Dan Hughes Edit
Sun, 1/2 6:08AM • 31:34
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach, people, talk, dan, priorities, game, empower, basketball, relationships, wonderful, successful, leadership, play, sandy, leaders, team, situations, players, gregg popovich, events
SPEAKERS
Dan Hughes, Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett 00:00
Good morning, Dan Hughes, and welcome to the Great coach's Podcast.
Dan Hughes 00:04
I'm very, very excited to be here and looking forward to
Paul Barnett 00:08
Well, thank you for carving out a little bit of time in your busy day to chat with us. Maybe just a really easy question to get us going. Dan, where are you in the world and what have you been up to so far today?
Dan Hughes 00:19
I'm in Beavercreek, Ohio, which a high as where I grew up. Ohio is where I started, I had my first head coaching assignment in 1978. I was the youngest men's high school basketball coach in the state of Ohio in 1978 79. And I now I live about 30 miles from where I began my coaching I was raised here in Ohio and had a lot of stops along my my way here and this morning. You know, it's been a pretty typical morning for me, I get up, I work out every day I answer all my emails, do all those kinds of things, walk with my wife around this community, we walk about an hour to be honest with you come back, jump on the computer a little bit, a shower up and go to work, whatever it may be doing a lot of broadcasting right now preparing in some of those cases, have a lot of conversations with when we were talking earlier, the phone rang and people looking for jobs and things like that I have a lot of those kinds of conversations. So my day is can take all kinds of terms as it goes on. But then that's a normal start for me.
Paul Barnett 01:31
She's not so before breakfast, Dad, that's, that's a busy day. So I'm really excited to get a little bit of your time we interviewed Sandy Brunello quite a while ago and she had some wonderful things to say about she so I feel like we're tying the circle a little bit today. But by chatting to you, oh Terry,
Dan Hughes 01:50
two way street with Sandy and all of her husband just very, very proud of the fact that their first jobs in the WNBA with me, both of them but just incredible to have crossed paths with Sandy on several levels in several ways. And she continues to really I think resonate greatness in our league and internationally with Australia.
Paul Barnett 02:13
We're going to talk about your coaching tree. And we're also going to talk about that first job in 1978. But what I'd like to do is maybe take you on a bit of a journey to get there and start with some of the the amazing coaches, the great coaches that you've had access to or have worked with, and many of them are either they've ever played for you or they've coached on your staff there's Dawn Staley, Cheryl Reeve, Sandy Braun Dillo. On top of that, you've worked and had experience with people like Pat Summitt, and Gregg Popovich. She's a really great broad spectrum of some wonderful leaders. So Dan, from this perspective, what is it you think that the great coaches do differently, that sets them apart?
Dan Hughes 02:56
To be absolutely honest with you, and now you're talking about all those I would throw Gino, Ariana, and Eric, because I have worked with him with USA basketball for almost eight years, and all kinds of ways, but they all have their own lane. And by that, I mean, they're all different. But they're kind of okay. And who they are, they very quickly get to a point where they understand how they want to empower people. And there's different methods across the board of people you've talked about, there's two things that they all kind of have, I think one is that they're constantly trying to improve themselves. They're kind of build in a way to do that, but to they're kind of secure, and who they all, they don't sit and think well, I got to be like, so and so or I got to be like so and so they kind of develop a lane of their own. And as they learn things, they bring it into their way. And people can react to them because there's a consistency of wanting to get better. But by the same token, not trying to be something false. They're very genuine. [PB1] That's the thing I noticed about a lot all those people you kind of reeled off.
Paul Barnett 04:12
So this sense of genuineness and this sense of learning, I'd like to pick that up a little bit because I want to go back to your university times because you You graduated with a degree in physical education and history. And then in 1978, you earned a master's in education, knowing what you know now having met all these great coaches, these great leaders, what is it you wish they had of torture university that they didn't? They did a
Dan Hughes 04:36
pretty good job, to be honest with you. I had a unique kind of training and I bet there's a lot of people out there like me, to be honest with you. I'm pretty average. It's interesting. When my college coach talks about me, he says he's kind of an average does an average player. I mean, I was on the basketball team. I was on the baseball team, and I was pretty average. I didn't really say myself apart during those years, but what I did do was a good training, very good training as I look back, maybe what I wish they would have taught me, I was always thinking out here, you know, way into the future or I wanted to be a coach, I wanted to be a teacher, I was all those things. Maybe if I'd have been in the moment, I might have been a better player, just to be honest with you, but as always thinking out there, but the truth is, I was well trained coaches. His name was Jim Burson gave me an awful lot of things that I used right up to 40 some years of coaching. I went to my to Miami University, and I worked for a guy named Darrell Hedrick a major influence on me. Now, these are names that I don't know, that are common, but they were impactful in my life. And then I think what started to happen with me is that I tried to model some of the great coaches use it, I didn't necessarily try to beat them. I didn't try to be the people who influenced me, I kind of began to want to get as good as I could and be the best version of me. And that has really served me well. And I think, quite honestly, that the university that I went to Muskingum University prepared me well for that. But I just wished maybe I would have been a little more in the moment, I think I was always thinking out here, maybe a little bit too much.
