Foreign.

Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

I truly believe in the value of relationships.

I believe that my job is to help the people that I work with and our players grow as people.

If we were going to be successful, it was going to be because we had the right staff and then if we had the right staff, we'd get the right players.

Donnie Lind is the men's basketball head coach at Mount St. Mary's University.

In his first season, the 202425 team captured the university's first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship with a victory over Iona in the conference title game.

They would notch an NCAA Tournament victory, the program's third, by defeating American in the first four.

The 23 wins by the team set a Division 1 record and were the most by any Mount St. Mary's squad since 1986-87.

Lynn previously served on the coaching staffs at both Radford and UNC Greensboro under head coach Mike Jones from 2016 to 2024.

In his first stint at the Mount from 2013 to 2016, he was an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator and was on the staff for the team's 2014 Northeast Conference championship.

Former Mount head coach Damian Christian brought Lynd along from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he worked as a graduate manager before being elevated to video coordinator.

He was part of the Rams storied run as the team won 84 games, including seven NCAA tournament games and the team's run to the 2011 Final Four.

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Grab pen and paper before you listen to this episode with Donnie Lind, men's basketball head coach at Mount St. Mary's University.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.

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

But I am pleased to welcome in Donnie Lind, head men's basketball coach at Mount Saint Mary's.

Donnie, welcome to the Hoop Heads pod.

Thanks, Mike.

Appreciate you having me on.

Absolutely excited to have you on.

Looking forward to diving into all of the 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 a little bit about your first experiences with the game of basketball.

What made you fall in love with it?

Yeah, so I've been told.

I grew up with a ball.

My mom actually the other day sent me a photo of me and my dad, and I was, you know, a newborn and he had a little stuffed basketball that he had, you know, me playing with then.

So as far as I know, as long as I've been alive, you know, basketball has been pretty central to what I've done.

You know, my first kind of basketball playing memories.

I was fortunate.

I grew up with a bunch of kids my age in the neighborhood, you know, and we had a hoop at the end of the driveway and, you know, we got to play a lot outside.

We could walk to a park that had a full court.

So if, you know, playing three on three or playing 21 in the driveway wasn't.

Wasn't sufficient.

We could walk down the, you know, maybe a half a mile walk to the park where we could play and run five on five.

And that was great because, you know, growing up, you could play with older kids.

You, you know, you could learn a lot real fast about how to stay on the court, how to get picked, things like that that I learned at a really young age.

How do you look at this is a question that we've kind of investigated this a lot on a pod.

But when you think about the way you grew up, just how you describe, right, playing on the driveway with your friends in the neighborhood, going down to the park, playing with guys who are older, sort of that pickup basketball culture that in so many ways in youth basketball has disappeared today and been replaced by travel basketball and AAU and trainers and playing with A coach and playing in front of your parents and playing with a scoreboard on.

How do you think about that in terms of your own experience as a young kid versus the experience that some of your players get growing up in the game today?

Just how do you think about the sort of the juxtaposition between those two?

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't trade how I learned how to play, you know, for anything.

I think I wasn't a very good player, but I learned how to compete at a young age, and I learned the value.

You know, nobody liked to lose because you had to sit out for two or three games sometimes.

So, you know, you learn the value of winning and how important it is to win.

Because if you love to play, the only way to keep playing is to keep winning.

I think players today are far more skilled, far better shooting, better ball handling, better passing.

You know, the players that I get to coach are way better than the best players that I played against growing up.

But I don't know if they have that same, you know, cultural learning of how important winning is.

And, you know, I think guys who, you know, would rip your face off to win in today's day and age stand out so much more, whether it's in the recruiting process, whether it's watching them play in a high school game or an AAU game, because, you know, that's not everybody.

And, well, it probably wasn't everybody when we were coming up, but it felt like more guys cared more because, you know, there was just that different culture of, of how you played and how you learned the game.

You know, I. I don't think kids play enough right now, but they're also, like I said, they also can shoot it way better, they can pass away better, they can handle way better.

So, you know, there's certainly a trade off there that, you know, we get to work with when they get to us.

How does that impact the way you coach in terms of that desire to win, that competitiveness?

How do you go about designing things or putting your program together, putting together a practice?

How do you teach that competitiveness that may have been more naturally present 20 or 30 years ago in a player?

Yeah, it's one of the only things that we track in practice every day.

So we track everybody's win loss record every day in practice.

And what it does is by the time you get from, you know, summer school to the first game one, it tells me really, really quickly who I want to play at the end of the game.

Because if you're 50 games over 500.

And the guy who, you know, plays the same position to you is 25 games under.

Like you must be doing something right.

You know that that helps you win and helps your team win.

And so it also teaches the guys in eight lead that I value winning and our program, val values the things that go into winning.

You know, we don't keep track of what your shooting percentage is.

We don't keep track of your, you know, how many rebounds you have.

We keep track of did you win.

And you know, it gives our guys a benchmark of like, hey, coach, it's.

And it's not like, you know, it's not the be all end all, but it just, it keeps over their head like, hey, do the things that go into winning, make your free throws at the end of the game, take care of the basketball.

Like, those are the things that will help me win.

If I win, coach is going to notice that and then that's going to help me play more.

So, you know, we, we try to compete a ton every day.

And I learned that, you know, the guys I've worked for have been compete, you know, competition guys.

And you.

I've been fortunate to work for some really, really good coaches that have taught me the value in watching the guys compete and how much that pushes them to get better.

So it, it all kind of goes together there.

But yeah, we really, we really try to make them aware that there's a scoreboard up there.

And as much as, you know, I, I think I'm a process driven guy and I think we focus a lot on the process of becoming a great team.

But there's still, you know, every time you step between those lines and there's a score, you're trying to win.

And you know, if you're ever out there and you lose sight of that, then I think you, you know, you're, you're missing the mark a little bit.

What percentage of your practice time would you say is scored and has a winner or a loser?

If you had to ballpark it, I.

Would probably say somewhere 60, 70% probably is.

There's a winner and a loser and it might be a, you know, a four minute, you know, segment of a defensive drill, but we're going to find a way to make that a competitive, you know, competitive thing.

All right, let's work backwards to you mentioned right off the top that your dad puts the ball in the crib with you.

Mom's got the picture of you.

What influence did your dad have on you as a young player?

And do you feel like he had any influence on you eventually deciding that you wanted to become a coach?

Yeah, I honestly haven't put a ton of thought into that.

My dad certainly, like I said, put a ball in my hand and influenced me to want to play and want to get better.

You know, was there to rebound for me, was there to, you know, try to instill whatever he knew about the game.

My dad's not a coach.

My dad didn't play high level basketball.

You know, he was much like me.

I found out later.

You know, his story changed as he got older.

I think a little bit more truth came out.

But he was, he was a manager in college, much like I was, I think originally the first time he told me he played in college.

But as we both grew, as we both grew up, he was a little bit more forthcoming.

And so, you know, he, my dad's an accountant, he's a math numbers guy.

He, you know, was doing stats and stuff for the team when he was in college and.

But he loved the game.

Love sports in general, really, but, you know, taught me to value the game and was always there to help me, you know, improve as a player as much as he could.

I grew up in a really, really small town in Ohio.

You know, Hoosiers esque.

The size of the town is right on the Ohio Indiana border and it had that kind of vibe.

And we played on Friday and Saturday nights and we played in front of a sold out gym every night.

The, the town had 800 people in it.

One stoplight.

The gym set seated 1200 and was sold out for every game.

I don't know how that math works, but it was there every night.

And so I just grew up in an area in a place, you know, we didn't have enough kids to have a football team, you know, so basketball was king.

And I was really fortunate, you know, to grow up in a place like that that wasn't, you know, a big football country or anything like that.

It was all basketball all the time.

And you know, the biggest thing that both my parents, but my dad taught me, that has influenced me in becoming a coach is, you know, my, my dad and my mom both, you know, they, they taught me to really care about people and that, you know, one of the reasons that God put me on this earth is to help people.

People.

And you know, they taught me that from a very young age that you have an opportunity as a human being to try to make somebody else's life better.

And I didn't know that that would lead me to coaching, but that was something I was searching for when I was in college, trying to figure out what was next.

It was, what could I do?

You know, I was doing an internship in New York I would never, will never forget.

I was doing an internship in New York City.

I was, after my sophomore year of college, selling ads.

And I get.

I take the train.

My parents at the time, now we're living in New York in suburban New York, and I took the train into the city, and I get off the train, and there's probably, you know, a hundred thousand people all getting off the train at the same time.

And I. I am.

I feel like I'm being herded like cattle up from the underground, where the train gets out at Grand Central Station up to the street.

And when I finally got up to, you know, fresh air and light, and I said to myself, this ain't it.

I don't know what it is that I need to be doing my life, but I am not going to do this every day.

