Muffet McGraw edit
Wed, Dec 13, 2023 6:09PM • 35:10
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
talk, people, coach, winning, women, game, learn, play, great, notre dame, important, team, player, confidence, questions, men, job, relationship, mistakes, taught
SPEAKERS
Muffet McGraw, Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett 00:00
Muffet McGraw. Good morning, my time. Good afternoon, your time and welcome to the Great coach's Podcast.
Muffet McGraw 00:06
I'm so excited to be here, Paul.
Paul Barnett 00:10
Moffat I had been chasing you for a good couple of years. So I think my excitement might be a little greater. But thank you for saying that anyway. Moffat you have had an astonishing career. We're gonna get into the depth of that career and the people that you've met along the way, but when I was looking at the great coaches you've worked with, I can see Jim Foster, Tigger Phelps, and Lou Holtz, the football coach, but you've coached against some of the great ones too. You coached against Pat Summitt, you've coached against Gino or Yama. I'm sure there's been many, many others that you've met along your journey as well. But I'm really intrigued. Moffat from this perspective seeing these people up close. What is it you think the Great Ones do differently that sets them apart?
Muffet McGraw 00:55
Well, I think for one thing, they're very open about sharing their knowledge. And I think that is so important. When I was at Notre Dame, my first couple of years, you know, walk down the hall and say digger, would you mind spend a little bit of time with me, we're going to put the 131 in. And I want to know what you think about that. And then coach Holtz was so good, but he talked to our recruits about Notre Dame, he would talk to me. And one of the things he told me that I've followed since then was, you always praise in public, you critique in private. That's not always easy for a coach to do. But that was something that I thought, yeah, I can see why that's important. Jim Foster was my mentor. I mean, I leaned on him my entire career for anything that I needed help with. And he was just phenomenal.
But Pat Summitt, I think, was the greatest coach of all time, she was somebody that wanted to grow the women's game, that's she, she didn't care about Tennessee, so much as what's good for women's basketball. We played them on time and get beat badly as we normally did. And I called her after the game, and I said, Would you mind giving me the scouting report on Notre Dame? What did you think? What should we have done differently? What? You know, what would you say? And you're sitting on the other bench watching us? What are some things you can help me with? We talked for 45 minutes about some things she thought I could do to help my team. And so when you have people like that at the top, you just know, they're, they're successful for a reason. It's about the relationships they have with people. And it's about being willing to share.[PB1] [PB2]
Paul Barnett 02:26
Well, talking about relationships, you became a head coach for the first time in 1979. But you're only 24. And you wouldn't have been a lot older than the people. You were coaching. So the relationship dynamic must have been an interesting one. What do you remember most about that experience as you reflect on it now?
Muffet McGraw 02:44
When I look back, and I've asked the girls the same thing that I said, Gosh, I was only a few years old, and you they said, Yeah, but you were married, you just seem so old. I think at that time, I guess I felt a little bit like I was older than they asleep. Being at Lehigh was great for me, because a lot of things that was back in the 80s, there wasn't a lot of attention paid to us, I think the ad hired me and I never saw him again. I mean, he didn't come to any games. So I got to make my mistakes, kind of in private, you know, without the spotlight on me. And getting that that relationship with the team and understanding what they wanted. But I was demanding, I was competitive. I wanted to win, I didn't really understand how important those relationships were, I think there was a definite coach player hierarchy there. I think when I started my career, I was more of a dictator. You know, I was I wasn't asking their opinion, I was telling them, this is what we're going to do. And that's one of the things I learned throughout my career is that you have to put more into the relationship. That's how you have success. But[PB3]
Paul Barnett 03:46
I'd like to pick up on that change when you move from being a dictator. But first, I'd like to ask you about something interesting. You just said, you talked about making your mistakes in private. And I was at a function last night with a with a large group of young Olympic coaches. And the topic came up around mistakes. And I was sort of fascinated listening to them because of this idea, I think, particularly in the corporate world where you want to fail often and fail fast in order to move forward. But that wasn't the feeling in the room. As you cast your mind back to that time. How was your relationship with making mistakes changed from that point to where you are today?
