The Great Coaches Podcast Episode 021
Wed, 2/10 9:03AM • 48:39
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach, players, basketball, team, game, play, people, unique, question, championships, win, head coach, defense, helped, assistant coach, big, olaf, career, women, australian
SPEAKERS
Jim Woolfrey, Paul Barnett, Olaf Lange, Sandy Brondello
Paul Barnett 00:01
Welcome to the great coach's podcast.
00:05
To me, being perfect
00:07
is not about that scoreboard after
00:08
this is a chance you can understand the person and you can then
00:14
work towards a common goal. We are all on the same team. Now you do it to the best your ability to
00:20
focus on the fundamentals. We've gone over time and time again.
00:28
great moments
Paul Barnett 00:31
are born. Great 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 basketball coach Olaf Langer. Elif has won two Europa League titles as a coach, as well as 12 national championships across Germany, Russia and Spain. He has coached both the German and Russian women's national teams, as well as presently being an assistant for the Australian team. He's also had numerous stints as an assistant coach in the NBA in America, where he is presently an assistant with the Chicago sky team. All f is a coach who has that rare ability to zoom out and be strategic. And then in the next moment, zoom in and engage with these athletes at a very personal level. In this interview, we talk about these skills and how it is used them across three different continents to deliver elite performance. The highlights for me were his thoughts on how you can score with only having two to three offensive players. But in defense, you must have all five participating if you are to win and build a team mindset. How great coaches do three key things. They find ways to elicit buy in from their players. They understand the importance of defense. And they build a team around their players, rather than having the players adapt to the coach's system. And he also talks about not over coaching from the sidelines because it's the players who have to make the decisions in real time on the court. This was a fun and engaging conversation. And I hope you enjoy it as much as Jim and I did the great coaches podcast. All f Lang Good afternoon, and welcome to the Great coach's podcast.
Olaf Lange 02:25
Thank you. I'm excited to be here. very honored, very humbled.
Paul Barnett 02:28
So I hope we're having a good time. All if we're, we're excited to have you on to because we love talking a little bit of basketball and we're going to cover three continents today we're gonna when we talk to you about basketball, but before we get into any of that, just something really simple to kick off, can you let us know where you are in the world today and what you've been up to so far?
Olaf Lange 02:50
Well, I'm currently in Phoenix, Arizona, where I reside with my wife and and kids. I've just recently finished the last w NBA season where I've coached for their Chicago sky and was a very unique season. As we all know, in these pandemic times, we played it in a bubble in in, in Florida, and it was a very unique, yet very fatiguing experience because the schedule was was was so convinced that there wasn't really much else to do other than to coach and sleep. So I just been winding down from the season and getting ready for my offseason projects, whatever they may be.
Paul Barnett 03:29
Could I ask you a question without notice about the budget? How did you manage the tension? Because you're all living together and training together and playing together? Was there heightened tension? And if so, how did you release the pressure?
Olaf Lange 03:42
Well, I mean, there was you mean pressure with other teams? So the pressure to perform what pressure you're referring to
Paul Barnett 03:48
exactly, probably just more the interpersonal pressure because you're all living with each other playing with each other, like how did you get a break from it and
Olaf Lange 03:56
decided you really didn't. It was unique because you you got more in touch with coaches from other teams and players from other teams, you found relationships that you probably would have never found in other than this situation. So you you go to lunch, which was a buffet type of thing. You grab your food, you relative five other people, three other cultures. You have a chat here, you have a chat there. So in a way, it was very relational. And it was a very unique experience. Obviously, the content schedule didn't allow us to, you know, do too many things because as coaches you have to go back and scout or prepare the next team or analyze the last game you play. So it was very intense, but it was kind of unique and the setup that IMG Academy in Florida was just fantastic for this kind of thing that didn't wbI did an amazing job organizing everything it was it was very unique. Well, I
Paul Barnett 04:48
guess you had first hand experience at the buffet bar of some great coaches. You've also as I said in the opening you've coached on three continents and you've had first time experience working alongside some pretty good coaches as well. There's James Wade. There's Carrie green, and of course, your wife Sandy Brunello who you've coached with on numerous occasions, and she's coached with you. My first question is, what is it you think these great coaches do differently?
