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062 - Mile High Standards w/ Andy Holmes
111 Plays19 days ago
What separates athletes who survive pressure from those who thrive in it? At 5,280 feet, where the air is thin and standards are even higher, Coach Andy Holmes is redefining what it means to develop championship mentality.
In this conversation, we explore discipline as a practice of intentional choice—not just following orders, but actively choosing discomfort, choosing growth, choosing to show up when no one's watching.
From his journey through the Marine Corps to special operations training, from Texas football to Denver soccer, Andy brings a unique perspective on development that transcends sport. We dive deep into how athletes learn to lead themselves first before leading others, why delayed gratification is the ultimate competitive advantage, and how choosing your identity daily creates more freedom than clinging to it desperately.
Training - Old Bull Program - 7 Day Free Trial - https://bit.ly/old-bull-train
Education - Why They're Not Listening: Coaching the Modern Athlete - http://listen.captainsandcoaches.com
#StrengthAndConditioning #AthleticDevelopment #ChampionshipMentality #SportsPerformance #CoachingPhilosophy #CollegeSoccer #MentalToughness #LeadershipInSports #AthletesMindset #PerformanceCoaching
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Last year wasn't a fluke. This is who we are. Personalities always change year to year. And this team this year is a very adaptive team. I think a lot of people always think about this survival of the fittest, but it's really the the survival of the person, organism, whatever that can adapt the fastest.
00:00:16
Speaker
And this is a very fast adapting team. So it's been very fun to explicitly push them in a way that's like, hey, I wanna see where you fail. I expect you to not succeed in this. I expect this to be uncomfortable.
00:00:29
Speaker
I want us to go into some dark and scary places. You know, I don't believe necessarily that we should be comfortable in discomfort. I think discomfort is supposed to be uncomfortable. I think it's some critical that we acknowledge how uncomfortable uncomfortable is, but it's how much longer can I stay in that discomfort.
00:00:45
Speaker
If I get to a point where like, oh, I'm comfortable with this discomfort, no, it's not enough. And that's kind of what I've been preaching with that men's team. I see kind of how adaptable they are and like, all right, let's go find the next scary thing. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. We explore the art and the science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond. I'm your host Tex McColkin. And today we find ourselves in the mile high city sitting down with coach Andy Holmes, strength and conditioning coach at the University of Denver, where he's transforming how athletes understand discipline, discomfort, and development.
00:01:16
Speaker
From the Marine Corps to Special Operations Training, from Texas football to Denver soccer, Andy brings a unique lens to athlete preparation. In this conversation, we're exploring discipline beyond the hammer with tools like delayed gratification, accepting responsibility,
00:01:31
Speaker
and the art of taking teams to the deep end to discover what they're truly capable of. This isn't just about surviving the grind. It's about choosing discomfort, finding freedom in the choice, and preparing young athletes not just for the next level of sport, but for life beyond their final whistle. Now, let's kick it out to Andy to help us raise the game. Ready, ready, and hooray. Let's just say action.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. On location, special... a secret, double secret location, University of Denver. I'm sitting with my old pal, Andy Holmes, Coach Andy at the University of Denver, man. This is a new spot for you. Yeah, yeah. Well, welcome. This is a new spot in a couple of ways. We just climbed up a very tall bell tower a little bit ago.
00:02:20
Speaker
um Got a pretty awesome view of the campus. But yeah, University of Denver, been here less than
Coach Andy Holmes' Journey to Denver
00:02:26
Speaker
a year now. um And it's been fantastic. I believe it. It's a beautiful city. You got a lot of things to do outside. i know you're an outdoorsman.
00:02:36
Speaker
In some ways. In some ways. Last time we hung out, you finished up a... It's not a triathlon. It's a quad. Yeah, the Mount Taylor Quad. I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico at that time. Mount Taylor is about an hour outside of Albuquerque. It was a 13-mile bike up a hill, five-mile run up that same hill, three-mile ski further up that hill, and then a one-mile snowshoe to the summit. Then you get to do all in reverse.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, was fun. It was a good time. That's one way to describe it. Yeah. Well, here we are now. Speak to us about the teams you're working with, the opportunities that you've presented here. And then, I mean, we're about to sit down with Coach Shaw. So the opportunity, how did that present itself? And just this whole thing that is UD for you.
Coaching Roles and Responsibilities
00:03:24
Speaker
Totally. I think I'll start from kind of the inside and work out. um So I am here working with men's and women's soccer. I'm in a, I think, kind of unique position where I think a lot of folks will be split kind of season to season, but I get to live soccer 24-7, 365. I'm thinking about the beautiful game and just two really awesome programs. The men's team has been under the same coaching staff for,
00:03:52
Speaker
you know, well over a decade now and has had a lot of success and has been a really awesome place to learn and to grow and explore. And then the women's team is in that really fun, exciting point with a awesome new coach who comes from the Division III level with a national championship under her belt and is trying to kind of take this program to the next level and to be part of that kind of foundational culture building is a really exciting thing.
00:04:17
Speaker
You know, Denver was not any place that planned on coming necessarily. My wife and I were living down in Albuquerque, New Mexico. i was working in the tactical world, working with ah special operations pilot students and pilots.
00:04:31
Speaker
and it was time to get out of Albuquerque. ah My wife's from the East Coast, we're both from the East Coast, and it was a little bit too slow paced. And she was like, I need something bigger, I need something a little faster moving, need a place that has an office that I can go into.
00:04:45
Speaker
So we were gonna come up to Denver regardless. And then this job popped up, and I kind of applied on a bit of a whim. It was one of those schools that I guess I had always had in back my head. I did my master's program through here, so it's something I was very aware of. did not know that.
00:05:02
Speaker
um And
Facilities and Community Impact
00:05:04
Speaker
it just kind of kept on going and kept on going and interview after interview and kept on going well until finally he got a call that was like, hey, ready he come up to ah University of Denver. And I was, yeah, absolutely excited, totally stoked. And it's great. Every day I get to wake up and come in here, work with some incredible athletes, incredible coaches, incredible staff, and just have have a great time.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah, I believe it, man. Touring the facility, it was something else. Yeah. Love the weight room, little special place. you have sunlight. We have a bit of sunlight on, um more sunny days, you came in like the one 48 hour period of Denver where we don't have sunshine.