Muffet McGraw 04:28
Well, it's changed dramatically. I think there's a great book by Carol Dweck called mindset and it talks about some people have a fixed mindset. Some people have a growth mindset. I had a fixed mindset. I mean, I was just it was all about winning. It was about this is what we have to do. We've got to move on. It was never about let's learn from the mistakes that we've just made. Let's figure out where we went wrong. And that's, that's something as a coach, of course, you have to watch that film and see here's where we went wrong. What did I do at practice that didn't prepare us? What could I have done differently in the game looking at yourself in the mirror cons Simply reevaluating the plan and how you went about implementing it. And I think that's where I learned that it's it's failures, good, I mean losing, you learn so much more about your team than you do when you win. As long as it's not the last game of the year, you don't want to lose that one. But along the way, we've lost so many games that I look back on. And I think we really grew from there. And a lot of times, I don't know if it's just women, but sometimes they can take it more personally than than men do. And I think what you have to do is be able to open up and say, it's not about how I looked, everybody in the crowd is not looking at me say you're the one that should have done this. I look bad. It's not about how you look, it's about the opportunity to do it better the next time, what did you learn? And that's what I tried to do with my team. And go around the circle, say, tell me one thing you learned one thing you're going to do differently next time.[PB4]
Paul Barnett 05:51
In many of your interviews, you describe yourself as an educator first, in a coach, second, was this was this always the case?
Muffet McGraw 06:01
You know, I think our job as coaches, obviously, we're going to teach them about the game of basketball, but what we're really doing is preparing them for life. Our job is to teach them life skills, they're going to learn great things like mental toughness, how to handle adversity, what happens when you have an injury, and you're going to miss a few games, and you got to be in the trading room, rehabbing that, what happens when you're not a starter, you're not even playing as much as you want. You've got to learn patience, waiting for your opportunity. You're going to learn about teamwork, sometimes you have to sacrifice some of the things that you did in high school. This shot the ball anytime they wanted. They did whatever they wanted. Now, it's about being on a team. What are you going to add to this team? What are you going to bring to us every single day that we can count on about that teamwork, that perseverance, that relentlessness in pursuing your goals, all of these things you learn through playing sports. And then when you get out in the world, in business world and marriage in your life, you're gonna fall back on these things. And know, I know I can get through this because I have the mental toughness to do that.[PB5]
Paul Barnett 07:01
Many, many of the women you coached have gone on to successful careers in the sporting world, the business world and in community life. The list is actually I was going to put a question in about it matter. But was this just a little too long? But when these these women come back, and they talk to you about their time at Notre Dame? What are the kinds of themes that come up? What what did they talk about that resonates with you?
Muffet McGraw 07:30
Well, one, one thing, one player who's in the WNBA, just a great player, she said, You know, honestly, I didn't think I had it in me, you pulled something out of me that I didn't even think I could do. You made me believe that I could do it. And she reached her potential. And for me that moment, when I see a player in the game, in a situation where they just rise to the challenge, they meet their potential, they can kind of relax and go like I did it, I did it, you know, I thought I could play at this level. And now I know that I can, and suddenly, they're just walking a little straighter, their confidence is growing, you can just see the change in them. So I love when they come back. And they you know, they want to talk about remember that time you said this to me. And I rarely remember those because I only remember the good things. And they said, You know what, you you really taught me a lot. And you taught me a lot about what it's going to be like for me. I had one call me recently and say I was just in a meeting, there were 25 men. She's in the business world. And I was the only woman and I just started thinking about some of those things that you would say to us about using your voice and making sure that you make your mark. You
Paul Barnett 08:36
were you were very competitive from a young age. I think that's yeah, okay. So I wanted to just to confirm that. But you also found a way to combine that competitiveness with humility. Now, that's not easy to do. And I say that as a father of two daughters. I know that something that he's talked about a lot in a lot of the literature about raising, raising girls, but what have you learned about working with women, when it comes to competitiveness?
