Episode #82: Paul Dill

🎙️ Significant Coaching Podcast – Featuring Paul Dill

This week’s episode begins with a heartfelt tribute to legendary high school basketball coach Jerry Petitgoue, who passed away this week. Coach Petitgoue was more than a Hall of Famer—to Matt, he was a mentor, a friend, and someone who shaped the way he coached, led, and lived. Matt didn't get the pleasure of playing for Coach, but he'll always be Matt's coach.

After the tribute, Matt is joined by Paul Dill, Head Volleyball Coach at MIT and one of the most consistently successful coaches in NCAA Division III history. With over 1,000 career wins coaching both men and women and a .772 winning percentage, Coach Dill has built a powerhouse program while working with one of the smallest recruiting pools in the country.

We dive into:

✅ How he recruits top-tier student-athletes who meet MIT’s elite academic standards
 ✅ Why he uses the Socratic method to develop smarter, more self-aware athletes
 ✅ What it takes to sustain excellence over nearly three decades
 ✅ Lessons every coach can apply about leadership, teaching, and culture-building

If you're a coach, athlete, or parent trying to understand what real coaching looks like, this episode is packed with insight and inspiration.

📘 Now available on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/409yeWG
The Softball Recruit’s Journal – Your step-by-step guide to owning the recruiting journey with tools for communication, visits, decision-making, and more.

🌐 Learn more, listen to past episodes, and schedule a free recruiting or coaching session at: coachmattrogers.com

Transcript

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when we're practicing, I'll stop a lot to talk about or to ask, what are you seeing here? What should you be doing here? Yeah. And so then for me it's all about. We're trying to create stability in our side of the net and create chaos on their side of the net. Welcome back to Significant Coaching. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to take a moment to honor someone incredibly special, not just in the world of high school basketball, but in my life. This past week, we lost a coaching legend Hall of Fame basketball coach and the 2020 National High School Basketball Coach of the Year coach Jerry Pettigo of Cuba City High School in Wisconsin. For decades, he was the heartbeat of Wisconsin basketball and the longtime executive director of the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association. But to me, he was much more than a Hall of Fame coach. He was my mentor, he was my friend, and truthfully, he was my coach, even though I never played a single minute for him. Whether I needed a reference to land a job or needed advice connecting with a player or just wanted to talk X's Os. Coach Pegu always picked up the phone for over 35 years. He guided me, believed in me, and helped me find the courage to be the coach I wanted to be. When I asked him to write the forward to my book, significant recruiting, he didn't hesitate. He was proud of me and I was even. Prouder to call him a friend. It's been a tough week knowing I won't be able to call him again, but I'm forever grateful that he took this young coach under his wing so many years ago. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife Joan, their three children and the countless young men and women he taught, coached, and inspired for over 60 years. Thank you Coach Petti youe for everything. If I'm any good at this coaching thing, a big part of it is because of the role model you were to me Now, from one legend to another, today's guest is a giant in the volleyball world. MIT head coach Paul Dale. I. Coach Dill is entering his 30th season with MIT's women's volleyball program, and what he's accomplished is nothing short of remarkable when your talent pool is essentially limited to athletes with 4.0 GPAs and 1450 SAT scores. Building a powerhouse program sounds nearly impossible. But Paul Dill has done just that with over 1000 career wins, coach Dill has proven that excellence doesn't have to come at the cost of academic integrity. He's a master technician. A student of leadership and one of the best I've seen at using the Socratic method to develop not just great volleyball players, but great thinkers and teammates. We'll talk about his unique journey, the MIT mindset, and how he's sustained such consistent excellence for over three decades. All right, let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Coach Paul Dill. Coach Dill, thank you so much for being on. It's a pleasure to talk to you today. Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure. Been looking forward to it. I wanna talk about MIT right out of the gates because, I think we can go anywhere in the world. And I don't think it matters what country we'd be in. And you could ask somebody what are the universities in the world that they think are the best? And I think it would be maybe a handful of schools, maybe Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford, maybe Stanford. Definitely MIT. What does that mean to you to work at a university that has such a global reputation? I'm definitely humbled by it and I feel extremely fortunate to be here in this environment. And everything kind of done at MIT is done on this other level of excellence and and trying to do things the right way. And so getting to be in that environment every day is just a gift. And I try to absorb as much of it as I can. And and I enjoy, the type of student athletes that end up coming here then are just, really down to earth kids who happen to be really bright and want to be the best at whatever it is that they do. And they want to be surrounded by people just like them. So it makes for this fantastic environment to be in. It's gonna take everything in my power in this first segment, not to talk recruiting with you.'cause that's really what I want to, I wanna spend a lot of time with it.'cause I know how unique, difficult of a job you have. Now we can blend a little bit. We're definitely gonna talk about recruiting in this first one. I think it's inescapable to not, but. You have spent two decades at MIT, which is impressive in itself. Three. Three. Yeah. You're at three now, aren't you? Yeah. Is this is the third decade you're moving into? Yeah. I forgot about that. When you look back what's been some of the most rewarding parts of building and sustaining a program at one of the world's most academically rigorous inter institutions? I really enjoy the best parts are the growth that I see in these young people when they come in as first years. And they are so kind of awed by the place. And some of them go through imposter syndrome and some of them can't. Did I, did they make a mistake? Do I belong here? All those types of things and see them grow into these