Ep35_JackieCarson (Edit1)
Mon, 3/1 6:15PM • 39:55
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach, programme, coaching, people, mom, player, head coach, practice, jackie, team, prepare, standards, dad, mental toughness, confidence, basketball, young ladies, hear, play, leader
SPEAKERS
Jackie Carson Smith, Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett 00:00
Jackie Carson, good evening, or good afternoon rather for you, and welcome to the great coaches podcast.
Jackie Carson Smith 00:07
Thank you, Barbara having me, I'm excited.
Paul Barnett 00:09
we are very excited to talk to you, one because we love basketball, but also because you are a basketball coach in America. And we are very excited to hear about your views on leadership in the North Americas and how it's different from Europe, which is where many of our other coaches have come from?
Jackie Carson Smith 00:27
Well, I'm excited about also following up and on your other podcast and just hearing about different leadership styles. It's any coach or any leader is excited about hearing all the varying types of leadership throughout the world. And so I'm happy to share with whatever little nuggets I have, and also learn from you guys. So thank you so much.
Paul Barnett 00:45
Well, let's start with some of those leadership nuggets thing, because when I was preparing for today, I can see that you've actually had some first hand experience of some pretty good coaches. There's Kenny Brooks, Sharon Carter, and Jeff Williams. And there was many others, but they were just the tip of the iceberg that I could find. So could I ask start by just asking you, what is it you think that the great coaches do differently?
Jackie Carson Smith 01:09
Oh, gosh, I think what it is, and I've even learned this from the beginning of my head coaching career to now 11 years as a head coach. And the great coaches have a set of standards that never waver, they recruit, they live their life, by those standards, they expect their players to have those same standards. And when they swayed from those standards, and it's not a part of their culture, then they make a change. So like, early on in my coaching career, I was so worried about having such a quick fix to winning, winning is everything. Winning is not a standard winning is a byproduct from your standards and your values. But in my mind winning was the standard. So I'm going to go recruit a kid, I think it's gonna make me win. But those same kids ruined our culture. It's like having a root of a tree, I had no root, I was just trying to bear fruit. So the greatest leaders that they work, the process of this having core values and having a set of standards, that everything in the programme is based every member, whether it's a system coach, a trainer, the Secretary, the manager, the custodian, all those people are under that same standard set of core values, and it just permeates through the whole organisation or the whole programme.[PB1] And those are the greatest programmes that you have. Because everybody's living by those standards. And when you don't cut the standard, or you don't cut those core values, then you just constantly breed all types of groups.
Paul Barnett 02:36
I was gonna ask you later on, but I'm gonna jump straight into it. What are your standards, Jackie?
Jackie Carson Smith 02:41
It's crazy. So I think you see, like on social media, and I stayed all the time, as I say be distinct. So a lot of that came from my personal. I have three older brothers. So I'm the baby. I was protected by my brothers. My dad is actually a retired colonel in the military, and he's still stationed at the Pentagon. And so my family's outside DC. And my mom just always used to tell me, I don't plan on being like anyone else. So they used to be that commercial. Like, I want to be like Mike, you know, when Michael Jordan is I'd be like, my, like my mom. And I was like, you know, it'd be like Mike would be better than Mike. It's always like, my mom always kind of taught me My dad was same way My dad has like five master's degrees. And he didn't want to be like anyone else. He always wanted to be better. My mom was like, you don't want to be like me when I was be better. So when I was trying to think of what my programme stood for, and what I stood for, I was like, I don't want to be like anybody else. I don't want to be like this programme in recruiting, we constantly have to sell why we're different. And so kind of be distinct is what everything stands for. It is exactly what I live by. So, but the word to state is an acronym. And then we have discipline. We have integrity, selflessness, trust, it can be trust, or together, I switch those up. And depending on what I'm talking about their girls, intensity, no excuses, commitment. And trust.[PB2] Our transparency, sorry, I think there's my three t. So that's kind of what everything in our organisation and everything that I made above on a completely transparent person. I want you to be able to trust me, I feel like trust is such a, have you asked any of our players or like what is coach Carson's biggest core value? There's a trust. Just because I think trust like a relationship. Regardless if it's a coach player, has been wife, mother, daughter, everything is dependent on trust. And if you don't have that trust with your core, or your circle, and you can't build anything, it's a complete foundation of everything you need to do so. So those are kind of my pillars and my core values, and then I just kind of distil it out to my team, and that's what we recruit off of and everything that it's in my family. Everybody can repeat it. It's just kind of what I live off of
Paul Barnett 04:51
that you've told me about being distinct. I'm not sure whether I should ask what elements of your father and his great career in the military have found their way into your Coaching philosophy, because maybe there's none. Maybe you've just been totally independent. But I wanted to maybe without, in all seriousness, I did read about him. And he said, it sounds like he's had a wonderful career, and he's very educated. And he's, he's risen to a very high level. Are there elements of his teachings to you and your younger that have found themselves in your philosophy?
