Hoop & Hustle E7 Hoop Talk with Special Guest Coach Pat

Hoops & Hustle, Hoops Talk CSM Addition with Coach Patrick Coffey. Get to know coach Pat and how he goes about his coaching styles and preparation.  

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to my podcast, Hoops and Hustle, a coaching podcast. I'm Coach Emmett. On this special edition of Hoops and Hustle, Hoop Talk, we will be joined by a special guest. We will get to know our special guest with a little Q& A and he'll go on about his coaching philosophy and how he got started as a coach. We'll go into detail about some various topics of the game as well. Hello everyone and welcome to Hoop Talk. I'm with my fellow CSM assistant, Pat Coffey. Pat, how's it going? Doing well. Thanks for talking to me. I'm excited to answer some cool questions. Okay. Pat, why don't you tell us a little bit about your playing career in college and what got you into coaching and why CSM? Sure. Yeah. So I started from Massachusetts. I played at Westford Academy in Westford, Massachusetts. I was looking at playing division three basketball and I ended up being a, college player at Colby Sawyer college in new London, New Hampshire. Which is really small school, only about 1000 people kind of up in the cold mountains. So I really enjoyed that. When I got there, we only had about 11 players on the team and no seniors. So you know, I had an opportunity right away. When I went in there and, you know, make the typical freshman mistakes, you would, I still was someone who was in the rotation. And had a lot of opportunities, so I started out coming off the bench and then, about halfway through my freshman season, I ended up being a starter and then was a starter for the rest of my career. After that, was a two year captain as a junior. And then as a senior. We had some good teams, my sophomore year team was our best team. We went 19 and 10, something like that, 19 and nine, lost in our conference championship one game away from. March Madness that year. Yeah, I had a really fun career, ended up scoring over a thousand points, had some awesome teammates I played with, a lot of great players from New Hampshire and other New England states and stuff like that. After that I graduated in 2020 and I knew I wanted to either play, get a master's degree, or get a job. So I was looking at all three of those options. When I got. Towards the end of my senior year, I really felt like I wanted to keep playing. So I looked into different opportunities to play and some people talked to me about how in Europe you could play and get a master's degree at the same time. So I looked at those. One of the programs I was looking at was in Ireland. That one didn't end up working out for me, but while I was waiting to hear back for them, I was looking at schools in England. Ended up going to Bournemouth University, which is on the South Coast, and then I, went there to play. When I got there, they canceled the, basketball season and put all the classes on Zoom. So then, I took my degree, but I still had the opportunity to, uh, I didn't get to play, but I still got to live there. Still got my degree in sport management. It was a great time, lived there for about eight months, came back, and then when I was back home in Westford, I got asked to coach the JV girls basketball team at my local high school. That same year, I got asked to try out for a semi professional team in Massachusetts, made the team, just really loved my experience in basketball and decided I wanted to coach. And my girlfriend. She was big on moving somewhere warmer than New England. Yeah, so, yeah, we just started looking for jobs that were in places warmer than New England and I applied for anything that fit those and then ended up, back, uh, getting an opportunity to interview in California and now I'm here. So yeah, I really have enjoyed my time at CSM for sure. That's awesome, man. Where would you like to go eventually, like after CSM? Where's like your end goal or what do you want to do potentially down the road? Yeah, I'm aspiring to be a division one coach someday or maybe a professional coach if the opportunity ever came up. I could see myself doing that. I could also see myself becoming a head coach at this level or at maybe a NCAA division two or three school. I would really enjoy that as well. Uh, but still hoping to find an opportunity at those higher levels right now. Dang. If that ever happens, take me with you. Yeah, for sure. All right. Let's talk about, coaching philosophies and like, what, what are your views on coaching philosophies? Cause all coaches kind of have. different coaching philosophies. And my view is kind of like that, you know, people think it's all about X's and O's and breaking things down. From my experience, I, I kind of have a different outlook and I, kind of based it off relationships and discipline because I kind of believe in, in those two things. And if you establish those two things, It creates a platform for your, for your program, sort of speak. It gives you that discipline in a player and it creates that family atmosphere. So it kind of gives you both. And I also kind of love what Coach McKillop kind of speaks on is that 3D vision. You got to have discipline to use details, to use the decisions. So I kind of, I kind of based my stuff off of Off of those coaches kind of combined, and I know from mentorships and whatnot that you may have had, you might kind of find your coaching philosophy through. Other coaches and then stick with one or two that really you believe in. Mm-Hmm. and mi mix it and mesh it to be your own. So I just kind of wanna get your views on like, what is your coaching philosophy? If you had your team, you know, your, your own team someday as to head coach, like what would your philosophy be? Yeah, I think, the first thing is it's really important to be true to yourself. So like a lot of coaches are different. Everyone's different. Some are super energetic. Some are more to themselves. Some have different values. And from what I've learned from really successful coaches