Be Extraordinary – Make Them Believe, with Scott Davenport

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors.

Of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance.

Now your host, Ed Molitor. Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molotor Group, Ed Molitore. And just wait for today's conversation. I am so fired up to bring you Scott Davenport, Coach Davenport, head men's basketball coach at Bellarmine University in Louisville, who will be jumping into their first season of Division 1 basketball. Now let me tell you a little bit about Coach Davenport, okay? Coach began his coaching career as a graduate assistant under Denny Crum in Louisville back in 1984. He did move on to VCU for one season as an assistant to Mike Polio before returning to the Louisville area as a high school coach at Ballard High School. And everyone in the basketball world knows Ballard High School and a tradition.

He stayed there for 10 seasons from 1986 to 1996, where he won a 1988 state championship and later coached future NBA players Dejuan Wheat and Allen Houston. Coach Davenport returned to the Cardinals under crumb in 1996 and would stay on as an assistant coach for rick Pitino until 2005. And this is fascinating because Coach Davenport is the first assistant that Rick Pitino kept from a previous staff before he took over a program. And then in 2005, coach took over the head coaching job at Bellarmine University. Now, since joining the Knights, stay with me here when I start reading these numbers, okay?

Since joining the Knights, Coach Davenport, he has become the all time wins leader at the school and has led the team to six Great Lakes Valley Conference titles, regular season titles, five conference tournament titles, along with 12 NCAA Division 2 Men's Basketball Tournament appearances, which includes Final Four appearances in 2011-2012-2015-2017, and that includes the 2011 national title. Now, I'm going to add some numbers to this because it's truly amazing. We talk about sustained success all the time on the Athletics of Business podcast. Check this out. 13 straight 20 win seasons, 20 or more wins, okay? But inside of those 13 straight 20 plus win seasons, in 2010, 2011, they had 33 wins, okay? And won the national championship. 2014, 2015, 31 wins, went to a Final Four, 2016 and 2017 season, 32 wins and went to a Final Four.

His overall record is 344 wins to 101 losses. He was the NABC coach of the year 2011 and four, which I, I mean, I think he might have got stiffed a couple of years for GLVC Coach of the Year Awards. 2011, 2012, 2017 and 2018. But here's the coolest part about Coach. Like, the numbers are great, but they're a byproduct of the way he does things. And when I hung up from our first phone conversation several weeks ago, were introduced by mutual friend Tony Ryneck. And when Coach and I connected, we talked for an hour and a half, 90 minutes. As soon as we hung up the phone, I picked up my phone and I texted Tony. I said, I need more Scotty Davenports in my life.

That's one of the things, you know, we always talk about surrounding yourself with successful people and type of people you want to become. And after you listen to his stories, his salesmanship and just his passion for impacting young men's lives, you'll understand what I'm talking about. Some of the things we'll talk about are what is the difference between a vocation and an advocation? Okay. And there's a great story tied into that. And why is it so important for your players to be your best recruiters? And you think about that in terms of the sales world and in the business world, you want the people inside of your organization to be your best recruiters. And how it was coaches who helped shape Coach Davenport's life after he lost his father at the early age of 9 years old.

What was it about him that convinced Rick Pitino to keep him as an assistant after Denny Crumb retired? And why he believes Coach Davenport believes it is so important to treat your people first class. And why in his first team meeting. And I love the story he tells behind this. And it extends it to about 15 and 20 minute conversation. Why in his first team meeting after taking over at Bellarmine, he excused the four seniors and how that helped build the powerful culture was helped them sustain an elite level of success. Enjoy this conversation with Coach Davenport. Coach Davenport, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. I am so humbled to have you here with us.

It's my honor. You know, I get to do this podcast. Love it. I have to do this podcast. And I've said every day of my professional life that if you get to go chase your dream versus you have to go. That's a 180 degree difference. I mean, that's a mindset. You know, my mother passed away 10 years ago and right before she passed away. She said to me, if you really keep working hard, you might get a real job, make something out of yourself. That I've never had a job, that I've had an advocation of these young people, of the game of basketball. Not a vocation by definitions, a job. I've never had one.

I love it. Where did that passion for coaching come from?

Well, I think it was my upbringing. I grew up and the people following. There's a landmark right down my street. A lot of people in their backyard could have had a swing set or a basketball goal. I had Churchill Downs, you know, the most iconic racetrack in the world. Churchill Downs was in my backyard. And I lost my father at 9 years old on Halloween day on a Sunday at 1:15. And if you think when you're 9 years old, Halloween day on a Sunday at 1 15, that's a pretty good day. And 15ft from me, my dad drops dead of a heart attack. And my mother, the best we can tell with a sixth grade education from a rural area, Kentucky, Greene County, Kentucky, ran her own business for over 43 years.

And I've got players at a phenomenal academic institution like Bellarmine University, prior to that at University of Louisville. And they're complaining about the opportunity they have in front of them. And she ran her own business for 43 years with a sixth grade education. And I asked her, I said, how did you do that? I got a sister that's five years older than them. I said, how did you do that? She said, it was very simple. If we needed more, I worked harder. I cut more people's hair in the beauty shop. And I lost a younger sister and an older brother at birth. So you look at the big picture. Look at my mother was Rosie the River back in World War II. And I said, why did you do that? She said, they needed me.

So if the young people you're coaching, if you're there for them and you push them as harder or harder than they've ever been pushed in their life, but you support them, I think that's a good recipe for success. And I'm proud of where I came from. I'm incredibly proud of where I came from. I am seeing demonstration on my street, open housing. My sons are 32, 34. I had to educate them. In 1968, they were peacefully protesting to where everyone, regardless of your race, could buy a home. You could have all the money, and they had to pass an ordinance. And one of our council person, a Board of Aldermen member, lived on our street two blocks Away. He owned a florist and they marched peacefully down our street to try to get him and persuade him.

So I've lived this, these times and the reason I am who I am is because of the way and where I grew up. I'm totally convinced of that.

So. And I have to think that growing up the way you did that there was some coaches, some men in your life that made a huge and tremendous impact on you.

