Transcript
Speaker: There's a price if you don't do it this way, yelling and screaming, punishment, things like that. I don't think... You get, when you do it that way, I think you get short term compliance, yeah but you don't get an understanding of of the why it's important and that you are connected to your teammates. And so like yeah every year you have three quarters of your team back and they know how to do it.
Speaker: And so I'm much more interesting interested in seeing how that happens. now Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast where we explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond.
Speaker: I'm your host, Texel Quilkin, and today I travel to Boston, Massachusetts on the campus at Harvard University to sit down with men's head lacrosse coach Jerry Byrne. Coach Byrne has done just about everything there is in the game, a Long Island kid,
Speaker: All-New England defenseman at UMass, pro player who won an NLL l title and founder Texas Top 99, where we first crossed paths many, many years ago. In 2019, he took over Harvard lacrosse and his leadership style is simple.
Speaker: No blinders, no quote shirts, just mentorship habits and a staff he trusts to see his blind spots. Today we get into player elected captains, why a freshman has to have the confidence to tell a senior what to do, how he kept his team connected through two lost seasons, through COVID, and what you say to a guy who didn't get the title of captain because you don't need a title to continue to have an impact on your team and the program.
Speaker: If you enjoy parts of this episode, there's a lot that is connected to the education I provide captainsandcoaches.com. encourage you to head there, click the education tab, awesome courses available for you, whether you're coaching or team captain ready to lead your team.
Speaker: Without further ado, let's hand it off to Coach Byrne who helps us raise the game. Ready, ready, and break. Action, getting into it on Harvard University. Coach, thank you very much for taking the time and shout out to Coach Welner for connecting us and we're connected to T99. So we go a little way back before we knew it, but I appreciate you making time today. Wow, that is a way back. Yeah. And that's 20.
Speaker: 22, 23 years ago at the inception of that ah event that oh I started from my connection with lacrosse in Houston and my wife going to school there. So yeah, 22 years later,
Speaker: Back together again. Yes. And there was another welcome moment that you gave me. It was my welcome to college coaching because I just graduated Marymount University and stepped into a grad assistant role.
Speaker: And then i was ah at a recruiting camp in Philly and I was recruiting for Marymount. I was looking at kids and I i just didn't know the layers and the levels to lacrosse. Like I said, I was playing for two years and then went to school and college to play.
Speaker: And then I was making notes about a kid on the sideline. And then you walked up to me and you said, all right, that's good looking kid knowing it. But that's our guy.
Speaker: And you were at Notre Dame at the time. And so it kind of gave me a a five minute talk on who to look for, what to look for when you're at these these summer camps from recruiting.
Speaker: And I just hold on to that moment. It was funny because I was like, really invested in this kid. and you're like, That's our guy. And he gave me a five-minute schooling, welcome to college moment. Well, you know, the shepherd has to keep an eye on the sheep. Yeah. So, you know, you often can be quite a jealous shepherd if someone else's eye on your...
Speaker: guy So i was I'm glad I was able to not only protect my sheep, but also give you some insight on how to be better at recruiting. Yes, and what to look for.
Speaker: So I want to aim to start there because there are a lot of intangibles, especially for a Harvard athlete. So what are you looking for exactly that is connected to skill and out of skill to attract the right guy and start to to send your staff out to find the right athlete for you?
Speaker: Well, I mean, sometimes it's a top-down process where you you know they've been they've contacted you their coach or their travel coach is advocating on behalf of guys. So a lot of a lot of the process is connected to our relationships with influencers and coaches and and people who are around the game all across the country. So you know doing this for 20-plus years,
Speaker: you know, kind of the depth and the breadth of people that I know has now come full circle where I'm recruiting the children of guys I played with or against. So you have, you know, traditional coaches could be another sports coach for a multi-sport athlete. You have the club coaches. So it starts with that advocacy.
Speaker: And then you at the other end of the spectrum is seeing people play live and then kind of What's connecting both of those things is the is the contact from the prospect themselves. What are they saying about themselves?
Speaker: What details about their performance, not just on the field, but in the and the classroom and in the community? Because that's that's a critical part of not just our evaluation of the type of of young men that will find their way or have interest in Harvard.
Speaker: It's also what Harvard expects us to recruit, that going to trust us to evaluate skill and potential on the field. They're gonna trust us up to a level to to filter out mediocre to pretty good students and and really finding young people who really care about learning and and developing the intellectual side of themselves.
Speaker: and we're both gonna do that investigation of their character and the things that they're doing away from the field and away from the classroom.
Speaker: you know Harvard really cares about the perspective, the point of view, the variety of talents that they're gonna bring to this campus that's almost 400 years old.
Speaker: at the taping of this video. So it's a lot that goes into It's probably as complex as any other evaluation in our sport. And yeah we look at that as both a challenge and an opportunity to find really impressive young people.