Paul Barnett 06:26
And you've mentioned empowering several times already, in this opening to this this interview. You're known for it. People talk about your ability to empower them as being something that sets you apart. If there was someone listening that wanted to get better at empowering people tomorrow, what are some of the things you'd tell them to do straightaway?
Dan Hughes 06:44
Well, first of all, you have to genuinely be happy when other people are successful. And I know that sounds fairly simplistic, but a lot of us aren't built that way. We're really more about us, we're really about that. But you have to have a genuine pneus, that when you see people that who crossed your path, and you see them successful, or moving the bar in the right way, there's kind of be a joy in your heart that rivals when it happens to you. Because you're either going to be seen as genuine or not in a lot of situations. But that's the beginning point to me.[PB2]
The other thing that I found, and I found it through some events, leadership, if you're talking about the coaching, leadership is not the end all for me what the end goal for me is to develop. That's the end goal. It's not so much what a great leader I am, what I need to be, and what my mission is, is to develop leaders and those those are people that work with me. And those are people that play with me. And the the way you do that is through an empowering, you're kind of on the job training, and you're empowering, handing over the leadership to them in situations, and then you nurture it, and watch it grow. And that's what I feel like the greatest calling is for me and for truly coaching is about developing leaders.[PB3]
Paul Barnett 08:19
And was there a person or event that helped you shape this philosophy or as you put it, this mission, I have
Dan Hughes 08:26
always enjoy other people's successes. That's not something that's really new to me, that's kind of been there. But the events that caught me out when I was a younger coach, I was much more of a singular dominant finger as a lot of us are because in most cases, that's that's kind of what we've seen. That's what we think it to be. But events happened to me and the one that really shaped me was I was in San Antonio, and 207. And I am working with players and and somehow through working with players, I am having trouble walking, and I'm coaching the game, and the team doctors that Danny and I are struggling that much come in, let me check you out. So I go into check. He checks me out. He said, We need an MRI. And so he takes an MRI and he says to me, Dan, you know, you've torn your Achilles tendon. And we need to get in there and fix it like right now. Okay? And I say, Well, I got it. I'm off for three or four days here. Let's go in and do it. I'll be back soon. And now not not being real smart about about the reality and he's like, No, you really shouldn't do that. I've always okay, I'll think when he did the surgery, and but then I show up to the game on Saturday, trying to do all that I can like a lot of us coaches would do, but the simple fact is, that's a very, very serious kind of surgery. And the second thing was, as I was moving about i i herniated a disc in my back back. So now I'm completely on flat out, can't move on my back healing from an Achilles tendon situation, and my team is about to take a road trip. And so now it's about really handing over to my assistants and to the team, the reality of, I'm not gonna be there, this is going to get done, it's going to have to get done without my presence, so to speak. In those situations, what I started to understand, and I had wonderful people around me, Sandy was one of those, for example, and all of was around and Brian Agler was another very successful coach, they were all around. So So anyway, I just, I kind of hand it over to them with discussions as much as I could from laying on my back and watched it be successful. And watch, if you can empower and coach your coaches. It's amazing what your reach now becomes in regard to your team. And then I, you know, it took me even into farther spots, I was around some people and Dawn Staley you mentioned, but Becky Hammon, Sue bird, Briana stored, these are really, really intelligent people. And my thinking was, well, if I can empower assistant coaches, people like that, why not go to the Ottoman impact, and that's players, why not involve the players in ways where I give them the freedom to really lead and do a good job of maybe talking to him about how to lead or making the decisions that I have to make, but give over some of that leadership to your leaders on the team. And that's the path that really taught me a lot. It all came because of that Achilles tendon situation. And then I've had other events, I've had cancer, I've fought cancer, and I had to turn the team over for nine games. But yet that year turned out to be probably one of my favorite years ever. But I didn't coach the first nine games that years, I recovered from cancer surgery i i came back in and and went on, and it's just, it's been my path. I think God kind of said, it's not for everybody, but it's certainly my lane, where I'm comfortable.
