Episode #151: Bill Cleary on Recruiting

 The Truth About Division II Recruiting: Fit, Growth, and Learning Through Failure 🏀🎯 

In Part 2 of this conversation, Matt Rogers sits down with Bill Cleary, Head Women’s Basketball Coach at NCAA Division II St. Thomas Aquinas College, to talk about the reality of college recruiting and athlete development.

This episode focuses on two critical truths families need to understand:

🏀 NCAA Division II is not a step down from Division I — it’s about opportunity, development, and the right fit.
 📈 Too many athletes arrive at college without ever being pushed, challenged, or allowed to fail — and growth requires all three.

Matt and Bill discuss why honest feedback, higher standards, and strong support systems from coaches, parents, and mentors are essential for long-term success.

If you’re a recruit, parent, or coach navigating the college journey, this conversation will help you shift your focus from chasing level to building real readiness.

Find recruiting resources, including Significant Recruiting and the Basketball Recruit’s Journal, at CoachMattRogers.com

Learn more about Coach Bill Cleary at St. Thomas Aquinas College Women's Basketball

Transcript

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On the latest edition of The Significant Coaching Podcast, a presentation of the coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel, also available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcast. I'm your host Matt Rogers. Today's episode is part two of a two-part conversation with Bill Cleary head, women's basketball coach at NCAA Division two St. Thomas Aquinas College in the East Coast Conference. In part two, we dive into the world of NCAA division two recruiting, and we get into why the transition from high school to college doesn't necessarily require failure, but it can help dramatically in the overall growth of a student athlete's career. Coach shares many a great nugget of wisdom in this one. He's one of the best in the business and has been a successful coach at just about every level. Don't forget to go back and listen to part one if you missed it. All right. Let's get into part two with Coach Cleary. Coach Bill Cleary we just had a great conversation about coaching. We're gonna jump into recruiting. We talk as coaches about finding the right kids and building the right programs and having those foundational kids that we need. I loved how you talked about swagger and finding kids who are never satisfied. Yeah. If you got if you've gotten to the point in your career where you can identify that kid that has that confidence you're looking for, has that determination, does it translate from high school to college the way you'd hope it would? Or do you see that they have to fail no matter what the swagger is? No matter they have that attitude in high school that they're never satisfied. Do they have to fail when they get to you to figure out what that looks like going forward? They don't have to fail, but I think sometimes it helps. You know what I mean? Because that's how you learn. It's how you get better, I think. I think working with today's generation, and I don't mean this in a negative way in any way they're more perfectionist. You know what I mean? And I think they haven't failed because some or something has covered them so they don't have to, so they didn't have to. If that makes sense. Yeah. And a lot of times when they come here it's interesting now, a lot of times when they come here, it's the first time they're being told their effort's not good enough. It's the first time that they're finding out that there's other players that are just as good or if not better. And it's the first time where they're going, oh my, they're looking around, oh my God. Do I really belong? One of my favorite stories, Katherine Noack. Katherine, I'm sorry, but it's one of my favorite, you know I love you, but Katherine was a freshman and she was going up against Dana Wheeler. Now Dana Wheeler was just a rookie of the year. She's a sophomore. They both knew each other. They went to the same high school. They grew up together. And I went to Dan. I'm like, yo, show her no mercy. That's all Dana needed to hear and Dana showed her No. Mercy Unleashed the how. She just, and so Kat was just like, oh my God. Because Dana had gotten so much better from her freshman year through her sophomore year, like so much better. And there was a couple reasons why I did that intentionally. Number one, how's C, how's Catherine gonna get better? And two, Catherine, this is what you're gonna look like next year. I'm gonna do the same thing with you to any of the incoming freshmen coming in. So just understand this is, unfortunately, it's a rite of passage in our program. So after the individual Catherine comes up to me, she's in tears. She's just absolutely in tears and she goes. Could I don't belong here. I'm not good enough. Like I don't know why you recruited me. Like, why am I here? I'm like stop. I said, you belong here. You're definitely better than here. And I'm proving to you that number one, as I said you earlier, like this is what you're gonna like next year. I said, we're gonna laugh about this next year, Kat. We're gonna laugh about this. And we did. Now Kat ended up becoming an All American, Kat was the player of the year. Kat was a thousand point score, and the neat part about that is her father went to Bloom. So they're the first parent child. 