Hoops & Hustle E4 Hoop Talk with Special Guest Coach Ron

Hoops & Hustle, Hoops Talk with Coach Ron Rossi . Coach Ron takes us through a similar coaching upbringing to mine how he started out with middle schoolers and found his way to coaching Varsity Basketball to the College Level. Coach Ron also shares his thoughts on coaching philosophy and the game of basketball. 

Transcript

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On this. Episode of hoops in hustle, special edition hoop talk. I will be talking with former collegian coach. And now high school coach. And a great friend of mine.

Audio Only - All Participants: 0:31

Welcome to this edition of Hoops Talk. I'm Coach Emmett and our special guest joining us, who I'm currently one and two against and have a lot of respect for is Coach Ron Rossi from Cappuccino High School. How are you doing, Ron? I'm doing great. Wonderful evening. I really enjoy our, our talks when we, always get together and, it's, it's great to have you on the podcast today. This should be really fun. Before we get into the Q and a and discuss things about coaching, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into coaching and where you have coached. Sure. Thank you for having me. I started coaching in a league called Cupertino Hoops. I lived near Cupertino, and I saw an ad in the paper, and I played a lot of basketball. I was still playing at the time. And, I think I started with 7th and 8th grade boys. Did a year of that, and they asked me to be on the board. So I was on the board, and then I did 7th and 8th grade boys one more time. And I did 9th and 10th grade boys. And then I did a league. I was there for five years. I became the co president of the league. And I became a coach. We had a division where we put two girls on every boys team. They were like the elite girls in the area. So that was a lot of fun. That was my first experience coaching girls. Then I took a year off, but it was still involved in the league. And I got a call from a gentleman who needed a coach at St. Lawrence Academy, small Catholic private school. It was right before the season. The coach had to leave town for some reason. So they pretty much weren't going to take no for an answer. I had never coached varsity before, so he took the job, said, I'll do it. I'll bail him out one year, see how I like it. Well, I was there for 12 years. Yeah, so every year it got better. I had some rough years in the middle, but being a small private school, we didn't recruit. But it was a great experience. And then, I had my best year there, and I got reached out by Julia Allender. She asked me if I wanted to coach at Ohlone with her. I had seven seniors leaving. The school's enrollment was going down. The school was struggling. It's no longer in existence. I did fighters at the junior college. We, my last year at high school, we were 11 and O in league. And my first three years at the college level, we were 12 and O in league. So I was 49 and O in league for four years, but anyway, it was a great experience. I was the head recruiter. I was in charge of the defense and I took on the posts and other stuff. And I became an ad coach. And what stopped me was I didn't have a master's degree, but I was tiring a little bit of the year round because it really is like it's full bore year round and I took a job at Woodside High School, coached there for five years. We made the CCS three of the five every year we were in CCS. We were a lower seed than the team we played from San Jose. We always beat them. They just don't respect the PAL, I guess. But then, COVID hit. I took a year off. Maybe two years. Josh asked me to help out at Sequoia. I helped him there two years, and now I've been one year at Cappuccino High School, and they hired me last September, so I had like a week or two to get ready for the season. All in all, it's about 25 years of coaching. not counting the boys, non high school stuff. So it's been great. I'm addicted to coaching. That's crazy, man. Cause like, it sounds like me and you kind of have like the same start. Like I started at St. Dunstan's Catholic school in Millbrae and, basically I started coaching six, seventh, eighth grade boys. And then, when my sister got into the fourth grade, I coached her all the way up throughout eighth grade and I created the AAU team for high school girls varsity, because I thought, my sister was good enough to just come out and play varsity, but she ended up getting hurt and whatnot. But, that's how it kind of started for me. And I kind of feel like we're like on that same. Wavelength because then I, then I took a job at Bayside and I was asked to, coach a couple of teams there and then the Jefferson job opened up and it's just kind of crazy how, for me, it all, unfolded, right? I was only two years at Jefferson and now I'm a college coach. Like, that's crazy. That's kind of like unheard of just going from the eighth grade level and then AAU high school ball Jumping straight to varsity for two years taking Jefferson my first year. Like you said, they don't respect the PAL, but I think you had a lot to do with them respecting us. Cause we, got the eighth seed my first year there and beat presentation to lose some mills. But, I took Jefferson's program the farthest they've been in, women's basketball history for CCS wise. Kind of have a similar path. I thought I'd just share that with you cause we've talked, but, you know, but, I haven't really shared the full story with you yet. So I thought it was important to kind of. Put that in there. That's perfectly fine. I appreciate it. Thank you Let's let's talk about coaching philosophy and kind of your thoughts on coaching philosophy, but first I kind of want to say my thoughts, and how I created my coaching philosophy kind of was You I had mentors and I've been around a lot of coaches growing up and I've seen a lot of coaches growing up and I kind of took all of that into account and I meshed it together to make my own. I kind of have my own, style of coaching and coaching philosophy throughout those coaches that kind of brought me into it. And I would say, like, my coaching philosophy is very, disciplined and caring based, with relationships. So, I really drill the Bob McKillop 3D into my players heads, discipline to make the decisions to use the detail along with the caring aspect of it, making a family like environment and making those relationships with your student athletes last for a lifetime. Whether it's a you or whether it's college or whether it's high school or whatever. I really like maintain my relationship with those players and. I mean, I have one that was at Sac State and now she's coaching, C. S. U. Monterey Bay. And she reaches out to me still. Then one from the P. A. L. That went to El Camino. Now she's playing at UC Merced and she reaches out to me all the time. So you, you have those relationships that last for a long time with your student athlete. I was just kind of wondering if you can speak on how you kind of came up with your coaching philosophy and what, your coaching philosophy is. Sure. Mine's very