I made the basketball team, the ninth grade basketball team. I went to a junior high, not a middle school, it was seven, eight, nine. And I made the junior high basketball team as an eighth grader. And that was a big thing for an eighth grader to make the junior high team. And I wrote a diary, what I call a diary now, it would be a sophisticated blog, but I wrote every single day, every day what we did in practice. And I made comments about Mike Shaw or Danny Nicely or Dean Johnson. I made comments about teammates, but I wrote what we did. And that gentleman coaching that team whose name was Vernon Wolf. And if you don't think he impacted our lives on game day, you had to wear a tie to school. There's only one problem.

First of all, you had to go get a tie. Second of all, nobody knew how to tie the tie. I mean, you know, my dad was a blue collar gentleman that worked at a American Standard. They made toilet fixtures and commodes and sinks and I mean nobody knew how to tie a tie. It wasn't just me. So every morning on game day, we'd all meet in Mr. Wolf's classroom because he'd have tie everybody's tie. Well, he didn't have a family. When I was in high school, he started a family and he named his only son he ever had Scotty named son after me. So he was the first to impact my life. But it's ironic. Coaches chose me. Everybody says, why did you choose coaching? I think it's because they chose me. I mean he was there for me.

And I go to high school and my JV coach as a 10th grader, gentleman named Al Peffer. He's a great trivia question. Answer if you name the gold medal winners. From the city of Louisville, Muhammad Ali. In boxing, Mary T. Maher is one of the greatest swimmers ever. Madame Butterfly. Mike Silliman, a basketball player that played at West Point, played on our Olympic team. My high school baseball coach won an Olympic gold medal in 1956 in Melbourne, Australia as baseball was a demonstration sport. He never mentioned it because he was so humble. So if you don't think he shaped my life. When I was a sophomore, he was a JV coach. When I was a junior, he was elevated to be the varsity coach.

He said to me in September, the first Friday in September, he said, meet me at the school tomorrow morning at 10. Meet me on the stadium. I'm going to help you and your mom. Well, I didn't know. Coach said, be there at 10 o' clock Saturday morning. So you're there. You didn't ask him why? Maybe he's going to extra conditioning, who knows? Coach Pepper showed up in a pickup truck with two metal garbage cans. There was not a stick with a nail in it, not a blower, not a plastic bag. There was a rake. And he said, you take underneath and I'll take the track. And we cleaned the stadium by hand, piece by piece. And then the next week we cut and strike the football field. He said, meet me again in the morning. But he would pay me every two weeks.

It would help my mother, my sister and myself with money we didn't have. Well, it's ironic, Ed. My high school coach and I won't make it through this. Two years ago March, he passed away. And he said, no flyers. No flyers. Well, if you're like me, it requests donations. A lot of times unless we do it right on the spot, we forget it. We just do. His request was no flyers. He wanted shoes for kids.

Wow.

Well, here's the reason. When he retired from teaching and coaching, he started having clothing drives all over, specifically the west end of Louisville. And he would raise them through churches and through schools. And he called me when I was coaching at Bellarmine and he said, I need some help. I said, coach, what do you need? He said, I need some big size shoes. And I said, what? He goes, well, I'm sure your players, when they're through with them, they're still in great shape. I need big sizes. Well, it went from Bellarmine men to Bellarmine women to University of Louisville women, University of Louisville men. The last trip I took, I had to borrow a pickup truck of the facility team here at Bellarmine. And the entire bed of the truck was full with shoes for those that need them.

So when he passed, I went to the Visitation and everybody was walking in with 2 and 3 pair of shoes for kids. They'd gone to all these different outlets and they were buying two for one, three for one, four for one. So on Saturday morning, the day of the funeral, I was a pallbearer and I went to the Funeral office. And I asked him, I said, how many pair? This young lady, I'll never forget. She was a former athlete of Bellamy. She said, Coach, we're over 250 pair of shoes. They were everywhere. Well, you don't think he shaped my life. On Monday morning, I made a call to find out there was an elementary school here in Louisville.

250 young people went to school not knowing that day they were going to go home with a brand new pair of shoes, courtesy of my high school coach. So, yes, he shaped my life because what did he do? He made others better. Now, I'll tell you, if I did to my players what he did to me on that court, I would be fired one day. He was so hard. I mean, what he said and how tough, but the support he gave us. He sold candy out of his classroom. Snickers, Reese cups, Milky Ways every day to provide us a sport coat, a shirt, a tie, and a pair of pants to wear to the games. So we would look first class.

The number one lesson I ever learned in coaching was if you treat them first class, you're more apt to have first class performance back. No guarantee, but you treat them first. If you treat them third class, you. You're getting third class back.

Well, and I'll tell you what, speaking of that, I mean, here you are at a Division 2 school and you're making a transition to Division 1, but in the, in, I think one of the top two or three leagues, if not the top league in Division 2 basketball, the great Lakes Valley Conference. And obviously I'm a little bit jaded in why I think that I have a bias towards it. But you treat, you do everything first class. But at the Division 2 level, you didn't have the budget to do it. So you were washing backboards yourself before the game. You were vacuuming the locker room, lining up the chairs. Talk to me a little bit about that, because that's just so amazing. I mean, the same things that John Wooden used to do, all the great ones used to do.

Well, if it needs to be done, you do it. If the laundry's in the dryer and the washer needs to be put in the dryer, you do if the backboards need to be cleaned. Now, there's a great teaching lesson there. If one of our players, 15 years ago, when I took this job, if Matt Miller, who runs a Matt Miller basketball out in Aurora, Illinois, if Matt Miller comes in and the coach is washing the backboards, vacuuming the locker room, doing the laundry, straighten the chairs I think the message is he's not going to rebound any better, he's not going to defend better, make an extra pass. But his attention to detail may be off the charts, that every little thing that coach says matters because look what he's doing through his attention to detail. You know, it's all about teaching.

And the first lesson you ever learn in coaching is there's more than one way to be successful, but it works for us. And you referenced Coach Wooden. You know, I coached under Coach Crumb at Louisville. I played, I was a walk on JV program or player in his program. And now then I coach under Coach Pitino. Two hall of Fame coaches. I say this in all seriousness, but I'm being very humble. If Coach Pitino and Coach Crumb came to watch practice, they would look me in the eye and they'd say, well, Scotty, that's a great practice. Your guys are amazing. But I think when they got in their car, there would be a side of them that would laugh at me because they would say, I can't believe he's doing that drill. Five man passenger, a four man passenger.