Speaker: And investigation, interviewing, having conversations, I'm curious how that that first conversation goes. What are the questions, qualifying questions, motivational interviewing?
Speaker: How do you find out in that first layer of um conversation if I want to continue talking to this young man? um Well, if you're talking about, if we're talking to a coach or an advocate, it's really kind of getting off the tour.
Speaker: All right, we we know we both agree that they can play and we think they have the potential. to be a really good player at our level. And you're sharing with me that you think he has these kinds of grades.
Speaker: you know I come from the trust and verify school of evaluation, meaning, okay, you think he's a really good student. You don't think he will have a problem being admitted to Harvard. That that presumption can be you know a little off-putting for for someone who sits where I sit. And so we always...
Speaker: trust and verify. So we're always collecting transcripts and test scores. and And once we have that, once we have the, ay we believe you're really good, and we believe that you have the credentials to be successful here intellectually, we can then collect that information. All right, so now you're good enough, you're trending intellectually, then we are looking at questions like, all right, how long has he been playing?
Speaker: What other sports does he play? What's his work capacity? What kind of struggles has he gone through, either physically or emotionally or personally or within his family, that has either uncovered yeah toughness and grit and some of the other Attributes that you're looking for in ah in a potential student athlete here. So we we get off the tour meaning All right, we know these things what else are interesting that can kind of speak to hunger and drive and commitment and dedication and Competitiveness and all the things that he does and so that's we're trying to
Speaker: You're painting a picture. If you're if you're my age, you know what the idea of paint by numbers was. Well, we had to fill in different colors, and as you fill in the colors, the picture starts becoming clearer.
Speaker: we're we're We're trying to paint by numbers, so so we so the clarity of who this person is right now and who who they could be if they remember your program.
Speaker: and And that allows us to kind of the build the stew. of our program and its its path forward. And then you had an opportunity to to step into this role at Harvard as head coach.
Speaker: So there was some carryover from the old guard, introducing the new guard that you created, you brought in, recruited. So what was those first couple of years of creating your own culture within this institution?
Speaker: You know, listen, we started with a really simple message. You know, we presumed The team had a bunch of really good players because the the prior staff were good people and good coaches.
Speaker: They didn't necessarily have the the outcomes that they hoped for, but they did a great job of recruiting people and and players. And I think our simple message at the start, and that was embraced really quickly, and so it didn't take a few years, it felt like it only took a few months, was gratitude for being at Harvard.
Speaker: here Because 50,000 to 60,000 applicants were gonna be denied admission here. and And they, because of their athletic ability and their academic credentials, they fought their way here. So they didn't stumble their way, didn't get lucky.
Speaker: They worked to get here. And so we knew they had the capacity to get better and improve and have better outcomes. we just I think we came in with a really blunt and aspirational message around, you know who you are,
Speaker: You fought your way here. We know you have that ability to be great at all the things that you care about. And we need to uncover that or rediscover it or you know kind of re-energize that mindset with our guys. And so we came in in July and August of 2019 and we established that those standards. And the gratitude came from You had parents and coaches and teachers and siblings and neighbors and youth coaches. All these people were the the engine of how you got here. The last thing we wanted was young people who thought they got here all all on their own brilliance and athletic skill. that That self-importance could have really held us back. and So we weren't trying to create a a formula of like you owed these people, but
Speaker: that a great way to honor them was to be really dedicated in the things that you cared about. School, your development as a young person, their athletic ability, so we could have a great team. So that that happened really quickly. And then we ran straight into COVID.
Speaker: And so that that was a real test of of maintaining that momentum in the face of that when our league didn't play for two years.
Speaker: So our 20 season was curtailed after four games and then everybody went home and then everybody went home for the following year and we didn't play when the rest of Division I lacrosse was playing. So we we did a lot of things to keep people connected and motivated and and energized going forward, and which led to us having an unbelievable 2022 season at the tournament, starting seven or eight freshmen in that NCAA tournament game, which is pretty unique. Yeah.
Speaker: And during that time off, did you lean into strength and conditioning, competitions that were not lacrosse-related? We read a book. um that we we purchased for everybody on our team, which was about which is called Endurance, about the Shackleton voyage to walk across ah the the Antarctic with no sled dogs.
Speaker: And so he they got stuck in ice. They got trapped, their boat got trapped in ice. It ended up becoming a voyage of self-preservation with 40 to 50 members of the ship, and who were the support team for his proposed trek across Antarctica, and and how Shackleton led this group, and through both independence and leadership and rotating responsibilities, everybody survived.
Speaker: it's amazing. And it was an amazing story. So it was ah you know whatever a beautiful failure or or an unbelievable tale of surviv survival. So we we read that book, which I think became the engine of our and the identity of our team.
