Kathy Delay Smith Edit 1

Sat, 9/10 9:01PM • 35:28

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

coach, harvard, kathy, players, winning, people, women, relationship, empower, team, student athletes, life, practice, years, athletes, caring, game, create, leadership, alumni

SPEAKERS

Paul Barnett, Kathy Delaney-Smith

Paul Barnett 00:00

Kathy Delaney Smith. Good evening, my time. Good morning, your time and welcome to the great coaches podcast.

Kathy Delaney-Smith 00:06

Well, I'm honored beyond belief and humbled beyond belief, because I think you do a phenomenal job with this, these podcasts. So thank you.

Paul Barnett 00:18

Well, you are very kind. Thank you. But I think the thanks is going to be all back to you. Because at the end of this interview, people are going to hear about your, how many years did you just tell me off air 5053 years?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 00:30

Well, we go with 51, because we ignore that I did it in college. So 51

Paul Barnett 00:35

Oh, and just a lazy 40 plus years at Harvard. But we will get into that that's all ahead of us. Something really simple to get us going. Kathy, where are you in the world? And what have you been up to so far today?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 00:47

So I'm retired, I retired in June. And everybody who knows me is has been worried that it's not a match retirement in me because I loved my job. I mean, I probably spent 51 years telling everyone how much I love my job. So they think I'm just going to roll over and die retired. And I am so loving the freedom. I'm writing a book. So that's and I'm so attached to my alumni, which is my favorite thing in the world. And so I have a lot of freedom to I'm a passionate tennis player. I just watched the WNBA game this morning, because I couldn't stay up late to watch it last night. And then I watched curiosity tennis match. I couldn't do that if I was still coaching. I mean, these are the things retired people get to do. It's quite nice. So I'm, I'm loving it.

Paul Barnett 01:40

I'm not sure great coaches ever retire, but we're gonna get into the alumni, we're gonna get into tennis. We're gonna get into the book and all of that stuff as we go along. But I'd like to start by just asking you about some of the great coaches you've had experience with. And actually, the list is very, very long. I've only picked out three names, but Katie stone, Dawn, Staley and Nell fortnight, but there's many, many, many others, get the bid your perspective up close watching these people work? What is it, you think the great coaches do differently? That sets them apart?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 02:16

I love that question. And I heard it on other podcasts that you have to so um, I would I love what I see in the Katy stones of the world is, these are the people that are in coaching for the right reasons. I think a lot of people have no idea what it's like to coach and they think it might be easier, more easy than it actually is. But the genuine coaches, the authentic coaches, the people who care about the student athletes, as much as they care about winning, and, or, or they're not climbing the ladder, I've known too many coaches, who you know, are in a particular position to get to the next best position. That's the wrong reason for coaching. I mean, I admire, you know, division two coaches, they are amongst the best. I know I admire high school coaches. I admire youth coaches, I admire coaches that are that can't win championships because it's, it's, it's harder to coach a losing team than it is to coach a winning team. So I think on all levels, the best coaches stay consistent and caring about their student athletes, along with winning and that means for me, for my level, that means caring about the kid that never gets into the game, caring about the woman that she doesn't get any game time and checking in with her and making sure she's still growing, and she still feels valued in your program. Caring about the injured athletes, it's really hard to include it's very lonely to be injured, because you're not part of the winning process. And so it's hard if you're even from the coach and with teammates to include those athletes, student athletes, and I think the best coaches are successful at including them and caring about them.[PB1]

Paul Barnett 04:08

Kathy has the definition of what great looks like changed over the arc of your career.

Kathy Delaney-Smith 04:17

I appreciate. For example, in the Ivy League, we're the only division one league in the country that doesn't have scholarships and have a second set of rules on top of NCAA rules. I would say a lot of my peers who are not in the Ivy League, look at what we do and say wow, how we're in the recruiting call do you say oh, by the way, we don't have scholarships, and then you still recruit the best players so they're so I look at my Ivy League peers and I think some of the best have been in the Ivy League. I really admire and the best who are at schools that have a harder time to win in the Ivy League. It might be easier for Harvard, Yale and Princeton to win than it is for Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, just the optics of that. And so some of the best coach Dana, Dana Smith at Cornell has been there for 20 some odd years. I think she's a phenomenal coach. Yet she doesn't, she doesn't win titles, she's not on TV. But she's a phenomenal coach, because she, you play against her, you aren't going to get more out of an athlete than Danny gets out of her. So that's greatness to me.