similar in the sense that I do have a relationship. I still keep in touch with many girls I coached a long time ago and some recently, I do try to build a rapport to try to gain their trust. I'm a big believer in the positive coaching theory. The guy that asked me to be on the Cupertino Hoops developed, I don't know if you've ever heard of Positive Coaching Alliance. He was the founder, very good friend of mine. And I take a lot of concepts like that and I'm positive by nature. So I try to be real positive. I don't think you gain much by being negative. And I do believe that over the long haul of a season, if you stay positive, better things will happen than if you. Beat up your players. I also use, I call it my mantra, attitude and effort. They're the only two things I will get upset over and I won't get that angry. I will, you give me a bad attitude, I will not be upset, but I will call you on it. If you're giving me poor effort, I will call you on it. If it continues, I may get a little more upset, I guess. But that's all I ask. That and, you know, what else can you get? I mean, I always say they're the only two things that they, as players, have full control of. Can't control the other team, you can try. Can't control the refs, you can't control your own coaches. So, that's my philosophy from a, I guess, a psychological standpoint. But, I also like to make it a family environment, a culture. This is how we do things here. We help each other. You know, we don't pick on people. That's awesome. I really like that. You do the positive coaching approach. Like I've seen you coach, like we've coached against each other and you're very positive with your girls. You get them to buy in and especially for your first year back, like last year. It you really like made them buy in and I know that you didn't have like the greatest of seasons record wise overall but We underestimated y'all and you came in and whooped us, you know both times. So, I really like how you get your girls going and you're so positive with them and thank you that that kind of that kind of like I don't know if you know this, but like, I look up to you and Paul a lot, like Paul carry on a lot. And, I kind of pick, pick things off of your brain. So, that's one thing that I really like about you is that you're so positive with your ladies and you really get them to buy in like winning or losing. And I guess that kind of brings me to the next question. Kind of like what you were talking about with like the personality thing and the attitude as a coach, what is it that you look for in a player both on and off the court? I look for attitude and effort. I don't mean to repeat myself, but they come in the gym and they're working hard. They're going to get more love, so to speak, more attention. We're going to help them more. Assistance will pick up on it. They'll probably get a little more playing time. I'll give them more opportunities. I want good grades. It says a lot about a kid. I know some have learning disabilities, but I think in today's school system, you can't get a 3. 0, you're lazy. I mean, unless you have some rager, cause you know, you just got to show up, do your homework and you're eligible. So I do look for good grades and I watch the grades. I go in online, check the grades. As far as players, I look for players with high IQ. I know they all don't have it, but I love it when a player can pick up something and why I'm asking to do something. Ashley is. Perfect example. She had one of the highest IQs of the kid I ever coached. I had some good ones. I mean, as a lonely, we had some real high IQ is good. She just got everything and she helped him send the same message down to the younger. lesser players because we were really young. But, that's what I look for. I had to add one more thing. Commitment. I don't miss practice. They shouldn't miss practice unless they're sick or family emergency. And I tell the parents the same thing. I had a kid this last year, missed practice, could get a flu shot. I go, what do you mean you get it? You can walk in any store any time of the day and get a flu shot. You're 15 years old. You're not going to, one day without a flu shot, you know, that type of thing. But I am looking for commitment. I mean, that's commitment, attitude, effort, good grades. So, you know, Jefferson, how, how it's known as a rough and tough school, but I have a lot of players surprisingly with like a 4. 0, but there were some that had some great issues. But, I wanted them there on time and, and if they weren't on time, I would actually lock the door and close it and I would have my rules hung up on the door outside the gym door. And the first one was be on time. So I'd always lock the door and make them knock, and I wouldn't let them in until we were done with the drill. And, it was just showing them, Hey, you need to be on time. You need to be here. Or else you're going to get locked out of practice sort of thing. That's all part of commitment. Yeah, I started doing that, man, and it worked. It got into their heads where it worked and they needed to be there and they got to where they they needed to be. My perspective on it is I mainly look for, a player that can play at my level or beyond by talking about like the college stage. So I'm like looking for that first. But most importantly about the attitude, that's the big thing that I look for is like, when I go out and recruit, If your attitude sucks towards your teammates or your coach or if you show them up, like, I'm gonna walk out of the gym, I don't want you, I don't want you on my AAU Select team, I don't want you at my college, like, I don't want to deal with that. But the things that, I can deal with is, like, if you're getting frustrated as a player and you're showing that frustration but turning it towards the, for the positive, like, that Draymond Green type player, you know, except without, you know, Punching like your teammates, um, like holding your teammates accountable and holding your coach accountable and like making them strive for the good. If I see that in a player, that's the type of player that I would want. Obviously, like I can work with you on your attitude if your attitude totally doesn't suck, you know, I feel like everybody honestly needs that like scrappy Quote unquote dirty work player. I've always been a believer and I have always been a believer of setting aside time for individual development with practicing 15 minutes or more just for individual development. And from working at the college level, it's really opened my eyes and it shows that it's much needed. From also talking to coaches that I connect with. Some are from, like, overseas, and I've been fortunate to, like, connect with the Santa Clara University player personnel coach, he's from France, and I've connected, like, Coach D at CSM. He's worked with Kobe Bryant, he's worked with Diana Taurasi, and many more names, he kinda expressed it, too, that the world is developing players in a different way and connecting on individual player development and the world's like catching up to the United