00:05:43
Speaker
um But normally we get some sunshine, not just from the side, which you saw, but there are actually some skylights in the back as well. um But I think personally for myself working with soccer, we are right underneath the soccer stadium. oh yeah So there is that proximity at all times for our team that, you know, the space itself lends an air of,
00:06:04
Speaker
you know knowing what we're doing all of this for. just you know boy If we need to, can just like, hey, what building are we under right now? We're under the stadium. Your field's right there. this This matters.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, and your your previous college stop before UD was UT, University of Texas. Yes. And you had that same almost immediate access from weight room to field.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yes, a little bit different weight room, a little bit different field, um but I spent two years kind of interned and on a GA-ish role with ah Texas football um there, the first two years of Coach Tory Becton and Steve Sarkeesian there at UT, and yeah, just a giant, giant weight room that was about 30 seconds from the main field.
00:06:51
Speaker
So being able to utilize both of those facilities and kind of go back and forth and back and forth was really awesome but i mean our jog here is maybe a minute to our practice fields so we can still kind of be able to push that pace and do all the field work that we need to do and then come inside and do the work in the weight room too it's great yeah just walking around campus here I mean, it it's lacrosse field, it's soccer field, it's, ah I mean, what other fields are right here next to the- Yeah, so there's the Barton lacrosse field, the the main kind of lacrosse field, right? And then we've got Cyber Field, which is the soccer stadium, um just beautiful grass field, stunning right now.
00:07:30
Speaker
And then next to it, we have Diane Wendt, which is our practice field and kind of all purpose field for a lot of other teams, not only on this campus, so our like club rugby, club lacrosse,
00:07:41
Speaker
but a lot of teams in the community. That is in many ways a community-used field. So we have little kid lacrosse things in the morning or girls high school soccer practices in the afternoons or games in the afternoons. And then during the summer, it is a nonstop summer camp on that field.
00:08:01
Speaker
Well, I believe it. So it's a cool yeah cool thing to be around, cool environment. College athlete, that's what your job is in the summer, yeah is running camps. Absolutely. Easy cash. Oh, absolutely. My first summer here is just watching my guys go out and coach little campers. And then they'd come inside absolutely exhausted from chasing around five and six-year-olds. And then come in, get a lift, and then run right back out to have a good time with a couple of little campers. yeah the And let's not forget the hockey rink.
00:08:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Banners. Hockey is a thing here. um it's It's a big deal at the University of Denver. And it's really awesome to have a team that kind of sets the standard for excellence in so many ways. And you'll you'll talk to Coach Shaw about it. and um But everything kind of, that's the standard we're all kind of held to and we hold ourselves to.
00:08:55
Speaker
You know, the men's soccer team was able to make the Final Four this year, which was, Awesome. And I think it's the sort of thing like this isn't just a one off for us. We very much are like, hey, this is where we should be.
00:09:06
Speaker
um No, we're not some of the big powerhouse schools, power five schools that have all that football funding. Resources. Right, resources. But you know this school is about development.
00:09:17
Speaker
It is the pitch that is made to all of our athletes coming in. It's you know what I talk about as a coach, what ah Coach Jamie
Athlete Development Focus
00:09:23
Speaker
Franks, our head soccer coach, talks about. It's what Coach Stitch, our ah women's soccer coach, what she talks about is developing you know young women and men of character and with the understanding that you might not play as a freshman here, but that's not because you're not good.
00:09:39
Speaker
It's not because you're not necessarily ready. It's because to play in the systems that we want to play, it takes time to develop. And by the time you get to be a fifth year senior, you've got, you know,
00:09:51
Speaker
years of of experience, but just so much growth in that time where our juniors, seniors, fifth year seniors are incredibly dependable, that they can go and execute a complex game plan, a really kind of beautiful way to play soccer, not just kicking a ball straight down the field and chasing after it, but really some really beautiful technical soccer.
00:10:13
Speaker
And that comes from taking the time to develop. That comes from kids being mature enough to decide to redshirt because they know it's gonna be better for their development, which is unique.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Certainly. And with the roster limits, have you read up on this? Yeah. So that's been a point of discussion. um with NIL buying in, not buying in, but we will be roster limited um this year, which is tough for soccer. I think the limit's 28.
00:10:43
Speaker
um So that kind of gives an urgency to every position on on the field. and It's, you know, I think it's kind of sad that there's gonna be a dying off of walk-ons across collegiate athletics.
00:10:57
Speaker
I know. But I think we also know it's gonna make D2 better, it's gonna make D3 better because those athletes who might be on kind of the bubble are gonna go to down to the next level and kind of elevate that next level.
00:11:10
Speaker
I don't know how it plays out. I just have nobody knows have to try to get guys to run faster and jump higher and not break themselves and break themselves less. So that kind of stuff is like, this is what we're dealt with. This is what we'll work with.
00:11:23
Speaker
Oh yeah. And that that roster spot is even more valuable. yeah So you've got to keep them on the field. Availability. Yeah, there's not a not a lot of room for error.
00:11:34
Speaker
No. So there's a lot more pressure on the the strength and conditioning coach for sure. Yeah, and I think... Strength and conditioning coach, but it's all a relationship with our athletic trainer and again, both of our coaching staffs, we do a really good job of talking about managing player load throughout the week, managing player load throughout you know the season or off season to,
00:11:57
Speaker
give the appropriate stimulus for what we're trying to get, not just from you know my side of things, what I'm doing in the weight room, what we're doing with conditioning and sprinting, but really the biggest load that they're getting across the week is from practice um and being able to be prepared enough to survive practice and then thrive in practice and then get to those games.
00:12:18
Speaker
And you know i think, A lot of the time we see our games are, you know, you might have a higher overall player load or overall load, but we've touched those loads during practice. Our guys know that they can go there and go further. um Our women's team especially, like whether we won or lost or draw games, like our women's team last year I think was so fit that they would be kind of walking off a field and other teams just squatting down.