very, well-spoken, leaders young people that are gonna go and light the world on fire in a positive way. And getting to be a part of that process through the sport of volleyball is what I really, really enjoy. And seeing that. That difference from when they show up to when they leave and that growth and who they become is amazing to me. It's you, it doesn't matter where you've coached. I've coached at all the levels, right. I've coached all over the country, and I think there's always that imposter syndrome. Maybe more so for girls than boys. Yeah. I've coached both, so it's a little I know you have. I've seen it in both. Yeah, for sure. I'm, I think it's one of those things, it's just a part of growing up that you doubt yourself, you take those steps to go to MIT and you and they realize, wow, this is, this challenge is real, both academically and being a student athlete on top of it. Right. What. What's the biggest role you play? Is it your upperclassmen? Is it your assistants? Yeah. Is it the professors? How does that all work to help those kids make that transition to do Well, I think, the athletes here do kind of better than everybody else academically on average, and I think that's because they're around that support group all the time. Because you do come into MIT as a student, and you've been told for the last 12 years how incredibly smart you are. And how great you are and and that, you're the top 1% of whatever academically. And then you come here and they beat you down a little bit academically, and you've never gotten anything less than an a and all of a sudden you get a 25 on your first exam. And how do you deal with that? Right? How do maybe the average was 26, but, you're, so having this. Team to be a part of where everybody here wants to succeed, athletically and academically and socially and all those great things. And so they're here to help them and say, Hey, yeah, that same thing happened to me. You're gonna be fine. And then they can move forward through that and have this great support group around them. And that's, this athletic community here is great at lifting, lifting each other up. I've been talking to college presidents about the idea of teaching kids how to learn how to be learners. Are there things that MIT specifically is doing for those incoming freshmen who are been straight A students their whole life? Like you said, valedictorians, they could have gone anywhere they wanted. Is there a process or a procedure or a guide that they're doing to say, Hey, learning here is a little bit different. Here's how we do that. Do the, is there a process with that? I think that they have so many support systems in place for, the students here to help them succeed. They want them to, they want them to graduate. It's not a, it's not a cutthroat place at all. It's extremely collaborative. And again everybody comes here and they all say the same thing. Oh, I found my people. And these, and, everybody's here is so switched on academically and they wanna share everything they have with you and absorb everything you have to offer. So there's this great collaborative environment here. That and then all of these support systems in place, through MIT to help everybody get through it. And and the nice pieces too you come in as a first year and your first semester is actually past no record. So you're, you can get your feet wet and go through that transition without having to deal with, grades. And so that's. That's a huge benefit. That's Yeah. For here, for sure. For sure. It is. And then if you're an athlete, a fall athlete, especially now all of a sudden you're thrown into the deep end right away. But you but again, you're, it is past no record. You get used to being in season and what that's before, before you have to deal with grades. Which is fantastic. I love that idea. And I love that for every school in the country, I would imagine your kids. They've been disappointed that they got a 99% instead of a hundred. They got, they got a 97, my son's like this. Yeah. He came home the other day and he goes, dad, my grade dropped in math. It dropped from 102.5 down to 101.4 and yeah. And and he was disappointed with it because there was no extra credit for this last test they took. So even getting a hundred dropped his grade. And I would imagine your kids are like that when they get there. They're such perfectionist, I would imagine. Yeah. And they have to get that. Does that year help them get over some of that a little bit? Yeah, for sure. For sure, because they have to get over that pretty quickly and understand it's not so much about the grades now, it's more about, the learning experience and what they're being exposed to and getting that degree that will, help them, in their career or going on to other, graduate schools. What does that do for you as a coach? What's your process with that? I'm guessing you see a lot of that too, that you know their lives are about, they wanna be perfect all the time. They want to be An example is, yeah. What's your process with that? I think we use the upper class women a lot in that process to help, our team culture. For me, the team culture is everything. Yeah, it's everything for as far as our success, as far as how they grow when they're here as, as far as how they feel supported, as how they gain confidence, all of that. And that's through, leadership training and everything else that we do with everybody in this program so that they can help. The, the underclass women to succeed and feel okay with that transition from high school to college. I'm, I wanna dive into that leadership development.'cause I always talk, you and I were just having a conversation. It wasn't, we weren't recording it. I'm, we would probably talk a little bit more about that process that freshmen go through. I've always said if I can get a freshman. A kid that comes into our program, if I can get them by. Halfway through their sophomore year for things to start clicking and really start to get it. I always feel like we've done something right for that kid, so I'm really interested in sharing some of this, the leadership development that you do with your kids and see if we can get some 16 and 17 year olds and some parents to start building that, some of that into their routines. What is some of the things that you're doing with that development? Yeah we do some formal leadership training with our team and we do it with everybody. We do it spring of their sophomore year. So again that, that. First, first semester of sophomore year is a little bit of a bear because now they're on grades in season for the first time and now they're into their more core classes, towards their major, so it gets a little harder. So if they can get through that first semester of sophomore year, then it's downhill a little bit after that, but then that's when we feel