The Great Coaches Podcast Episode 016
Wed, 2/10 9:01AM • 37:42
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach, coaching, young girls, team, athletes, assertive, sport, girls, people, championship, player, themes, australian, carrie, win, play, talent, australian national, women, female
SPEAKERS
Jim Woolfrey, Paul Barnett, Transition, Carrie Graf
Paul Barnett 00:01
Welcome to the great coach's podcast.
00:04
To me, being perfect is not about that scoreboard after
00:08
this is a chance you can understand the person and you can then work towards a common goal. We
00:16
are all on the same team. Now you do it to the best your ability to focus on the fundamentals. We've gone over time and time again,
00:25
has got to be better.
00:26
We've known
00:28
great moments
00:31
are born and great
Paul Barnett 00:32
opportunity. My name is Paul Barnett, and you are listening to the great coach's Podcast, where we interview great sporting coaches to try and find ideas to help all of us lead our teams better. Our great coach on this episode is Carrie Graf. Carrie is a former professional basketball player and coach. She started her professional Playing career as a 16 year old in the Australian National League, playing for the nanowall inspectors in multiple championships. She transitioned to professional coaching in 1993, winning the national championship in her first year. Seven further championships followed in the years leading up to 2010. In 2004, she became the first female Australian coach in the NBA in America, leading the Phoenix Mercury. She also coached the Australian National team to a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics. Carrie is a coach with a purpose. She believes that girls are capable of anything. And through her coaching, she empowers them to in her words, be the Prime Minister, the President, a brain surgeon, a nuclear physicist, an Olympic athlete, an Olympic coach, or a football champion. This is a wide ranging interview and the highlights for me were how she addressed her team's self doubt by asking them to go back to childhood and list out all the championships they had collectively won as individuals. Her team values must be referenced in every training session. And during the game if you want them to become part of how you function as a team, and she shares a good story of how they score themselves on these values during timeouts in a game. The importance of using your voice assertively so that you can help your teammates see what the next possible decision could be. And she gives great examples of why this is important for female athletes to develop. And towards the end she gives great examples of how female and male sports are equal and how you can affirm this with young girls while watching sport with them. This was a wonderful conversation, one of my favorites so far, and I hope you enjoy it as much as Jim and I did.
Transition 02:43
The great coaches podcast
Paul Barnett 02:46
Carrie Graf. Good afternoon, and welcome to the Greg coach's podcast.
02:50
Good afternoon.
Paul Barnett 02:52
Carrie, just a little really simple question to kick us off. Where are you in the world today? And what have you been up to?
Carrie Graf 02:58
I mean, I'm in our nation's capital here in Australia in Canberra. And we're on the verge of the verge of a web upcoming web all season. That may we'll be in a hub due to COVID. So we're, we're madly scrambling as we find out the details of that but my role is as director of sport at the University of Canberra, so not only Crunchyroll at the moment, I oversee various sporting teams here at the University of got high performance teams so we own and operate the camera capitals a team I coach for a long time. We have a strong relationship with bromby Super Rugby who are about to tip off in the Australian Grand Final tomorrow. We have a women's rugby sevens team we are responsible for carrying out the women's football team. But 100 affiliates here at the uni we do social sport Rosie sport in the varsity sport, we operate a gym. So yeah, that that's keeping me busy and entertained post coaching.
Paul Barnett 03:52
Well, Carrie, we're grateful to have just a little bit of your time today, given how busy you are to talk about your coaching career. And I'd actually like to start with some of the great coaches you've had experience or exposure to so I was looking in researching for today I can see names like Tom Maher, Cheryl Miller, Barry Bonds, and this is just this is just a few. You've also coached a multiple Olympics and World Championships and I'd be really interested to know from this perspective, what is it you think the great coaches do differently?