States basically. Now I'm a I'm just like a firm believer now that I'm big on form shooting and ball handling with eye coordination because I find that anything with eye coordination goes well with whatever we're doing. I just wanted to kind of see what your thoughts are on personal development, like the balance between personal development and the need of team cohesion at the same time. Well, I, I'm a strong believer in the fundamentals of basketball. There's a certain amount of time allotted to every practice for individual stuff. May not be the same thing every day, but shooting the work. Dribbling, conditioning, jump, stopping all that. I try to mix as much as that I can in. I also believe that's a great thing to do in the summer. And to be honest with you, that's what we're doing now. I only get a handful of girls but I said, we're not, we're not scrimmaging right now. We're just working on individual, we'll scrimmage in October, but. You know, and at the end of each workout, they're dog beat. They just say, I can't do anymore. And that's not that I'm trying to kill them. It's just, I go, this is what you got to do to get better. So I firmly believe in the fundamentals and, I think every practice should have some. Now, granted, as the season goes on, there's going to be some practice where you're just getting ready for a game and there's a little less fundamentals in it and a little more working on something that team does. Or more importantly, what are we going to do? I do spend some time on what the other team does. I try not to spend too much because I'm more concerned about what we do. At St. Lawrence, when I first took over, my first year I had a couple good players. After that, because there was a no cut policy, I just got every kid who came in the gym and wanted to play basketball. And it was like, fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. And yeah, it, it helped me as a coach. So, you know, form shooting, I trained kids individually on shooting. I'm a better shooter and I don't even practice because I, I preach the form shooting. Yeah. So, you know, I don't practice at all. I just shoot against the girls, you know, I do pretty good against them too. What is a, what does the coach Ron practice plan look like? Well, my practice plans vary, sorry, between what time of the season it is. But the beginning is usually some sort of layup drill, and it's not just the basic layup drill. I try to intermingle it, add things to it, and this is why. Girls basketball, they miss a lot of layups. I tell everybody who coaches basketball, don't get frustrated. They're not as tall, they don't jump as high, they just miss more layups. There's always shooting involved because they love shooting. So that's partly to get them better at shooting, but also partly because that's what they enjoy. And I want them to have fun at practice too, not slumber party fun, just they want to do things that they enjoy. A lot of it's on defense. And I tell them if you can play defense, I can get you in the game. Even if you can't throw the ball in the ocean, I can get you in the game. If you can rebound, I can get you in the game. Don't get me wrong, if you can score, you're going to get playing time too. But so defense is going to be a lot. defensive fundamentals. We didn't press this year much. They were really young, so I backed off that. But my defense philosophy and we practices a lot is the pack line defense. I want helping each other out. I go, Let's make them take a bad shot. They can take a little percentage shots. and get the rebound. So we have a lot of practice on defense, shell drills, close outs, even some one on ones, two on twos, three on threes. You know, I'll do three on threes with like, Hey, you start with the screen, pick and roll, see what happens. Spacing the floor was always offense involved. Some of it's boring. Cause I want them to learn the plays at Ohlone. We made him come into the classroom and throw the plays. So we spend a little less time there, but, it's always fundamentals involved, dribbling, some sort of dribbling every practice. But as the season goes on, now we're starting to prepare more for, if we're going to play a lot of teams that play zone, we'll work more on our zone offense, then we'll build on our offense, say, Maybe we'll, we have a set and we'll tweak it, so we'll work on things like that. So we start simple and then we'll add to it. Everything starts simple. I don't take anything and say, some complex offense, we have to learn everything all at once. Just get the basics down. I kind of want to get into like game planning, and can you kind of take us through how you prepare for each opponent? Kind of break down what you do, the practice before and Also, kind of go over film because with film, I found that like the high school level film, you really have to engage the ladies to get into the classroom and get them to actually watch film instead of watch their phones. So then I started banning the phones and then they started drawing or like, sleeping or, you know, it was, it was hard to watch film and point out things, even though like huddles so great and you can like chop up stuff and whatnot, but high school students have like a short attention span. And like now at the college level, I'm seeing like how important like film is for creating scout videos for, just in practice, sending the ladies. Like, hey, look at what you did great here. This was a good closeout. This is an example of a bad closeout. We want this instead of this. So, can you just kind of break that down? Like, what you did at Ohlone for a film and getting ready for a game and just, just preparing for a game. And then also at the high school level, kind of like what you do now at Cappuccino. Sure. Well, let me take the game film first, and then I'll talk about preparing for a game alone. And we spent way more time on film. They're adults. We can keep them after practice a long time. So we might practice cut short a little bit. We go in the film. We might do it before. And we'll spend a lot of time. A lot of them will be broken down. We'll focus on a player or what they run. We'll focus on what we do well. Like you just said, as far as here's a good closeout, here's a bad closeout. I never try to use the same girl as an example if I try to show some things. Because I don't want to make him feel better. I don't want to make him feel like I'm highlighting one player because I wanted I want them all to be engaged. We would send them film, have them, ask them to watch it. And Loney, they watched it. There might be a couple that did, but when you're at that level, you want to play basketball. In high school, it's for some of the players, it's something to do. Where you're going to, whether it's junior college or another level, you're giving everything you have. As far as high school film, what I found was successful because of how you can. measure what they're watching, how much they're watched. So I will tell them often you need to watch two minutes of every quarter or eight minutes of this quarter, everybody. And then