that's the best time for our leadership training and that now they're ready. They've really, they've found themselves, they've been developing as a player, they've been developing their confidence. They've been contributing a little bit more. Now they can take on that leadership responsibility as a class. So we do it with everybody and everybody knows they're expected to lead. There is no neutral. They're all expected to add to the team culture and they take it pretty seriously.'cause we sit'em down and we go through about, five or six meetings where we're going through. Two different books and I, I've been doing this so long that I have just anecdote anecdote, stories about great leaders and not so great leaders that we've had in the past, between the men's and women's programs that I've coached here. And so they all take it on and it, they love it. They love it. It's leveling up for them and that that, and that goes to the whole, taking ownership of the team and the culture. And that for me is the biggest powerful and the most powerful thing that can happen is when a team takes ownership of itself and is accountable for itself. And that's really the key to being successful and having a great team culture. And so this leadership training. Certainly facilitates that in a big way. I love that. What are the books you're having them read? We, there's a short book called You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader. That's a short one. And then we do the Jeff Jansen, leadership manual, captain's leadership manual book. We just go through it and we have a conversation. And we're just talk and everybody goes through it so they know there's nobody left out. And they're all, then they're all gonna lead in their way and they learn how to lead as a class and play off of each other's strengths and weaknesses within that class. And then it's ultimately, what kind of legacy do they wanna leave behind as a class, and they know they're responsible for that. It's so great because, I always talk about the power of the group and if everybody knows the expectations and everybody's learning the same thing about what a leader is and what those examples are, it's so much easier to lead when you're leading as a group, when you're leading together. You know what I mean? Yeah. I love that. And it's coach, it's so smart to start this after that first year and a half, because I would imagine through your 30 years, that's where the comfort level sinks in, I would imagine. Where they, yeah. They're starting to be authentic. They're starting to figure out, okay, I belong here. I would imagine. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah. And they've had, this thing builds on itself because if you've been doing this a long time and have this in place. Then they've had great leaders ahead of them that included them and that helped, supported them and helped bring them along and, and gave them a voice. And so that they've had these great examples and they want to do what the seniors have done. They come in as first years and they're like, Hey, I want to be like her man. She's got it all on lockdown academically and socially, and she's a great player and a great leader on this team. How do I do that? And I can say they weren't like that when they showed up, they were just like you. They couldn't find their way to the gym. They didn't know what was going on. But if you buy into the system and buy into the culture, and are rewarded by it, you start to invest in it. And then you wanna do the same thing and become those kinds of people and do it and do the wonderful things that they did for you, for people below you. So it's this great this rock that just keeps rolling and gathering more and more moss. Yeah. My, my brain is exploding with, like civil engineering and structural engineering and gen, genetic engineering methodologies because, I can just see these kids taking that and going, we're I'm building a bridge here. I'm building a bridge to this, to that from my freshman year to my sophomore year, to my sophomore year, to my future. So I just love all that. Did they get that? Do. Oh yeah. Do they get those analogies and those metaphors? Yeah. Oh, for sure. I'm sure they jump all over that stuff. Yeah, they're great. That's awesome. When do you know a kid is starting to get comfortable at, not only at MIT, but comfortable being the student athlete you saw in them when you saw them at 16, 17 years old. I think it comes in competition and, that's when you re, when they start to feel comfortable in competition and not overanalyzing every play that they made and def or deflecting mistakes or owning too many of the mistakes. And when they start to just get really confident and comfortable and being able to move on to the next play. And not worry about what just happened, and let that be the end all, be all of their validation and who they think they're supposed to be, and having this expectation of who they think they're supposed to be and just play right and just be confident in that and not worry about the score so much. Or worry about what does this mean if we're not beating this team, we think we're supposed to beat, or. Or, all those things. And I think it's when you start to see them be comfortable in those moments, you start to see that yeah they've starting to figure it out. I know you probably get sick of this, so I don't want to beat the high academic to death here, and I don't want to beat the MIT idea to death here because what you're doing as a coach is phenomenal and what you've accomplished at M-I-T-I-I know without a doubt, coach, I could put you on any campus in the country and you'd be able to replicate it in your own way. I do want to talk about those key ingredients, though. To cultivating not only long-term development, but cultivating that trust with your kids in that high academic D three environment.'cause I was a D three head coach for a long time, and it really doesn't matter where you go. D three it's 80% academics and maybe it's 20% athletics. It's we really have that focus. So what are some of those key ingredients to build and cultivate that trust with these kids? I think it's establishing relationships and communication that, that to me is the key. I have, several, meetings throughout the season with each player with each class. And so this, that communication is critical. There's been, as a younger coach, sometimes when things were going, okay, I might skip a mid-season meeting or something like that because we just didn't have time, and that's when things go awry. With either the individual or with the group that communication and letting them know that I'm here for them and help facilitate and collaborate with them on their journey, on their growth journey and and letting them know that it's not going to be easy. It's going to be hard, and