Hoops & Hustle E1 The Come Up

Hoops & Hustle - The Come Up: This 1st Episode you will get to know Coach Emmett. He speaks about his upbringing in sports and basketball. He talks about what got him into coaching, why women’s basketball, and the journey and pathway he took to get to where he is today. Achieve your dreams, manifest them!

Transcript

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Hello everybody, and welcome to my podcast, Hoops and Hustle, a coaching podcast. I am coach Emmett, and on this podcast, I will be talking about various things that go on within coaching, and also along with coaching. I will take you in depth on certain topics of the game. In this episode, my first episode to come up, you will get to know me through my personal journey, how I grew up, And how I ultimately became a coach. I will also, at the end of this episode, share where I would want to be eventually. The end goal. The end game. Growing up, I was that annoying ass kid full of ADHD. I admit I'm loud and brought a lot of energy and still do bring a lot of energy. Being so high, strong and full of explosive energy. My parents put me into sports. Coming from a very athletic family, I excelled in most sports. My mother played sports. Her grandfather, My great grandfather was a pitcher and the other side of the family, my father played professional baseball for 12 years, 10 years in the major leagues and two seasons over in Japan. So you would think baseball, right? But no, basketball was number one and baseball was second. Being that annoying ass kid, I remember making crowd noises in my room, keeping score with a few calculators and a timer. I was playing on a mini basketball hoop pretending I was in game seven of the NBA finals on the Golden State Warriors. That was the beginning to all things basketball. My best basketball moment growing up was at legendary Keysar Pavilion in San Francisco. I was in eighth grade in the San Francisco Flame Tournament. Keys are for those of you who may be unfamiliar, it's a pro size court. It has a high school, college, and NBA three line. It was quite the experience as a young basketball player to play on a court that I have gotten to see pro am guys and my favorite college athletes play on. During that game at Kezar, I had the best game of my life. We had a few three point plays for me that my coach kept running cause I was in human torch mode. Ended up dropping 46 that game. Mind you the best three point shooter Stephen Curry was still in college. I did this before Steph ultimately changed the game. So it was pretty cool to be shooting threes as Bob Fitzgerald would say from Oakland, from San Jose, from Millbrae, before the greatest shooter of all time became the greatest shooter of all time. Then high school came around. I was a student athlete as I attended Hillsdale High School, where I played both baseball and basketball. Basketball was tough on my body as I sustained many injuries that led me to a tough decision that I had to make. That decision not to continue to play basketball changed my life. I cried countless hours as I dreamt of playing collegiate basketball. It flat out sucked that I couldn't play at the highest level anymore. I have always been that kind of person who wanted to give back and serve the community. I also, at the time, was missing basketball like crazy. That is when I decided to coach at my old school St. Dunstan's and it went all afloat from there. I coached six 7th and 8th grade boys during the basketball season. Then played baseball at Hillsdale during the baseball season. I still continue my coaching career in basketball and playing baseball. When my sister hit the fourth grade, I switched over to coaching girls basketball. Learning the women's side of the game was the same but different in so many ways. Fast forward to my sister's 7th grade season, we were tested in so many ways, Before the season started, one of the girl's mothers passed away. This was a very emotional time, and we dedicated the season to her. The girl made a huge leap of improvement, and her and my sister were the one two punch threat from three. My sister came up clutch in so many ways that season. She was that combo that gave you 3 point shooting from beyond the 3 point line, speed for blow by quickness, great euro, good aggressive finisher, and also a flashy passer. Everything you would want in a player. During that 7th grade season, there were two games that really threatened our undefeated season. The game against St. Tim's, we were down 15 and the girls weren't responding and I was pissed. So I took a timeout and my assistant coach saw that I was pissed off and said, you're gonna lose the girls. And I said, well, you know what? I already lost them. So if they don't respond, they don't respond. And so be it. I held each and every one of them accountable during that timeout, got on them, got back out there, and they responded. From down 15, closing in, my sister hit a big 3, to down 1, coming back to win that game by 5, that was one of the greatest games I've ever coached. And shit, that was at the 7th grade level. The other game that really threatened us in our season was against our rivals OLA in the championship game. We beat them in the regular season, And knowing this PPSL league, not