Paul Barnett 05:30

Well, how was the approach to leadership changed on that journey?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 05:35

For me, my leadership has always been relationship based. And I was criticized early in my career for not being more Bobby Knight like the, you know, my way or the highway kind of management leadership. And that just naturally was not me. So I was least confident enough to be my authentic self. But I was criticized for that. And now, there's been a big shift to vulnerability and leadership to accountability and leadership to relational leadership to a term I use, which is called leadership from the bench or leadership from the locker room, I don't think leadership means you have a title attached to your name, I mean, it means a certain set of standards, and you are vocal and you're strong, and you're consistent in making sure those standards are in your environment. Like I say to my team, if you see if you see something going wrong, you own it. And if you don't do anything about it, just because you're not the captain, then you're not living up to the leadership potential that you have.[PB2]

Paul Barnett 06:41

Katie, you're famous for your mantra, act as if could you tell us about what it means to you and how you use it?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 06:52

Well, I'll confess right off the bat that I stole it from someone, I have no idea I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out who I steal it from. But in looking in the rearview mirror, it's a it's a strategy. I've used my whole life, even when I didn't know I was using it. And so people say, well, it's just the imposter syndrome. And no, it's not. Because it's a proactive decision. It's not a reactive decision. It's more similar to fake it till you make it. But I think it's even different than that. I think it's an intention to create an attitude to create an environment that has the attitudes and the qualities and the characteristics that you want to have. You have to have potential, you have to have foundation, it's not going to create miracles for you. But it will get you from point A to point B, faster. Example. I've used it, giving birth, I've used it, battling breast cancer, I use it to enjoy a practice more. So what the concept is, if you act as if you love public speaking, which I do not. If you love public speaking, then you actually like it better than if you didn't act as if, or if you act like you feel well, when you don't feel well, you will get to feeling well faster. So your your your behavior affects your thought, we know thoughts created create our behavior. But we don't think that the behavior creates our thoughts. A woman named Amy Cuddy, who does a lot with body language, facial expressions, power positions, she was the one that made me think about this more like if you stand up straight, if your facial expression is happy, you will likely be more happier, your behavior, your face, your body language affects your thoughts. And that's what act is it is.[PB3]

Paul Barnett 08:54

Now I imagine in those first three years at Harvard, where you finished last in your conference, you would have been using a lot of this philosophy. But it was the fourth season where things turned around and you tied for first place. But I'm I'm really curious to know, what did you put in place in those years before that eventually drove this result?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 09:16

So when I got the job, I understood the kind of student athlete I was going to get at Harvard there. It wasn't very strong. And so I knew I was gonna have the greatest minds in the world, but I didn't I wasn't gonna have the tallest or the quickest players. So my first thing I did was read every size psychology book I could get my hands on, I took a meditation class with Jon Kabat Zinn, who is the guru of meditation and mind. And so that's what I started with at Harvard. I mean, that's what I worked on, and not everyone doing the punch. Like you talk to some of my athletes in the early days. And there's all kinds of jokes about what we did and all the training I tried to implement Did you know a lot by ACC? It was, they were my big experiment. So we did work on training the mind. That was number one. Number two, recruiting matters. So I had to make sure I could recruit players that were talented enough to win. And I was lucky enough to be able to do that. And then three, I think creating a culture takes a little time and three years is about how long it takes. And the culture was in place. And we thought like an acted like winners. [PB4] And even when we were losing, there's a story I always tell people, there was a young woman on my team, my first year when I was trying to create a work hard culture, because they weren't very hard workers. When I first got there, there was a young woman who was first team all Ivy, my high score, a senior got straight A's at Harvard, and she was just a lazy bum in practice. She just did not work hard. And so I called her into my office, I sat her down, and I, I'll make up a name. I said, Michelle, that wasn't her name. I said, Michelle, you can't dog it in practice. I need you to work hard. I need that to be culture. I need that to be contagious. And she looked me in the eye and she said, Kathy, I'm the high score to get straight A's at Harvard. And I've never worked hard a day in my life. Why should I start now? And honest to god, I was shocked. I mean, I was 30 years old when I was the head coach for 31. I was like, What do you say to that? I, I was like, that was really my first test. And I said, Well, I think you should take that wonderful confidence elsewhere. And she I asked her to leave the team. Because she wasn't going to work hard. And, and one bad apple, it only takes one person to create poison. And I needed to create a culture and she wasn't going to do it.