Olaf Lange 05:16
Well, it's a good question I asked myself right now I'm in a personal position where I'm an assistant coach, again, I work with James White with Chicago sky have been probably over the course of my 25 years, more head coach than my system. I've been blessed enough to work with great coaches and and also be able to head coach myself. So I've been asking myself the same question over the years because you want to improve yourself, you want to get bad, I would get an edge. And it's a very difficult question, because there's so many different coaches, good coaches I've worked with their personalities vary greatly. And it's not easy necessarily to boil down these traits and attributes they have into like a simple bullet list. However, ignoring a little bit, the different personalities, I came down with three things that I think they do really well on, some of them are a little bit more specific to basketball, because I think that our game, especially the way it's developed over the last couple of decades, the way the rules have impact the Game Analytics, things like that our game has certain specific so some of them are a little more specific to the game and others are a little more broad. So I want to start with a broad one. So I think the great coaches find ways to elicit buy in from their players. And when I say buy and buy, and is a widely used word or term recently, and over the years, even in companies they use it now, by and for me is that players accept, and they're willing to support and participate in team gold. And most importantly, in the system, the good players are, they've played for so many years, they have very strong opinion themselves. So they have to be able to put these opinions to the side and submit to the system that we are the coach wants him to execute. So it's essentially to elicit by and essentially, it's about leadership. And I think great coaches find ways to use their own personality to mesh with the players they have and get away for them to buy into the system to buy into them to buy into the team's goals. One aspect of that is also that, you know, as a coach, especially a great one, you need to be demanding. When you're demanding, you have to find ways to deliver your message in a way that players can receive them.[PB1] And that was different. I mean, I coach for 20 years, I coach, players like Michelle Tim's, or wife, that generation, you could go after in a very different way than the generations we have today. So as coaches, I think we have consistently have to change, adapt and find ways to deliver the message in different ways to get players to buy in into the system, rather than checking out. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges for us as coaches and I think the great coaches do that better than anybody. The second point I think they do well, that it's very, somewhat specific to at least ball sports or games is their extent the importance of defense. And especially in our game of basketball defense is is so difficult because the game is so athletic and you can basically can't touch anybody, physically. So it's very difficult to play defense on a higher level. But all teams that are successful, and statistics are very clear, are a great defensive teams. If you take the $7 last a WWE champions are our top three on a defensive side. Defense is difficult because we all gravitate towards office players, coaches fans, and I think it stems from but we start playing a game whether it's netball, I played soccer, I'm German, so we have to we have to play soccer, otherwise we get kicked out of the country. That's the first sport where we play soccer, you play basketball, you want to score basket, you want to score goals, you don't start playing the game to defend. I mean, nobody does that. So by the nature of the of the game itself, we all gravitate towards offense. But when you come to professional ranks, and you need to win, to stay at a job, you need to win, or you want to win, you want to win championships, you need to become a good defender, you need to be able to coach defense and you need to commit to defensive side. And I think the great coaches find ways to get their players to commit to play defense, more than they want to and then the last point I want to make is great coaches built a team around their players rather than having their players adapt to their system.[PB2] And I think that's in mostly the case in a pro world, because and again, women's basketball, that is, my core business is unique there because we we have players that either play in Europe and when they're not playing in Europe, they're playing in us. And that's pretty much all year round type of deal. That means times are shorter that you have with your team. They also play in multiple systems, usually, because they either plan national team when they play clock, or they play a W NBA. So they're influenced by different cultures, and different systems. So we have less times and higher pressure, high expectations, expectations. So in short times, we have to find a way to be successful. And I think it is very important in this setting for any coach to find and tweak their own system to the players that had they have rather than having their players to adapt to their system, because there's just no time anymore[PB3] . A great example of that is the Dallas Mavericks. Currently, Rick Carlisle, for example, he was throughout his career, he was known for a fast paced ball movement type of guy, now he has Luca Don church. And what did I do there? I think 20 or 18, or 20. In a WNS, pace, they play much slower, the ball is more than one person hands. And the result is to have the one record breaking off in step number one in NBA and offensive rating. And they're one of the most exciting teams nowadays. So it's a good example. But coaches adapt to the players that have
Paul Barnett 11:43
it's probably the most in depth answer we've ever had all left. Thank you. And it's fascinating to this focus on defense first, and I'll, I want to come back to it a little bit later on. When we talk about your particular style and philosophy and how you've, you've used that to build results. I'd like to actually ask you about the role of the coach, because when you watch basketball, the coach almost seems to be the sixth player, they're calling the shots, you know, they are taking control of the play, they are directing traffic, and it's a much more involved role than other sports. So I guess my question is, you know, in basketball, how would you describe the role of the coach?