Jackie Carson Smith 05:20
Oh, absolutely. I'm just like, my dad, so many, I'm very analytical. And I'm very proud of standpoint, I'm a planner, like I want to be my mom and my husband, ironically, are very similar. And then just me and my dad were very similar on the other end. So my mom makes a joke all the time. She's like, if we're hanging a picture, my husband and my mom, they go up and they just hammer and they be like, Oh, it's not centre, and then they're just gonna hammer another hole. And they're just gonna keep hammering holes until they finally get centred. where me and my dad, we're gonna go measure the wall, we're gonna measure with exactly as middle we're going to calculate the top to the bottom, the left to the right. And it's going to be perfectly centred before we ever hammer a hole in the wall. And so my mom's like, it drives me crazy. Just put it up there. And me and my dad are very, like, calculated, and it's got an aesthetically look perfect. And just attention to details. absolutely crazy. So a lot of that is triggered down because my team and my staff know I am crazy oriented. And that I lead, I want everybody to have that same eyes. So like, the smallest thing like there's an extra space on the scouting report. There's an extra something on a recruiting mail out that that's not right. People are like, does that really matter? I was like, it could matter to one kid in our recruiting database. And as long as it matters, that one kid that it really matters. So that's what it is always attention to detail. It's not letting you go again, below your standards. My dad used to always say instead of every day, he's like, have you done your homework? And I was like, I don't have any homework. He said, Do you know everything? I said, No. He's like, wouldn't you always have homework? And I was like, so then I walk upstairs and I just start reading something because my dad wasn't gonna let me not have homework. He's taught me so much about leadership. We have different styles, which is crazy. My dad is really quiet and very, he's not stoic, but he's a strong leader. He's that leader that when you speak, he doesn't say a lot of words. You listen when he does speak. I'm a probably a mix between my mom and my dad. My mom is on the other end, she's gonna speak a lot and I speak when I have some kind of thing. So not a big yeller. My coach was a huge yeller and, and I don't yell much, my girls, my team says they get scary when I'm quiet. So that's probably where I pick up some bass from my dad. But my dad's been a huge leader, influential leader in my life. He was from South Carolina, and I basically came from nothing and like I said, worked his way up in the military to become Danny officer. And I'm super proud of both my parents and my dad.
Paul Barnett 07:52
So Jackie, one of your old coaches, Jeff Williams, described you as a relentless competitor. And I guess having three older brothers will will bring that out in you. And you had a wonderful career as a play self. But I'd like to skip over that if I could and focus on your coaching career because you started as a coach with the Fairfax stars. I understand. In a very first year, you win the national championship. Yeah, it's a great way to start your coaching career. Did you expect it to be that successful when you started?
Jackie Carson Smith 08:24
Well, it's crazy. Because I had no idea I had no desire, I did not want coach. I did not I was pre med. I thought I was gonna be a doctor. And so when I graduated from college, I had the opportunity to play overseas. And so I played in Belgium in Israel. And I came back and I was supposed to go to Russia. And personally, like, nothing about Russia, South is like what I wanted to do. I'm not a big person of cold, diversity scared me. It was about a year after 911 and I was like, I'm good. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna start my career of going into the medical field. So no offence to Russia. I just, I, I was like, I'm gonna move on. So I started going back and working in the fitness industry and working in the medical industry to get hours to go to physician's assistant school. And during that time, when I one of my clients that I trained was a high school young lady who was being highly recruited, she played her favourite stars. She's like, Come help coach our team. Okay, I love the game. I love being around basketball and, and that's how I got into coaching. And so it's wild because that team was so loaded like they were all high major, big time University young ladies that ended up some of them won a national championship in college and my assistant coach, Tim Taylor, that was at Berman saw me, he's like, you need a coach. And I was like, No, I'm good coach. I like I'm going to do the medical things like, you need a coach and there's an opportunity a book now, and you need to look into it. And I was like, okay, so I interviewed and here I am. 18 years later, coaching.