before next practice, we'll talk about what did they see. Then I look on Huddle and I know who watched and who didn't. And I make sure that they are watching. But the best part, and that's to get them involved in watching. They like to watch and they look for the highlights when they score. But what I also do is take them in the film room, get them snacks, get them a juice, tell them, look, put the phones away. Let's focus on this. I've already broken it down and I'll show it to them. I'll question them. What did you see here? You tell me. What questions you have? I try to make it interactive. Not long. We don't sit in there for two hours. We're near 20 minutes, 30 at the most, depending on how much they're engaged. And I think that works really well. And I'll also break it down and send it to him and say, Okay, we're playing, Westmore. I broke down 10 things. I want you all to watch. And then we'll meet, and I'll say, what'd you see? And I'll go around and get the feed. And it does work. Again, it may not work if they don't watch it, but with Huddle, you can measure how much they're watching. But that's worked really well. Cappuccino worked really well. Example I'll give is we were playing Zone a lot, and it was working, and then it wasn't working. and Ashley and Kylie are two good athletes, and they were just going everywhere. More Kylie, but actually as well. And the role of the top guard is when the balls on your opposite side, you're protecting the high post. So when I showed that to him, they were like, Oh, now I know why I said, Look, they just scored 10 points. from the top of the key or they caught the ball and drove or whatever the point was. But once we did that, then we got back on track and I remember Kylie looking over and saying, like, looking at me and I'm like, thumbs up. You did the right thing. They want to steal the ball. You could steal the ball, but I want you to steal it on the anticipation, not chasing the ball across the gym. And then leaving a big wide open spot in our defense. But that's one example of how film really helped us. Very small, you know. I film them shooting. I'll do it in practice. I'll just film them shooting. I film practices on huddle. And they see the light on. And I'll watch a lot of them. But what it does is they know, like, I worked really hard. Did you? Well, look. Things like that. But. But if I show them how they shot, they can see their elbows out or the ball's down too low, whatever the case is. So I use it for individual development as well. I think you had a question about preparing for a game. Yes. I try to put up on the board and I do a lot of work pre game. Who the best players are, what they do well, what the team does well, what type of defense they play. What to anticipate, and what do we do well, what's going to be our strategy. I sit down, I think about rotations. I think it's good to have that in your mind. But I know that it often changes because the course of the game doesn't go as planned. So, you know, it's, it's great to have a plan, but you got to be ready to change the plan. You got to, you know, have a plan B, I guess. But you gotta have a, you gotta have a plan B and C, man. You gotta have C, D, E, and F. Yeah. But I do try to keep things simple. Especially if we're adjustments at halftime. I don't, you didn't ask me that, but We don't go in there and go over everything that went wrong or everything that we Any adjustments are simple things. Yeah. That's what I was, I was just about to ask you. Don't worry about that. No, it's all good. I was just about to ask you, like, if things go wrong, like, if things don't go to plan, how do you get into their heads and make that adjustment because I know like some players can shut down and It's just a whole thing like if you're not writing the momentum in the halftime It's like a 50 50 toss up, you know, depending on what team you're playing. Yeah, but uh, That's what I was about to ask you kind of like how do I jump the gun a little? Well halftime is basically A quick recap. I don't really talk so much about the score, although I may tell them, look, we're down. We don't need to get it all back in one play, but we can cut in the lead by doing these things. What I saw in the first half, I get input from my assistant. I only have one this time, but. And it's usually good input. There's a certain offense that I like, but it isn't working. I'll go to something else or I'll change where the player plays. I also try to keep track when I have a unit in that unit played well, and I may start the second half with that unit to play well. So we get back on the right track. I stay positive. I think one time last year, I kind of jumped on him and I didn't scream at him. I just said, I got players doing this. I got players doing that. I got players doing that. Did at any time we practiced that this week? Is this incorporated in our offense? Is this incorporated defense? I went down the line and then I just stopped. And they listened. And then I said, okay, I was implemented some changes calmly and we came out. We were down by 15 against, what's the Kowalski with turnover turnover turnover. Yeah. And we came back. I said, we're gonna make one little bit at a time that we should have won that game actually 0. 5. I have no idea. Why she would, but she did, but it's okay. But, I made a change. I started Kylie at the point a little bit, get focus off Ashley and put Ashley back and just mixed it up. But, there's no like set thing you can do. You might through the course of a season say, this is what works for my team. But through the course of seasons, One thing is going to work with this team might not work with the other team philosophy wise. Yes, but as far as I clearly tell you what we go from this offense to this offense, whenever things go bad, I, I try to have offenses that can handle. There's enough offenses to handle every type of situation, a press. a zone, a man, a pressure man, etcetera. So that goes back to the practice plan. You gotta practice all that so that you're prepared for anything in the game. And that's what November 4th through the 26th or whatever 22nd is for getting them prepared now. I know you're not fully prepared at that time, but you need to be because not every other team is fully prepared, but by the end of the season, you should be playing your best basketball. Exactly. And that's, that's what I kind of did, like with my preseason schedule, like I was advised by Paul and he kind of said, you want this many, games that are for sure wins. You want this amount of losses, you never know you can upset a team, but you want this amount of losses and you want these 50 50 games to hopefully get you to 500 to qualify for CCS because it's 500 league or non league, that qualifies you for CCS. Of course you want to be above 500 in both, but, and always scrimmages too, like, the girls, I can tell you, the girls hated me for it, because, coming off of such a great season with the team before, I just wanted to challenge them, right? The sportsmanship game, we played St. Francis, and I knew that they were