You know, I think they would never laugh to my face. I think they're too great a gentleman, but I think they might laugh. But it works for us. Again, there's more than one way to be successful. And maybe you wouldn't do it with a caliber athlete at a Louisville or in Coach Crumb's case at Louisville or in Coach Pitino's at Kentucky or at the Celtics, but it works for us. But that attention to detail, that basis on fundamentals, it carries over academically as well. It's all about fundamentals academically and then executing and putting the time in. Well, we're 30 straight semesters with a 3.0 or plus team GPA. Graduated 57 out of 61, had 17 players playing while they were in graduate school.

Unbelievable.

So, you know, I'm proud.

Now I want to pick up on the fundamentals and attention to detail, but I got to tell you something, and I just got a text. You talk about how your coach. I mean, I have goosebumps right now. You just talk about how your coach had an impact on you. And you mentioned Matt Miller. Okay, so my daughter and my son go to M14 with Matt. Okay, Matt happened. I mean, Matt does an amazing job. And I'll tell you what, I now know where his guys that work for him at M14 get the energy because I've never seen anything like it with youth sports. And I'm talking When my kids started there, they're seven and five. They run it like a college practice. Tempo, pace, enthusiasm, reinforcement. But you know what they do? They hold those little Sonoma guns accountable, too. It's awesome.

So now that I know it comes exactly from you.

So. And he just.

So he just texted you. He just texted to tell you hello. Literally send him a picture of you on my screen.

Wait a minute, where's my phone?

Yeah, text him right now. I'm telling you right now.

There it is. Matt Miller.

Yeah.

That is unbelievable.

When you say I had to let you go. You were, you were saying too much good stuff for me to interrupt you when you said Matt Miller.

But just so everybody knows, you and I did not talk about.

No. And we talked for an hour and a half last week. We talked for an hour and a half last week. And then we are a week and.

A half ago, let me tell you. Matt Miller. So I get hired at Bellarmine on the 27th of March 2005. And I had a meeting at 7 in the morning with the returning players. I already had a staff assembled. So we met at 7 in the morning. And then there was going to be a press conference at 10 o'. Clock. So we go in the meeting and I excuse the four seniors. I asked them to please excuse themselves out of the room. Matt Miller, Calvin Fowler, Montonio Blake and Kyle Frasch. What do you think now, Ed? What do you think was going through their mind when I excused? They asked them to excuse themselves out of me. And you know basketball, There are four rising seniors. They won nine games. What do you think they were thinking?

Oh, they're thinking all sorts of things.

Probably we're done.

Yeah. Yeah. Like this is, he's, he's changing things here. And it ain't going to be with us.

Well, when I excused him, I challenged everybody in the room, starting with the returning players. I said, and the staff. I said, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you have to shoot 300 extra shots a day. I don't care if you got draw five charges a game. If you're an assistant coach, you gotta watch film till your eyeballs fall out. I don't care. Those four must have a winning season. I don't care what we have to do right now on the 27th of March. Because college is supposed to be four of the greatest years of your life, but it's supposed to prepare you for the next 45 years to your Life, passion, attention to detail, discipline. So I excuse them. That afternoon we have individual instruction and I've got two goals.

How hard we're going to work and how well we're going to work together. And I've only got two days because it's the Friday and Saturday before final exam start. I got Friday and Saturday to establish this. So we start in the first group. I mean, they're getting after. I mean, I am challenging and Matt's in the first group and I'm. We're doing this knockout, one one drill. That is just. It's so tough. And I'm screaming at Matt pay, dig in, Matt, dig in. And I'm screaming at Matt Miller, get by him. They bump heads and I look and one of them's got a cut over his eye. And I look and the other one was. The other1 actually BJ Flint, he's got it cut over his eye. Both of them are bleeding everywhere. My son is a junior in high school and I smell.

I said, doug, go get a trainer. Go get a trainer. He starts sprinting, turns around me goes, dad, who's the trainer? Go find somebody. We send him off to the hospital. Now the other four in the next group are looking around the corner and they're thinking, oh my gosh, who is this nutrition? So I go to the hospital, I check them out, they're getting their stitches. It's a Friday afternoon, Friday evening, their mothers and fathers are there. They can't believe I was there in the er. Well, if that was my son, I'd want to coach there. I get up at 7:00 the next morning, I run a half marathon with Kevin Willard, now the coach at Seton Hall. And we run a half marathon in honor of the Kentucky Derby. And then at 10 o' clock, we're back. I finished around nine.

At 10 we're back for our last two sessions. But in those two days, the Matt Millers of the world, we established how hard we're going to work and how hard we're going to play this game together. A little sideline here. That night, a great friend of mine, a couple that he got a new job, another one got a promotion, and this other friend, there was four couples. We had gone to a great dinner. I've been named the head coach at Bellarmine. We come to my house, 10:30 for dessert, and Coach Pitino calls me and he says, what are you doing? He said, I just want to thank you for your comment that you made publicly on my behalf. I said, no, coach, those were from the heart. I appreciate you. I was the first one he ever retained from a previous staff.

When he came to look and he said, well, Scott, are you partying? I said, no, sir. We've got these three couples here that we came home for dessert. They got a promotion, new job and about an hour and 15 minutes later the doorbell rang. I have two kids in high school. When your doorbell rings at court, well, that's not a good thing. Sprint and open the door and it's two bottles of Dog Perry on beautiful and a dozen roses for my wife that he had called and had people go get and deliver to my house that night. He was on the west coast recruiting. So we go back to Matt Miller, we get into the summer And I had obligated myself to get through the summer of Louisville's basketball camps. But by the same token I was starting our camps in Bellarmin.

So I would go to Louisville, get them all started and it's only 2 1/2 miles away, get to Bellarmine, get our camp started and then maintain them during the day. Go down, close the Louisvilles down, close Bellarmine down doing two camps. Well, Matt Miller would get into the gym at 6:30 in the morning, never forget. And he was coupling camp with an internship through Enterprise Rental Agency. I'll never forget, one morning it brought me to tears. He started crying and I said, are you okay? And he said, no, I'm not. And I said, something wrong at home. It's something personal. What's wrong? He goes, I just wish I had more than one year to play for you and Ed. I'll tell you, in my life, as lucky as I've been, I'll never get a compliment greater than that.