Paul Barnett 09:58
What did your parents say when you told them A member of the premier,
Jackie Carson Smith 10:01
she is not over, I keep telling him, I'm not going to med school, like, I'm 42 years old, we're gonna have to hang up the dream.
Paul Barnett 10:10
You've actually said that coaching is way harder than playing
Jackie Carson Smith 10:14
way, why I felt like I was in control when I played, like, I could go impact the game directly. Where I'm just praying, I can impact the impact the game as a coach, because you just have to hope they listen, you have to hope that they're gonna follow what you taught them, you have to hope that they understand what you've taught them, you have to, you know, I mean, like, I could go in there as a player, and I felt confident that I was going to make that play, and that I was going to have my hands on the ball, and I can get the ball to my teammates where I don't have the same confidence as a coach, you know, I'm like, I pray, listen, we're going to get the ball there, we're going to do this, and I'm telling him, but it's really at the players buy in, and they're able to execute it. So it's way harder to influence lives, design at the play, when you can't really touch the ball.[PB3]
Paul Barnett 11:05
So you talk there about confidence a little bit. And you I don't know you at all we've just made tonight, but you don't strike me as someone who's, who's low in confidence. But like all of us, our confidence falls away at some times, particularly when you're an athlete, and I wanted to ask you, do you have any tips or tricks or routines you go through to help build confidence in these young athletes you have that are away from home, potentially is struggling with expectations, putting too much pressure on themselves if you found a way to sort of work with them to build that confidence back up?
Jackie Carson Smith 11:38
Yeah, well, we like to comment, it's kind of when we talk about leadership and defining roles. Okay, so I'm very honest with our young ladies, I was like, here is your role. This is why you are a part of Burmese basketball, because you're a young lady of integrity, you do the right things, you carry yourself, well, you're going to be a great representative of our university. And you you won't do anything that's going to embarrass yourself, your family, this university or this programme. So you are ready, you are someone that is well respected. And you have to just exuberant that competence all the time, [PB4] which was Well, honestly, I didn't do I had to learn that was my mom's biggest influence was, you know, I grew. So I'm a little shy of six feet tall. And I grew really fast from eighth grade to ninth grade. And I would deliberately try to put my shoulders down and not hold them back because it made me taller. And so generally, boys haven't sprouted up. So I didn't want to be taller than a boy. I was very late bloomer. So I had the braces, I had glasses. I mean, it was it was a it was a mess in high school, and my mom was like, put your shoulders back, like stand up tall, own who you are, be better than who you are, you got to always want it more, you got to be better. It just developed more and more. So if you ever, you ever seen a coaching call, I'm usually wearing some type of like four or five inch stilettos like I've
Paul Barnett 13:04
seen, I've watched.