Speaker: and While they were then we formed them into boats, because that's what Shackleton did in his um goal to have everyone survive this unbelievable weather and cold and lack of supplies. and and so we And one of the things that he did was he put people who didn't necessarily like each other in the same boat, because survival would become the unifying trait of the group. It didn't matter whether I liked you or not.
Speaker: We had to work together to survive. And then he would rotate the different boats so it didn't become rivalry that became interpendent interdependent on each other. And so, and and as a result, we formed it and we folded our team into different boats with rotating leadership. And yes, they were doing competitions and workouts and distance learning through film. And so that was, I think, a critical part of our or progress in our ability to come out of COVID, know ready to play at a really high level.
Speaker: And now years out of that, you maintain that philosophy where there's small leadership boats, you mix and match. What's your approach now with all the resources? It's connected to that. I think simple is always the best way to go about challenges and and progress that you know we don't hand out a binder. We don't have shirts with quotes on them. We don't necessarily hang yeah our our our achievements and all Americans and things of that nature. We, cause each team is different. You lose a quarter of it to graduation. You have, you know, guys moving up in seniority. Uh, but this is a meritocracy. It doesn't matter what class year you are. If you can perform, then you earn the right to play. And so we've, we've carried the same lessons from that time forward. And uh,
Speaker: But you learn how to do it better. you We are now a team for the first time that is full of guys that we recruited. So we're not trying to you know necessarily bend people to our will or someone who's recruited differently. Every single guy who's on our team has been recruited with the consistent message of,
Speaker: everybody before them. And so we have that kind of homogenous sense of what our message is, what our experience is going to be, what kind of team do we want to be, what do we expect of our players individually on and off the field. So we have that that commitment of that, which, so not much has changed.
Speaker: That's awesome. so So years later, those players that did go through that COVID season and now establish something that they're going to see pay off from the leaving that legacy. Well, they feel just, you because they went through the struggle that yeah know it no one hopes for a struggle, but we all know it's unavoidable.
Speaker: And so i think their hindsight is, as I told them at the time, is that they're even more prepared to have a successful life post-Harvard more than most because their experience was so disjointed.
Speaker: and And to learn how to not bemoan that, but to accept it. And as a result, if I had to predict 20 years from now, those guys who went through that are going to be some of the most successful alums in our community of ah of a community that has 1400 living people. And as an example, we have almost 200 living,
Speaker: Harvard lacrosse players who are doctors. And so if I can predict the success that that group that went before and after and during COVID, those guys, whether it's financial success or titles or societal view of their fame or achievement or the impact that they have in their community, I think it's going to be the four or five years of those guys who went through that are going to be some of the most impactful alums in the history of our program.
Speaker: I want to lean into peer-to-peer leadership because a lot of the opportunities you put the guys into boats, they had an opportunity to call each other out. So what's the message that you deliver that's necessary for us to hold each other accountable, interdependence?
Speaker: How are you phrasing that so they're prepared to have that conflict? You know, i one of the things i I say all the time is that I cannot coach each of you one at at a time. It would take too long.
Speaker: Ultimately, I'd probably get there and they'd probably be 30 years old by that time with the depth of things that we're trying to teach our players is that that each of our guys in our team was was mentored in some way by the three years that are above them. And if you think about yourself as an athlete, as a freshman,
Speaker: and you're a freshman at Harvard, you're going to know guys three years above, and when you become a senior, you're going to know guys three years below. That gives you a chance to have impact over seven years of people. You're going to know these people for the rest of your life. You're going to go to their christianity, you're going to be in their weddings, at some point you'll go to their funerals, you're going to be there at all these critical parts of of your former teammates' lives. And a critical way of keeping that connection is the you know the the candor and the honesty with which you have to deliver, whether it's teaching someone how to do a drill or confronting them on a Saturday night when they've
Speaker: you know, been over served is this generation isn't necessarily, and that's not necessarily a natural trait because they think texting is talking. And so we, as an example, one of the ways that we perpetuate that, I've always been a strong believer as a as a coach that like to create small player-led drills and where a, you know, might have ah a senior, a junior, and a freshman.
Speaker: And that, the teaching binds those guys together. And so I'm creating those little boats all the time and the drills that we're doing so that a senior can tell a freshman, a freshman feels comfortable asking questions.
Speaker: And then when you get to the point you switch it around later in the fall where you ask the freshman to lead the drill and to do all the teaching. So he can demonstrate his mastery of that subject and feel comfortable. Because in a game, it's not a cast system.