Paul Barnett 11:56

Did you get feedback?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 11:58

No, she was she was fine. I think practices were too hard for her. She didn't want to dive on the floor. She didn't want to make her running times. She She was cruising. She was talented. But she was cruising. So I knew I had to create a culture.

Paul Barnett 12:16

It's fascinating, because you say, and I've got this quote. And I think it builds on this idea you've got around culture, you say, if you educate the whole person, then that enhances performance. Now for many people listening, they want to establish closer relationships with their teams, especially given the separation we've all enjoyed through COVID has been forced many of us within our communities now to have this separation. And how do you approach a conversation with someone you know, around trying to educate the whole person, when your response coach?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 12:48

Well, I have always, always even as a high school coach, I have always believed that sports is our greatest classroom, period. And I think if I can, if I can educate the whole person, then that the end product that is winning, like you can't try hard sometime, you can't be positive sometime, you have to always be that and if you work at that, then winning can be the end result of that. [PB5]

And so I feel relationships comes very naturally to me. So I didn't go out and say, Okay, I got a whole new batch of recruits coming in, and I'm going to create a relationship. I'm terribly interested in people. I just naturally love talking with people sitting on the bus with them, chatting with them, asking them their favorite things, I usually end up asking them a bunch of questions that are none of my business. But so our relationships happen naturally, because I there's something they see in me that knows I care so much about them not just as a basketball player. And if I can create that safe zone, in our program, then I get to rip them, I get to push them to their limits in practice. If I'm going to make practice hard, if I'm going to push them to their limits, they need to know I really care about them. And I think I've been pretty successful at doing that at Harvard.[PB6]

Paul Barnett 14:19

And yet, you've also in that story you just shared you you had the courage to walk away from a relationship that you don't think is going to work. Yeah.

Kathy Delaney-Smith 14:31

Yes. Yeah, that was hard because she was good player. But, again, I think our core values and the culture that I'm trying to create matters way more than winning. I mean, and I've there was an there was a practice I had getting ready for a tournament one year and I believe words matter. This is part of the culture so that my words have to matter so I have to back them up. But if I say something in the heat of anger Like, I was so angry with our turnovers in practice, I screamed, you're gonna run for legs with the court every time you turn the ball over? Well, I think they ran 48 or 52 lengths of the court the day before a game. Not very smart, very bad strategy, however, so I was willing to lose the game the next day, to make sure in the larger scheme of things, that my words mattered. And they, they ran them, and my words now matter, and we won the game. So there you go.[PB7]

Paul Barnett 15:33

I mean, treat about Harvard. I mean, everyone around the world knows the name and the brand. It's synonymous with success in high achievers. And I imagine just being accepted to go there is a wonderful achievement, let alone graduating with certain marks. But with so much drive and ambition in one place, perhaps for people listening, it might sound a little like their boardrooms or their locker. What have you learned about creating a collaborative team environment when there is this abundance? Of drive and ambition and energy?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 16:07

Yeah, I again, I might, my coaching has always been open door policy, like I want to want them to be heard. I want them to know I'm listening to them. I think they have great heads and great ideas and great thoughts. So I listened to them. And I want them to have ownership, I think it's a more powerful team when they own the team. So every year we sit down and we, the team chooses the traditions that are going to be passed down, the team chooses the punishment if you're late to a practice. So it's their team, they own it. And I think this particularly this speaker has become way, way more important. The longer right coach with this generation that we're coaching, they need ownership, they they're very motivated, they're very talented, they're very driven, but they need ownership, and they need loyalty, like and they're not gonna have loyalty if they don't have ownership. So, you know, I think any anybody, what organization a team or, you know, an office, it empowers people to give them part of the decision making process. And I have great minds at Harvard. So who better to help me?[PB8]