Jackie Carson Smith 13:06
I always think you should dress like, you know, professional, and female. And it's just me, that was my mom when I first went into coaching and she was disappointed because again, I wasn't going to med school. She said, Well, just don't dress like a coach, as a mom, what does that mean? She's like, just just be you. And still be us. I've always kind of taken that personal. And it really is crazy, just the simple act of being wearing dresses and heels and skirts. That gives our team so much more confidence just by seeing somebody else do it. And so I'm always talking to them about like, you got to own what you're great at, you got to own your role. You got to own walking into a room and knowing that you are lighting up that room, you got to own walking into the court and knowing that you are the best player on the court. And if you don't feel that way, we can't make excuses why we got to find a way to build it up so that you eventually walk into that room and you're the most dominating person in that room, we're going to prepare for every game. For every match for every practice, like you were the best player in there. So there's never an expectation where it's okay to be. As I I'm not an average person I don't deem to be average, I don't really be surrounded by average people, you are some of the people you hang around. I'm not trying to hang around average. And so that's what we just constantly put your shoulders back, stand tall, walk into the gym, you're not going to win every single battle, but we're gonna walk in competent, we're going to prepare well enough to be confident. And that's on and off the court. [PB5] I'm really a strong believer for especially for our female athletes that you just got to have a competence about yourself because our journey is already harder as females especially a female coach, especially our women of colour, female coaches, like we're at the bottom of the room. So we have to do the same thing. I tell my 17 my nine year old daughter, you have to be better. As a female you have to be better because eventually the ball is going to stop bouncing. We got to go get a CEO job. We had to go Manager job, we got to go do something, you have to be better, you have to be better than the male that's going for the same job, you have to show why you're better. And you got to have the competence to show why you're better. I read a study, I think it came actually from the UK. And they just talked about how a man will go into a job interview and say, you got to hire me for this, I'm the right person for this job. And they don't sell it, they asked me the job, I want the job, where a woman is going to go in and question and I bring this to the table library, but they never demand the job. So we work on a lot of just demanding what you want and the future, go demand the job go to man the wind and prepare for when that opportunity comes. So that is just probably more of my being than actually coaching a basketball game[PB6] checky, I
Paul Barnett 15:44
want to ask you about being a woman of colour and coaching in America. But could I take it just a sidestep for a minute, when we opened, you talked about the roots being strong, and you know, to build this coaching tree, which represents your philosophy. And you've also talked about potentially having the wrong people in that culture. And, and what I'd like to ask you is, if you've got someone who's in your programme, and they're not buying into what you just described, then they're not playing their role. They're not willing to stand up and present themselves in the correct way. How do you deal with that?
Jackie Carson Smith 16:17
Yeah, so I mean, I think the perfect example, and probably a lot of people read is the energy bus by john Gordon. And he talks about, there are certain times you guys let people off the bus, so that they're not moving the bus mom in the right direction, if they're not giving the positive energy, if they're taking away energy vampires and says, then some people, you're gonna, hey, this is what we need from you, for you to stay on the bus. And then some people make a transformational change where they change and become that person, you need to move the bus forward. But there's also going to be people that have to get off the bus. So that's what was really hard for me, when you're coming from an assistant coach to a head coach, you really think you can change everybody. So this kid doesn't play hard, but I can change her, I can influence her, you can't. So you just don't recruit a kid and play hard, because you're not going to be able to change that once they get here. And it already goes against what you describe in your culture, you just have to recruit the kid that already plays hard. So you don't have to coach that part of it. And so if there's a young lady in our programme, and I feel like I've generally done all I can do, and there's no buy in, you have to remove that person from your culture. Otherwise, they're going to start changing the other ones who are doing it correctly. And now your route is starting to get poisoned. And it's going to eventually you're going to early on, you're going to have some food. So you can't be confused about the early fruit, the early success, and then poison your long term success. So there's many, I don't apologise for I'm very open. There's many people who loved our programme, because culturally, they were damaging our route. And I can't do that to the young ladies who are doing it correctly in our programme.[PB7]
Paul Barnett 17:53
Fascinating. Jackie, you saw your transition from Fairfax did some assistant coaching and then in 2007, you were fortunate enough to be chosen among a very small group of coaches to participate in the black Coaches Association, achieving coaching excellence programme. And I just wondered, how did that experience change you and prepare you for the head coaching positions you had ahead of you?