1000 point score and her dad's in the Hall of Fame, and Kat is gonna be in, the, Catherine's gonna be in the Hall of Fame one day, and they're gonna be the first parent child combination in the Hall of Fame as well. So it's so you know, parents, your kids are gonna call home. Yeah. They're gonna, they're gonna tell you that they're not good enough. They're gonna tell you they don't belong. They're gonna tell you that. It's, they made a mistake. And I'm gonna tell you, it's all false. They do belong. They definitely didn't make a mistake. It's just the process and I think parents process. Being from Philly, trusting the process, even though we never got the championship, you still have to trust the process.'cause there's a process in everything and Yeah. People are like what's the process? It's the efforts. It's the execution, it's the energy, it's the focus, it's the discipline. Those are things. Don't worry about outcomes. The outcomes are gonna get there, but you gotta trust the process. Consistency, routine, doing it every day. Absolutely. Learning that you can do it every day. You can bring the same effort every day. Absolutely. Coach, I love, and I don't know how, if you'd describe it this way, but I could tell your coaching style is so much of the Socratic method. There's been so many times where you've told a story, instead of telling your athlete how to do it, you've asked them the question, what's missing? How would you do it? How would you solve this problem? Where does that come from for you? And has that always been there or have you, has that changed in, in, in those years? I think as you get older it changes. You read more, you become more I think when you're younger you think you know it all, yeah. There's not a, I was probably in an arrogant SOB when I was younger. Yep. Without question. I concur and there's, I got 200 former athletes that would say the same thing. I would tell you my, some of my athletes would probably tell you that too. Yeah. But I don't think I was arrogant. I think I was confident. Yeah. I think sometimes that gets conflated. But for me I think as you get older you un you, you obviously, you have more confidence in yourself so you don't have to yell or scream or Yeah. Do that to get what you want. It's I, one of the things how I raise my boys, it's don't take things at face value. Ask a question. I'm a big believer if you're gonna ask me a question, I'm gonna answer you with a question. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because I, I wanna get you to think I want you to get me to think, but I wanna get you to think, because a lot of times you have that answer, and I'm just trying to teach you that you actually have it in you, and I'm just trying to get it out for you to understand that, to get it out, if that makes sense. It makes complete sense. How important is that for parents going through this journey? To think that way with their kids, that you gotta, you can't solve their problems. You have to help them understand that they already, they either already know the answer or they already know the solution. And if they don't, they're capable of, figured it out on their own. Mom and dad, I can give you an example because I have my youngest son is in high school. He is 16. He's at a very prominent. Football program in North Jersey. They just won the state championship this year and he was recruited to go there. He is recruited to go to a couple of schools, and one of my favorite stories with this is, so we're, he's being recruited and the coach sits'em down and of course we're in the conference room and all the division one pamphlets are spread across the desk. And so instead of, I've always taught my son eye contact, that's important, and the coach is talking to him and he's just, you see him, he's just looking at all the different pamphlets on the table. And I'm sitting here and I'm nudging him on his knee going, look up stop it. Just pay attention. And after it was done, he's I wanna go there. I wanna go there. And I says I wanna go. I said that's great. I said, that's great. I said, but understand something.'cause parents, again, this is something you should be asking your kids too in the recruiting process. What if you get hurt? Do you see yourself going there? What if you don't play? Are you gonna be happy that you chose there? Now I'm really gonna make people's head explode. So I told my son, wherever you choose, that's fine, but you're not leaving there. You're not gonna transfer. Unless they're mentally or physically abusing you. I understand that. Because if I teach you well, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put that on hold for a second. So he's no. They're gonna, I'm gonna, if I don't play, I'm gonna prove to them that they should pray, play play me. All right. How you gonna do that? I'm just gonna work hard, dad, I'm gonna work hard. I'm like, yeah. Famous last words. I hear it every day. So he commits there, he signs there his freshman year,'cause he is a sophomore right now, freshman year he's on the freshman team for football and barely playing, getting one or two, one or two plays a game if that, and after the third game, he comes home, he throws his helmet. I wanna transfer. So as a parent, okay, I'm like hold on. Why do you wanna transfer him? I'm not playing, he's not giving me a chance. He doesn't like, I'm like, stop. Did he tell you he didn't like you? And he No, but you could tell I'm like, you can't tell anything, so knock it all. I said, are they mentally or physically abusing you? I knew the answer to that. I knew the answer was no. He goes, no. I'm like, all right, you ain't going anywhere. And he looked at me and I said, listen, in life, no one's giving you anything. You gotta earn everything you get in life. So if you want this really bad, you told me you're gonna prove it to him you're gonna prove it to him. You gotta get bigger, you gotta get stronger. You gotta put the work in. You're not doing that. You're telling me practices are going great, that's fine, but so it's going great for that other kid too. What are you doing to stand out? What are you doing to get your coach to notice you that you should get more time so you're not doing it? I said, and the last thing I'm gonna say to you is if I allow you to transfer right now, the only thing I'm teaching you is that when stuff gets hard, cut and run. You're not gonna do that. You're gonna fight. You're gonna find out who you are. This year he started jv, he