it's how, how do you get better at handling hard and how do you get better at being uncomfortable and understanding that's. That's where you're gonna grow. And that's and that's part of the journey and helping everybody on their own personal journey through it and really communicating with'em and really establishing that relationship as coach, player, coach, mentor, whatever you have it, but also as an adult relationship, not just, oh, I'm the player, you're the. Or I'm, you're the player, I'm the coach. And just do what I tell you now, it's, this is your team, this is your journey. Let's collaborate and figure out how for how you're gonna reach your potential. Now, I'm gonna challenge you along the way, and I'm gonna push you to try to push you to a level that I think you can get to. And that might not always be comfortable for you but. We're gonna talk about it. It's not just gonna be, oh you're just uncomfortable and coach sucks because you may, he's making me uncomfortable. This is why I'm making you feel uncomfortable and how are you responding to that? And let's talk about that. And establishing those relationships and that's. If you're coming at people with a sincere and a sincere trying to help them, then they really can buy into that if they really feel that you're sincere in, in having their best interest at heart. I think that's the key to coaching at any level. Yeah. Youth, high school, college doesn't matter is getting them to understand, listen, I've been doing this a long time, I have a lot of answers. That doesn't mean I have all the answers, and it doesn't mean I know all the answers for you and what you need. It's about, I, you've gotta learn to trust me to the point where you gotta say, coach, I see this differently, or I'm struggling with this and how we're approaching it. Can we talk about that? Oh, for sure. And getting that, getting them to understand that's a part of this process. It's a part of this ownership is sometimes we may not agree or maybe I've gotta learn something from you. Oh yeah. And that's critical. And I tell them first day, the first years, especially like I, I'm not sitting up in my office and twirling my mustache and trying to make your life miserable. If you have an issue with what I'm doing or what I'm saying, you talk, talk to me about it. I'm open to you, pushing back on what I'm saying or what I'm doing and how we're, and how we're doing things as a team. I want your input. This is your experience. And you need to advocate for yourself within that. But if you don't talk to me I won't know what's wrong. So I might be making a mistake day in and day out, and you're mad about it, but I don't even know what it is, so let's talk about it. So they get ample opportunity to do that, and I put that ownership on them to, if they're not happy with something, what have they done about it? Have you talked to a, an upper class woman about it? Have you talked to a captain or assistant coach or me? You can't just sit and in your own, your own doldrums. You not, you need to talk about it. Yeah. I would imagine the psychology of coaching is a little bit different for you than it might be at Boston College or at. At a, at, a junior college somewhere you've got kids that maybe. Don't know how to ask for help.'cause maybe they haven't had to do it before. Or they've just got it in their mind that they're not supposed to ask for help. Do you have to overcome that or is there a way to overcome that? Or just understand? Oh, I think it's just establishing that relationship and that trust and they feel that they can trust you. And I tell them all the time, look, I'm not gonna try to talk you out of something, a decision that you're making. I'm gonna just give you maybe some different ways to think about it or different ways to come at it or give you a resource to talk to somebody else about it that I know will give you some insight. And I tell them, try not to make decisions in a vacuum. Like talk, talk to people about it and before you make a decision, because, there's so much experience here within the team and within the coaching staff and within m MIT in general that can help you with that. Yeah. Or give you just different things to think about. I. Where does failure live in your program? It lives daily. Daily. And I let'em know that I, it's and I tell them, you're gonna fail. You're gonna fail here. And it's how do you handle that? And use that as a growth experience. And they're really good about lifting each other up. I tell the players this all the time, that. Look, I'm not, if you dig a ball that was hit directly at you, I'm not going to just sing your praises.'cause that's what you're supposed to do. I, your teammates can do that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be pushing you to another level. And the teammates support each other. They know I'm gonna challenge them. Yeah. When they do something great, I'm gonna make sure that we celebrate that. But it's not it's, it's not gonna be just a daily. You're wonderful, right? Yeah. It's just, that's not gonna, that's not gonna help them out in the real world. They do fail. A lot and I want them to fail in practice, and they want, I want them to find that ledge, so to speak, in practice of what they're capable of. And so that, in, in match play, they know not to try to go there if they're under pressure, right? That's not a shot you're capable of hitting and you've, we've known this because you've tried it in practice where it was free, where you're free to make those mistakes and free to find that ledge and f and find out what you're capable of, and then keep pushing the limit of that in practice. So that, you can play with some discipline when we're competing. Yeah. That for me, discipline is a big thing when we're competing. I love it. Yeah. I'm with you there. And you're a top 10 15 in the country program year in and year out. I don't know any coach where discipline is in a huge part of being able to get there. That routine, that this is how we're going to do it. We're gonna learn how to do this the right way, and once we do it the right way, then it's gonna become who we are. And having that discipline to get there is hard. I'm gonna ask you a bridge question here, coach. Okay. Because you, we talked about this a little bit before we, we record it, and I just think it's fascinating. I worked, I was the head coach at University of Laverne for a number of years, so I got really close with the staff and the coaches at Caltech there in the state league. Yep. Yep. So I, I really understand from that, those relationships and the long conversations we have, what you're going through as a coach, and I know there's a lot of similarities between your two universities. Give the audience. A short list of some of the internships your kids are in right now and some of