Carrie Graf 04:23
Yeah, look, it's interesting. I mean, I guess I've been I was fortunate across my coaching career because I started coaching pretty young, but I am I was exposed to a whole lot of coaches, um, good, bad, indifferent. But I think the beauty of that was you learn different things from all of them. I think I learned, you know, those coaches I worked with, I went Wow, I don't really want to operate that way. But there are great lessons to live and experience with with different coaches that you felt that you you weren't particularly coaching style. You didn't have a personality style or a belief system as was this. And I was fortunate as a young athlete, a basketball player growing up in Victoria, which is sort of I guess the stronghold basketball in Australia that, you know, I was coached by many Australian great coaches, I met Brett Brown, I was coached by Brett brown and stackup, Bill Palmer, Bruce Palmer, Brian Gordon, at camps as a as a kid. So, you know, I was exposed to a plethora of wonderful coaches from a pretty young age. And I'd have to say, look, Tom, I was absolutely had the biggest influence my career was a mentor and a friend and, and certainly the greatest coach of women's basketball, but this country's produced, but I think the best coaches that I've, you know, either worked with or seen operator, I think they're, you know, they're true to who they are. They command respect in different ways. And I think that can only be through being authentically them. I think they then tend to hold people accountable. And they do that in different ways. And I think they have a real belief in it, depending where they go, a belief in either winning or a belief in the development of people. And I think he can perhaps do both. But I'd say the common thing is the greatest coaches are also great teachers, I think that they they find a way to teach people. Sometimes that's not a conscious, conscious thing that they do. But there's, there's a real teaching aspect in in coaching, I think great coaches do that.[PB1]
Paul Barnett 06:16
Gary, you talked about starting your coaching career Early, I believe you're only 26 in 93, when you when you started, and in that first year, you won, you won the championship one point over Perth. And I guess there must be great positives and negatives from having success so early in your coaching career. But if I could ask you, what do you remember learning most in that first year as a coach?
Carrie Graf 06:38
Yeah, look, I think one of my lessons in that he came really early because I was looking, we had recruited a pretty talented team, then a couple of great players landed in my lap, Robin Ma, who was thomaz wife, who happens to be a great player before they were husband and wife was one of Australia's great players in a national team captain. And Robin called me to say, Did I do I want any clients? And I said, Oh, you know, we're right, we're pretty, we're pretty loaded, we've got a plethora of talent. Because I thought she was pitching me some, you know, bench players, something interested, I will comment on moving to Sydney because it just got the national team job. So you know, would have been pretty silly not to take on one of Australia's greatest players at the time. And she was the current Australian team captain. So I was like, yeah, sure, Rob, and was really excited about the opportunity of coaching, but she was 10 years, my senior, you know, a triple Olympian, or would be a triple Olympian come the next Olympics. And I was really excited about the opportunity to work with that. And then, after quite a bit of time, a lot of people kept saying to me, graphy, how the hell are you going to coach Rob and Mark because I was 25. Rob was 35, you know, this dominant as 30, great legend player in Australian basketball went on the world stage as well. And then I started literally shitting himself, not God, how am I going to coach you up and up? You know, I've been fortunate I played as a young player on on a dominant number one expect this team through the through the 80s, that Tom coached and played on a bunch of championships. And, you know, how am I going to deal with that some so I just thought, look, I'll just have the front up and be honest and explained to Robin how I'm you know, the situation. So I went about the normal process, but in bleeding into season, have individual meetings with all the athletes and talk about their role and how we might work together and now goals for the season, etc. And I thought, look, I'm just going to have to call it as it is. So just simple problems, really excited about the prospect of coaching or working with you. But now I'm shitting my pants. And she said, and she said, We'd graffia I great, glad we got that away, because I felt the same way. When I you know, when I called you and going to work with you. I thought that would be great. And then people started saying to me to Robin, how the hell the hell are we going to pay for graphics. So it was a great listening, you know, I could have acted like they didn't have an issue with that and just went along my merry way trying to coach Rob and Mar but the the honest approach in how I was feeling actually helped. Because it you know, it was it was authentic. She took it on board went Yeah, what we think about that was other people. Were both looking forward to working with each other. Let's get on with it. And I, you know, I said to rob, look, I want to, I want to hear your opinions. I want to hear what you got to say. But I've got to coach the title and lead the team and I'll support you, I'll do what you needed. And it made for a great working relationship with the senior veteran athlete as a 25 year old.