Speaker: In a game, a freshman really needs to be able to tell an upperclassman what to do. And if you have some sort of cast system where it's always top down from either a coach or an upperclassman, then that's going to cripple your progress. It's going to cripple your success in that moment where real candor and honesty is required. And it's going to just limit their growth and their their progress. So we're constantly looking, we're constantly rotating who stays with who on on the road in hotel rooms. We are rotating where people sit and we're rotating who gets to get up, eat first and all those things. And so we're, it's not, there's a meritocracy to get earned your place on the field and playing time, but everything else is really
Speaker: You're trying to create situations and opportunities for guys to learn from each other. So we do it in our drills. We do it in our mentorship with the way our upperclassmen teach our underclassmen how to pursue internships or inquire about research opportunities in the summer, you know getting into banking or medicine or law, all the things our guys like to pursue. We don't want guys to monopolize Knowledge no, you know because that guy you're teaching in a drill you may do that so well that he beats you out and That's my job to decide who's best so we don't expect that guy to keep some insight that Colonel a nugget of knowledge to himself because he probably learned it from a guy two years earlier and the same thing is happening and how our guys help each other around you know um
Speaker: you know problem sets that they have to do and in school here, or how they go about finding their pathway into their career after Harvard. So I think that that humility, that selflessness,
Speaker: has bound our guys together and it really is kind of a a foundation. And it speaks to the gratitude that I alluded to earlier that that nobody got here by themselves and you kind of pay it forward, you pay it back and and that I think speaks to the engine of our progress as a team.
Speaker: I love it. Yeah. Candor is one of the these anchors that I lean into when teaching teams how to be teams. And alongside with that is also banter. So teaching guys to have playful banter, talk some trash, because if we only have the interaction with the kid where it is candor, then it may feel like too Too much.
Speaker: So now if multiple of my interactions, eight out of those are just saying what's up, knuckles, talking a little trash, then when I do have something serious to say, now the trust is there.
Speaker: So banter and candor, I'm amazed that I have to teach that to a lot of this generation coming into this this college level, but still there's some so some fun to be had with it.
Speaker: So what are some of the fun stuff where you're just observing the group, seeing who's holding court when there's not a a set plan in place? Yeah, I don't i don't like, ah we we we tend to not do a lot of like formal things where I kind of feel like I'm observing that. But we, you know, all our goal in our program is to is to create groups the most compelling student athlete experience in Division We're at this amazing place that formed 140 years before our country was founded 1636. And Harvard's reach is
Speaker: country was founded in sixteen thirty six and so harvard's reach is is really powerful. So we have the ability when we travel to meet with our alums and you know get the benefit of their experiences. But we also do things like, I live in the north end of Boston, which is the Italian community.
Speaker: It's one of the oldest communities in Boston. It's right 100 yards from where Boston was founded and so I we do a food tour every Year and in my neighborhood and we go to the places where I love my wife and I love to go and we've developed relationships with some of the owners of of these places and It's just food. Food, i think, food is one of the pillars of our program because I think this generation has been harder and harder for them to have formal meals with their families and friends. Life is so busy. Technology is so intrusive that having team meals or
Speaker: the me kind of meals we have when we travel in the fall and the spring gives us the opportunity for cross-pollination of friendships and insights and arguments and banter that you know I just think that that's a really powerful, organic way that friendships and connections are made. So we do you know how we eat. We do meals at a team. Tonight is our annual burrito bowl. So we're playing that on our game field. And then we're going to come back and have a a buffet from our place, Felipe's, in Harvard Square. and so And everything in between. You're just trying to like organically...
Speaker: replicate some of the things that from my generation that was much more natural. You ate dinner together. you The pace was different. You didn't have things going off on your on your arm or in your pocket with your phone.
Speaker: And so this this gives them a chance to just take a deep breath, reflect on the benefits they have of being a student athlete at Harvard, and be ready for their next thing. It's not a rush out to whatever's what's never next. We're just going to enjoy our time together. We just competed.
Speaker: Now we're going reflect on that. They're going to hang and have a meal and and just enjoy each other's company, which Looks like nothing, but you'd be amazed how many, like they don't have a chance to have meals with their full team all the time. So that that's some of the ways that we do it. And I like to eat. I like to eat good food. And I like to create those moments where our guys can enjoy that.
Speaker: I love that. Yeah, food does go a long way. And one thing I aim to teach high schoolers is six meals by 16. You can cook six meals by 16. And that way you can host those parties and it's going to it's going to take you far in life. Right. and you're prepared for college or the moment you can have that conversation with the chef.
Speaker: you got something to bring the table. Pun intended. um I asked you before about captain selection. And this is something I ask you every coach I get the opportunity to sit down with every sport.
Speaker: This is different everywhere because you know your team, you know your guys. What's the process for the team over the last few years for captain selection? Selection captains at Harvard is is different than at a lot of schools, I would imagine. The The head coach gets to just to doesn't get to decide. He gets to talk about what he looks for.
