Denny McDonnell is entering his third season as a Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach at D3 Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. McDonnell's extensive coaching career includes serving as the boy's assistant coach at North High School in Des Moines, Iowa and the girls' basketball coach at Valley High School in West Des Moines. He is also the founder of the 4VLegacy development basketball program in Central Iowa, a program dedicated to offering private instructional basketball skill development for young athletes aged 8-18.

On this episode Mike & Denny discuss the challenges and rewards of coaching at both high school and college levels, particularly the significance of fostering authentic relationships with players to cultivate leadership and resilience. McDonnell shares insights into the evolution of player development and the critical role of effective communication in enhancing team culture.

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You’ll want to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Denny McDonnell, Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach at Simpson College and the founder of the 4VLegacy Basketball Development Program.

Website - https://simpsonathletics.com/sports/mbkb/index https://www.4vlegacy.com/

Email - [email protected]

Instagram - @4vlegacy/

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Benny McDonald is entering his third season as a men's basketball assistant coach at D3 Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.

McDonald's extensive coaching career includes serving as the boys assistant coach at North High School in Des Moines, Iowa and the girls basketball coach at Valley High School in West Des Moines.

He is also the founder of the 4V Legacy Development basketball Program in Central Iowa, a program dedicated to offering private instructional basketball skill development for young athletes age 8 to 18.

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You'll want to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Denny McDonnell, men's basketball assistant coach at Simpson College and the founder of the 4V Legacy basketball development Program.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.

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

But I am pleased to be joined by Denny McDonnell, assistant men's basketball coach at Simpson College and also the founder of 4V Legacy, a basketball training program.

Danny, welcome to the Hoop Heads pod.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me here.

I'm really excited and you know, at 57 years old, I got a lot to talk about, so we may have to cram this in.

That's good.

Hey, listen, the more you talk, the less I have to talk.

So I always say never apologize for the stories that you tell and all the things that you have to share because the more you talk, the less I have to talk.

So have at it.

When we start going into the conversation, I want to start, Danny, by going back in time to when you were a kid.

Tell me a little bit about your first experiences with the game of basketball.

Who introduced you to it?

What do you remember from early on?

Well, I think again, this is what's fun about, about the game and how much that it starts as a family.

So my first coach was my dad and you know, third, fourth grade, you're going through all of that.

So the big thing, I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, so the big thing at that time was we didn't have AAU at that time.

I'm a thousand years old.

And so then when I get to.

You were playing YMCA ball.

And then you get an opportunity to get recruited to play in the small fry league.

So it's through the Salvation Army, Lincoln, Nebraska, you have to be under 5:1 to play.

And it cuts at seventh grade.

So like fifth, sixth and like I was never going to run out of time in terms of my height.

Like I'm a whopping 57 on a great day.

So that was the first experience, real experience.

That's the whole uniform, that's the scoreboard, that's the clock.

So I, I had opportunity to play for the, the trophy shop was the name of it.

It was a great league.

A lot of my friends played on different teams I went to high school with.

So yeah, that was just a great experience.

So again, five foot one up to seventh grade, if you were over five one, couldn't play.

So then when you went to eighth grade, then you could play big fry, which was 10 foot hoops and like whatever.

So it's pretty interesting setup.

But to go from the YMC where you have the T shirt and now you have an actual like you Got jerseys, you got names on the back.

Like that was pretty special at that time.

The stuff that kids get an opportunity to expose themselves to now is substantially different than what we.

I didn't have a highlight film ever.

No, you did not.

And you weren't traveling all over the world either to be able to play all these games you're playing in your local community.

What was it like?

Just the.

I don't even want to say necessarily pick up basketball scene.

But how was your childhood upbringing with sports and basketball in particular different from some of the kids that both you coach at the college level now and that you work with in your private training business?

Well, the amount of games and we could talk about this is a whole different deal.

But the amount of games that kids play now is substantially different to how it was then.

So we didn't have an AAU program at that time.

I have to correct her on that.

So it, it was, it was fun to be able to work through some of that.

And it was open gyms, like through your high school.

I went to linmar, which is 4A school, 5A depending on what sport.

In Cedar Rapids.

We moved there.

As I said, I grew up in Lincoln, so we moved there.

And then my sophomore and I ended up graduating there.

But so it was three on three league in the summer, anywhere you could sneak in.

Like there was a YMCA that always forgot to lock the back door.

So.

And no air.

So we're talking it's like dead of summer, 85 degrees and I'm in with the ball shooting.

And that was the extent of it.

You know, you didn't have a lot of people that specified sport wise people played all sports at that time.

Right.

So you really didn't have like you had a basketball season, you had baseball, you had football.

It wasn't like it is now where things go year round and you just have to decide on where you're at.

So it took an awful lot of time.

And not being blessed with a ton of size, I had to work pretty hard in order to be able to participate.

So, you know, I had had a really enjoyable time in high school.

I was probably a six man at Lynmar.

But again, like the guys that we played with, I had two guys that were football, high school, all Americans in front of me.

So like I was playing against practice was, was pretty big time for me because I didn't really have an opportunity as much as I would have liked in high school.

So what's your favorite memory?

What's your favorite memory from being a high school basketball player?

I think probably would be this.

So my junior year, we had a coaching change, and the coach that I really, really enjoyed, Bob Landis, was there for a substantial amount of time and just was a really great man and a great mentor and a great teacher of the game.

And so it's my senior year, and we're playing.

I think it was Cedar Rapids Prairie, which was kind of a rival at that time.

And so we got done.

We ended up winning.

I ended up hitting free throws at the end to end up sealing it.

And so I got interviewed by coach Landis at the end.

He was doing the radio broadcast at that time, since he was.

Stepped away from the game.

And he was always kind of a character, so I kind of gave it back to him a little bit.

So afterwards, the game was great, and we ended up winning, and it hits free throws.

That was great.

But so I.

He was talking to me and he said, you know, you know, Denny, I know that you shoot about a thousand free throws a day.

And I was like, well, coach, I don't think I've ever shot a thousand free throws, but thank you.

And he said, I. I know that I saw that you went five for six, but you missed one.

And I said, yeah, you know, I looked down at my shoes and couldn't remember why I wore those.

So it kind of threw me off.

So he kind of looked at me like, are you being serious right now?

I was like, no, I'm not being serious.

So, you know, that's just a little bit of a quirky story, but there's nothing better.

And I'm sure it's the same today, right?

The camaraderie with the guys being able to bus trips.

You know, there were all sorts of things that at that time, you know, before we had social media and phones and cameras and all of that, you know, there.

There were some interesting times that were.

Were fun on bus trips.

But as we.

As I transitioned into college and I got a chance to play at Buena Vista in Storm Lake, That's a Division 3 school here in Iowa.