Jackie Carson Smith 18:18
Yeah, that was a great experience. The ace programme was, it was very transformational, like you say, from the standpoint that as an assistant, I always once I really bought into my role, like I'm an assistant, I never I knew one day I'd want to be a head coach, but I never really, my focus was being a really good assistant coach, my focus was making Kenny Brooks and James Madison look really, really good. It was never about me, let me do stuff so I can be a head coach. So my first real taste of it was going to the ACE programme going to Indianapolis and going through all the exercises that what a head coach does, and I was like, wow, this is a lot. They put us in an interview, like chamber and they gave us this tough scenario. What happens? Your star player was just arrested, like, what are you going to do? And I was like, too many you look at a head coach and you think they're doing their X's and O's 90% of the time? Well, that's about 10% of what you do. Management and impacting lives and decision making and problem solving. All of that stuff is 90% of being a head coach. And that was the first time I really got a glimpse of the hiring process, dealing with your ad dealing with your fans, fundraising, and all the stuff that goes into college athletics. [PB8] I was like, Wow, that is a lot. And so it made me very curious. And it also made me go back to Kenny and be like, I really want to go to a couple more fundraising meetings. I really want to go, Hey, you can't go to your head coach's meeting I'll sit in for you because I want to be able to sit and hear about what's going in and I'll deal with alumni so I put 200 more things on my plate but it Thank god if I hadn't done that I will walk into this seat and have zero experience of what it looked like. And that's why I'm super appreciative of the ACE programme because it really opened my eyes to some things that I had no idea was a part of being a head coach.
Paul Barnett 20:12
Well, the experience works, because in 2010, you come back to you, and alma mater, and things start to look up before you arrived the team and suffered through five consecutive losing seasons, yet, you've been there for 11 years. And that's only happened once. So I guess I wanted to ask you, what were the first things you did when you came back to firm to try to change that culture and move the programme forward?
Jackie Carson Smith 20:41
Yeah, I think because obviously, when you come into a programme, you basically are inheriting the entire team in April, there's no time to really recruit them, go get a roster. So your first season is basically, it sounds harsh, but your first season are the same players that got the previous coach fired. So you got to think you got to think about it. And that standpoint, is what one of the football American football coaches said to me, he's like, hey, you're about to walk in, and coach the same players, I got the last coach five years, like, wow, and if you think about it that way, sounds really kind of scary. But what you also learn in those situations is that those young ladies, for me, they just wanted what you talked about, they just needed to be fed some confidence, they just need to be fed something new, just a different style. And that's no knock on the last coach. It's just coaching can get very stagnant. It happens to me all the time as I got to freshen stuff up, and, and they just were ready for a change. Now they, they were ready for the change. I don't think they were prepared for the change. Because early on, it was a bit of a shock. Just like you're asking us to do what we don't do that. I was like, there's a reason you don't do that. And there's a reason we're not winning. So we need to start doing that. But it was a fun year to coach because we weren't very talented from a basketball standpoint. But they bought in eventually, and saw the reaping, just playing hard and playing for one another and having someone just say that's okay, let's go do this. And it was crazy, because our leading scorer that year was a young lady who barely played the year before, like, barely ever got off the bench. And I, for her, I saw something different in her than the previous coach. And then I saw something different in all of them that the previous coach saw, and then we just instilled so much confidence. To a degree, Paul, honestly, it was like a false confidence that nobody could tell them, they only won like five or seven games a year before we walked in the gym, we think we're gonna win every single game. So it was a lot of mental recovery, I guess. And just given a lot of belief that they can do what it was. And we weren't successful every single time. But it was just it was fun to be able to see the belief. You know, we were picked that last. And I think we ended up being like the four or five See that? Like 12 teams. And it was just it was fun to be able to see that and be thankful for that experience.
Paul Barnett 23:03
Have you It sounds like you did a lot of work that you with mental skills just by showing up and being yourself. But have you found I mean, many athletes, and many people in general have this negative soundtrack running in their head and they doubt themselves. Is there anything in particular you found that works in changing that voice, changing the message and lifting the person up?