Olaf Lange 12:19
Well, that's an excellent question. I asked myself that many times when I evaluated my own way of coaching, especially on the sidelines, but I, by nature, a little bit more calm and composed that guy, sometimes that should be more of a ping pong ball on the side and call every play. We coaches on basketball coach that gets sucked in in this kind of way of coaching because of the little bit more influence we have on the sideline, there's timeouts, there is constant substitutions, you can even pull a play out, talk to them directly send them right back in, then as drawing up plays, and the end of games on where you directly can impact the game. I think basketball is unique. If you look at other sports, I think the impact is much, much less. But still, if you look at the great coaches, Phil Jackson, he barely did anything. He sat there and his players executed, rent the game. And I think that is still the key role of the coach, I would say, for me personally, I would say 80% of my job is done. By the time the tip off happens. I have to prepare the team. Well, I have to get them physically prepared mentally, tactically, but the game itself is played on the floor. And I hated point guards that dribble down the floor and look over their shoulder and what the heck I was calling or not calling, I think it takes away from the game. It's a player's game, they have to make decisions in split seconds, and they have to get better at making those decisions. I[PB4] mean, when I coach earlier, Mercury had two really, really good guards. I mean, they're both Australian. So you're very familiar with Michelle Tim, since Sandy Mandela was a young Coach 25 I don't think I hardly made a call. They had the team in perfect control. It was good. So other times when I coach Russian national team later my career, I pointed out to very poor that I called more I think sometimes the coach has to fill certain gaps. But the ultimate goal as a coach always for me is to become redundant. Our goal is to create an environment to set high standards, make sure we we as a team adhered to the process, and try the best to the best of our abilities. And then in the game. I think we should be more of a guardian that we on our team plays the right way. And we can't be sucked in by the temptations, especially in our game to over coach from the sides because eventually it will get you will get your beat because the game is so fast paced that the players have to make decisions and they have to get better at doing them.[PB5]
Paul Barnett 14:58
I'd like to talk about making yourself redundant, actually, if I could, because you begin your professional coaching career in 1995. With Oprah towel, you become the head coach in 9897.
Olaf Lange 15:10
Yeah.
Paul Barnett 15:13
97 Pardon? 97?
Olaf Lange 15:15
That doesn't make any difference. Yeah, one year more or less in the scheme of things.
Paul Barnett 15:19
For didn't know, but the team goes on this amazing. Can this team, the team goes on this amazing run, you know, five consecutive championships. And so you must have done something at that time to set up that team that it was just running so well. And I'd like to ask the question. Can you remember back what it was that you did when you first set up that team?