And I know when we go to Chicago, I take my team to practice at Matt's facility. And last fall we opened up a locker room that there's no words to describe it. And I had Matt and those three seniors come in for that weekend to spend all weekend with our players so that they understood the before and after picture. It all started with Matt Miller.

That's unbelievable. You know, I talk a lot to clients about leaving your jersey in a better place right in Legacy. And Matt obviously set the bar. And I love the fact this is completely unscripted because we did not talk.

About this at all. No, we didn't.

Matt set the bar for what type of people you recruit at Bellarmine. Can we talk about that?

Well, I don't know if you know this, just. We'll touch on that to Matt Miller. But Matt Miller, with a Bellarmine degree was turned down. I don't know if you know this, I'm not trying to embarrass him. Fourteen different institutions were not give him a loan. He's now built on to his facility.

It's gorgeous.

He is now with 1500-2000 clients, as he calls them, young people. And he has done it in an amazing way. But when you start talking about recruiting, it's the Matt Millers of the world. Here's why. The biggest all start, in my opinion, in college basketball is the ability to judge talent. And I don't mean just how many stars are next to their name and can they dunk and they're vertical and et cetera, but it's the ability to judge where they can go. And one of the greatest recruiters in the history of college basketball, Bill Olson, University of Louisville, went on to become an athletic director there, taught me, never, ever overlook the value of their heart when you're recruiting them. Well, the Matt Millers, the reason Bellarmine has been successful.

Yes, I come in here and I work hard and our staff does an incredible job. But the one reason that trumps every reason. Oh, you shoot it well. You play hard, your teams pass, they execute. Yes, yes, yes. The one reason the greatest recruiters in this program are our players. And that's.

Let's talk about that.

Well, that started with Matt Miller. Ed. If you started a legal practice, a law practice, and you're with five attorneys and they're five of the greatest litigators, I mean, they are amazing, then the next great lawyer would want to join your firm. Or accountants. If you had five of the greatest CPAs, and the next one said, man, I want to join that firm, well, your firm would get better and better. A medical practice, it's the same in the real world. So the greatest recruiters in this program are our players because they understand when they come here what we believe in academically, athletically and socially. And then in the recruiting process, they play a major role. And then when the players come, they want to be here, not they have to go.

Then when they're at the end of their freshman year, their sophomore year, they're our best recruiters. So that torch is passed from one player to another to another. And again, there's more than one way to be successful, but it works for us.

There's even more to that. I think we touched on it before, and I've read some things where you talk about this. Not only are they your best recruiters, like we talk all the time about building a culture worth fighting for. Right. They're also the ones that are going to protect your culture. So if there's someone that's extremely talented, extremely skilled, however you want to label it, but they might not be a fit personality wise. They might not be a we guy, that might be a me guy, that might actually hurt your culture or challenge the culture and think of themselves first as opposed to being a part of something bigger than yourselves. Your players are going to step up and let you and your staff know that are they not?

Well, in that recruiting process, like that official visit that's so important, we have a very stern belief that on that 48 hour visit they are going to spend more time with our players than they are with the staff. They already know the staff through the process. But it's imperative that they spend every possible moment with our players without the coaches. Oh, we're going to do dinner, we're going to do breakfast, we're going to show them the backside at Churchill Downs in the barn area. They're going to meet people, but they're going to go to class with our players. The academic meetings are going to see a practice, see us teach, be in the locker room, be in the players area because that's who in reality, when they're here, that's who they're going to spend their time with.

But now it's a little different during these difficult times. But usually in a normal summer, it's two to three weddings. Two teammates are in the wedding and the other 12 are sitting in the congregation with the staff. And they're lifelong friends. But it's happened on a visit where they have said, coach, he's a different, he's really not like us when that happens. We believe in our players. And I tell my athletic director, it's my fault. It's totally my fault. I would rather make a 4 or $500 mistake on a plane ticket than I would a scholarship over a four year period that's going to go between 2 and $250,000. And we do that. It's happened. It has happened. But our players are the greatest recruiters and they totally understand and they embrace it. I mean, they embrace that they really our players.

Again, there's different ways to be successful. If a young man comes on a visit to fellow, he's going to be around every single level of this program. Every manager, every assistant coach, every player, a strength coach, Our trainer, Brad Bluestone, he's going to be around everyone. He's going to go to class with me. He's going to be in the dorm with him, because that's how it's going to be. So we don't sugarcoat anything. But those that come here and they want to be here, show me someone that loves going to their job. I'll show you somebody who's going to be pretty good. Show me somebody that hates their job every day. They're going to be a miserable person, right?

How have you sustained the amazing culture and the level of success that you've had? I mean, it's pretty phenomenal when you take a step back and look at not even just the numbers, just the things that you're talking about, right? The culture and the level of relationships.

The players, the assistant coaches, the staff. You know, we treat our student managers no different than every player here in this program. I mean, they play a very vital role. And to be able to sustain it, you've got to be flexible. You got to understand things are going to be different. They're different than they were 15 years ago when I took the hit job at Gone. But to be different, you have to better. You have to better. And you check your ego in the door. If some video, if a book, if watching someone practice, if sharing thoughts with a coach can help you check your ego in. You know, what are the smartest students? Do they get help? What are the smartest players?

Do they get help because they realize that teacher, that tutor, that coach, that assistant coach are trying to do things for them, not to them. So smart people wear people out who want to help them. And I think it goes back to my upbringing. I didn't have a dad, and again, coaches found me, great teachers in school found me. But I did wear them out. I mean, I'm sure there's teachers who thought, oh, my gosh, him again. I'm sure that I mentioned Crafter. I'm sure that I'll never forget. I had a date one time. I went to watch a future opponent when I was a senior in high school. And I was. I was. It was a district opponent. So I was sitting in the gym, and I look across top row, on the opposite side of the gym was my high school coach.

And I got this girl, she's a cheerleader. You know, we're there. You know, we're at basketball. And he sent his son all the way across the gym. His son's name was Eric. He's now an emt. Here in Louisville sends me a note, and it's like a pop quiz with, like, five questions. They're playing this. What are we running? They're doing this. What do we do? And I thought to myself, wow. And I've answered it like, you know, the game's on the line. But, you know, I think to go through this long period of time, it takes a willingness to be able to change for the better. You always look at yourself because you're never good enough. You're never good enough. And if those players believe that, if it's.