And so that is sort of where my.

My basketball career took off.

I had always.

It always been a dream that I wanted to play in college.

We met with our coach, who was, again, a great teacher and mentor.

Jeff Spielman was the head coach at Buena Vista at that time.

And I saw my dad had scheduled a Visit, you know, so we got in and we did the whole admissions thing.

And, you know, I'm not at that time, like, unless you're pretty big or you're well known.

And in Northwest Iowa, I'm from the other side of the state, so, like, you don't get a lot of game film.

You don't have crossover.

So we just show up and.

And, you know, coach asked me, you know, hey, did you get in last night?

And I got in for like two or three minutes.

It wasn't a great.

It was kind of one of those games where things didn't go well and I just didn't get in much.

So I had to then sit across from this college coach and tell him I played about three minutes last night.

And so luckily, my father, who was always the protector, was like, you know, I just want you to understand that, you know, Denny doesn't have a lot of natural stuff, but he'll work harder than most guys that you'll ever have on the team.

And so his comment was, you can come out as a freshman.

You know, we won't cut you as a freshman.

And then it depends on where you go from there.

So my freshman year was at a Division 3 school, northwest Iowa.

So it was kind of interesting because you're playing against a lot of guys that have a lot of acolytes in.

In high school.

Like, you've had 2,000 point scores.

And I'm not minimizing that.

Like, that's an accomplishment, but being against the people that I played against in practice every day, you know, as I transitioned it, it was like, I can.

This isn't that bad.

Like, I can handle this.

And so again, it was through a lot of preparation.

I played a little bit my junior year, and then I started every game as a senior and was all conference.

But during that time, I think that's where especially you didn't have Capital City League, which is a.

A league that we have here in Des Moines, where a lot of college players will play in the summer.

It's more pickup than anything, but we didn't have that stuff.

So I was five days in a weight room, you know, probably three days shooting, which again today, like, you can find a gym anywhere nowadays at that time.

Like, you either had to go pay to get into the Y, and then you were fighting, like, guys that were your dad's age.

So, like, that wasn't always the best.

And then it was the local high school.

And so that's.

That's about what we had.

So when I'M working with players today that are high school or younger.

We have to talk an awful lot about transitioning.

And so all of the specialized work that we do is great.

But if none of that transfers to a game like that's, you're.

You're throwing money into the wind.

So we.

I've spent an awful lot of time on that because as I was playing, you know, there were certain things in my role as a point guard that I knew I had to be good at.

And so those were the things I spent time on.

I didn't have YouTube videos to teach me.

I didn't have an opportunity to go to Instagram and see what kind of things people are working on.

So it was old fashioned.

In the gym, you're going to play pickup a couple times a week and then you start to realize, okay, I'm not very good here.

These are the things I need to work on for the next level.

So all of that prep time, those summer seasons are just so important.

And I think that's probably why I enjoy the summer so much in that I get a chance to work with kids all the time and I have kids that are.

We'll get to that later.

But I have 8 year olds on up to, you know, guys in college and guys that are playing overseas.

But it was summer.

Summer is the time where you got better.

And so everybody goes to practice during the season.

You're not going to outwork anybody typically in the season, unless you're getting extra shots up.

But I had to spend all my time in the summer doing those things.

And that was not anything anybody had to motivate me to do.

You know, guys like you and I and Jacob, like, we just love the game.

Like, you didn't have to talk me into going to an open gym.

If there was a gym somewhere and somebody wanted to play, you know, I was in because those summers were the time that made a difference.

Scientific were you as far as what you did drill wise, when you're in the gym by yourself?

I always say that when I was, from the time probably I was, let's say 14 or 15 until my college career ended at 22, I basically did the same two workouts.

I had a workout that I did if it was me by myself in the gym.

Yeah.

And I had a workout that if I was lucky enough to have somebody that wanted to shoot with me or play one on one, I had a thing that I did with a partner and pretty much without very much variance at all, that was what I did.

And I'M sure I got really good at those drills and those shots that I worked on all the time.

But to your point about does that translate to games?

I mean, I'm sure it did, obviously, to some degree.

But by the same token, I look now at all the innovation and just the different ways that we have of working on our game and working with players and all that kind of thing.

And I just think back to how, I don't know if unscientific I was, but it was.

I had a plan, but the plan never changed from no.

1 Day to the next to the year to the next to that.

So I just don't know.

How did you organize how you tried to improve yourself when you're in the gym all alone back when you were a.

Back when you were a college player?

Well, and again, this translates from high school too.

So I was not a great shooter.

I shared the ball well.

I played defense.

I got people the ball at the right places.

Like I did all of those little things.

I just didn't shoot it real well.

And so I can remember the old Steve Alford sitting the ball on the folding chair around the outside, you know, time after time in this gym.

That is God awful hot.

And.

But that, I mean, those were the things that I did.

And so, you know, it basic stuff like we had to make two in a row from here, we got to make three in a row from here.

So when you look at the differences now and all of the finishing things, like we, I didn't have any of that.

Like we didn't know that we didn't play off two feet.

Like that wasn't even on the radar.

Right.

I was watching Dr. J dunk on people and Larry Bird just make people look silly.

So, like, I didn't have a lot of those skills, so I had to work on some of those things individually.

From a ball handling standpoint, that was always something that was fairly natural to me.

And I think that's just because you're short your whole life.

You grew up with a ball in your hands.

You know, you're not the post guy that has to touch it from somebody throwing it to you.

It was inbounded to me.

So I think that was a little bit of why I, I was fairly good, you know, handling the ball and doing things that way.

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

And again, it's just interesting how different things are today versus how they were when you and I were kids and trying to grow up and improve as a player.

Just completely, completely different.

I look at my Son who's a college player now, and I think about the number of pickup games that he's played in compared to the number of pickup games I had played in by the time I was 20.

It's ridiculous.

And, and in so many ways, not his fault, quote, unquote.

Because there just aren't, there just aren't games.

Those games that I played in all the time with high level high school college players, adults, those games just don't exist anymore.

And a lot of those games for me were outside, which I'm sure you could relate to that too, that, you know, now you look at top level high school players, do those guys ever play outside?

Like, I think about going to five star when I was going into my senior year and playing on the converted tennis courts at Robert morris and it's 95 degrees and it's the sun and you're playing shirts and skins and all this stuff.

And you know, the week I was, the week I was there, Billy Owens, who went to Syracuse and was from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Billy Owens was the big name guy the week I was there.

And I think, you know, he was probably a top five player in the country that year.

And you know, now you think about one of these guys that got drafted last night.

Could you see them in the current iteration of things out on the, out on these converted tennis courts, playing on asphalt and whatever.