Muffet McGraw 09:06
I think one of the problems that we have as women is that we're not taught to compete, we're not taught that it's okay to be competitive, it's okay to be ambitious. It's okay to be aggressive and take risks and go for what you want. We're taught to get along to be a team player to not make waves be a good daughter. So when these girls come out, sometimes they're always kind of holding back a little bit. And they're really not given at all. And so trying to teach them that when you're on the court is different. You can be a different person when you get on the court than you are when you're in your in your life. But when you're out on the court, this is what I expect. This is what I demand that you are going to be aggressive and taking risks and going for it and giving it your all. And then at the end of the day, if we lose the game, at least you can say that you could look in the mirror you said I gave it my best. I did everything I could do everything I could control. I controlled and then We move on and see what happens next. But girls were not raised that way. We were just we're just raised to be empathetic and sympathetic and good. It's[PB6] [PB7]
Paul Barnett 10:08
so interesting you say that because just just yesterday I was I found a research paper from 2020. That said, 94% of fortune 500 female CEOs played college sports. And it was such an interesting statistic. I don't know why it interested me so much. Perhaps that it wasn't 100 Or that it was so high. But I think you're right. I think there's something in that normalizing competitiveness, which then helps when you move out into to other domains.
Muffet McGraw 10:40
No question about it. I've heard that same step. And it's not surprising to me because of the competitive part of team sports and all the things of team sports that you learn, but really being able to go out and just knowing like, I'm going to work as hard as I can't be the best, I want to be the best. I want to win. And I want to be number one. And those are things that women, like I said, we're just not taught to live that way.
Paul Barnett 11:05
Well, let's talk about winning. There's many, many articles about your winning statistics. 848 career wins, two NCAA victories. 32 winning seasons, this is a lot of fun, the word winning comes up time and time again. But I just it just made me wonder Moffitt can a focus on winning, ever get in the way?
Muffet McGraw 11:32
I think it does. And actually, we never talked about winning, winning is kind of a byproduct of what you do every day, when I was in the locker room before a game, I didn't say we're gonna win this game. And you know, big speech about winning, we didn't talk about that, because I thought sometimes it can bring a little pressure on the team as well, you know, we have to win this game. So we talked about, here's what we're going to do, we're going to control these things, we're going to stay in the moment, we're going to let the mistakes go, we're going to follow the game plan, we're going to do these things. And if we do these things, the end result will happen. But we can't control that you can't control when the ball was in the basket, you can't control sometimes what the other team is doing. So you have to control what you can control. But if you focus on winning, and just winning, you're not going to be successful, because there's so many more things that you're learning throughout the game. And it's about reaching your potential and doing what you can do every day. One[PB8] [PB9]
Paul Barnett 12:22
of the one of the changes I've made apparent after so many of these interviews is when my daughters would come in from playing sport, it's natural, I think to say to them, how did you go? Did you win? And I've just stopped that now. Because it's sort of, it's not as relevant. You know, did you have fun? How did you play? Was the teamwork. Good? How was the coach, I always ask that question. And then there really comes as a result of that. But it's it's an interesting environment that you were in because winning meant that you kept your job. And so in the back of your mind, there must have been this thought that winning was something that was going to determine your future.
Muffet McGraw 13:02
Well, I believe me, I want to win. And I hate to lose more than I like to win. So I did not want to lose and and for me, it was always in the back of my mind. I just felt like it wasn't healthy, to talk to the team about how important winning is they knew that I knew how much I wanted to win. And I recruited very competitive women who also had that drive to win, and that kind of relentlessness that they weren't gonna let anybody take something from them. So I think that was that was really the important part. But I think you're absolutely right about the way we talk to our kids about sport, we try to tell and you should shoot more, you're the best player out there, you need to do this more. And instead of say, Gosh, I loved how hard you worked. I love how your teammates look to you. It looks like you guys really had fun. I love the way you made eye contact with the coach. And when the referee made a bad call, you handled it so well. Just trying to praise them on those kinds of things. Because when you start building them up, if you're the best, you're the best, you're the smartest, you're the best. That puts pressure on them. And then they think that's their identity. Like, my mom's not gonna like me if if we lose this game because of the way she talks to me. In fact, I read a study and they asked kids, who do you want to ride home with after the game? And like 90% of them said the grandparents, because you know, they weren't judging the parents were asking the wrong questions.
Paul Barnett 14:19
That's absolutely fascinating. I'm gonna do you remember any more about that study? I'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's absolutely fantastic. Yeah,
Muffet McGraw 14:27
unfortunately, I don't I read that quite a long time ago. And I've ever since then thought about how you praise your kids is really important.