Speaker: He makes a presentation to the team. A member of the athletic department, the sport administrator comes and he um proctors the voting. There's not there's a nomination process. The nominees, when they get to the voting, um leave the room so the the players can have debate and discussion around the attributes and the candidates, and they have a couple of rounds of votes. Historically, Harvard has had one captain for almost 150 years of playing lacrosse at Harvard, and my guess is that 97, 98% of teams only had one captain.
Speaker: and ah my guess is that ninety seven ninety eight percent of the teams he he had one captain And most of the teams at Harvard have one captain. We veered off a couple of years ago. it was It was more of a tradition than a policy. So the last couple of years, we've had several captains, anywhere from two to three. And and for the first time, we've had multi-year captains. So with the lot we've had three straight years of a junior who was who was selected as captain.
Speaker: Currently, we have one captain, Jack Spidell. He was a junior captain last year with Sean Jordan, who was the Ivy League LSM of the year, and Logan Ip, who was a first-team All-American for us.
Speaker: And we we are going to go through the process here shortly to select additional captains if if if those players earn that. but so it's So it's interesting. I get to talk about the attributes and and what I look for, and they decide on who.
Speaker: And it's you know for a lot of programs, it's there's those who vote and then there's who counts the votes. this this This is a player-led democratic process, and which is very different than than most of all of our experiences in the selections of captains. And so i feel i feel like I have enough power, enough influence.
Speaker: It was a little bit of a shock to learn that that was the process. but Listen, recruiting all these guys, they're crazy impressive young people. They know our values. They know what we value as coaching staff. So I don't think there's ever going to be a wrong decision. and But it is is it is a little different.
Speaker: Yeah, and even with the boats, you're still encouraging leaders to lead despite their title. Absolutely. absolutely you like That is always the biggest challenge in any process of selecting captains is that you worry that someone, because they don't have that title, feels like...
Speaker: They're diminished in some way. They're they're obviously hurt because it's a statement of, wow, I didn't get seen that way. And so their default is to be like, all right, what's wrong with me? Or i who didn't vote for me? Or I don't like this. And so that transition is the management of that, the psyche of that, the emotional part of that, the self-worth part of that is...
Speaker: is challenging for for a couple of days. So so it's partly the guys who who are selected as captain creating a an environment where they're their voice is heard and welcome and expected. And you know my kind of giving them license and and validating their worth of it. And we had last year, we yeah we had a couple of really good players who who were hurt by that.
Speaker: And once they got through their hurt, they got back to yeah who they are. you know And so you don't need a title to have impact. and But that's a hard hurdle to overcome. And it's probably harder for 16 and 17 year olds in high school than it is for 20 21 year old at Harvard, but still there's a human impact of that. And all of us, all the coaches and us our interaction with the with with those guys who maybe didn't get elected or selected, is that's probably one of the harder things to do as a coach. Yeah.
Speaker: And that conversation's an opportunity. No doubt. To present to them that, hey, here's where we value. Here's where you can get work. No doubt. But we still need you to succeed because teams got goals that are bigger than your own goals. No doubt.
Speaker: but But, you know, and that's a... you know that ego That ego hit is really valid. i don't That's not like a selfish thing. We've all been overlooked or felt slighted at some point, even though that's not the motivation of a captain's process. You can default to that. But how they rebound and how we all react to support them in that thing is super important.
Speaker: he Yeah, a lot of stuff I teach is human nature where it's ah it is entitlement. I deserve this or I feel I deserve this. It is resentment against others that maybe have that we don't have.
Speaker: So teach them that you these are normal feelings. Don't shame yourself for this. Don't beat yourself up, but acknowledge that and then be a leader. Then turn and proactively reach out to that teammate. Because if you really care about the team,
Speaker: Title doesn't matter. that you know Are you making progress? Is your team getting better? Am I playing my part individually to feel that progress? Am I taking part of my development?
Speaker: as a player and a teammate. And if we get 25, 30 on a high school team and you know in college, 40 to 50, if we get everybody rowing in the same direction at different paces at different times, we're going to find out how good of our team I can be. But if you cannot let go of that, then you're a drag.
Speaker: and You're a drag on the boat, you're drag on the progress. So that helping helping them understand that if you're a true teammate and truly about the team, as that's disappointing. You want to validate it, acknowledge it, and then learn from it.
Speaker: And go from there. We do, you know, kind of 360 evaluations of our players. We're constantly four or five times a year. We meet with them to give them an evaluation. We have every guy on our team has ah has a shared team doc where we're putting notes and feedback in constantly, notes for meetings. We do anonymous scatter reports this year where were your teammates evaluating you and you have to like,
Speaker: take that. and we we're probably not good We've gotten to the point where we don't have to do that anonymously. so We have to find a mechanism where yeah you know the guy who's saying that about you and then and you have to kind of take it, acknowledge it. You can debate it and and figure out how we move past that. you like you're you know You're not focused enough in the weight room or you're consistently late to something or once a week you're wearing the wrong gear out when we when we have singular gear that we're wearing that day. So hearing that from a teammate, how that affects them and how that reflects on the team. And so we're always trying, we we do some things consistently in the feedback and then we're always looking for you know different ways for them to have to face, you know to acknowledge their strengths, to also face their weaknesses and then work with them to to develop a plan for them to make progress.
