Rus Bradburd was an assistant men’s basketball coach for 14 seasons at UTEP and New Mexico State University. He eventually left the game to pursue a life in writing.

Rus’s latest book is the satirical novel, “Big Time” a mirror to the distorted reality of sports on modern American college campuses. All five of his books focus on the intersections of sport, social progress, politics, and race. He was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to return to Ireland to work on his next book about refugees in Belfast, “Almost Like Belonging.”

Rus has remained connected to the game through his acclaimed Basketball in the Barrio summer program in El Paso, as well as serving as New Mexico State’s television color analyst.

On this episode Mike and Rus discuss his journey through the world of basketball, highlighting the intersection of sports, culture, and personal growth. He reflects on his experiences coaching under legends like Don Haskins and Lou Henson, emphasizing how these relationships shaped not only his coaching philosophy but also his writing career. The conversation delves into the profound impact that words from coaches can have on players, with Rus recalling pivotal moments from his own basketball journey that influenced his path. As they discuss the challenges of coaching and the balance between personal and professional life, the importance of storytelling in sports emerges as a central theme. Russ's insights on resilience, the power of mentorship, and the stories behind the game provide a rich tapestry of lessons for aspiring coaches and basketball enthusiasts alike.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @hoopheadspod for the latest updates on episodes, guests, and events from the Hoop Heads Pod.

Make sure you’re subscribed to the Hoop Heads Pod on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and while you’re there please leave us a 5 star rating and review. Your ratings help your friends and coaching colleagues find the show. If you really love what you’re hearing recommend the Hoop Heads Pod to someone and get them to join you as a part of Hoop Heads Nation.

Have your notebook with you as you listen to this episode with Rus Bradburd, Author of “Big Time” and former assistant men’s basketball coach at UTEP and New Mexico State University.

Website - https://www.rus-bradburd.com/

Email – rus.bradburd@gmail.com

Twitter/X - @rusbradburd

Visit our Sponsors!

Give With Hoops

Give With Hoops is a groundbreaking initiative that fuses basketball analytics with modern sponsorship. Built for teams who see data as opportunity, from AAU programs to college powerhouses. By tying on-court performance directly to community and sponsor engagement, Give With Hoops help programs raise more while deepening support from those who believe in the game.

D3 Direct Recruiting Playbook

Your step-by-step guide to getting recruited as a college athlete at the NCAA Division 3 level. This course is designed by former D3 Athletes to take you from zero interest from college coaches to securing your first offer and putting you on the path to committing.

The Coaching Portfolio

Your first impression is everything when applying for a new coaching job. A professional coaching portfolio is the tool that highlights your coaching achievements and philosophies and, most of all, helps separate you and your abilities from the other applicants. Special Price of just $25 for all Hoop Heads Listeners.

Wealth4Coaches

Empowering athletic coaches with financial education, strategic planning, and practical tools to build lasting wealth—on and off the court.

If you listen to and love the Hoop Heads Podcast, please consider giving us a small tip that will help in our quest to become the #1 basketball coaching podcast. https://hoop-heads.captivate.fm/support

Twitter/X

Podcast - @hoopheadspod

Mike - @hdstarthoops

Jason - @jsunkle

Instagram

@hoopheadspod

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/hoopheadspod/

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDoVTtvpgwwOVL4QVswqMLQ

Aisha Foy: 00:00:13

The Hoop Heads podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

Aisha Foy: 00:00:20

I worked for two of the great lifers, Lou Henson and Don Haskins.

Aisha Foy: 00:00:24

Of the three Division 1 coaches, I worked for Neil McCarthy as well.

Aisha Foy: 00:00:27

And I think the three of them combined for nearly 2,000 college wins.

Aisha Foy: 00:00:31

And I don't know how they did it.

Aisha Foy: 00:00:32

I think it would have ruined my health because I'm too tightly wound.

Aisha Foy: 00:00:36

I think I was lucky that way in that I always wanted to be a head Division 1 coach and it never happened.

Aisha Foy: 00:00:41

But I think in some ways it was a blessing.

Russ Bradbird: 00:00:43

Russ Bradbird was an assistant men's basketball coach for 14 seasons at UTEP and New Mexico State University.

Russ Bradbird: 00:00:50

He eventually left the game to pursue a life in writing.

Russ Bradbird: 00:00:53

Russ's latest book is the satirical novel Big Time A mirror to the Distorted Reality of Sports on Modern American College Campuses.

Mike Cleansing: 00:01:00

All five of his books focus on.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:02

The intersection of sport, social progress, politics and race.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:06

He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to return to England to work on his next book about refugees in Belfast.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:12

Almost like belonging, Russ has remained connected to the game through his acclaimed Basketball in the Barrio summer program in El Paso, as well as serving as New Mexico State's television color analyst.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:26

Hey Hoop Heads.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:27

Find your team's dream shooting machine this holiday season during Dr.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:30

Dish Basketball's December end of year super sale.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:33

From now until December 31st, you can unlock the biggest deal of the year.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:37

Buy one Dr.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:38

Dish CT plus get one for $2,000.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:42

This offer is only valid while supplies last, so hurry to secure your machines while you can learn more@doctrordishbasketball.com and follow their incredible content rdishbball on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:55

Mention the Whop Heads podcast and save an extra $300 on the Dr.

Russ Bradbird: 00:01:58

Dish, Rebel All Star and CT Models.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:01

Those are some great deals.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:02

Who peds get your doctor Dish shooting machine today.

Aisha Foy: 00:02:09

What's up y'all?

Aisha Foy: 00:02:10

This is Aisha Foy, Nil coach and author of Success Is My Major and.

Mike Cleansing: 00:02:14

You'Re listening to the Hoop Heads podcast.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:20

Prepare like the pros with the all new Fast Draw and Fast Scout.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:24

Fast Draw has been the number one play diagramming software for coaches for years.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:28

You'll quickly see why Fast Model Sports has the most compelling and intuitive basketball software out there For a limited time.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:35

Fast Model is offering Hoop heads listeners 15% off fast draw and Fast Scout.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:41

Just use the code HHP15 at checkout to grab your discount and you'll be on your way to more efficient game prep and improved communication with your team.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:50

Fast Model also has new coaching content every week on its blog, plus play and drill diagrams on its play bank.

Russ Bradbird: 00:02:58

Check out the links in the show notes for more.

Russ Bradbird: 00:03:00

Fast Model sports is the best in basketball.

Russ Bradbird: 00:03:07

Have your notebook with you as you listen to this episode with Russ Bradbird, author of Big Time and former assistant men's basketball coach at UTEP and New Mexico State University.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:18

Hello and welcome to the Whop Heads podcast.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:20

It's Mike Cleansing here tonight without my co host Jason Sunkel.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:24

But I am pleased to be joined by Russ Bradburn, former assistant coach at UTEP and New Mexico State, current color analyst for New Mexico State, author.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:35

I just could keep going on and on.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:37

But Russ, welcome to the Hoop Head spot.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:40

Excited for our conversation tonight, Mike?

Aisha Foy: 00:03:42

I'm happy to meet the Hoops heads, the Hoop Head Nation.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:46

Well, thank you.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:47

We are out there and listening strong.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:50

So Russ, let's start by going back in time.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:53

Tell me about some of your first experiences with the game of basketball.

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:57

What made you fall in love with it?

Mike Cleansing: 00:03:59

What was your childhood like in the game of basketball?

Aisha Foy: 00:04:02

Well, I grew up on the north side of Chicago and went to Chicago public schools, but our, our area was not a big basketball hotbed.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:10

And so I got a little bit of a late start.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:12

I, I tried out for the baseball team at Von Steuben High School in ninth grade and got cut.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:17

And so I thought, well, maybe I'll try basketball next year.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:19

You know, in Chicago there's the Froff and the varsity.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:23

There's not, there's not four different teams like there are at many of the suburban schools or Catholic schools.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:29

So it was just the Froff and the varsity.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:31

So that as a sophomore I tried out for the, for the Frostsoft team and was, you know, one of the worst players on the team, but made it.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:38

But a funny thing happened to me then, Mike, is that the assistant, the Frosthoff coach said to me, he pointed down at the other end of the court and there was a little, little kid on the varsity who was a starting point guard.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:49

He's a white kid, but with a big red afro.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:52

And he said if you practice these ball handling drills the way that guy does, you could learn to do the ball handling drills like that.

Aisha Foy: 00:04:58

And it really stuck with me.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:00

And that moment was really a key moment even for me as a coach and a teacher is that, you know, what we say to kids can really stick with them.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:07

You know, we, you know, you've coached thousands of kids and I've probably coached hundreds of kids and but you know, those kids remember what you say to them, and I remember his name was Harvey Brouse.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:16

And I'm still, I'm back in touch with him after, after years.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:19

But he said, you know, we, you know, the ball handling drills were a big part, so a big part of practice.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:23

And so he said that to me and it really, it really stuck with me.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:28

But, but the hard part for me is after that sophomore year, it was a Chicago public high school called Von Steuben, but there was only 800 kids at the school.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:38

And we moved.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:39

My father took a different job in the suburbs of Philadelphia to Abington.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:43

And that was 4,000 kids.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:46

And they were defending state champions when we got there.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:49

And I wasn't good enough to make the team.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:51

I got cut from the varsity two years.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:54

But it sort of set something off in me.