Paul Barnett 17:28

Kathy, in your story, there's multiple examples of challenging authority, particularly when it comes to fairness. There's early examples about challenging school boards and, and government and community around the the rights and the availability of opportunities for for young girls. But I'd like to flip that around, actually, and just ask you about a time that you were challenged from someone in your team, when it comes to fairness and how you responded,

Kathy Delaney-Smith 17:54

You are asking great questions, Paul, I would say because of my open door policy, my players, I encourage them to come to me if they're confused, if you don't know your role. If you don't understand why I didn't play you. If if instead of talking behind my back and festering and women have a tendency to hang on to things and let it fester. I like let's talk about it. And so more often than not, a player will come and say, I don't understand why you didn't play me. And so we have a conversation. And it's better, we're healthier, we might agree to disagree. But it's still a healthier way. I don't think any player of mine has ever accused me of mind games. Because I'm very open. I'm going to tell you exactly how I feel about your left hand and your shooting and your defense in your box. So, so So that happens pretty frequently. I will tell you a story about one young woman who was brilliant psychology major at Harvard. Brilliant. She asked to have a meeting and she she said she asked me, Kathy, why do you use punishment to motivate? Why don't you use reward to motivate? I thought and she was reading that and all getting he was being taught that in all of our psychology classes. And that that was a great question. So I listened and we did try a few little shifts. We tried to reword. We tried a few little things, and they didn't work. And the truth of the matter is, unfortunately, the fear of running is probably the greatest motivator. I changed my language to say if you don't do this, I will run you I change it to your reward will be you will not run. So just so that question in the late 80s altered my coaching it made me think about making sure that there was the impression of reward rather than the impression of punishment. And it works. It really does the brain is a funny thing it works.[PB9]

Paul Barnett 20:12

So is fairness a theme that you're exploring in the book?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 20:17

Equity? Yeah. Equity. I don't know if I've never used the word fairness. Because I mean, I will often say to my players, Life is not fair. Coach, I try so hard in practice, why am I not playing, she didn't even practice the last two days, well, I want to win. And my, I'm hired to win. She's a better player, it's not fair. But she's playing. Like, you know, life isn't fair, all the times, equity, I want us all to have an opportunity to achieve achieve the same things. We live in a world that's run by money. And so that seems to be the biggest determinant to what we do and what we don't do. But I think that if you are not revenue producing, I think Title Nine is the greatest, strongest Civil Rights Act ever, and has allowed for high schools and places that are not revenue producing where your boys team and your girls teams should be having the same budgets, the same practice times the same opportunities. That's the equity, that I I will continue to fight for the rest of my life for[PB10]

Paul Barnett 21:35

one of your enduring legacies at Harvard is the alumni. Why we're setting up that alumni. Nurturing it, growing, supporting it. So important to you.

Kathy Delaney-Smith 21:49

I didn't set out to do that I was I wasn't really smart enough. I mean, I was a fish out of water. I mean, at Harvard, when I applied for the job, I had not played college basketball, I had never worked at a college and they hired me. So I went on to a division one head coaching position, never being an assistant, and not having a clue on this earth what I was doing. So to give me credit for developing my alumni program early, I just wasn't smart enough. But I love people. And I have always loved my athletes, even the ones that are difficult to coach, I've always loved them. And so we had an alumni game every year and they all come back. And it was so fun. And the the energy and the connection that took place just continually got larger and larger, every Alumni Weekend ended up being between 102 100 people every single year. And like they started bringing their children and we had a kids game and like it was just sort of organically developed into what the program represents, which is like a family connection, you know, a relationship for the rest of your life. It truly I don't I think we're I don't think we're one of a kind. But I think we're, we're I thought everybody did this. I now realize Harvard is pretty special. Actually,

Paul Barnett 23:11

they must give you a great shot of energy every year to see those familiar faces going back.

Kathy Delaney-Smith 23:17

Yeah, well, and so now they're on Well, we're not coming back. Because you're not there. Kathy, I'm like, You don't come back for me. Like you come back for each other don't. And I will you know, if the new coach in Harvard invites me or is comfortable with me being there, I'll I'll surely come back. Because I, I love. I love the school, Harvard. And I love the basketball program at Harvard.