Paul Barnett 09:23
You coach, you coach camera. Sorry, you coach, you're very successful. You come back in 99 to coach camera, and the team hasn't played finals in seven years. Yet within a year, they win the championship and they go on to win another four in the next 10 years. What were some of the things you did first when you got back to camera to build that elite culture within that team?
Carrie Graf 09:48
Well, one of the first things we did because yeah, I think the camera team would only been in the playoffs in the 10 or 15 years they'd been late to that point. And they they added been you know, years before You know, first and foremost, we recruited some talent. Well, you know, they recruited me first and then I went about recruiting talent. And, you know, it'd be silly to say that a young Lauren Jackson wasn't, didn't have a big impact on that. But, you know, we had we had some veteran star talent there. Shelley Sandy, who was a triple Olympian Australian player, played in the IPL and played in the NBA was there and I played with chili Beck and honor winning specters and, and I knew she was the winner knew how to win, but the rest of the group hadn't really experienced winning. They didn't know what it was like to be in playoffs, and I didn't know what it was like to win a championship. So the first thing that I did with the group was you know, we had a blend of talent. We had some veteran talent when it comes to camera. We were recruiting young talent. So we had Lauren Jackson and Kristen Violetta the is who both went on to be, you know, Lauren, you know, we can talk about Lauren later. But everyone, you know, if you know anything about basketball, you have heard of Lauren Jackson, how great she was and is, and Kristen veal who became a national team player and play to the web. So we had, we had some interesting talent, and we had some local camera talent. But the first thing I did was we got into and said, who he who he thinks we could win the championship. And I could see the looks on the faces of the camera girls that can go over here thinking, Oh, my God, is she serious? And then I went around the room and went, you know, kept up with soaking up the championship. So we run whether it's under 12, or under 14, or under 16, or in the web, or any championships we've won on state teams, and we went around the room and the number. You know, I've been a part of many Shellie Sandy based upon many. So our numbers a group of winning was in the hundreds. So suddenly everyone in the room went well. We know how to win, because we've got a whole lot of people in here that know how to win, even if we haven't been a part of a wb l championship. Yeah, we want to I want an undertow Premiership around the school girls championship. So it was it was really setting the stage for you're doing a headwind because you want it doesn't matter if you haven't won at this level. And everything we did was about, well, how do we win this championship, and we kept that front, front and center and we set goals to sit under that. But it was really about instilling some belief early that if we do these certain things, we've absolutely got the talent to, to win a championship and and those of us that have won, here's some of the things that we think we can do to help this team win. So it was about instilling belief, I think, and then going back to process of, you know, doing the hard work, learning and evolving as a group and keeping our our goal at the at the forefront without being overly focused on[PB2]
Paul Barnett 12:26
the outcome. And I guess that was a little bit of your story, too, because you started coaching in your mid to late teens, 1415 years old. So you'd already been coaching for 10 or 12 years, even though you were just 26. Are there any particular values or behaviors that have just been consistent that you have pushed into your athletes through your years as a coach?
Carrie Graf 12:48
Yeah, look, I think I've always been big on on team chemistry. And I guess that's really about how you treat people and treat your teammates. So that's been, I think, a value that's been important to me, you know, I grew up with both my parents were school teachers, I studied a, I do a Bachelor of Applied Science in education visit teaching, essentially. So my degree was in education, I had school, you know, school teacher, parents. So I never got any days off school, if you didn't go to school, you went to your parents school if you had a sick day. So you watch them do their thing and leave people so but I think, yeah, that that sense of how do we how do we get along as a team? And how do we perform as a team, and that everyone has a role within that, regardless of whether you're the star player or the 10th player. And I think for longevity of success, that there's got to be great team chemistry, because I don't think he can have sustained success. Without it. I think he can short term win, I think you win a championship with terrible chemistry, that people can find a way to win regardless of each other. But I think to have long term sustained success, there has to be a sense of respect for each other in a sense that we're working to accomplish something together while we're all developing our own ways.