Aisha Foy: 00:05:56

It sort of, I was, you know, I wasn't too good at reading, reading the room or reading the tea leaves.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:02

I thought, well, I'm going to keep.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:04

And make my team in college, which is, well, first.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:07

And I kept getting cut.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:08

I got cut my two years at Abington High School.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:11

And they were good, there was a good team and they were sent guys at Division 1, none, I don't think anyone to Ohio, but you know, the Philadelphia, the Big Five and that kind of thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:20

It was, it was a dominant high school team and I just wasn't good enough to be on the team, but went to a small school called north park, which your Division 3 listeners would, would know the name North Park.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:31

And I wound up making the team there for three years.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:33

And when I was a sophomore, I was just on the junior varsity, but we won the national championship.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:40

And then the next year I made the varsity team.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:42

Scored 13 points in my entire career.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:45

And Mike, I was, you know, this crazy, practicing my dribbling drills all the time.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:49

But then it was bad enough that I got cut as a senior and we, when we won the national championship my junior year, there were no seniors on the team.

Aisha Foy: 00:06:57

And as you know from your experience, it's those senior dominated teams that are often the, the, the Fab Five at Michigan was a, that was a freakish thing that doesn't happen very often in college sports.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:07

But at, at north park, we won the national championship without a senior.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:11

And the next year the coach said to me right before the, the day, the day I was going to get cut, he had a couple coaching shirts in the wrappers, you know, bright gold and bright blue in north park colors and said, you're not going to make the team today.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:23

You're Going to.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:24

This is your last day, but we want you to be the student assistant.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:27

But I wasn't smart enough to take that opportunity.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:29

And so I was so determined and so focused on practicing and practicing and making the team was this holy quest for me, and I.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:38

And I just could not bring myself to do it.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:40

And of course, they won the.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:42

If your Division 3 fans might remember this, they won three national championships in a row.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:46

I was only on one of the teams, but they won the.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:48

I would have been a national championship coach at age 21, but I was too hurt.

Aisha Foy: 00:07:53

And you know how sometimes this happens to me?

Aisha Foy: 00:07:56

Even today, Mike, if my wife says, we're going for pizza tonight, I'm getting pizza in my head.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:01

Pizza.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:01

And then, oh, the pizza place is closed.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:03

I can't.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:04

I really have trouble dealing with.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:05

I set a goal, and if it doesn't happen, I really struggled, so.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:09

I really struggled.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:10

And.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:10

But I think in.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:11

In retrospect, the getting cut in high school and in college, I think it made me a better coach.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:17

I didn't know Rick Majeris well, but I know you played against him, but I remember him saying.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:22

I remember him saying that it's really important to coach your 11th and 12th man.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:28

Well, I was the 13th man or the 14th man, but I really took that to heart.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:32

Always tried to coach every kid on the team.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:34

And even if it was what we would call garbage time, I still tried to coach them, because I know for me, garbage time was everything.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:40

I scored the 100th point twice at north park, you know, where we'd be blowing somebody out, and I'd.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:46

I'd get the call and went in and scored the 100th point a couple of times.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:49

So anyway, it was.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:50

It was mostly.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:51

Mostly a sad story, and it prepared me for a writing career and a coaching career.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:56

But.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:56

But.

Aisha Foy: 00:08:57

But maybe the takeaway was that I figured I knew at 5 foot 11, I had to do something to separate myself and those dribbling drills.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:05

You know that I got a booklet from my brother from Crazy George Shower that your Ohio listeners would remember.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:11

But I never met Crazy George.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:12

But my brother came back from one of those basketball camps, it might have been the Pocono Mountains camp or something.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:18

And came back with this booklet, and I read that book, and that was like the Bible to me, you know, about how this idea that when I'm not practicing, somebody else is out there practicing.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:27

And so I stopped watching television.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:28

I was an odd kid that way.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:30

You know, all the programs that kids of our generation grew up with I never saw them.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:35

I never saw the Love Boat or Eight Is Enough or I stopped.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:39

I think partly in retrospect I was too hyped up to sit still and watch television.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:45

But I spent a lot of my teenage years and even into college at north park blindfolded with gloves on, you know, trying to do, you know, doing ball handling drills and those eventually.

Aisha Foy: 00:09:57

But that was sort of my ticket into coaching was the, that I was going around to.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:02

At one point, I remember I went to Eldon, Eldon Miller's camp.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:05

If you're old enough to remember Eldon Miller.

Mike Cleansing: 00:10:07

Absolutely.

Mike Cleansing: 00:10:07

Yep, yep.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:09

Yeah, a guy named Todd Landrum was his assistant.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:12

I remember Todd invited me to the camp.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:14

It was a big thrill to do a dribbling show in front of.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:16

So I was going around the country doing my, my dribbling shows and that was sort of my ticket into, into college basketball.

Mike Cleansing: 00:10:24

So who did you meet that helped you to get your foot in the door as you're going around and doing that ball handling stuff?

Aisha Foy: 00:10:30

Well, I, I met all kinds of, I, I went all around the Midwest doing it.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:33

So I was at the Rich Fall camp at Northwestern.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:36

And do you remember Evansville?

Aisha Foy: 00:10:38

You had had the, this All American camp in Evansville.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:42

You probably got invited to it.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:43

But there was one in Evansville that Nike or somebody put on and I went, I went to that one as.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:49

So I went all around the Midwest and I remember I would charge $250 for a college and $100 for a high school.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:55

But I did all the travel on my own in a little Datsun.

Aisha Foy: 00:10:59

But there wasn't really anybody that opened the door for me.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:03

But I had a network of coaches, particularly in Chicago, that had seen me do this dribbling show.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:10

And I'd come out there looking like Peewee Herman.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:13

I'm not the most impressive looking guy.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:15

But then I could come out and really blow your doors off with, with dribbling doors.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:18

But it was, but more than anyone, it was Dick Versace and Tony Barone, they were the Bradley coaches and Versace went on to the Pacers and they both wound up working for the Memphis Grizzlies for a long time.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:30

But they were the one, they were the ones that really built my confidence up and really helped me to promote myself and going around.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:38

And so I started writing letters to.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:40

You know, I was a security guard in Chicago at Glenbrook North High School.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:44

It's where John Shire went well before I was there.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:46

And Jerry Sloan's son was a star player before I got There.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:50

And I'm trying to think of other famous players that went to Glenbrook north, but the Duke coach is the.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:55

Probably their best known.

Aisha Foy: 00:11:57

Well, Chris Collins, who's the Doug son, the Northwestern coach.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:03

But I wrote letters to every major school in America.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:07

And I was already.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:08

At the time, I was probably already a better writer than a coach, because one day Tim Floyd called me.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:12

I was a security guard at Glenbrook North High School.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:15

But after.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:16

After school, I would help coach the kids.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:19

I was a security guard.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:20

And it was an important year for me, Mike, because as a security guard, the first day, I thought, this is great.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:24

It's so easy.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:25

Okay, it's a minimum wage.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:26

But I just sit here.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:27

And they were nice kids.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:28

Glenbrook north is a very suburban high school.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:31

But after a couple days, I thought, I gotta bring a book.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:34

And for that year, I read 50 books during the school year.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:37

And I'm not a fast reader.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:38

And so that was a lot of books.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:40

And it really got me interested in books.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:42

And, you know, for somebody who left coaching to become a writer, it was really an important year for me.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:48

But.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:49

But Tim Floyd called me and said that, you know, that Don Haskins was looking for.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:53

Don Haskins was the head coach.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:54

And Tim, of course, would wind up as the head coach at Iowa State and the Chicago Bulls and that kind of thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:12:59

And then.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:00

And then he eventually went back to utep.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:02

But.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:03

But Tim had called me, and I knew I used to keep a notebook of all my dribbling drills.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:07

And on the front of that notebook was Nate Archibald.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:10

Just a photo I'd cut out of Sports Illustrated.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:12

And I had my list of dribbling drills.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:15

And so I knew when.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:16

When Tim called that I.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:17

I knew that that's where Nate Archibald had gone.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:20

And it.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:21

You know, and I knew they'd won the National.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:22

They'd had that landmark national championship team.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:25

So I went down there at Glenbrook North.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:27

You'll laugh like, we were 4 and 27 the year I was there because Brian.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:30

Jerry Sloan had been fired.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:31

And so Brian Sloan left for, you know, left and was no longer the start.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:35

So just the one year there, I was 4 and 27 and then went to UTEP, and we were 27 and 4.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:42

And so it was, you know, for a Division 3 bench warmer to go now, we were good.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:46

I don't want to belittle the north park team.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:48

We.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:48

We beat the Division 1 teams.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:50

We played.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:50

We snuck up on them, I'm sure.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:52

But to go, you know, suddenly we're playing in front of I'm in front of 12,000 people and with Don Haskins, one of the.

Aisha Foy: 00:13:58

I hate the word legends when it gets applied to everybody.

Aisha Foy: 00:14:01

Like, you know, this guy, you know, this guy's a legend and that guy's a legend.

Aisha Foy: 00:14:05

Don Haskins really was a legend.

Aisha Foy: 00:14:06

He was really.

Aisha Foy: 00:14:07

And even then he was, you know, he was younger, 10 years younger than I am today.

Aisha Foy: 00:14:11

But we were all very enamored with him and it was really a magical time because he had great teams in the 60s, but then he had a lull in the late 70s until Tim Floyd got there and then we became good again.

Aisha Foy: 00:14:22

And so I was there for eight years with Don Haskins and it was really a remarkable experience for, for a guy that, you know, couldn't, could hardly get in the games in Division 3.

Mike Cleansing: 00:14:33

What did you like about coaching right away?

Mike Cleansing: 00:14:36

Because obviously coaching wasn't necessarily in your background.

Mike Cleansing: 00:14:40

It didn't sound like you had any necessarily coaching role models or people that you looked at and said, oh, this guy kind of showed me the rope.

Mike Cleansing: 00:14:48

So when you got into it and you got that opportunity, what was it that you really liked about it that got you hooked?

Aisha Foy: 00:14:55

I think for me it's an easy question, Mike.