I am not going to take the train with all these people.

I'm not doing it.

And so, you know, I finished out that summer, but that was.

That was it.

You know, I. I said I got to figure something else out where I can, like I said, make an impact in people's lives.

And I could, you know, try to be a positive influence for others.

And, you know, I'm fortunate that that led me to coaching.

So while you were playing, there was never a thought of, hey, someday I'm going to be a coach.

Did you.

Were you a player that considered yourself to be a coach on the floor, and maybe you just didn't recognize it in yourself or.

Or what was the thought process while you're playing?

No thoughts of being a coach at that point.

I did not see it as a career at all.

You know, I. I've been told, even I. I actually saw my high school.

One of my high school coaches this week, and he told me, you know, for the first time that he thought, you know, pretty early on that, you know, after coaching me, that I would probably end up coaching in high school at some point or like, you know, doing something like that.

But I never.

I didn't, you know, I didn't have any coaching in my pedigree.

I didn't know any coaches other than the ones I played for.

So I didn't even see it as a job.

You know, I saw, you know, that I didn't.

I didn't really see myself as somebody who would go and be like a high school teacher.

So I didn't think, you know, well, if they're not a high school teacher, you're not probably not going to be a high school coach.

And that was about all I knew.

And so I knew I loved the game.

And like I said, I knew I love.

I knew I.

At some point in time, I recognized that my coaches were helping me grow up.

You know, I, especially in college when I was a manager, I was like, these guys are having an impact on me.

They're helping me grow up at a time that I really need it, and I'm just a manager, like, but they're, they're, they're choosing to take this time and have this impact and try to help me.

Like, that's pretty cool.

Like, you know, and then, you know, they, they kind of introduced me to this idea of, oh, maybe you could be a GA and stay around doing this sort of stuff.

And next thing I knew, I was getting to do this full time.

What's the process for becoming a manager for the first time?

When's that idea pop into your head?

Who, who, who talks to you and says, hey, this is something that you can do?

Who do you go in and talk to?

Just tell us a little bit about how that happens at Loyola.

Yeah.

So I chose to go to Loyola because, like a lot of kids my junior year of high school, I thought I was a Division 1 player.

I was getting recruited by some Division threes, and I say recruited, like, pretty lightly by some Division threes in New York, but to me, you know, I felt like I was LeBron James at that point.

And so I thought I was a Division 1 player.

No question about it.

I.

There was nothing you could tell me that I was not a Division 1 player.

And so I went to Loyola because my junior year, they went 1 in 27.

They were the worst team in the country.

And I said, you know, I had a, I had a co worker of my dad whose son went there, so I'd heard of the school, and I said, shoot, if I can't play there, I can't play Division 1 basketball.

And so I went to Loyola and found out really quickly I wasn't going to be a Division 1 player.

You know, they had a coaching change and Jimmy Patso was hired during my senior year of, of college of high school.

Sorry.

And then by the time I get there, he's completely, you know, revamped the amount of talent on the roster and, you know, get cut from the team my freshman year.

Don't do, don't handle it very well.

But at Some point, I really, you know, decide, hey, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna really give this thing a go.

Like, I get to know some of the guys on the team.

They let me start playing pickup with them after the season.

I get in really good shape.

I go through another summer of, you know, working at home, but really working on my game and thinking, you know, my sophomore year, all right, I'm gonna make the team and get myself to a point where, you know, I. I'm hanging all fall.

I'm playing pickup with the guys.

I'm doing, you know, everything there is there that I could possibly do to make this team.

And one day, you know, basically, you know, I.

It's a week left in tryouts.

It's right at the end, you know, it's me and one other guy that are still there, letting hang around, and I get hurt, roll my ankle bad, you know, pretty bad ankle sprain where, you know, I got no chance anymore.

I'm.

I'm in a boot.

I'm.

I'm done.

And, you know, one Jimmy, you know, pulls me aside and says, hey, know, sorry, man, you know, stinks you got hurt.

You probably were never going to play for us anyway, you know, I don't know if you know, Jimmy, but pretty frank with the way you would tell things, you.

You probably weren't going to make it anyway.

And.

But if you want to hang around and be a part of the team, you know, you could.

You can be a manager.

And I didn't know what that meant.

I didn't know anything about what that role would be, but I knew I wanted to still be around basketball, and I was probably the worst student manager you could possibly be for the first two or three months.

Again, like, a lot of managers that I've had the.

The privilege of being around in my coaching career now, like, thinks they should be playing, you know, trying to beat out the guys, talking under my breath about how I'm better than this guy and, you know, trying to steal reps in practice, like, all the stuff you're not supposed to be doing.

That was me, and it was my dad.

I came home for Christmas break my sophomore year, and he said, hey, like, if you're gonna do this, like, why don't you try to help?

Why don't you try to, like, be the best you could be at it?

And it, like, a switch flipped when I got back to campus, you know, I didn't go home for the whole break like most of us, but I did go home longer than I probably would have any other time the rest of my life.

And I came back and I was.

I was all in.

You know, hey, what can I do?

How much can you give me?

And, you know, I just ran with it from there.

I tried to, you know, that was.

I don't feel like it was that long ago, but dang, it was probably Almost, you know, 20 years ago at this point.

And, you know, at Loyola at the time, it was a head coach and three assistants.

We didn't have an ops guy.

There was no video guy.

Our Sid did our travel for road games.

Like, he planned our buses.

And so they.

When there was somebody who wanted to help, they were like, shoot, we'll give it.

Come on.

Whatever you can handle, like, let's do it.

And so before long, I was.

I was cutting up film.

I was doing film exchange and, you know, finding working guys out, rebound and passing, you know, just doing whatever I could.

And, you know, I'm so appreciative that I was in a place that, you know, would give me that much to do.

You know, there's a lot of places that you're, you know, when you.

Your first year as a manager, you don't get to do hardly anything other than, you know, wipe up some sweat and do some laundry.

And obviously, I did plenty of that, too, but, you know, just.

They just kept giving me more and more responsibility when they saw, you know, what I could handle and how much I wanted to help.

And that was, you know, unbelievable for my development.

Was there one guy on the staff in particular that took you under their wing and kind of was your guide?

Yeah, we had a really good staff at the time, but.

But Gigi Smith was probably the guy who, you know, he.

He opened my eyes to what I could do and how I could help and, you know, and then eventually, you know, how this could probably be a career.

And, you know, he was.

He was great.

You know, he.

He would let me help him with whatever he needed help with, you know, and.

And I. I'm so fortunate to him.

And, you know, obviously, that's a good.

Good guy to have, you know, because he had such a connection through his family and all the people they knew ended up being really beneficial for me down the road.

What point in your tenure as a manager did you really start to recognize and see that, hey, I think this is a direction that I might want to go career wise, because obviously leading into it wasn't a thought at all.

So now you get the opportunity to be exposed to a different layer of coaching right before you Were kind of thinking about it in terms of I don't know if I want to be a high school teacher, so then I'm probably not going to be a high school coach.

So that didn't really fit.

But now you're starting to see another avenue.

Do you remember, was it kind of a light bulb moment or is it more of a slow burn to kind of realize that, hey, maybe this is where I want to end up?

Yeah, it was.

It was probably more of a slow burn.

But I remember late in my junior year of college, you know, it was like, hey, school year is about to be over.

I don't really want to go home and get an internship.

I wonder if I hang around here, will they let me keep working for the team over the summer?

And, and when I did, when I asked about that, that was when they were like, okay, like, we'll help you work some camps.

We'll help you, you know, with whatever.

We, you know, you can stop by the office every day if you want.

I don't know what we'll have for you, but you can always come by.

And, you know, it.

It was like they were like, okay, this, this.

They kind of saw it in me that I was pretty serious about wanting to help, and they kind of showed me the path, you know, hey, go work.

That was the, you know, that in that era, it was go work camps.

Go get to know people, you know, and.

And Jimmy was obviously so connected to University of Maryland.

It was, go, you know, meet all the guys there, Work Gary's camp, you'll work for hoop group camp.

You know, I did that one summer and, you know, just.

Just meet people that way.

And then, you know, when you're around those other people that are your same age and they, they were probably more of.

Most of them were more advanced than me.

And, you know, hey, this could be a career.

What.

This is what I'm trying to do.

It kind of opened my eyes a little bit to what was out there.

And so that I didn't leave, I. I never went back home.

You know, my junior year, once.

Once I got back to campus at the start of my junior year, I never went back home.

I stayed on campus and then worked that summer.

And then my senior year, obviously, you know, as soon as it was done, I. I was fortunate to get a spot as a GA and get started.

What did that process look like, getting the GA job?

How easy, hard was it?

What connection was the most beneficial to you?

How.

How many letters did you write?

How many emails did you send?

Out to be able to make that happen.