Paul Barnett 14:02
You talk about sustained success. And actually, there's been a couple of times in your career at none awarding and when you coach to Canberra, where you've been involved with teams that have had multiple years of just ongoing success. And, you know, I'm really interested to know when you talk about respecting cohesion, but how do you develop those values within a team to make sure they don't become complacent or move forward with a sense of entitlement?
Carrie Graf 14:28
Yeah, look, I think this was one of the great lessons that that I learned from Tom Myron, Tom Mar instilled some opals team themes with the Australian Olympic team back in 1992. It would have been 93 when he first took on the job and those those things still ring true today and as they hang on Ben's at their surrender, in fact, a lot of very different teams and clubs have adopted them. And I and I think it was the lessons that I learned through playing in Tom system. But Tom's those those Things had a huge impact on the way he went about making them a lived part of the team's culture. And they were. So I don't think this happens in business. And you see it in sports sports centers, they develop a set of team beliefs or cultures or whatever you want to say, themes, whatever you want to call them. And they'll go through a thing at the start of the year. And you go, yeah, they're great. We all believe in those and there are things and then it's a piece of paper that goes in the drawer. But you know, and I think in the American system, you know, you'll often see them in the locker room painted on, and that's shifting, certainly in Australian culture. But Tom, Tom drew the team themes into everything the team did. So every every practice, that'd be a reference to the team themes, every goal setting session, that'd be a reference to the team themes, every team meeting, there'd be a reference to them. And in fact, the players would be evaluated against the themes. So it really held people to account to the themes and to each other, and, and then became a part of what we did. And I think, you know, I saw it years later that the impact those themes had was when you saw athletes that have played in Tom system on the national team, do public speaking engagements, they often use the term themes as a reference point. I use them today and I use them and made some alterations. And you know, that's what we built the Capitol's culture on to was a group of the medics that we felt were the pillars for success and that we evaluated on ourselves on them, for example, in a timeout, you know, if we'd had as our, one of our goals in the in the pregame meeting was you know, we want to be relentlessly persistent and we want to handle adversity that we posed that question a timeout, well, what are we What's our score for relentless persistence on the on the boards, and we show hands and we use a scale of one to six, six was World Class Zero was a disaster. And there was no High School. So it's a little bit old school, but we you know, it's I will put up your hand at halftime, you know, look at our goals, we said it's being assertive, be assertive, put up your hand threes, or twos or fives or fours in it. If you are owning your own behavior for the team's performance, and you were looking at each other saying, Yeah, well, I'm going to pick up again, because I'm a three out of four or, gosh, disaster, I'm a two or I'm a five. So it was I think that consistent evaluation of the themes and how they utilize through, through everything we did, I think had a huge impact. And I think, you know, those three in particular, I speak to that a sort of life specific. Yeah, relentless persistence, the ability to handle adversity, and a way to, which speaks to what I spoke to before in terms of team chemistry and cohesion, and, you know, the ability to work together as a group that is, you know, the old adage, there's no I in team and what does that actually mean? It means respect, respect for difference that we're, we're not jealous of each other, we're not working against each other, we're working together for a common cause.[PB3]
Paul Barnett 17:55
I've seen you speak a lot about assertion in relation to your time with the opals, but also in relation to females in sport, particularly young young girls and getting them more being to be more assertive using body language and voice. I'm wondering if you could just share some of your views on the importance of assertion.