the things, some of the places they're working and learning how to work. And I think, all your higher academic institutions, and there's so many great programs out there in division three and so many great coaches. It's it's so collegiate out there and yeah, and we're all in awe of what our student athletes are doing on a daily basis. And then what they're doing, while they're at the school and so they're just in these, internships all over the country, all over the world. Over the summers and doing I had a player that, was from kind of rural Michigan. This was a few, this was years ago and didn't really get to travel outside of her kind of Midwest area very much at all. Even, played for a smaller club, but came to MIT was one, was became a really great player for us. And, her first summer she did, she was into programming and so she did she did her first internship with Google in San Francisco, and then I think the next summer she did one with Spotify in New York City. Then she did one for Google in, in Austria, and then so she was. She already had two job offers, but be before her senior year even started. And so she was choosing between Austria or Northern California. And she was, in a conundrum about it. I said this is a tough problem to have. And this is someone that never really traveled. And then the world basically through MIT and, those kinds of opportunities, for us are second to none as far as what opportunities afforded to them when they're here, as well as, the people that they're surrounded by. It's just this amazing experience for them. And I joke with them all the time. They tell me what they're gonna do over the summer and I say, oh, geez, it's too bad. MIT didn't really give you any opportunity to do anything fun or cool while you're here. Meanwhile I'm stuck here all summer, fighting the battle of, Falmouth Road in West Newton every day. And, they're off, off, just having these wonderful, worldly experiences. And then they go off and do these amazing things in life. And we have a former, student athlete who's an astronaut and she may end up being the first woman on the moon. That's, to me is that's incredible. That's awesome. So they, volleyball's just, helped prepare them for that, I hope. And yeah, and add some things to their growth experience. But they go on, do amazing things and there's so many schools that send those types of people out into the world to help make it a better place. Yeah. That's why I hope for the future actually you and me both. Yes, you and me both. I remember talking to Sandra Marba before a game. We were, I was a basketball coach and she was the head coach at Caltech, and I'm looking out at pre-game and her and I are having a conversation. Our kids are warming up and I go, Sandy, where are your best two players? She goes, she drops her head, she looks at me, she goes, one's interviewing at Microsoft, the other one's interviewing at nasa. Yeah. She's like, how do we tell them that D three college basketball game is more important than going to interview at Microsoft and nasa? So I know you're dealing with similar things. So I wanted to, I wanted you to talk a little bit from your experience about that, because I want to talk about helping these kids find their balance. That life balance between, being a kid, they're still kids, being a great student, thinking about their future, thinking about their career, thinking about winning a national championship. Yeah. How do we help them find that life balance where they learn how to be the best versions of themselves and not get caught up in what they're supposed to be doing at 50. Yeah, that's hard. They es especially, here it's just a go go. Next thing, the next thing. And I, I'm always trying to take, tell them to take time to reflect, take time to think ahead, take time to just be in the moment. Being in the moment for me is really big here. And trying to get them to do that and enjoy those moments.'cause it's just nonstop here. Whether it's their athletics, whether it's. Their, their academics, whether it's the other groups, they're a part of their research opportunities. All those things are going all at the same time, so they don't, let's enjoy this win. Let's enjoy what we just experienced here versus, because now they're on I have my problem sets that are due, and my research opportunity thing is tomorrow and I have this interview for my, in my summer internship the next day, and I have this exam. They're just onto the next thing over and over and over again. And so they don't. Sometimes get the chance to enjoy what they're a part of. And that's why I think, athletics, especially at a high academic institution is so important because it does give them that balance, right? It does give them that being a part of something bigger than themselves and going to play the sport they love for two hours every day. And they can't be doing those other things or be thinking about those other things because they're in this moment of enjoying this great sport with these great people that they love and having these lofty goals of playing for conference championships and national championships, right? Yeah. So that, that the sport itself does provide that balance in a big way. I love it. Yeah. It's such I get I'm frustrated right now because, it's at the high school level. I have a son that's in middle school and my daughter's in high school, and we've really gone away from how you and I grew up, and I'm, I imagine you had the same background where we went to PE every day. We had a physical education class every day. We were running, sweating, playing a game, playing a sport, competing, learning, learning how to be healthy. And that's gone away, there's no mandatory PE anymore in high school. My daughter plays volleyball and golf, so she takes, that's her class, that's her PE supposedly. Yeah. My son only has PE like once every two or three weeks. So it's hard for me to accept that's the right thing to do. That's healthy for these kids. Yeah. Yeah. No, I just finished coaching at a high school. I did some high school coaching last couple years, and the high school I was coaching at had won the, I think they were the leaders in SAT scores for four straight years. These are kids that studied for four hours a night. The kind of kids that you're I would imagine are recruiting. I'm so mad at myself because the, it was so hard just to get gym time. It was just so hard to get, an hour and a half, two hour practice every night that I got away from some of the things I did as a college coach, where, I'd see our guys retired or our gals retired, and I'd go, all right. Put the basketballs away. We're gonna get out the whiffle ball sticks, and we're gonna play Whiffle Ball day, or we're gonna get everybody on a bus and we're gonna go to watch a movie today. Just to get them to breathe and