00:12:45
Speaker
yeah They're just surviving. Body language. body Body language. And especially we're at, you know, a mile high. We're in Denver. We're at elevation. It does have an impact.
00:12:56
Speaker
And I know we were walking up a bell tower here. yeah That's a tall, tall tower. deceiving. Um, but it But it has an impact. And i think more than just kind of the physiological impact, the kind of mentality impact of knowing that I can run you into the ground in the 75th, 80th, 85th minute.
00:13:16
Speaker
yeah um That's a, I think it's a pretty powerful, powerful thing. So this leads us to our topic of discussion in many different ways. want to explore discipline in that sense.
00:13:29
Speaker
So now one of my key principles for discipline is delayed gratification. So this is the name of the game for a strength and conditioning coach in many different ways.
00:13:41
Speaker
One, career. yeah Two, we are working with them in the summer leading up to and during an off season, months away from season. yeah So every single day we step in, we're talking about goals, we're talking about games, we're talking about this this carrot at the end of the stick, far away.
00:13:59
Speaker
So it's delayed gratification before game day. So we are very good at teaching lessons down the line. So now in introduce, you stepped into this program. It was a new coach for the women's soccer team. It was an established coach for the men's soccer team.
00:14:16
Speaker
Those are two different experiences. very All those athletes have had previous strength and conditioning coaches. yes So now stepping into that, how do you present these goals down the line? How do you make the connection where they start to believe you when you say all of this is worth it for this in the end?
00:14:35
Speaker
Right. I mean, it was a really interesting situation. um So when I was hired, I was kind of hired for these two roles specifically, and Coach Shaw, who's our director of sports performance, he was still helping out with the men's team and kind of running. He had been with Coach Franks now for, I think they'd been 11 seasons together.
00:14:53
Speaker
They really built up the program and just kind of handed me this in many ways, this fully fledged creation. And so my role was to one, not mess it up.
00:15:04
Speaker
um but But two, just kind of bring some different energy, bring some different, a different perspective to it. And I think with that team, especially last year's team, they had an idea of what they were and had an
Team Identity and Player Development
00:15:19
Speaker
idea of their trajectory.
00:15:22
Speaker
You know, Coach Franks often says, are your actions meeting your ambition? And they had ambition, Bell Tower, yeah, had the ambition to play and win a national championship.
00:15:36
Speaker
Anytime you step on the field, the other team has a say as well. And we had a conversation in the quarterfinals and we didn't have the better part of that conversation. um But their their actions were always meeting their ambition.
00:15:52
Speaker
And every single day it was kind of reinstated, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? It's for a national championship. And this spring, as I've kind of taken over fully and and Coach Shaw's been able to step back and focus on hockey kind of exclusively than being an athletic director. you know The big thing that we're preaching is last year wasn't a fluke.
00:16:14
Speaker
This is who we are. Personalities always change year to year. And this team this year is a very adaptive team. um I think a lot of people always think about the survival of the fittest, but it's really the the survival of the person, organism, whatever that can adapt the fastest.
00:16:32
Speaker
And this is a very fast adapting team. So it's been very fun to explicitly push them in a way that's like, hey, I wanna see where you fail. I expect you to not succeed in this. I expect this to be uncomfortable.
00:16:47
Speaker
I want us to go into some dark and scary places um because that's kind of, if you do that now during the off season, when you actually have to do it later on, you're far more comfortable with it.
00:17:01
Speaker
And you know I don't believe necessarily that we should be comfortable in discomfort. I think discomfort is supposed to be uncomfortable. I think it's in critical that we acknowledge how uncomfortable uncomfortable is, but it's how much longer can I stay in that discomfort?
00:17:16
Speaker
If I get to a point where like, oh, I'm comfortable with this discomfort. No, it's not enough. we had We had a lot of rain yesterday. It absolutely pouring at practice. And, you know, i was comfortably uncomfortable.
00:17:29
Speaker
Now, if I wanted to get really uncomfortable, I would have taken off my jackets, taken off my hat, and then I would have been pretty darn uncomfortable for a while and I'd have to sit in that. I don't suggest that for my athletes necessarily, but that's the idea, right? Being able to to go into some uncomfortable places.
00:17:47
Speaker
um it And that's kind of what I've been preaching with that men's team. I see kind of how adaptable they are and like, all right, let's go find the next scary thing. Time out. Let's take a minute to talk about the Old Bull Training Program. If you were like me, you were bored with your training, you were extremely busy, you were beat up from years of athletics or just getting after it in the gym, and you were looking for every excuse not to train.
00:18:10
Speaker
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00:18:49
Speaker
So this is what I'm following. You have freedom to move the days around to best fit your schedule. In case you have to travel, we got sexy Fridays getting after it with some fun bodybuilding as well as an athletic strength day on that other dumbbell deck.
00:19:04
Speaker
Mixing up the barbell movements that target achy knees, ankles, hips, lower back, so we're still able to lift heavy, but we're manipulating your body to then repair itself and restructure so no longer lifting with pain.
00:19:22
Speaker
Through the podcast, we're offering you one month, 50% off. Check out the link in the show notes for the Old Bull program on Old Bull and use the code P-O-D-B-U-L-L. That's PODBULL for one month, 50% off.
00:19:37
Speaker
Come and join us. Now, back
Building Team Culture and Cohesion
00:19:39
Speaker
to the show. Ready, ready, and break. With the women's team, they're... This will be, i think, our coach's third year. yeah um It'll be my second full season with them.
00:19:49
Speaker
And so we're very much still being like, who are we? Defining who we are as a culture. And Coach Sitch played ah years of professional soccer. um She coached at the professional level. She won a national championship on the Division III level with the men's team at University of Chicago.
00:20:08
Speaker
She is a hard nosed person. She wants to win. She's highly competitive. And I think what really I think solidified us early on is kind of the idea that we talk about is taking teams to the deep end and drowning them.
00:20:25
Speaker
And when we run our fitness, it's that that we're looking for. It's like, hey, this sucks right now. You are barely able to to stand up right now. You're in a very uncomfortable place, good, because the person who you're gonna be going against is gonna be even more uncomfortable.
