Episode #30: Josh Collins

Josh Collins is in his 13th season as the Head Coach of the Southwestern Oklahoma State University volleyball team, while also serving as an Assistant Athletic Director for Gameday Operations.

Collins – who became SWOSU Volleyball’s winningest coach during the 2016 season – enters the 2024 fall campaign with a career record of 183-163 after leading the Bulldogs to a winning record in each of the past six seasons. Most recently, the Dawgs went 19-9 (12-4 GAC) in the 2023 season and finished third place in the Great American Conference.  He was named the Great American Conference Coach of the Year in 2018 and 2021 and was recognized at the OklahomaSports.Net Small College Coach of the Year in 2021.

Learn more about Josh Collins here:  https://swosuathletics.com/sports/womens-volleyball/roster/coaches/josh-collins/506

Transcript

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Welcome back to the significant coaching podcast and coach Matt Rogers. This week's guest is head volleyball. Coach Josh Collins from Southwestern, Oklahoma state or Suazo as they affectionately call it. He is another great coach who I wish I would have had the great fortune to play for when I was younger. His passion for coaching and is genuine and authentic approach to teaching and mentoring got me pumped up to root for the bulldogs volleyball program. Josh is in his 13th season has had volleyball coach of his Alma mater. Where he's led the bulldogs to seven winning seasons in the last eight years and was named the great American conference coach of the year in both 2018 and 2021. And was also named Oklahoma sports.net, small college coach of the year in 2018. As a father of a high school and club volleyball daughter. I picked Josh's brain on the importance of high school play versus club play and what he sees as the value. Of each as a coach and a recruiter, you gave some really great answers. I love his spirit and I'm confident you'll leave our conversation as a big of a fan of coach Collins. As I now am. Please make sure to hit that subscribe button on all our platforms. You find the significant coaching podcasts like apple, Spotify, Amazon, and I heart radio, where you can listen to past and future episodes with all my great high school, college and professional coach and athlete guests. I also encourage you to check out my book on college recruiting. My weekly blog, or you can schedule a free college recruitment evaluation with me@coachmattrogers.com. So without further ado, here's my conversation with coach Josh Collins. Coach Collins, we were just talking before we click record that I was I was a college basketball coach for a long time and you coach some basketball and volleyball. I, October 15th, it was our date for basketball coaches. And for me, the seasons has started to change. It started to get a little bit colder, in about the first week of October, man, I started to shake a little bit cause I was so excited, ready to get back on the floor and be coaching. Yeah. It's that time of year for you as a volleyball coach, do you have some of those senses that kick in or there is a great deal of excitement that will come as soon as everybody is here. All of the travel plans are set. I told my wife at lunch today, I have this tightness in my chest. I think some of it is excitement, but also some of it is, anxiousness, just making sure that we have all of our ducks in a row. Absolutely. I know that feeling and I'm sure you're just coming out of camp season too. Right. Correct. Yes, sir. Where you haven't been able to breathe and think. And it was actually a pretty easy camp season for us because we play in a 4, 000 seat arena here at Southwestern Oklahoma state, and it got a brand new floor this summer. So we, didn't host any camps because we didn't know the timeline. And so we did all satellite camps. So that made things a little bit the schedule a little bit easier. Obviously we missed that time to be with different student athletes and to show our brand of volleyball to other people. But there's always next year. Yeah. And that's always hard too, because you want to show off your gym to all these young kids and show off your facilities. So I'm sure there's some toughness there too. Yeah we really miss what we call our elite camp which is, the camp where we bring in prospects and really show off our campus and show off our facilities and get to see those kids who are still looking for a place to play. That's great. Tell me about your league a little bit. I, it's, I talk to families all the time and I don't think there's a, really a great perspective of how many great conferences out there, how many great coaches are out there. Tell me a little bit about your program and within your league. Cause I think it's amazing how much talent is there. Yeah, so I've had I've been blessed to be a part of this league since its inception. And I was actually a part of our last league, which still stands. We just, we moved away from them. The Lone Star Conference the travel for us in Oklahoma and the Lone Star Conference was pretty difficult. I think that the Lone Star is still dealing with some of that, they have some really long road trips. And then I just think that the directions that we were moving were a little bit different as well, especially at that time. Our university was not fit financially to be in the same category as some of those schools in the Lone Star Conference. And many of those schools that we were in the Lone Star Conference with have moved up to Division one. And in 2011 we formed a conference with some schools in Arkansas who were also doing the same thing in the Gulf South conference. And so we created the great American conference and it's great parody. There's six. Oklahoma schools, there are six Arkansas schools. Our longest road trip is about eight hours. And we only make that road trip every other year because of the way that we do the volleyball side of things. Now the basketball schools they play everybody home and home. But in volleyball, we only play Oklahoma home and home. And then we alternate every year with Arkansas. For instance, this year we have the Arkansas schools. We have four of them coming to us and we're only going to two of them. Nice travel partners. So when we travel, we play one Arkansas school on Thursday and then the other Arkansas school on Friday. And so it's just a one trip to Arkansas. We come back. And Friday night, or do you come back Saturday? We come back Friday night. We play at 4 0 PM on Friday. Oh, that's not bad. Yeah. Not at all. Not at all. It's not a late arrival. We have our Saturdays, which is kind of nice, which is fantastic. Nobody has their Saturdays in volleyball. Exactly. And I'll go on record and say I voted against it and I hated the idea. And all the other coaches in our league were smarter than me because after we did it one year, I asked all of our players, I was afraid we'd miss too much class time. Yeah. And all of our players thought it was very doable and they