Yeah, I was a, I was a brute force, brute force guy.

I, again, I didn't know anything.

So I knew that we were Division one and I knew I was, you know, I still had this, I was a Division 1 player idea.

So I was like, I, I want to work in division one.

And so I went, I went, handwritten note, all 300, I think it was 349 at that point.

Programs in the country, handwritten note, resume.

I, I, I don't think I have it in front of me in this desk that I'm at right now because I showed it to the team this year.

But I have all the responses still and it's probably 20 maybe that I got back all nos.

I got back two maybes.

I got back up maybe from Minnesota where Tubby was coaching at the time.

And I got a, I got an email back from VCU that said if you can get into our grad school, then we'd consider interviewing you.

And after I had gotten, you know, 200 no responses and 20 no's, that was basically like, hey, you're in, in my mind because I was a pretty good student.

So I knew I was going to get in.

You know, I, I, I, Fortunately, I've always been a really good test taker, so my GRE score was through the roof.

So I knew like I was going to get into whatever, you know, unless it was Harvard or, you know, something like that, I was probably going to get in.

And so it, when I got that email, I'll never forget, I ran to it, you know, who can help me, who can connect me to somebody there and what can I do to try to get this, this interview?

And thankfully, you know, Gigi and Kyle Getter, who was the ops guy at VCU at the time, had a relationship and, you know, he was able to really open that door for an interview for me with Kyle.

And Kyle was kind of the gatekeeper of the gas.

You know, he was the one who handled all the first stages of interviews before you got on campus and got to meet, you know, meet with the people there.

And so I was able to get into school and got through a couple phone calls with the staff there and got invited down to Richmond for an interview with probably, you know, the last month of my senior year was, got offered a job on the ride home and accepted it without telling my wife.

I got, I was married young, so we were married at the time.

I think I told her when I called her, I accepted it on the call.

And then I was like, oh, shoot.

So I called her and said, hey, you're good with this, right?

And I think I acted like I hadn't accepted it already, but I. I certainly had.

Did she know what she was getting into when she married you?

The life of a coach?

I don't know.

She did not.

But, you know, getting married as young as we did, I think really helped because it was all we knew.

You know, we were just trying to figure out life together.

We were, you know, she was all in on trying to, you know, help me and.

And none of us knew what it could be really.

You know, we just.

We kind of were learning as we went and, you know, getting that first job that GA spotted vcu, it was.

Was life changing, you know, for me and for our family, you know, because we were around such amazing people.

And for her, as a coach's wife, she was around.

Around some unbelievable coaches, wives that helped her kind of see, you know, they.

They were.

They were positive.

They.

There's plenty of coaches, wives that have really struggled in this profession, and we were fortunate to be around people that, you know, had made it, had figured it out.

H. You know, Sharon Jones, who's Mike Jones's wife, you know, that she and Sierra hit it off right away.

You know, she's been a mentor to her, you know, about this profession and.

And that ever since, and it's been unbelievable.

The people that we.

We've met and how those people have, you know, helped shape our lives and how the, you know, her life as a coach's wife and.

And this profession and being around people that wanted to.

To make it work, you know, and it's hard.

And to be around people that we could look up to, in that sense has been.

Has been great.

You look back on that first year at vcu, what's a lesson that you learned in that first year that has stuck with you, that you still feel like is impacting you today as a coach?

I mean, there's.

There's a billion of them, but that's the most, you know, I don't know, you know, if I could narrow to one year, but those three years will.

The most impactful time in my coaching career by far.

But, you know, I will never forget there was a day I thought we had five gas, right?

One of them worked with the strength coach, so we had four that worked with the basketball team.

And I. I was sitting in the office.

I was.

I was Mike Jones, I was kind of his ga, but I also helped our video guy because I'M kind of a tech nerd, especially back then, but I still hold on to it as much as I can.

And so I was helping the video guy and I was just grinding away on the computer, man.

I was just cutting up film and, and none of the other gas were in the office.

And I was like, like I, I really thought I was doing something.

Like I, I'm one upping all these guys, like they're being lazy, they're messing around.

And Coach Smart came into that.

We had a, we worked out of a, out of a conference room, all the gas at the time.

And he like looked at me and he said, you know, DL, where, what's going on?

Where's everybody?

And I said, oh, they're a couple of them are in the gym working out with guys and a couple of them are in the dorms.

I think they're messing around on playing video games with the guys.

And he said, you know, I was, this is, I'll be family friendly.

But he said, you know what, that, what the heck are you doing here?

Like, the most important thing you can be doing right now is spending time with the players.

You can always work on the computer, you can always get this done, get out of here and go spend time with the guys and build that relationship.

And I, I was like put in my place and it changed my outlook and changed my opinion of what I was doing.

And, and you know, I tell our staff every year, I tell them that story and it's, it's central to how I want my program to be.

How, how I want us to coach is we're going to be in the lives of our players and we're going to build real relationships and we're going to spend time with them and the rest of the work will get done when it gets done.

But the, the most important thing we can do is build those real relationships with our players.

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How important have the relationships that you built with the staff at VCU been to your continued development and your continued Ability to move to your next spot throughout your career.

Yeah, it's everything.

The only job that I've gotten that wasn't a direct hire by somebody I worked with.

There was this one, you know, I've.

I haven't.

That's the only time I've had to interview, you know, because I worked with such an unbelievable group of people.

Every once in a while I'll get tagged in a post with how many of those guys are head coaches now?

But, you know, we.

We had such unbelievable people, people that Coach Smart had put together on that staff and great coaches, but better, better people.

And they have been, you know, great to me, mentoring me, helping me.

Anytime I have a question, I can call, you know, one of the eight other head coaches right now in Division 1 basketball that I worked with during my three years there.

Not to mention, like, a guy like Kyle, who's the only associate head coach at Notre Dame who can, you know, has helped me more than a lot of them, you know, and it's, you know, those.

Those connections and those people.

And, you know, there was no ego.

It's unbelievable.

You know, there were so many great coaches on that staff and there was no ego.

You know, it was, you know, Coach Smart did such a good job of establishing a program, you know, that was just so player centric that, you know, we all just put ourselves aside so that we could help them become the best they could be.

And, you know, because we had those shared experiences and because we.

We were able to accomplish so much together, you know, that.

That group of guys, you know, we're.

We're pretty close, and we.

We have helped each other along the way as much as we could.

You know, like I said, I've, you know, I.

People who have hired me, I worked with, but also, like the people I've looked to hire, the people that, you know, if.

If I need to recommend somebody or I need to get a recommendation on an assistant or a video guy, I.

Those are the guys I'm calling.

Right.

I'm calling those same guys to try to help with that stuff, too, because, you know, we've all been through it and we kind of know what, you know, what worked and what probably will work for, you know, each other.

Yeah, it makes sense, right?

I mean, again, this business, when you talk coaching is all about those relationships, both in terms of guys you want to work with, jobs that you can potentially help someone get or that someone can help you to get.

And it is amazing how small the basketball world is in terms of the number of Again, the six degrees of Kevin Bacon theory, right?

It's inside the basketball world.

It's, it's even, it's even smaller.

It's definitely smaller than 6 degrees of separation in terms of being able to get to someone, especially those guys.

Like you said that you've been fortunate enough to, to work directly on the staff with those relationships that, that benefit both parties on a two way street forever, right?

For the remainder of the time that you have, that you have a career.

Talk about after VCU, your first trip, your first stint at Mount St. Mary's how does that come to be and talk about just what it was like to, to be an assistant coach and kind of again, I know you had moved up to be the video coordinator after your ga, you know, experience ended at VCU, but just talk about the first experience at Mo St. Mary.

Yeah, so I, after my second year of VCU, Jamie and Christian got the job here at the Mount, and he played at the Mount.

And you know, he was only with us for about nine months at vcu and he and I had got, had a really good relationship.

When we worked together, we, we saw eye to eye and a lot of things, we spent a lot of time together was, we went to Subway next door to the Siegel center.

Like a lot, like way too much I, way too much Subway with him.

But so when he gets this job at the end of the season, I'm like, this is great.

I'm gonna, I'm moving up, right?

I'm, I'm going, I'm going.

And he called me into his office and he said, hey man, I, you know, I know, you know, I got the job, but I can't bring you, you know, I, I, there's, I have to keep one of these guys on staff.

And you know, as much as I'd love to, I, I can't do it.

And so I, it was, I, I think I tried to play it cool, but I was pretty, pretty disappointed.

You know, Thankfully I had a really good job, a job I really liked, so I couldn't complain too much.

And, and you know, a year later, you know, my phone rang and he said, hey, you know, I thought I had to keep those guys, and one of them I definitely shouldn't have kept.

And now I could get, now I can offer you a job, you know, if you want to come up here and work, you know, the mountain, you know, he's selling me on the mountain.