00:20:44
Speaker
And that's, that delta is where we find our advantages. So now, what how are you calling out comfort? For example, we mentioned earlier when we're playing against an an opponent, they're down, hands on their knees, or they're doing the old squat, trying to breathe thing during the the later minutes. yeah I want to say fourth quarter, but yeah there is no fourth quarter in soccer. Yeah, late minutes.
00:21:09
Speaker
um Yeah, I mean, I think it it starts a lot with that posture. Like whenever we're doing our conditioning, the natural reaction of everyone is you finish your run. We run three hundreds with the women's team. That's one of our big tests.
00:21:20
Speaker
And they get back after that first one and people are you know starting to bend over hands overhead. And my big thing is you can't lean on yourself. You can lean on a teammate. You can go up to a teammate yeah and lean on them. You can stay up that way.
00:21:33
Speaker
um and And that's something that you know I think I saw for the first time at University of Texas. That was a big thing that Coach Beck was on. um like He understood that people were exhausted. People were breathing hard. But just making that next decision to go towards a teammate when you're feeling that kind of point of vulnerability. It's just, it's making those little um connection points. I think contact is really important in those moments.
00:21:59
Speaker
And to think about someone else other than yourself. That's one of the things with this new group of captains that I like try to hit on is like, hey, when you're tired, go towards the people who look more tired than you are.
00:22:11
Speaker
focus Focus on them first. um And one, it'll help them out. And two, it'll help you out because you won't be thinking about how how tired you are. But that i think that's kind of a ah big ah big point. And then just effort, effort.
00:22:25
Speaker
We do a drill where it's like running out to three different cones and I'm calling which order we're going to cones, I'm calling, are we touching right foot, left foot, right hand, left hand.
00:22:36
Speaker
um It's intended to fail, especially when you're tired. People are gonna get frustrated and I'm gonna say, hey, so-and-so did this wrong, right? And there's the natural group mentality to kind of gang up on that person. and
00:22:51
Speaker
But to combat that, it's you know watching the team leaders naturally be like, pull it together, pull the team together, kind of bridle everyone up. And you're helping guide their reaction.
00:23:03
Speaker
and so sometimes, this is what i love about strength coaching, you're not always playing the same card. Sometimes you can be the the jerk ref yeah that they did everything correct, but you made the bad quote unquote call.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah. and you can see how they react and you're still there to help shape their reaction. Yeah, totally. And it's, and I was thinking about this today and we we had something had been said during,
00:23:27
Speaker
practice, we had men's practice earlier today. And there's this great quote from Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, and I'm gonna butcher the actual quote, but the idea, like thinking about the difference between action and reaction, um and the deliberateness of action, and the kind of subconsciousness of of reaction.
00:23:46
Speaker
The very deeply human choice to act, and the kind of animalistic reaction.
00:23:55
Speaker
and being able to, I think, sit in that discomfort and then take an action from that as next best action.
Communication and Leadership Dynamics
00:24:02
Speaker
Soccer's a great game because there are all these opportunities throughout a game to mess up.
00:24:07
Speaker
You know, a bad touch on a ball, making a bad pass, but in each of those moments, you and right away can make a next good action. Oh yeah. And that's, and I think that's one of the things that I try to hit on a lot and try to use my voice at practice is watching body language in in games like, hey, next thing, next thing, next thing.
00:24:26
Speaker
Yeah, love it. one One of the other big principles within discipline that I'm leaning into is the the acceptance of responsibility. Mm-hmm. so within Athletics, it's amazing because you get that next play play mentality, right?
00:24:41
Speaker
If I'm a cornerback, I have to live in that next play. If I'm a ah baseball player, it's the next pitch yeah on either side of the ball. So now, With keeping that in mind and what we were just discussing there, how are you stepping in to help the leaders lead and shape those reactions versus just the coach shaping the reactions?
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, so I think it's a little bit different with both teams. um As it should be. Yeah, the the the men's team, their leaders have kind of been very much groomed for the last couple of years.
00:25:11
Speaker
They have a leadership kind of council that involves players from all grades who are... kind of seen by their peers as folks who are leaders on the team.
00:25:22
Speaker
And you know we have freshmen in that group who are, we know are eventually gonna wear a C on the sleeve. like It's just like, this is whether they are the best or player on the field or not, they're one of the best leaders we have.
00:25:36
Speaker
And so with that group, it's it's a lot more nudging and kind of like quiet conversations and
00:25:47
Speaker
honestly just kind of highlighting when I think someone did like the right thing more than being like, eh, that might not have been the way to go about that. Because I think they do they they do a really good job. I think Coach Franks, again, like he has done a really incredible job developing, you know, some really awesome young men.
00:26:04
Speaker
I think I've been really lucky to work with the women's team um whose captains I think are a little less experienced. I think they are natural leaders, yeah right? And do a really good job of kind of complimenting each other. There's one kind of more fiery leader. There's the leader who is really has like the pulse on the team. and then there's a leader who's really the organized one who can kind of tie a lot of things together.
00:26:29
Speaker
And honestly, it's lot been discussing of like, hey, what are the actual kind of structural strategies of like you three need to meet and talk about something like how do you do that?
00:26:39
Speaker
You know, conversations with them would be about like, hey, what during a conditioning session, if you need to stop everything and grab people and huddle them up, go ahead and do that. And then, or after a practice, you it'll be kind of a rough practice and we'll come inside and, you know, one of them will drift over and be like, man, that was tough. I was like, when did you recognize that?
00:26:59
Speaker
And be like, I saw it here. It's like, hey, we gotta get better at just being able to call that out. Like, that's why coaches and your peers kind of wanted you to lead is to be able to do that. And, leading's really hard. oh yeah Leading your peers especially is extremely hard.
00:27:14
Speaker
um well i mean that's That's the whole institution that I'm aiming to to help is that team captain because it isn't easy. yeah so they're They're your best friends, they're your teammates, and now you're, you know for lack of a better term, like one step above them.