at higher levels is they coach the way that they're most comfortable. So for me, like, I'm not someone who's going to be super in your face and like bouncing around the gym. I'm more someone who likes to think through every situation and be super prepared. I would describe myself as, more cerebral. I think of my priorities as one, transformational relationships. So I really like to get to know the players. I like to get to know everyone on the staff and really, you know, build a rapport with them. I think that's super important. One, because I just enjoy it. And then two, because it just makes everyone a little bit better, I think, at working towards the same thing. And then the other thing I would say, being prepared is super important for me. So putting time in outside of practice, um, whether it's film study or, you know, thinking about how we want to work up our way up to where we're going to be at the end of the season, planning out a practice plan for the whole year, not just like one day at a time. Then I would also say. I'm someone who's big on being curious and making sure you learn something new every day. I'm hoping to learn something new every day of my life until I die. That's like a big thing for me. Yeah, so I hope like everyone who is a part of the program, is doing those sort of things. And then I also think it's big to, make sure there's a dialogue between you and your players. That's something that's big for me. You don't want them to make every decision, but It gives them ownership of the team when they have some say in what's going on. So I like doing that. Um, you speak about film and you might, you might not know this about me. Like when, when I was, I talked about it in my first episode, how I kind of came up and when my sister entered the fourth grade, I kind of took over her team and whatnot. And we were undefeated, um, her 7th grade year when I coached her. That's what really started the women's basketball when I started with her in the 4th grade. But, uh, down to the 7th grade, one of the moms passed and, we wanted to do something special for her and dedicate the season and we, fortunately got, an undefeated season, but you probably don't notice, um, But I, I started watching film from, I, I filmed every game and I started watching film for our championship game to kind of like break it down. I mean, I've gotten better over the years, but, you don't, you don't see that from a lot of seventh grade coaches, um, but I just want you to speak on how film really can get into a player's head and how it can help player development and why it's so important to start it at a younger age. Like they. Shouldn't they be doing this like in the eighth grade, like at least eighth in high school or what, what's your views on how young to start film, where to start with that for player development? Yeah, I think it's a great resource to help you improve. You don't always have the people available for you to film all your games, but it's super helpful. One, because you memory's not perfect. So you can go back and say, wait, what happened on that play? What did I do wrong? What did I do? Well, why did that play work or not? You can also go back and you can slow things down. So if you're learning a new concept, film is a great way to look at it and understand rotations, understand where the defense is, offense. Maybe you're learning a new move and you're saying, okay, how is my footwork on that sort of play? Why am I traveling? All those things. Also you can rewind, right? So if you miss something. If something happens too quick in a game and you miss it, that's that. But if you're watching film and something happens, you can go, wait, wait, wait, let me watch that again and watch it as many times as you want until you understand it. So as soon as, a player has the, kind of drive to want to do that, I think it's a great resource. But obviously not everyone has that. Hopefully a lot of high schools give their players the opportunity to start doing that. Cause that's not really something I did as a player until probably after college, and now as a coach, I wish I did it a lot more often. How would you present it to coaches? Cause like, from my experience from coaching at Jefferson, at that Varsity High School level, it was kind of a struggle to keep the players engaged during film. I've, um, I set boundaries where like they had to put their phones away because they would take out their phones, they would be off task, they'd be drawing, doing something else, and they weren't really engaged in the film when we were trying to speak on it. And really kind of, kind of what we do here, pick down plays and like, hey, I know what they're about to call sort of thing. So watch this because they're going to call it during the game. So like, how would you. What would your advice be for a high school coach to really grasp the student athletes attention and really, like, tell them, Hey, film's important. This is what you need to do. Yeah, I think if you're a high school coach, you probably don't have that much time to go over film with the players. So it's super important that you're very, concentrated on the exact thing. intentional about what you're trying to show in that film session. So if I know I have 10 or 15 minutes for a film session, I want to make sure that I have that already broken down where it's like, maybe I just want to show the players how they can improve on ball screens. So I'll cut it up and I'll be like, all right, or I'll at least make notes of where in the film, the ball screen, good ball screen coverage or bad ball screen coverage happened. Or maybe it's an offensive thing and I just want to show them how they could be better at offensive rebounding. Well, then I'll make sure I have those clips ready of, good offensive rebounding, bad offensive rebounding, just to show them a specific thing that they can improve on. Or if it's an opponent, pick the things you feel like are most important to show about the opponent and cut those up, do the leg work beforehand. If you're kind of watching