going to blow us out, but I wanted to challenge them. And I told them right in the beginning, like, this is going to be a tough game. I am challenging your mental. Preparedness for this game. I'm challenging, your physical preparedness for this game. Like I'm challenging everything you got. And the goal is to be within 15 at halftime. That's, our goal. If we can put half a game together, that's the goal for this game. And not to like throw out the second half, right? Cause I still want them like challenging. So we took it step by step at a time. But I set a goal for them, like a short term goal. Like let's be within 15 at half against a really good team. And that's going to prove, you know, that's going to prove some things. My dog's barking in the background. Sorry for that. So I try to find like styles of plays, right? Like St. Francis pressures you a lot. They're, they're really up tempo. And then I try to find another up tempo team that doesn't really press that much. And then I find like a half court team, right? That likes to run like half court sets. So I kind of like do that for the preseason to kind of get them ready. And then I normally do the 50 50 game first to kind of test them, see where they're at, and then go from there. But, I just kind of wanted to get your thoughts on, how do you set up your, schedule as a coach? How do you set it up for success. Well, my philosophy is similar to Paul's, that I'd like to have some games where we can for sure win, but not too easy, because that's no fun. I had to have a fair amount of games that are 50 50, as you say. I always say, Games. If we play well, we can win. And then I have it just a couple tougher games. Now, each place I coached was a little different. ST Lawrence. We were kind of always the underdog, but we found other small private schools. But I would play some of the big public schools a couple times a year. So I did that. And there's our gym. It was great because our gym was small, but they bring a bunch of fans. And then we had ours. It had a great environment. So that was a bonus by playing some of the bigger schools. Far scrimmages go. I try to play tougher teams. I'm playing Aptos sportsmanship and Newark in a scrimmage. And that's all I'm doing there. And I'm going right into the league after that. I've had some scrimmages where I'll take two units at Ohio refs. I had the kids suit up and I'll take a unit. My assistant will take a unit. We play it like a game. And then we'll switch them at halftime or something. And that's worked well. We did that at Loney pretty well. When I'm in the PAL at Woodside, it 500. Because of the league we were in. So I more so always made sure I got a nice, not pansy teams, but teams I thought we could beat. But to summarize, I would say I'm very much like Paul. And I do want some tough games. Unless you're scheduling all pansies, you're going to get tough games. I mean, they're reaching out to you. I have a lot of friends who are coaches, so I play them. The coach at Aptos, Bruce Funk, he was up at Foothill. He's been in my tournament when he was at Foothill every year for like, you know, 10 years, we became friends. I went down and played them last year. We're going to play sportsmanship at our place. So because of my friendship and my longterm, I will play some of those teams, but you got to look at how you're going to do in league. Like some teams know they're going to get 500 in league. So they're the teams that push harder for non league. So how, how do you feel going into League now that it's back to, I think it's the seven 10 right? Or something like that. Yes. We play on format. We play seven 10 format every team wants, and I think two teams twice and I can't remember who we play. I liked the format we had before,'cause I liked 10 games in league. That gives me more non league games, obviously. Twelve, I think, is, it's half. That's okay, too. But, what I don't like about it is you're not playing the same teams. If you're two extra games or against two weak teams that you got an advantage over someone, say they get two hard teams, two better teams. Baseball did it right this year. Everybody plays everybody 13 times. It doesn't matter what division you're in in baseball. Used to be the Dodgers played the Giants like 18 times. Padres 18. Now they play everybody 13. So, at the end of the year, your record is you all played the exact same teams the exact same amount of times. I prefer that, but the league doesn't. So it is what it is. It is what it is, man. And, I'm just looking at it right now on match preps here. What do you think you fit, like, in, this new style of league with, Burlingame, obviously you guys, Cappuccino, El Camino, Jefferson, Oceana, San Mateo, Sequoia, South San Francisco, Terranova, and Woodside. Who do you think's gonna be at the top, who do you think's gonna be at the bottom I think you guys are gonna be all right. I'll tell you my kind of prediction after I kind of hear what you have to say. Well, I think we got a good nucleus. I hope to get one or two decent players coming in to fill out because I'm playing with nine. I'd like to get to 10 or 11 on varsity, but I have a good feeling for us. We're missing Ashley. Who's going to be a big loss. But I've learned over the years that as part of high school basketball. You just got to move on. I think it's going to be tough. I don't think we're going to blow anybody out, but I feel confident that we can compete. And if things go our way, and I do a good job coaching and they do a good job playing hard and playing together, we have a shot to be 500. Now, you're gonna be surprised with this. Your squad, and the way that they fight, I see y'all at 4 or 5 with Terranova. I hope you're right. So, I see, I see you right there at 4 or 5 with Terranova. So, y'all are gonna be right in the mix. You had a young core and the way that you poured it on against my team, who was a lot of seniors and juniors, I think you have a good, a really good, core and I really think they're ready to compete. how do you stay up to date with like the latest trends and the changes in basketball? Cause I know you've been around for a long time now and 25 years of coaching is a long time. I feel like this, modern thing now, like the COVID kids and stuff, it's more like back in the day, you know, like if a coach tells you to do it, you do it. Right. And now these players are asking why, why do I need to do this? Why this, why that? And I feel now for me as a coach, like I had to adapt to that, for one going into college. They're adults, right? So yeah, it's a little harder too because I'm adapting to the why to the to the high school kids, but now I'm adapting the why from the adults and you're getting judged more so. So how would you say that you're keeping up to date with that? And have you kind of seen that trend of the coach says to do it and they're asking why now? Instead of like back in the old days when we would just say, Hey,, run a liner and they do it. Well, I think less people are asking why then it appears because the loudest voices asked why, like Alana