mid major level of Division 1, I don't know how you even begin to manage a roster.

You just, I think what it is, is you have to reset your mentality.

You coach, you just coach one year, you coach one year, you coach this, this is my team this year.

And maybe a couple guys are going to come back, maybe they're not, who knows.

And next year it's going to be a completely different team.

You just build a mindset to that program.

Like it's, it's like literally you coach your team and that's it.

So all levels now, like if you're that D3 coach or D2 coach, you recruit a kid out of nowhere, even though it's tough to, you know, be under the radar now, but maybe you develop that player into something like where up until junior year, then all of a sudden they become player of the conference.

They're gone.

Like, like, like they are absolutely gone.

So how do you navigate that?

Right, as a coach at the division one level, you can't maybe D2 and D3, you have that built in loyalty and you know, maybe, but it's, you're resetting every year, you know, transfer, it's going to look, it's going to look different, but it's going to look similar to hockey.

Because in hockey, right, like you graduate, nobody.

The good pro, no program really takes kids fresh out of high school.

You, typically in hockey you go to a juniors program, you go to one of the prep programs, whatever, and then you get the, the 24 year old freshman.

That's going to be the lay of the land.

Now in basketball, I really feel it outside the, outside of the apparition.

Why wouldn't you go if you're not, you can get your credits out of the way, you can develop your sport, develop within your sport of junior college or whatever and then go to four year.

I know I have a young birthday and that's kind of what I, the excuse that I Always make, you know, I could, I could have definitely benefited from two years, you know, and get my credits out of the way and then go to a four year.

Well, and it's two more years to play.

Right.

I mean, again, everybody always talks about like for all of us, the ball stops bouncing at some point.

Most kids who are playing college basketball are not going to be professional players.

But if you told me at the beginning of my college career, you can play six years of college basketball versus four, I mean, I would have signed up for that immediately.

In a heartbeat.

In a heartbeat, right.

Like, it's like a no brainer.

And I think like how you navigate that schools probably are gonna like, we'll see landscape of Division 3, like schools that have graduate programs.

I can sell you for like, hey, six years.

You can play all six years, get your masters.

We're gonna have a great time, we're.

Gonna win a lot.

Versus okay, you're gonna pay a boatload of money and only go for four, man, you know.

Right.

Why do you want to do that?

Exactly.

So it's gonna be, it's gonna be.

I, I'm very interested to see how it goes.

I'm very thankful that I'm not in it, you know, and I could just deal with the pro side of things because coaching the pros like those guys are, are easy.

And it's, and it's, you know, and I kind of am able to talk with agents and things on those lines and work with them in those regards.

It's a lot easier coaching the pros than it is coaching college right now.

100%.

Yeah, I could see that.

Tell me about the selection process for the team.

Yeah, literally year one, it was, I wanted, I've always gone to, with the mindset of like, I wanted it to be like almost like a Division 3 dream team.

Right?

You have your Jordans of the world, you have your car, you have, you know, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and then you have like one Christian Laitner, you know, like the kid fresh out of college.

Because literally year one, it was like a dream team in those regards.

But there were players that necessarily didn't play that year, things like that.

So we learned kind of after that fourth quarter blowout that you had to play, you had to be playing, you had to be a current pro.

You can't just be really good, but take a year off basketball shape.

As we all know.

Trust me, I can run a 5K, but if you put me on a basketball court right now, I'd be, I'd be Duggin it in about like two, two up and downs.

That's it.

So basketball shapes basketball shape, right.

And so the next year we evolved.

We lost to Syracuse on free throws and I started to kind of.

That was a piece right.

And then I started to look at.

Okay it's not necessarily as we started to play really aggressive, really well coached.

But these are teams Kansas.

There's a clear, clear line of separation between Kansas Division 1 and everybody else Division 1.

There is a clear difference and, and you don't understand it until you see it up close in person.

It is like it is like the difference between an all conference player division one and an NBA draft pick.

Oh my gosh, 100%.

And so like.

And even I saw it when you know with the Cavs and all that type stuff too when I, when I was there.

But one of those things where I think how do you combat that if we're going to stay true to our brand which in my.

I have made sure like we've stayed with our brand.

Like with.

To be a part of we are D3.

You have to have played Division 3 basketball at least for one game.

I can sell one game.

Division 3.

Yeah, that's it.