film, like you would. It's going to be a little bit more difficult for them to see the things you do. You'll have to keep stopping the film and pointing it out. So if you cut it up already, you can give them specific examples and you're training them of how to see it themselves as they go and watch film later. For sure. That's where like Huddle really helps out and these little, apps that kind of cut it up for you and I know it can get pricey, but, if you want to be a great coach, like you'll. You'll dive into it, right? Like, you'll somehow chop it up and find a way to do it for your players. I guess the other thing, that you kind of spoke on was being prepared, and I hate to see it, and I've seen it, and it's sad, and we start whooping those teams. Some high school coaches, I don't know at the college level, I mean, most colleges are pretty prepared, but you know, there's some slackers out there, but, um, at the high school level, especially, and, and it's hard to prepare for AAU, but they don't come up with a plan. They don't come up with a practice plan. I just, I plead coaches to have a practice plan and not just come up with things on the fly. Like, can you speak on how important It is to be prepared and what your preparation would look like for practicing game. Yeah. So I think for a practice, depending on the time of year it is, you want to have, uh, goals of what you're trying to get better at. Smart goals, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, you want to think about like, what are the three things you want to get better at? And then, like you said, smart goals, like how do you measure whether we got better or not at those things? So, if you're thinking of passing, maybe the detail is we want to make sure we have enough passes with the outside hand. Or if you're thinking of rebounding, maybe on offensive rebounds, we want to make sure every time a shot goes up, we're in the right spots, however many you as a coach decide to crash, you have that many crashing on every time and you're addressing it when they don't, or you're at least filming it so you can show it to them later. Or maybe you have a assistant coach tallying how many they did and didn't do so that you can say, Hey, guys, we only did it half the time or we did it all of the time. That was great. So I think that's really important. Once you get into games, and into the season, it kind of becomes about what are you about to see from your opponent and how can we put the players in those situations so that they're learning. You know, as if they were in a game, make it as game like as possible. So if you play a team that's super fast, you try to have drills that are going to challenge them in a way that's fast. If you know a specific press is coming up, try to have a team play that press against you. You're kind of bench players or practice players. Teach them the basics of that press and have them practice against it in a live situation So they can make the mistakes in practice get those reps and then feel a little bit more comfortable with it So that's how we kind of look at it at CSM. Cool, so My next thing is is I know coach Michelle like really stresses like development and I know she's really in the form shooting and ball handling. And coach D also kind of mentioned that the world's catching up to us in many ways because they're developing their players different on the on the other side of the world where we're kind of more all about just go out there and play play AAU every weekend. How important is it to have that time to For that player development to create within a practice for a coach to have. Yeah, I think almost every practice you need some form, unless you're, getting close to a game and you have a limited practice time other than that, I think it's a good idea to have every practice have some form of individual improvement. So. I would suggest having that individual improvement be in, the context of your offense or your defense and do drills that match what you're trying to do in a game. But there are universal things like form shooting, everyone needs to get better at shooting. Coach D, like he said, his ball handling he does is mostly working on hand eye coordination. So everyone can get better at their ball handling. That way we're not necessarily teaching moves. And once we are there within the context of our offense, like they work for the type of reads that our players are going to get. So that's a big thing. Rebounding something that could help with everyone However you teach defense, like those type of things are things you can work on individually every day. Put those into your practice plan and keep working on them and then build those into your team concepts. While we're recruiting, and like, wait. Are we looking for at this level? What are D2s looking for? What are D1s looking for? Can you elaborate to those high school coaches, kind of like Cause I know like, some high school coaches say, Oh, this player's D1 when she's really not, or he or she's really not. And, They're really a JC player. When a high school coach says, Oh, she's D two and she might be borderline D one, like a West coast school or, or a big sky school. So can you kind of elaborate on when we're recruiting for CSM, what are we looking for and what's, I guess, what's the leap to division two and ultimately the big goal of division one. Yeah, I think the players who coaches believe can play at those levels, division ones and two specifically, the first thing they look at is, is this player going to be able to defend against the athletes of that level? And if they can't defend from an athleticism standpoint, then they'll probably rule you out right away. And then after that, they'll look at your basketball IQ and your attitude and how good of a teammate you are. So for us, we're kind of going through a similar process, but for us, we're at a level that requires a lot of development. So we look at it the same way, but the we don't have the same standard of athleticism that those higher divisions do. So we might take more of a chance on