Paul Barnett 12:18
It's been so successful for you. I mean, leadership groups, they've, they're coming to be more common now. But I guess, early 2000s, it wasn't if someone wanted to set this up, putting a leadership team in their community group, their sport team at work, wherever, wherever that is, what are the top tips set up for success?
Dan Hughes 12:37
Well, you have to do your work beforehand. by that. I mean, if you want this kind of, of self servant leadership, so to speak, you have to think about putting people in positions that can honestly handle that the last thing you want is somebody who really doesn't want leadership. And there are people that don't want, they just want to do their jobs, that it's not going to work with people like that it it will work with people who truly want the leadership. So you have to look and understand people to a point that, that you say, Yeah, this is a fit, this is a fit right here. Then the other thing that I think's important is communication and teaching. And I put the two together. Because a lot of people just don't know how to communicate, they don't know how to talk to other people. And you model that in a lot of cases, if you watch players talk to players, there is a tendency, and a lot of times for people to say don't do that, don't don't do that. And that, to me is not the path that you really want to take, you want to talk more about what you want to do. And you want to set an understanding that probably what you do, as opposed to what you say, carries way more way, way more weight. If you got a leader on the court that's going to say, Wow, gotta block out and then she's not walking out, then transfer. But if you're setting an example of doing that, and then you are learned how to talk and teach, I call it teaching how to effectively teach, how do people learn, and you spend time enough to think about that a little bit, then your transfer of leadership is much more effective[PB4] .
And I don't think it's to the point, you never say don't do it. But I would say three to one, you're talking about what you want to do, as opposed to the past and what you did, because I know sometimes it just has to be that way. But you try very hard to talk about what you want to do together and that has great teaching reality that I think leads to trust. And that's what it's all about. Whether whether I trust the leaders on my team, or whether the leaders on the team trust their teammates, if you can get that line strong, then you got something.
Paul Barnett 14:58
So I'm going to take you back now to know Ain't 78 where we started this discussion? You were 2224 years ago, Dan, it's a long time to be involved in coaching, particularly as a head coach role. What are some of the things that you've seen changed for the better and perhaps change for the worse over that time,
Dan Hughes 15:16
what I've seen changed for the better to me is that the landscape of basketball, and appreciation of basketball includes both men and women now, and more the view, especially with younger people, there, there's very much and appreciate like, like, I think some of the best proponents of women's professional basketball are the men who actually when I was at the Olympics, and we were playing in various metal games, and in the arena was basically isolated, except they allowed the men to be there, the men's team to be there, because we were in the same bubble in regard to COVID, and all those things. So they let them come to ours, and we got to go there. But when I'm sitting on the bench, and I sneak a peek, and I see Kevin Durant, Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr, and remind green, and so on and so on a bunch of and they're up just cheering their hearts out. I mean, that that's my special little moment that people ask me what was really special about the Olympics that you don't tell people that that one ticket, but there's an appreciation now that I think is better than there was in 1978, I think the look at basketball and what good basketball is. And the appreciation certainly on the women's side has grown. And that's a wonderful, wonderful thing. When my son grew up in San Antonio and his room I could walk in, and I could see Tim Duncan, and I could see Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobli. But I could also see Becky Hamm and Vicki Johnson and Sophia young and, and he had an all on his wall. And I thought, well, now that's a better world. What I don't think is better, is that we've gotten so incredibly short term at things if we seem to embrace change, just for change sake. And I think it has to do I see it a little bit in professionally and I know money and things drive at YC at collegiately. And I see it in high schools, where people just they just want to move they want to be recruited. And sometimes not for healthy reasons, just because they want attention. And I don't sometimes the act of teaching, you know later is greater is what I say. And I don't think that's made for a better world for younger men and women learning our game. And that's probably the negative one other point to
Paul Barnett 17:54
Dan Dawn Staley says that you bring out the best in people, but who have been the mentors in your life that have brought out the best in you?
Dan Hughes 18:01
Well, that's really interesting, because I'm going to take you all over the world in certain ways. But Gregg Popovich, I was 50 years old, when I landed in San Antonio, and I knew pop Well, I knew his assistants extremely well, I knew in a while, but it wasn't so much that I just shared all these moments. It was that I watched that I watched him.