really enjoyed the opportunity to catch up on Saturday and Sunday in the classroom and their homework but also support our football team on Saturday. Absolutely. That's it. So that's, it really is smart. Cause I think I would have been like you, I would have been arguing. Yeah, let's do it on Saturday. Let's give them a day of an extra day of class. Let's have a day between games just so we can recover a little bit. There's so many things that it makes sense now that I think about it playing Thursdays and Fridays. Yeah we've really enjoyed it. It's a 6 p. m. match on Thursday, 4 p. m. match on Saturday. So there is a little bit of turnaround time. We've always played back to back. So before we played Friday, Saturday and when we were in the Lone Star Conference, that's one of the things that we didn't necessarily like. We played Thursday, Saturday. And some of the towns that we go to, that having that Friday off, there's a lot of downtime and not much to do. Right. And we found ourselves sitting in the hotel a lot. You know, in tournament season, you always play back to back. So it kind of gets us prepared for the conference tournament and NCAA tournament should we make it. And I really like our schedule within our conference. And then just the parody top to bottom is, it's really, really good. And when we joined the Arkansas schools were pretty dominant. I think Arkansas Tech or Harding won the first several years of the conference. We broke through in 2015 Southern Nazarene after us. Now Oklahoma Baptist is in the mix and they've won the conference championship several times. And so it just feels like every school within our league is raising the bar. And we need to because we play in one of, if not the toughest region in the country. So our region is made up of us, the Great American Conference the MIAA, which is all of the Kansas and Nebraska schools, some schools in Missouri. They're always very, very tough. And then the Northern Sun Conference, which is Home of Concordia St. Paul, who's won nine of the last 13 to 14 national championships. Minnesota, Duluth, Southwest Minnesota state. So our region is so tough that, in the last couple of years, like we had the number 12 team in the nation in our conference and they didn't make the regional. Right? Yeah. My niece is the head volleyball coach at UW Platteville. It's the same thing up there with D three. She's one back to back 2020 wins in, 20 and seven back to back years that haven't made the time. That's yeah, it's crazy. Just crazy. Really good volleyball in the central part of the United States. There is. Usually on the D1 side at the power five level, you see it out on the coast or, obviously the university of Texas has been very dominant, but, for some reason, right in the middle of the United States and division two, it's, it's very, very good volleyball. Well, I, I do a lot of consulting with college athletic directors and presidents. And one of the things we always talk about is, is conference versus non conference scheduling. So I haven't talked about this in a podcast, and I think this is really a big thing that I don't think families understand what you're doing a year, sometimes. 18 months in advance on your schedule. Talk a little bit about how you go about building your schedule. Cause we talked about travel. We talked about budget. What does that look like for you a year in advance? You know, that's something that we've really harped on within our conference, because we are trying to raise our level to the two premier conferences in the country and the M I double a and the Northern sun, and you got to take a very strategic path to get there. And the strength of schedule is so important when it comes down to regional ranking, and deciding if you make that national tournament or not. And so you have to be very smart because if you schedule the top teams in the country and you go 500, you're not going to make it. But if you schedule, the mid to lower level teams in the country and you go, you win all of your matches, you're not going to make it. And so you have to win, You have to schedule the best teams that you can and still win the majority of your games in order to get into that regional tournament. And we're obviously very selective about what tournaments we go to. We evaluate the type of team that we have. This year we return nine and we feel like we have a really good chance to be good this year. So we wanted to beef up our schedule a little bit and really test us early. And so we're playing several, uh, Tournament teams from 2023 in our preseason tournaments to give us that chance to get that at large at bid. So I love that Talk a little bit about when you're obviously you're thinking about that strength of schedule and making the nationals and getting that open bid If you don't win the league, you don't win your your tournament Talk a little bit about how your thoughts work in terms of getting your schedule right to make the nationals versus Looking at your team, like you said, you got nine returners this year and go, where do we need confidence? Do we need some wins? Do we need some less competitive games where we can kind of figure out who we are? Is that a part of your process? Oh, absolutely. And some of that you talked about, it's 18 months ahead. It's, it's even two years ahead because last year, we felt like we were making, some strides. And so we scheduled a West Texas A& M who had won the national championship, and we were lucky enough to get the, to host them at our place. And, unfortunately we didn't win that match. we got beaten in a very close five. It was, uh, I think it was 11, 11 or 12, 12 in the fifth set. and we had a, an incredible environment. Our, our band brought all 97 members of the band. Kendra, who's a good friend of mine. Now she's, you know, she's moved on. Um, but, uh, you know, when she called her first time out, I think we were up 16, 11, the first set. And I looked at our band and every trumpet was pointed at her face in her time. Now I thought this might be the end of this relationship. What an atmosphere. It was great. And I think we had, you know, over a thousand people in attendance and it was a great atmosphere, a lot of fun, but, just scheduling them and competing against them, even though we lost, I think our team came out and said, we're really close. We're really close. And I think that kind of offered some drive in the spring and then offered some drive, in the summer to be ready for this fall schedule and we've gone out and again, we've scheduled some perennial powerhouses in our preseason, tournaments and, uh, so I hope that we've gained some confidence. Just from last year's schedule. But then we have some teams that, you know, we're going to have to go out and compete and we're going to have to play well, but if we get wins against them, it's going to give us that confidence that we need to go up against some of those, those bigger programs who, have had a longer lasting, sense of, just success. Then, we're a fairly