someone who's, more of an athlete, but doesn't have as much control of their body yet, or they don't have as much skills yet, and those sort of things. If they're a great teammate, if they have a great attitude, and they're someone that we believe would be a great fit for our culture. So those are kind of the things we look at first. We see, can they play? But again, our filter is, is not as precise as their filter is. But then after that, then we start to look into you as a person and those type of things. We like to look at how you react to those two things. You know, how do you talk to your coach? How do you talk to your teammates? When you're blowing out a team or things aren't going well, we'd like to look at how you react to those two things. Like, are you upset that you're not playing? Are you supporting your teammates? When things aren't going well for you, what's your attitude? Those sort of things. Cause there's been plenty of times where we've ruled people out who are talented just because they don't have a great attitude. We, we're big on that and we think it's super important cause, you know, you don't want to be with those people every day that So, you know, you want to, and especially in college, you see each other every day. So you want to bring in people who you want to be around. You need to make that enjoyable environment. I totally get what you mean. Talking about like moving on to the next level, cause we're like a transition stop where we develop and get you off to the next level. I love how we get people off to the next level and not hold people back. I know some, community colleges hold schools from their players and we'll look for that D1 title. And that kind of just like pisses me off because What happens is, is now you have a player that's good enough to play out of Division 2, possibly be all whatever conference they are at Division 2, but now they're stuck out of Division 1 and sitting their ass on the bench, not getting playing time. Can you kind of speak on that? Like what we do here, moving them on? Uh, I've seen it, like I've known one of our moved on to Menlo. So I've seen That they're gonna get time, right? And not just get held behind other players that are at the division one level. Yeah, I mean, with us, we're big on making sure that we develop every one of our players so that they become the best version of themselves. Michelle is awesome at developing young women. That's the biggest thing I think I've learned from her is all the ways that she does that. And she doesn't care if you decide to keep playing or you don't, she wants you to end up in the best place for you, so that you continue your growth and development to be the best version of yourself. So for some people, they have a dream school in mind, they get that guarantee transfer agreement to it, they go there, it's a big state school, they don't end up playing, we're happy, because they're happy. For some players, they want to keep playing. And when the player wants to keep playing, I think the big thing for us is we always talk about making sure you're going to a place where you're wanted as well. If there's a coach who's reaching out to you and is saying, I think you're going to be a great fit here, that means that that coach has a role in mind for you and you're going to have a great experience there. Whereas if you're the one kind of continuing to reach out to that coach, you know, like, They might take you, but it might not be exactly what you're hoping for and stuff. So we're big on that. It's just having consistent communication of like what they're looking for and making sure they end up in the right place for themselves so that they have a good experience overall. And you just said the key word there, communication. Can you speak more on how communication is key in a, in a whole team setting and For recruiting and everything that you do as a coach. How important is communication? Super important. I think with every player, they need to know why. Especially nowadays. A lot of old coaches that I've learned from, they said back in the day, they could just say, do something, and then everyone just had to listen. And nowadays, you know, especially when I was a player, I wanted to know why. So, I understand it. A lot of players, they need to know, why is it important? that they are doing the things they're doing. Why is it important that they're in a certain position or that they have a certain footwork? Why is it important that they're taking care of their academics, that they're waking up at this time, that they're, eating right? All those things. Now, they may not always listen to you right away. Sometimes they have to learn for themselves. But, I think it's, it's super important to let them know your expectations. So that everyone's on the same page. Then as far as in recruiting, we're kind of doing a lot of that the same way, you know, we're letting them know what value we think they could bring to us and who, what we're about. We don't really try to be deceitful when we're recruiting. We say like, Hey, here's where we see you. And we think you can contribute to us in this way. And here's all the things we're going to do for you, both academically and on the basketball court. What do you say? And that's, that's kind of how we do it. Awesome, now we get to the, the fun, rapid fire question to end this podcast. What is your, Mount Rushmore for NBA first and then WNBA? NBA, it would be Michael Jordan, LeBron, and then I would go Kareem and Bill Russell. Huge Celtics fan here, so I have to give Bill Russell a shout out. He's the greatest winner ever. USF guy too. Oh yeah, yeah, San Francisco. From Oakland too. Yeah, that was cool to learn about after moving here. Then WNBA, probably Diana Taurasi, Lisa Leslie, I would say Cheryl Miller, but she's not in there anymore. And then, Who else should I, should I add there? Probably, I know I'm going to miss some people, because my WNBA history isn't as good as my NBA history. But I'll go with, I'll say Brianna Stewart should be in there now. Candice Parker? Candice