to knock the league or anything. Some of the coaches are parents and just are out there coaching their kids and others have their credit and, uh, you know, have coached at the high school level or AAU. But, Knowing, OLA and just to be prepared, I really started getting into breaking down film from a regular season game. Breaking down the film helped out a lot. Just kind of seeing who was who, and what plays they ran and how to stop them. Bye. I was thinking they're going to try to shut down my sister cause at that time it was her and one other player that, you know, we're locked down players, that you need to lock down or else they're going to hurt you. But going into that game, we were undefeated and we just had one more mission to accomplish. We accomplished that mission with great play. My sister had a great game. The girls whose mom passed away had a great game and we did it for her. We won the championship for her mom who we dedicated the season to. This was a sigh of relief, sigh of joy, sigh of remembrance. Just every bit of emotion that you can sum up into that moment. At the end of my sister's eighth grade season is when I entered the AAU world. I experienced high school coaching for the first time, going up against some of the top competition from really all over. Getting our asses whooped. In Oakland, especially by the Oakland Soldiers, taught me a very valuable lesson. One, I had to take my coaching game to the next level. Two, I had to dive deeper into becoming a student of the game, and becoming obsessed, a basketball guru, a nerd of the game. And three, I had to develop and add the arsenal of player development to my coaching resume. As I worked hard with my varsity girls AAU squad, we got better and better. They were getting better because we were putting in the time for individual development, which I will go more into depth in another episode. But these girls started to beat teams who we lost to. They began winning. My name started getting around. And, I would pick up a few clients here and there to train one on one with. My name starts getting out there, since I had success in the AAU world. And my athletic director at the time where I was working at Baselight Academy in San Mateo asked for me to coach some of the teams as a favor. I said, sure, why not? So, for a few years I ran three to four teams, all A teams, boys and girls. All my girls teams would always make the playoffs. And the boys on the other hand had great talent, but we just couldn't put it all together. That's when I knew I was a girls coach. In my last year of coaching at B Side. I coached one of the best basketball players that I've seen. Her name's Camille and she, she was a beast. We had our rivals Burrell. It was, it was a fun time going up against our rivals Burrell. And two of my really good friends, the Codians, they coached at Burrell and it was always a fun battle, battling against them. It led me to a place where I knew it was time for me to take that next leap. And ultimately I said, fuck JV, I'm going for a varsity job. The search begins for a varsity position. I go on ed join and I start seeing the positions pop up there was three positions that were doable within my range. And One with South San Francisco High School. I applied there and took an interview, didn't get the job. So then I continued to search and I was like, perfect. It's home. Hillsdale, my alma mater. So I applied to Hillsdale, hoping I'd get that position. I got the interview, but, they went in a different direction. The third position was the best choice for me. It was almost meant to be. Jefferson High School in Daly City. Ironically, the alma mater of my aunt's parents. And I got the news that I got the job and I was overjoyed and it was a blessing, honestly, to coach at Jefferson High School. My first season as head coach at Jefferson, first meeting with the girls I get to Jefferson High School, We're meeting in the gym classroom and some of the starters come in late with jack in the box and I was like, oh god, here we go. I understood that they were trying to get to know me and I was still trying to get to know them. I laid down my expectations and goals for the year and what I really wanted out of this year's team. We started in late September for the ladies who were not in a sport to do some speed and conditioning training and to really get them in shape for the season. And this ultimately went a long way. I got a lot of buy in and by far, Jefferson High School was a blessing. I had the best season as a first year coach, a first year coach can ever imagine. I swear when I had, I had six starters, maybe seven starters. That's a great problem to have on a public school team. They, we're going over the playbook and whatnot. And my assistant coach was kind of like, I don't know, this might work, this might not work. The coach from the previous year who retired quote unquote You'll hear about him later on in a different episode He came in and offered, you know, hey, let me show you what we did last season and kind of showed me some things and I was accepting of it and decided to go with a 50 50 playbook so the girls had something familiar with And also something new with. With that 50 50 playbook, we posted a 14 12 record, won 7 5 in league, and 3rd