Speaker: I'd love to help highlight how you differentiate rules and standards and giving the power to the peers to uphold the standard with rules maybe the team decides or the coaches put in place. Listen, like I said earlier, we don't have a binder around, hey, this is the way your locker should look at the end of every day or, you know, like when you arrive or things like that. I'm a big...
Speaker: i'm a big believer in habit and mentorship and that that the stickiness of that is much more powerful than a dogmatic I'm going to hit you over the head with. And now it's unbelievably tempting to at the start of every fall, hey here's a picture of your locker the way it should look.
Speaker: That is unbelievably tempting to be top down dogmatic. There's a price if you don't do it this way, yelling and screaming, punishment, things like that. I don't think you get, when you do it that way, I think you get short term compliance, yeah but you don't get an understanding of of the why it's important. and that you are connected to your teammates. And so, like, yeah every year you have three quarters of your team back and they know how to do it.
Speaker: And so I'm much more interesting interested in seeing how that happens. Now it takes patience, which I am not famous for, is the patience to watch that develop as an example of how they're cleaning the locker room or we have a big nutrition area, how they're dealing with, you know, we have a big nutrition area that has an air fryer, two toasters, you know, four or five different kinds of bread,
Speaker: And it's kind of crowded on that area, so it's easy to it to get messy. And then we have a big nutrition shake area with Nutribullets and Vitamix's and you're making a protein shake that has powder and chia seeds and flaxseed and you're dumping all this stuff in there. It's easy for stuff to bounce off. and What are you doing with that? or you know and Maybe you got away with it at home, but your yeah mom's not here to with a sponge to wipe that up.
Speaker: and so That takes a little patience because we're now seven or eight practices in, you got 40 something guys on your a team, they eat like cavemen, they come out of workouts and their vitamins and they got tart cherry juice and they have all these things and it's on the counter and you're making all these shakes.
Speaker: It hasn't been perfect yet.
Speaker: And i'm I'm saying like my Irish is going from, ah it's probably always at four, just as a general, just mood. It's moving into the six area. And now I'm talking to some of the seniors. I'm like, listen, it's just not been good enough.
Speaker: It's very tempting to come in and just murder them all verbally. Yep. And I'll probably make me feel good for about 90 seconds and I'll feel regret, the Irish regret of murdering somebody verbally.
Speaker: So I'm in that mode where I'm trying to get them to recognize, all what's our system? here Because the other part is we have a great custodial staff here and and they'll do it without complaint, but that's not the point. like I want them to have custody of this space. It's their space. It's where we watch film. It's where they learn. It's where they shower. It's where they hang out. It's where they banter.
Speaker: They got to show respect for that. And so my style, much like around small-sided drills, is for it to happen Socratically, there's a problem, let's all come together and figure out how we're going to solve it versus, let me tell, like at the end of every day, the freshman class is coming in and or and the next day it's seniors. I i would rather it be a collective.
Speaker: Yeah. But- It's the way we things. I'm always ready for the hammer. I don't like to bring the hammer, but- It's always in the back pocket. Yeah, always. Yeah, Phil Jackson during season, when the team typically any other coach would take a timeout, he'd leave those get that crew, that group on the floor to solve that problem in game because he knew come playoff time, at some point this matchup is going to come together. And you i as a coach in a game, I'm 50 yards away from the action pretty consistently. i can I can't gesture. I can't get everyone's attention. so
Speaker: You need that collaborative problem solving approach because the game is so fluid and you only have so many timeouts and in between quarters and halves and things like that. So there's only so many moments with which like we have, if you were at our practice today or yesterday, we bring out multiple you know iPads and we video from multiple cameras. so And our injured guys are holding by position or holding these teaching iPads so that when we're doing fast-paced drills, I can say, hey, Mike, when Joe comes out of the drill, he squared up to slide on there and now the the effect of that caused
Speaker: these these other things to happen and that was why we gave up the goal 10 seconds later. And so he, the injured guy, knows exactly he was watching and he can now peer it to peer, just like he's teaching in the locker room. He's helping guys with potentially with math homework, helping them on social decisions. It just becomes a natural organic part of how we get better. in the Ivy League, we have a little bit less practice time. So the collaborative approach to teaching independent of the coaches is a
Speaker: is a really fundamental variable of our ability to get better or faster. Yeah. And the injured gentleman, he's going create a habit of that. So when he is back to full speed, that's the way he does things. Now he's going to natural. and then yeah And nothing teaches like teaching somebody else. Yeah. And so so it's yeah it has multiple benefits when we do it that way. Yeah.