and Kylie asked why a lot. The rest kind of bought in pretty much. But you're right. You gotta gain your trust. I've I said to him many times. You have to trust me. I know what I'm doing. We have to work together. If we ain't working together, we're gonna not be as good as we could possibly be. And, like, I remember a situation, she says, This press break won't work you know, we want to be here and there. I go, Kylie, let's try it. All year long, broke the press. Without basketball touching the floor hardly at all. So that was an example. But that's the type of thing you've got to, you have to show them a little bit why. Maybe talk with them. Yeah, this is why. Can we talk later, because it might be interrupting practice, but explain to them why we're doing this. This is what, this is what we're going to get from this. Do you like to shoot open three? Yeah, this is going to help you get an open three. I asked them for their input. Do you like this? Yeah, what don't you like? And Mitri even said sometimes I You know, too much. But it's fine. I don't have to take their advice, or it's not advice. I don't have to take what they're saying, but I do let, I do let them in, give them opportunity to speak. And I want them to speak. And I think the other piece is it's the demeanor and which way you say run, or which way you say, this is what we're going to do. It just has to be presented in a way. enthusiastic when they do it. Well, you gotta, you gotta tell them they're doing it. Well, I'll never give happy talk. Great job. Great job. What? No. Great job going after that ball diving on the floor. Be specific. You got, you know, you can't walk around all day just giving out compliments. But there are practices where they just go. It goes awesome and They have to know that this is, this was awesome. And then the final piece is, if they do question why, and then during the game something works, I might take a moment and say, Connie, this is why I have you do this, because this is what gets us, it gets this for us, or it accomplishes this. So. That's a great answer. And, it's so interesting that those players ask why, and I actually. When I got to the college level and got to know most of the ladies at CSM, like when I heard them talk to coach Pat and say, Hey, why are we doing this? And he gave a very thorough explanation. It's great that they asked those questions. Cause that means that they want to learn. And that means that they want to be engaged. And I don't see it as a problem unless. Like you kind of said, like as us as coaches, the demeanor that we say things. So like flip it back on the student athlete, like it depends on how, what demeanor they ask it in. Are they being like a smarty about it? Or are they actually trying to learn? So I really like when players like ask why and question me why, because it challenges me to those questions. Yeah. Cause it challenges me to how it's asked. It challenges me as a coach, like, cause shoot, if I don't know why, I better do my homework. You know what I mean? I just kind of wanted to also know, like, how have you seen the game evolve? In the last decade, two decades, I should say 25 years, man. How have you seen the game of basketball evolve overall, both, women and men's basketball? And how do you, as a coach, like adapt to those change? Well, the game has truly changed. I mean, there's. The pro game, I'll leave out because that's, yeah, that's a different animal. The game, the game has changed in the sense that everybody's a three point shooter and the number of three points shots that are taken is real high. That's the, and I don't want to get off track, but it's the only thing I tell Josh, Josh, you're a fantastic coach. You're so mature for your age. But when I helped him, I was like, when I took the guards, like we're shooting threes because. You can shoot a lower percentage, but if you make threes, you get an extra point, you know, but the threes is the, is the most, I think in the women's game, good teams press weak teams. And I think that's why they, they don't have a backcourt violation, because even if you can't score on them, at least you get the ball across the court. Boys, it's a little different because. They have the skills to get to get across in 10 seconds, most times, a majority of the time. The other part that I think's changed is the kids are entitled, you know, the parents give them everything they want. But I've learned to live with that. It's, I accepted that and it's doesn't bother me. I would, because if it did bother me, I wouldn't coach. But I don't think the games changed a whole lot more than that. Pick and roll, give and go, screen away, it was little small nuances here and there. Games simple, inside out, you got a good big, get it into her. They collapse on her, kick it out, wide open threes. If she's good, teach her some moves to get some draw fouls, you know, when I grew up, there was way more bigs that were dominant. Now, I'm not saying there's no dominant bigs now, but far less. Because they're, they shoot outside now, which is fine. That's the way the game's evolved, but at our level, I still like to hit the ball inside. Yeah. I found that that was really important because, I was big on like three point shooting and Curry kind of like changed the game for everybody and everybody wants to be like him. But then I realized, well, teams are gonna guard the three point line better, so there's gonna be better opportunities inside. So, that's why I put one of my best shorter players, the kid, she's a guard, and she would handle the post, well, so I put her at center. A lot of people question me why, but shoot, she can jump, she can do everything. She's a great one. Westmore's got a good player there, but, that's why I kind of put her in different situations where she can excel like other than the three point line. I mean, she almost had the three point record at Jefferson. She was one away. when we played San Mateo two years ago. It's just tough man. Like it's real tough for, for people to understand that it's still an inside out game. And a lot of people take the jumper for granted and that's, that's the thing if you're taking a jumper close to the three point line, go ahead and back up. Yeah. That's kind of worth it. For Sean, that was a 17 and a half foot shot, you know. Exactly. But. Like the elbow shots and around that area You you gotta love them, right? And that's what people take for granted and mariah flores and I always work when I train her We always work on that and that's her key thing is being able to turn around rise and Have hang time in the air And hit that knockdown jumper. And I've seen it from her so many times in AAU. And, it's just a beautiful thing. Like the jumper still, and a lot of people don't do that. And it's just, it's crazy how the game has changed, but I think the jump shot is like the most underestimated part of the game now. It's a lost art. We, we practice lots of elbows, lots of wings. Lots of short corner shots. And when I was in Ohlone, if I could just add this to it, our thing was get in the key, take a shot