Aisha Foy: 00:14:58

I was single and I wasn't close with my.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:00

You know, we have a complicated family.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:02

They're all good people.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:03

We, we have, we, we, we.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:05

But it was a complicated family situation.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:08

Nothing, you know, criminal or anything.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:09

Nothing, nothing.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:10

You know, the, the worst thing that ever happened to me as a, as a young man was I got cut from the high school team and then I got cut from.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:16

So if that's the worst thing that happens as a kid, there it is.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:18

But you know, as a kid everything seemed, is so intensely important to us.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:23

You know, the, with the girlfriend breaks out.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:25

Not that I had any girlfriends in high school, but the girlfriend breaks up or whatever it is.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:29

So for me it was the sense of family.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:32

And because I wasn't close with my own father, the coaches always took that place.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:37

So Dan McCarroll, he's the only coach besides John Wooden to win three NCAA championships in at the man for men's.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:43

He did it in Division 3.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:45

But I really wanted to please coach McCarroll.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:47

And then don Haskins was such an, you know, impressive person.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:51

It was like he wrote off the page.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:52

You know, he wrote off of a John Wayne.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:54

He was like John Wayne.

Aisha Foy: 00:15:56

You know, he's very, very macho guy and very gruff but, you know, kind hearted.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:01

If you could get past the gruffness, but just wanting to impress the coaches.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:07

And I think, you know, it's part of the.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:09

You know, the guys who excel in basketball often have.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:12

Have complicated relationships with their fathers.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:15

I mean, you could.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:16

Even the same is true of Bruce Springsteen.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:17

You know, I love Bruce Springsteen, and he always talks about the complicated relationship he had with his own father.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:23

But for me, it was.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:23

It was a sense of family and a sense of belonging.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:26

And I was never married.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:27

When I was coaching in my 14 years in Division 1 and then a couple years in Ireland, I was never.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:33

It wasn't until I came back from Ireland that I got married.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:36

And I don't know how.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:37

I don't know how you do it as a married guy, like the time commitment and that kind of thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:42

But for.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:43

For me particularly, it was the.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:45

The family.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:45

And also.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:46

I didn't know this at the time.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:47

I didn't know any of this at the time.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:49

But also, looking back, I was very.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:51

know, it was at a time in the: 1960

Aisha Foy: 00:16:57

And Chicago was very segregated at the time.

Aisha Foy: 00:16:59

It still is, of course, but Von Steuben had something called the permissive transfers, where kids from the west side could transfer to Von Steuben if they.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:07

If their school was overcrowded.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:09

And those guys, it almost set an unrealistic expectation rate because those eight or ten African American kids that were in my class at Von Steuben, they were the greatest guys ever.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:20

They've all been huge success stories.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:23

And I got.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:23

And it really opened up this.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:25

It really opened my head.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:26

The church we had got when I went to as a kid was integrated, but that was just an hour on Sundays.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:31

But suddenly I was around these.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:33

These African American kids and they were cool.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:35

They had the big Afros and the platform shoes and they listening to the Spinners and the Stylistics, you know, and, you know, what was.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:42

What was my culture, you know, like half Swiss and half Ukrainian.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:46

And it was all very organic.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:48

But I think in retrospect, the window into black culture and the way that it bridges again, you know, music does it also, and food can do it.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:57

You know, like, let's stop here.

Aisha Foy: 00:17:58

This is the great barbecue place, or this is a great Chinese restaurant.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:02

But in my experience, the three great bridges from one culture to another are music and food and sport.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:08

And I don't know that.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:10

I don't know what your background enough, Mike.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:13

But, you know, if I think of the.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:15

I know hundreds and hundreds of black people, and they're nearly all from basketball or basketball related or Somebody's sister or a cousin, you know, like, you know, I can count on two hands the number of black writers that I know, but I couldn't begin to count the number of people.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:31

The black people I know from basketball, parents and cousins and everybody else.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:36

And so for me, it was a window into.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:38

Into a culture.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:40

And at that time, you know, at that time, it seemed very cool.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:42

I was interested in black music.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:44

I loved Al Green and the Spinners and James Brown and the Temptations, and.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:49

And here these guys were, like, living it, were part of that life, and.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:52

And they were willing to accept me.

Aisha Foy: 00:18:54

And one of the things that I love about sports is that it's probably the most, you know, equal and, you know, most equal part of society.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:04

Like, if you're good, like, what happened with LeBron James's son, that's really unusual in sports, that somebody's gonna get something because, like, I don't know.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:12

I want to argue about LeBron.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:13

I actually, I'm a big LeBron admirer, but.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:16

But I.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:16

I wonder, would that kid have been on.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:19

On the Lakers if he wasn't LeBron's son?

Aisha Foy: 00:19:21

And I have to think.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:21

But that's one of the really feeling, even in.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:24

In coaching, like, maybe you.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:26

You might get a break, you might get your foot in the door.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:29

You know, my dad.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:30

My parents were not at all interested in sports, and neither were any of my siblings.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:35

But I think that it's one of the few places where it's totally equal and everybody's equal.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:41

And the acceptance I got from the black players, even though I wasn't a good player, I think they sense this guy's trying really hard and he's dedicated, and it's important to them.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:49

And that's always been my experience.

Aisha Foy: 00:19:51

And so, anyway, that's how I got interested in the game.

Mike Cleansing: 00:19:55

Well, I think it's interesting, for sure, when you talk about just being able to bridge that cultural gap.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:01

There's no question that where I grew up was a primarily white suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:09

And to your point, a lot of the experiences that I had interacting with African Americans was through the game of basketball.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:17

And conversely, to go along with that, certainly the music.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:21

I'm a little bit younger than you, so my experience when I start thinking about.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:26

I'm thinking about the early days of rap music and how much I listened to that and R and B and all the way through college.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:35

And again, I always say that I knew a lot about pop culture and music and those types of things up until my kids were born.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:41

And then Once my kids were born, all my pop culture knowledge and everything kind of falls.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:46

Completely falls off the.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:48

Completely falls off the map.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:49

And I also can relate to a couple other things that you said that I want to pull out of that part of the conversation.

Mike Cleansing: 00:20:57

One, just in terms of how coaches do it when they're married, it's certainly one of, I think, the biggest challenges that when I've talked to coaches, Russ, that people are always trying to figure out, how can I balance my desire to be a great coach and give everything that I can to the players who are a part of my team and my basketball family?

Mike Cleansing: 00:21:17

And then how do I again, balance that with my quote, unquote, real family, whether that's just a spouse or whether that's a spouse and children.

Mike Cleansing: 00:21:25

I think it's something that coaches struggle with.

Mike Cleansing: 00:21:29

They struggled with it when you were coaching.

Mike Cleansing: 00:21:31

They struggle with it today, and they're going to continue to struggle with it because, again, the bar for how much time you have to put in as a coach, I don't care what level you're coaching on, the bar for what it takes to be successful in terms of time is really high.

Mike Cleansing: 00:21:45

And then the last thing that you said that really struck a nerve with me, that I've said a ton of times on the podcast to lots of different people, is something that sticks with you, that a coach says that.

Mike Cleansing: 00:21:58

I'm betting that if you went back and you asked that coach, hey, do you remember when you told me that I should be like this kid with the red hair who has the big Afro and that you should be a ball handler like him?

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:10

I would guarantee that has no recollection of saying that.

Aisha Foy: 00:22:13

Of course.

Aisha Foy: 00:22:13

Yes.

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:14

And here you.

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:15

And here you are 45 years later, and you still remember it like it was yesterday.

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:20

And I have things that are exactly the same.

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:23

There's things that coaches said to me that I know they would have no idea they said to me that I still remember that carried me that have fueled me in different parts of my life.

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:32

And conversely, I'm sure that there are things that I've said to, whether it's my students or whether it's players who have played for me, that I have no idea the impact.

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:41

And that's why I always say it's important to think about.

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:44

You want those things to be positive, right?

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:45

You want the things that you said to be remembered to be something that steers somebody in a positive direction instead of a negative.

Mike Cleansing: 00:22:52

And so it's always important as a coach to remember that your words, they last and man, when you think about something that you're talking about 40 years later, I mean that's, that's pretty incredible.

Mike Cleansing: 00:23:05

The power of what, of what somebody can say to you.

Mike Cleansing: 00:23:07

For sure.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:08

Yeah.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:08

And Mike, you know, I was such a bad player even as a sophomore in high school that I, he only said two things to me all year, really.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:15

I mean, you know, the other one was what do you know, I was trying to try.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:19

I was having trouble getting the ball past, you know, making the first pass, you know, as like I'm supposed to be a point guard.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:25

And he said, well, what are you afraid of?

Aisha Foy: 00:23:27

You know, if you throw, you don't worry, you know.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:28

And that was actually, that was good advice.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:31

But you mentioned that stuff about the family and I want to sort of push you on that.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:35

The, the real, one of the big influences in my life, you know, I worked for Don Haskins and sat on the bench for Dan McCarroll.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:41

But I, at my last three years of coaching, I worked for Lou Henson.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:44

That would have been the Illinois coach when you were, when you were, when you were at State.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:48

And Lou was such a fine gentleman.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:50

It really changed.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:51

I think about Lou Henson and Don Haskins all the time.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:54

When I was teaching writing classes, you know, I became a writer as you know.

Aisha Foy: 00:23:57

And when I taught writing classes at New Mexico State, I thought about them all the time.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:01

The way they dealt with people, the way they, both of them, they were very different in some ways, but they were similar in many ways.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:09

In one way was not.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:10

They didn't go around making enemies.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:11

And Lou Ensen in particular said would say 95% of the problems in the world are caused by the tone of voice people use.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:19

And he would say just like that, with a big smile on his face.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:22

And I do think I try to use that with my, you know, my daughter is 18 now and you know, you know how that, you know, you'll see when your ears turns 18.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:30

She, she can be a little.