00:27:31
Speaker
yeah So you have to lead down, you gotta lead up, you gotta lead side to side to your other team captains. yeah and I think especially it's
00:27:40
Speaker
The way that we're all socialized. It is very easy for the guys to have really sharp language at each other. Hey, I need you to do this now.
00:27:52
Speaker
It doesn't matter the the way they say that, it is you know very sharp. And it's either like bucked up against, in which case, you know someone is just gonna have to pull rank or pull experience, pull, I think my idea is more important than your idea.
00:28:08
Speaker
um And it's just kind of very hierarchical structure. um As collaborative as this team is, that still kind of exists, I think, more in men's sports. um I think the women's teams that I've worked with are are naturally more collaborative. They want to find consensus and they want to move in directions together, which I think is a lot more complicated.
00:28:33
Speaker
um Just kind of yelling at someone and berating someone isn't gonna work. And, and not to be said that they shouldn't be able to yell and accept that, but it's finding that middle ground of, hey, what I'm saying is really important, I need you to do this, but educating each other that, hey, this doesn't mean that I feel any way about you, this doesn't mean that you're a bad person, this doesn't mean anything like that. And it's just, a unfortunately, a way that,
00:29:03
Speaker
at least in this country, men and women are socialized very differently. And that frustration and anger and passion, honestly, are acceptable in one way, in one different forms of expression coming from men.
00:29:16
Speaker
And it's not accepted that same way for women. You see it in the corporate side of the world, you see it in academia, you see it certainly in sports. And then that's what's interesting because in sports, both of those different ways that is expressed are accepted. And then in the workforce, both men and women are then going to work together.
00:29:38
Speaker
and So so then what changes? Yeah. I mean, I think I am incredibly lucky that I, uh, have a wife who is a very, um, impressive, ah kind of corporate, uh, employee and is in a leadership role and,
00:30:01
Speaker
the way that is acceptable for her to talk to peers up and down is different from how her male counterparts are accepted to talk up and down. white a guy would be being assertive or being ah demanding or having high standards, she'd be complaining or um you know ah bitching at someone, right?
00:30:23
Speaker
And it is seen in a negative light. If you take the same words and put them coming from her versus him, they're received from her. very differently.
00:30:34
Speaker
And unfortunately I think it's the same in sports sometimes. And I don't necessarily know if there's a right or wrong way to communicate. I think I tend to be kind of utilitarian in the sense of, hey, what works in that moment, it was probably the right way or thing to say.
00:30:49
Speaker
um But it's definitely something, you know, i am becoming more aware of and and paying more attention to. um because communication you know on field is incredibly critical. Oh yeah.
00:31:04
Speaker
For both the men and women. So how I'm thinking about it is progressing and starting lead athletes to self-awareness, creating just the the the mental, the emotional, the physical state. That's why I love the warmup. It's my opportunity for self check-ins. I'm not just you know clicking a score on an app.
00:31:24
Speaker
yeah I'm actually checking in. ah with with the body, with the mind and moving through there. And I, as a coach, can help lead that and remind them to check in. I can see how they're moving and then I'm not telling them how they're feeling. I'm yeah asking them how they're feeling and seeing if it's connected to my vision.
00:31:43
Speaker
So from self-awareness, it gets into social awareness. And this is where I lean into captains to start reading the team and see if they see what I see. Yeah. And then now, like you mentioned earlier with with one of your female athletes where you asked them, hey, when did this get hard?
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, well, that's a great time. Now we step in and say to then say anything. Yeah. Or lead potentially, hey, try this next time in a leadership position.
00:32:10
Speaker
yeah So the self-awareness, social awareness, and then we get into, and this is, we got bells going off. This is connecting to accepting response ability. yeah I want to turn that into two words, response space ability.
00:32:25
Speaker
yeah So when things do go awry or things go well. Right. How are we responding? I think success can be just as difficult, if not more difficult for a lot of people. is how to Now, once you've succeeded, like how do I save this precious thing? How do I keep it safe?
00:32:44
Speaker
and When a lot of times it's the freedom to fail that brought us to that success in the first place. and Then even thinking to the workforce, whether we're working with a men's or a women's team, if we're just creating that awareness in the response your responsibility, whether you have a you know jerk boss or things are outside of your control within the corporate space or whatever, yeah you still, and going back to Viktor Frankl quote, there's a space between action or reaction action and reaction.
Life Lessons from Sports
00:33:14
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I mean, i think i think this is the reason both of us love sports to an extent is is um
00:33:26
Speaker
how much kind of cultural capital capital it creates, how many um lessons and abilities and connections it gives us later down in life. You know, it's not just kind of the I think the lessons of, hey, getting up early, working hard, putting in your best effort, how to be collaborative, how to work um with a team. I think that sports teaches all of those things.
00:33:52
Speaker
um And then there are kind of the life lessons that we might get from a good coach, a good mentor, a good captain who we've had. And then I think just kind of the ability to speak a language of competition.
00:34:05
Speaker
um Explain. Just the understanding, I mean, there is the explicit language of competition in sports that's everywhere in just our language. You know, who's quarterbacking this project?
00:34:17
Speaker
All right, folks, we're we're you know fourth and long in this in this idea. um you know, he really bricked that that assignment. Right, less like, it's if you think about our language, and especially kind of our professional language, sports is everywhere.
00:34:34
Speaker
oh it's And so if you grow up without sports, You are hamstrung from kind of understanding that implicit like kind of side language or or or slang vernacular when you kind of get to that point.
00:34:51
Speaker
um And then just kind of the connection piece of if you played a sport and someone else played a sport in whatever offices, that's an instant point of connection. You can share not just that common language of sport, but you can get deeper into it.
00:35:05
Speaker
And just kind of seeing and being able to like just touch on these moments, being like, hey, this moment here, this tough moment here, or that little bit of communication that you did, or this frustration, like learn this now because you're gonna see this again.
00:35:19
Speaker
oh yeah And again, like I think this school does a really great job of both expecting their athletes to potentially go play at the next level,
00:35:34
Speaker
which they do, which is really exciting, but also understanding that that next level is just one step in what is ultimately gonna be a really successful life. Yeah, and that big picture thinking a big reason for me even taking the trip out to connect with you and your team.