Paul Barnett 14:34
We'll find it online. I'm sure someone listening will help us with that method. I have a great quote from you. I'd like to play back before I asked the question you say our main job, at least for me, is to empower women, to build confidence in women to talk about the life skills that they are going to learn that are going to really help them throughout their lives. Now it's the empowering part of that, that just caught my eye. It's a wonderful, wonderful quote, but the impact Harry Potter's an interesting one. And when you're reflecting on the arc of your career, and how you've empowered the people around you, have you found some techniques or ideas that work better than others? Yeah,
Muffet McGraw 15:14
I have. And honestly, you would be surprised at the level of talent, the intelligence, these women to go to the University of Notre Dame are so smart, they're so talented. The one thing they all have in common was that they could lose their confidence so easily, some of them easier than others. And for women that, you know, have a swagger that wasn't really that acceptable a long time ago. So for me building confidence, I thought that was my main job. How do you do that? How do you empower women? And how do you build their confidence? The first thing, you have to be a good listener, you have to let them talk, you have to ask questions. At practice, I would go to them and say, Okay, here's how regarding the ball screen, what works for you, what did you think look good today? And ask them a lot of questions. So they would start to think, wow, she values my opinion. And I really listened to what they said, I didn't just hear words coming out, I tried to get behind what they were really talking about. I think for a leader, the four most important words you can ask anyone is what do you think? Because leaders don't do that often enough. Sometimes I tell you what I think and then I say, Well, what do you think? Well, of course, you're gonna agree with me if you're a player and looking at the head coach. So trying to ask them those questions without them thinking, I don't have anything in mind. I'm asking you, what do you think about this? And I would have players come in. And they would say, Hey, I watch this game last night. What do you think if we tried this? And I would say, Yeah, you know, that sounds good. Let's give it a try. So kind of using their suggestions, I think at least a practice that gave them a little bit more confidence, having the confidence to tweet something about social justice. And I would say, if you really believe in something, something that you feel is wrong, and you want to say something about it, you have to feel comfortable using your voice. So really getting them to use their voice and backing them up when they did.[PB10]
Paul Barnett 17:04
You talked earlier about the transition you made from being a dictator, coach, was there a moment or an event when this realization suddenly came to the front of your mind that you needed to change?
Muffet McGraw 17:18
I didn't want at in my career, I started out I was Bobby Knight, who was like my way or the highway, this is how we're doing it. I come home, my husband say what did the team thing I was like, What did they think I'm not asking them what they think that's my job to tell them what to think I never asked their opinion, I didn't have a great relationship with them off off the court, you know, it was pretty good. But it's mostly coach player, it was never really a deeper relationship. And then as we went on in the generations change, because when I started, kids expected, the coach was going to just tell them what to do. Then they started to ask why why would I do that, you know, this generation Y had a lot of questions. And each generation wanted to have more input, they wanted to have the violin. And I knew that to be successful. They're the ones that had to set the goals of the team, they had to give the mind they had to say this is what we want to accomplish. In the beginning, I was telling them, this is what I want to do. And here's how you're going to do it. And then I got to the point where I realized it was up to them, I'd go to the back of the room, give them the marker, go up to the board, you write down the goals, what do you want to accomplish? What do we have to do every day in order to reach those goals that you decided you wanted? And so giving them that power, to determine, you know, outcome and things and asking them questions, getting their input, taking their input, I became a more collaborative, more democratic leader. I wasn't gonna ask them what in play, they wanted to run at the end of the game when we're down one. But they knew at different times, they were going to have more input, especially at practice, to see, you know, you're a part of this, what do you think?
Paul Barnett 18:56
Was this pre the NCAA victories?
Muffet McGraw 18:59
You know, it was around 2001. And that's, that was our first championship team. And that was when I noticed, you know, generation was changing a little bit. And they, you know, they were a little bit different than the than the group's ahead of them. So, I think for them, and I started to enjoy it more when I got to know them. And I thought, wow, I've been missing out, you know, having this when you have it with them off the court, they make those mistakes, you're a little more forgiving, you know you because you have a different relationship with them. So I found that I enjoyed it more. I love the way they're, you know, their team chemistry was kind of shaping up and I thought this is a much better way to you know, to have a team and that was the chemistry of the team was so important.