Speaker: Some quick game day questions to close us down. Are you a big pregame speech? Do you leave that to the the captains, the team? How's it work to get the guys going? You know, I've always, not not I think in the in the way that most people think. I don't write things down. I like to think I can speak extemporaneously.
Speaker: i don't like to be scripted. I usually let the moment as I'm walking over, we're in Dillon Fieldhouse where our offices and locker room locker rooms are and our field is 150 yard walk. I usually, when I'm leaving, I'm thinking about a theme of of what I want to kind of hit on.
Speaker: i I'm trying to set the tone and the mood and this and the scene for the event. And so, yeah the upperclassmen, the captains, that they do their own thing. I had a tradition tradition when I started at Notre Dame that we met at the corner cone and spoke. And so part of the, you know, when you get onto the field, the message is mostly around tactical and game specific things. You know, when you're an hour, hour and 15 minutes away, you're just, they're they're looking for you to set the tone, set the mood, reinforce all the things we worked on during the week.
Speaker: You're not talking about winning or losing. You're talking about actualizing all their ability, bringing in the the emotion piece, but not overly emotional.
Speaker: you know you're just you're You're trying to validate what you already know about your team and the preparation that you just went through and and and reminding them of their ability and their capability so that they're just about being in the moment, in the flow, and being exactly who they know they are.
Speaker: And then speaking with Coach Wellner, Corrigan, one huddle, one team during timeouts. Did you take that philosophy here or what's your... No, I like i like i feel strongly that that I feel like I know a good amount about the game and coaching and adjustments and managing people and and and building a culture I spent half my life in the corporate world and half my life in coaching, professional life, um is that but I also know that I don't know everything.
Speaker: I see a lot. I don't see everything. i know a lot. I don't know everything. That has been a consistent like tenet of the way I hope to lead. Combined with I have three who are 35 years younger than me.
Speaker: years younger than me and they are closer to the age of my players than I am. And so they see a lot. They, I hope, see my blind spots. They see the things that I might not be recognizing. And so I really believe that, I really believe in much more collaborative leadership. A, it's good for their growth professionally. And I want my players to not see me like I'm Moses coming from the mountaintop.
Speaker: I know, they know I'm the head coach and they know that I worked my way to that title, but I don't have to remind them all the time that I know everything.
Speaker: And so it gives opportunities for our coaches to to do things during the game. You have a timeout that might last two minutes. So oftentimes we will split up and they'll we'll come together. Sometimes I make a quick point for 15 seconds because I want to make some point and then they split it up. Sometimes we have one huddle. It depends on the flow of the game and the and and what's going on, good and bad. So it varies.
Speaker: Right. It varies. And I just think i think that's important. And now to halftime. Are you listening to the players? Do you give the players two, three minutes alone and then the coaching staff comes up?
Speaker: What's your general approach? Yeah, we man we meet on the field and just think about themes that we want to reinforce when we get to the locker room. That that means the players are have talked. They probably walked...
Speaker: positionally together back to the locker room. they get They get inside. We have crazy amount of recovery tools and food and things like that. So the first couple of minutes of them just kind of decompressing from the first half, they're having small pockets of conversations.
Speaker: I let the players organically get together because they might want to say some things and then we will, the position coaches will get their groups and then we'll come together and walk back out.
Speaker: It's good 10 minutes maybe 15 minutes depending on where you're playing and the weather but it's usually 10 to 15 minutes Yeah, it's good flow. I like it and then postgame is that still from the heart? Are you taking notes in game? um You know you it no, it's it's it's both ah emotional and it's rational as rational as you can be, you know You know when when when you when you've won you want to you want to talk about why You know, what what was it that we did that created challenges for our opponent? How did we prepare that gave us opportunities to to to make plays that contributed to winning?
Speaker: And so, and then, but you're also acknowledging the things you didn't do well that maybe you made a closer than it needed it to be. when you're When you're not successful and you lost, you both you are really candid. You're really you know you're not personal, you're not calling you're not calling out people, but you really wanted them to understand yeah what we didn't do.
Speaker: And what we didn't do is maybe as a unit, what we didn't do, you know, again, your that might be as personal as you get, that we fell short here, which created pressure over there that we sometimes you overcome and sometimes you you don't. But you really want to be really candid about what happened, what we didn't demonstrate, that we demonstrated during the week and that we didn't perform during the game. And then you also have to acknowledge that sometimes your opponent just I wouldn't say better, but they outplayed you in in these certain things. I don't like, I'm very, you know, like I think my wife and my family, are like I'm a very
Speaker: pragmatic and rational and philosophical around sports. I love to compete. I still compete in a lot of things to this day. i love what it uncovers about me personally and what it helped can help build in myself as ah as an athlete.