And it was like a renaissance in at the age of 50, to learn about leadership, to learn about handling teams, because it's because sometimes we get to 50. And we're pretty set in our way. And that can certainly happen and a lot of times for good reason. But it allowed me to have such a view of how he ran those teams and what he brought out and and what really furthered it to it's really understanding was, my son was growing up there and was a good basketball player, and started to be recruited by the United States Air Force Academy, which plays into Mountain West. Anyway, Pop is a graduate of the Air Force Academy. And so I went over to him and recruited my son and he and he and my son create a little bond so that they could talk about this experience because going to the Academy is a different kind of collegiate experience. That is, it's a wonderful level of basketball, it's division one, and it's there's pros coming out of the Mountain West, but you're in a military situation. But anyway, they had this discussion, and what I started to find was a lot of the leadership value that pop has, I think the fruits of it came during his experience with the Academy because I watched my son go through experiences, and the Academy was very much about leadership. So the combination of studying Gregg Popovich, the combination of my son going, and then really looking at the leadership pieces that he was going through, and then looking back at PA, that, to me is just a priceless mentorship that came about in some some unique ways. I've had some wonderful coaches that have done it, I've intersected some great people and borrowed from everybody. But that one was probably really special.
Paul Barnett 20:27
What I love about that story is you were 50 when you found him as a mentor, and it just shows that mentors are not just for young people, therefore, whatever age you are in life, and they play such an important role in helping us grow and develop. So I think it's a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing it.
Dan Hughes 20:45
Well, I'll send you this a little different thing. I love having love from us. Okay, I have a love for music very much. So I'm not musical, but boy, I studied music and I listened to music. And it's my wife is a music teacher. So it's a full circle. But I have been influenced in my later years by some some some musicians that continue to define their craft in a big way. There's a guy named Richie puree, who's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was in Buffalo Springfield, he was in poco, who has become a very close friend to us. But watching him continue to to be artful at excellence, the rock groove sticks, I've gotten to know them really well. They have incredible, like they put out like two or three albums. And that one really, you know, when when I went back to Seattle, I use that as kind of a model, you can have excellence in your 60s. And then a lot of them were in their 60s. At that point, I thought they had made the best record ever made. And I said to myself, Oh, I can't do that. So anyway, there's lots of people that I draw some inspiration from even outside the world of basketball.
Paul Barnett 22:01
I wish this was a visual interview. People could see you banging the desk in your hands. Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. And I think it's, I think it's so true, Dan, just this morning, I was speaking to a group of young graduates in our company, and I was talking to them about the importance of finding a mentor. And then I shared that I'm still having mentors, too. So it is such a powerful thing for all of us. I think right now, Dan, if I could take you on back to basketball for a minute. It's such a stats heavy sport. And I'm just wondering how you go about balancing this flood of data that must be coming at you. With what you're actually experiencing courtside, and how you marry both of those things together to make the best decisions you can for the team?
Dan Hughes 22:46
I know Coach Daly, you mentioned and we talked a lot. And we were talking defensively, just a matter of priorities, what are your priorities, and it's the same way I think with the flood of data that you're talking about. I'm a little bit mathematical. So it helps me if there's a little bit of that, that can do math in my head. I know you're supposed to show your work. But there, there's a reality that I'm that's actually one of the things that I have a decent aptitude that coming out of it. But making priorities. When I went to Seattle, I would talk to the team afterwards. And I know they got tired of it. But I had four factors that statistically, we would watch highlights in the game, we just played every game, every game is kind of our routine, every game. But I wanted to be able to make sense mathematically and statistically on four categories with them. And at first, I tried to teach them what those numbers meant, that didn't really transfer. I didn't feel successful, like they even care what they cared about, well, is that good? Is that bad? Do we need to improve that? What do we got to do to improve that? And I started using those numbers in ways and I just said to him, you know what you saw on tape here, we did a good job of this. The reason this was good was because the ball move we had great, so we are shooting percentage and think that, for example, was a reflection of our ball. I could teach in those in those moments in regard to that, but to me now, it's about priorities, because there are too many stats just just leave you empty. But being able to make sense out of a priority of things. That's good teaching, and I think it's effective for the players to receive to talk to me as we go about[PB6]
Paul Barnett 24:58
Having an aptitude for mental math? Well, there's also something else, I think you've got pretty good attitude at math being married. You've been married for over 40 years. By all accounts, it's a successful family, although you do own up to missing the wedding anniversary, because you've been having game commitments. But I'd like to just, in all seriousness, look at that from another angle, and say, what is what is the advice you have for other leaders, other people that are in these kinds of jobs, you know, this juggling people responsibilities and commitments? How do they find balance in their life?