But I'm not gonna have it be hey these are 4D3 guys and the rest of them played at UMass and, and Kansas and Syracuse is it doesn't we lose all of our cred.

So how do you combat a team of non scholarship athletes that are good that are playing pro versus NBA caliber and to kind of.

It's not necessarily the, the guys that you know for lack of it's going to come out wrong.

But play pretty like you just shoot the three.

You know what I found in TBT because it is so quick.

You have got to be able to play defense and you've got to be confident in yourself.

And how do you quantify that?

The quantifying confident in yourself and being in that competitive spirit that is tough to find.

I've been very fortunate enough to find it in several of the returners that are with us.

Ty Nichols, Marcus Azor, Alex Sobel, Demetrius Underwood, Josh Treadwell, the the group.

Daquan Davis, the mechanics of the world.

Thomas Quarry.

Like the team that we won last year with.

These are players that are so competitive.

That's, that's the number one thing that I look for.

Like I'm assuming you can score.

I'm assuming you can do this.

You're the best.

You have all these accolades, you're playing pro.

But when, when, when you're in the foxhole with me, and we got 30,000 fans that want us to.

That want to kick our ass.

Are you going to be able to fight and not be intimidated by the guy that got drafted ahead of LeBron or something like that?

Right, like that.

That NBA pick that somehow is playing overseas.

So, like, that's how I make up the team.

And.

And myself, Jay Harris, who's my.

Who works with me and.

And David Clark, Tom Shelf, we call him character.

Love him.

We sit down and we watch a lot of film.

We talk to them, we do a lot of interviews.

I ask them questions.

And these are guys that I've watched for a long time to kind of really get to know.

That's why, you know, when we're compiling the team, it's really like 10 guys that have played pro that are playing pro.

And I'll take one guy, one, maybe two, that are graduating college and to kind of help jumpstart their pro career.

Reality is, in my experiences with tbt, the players that have been fresh out of college to compete and play, I could count less on on one hand.

Like, they're.

They're.

It's so tough to compete at that level, no matter how good you are.

To level from college to pro is a huge jump.

And that's, I think, what has kept it refreshing for me as a coach.

I'm going from D3 to Pro.

Well, now I'm coaching against pros.

So now how I talk to you, how I teach you, that's been refreshing as well and kind of learning those nuances.

But I think, like, that's where that junk.

I only take one, maybe two college kids.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be the national player of the year or things like that.

It's who I think will have a better pro career and things on those lines.

But it's a lot of evaluation that I've known and I've evaluated throughout the years.

I mean, that leap, right?

I think when you go any level, people don't necessarily understand the differences between levels.

When you talk about going from high school to college, and I know you've sat in many AAU tournaments and you listen to parents and you listen to players, and everybody thinks that they have a.

A college player on their hands.

And I just consistently say to people like, you have no idea how good you have to be to play college basketball, any level.

And then that goes to what you're talking about now.

You take it from college to pro.

People have no idea how good you have to be.

To be able to play professionally anywhere in the world, Zero idea.

The skill level is.

And there's no way you can convey that.

And then I think the other thing that, that sticks with me is when you start talking about, okay, the difference between, here we are, we're trying to compete with non scholarship players, guys who are playing overseas who are tremendous, tremendous players.

And then you're talking about a guy that was drafted in the NBA who just has physical tools and size that the normal human being just cannot.

You just cannot.

I can't train that.

Right.

We can't train that.

So how do you combat that?

Right.

It's like the old David versus Goliath thing.

Well, then you have some fight in you and you better like, like value that basketball like it's your life.

And like, you can't just like freak out.

So like, that's how you feel.

Like I talked about maybe figuring out the formula, I think, right.

That's a big piece of it.

Because it is a blessing.

And you touched on it.

And I tell families this all the time and even my town, it is a blessing to play any sort of college basketball.

It is.

So you have to be so incredibly good.

Whether you're going juco, naia, d3, d2, d1, all that type of stuff.

You have to be.

You have to be blessed with basketball talent.

I don't care.

And there's margins and we can argue about whatever, but you have to be.

You have to be good.

Then you amplify that by about a billion degrees.

Okay?

Now you become the best of your.

Whatever arena you're in.

And then you have to go compete with everybody else.

Because here's the thing with pro, people don't graduate in pro.

You, you have turnover in college, you don't have turnover.

There are some old dudes overseas that are kicking butt.