young program. We started in 2005. When we're playing West Texas A& M, they've won multiple national championships before our program even started. And so we're trying to build to that level. That's great. When you're a head coach, there's no such thing as a moral victory, but when you play a team like that, you take them to five sets and your kids are fighting their tails off and going, wow, we're, we're with this, we're with the best team in the country and we can beat them, what that does for the rest of your season can be amazing. It really is. and just like you said, there's no moral victory. So for me as a coach, the only things I think about from that match are like, if we would have only done this, if we would have just made this adjustment, right, hindsight's 2020, but again, I think for our players, there are moral victories, you know, and, and. We have a lot of Amarillo area kids and that's where WT is located. And for them, they've always looked at WT, and some of them had chances to go there and chose to come to us. And some of them wanted to go there and didn't have that opportunity. And, and I think now that they're here at Southwestern, they're very grateful that they, had the opportunity here, but all of a sudden they're like, okay. We're there. Like we are there now, we just got to finish this thing. And so, I'm very excited to see, you know, how that translate to this season. And, I think that our kids are very confident and, we also are confident, but we're. we're aware that our schedule is tough, not only in the preseason, but our conference is just getting better and better every year. And you look around at the signing articles and what each program has brought in. And so we already have asterisks on our on our schedule of, we know we have to bring it in this match. That's great. Well, coach, you're talking to a club volleyball dad. I don't know if I told you that when we talked last week, I did not know that. So I'm in every fricking way. Are you about to ask me for a loan? No, God, I should. Yes. Yeah. That should be where I take this and every, every club parent, the country's gonna agree with me. I am amazed, I coached basketball a long time, so I was in a lot of gyms. I was in a lot of terms. I am amazed when we go to Atlanta. And there's 150 courts in a facility. We go to Dallas, there's 145 courts. We go to, you know, how do you attack club volleyball as a recruiter? You know, this will be different than anybody you talk to probably because we are very unorthodoxed. I'm also our assistant athletic director for game day operations. So for much of club season, I am announcing basketball games or announcing baseball games or making sure the run of show is going good. Right. You know, at our different sporting events. And so I don't have that freedom, to get out and go to all the club tournaments. And, my assistant coach is actually a volunteer assistant and she's also our assistant compliance director. So she's, she's in the same boat as me. She doesn't get to get out to all the club tournaments. So we've got to relied on our contacts. there are different scouting agent or recruiting agencies, such as your own out there, that we rely on. And really just word of mouth. And, it's crazy how those things work and it's getting easier and easier. We have a lot of players who are out there coaching now. and, Thankfully, I think that our university and our program has a really good name. And so we've been able to get into some hot beds of volleyball and we keep pulling from those hot beds and it's making our program better and better. But when we do have that opportunity, uh, you know, this year we went to Lone Star, um, and a lot of times for us, it's more following up with kids that we've already started the recruiting process with, if you go in there with a blank slate. You are going to waste a lot of time and your knees are going to hurt and your back's going to hurt and you're not going to get very far. But I find that most of the time in division two, the coaches who were out recruiting at those things, they've already targeted players through word of mouth, through agencies, however it may be. And they're getting out to watch those kids in action. Kids reaching out to you directly ahead of time. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. Well, thank you. I just sold 20, 20 more books because of that coach. That's a centerpiece of my book that coaches, coaches are not going to these tournaments with a blank sheet of paper. It would be a complete waste of your time to hope that you would find kids there in that type of facility. You have to know who's there ahead of time. Now you might find a half dozen kids you like while you're there. But you're going there so you don't have to go to 18 different towns. You can see 18 kids in one place. Am I wrong? Absolutely. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. That's fantastic. All right. I want to, I'm going to dive into club volleyball a little bit. Cause I really want to hear your thoughts on it. cause you just said we, we recruit through our resources. We don't, we can't get to every. Club tournament. We can't get to every national event. Talk to me as a parent. How important is it that my kid plays club if I want her to play division three, any ID to D one is it essential that she gets that level of experience and why or why not? There are a lot of factors that come into that. it probably depends on the level of your, your child's athletic ability. There, there are some freak athletes out there for lack of a better word that it might not matter that much, it also depends on the level of the high school. That they play within, we, we have a recruit coming in 2025 who's won three state championships and, her teammates are all going power five, um, and her high school team is much better than her club team. That is very rare, especially where we are in Oklahoma, so I don't know that that happens a whole lot, but I don't know that she necessarily absolutely needed that club experience to get exposure, and to get that high level of play. She was getting that experience at the high school. I am a big proponent of multi sport athletes. I went to a very tiny school. I I'm a very tiny person. So, and not a great athlete. I can say that now, but, I had the opportunity to play every sport that we offered in my little town. And I think that made me a well rounded athlete, but more than that, a well rounded person. And so we actually have several kids on our roster who play multiple sports. So I like that opportunity. I like that. Toolbox that they gain while doing that. But unfortunately that's becoming, more and more rare. And there's a lot of pressure for kids to play year out. And, I don't even know that we can make the decision right now of if that's a positive or not. And I know one coach in particular that comes to mind, who's a good friend of mine, who's a fellow division two coach, um, has stopped recruiting in his state and is coming into our state to