Olaf Lange 15:42
Well, first of all, I think I didn't screw anything up. I think I think that was the biggest thing I did. I was 25. At the time, I was not the youngest head coach in the Euro lake at the time, we had actually won the Euro league in 1996. And we were runners up in 97. So we had a, we had a very good court place. I think the reason I got the job is because the club faced budget cuts for 40%. And I think always the easier, cheaper version. But hey, I took the opportunity and ran with it. And I kind of set my Korea gave a Korea good start. So I had a very good core. Although we missed some players, Michelle Tim's lift at that time, and some of our German older German players who lost them to retirement, but we had still a core of four or five people in place that knew how to win, our culture was in place. So it wasn't so much what I did. But what I learned, I learned that the culture is as much driven by the players than it is by a coach. And if the key players and the coach work hand in hand, and understand each other, the culture is pretty much drives itself.[PB6] Literally, I just kept doing what we did, I had developed good relationships with the key players when being an assistant through player development. And I think Later I will elaborate a little bit on the big role player development played for my career, I think should play in any coach's role as as they either go up the ladder or want to help want to find other ways to influence or help influencing their players. So had great relationships and now find ways to add to what we lost with new players. And we just, we just kept rolling. But I think the key pillars of our culture that were placed and that we just had to re emphasize were discipline hard work, which are very German traits.[PB7] That was right there from the German. So we had Ozzy's that kind of go along. That same kind of lines we really made sure. And I made sure that as well, we stayed away from Americans at that point, because there was other things to deal with. And we played unselfish. We had templates. And again, throughout my whole career, it was always a defense for us. So I got a little lucky, but I was humble enough to learn early on. And I think I learned as much from them as they learned for me, probably I learned more than they did. But yeah, we, we did all right.[PB8]
Paul Barnett 18:19
You, I think you're very humble, because that was the starting point of many, many years of success. And I'd like to step through it with you if I could, because you go from four Patel up to Spain, you're the assistant coach with liberty, the team wins the Super Cup in 2004. And the head coach at that time, Carrie green says, All f strength lies in his passion for the game and players as well as in a sensitive heart and discernment. And I thought that was a wonderful, a strange but also a wonderful thing to say like how to have a sensitive heart and a sense of discernment. So I'd like to ask you, how do you manage to have a sensitive heart, a connection with the players and the empathy that that that word alludes to, but still give them the feedback that they need and make the tough calls to push them along? in their development?
Olaf Lange 19:06
Well, that's an excellent question. And I'm still stunned, Paul, that you came up with this question many years. I've never I've never been asked this question. And it speaks volumes to your to your skills as a as a researcher, podcast host. I mean, you pretty much boil it down to I think the key question of my career, I think I've asked myself this question many times, obviously been been challenged. I realized that discernment or my discernment a better word for me, because discernment is really coach Greenberg, I have to admit for my the word I would use is more intuition. I have a very strong intuition. Any, any gift can be a strength and it can be a weakness. So I decided early on that I read a look at it as a strength rather than a weakness and I tried to build on it as a strength And find ways to improve upon the weaknesses of it. So intuition for me was an invaluable tool because it always allowed me to have a sense about what was going on in a team without knowing all the details. So I could look at certain behaviors and certain little things that I could have a very good feel and sense of what was going on without knowing really, what were their specifics. Obviously, it helped me caring for the players, a lot of I think, I think the players realized that I was caring for them. And it helped me in my ability to elicit the best performance out of them. When it came to making the tough decisions.[PB9] I think I had to learn, I had to learn to make them. I think my upbringing helped me a lot. My father was a policeman, he was a cop, and he was always a person that was kind of very disciplined, but he always was about doing the right thing. So doing the right thing, whether you liked it or not, was always a big theme I grew up with. So for me, I had instilled in me yes to had intuition, but also had this other part of me that knew you have to do the right thing, whether you comfortable or not. And I think this pulled me through, being able to make hard decisions. And I throughout my career I had made me I had to make very, very hard decisions for players I was had very, very good relationships ended up not talking to me anymore, because they were so hurt, not because I did it wrong, just because they didn't expect me to make those kind of decisions. And I kind of did it because I thought it was the right thing to do.[PB10] And in a way I'm still to this day, learning to do this better and better. But it's like going to the gym, you don't go to the gym once and you're Fit for Life, you have to commit yourself to a training process and stay in shape. And that's the same with these kind of these kind of things. You have to commit to doing the right things and improving upon those things over and over again. To this day, I think I'm I'm learning but I just recently got a got a very nice, inadvertent compliment from one of my players in Chicago, and I'm new to the team. It was my first season there. This player said to to another coach, my presence is at all cultural. He's a straight shooter, but I love him. I guess I'm doing all right to be able to merge both to the best of the team of coaching to be carrying yet being able to tell it as it is.[PB11]
Paul Barnett 22:34
You take this learning, you take the success in Spain, the success success in Germany, and you take it up to Russia, and you have probably the most successful period so far in your career. Six years as the head coach with actor annaberg I hope I pronounced that correctly. It could have been Burke, yeah, he Catherine Berg, and you lead them to five straight Russian Premier League championships from 2013. But also to Europa League titles. This is an amazing run. This isn't a fluke. And this is the second time in your career. It's happened. And the question I'd like to ask is, how did you keep the level of drive high enough in that team? So they kept moving forward? And they weren't complacent? And in your words earlier, they kept growing?