We pass books around, we got a shelf in our players dressing area where they'll take books. That one's sitting right here. It's the 1969 Knicks on hitting the open man. It's Dave Debusscher's diary.

Love it.

People insist, don't know who Dave Buscher was.

1969. That was a lifetime ago. Literally. Yeah. No, that's awesome.

And, you know, something we talked about.

Before was reinvest in yourself, invest in yourself. Right? You talk about continued growth, and you share that with your staff. How significant is that?

Well, you know, I tell my staff, which one of them is my son. They're 32 and 31 years old. Bo Braden, Doug Davenport. I'm going to bring two more on in August. But these young people, you must invest in yourself. I coached every level of basketball. I know. We originally started about the career path. I was a JV coach at a school in downtown Louisville named Aaron's High School. I coached there two years. In January of my second year there, they combs the school. They announced publicly that at the end of the school year, the school would close. And we lost a regional semifinal game. At the buzzer, at the buzzer, and on a two, one break, we had a player get a piece of it.

He got a fingertip on it, and the opponent got his hand on it, got it on the glass buzzer sounds, it goes in, we lose. The school's constant. Just think, if he hits that ball with an eighth of an inch more, it probably deflects on out of bounds. Game over. We're playing in the regional championship. That moment, the rest of my coaching life, if it's a sprint, if it's an execution of a small detail, and it says, you touch the line, an eighth of an inch away is not good enough. And I cite that example. But I think that attention to detail and the way we've built it has been passed on from player to player to Player. But I coached it at a JV level. Then I was a JV coach and assistant varsity coach.

Then I became a graduate assistant at the University of Louisville because I wanted to put all my eggs in one basket to be a college basketball coach. So I got my master's degree in college student affairs. And at that moment, I had a teacher named Dr. Don Gearing, who changed my coaching life because there was 18 of us in this program. And the class would last for three and a half hours one day a week. And you took two or three different classes. Nobody wanted to be in a class. Nobody. They had their family. They had a real job. They were teacher. They were an administrator. They were working. Nobody wanted to be in a class. And he walked in every day, and within 10 minutes, he had convinced every single student in that class, like, I didn't want to be there.

I wanted to be in the basketball for studying film or helping some player get up shots. I didn't want to be there. But every day he would convince me and everybody else, yes, we wanted to be there. And it changed my life because I said, as a coach, as a head coach, if my player walks on the court in practice and his teammates, the whole team, if every single day, I can make them believe this is where they want to be more than anywhere. They don't want to be with a girlfriend. They don't want to be playing a video game. They want to be on this court. We're going to have a great practice. Well, Dr. Gehring did that in that class. I used this in a corporate talk. I had Dr. Gehring five times.

And I had a lady one time sitting in front of me. She was shaking her head, and she was obviously very disgusted. I stopped my talk and I said, ma', am, are you okay? Well, I can't believe you had to take him five times. She thought I flunked the class five times. It wasn't. I had any.

And now she's sitting in yours.

Yes.

Yeah. Now she said, listen to you talk. Yeah.

And I heading for five different courses. But I've always said as I sit down to make a practice plan, okay, I got to create the culture. But you brought up when they walk in the soccer room, that this is where they want to be more than anyone. And then if everybody. If everybody in this lock. I mentioned the student managers, the trainers, the strength coach, assistant coach. What if everybody wants the same thing? What if everybody in every family wants the same thing? What if everybody in your block, on your neighborhood, what if a Community. What if this United States. I'm sound like a preacher. What if everybody won the same thing? Right. We'd be pretty good, Mike. Right?

Especially when it's the right thing. Yes.

Yes. That's how if everybody's aspiring to be the best semester we've ever had, GPA wise, and they're willing to help each other, if everybody's willing to win the next championship and they're willing to do whatever it takes for that championship, and they're willing to make each other better, well, a good team will achieve an extraordinary team, will be like an extraordinary player. They'll all make each other better. That's what in society, if everyone can make each other better, we won't have a good society. We'll have an extraordinary society.

And that's what it's about, being extraordinary and greatness. And, you know, I was fortunate enough to have Kevin Eastman on the podcast a while back, and Kevin talked about, of all the great ones he's worked with, they never talked about being the best. They talked about each and every day, regardless of they were feeling it or not. They talked about just getting better. Yes. I mean, he's talking about Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, when He worked with LeBron, when LeBron was coming out of high school. I mean, it was all about just getting better. So it's amazing. That's why I go back to your run and what you've done there is. The consistency is unbelievable.

It's ironic. Just so you know, and I know you have no way of knowing this. So I'm an assistant coach at VCU under Mike Polio. Tubby Smith and I were assistant coaches on the same staff. Kevin Eastman, J.D. Barnett had left the office I inherited when I went to vcu. Kevin Eastman. So I've read every book.

Oh, he's the best. Yeah, yeah, he's. It's funny. It's funny where our journeys take us. Right? Like, I had to remind Kevin, he was on the staff at Tulsa when I was playing at Creighton. And we absolutely got robbed by Verl Sell not to throw a bad official's.

Name that was under J.D. Barnett.

Yep, yep. J.D. Barnett. And that was actually the first. We had won the conference year before. It was the first conference game of the season, and it just set the tone for the rest of the year. Then when Kevin was at Washington State, I was at A and M, Washington State. We were playing them in a one game classic up there over the holiday break. And it just happened to coincide with the unexpected trip to the Rose bowl that their football team had that season. So there might have been 27 people at the game, 20 of which were A and M fans, which was bizarre. And I told Coach Eastman, I said it was the most boring basketball game I have ever been a part of. I think the score at halftime was like, 15, 13, and. And poor Coach B gave the great.

One of the best pregame speeches he had ever given, and they beat us, you know, and it was just so ironic. And here I am sitting with Kevin after this amazing journey he's had, and he's as good as it gets.

I mean, I've read every book. The president of the fan club. Believe it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's unbelievable. But that's. You know, when you talk about. So I want. I want to jump into it because these are. You alluded to it. It's crazy times right now. Right. And it's been a huge challenge for everyone. But you focus on growth. You focus on the relationships and the team being together and getting better. But yet here you are for the last almost three months now, just about three months where everyone's been separated, everyone's been apart. How challenging has that been for your kids?