It's just again, a completely different world from the one you and I grew up in, for sure.

That whole evolution of how we went to.

And again, it's the birth and the growth of the aau, which we all know, and that's a separate topic, I think, you know, when I look at the opportunities when I go to practices and whether it's I'm recruiting kids or, you know, whatever I'm doing and I'm there watching and it's very bland.

Like it is sort of a little bit of a drill.

You might go through some sets, you know, again, nobody's running sets hardly in aau.

It's first, it's passing and jack, but occasionally you get an out of balance play.

But like it's all drill and development driven, which is substantially different because then when we got in the gym and we could have our, our coaches work with us, like that was two hours and you maybe got 15 to maybe 20 minutes of scrimmage in that time.

Everything else was very scripted in terms of what we were working on.

And it was, there was an intensity in that.

And so I think sometimes that's a little bit what has changed is the intensity at practice isn't quite what it used to be, because you're going to play three games tomorrow on Saturday.

So we're going to get through practice because we got three games tomorrow.

So it's a, It's a little bit of a shift there.

But again, like, that's just the landscape of things, right?

That's how, how things have evolved.

And, you know, there's good in it and there.

There's bad in it.

And I, I get asked that.

One of the questions I get asked a lot, and it always happens around March, is I get in Des Moines, where I'm at in Iowa, we have, you know, four or five pretty solid AAU programs.

And I get the same question all the time is, where should I go play?

Or which program should I go to?

And I always say the same thing.

Who's your coach?

Because if it's the guy that raises his hand that, you know, didn't quite get enough playing time in high school, you can see those guys on the sideline, that, that's easy to spot.

So I, I think those are, that's some of the things that I, I, you know, I coached in that, in that world for a bit and from a.

An old school and kind of a purist.

Like, some of those things just are hard to sift through.

And so, you know, I just think that the intensity that you bring in practice is going to carry over into games.

And I, and we all know that that's a proven fact.

Convincing players that that needs to happen is sometimes a little bit of a challenge.

There's no doubt about that.

I love your answer about, hey, it's.

It's all about the coach.

That's the same answer that I give people when they ask me.

They're like, should I be in this program?

Should I be in that program?

My answer is always, look, you can be in the best program and unfortunately, get the one coach in that program that isn't doing a good job and you're going to have a terrible experience.

Conversely, you could be in an organization that maybe isn't that great, but if you have a great coach, you're going to have a great experience.

And I tell people all the time, you have to go and ask questions, and if you can go and watch that coach do something, watch them coach something where you can at least see them and get a feel for who they are.

And even then, you can make mistakes as far as what you do there.

But by the same token, I do think that the ultimate factor in Whether or not your A.

AU experience is a good one is who's the coach.

And that determines again, what do your practices look like?

Are they about development?

That determines how you get playing time.

That determines are you running it like a real team or are you running the.

Let's fight over who gets to get the ball when it comes out of bounds and go down, dribble down the floor and shoot it.

And so all the things that we all know can be challenges with aau, all those things can be mitigated if you have a good coach and then you can have a tremendous experience.

And there's so many good programs and good coaches out there and yet there's also some that.

That unfortunately don't do those things and people sometimes get stuck.

I always say that parent education is a huge part of making sure that your kids experience is a good one.

And that's really hard to do because parents look us as coaches, right?

We get to go through this stuff all the time with multitudes of players.

And so we have an idea of understanding the landscape.

And yet I could honestly say that it's not always easy for me to get it right.

And I kind of know what I'm doing and navigating.

Right.

And so.

Yeah, exactly.

And so for a parent who has to go through it only once or twice, and especially if it's your first time through, you don't know where all those landmines are and you're trying to figure it out and you hear this and that you're seeing this on social media and this other mom or dad is talking to you and your kids hearing these things and before you know it, there's just.

Your whole mind is scrambled and you're trying to figure it out.

And, and I just think that your advice that you said there of just find the right coach, that's the best bet to.

To getting to the right program.

And if you can do that, you'll probably end up with a pretty good experience.

But it's not easy to do for sure.

Well, and, and you know, as I was, I coached my first coaching in an au, is it a program that no longer exists in Des Moines.

But I was blessed with some, some pretty good players and good, good families.

And so you know, again, when you.

When the term good families, I mean they're 99, they're all good families.

But you know, we always think our kid is better than anybody else.

I was, my daughter played softball and I had the same gripe.

So like I understand it, having a daughter that was an athlete.

But, you know, one of the things that gets really difficult is when you start looking at, you know, when you have parents that are now stock, that are now talking about another player on the team, right?

And so, like, those are the things right there that, like, that was the hot button for me.

Like, you worry about your kid.

You don't need to talk to me about this kid.

Like, that's not your kid.

Like, stay out of that.

And I had a parent that was.

Was pretty solid.

It had been through it a couple times.

He had.

I think he had two or a daughter and a son.

And then I coached the youngest son, but he had just said, like, you just have to remember, like, you're never going to please them all, and it's okay if they don't like you.

Like, it's okay.

It's okay.

Like, that's going to happen.

So again, as a coach going through that stuff, like, I know what that felt like.

I mean, I knew you could tell the, The.

The look that you got from parents after games.

Like, you could.

You could feel those things.

But so then I stepped away from it.

And then I had a parent come to me.

I had worked with this young man since he was probably third grade, and he was now going to be a freshman.

And so the dad comes to me and says, okay, I need you to coach Jack's team.

Okay?

I put the roster together based on players and parents.

I will book all the tournaments.

You show up for practices twice a week and coach him on the weekends, and I'll do all the rest.

And then he threw a bunch of money at me.

So then I was like, okay, all right, I'll go one more time.

And so again, at the parent meeting, I was like, here's the deal.

Like, I. I'm going to be upfront about this.

At that time, I hadn't been in college yet.

So I said, I'm coaching this like a high school team, and you're going to play defense.

And if that's not okay, like, we're not, then don't be on this team because I'm going to yell at you if you don't play defense.

This isn't like a lot of these other programs have been run.

And so we had.

We went to our first tournament, and we're.

I think we were one in three, first time we'd ever played together.

And so then as we evolved, we ended up winning our last.

We went 20 and one and won our last four tournaments.

And again, that's not brilliant coaching.

That is just getting kids that understand what we're trying to do.

And it's in their character because the guy that put this team together was very wise in who he had selected.

So it was guys that really fit together and all really enjoyed playing.

I didn't have any superstars on the team, not one.

They just all understood that, like, this is the defensive scheme.

We're running and we're pushing everything baseline.

You're icing every ball screen, and that's what we're doing.

And then we're going to get out and run.

So we were fortunate enough to have that go.

So that lasted for two years.