00:35:51
Speaker
So now that that helps me introduce the next principle here. It's almost like we planned this. Yeah, something like that. In line with discipline, ah dedication to reality. So all the coaches, they anticipate one, winning at this level, two, their athletes are going to play at a next level, and three, they also know that next level ends.
00:36:12
Speaker
yeah And so there is this sense of reality and expectation I i feel i'm I'm getting from the messages from the coaches you're working with that we are preparing for yeah a next step.
00:36:26
Speaker
And it's not just leaving you out to dry right if that next level right doesn't work out. Yeah, I think... One of the really, and this again is why I think sports are important because you have the shared community naturally.
00:36:39
Speaker
What's really hard about high level athletics is it becomes so important that it becomes a sense of identity. That um I'm a baseball player, I'm a lacrosse player, I am a swimmer, um I'm a golfer.
00:36:57
Speaker
Some people carry that on a while longer. I'm player. Yeah, I was to say there's two types of people this world, golfers and people that play golf. That's fair enough. Well, and so here's here's kind of the the thing.
00:37:08
Speaker
um i used to have this discussion a lot with our player of athletic development at Texas because this is a big thing, especially coming from a program, you know, where everything is so focused on you playing football that we had a lot of football players who then graduated and didn't quite know what to do.
00:37:28
Speaker
And um i had had some experience with this. I got out of the Marine Corps and I saw myself as a Marine Corps officer and I did not know what to do.
00:37:43
Speaker
I didn't know who, what I was. And so you know many many many, many, many, many hours of therapy and tears and working on myself and learning and unlearning and whatnot later.
00:37:57
Speaker
It's very much more like, again, that action. I choose to coach. i that's That's what I do, it's not who I am. And again, we've kind of talked about these ways to kind of play free.
00:38:11
Speaker
If you are choosing every day to be a soccer player, if you're choosing every day to be great, that it's an active process, not I am great, so I have to be great. I am a winner, so I have to win, but I'm choosing to win. I'm choosing to succeed. I'm choosing to play soccer.
00:38:29
Speaker
um I think there's a freedom in that. And then beyond that, when those cleats do get hung up, you're going to choose to do the next thing.
00:38:39
Speaker
And I think that's a really, really hard thing. I don't know if when I was 22 playing D3 Lax, if someone had told me that, how I would have reacted.
00:38:50
Speaker
But that's kind of know part of part of the fun of the job. would You just do what I do and never stop coaching. Yeah. I went down a couple of different you know streets and forays before I got back to this. um But yeah, I think just the, we keep coming back to it, is the the active choice to to do something. and Like we talked about the discomfort, it's not being comfortable in discomfort, it is choosing intentionally to be uncomfortable and to sit in that discomfort.
00:39:21
Speaker
It is actively choosing to run hard, not because it's what you have to have to do, but it's like, no, I'm going to do that because I want to.
00:39:32
Speaker
And I think i think that little free that little change of phrasing, that little change of mindset can be really freeing for some folks. A bit big time on on many different levels. And what I pair with this discipline principle level set on skill set.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah. So you have to have an accurate portrayal of what your talent is, that the ceiling of your potential, and where you currently are.
00:39:59
Speaker
And imagine with the, I know you don't partake in this, but the recruiting process for the sport coaches, yeah they want kids that are, this is the balance, like level enough to understand that they're capable of coming here, but know that they have a ceiling to hit versus recruiting the kid that believes they're all everything.
00:40:19
Speaker
yeah And then they don't they're less likely to listen to coaches because a coach doesn't know. Yeah, and and again, I think that's one of the things that's really different here and just kind of how we look at development.
00:40:31
Speaker
um you know So now my question to Taylor into strength and conditioning, like what are your tests that you put the team through? You mentioned 300s. Sure.
00:40:42
Speaker
sure So this is where our metrics can and come into play. Right.
Physical Preparation and Performance
00:40:47
Speaker
Because the we know the eye and the sky is in line with film, but at the same time, Like if you didn't do the work physically, yeah it's going to show in our test. Time out. Coach, are you banging your head against the wall trying to motivate athletes who seem mentally soft?
00:41:02
Speaker
You're yelling, they're shutting down. You're punishing, they're checking out. Sound familiar? Here's the thing. The game has changed, but most of the coaching education hasn't caught up yet. They're locked in on teaching programming and not people-ing.
00:41:17
Speaker
In my new course, Why They're Not Listening, Coaching Today's Athlete, you'll learn how to connect with your team and transform disconnected players into captains who perform under pressure. Stop fighting your athletes and start developing them. Go listen.captainsandcoaches.com to enroll.
00:41:35
Speaker
That's listen.captainsandcoaches.com. Transform your coaching today. Now back to the show. Ready, ready, and ready. I think there's tests and there's testing.
00:41:46
Speaker
um We do regular testing, right? Just kind of to get a pinpoint idea and then trends for
00:41:55
Speaker
you know, how we are progressing and that's, you know, our vault testing, our counter movement jump type stuff, just recording our sets, reps, weights, loads. um That kind of gives us an idea of of how we're progressing. And then there's our kind of standard testing or standard tests.
00:42:13
Speaker
For women's soccer, the 300 is kind of our big one. So is it a repeat or is it one? It's three three iterations. So when I got here last year, it was a 63 second standard, 50 yards down, 50 yards back, three times, just the standard. Yep, one minute rest, go again, one minute rest, go again.
00:42:35
Speaker
um We bumped that down this spring to 61 seconds. And we are taking it now to 60 seconds flat going into next season. And it's a do not pass, do not play expectation.
00:42:48
Speaker
exciting fun um take them to the deep end and drown them that's who we want to be and then for the men's team ah we typically do the yo-yo intermittent beep test uh great just very well proven test to kind of see where um where our kind of aerobic ability is um and then again that that later end those last couple of reps are how uncomfortable are you willing to get and my kind of conversation with the guys this year was Whether you think you're gonna make the next rep or not, I need you to start it.