Paul Barnett 19:45
Moffitt, your second book, expect more dare to stand up and stand out came out in 2021. One of the key principles you talk about is this idea of assuming you are the best and you actually say and this is the quote room Remember that real leadership comes when you learn to use your voice and no longer doubt that you are the most qualified person for the job. And you've actually talked about that voice already in this interview, but it was the last part of the quote that caught my eye. And when I wanted to ask you about doubt, particularly given the fact that the people you've got sort of 18 to 22, they're in transition, they're still young people that are away from home, many for the first time. And so what have you learned about helping people with their self doubt,
Muffet McGraw 20:31
one of the biggest things I learned was believing in people after they fail, is really hard. And that is one of the most important things a leader can do. Because it's easy to be on the same page. Oh, you're winning, you're scoring. Everything's going great. Yeah, love you. All of a sudden, they miss a free zone, we lose the game, they do something, you know, in the game, and they're, you know, they're not playing well. They're making a lot of mistakes. And how you handle that? Do you stop believing in them? No, you can't. And so that was a tough lesson to learn from me, because I, I wasn't always somebody that would encourage them like, no, no, that's okay. I'm like, No, go sit down. Let me get somebody else in here. That's gonna do the job. And then I learned, I'm killing their confidence by doing that. So how do I help them? So now after a game, when they played poorly, I can say, hey, you know what, just flush it move on. Don't even worry about that one bad game. It doesn't have anything to do with the player that you are. You have to, you know, maybe learn from it, see what you can learn from it, and then move on and don't get on social media. You don't need to read that. Because nobody's on there saying what a great player you are. They're on there trying to tear you down.[PB11]
Paul Barnett 21:42
It's fascinating, isn't it? Because in the corporate world, you don't have a license or permission to talk to people about their self doubt. It's just not. It's not as it's not part of the job, though, how it is with coaching. And yet, it seems to be such a huge part of the role. Because that doubt fluctuates, it goes up, it goes down, and it never really stays on a on an even keel. Well, maybe it does. But doesn't the coaches don't seem to play that back to me, it undulates and social media is an amplifier of that.
Muffet McGraw 22:17
Yeah, social media can be a bad thing. I like to tweet and run, I turn off the notifications, I don't care what you say, because I know I believe what I said, that's all I care about. But it's different when you're 18 to 20 years old.
But you know, we all have doubts. Throughout my career, I had doubts. People talk about the imposter syndrome, you know, there's so many things. And I think women maybe have a few more doubts than men, because we don't have that innate confidence that men seem to have. And so I think you need that support behind you, you always have to have that support group, somebody propping you up and saying you can do it, I believe in you. And to continue to, you know, read positive stuff. Look for ways to to have some positive affirmation, because you need those people in your corner, you need that core group of people. And they didn't know anything about basketball, they know anything about they believed in me. And I needed to kind of rely on them sometimes on down and they could pick me back up and say, you know, you gotta let that go. You can do this.[PB12]
Paul Barnett 23:15
Earlier, you talked about chemistry. And you actually did talked about it as being something that was important for you and your teams. And I've got a nice quote from you. And you actually say it's all about chemistry. For me, everybody doesn't fit here. And it just it's such an intangible term. And I'm wondering, Muffet, what you've learned about the building blocks of great chemistry in teams.
Muffet McGraw 23:39
One of the things I learned, and I think a lot of people do this, when they're about to get married, they see the flaws, and they go, Oh, I can fix that. I'm going to change that. And at some point, I realized, you know what, you're not going to change that they're 18. This is the way they're going to be. So we looked for red flags. When I would go to a game, I'd hope it was a close game, I hope they lose. I hope the ref made a couple bad calls. I hope that coach yelled at them. I wanted to see them in a kind of a pressure situation and see how they reacted. How's their team looking at them? They should be the best player on the team. They should be the leader. So is the rest of the team like looking at them? Like yeah, I want you to lead us to, you know, to this game. What are you doing when you make a pass to somebody and they miss a wide open shot? Are you giving that body language? Are you looking up in the stands that your parents gone? What you know, I can't look at the coach, I gotta look at my dad. So many things I talked about because being a great teammate is like the best compliment you can get. So when you look at kids, they're ranked in the top five, and they're really good players, a great teammate, and I don't want anybody on my team. That's not going to be a great teammate.