Speaker: And so I'm very rational about it because i because and I'm not, like I think being, whether you call it a sore loser or you know i just I think it blinds you to getting better sooner.
Speaker: and And so i try to be very, very rational about it and the why that you won and and why you lost. Because I think the sooner you can do that, the quicker you're getting improvement, both as a coach, as a lead manager of young people and of a staff.
Speaker: And so um I try to get to the next steps as quick as possible without rushing toward it. Yeah. Hold on. Remember this feeling if it's positive or negative so we can maintain that into the next one.
Speaker: All right. Last question here. Road games, bus trips. What's the DVD movie selection that the coaches are trying to introduce to these kids? Nobody's watching movies anymore. They're watching on their computers. you know That's a a byproduct of the new technology is that You know, listen, i there you know are our traditions on the bus, I think, start with the respect of the challenges of being at a place like Harvard is that they have they have stuff going on. I walk back to the bathroom sometimes. I see a lot of Greek letters on their computers. And so, but, we you know, we do, we eat well, we travel well, we go to really,
Speaker: cool places. We've played in in barce in the last two or three years, Barcelona and Chicago and Houston and Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia and Long Island and New York. like we the food piece goes to great restaurants.
Speaker: we are um you know We have a great support staff and so our guys are treated very Well, I'm not saying that they feel like professional athletes, but they're they're taken care of and and and we particularly in the fall We do a full trip every year.
Speaker: We played Notre Dame in Chicago. We've played um Maryland in Philadelphia We've played Stony Brook on Long Island every fall we do a different trip. We're playing Navy and DC this year and we're We're going to all the monuments on one day. We're going to the Supreme Court for a tour. we're going to you We're doing service in the inner city of Washington, DC. I think all that stuff, the experiential learning yeah is as powerful as the stuff we're doing on the field and in the that they're doing in the classroom here. I want this to be the best part of their day.
Speaker: I want this to be the best part of their their young lives and that means yeah practices are savage. we're not like We're not lighting candles and sitting in kumbaya here. It's savagery at our practice. They do their own captain's practices. Between September and the end of November, they're probably going to 60 to 90 minute organized practices without the coaches.
Speaker: So this is you you are you're a savage around competing, you're a savage around you know developing your intellectual power, and we are invested in making unbelievably interesting time for our guys off the field here so that they can leave this place ready to have a really impressive impact on the world. And so all the things that we talked about kind of feed that gratitude for being at Harvard. So we don't have to worry about them being good citizens in Harvard Square, in Harvard Yard, or in Cambridge, or in Boston.
Speaker: We don't worry about them being dedicated students, and we surely don't care about them doing the work to find out how great of a player they can be. So we're we're pretty fortunate that we've we figured out an algorithm for success. Oh yeah.
Speaker: Every single day. Great type of game. Coach, appreciate your time. My pleasure. It was fun to get to know you, your philosophy, and cheers to everyone listening, tuning in, and follow the team this year. Go Crimson. There we go.
Speaker: See you. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Captains and Coaches Podcast. And thank you to Coach Byrne for opening up his doors. And one last shout out to Coach Ryan Wellner for connecting us. If you're a lacrosse coach and you enjoyed this episode, this winter I will be at the IMLCA presenting on a lot of the tools that I use to teach and develop leadership at the team level.
Speaker: Hope to see you there. Be sure to flag me down, introduce yourself. Looking forward to connecting with the coaches there. If you're a coach that can't make it to that conference this December, I encourage you to head to captainsandcoaches.com.
Speaker: Check out the courses available through our education tab on how I lead individuals, take those behavior-challenged kids, and aim to build buy-in and turn them into your best leaders. Rebellion is a good thing.
Speaker: if we know how to channel it into confidence and a voice on the field. Also got a great new course, it's called, Funishment Reframing Discipline in Athletics. The whole target of that is bringing your team together.
Speaker: Both of those available at captainsandcoaches.com. And one last shout out to our sponsor, Train Heroic. I deliver all of my lacrosse team strength and conditioning program through the Train Heroic app. If you're a strength conditioning coach or you're sport coach, I encourage you head to trainheroic.com slash captains.
Speaker: It's a great tool and asset for accountability, tracking progressions, and keeping your team engaged in the offseason. It's an awesome app. Train Heroic, check that out. So that does it for another episode. Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker: Grateful for each and one of you. Please leave a rating, review, like, follow, smash that subscribe button, in all that crazy stuff. Anyway, awesome. Thank you again to Coach Byrne, Harvard University. I'll be following Crimson this season. Here we go. Ready, ready, and see you.
Speaker: Bye.