And then it got to the point where now you have those guys that are.

Were basketball players in the summer are now playing seven on seven football.

Now you have guys that were freshmen that are now juniors and seniors that are playing baseball in Iowa.

I don't know if you know this, but I think we're the only state in the union that has baseball and softball in the summer, not during any other time of the year.

May is when it starts, and it goes all the way through July.

So anytime you have baseball and.

And for the women's program, you got softball, the same thing, right?

So you have varsity sports they're committed to, and now you're trying to take tournaments and get together, and then you've got your high school team.

You're trying to go to team camps.

Like, all of that stuff sort of muddled.

So that, that I was sad because that was the team I really enjoyed coaching.

But so that, that was the AU experience.

And, and you know, again, as you look at, you know, everybody wants to talk about referees.

I always have a referee come to a camp that I do and have them talk and have kids ask questions.

There is nothing better than a fourth grader asking an AAU official why they don't call files the same at the end of the day as they do the beginning.

You have fourth grade, and so, you know, we had questions like that, and then we had questions like, how much do you guys get paid?

And so, like, I had to sort of, you know, meander away from some of those things, but I think that is one of the things that.

And it's difficult because, you know, as we talk about a referee's perspective, right, they're.

They're per game and they're there all day.

And so.

And they never get a break, right?

They're always going to get.

They always get something wrong in, in somebody's mind.

And so I always had them come Because I wanted them to under kids to understand, like, these are people.

Like, these are people.

Yes, they're referees, but they're people.

And so that's been one thing that I've.

I've really enjoyed and I've continued to do in all the camps that I do is I have at least one come in and talk about, you know, and then, then it's, we spend to the conversation of how is refereeing in AAU different than high school and college?

And so again, I think the best answer I ever got on that is, do you want to.

Do your parents want to show up to a free throw contest?

Because that's what it's going to end up being.

And, you know, so some of those things have been really, really helpful.

But I think again, that whole, that whole AAU landscape is, is I, I just wish we would get away from all of the titles.

Like, there's a.

There's a program in town that has four different elite programs at the same grade level.

You have elite Red, Elite Gray, Elite Black.

Like, you know, and so now parents can say, well, he's on the elite, you know, whatever.

Like, well, do we care about what the name is anymore?

Can we just worry about getting better?

Because that's our number one thing we need to do in this number.

So those are a couple of those things that my AAU experiences that, you know, I, I enjoyed it because, you know, everything's fast paced and if there's a bad game, you get a chance to scratch it and make a new one.

I think that's great for players as well, you know, and in the, in the game these days, right, Mental toughness means how quick can you forget?

And nothing does that better than having to play three games in one day.

So there's value in there to some degree for sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I do think that that ability to bounce back, I know that's one of the things that when I first started coaching, so back right when my playing career ended and I started coaching, one of the things I had the really, a really hard time adjusting to was players that would lose a game and then they'd be on the bus 15 minutes later and laughing and put the game behind them.

And I couldn't, I could not relate to that mentality in any way, shape or form.

Like, I just didn't, I just didn't understand it at all at the time.

And as time goes on, you realize that, well, it's not the way that I would handle it, but it might be mentally more healthy.

To be able to, to move on.

Now, again, there's.

At some point you have to go back and reflect and do all the things to be able to prepare and get yourself ready to go in the next game.

But it's not necessary for every single person on your team to be brooding for the next 36 hours about the game that you just lost.

I'm not sure how healthy, how healthy that was or that is for anybody, but again, it's just interesting.

Generationally, it's different.

There's a whole lot of things that kind of go into that, but I did have a hard time adjusting to that.

And that is one thing, I think, with aau, that you have to be able to play and the game's over and good or bad, you have to put it behind you because there's another game coming up.

And I know that sometimes coaches, we think that maybe that cuts down on the competitiveness, right?

That who cares if I lose this game?

I'm going to Subway for lunch and then we're going to play again at 2 o'.

Clock.

So what's it matter if I win this game at 10?

And I do think that kids who are competitive are competitive and those that aren't.

Yes, probably aren't, regardless of the situation.

I do think maybe when we, you and I were kids, we were in more competitive situations just because, again, we were playing backyard football or we were playing running bases, or we were playing whatever, whatever it was.

I think there was just more opportunities to compete without parents around, without adults around.

And you kind of learned what it was like to compete just against other kids without people watching.

Yeah.

And nowadays kids never play like that, or rarely anyway.

They're always playing with a scoreboard and a parent and a coach and a referee and all those kinds of things.

So again, it's just interesting how the world of basketball and sports in general have changed for kids since the time when you and I are growing up in the 70s and 80s versus kids that are growing up today.

It's just.

It's just a completely different world.

So let me circle back to when you're in college and just sort of your thought process in terms of while you were playing, was there a thought that, hey, at some point I want to get into coaching?

Were you strictly focused on being a player?

When did the idea of, hey, maybe at some point along the line in my life I want to be a coach?

When did that kind of cross over your mind and when did you start thinking about it?

I think, you know, and again, like it's not positional, but like, as.

As a point guard.

And I had to play because cerebral, because I didn't have all of the other tools that a lot of guys had.

And so I think out thinking things and understanding where we have an advantage was something that I was able to pick up.

I had an opportunity after I'd graduated, an opportunity to be the assistant coach at Buena Vista and head jv.

And I chose a business path.

So I was in business for 20 years.

I was a district sales manager for a retailer.

Didn't get back into coaching.

40 Years old is when I started back coaching.

And it was always sort of in the back of my head that I'm gonna.

I know at some point in time this is gonna happen.

And so the opportunity came about.

I just turned 40, and, you know, that was sort of where I had the opportunity.

Des Moines north, in the metro is one of the schools that's like 95% free and reduced lunch.

And so I got connected with the head coach there, Coach Chad Ryan, who's the athletic director there now, but was a great guy and understood the landscape of where he was coaching.

And I just really gravitated towards that.

And so not only working with kids that wanted to get better at basketball, but kids that maybe didn't have it as well as I did growing up.

And so those things for me, that North High experience was really meaningful for me in terms of not just the coaching, but understanding people.

And I think when you combine that from a business background to dealing with kids that don't have necessarily all the same things, you know, I've had a heart for kids and a heart for coaching.

You don't always get both of those things.

I'm lucky that way.

You might get one or the other, but I. I was fortunate enough to have both.

So I was two different stints as an assistant at Des Moines North.

But I think that that's where I was like, okay, this.

This is going to be it from now on.

So you felt like it was the connection with the kids as much as it was obviously the basketball piece of it probably is what first draws you back.

Right.

I want to get back involved in the game.

But then once you're there, it was the connection with the kids, is what I hear you saying.