Paul Barnett 24:44
What advice do you have been for people on being a great teammate? Well,
Muffet McGraw 24:48
I think it's all about the intangibles. It's about making the sacrifices. It's about encouraging people. It's about being positive all the time, especially in you know when things aren't going well. That's What you need, you always have that someone that's on the bench that's cheering you on despite how things are going in the game. I think it's, I think it's about it's not about winning or losing at all. I mean, it's not about playing scoring and who did the best, it's about that relationship, and how you're how you're helping each other to grow and being a part of something big, even if it's a small part. And I think for me, making everybody feel like what they're doing is so important, we couldn't be successful without you, whether you're changing the court over from volleyball or basketball, or you're one of the marketing people or you're in the administration, or your support staff, and you're helping them the training room or something, no matter what your job is, all they want to do is feel like what they're doing is really important to us winning, and they're a part of it. So making people feel a part of that, and letting them know by saying thank you. I mean, I think please, and thank you, people don't say that anymore. People don't appreciate what people are doing. Yes, it's your job. But it's still nice for somebody to say, thanks for doing your job. Thanks for doing what you're doing for us. We really appreciate it. And I think that's a lesson I tried to teach my team to[PB13]
Paul Barnett 26:09
these days, Moffitt, you're teaching a leadership course at Notre Dame. Could you tell us about the syllabus and what it's centered around?
Muffet McGraw 26:19
Well, when I first started teaching, I said, Give me the syllabus. So I know what I'm doing. And they said, no, no, you make the syllabus. So I have no respect for teachers. It was a long process. This is my I think my third year so I, you know, obviously making a lot of changes.
But Sports Leadership is leadership. It's the same thing in business as it is in sports. But it's basically anecdotal things I've learned throughout my coaching career, we start with a lot about you about your personality, you take a personality test, we talk about self awareness, and emotional intelligence, and how important that is used to be all about IQ, you get a job because you're smart and can do the job and you're competent. Now, it's about that emotional intelligence, how you relate to people, social awareness, relationship awareness. And this generation is kind of lacking in self awareness. I think that's something they can learn. Then we talk obviously, just about leadership and different leaders, we you know, we look at Jack Swarbrick, our athletic director, he came in and talked to the, to the group about his leadership style. And then we go on to culture. Culture is so important in any organization, building a winning championship culture, that takes a lot of time we talk about core values, and what do you have to have to have a good culture, you know, what's important, and we look at different different teams and how they use their culture, we read a great book called The captain class, and then talks about the captain how important they are in a organization, whether the middle manager or whether they're the captain of a team. And that responsibility, they'll be the bridge to be a partner with with the head coach, and how to, you know, build consensus and go back and forth with things. So it's a lot of teamwork kind of things. And it's a lot of fun.[PB14]
Paul Barnett 28:04
When you reflect on your career, and you're standing in this class, and you're you're you're talking to them, you're talking to the students, what do you what are the lessons on leadership that you share with them? Because in all those examples, you talked about somebody else, so I'm really keen to see what what Muffet McGraw says when when she talks about leadership to those young people? Well,
Muffet McGraw 28:25
when I tell them my kind of points of leadership, number one is vision. The leader has to have vision, you got to know where you want to go. And it has to be something you're passionate about something compelling enough that people are going to want to follow you. Well, that's pretty easy. When you're saying I want to win a national championship, people want to follow that. But having that vision is really key, you got to know where you're going. And the second part is, how are you going to get there, you have to have a plan. This is what I'm going to do for you. If you come here to this school, I'm going to make you an All American because these are the things I know I know how to get a team to win, I know how to get them to play together, you have to create a culture of belonging and being inclusive, you have to like everybody on the team has to feel like I was saying earlier, they're a part of it. There's so important every buddy from the best player, to the last kid on the bench, they have to feel like what they're doing is really important. You got to learn how to listen, listening is a huge skill that people especially a lot of leaders, they don't listen enough, they don't ask questions enough. And that's so important to be able to ask questions to say what do you think, how is it how is this going and, and then a commitment to excellence. You know, knowing that this is this is kind of the bar that we're setting. Here's our core values. You know, we're going to compete every day we're going to have trust with each other. Accountability is really important to me. And I'm able to trust each other enough honest with each other. So having honesty, trust and accountability, kind of three of our big core values.[PB15]
Paul Barnett 29:57
My feet if I could take you back him I have a little time machine which I've got parked downstairs in the garage. And I could introduce you to that girl who was playing basketball with the boys back in 1966. When those concrete courts knowing what you know, now, what would you say to her?