Jackie Carson Smith 23:27
It honestly varies from player to player. And honestly, from coach to coach, because as a coach, we easily lose that ourselves. One of the things it's crazy that you asked, obviously a week ago, we are coming into a new year. So we went around our circle. And we said like what is it that you're going to leave in 2020 and that you're going to make sure to bring with you in 2021. And most of the girls said, I'm going to leave self doubt. I'm leaving self doubt. But I stopped doubting myself, and 2020. And it's crazy, because I said I tell him all the time. You gotta have a positive self talk. Some of y'all talk crazy or to yourself, and you would your teammates, some of the things you say in your head to yourself. You would never say out loud to anyone else. So why are you beating yourself? negative self talk? Like, literally have a conversation, let somebody think you're crazy. I tell them listen, I think you're crazy. And just, hey, you can do this. Yeah, we hit that shot all the time. Like, we're literally gonna talk ourselves into the task. [PB9] But the other thing I shared with my team, because we always have to make sure as coaches that we're sharing the same information we're asking for you in our team. And the one thing I said that I was bringing into 2021 was self care. Because as a coach, we have these spells where we're exhausted last year was one of the toughest years I've ever had as a coach. I just didn't have the connection that I need to have with my with my team. We had some some young ladies who snuck back in and we're damaging the root of our programme. And it wasn't enjoyable years. So I almost It took a pandemic for me to simmer back down, get back to being who I am as a coach, and practice self care. Because as a coach, if we don't have that self care, same with our athletes we can perform. And it's extremely exhausting. So it's about self care and self talk and talking yourself into it and beating yourself that positive dog net positive energy at all times. Because if you don't have that, as long as our seasons are, you can very much get burned out and forget your wife while you're coaching.
Paul Barnett 25:29
Jackie, if it's not too personal, what are some of the things you've done to improve your self care so that you're more effective and efficient in your role?
Jackie Carson Smith 25:42
Yeah, no. So I stopped taking losses home. So early on in my career, if we lost it lingered for like two or three days, I was my husband's like, okay, it's over. And I'm like, No, it's not over. I would just dwell on it for so long, a bad practice. I'm going home, and I'm dwelling on it. And I'm taking it home with me, which leads to my mind racing, which leads to lack of sleep, not eating well, just not stepping away. I just had trouble all the time stepping away, where that's where my kids are phenomenal boosters, by I think having kids is a completely it's a game changer. Because my oldest London she is a sports fanatic. And then my younger daughter, lipan. She could care less. She plays sports, but she does care less. So it was always cool. Going home and they did not care. The result. My oldest one, she's not telling me about it. She's like, Mom, you didn't do this, right? The girls are not working hard. Again, a nine year old. And my second one is my younger one, Mommy, you look pretty. And the girls tried as hard as they can. And you I'm your biggest fan. And this is great. And so hearing that my kids were a huge part of self care, detaching going to be mommy going to be a wife, going into a quiet room and just sitting there and having a glass of wine, like just taking time to reset listening to music, listening to gospel, reading Bible, reading books, leadership books, and there's just so many things, but just literally taking the time out to reset and not be a basketball coach is my huge reset button. No,
Paul Barnett 27:22
I think it's a skill that you need to be successful in life. I think learning to let go and switch on in other areas. But it's so difficult to do. So thank you for sharing those, those few tips. Can I ask you about practice, actually, because you just mentioned a bad practice could could leave you in a funk for some time. And you're actually quite known for your detailed approach to practice planning. With us, could you share with us your philosophy on practice and what's so important to you?
Jackie Carson Smith 27:52
Yeah, so again, it is it is a constant work early on in my coaching career, we practice law, we practice forever, we're not going to quit until we get it do every drill, we're going to run we're into this. And they were three hours three and a half hour practice. They were the longest practices ever, or now we were at least two hours and then we gotta quit, we're gonna go hard, we're going to, if we don't get it, we're gonna come back tomorrow, we're gonna try it again. And we're gonna put set goals into practice, and you're going to achieve goals and everything's going to be competitive. And I took some of the nonsense out is kind of like if you go to a coaching clinic, self admittedly, I did this early in my career, I went to so many coaching clinics, and I heard so many great speakers I heard from football coaches, American football coaches, and soccer coaches. And, oh, I'm gonna write that down. I write, and I write down every journal, and then I go and practice I do all of them. And that was like, that's not who we are, you know. So our practices have come to be exactly who we are at all times. And it is taken away some of the noise is taken away some of this stuff that's great for another programme, but it's not great for us. We've simplified, I never understood this. My coach used to say Kiss, kiss, kiss. Kiss is keep it simple, stupid. Simplicity is the key. So we make practice a lot simpler we make. We want to make it simple for us, but make it look very complex to someone else. [PB10] So we are repetition, constant repetition, constant muscle memory, constant, mental, small detail, strong passes, it looks like the most mundane task, but it was like Kobe Bryant who said you were the greatest player in the world. Why are you practising all that simple stuff? Are you practising footwork, why are you practising passing? He says I'm practising those things because it makes me the greatest player in the world. So that's kind of what we go with. We practice the very simple base so we can be great at them so that we can be a great team. And that's what our small details and are. It's now condensed and more efficient practice is shorter. I kind of joke with our team. It's the non sexy practice. It's not a whole bunch of bells and whistles. It's very boring, but it's Christians.