So it was interesting because as I got involved with them, I did a summer camp thing with them, and they had an opp.

A volunteer assistant job.

So I took the volunteer one.

I was going to get my master's at that time, so it worked out well, so then as things start to progress, they have an opening for.

It was basically a para, right?

Like it was, it was really meaningful to be able to work with kids that really struggled in the classroom and then how those things transfer over and the, the number of stories and, and things that you went through with high school players at that time which are different than what suburban kids would go through.

And you know that was, that was eye opening number one.

But number two, that is sort of where I, I realized from not just a coaching standpoint, but from an individual standpoint, you know, there's kids that I have scheduled workouts with that we don't work out because they've had something tough going on.

And we spent an hour talking about what's going on.

And so those things, like those are very meaningful and those fill my buckets.

Just with the age that I have and being a dad, you can sort of be a little bit of that father figure in some of those scenarios.

We went from the second year, the first year I was there, that was the first year that we had won, that North High School had won double digit, had double digit wins.

It was really not a great program.

And so we had about three or four kids that really loved to play.

And so we were opening a gym all the time.

And so by the time then that they got to be seniors, we were about two points away from the state tournament, which I think we would have had a really good shot at winning it.

But all of that development and so what's hard now in today's world where everything is self gratification, like if you have a team that just wins 10 games and that's really good for you, like those kids, if you're a good player, you're, you're probably looking to transfer.

Like you're probably thinking where else can I go?

And so again at that time, I mean that's 20, 11, 12, 13, right around in there, like those scenarios, you didn't have any of that stuff.

So like you just kept working.

And so to be able to see kids mature not only as basketball players, but as people and being able to graduate and being the first kid in their, in their family to graduate high school, like some of those things are very real and it is not a scenario.

This is one of the things that I always struggled with as I was coaching in that community is that people had always thought like that parents weren't involved and, and that couldn't be more.

I mean, I'm sure that's true in some situations, but I had a father, single dad.

He had three boys, and he worked 65 hours a week as a line cook.

So, like, yeah, he wasn't home a lot, but you know what, he was paying his mortgage, he was making sure his food, his kids had food on the table.

And so he was as great a parent as you could get, but you didn't see him except for games.

So being able to sort of plug some of those gaps were things that.

That I really enjoyed there.

That was.

That was a pretty big experience, not just from a basketball perspective, but from a life perspective for me.

I do think that this is something that I've said repeatedly on the podcast, Denny, that what I love about basketball and what I love about the coaching, no matter what, how.

No matter how you define coaching, whether you're talking about coaching a high school team, whether you're talking about coaching in college, whether you're talking about working with players at camp, whether you're talking about training one on one, whatever it is that you're doing right, that you get to use the game of basketball as the vehicle to be able to do and impart some of those lessons that you're talking about, or to be able to have an impact on some kids who maybe don't have as many other people in their life impacting them in a positive way.

And there's not very many people, professions that have the opportunity to use something that they love to be able to do that.

And I always think, again, that that's just such a privilege to be able to use the game as a coach, again, however you want to define coach, but to be able to then utilize the game of basketball, to be able to have an impact on.

On the young people that you're in front of every single day.

And to me, there's nothing.

There's nothing more valuable than that that we can do.

So when you think about your experiences at the high school level and you've had varied experiences and you've been with both the boys and the girls, what do you think as you look back on your time as an assistant coach at the high school level, what makes for a good high school assistant coach over your experiences, both from what you learned yourself, but also what you saw from other assistants in the programs that you worked with, what is a good assistant coach at the high school level look like?

Well, I will tell you this.

You don't really figure it out until you're a head coach because then it's really easy to define.

So I had, I was four years at two different high schools as a high school coach.

And so as you are now in charge and you're picking, you know, staff and those types of things, I think that as I was younger, I think that you maybe don't understand what exactly a head coach needs because I think sometimes it's difficult to verbalize and everybody's strengths are different.

You know, I, from a, a college standpoint, synergy drove me nuts.

Like, I had the worst time figuring out how to dissect film, how to do all of that stuff.

So, like, there's some of those things that you have to work through.

But I think, you know, above anything else, when I think about Coach Jones.

Kyle Jones is our head coach at Simsa College in Indianola.

You know, he, he is very good at understanding what you're good at, and then those are the things that he asks you to do.

And so you again, and being older and managing a business and being a head coach, you start seeing things like, okay, you need to anticipate, like, I need to know things or do things before he's asking me to do them.

And so, you know, one of the things that I've been blessed with is, and my daughter says this all the time, that Even though you're 57, you still speak teenager.

And so being able to connect with some of those kids in that level has made a really big difference.

But again, we had a kid that was from Australia.

And so for spring break, you know, what's a kid from Australia do for spring break in Iowa?

And so I remember going to, to Kyle, our head coach.

I was like, what are we doing with, with him over spring break?

He's like, what do you mean?

I'm like, well, I'm sure he's not going home.

Like, are we at it?

Like, is anybody going to be around?

They can hang out with him and.

Last thing you want to do is leave an Australian kid by himself all week spring break.

So just little things, almost more personnel things is sort of a little bit of, of where I, I'm.

I'm good at those things.

And the X's and O's things that all comes up and it's fluid.

And, you know, those are things that I think you can work through.

But the people part of it, I think is the most important because it doesn't matter what you draw up.

If you don't have kids that are bought in or understand or understand not only Just what to do, but why they're doing it.

I think those are things that I can help fill in those gaps a little bit.

So those are things that, like, as practice is going on, I'm in the ear of somebody talking about this, right?

Or we're pulling them over, and I can tell them that practicing.

Well, I can remember swatting a kid on the butt, being like, what's your deal today?

And so he's like, what are you talking about?

And I'm like, this is like 50% of what you normally give.

So.

And I can say that because we have the relationship, and he knows I'm not picking at him.

I'm talking about behavior.

I'm not saying you're not a good dude.

We're talking about behavior.

So those kind of things, I think are.

Are meaningful and helpful, but I think being able to anticipate things that, you know, from a head coach perspective now and even in the college, from a fundraising to all of the meetings and in addition to the recruiting and like, there's just so much that they have to take.

I've tried to be a little bit more proactive in seeing things before they happen.

So then those are things maybe we can cut off.

And that makes sense.

Right.

As you get more experience, you're able to see what those things are.

And as you said, when you're a head coach,.

You.

You become.

It becomes clear, right.

The things that you need from your assistant.

Because all of a sudden, all these things are coming at you from different directions.

And I love how you talked about not necessarily all basketball stuff.

Right.

There's a lot of things that have to get done that have nothing to do with coaching basketball.

And a good assistant is going to try to grab some of those things or cut them off at the pass so that maybe they never even get to the head coach's desk.