got in, wanted to playoff games on varsity. It was a blowout, but, and the coaches said to me, and it doesn't mean that he's gonna play as a junior, but coach is he's getting bigger, he's filling out, he's taken to the workouts. I really like his future. He and he did, he went from being Exactly, he went from being about 5, 9, 5, 10 to 170 pounds. He's 6 2, 2 0 5 right now. And that's'cause they left and they get after it and, but he would've missed all that. Yeah. So parents it's a process. You're not, sometimes kids don't play as freshmen and you know what, that's okay. But you gotta trust the process. You gotta trust your kids. You gotta trust how you raised your kids. They're going to learn how to fight and they're gonna roll their sleeves up and get in it, to fight for themselves because they can. And I think that gets missed sometimes.'cause it's if he if John or Mary are not playing well, coach doesn't like him, so we gotta go take him somewhere else. And it happens as an adult too. You and I both had jobs that were just garbage. Just garbage. They never won. They didn't know how to win. They didn't know what they were doing. And if I would've stayed here, if I would've stayed flat and said, I'm just going to do what's given to me and take what's given to me and either deal with it or leave, I never would've achieved anything. Yeah I it's amazing how many kids over the years have just said, when I've asked them the same question you asked your son and they've said, I'm gonna work harder. My response is, so it's taken me to point out that you're not working hard, that all of a sudden you're now gonna work harder. Why didn't you work harder in the first place? Why weren't you leading the sprints? Why weren't you the first one in the weight room? Why weren't last one to read? Why all of a sudden now that you've failed or you're disappointed or you now wanna leave? Or are you deciding that you're gonna work hard instead of figuring out. Here's where I'm at. How do I make this better? I agree. And you find out so much about yourself as a person. You find out that you can handle so much more. And you know what, then he actually is in love with his school, his team, and everything about it. Yeah. Loves his coach. Loves his coach, loves the program, loves his teammates. He would've missed out on that. So it's like you find out a lot about who you are and that's part of the process. And then you're gonna be able to teach that to, to your kids and to your friends and to whoever else. But it's hard. Yeah. And people don't like hard, people win easy. It's the greatest gift we can give our kids is the gift of Figure it out, go do it. If there's an apocalypse tomorrow and there's no electricity and there's no plum plumbing water, we're gonna figure it out, or we're gonna, we're not gonna be around very much longer, so figure it out. Listen. And there, you don't think it crossed my mind, I might be setting my kid up to fail by telling him to stay? Yeah. Like you don't think I'm like maybe he's not cut out for this. Yeah I believed he was, but we're human. That's crossed my mind. I'm like, am I hurting my kid? Am I holding him back? It's only one way to find out, all right, coach, is there a kid that's not capable of it? The kid that's not capable is the kid that's not trying. That's what I mean. It's a kid that, and to me, I think everyone is absolutely capable of achieving whatever it's that they want. Yeah, I believe that. I always tell our players all the time, I believe in you. If you meet me halfway, we'll get there. Yeah, but I, you can't, I think sometimes they use our confidence in them as the foundation, but it's not what are you doing outside to confidence? I had a kid at Colgate tell me, you don't believe in me. I said, what do you mean I don't believe in you? I gave you a$300,000 scholarship. What do you mean? And she looked at me. I'm like, yeah, you got a full ride. You got a$300,000 scholarship. So that there, there's the old belief I anyone needs. Yeah. I brought you here. I believe in you. Did I throw you off? Am I kicking you off? Absolutely not. I said confidence is generat. Confidence for you is generated by what you're doing outside of practice. What are you doing outside of practice? Are you getting the reps? I'm we're telling you this is how we want you to play this, how we want you to score this, how we want you to be. Are you doing that? And if you're not, that's fine, but you're choosing that I'm not okay. And I'm here to help you. Anytime you want you, you ask. I'm there. So it's, I think a lot of times people think, oh the coach doesn't believe we brought you here. What do you mean we don't believe in you? What are you doing to help gain that confidence yourself? We'll be here. We'll work with you. Just ask And you can do it Mom and dad, they can do it. That's right. They can. They all have it in them. They all have it in them. No one's. No one's recruiting the wrong kid. Yeah. No one's recruiting the wrong kid. Yeah. But what you gotta do is, but you gotta tell your, you gotta tell your son or daughter that. What are you doing to help yourself? Yeah. And I think that gets lost a lot of times. I was a D, we need mom and dad, we need your help. That's right. We do. I was a D three coach for a long time, so every year I would take one or two kids that just wanted to be a part of the program. And I'd tell'em each time I go, you don't have the skillset, the size, the speed to play here, but if you want to be a part of this program, we will. We'll let you be a practice every day. Okay. We'll let you grow, but if you ever want to see the floor, if you ever want to have a varsity uniform, if you ever want to be a person that travels with us, you have to do things to make up a gap that the people in front of you, they're already past it. And I, and there's probably five or six kids over the years that I'm like. They did it. They put in the work. They took more shots than everybody else. They