Well, we've utilized zoom meetings. We, you know, but the greatness comes from within. And we had a meeting about three weeks in, and it was horrible. What I would do is the night, the day before every meeting, I send them an agenda. So they learned the business rule. So they would have a written agenda. And we go through the meeting, and it was. It was horrible. I mean, it was like talking to an oil painting. I mean, it was awful. So it was Monday. And I said, Tuesday. Excuse me. I said, all right, we're having another meeting Thursday. So on Wednesday, I sent them the agenda. And to get them to take ownership, we say one word when we break up. Every huddle all year. And that word changes, but it always comes from our players. Well, think about it.

Every huddle and individual instruction. Every huddle. Timeouts. Every huddle. First early practice, late practice. You're going to say that over a thousand times. Well, on Thursday, we had a meeting, and they presented the word to me. And it was. The word was rise. Because we're rising from Division 2 to Division 1. Well, they didn't just come up with the word the night before they had a meeting, they had their own meeting. And they wrote a paragraph, and it was the most strongly worded paragraph I've ever read. So when I read it, and it will take an entire wall space in our locker room, like Last year, our word was trust, but trust was spelled T R and the T were in one color, but the letters U and S were another. So it was trust us. Well, this is rise.

And the I will be a one because you'll rise into Division one. Well, the Thursday meeting was the greatest meeting I've ever been a part of.

Wow.

And they went through their paragraph and the word rise. It was, I mean, like I was going crazy. So I get off the zoom, I call up our captain. He's a young man. His dad was a high school coach forever. And since then. And I said, cj, what's going on? That meeting was incredible compared to, you know, Tuesdays was the worst meeting in the world. And he said, coach, last night we came up with the word and went for two hours to put that paragraph together. And he said, but to answer your question, why it was such a great meeting today, he said, coach, we miss each other. I said, what? He said, coach, we miss each other. We truly want to be with each other and there for each other. And I just started crying.

I said, cj, I'm getting you back here, son, as fast as I humanly can. He was coaching. I mean, we want to be with each other. We truly. Now go back to your original. How does that not go well? You know the kind of players they're going to recruit then, I mean, you know the kind of guys they're going to recruit. They want guys that they're going to be around. They want to be around each other. Our practices, it can be a 2 hour, 10 minute, 2 hour and 15 minute practice. And I can look down at my practice plan and it seems like we've been out there 30 minutes and it's two hours. It's incredible. It's incredible.

What's the energy? I mean, I'm going to presume what it's like, but what is the energy like at your practice? I talk to organizations all the time about, if I were to walk into your office, am I going to get a vibe for what your culture is? Well, am I going to get a feel for it?

First of all, our every practice, high school coaches, alumni, friends I grew up with, I got seven guys come every day. A lot of them are retired. They come every day. I call them the board of directors. Oh, they all sit over there. They solve the whole problems of the world.

Absolutely.

Well, I've had people come in the lobby of Knights hall, come down to our court and they say, my gosh, it sounded like there was a game going on.

Love it. Yeah.

I think you would be shocked by the level of communication and the tempo of practice because it's warp speed and if you're not talking, you're not engaged. I had a player graduated two years ago named Daniel Ramser. He's one of the greatest young men I've ever coached. His grandparents have been season tickets here almost 40 years. He had zero offers. He didn't have one offer out of high school. He had division. He was going Division 3. We signed him early. Didn't just sign him, we signed him as a junior. Our first meeting of the year, I said, daniel, you are unequivocally one of the most solid people I've ever coached. His dad's an administrator here at a local hospital. They're incredible family. I said, daniel, if you don't talk offensively, you're not going to play, son. He was a rising junior.

You're not going to play because he was my biggest challenge his senior year. We won the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament. He was MVP of the conference tournament. Get zero offered.

Wow. Wow.

But now you know why. When I was at Louisville, you know who would talk? The former players who were in the pros, who would come back. They all talked. Because as a pro, if you don't talk as a pro, they fire you. Well, I had to take it down to the college level. Just tell Daniel, I'm not going to play you. One second. So now I think you would be shocked. Number one, who all's in here? I mean, I want. If high school coaches want to bring their whole teams, youth teams. I started this 15 years ago. My locker room, before a game. We have youth teams, church teams, AAU teams, school teams, community center teams. In our locker room before. It doesn't bother our players. It doesn't bother. They understand. But I have them in here. Cause what if one of them.

What if one of them says, man, that's pretty neat. So then I started bringing business leaders. David Novak retired as the CEO of the Yum Corporation. That's Taco Bell, kfc, that's worldwide. What if he comes in my locker room and goes up and says, hey, Daniel, my name's David Novak. I'm with the Yum Corporation. How you doing? Great job tonight. And Daniel looks him in, that says, thank you, Mr. Novak. You know what he might be an employer, an employee, a customer, a client. And Daniel just looked as corporate CEO, one of the strongest in the world. Shook his hand, looked him in the eye. You know what I'm teaching him real life. Right I'm teaching him to be successful. Now, sometimes. Our guest, the Archbishop of the Diocese of Louisville, he loves basketball.

He comes in here and he gets to say the pregame prayer. And if the other team doesn't have an archbishop, and we do, and we did, that's no problem.

That's perfect.

Yeah, that works.

That works real well. So, speaking of that, you're going to the next level in terms of Division two? To Division One.

Yes, sir.

Tell us how that looks for you folks, and what's going to be different and absolutely what's going to stay the same?

Well, you know, the competition obviously, is going to be different. The travel will be somewhat different. There'll be a few more airplanes versus buses. The people, the schools we recruit against will be different. But the way we teach the game, the way we believe the game should be played, the way our players conduct themselves on and off the court, as students, as teammates, as sons, nothing will change. Again, there's more than one way to be successful. But I still. You either dunk the basketball or you use the backboard on a layup. I mean, there's. There's a right way and a wrong way and, yeah, there's going to be a massive change. But I said when I took the job, if it's good for Bellarmine University, it'll be good for Bellarmine Basketball.

If great things happen for Bellarmine Basketball that help Bellarmine University, it's all a.

Win now, has a transition. Ben and I know you're not quite there yet, but has it gone as smoothly as you hoped it would?