Carrie Graf 18:15
Your look, I think, you know, this, I think we still think for girls and young girls in particular, and, and young women that often from young age, that if young girls are assertive or confident or any of those traits that are traditionally seen as positive leadership traits, if young girls exhibit those that are told they're bossy, or they're rude, or but when a young boy does exactly that uses the same language and uses the same body language people pat them on the back and say, You're a great leader, good job. And I think that doesn't set our young girls up for for successes, future leaders in their, in their adult lives. And it's, it's wrong. It's a gender bias that we you know, we're overlaying how women should behave, or how girls should behave that, you know, leaders that's, that's a leadership quality, you know, to be to be assertive, not arrogant, not not overly confident. But to use your voice assertively and in sport in particular, you know, to communicate in sport, it has to be assertive, it has to be commanding, it has to be short and sharp, there isn't time for nice, soft, fluffy Enos in in the thick of a sporting battle or at practice when there's not much time and you're trying to tell teammate that you're the open person, if you say, Hey, you know, Susie, pass it over to me, it isn't going to come your way. If you say Susie, then it's probably going to come your way. And that's not agenda thing. That's just how do I get? How do I get something done? That's helpful for time. How do I help that teammate see what the possible next decision could be? And then how do we work together as a team defensively when we're, you know, we've got 24 seconds to the vendor team against the score. We need to also each other around, but it's not by Other around, it's being assertive with each other to, to help each other direct the traffic. And I think teaching young girls that through sport is a wonderful skill to have that they, they learn, you know, and I do this with young young girls, when we do coaching things, I'll go around and get them just to say their name as an example, go around the group and say your name. And I talk about being assertive. Firstly, and I give examples of me using my voice assertively. And, and I'll, I'll call them out in a nice way. Do you think that was assertive? And they'll go now. And so so each person tries how to use their voice just by calling their name in the assertive way. And I think a simple thing like that helps young people understand, Okay, I understand that it's okay to use my voice in a loud tone. If I can play with that. And what does that mean, my teammates aren't gonna be offended or think I'm a bitch. They're just gonna stand up in sport, and in things that require short communications, that that's how we speak to each other, not in a rude way. But in an assertive way. And I think that's a powerful message for young girls and young women.[PB4]
Paul Barnett 21:05
Carrie, you've been very vocal through most of your career, about coaching, being gender agnostic. In fact, you said, quote, it doesn't have a penis or a vagina.
Carrie Graf 21:15
Yeah, regretted saying that, just because my mom probably heard that interview. But I mean, I don't really but it does. because she'd say, all daddy need to say those words. But it's, it doesn't I think, for a long time, and I certainly felt this maybe is it without recognizing as a young as a young coach that I've been mostly coached by men, which isn't a bad thing that I was coached by some men, but it was unfortunate that they were the only role role models I really had. And that, you know, finding my way through coaching and being actually been myself took a while, I think, because I was, you know, obviously, I respected my Tom, so much, and there was other male coaches that I hadn't. So the only way I'd lived insane was how they operated. And I, deep down within me, I didn't feel that that was me, I didn't. But I didn't know any other way I was, I had to sort of navigate my way through finding, finding my own voice and finding my own style, just as me and that happened to be as a woman. But that hasn't shifted in the coaching game a lot, we still, we still don't have the numbers in women's high performance coaching, that we had that same numbers that we had 20 years ago. I mean, it's, you know, the dial just hasn't shifted, and I think there's still this misconception that coaching is a man's game, you know, we haven't broken through yet that there's more than one or two females as assistant coaches and men, Men's promix that still the majority of coaches in a lot of women's sports, or men and in the, in the, you know, the new women's sports that are springing up AFL, W here in Australia and, and cricket, mostly the many coaches, and there's a perception that will if he's playing with a certain level of cricket, then he must be a decent coach. So let's, you know, he can coach the coach, the girls, I just think we just have a lot of work to do in that space. And that, absolutely, when we can coach high performance sport they play, they can coach it, and and they might do it a little bit differently. But that's, that's okay. Whatever people's you know, style of coaching is in terms of their personality and their leadership traits. I don't think we need to lay a gender lens over the top of that. It's it's just coaching and women are just as capable.[PB5]
Paul Barnett 23:28
It's the reason Jim and I started this podcast, you know, to try and get the message. we've both got daughters, and we want, we want that message of taking a leadership role and not being afraid to step up to be one that that we talk about around the dinner table. So when I was talking about who I was interviewing today, I did say I'm interviewing coach that says, coaching is agnostic and doesn't have a penis or a vagina, and it did get attention. So I think it was a good, I think it was a good soundbite and I'm glad that you said it. But actually, what I wanted to ask you was, you're the first female Australian coach in the W NBA in America. And I am wondering how you had to adapt your style, if at all, for the for the Americans.