Muffet McGraw 30:16
You know, when I look back even on my coaching career, and I look at my first job, and I think, Oh, my God, I didn't know anything, how did I even do that? I think I would say find your voice sooner. I think I waited too long, to really speak my mind and to be the kind of role models that people would listen to. I just, I was all caught up in my own little world, I think involved in things. And then I started to get involved in our coaches association started to become somebody that would stand in front of the group and talk about some issues and women's basketball, and then start to use my platform to talk about women hiring women, why don't we have more female coaches? Why don't we have more women in power, and we can change that. But we need people to apply for the job, you have to put yourself out there. And I was somebody even when Notre Dame open, I didn't want to apply, I didn't think I was gonna get that job. And my husband kind of forced me to send in my resume. So I wish I would have had more confidence. I wish I would have believed in myself a little bit more.
Paul Barnett 31:15
You talk about finding your voice and hiring more women. Of course, there's that famous speech that you gave the NCAA tournament, and you've spoken about it so much that I didn't want to ask you a question about it again, but do you think that that will be your legacy method? Do you think that's what people will refer to people you've you've coached and led? Do you think that's what they will reflect on?
Muffet McGraw 31:36
I do, I think they'll look at women differently. And I think that hiring women is something that's so important. It's been proven that when men and women work together, in corporations, on boards on different things, that organization just does better, because you have a diversity of thought you have people that are looking at things a different perspective. So having men and women work together, I was big on hiring women, I think having women in positions of power are really important. And I've read so many articles about that, and how women just they don't apply for the job, how we promote incompetent men, because men win the interview. Because of their confidence. Women don't win the interview, but they're competent enough to do the job. And the skills needed to win the interview, aren't always the same as what's needed to win the job. So athletic directors and people in business men in particular, look at a guy comes in, he's confident, he's saying, we're gonna take you to a national championship, we're gonna win. And the women are saying, you know, my staff, my team, we're going to work together, and we're going to achieve good things. But it doesn't sound the same. But I think what they're saying is they can lead a team, but they just need the opportunity. And I think we need to do a better job of hiring women.[PB16]
Paul Barnett 32:48
Well, you talked earlier about listening better, and asking better questions. So to the men that are listening, who are in the position of of hiring are in the room, when that situation you just describe happened? What advice would you like to give them about asking, they have to
Muffet McGraw 33:05
understand, you know, and everybody who's married knows this. Men and women are different, we're very different. When a job opens, women aren't going to march into the boss's office and say, You need to hire me, here's why men are going to do that. And so women are kind of sitting back waiting for someone to notice how they're good at their job, because they think they're good at their job. But they don't know what the boss thinks. Because they don't ask the questions. They don't go into the boss, and say, you know, once a year of people have an end of the year, meaning like you need to go in more often and say, What do you think I need to do to be a manager? Does your boss know that you want to be the manager? And so I think maybe the men could help women by saying, hey, why don't we talk about your future? What are you interested in? Do you want to be in a leadership position? Do you want to advance in this company? What are some things I can do to help you do that? And again, it's just asking questions and having that conversation, so that they can say like, here's some things I think you need to work on. People are afraid to be honest. They go in that meeting, and they just want to say like you're doing a great job. Well, specifically, what am I doing? What are my strengths? Do you see me in a leadership role? So I think just getting together having a communication and understanding, women aren't going to come in and ask for the job. We're not going to negotiate for a raise. We never get paid. As much as we're worth men get more, they asked for a raise more often they get more money, and we need to do a better job. We're very loyal. We're very committed. We don't want to leave. We don't want to, you know, upset anybody and say, I had this job offer, because they're afraid they might let them go. So I think we just need to have better communication and men can certainly start that conversation.[PB17]
Paul Barnett 34:43
I think honesty and men needing to start that conversation is a pretty good place for us to finish. Moffitt. I'm so glad I had the tenacity to keep chasing you after all these years. It's been a great interview. You've had such a successful career and I can't wait to share this with the world. Our audience including my two daughters
Muffet McGraw 35:02
awesome well thank you Paul I really enjoyed it I can't wait to listen thanks
Paul Barnett 35:06
Buffett take care bye