were in the gym more than anybody else. They were in the weight room more than else and they transformed themselves into somebody that I would've recruited. If they would've had that skillset back then, I would've recruited em. But it took, yeah, year, two years, three years to get there. You bring up a great point, and I think parents, you need to hear this because again, like I said it in the earlier podcast. You have to understand like there's a process, and I always tell freshmen coming in, don't compare yourself to the seniors, the juniors and the seniors, because they should look that way. A hundred percent should look that way. That's right. You gotta compare yourself to who you are and everyone learns things at different. Stages. It doesn't mean one player's better than the other, or one player's smarter than the other. It's just human nature. You and I could be, we're coaches, but you may pick things up a heck of a lot quicker than I do. Does that mean you're a better coach than I am? Vice person. Yeah. Vice versa. It doesn't, yeah. Probably not, but that's all right. It's just, one of those things where it doesn't mean that one's better than the other. It's just, it takes a while for that person to understand it. And there's nothing wrong with that. And just trust that you're going to get there. Yeah. You gotta trust that you're gonna get there and it doesn't matter when you get there. As long as you do get there. Yeah. And that's what we try to tell our kids all the time. Who cares? It's okay. Yeah. You're gonna get there, I promise. But if you put your head down, if you salt your shoulders, if you start worrying about, I didn't do this and didn't do that, it goes back to what do you do? Bring That's right. What do you do Bring,'cause you bring a heck of a lot more than you realize. Coach, I'm gonna put you on the sideline a little bit. I'm gonna make you put your recruiting cap on. I'm gonna lead you a little bit'cause I think parents really need to understand this too. And I need, I definitely know teenagers need to understand this. You're in a tournament, you're watching players and you see a skillset. You see somebody with handles, you see a great shooter, you see a great athlete. You see a somebody that great rebounder block out every trip, run the floor hard. Are you recruiting them? Based on what you're seeing, or is your brain already two years ahead in your system, in your offense with the players you already have? Where is your eyes and brain in that moment? That's a great question. It really is because any coach that recruits a player for what they are at that point in time is not, is probably not gonna last in profession much longer. That's right. Everyone's I didn't do this, I didn't do this, I didn't do this. Hold on. If I'm basing you on that, I'm not a good evaluator. There's, we recruit on, I told you we don't use scouting services. Now, NCSA sends me emails. Yes, I will look at them every once in a while. Yeah, a hundred percent. But I don't use a scouting service. What I do is, there's five criteria that I, my staff and I look for. First one is obviously. People talk about it all the time. We're looking at are they a good citizen? You know what I mean? Like obviously everyone talk character. Everyone's ah, character. Character of course. But no, like what I'm watching for is when your teammate falls, are you sprinting to pick her up when you're, when there's a bad call, how do you react when you're talking to your coach? Are you making eye contact? When you're out of the game, are you cheering or are you at the end of the bench worried about you? We look at those things, do you sprint to the huddle, when you, when your team meets. So those are things that we look for. That's the first thing we look for.'cause people are go, how do you gauge character? Obviously it's when you talk to'em on the phone, but you see a lot when they're playing because they don't realize they're natural, their, a natural instinct of who they really are comes into play. The second thing we look for is motor. Do you take a play off or not? If you take a play off I can't. We don't have time to coach effort. We just don't, you gotta keep going and going. You gotta be the energizer bunny, and again, you can't, as your motor's going, you're not really worrying about what you just did. You're worrying about that next play. The third thing we look for is skillset, like basketball, iq, basketball skill, and I'm not talking about the skill, putting the ball in the basket because that's easy. You can tell who they are. We're talking about skillset, are you on the help side? Are you, do you play angles? Do you know when the cutback door, do you know when the flare, when you're making a pass, are you passing it to where they need to be? Or are you passing it to where they were and now they gotta go behind them? Those are the things that we look for when we talk about basketball iq. The fourth thing we look for. Is length. Like I always tease, like in the recruiting process, I would never recruit me. I got DI got dinosaur Tyra sore arms. Like I, I literally walk around like this doesn't mean I'm cheap, but it's just what it is. And you gotta be long. You gotta have long length, that's a big part. And the fifth and final thing. And we can I can of take it or leave it, so to speak. But speed is big. And the reason I say that is two of the best players I ever coached, and they're probably two of the best players I did coach Michelle Whalen at Wilmington. Slow. No offense, Michelle, love you, but one of the brightest players like knew how to play the angles so well. And then Jocelyn Ford, I used to tease Jocelyn all the time. I'm like, Jocelyn, we're gonna get the calendar out to clock you. And she'd be like, that's all right. They gotta do that for you as well. I'm like, you're right. But. Again she got, she had the length as well, and she just knew how to play angles and she was always in the right spot, literally every single time. You can compromise on the speed a bit if they have that skill set in that length. It's funny, I just had this conversation with another basketball coach the other day when we talk about speed. Anybody that says Larry Bird was slow doesn't understand basketball. Larry Bird was always three steps ahead of everybody, so it didn't matter how fast his feet were, he was three steps ahead with the angle and his positioning on offense and defense. He was already there. He was already up the floor where he needed to be. His feet were set. And that speed of how he thought is what made him so special. Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Great example. Great example. If you're fast, yes. That's a huge advantage in getting up the floor and getting the rebound and getting loose balls. But it's here it's above the shoulder speed. It is because what good is it? If you're fast, you don't know how to use it to your advantage. That's right. Like I love my oldest son. He's fast, he should be in track, should be in track, and he's fast as lightning, but he didn't in the game, in basket, he didn't know how to use it to his advantage. Yeah you look at the guys and gals that are really great at taking charges, and I know taking a charge is like a, nobody talks about it anymore. It's it's not even a big deal anymore. But the people that take charges, they never get back cut. Their mans never open on the back side. Nope. They're always in the right spot. Always throw us always in the right spot. I was in the right spot. You just described Jocelyn Ford. Yeah. Literally just described Jocelyn Ford. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, and it's hard for parents and this is where I struggle in this role that I've taken on, is it's hard for parents that haven't played the game, or maybe they played but weren't taught it at a high level to understand what we're looking for.'cause they go my kids averaging 18 points per game. And I go, yeah, that's great. But if I, that's not put up on a D two floor in, in the EC right now, they would, their head would spin. Because they're never in position. They're in a situation where their coach gives'em 18, 19 shots a game. You're never gonna get that at the college level. No one's gonna hand you 18, 19 shots a game as a freshman. You have to be able to get open. Not happening. You have to be able to create space. Yeah, you have to be able to run in an offense and learn how to let the offense create some space sometimes. So it's really hard for families that haven't played the game to understand what you're looking for. And I think that's a big struggle in recruiting. Don't you think? I do. Again, like I think there's a lot of noise in recruiting too. Yeah. I think there's, and what I mean by a lot of noise, there's a lot of people telling these kids what. What they need to look for and what they should look for. And it's my brother, my, my nephew was being recruited. And I said to my brother, I said, have you asked him what he wants? Yep. You know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. Because I said to my brother, I said, you gotta be careful.'cause sometimes you got kids that. Such, they're they're such pleasers today. They wanna please their parents. Some of them, some kids don't wanna play. Mom and dad, some of your kids don't wanna play and you, yeah, you really gotta pay attention. You gotta really know your kid.'cause my favorite response from parents when I'm, when we're recruiting, you don't have to worry about my daughter. She'll be in the gym all the time. I just stare at them. I don't respond anymore. I was dumb in the beginning. I Oh, that's great. This is awesome. So naive. They had no idea. No idea. When I first got no idea. Because it's like, of course they did.'cause you made them go to the gym. You drove them to the gym, you know they're paying the trainer$75 an hour. Exactly. Come on. That's why they were in the gym all the time. They had to be. And I'm sitting there going, some of these kids, I need to put the gym in the GPS so they know where it's at. That's right. So it's and mom and dad, the difference is, it's not that they don't wanna get in the gym, but when they come to school, you're not standing over them to saying, are you doing A, B, and C? They experienced freedom for the first time. We talk like we didn't talk about it yet, but there's the transition between academics. Athletics and social is so important because you got three factors that are going a million miles a minute that these 18 year olds don't know how to slow. You gotta teach'em how to slow it down. Yes. Because academically, they come in there, they're like, all right, you gotta read the first four chapters, and they look at you like, they come in, coach, I have to read the first four chapters. I'm like yeah. Then we get in and we're doing. Like five different plays and we're doing all this stuff and they're going, we didn't just do one. We're doing all that. Yeah. Yeah. And then I can't even tell you about the social aspect where they're experiencing freedom for the first time, where they're like there's that peer pressure to be able to do this, and this. And it's so they're being thrown so many things. Mom and dad, a mile, a million miles a minute. They don't know what to do. That's right. They don't. I came from a town of 2000 people, no stoplights, no fast food, no nothing. Yeah. We had a farm and Fleet 15 minutes away, where you could get some farm genes and there was a Sears about 30 minutes away, so there was no options. I then went to college, a town of about 150,000, and there was a mall. So I wasn't going shopping anymore to go get what I needed. There were all these options I'd never seen before in my life, and all of a sudden my brain couldn't slow down. It was overwhelmed, yep. And I didn't say girls from everywhere and food from everywhere, it was everything. My whole, everything, all of my senses were overwhelmed