recruit because there's less kids who play, you know, 11 months out of the year. And he's found that when he gets those kids who play 11 months out of the year, they're already burned out, and not only that, but they have these nagging overuse injuries that, his program then has to rehabilitate, for their first year in their program. And so. You know, I would love to tell you that I'm all about, no, you don't have to play club volleyball. you just have to do the work that, you would get from club volleyball, but some of that is also, protecting your mentality and protecting, just the fatigue of your body. but that is a very, very tricky equation. I talked to kids about this, if you're a baseball pitcher and you're doing this 12 months out of the year, if you're a hitter, if you're an outside, you're a pin hitter and this is all you're doing. This is this shoulder is eventually lots of wear and tear. It's going to tear and it's not going to be what you want it to be. So I love that mentality. I preach multi sport and I really in tell me if I'm wrong, coach, I don't think it's the college coaches driving this. I have, I have never heard a college coach say, Matt, I got it. I'm only recruiting volleyball players. If they play 11 months out of the year, I've never heard that from a college coach. Have you? No, absolutely not. It's the almighty dollar. Yeah, that's, that's what is driving all sports now. And as a basketball coach, you know that, you know, the money involved in, uh, you know, the outside of school aspect of basketball is it takes basketball in some good directions, but it also takes it in some bad directions. And I think the same can be said about, the club. Just the mindset. I think that there is a little bit of overuse, pushing of the athlete that wouldn't be there if it was just a volunteer, nonprofit organization. You know, um, I think the pushing the student athlete towards the highest possible level that they can get to, whether or not it's a good fit, Is a product of the club, world. I think that they need those division one power five signees so that they can go get that next group of parents who is willing to pay, tens of thousands of dollars a year for their kid to play for that program. And so it makes sense. I don't fault them. I understand where that mindset is coming from, but I don't know that it's always taking our sport in the positive direction. Well, I'm, I'm in the heart of it. You know, my, my daughter's, this is her fifth club in five years. And it's not we her dream when she started club at 11 was I want to be at the same club. I want to be at the same girls every year. And the club disbands the team every year and brings in 11 new kids. And we can't figure it out because how do you grow with your teammates? How do you learn where to put that ball for your, for your middle hitter? How do you learn how to make that pass to your, to your setter where there's, there's continuity there if you never play with the same kids all year. So that's, that's the part of club that drives me crazy. Matt, I would say the more important part is how do you form a family? You, you got it. You're right. I think that, I think that we've, we've lost perspective on that. And, and you know, what is the percentage of those 11 year old girls who start their club career, who are going to go make money playing the sport of volleyball? It's next to nil. Um, so we, we forgotten that the purpose of sports is to build character. The purpose of sports is to form lifelong. Relationships that literally become family. I know it's not blood, but it, many of our girls are closer to their teammates than they are to their brothers and sisters. And not that they're not close to their brothers and sisters. It's just a different bond. And you know, and that, that. Club or, AAU or whatever you want to call it. Mentality is now at the college level as well with, the transfer portal. And again, I'm not saying that the transfer portal doesn't have positives to it. It absolutely does. But the mindset of the grass is always greener is tearing the best aspects of sports away from these kids. I agree. My best friend that was my shooting guard in college. We still talk every other week. I'm, I'm his God, son of his youngest son, you know, and I don't think about our playing days a whole lot, but I sure do think about the fun we had and how much we love each other and we call each other brother and I, that was what was great about college sports for me, right. And I have no idea. Whether you're your college team was highly successful or below 500, but it doesn't matter because those stories come out of both sides of the aisle there, kids who are a part of teams that lost all four years in their career, though, they may have been miserable at times. They form those bonds. If they, if they stick it out, they form those bonds. Uh, just the same as, as you know, players who win national championships. Yeah, it's such a great point and I'm glad, I'm glad you've stressed it because I want every kid to have that experience. I want every kid to feel that they've, they've got that family, they've got that bond. We overuse the word culture so much in sports, but really when your culture is good. Your kids just can't wait to be with you. Can't wait to be with each other. You know, the winning is great, but they just can't wait to share. Right. I agree. And that to me, that is more rewarding than, than wins. Um, yeah, you know, I've had teams that have been highly successful that I. I enjoyed my time with them less than I did with the kids who overachieved by being three games below 500. And, it's all about that experience and all about doing life every day with a group of people who were trying to establish that like mindedness and get all of their arrows pointed in the same direction to achieve as high, as they can with that group. That's great. I, you and I had a great conversation last week and I want to, I want to bring some of that back up cause I just love your approach to team building, building your roster. Um, you don't pigeonhole yourself. Talk a little bit about that smaller hitter. You've got your pit hitter that you've got and talk, talk about her size and what she's able to do. How good I am at recruiting. Yes. Let's hit that right on the head. I got contacted by a player who played in our league. She didn't play for me and now she's coaching club, coaching high school as well, and she said, you got to check this kid out and Lacey will be a fifth year senior for us. So this was, five years ago. And so we brought Lacey in. Um, I should have known immediately that Lacey was a trooper because the only time we could play with her was at six o'clock in the morning on the recruiting visit. So she comes in at 6 a. m. and just balls out against us, but she's 5'6 and my other outsides were at least five, 10, I think on that roster, we had a six, one at outside. So bigger kids, most of the outsides in our league are in between five, six and six, one or five, 10 and