or wide open three. But if you're, if you're, if your percentage is like 5 percent in threes, we don't want you shooting threes, you know, but, I like the three, but I don't want to live and die with it, and I want a wide open three. I want you to be able to take your time and set. Recruiting. So, how did you do it, like, at Ohlone? How did you recruit at Ohlone, and How did you weed out, like, the process of, like, this is what we like, but we might not get her, so we might have to pivot towards here? Well, I did a lot of recruiting at Eloni. I was the only person that recruited. Went to a lot of basketball games. Had to sit and watch a lot of crappy basketball and talk to one young lady. That's gonna be, sorry for interrupting, but that's gonna be me this year. No, it's, it's, but, I enjoyed it. When I was doing it, max preps and the San Jose Mercury had a lot of everybody still got the Mercury and looked at the scores. I was looking for the best players, maybe call the coach. I went for the best athletes. We might pick up some athletes, we might say we could use a big or we could use a shooter. But for really, for the bulk of it, we just went for the best basketball players. We looked for good athletes, I always checked into their grades, and when I went to the games, this was the biggest thing. I would sit behind the bench most of the time and watch their interaction with their coach and their teammates. And if they were bad attitudes, I didn't go after them. Because like you said, you can teach a lot of kids. And, I've seen so many average basketball players who are good athletes become really good basketball players, weight training, individual skills, playing with better players. Uh, but that's what I did. And. You know, I would talk to the coach and then I would talk to them. Their parents were there. I talked to their parents. I was never overbearing. I let him know I was around. I come watch some of their games, but I was I made a point to not. I think some of the recruiters Yeah, that's just how I feel. But, I look for good athletes, good students. And when I say good students, they didn't have 4. 0s. I lost some students because they're four years. But I told Josh once the ideal junior college player is she's got average grades. And she's a good basketball player and a good citizen, so she can't quite go to a great four year. She could, but she couldn't, but she could save some money, buy some time by going to a two year junior college, but, there was a handful of girls. I just said we got to get her. And, we sent quite a few Maloney to D one. And 90 some percent of the kids we got, 92 or 93, we got scholarships. Not all full, but we got them scholarships. And we only had maybe four or five walk ons. They just went to the Ohlone and said, can I play basketball? And then they were, they sat at the end of the bench. They probably didn't get any scholarships, but we didn't recruit them either. But, I did look for shooters. I did look for point guards. I looked for. Quickness athletes. Obviously if we got some height, that was good too. Did you, find though, also, when you were recruiting girls would be like, I'm not going to continue playing basketball, I'm going to a four year. Cause I'm getting that like a lot. Like most of these girls just. I mean, if they get the scholarship to go to a division one school, of course they'd probably play and go to that like Stanford or whatnot, but it's not, it's not easy to go to one of those schools. And they'd rather go to like Stanford for their grades and not play and not be a student athlete versus like playing a couple of years and then going, CSM has guaranteed transfer agreements and you could play two years and then not want to play and go to UC Davis or any of our transfer agreements. We offer private school too, like University of San Francisco. It's, you, you could do that. Right. Or like players don't understand like division three basketball. You have to have a 4. 0 to get into like a Occidental or a Laverne College, Lewis and Clark. Those, those little schools too, like, those offer great degrees and you gotta be smart to get into those. You need to have a 4. 0 or higher. The coach I talked to at Occidental was looking for players. And she prefers them to have a 4. 0 going in, transferring in. So, a lot of ladies don't, like, look at that and they look at all these UCs and whatnot. I just kind of wanted to hear your opinion on, that. Have you ever gotten that too, or? I got that quite often. But I think it's more more prevalent now. I think I see, I can tell by the junior colleges, a lot of teams don't have programs that used to have tons of kids. So I think that's happening more and more. But I did. I did run across that. Ashley is one. I don't think she's D1, but she definitely could have played. But a very, very good junior college player and Natalia Hodovic at Woodside, she played for John Pei. She was incredible. She went to Cal Poly and I tried to help her to get in schools and we had some bites, but she once she got into Cal Poly, she didn't care. She's playing in a mural. So a lot of young ladies who are very, very good basketball players stop playing. I call it organized basketball because you, you can play intermural. You can play in a league, but it's, it's not organized anymore. Like it is at college level, but I ran across that quite a bit, but I think you're going to have more, that's going to happen more for you. Yeah, I can already see it and, at CSM we take, we take those underrated players too with good attitudes and we develop, yeah, and we develop them man. We had our Delta scrimmages and, it's, it was, it was good for what we had. And we had a lot of injuries going into it too. We played Delta who was in the elite eight and we lost by 12, but our offense wasn't there. And there's some things that we need to tweak in our offense. And it's a learning thing, right? The first two scrimmages are a learning thing in September. I just like how we had Diamonds in the Rough. A former player that I coached at Jefferson is playing at CSM now and she's doing great. I'm very proud of her and she might be a little diamond in the rough and give us some minutes here and there. It's those players that you got to find that kind of like are those diamond in the rough. So of course we want to go after the great players, right? But ultimately they're going to get swooped up by division two. Or, they're gonna get, swooped up by Division 1. What I've also found at the JC level now, cause, I don't know, the transfer portal and stuff has come after your time, right, at Ohlone? Yes. We're not allowed to talk to 4 year players, but like, What I'm seeing is bounce backs too, because we got one girl that tore her ACL and she, she came from a four year and she's back home now and she's going to play for us next year. She's red shirting this year. So I'm, I'm seeing a lot of that happening as well. Like Molly from Skyline, she, went to MIDI and she, you know, she blew up her knee and, you know, Now she's playing Division One. She transferred out. She's playing