It has. And one of the reasons, I think our athletic department, Scott Wiegan, rad. I think they and his team did a great job. I think it was leaked out, you know, before it really kind of became official. It became official June 17th of 2019. But our mentality and our kind of our way, we're going to do things. Let's take instead of 23,000 or 22,000 or 20,000, let's take 4,000 and let's treat them like absolute royalty with our food and beverage, with our courtesy, with our ticketing. Every seat's a chair back, Every seat's great. Let's treat like. Absolutely. They feel they're a part of the program and they're invested in it. You know, if you look at college athletics, Alabama fills it up, Michigan fills it up, Ohio State, but, you know, the other schools, from 30 to 60,000, in football, that's tough.

And in basketball, 0 to 10,000, you can get them, but 10 to 20 stuff, that'll mean the big marquee games. But we're going to try to do it on a consistent basis with incredible customer service and make their experience be one that they will be, again, our best recruiters.

That's awesome. Now, your perspective is amazing. And one of the things that I love about. Not only do you have an unmatched work ethic, not only do you do things the right way for the right reasons, you have a ton of fun doing it. And one of the ways you do that is with your radio show. We have to talk about that radio show before we wind things up.

You know, I do it all year, so it's Ed monitor. It's got devour talking. We just want to talk now. Obviously, in these times, you know, we've got some other issues, but we just want to talk sports. I mean, I want to be two guys having maybe their favorite beverage and talking sports. I don't care here if it's horse racing, if it's Tiger woods, if it's a bad call, if it's Louisville, Kentucky, you know, we'll just talk sports. Who can. I have fun doing it?

Who gets to decide what the topics are that day for the show? Who gets to decide?

Like, you know, I had Alan Houston play for me in high school two weeks ago. We did a half hour, and it was crazy. I mean, people were calling in and saying, coach, that. That's an incredible. We're calling him. When Alan Houston was in high school, he's 49 years old, I had him on his birthday week, so I told him he still got a cookie cake.

That's amazing. Yeah. That is unbelievable. Speaking of that, I mean, Alan Houston, he must love being around.

He kind of popped in one of.

Your Zoom meetings, didn't you, with the fellas?

He did almost an hour in our Zoom meeting, and he wanted to do it. He said, coach, let me get in one of those meetings. And he crashed in there. And it was great. But, you know, I may have a horse trainer on a golf pro. We talk sports now, Obviously, it's basketball centric. I mean, it is rule changes, you know, NCAA issues. People gripe about the SMA draw. We gripe about a bad call. Oh, it's. But it's. I appreciate. It's an ESPN affiliate here in Louisville. Drew Dehner says, go every week. You want to go every week. Have fun. And we did. We enjoy it. We take calls, text, you name it.

So growing up across the street from Churchill Downs, right? Just sort of A landmark, as you called it. Talk about your passion for horses real quick if you could.

Well, I will. I'll be real quick. You know, I grew up, there was no parking at Churchill Downs and the streets were blocked to create traffic flow. I would park cars in our yard. And If I made $40, $45 when I was 11 years old and my mother said, scotty, you keep that money, you go to college. One day I was like, college? I got all the money to work. I get another job.

Why do I need to go to college? Yeah, I haven't figured that out.

You know, I became real good friends with a lot of horse trainers, and this one will be good if there's coaches watching. This D. Wayne Lucas is the greatest horse trainer in the history of the sport. He's the greatest. Dwayne Lucas was a high school basketball coach and a graduate assistant at the University of Michigan. He was under Johnny. Or Wisconsin. I'm sorry? I said Michigan. Wisconsin. Wayne Lucas is the one who made his mark on attention to detail. Like, a horse isn't going to run faster because his stalls clean better, or the dirt is right in front of his stall. They're not going to run any faster. But if his perfection is demanded on the way that horse is cared for, he will. So I care for our players with absolute perfection.

And Wayne Lucas would call me to talk basketball and I'd call him to talk horses, but he is the Rick Pitino of horse trainers. Todd Pletcher, Dallas Stewart, Randy Bradshaw, all these big time trainers were all Wayne Lucas assistants. Just like I'm an assistant under Coach Pitino, like Billy Donovan, Tubby Smith, Mick Cronin, Kevin Willard, on and on. So the horses, that's kind of my release. I mean, it is. I grew up with people that told you in middle school they were going to work at Churchill Downs. They worked there their whole life.

Yeah, it's a special place. You know, we sort of glanced over before. You just remind me. Sort of glanced over it before. But it's very significant. You work for Denny. You are a very loyal person. Yes. And you're a very loyal person. Rick comes in. Never before had he ever kept anyone from the previous staff of any of his stops. And he kept you. Can you talk? Because this is a very significant thing. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Well, I was told the athletic director's name was Tom Jerry. Choose a superstar. And he said, just make sure you keep taking care of these players. Well, then Coach Crumb retires. And I said, To Coach Crumb that morning, are you okay? And he said, yes, sir. He said, scotty, I've had three days of some deep thought, and there's a quality of life that I want to enjoy. And I said, coach, you've earned that right. And he said to me, there's only two of us in the whole office. And he said, how can you say that? You don't know if you'll have a job. You got a wife and two kids. And I said, coach Crop, if I told you to stay just for my sake, I would be breaking the number one rule in coaching. You've always taught I would be selfish.

I'm not going to break the rule. And he goes, that's why I love you so much. And the meeting ended. That's how fast the meeting was right there. And he retired. Coach Patino was hired. And for two weeks I was there with just Coach Pitino. And I was taking care of the players like I was talking to. And then he came in one morning, I had him on the floor 45 minutes early for a 7:30 group. Came in and said, I need to see you in a coach's locker room. And you know, we know where this is going. We walked in. He said, I've never kept a coach from a previous staff. And I broke his momentum. I said, yes, sir, I'm aware of that. He goes, you are? I said, coach. You coach at Kentucky. I coached to Louisville.

I read every book, I've listened to every radio show. I know everything about you. And he started laughing. He goes, my God, you're sick. He goes, I'm keeping you. And I said, yes, sir. So went through individual instruction with the groups. We went up the back stairs three flights and we got to the top of the stairs, and he turned to me, he stopped. He said, you lost your dad when you were young, 9 or 10. I said that? And he said, your sons are 10 and 12. I said, 9 and 11. He said, yeah, I know. He said, name me one thing your dad ever saw you do. And I said, excuse me. Did your dad ever see you graduate from high school? He ever see you play basketball? Did he see you get married?