Olaf Lange 23:19
Oh, well, you know, when we when we took over the team, they had the best players and the highest budget he kept we call him he cared and individually as he can remember, he had for years, the highest budget in the women's side and in the Euro League, but they had a history of underachieving. So when we came in, it was about figuring out what went wrong all the years before. Wouldn't we need to do different, how to set the team up for success. And that same time we Diana Taurasi was also signed as a player. So we came in as a coaching staff and, and she came in at the same time and further for your listeners who don't know the accuracy. That is, it's like the little Messi or the Michael Jordan of women's basketball. She is the greatest of all time. She is a tremendous player. And I remember that conversation her and I had maybe three weeks in, we looked at each other, and she said, Now you know why they never win. And I said that you're right, because there were so many things that were good players. We had, you know, all these great players. But that didn't fit right in the whole culture, practice culture. wasn't right. So we had to change the way we practice the way we adhere to the process the way we took her lying on talent out by focusing on the core thing, which was playing basketball and having high standards and I think it really helped that Our best player Diana was kind of a Michael Jordan left leg like a late Michael drawn for Phil Jackson, the she understood that only as a team, you can win. So we push the envelope, we instill the same principles that work for me personally, in Bogota, and I had with our best player. On my side, there's this in basketball, I don't know if that's common in other sports. But we have this, this saying that goes like this. If your best players are not your best leaders, you won't go where you want to go. And we were very fortunate that my best player, not just the best player in the game of women's basketball at that time, she was our best leader. And so together, we were able to put that trend back on track and never stopped rolling.[PB12] And one thing I realized is that these players, they may be the best players, we have the best players from the United States, we have the best players from Europe and the best Russian players, they all want to get better. They all want to still perform on a higher level. So I used all the player development again, as a key motivating factor to prevent complacency. We work with each player individually, we put a lot of time in, we made sure that everyone had a role, with everybody contributing everybody improving almost on a daily basis. complacency was not our problems. We have problems like many teams, but complacently wasn't one of them. And I think looking back, we should have won Well, your league titles. But I'll tell you that it wasn't because of complacency.
Paul Barnett 26:43
Unless you mentioned in that entity, you said you implemented the principles you had it. Will Patel Yeah. Are you able to distill or describe what those principles are?