Division One. Dioli, when she blew up her knee in high school, and then a lot of Division Ones didn't bite at her. She went to Mission for a year, now she's playing at a division one. So that's what I'm seeing a lot with, recruiting is a lot of I'm going to four year and then we got to pivot, find those diamonds in the rough. And then we have to kind of like hope on those, those ones that are bounce backs. Right. The major part now is Right? Like, I hope CSM gets the housing to house players because like, a lot of they opened up the recruiting lines. Now you can recruit anywhere, right? Yes. So, so boundaries. Yeah. So now I can recruit in the state of California. Anywhere in the state of California. And, if a player approaches me, I got to get it clear. Tell him like, okay, we made contact now, let me get it clear. And then we can proceed to talk. And then we can talk once everything gets cleared up for out of state players and overseas players. have to have a certain amount to prove that they can pay for college and, prove it that they have it in their bank account. They have to afford living or they have to like live with three people. We can't like three or four people because We can't offer them housing, right? That's illegal, that's not within the rules. So, they have to afford, right? They have to afford to That's how Jody and Swithill got kicked out. Yeah, so, so that's, that's tough, right? Then, the other tough part of it too is, um, It's just, it's I'm not gonna recruit anywhere, like, past Vallejo, right? I'm not gonna recruit anywhere past San Jose, I don't think. Uh, but, I'm open to it because most of the CSM roster in This 2024 2025 roster makeup is from the East Bay, so the cool thing about it is CSM offers free Lyft drives from the Hayward BART to the campus for any student from the East Bay. If any student can access it. Then we can offer it. That's basically the thing. Yeah, that's like the golden rule. I just wanted to ask you a few a few more questions what's the most rewarding aspect of being a basketball coach? I have to say the most rewarding aspect is the relationships with the kids and helping them, whether it's helping them become better basketball players. Helping them by getting a minute alone, helping them by getting them out of the Loney. I've helped a few high school kids with videos. It has to be a relationship with with the kids, but I don't want to downplay. If you're not a good coach or at least a respectable coach, it's really hard to build that relationship. So you have to have that as well. But that is the most rewarding for me. My next question would be who has, been your biggest influences and or mentors in your coaching career? Well, without a doubt, my biggest influence is John Wood. I read all his books. I followed him. I grew up, UCLA was the best team in the world, and I read everything he's ever written. I watched videos. Right here I have the little pyramid of success, he uses quotes a lot, but as far as, a coach that I know, I did see what you're doing. I went around and interviewed coaches, asked if I can go to their practices. asked if I could bring my team to their practices. I've read so many books jay Wright is probably my more modern person. I would watch a lot of video and even on Ohlone. And he's no longer coaching, but I like a lot of things he did. But, like I said earlier, I have a lot of friends in the coaching circle. And that's, a lot of it comes from sharing information. I also went to tons of clinics. my next question would be, what advice would you give to someone aspiring to become a basketball coach? Well, a couple of things come to my mind. One is you gotta be yourself. You can learn from other coaches. And I, that's part of my advice, get out there and learn, read, watch videos. It's okay to steal ideas. It's that's part of the game, but you do have to still be yourself. Don't I've never tried to be John Wood or Jay Wright, but I've used their things. I still have to be Ron Rossi. You got to love the game. If you, yeah, you got to make it fun. That's the last thing, you know, be yourself, learn a lot, you know, all different ways. But you got to make it fun. You are a better coach when you're having fun. And a lot of the people will say, well, when I'm winning, I'm having fun. That is true, but you still got to make it, you still have to make it, especially with girls camaraderie is. It's the epitome. You have to have camaraderie. Paramount, I guess, is the best word. And you gotta make things fun. It's different with boys. Yeah. Girls are more appreciative. To end the podcast, I always like to do like a little rapid fire questions for fun. These are just like some fun questions. Um, the first one is who in, in your mind is your Mount Rushmore for the NBA? Will Chamberlain. Larry Bird, Julius Irving. And the fourth one, I have to go with Michael Jordan. Yeah, those four are the my favorite players. Julian Irving is my favorite player of all time. Both NCAA men and women coaches combined. What is your for that? So combine them. So I got, I got, I got to pick four. We got four, men or women, that coach at the NCAA level. Uh, there's a lot of great coaches that I like, but John Wooden's one, Kino, RMO, I liked him, Pat Summitt, for women, and then Jay Wright. What he did at Villanova was amazing with, you know, some make the NBA, but he's, Villanova is a very, it's a D1, but it's a very small college. Yeah. It's from Philadelphia. I grew up right outside of Philadelphia. Did you see what the Knicks kind of did this, this, uh, this offseason? They, they got the team back together. I felt, I felt like that's awesome. That's awesome. I'm not, I'm completely shocked that Jalen Brunson is as good as he is. Because I didn't, I thought he was good at Villeneuve, but I didn't think he was going to make a great pro. Yeah, that's, that's crazy. That's my four. My last question Who would be your all time starting five in the NBA? Wow, there's so many to pick from. I'd have Wilt Chamberlain center. I'd have Larry Bird, Julius Irving, probably Magic Johnson. And I'd say Kobe Bryant. I know that I said Michael Jordan. I was just trying to pick someone a little different because I'm a Mount Rushmore in my all time, but I could, I could go on and on with a B team and a C team. It's just as good. So, but. I alright, Ron, well, that wraps it up for this edition of Hoop Talks on Hoop and Hustle. Thank you to my special guest, Ron Rossi, and I would like to wish you the best of luck this season, Ron. Definitely looking forward to seeing what your team can do this year. And, I definitely probably will be out at some of your games. You know, just recruiting and whatnot, the teams that you play against and if you have any seniors, you know, so I'll be out in about, you know, I, I will be seeing you. That's good. Well, thank you for the time. It's clearly put a lot of effort into this and it shows. So you did a real good job. Thank you. And I will see you around for sure. For sure, man. Yeah. All right, man. All right. Have a great evening, buddy. Take care of it. Bye bye.