in the peninsula north. Now, we had some major wins against Woodside, we beat Gunn, and we'll come back to this, but we beat San Mateo High School 83 35. We beat Westmore, our rivals, and it was a great year overall. We got the 8th seed in CCS, which guaranteed us a bye. But then we had to play at WCAL school, which is one of the tougher leagues out in our area. We ended up playing presentation in their coach. I had some beef with, before, former Golden State Warrior Gary Plummer. We ran into each other in the AAU world. And, I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt here. He beat the shit out of my teams. So we played presentation, And, We beat them 42 to 38, In a tight game. And let me tell you, It felt fucking nice, beating former Golden State Warrior Gary Plummer. That got us into playing against Mills in the quarterfinals where we came up short and we gave it all we got. This was the best season by far. Like I said, this was the best season a first year coach could ever have, as I drove the Jefferson High School girls basketball program, the farthest they've ever gone into CCS history. As the spring and summer came around, I decided to play baseball again. I came out of retirement already playing pro for a couple of years because I had an opportunity in the Pecos League in Martinez, California to play with my brother again. We haven't played on the same team since we were little kids. On my dad's future pro team. This was a great opportunity. I knew that this would be my final year of playing baseball ever and I had to hang up the cleats. It was sentimental because in my last game My brother came out and took the ball for me with two outs, ending my career there. But then I got an invite as an honorary player in the Pacers League all star game. I was selected to the all star team and I got to close out the game pitching to nonetheless my brother behind the plate. My last out. I struck at the guy out. It was an amazing feeling. But I knew that was it. And I knew I had to hang up the cleats. And really hone in on my skills. And focus on what was that task. Coaching basketball. Getting better. Striving. Working. And getting to that next level. My first season was great, but my second season, I'm not going to make any fucking excuses or anything, but we ran into injury bugs and sicknesses at the wrong time. I had to work with what I had. 10 and 14 record and only went two and eight in league. Now, We got off to a decent start After dropping two we went and started winning some games and then Sam Mateo put a stop into it We'll get to that in another episode But we lost to Sam Mateo 43 to 32 Not having two of my starting players there. It was a down year for sure, but we still made CCS and we made it close and we fought to the end. So, in the middle of the season, when we were at San Mateo High School, one of the assistant coaches, Fonz, who developed me in some of my game and also reffed a lot of my games, he, and I talked and he told me to give him a call when the season was over. After my second year at Jefferson, I went and gave Fonz a call and he said, why don't you think about joining our AAU program over at Bulldogs and having your team come over and coaching your team under Bulldogs. And I said, fuck yeah, let's do it. So I brought my team over to Bulldogs. Moving over to the Bulldogs and having my Bulldog Select team was a blessing. I got the P-A-L-M-V-P defensive Player of the year and one of the best PAL players who scored over a thousand points in her high school career to commit and play for me that PAL player. That had over a thousand points is now playing at UC Merced. That 2024 spring and summer was one of the best AAU summers of my life. Traveling to tournaments winning some tournaments and playing difficult games at a higher level made my coaching better. Coaching these girls taught me so much how to make already skilled players and develop already skilled players into better players. It was kind of scary to see how already great player can become even better. Now we got invited to the West Coast elite college viewing, and this was the opportunity for my girls to showcase themselves in front of college coaches. It was also kind of an audition for me as well. And I got to networking, really connect with college coaches. Some even told me that I would make a great college assistant. This is when I started to entertain the idea of going the college route. When I told Fonz about entertaining the college route and what the college coaches said to me, fonz made a phone call. That phone call was to Coach Michelle at CSM. Soon, Coach Michelle, Coach Pat and I sat down for lunch and the rest is history. I am now part of the College of San Mateo's coaching staff. So here I am entering my 16th year of coaching, training fourth graders all the way to the pro level and being a student of the game and coaching at the college level and still coaching AAU ball. Now for my future, where I want to go, where I want to be the ultimate goal. Is to be on that D1 bench. On the next episode of Hoops and Hustle, I will be talking about goal setting. Everywhere you go in life and whatever you do, you should set goals. Goal setting is huge. Everyone should have long term and short term goals to strive and work towards.