Olaf Lange 26:55
Well, it's always it's always a combination of you got to honor the process. Like to practice on a higher level on a day to day basis is the key. And obviously, with more talent, that is a little bit more of a challenge, because the human nature is to do what's just enough. So we have to set high standards. And we have to elicit that, again, this works. When you have players that support you this is well, I'll talk about that earlier, when I talk about great coaches, you have to elicit buy in and I had the best players on my side. And I found ways to have them reiterate that message to the team. So within a couple of weeks we came became a much better, much better practice team than they had ever been before. One key factor for that was, but that was a little bit unique to this group is that we didn't over practice, the European Cup practice culture at this time was two days, two days, two days, which pretty much kills any passion you have for the game because it becomes so, so monotonous from practice to practice that there is no passion. So what we did, we practice less, but more intense. And the players really picked up on that because their passion came back that competitive nature came back to it and we really excel. So practice and the discipline to practice on a higher level on a daily basis is number one. Number two is ball movement and player movement and getting everyone involved. I think many coaches talked about that, that your best players have to be facilitators, they can be ball hawks, especially in ballgames. So we really made sure that the ball moved, our system was built in a way that we weren't relying on individual talent, but we were relying on execution and sharing the ball amongst the team. And then thirdly, playing defense. The defense first mentality, which is probably an always is the biggest challenge for any coach to get the players to play defense. But the defensive side is so important in basketball, not just because it's so hard to defend, it's also offensively in our game, you can get away with three, three or five or five players on the court at one time. And sometimes you can get away with three players playing great basketball and offense and use score and nobody even defenders would notice that two others are not involved. Defensively, that doesn't work at all. If you don't play with five players, your defense sucks. So five player a defense resolve those five player events. So to me defense is not just an essential to win. It's an essential to building a team mindset because only when you defend together, you are a successful or the court and when you defend together, you play together. So for me these three things With a key key cornerstones that are instilled, and it worked well,[PB13]
Paul Barnett 30:04
if you've, you've coached across Australia, Germany, Russia, Spain, now the USA, you've also coached the national team, Russia, you're an assistant now with the Australian team, the opals. I believe you've also coached the German national team. So I think you're somewhat of an expert at adjusting your style to fit different cultures. And I could wonder if you could just talk a little bit about some top tips you would give people in adjusting your style to get the feel of a new culture and a team?
30:35
Who?
Olaf Lange 30:39
Well, I don't, I don't, I don't know if there's so many differences. I think basketball is basketball, or whatever the sport is, there's usually some tangible things you can grasp that the most important one for me I was stood out were tangibly, every game in every continent. In Europe, it's even worse. get to that a second is, the officiating is different. Each country has his own interpretations of how the game has to be played. And that's usually reflected by the game, how the game is officiated, that has a much bigger impact on certain things on the floor on the field than might would think doing if you only coach one continent that way I can Australia, for example, it was the most physical type of basketball I've ever seen. I think it must come from this foodie culture that it is great to be physical. And I was sometimes looking at the games I was going mind God, that is more boxing contest than basketball, the threat of gay rights is great. And I'm going, how is that great, we can barely move from A to B without two players holding us. But eventually we adjusted, I figured out what works better in physical situations and not better. But then on the other end, in the United States, here, you can barely touch each other, you know, and then Europe is somewhere in between. So the officiating has a big impact on how the game is played. And there are certain things that are done in a certain way in different continents. And I think when you come in, you better have an open mind. And you don't come in like a racehorse with these, what are these things called an aside so the horse doesn't see right or left? blinking, I think makers, they I think it's important to to have an open mind to talk to people and figure out what the particular differences are. And to me officiating was one and I realized that pretty quickly, and we find a way to adjust. And then there's less tangible things that are there, the deeper and more relevant to person to person interactions. And they come from deeper cultural norms, and you know, behavioral patterns that people brought up. So for example, what I had to learn, like, give you an example, like a level of honesty an Australian player can take is way bigger or higher than, for example, a Russian player, okay, and that has to do how, especially on my site, how, how they bring brought up, and I think the Americans are somewhere in between. So you have to figure out how to talk to people, how to talk to your players, to be the most effective coach to get them to do what you want them to do, or what's the best for the team. So I think you have to be in the beginning, be a good listener, be be slow to talk, make sure you, you talk to all sorts of people, not just to your key players to management, talk to everyone down the hierarchy and be a good listener in the beginning. And then you'll figure out very quickly how you have to adjust either whatever you do on the floor, but most importantly, what you have to do, in terms of human interactions to be the most effective leader.[PB14]
Paul Barnett 34:00
You've been coaching since 1989. When you were 17 years old. What do you like so much about coaching? Ah,
Olaf Lange 34:08
I love the challenge. I love helping people to get better at to get what they want. I love putting a team together and go through the process of everybody giving up their own individual agenda and coming together as a team. And it's always a riddle. It's a puzzle of a lot. I love the challenge. And quite frankly, I'm love to be be involved in the team that the camaraderie the togetherness that comes from going after a common goal. I think it's a good meta, it's a great metaphor for life, because anything of a real value is never done alone. It's always done in a team, whether it's your family at all or the big, the big issues that are big problems we have in the world that we need to solve, we only going to solve them as a team and not as individually So, I love that and I don't think I will stop doing it.[PB15]
Paul Barnett 35:05
You say there, you don't like doing things alone, you know, together and of course, your wife, coaches basketball. And there's been times where Sandy has been your assistant. And there's been other times, like right now in the Australian team where you're her assistant. And on top of that, it's fascinating that you've both moved countries to support each other's career. So it's not directly a coaching question. But I'd still like to ask it, are there any routines or things that you both do to stay in sync? On and off the court?