Dang names that you're like, dude, I used to play you on NBA Live, you know, like 1995 version or whatever like that are still overseas doing well.

Like there was a Jeff Gibbs who played at Otterbein who won the national title I think in 2001 or 2000, whatever.

He is just retiring from playing in Japan and he was an all star over there.

So we're talking like he's been over there for like billion years.

And now you have all these players and especially with advancements and you know, medical treatment, how you take care of your body.

Careers are getting longer.

And we see that with LeBron and, and, and he's a, he's an absolute enigma.

But we See that also, like with the greats, right.

Tom Brady all the time.

Everybody's starting to take care of their bodies more.

So careers are aligned now.

You got to go against that when you're graduating college, get out of town.

It is difficult as hell.

So everybody's got to be appreciative of the offers that they get.

Yep.

No question.

There is no doubt.

All right, let's transition into your role at ncsa.

Tell me a little bit about what you do day to day, how you help kids and families be able to navigate this world that we've kind of been talking about.

Yeah, yeah.

So ncsa, IMG Academy in Florida, we're one in the same.

So, like, NCSA is like the recruiting arm to IMG Academy.

We.

When I was coach, I utilize NCSA.

It's been around for about 25 years, and essentially, like, we're like matchmaker match.com but for athletes.

Like, coaches come to us, say, hey, we need this.

We have.

We have the pool of kids that say, hey, this.

And we piece it together like a puzzle.

During the course of my kind of day to day, like, I'm.

I'm talking with families from not just basketball, but other sports as well, and basically saying, all right, this is where we're at in the process with you.

This is the reality of what it is, because everybody's going to tell me, hey, I want to play at Duke and be like, what offers do you have as a junior?

And they're like, well, we haven't done anything.

Well, dude, you've been behind the game for three years now, you know, and that's something that I have to educate families on.

It's not Coach Reg's rules.

It's not Coach Mike's rules.

It's the NCAA says you are a recruit when you turn 13 years of age.

Do I agree with it?

No, because I have.

My daughter's 11, two years down the line, you know, as good as a Hooper as she is as softball player, I can't envision, like, talking to college, like, because she could barely, like, you know, like, brush her hair the right way, things like that.

Right, right.

But that's not my rule.

That's the NCAA's rule.

And that's the game that.

That we all play.

Right.

Like, it's this game of arms race that started with the Internet, that started with that, that now is further amplified with nil, all that type stuff.

My job is to educate them on the reality of their situation.

And a lot of families are, like, very similar to you and, and eyes growing up where they don't have that background or they might have a.

A parent that went to college.

But if you're going to college just for academics, you don't have to do anything until end of, you know, junior year.

Maybe take a visit or two in the summer and apply, like athletics.

It just ramps up that, that flywheel.

And so my job is to talk with you as a family, be like, figure out where this disconnect is and then say, hey, this is how we can help and this is what we got to do to fix it.

So it's kind of like.

And.

And for me, it's almost like recruiting.

Like, my, my.

I talk with families.

You know, I liken everyone to a recruiting visit.

Can I get them to see the light at the end of our call?

Are they in a better spot versus when I talk to them, do they know about the process?

Do they know what to expect?

And so I talk with families kind of in those regards where they're at, not whether or not they're recruitable.

My job is to see where they're not to say like, hey, you can talk.

My job isn't to say, hey, you can play a Duke or not.

My job is to say, like, are they.

Are there things that they can be doing to put them in the best situation possible so that they're having that college opportunity?

Because it is such a gift.

Process versus outcome.

Just like we talk about as coaches, right?

You're trying to help them to understand the process and what they need to be doing to put themselves in the best position to be able to have an opportunity, which makes a ton of sense.

Tell me about coaching your own kids.

I want to keep this relatively brief, so give me your best piece of advice.

Because there are so many coaches out there who, regardless of what their regular coaching position might be, they inevitably end up coaching their kids in some way, shape or form.

So if you had to give somebody one piece of advice when it comes to coaching your own kids, what would that one piece of advice be?

Oh, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna plead.

Oh, God.

I.

I can't just give.

Give one, but I'm gonna give two.

I'll give two.

Okay, perfect.

No matter how qualified of a coach you are, you gotta let them have a.

Another voice, teach them.

And that's.

That's tough.

That's very tough for me as.

As a father and kind of my background and your background.

Right.

We know there are times in the gym where you're.

You are the smartest basketball mind in that gym.