I didn't need to be sold.

I, I, he's like, you can come be an assistant Coach.

I said, shoot, I'll go be an assistant coach at anywhere at this point in time in my career, you know, I just didn't want to have to be.

Be Adobo, you know, and so I, I jumped at the opportunity, you know, to come to Mount Saint Mary's.

I didn't know anything about Mount Saint Mary's I didn't know where it was, you know, other than I'd watched some of his games this past year because of our friendship.

But, you know, I, I get up here and I tell people, you know, the Mount is an unbelievable basketball place.

People really care about Mount St. Mary's basketball.

It's a place where, you know, if you live in Frederick county, north of Frederick, the city, Maryland, like most people grow up Mount St. Mary's fans, which is, it's kind of odd, you know, in today's day and age of, of college athletics, because it's a, you know, it's a school with 1800 students and, you know, it's, it's tiny, but they've got this long standing basketball tradition.

But I didn't really appreciate it during the three years I was here because I just come from vcu, where we're selling out the Siegel center every night, and went to the Final Four.

And, you know, we went, you know, three straight NCAA tournaments and won a game in each of the tournaments.

Like, you know, this is cool.

It was cool.

You know, I was.

Loved my job, I love learning how to be an assistant coach and love trying to find my voice with the players and having more of an impact.

But I didn't really appreciate how good of a job it was, how cool of a opportunity it was until I left and got a little perspective.

You know, you go to some other places and you realize, man, they had a good thing going there that I didn't really know about.

But, you know, the biggest thing when I got here the first time was, you know, Jamie was so good to me to teach me how to do the job.

You know, to be willing to hire a guy who'd never recruited anybody.

I, I didn't have recruiting ties.

It's not like he was bringing me in because I could get him some players.

It was like he was going to teach me how to do the job and trust that I would be able to run with it.

And that's kind of been my, you know, Mo throughout my career is like, know I've been around good people that have seen, you know, that my work ethic and seen my character and have trusted me with Maybe more responsibility than I was ready for.

And so, you know, those three years, I learned, you know, how to make recruiting calls, I learned how to work with players on the floor.

I learned, you know, how to do scouts.

I learned all that stuff.

And he was willing to let me make mistakes and let me be messy.

And it, it was pivotal because it's a lot of the same, you know, things that I continued, you know, those same ways of doing things have helped me all throughout.

What do you think was an early strength for you as a coach?

When you think back to that first experience getting the first head assistant coaching job, what were you, what were you good at?

Obviously, as you said, you had some things that you didn't have much experience with, but what were you good at initially?

Yeah, I was, I, I would like to think I was good at connecting with our, with our players and helping them get better.

Like, again, I wasn't a good player, but they knew that they were getting my all when we were going to get out there on the floor, they knew that I was going to work my tail off to help them get better.

And you know, that level of trust that I was able to build with those guys, they trusted me to help them get better.

They trusted me that, you know, they could confide in me and know that I had their back and was gonna, you know, help them as best I could.

And so, you know, just, just being real with them and trying to build the, that relationship, I think was probably the thing I did best.

The other thing is, is, you know, I, I, I had what we like to refer to as fitfo and that's figure it the F outdoors.

And if, you know, I, I was not the type of person who would take no I don't know for an answer.

You know, I just, I, I don't know.

I, I grew up this way.

I gotta thank my parents.

You know, like, if you don't know how to do something, like we live in a day and age even then, you know, whatever, 15 years ago, 12 years ago, that in my pocket on my phone, I can learn how to do just about anything.

And so I had this desire to figure it out and wouldn't stop it.

I don't know how to do that or I'm not very good at that.

I just, you know, had a relentlessness about me as a young coach that helped me bridge the gap of the things I didn't know how to do.

And that's one of the things is now as a head coach I look for, especially in the Gas and the young staff members that haven't.

Don't have a ton of experience, you know, do they have that ability to fight through that first?

I'm not quite sure how to do this or.

Or is it always going to be, hey, run into an assistant, hey, how do you do this?

Or run into, you know, somebody else, how.

How do you do this?

Like, just, just.

Just Google it, watch a YouTube video, figure it out.

You know, you could.

You could do it.

You're smarter, you're smart, and you have an unbelievable access to information.

And so trying, you know, that.

That mindset has helped me my whole life, but especially, you know, as I moved in the business and got new things put in front of me, there was a lot of that, you know, just.

Just being relentless on trying to figure out how to be better.

I think that's well said.

And it's a theme that I've heard a lot from guys who have spent time as an assistant coach or from guys who are head coaches in terms of character traits that they're looking for in an assistant.

Right.

You want somebody who, if you, as the head coach, give somebody a task to be able to do, you want that person to be able to do it.

And that's not to say that as a head coach, you're not giving them guidance or helping them or trying to develop them, but as you said, the ability to just go and say, hey, I'm going to figure out, like, somebody gave me this project or this assignment, this task, and.

And yeah, it may take me a little longer than somebody who knows exactly what to do, but I'm going to figure it out and provide value.

Because ultimately, right, as.

As a head coach, what you're looking for in your staff is for guys who can take things off of your plate and bring their strengths to the table, which is going to strengthen your program as a whole.

And if you're always having to handhold somebody who is kind of afraid to take that initiative, then not a lot gets done.

And so I think for sure that that's a character trait that I'm sure most head coaches are looking for in an assistant.

And if you are an assistant coach out there and you're listening, man, that's great advice of something that you should cultivate in yourself is just, yeah, figure it out and get, take, take whatever task is given to you and boom, let's get it done and figure out what you gotta, you know, figure out what you got to do.

So.

All right, then.

Next stop is Radford with Mike Jones.

Tell me how that comes to pass.

Why, why go and work for Coach Jones?

Tell me a little bit about that relationship and, and what made it work.

Over and again, we'll talk about the, the next stop with Coach Jones as well, but just give me a little insight into your relationship and again, why going to work for him was.

Ended up being such a good choice for your career.

Yeah, I mean, Coach Jones is, is the best.

You know, I love him to death.

He, he is an unbelievable coach human being.

He's an unbelievable leader.

He's an unbelievable father, he's unbelievable husband.

And I was at this point, I would been up here for three years, and it was, I was seeing so many people that I knew in the business struggling as husbands and fathers, and I was working with all young people.

You know, none of us had been through that yet, and I wanted to learn that from somebody who had done.

And so Coach Jones called me and said, hey, I'm having some turnover on my staff.

Would you be interested in a job?

And, you know, we had worked together, obviously, vcu, and I knew his character.

I knew who he was.

And he had, he had a son who was going in, I think at that point, I think he was going into his sophomore year at Bucknell maybe, and another son who was in high school.

And I knew his wife, I knew his kids like they were what I aspired my family to be like.

And I wanted to see that.

You know, it's not something I'd seen before.

And the bed is, bar none, the biggest reason why I left to go from here to Radford.

It wasn't really a better job.

I mean, it was pretty lateral move as far as a basketball job goes.

And financially it was a very lateral move.

But it, you know, I thought it would help me and my family learn, you know, just how to do this.

You know, if I knew that if, you know, Coach Jones is a couple of years older than I am.

I think if, if I could fast forward, you know, whatever, 20 years, 15, 20 years from that point, and my family looked like his family, and my relationship with my wife looked like his relationship with his wife.

And, you know, my kids were doing as well as his kids are doing, then I would be really happy with where my life was.

And so I wanted to see.

And, you know, I, I, that was the number one reason.

And I told him that, you know, when, when we're going through this, like, part of the reason I want to do this.

And he said, well, it's, you know, it's Maybe things aren't always as how they seem.

You know, this is hard stuff that we're doing, but you know, no, they're, they're awesome.

And, and so I decided, you know, when that happened, you know, he had a big turnover on his staff.

They had, so he got the job at Radford.

After my first year, after the year we went to the final four at VCU and I had already been hired as video coordinator.

And so I had a very similar conversation with him that I had with Jamie the following year.

Was like, hey, I'd love to hire you, but you already told.

He said, you already told.

You know, coach Smart, you're staying here as a video guy.

You can't leave to come with me to Radford.

Like that's not how this works.

You say you're staying, you're staying.

And so, you know, five years later they had had some great success.

They had started to turn the program around.

But he felt like, you know, they had some issues on the staff that were holding them back and he, you know, he had one guy leaving, take a new job and he let multiple guys go.

And you know, that's hard to do.

I, I didn't realize how hard it was to do now as I, as I do now sitting in, you know, as a head coach.

But he had, we, we had basically a whole new staff when I got there to Bradford and there were some bumps in the road that first year.

You know, I, I, we, I think we won 17 games my first year at Radford and you can ask anybody who's on that staff.