six, one, excuse me. And so, Lacey plays with us. At that point, we didn't have a whole lot of scholarship to offer. Obviously division two is a little bit different than division one. We give a lot of partial scholarships out. And so in our conversation after, you know, I always tell them things they did good things that I think that they could improve on and where they would fit. And I just told her, Lacey, you can absolutely play for us. There's no question. You're probably going to be a back row player. We'll, we'll feed you a lot of back row attack balls. But. If I'm just being completely honest with you, we have a very small amount of scholarship to offer. I think you're worth more than that scholarship. And your goal is to hit front row. I don't think you'll do that here. Go somewhere else, you know, go, go somewhere else. And so she left discouraged that day. I'm sure. Um, I get a call a month later and she's like, coach, I don't want to go anywhere else. I want to go there and I'm going to prove you wrong. And I was like, Lacey, this is all the money we have. And she said, I'll make it work. She's let us in kills all four years. That's amazing. One of the best outsides in our, in our league, five foot six at the D two level in your league led you, led you to team and kills and every year, every year, you know, and, and she just continues to polish her game when she came to us, she could hit with power and she had a really nasty roll shot. And so we just worked with her every year and kind of challenged her and now she can tool, now she can open hand tip, she can hit thumb down, she can hit line, all, all of those different aspects. And so she, she's just built herself. She's a workhorse and, and she does, you know, she's one of those kids. I said, you have to evaluate their amount of athleticism while she is a freak athlete. She's. Just a solid ball of muscle and jumps out of the gym. But, um, yeah, that's how good of a recruiter I am. I told the kid who's let us in and kills every year for the last four years. Sorry. You're not good enough. If you're, if you've been a college coach for just a little bit, you don't have a story like that. Something's not right. Yeah. I love it. Fortunately, I have too many stories like that. I do. I do too. I, I remember when I was, when I was just recruit being a college recruiter, I had a, I'll tell you a quick story. I had a soccer coach. I think it was division two or small division one reach out to me and said, Matt, we just got our butts kicked by these giants. He goes, I'm tired of looking at soccer recruits that are, that are teeny tiny. I only want you sending me six foot. players. This is a men's to see six foot soccer pl it. Well, I go coach, no sure that what you need, Same coach calls me back and he goes, Matt, we've got some problems. I go, coach, haven't we been sending you the six, the six footers? He goes, yeah, yeah, you guys have been great. Everything I asked for, but we just got our tails run off the field by a bunch of midgets, five, six kids left foot, right foot. We couldn't keep up with them. So it goes, everything I told you two weeks ago. He goes, throw it in the garbage, forget it. If that's not the epitome of college recruiting, that is it. All right. So I love your approach that you're so open minded and how you want to build your program that you want great kids talk a little bit about what you're looking for in terms of their attitude, their character, what jumps out at you when you're talking to a kid and you watch them play. Well, as I told you, we don't spend a lot of time off campus recruiting. So a lot of times we're watching through film or we're, talking to contacts. and that's the first thing I ask, what kind of family dynamic do they come from? And it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to come from, you're, you're perfect, you know, picturesque. Family, but it means that they have adapted and, people gain character traits from whatever type of family they come from. So I want to hear what that is, and some kids have a ton of grit because they've been through a lot. Some kids are very appreciative because they didn't have a lot and now they have this opportunity. Other kids have had the best opportunities in the world, but are still grounded, you know, so I want to hear those things. I want to hear about those attributes. I want to hear about their character first and foremost. Most of the kids that, that we get contacted about, our contacts know enough about us, to know that they're talented enough to play for you. Now, what do you think? And so, usually we see the kids who can play for us. Absolutely. But I want to know deeper than that. And so I'm asking those questions and I'm asking, you know, how do they, how do they react when they're not playing? How do they react when, Hey, yeah, you're the starter, but you are not hitting well right now. So you're going to get pulled. Are they over on the sideline pouting? Is their body language bad? Are they over there cheering on the person who just replaced them? Because that's what family is. You don't have to like it. I don't want you to like it. I want you to be a competitor. Yeah. And I want you to find a way to get back out there on the court and pouting on the sideline is not it encouraging your teammate and making the wind more important at that point. And more than that, holding that culture together, that we're all in this together and whoever gets it done, that's what we want it to be. And so, I will find my way back on the court and practice. Right. But right now it's my job to be a good teammate. So I want to hear if that's the case. I want to hear, how are they going to react when, you know, we have to work a basketball game here? Cause it's life in the deuce, baby. Like we're going to do a little bit of everything. So you're going to be cleaning up after a basketball game. You're going to be fundraising. You're going to be doing community service events. Are you going to be, out there being an energy vampire, or are you going to be out there? Excited for the opportunity to serve the community that serves you so much. And, so I'm finding out from my contacts, is this a kid that we want to recruit? Because they're going to have these intangibles. Can they buy into something bigger than themselves? Yeah. If not, they're not gonna be happy here. Can they roll up their sleeves? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And you know, we were lucky enough a couple of years ago to get a kid who transferred to us from Tulane. She touched 7. I mean, she was amazing. She's playing professionally now. She's just signed her third professional contract, played in France last year, just outside of Paris. This next year she's going to Thailand. So obviously an incredible athlete. Um, very, very good middle blocker. But she got pulled in her first tournament and when she came on her visit, I told her flat out. You've had a lot of really good experience. She played four years at Tulane. She played, she has stats and wins against Ohio state against LSU. Like obviously the level's going to be a little bit different, but you know, division two volleyball is still good. And if you're not performing, you're not going to be out there. And so. we had that conversation and I was really upfront with her and I didn't try to sugarcoat anything with her. And sure enough, in our first tournament, she got roofed by the setter on a joust and she came over there and sat with me and she didn't like it, but she didn't get root by a setter again the rest of the season, you know, and she reacted in a very positive way. She was a great teammate. She cheered on the girl who went in for, and those are the kids that we're looking for. And that kid in particular had every opportunity to have a ton of ego and act like she, was the most elite in the gym, but she didn't. And those are the players that we're looking for. So, our next stage in the process for us, typically, we spend a lot of our money on official visits. And we'll fly kids in from all over the country because, Weatherford is a special place. It's very remote. We're about an hour to the oklahoma city metro and it's a small town of about 13 000 people it's very southern, you know, it's uh, very slow paced Everybody talks with the draw, And so it's very unique now. I think it's a very special place And so if we get kids on a visit Nine times out of 10, they're going to see that and we're going to get them. And so it's just an opportunity for me to spend, one, two, sometimes even more days, with the recruit. And I should be careful. I'll say that not more than 48 hours. But, uh, spend that time with the recruit and, make sure they get a feel for who I am, and I get a feel for who they are. And there's been times where we brought kids that we thought were really, really good on the court, onto our campus. And we've known within the first 15 minutes that they were not a fit for us. Talk, talk a little bit about that. What are those red flags that pop up on a visit or when you do happen to be out and about at a high school and you're talking to a kid, are there certain things that just rub you the wrong way real quickly? Negativity is my Kryptonite. I do not deal well with it on the court. I do not deal well with it in the locker room. And so on that visit, if there's a ton of negative comments, whether it be about, Our, community or our facilities or our campus, it tends to be less of that and more negative comments directed at who they're with, negative comments to their mom or dad or, just a sense of entitlement or, just a sense that the world revolves around them. Those things are immediate red flags for me. If we go into a place and, they don't like the way that somebody approached them and, and I can see that interaction. It was clearly not meant that way. If they don't like that, that's a red flag for me. And if you're going to find a way to be a victim, You have a lot of chances to do that to do that as an athlete, whether you're a six rotation starter, then you're going to be complaining about the way you were statted, or you're going to be complaining about the way you were set, or you're going to be complaining about the pass that you received. those things do not just stay in one portion of your life, they translate. So if your negative comments are coming towards your parents because they didn't park the car in the right place or they didn't grab your water out of the car. Then those are going to translate to my center when she sets the ball to you and I, we don't have time for that. That's going to break our culture down. And we're all about family. Now obviously there's times within a team to have those positive conversations, and we're always open to giving each other feedback, but it can't be from a victim mindset. So those are big things that we look for, just to see, Hey, that's a major red flag. But coach, I'm 6'3 and I played for the National Championship Club team. I mean, is it bad or is it good? You'll be somebody else's headache. I don't care. Thank you. We had, we were looking for a JUCO outside one year. This was several years back. And we had a two time JUCO All American on our campus who was very, very good. And I made my decision in her first interaction on campus. Yeah. Yeah, and we passed on her and she was shocked, but our culture is more important than one than one person. And I got the sense that she wouldn't be able to buy into the team mentality. And if you can't do that at our university, then you're not going to, you're not going to be happy here. And that's the main thing. If you're not happy, then the people that you rub shoulders with are not going to be happy either. So we want kids who can come in and buy into a team culture, who are willing to roll up their sleeves, who can take off their cool. my kids hear that all the time. If you're too cool to go read to some elementary kids, you're too cool for our program. Go somewhere where you can be cool. Yeah. Same for me. It was same with parents. I would go to gyms and I would sit, I wouldn't wear my school colors. I would just go to the game and I'd sit up in the bleachers and I'd kind of figure out who the parents were, the kids I was looking at. If I heard any negativity about their high school coach, any negativity about, you know, other kids or anything like that, that would be enough for me. I don't know how that is for you, but the parent negativity was just as bad for me. And I talked about some of the negatives about club. I'll talk about some positives. Please do. Yeah. And services like, like you offer. My inbox is inundated with kids who want to play. So I don't have to hang my hat on a kid and take a chance on a kid whose parents are bad mouthing the high school coach up in the stands or bad mouthing the club coach up in the stands. And I don't have to take a chance on a kid who is demanding a blue Gatorade instead of a yellow Gatorade that their mom just brought them. Go back and get me a blue Gatorade. You know, I don't, I can mark you off very quickly. Can you imagine you were a small town kid like I was, I can't even imagine doing that to my folks. I would have not cleared concussion protocol for the next match. I was going to say it without saying it. My dad would have knocked me out. Yeah, my dad would have, my dad would have come out of his chair in about a second to let me know that doesn't ever happen. Yeah. Absolutely. The world has changed a little bit. Let's get out of the negative and get back into the positive for you. Talk about where your joy of coaching comes from. And, we talked about how the season and the tightness of the chest, you can feel it coming, but where does your joy of coaching come from? Obviously I love to compete. I love, the feeling of, you know, I was kind of late to volleyball. As you mentioned, I coached basketball, so I really didn't get introduced fully into volleyball until my senior year of college. And at that time, our coach here, coach Bo