Mike Cleansing: 00:24:30

I got, I got a 20, I got a, I got a 20.

Mike Cleansing: 00:24:33

I got a 20 year old daughter and an 18 year old son.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:35

So.

Mike Cleansing: 00:24:35

I know, I know, but I just.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:37

Thought, you know, Lou was really unflappable that way.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:40

Like he was going to, he was going to talk in a nice tone of voice no matter what.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:45

And the worst, I remember the worst he would say to players would.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:48

I remember one time him saying to Divino, Divino had trouble remembering whatever out of bounds playing.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:53

He said to, you know, you're so sloppy.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:55

He said, I bet you don't even make your bed in the morning.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:57

And I think one of the.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:58

That was the worst thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:24:59

You could make my bed.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:01

And we all looked at each other.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:02

But I think that from people of our generation, you know, I'm an admirer of Bob Knight.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:07

I didn't, I didn't worship him, but I was an admirer that I think he ran a clean program and his kids played hard.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:14

But I think that one of the things that happens to us as young coaches is you think that you have to drop F bombs all over the place or that you're not coaching.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:22

And one of the things I learned from Lou, Now, Lou never said to any of us, you know, when he, I was with Lou, when he came, when he left Illinois and retired, and then they pulled him out of retirement at New Mexico State.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:33

And Lou never said, I don't want to hear any swearing.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:36

It was just one day, one of the play.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:38

He would look, give you a look if you swore.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:40

And one day, one of the players, now, Billy Keys, denies this, but our best player was Billy Keys.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:44

And Billy said, I swear.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:46

He said, hey, you guys, Coach Ensign, don't swear.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:49

We ain't swearing either.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:50

And that was it.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:51

Everybody stopped swearing.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:52

And I, I, I, I, honestly, as a, I'm a writer now, and I think, you know, I remember my, my father saying to me, well, you gotta, you should, you're a smart kid.

Aisha Foy: 00:25:59

You should be able to come up with better words than f this and, you know, BS that.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:03

And, and I, and I think that, you know, I think that as a writer and, and as a coach, you know, we're, I, I want.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:11

You might not remember Tim Jankovich.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:13

He wound up as the SMU coach for a while.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:14

But Tim told me, and this, this struck home with me, too, and I think it was something that Lou took to heart is I.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:21

He said, I never want the players to see me lose my cool.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:24

And I thought, wow, that's quite a thing to say because, you know, coaches lose their cool all the time.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:29

And he said, well, how can I expect them to keep their cool if I lose my cool?

Aisha Foy: 00:26:33

You know, And I know that.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:35

And so I tried to take that, you know, take that to heart.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:38

But with, particularly with Lou, once the game ended, I, I, I struggled with this.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:45

Mike, I don't know how you are.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:45

But once the game ended, Luke could completely turn it off.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:48

He was, he was like George Foreman, you know, like, remember George Foreman?

Aisha Foy: 00:26:51

He would try and knock your head off.

Aisha Foy: 00:26:53

But once it was over, it's a big smile and It's a hug and is everything great?

Aisha Foy: 00:26:57

And it was remarkable how he could change gears.

Aisha Foy: 00:27:00

Like, for me, like, I'm still mad at my college girlfriend.

Aisha Foy: 00:27:03

How did, how did these guys get over it so quickly, you know, And I.

Aisha Foy: 00:27:07

But I think that's, that's admirable.

Aisha Foy: 00:27:10

Can you get, after a tough loss, are you able to smile and talk nice to everybody at courtside and that kind of thing?

Mike Cleansing: 00:27:18

Well, that's a really good question.

Mike Cleansing: 00:27:19

So I have to phrase it, I have to put it into categories.

Mike Cleansing: 00:27:22

So as a player, the answer to that was definitely no.

Mike Cleansing: 00:27:26

So if I lost a game and I was on a bus or I was driving home or I was interacting with people, I was not happy.

Mike Cleansing: 00:27:35

And you weren't going to be able to make me happy as a player after a loss.

Mike Cleansing: 00:27:40

Then when I was his assistant coach, I found it to be much easier to put a loss behind me as an assistant coach.

Mike Cleansing: 00:27:51

I'm not sure why that was, but I can definitely say that I wanted to win and winning was important to me.

Mike Cleansing: 00:27:59

But when that game ended, I could go home and I could go to sleep and I could kind of put the game out of my head.

Mike Cleansing: 00:28:08

Anytime I have been, anytime I have been a head coach, and I have never been a head coach at any real level because I was only an assistant high school coach.

Mike Cleansing: 00:28:17

But I've been the head coach of plenty of my kids.

Mike Cleansing: 00:28:21

Recreation, travel, AAU teams.

Mike Cleansing: 00:28:25

And no matter how unimportant any of those games may be, I would sit and sleep with those games until we played again, regardless of the outcome.

Mike Cleansing: 00:28:37

So if we lost and I was the head coach, I can only imagine when I'm losing a fourth grade girls rec basketball game and I can't sleep because of what I think I did wrong in that game or how I could have helped us.

Mike Cleansing: 00:28:50

I can't even imagine what it would be like to be a head college coach or a coach in the NBA where again, my livelihood was dependent upon my ability to win games.

Mike Cleansing: 00:29:01

So to answer your question, I think I probably tend to the side of.

Mike Cleansing: 00:29:06

Yeah, I can't really put that behind me.

Mike Cleansing: 00:29:09

I would, I would carry it with me, which probably isn't a healthy way to do it, right, Russ?

Aisha Foy: 00:29:14

I think I may a bit more the same in that regard.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:18

When I was at UTEP and New Mexico State, you know, I was in eight NCAA tournaments as an assistant.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:23

And if we lost in the.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:24

Of course we never won the championship, we'd lose in the NCAA tournament.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:27

And you know, I, I'd be sad for A couple hours, and then I'd never.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:31

But when I went over to.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:32

I coached in the Irish Super League, which is the.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:35

One of the lowest levels of pro basketball in the world.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:38

And if we, you know, in front of 400 people, if we lost, I could not sleep.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:42

And, you know, Tim Floyd used to say that it's the longest 18 inches in the world from the head coach to this.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:48

Like when.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:49

When it's all on your shoulders, boy, even.

Aisha Foy: 00:29:50

Even in the Irish Super League, I really were, you know, at utep, we'd be playing and we'd lose, and, you know, we had 12,000 fans at the game, and it was a bummer, you know, but, you know, I don't see.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:00

I don't see.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:01

You know, I worked for two of the great lifers, Lou Henson and Don Haskins, you know, with a lot.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:06

A lot of.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:06

A lot of, you know, something like six of the three Division 1 coaches.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:10

I worked for Neil McCarthy as well, and I think the three of them combined for nearly 2,000 college wins.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:15

And I don't know how they did it.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:17

It just.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:17

It's.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:17

I think it would have ruined my health because I'm tightly.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:21

Too tightly wound, you know, and I had.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:23

Even as a kid, I had too much energy and had to go out and, you know, practice my, you know, trying to dribble three basketballs at the same time.

Aisha Foy: 00:30:29

I think I was lucky that way in that I always wanted to be a head Division 1 coach, and it never happened, but I think in some ways it was a blessing.

Mike Cleansing: 00:30:37

Tell me a little bit about what it was like being on a staff during the time when you're coaching.

Mike Cleansing: 00:30:43

Obviously, what people see today, especially at the Division 1 level, is they have large, Large staffs where guys are very.

Mike Cleansing: 00:30:52

Their roles are pretty well defined.

Mike Cleansing: 00:30:55

So what was it like for you on the staff in terms of your responsibilities at utep, New Mexico State, under each of those coaches?

Mike Cleansing: 00:31:03

Just give me a little idea of kind of what your roles were and how that may have differed from what we see today in terms of a Division 1 coaching staff.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:12

Yeah, well, when I.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:13

That's a good question.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:14

When I got to utep, it was Don Haskins, and there was a man named Jim Forbes on the staff.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:19

He's passed away now.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:20

He's one of the nicest people that ever.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:22

But he was the night.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:23

The guy in the: 1972

Aisha Foy: 00:31:29

That was Jim Forbes, and I think it really damaged him emotionally in Some ways he's tightly wound and he was having health problems.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:37

When I was.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:37

My first year, he was having health problems.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:39

So he didn't, he wasn't doing much.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:41

And Coach Haskins showed up for practice in the games and that was it.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:45

He didn't do it.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:46

So there I.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:47

And Tim Floyd had essentially been doing everything by himself.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:49

So I think, I don't think Tim had that great of esteem for me.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:53

He was just happy to get somebody who could roll up his sleeves and work.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:56

So it was essentially Tim and I running the office that first year.

Aisha Foy: 00:31:59

Then Jim Forbes took a high school job and we'd hired somebody else.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:03

But.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:04

But that first year, boy, it was a tremendous workload.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:07

And one of the things I think that was good for me at that, at that stage was if you do a little bit of everything, you know, like I imagine if you're the, if you're the Ohio Wesleyan coach, you've got to sweep the floor, get the towels.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:18

You're doing a bit of everything.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:20

You don't have everybody.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:21

You don't have these specialists.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:23

But I look at the staffs now where there's eight or nine people, and I think it's a mistake in that I don't think there's that much to do.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:30

And I think that, you know, egos would get in the way then.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:34

I'm into longevity.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:35

You know, I worked for, you know, my, my college coach, Dan McCarroll was at North park for 20 years, and then he was at Mankato State for 20 years.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:41

And Don Haskins, of course, was 40 years at the same school.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:45

You know, that, that, to me, that's what I was interested in.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:49

Legacy, you know, legacy and guys who had legacies.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:53

And I, I just think when you have that many people on your staff, you're going to have guys arguing and wishing they got more credit.