for the first time in my life. And I was like, where do I start? I was the heavy kid at a buffet and they said, you can eat. You just took the word. That's exactly what it is. And parents, you gotta take yourself back to when you first got to college.'cause there is no, the only difference is now they got it. They gotta get up and do it every day. Mom and dad, they gotta do it every day. You're not the one doing it every day. They are. So they gotta wanna do it. That was the other thing I told my brother, I'm like, you want him to do this? But this he, I said,'cause remember he's gotta get up every day and do it, not you. Yeah, he does. Yeah. So you've gotta make sure that they wanna do it for themselves and not for you. Coach. I would come home from 12 to 18, 12 years old to 18 years old in the summertime. And my hands were black. My face was black. Yep. My skin was black.'cause I would play on the asphalt all day long. Yep. I love to play. I had to beg people to come play 1 0 1, 2 on two, i'm sure your palm was still white because I'm sure you weren't. Yeah, exactly. There was that little spot of white, because, but everything was black.'cause that's all I did was play. I drive down the highway. Drive down the street. I see empty court after empty court. After empty court. That's because. Are you there? Yeah. I'm just, yeah, I'm trying to, I thought you froze my, yeah, no, it's, my brain froze'cause I don't have the right question, the right answer. How do we get kids to play again? You know the mother that said you're gonna love my daughter. She's a gym rat. No, she's a training rat.'cause you pay for a trainer'cause there's a gun in the gym. Kids I watch, I'm watching Auburn and Arkansas the other day, and I'm going, oh my gosh, everybody's six, seven to seven foot one. Everybody looks like a 27-year-old man. Unbelievable bodies. And I'm, the more I'm watching, I'm like, there's not one guy I would draft in the first round. They're all amazing athletes, but there's not one guy on that floor I would draft in the first round. We, I was talking about it with one of our men's coaches the other day. That's how you, that's how you learned how to play basketball by going to the park. Yeah. Because if you lost, you didn't get back on. So you had to learn what you could and couldn't do. That's right. And I was telling you about Bernie Rogers one, I, he's the assistant ad and head boys coach at the Harvard School, and he was a division three, all American, but he was. Like five foot three. Five foot four. Absolutely. One of the best players I've ever seen. And he said if he was five eight, he would've played division one. And he's not wrong. And he and Chris Mooney would ask him how, why were you always able to score around all these guys? He's I go up to the park and I find the two, three tallest guys and I play him one on. Then I figured out what worked and what didn't. And then when I got in the game, there you go. That's what pe that's what we did. Kids today, and I'm not gonna sit here and say it's wrong because it's just different generations. It's today, the gen the generational thing is trainers. Okay, fine, but trainers, I'm gonna go to you. What are you doing to help make these kids better? What are you doing? How? Because I'm tired of hearing my trainer. My trainer. Your trainer has no idea what we do. Your trainer's then never been one of our practices. He hasn't looked at our workouts. So how are you training with this person who has absolutely no idea what we do? That's right. You can train all day long, but. You don't, you're trying the wrong thing. If you don't know how to get your butt baseline and see man and ball when you're two passes away, you don't know how to move up and on that rim line and be relaxed when you're playing defense. Know how to, and you're in a space to close out and get to the passing lanes and what angle to push that offensive player and you know how to hit and drive a guy or a gal that's bigger than you and drive him outta rebounding position. Maybe you don't get the rebound, but you've taken them out of position. I, I. I just I'm so frustrated. I've stopped training kids for that reason.'cause I train'em for an hour and the parents go, wow, I've never seen them do that before. That's so great. They're advancing. I go, that's nothing. If they don't come back here in two hours when there's gonna be 10, 35 to 50-year-old men out here and women playing and they're not out here learning how to play.'cause that's where you're gonna learn. You're gonna learn from that person that looks like they shouldn't be on the basketball floor, but they're gonna make every pass the right way. They're gonna score on you over and over again when they're outta shape.'cause they know how to play and you gotta learn how to play with each. Exactly right. Yep. I agree. Yeah. Coach, give a piece of advice to a 16-year-old that wants to play college basketball. How do they go about being seen, getting noticed, getting your attention? How do they do that? I think the best way now. Is you gotta send emails, you gotta introduce yourself. Find us on Twitter. Find us on Instagram, and send your information to us. And don't send one and stop. You're gonna have to send multiple, let us know where you're gonna be playing. Let us know what your summer AAU schedule looks like. Give us your high school schedule or you're playing in the area, you know what I mean? It's tough for us to get out during the season because. We got practices and stuff like that. But if you're in the area, we can get our coaches out to watch you play. But definitely send us or your AAU schedule as well. And send highlights. But listen, I always like to see two films. Highlights are great, but I could look good in the highlight and I wasn't that good. So definitely send two game films. Sometimes I send, I ask you to send one of your worst games'cause I wanna see how you respond. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's not always, send me your best, send me your worst. Because again, it goes back to that character piece. Can I coach you when you're at your worst? Yeah. Because there's gonna be times where you're gonna be frustrated and I gotta be able to coach you. You gotta be able to still follow and listen to what I'm trying to teach you. Yeah. Maybe send me your worst game and then send me the game after that. Yeah, exactly. We'll see how you react seriously. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Best advice to parents. Parents that have a kid that's going through this journey. Trust the process. Be patient. Do your homework. Try and find out how coaches really are.'cause a lot of times coaches are gonna tell you what you wanna hear, just like you guys are gonna tell us. I'm straightforward. I'm not, I'm being real. This is how who I am. This is how I am. Yeah. There's gonna be times I'm gonna upset your daughter. I'm just being honest because I'm challenging her.'cause she don't wanna get outside her comfort zone. It's just what it is. You know what I mean? But, do your homework. Find out, have conversations with the coach li listen to the con. I'm not saying, listen I, let me phrase that be on that first call. Ask questions. Yes. Guess them. The answer, what type of leadership style do you, are what does, what would your player say about you if you weren't there? Do former players come to your games? You know what I mean? Things of that nature. You know what I mean? Yeah. Do you stay in touch with your former players? You gotta find out'cause. Your child's, your most precious is your most precious possession. So whoever you're entrusting that to, you're not gonna just hand them over. I hope you would do your homework. I hope so too. Last question. How do you wish high school and club coaches were teaching their athletes about recruiting? Look for the best fit. Not the best offer.'cause the best offer. Doesn doesn't forget what's on the jersey and the division level. Yeah. I told my youngest son, like a really prestigious division three school reached out. I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. You'll be set for life. Yeah. Yeah. Don't get caught up. Don't get caught up. Look for the best fit because again, just like you tell the parents. So the kid has to do it every day. Coach, how would you advise club coaches, au coaches, high school coaches on what they should be teaching their kids about this recruiting journey? Again it's just like we talk about the parents. Look for the right fit. You know what I mean? Don't worry about what the Jersey says, what, what level. I think a lot of times. I think a lot of times, particularly the trainer, like the au coaches, club coaches, they try to tell you like, yo, you gotta go to the highest level you possibly can, but that's great, but is that really what is best for that student athlete? I don't think so. I think you gotta look for what's the best fit for that individual. And it's obviously, it's different for each player. And I think now with today, we didn't even touch upon it, but like the NIL and the transfer portal, it's. Mom and dad, I gotta be honest with you, a lot of these D one schools are not looking at high school kids. They're just not, unless you're the creme of the creme, they're not looking at your son or daughter. They're just not. Yeah. And that's okay. I, one, one of the things I like, I'm a division two coach, one of our, my son's club coach. Is telling his players, just go to division tour, division three, get your stats and move up. And I'm like, whoa, stop. That's cool. Come on, you're killing my profession. But I think at the end of the day, you gotta look at where you know, for the right fit. Yeah. And parents. If your offers are Division iii, your kid is Division iii, they're not missing it. Stop trying to make your son or daughter something that they're not. And I think that gets lost too. And I think, I think people are always like, oh, I know my son, I know my daughter, and that's great that you do. It don't matter. It doesn't matter that you know your son or daughter. It's what those coaches think of your son and daughter, and that's what you have to understand. It's the idea of marrying a Victoria's Secret supermodel and driving a Ferrari is great, but I'm six foot one over 200 pounds. And me getting into that car on the bottom and trying to drive that thing, and then the maintenance that comes with it and the insurance that comes with it. Not so great. And then that supermodel, she might not have a personality, she might not make you laugh. She might not make you, make you feel like you're in a relationship. You're constantly giving, sometimes you gotta go where happiness is and where your heart, you gotta go where you're wanted, gotta go where you're wanted. Go where you're wanted. That's right. What's wrong with that? What is wrong with that? Like I, again, going back to my son that is at that high school, I taught him like, you choose this school. That's great. I support it, trust me.'cause I love the lessons he's getting. That school has done wonders for him. I'm like, but understand something. They'll recruit over you. Yeah, they will. And he looked at me like they'll recruit over you. Yeah. So don't get comfortable.'cause when you get comfortable. That's when they get, that's when they're gonna go recruit over you and mom and dad. They're gonna recruit over your kids. They just are because at division one today, it's not about, it's not about development anymore.'cause there is no developing. Yeah. They have to be developed by the time they get there. Division one schools are looking at that, at players that are looking at student athletes that are already developed and they're paying them millions of dollars. That's right. So division one athletics is no more is not amateurism anymore. It's a business. That's right. So I understand that. Do you, do your recruits come in and scrimmage with your girls