Palasoddy, Dr. Palasoddy now. It was our coach and I was his student assistant and he just took me on. Just out of the goodness of his heart, I think, so I was with him and I called my dad. My dad's a very good basketball coach, coached in the state of Texas forever. Now he's retired in Texas and coaches in Oklahoma. And I called him and I was like, dad, coach Bo's a great guy. Like he is a good, good man, but he is a terrible coach. Our best player will get like four kills in a row and then he just pulls her out of the game. And then I learned later on that she was a middle and she was rotating back row. So like that's, that's the amount of volleyball that I knew back in 2005. So I'm relatively new to the game, right? So I'm not necessarily out executing people with X's and O's. Like we have coaches in our conference who, played power five and I've been doing it for 30 years. So My joy comes when I outwork them. And, when, I know that our scouting report helped our teams be successful, helped our girls be successful. So that's a great sense of joy. We sing our fight song, after every win. And it's a passionate thing. And it's something that, our team has helped revive here at our university. We didn't have that fight song in place when I got here and. Our team and some other people on campus kind of revived it. And now it's very much part of our culture. And so when we go in that locker room and our girls are screaming every word, just excited about the way that we just got, that's, A great deal of satisfaction, but I think bigger than that, it's those interactions that I have with players who gave their heart and souls to our program for 2345 years. And then I talked to them, when they have their first child or I talked to them, at their wedding, and one of my biggest mentors in this game, Chris Herron, who's at the university of Washburn or Washburn university. I don't know which one it is. But, you know, he's, his record is just outstanding. He's been to the tournament, more years than I've been alive. He's got so many all Americans. And one time I heard him speak at ABCA and they asked him, how do you define success after such a successful career? And he said, he stopped and he paused for a second. And then he said, I gauge my success by how many wedding invitations I get each summer. And that spoke. volumes to me because I, I do think that was something that I held dear before I heard Chris say that. But when I heard him say that one of the premier coaches in division two volleyball, I knew I can continue on the path that I'm on and I can value people. Overproduction and, so many players we've had come into our program that we missed on, you know, players that weren't quite as good as we thought they were going to be, or players that we recruited over, and they didn't get the playing time that they thought they were getting. And honestly, they didn't get the playing time that we thought that they were going to get during the recruiting process, but we treated them like humans during their career. And we had tough conversations and we had to give our side as to why they were recruiting. And they had to give their side to, why they should be playing. And, it wasn't always rainbows and butterflies, but there was always love and there was always, Hey, how are things back home? Hey, how are your classes going? Are you, are you homesick at all? Like what's going on? Just developing that relationship and they stick it out. And parts of their journey are the hardest parts that they've experienced up until that point. Parts of their journey are also some of the most satisfactory, most rewarding, uh, and biggest character building moments of their life. And so then you get to talk to them four or five years down the line, and now they're coaching, you know, six, a team in Texas, you know, and, and they still. Love me. They love our program and gosh, I love them. I'm so proud of where they, the heights that they've taken themselves to. And I think that that is probably the most important thing about sports. It's definitely the most important thing about our program here at Southwestern Oklahoma state. And it's the reason I coach. Shows, you know, I asked you to send me a good picture of you last week and the picture of you and I told you this, it just, your spirit was in this still picture, your energy and your love for the game and your joy. You could just tell it was in your face and that just that still picture. So, and now getting to spend quality time with you today, it's obvious that. It's no joke. You love the game. You love your kids. You love the experience, and there's nothing but pure joy there, which is the reason I do what I do. I'll be honest. I think that some of those qualities were instilled in me by my parents, but our community has instilled that and you know, ratified it and made it stronger and just, this community that we're in Weatherford and our campus. That's the way we operate. And I always tell recruits, if you invest a little bit. In this program, in this community, in this university, you'll get tenfold back and I'm a product of that. And so now it's a pleasure to offer that to other student athletes. Fantastic coach. You've given me a lot of time today. I've got one question. I ask all college coaches before, before I let you get onto your busy schedule, but give a piece of advice. And it could be advice that was given to you, but give a piece of advice that you think that 16, 17 year old that's coming up through the ranks and wants to play college volleyball. What advice would you give them? It might be multiple parts here, but the first thing I would do is really get a true evaluation of where you stand. Know where you fit, and know if, you know, Hey, I'm good enough that I could, I could go to a power five and maybe make a difference in my senior year, or maybe you're a kid who can go to a power five and make a difference immediately, or maybe you're a kid who I'm going to have to fight in You know, at the lowest levels of N. A. I. Of, N. C. C. A. A. Or whatever that level may be, but know where you fit, and try to get a gauge of where you fit at all levels. There's great schools in every single realm of college athletics. The division doesn't matter. The next thing I would say is, decide what role you want to have. Some kids have the option of being a difference maker at the highest levels. Some kids, you might have to pick a level a little bit lower than the highest level to be that difference maker. If you want to be a difference maker will then find where you can be a difference maker. And that may mean playing your freshman year. If that's the case, ask the people who know what level could I play My first day, uh, my first game, in my college career. Once you find that out, then start identifying those programs. Start identifying schools in that talent level. And do be absolutely relentless, because I'm a division two coach and I have thousands upon thousands of emails sent to me. There's so many, I don't have time to