We coached our butts off to win 17 games like we had, we had like a nine win team that we won 17 games with maybe 114, it might even not even been 17.

But we, you know, we, we coached our tails off and learned a lot, grew fortunately, well, not fortunately for that year, but fortunately going forward.

We had a kid sitting out, Carly Jones, who he had some academic hurdles in high school and they ended up deeming him a non qualifier.

So he wasn't able to play his freshman year.

And so he was sitting out that year and the next year he was freshman of the year in the, in the Big south and hit a shot to send us the NCAA tournament at the buzzer and you know, ended up being freshman of the year.

Then the next year he was first team all conference and the next year he's player of the year, transferred to Louisville and played in the NBA and is playing in the early now.

I mean, you know that makes us all look good.

But you know, that, that group of guys, you know, David Boyden and I, I don't know if you know Dave, but we worked, we started on the same day at Radford and we, we really quickly.

We both knew Coach Jones from earlier.

He worked with Coach Jones at Georgia and I worked with him at vcu and so we, we both knew Coach.

We didn't know each other at all.

And you know, the two of us are like two of the more relentlessly positive people you'll ever be around.

And that's what we needed.

That's what the, we really quickly realized, like that's what Coach Jones needed.

That's what the players there needed.

And we took it upon ourselves to interject as much positivity as we could into the program.

You know, Coach Jones is one of those guys, like he's positive, but he's really positive when he's around positive people.

And if he's around a bunch of negative people, he can drift the other way.

And so, you know, we, we, we both knew that about him and we knew each, we got to know each other and you know, with us and we had.

Ron Jersey was on staff and the three of us, you know, we, we hit it off and, and really had a great thing going there at Radford.

We had an unbelievable staff.

We had great success, you know, won a ton of games, multiple Power 5 wins, obviously went to the NCAA tournament, won back to back regular seasons at Radford the year, the two years after we went to the NCAA tournament.

And you know, just.

It, the reason we were successful there is obviously we had really good players, but we allow.

They were able to be the best they could be because of the, the environment that we had on the staff there.

Again, there was not, there was, there was so much energy and enthusiasm every single day with the group of people that we had there that we had no choice but to be successful.

And it was fun.

You know, we, we had a moment that, that second year, the year we ended up winning it, where we had lost four games in a row and Coach Jones called us into a meeting and you know, I was worried it was going to be doom and gloom and, and he, you know, he was great and he just encouraged us to double down on our, on the fundamentals that we think are going to be what we need to get it done.

You know, the, you know, one or two things defensively, one or two things offensively, like if we can double down on those.

It was probably, you know, January 25th is at the time.

And it's like, for one month, if we can get better at those.

These four things, can we be good enough to win three games in three days?

And, you know, he was dead on.

He was dead on.

We.

We didn't let off the gas.

We still had a ton of fun.

We still had enthusiasm, but we had such an attention to detail on those three or four things.

And we got better, and we.

We.

We got better at the things we needed to get better at.

We had some, you know, some great leadership on the team that helped, and, you know, ended up having a ton of success.

And I learned a huge lesson in that, you know, because, you know, there you.

When you watch your team play, you know, coaches know there's a laundry list of things we got to get better at.

I mean, I think about my team right now, there's a laundry list of things we got to get better at.

But games.

Games come down in conference to.

To two.

One or two possessions a half.

And what are those fundamental things that can help us win those one or two possessions?

And if we can just.

Just grind those things out so they're no longer an issue for us, we could be a really, really good team.

And, you know, that's.

That's what it took there, and that's, I think, what it takes most years, you know, and.

And not being willing to.

To relent on those things that really, really matter.

So funny that you say that, because I've told this story on the podcast before, but I remember my very first coaching job, and I was a JV head coach at a high school, and I had come off my playing career, and then I had volunteered back at my high school, where I kind of showed up when I could for a year when I was figuring out kind of like you had your epiphany getting off the subway.

And I had my epiphany when somebody wanted to hire me and they wanted me to start work July and put on a suit.

And both my parents had been teachers.

And I'm like, you want me to go to work in July and wear a suit and tie?

I'm like, I don't think I want.

I don't think that's for me.

I don't think I want to do that.

So anyway.

But my very first.

My very first coaching job was coaching a JV team.

I remember my first practice and put in the first drill that we're going to do.

And the drill goes for, like, five minutes.

I remember just standing there watching the drill and going, there's, like, 500 things that they just did wrong in this one drill.

How am I ever gonna fix all those things?

I remember being just overwhelmed, and it took me probably that entire season between just me kind of thinking through in my head, but also just talking to other coaches to kind of figure out exactly that lesson that you talked about, where we could all find millions of things, right, that at any given play or in any given situation that maybe we might want to fix, but you really do have to dial down and be intentional about what are the most important things in a given drill, in a given practice, in a given season that are going to help our team the most.

And you don't know it.

Sometimes it takes a long time to learn that lesson.

I don't know if I was ever very good at that.

I still think in.

In many cases, even now, I still get overwhelmed of, like, God, there's so many things I want to fix in that.

That one play that I just saw.

And you have to pick and choose, but I can completely and totally relate to, you know, what you.

What you just described there.

So let's move forward now to Coach Jones's decision to move from Radford to UNC Greensboro.

When that happens, does he consult at all with you guys on the staff and say, hey, I've got this opportunity.

I'm thinking about it.

Does he bounce ideas off you, or is that something where he's kind of doing that off in a silo, and then once it's done, he comes to you and says, hey, I'm going to go to UNC Greensboro.

I want you to come with me.

What's the process like from your end of it as an assistant coach in that situation?

Yeah, I was fortunate.

I think so.

I think I was fortunate.

I was kind of that guy for him, you know, I was the guy.

I don't think he consulted with everybody on staff.

I was kind of the middle, you know, I was kind of the Goethe.

I was the guy who would do the research for him and help him.

And.

And so, you know, he would clue me in on how he was feeling and what he was thinking because of that.

And he.

You know, he would.

He.

If he told me to keep it quiet, I would.

But he.

He often wanted me to let the assistants know, you know, but he didn't really have the time or the bandwidth to, you know, fill everybody in on every step.

Um, so I was.

I was in the loop pretty good on it, on.

On the jobs that he was involved with throughout our time.

Together, there were a few.

But when he decided to go to uncg, you know, it was.

It was a pretty quick process.

Like, a lot of these are.

You know, by the time, you know, Wes Miller was there and when he left to go to Cincinnati, it didn't.

I. I remember one of the guys was an assistant for Wesley, called me and said, don't be surprised if.

If you get my office.

And I was shocked.

You know, I was like, really?

Like they'd consider Coach Jones.

And he said, yeah, he's.

You know, the president really likes it.

And I had no idea.

You know, I didn't know that they didn't have a relationship that I knew of me just, you know, and so pretty early on, you know, we.

We were.

We knew we were involved and he'd have a chance.

And, yeah, let us know.

You know, Coach Jones is the best.

Like I said, I've learned.

I've learned more from him than probably anybody, any man in my life outside my father.

But, you know, he brought us all in that next morning, and, you know, hey, you're.

You know, one thing's for sure.

You guys are all gonna have a job.

And he said, I don't know necessarily how quickly I don't know what your title is going to be.

I got to figure some things out when I get there.

But if you want to come, everybody in this room is going to have a job.

And, you know, I.

You know, that, as we know in this business is a big deal.

You know, we showed.

We showed up at uncg, and there were three or four people looking at us like we were sad puppy dog faces, hoping that we keep him around, you know, so it's not the way it is everywhere.

And, you know, met with the team, and Coach Jones went down.

I don't remember the days of the week, but, you know, I want to say he went down on Monday, and Coach Boyd and I were down there on Wednesday, and then the rest of the staff followed, you know, within a couple weeks.

But, yeah, it was like.

Like all these things, they go quick, you know, fortunate again to be with a guy that understood and cared enough about us and the work that we'd done to help him that he wanted to make sure that, you know, we could all continue working together.

When you're an assistant in those cases and you leave one school to go to another, obviously when you're a head coach, you meet with your players and talk to them, and before you go out the door as an assistant coach, do you do that same thing?

You should.

You should.

So I, you know, we.

We all obviously had meetings, and we talked to the guys, and when we got to Greensboro, they were.

There was.

They were just finishing up some NCAA probation from as, actually, because the women's staff had nothing to do with the men's team.

But literally, on our first day, they were all over us to not communicate with any of the players from UNCG that weren't in the portal.

And, you know, I. I'm a rule follower.

Like, if you tell me I can't do it, I can't do it.

And it's one of my biggest regrets in coaching is that I. I, you know, recruited a lot of those kids, and I told them and their parents that this was not a basketball decision exclusively, that I was going to be there for their sons, that I was going to help them grow up, that I was going to put their.

Their needs in front of my own.