Paul Barnett 30:00
And I can I pick up that theme actually, because I've got this great quote from you. And I'd like to read it to you actually, if I could. And this is it, it says one of the things that's been lost by high school kids, I think now is just studying the game, and understanding the game of basketball, and really understanding the game and what it takes to be successful. So, I'd like to ask you, if you were putting together a coaching syllabus, if you were the ones presenting at that coaching clinic, on what it takes to be successful, what would you put in there?
Jackie Carson Smith 30:34
Oh, that's a great question. It's funny, we had individual player meetings yesterday, and I said this exactly the one of my kids, it just burns me that you are women's basketball player, college women's basketball player that does not watch college, women's basketball. And so that's a great study. How can you prepare for an interview? How can you prepare for a class? How can you prepare for light, and you're constantly walking in blind all the time? Like, just preparation is key like this? That's everything. I tell them? What if I walk into a game, and I'm going to tell you how to win the game, but I haven't watched any film. I don't know anything about the opponent. By walking to my interview, I'm going to interview at firm essays. I'm alma mater, but I haven't researched anything at Amazon. How am I prepared? How am I ready to thrive? How I think that's the biggest thing like that is the key to success is preparation. Because if you're prepared, then it lessens the fear. Because you know what's coming ahead of you. A lot of times fear resides and what's unknown. But if you're prepared, then a lot less is unknown. You know, so it's, that's the biggest thing is how do you watch again, you want to be better and you haven't prepared for it? Like you haven't studied it. You haven't seen how other people are successful. Same thing with coaching, how do you go be a great coach and you have a study great leaders because coaching is leadership as you said, it's one of my favourite leaders, I have like a coaching crush on them is Nick Saban. For alabama football, and it's I've never met him, I just love his standards. I love what he stands for in his programme in a very curious programme, and it's constant success at all times, you know. So it's, that's the biggest thing is just preparation. And just I think that leads to everything else.[PB11]
Paul Barnett 32:24
Preparation is obviously definitely important. I can hear it in your answer. And it comes through in the way that you talk about the game and practice. But there's also this concept of resilience. And I want to talk to you about it, because you moved around a lot as a kid, obviously, the father being in the military had three older brothers, obviously, playing basketball with them. I'm sure they were sure they were gentle with you, Jackie. So when it comes, I mean, you hear so much about this concept of resilience and trying to develop it in the next generation that are coming through. How do you deal with the concept in your programme? And how do you help build this resilience in your athletes?