remember that we're a family and I'm mad at myself. I didn't do more of that. I. Are you finding that you have to do some of those things? You have to build some of those? Maybe if it's, maybe it's on a trip where you're going somewhere for a game or a tournament. Sure. And you Sure. And you say, Hey, we're not gonna think about volleyball here for a half, half a day. We're gonna go to the zoo. We're gonna go to the, to a museum and have fun. Yeah. I think we try to do that. I think within practice I think. I'm not, I have some coaching colleagues that do their fun games and things like that. It's just not me. I've tried to do a little bit of that. It's, yeah, I do some of that certainly preseason for team bonding, but I think we build into our, some of our competitive drills and games that we do we build a fun element into that sometimes. So I think we try to get our balance that way and. We get such a short time with them. Practice wise, we, mi t's nice because they do set aside a five to seven window for activities, so there are no classes or exams, so they know that's, there's no conflicts. But you've got people coming late from lab that, that went until five and you've got people that have an exam at seven 30, so they've gotta leave, a little bit before seven so they can get something to eat. So we do have a short amount of time and we're gonna jam it with. Volleyball and, fun and there, our team culture's a fun culture in practice too. We'll compete and get after it, but we also have a lot of fun. And depending on the day, when do we want to be locked in and focused and when do we want to be a little bit more loose, depending on the drill and depending on the time of year. Or depending on what the team needs, that's the other piece. We try to make some of the drills fun and make the competing fun and they're just so switched on about wanting to get better. Yeah. So they all coach each other and push each other and so that's fun for them, I think. Yeah. That's the feedback I get. Yeah. Yeah. I the longer I coached, the more I was building those things in, I was, we're gonna do something competitive. Every single day. I want there to be that competitive fun that, all right, hey we're not doing a drill. We're not doing a hitting drill, we're not doing a passing drill. We're, there's that competitiveness that I wanna win this today. And so I love that stuff. From just a pure volleyball perspective. Let's get into that a little bit. Sure. And I feel like I'm wasting my time with you if I'm not talking about your volleyball brain. What are some of. That you guys do that you feel like separates you from the pack in terms of your development? And maybe it's the same things, but it's the consistency or the routine or how you do it your way. Are there things that you feel like, okay, this is how we're gonna do this to get ourselves ready to win a conference championship again this year? I think it's, like I said, I'm a lot about discipline and that kind of goes into style of play for me. For me I really want them to be thinking about, what is gonna set them up for success situationally and what do we do? What's my decision making process in every different situation that I may see as a player based on what's happening? Within this point. And so really, putting together drills that are gonna allow for that, but also within the drill, whatever it is, I'm gonna stop and say what, did you get to a good point of preparation there in transition? What was your decision making process defensively? What did you see? What are you reading here? What you know? Are you actually working hard in transition? Are, to get to a good point of preparation? Are you making good decisions when we're out of system? Those types of things. For me it's a lot about style of play. So I stop, when we're practicing, I'll stop a lot to talk about or to ask, what are you seeing here? What should you be doing here? Yeah. And so then for me it's all about. We're trying to create stability in our side of the net and create chaos on their side of the net. And so if you're not stable as a player, and that means the timing's not good you're on the way down the set was a bad location, then your job is to keep the ball in play and let us fight, another day, so to speak. And if you're stable and everything's good, I want you to be super aggressive and get after it and make aggressive errors, right? But we don't want to give points away. It's too, the. The margin for error against a really good team is not much. Yeah. It's two or three points. If you're limiting your errors, just unforced errors to, six or seven, that's really hard for a team to score 19 points. You, getting a bad set doesn't give you carte blanche to hit the ball 20 feet out. That wasn't there. Yeah. And you have to recognize and fix. That's right. So those are some of the things, we're very disciplined in how we do things in practice. And I, they know what they should be doing or what they shouldn't be doing in all different scenarios. And so it's, it is situational. And again, in practice we're gonna talk about finding that ledge. Yeah. Okay. You went after it and tried to make this crazy shot. In this particular situation, and that's fine in practice.'cause now you know, yeah, you can make that shot or no, you cannot make that shot. So at, 14, 14 in the fifth set you, that's not something you want to try to pull out just because you didn't score on the last three swings. So figuring out what they're capable of in practice, I think is key. And having that discipline and for me, having them coach each other and hold each other accountable. And it has to cross class lines. Everybody has to be doing it for us to get better. And so they're gonna push each other and they're gonna encourage each other and they're gonna expect a lot out of each other. And they're gonna vocalize that. And hold each other to this, whatever this, our standard is. And our standard is based on, what the drill is or how we carry ourselves or how we practice on a day-to-day basis. The standard is the standard and they all know what it is. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I want I want any coaches that are listening to this, we have a lot of high school youth coaches and other college coaches that listen to this. What I hear consistently from great coaches like you is the difference between Good to Great is in, in terms of being on the court and teaching. The difference is telling versus asking, and I keep hearing that from you, that Socratic method. Yeah. I'm not just gonna stop practice and tell you what you're doing wrong. I'm gonna ask you. Was that the right approach? Or why did you make that decision? Am I in the right world there? Oh, for sure. Oh, it's a lot of self-reflection and figuring out what you know, what you were doing, why you were doing it, what decision were you making there? Because, I'll see them make this egregious error and be like, and I, in my head, I'm thinking, what the heck was she thinking? And then I'll ask her, and then she explains it and I'm like, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I see what you're trying to do there. That's fine. That's a good error to make now and understand what, what adjustment to make to alleviate that or just don't do that again. Depending, so that, that's where the, that's where the learning happens. That's where the growth happens. And I think it's. For me, it's a mix of technique and having the, the skill drills and working that technique. So they have this the technique to be able to execute the skill that they need to execute when they need to execute it. And then playing the game so they're seeing all the different situations and competing and learning how to compete.'cause if, I tell'em all the time, if you're thinking while you're playing like. While you're competing, you're not competing anymore. That's right. Like you can't be thinking about your footwork and you know you've got, you, there's no way You can't, even if you can't beat your own footwork, there's no way you can beat the other team. You gotta trust your game once the whistle blows. That's the other thing for us. We talk a lot about trusting our game. Like you're not all of a sudden gonna grow six inches and jump six inches higher. When you put the uniform on and the whistle blows, like whatever, wherever you are. As a player or wherever we are as a team. When the whistle blows and we start to play, that's who we are and we gotta trust that. And that's good enough. We don't need to be something we're not, or try to be something we're not. All of a sudden we need to trust our game. So I say Hey, you didn't forget how to brush your teeth when you woke up this morning, so you didn't forget how to serve. It's gonna be okay. Yeah. Coach. I love the way you're answering the questions'cause you're very much speaking to a large audience and I know, you've listened to this the podcast a couple times is I'm, is we have people that, that are parents, that have kids that play baseball and we have parents that have kids that run track and volleyball. I'm gonna put you, I'm gonna put the families in your camp for a second. I want them to see Coach Dill, the camp director, the camp coach, the master teacher a little bit. Let's talk about hitting. Okay. Let's say I've got a daughter who's a PIN hitter and she struggles when that set isn't high enough or the set is short, or the set is long, right. Teach that pin hitter, how to deal with that before it's on top of them. What are we talking about footwork. When that set's about to hit the setter, the ball's about to hit that setter's hands. What do I want my pin hitter to be thinking about in terms of footwork? I think, for me, first of all, it's about getting to a good point of preparation, right? Are you, is your spacing good? Did you get to a good place that you have a full runway to make your full approach? And that's not taught well enough at the lower levels. Like it's just, oh, I'm gonna backpedal and I'm gonna get to about the 10 foot line. And now the set, set, the six foot line, because the setter set it off. So I have actually no real approach now. So I'm not gonna be dynamic, I'm not gonna be jumping as high, I'm not gonna be hitting as hard. So getting further off, to a good point of preparation off the net and off the court or wherever it is that you're supposed to be, that you have a, you're for your full athletic runway, whatever that is for you as a, as a player. Like for me, like middle hitters in transition, they have this invisible force field at the 10 foot line. And it doesn't matter whether it was a free ball or whatever, they just stopped there. And wait. And it's like you're huge. You can make a big run, a big approach, and be super dynamic. Get as far off as you can, given the time that you have to do it. Yeah. There's certain times in transition where everything happens very quickly and you don't have time to get off, but when you got, you've gotta work hard to get as far off as possible. And then that footwork is about waiting on that first step a little bit and then really exploding into your approach. And that, that's big for me. And then, how do you get how do you avoid making these errors? It's practicing the bad set. Here's, you're, I want, I'm gonna, I'm gonna place these balls I'm gonna feed you these balls. And they're all gonna be a little further outside that you would like them right. Now, how do you deal with that technically? What's the technique used to fix that? You are, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have you do your approach and be early, so you're on the way down. What do you do now? So that you don't hit it into the net, those types of things are, this ball's gonna be way inside, let's practice. What do you do with that? So it's the same thing with kind of service receive we get players and all they just get random reps and that's great for learning to read serves and doing that. But they don't know the technique to pass a ball that's deep over their left shoulder. They just, they've never actually learned it, right? So you're gonna, we have to practice all those things in order so that they have the technique so that when it is deep over their left shoulder and they got beat, or they thought it was gonna be somewhere else, and now they've gotta play it deep over their left shoulder, they're capable of doing it. So it's practicing the bad things that can happen and figuring out what is the technique to deal with these different situations.'cause everybody can hit the perfect ball if you've been playing long enough. That's great. That's great. But that's not the game. It is when you're in system and you have a great setter. That's right. Sure. And that's what everybody likes and that's hitting lines, but that's not the flow of play. That's right. What is that technique on a deep ball for a left side hitter that it's, everybody coaches a little bit differently. I think. You know what I find works for us is we talk a lot about. Drop stepping and picking a side and never, we don't really pass center line unless it's a really super easy ball. We want'em to choose a side really quickly, drop step, get back and have that that angle platform waiting for the ball and then being able to push that angle towards the target. Yeah. And instead of swinging our arms back. So it's recognizing and picking so we'll practice where our players are, in service, like right behind the 10 foot line. And the serves are going to be intentionally behind them. And so they've gotta learn to Reno, drop step, get back and get that angle out above their shoulder and figure out how does