And you know, sometimes you gotta let other, others teach your own son and daughter.

I think that's important, having another voice.

I think I have a rule in my house where I don't talk about the game or whatever on the car ride home.

No matter good, bad, indifferent.

You know, I might be smirking or things like that, but you know, like, even though I coach my kids, like that whistle's blown.

Now I'm your back to your father.

And I think like, that's so important to come from a point of love.

Like, yes, I'm competitive and hey, I'm not going to beat you down because you didn't make a cut the right way or you passed up an open shot or you traveled in the open court, which by the way, like my son travels like all the time and he doesn't tie his shoelaces.

It drives me nuts.

But like, I think knowing the line of coach and, and, and, and parent is important and I think that that has helped me process making that rule, having that time to calm down from the energy of a game as a coach, like, we get into it and I think that's where I can then come back at it.

Come back at it more as father coach rather than coach father.

I think like, that's tough to do and I'm still learning how to navigate that with my own kids.

But I think that's, that's important.

And you know, yes, you know, it's, it's been one of my, it's been the greatest gift.

Like I would, I would turn and not coach college 100% out of 100% to coach my own kids.

It is my greatest joy.

And let me tell you, I'm a better coach coaching second and third grade CYO because the, the schemes you want to talk about, there's great coaches everywhere.

There's this one dude, a shout out to Tommy Bergadamo in New York where he runs a great program and he runs a great one, two, two, man.

Great one, two, two.

We can't run necessarily at the college level because they'll just skip past it.

But I'm telling you, in youth sports, if you're not running a 1, 2, 2, man like matchup type of zone, you're missing out because you combine that with man to man.

Oh, it's dirty.

I think like there's, I would say those two things.

If you can have somebody, you know, train your kid or coach your kid with a different voice, I think that's important.

I think Learning how to separate the court from your role as being a parent is important because then you can even be a better coach to your son or daughter.

Absolutely.

That's well said.

All right, final two, part question, part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And then secondly, when you think about your career, you think about what you get to do every day, what brings you the most joy.

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

My biggest challenge, I think, is continuing to grow as a coach, grow the brand and.

And in today's landscape of.

Of now, AI and crap like that, and.

And like, I manage all the feeds, you know, and things like that.

So, like.

Yep, yeah, that is a big challenge.

And, you know, because you do it.

Who said, you know, kind of all the social, you know, all that type of stuff, that's a challenge.

Right.

And growing right within that, it's kind of evolving.

I think that's probably simplest terms.

Continuing to evolve is a challenge.

The greatest joy in my day to day is being able to share.

I've been very fortunate enough to be just like all of us, we've all been a part of sport our entire life.

And to be.

Continuing to have that be a part of my daily life, that is.

That brings the joy.

And to see others have that joy, whether it be coaching my daughter's team and having the light bulb go off of some of them and have that joy, or like talking to some random family in Nebraska to help them realize their joy of playing or to help a pro team, a pro player, have a better opportunity, make more money for their family, that brings me joy.

So I think that's.

That's been.

That.

That's the greatest joy of my day to day and kind of through the a lens of sport, which is pretty cool.

All right, final thing before we get out.

Share how people can reach out to you, get connected to you.

Whether you want to share.

Social media, email, website, whatever you feel comfortable with.

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

Yeah.

So everybody can reach me at Coach Reg on socials, Instagram, X, you know, Twitter, whatever.

Whatever it's called now X.

Yeah, I'm already dating myself by calling it twitter @Coach Reg.

C O A C H R E J.

When it comes to the We Are D3 brand on both socials, it's at We Are D3TBT.

Which, you know, we could probably now get rid of the TBT because we're now more of a national brand now different but at we are D3TBT message message me message my team.

You know I love talking hoops with anybody.

I'm very thankful that that you brought me on.

Obviously lifelong listener, first time caller type of deal, which is great.

And you know I love furthering bonds, you know and, and through basketball and getting to know because I think we're all all better because of that.

And you know, feel free to always DM me.

I will always respond or, or you know, you know, uh, message on shows or you can email me at rainiac3223@gmail.

I'm not going to give out my super secretive work email because they like watch over me like big brother but R E J N I A K3223@gmail 3223 My number was 32 because 23 was already taken and I wanted to be Michael Jordan and I'm not so 32 23.

There we go.

You got it.

Reg.

Can I thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to jump on with 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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