Paul Barnett 23:42

We talked earlier about the importance of relationships to you. And you talked about sitting next to people and being with people. And it's a great trade, but many leaders talk about the challenge that comes with the closeness of the relationship and the distance required to be objective and give feedback. You seem to have managed that balance very, very well. What What advice do you have for others on on getting the balance right, and perhaps even not being afraid of stepping into that relationship and, and testing it out?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 24:12

Yeah, I think that though, that's key what you just said, Paul, I think not being afraid and having the courage taking a risk. I'm not gonna lie to you. It's a fine line. And it's great many times, and I've had student athletes crossed that line, never, never intentionally. So. And if I find that a player crosses that line, I address it immediately and then we move on. And I think in doing that, I do think that everyone knows how much banter you can have with me, and and and how much banter you can't have with me. And as I said, If anyone ever did it intentionally, and I can only remember one athlete in 40 years and she was asked to leave the team when she was intentionally disrespectful to me So, in her talk and her banter, and I, she left the team, so and that's, that's a resounding yes. Have the courage to do that. Because, you know, her friends on the team are shocked by that. But this, it's not three strikes and then you're out. It's one strike if it was done intentionally one strike, you're out. So, and again, you have to manage it. Yeah, it takes courage and risk.[PB11]

Paul Barnett 25:24

You were diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. You You mentioned earlier, how did this battle go on to shape your leadership philosophy?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 25:33

Well, I think that breast cancer has ended up being more positive in my life than negative. Everyone gets very surprised by that, even though I really don't want to do it again. I would say that so many people, I think I have been coaching, let me see 2000, I've been coaching close to 2825 years or something. And everyone came out of the woodwork and wrote me letters and said the most amazing things to me, I think they were afraid I wasn't going to make it. And so they wanted to just get these nice thoughts out. But it was very empowering to me, it was very, you know, sometimes as a coach, no one likes you, you know, it's everyone, someone's disappointed in you, someone's mom, someone's dad wants some AI players. Inevitably, the feedback you get might be more negative than positive. And I'm a winning coach. So I keep thinking, Oh, my gosh, if I wasn't winning, how would you feel about the feedback, but I got incredible, wonderful support and thoughts from all my players, and it made me step back, slow down. And it made me understand and become more aware of the impact coaches have on student athletes. Like I might not have been aware that I had this impact on these young women at a time in their life, when they're, their education is utmost. So I think it made me a better coach, because I was more aware of that.

Paul Barnett 27:05

You've maintained these very intimate relationships, you've had winning seasons, you know, year after year after year, you've battled cancer, how do you go about replenishing your own energy so that you can roll up every day, ready to give.

Kathy Delaney-Smith 27:22

Um, I believe in being healthy as I try to teach my athletes, I think I inherited a lot of energy, I can see that I am my mother incarnate, who isn't really my hero and a remarkable woman. And I take time to I sleep. I'm a good sleeper. I think sleeping is really, really important. I think exercise and so and I don't lift weights or do any of that, because I'm really the older generation. We didn't do that. But I love tennis. I love bike riding. I love walking, I love swimming. So I think taking time to do all the things that you love, whatever they are nice glass of wine, or beer never hurt. So I think all these things, whatever it is you love in your life, I think you take take time to do them. And humor. Let's put humor to the top of the list. Like life has to be fun. My practices need to be fun. Like if I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to run you and I'm going to push you so you can't breathe. It has we have to make sure we have fun along the way.

Paul Barnett 28:30

Kathy, I read and I hear so much in press lately around the mental health challenges that coaches experience. And when your assistants come to you and they perhaps talk about the challenges they're facing emotionally, how do you work with them on that?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 28:47