Carrie Graf 24:11
Yeah. Kevin, and I was the first Ozzie as an assistant, female, and there was a few female coaches in the WNBA. Then and it probably shifted a little bit. I mean, obviously, I was there as an assistant with Cheryl Miller, who was a head coach, I think those and Donovan and who was head coach in the league, then Mary and Stanley, so there was maybe three or four out of over a dozen and then maybe four or five as assistance. But for me, the shifting coaching in Australia versus the US wasn't so much gender based, it was more adjusting to coaching us athletes as opposed to Australian athletes with all due respect to all my American friends. And I've got, you know, made a lot of good friendships in my time in coaching in the web, but, you know, there's there's subtle differences between Australian and us. athletes and I think, and there's some pros and cons of both. And I think us athletes tend to have a very good sense of who they are and their talent, and they all come to come to the table from other programs and have a belief that they're all really, really good. You know, you'd be aware of the nausea of the tall poppy syndrome that we, you know, Australians tend to downplay their talent, and we grow up thinking that but you know, don't be cocky, don't be too confident, you get you get pegged down. And we we tend to not not saying that we're that good. So for instance, I spoke about that scale of six before that, you know, I went in and did a similar thing. We set up team things, we evaluate them, and I'd have I have plays the whole time, Gary, how are we, you know, what's our score for assertiveness on the board? And I'd have sixes all around the room. And, you know, there'd be someone that hadn't got a rebound. And not you didn't you only play four minutes tonight, you didn't get a rebound? How could you be six, they go? Well, I was six. So was this really interesting? difference on, you know, for me, that rating scale didn't really work. Evaluating themes and goals that way didn't work quite the same as it did. So there were real, I think, adjustment to adjusting to subtle cultural difference. You know, obviously, the cultural differences between the US and Australia are great, but they're certainly there. So I think it was more adjusting, subtle adjustments in in that in dealing with a different mindset of athlete really,
Paul Barnett 26:29
you have a long history as an assistant, and also as a head coach for the Australian National Team, and you lead them to a bronze at the 2012 Olympics in London. But I'm interested to ask you about representative teams, where you're coaching players who are competitors most of the time, and how you deal with any lingering personal issues when you pull that team together?