Parker, yeah. That's who I'm forgetting. Yeah, she needs to be in there too. Alright, so what, player did you model your game after, if any? Like who, who was your inspiration growing up? So I'm, I'm from Massachusetts. I was born in 1997, so I was about 11 years old or 10 years old when Kevin Garnett came to the Boston Celtics. I think it's possible. Yeah. So once they got good and I was a wing player, so I loved Paul Pierce. So he was my, my favorite once that big three got together. So I really loved how he played. And I'm kind of glad I picked Paul Pierce, to be honest, because he was really good at being effective with a limited amount of dribbles. And he had a great shot fake. I kind of stole that from him. I love the shot fake. And then, yeah, he was very efficient in multiple areas on the court, and he was a great defender. Definitely an underrated player, I think, because of his kind of, you know, antics since he retired and stuff. I still love him as a Celtics fan. So yeah, he was the player I based my game off of. Where is your dream school to coach at? If you, if you had a dream school and you can do anything, head coach, assistant coach, video coordinator, anything, what dream school would it be? Ooh, that's a tough one. Maybe like UCLA on the West coast and like UConn on the East coast. Probably. Those would be it. UCLA just because it seems fun to live in L. A. Live in a cool place, go to the beach and then UConn because that's kind of the biggest school for basketball in the northeast where I'm from. And then last but not least, where do you see yourself in the next three to five years? That is a great question. I'm either going to be here and still loving what I'm doing or I'm going to be somewhere else, either as an assistant coach at, a higher level or maybe a video coordinator at a really high level or something like that. I think that's kind of where I'm hoping I go. And then, yeah, just enjoying life, having a great time, spending a lot of time with my girlfriend. Stuff. Those are things that I feel like are important to me. You said spending time with your girlfriend. This is going to be the last question because I know I said that the other one was last question. Yeah, this is important for coaches all over the world. How do you get time with your girlfriend since the game of basketball so involved and especially You wanted to move up to the next level. That's interesting to even take more time. Yeah. How would you, what works for you, like, that might work for others? Yeah, just to give context, my girlfriend and I have dated for about seven years now. We started dating in college, and then we did long distance for about four years there. So she knew I was super into basketball, so she understands my passion. Okay. And then we moved out here together and have been living with each other in California for the last two years. So that's definitely taken a lot of learning for me. I think the, the biggest thing I have learned is that you can get super sucked into all the requirements of coaching because it's everyone who's in coaching wants to be in coaching. It's not like a lot of other jobs where you have to be there. Everyone who's in coaching really loves what they do and like wants to be there. So it can get really easy to see everything as a need and see everything as something like that has to get done right now and that you're not doing enough and that it can't wait till tomorrow. And sometimes you do too much of that and it becomes a grind and then you don't really have the, the time or the energy for other parts of your life. What I've found is I do a lot better job when I'm making sure I'm planning for all parts of my life. So if I want to do something and I have a free Saturday instead of just being like, Oh, my girlfriend will figure out what we're doing. I'm like, Hey, like what, what do we want to do? Like, do we want to go for a hike? Do we want to go to a baseball game? Like what are the things we want to do together on this free day that we both have? And then the other thing is, I do a lot better job now than I did my first year of communicating my schedule and requirements to her. So at first she was kind of blindsided, like, Oh, you have to go recruit again. You have to, you know, go to this event. Oh, when, when's your game schedule and stuff. And you know, like we'd share those things, but now I'm like very on top of, Hey, October 12th, we got a big event coming up. Uh, she'd be like, okay, it's August. I'll make sure I write that in my calendar. You know, like those type of things. So that way she's a little bit more in the know about, okay, within this day, I'm not going to see him. I know how to plan out my day. I think that's super important. We don't have any kids or anything like that yet, but I assume that would be something that's super important is having that communication of like, okay, as we go on, this is my schedule throughout the month. Here's where I can chip in and contribute. Here's where I'm going to need some help. And same thing on your end. What, where are you going to need some help? Where's my gap? Hopefully they line up. If they don't, we got to figure that out. We might have to move some things. I might have to miss a thing or two and stuff like that. So yeah, that's kind of how we figured it out. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well that wraps it up of this edition of Hoop Talks on Hoops and Hustle. Thank you to my special guest, Pat. And we'll, um, Well, I wish us both luck in the season. Definitely looking forward to the season and beyond coaching with you. All right. Thanks Emmett. All right. All right. Next episode of Hoops and Hustle, I will be scratching the surface on player development, and how the world is catching up to the United States. I will also be talking about a connection that I have made and how this connection has showed me that different countries are developing their players differently and are taking the time out to specifically work on player development drills and seeing the floor differently.