Aisha Foy: 00:32:59

And how come he makes more money than I do?

Aisha Foy: 00:33:01

By, by the way, Mike, you'll laugh, but my average salary at UTEP, we went to seven NCAA tournaments in eight years.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:07

My average salary was 17,000.

Mike Cleansing: 00:33:10

Now, El Paso doesn't surprise me.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:12

If you could, if you.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:13

Now you could, you could get by in El Paso on that.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:15

Because El Paso had, at that time, it's still pretty cheap, but he was a border town and, and really cheap.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:21

But, but I, I just, I think.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:23

I think it's the same with.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:25

There were times at UTEP when we had 10 and 11 guys on the team and we were good.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:28

And I think it's to.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:30

To.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:30

For.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:30

For me, I'm a Bit of a minimalist that way.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:32

Like, I don't want 22 guys in the team and I don't want a staff of nine people.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:37

And I, I know that Mike Shashewski and Bob Knight, they have all these managers and this and that, but I just, I just feel like, you know, if you've got, if you got.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:46

It just seem it goes against my grain, I guess.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:48

I, I know there's different.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:49

One of the things also I think to keep in mind is, as you know, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Aisha Foy: 00:33:54

And what, what Don Haskins was doing, you know, Nolan Richardson, who I wrote my book about, Nolan played for Don Haskins.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:00

And they couldn't be more different in terms of, you know, coaching philosophy, in terms of personalities, they were very similar, but coaching one was run and gun and trap.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:09

That was Nolan Richardson.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:10

And Coach Askins was, you know, we slowed things down and very selective and it was going to be a defensive battle.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:16

So I think there's more than one way to be.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:19

And, and, and, but the other thing for me, Mike, I don't know if you could, could you copy Jim McDonald?

Aisha Foy: 00:34:23

Like, I can't imitate Don Haskins.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:25

I'd have a, I'd have a deep.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:26

Because he's a big, intimidating guy.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:28

I'm, you know, I'm 5 11, 160 pounds now.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:32

I, I could imitate Lou Henson a little bit.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:34

And I just thought I, I, he rubbed off on me personally more like I'm going to be in a good mood, I'm going to be upbeat and I'm not going to swear my head off like I did when I was younger.

Aisha Foy: 00:34:42

And I think, you know, but, but I mean, were you, were you able to imitate Jim McDonald when you were.

Mike Cleansing: 00:34:47

So that's a good question.

Mike Cleansing: 00:34:48

I mean, I think from a, from a personality standpoint, I think there's, there's some part of it that probably when you play for somebody for four years, I think there you can't help but sort of absorb a little bit of, sort of the way that they coach.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:06

So for me, what's interesting, Russ, is as a high school player I played for.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:11

So in my era, in my community, the ninth grade was not at the high school.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:17

So we were at a junior high when I was in ninth grade.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:19

So I played for a ninth grade team when I was in ninth grade at my junior high school.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:25

So then when I went to high school, I played for the same high school coach for three seasons and then I played for Coach McDonald for four seasons at Kent, and we're talking about a completely different era where there isn't the Internet, where you're not going on.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:41

And I wasn't studying YouTube videos or looking at this drill that this trainer was putting together.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:47

I wasn't going to other schools practices or watching.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:51

I had no idea what other teams and coaches may have been doing.

Mike Cleansing: 00:35:56

So when I got my first coaching job as a junior varsity basketball coach in Bay Village, Ohio, the only thing I really knew was what I had done as a player, which again, was completely uninventive and unexciting.

Mike Cleansing: 00:36:13

And I did the same thing probably for seven years.

Mike Cleansing: 00:36:16

The same drills, the same, you know, I had like two workouts, and that was pretty much it.

Mike Cleansing: 00:36:21

And then the rest of what I knew in terms of me being a coach was what my high school coach did and what my college coach did.

Mike Cleansing: 00:36:29

So when I ran drills or I set up a practice, I mean, I didn't know anything other than what those two guys had done.

Mike Cleansing: 00:36:37

And so I look back on that as probably one of the regrets that I have in my coaching career, and I just wonder that had I poured myself into it more in those first couple years in terms of me learning the game instead of just sort of relying on, hey, I was a really good player.

Mike Cleansing: 00:36:56

And I know I.

Mike Cleansing: 00:36:58

That should make me a really good coach, which again, now I would have been disavowed of that notion probably pretty quickly, but back then, there just wasn't as much information out there.

Mike Cleansing: 00:37:09

It just wasn't as available.

Mike Cleansing: 00:37:10

And so I really do feel like I'm not so sure from a personality standpoint necessarily, that I took on from my high school and my college coach, but I definitely took on the way that they went about doing their drills and putting that.

Mike Cleansing: 00:37:28

Putting a practice together and running a team.

Mike Cleansing: 00:37:30

Those are things that I definitely took from my high school and college, because I did, because I didn't have anywhere else to go.

Mike Cleansing: 00:37:36

I didn't have anything else to draw on.

Aisha Foy: 00:37:37

Yeah, well, there's nothing worse than a guest coming on and contradicting you, Mike.

Aisha Foy: 00:37:41

But I will.

Aisha Foy: 00:37:41

I will say, I don't know if it'd be a direct contradiction, but what I see happening with particularly young coaches today is, I think.

Aisha Foy: 00:37:48

I think you'll agree with this, is I was sort of grounded in Dan McCarroll and then Don Haskins and Lou Henson, and they're.

Aisha Foy: 00:37:56

They weren't playing exactly.

Aisha Foy: 00:37:57

But the.

Aisha Foy: 00:37:57

One of the.

Aisha Foy: 00:37:58

I guess the point I'm getting at, my old friend Larry Gibson, you might remember Larry Gibson he's the.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:03

He was the University of Toledo coach, but he's from Ohio.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:06

And I can't think of.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:07

I can't remember if he went to Ohio Wesleyan or what his.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:10

What his small college was, but anyway, he.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:13

He would call being a cesspool of knowledge.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:16

And I think one of the things that happens more to young people, I think you're better off at what happened to you.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:20

You're better off doing that than trying copy eight different coaches like you cannot.

Mike Cleansing: 00:38:25

Right.

Mike Cleansing: 00:38:25

I agree with that.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:26

Yeah.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:26

You can't play like, like Don Haskins and Nolan Richardson.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:29

You can't do both of those.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:31

You can't press and trap all the time and then have a great half court offense and a great half court defense.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:36

It's just not so.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:38

One of the things I, that I would.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:39

If I were to encourage a young coach, if you were to ask me, I would say, you know, get grounded in something and try.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:47

Now, I say that I'll contradict myself here.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:49

I went over.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:49

When I went over to Ireland, you know, the first year I tried to coach, you know, more of a Don Haskins, Lou Henson style.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:55

And the second year I thought, screw it, nobody's scouting.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:57

There's no scouting in Ireland.

Aisha Foy: 00:38:58

At that time, no one was filming the game.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:00

And so we started trapping, trapping all the time.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:03

And it would just disrupt what everybody did.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:05

And I was very successful with that.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:07

But I don't think even you could do that today in Ireland.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:10

That I think you have to be able to adapt.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:12

But I would caution, I think it's the same in music.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:15

Like, you know, if you go here, George, I don't know, you'll outdate myself here, but you go, if you go hear George Strait, you don't want to hear him do a reggae song, you know, and if you go see Taylor Swift, you don't want her.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:27

You don't want to hear her do a rap song like the Wu Tang Plan.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:31

And it's just like, you know, I think you have to.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:33

You have to sort of.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:34

Sort of stick with, you know, in some ways.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:37

And so that was the biggest lesson I got from Haskins and Lou Henson, Don Haskins and Lou Henson was when to bend and when to.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:44

Like.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:45

I remember Coach Haskin saying, don't ever get me a.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:48

I'm not gonna ever have a guy with a tattoo.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:50

Don't ever recruit a guy with a tattoo.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:52

Well, you wouldn't have a team today.

Mike Cleansing: 00:39:53

Yeah, good luck today.

Mike Cleansing: 00:39:54

Good luck with.

Mike Cleansing: 00:39:55

Good luck with that one today, Russ.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:56

Yeah, you would.

Mike Cleansing: 00:39:56

You would.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:57

You wouldn't have.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:57

You wouldn't have a team today.

Aisha Foy: 00:39:59

And I think there's time, you know, and.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:00

And he wound up Tim Floyd talking, talked him into playing zone some when I was there, which you would have never thought that a guy who played for Henry Ivo, whatever plays on.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:09

So I think that's a big thing too.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:11

When do I bend?

Aisha Foy: 00:40:12

And I think that happens with us at parent.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:13

With parents too, don't you think?

Aisha Foy: 00:40:14

Like, are you really going to holler at your daughter to clean up her room today?

Aisha Foy: 00:40:18

Like her, her dog died yesterday.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:20

So this isn't the time to, you know, to, you know, that kind of thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:24

It's.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:24

It's what I think.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:26

Go on.

Aisha Foy: 00:40:26

Sorry.

Mike Cleansing: 00:40:27

So I think that what you're saying.

Mike Cleansing: 00:40:29

I agree 100% that you have to figure out right.

Mike Cleansing: 00:40:33

Who you are as a coach, as a human being, as a parent, whatever.

Mike Cleansing: 00:40:39

But I also think that to some degree what you have to do.

Mike Cleansing: 00:40:43

And this is where I feel like my experience where I would have benefited from seeing how other people did things just so not necessarily so I could say, okay, I'm going to take from six other coaches and try to combine those all into whatever Mike ends up becoming as a coach.

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:01

But I do feel like because I didn't have any other experience with other coaches, I almost didn't realize that, hey, there are other ways that you can go about trying to do the same thing.