Did he see you win a state championship in Valor? Did he see you get hired? Did he ever see you do one thing in your life? And I said, no, sir, I was nine. He never saw me do anything. And he said, go see Ray Ganong, our strength coach, who's tremendous. You can't look like this and work for me or you can't keep up, get yourself in shape and you grow up and you live to see your sons do things your dad never saw you do. One year to that moment, I lost 73 pounds. My body fat went from 23.8 to 6.5. And I now have two sons, two daughter in laws, a granddaughter that's 20 months and two granddaughters. And one of them's name is Coach. One of them's name is Coach.

That's awesome.

But he knew the button to push. So at the end of that day, this is all the same day. We went to recruit. I was driving and he turned to me and he said, there's a lot of people didn't want me to keep you. And I looked at him like, coach, I thought people liked me. He goes, you want to know why? And I said, yes, sir. He said, there was people who told me I was making mistake because you were so loyal to Coach Crumb. I'm making a mistake keeping you. And I told him, he will be that loyal to me, and that's why I'm keeping him. The first basketball game, the first time Coach Pitino came back into Louisville after all the turmoil, I picked him up the airport and his next stop was my locker room to talk to my guy.

Wow. Wow.

How about that?

That's unbelievable.

You know, and when went Division one from Greece, the second call that I received was Coach Patino. And he was more emotional. And I am right now how proud he was of me.

And that's the. And I can just see how fired up he'd be for you know. You know, and speaking of emotional, I don't mean to do this, but I've one last thing I have touch on. Patty Ice, Patrick McSweeney. Great programs, you know, have great people around their programs. And that story, to me, I caught that coach, and I don't mean to follow up one great story with another, but this turn 21 Thursday, I saw that tweet. That's why I'm like, you know what? It was a great reminder. Saw that tweet. I had just read the article about him. Talk a little bit about Patty Ice, if you could.

Patrick McSweeney was five years old and was diagnosed with cancer. And he was brought into our basketball program when he was 11 and through actually through a program, Team Impact out of Boston. I thought, he's not selecting Bellarmine. I mean, he would select University Woodward, Kentucky, but he selected Bellarmine. And the lady said, coach, we would like to have your captain send him an email like once a month. I said, no, ma', am, we're going to do this. We're all doing it. And we all. And I said, we get a pair of shoes, he gets a pair of shoes, we get a locker, he gets locker, we get shirts, he gets shirts. So 10 years ago, Patrick came into our basketball family and he's never left. He just turned 21. But just think, in those 16 years, he's been diagnosed five times.

I can't. I can't even imagine it.

So. But the greatest coup d' etat was one year. I do a weekly TV show and Kent Taylor, the gentleman and I were just talking one time during. He was doing a story on summer camp. He goes, you know, we got an idea. We ought to put Patrick in a game. So we had this idea. Louisville Bellarmine exhibition game. Patrick McSweeney starts the game, scores the first bucket. We had to get approval by our league, the acc, University of Louisville, the University or Bellarmine University. We had to get all these approvals. We did. He started the game. What we did. It was a Sunday afternoon game and we decided it'll be a celebration of young people.

There's 22,000 in the Yum center that Sunday, and he's introduced in our lineup with the biggest cheer of the day, scores the first bucket over Terry Rozier, who. That was Charlotte in the NBA. And here's what's ironic. The night before the game, coach called me and said, two nights, it was Friday night, game was on Sunday. Coach Tino called me, Scott, he said, what's Patrick doing after the game? I thought maybe coach was taking him to dinner. And I said, well, Coach Patrick has to be in Philadelphia for T Cell transplants. They're driving to Philadelphia the moment the game's over from the young center. He cussed me out, said, I'll call you back in 10 minutes. You. You pick up your blank, blank phone. And I hung the phone and I thought, my God, I'm not on his staff anymore.

And 10 minutes later, he called me. He flew Patrick, his mom, his dad and his brother, who was his donor to Philly. Their hotel, their car, their meals, everything while they were there.

Wow.

And never want anybody to know because he wanted to make others better. So Patrick's a part of this family and he will be. Here's. I will give you big credit. He was in the speech school of Engineering at the University of Louisville, which is a very high level school of engineering. Was very difficult with his treatments. And here's what's Unbelievable. Now he's an honor student in the School of Nursing at the University of Louisville. He wants to go in there and make others better. Is that amazing?

That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable. You know, and it's just the same thing that you're doing, same thing that he wants to do. And it just. Everyone keeps paying forward. I mean, it's. It's truly remarkable. And just the thing that I loved about the story, too, was how attached your players became because they understood what him. They understood what he was going through, what he represented, and the fact that, well, they learned.

They learned real life lessons, right? Yeah, yeah. It's going to affect us all. We all know someone and they learned. No, they have learned. They saw him, the treatments, and they learned real life lessons. They learned as much as they'll learn in any class because it was real life. I mean, that was someone, you know, roughly their demographic, who was fighting for his life over and over. Oh, they blew his phone up on his 21st birthday.

Yeah. Well, you know, I've got to tell you, after we hung up a week and a half ago, I immediately called up Tony Rheing and I said, tony, I can't thank you enough for introducing me to Coach Davenport. I said, I need more Coach Davenport's in my life. It's men like you that make me miss coaching every single day. So I can't say thank you enough for coming on and sharing all this on the Athletics of Business podcast. It means the world to me when I say humble, that's just not a one liner. I truly am humbled, Coach.

Well, I called Tony and I thanked him, too, because I had more fun than you, man.

Well, heck. Well, soon. Soon we'll have fun together. We'll see how Coach Trost handles me wearing a Bellarmine shirt. Well, you guys, you're not going there this year, are you?

No, we will not.

I missed my window of opportunity, for God's sake.

But I do have your number. So you got some Bellarmin gear on the way?

Oh, no. I mean, but Tony and I talked about making a road trip out there. And I wish you. I wish Bellarmine Knights. I wish you guys all the best of luck and thank you again for everything, Coach.

Now, thank you and I appreciate you very much. Thank you for listening to the Athletics of Business.

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