Oh, yeah, Coach, I already took care of that.

And that has to happen through, as you said, experience and anticipation and being able to understand what it is that you can do to make your head coach's job easier, which I think always is, if you want to give, like, a blanket statement that I've heard over and over again.

You have, like, the loyalty piece of an assistant coach, and then you have the.

Then you have the.

Do what it takes to help your program, whatever that looks like.

Yeah, there's a job description.

There's things that you're asked to do, but then there's things that you have to figure out, like, hey, what?

Where can I add value here without being asked.

And I think that's what.

That's ultimately what the best assistant coaches end up doing.

Let me jump over.

Before we get to the transition for you from high school to college and how that opportunity came to you, let's bring in the 4V legacy stuff.

When do you get started with that?

How were you doing it, the training informally first, and then you're like, hey, this is starting to become something.

Now I got to put it together on a more formal basis.

Just give me the genesis for how that business started.

So.

And again, it was a side hustle.

So it was a deal at the local gym that I worked out at all the time I did a camp there with them because they'd never done anything like that.

And I was coaching high school.

I was an assistant at that time.

And so then I.

That started picking up a little bit.

And so the number one thing that all trainers will tell you is that if you don't have your own gym, it's a struggle.

And so I didn't have my own gym, so I was always reliant on where can I get space, where can I coordinate the schedules, those types of things.

I started doing it just sort of on the side.

2021, My dad gets sick, and so he ends up passing.

My dad grew up on a ranch in Gordon, Nebraska.

Spent the summers there.

And our family brand for cattle was four V Bar.

So it was the four and the V and the bar.

So everything was connected.

Right?

And so I can remember talking with him as he was in the hospital.

And so he.

We started talking about it, and.

And so we came up with the name of 4B Legacy.

And so he had passed, and so that's where the name came from.

So I get questions all the time, like, what are the four V's?

Yeah, there aren't.

There aren't any four V's.

It's our family brand, and it's based off of my dad and.

And how he treated people and just how he lived his life.

So it's.

It's paying homage to.

To who he is.

So it starts small, just like, you know, everybody does, and everybody has dreams.

You're going to build a gym.

And so then I find a spot.

I've got plans drawn up.

I've got the land Covid hits.

Now my $1.2 million building is 3.6.

And at 50.

Whatever years old I was at that time, I'm not taking that on because I don't want to train 60 hours a week to be able to break even.

So we pulled the plug on all of that and so then I've sort of made the rounds.

I've worked with several AAU programs that are in the area, done skills camps with a lot of those and then currently I'm working out of the Walkie Jam.

It's an AAU program based out of Waukee, Iowa and the owner has just been very gracious to me and so I rent the gym space there.

And so I've got north of about 60 players right now that I would work with individually.

And, and so it's been interesting how the evolution comes because as you're planning workouts for now an 8 year old kid and now you're doing it for a junior in college.

So again you have to dig into that stuff a little bit.

But now with YouTube and Instagram and all of the things that you can dig into, you look at what the kids deficiencies are and then you figure out how you can still keep that fun, you can still keep that positive for that 8 year old kid.

But then you're going to work a little differently with those kids that you have in college.

Some of the, like I've got four, I think they're, I think they're between third and sixth grade, but I've got four of them.

They're like almost every Saturday at 9:00 clock in the morning and they think this is just the greatest thing they've ever done in their life.

So like you couldn't start a Saturday.

Like I'll usually go like 8 to noon during that time and so usually I start with them.

And so those things are fantastic.

Just because it's.

You now just made a left handed layup and this girl's jumping up and down screaming like it's the best thing that's ever happened.

So you know, there's a little bit of an adjustment when it comes to the age.

But then it got to the point where now I have, you know, a lot of high school kids and I've got kids that are playing college elsewhere that that will work out with me.

And I think it's because a lot of what I've done is just taken from what I've learned as a player and then as a coach and then we just talk about that stuff like you don't need 16 different moves and 32 dribbles at the top to be able to make something happen.

And so I've been very scaled down.

We talk balance, balance and shooting balance and defense, balance and finishing.

Everything's two feet.

Like, all of those things that everybody is now talking about.

Like, I've been doing those things because those were things that I had seen really good players are doing.

So you look at Brunson now, and everybody's like, everybody's trying to copy what he does.

Well, he's not fancy.

Like, if you ever watch him, we talk about simple is better all the time.

You know, he's got a counter, he's got a couple things he likes to do, but it's off two feet and it's in the paint.

And.

And those are things that I just consistently help young people with, especially because I didn't have any of that, Right?

And so they're watching Instagram at all of these NBA players that are doing all this stuff that they're never going to be able to do.

And so now we're trying to.

To copy that stuff.

And I'm like, no, no, we don't.

We don't need that.

You need to work on your crossover before we work on anything else.

And then Steph Curry ruined it for all of us, because now everybody wants to shoot threes that have no business shooting threes.

So we have that age group, right, where they're like, you know, anywhere depending on male, female, but you have that 11 that are 8 to 10.

8 To 11.

And so everything's starting over here, and there's a twist, and then we're shooting it from down at our waist.

And so, you know, you have to be very careful on.

On how we critique those things, because those are the things that they're watching, and they're thinking, this is what I'm going to be trained on.

Whereas we have to sort of scale those things back a little bit.

I usually will do two or three camps a year.

I was really excited about this.

The one I just did, it was two or three weeks ago.

Um, we called it Elite Court Experience.

And what I did is I chopped up a whole bunch of synergy stuff.

And so.

And I limited it.

It was supposed to be capped at 10 high school players, male and female.

Well, I ended up taking 12 because I had two that were really good that I knew that would be able to catch up.

And so then the first day was all on finishing.

And so I went through and clipped all kinds of things.

Finishing a spin move, the correct way, the counter, the pro hop, like, all of those things.

So we go over, we watch it on.

I have TV rolled out right on the court.

We're watching what they're doing, watching Caitlin Clark on her step back, you know, whatever.

And so then we go teach it.

And so then they rep it.

And then they have to go against live defense with it, and then they have to go against live defense with a secondary defender.

But the just in in the world we are today on how much everything is video driven for those kids to be able to see that.

And now we go talk about it like, there isn't a high school kid that wasn't there that didn't have a spin move, but if you can't get your foot all the way around, you're going to end up shooting a tough shot.

So we broke down some of those real small micro skills for them to be able to follow.

But that was probably.

We did three days.

So we did one day on finishing, we did one day on shooting, creating space off of your shot.

And the last one, we did all things ball screen.

And that was probably my favorite because you've now teaching high school kids, this is a drop coverage.

Here's what you do.

If they want to blitz you, here's what you do.

If they're going to switch, here's what you do.