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:17

And so I feel like I would have benefited from seeing.

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:20

How did Russ Bradberg coach?

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:22

How did Lou Henson coach?

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:24

How did Tom Izzo coach?

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:25

How did Eldon Miller coach?

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:28

And then looking at those and going, okay, does that fit what I believe or does that fit how I want to coach?

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:35

Or does that fit the style of play that I want?

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:37

Or does that fit my personality?

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:40

And I feel like I just kind of was, okay, this is what I was exposed to.

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:44

This is just the way it is.

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:46

This is all I know.

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:46

And I didn't really go out and explore, not necessarily to copy everything, but just to make myself a more well rounded.

Mike Cleansing: 00:41:54

I think again, it's just like right when you read or you listen to music, the more that, you know, you turn, you start to figure out this is what I like, this is what I don't like.

Mike Cleansing: 00:42:03

Whereas for me I had such a narrow view, I think of experiences that it kind of put me in.

Mike Cleansing: 00:42:09

I don't know if a box is the right way to say it, but I just was sort of.

Mike Cleansing: 00:42:13

This was.

Mike Cleansing: 00:42:13

This was the way I knew.

Mike Cleansing: 00:42:14

And so that was kind of the walk that I walked if that makes sense.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:17

Yeah.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:18

But I would say, I would ask you, like, I don't know that you can learn.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:23

Like, I was very interested in Pete Carrill at one time.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:25

Not that I could tell you the first thing about, you know, I couldn't drop his plays, but just the back cuts and that.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:31

And I.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:31

But I got where I thought.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:33

I don't think you could.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:34

I think you'd have to.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:35

I don't think you could get it from a YouTube and I think you could get it from a coach.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:39

I think you'd have to be around Kirill for a couple of years maybe.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:43

Maybe other coaches are smarter than I am, but after being around Haskins for two or three years and Lou Henson for a couple years, I knew what they were going to say before they said it.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:54

And that's just for.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:55

The only way to get that is like, I'll go to practice now.

Aisha Foy: 00:42:57

We have a great young coach at New Mexico State.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:00

You know, I do the TV for and it's Jason Hooten and I go to watch his.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:04

You know, he worked for a man who'd worked for, you know, who once been around one of the Ibis.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:08

So he's very Mr.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:09

Iba influenced and that kind of thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:10

But I don't always.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:12

I don't always know.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:13

Like, sometimes he'll.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:14

They're doing things at practice and I've been going to practice every week and I'm still not entirely sure what they're doing.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:20

I think the only way to do it is you really have to be.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:23

I had a fiddle teacher in Ireland and he said, and I think this is true, he said, all of the great knowledge in human history has been handed from person to person.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:31

You know, whether.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:31

Whether it's.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:32

Whether it's music or art or literature or coaching, you know, I think there's a reason Bob Knight had a lot of guys from his coaching tree.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:40

And I think the other thing, Mike, I wonder about this for you is I was lucky enough to be around winning coaches and, you know, even though I never got in the games at north park, we won the national title.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:49

I had an expectation that we were going to win.

Aisha Foy: 00:43:52

And I know after two years at Kent State, well, you guys were on the verge of being, you know, going into the NCAA tournament and winning a few games, but then it didn't happen.

Aisha Foy: 00:44:00

And they.

Aisha Foy: 00:44:00

But did.

Aisha Foy: 00:44:01

Did that.

Aisha Foy: 00:44:01

I mean, that must have been hard.

Aisha Foy: 00:44:02

Was that hard to swallow your junior and senior year?

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:05

So that's tough.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:06

I mean, I think when I look back at our experience at Kent.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:11

So the group that I came in with as freshman Russ, we had seven.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:16

We had seven freshmen.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:18

And I was definitely guy seven in that recruiting class because I only got an offer, which was my only Division 1 offer after somebody else transferred.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:27

And so I was a very, very late signee.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:30

I was a kid who was determined.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:32

I was a kid who was determined to be able to go and play Division 1.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:37

Like, you hear a lot of advice.

Aisha Foy: 00:44:38

And Mike, sorry, no, go ahead.

Aisha Foy: 00:44:42

Where would you have gone if you didn't go to Kent State?

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:45

I mean, that's a very good question.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:46

I mean, the honest truth is that I was so focused on.

Mike Cleansing: 00:44:50

So there was just, there were guys that I played with again and with and against all summer long that got scholarships and had signed early and all these different things.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:00

And I really felt like I was as good as they were.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:04

And so my, my really, my only focus was how am I going to get a Division 1 scholarship.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:09

And at the time when I signed with Kent and that was again, like I said, my only, my only offer, I still was talking to St.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:17

Francis of Pennsylvania.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:18

My dad was a professor at Cleveland State, so I could have gone to Cleveland State and Ben, I would have been able to go to school for free because of my dad.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:26

And I could have been a met a walk on there.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:29

And Coach Mackey at the time said, well, if you come and it works out, then, you know, we'll, we'll put you on scholarship your second year.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:34

But by no means was any of that guaranteed.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:37

I mean, I very easily could have been that I wouldn't have had a scholarship.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:40

And to be honest with you, you know, you always hear about don't be a Division one or bust person.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:46

And, and back in the day, that's kind of, that's kind of what I was as I think back to what I might have done and who was recruiting me.

Mike Cleansing: 00:45:55

I think that I was being recruited pretty heavily by at Wooster.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:01

Steve Moore, who was, you know, he was, ended up, I think as the winningest, maybe the second winningest coach ever in Division 3.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:07

And he was there a long time.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:08

So that was at the very beginning of his tenure at Wooster.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:12

And I remember I really liked Coach Moore and he came to a ton of our games.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:15

And so I think I would have had a lot of different places.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:18

Case was really recruiting the Case Western Coach Sudak at the time.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:22

And so, you know, it just, I, I ended up again getting very, very lucky to be able to have an opportunity to go to Kent.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:30

So my first two years we were very, we were very good.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:33

My sophomore year, I think, as I told you in our pre pod call, was probably our best team.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:37

We went 21 7.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:38

We split with Ball State, who ended up going to the Elite Eight and losing to the Larry Johnson Stacy Augment UNLV team.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:46

And you know, we went to the NIT that year and then my next two years as a junior and a senior.

Mike Cleansing: 00:46:52

To your point, I think when you're winning and again as a high school player and as a player in the summertime and all the things, I mean, you know, again, if you're a good player at that level, you tend to win a lot.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:03

And so it was tough.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:04

We started out my junior year, Russ, we were seven and four and we were playing three guards.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:10

So I was basically our small forward at six three, 175 pounds and battling guys who are much, much bigger, taller, stronger, faster than me.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:20

But it got our best players on the floor and we were playing which nowadays would look like a ridiculously slow pace and not shooting any threes, but for us at the time, we were pushing the ball up the floor and shooting far more threes than I think Coach McDonald was comfortable with.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:37

And so we went into the.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:40

We got through the non conference part of our schedule.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:41

Like I said, we were 7 and 4.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:43

And he decided to go back to the way we had played previously.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:49

And it put one of our bigger players back on the floor, took one of our guards off the floor and we just never really recovered from that.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:57

And it kind of just went downhill from there.

Mike Cleansing: 00:47:59

We won two games the rest of that year.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:01

We only won two games in the league when I was a junior and then as a senior, my backcourt mate who I had played against in high school, and then he and I had been together as sophomore and junior, he ended up getting a blood clot in his leg and missed 18 games.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:18

And we just kind of never got.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:20

We just kind of never got it on track.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:21

And you know, I look back on it and we had in our class of those seven guys, the three of us that made it all four years, all of us scored over a thousand points.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:31

And you know, it felt like we had.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:33

It felt like we had enough talent that if we had figured it out or maybe another piece, one more thing together, that it didn't feel like we were that far away.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:41

But it was definitely, it was definitely an adjustment.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:44

I mean, it was tough.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:44

When you go from.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:45

You win in high school, you win your first two years in college.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:48

And again as a freshman, I Didn't play a whole lot, but you still were winning.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:51

And then to go through and, and experience what losing was like for everybody.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:55

I mean it's stressful for coaching staffs.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:57

It was hard on players.

Mike Cleansing: 00:48:59

And again, you just, you look back on it, you.

Mike Cleansing: 00:49:03

I guess I always look at the sort of, the what ifs of what could we have done, what could I have done to, to make that more of a winning environment.

Mike Cleansing: 00:49:12

And you know, again, you can't, you can't go back and change it obviously.

Mike Cleansing: 00:49:14

But man, there's times where I still again to this day as a 55 year old man, thinking back, you know, whatever, 35 odd years ago, what, what could I, what could I have done differently?

Aisha Foy: 00:49:25

Yeah, well, and I do think, you know, we talked about early in the, in the program, we talked about, you know, the thing that that coach said to me.

Aisha Foy: 00:49:33

The one thing he said stuck with me and it was a positive thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:49:36

I could do that.

Aisha Foy: 00:49:36

But I do think that, you know, I was interested in what you said that these other guys in Cleveland, they were getting scholarships and I, and I didn't get a scholarship.

Aisha Foy: 00:49:45

And I do think there is something to that is, you know, like having a bit of a chip on your shoulder and having, you know, the best player I ever recruited was mostly luck.

Aisha Foy: 00:49:53

But Tim Hardaway was completely overlooked in high school.

Aisha Foy: 00:49:56

These other guys were all getting much more publicity than he was, but he was, you know, to my eye, was, was better.

Aisha Foy: 00:50:02

And he's never gotten over, he has never gotten over that feeling of I'm, you know, you know, you don't think I can play.

Aisha Foy: 00:50:09

I'll prove to you I can play.

Aisha Foy: 00:50:10

And I do think there's something about that.