00:43:22
Speaker
that That's gotta be our mentality. If you step up to the line and fall on your face because you're so tired, that's fine. I just need you to get back to the line to try that next rep. Don't bail out finishing a rep and and ending it there in the kind of recovery space, get back to the line.
00:43:38
Speaker
um And this year we improved pretty decently, kind of a six point bump on our team average. So that's like, ah if you know the BEEP test, it's you know different standards, 18.1 18.8.
00:43:50
Speaker
um for example, so I think we went from like a 19.7 average last year to a 25, 20.5. twenty five twenty point five So, um you know, I think a lot of that is guys being willing to do some extra work and get really, really uncomfortable.
00:44:09
Speaker
um And then one test that I did with the guys earlier in the year um was a unknown time, unknown distance. um and the details.
00:44:22
Speaker
So, ah
00:44:25
Speaker
yeah. So set up a course on on our field that I knew was a quarter of a mile is 2.48.
00:44:34
Speaker
like eight
00:44:37
Speaker
Yeah, it was pretty darn close. Quarter of a mile. And it had them kind of weaving. So there weren't the typical straight lines, there weren't the typical kind of markers and ah landmarks that you might expect if you're running to kind of gauge where we're going.
00:44:50
Speaker
And i was keeping track of which station they got to to kind of get an idea of how far they had traveled. The queue was i you have between six and 16 minutes.
00:45:01
Speaker
Go as far as you can. When you hear the whistle, you start. When hear the second whistle, you stop.
00:45:09
Speaker
Whistle. And you saw a lot of different approaches. um But I think the predominant one was in in conversations with guys after was I had more to give.
00:45:22
Speaker
i could have I could have pushed harder. And the guys who did really, really well on that test were just like, Screw it. If he dies, he dies. um we're just Whether I have to be dragged off this field, I'm going to go as far and as fast as I can for as long as I can.
00:45:39
Speaker
And what what was the huddle like afterwards? Where they were expressing this grain on them for for owning up to both both ends of the spectrum. then how did you lead that group?
00:45:50
Speaker
Yeah, so it was just kind of a real honest conversation. It was like we see, you know looking at the scores, it's like we've got three tiers here. We've got the guys who are clearly pushing themselves doing the work and doing the extra work.
00:46:02
Speaker
Look at who this group of folks are. What are the other things they're doing? They're the ones who are really good about maintaining our habits. like they're kind of doing the right things. This middle group has a lot of room, has room to improve, but they're doing some things right. And we have other areas to grow. And then this bottom group, right, we need to take a look at ourselves and see how dedicated are we to what we're doing um and how can we clean up kind of the habits, the easy buckets, making sure that we're eating right, we're sleeping right, we're hydrated, all that stuff, um that we're taking care of all of our school work so we're not worrying about that while we're running, um that we're doing all the work that we're prescribed to do, right?
00:46:42
Speaker
And then what what do we need to add on top of that? where Where do we need to um grow? Whether that's spending more time on those air bikes downstairs that we talked about, they get lots of love, or or whether that's actually spending some time outside running or on the spin bike, just where can we put in some extra effort to try and close these gaps.
00:47:02
Speaker
And it was just kind of said, hey, if you're in that top group, keep running, get out further, be further ahead. yeah don't Don't wait for people to catch up, keep keep pushing. Everyone else got to push harder to catch up.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah, never satisfied. yeah And the championship mentality, like it's even harder to go back to back. So that's in the back of my mind. Yeah, I mean, and I think...
00:47:25
Speaker
And I think it's it's there. And I think that for a couple of people was a bit of a, this is a team that I think has gotten really good at doing what they know how to do. And I think one of the things that,
00:47:37
Speaker
um
00:47:40
Speaker
I sometimes think a little differently from different angles and different lenses and finding those kind of unique forms of discomfort. This is something that hadn't done before. They're used to knowing you have to run this far, this fast.
00:47:54
Speaker
And this was a completely, it's on you. How much how much do you want it um And that's ah that's a scary thing to have that success or failure be purely on you to own that 100%. No ref to blame, no bad surfaces to blame, no opponents to blame. Nope, this is all me.
00:48:16
Speaker
Yeah. which Ultimately leads me to my last principle here, which is going to be balance. a To where it is on on you. yeah You show up to class. you some Some people, and they need that external job outside of sport and school to maintain the the lifestyle necessary. Totally. the The extra work that they may know they need done.
00:48:38
Speaker
yeah So it's it's like a true work-life balance.
Balancing Sports, Academics, and Life
00:48:44
Speaker
And ultimately, they're... it's It's on them. They can't blame coach. They can't blame the strength and conditioning coach. They can't blame anybody.
00:48:52
Speaker
It's the ultimate. Their performance is decided in this off season to put them in a position to to succeed. so the And this is where why i love strength and conditioning coaching so much is because we get them year round.
00:49:08
Speaker
Sport coaches are limited ah through rules on their access to their athletes, but we get to help them And sometimes they come to us with problems where they they don't want to bring it up to sport coach because they're one reason or another. Right. So we'll just keep it vague within that respect.
00:49:24
Speaker
So now I call it between the whistles. Speak to us on how you mentor the men and women of these teams just between the whistle, helping them find their work life, sport life balance.
00:49:39
Speaker
I think, you know, again, this is not even here a full year. So I'm still developing a lot of relationships, but I think um
00:49:48
Speaker
I'm someone who I try to lead with earnestness and curiosity.
00:49:54
Speaker
i'm i think I know pretty well that I don't know a lot of things. um and I'm pretty quick to to own up to that. And especially you know soccer, I haven't played consistently since I was yeah eight years old.
00:50:07
Speaker
So this is a lot of learning. And I think in a lot of ways, I start my relationship with that. It's like, hey, teach me about the sport that you love so much. um And I think part of that curiosity is I want to know as much as possible about the sport.
00:50:23
Speaker
you know I started trying to watch you know a game a week at least. I you were to say Ted Lasso. Well, Ted Lasso had already binged multiple times, great show, barbecue sauce.
00:50:34
Speaker
no No very well, but you know actually spending time like watching at at all levels, whether it's MLS, whether you know Premier League, La Liga, just trying to watch as much good soccer as possible to try and like figure out the rhythms.