before you make an offer? Is that a good thing for you? Do they ever get that time? I'm a dinosaur. I told you. I'm looking at them. You asked a question. Can I tell in five minutes? Yes. 30 seconds I can tell. I can tell whether I want this kid in my program or not. I can tell. Does it help you to get feedback from your girls on an overnight or on a visit though, to where they say, oh, a hundred percent, I really this one. Or, listen, you need to back up a little bit here on this one. So I'll give you two stories if you don't mind. Please. I'm at Bloomsburg and my players say to me, we had an overnight with these kids. They came into my office the next morning and they're like, do not offer them. They don't fit. We went back, remember I told you I was arrogant a little bit when I was younger? Yeah. They're fine. We already offered'em. We're fine. They commit. I'll never forget after the kids, they're freshman year. My seniors came in. You gotta cut'em. They're not the right kids. You forget how you were as a freshman. Do you remember how you were as a freshman, all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. They were right. They were right. So you wanna talk about learning? I go to Colgate, players come in my office. This kid's not a fit for the program. Done. Called the kid up. You're not a fit. Yeah. Went another direction. Go find another place that could be a better fit. Sorry. It's just the players didn't, and I said it, the players didn't feel you were fit. And that's, that, that's it's, that's just as important to me. And they know and isn't it the case though? As we get older and you and I are about the same age, were the more we let go of that rope of ownership and we hand it over, the more the ownership is taken. Yeah. And you talk about, what would you say to your younger self? That's what you're telling yourself. Because my 27-year-old self as a head coach would never have listened. Yes. And I was, at that time, I was 33 when they told me that. And I'm like, you don't know to talk about. Yeah. And then I was. 40. I was 41 when it happened the second time and I was like, I'm listening. I believe you we're good. And that was it. I had a young coach ask me the other day, I've been, this is, this would've been my 26th year and no 27th year in coaching at the college level. If I would've stuck it out. And they asked me what I would've done differently, I go, I was a 95% drill, 5% maybe scrimmage guy. I think I would flip the switch today, and I would teach so much more in context and scrimmaging than I ever did. Mike. Mike, we never scrimmage at all hardly until maybe end of December, January, five, 10 minutes of true scrimmage. I'm laughing because Wilmington Bloomsburg, we were even Colgate. Yeah. My first couple years here. Up and down. Yeah. I feel we're doing more drills today. Yeah. Our kids are asking for it.'cause they're not, they don't know. They don't know. It's amazing. What, and these kids, they all have trainers. What are your trainers doing? You can only do so much with one kid. Y. If you're training eight kids at a time, yeah, you can get a lot done. You can do forum four and really develop offensive defense. But if all you're doing is movement and drills and handling the ball and getting open in space, now all of a sudden you don't know how to handle a help side. You don't know how to handle a double team. You don't know how to handle a three, two zone or a trap because your trainer can't teach that to you one-on-one. They don't know it, and they don't know it. And they don't know it. Yeah. Yeah, coach, you are fantastic. I hope you don't mind if I call you a friend because my gosh, man I love what you're doing. I love your attitude. We're two peas outta the same pod in terms of how we look at raising kids. And but thank you so much for sharing your energy and your love for teaching and coaching and mentoring with my audience and me. And I'll be cheering like crazy for you guys the rest of the way. I appreciate it, and again, I really appreciate this opportunity and if anyone has any questions, they can always reach out. I, I love helping people. That's why we both got in, right? It's, coaching is as a service, and when anything I can do to help, just sign me up. That's what I'm here for. And if you're in the area of Santa Aquinas college, man, go watch a game. If you don't know what the difference is between Juco NAID 3D 2D one, go watch Coach. Coach, go watch the competition. And you'll know very quickly what that it's not just I can just go play there. Yeah. So thanks for doing this, coach. It's No worries. And it's St. Thomas Aquinas College, St. Thomas. What did I say? Santa Aquinas. Excuse me. Just wanna make sure because if they go to a Santa Aquinas, they're not gonna see me. Just one, I'm so bad with my t my tug twister. So glad you No worries, trust me. No worries. And I'm looking at your website right now, so I couldn't even read it'cause it was right in front of me. So no worries. St. Thomas Aquinas College. Thank you coach. Yeah, we'll talk to you. Thank you. Absolutely. Take care. That was one of those conversations I didn't want to end. That was part two of my conversation with Bill Cleary head, women's basketball coach at St. Thomas Aquinas College one of the biggest takeaways from this one is this, too many athletes are getting to college without ever being allowed to fail. They've never been told their effort isn't good enough. Growth requires challenge. It requires honest feedback, and it requires coaches, parents, and mentors who aren't afraid to push athletes toward their potential. And support them through that struggle. If you miss part one, go back and give it a listen. The whole conversation is well worth your time. And if you're a basketball family navigating the recruiting journey, you can find significant recruiting and the basketball recruits journal@coachmattrogers.com and@amazon.com. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.