Aisha Foy: 00:50:12

But, but, but all, but also just that idea that, you know, I am, I do find that interesting, your career where you guys were winning and you're on the verge of being, going deep into the NCAA tournament and then think, you know, you've been on.

Aisha Foy: 00:50:23

I, I do think it's helpful to be on both sides of things and, and do, you know, to, to experience.

Mike Cleansing: 00:50:28

It when you see that?

Mike Cleansing: 00:50:30

Yeah, you do see that as a coach.

Mike Cleansing: 00:50:32

And so I'll tell you my thing that stick, that sticks with me.

Mike Cleansing: 00:50:35

So you talked about, you know, the things that stuck with you and the, the, the impact that they had.

Mike Cleansing: 00:50:40

So when I was being recruited, one of the places that I went to visit was an NAI school in Atlanta, Oglethorpe University.

Mike Cleansing: 00:50:47

And when I was at Oglethorpe on my visit, I remember I was sitting in the coach's office and it was an assistant coach.

Mike Cleansing: 00:50:53

And I honestly, I don't remember his name, but I still can picture it.

Mike Cleansing: 00:50:56

I can still picture sitting in the office when he told me this and he said, you know, because I told him, I'm still, I'm still waiting on Kent.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:04

They're still in on me.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:05

I think I, I think I may, you know, I think I may end up getting an offer.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:08

And I remember he looked at me and he said, mike, he goes, you don't want to go to Kent.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:11

He goes, there's no way you're ever going to make it there.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:14

They're going to bring you in this year as the seventh guy in a seven player class.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:17

They're going to recruit over you the next year.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:19

He's like, if you came here to Oglethorpe, you come here and you could score a thousand points.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:23

And so at Kent, I ended up with a thousand six points.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:29

So my very last game as a senior was in the Mac tournament.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:33

And obviously at that time I didn't know whether it was our last game, but our team obviously didn't have the kind of year that we would have liked to had.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:39

So there was a decent chance that was going to be our last game.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:42

So I went into the game, I got to think, I got to think about this and do the math.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:46

So I went into that game with 991 points.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:50

And so I needed nine points to get myself to, you know, I needed nine points to get myself to know I needed a lesser.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:57

I need 11.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:58

So I had 989.

Mike Cleansing: 00:51:59

I need 11 to get to, to get to a thousand.

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:02

I ended up getting 17 in that game and finished with 1,006.

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:05

And so when I think about, you know, not very many individual things necessarily mean a lot to me, but the fact that I can always look at that list and see that I scored a thousand points.

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:16

That coach at Oglethorpe, I'm sure, has no recollection of ever saying that to me, but that, that drove me, at least from an individual standpoint, to try to prove that guy wrong.

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:25

And I'm sure he could care less at this point.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:27

Yeah, that's right.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:28

Well, Mike, we combined for 10, 13 points because I had my 13.

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:33

There you go.

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:33

You and me.

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:34

You and me.

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:35

I like it.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:35

Yeah.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:36

I do think there is something about you I am not.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:38

I do think there's something about the stick to itiveness.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:40

It's helped me as a writer quite a bit.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:42

Is it?

Mike Cleansing: 00:52:43

Yeah.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:43

You know, as a writer, one rejection after another, you know, rejection Rejection, rejection.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:49

This editor and that publisher.

Aisha Foy: 00:52:52

You know, if there's anything that would prepare you for writing life, it's getting cut from the team in high school, getting cut from the team in college, you know, losing, you know, that kind of, that kind of thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:53:01

It can, it can really, it can really prepare you for, you know, if it doesn't beat you down, you know, And I was just, yeah, absolutely.

Mike Cleansing: 00:53:08

Yeah.

Russ Bradbird: 00:53:12

Coaches, Game Changer is making your game film more valuable than ever.

Russ Bradbird: 00:53:17

New this season to Game Changer, Film Room allows team staff to analyze full game videos, add comments to specific moments, and quickly share feedback with other coaches, team members, or families.

Russ Bradbird: 00:53:29

The number one U sports app automatically skips downtime in the game film, condensing event video into active play so you can focus on the moments that matter.

Russ Bradbird: 00:53:38

The best part, it's completely free for coaches.

Russ Bradbird: 00:53:41

Download Game changer now on iOS or Android and take your coaching to the next level with Film Room on Game Changer.

Russ Bradbird: 00:53:48

Game Changer Stream, Score, Connect.

Mike Cleansing: 00:53:57

Tell me about the transition to writing.

Mike Cleansing: 00:53:59

How do you gut decide that?

Mike Cleansing: 00:54:01

Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get out of the coaching profession.

Mike Cleansing: 00:54:03

I want to get into writing.

Mike Cleansing: 00:54:05

Had you always been writing while you were coaching?

Mike Cleansing: 00:54:07

Are you a guy who likes to journal?

Mike Cleansing: 00:54:08

Just what's the background that kind of leads you in that direction?

Mike Cleansing: 00:54:11

Or was it just the fact that you had an interesting story to tell?

Aisha Foy: 00:54:14

I, I, I, I, I, I go back to that year as a security guard When I read 50 books, and I was, I was, you know, one at UTEP and at New Mexico State, we would fly Southwest Airlines, and I would always deliberately be the last one on the plane.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:29

If you've ever flown Southwest, you know, there's no reserve seats, so I'd see everybody.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:33

Sorry, I got to sit in this middle seat here, guys.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:35

I'll see.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:35

And I could read my book that way.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:37

And for, I think, like, a lot of, A lot of coaches are guys who love to play and couldn't imagine living without it.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:44

They kind of spill over from players into coaches.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:47

And I think for me, I spilled over.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:49

I like books, and I was interested in books.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:51

I didn't know this at the time, Mike, but looking back, you know that I was always more interested in the stories.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:57

Like, I was reading sports books as a kid.

Aisha Foy: 00:54:59

I was very, very, you know, very enamored with these kinds of stories.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:02

You're not old enough to remember Dan Gable, but he was the Olympic wrestler that was from Iowa.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:09

Yeah, sorry, he's from Iowa, right?

Aisha Foy: 00:55:12

Yes, that's it.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:13

And became the coach, I think maybe at Iowa State, and I don't know anything about wrestling, but I remember watching the Olympics that he was on and hearing the story of his crazed practices, and he would practice in pushups all the time and this and that.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:23

I just thought.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:24

And that really hit home with me.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:25

And, you know, sports books, you start thinking, if you read enough sports books, well, I can do what Michael Jordan did or whatever.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:31

Of course you can't.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:32

But.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:32

But.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:33

But I'd read a lot of sports books as a kid, and I was just a reader that spilled over.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:37

And I think I was always more interested in the stories.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:40

Like, I couldn't.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:41

Lou Hanson was an X and O genius.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:43

He was maybe the greatest X and O coach who ever lived.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:46

He would rather draw plays on a napkin than do anything.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:49

If I said.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:50

If you said, lou, there's a bunch of gold here on the ground.

Mike Cleansing: 00:55:52

Look.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:53

He'd rather be, you know, drawing plays on a napkin than pick up the goal.

Aisha Foy: 00:55:57

But I don't remember any of those plays.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:00

I couldn't drop.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:01

I don't think I could drop any of Lou's plays.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:03

But I got a lot of good Lou Henson stories, and I think I was always more interested in the stories.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:08

I got very enamored, you know, because of the black culture thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:11

I was enamored with playground basketball and reading about New York playground basketball and that kind of thing.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:17

I read Foul, the Connie Hawkins story.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:20

You know, he was wound up in the NBA after being shunned for getting caught in a gambling scandal.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:26

And just reading books like that really affected me, and I just became very interested in the stories behind it.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:34

And I think, you know, I tell my.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:36

I told my students for years at New Mexico State, where I became a writing professor, is that we're made of stories.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:41

You know, if I ask you, Mike, tell me about yourself, Mike, you don't say, well, I'm type A, blood type.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:46

I'm 6 foot 3, you know, but, you know, I'm 86% water.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:51

You know, we.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:52

You have to tell you.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:53

We want to tell your story.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:54

You know, my grandfather came over from.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:56

Your grandfather came over from Germany or how.

Aisha Foy: 00:56:59

You know, whatever it is, I think we're wired for stories, and we're wired.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:02

And I think that's one of the big attractions of sports is that every game is a story.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:07

You know, like, what's going to happen now?

Aisha Foy: 00:57:09

Oh, there's these twists and turns.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:10

Just like a good novel.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:11

A good.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:12

A great game can have the twists and turns like a novel.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:15

And, you know, Nearly all the books you read that are sport related.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:18

It's either about a game, like, you know, when Muhammad Ali fought in the Thrill in Manila or whatever, or the Rumble in the Jungle.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:25

It's either about a single game or a season or a career.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:30

And they all make.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:31

They all make for stories.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:32

And so I got very interested in the story side of things.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:35

And when I came to New Mexico State, my first day on campus, a guy came up to me and said, are you the new basketball coach?

Aisha Foy: 00:57:43

It happened to be.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:44

My picture wasn't in the paper very much, but it was that day.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:47

And his name was Robert Boswell and he was a well known novelist and short story writer.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:52

And we struck up a friendship.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:53

And so I started.

Aisha Foy: 00:57:55

I would go over to his house after the games and he would want to talk about the game.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:00

Like Point Nevada's center was really.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:02

And I would want to talk about books.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:04

And so he was giving me books and I would sort of fill him in on basketball.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:09

We would always wrestle for the control of the conversation.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:12

But I started sitting in on his classes and I realized, you know, I started thinking about what had happened to me.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:18

I was in division one at age 23, you know, working for Don Haskins at all.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:23

I was on a fast track very quickly.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:26

You know, I think I.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:27

Maybe I mentioned before we got on the air, or maybe I've already, so forgive me if I sounds like I'm bragging, but I was in seven, eight NCAA tournaments by the time I was 31 years old in Division 1.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:36

It was all happening too fast and not, you know, as a writer, I've been able to sort of think about, you know, all of my books are about sort of the intersection of sports, basketball particularly, and culture and the way, you know, basketball can often be.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:53

You know, I don't think.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:54

I'm not so sure that sports builds character, but I think it reveals character.