So I think that I am not a micromanager. I think I love the people I hire who will be self driven to get their jobs done. And so if you have to, like some Mike Rowe, who was my associate head coach, my last six or seven years, he has four kids and he has to go to a teacher's meeting or he has to leave early to. I'm going to let him do all of that. I'm going to let him make sure that his family life is as important because on the way he's going to make the recoup phone calls. He's going to stay up till midnight if he has to to get the work done. So I don't micromanage my staff. And so I've been blessed over all of my years to have my assistant stay with me for like long periods of time. And so I keep bragging that I'm an easy boss and everyone wants to work with me because I'm easy, but it isn't that I'm easy. It's that I hire great people that are driven and I give them balance and humor. Humor is we we have to go out for a beer we have to go up in the conference room and vent and tell jokes. And it's important that I get to know my staff too. So I'll have them over to dinner or I'll treat them to, if I have an all woman staff, which I have had, we've all we've done manicures and pedicures, like silly things, things that people like. So I work again, it's about relationships. And I, you know, I didn't have a mentor, because I, I was either too dumb to find one or there weren't any there. I think I was too dumb to find what. So some of the greatest thing lessons I've learned came from my much younger assistant coaches much younger. And that's because of the relationships that I established with them, and they were wise beyond their years. So it was was perfect.

Paul Barnett 30:49

Well, you may not have had a mentor, but you've definitely become one now. And we have a problem in professional coaching. And that is women are underrepresented. Think it was at the last Olympics, less than 20% of all coaches at the games were female. What can be done to get more women into this very important leadership position?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 31:13

So I think that's a comp that's going to be a That's a complicated question, because I think there's a lot of variables. But again, I've I've spent my whole life trying to empower women. So it's, it's making sure women have the confidence to be on podcasts, to get up and speak, go out into youth, sports, if you have, if you're a family, if you're a woman running a family, it doesn't matter if your kitchen is clean, it matters that you're on the soccer field, even if you didn't play soccer. And there's just so many women, I don't know anything about soccer. Well, it doesn't really matter, read a book, go on the web, and get out there because we need to see more women at that level. And so one of my alumni said to me, Kathy, do you know how many of us coach AAU, our AAU teams and our youth teams? And I said, No, she goes, all of us were all coaching our youth teams and the she said do you want to know why? And I go no, why? And she goes, because you told us to. And so that's the empowerment that we need. But we have to start it you know that grassroots level. That's where we have to start hence my book. So the book premises if I can do it, anyone can do it. Because I don't have a back i i became a physical education teacher and never had one gym class in my life, went to a physical education college and was traumatized. Because I didn't see lacrosse, field hockey, softball. I never played any of those didn't belong there. So what made me think I could go there and do that. I just did. I acted as if is what I did. So you know that? If I can do it, we can all do it. And we just have to empower each other women don't empower each other or network like men do. We gotta keep on truckin.[PB12] [SB13] [SB14]

Paul Barnett 33:06

You've been very generous, Kathy. So maybe one last question. And I'd like to start by reading a quote from one of your past players Allison Feaster, and she says, people like Kathy, women like Kathy, not only did she and others light the flame, she will leave a lot of us empowered, and emboldened to continue. She definitely left the sports world and the game in a better place, but also empowered a generation of women to continue the fight. Now, those are pretty amazing words, in any culture, from any person. That perhaps, Kathy, in your own words, what is it the legacy that you hope you've left as a coach?

Kathy Delaney-Smith 33:51

That, that I did, I allowed the women I empower them, and I allowed them not only to be free to be who they are, but feel great about it. i We live in a world where we're judged by our gender, our race, our height, our weight, our hair, or this or that. And I really tried to empower all of my women to be their authentic self, because I have I am. I have had a crazy coaching career. I am non traditional. I was criticized for a majority of the time for just doing it my way and my players call me Kathy, I was warned don't do that. They will they will not respect you. But I just I did it my way. And I encourage women that there's power and being authentic, and we should all be free to be who we are[PB15]

Paul Barnett 34:47

empowered, authentic. Little bit of Frank Sinatra singing my way. And if I could add a fair amount of energy, positive energy running there as well, Kathy, it's been Wonderful getting to know you and spending an hour with you tonight. It's been a real a real masterclass a real treat for me and I want to say thank you because it's been a very long day and you've given me a great bit of energy to attack the weekend.

Kathy Delaney-Smith 35:12

Okay, Paul, I admire what you do. I'm jealous of your job. And someday we'll meet and you'll give me a year bro from Romania.

Paul Barnett 35:22

We'll do a whole beer tasting I promise you.

Kathy Delaney-Smith 35:25

Okay, that sounds terrific.