So we're watching all that stuff on film, and then they have to read it in their actual live play.

So it was, I think it was more fun.

I mean, it was definitely more fun for me because then I can be like, okay, this isn't Coach Denny saying, this is what you need to do.

This is Jalen Brunson right now doing what I'm telling you to do.

So, and the kids, they just, they loved it.

So then the evaluations that came out of that were very specific because we worked on very specific, specific things.

So I think all of those kids that were at that one really found value in that.

And so I, you know, that'll be one I'll do probably every summer.

And again, it just was, I think, hugely valuable for kids to understand not only just some of the concepts they're watching, but you're hearing a coach, a college coach explain it.

So again, you're getting terminology and you're getting understanding that is going to be a little bit different just because of the level that I get to coach at.

Yeah.

And it's really cool.

I.

The, the ability, right, to use film and to even take it a step further and use film right there on the floor where you can look at it, and then immediately step two steps to your right and be trying to do the things that you've seen on film.

There's A tremendous amount of value in that, without question.

Because again, as you said, kids are watching whatever, whether it's TikTok or YouTube or Reels or wherever, wherever they are, Twitter, wherever they are consuming their content.

Right.

They're seeing all that stuff, but they're not conceptualizing it in the same way that you are as a coach.

And then you can translate that to them so that they can then see, okay, yeah, I'm watching this.

But what are the technical aspects of this that I have to be able to master in order to be able to actually perform this on the floor against a live defense?

Which, going back to what you said earlier, it has to translate what it is that you're doing.

So for you as a trainer, looking at film and prepping that for, whether it's for a group session like you talked about, or for an individual, just tell me, how much film are you going through?

What's your process for looking at film and, and grabbing clips and taking things that you like that you know, you can teach to kids who are obviously not playing in the NBA, but adapting those skills to the various levels of kids that you coach, how much time are you spending with the film?

And, and what does your process look like for, for picking stuff out that's valuable?

Well, and again, like, now that I'm a little more seasoned in it, like synergy just makes things so darn easy.

So like again, I went to, to Brunson, you know, and I went and I looked through all of his two point drive left finishes and so these were the makes and so we click on those and I'd run through them and then we pull those things out.

So I think I had probably, and I didn't do a lot.

It was maybe 10 to 12 clips each day.

So like, we're not watching an hour's worth of film like it is.

They're short snippets and then we're right into it.

So it probably took me, it probably took me six hours to put that all together.

But again, that was the first time I'd ever done that.

And so I was trying to be really picky on what I was taking because, you know, when you're watching Division 1 athletes, they're so good and they're just so athletic and they do things that like, I could teach you, we could talk about this all day long and you're never going to do it and nor am I going to be able to do it or teach it.

So I had to be picky on some of those things that I was like, this is of value because there's not a lot of dribbles.

This is a value because you're playing through contact.

So those types of things are sort of where I looked at it.

And then, you know, when it's shooting stuff, I just pulled out, like, you know, guys that had shot really well from three, right?

And I'm not watching catch and shoot stuff.

I'm watching.

How are you creating space?

You know, is there a shot fake?

Is there a sidestep?

Like, what are you doing?

And then we broke down and we looked at their footwork.

And so again, that's.

Kids don't talk about that or think about that nearly enough, right?

And so we talk about what's the footwork for this, because that's where it's all gotta start.

So, again, as I'm looking through all these clips, like, there's some of these guys that do this stuff that's just as amazing that you're like, yeah, we're not going to.

That's an amazing clip.

But that will never work for this.

So that probably took me longer than what I'd anticipated it.

It would have.

But being able to see that and go through all of that, you.

You recognize things, even in college players, where you're like, oh, that was definitely off balance.

That was definitely not, you know, so it's good for me to be able to see, like, this isn't all.

Everybody's not perfect on this.

And so that's easy to translate to them, be like, look, we're not going to expect you to look like Caitlin Clark or Jalen Brunson tomorrow, right?

We're going to take some of the things that they find valuable, and we're going to plug them into what works for you.

And so we spent, you know, all of those times doing that.

But it was probably.

That was probably a solid six hours.

It was probably two hours of prep for each day.

That's probably about right, I think.

Yeah.

And I think that the approach that you're taking, right, with finding the things that are translatable, finding the things that are.

You said the word simple, which I think is critical, right?

Because so often we go into a gym and we see the seven cones, and we're going behind our back at this one, we're going between the legs at this point, or we're crossing over here.

And it's.

It's really interesting.

Denny.

I. I had.

Whenever I.

Whenever I talk to someone who does training, I always go back to a conversation that I had with Mike Procopio, who, at the time I talked to him, he was working with the Dallas Mavericks.

And one of the things that he said to me is, you know, the higher the level of basketball that you go up, the more specialized your skill set has to become.

Because there are very, very few players.

And let's just start with the NBA.

There are very few players that the coach gives him the ball and says, hey, LeBron, here you go.

Go do whatever you want.

And you, it's carte blanche.

You have the right to do.

I mean, even, not every NBA team has a guy that gets to do that.

I mean, there are, there are some, but not every, not every team has it.

And then you think about a player transitioning from high school to college.

In high school, maybe there's one kid on every team that kind of is the best player that gets to do what they want, but guess what?

That player, when they go to college, it's not happening.

And so you have to learn to be able to play.

And so what Mike told me back at the time that I thought was really profound was, you know, by the time these guys get to the NBA, like we have to sit them down, be like, you're no longer working on your all around game.

Not that you can't try to expand what you do and expand your role, but if you're here to be an offensive rebounder, then we have to work to make you the best possible offensive rebounder that you can be, because that's how you're going to continue to earn a paycheck.

And so I think that a lot of times it gets lost in the training process of.

And I think, look, the younger you go, right, you want to develop all around players, it's not like you're gonna be like, hey, this kid, this kid's only going to be whatever.

We only want them to shoot threes when they're 12 years old.

You want to develop their, their whole skill set.

But it is interesting that you don't need a bazillion different moves.

I tell kids all the time, like if I'm working with them, like really the best move that you can have is no move at all.

It's just a straight line drive past somebody.

Yes.

And you get to the basket where there's no change of direction.

If you can just beat a guy with your first step, well, then we don't need all this other stuff.

You just get by the guy and then you figure out how you're going to finish.

And so many times I think that that Stuff gets lost.

It gets lost, right?

To parents.

It goes back to the parent education piece of.

Yep.

A parent has to understand that what you as a trainer is teaching, that we're trying to teach them stuff that they're actually going to do in a game.

This stuff over here that might look like we're doing a lot is not stuff that actually is going to ever translate to a game.

So I love what you said about just again, picking out the simple, right.