Olaf Lange 35:38
Well, I mean, we get I get that question, we get that question. A lot of bugs, people who cannot understand how this works, you know, some people say I could never meet man, I could never work with my wife. And, you know, so I get we get that quite a lot. And I think it's, it is unique, in a sense. It is also I think, because of the personalities who both I think we have both have a very strong passion for the game of basketball, we both love it very, very much. So we understand this passion in each other. We are both family first type of people. So we know that what we love basketball, it's always family first, so we naturally support each other. Now we have kids, our kids go everywhere. And you know, it's never been been a hard thing for us. And then besides being husband and wife, we also best friends. And I think these three things these three pillars have always pulled us through and even when things got tough, but you know, certain things that we do regularly, I can tell you, we speak about basketball almost every day. There's not a day goes by we don't speak about basketball. I think that helps. But I think these three pillars I mentioned are really key for us to keep everything on track. And because we both coaches, it works because we really understand the business. And we don't get offended by things other people would I mean, I tell you literally in the in the Bible, like where we both saw in enthralled and engaged in basketball, there may be three days where we are two days where we don't talk to each other and nobody gets offended. And another relationships, I think that will be difficult.
Paul Barnett 37:21
Maybe it's the shared passion that I'd like to just take you it's a quote, and it's actually it's not an unusual, it's not a unique quote, you know, you said you want to if you want to reach something big, you must set big goals. But what I would like to ask you about is is there a person or even a team that you can talk about where through helping them stretch, aim higher, have a bigger aspiration, you were able to dramatically improve performance?
Olaf Lange 37:56
Yeah, it because that quote, you probably pulled where I used it the most, it's I used that quote with the Russian national team, when I took over the Russian national team. And when I took the job, I knew this will be a very, very challenging job, because they were Russia and women's basketball has a a very, very long tradition of gold medals and championships and a lot of success and women's basketball. However, through through the fall of the USSR in there was a big gap and almost a generational gap where there was no funding for women's basketball. And then this gap eventually reached the top level of women's basketball, where they had problems to qualify for the Olympics. They weren't at the top anymore, but at the same time in in the Federation, they were still very high expectations. So I knew going into this job that there were high expectations to you know, be again in the Olympics and potentially win medals. And at the same time, I saw the talent level of the team. And it wasn't there. It wasn't there to support those expectations. But it wasn't it was not my place to decide about expectations, but it was my place to coach the team. I knew this was a very, very challenging job because the outset but I love challenges and remember shied away from me. So I took it on. So I I sat down I said Well, how do we going to do about this? And then I said, well, playing smallest certainly not going to do it. So the only thing to do this is if we take it head on and we just try to stretch yourself. So that's where I used this. I used to wear that team. I used to set high goals. Obviously I didn't go run around and tell the team that they are not good enough or at least the perception the outset. Section the beginning was, so we had 18 months to prepare for your basket in 2019. And we broke it down and in actionable steps and the issue was, wasn't just tactical shortcomings, there were quite significant psychological issues, meaning that we're the team was in different parts, some parts of the team weren't talking to each other, or at least not playing for each other with each other, we had a lot of self doubt and players and teams and you know, fears of not being good enough. And the reason for that is also very explainable because Russia has a lot of money in women's basketball, they get all these foreigners. So the domestic players, even the best domestic players, players, six played a second fiddle, so they never take responsibility or get being responsible for the outcome of a game, it's only handled the foreigners. So these players over years and years and years playing in their domestic league, we're pretty much used to it doesn't matter what I do, I'll be on the team. And I'm not responsible for the end result. So they had developed a way to get by but now the national team where we had no import players, you had almost no had to make decisions you you had to responsible the rest of our stability for the outcome. So we worked a lot on, you know, dealing with self doubt, I think I never workshop more with any team then with his national team and our causes to the time we improved quite a bit, eventually, we, you just fell short, we didn't reach our ultimate ultimate goal. I think we lost the game against Sweden by just a couple of points. That was the game to make it to the Olympics. But we made it to the quarterfinal in the process. And I never thought in the beginning that we were caught of final potential. And I think while we didn't make our reach ultimate goal, the improvement and the growth of the team and its members was beyond what I anticipated. So I felt personally, well, the outside view was not necessarily a success. Personally, I'll look at this team. And I thought we have pretty much reached more than we set out to do. And I think that was probably personally is a good example on how stretching yourself can take you further than you thought you will go.