Carrie Graf 26:52
Yeah, look, it's a, it's a toughy. I mean, I think it's gonna it sort of reverts back to my earlier story, when I first started coaching and, you know, handling situation with a veteran athlete, that was intimidating to me that I think you have to have the discussion, you have to have that difficult conversation, you have to bring people together. And I think, you know, whenever you national teams are a challenge, you know, you're making selections, and there's always one or two selections that could go either way, literally that when you're getting down to a limited 12 you could go anyway, and you're gonna break someone's Olympic Training. So they're, they're tough conversations, I think they're bringing together certainly the, the more professional women's basketball has got around the world, the less time the Australian National Team has had to prepare to get that because our best athletes play overseas all over the world. They play all over Europe, in Asia, obviously, in the US and the web. And so you get limited preparation with essentially a team of all stars, you've got the best talent. So trying to pull that together quickly, I think is is one of the great challenges that it's it's much more like coaching an all star team, you've got to quickly get the group together and playing together and you don't have a lot of time to smooth out relationship bumps, you've got to if you if you feel there's there's a potential problem, you've got to get some get some people in the room and have that have the honest conversation and talk about whatever differences you've heard, or we've had, we got to put them to bed because we've got three weeks together, and we've got a medal to win and a gold medal to win. So it's, um, you know, and it's hard to say aren't put something behind you that, you know, perhaps been a two or three year ongoing issue, to say, let's just pretend that that's all gone now. And you know, wait, let's hold hands and sing Kumbaya playing together. But that's what's going to happen. And, you know, athletes are hugely professional. And they, they also when they come together, have goals, they have individual goals, you know, every player on those national teams wants to win a gold medal. And they want to do whatever they can to achieve that. So they find a way to put differences to bed that, you know, that we plays on, you know, they're playing with athletes that maybe they've been archrival with us rivals we've been competitors with for 567 years, people that they haven't had great relationships, for whatever reason. So it's, um, you know, it's definitely a challenge. But I think the better people in the better teams find ways to overcome any of those issues.[PB6]
Paul Barnett 29:17
Carrie, I love this quote from you. And I hope I'm attributing it correctly. It says it's about a mindset about what women can and can't do. That's what we have to see some change to the perception of what women and girls can do. And I'd like to look at the question the quote from slightly different angle and asked you what can i coaches do? Whether they're male or female, what can they do to better develop the mindset of their female athletes?
Carrie Graf 29:44
I think it's having having girls believe that they can do anything and I think having particularly, you know, with a physical skill set that they can, they can perform. They can perform in team sports, just like Boys and Men can you know they're playing against each other, they're not playing, it's meant for Boy, you know, when they when they're young, maybe up to under 10, say five boys, but you can actually, you can do anything. So if you're watching men's sport, you can do any anything that they're doing, you can kick it like them, you can mark it like them, you can hit it like them, you can shoot it like them, do you do any of that, you know, it might not be quite as powerful, or it might be quite as fast. But any of those physical skills they're doing, you can do that. Because there, there is no reason why a young girl can't do what a young boy can do in a sporting context that any of those skills you can you can learn them, you can develop them. Absolutely. So I think it's, it's having that, that sense early with young girls, you can do anything if you put your mind to it. And if you it's that classic, or if you think you can do can. And if people tell you, it can't, well tell them that you can. And if the reason is because you're a girl, tell him get absolutely can't because you are a girl, and I think that's one of the drivers to me is that I was told to do that, because I was a girl. And it just seemed unfair to me as a as a seven year old kid that was pretty good at sports or sports that I couldn't do that. And they'd say, oh, Carrie, you can't play football. And I'd say but why like seven or eight year olds do? And they'd say, pitcher girl, and I'd say But why? And they'd say, who's your girl? And but I wasn't being a smile. Like it was just I didn't that didn't make sense to me. What do you mean, I'm a girl, I know, it's seven. I'm better than Peter woods, in a in an innocent way. And the boys would say yeah, she's better than pinewoods you know that. God love Peter woods. But, um, he wasn't a bad footballer, but I was better. But it was. Um, so from a young age, it just didn't make sense to me, because 789 10, I could hit the cricket ball, just like the boys could I could fall I could catch I could pick up 40. But I kept being told that I couldn't. And the only reason was because I was a bill. So I guess I've carried that through my coaching and through any work that I do with young girls is that you can actually do it. And you can. And young girls can now be professional athletes and professional coaches. And I think that's, you know, I now look at young girls growing up in this country, and they can aspire to be a plethora of sporting academic profession, as a female as a female athlete in a whole bunch of sports. And I think that's, that's a great, a great change. And there's a whole bunch of little girls that won't have an interest in that at all. But when I was a little girl, there was we could never dream of that. So I think that there has been a shift. But I think having girls believe that they can be the Prime Minister, the President, they could be a brain surgeon, a nuclear physicist, an Olympic athlete, an Olympic coach, a football champion,[PB7]
Paul Barnett 32:37
whatever it is that you know, girls, girls are capable of doing anything, just as our women carry, you seem so articulate and firm in your beliefs. And so I'm going to ask this question, but I don't know if I'm going to get an answer to it. But if I had a time machine, and I could take you back to non awarding, and give you the chance to talk to that 15 year old who was coaching those under 12 girls in the same club, what advice would you give yourself?