Aisha Foy: 00:58:57

You know, I think you learn a lot about what, you know, what LeBron is really like or what Steph Curry is really like from watching these guys play.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:05

And so, and I, you know, when I was looking at these older coaches, Lou Henson was really the only older coach I ever met who was happy.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:14

He was the only one.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:15

Everybody else was bitter and I got screwed.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:18

Don Haskins, not so much.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:20

He was natural.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:21

He was naturally, you know, in a bad mood.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:24

I just thought there were a lot of unhappy coaches out there.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:27

And I thought this, if I remember.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:29

And I went in and asked the athletic director, when Lou Henson retires, can I get this job?

Aisha Foy: 00:59:34

And he says, well, I can guarantee you'd get an interview.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:38

Well, I started thinking, and I thought at the time, I thought, I'll go back to school and I'll get my master's and then I'll be a Division 3 coach.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:44

Because that was, to me, there's a real beauty when Ohio Wesleyan plays Wooster or when Cedarville plays, you know, plays Wilmington or whatever.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:51

I think there's a real purity to.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:54

In a way that there is still in women's sports.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:56

I think that we've lost in college basketball.

Aisha Foy: 00:59:59

And so I wanted.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:00

I thought, I'll get a master's degree and then I'll, you know, and then I'll become a small college coach.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:05

But I had a chance to go to Ireland, and so then everything got screwed up.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:09

And that became my first book is.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:11

It's a memoir about coaching my team in Ireland.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:14

It's called Patty on the Hardwood.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:16

I coached my team in Ireland into last place while I was trying to learn the Irish fiddle.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:21

And so most of the book is about.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:23

There's.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:23

I don't want to spoil it for your listeners.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:25

It does cover two seasons, but it's mostly about the first season.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:29

I think the, you know, the losing seasons are.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:32

They say that history is written by the winners, Mike, but literature is written by the loser.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:37

And I think that, you know, the losing season is much.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:40

Everybody wins well, and it's exciting and you hug and you cut down the nets.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:44

But I think in that losing season, I learned so much about myself and trying to learn the Irish tradition of fiddling.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:51

While I was teaching the American tradition of the basketball, I'd learned from Don Haskins and Lou Henson.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:57

That's sort of the interplay.

Aisha Foy: 01:00:59

And so I just got interested in the stories.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:01

And then one day I do a basketball camp in El Paso called Basketball in the Barrio.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:06

I've been doing it for as long as you've been doing your camps, 33 years.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:10

And one day, Nolan Richardson walked in.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:12

He had just been fired.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:13

And I started doing a little research on it.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:15

And everyone said, well, Nolan deserved to get fired.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:18

He deserved to get fired.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:19

And I thought, there's gotta be more to this story.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:21

And so pretty soon I was off and running.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:24

And we know it.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:25

We know in basketball, Mike, that just because you're a good player doesn't mean you're going to be a good coach.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:30

But in academia, they haven't figured that out yet.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:33

In academia, in Ohio State or any of these schools, if you have a book, you're somebody.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:38

If you've Written a book, you're somebody.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:39

And if you've written no book, you're nobody.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:41

And so I immediately things started happening quickly for me, promotion wise.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:46

I got promoted and raises and became a full professor.

Aisha Foy: 01:01:49

Although I was a phys ed major at north park with a 2.3 average grade point average, I was getting promoted by, you know, through these publications and by publishing, by publishing books.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:00

So.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:02

And I have a new book that comes out in a week or so.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:04

It's about, it's a satire about the over emphasis of sports on our campus, on the big school campuses.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:10

It's called big time and it happens at a school that I made up called Coors State University.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:15

The beer company came in and bought out the school and all the money goes to football and basketball.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:21

But they started having campus protests and it's a satire.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:24

But I think there's, I do think that, you know, through books, you know, through stories and books were able to see the world and change the world.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:34

I don't think it's any coincidence.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:35

It's two of the greatest coaches, Phil Jackson and Steve Kerr and Popovich I guess does as well at the pro level.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:42

These guys are giving the players books to read.

Aisha Foy: 01:02:45

And I do think there's a certain power to books and I hope that we don't get too far away from that with YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and all the stuff you young guys do.

Mike Cleansing: 01:02:56

Well, yeah, I do a little bit of that, but man, there's nothing better than books.

Mike Cleansing: 01:02:59

All right, I got a book to ask you about and then I want to talk to you about your writing process.

Mike Cleansing: 01:03:03

So have you seen or have you read.

Mike Cleansing: 01:03:06

This is a book that goes back a long time and when you started talking about again the interaction of basketball and culture.

Mike Cleansing: 01:03:13

Have you seen read the in your face basketball book?

Aisha Foy: 01:03:16

That was a huge.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:17

That was it.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:18

Was it Alex Wolf's book?

Aisha Foy: 01:03:20

Alex Wolf?

Mike Cleansing: 01:03:20

Yes, absolutely.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:21

And that was a huge influence on me.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:23

It was, it almost looked like it was self published.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:25

It was sort of a.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:26

But it, but it was, you know, it had all the slang and all the, you know, playgrounds.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:30

But what my writing career, one of the.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:32

He was a big influence on my writing career.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:34

I read his, I read that book, but I read the one called Big game Small world where he goes around the world.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:39

Each chapter is a different country, but.

Mike Cleansing: 01:03:42

One of the chapters, I've read that.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:43

One of the chapters was Don Haskins in El Paso and I got mentioned in that book, not by name, but I, you know, I'd lost My job at utep.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:50

It's a long and sad story, but I wrote.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:52

When I was trying to write the Irish basketball book, Patty on the hardwood, I wrote to Alex Wolf and he was so nice to me.

Aisha Foy: 01:03:59

I didn't realize at the time, like, he's a real icon in basketball writers.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:02

It'd be like, you know, writing to Bob Knight and Bob Knight calling you and you know.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:06

And so Alex got very involved in the early part of my career and was very encouraging to me because I think he saw the.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:15

In.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:15

In fact, he had me apply for the Vermont Frost heaves job at the.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:19

The old ABA when he took over that team.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:22

I didn't get the job, but I was flattered that he asked me to apply.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:25

But yeah, that.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:26

That book had.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:27

Alex Wolf had a huge influence on me.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:29

And I still say that Big game Small world is one of the great basketball books ever written and still do.

Mike Cleansing: 01:04:35

My shoelaces, based on the in your face basketball book.

Mike Cleansing: 01:04:38

They had different ways you can lace up your shoes.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:40

Well, just.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:41

Just don't do the one I remember they had.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:42

They had.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:42

They had like sort of do's and don'ts.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:44

Like don't go to the.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:45

Don't go to the playground with these black socks.

Mike Cleansing: 01:04:47

Yeah, exactly.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:49

That kind of thing.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:49

Yeah, he's a wonderful person.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:51

He has, he has the.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:52

He has the.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:53

The Obama basketball book called the Audacity of hoop.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:57

But I think he's a really.

Aisha Foy: 01:04:58

Not only is he a brilliant person, he's a really nice and decent.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:01

Yeah, I think you learn a lot about people by, you know, he never talked down to me.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:06

He's a much better writer than I'll ever be.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:07

And he's never done anything but encourage me.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:09

In fact, he interviewed me before the.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:11

The hoops IQ site that just came out a few days ago.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:15

So.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:15

Yeah, I'm a big.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:16

I'm a big Alexander Wolf fan.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:18

It's funny, I don't have that book anymore.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:19

I loaned it out, the one you mentioned, the in your face basketball book.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:22

But, but, you know, I think, you know, keep.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:25

And I would say this to your listeners too, especially the young ones, is you don't have to play in the NBA or be a famous coach to be involved in the game.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:32

You know, there, there's.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:34

There's a lot of ways to stay involved in the game and not like tomorrow night I'll do the television for the New Mexico State home game.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:41

The color analyst, meaning.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:43

I don't say that much.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:44

I just say, boy, he should point.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:47

But.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:48

But there's ways to stay involved in the game.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:49

And you don't have to be Michael Jordan or Steve Kerr to, you know, just to stay involved in the game.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:56

That's true.

Mike Cleansing: 01:05:56

You can write or you can have a silly podcast like this.

Mike Cleansing: 01:05:59

Right.

Aisha Foy: 01:05:59

There's lots of different ways you'll be an agent or a trainer or, you know, or, you know, there's a lot of different ways.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:05

Even scorekeeper or that.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:07

There's a lot of ways to be around the game.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:09

And for me, I could not envision.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:11

I.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:11

I don't know if you were the same way, Mike.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:13

I could not envision a regular job.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:15

I thought with coaching basketball as a way to stay.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:18

It was never felt like a job to me.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:20

I never once thought, oh, this crap again.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:23

It was.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:24

Now there's a lot of hours and it was exhausting.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:25

But I never want it.

Aisha Foy: 01:06:26

Never once felt like work to me.

Mike Cleansing: 01:06:29

Yeah, I mean, basketball, anything that I've ever done with the game, I always say that one.

Mike Cleansing: 01:06:35

It's.

Mike Cleansing: 01:06:35

It's what so much of, you know, you mentioned earlier just how many people that you know through the game.

Mike Cleansing: 01:06:40

And I would say that when I look at what the game of basketball has given me in my life, there's no possible way I could ever repay the game for what it's given me.

Mike Cleansing: 01:06:49

And.