Paul Barnett 42:26
And what did you learn about helping athletes overcome self doubt through that process?
Olaf Lange 42:33
Paul Barnett 44:27
If you have a long way to go as a coach, hopefully, there's a gold medal coming at the Olympics with your with your wife. Let's keep our fingers crossed. But I'd like to ask you about legacy and I'd like to frame it in terms of what is the legacy you would like to ultimately have left behind you as a coach.
Olaf Lange 44:50
That's a big question, Paul. I wish I had an insightful answer but I'm I'm a rather simple person when it comes to questions like this. It's definitely not championships I know that much. I can barely remember who won, who won the NBA five years ago or three years ago. So I don't think it's, it's it's championships. If I've helped people I coached under my supervision on, you may be assistant coaches, sometimes people use influence, to become better people on and off the court. And we all end up saying, realizing that our lives were enriched because we crossed paths, then I think I fulfilled my purpose. You know, and I think earlier, we talked about, nothing is achieved alone and in life. And I think that's, that's so true. And all these championships and titles, they're nice, and I love them. But again, they just eventually it is the metal in a box, or a T shirt in a drawer or a trophy in a cabinet. But we're relaxed, I think is who you had to become to achieve it. And if we all become better as people or as a person in the quest, and I have been a part of it, then then I'm at peace.[PB17]
Paul Barnett 46:13
lf lF Lang, I'm very happy that our paths have crossed and we were able to do this interview, and wish you all the best for the coming season. And thank you very much for your time today.
Olaf Lange 46:26
Well, thank you so much. And Paul, let me say you're doing a great job with this podcast. I'll be a committed listener. Thank you so much for having me.
46:35
Thank you for the great coaches podcast.
Jim Woolfrey 46:40
Hi, everyone. It's Jim. You've been listening to our discussion with Olaf Langer, Olaf said, putting a team together and to go through the process of everyone giving up their own individual agenda. Coming together as a team is why he loves coaching. that camaraderie, that togetherness that comes from going after a common goal. It's a great metaphor for life. Because anything of real value is never done alone. It's always done in a team. It's such a powerful message. Many teams in business currently being tested and looking to find new ways of working through these challenging COVID times. I feel extremely fortunate to be working with a team of people who share a common goal. And as Olaf said, trophies and medals may sit in a drawer or a cabinet, but is who you have shared the journey with and who you have become to achieve success is what you will remember most coming up next on the great coaches podcast is the coach of W MBA, Phoenix Mercury and the head coach, the Australian women's national basketball team, Sandy brown dello
Sandy Brondello 47:49
first thing that I did was just build relationships get to know him on a personal level, kind of where they're coming from how they tick. So I kind of understand that I'm I think I'm very honest, but I'm very fair in my leadership, like I'm my, my job is to get the best out of them be a servant leader. And the biggest thing is, you know, if you get those relationships, it's easier for especially the culture, the best players have to buy into that.
Jim Woolfrey 48:13
And just before we go, coaches are not usually the type of people who seek the spotlight. If you can put us in touch with a great coach who has a unique story to share. We would love to hear from you. You can contact us using the details in the show notes.
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