go through all of them. And it stinks. I could have future all Americans, kids who could absolutely drastically change our program in my inbox. But my reality is that I just don't have time with all the hats that I wear to get through all of those. So you have to stand out. And you have to, show up on campus, go to camps, find people who know people who can talk to that coach individually, but be relentless and make sure that you get in front of them. And then, finally, I think that I would just say everybody on that team was the best player in high school. They were. Very rarely do we get a kid who wasn't the best player on our high school team, or the best player on our club team, or the best player in that region, or whatever it may be. It's just the best of the best when you get to this point. And so come in ready to work, ready to roll up your sleeves and don't give up on your dream and, you know, decide the grass is greener on the other side and hop out or, enter the transfer portal or stop playing volleyball because you face some adversity. Adversity is good. It's going to make you who you're going to be. And in the end, you're going to thank yourself for, pushing through and developing those character traits to give you the opportunity to reach your goals. It's great advice. It's something I preach all the time, too. You know, not every kid has somebody like me. I've been coaching for 25 years. So for you and I to have a relationship, there's some common sense there. But a lot of kids don't have a parent. They don't have a coach, a high school coach that has those type of ties. So I think the advice about get making sure you know your role, but also knowing what your true value is as a recruit is really valuable. And that may mean you, you got to go to a couple of college camps. And don't waste that three days or four days at that camp by not talking to the coaches say, Hey, will you give me some feedback before I leave here? Where do you think I belong? Where do you think my best position is? Do you think I can play D3? Do you think I can play higher? Do you see me as in a certain position? I can't believe your staff wouldn't answer all those questions at a camp, right? Oh, we absolutely would. Yeah. So like you said, grind it, hustle it, figure it out, talk to those people that actually know. Cause you know, when I called you about a girl, I think she can play at your level, but she's small and she's a great athlete laterally, but she's, there's some things that she's still struggling with. I think for the right coach, she can play at your level, but we're still trying to figure that out. It doesn't matter what I think. And it's all about what do you think? So I think the more kids can get a true evaluation from a third assistant on a D one program, a graduate assistant on a D two program, those things, those are really valuable words to hear, right? Yeah. And another thing that I would say, we've had several kids, whether they be local kids or kids who have learned about our program from afar, who have their heart and soul set on playing here. And sometimes they get the feedback of You're just not what we're looking for. You're you, maybe you don't fit what we need in our program. Maybe your vertical isn't high enough, or maybe we're looking for somebody who can speed up the offense or, whatever it may be. Or maybe it's just like our program carries 14 on our roster. 14 to 16. We want low numbers because we want every single person to have a legitimate chance to play because that, that just builds culture. If you have 10 or 12 girls on the sideline, you have to be really, really good at managing emotions, to keep your culture strong because you got 10 girls who aren't playing. Right. And so we keep a small roster, so we're not always looking for four outsides. So we're going to take the best outside that is the best fit for us. And you could be a really, really good player who could play at our level and could probably make us better. But we just don't need you right now. And so when you get that news. It's not the end of the world. And that doesn't mean, Oh, I can't play or I I'm not meant for this. It's not, we're not trying to attack you. We're just trying to give you an honest evaluation and give you the opportunity to go find somewhere else. And I'll even tell kids, please sign within our conference and come out here and show me that I was wrong. If you do that, I'll hate it. Like I'll hate it for our program, but on the same token, I'll be like, good for you. Good for you. Yeah. And that's going to be a life lesson that you're going to take with you into your career. And when the boss says something that you don't like, you're not going to, you know, tuck your tail and turn away and lose all your confidence. You're going to grind it out and you're going to become a better employee. When your marriage hits a rocky spot, you're not going to file for divorce. You're going to battle it out. And you're going to, and you're going to hold those things together when you have a tough patch, raising a kid, you're not going to give up on that kid. So again, those are the things that are important about sports. And, sometimes we forget those. And I think that again, just the way the world is going and the power of the almighty dollar, some of those things are being lost. Coach, I've learned one thing today, and that's, Swazu is lucky to have you and your kids are lucky to have you. And I hope your community continues to appreciate you. I am eternally grateful for the time you've given me this last couple of weeks. And, you've got a huge fan and me moving forward. So thank you for your time today. Well, I appreciate that. And, thanks for what you're doing. I think that you're providing some logic to, to these kids that you're working with and you're also pointing them in the right direction. So thank you so much for having me on. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about division two, our conference and our program, and, we're much appreciative, so I'll be following you as well. A copy of that book. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it's been a pleasure. Good luck this season. Have a, just have a ton of fun going into, practices and I'll look forward to keeping in touch. Sounds great. Thank you so much, Matt. Hey, that's a wrap for this episode of the significant coaching podcast. I'd like to thank the great Josh Collins, head volleyball coach. At Southwestern, Oklahoma state, man, does he have me pumped up? Man. I love listening to him and I'm excited to follow his bulldogs. I know they're going to have another great year. If you are enjoying these conversations, I encourage you to subscribe on the platform of your choice wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you are interested in working with me or scheduling me to speak at your school or organization. You can schedule a free strategy session@coachmattrogers.com. Thanks again for listening. Have a significant week. Goodbye until next.