that work, right From different, from the ball coming from different angles from them and the different positions they could be in servicey wise, and getting reps at that. I think that's critical. I love it. I love it and it's such a tough thing. My daughter's a back row player and just getting her to understand that drop step and getting your frame there, you're often gonna make a better pass or the ball's not gonna be right at you. If you can get your body turned to get that frame and get your arms extended you're gonna have more ability to move that ball where you want it. Yeah. But it takes intentional reps with everything. It does, yeah. Coach you up for a little bit of rapid fire. Whatever you want. Okay. Let's have some fun with you here. Okay. What's one word your players would use to describe your coaching style? Let's see. One word. I think maybe challenging. I think challenging would be big for them. They know I'm gonna challenge'em and I'm gonna come at'em. And that I'm not gonna take it easy on'em. And again, it's different for everybody. I'm gonna try to figure out what works best for everybody and not, and find out how far I can push somebody and how they like to be pushed. And that takes me getting to know them and them getting to know me and having that relationship. For sure. Love it. What's the most memorable win of your career? Because you've had a lot of them. I. I think, Maybe, winning that first that first conference championship having our lobero, a stair loro to, for the championship point. I think that was a big one. Making the Elite eight and winning that regional championships. Those are really big moments. I think winning a conference championship at Springfield af reverse sweeping them in the final after they reverse swept us earlier in the season. I think that's a, that's an amazing moment as far as being a part of that match was just so fun. Yeah. Yeah. That first conference championship, that, that's the first one that always comes to my head too,'cause. You, that's when you go, I did it. We got this team to the point where we were the best in our league. And that's so huge. Love that. Favorite volleyball player or coach for you to watch? Oh, wow. Oh man. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. So many. I don't know if I have, I don't know if I have a favorite. I don't know. Is there somebody you admire? Is there somebody that you appreciate what they've done and I have so much respect and admire so many of the coaches that I get to coach against and I tell people this all the time for scheduling for me, yeah. I gotta worry about the NPI now and all of that and schedule correctly, but at the same time I like to schedule people that I like. Yeah. To see so I was the same. I, I have my, my, obviously we've got great coaches in our conference, and then a lot of the NECA coaches at Tufts and Con College and Middlebury and places like that. I love to play those people and Yeah. NYU and, just other coaches that I enjoy being around and enjoy that comradery as coaches. That's one of my favorite parts of the job, so that's I admire I like watching them coach as well, and so I, I enjoy that and seeing how they do it and seeing them get it, passionate about things and just enjoying that, that comradery is really big. Do you have a pregame, superstition or a routine? Is there something you do before every game? I do, but I don't, I'm not gonna share that. I think it's just, it's a very personal, just little thing that I like to do. Sure. But I, I we have a little thing that we do as a team in the team room before a match. There's a whiteboard there, and when I walk, the team's already in there, and then I walk in with the assistant coaches to give in the, the scouting report or go over it again and and give them some motivation, I guess some motivational words, but. But the first thing we do is they always put up on the whiteboard, a hangman that I have to figure out. And so that I love it. That's so good. Yeah. And and usually by three quarters of the way through the season my, my bandwidth is low. And so I can't think very well anymore. And so they start to stump me a little bit more, but they enjoy it. I enjoy it. And being a liberal arts guy that I am I love it when I can get it. On them. And so it's good. Very cool. Yeah. One quality you value most in a team Captain. Selflessness, I think. And communication. Those are the two big ones. Love that. Yeah. That's so important. So important for leadership. Last one. Best thing about coaching at MIT. The people, the department is amazing. The student athletes, the kind of people that come here are. Just unbelievable to work with. And I don't have to worry about discipline or drama or, they're, they buy in, they wanna be great at whatever it is that they do. And especially like a high academic place, if they're gonna put their time into some, there's so many other things pulling at their time, right? And so if they're gonna put their time into this, it has to be great. It has to be fun. It has to be challenging. They have to have some chance at success individually and as a team. And so they're gonna, they're, they wanna make it a great experience, so I put it on them. Otherwise they won't do it. It's not worth their time. There's too many other things going on so that's what I love about it. Thank you coach. This has been so much fun. I'm excited to talk some recruiting with you. So for those of you that have enjoyed this, come back on Monday, coach and I are gonna have a quick discussion on recruiting and get some advice from on there. So thanks coach. Appreciate it. My pleasure. My pleasure. I. What an incredible conversation with Coach Paul Dill from MIT. His three decade journey at MIT is a masterclass in consistency, intentionality, and high standards, both on and off the court. Whether it's his use of the Socratic method, his ability to develop leaders, I or how he maximizes one of the most competitive academic recruiting pools in the country. Coach Dill proves that great coaching is about more than wins. It's about lasting impact. If you're a coach looking to build something special or an athlete wondering what true excellence looks like, this episode was full of insight and wisdom you won't find in a textbook. Before we wrap, don't forget to check out my new book, the Softball Recruits Journal. It's your playbook for owning the recruiting process, staying organized, and making confident decisions about your future. You'll find it in plenty of free tools and resources over@coachmattrogers.com. And be sure to come back on Monday for our significant recruiting episode where Coach Dill and I dive deep into the recruiting side of the college athletics journey. You won't want to miss it. Thanks for listening and as always, keep coaching with significance. See you next time.