Carrie Graf 33:04
Yeah, look, I'm gonna say I don't know. I mean, I'd probably give the advice that I've just given you, I have not given you that I've just shared that I, I'd say, you can do anything. I think
Paul Barnett 33:16
it's a great message. And I can't wait to share it with my, my two girls who are actually getting ready to go to school. But I think it's a wonderful message. And I think it's, you know, I took we talked to it, we interviewed Lisa Alexander. And she added to that thought by saying, and I expect one of you to be a prime minister one day. It's tremendous pressure to put on your athletes, but I think it's pressure that they by virtue of the fact that they've got to where they are, it's pressure that they can handle. And I think they can become ambassadors for
Carrie Graf 33:46
Yes. And I think, you know, if you're raised, if you raise the bar for people, they'll they'll jump it, you know, if you give them the support, they need the teaching the guidance, but I think if you put a ceiling on people, well, that's all they can, you know, trying to break through a ceiling is pretty tough. But if there is no ceiling, it's just about you can jump over it. So I'm in a nice little corner, the 15 year old me[PB8]
Paul Barnett 34:10
I carry on, you should just know I've got a message from Jim who's listening in the background and he's, he's got a few tears as well. He told me. I'm gonna finish with I'd like to finish with an even easier question then.
Carrie Graf 34:21
I'll blame it on menopause. By the way.
Paul Barnett 34:26
I don't know if this is a fair question either. But I'm going to ask it because we ask every every coach this. You finished coaching. I don't know whether you have plans to go back to it. But you seem to be quite energized by the organization and direction of the of the broader sporting community. But what legacy Do you think you've left as a coach? For the many, many women that you have touched over the years?
Carrie Graf 34:54
It looked like Ah, I haven't really thought about it. And look, I've never said never to coaching him, but I'm You never know what what happens in the future. But I'd like to think that the, the athletes that I've coached, do believe that they can do anything that if they, if they chose to coach, they could see they could coaches themselves and they could coach as a female regardless and that they could coach in the NBA or the NBA. That they felt that they were, you know, they weren't that worthy to be to be anything they could be. And that they know that, that they had a sense that coaches can be compassionate and authentic, and that coaches care about them, and that they can take those sort of lessons into their life.[PB9]
Paul Barnett 35:40
Carrie Graf, it's been a pleasure and an honor interviewing you today. Thank you very much for your time and wish you all the best for the W MBL. hub, and for your constant efforts to try and get more women into coaching as well.
Carrie Graf 35:53
Thanks for having me and apologies for the tears. But you know, US cheeks cry sometimes.
Transition 36:00
The great coaches podcast.
Jim Woolfrey 36:03
Hi, everyone, it's Jim here. You've been listening to our discussion with Carrie Graf, the director of sport at the University of Canberra. This really was a wonderful conversation. I felt inspired and emotional with carries purpose that girls are capable of anything that messages about girls and women in sport and in business a powerful, her views on confidence, assertiveness, and that coaching doesn't have a gender or a discerning way to remind us of what great coaches can do for us all. We hope you enjoyed it as much as Paul and I did. Coming up next on the great coaches podcast, we'll be speaking to a person who has coached at the elite level across three different sports, Neil Craig. And so your best coaches are not risk averse. They're not not not Cowboys, but they understand that if you don't take risks or good, you end up being an imitator. So you imitate people all the time, whereas your best coaches want to be innovative. And just before we go, Paul and I have truly appreciated all the encouraging feedback we've been receiving about the podcast, we started this journey to take inspiration from the stories of great coaches to use in our professional lives, and to have better dinner table conversations with our families. It's turned into so much more for us both and we are grateful for your support. And remember, if you know a great coach that has a unique story to share, that we would love to hear from you. You could contact us using the details in the show notes.