Jackie Carson Smith 33:09
It's hard. It really is because especially in it's harder during a pandemic, I'll tell you that because right now, there's not a light at the end of the tunnel. So we're telling you be resilient, stay the course stay the course, we're going to get there and they're like, Where is there and when is there going to get here. So the resiliency, it's also tough because it's so tied to mental toughness. And that is the one aspect that is becoming harder and harder to coach because, again, going back to what we talked about, there's this negative self talk. And there's all these influencers. If you think about the generation of players that are coming through the playing rings right now, they have so much more access to people who can influence them in so many ways through social media, through internet through, there's so many people and get a hold of them. And they allow their opinions to matter more than the people whose opinions truly matter. So the resiliency is they got to find a way to block out the noise, focus on the goal, focus on the process, and just develop mental toughness. The mental toughness part is the most challenging thing that you can do to maintain resiliency, because, again, there's so many factors that can come into it that are damaging and can quickly you build all this mental toughness and in one second one game, one instance, it can all be snapped[PB12] . And so just maintaining that resiliency is just a constant reminder in different exercises of what mental toughness looks like of the process. You have to recognise that's what we've been talking about all the season three, we are celebrating January 6 2021. In a good practice. You have to have small money, goals and small victories because that's what keeps you going if you have one huge victory at the end The process, but they don't experience any success over time, then they're going to quit. It's just like working out, right? So we all want to be able to go work out and immediately drop 15 pounds when you can't. So that's why a lot of people quit because they don't see the results of it. Well, now you got to put some small goals in there, like, Okay, I'm gonna work out in this first two weeks, I want to drop two pounds, and I'm gonna eat differently and this type of thing. So as long as you give yourself small, little, you know, measurements of success, then that that keeps you resilient. I think when you take away those small victories, then you lose resiliency, and people just want to quit. So constant encouragement
Paul Barnett 35:40
constant. So Jackie, I'd like to just switch gears a little bit if I could. And I know there's been a lot happening in America today and I were talking about that before. But I'd like to just talk about may 2020, you published a very emotional letter about the situation in America at the time. And your team responded in a quite amazing way. They credit, the credit a lovely video for you. And you can see it, it's on the web. And I've watched it, it was I mean, I've never had anyone in my my teams, and I don't coach sport, but I work in business. I've never had anyone produce anything like that. It must have been very gratifying as a leader to send a coach to see them respond like that. And so I wanted to ask you, what is the legacy that you hope to leave as a coach?
Jackie Carson Smith 36:24
Now, that's an amazing question, because going back to your question about competence, and how it doesn't seem that I lacked confidence. But up until May, I would have never published something like that. I would, I felt like I kept my emotions inside. I didn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable. I didn't want anyone to be feel offended. But it was all the craziness that happened with Mr. arbory. And, obviously, the James Blake and just everything George Floyd, where I just felt like I can no longer be silent about my truth, I couldn't let my truth No matter how uncomfortable made someone else feel I couldn't muscle my food, because it makes somebody else feel uncomfortable. And I also was seeing how it was affecting our student athletes, our players, not only on my team, but across the university and across the country. And so the legacy that I want to live is just carry out your true carry out who you are. The really cool thing about when I published that is a lot of people that were close to me had really no idea, the burdens that I felt like I carried, a lot of people didn't understand I had so many amazing talks with people all over the place about I didn't really like that I'm so sorry. Like it was it just generated such genuine relationships, and people really know who I am. So the legacy that I want to leave is that at the end of the day, I tell my girls all the time, I can care less how many games I win, by the time I end, my coaching career that's not going to be on my tombstone is not gonna have my record. But just knowing that you can do things the right way you can be a mom that works. You can be a black female, that successful, you can be a female that beats the odds, you can do whatever it is that people say that you can't do. I love proving doubters wrong. I love it.[PB13] I want people to know that at all times, you can prove people wrong, you can carry yourself, one of the things I just posted is I'm going to wear heels where I used to not wear heels, because other people would be like, oh, but you're already tall. So you wear those heels are gonna be taller than your husband. And so I would go on and on, I can't do that I'm going to wear heels because they look good now. And I want you to own up to wearing heels because you look good. I want you to do something because it makes you feel good. And it's going to make this better. And it's going to make this situation better. I do things for my players because it's going to make them successful, and it's going to make them feel better. And I want to prepare them for their life after basketball. We use basketball as a tool for them to get their education paid for. But at the end of the day, what I want to leave is young women going out into society into the job force and be amazing moms, be amazing ambassadors, leaders. That's what I want for our players. That's what I want for my daughters. And that's why I want to show them on every team segment.
Paul Barnett 39:18
Jackie, it's been fantastic talking to you today. It's been a real pleasure. I hope we've brightened up your day just a little bit.
Jackie Carson Smith 39:26
I feel good with all that's going on. This has been phenomenal.
Paul Barnett 39:30
I look forward to watching on from my little office here in Prague and saying you prove the doubters wrong for many, many years to come.
Jackie Carson Smith 39:39
I I am excited. And if there's anything I can do, I can't wait to listen to the other podcast or just listen to all the great things that you guys are doing. So I'm so grateful and I'm glad that we could finally get this together.
Paul Barnett 39:51
Thanks Jackie.
39:53
Thank you