00:50:48
Speaker
um you know Because there are different rhythms and... a musicality to like a well-played game where you can kind of feel the momentum going in certain ways. You can kind of see where things are going to happen before they happen.
00:51:01
Speaker
um And it's the sort of thing that, you know, talking with our coaching staff, they can just pause a frame and like tell you an entire story. It's like watching like ah Magnus Carlsen, like you just drop a chess set in front of him and he can tell you everything that's going to happen. You kind of pause film for them and they're like, oh yeah, this is what's going on here. This is why this is happening. This is,
00:51:19
Speaker
you know, the center back's playing too close here, so this is where we're the winger should be exploiting. Speaking French to me right now. but Yeah, parlez-vous.
00:51:29
Speaker
But being able to, like, have those conversations and try to understand more and learn more, I think, builds... a sense of like, hey, I care not just about my job and making you you know more resilient, trying to get you a little bit faster, trying to get you jump maybe a little bit higher, trying to, you know for some of these guys, put on a little bit of size to be a little more confident. you know for For the women's team, our big goal this year is just get stronger.
00:51:56
Speaker
right um But also, like I care about the sport that you care about. I care about how you are gonna go play this game. um And I think that building kind of that, again, like kind coming to the language, being able to speak that language with them builds a bit of a a rapport.
00:52:16
Speaker
um And then i think just trying to be as authentic as possible whenever possible. um Acting or, sorry, coaching is a lot like acting a lot of times, I think.
00:52:28
Speaker
okay We are commanding a space, there's all these athletes, we have these scripts that whether we're improvising or not, reading like what we're gonna be doing today, talking through these movements that we've discussed multiple times. you know It is a bit of like, how can I hold the attention? How can I get across the message that I'm trying to get? How can I make sure that we are getting things and make sure that my voice is heard in the way that it needs to be heard?
00:52:58
Speaker
kind of once that's done i try to step back and then when i get into coaching like individually the touch points try to make a touch point with every single of my athletes throughout you know a lift or a day and you know not just checking in on them to kind of say like hey what's all what's going on what's up but then be like hey what are we thinking about this movement i love asking kind of a question after after a movement. you know We played a lot around with ah velocity-based training this spring.
00:53:25
Speaker
A lot of clean pulls and whatnot with a hex bar. And you know there's great feedback from that device showing how fast you've gone, but more than that, and kind of the question is like, right, how'd that feel?
00:53:37
Speaker
And having athletes have to voice um and kind of put to ah words sensations that I might not have had to discuss before is always really fun, always really interesting, and you get a lot out of that. One of the great things about soccer players that I've absolutely come to love is how knowledgeable they are of their own bodies.
00:53:59
Speaker
They are super, super aware, especially they're their're their're their feet. legs, like hips, like they are super, super in tune with how everything feels and can speak pretty confidently and fluently to how things feel.
00:54:13
Speaker
Now they don't necessarily know why they feel that way. They don't know what to do about it, but that's a great starting point. And we can like then have little manipulations like, hey, try, try widening out your stance a little bit. Hey, try narrowing your stance a little bit.
00:54:25
Speaker
Hey, see how your hips kind of like sliding back. Let's try to pull that belt buckle up, get into a different kind of a position here. And then Try it again. How did that feel? Okay, better, worse, same, okay.
00:54:39
Speaker
um Okay, try let's try it again. And then we can kind of go things from there. yeah But I think trusting them in many ways to be the leaders of their own bodies um i think is really really important whether that's you know failing and figuring out what failing feels like or succeeding and figuring out what that feels like you know being like hey you know your you know your body i know these movements i know you know what the general good right looks like but there going to some different yeah or differences for each of you i whenever i teach the squat i said squatting is like a signature
00:55:18
Speaker
you know It's very personal, and so we're going to figure out, you know well, it looks good for my center back. It's going to look very different for my 6 or 8.
00:55:32
Speaker
And being OK with both of those and having them, moreover, being OK with how different they are from each other. Yeah. And then ultimately, we're creating self-awareness.
00:55:43
Speaker
Leads to self-management. And then responsible decision-making is our ultimate end goal. Yeah. Within sports, we're making the good decisions at the weight room. Get a feel for it. Right weight. Good decisions in the practice field.
00:55:56
Speaker
Create opportunities for yourself for the game. Making good decisions.
Coaching Philosophies and Decision-Making
00:56:01
Speaker
Shaping good decisions. That's what coaches are for. And then they go off. And they go off into the world. yeah And maintain responsible decision-making.
00:56:10
Speaker
Hopefully. that's the That's the hope, isn't it? That is what we can do. yeah Well, Andy, thanks for sitting down with me and yeah exploring this conversation. always valued the way you think.
00:56:25
Speaker
Appreciate that. It's sometimes different. And you know we we didn't even go down the other side of discipline, but that's you know maybe for another time. Well, we we got plenty of hang time today. So then we'll explore that at dinner.
00:56:36
Speaker
ah Yeah, I like this side of discipline. versus framing it as the negative, or discipline as putting the hammer down. ah But see, this is, and we'll give a taste of it, they're all connected.
00:56:49
Speaker
There's the hammer, and then there's kind of the the the subtle knife. Both have an impact, right? You might feel the hammer more, but it's some of those, the the subtle discipline, right? It's not to say that it's bad, but it can be dangerous.
00:57:05
Speaker
Right. um Well, I will quote Mission Impossible 6, maybe. ah Some people get a hammer. Some people get a scalpel. Yeah. I'm Tom Cruise in this scenario.
00:57:16
Speaker
There you Hammer away. No, no, he's the scalpel. he's the scalpel. Yes. Okay, I haven't seen 6. Oh, my God. Well, 8's coming out, so got to get in line. I've got to catch up. Jeez.
00:57:27
Speaker
Yes. Well, that is... You're undisciplined when it comes to Tom Cruise's films. But thank you for joining me for Captains and Coaches podcast. Hey, thank you very much.
00:57:38
Speaker
right. Scene. All right. Nearing two, so we've got to...