And I didn't follow through on that as well as I could have with a lot of those guys because, you know, I was trying to follow the rules of my new job, and if I had to do over again, I would have broke those rules and lived with whatever punishment might have come.

It's funny.

One of those guys I coach now, and I've apologized to him since I got here to the Mount because of.

Because of that.

But, yeah, it was.

It's hard.

You know, that's.

That's a hard process.

And, you know, I tried to have as many conversations I could before I left officially so that I could, you know, do what I needed to do, but there's a lot of that stuff's up in the air because are you gonna.

Are you gonna bring these guys with you?

You know, the guys who are really good for us at Radford are good enough to play uncg.

And so, like, who are the guys that are at UNCG are gonna leave and what are we going to have available and who fits those spots and all that sort of thing.

So there's, you know, and some of those guys are Radford, like, well, I'm not going in the portal unless I know that you're bringing me with me with you.

And so there's a.

A little bit of back and forth there that's got to take place that I think I could have handled just as a person, you know, as a man, as a leader.

I should.

I could have handled better with those guys at Radford.

And I. I've since had the opportunity to talk to them.

Those guys Most of them, and kind of share that with them.

But that's something that, you know, I. I would have liked to have done better.

That's a tough spot to be in, right?

I mean, again, as you said, when somebody above you tells you, hey, don't do that, and yet we all know, again, the relationships, right, in college basketball especially, are everything.

What you go through both as players, right, with your teammates and then as a coaching staff and with your guys and the amount of time that you spend together.

I mean, the relationships.

The relationships are everything.

And it's such an intense time with, again, just guys being 18, 19, 20 years old and just going through the rigors of a season and everything that that entails and those emotional bonds and just the connection because you're going through things that not very many people get an opportunity to experience what it's like to go through an athletic season at the college level and just everything that that entails and then to just have that kind of cut off.

I know every coach that I speak to, Donnie, just sort of echoes the sentiment that you just gave, that even though the next opportunity is exciting and it's a move that you want to make for your career, there's always that regret of leaving the guys behind that obviously you didn't know when you said that to him that, hey, I'm going to be there, I'm going to help you through it, and we're going to help you improve as a basketball player and as a man and all the stuff that goes into that.

Nobody expects that they're going to leave.

And it's always a difficult situation and conversation for coaches to be able to.

To be able to have when they leave to take a new job.

And I think it's just, again, it's one of those things that, unfortunately, it's part of the business.

It's.

It's one of many difficult conversations that you sometimes have to have in the coaching profession, which, again, I think people who can have difficult conversations oftentimes are the most successful, right?

Because you can tell people the truth.

And I know I've talked to so many coaches that when I think about what's made them successful, that ability to be honest and tell the truth and be upfront with players, I think ultimately that's what guys, you know, that's what guys respect.

So you guys are at UNC Greensboro.

At what point do you start thinking about.

Have you already started thinking about becoming a head coach yourself?

Is there a point in the process, in your career as an assistant here when you're at uncg, where you thought about being a head coach.

I definitely thought about being a head coach.

I wanted to be a head coach.

I thought I needed to be a high major assistant in order to be a Division 1 head coach.

You know, that's just where my mind was at, where, you know, the people around me and people I knew in the business and, you know, I. I thought that was kind of the way things had to go.

And so I was not actively trying to be a head coach during my time there, you know, the year that I. I was there for three years.

At the end of that, you know, as during that third year was one of those years like all of us coaches have, where we had a great year, we had a great team.

Unbelievable.

I knew it was probably time for something different.

It was time for a new challenge.

I'd been with Coach Jones for eight years now at that point, and.

And he did such a good job of keeping me from getting comfortable, but I was ready to learn from somebody else.

I was ready to take on a new challenge.

And we were.

I was very open with him about that, you know, that, you know, hey, you know, I'm not quitting.

I.

But, like, if something comes across your desk that you think, you know, one of your buddies brings up, like, don't be afraid to mention my name.

And thankfully, I worked for a guy who was willing to do that, you know, and was willing to try to help, put.

Push me forward and help me because he wanted me to be a head coach, probably better, worse than I wanted to be.

And he knew.

He probably thought I'd be better at it than I. I thought I would be.

And he, you know, he did a great job of always encouraging me and the other guys on staff that.

That if that was your goal, like, you know, let me help you, you know, while you're here, be all in, but let me help you with whatever you need in the profession.

And so, you know, I. I knew that was my goal that had become.

That was not.

Maybe not my goal at whatever, you know, 24, but that had become my goal.

To be a Division 1 head coach was one of my goals.

And Coach Jones was great about trying to help me in.

In fact, you know, had talked to some high major head coaches that same spring.

You know, hey, you know, talk to Donnie.

Get to know Donnie, whether it's for this year, for sometime down the road, I think he'd be really good.

You know, he would slip my name in and give me credit for things, you know, Publicly, you know, things that, you know, now me sitting in this chair, like, you know, things that I want to do for my staff and help those guys with.

With whatever their goals are.

You know, so many times it's so easy, I guess, to get selfish, you know, when you've got a good staff member.

You know, I got some unbelievable assistance.

And, you know, there are days that I think, man, I hope that guy gets to be a head coach or gets to have his goals.

You know, one of my.

One of my assistants, man, he wants to be a Division 3 head coach.

Like, that is what he wants.

And then.

And I hope he gets it.

But there are days like, man, what am I going to do if I lose that guy?

You know, and.

And so, you know, really, it would be really easy for me to.

And it was, I'm sure, been easier for Coach Jones to say, oh, yeah, Donnie, I'll help you.

I'll help you.

I'll help you.

And then when that phone call comes, not mention your name, you know, but he was.

He was great for me and trying to help me, and, you know, I hope I do as well for my assistance as he did for me.

What was the interview process like at the Mount?

Obviously, you had been there before, so you had some familiarity with the program, with the area.

Obviously that gives you an advantage.

But just walk me through the process of what the.

What the interviewing, you know, process was and what that looked like.

Yeah, so rumors started circulating at the Final Four that year that the.

The current head coach might be leaving.

I guess he was, you know, at the time that, you know, people were saying he might be taking an assistant job, might be stepping down.

I didn't really think much of it, to be honest.

First time I heard it, and that was.

I think.

I think I heard it for the first time.

I think the Saturday, the good day of the games, of the.

The semifinals, got back from the Final Four that Monday.

I went with Mike Morell, who I worked with at.

@ VCU, the head coach, UNC Asheville.

The two of us went to the Masters on that Monday.

On Tuesday, I believe it came out that, you know, Dan was.

Was leaving Mount St. Mary's it might have been Wednesday.

I think it was Wednesday.

And I. I remember there's a new.

So there was new ad, new president.

Uh, but pretty much everybody else in the administration was the same, or maybe they were in a different role, but they were people I knew I had a relationship with.

And so I texted the SWA that afternoon.

You know, we had.

And so Justine, our swa, she was our OPS when I was on the staff here.

So she worked, I mean, we worked shoulder to shoulder.

I, as Coach Miller, she's still Coach Miller to me, even though she's working in administration now.

And so I just texted her like, you know, the, the, the big eyes emoji, like, and she just said, hey, let's talk tonight.

And I, again, I didn't think anything of it.

I just thought we were going to talk about, you know, what they were thinking.

And the other thing with it was they announced who was going to have the search and it was Jenna McLaughlin was going to run the search.

And Jenna and I were freshmen at Loyola together.

We did the same thing.

We both thought we could walk on the teams at Loyola.

She thought you could walk on the girls team.

I thought I could walk on the guys team.

We both tried for two years.

I stayed and was a manager.

She transferred to Division 2 when she couldn't make it.

And so we, we hadn't talked since, basically since, you know, our, our sophomore years of college.

But, you know, we, we knew each other.

We knew who each other were, at least I saw, we saw each other's numbers.

So I also sent her a message like, hey, I saw you got the Mount job.

You know, work there.

It's a great job.

Something like that.

And that night when I talked with, with Justine, you know, the first thing she said before I could say anything was, you know, Brad, Brad is going to want to talk to you.

And I was like, floored.

Like, I was shocked.

I had.

I in no way thought that I was going to be one of the candidates.

I thought she was going to ask me about some people maybe that I knew, you know, that, that maybe were further along, were more ready than I was.

But that was.

And so before I could even try to plug a friend of mine, you know, she let me know so I could change my tone of my conversation real quick.

So we talked that evening about what it would be like and, and what they were looking for and all that sort of thing a little bit.

And then the next day I got to talk with search firm and that was probably third.

That was Thursday on, on that Sunday, it was the Sunday of the Masters because it was in the afternoon.

I didn't get to watch the end of the Masters.

I had a Zoom interview on Sunday.

On Wednesday they.

I was on campus and I got offered the job on Friday afternoon.

So the whole process was, you know, nine days.

