Our Great Coach on this episode is Jackie Carson.
Jackie Carson is the Head Coach of the Furman University Womens Basketball team.
She also played there as a student athlete, and still hold the conference record for most free throws made. In 1999 she was honored as Furman’s Female Athlete of the Year and in 2009 she became on the third player in the programs history to have their jersey retired.
She started her coaching career in 2003, progressing through Assistant Coaching Positions at Bucknell and Madison which included postseason appearances at the 2007 and 2010 NCAA tournaments.
In 2010, she returned to Furman as the 9th Head Coach in the college’s history.
In her 11 seasons leading the team they have earned four postseason berths and 2 Women’s National Invitational Tournament appearances.
In 2014 she was awarded Conference Coach of the Year.
Jackie is a coach with an Infectious energy that inspires you to have the confidence to, in her words, walk into the room or the gym knowing you are going to win. Building this confidence in her players is a key part of what she strives to achieve as a coach.
After the interview, the keys parts I shared with my own family around the dinner table were, How she believes that as a woman, you have to be better than the male that’s going for the same job, and importantly show why you’re better. And explaining this is not something you should shy away from, in fact she says you should demand what you want in the future.
How some of the things you say in your head to yourself, you would never say out loud to anyone else. And that the best way to deal with negative self-talk is to talk to someone else about how you are thinking, and through that, talk yourself into the tasks that are causing you to doubt.
And wanting to leave a legacy, where people learn that you can do things the right way, you can be a mom that works, a black female that is successful and beats the odds, you can do whatever it is that people say that you can’t do.
As a father of 2 daughters, I found this interview educational and inspiring and I hope you enjoy it as much as Jim and I did.
If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at thegreatcoachespodcast@gmail.com
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