Dan Hughes 25:32
That's hard. That's hard. I think it's very important that in the life that we leave, you can goes back to the priorities, you can have certain priorities that you got to adhere to. Otherwise, the reality of your time can really go like this. And you have, I am a person of limited enters. I hate to say it that way. But I like my music, my family, basketball, my faith. And that's not it. I mean, I don't not, not in my life had time for golf, or tennis, even though I like them both. I enjoy them. I don't have time to do some of the things that take your time in those situations. So it's a matter to me a priority. I do think you have to prioritize it. [PB7] I do think that you have the one thing that my wife and I did. Luckily, she was a real teammate with me. We've been a team since the beginning. And she married a guy and wanted to be a coach's wife. And I think it's important. She was a teacher. And I I'm married that and so we allow that understanding as a beginning for our relationship. But she had to take the kids, but they're both my kids playing Division one bath, my daughter played Division One volleyball, and my son played division one basketball. And if you're on those trails, you're probably doing all the AAU things and all the things that lead up to that. And my wife was the one that did and took him to a lot of those places. And because I was coaching in the summer, but we've always made it a priority. She wanted to be at our games, and the kids wanted to be at our games, but the priority was, if they had a game, or they had a trip, that's where they went. And I went ahead and did my thing. Now the other side of it is that during their school year and things was my offseason, and I scheduled my life around there. And I scheduled my life around the events. My wife was a music teacher and she would have Christmas programs and what have you, I just made sure I wanted to be successful at the highest levels. But I did not want it to be at the expense of my relationships. I did not because to me, what I have found is relationships are the thing that actually is important, even greater than championships. And I've had championships and i They're incredibly meaningful. But it it would not have served me well to have championships and not have good relationships, good relationships took a higher priority to me.[PB8]
Paul Barnett 28:23
Dan, you've been? You've been very generous with your time. I know it's getting close to lunchtime, and you've got the phone's probably ringing in the background. Maybe one last question if I could finish off with an actually builds on this idea of relationships. And I'd like to just play backwards, a quote I found from you before I ask the question and you say the thing that defines me as an older coach is how much I have valued the relationships that I have formed with players, assistant coaches and administrators. I feel very fortunate because the trail is left with a lot of strong relationships for my career. And so I guess to finish, I'd like to ask you, what is the legacy that you hope that these relationships have gone on and created
Dan Hughes 29:04
one that goes on path, my coaching, one that that is in the the lives of people that crossed my path, and now they're doing their things, and they're out there doing that. And that's the legacy I want. It's wonderful that I have a gold medal, a part of the gold medal team. It's wonderful that I have championships to point to various things that that's all wonderful. But the thing that sustains me and and honestly, I almost feel selfish, because at night I'll turn on the NBA. I'll turn on the WNBA I'll turn on college basketball, both men and women. And there's hardly a night that I can't tune somebody in who've been a part of our our lives and get great joy from seeing that moment and then maybe seeing it No it play out good. I mean to the point that how special isn't that I'll text an NBA head coach a couple at the end of the game and I'll answer me in in in 15 to 20 minutes. I mean, I don't mean to brag but how cool is that? It just It blows my mind I'll say great when the night that and they'll text me back almost pretty consistently. But by that evening, when the next few hours, I don't know that that's the legacy I want to leave. I want to leave the the fruits of what I did are now passed on to other people who are doing things that that hopefully maybe pass on to other people. And that certainly is a joy in our lives. Watching people that do great things with our lives.[PB9]
Paul Barnett 30:53
I think joy, relationships, selflessness, and quick text messages back from NBA coaches. wonderful way to finish then they did so much for your time today. It's been a real privilege chatting with you and all the best for whatever comes next on the adventure which is your coaching journey.
Dan Hughes 31:12
I appreciate it. It's been it's been wonderful talking and just wish to well and and look to travel. I've traveled the world pretty good, but there's still some places I want to get to. And you've been a couple of them. So thank you big questions,
Paul Barnett 31:25
because we've got a pretty good brewery here in Romania if you'd like to come over for it.
Dan Hughes 31:29
I told my wife so thank you, Dan.