I think from the time Dan left at the time, they Hired a new coach.

Yeah, it was, you know, new AD who I did not know.

Didn't know anything about.

But Brad Davis, he's.

He's great.

We hit it off right away, you know, very, you know, we see eye to eye on a lot of things.

You know, one of the things I tell people on you, I kind of mentioned it earlier, is like I had a leg up, not just because I'd worked here, but because I knew that the Mount was a place where you could be successful.

You know, I think a lot of people, they see this job as open.

And it was the, you know, we'd been in the Mac for two years.

We've been in the NEC before that, had some success in the nec, you know, once every four years, basically winning the league.

But then you get to the MA.

The Mac, and both years came in ninth finish under 500.

And, you know, the school's in the middle of nowhere and we know we can't hide it.

You know, we're out here.

It's a really small private schools and those schools are struggling.

People think those schools are all struggling in this day and age.

And so there might have been some coaches who may have been more qualified than me that made it, maybe didn't want the job because they didn't know, you know, how much they care about basketball here, how much the administration, from the president down, is aligned with us being good.

You know, the advantage of not having football at this level.

You know, those sort of things that I. I was very familiar with.

I knew, I knew all those things.

I knew the type of people that.

I knew the type of people that would be successful here as players.

I knew, you know, the academic footprint and who you should type of kids you should recruit and those sort of things.

So, you know, I didn't have to, you know, in a process that went super fast, didn't really have to do a ton of research, didn't have to, you know, it wasn't like trying to make a cookie cutter, you know, presentation fit the Mount.

It was, you know, I could just be myself because I was familiar with the place, which really.

Helped.

Yeah, obviously, no hesitation in taking the job.

Correct.

Correct.

You know, it's interesting because, you know, obviously these jobs are really hard to get and there's not very many of them, but this is one of those jobs that, like, it wouldn't mattered.

Like there is.

It is a very good job for what it is.

And, you know, again, I was fortunate to know that and it made it really easy to say yes, but you know, again, I, I didn't think I was going to be a candidate, but, you know, in my heart there were probably two jobs that I thought I might be able to at least interview for.

And this was one of them and the other one was probably my alma mater, Loyola.

And you know, those were the two that I had enough ties and enough relationships that even without being a high major assistant, I could at least get a sniff at.

And they both happened to open in the same year.

So.

But it's, it's, you know, certainly no hesitation, you know, that's.

The search firms ask you that, you know, especially when it gets down to it, so that the, the boss doesn't have to call and look like an idiot.

I think so.

Yeah.

That was a very short phone call that I had with, with Brad that afternoon.

I got, I got a call from the, the search firm that said, hey, be by your phone.

In which time I called my wife and said, hey, if I get this call, like we're doing this right?

She, she said, of course.

And yeah, and like, like, like all of us, you know, get the job on Friday afternoon.

I went to my son's little league game on Friday night and got up at 5 in the morning after not sleeping all night on, on Saturday and was up here by noon on that Saturday.

And, you know, haven't.

Left.

All right, so you get the job.

It's early in the morning, that's Saturday.

What are some of the things that you think about in terms of getting the program quickly moving in the direction that you wanted it to go?

As a first time head coach, you've probably had a lot of time to think about, hey, what would I do if I have my own program?

What are some things that are important to me?

How would I do things similar to what the guys I've worked for have done?

What might I do differently if I'm the head coach?

So what do you remember about your first two, three weeks on the job?

What were the things that were most important to.

You?

Yeah, it's funny, you said the thing earlier about people who are willing to have hard conversations.

I think one of my bosses, probably Coach Jones, I don't remember specifically who, but he said that a.

One of the reasons that they hire you to be head coach is they think that you could have difficult conversations.

Like the AD wants to feel like he doesn't have to have all the hard conversations.

He wants to feel like he's hiring a guy who can have those difficult conversations and so going in, you know, within Those first weeks, I was like, I know I'm gonna have to have hard conversations, and I'm gonna make it all about the people.

You know, I truly believe in the value of relationships.

I believe that my job is to help the people that I work with and the people that work, you know, that are our players, grow as people.

And so those first shoot, probably longer than three weeks, but, you know, was all about the people.

I probably didn't do a very good job at some of the other things that come with getting the job for the first time.

But for me, I just knew that I was going to make.

If we were going to be successful, it was going to be because we had the right staff.

And then if we had the right staff, we'd get the right players.

And so that was it.

You know, my first thing was get, you know, talking to all the players that were here.

You know, I called all of them that first night and then, you know, met with them all that first Saturday.

Unfortunately, had to have some difficult conversation with the staff that was still there.

And I said, didn't want to wait and make the AD do it on Monday morning.

Like I was just gonna do it.

I knew a couple of those guys already, and, you know, and.

And had the conversations that needed to be had.

And then it was.

It was trying to get a staff together and trying to make sure that I had people, you know, because I didn't think I was really gonna get a job yet.

I didn't have, like, the, oh, this is what I'm gonna do in my first 60 days.

This is what I'm gonna do.

I didn't have any of that stuff.

You know, it was.

You know, this was a little bit of a.

In my mind, like, I knew I'd be able to figure it out because that's what I do.

You know, that's one of my strengths, is I can put my nose down and I can figure it out, but.

And that's what the first shoot the year was.

You know, every day, just trying to figure out, you know, hey, what are the most important things that I need to work on today?

And like I said, for me, it started with people.

It was, let's get the right staff, and, you know, fortunate to get an unbelievable staff here.

And then they helped, you know, did it.

Did the.

Help us get a really good team?

And, you know, we were fortunate.

You know, I mentioned X not by name, but I will now.

So Xavier Lipscomb was here when I got here.

He was going into his fifth year.

He had Red shirted the year before because he broke his foot.

And Xavier, I coached, I recruited and coached his freshman year at Radford and we joked about it later in the year, but I was going to coach X last year no matter what because if, if I didn't get the job at the Mountain, he was going to transfer to uncg.

But he, he was instrumental in helping me build trust and relationships with our team, the guys who decided to stay.

And we were able to retain some really good players.

And because, you know, I had that relationship with X previously, he could go in the locker room when I'm not there and tell those guys, hey, you can trust this dude.

Like he, he, he's gonna be, it's gonna be a lot different than things were.

Like, it's gonna be a lot more fun, it's gonna be a lot more exciting.

You know those things that the players are, I'm telling them, but they don't know if they can believe me or not.

They don't know if they can trust me or not.

I've got somebody who's got my back that has their ear that they trust.

And, and that was, that was instrumental to us having as good of a year as we had in year one because we were able to retain some, you know, the guys that, you know, they, they hadn't shown that maybe necessarily how good they were, but they were, they were really good players who helped us win a.

Championship.

As you went through the year last year, how closely did sort of the vision of how you'd like your teams to play offensively and defensively, how close did the way you ended up playing last season, how close was that to the ideal vision of if you look ahead in your program or you think about in your mind what you want teams that you coach to look like, how close was that team philosophically from an offensive and defensive standpoint to what your ideal team would look like?

You know, when you kind of picture what, what kind of team you want to coach as a head.

Coach.

Yeah, as far as X's and O stuff, it was, it was okay.

It was fair.

I would like to have been more aggressive defensively and been more up tempo than we played.

But you know, it wasn't a fit for who we had.

And then especially we had some injuries throughout the year that kind of hampered us a little bit and you know, so we had to dial back some of our pressure.

We press, we pressured in the full court, the whole non conference and then, you know, had some injuries late non conference and kind of had to dial that back and that in turn slowed us down a little bit in playing in transition and offensively and that sort of thing.

We also were a little careless with the ball and because of that we also had to slow down because we weren't just going to keep turning the ball over at an astronomical rate.

And so I would like to play a little bit more up tempo.

I would like to press, maybe not quite what we were doing at vcu, but I would like to be an aggressive defensive team that leads to, you know, a high tempo offense.

And so we weren't quite there.

Now much more important to me is like that of all the things I want to teach our players, I think the most important thing that I want them to learn if they play for me is that, you know, you're, you're not defined by what happens to you.

You're defined by how you respond.

And that I thought we did in an unbelievable level.

And we really learned that and that allowed us to be successful no matter how we were going to play on offense or defense because we, we were able to be, be onto the next play faster than our opponent.

And once we were able to do that, you know, we weren't dwelling on mistakes that we made.

We weren't worried about the plays that hadn't happened yet.

We were able to be really successful and able to be really focused on what was going on, you know, in that moment.

And that was the thing that of all the things that we worked on, all the things that, you know, I was trying to stress to the guys, that was the one that stuck, that was the one that we needed, you know, like you don't know, one of you, the things that you're trying to teach the guys you're going to actually need during the season, you know, but you know, because of all the injuries we had and because of all the adversity we went through, the responding to adversity piece was a huge deal for that, that team and that group.

And it probably is for most, but that team, they had done it really well.

They learned it, they were willing to do it, they helped each other with it and it allowed us to, you know, we had some, some injuries late in the season that I think would have crippled most teams and they, they went right, just flew through it and that was pretty.

Fun.

Do you enjoy the most about becoming a first time head coach that was different from being an assistant coach in a program?

What part of the head coaching position did you really get a lot of joy from?

That was different from the joy that you got from being an.

Assistant?

Yeah, I would say it's like.

It's the weight of the conversations that you have with the players.

You know, I. I thought I prided myself as an assistant on having a relationship and having real and honest conversations with our players and trying to really help them and be there for him off the court and that sort of thing, but I. I didn't understand, and.

And I love the.

I think Wade is the only way to put it, but, like, how much those conversations mean now.

You know, when I sit down with a guy at lunch or he comes over the house or we go to church together or whatever, the thing is that we're doing and we talk, it.

It.

I. I know I can have an impact, and I know that those conversations mean a lot.

And so you have to be.

I have to be precise and honest, and, you know, I can't mince words.

You know, I have to.

I can't, you know, play both sides.

You know, you have to be.

You have to build a relationship and then be able to have true, honest conversations.

And I love that.

It's hard.

It's difficult, but I really enjoy those conversations that I get to have with our players and that they.

They, you know, if I give a guy hope, you know, if I can inspire a guy to think, you know, of himself more highly, he's probably gonna play better.

And.

And those conversations, you know, like, they.

Assistants.

You know, as an assistant, you try like crazy to give a guy confidence.

You try like crazy, and I can.

Now, as a head coach, you know, if.

If you tell a guy he's a good player, like, it means a lot more than it did when I was an assistant.

And so those.

Those conversations are.

Are the thing that I really enjoy because it's, you know, you just feel the impact that you're.

Having.

You feel like the guys are able to come to you in the same way as a head coach as they did when you were an assistant coach, because a lot of times, right, the assistant coach is kind of the proverbial good cop or the confidant that the players can go to.

And the head coach, on the other hand, is the guy who controls the playing time.

And so maybe players don't feel that that head coach is quite as approachable.

So have you felt like, again, you're talking about impact.

Do you feel like you've been able to still cultivate the same type of relationship, or is the relationship just different and more meaningful?

I. I don't know if I'M asking the question the right way, but just, again, the relationship between the players and assistant versus the players and a head coach.

Have you felt the difference.

There?

Yeah, it's.

There's definitely a difference there, you know, and there is a little bit of, you know, I think as an assistant, I was more of a friend than I am now as a head coach.

And there is a natural viewing that I have to try to break down every day of that, of my office being the principal's office.

Right.

And, you know, my guys know that that's not me, but they're still like, hey, if I text the guys, hey, come by the office.

I gotta talk to you about something, it's instantly their.

Their first thought is it.

This is probably not going to be a great conversation, right?

And so I make sure I do it when I have something good to tell them so that they learn, like, hey, this isn't just, you know, a place I come.

I call you in for something bad.

Um, but, yeah, so there is that natural hesitancy because nobody wants to hear, hey, I'm not playing you tonight, or, you're not gonna start tonight, or.

Because, you know, because I have to be the one to have that conversation, too.

The assistant doesn't get to have that conversation, you know, and so because you have to have those other conversations, there's.

There is a little bit of natural hesitancy, but I think we've, you know, I've done a good job, and our staff has done a good job.

Like, I feel like the players know that if they come in my office or they come talk to me or we go to lunch, they're going to hear the truth.

They're not.

They might not love what they hear, but they're going to hear the truth.

And I'm going to give them what I see and what's next, you know, it's not just going to be, hey, I have one today.

Hey, I'm going to have to move you to the scout team because we, you know, because we need you there.

It's what's best for the team.

And no player wants to hear that.

You know, in their heart, they might know, but no player wants to hear that.

I'm.

I'm going to.

I'm going to the scout team.

But it's, hey, but also in that conversation is, you know, I think you'll be able to respond to this the right way.

You know, I think you're going to be able to handle this and try to prove to me and to your teammates that you deserve to be on the, the blue team, and you know that you got.

You're gonna get way more reps now instead of being the fourth post player on the blue team.

So you're gonna have opportunity every day.

Go, go earn a chance to flip your jersey back over and, you know, you can have an honest conversation, but also, you know, show them very specifically, hey, this is how you can improve.

You know, where you're at, and I'm judging your response.

And they, on my.

In our program, they know that they're being judged on that response.

They're not just being judged on, on the.

Outcome.

All right, Donnie, we're coming up on an hour and a half, so I want to ask you one final two part question.

Part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, so you're in your second year, but when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And then the second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do every single day as the head coach at the Mount, what brings you the most joy?

So first, your biggest challenge, and then secondly, your biggest.

Joy.

Yeah, I mean, I think they kind of go together.

You know, the biggest challenge is having the impact that I want to have on our players when I may only get nine months with them, you know, and, and where we are, Mount St. Mary's you know, we're very.

You know, one things that's come from this whole era of transfer portal nil is the players are in a very similar situation that we are as coaches.

And we, I think we can be much more transparent in our conversations.

I tell our guys, you know, when we're recruiting a kid, hey, I want you to stay here as long as you.

As long as you want to be here.

But if, if someone calls you and says they're going to 6 extra salary, you need to listen to that person.

You don't necessarily need to do it, but you have that conversation the same way I would, right?

If somebody calls me and says, hey, I'm on a 6x your salary, I got to go talk to my wife, I say, we got to talk about this.

Right?

This might be a good, good thing for us.

And so, you know, in this world that we're in right now, you know, I said, I still believe in the value of the relationship that we build and the, you know, if we can make an impact in somebody's life in those.

What might only be nine months.

And so I have to be very intentional about it.

And that's, that's the fun part, right, is, you know, we.

We don't have the.

The luxury of time that you used to have, that, hey, this conversation might naturally come up over the course of two or three years about something in this person's life that I know I need to help him with.

You know, a character thing, a issue, an area of growth, whatever it is that, you know, hey, if we're around each other for two or three years and we really build a super tight relationship, it's gonna be a lot easier to have that conversation.

But right now, in the world that we're in, you know, I have to be super intentional to make the time to have those conversations, to not waste opportunities to have impact on our guys and help them grow and help them become the players they want to be and the people that they want to be.

And so that's what I love to do in the job every day, whether it's two minutes before practice, whether it's lunch, whether it's, you know, you know, grabbing a guy after a film session to, to follow up on something, you know, those conversations that lead to real life change.

Like, that's what I'm trying to do, and I love it, but I'm.

I'm nervous about how impactful you can be in this era that we're in right.

Now.

Yeah, that's fair.

And I think a lot of guys are trying to figure that out, right?

You're going from what used to be the normal of you're going to recruit a guy and you're going to develop them over the course of four years, build that relationship and be able to have that kind of impact, impact on somebody versus now you're having to sort of recalibrate.

How quickly can I build that relationship so I can have the same impact that I want to have?

But as you said, I might only be able to do that over the span of nine months instead of over the span of four years.

And I think that's a challenge that everybody in the coaching profession is trying to figure out, because I think most guys feel exactly the way you do that.

Again, part of what they want to do and part of the reason why they're coaching is, yeah, they want to win games.

Yeah, they want to impact kids as basketball players, but they want to impact young people and have that impact last for the rest of their lives.

And so how do you do that when the time span is so much shorter in the era that we are now?

And I think that's something that everybody's trying to find that equilibrium of where that is.

And I think people are going to get there because again, everybody loves a game.

Everybody loves what they do.

Everybody's studying and talking to one another and bouncing ideas and trying to figure out how do we do this?

And so I think we're going to get there.

But it certainly is an era of adjustment, let's put it that way.

So.

All right, Donnie, before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share.

How can people connect with you?

Find out more about what you're doing at your program, whether you want to 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, sounds good.

Yeah.

You know, you can, you can email me.

My email is my last name.

It's really easy.

Lindsay Mary Edu.

You can follow me on social media.

I'm not a avid social media poster, but I will occasionally.

I, I'm trying to stay off social media more during the season, so I'm quieter now than I am.

But it's, it's D as in dog S Donnie DS Lind on all the social media channels.

Uh, and then obviously Mount Hoops at Mount Hoops is, is you want to learn more about our program and you know, we're, we're an open book.

I have everything that we do we stole from somebody and so we'll gladly pay it forward to the next people.

Our practices are all open.

Come to a game, come to a practice.

We love when coaches come by.

They say we're out here a little bit, but we're only an hour from D.C. and an hour from Baltimore.

So you know, anybody who's in this area, you know, we'd love to have you come up and taking a practice, taking a.

Game.

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

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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