And taking the time to watch 6 hours of video and figure it out and find those 10 or 12 clips in that six hours of video that are going to be valuable for the kids that you're working with.

And that's not easy to do, of course.

Film has just become the greatest teacher.

Oh man.

It doesn't lie, does not lie to.

Be able to have the example, right, of watching a Brunson or Caitlin Clark.

There's that piece of it and then there's the piece of it.

When you're coaching your team or when you're coaching a kid that you're training, if you're watching their film, it's easy to go to it and be like, look, here's exactly what we're talking about.

Or here's an opportunity where you could have executed this that we've been working on and instead you did this.

And so here's where the choice went wrong or whatever it may be.

But again, you're using that film to be able to, to be able to have an impact on players and for them to see it visually.

As you said, the film doesn't lie.

It's all captured right there for you to be able to be able to show it to them and then hopefully for the player to be able to internalize that and then.

Yes.

And then move forward.

So let me ask you.

Go ahead.

Did you have something to respond to that?

The only, the only other thing I was going to share on that is we talk about menus.

Every player's got a menu, right?

And so it might be you can shoot your mid range pull up because you're good at it.

Now that might not be in Billy's menu.

Billy might be catch and shoot only and he needs to barkley in the paint, right?

So like we will have for our, our college guys, like here's your menu right here where you need to be really good.

And as you said, we're still going to work on some of those other things.

But like it, like we had a point guard that has to get a float.

Like he just, he's not big enough.

He's got to get his floater.

Right.

So that is just the amount of time that we spend on that.

And that's where when we talk about, you know, boring is useful and.

And yeah, you're right.

But you know what?

If you want to score and be successful, you need this.

And right now you're making four out of ten not being guarded.

So, like, we got work to do here.

So those menus, I think are really good as we share those with guys.

And we're not saying if you're a guy that doesn't say shoot threes, you don't ever shoot one.

Like, but we know.

And, you know, what are the things that we need you to be good at?

And so again, as that level goes up, I understand that completely, because then you're on to.

Okay, so if it's catch and shoot in the corner, if it's creating space off of your drive, so whatever those things are, then that's what we ramp up.

So as you were talking about the gentleman that had said that, like, that makes complete sense to me because you're right, as you're younger, you need all aspects, but the higher you get, you're not going to be doing all of that extra stuff.

Yeah, we, you know, I'm going to talk about it again, but like, shot, fake your jab, all of those things.

If you can create space without burning a dribble, you have so much of a better opportunity for a straight line drive.

And that's what I tell these high school guys all the time.

Like, we don't need to be extra fancy on all of this.

Inverted.

And that's what sometimes drives me crazy about trainers, is like, we're gonna go and inverted to the.

You know, and I'm like, do.

Everybody's got a different name anyway.

So, like, just look at what it is.

And does that fit with what you're trying to do?

Because if you don't have a shot fake that goes to your forehead on the outside, you're not going to create any space going to the basket.

So I talk about those little things an awful lot.

And I think that that is one thing that has helped in my training, especially is that when I.

When I talk about these things, there are things that I can say.

Now, this is where in the game, this is where you're going to use this.

You're not going to use this here.

Like, this is not what you're going to do.

I was working a kid out today, and so we were going shot Fake one dribble, pull up.

And so he put this little sidestep hesi thing into it.

And I was like, okay, that was good, but let's cut out the hesi.

And he goes, no hesi.

And I go, no hesi ever.

Like, this is a kid that's a catch and shoot three guy.

Like, he's not going anywhere.

No one's biting on that.

So, you know, it's been kind of fun to be able to talk about those things but be very basic and intentional.

But that's the stuff where it's boring.

That's, that's not sexy, that's not fun.

Like, no one likes shot baked jab to a straight line drive.

That's not fancy, but it's two points.

And that's what's most important.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that.

How do you make sure that the kid you're working with, especially if it's an older kid, like a high school player and the parent understands the value of what you're doing when it comes quote, look, simple versus the guy across town who has 49 different props out there and all these different things, whatever.

How do you make sure that you.

What does that conversation look like with the parents and the players to help them to understand your philosophy and, and why what you're doing is again, translating to games as opposed to what some of the gimmicks that they might see elsewhere.

And I think that is where that, that has been a little bit of a difficult conversation in that I just, when I, when I start working with someone new, I just ask, you know, what are you expecting out of this?

Because again, there are the trainers that they have 500,000 followers and it's look at me.

It's not look at the kid, it's look at me.

And so I struggle with those because I'm never going to be that guy.

If you go to my Instagram, which is 4V legacy, like there's maybe a dozen videos in like eight years.

That's just, I'm not, I'm, I'm about the player.

I'm not about, hey, look at me.

And so I tell them that up front, like, you're going to see things that seem pretty basic, but if you watch how your kid does it, if they're not good at basics, we don't need to be doing all of this other stuff.

You know, the ones I love is that, you know, I have an upcoming training and I'll get a text message that's this long.

Of all the things that they want their kid to work on.

I'm like, that kid can't make a free throw yet.

So, like, why don't we just be p. Take things into perspective and see what.

What makes sense and what doesn't.

So I just always tell people I have a motive in everything that I do.

All of our training, everything that I do has a motive.

And so if you're not sure what that is, you can ask me.

Tell parents all the time.

If you want to stay and watch, please do.

If you want to drop them off, like, I don't care.

I actually like it when they stay because then at the end, then I can talk about, okay, so now when he's playing, I already told him, like, that's the stuff he's got to be doing.

So I'll have parents that will text me during AAU games that are like, she used the shot fake underneath and it worked.

You know, so some of those things which are.

Are great, right?

And those don't happen all that often, but when they do, it's pretty special.

But I. I just.

I'm never gonna be the guy that looks for the next gimmick, Right.

You know, you had that one time Kyrie Irving was dribbling with grocery sacks on a ball.

And so then I saw that show up in a gym, and I'm like, we're talking about a fifth grade kid here.

Like, can we just, like, be realistic in what are the things that.

That he needs to be working on?

So some of those conversations where their perspective of where their kid is is probably more here.

And so those sometimes get a little bit challenging because you got to pick and choose a little bit on what you're going to talk about.

But I think, again, I just keep talking about, are they finding success?

Like, are things going better?

Are you seeing things that you're seeing us do when we work out?

So as, again, I go back to translate, right?

If people are going to throw money hand over fist, you know, they're going to expect to see some value out of it.

And.

And that is where, again, that's just the question I ask.

Is it getting better?

If it's not getting better, then that's a different conversation, and we need to look at that more closely.

But where I get it a lot, especially with younger players, like middle school, high school, is they all want to talk about, like, well, the elbow pops a little bit here.

And then I'm always like, does it go in?

Well, yeah.

I'm like, then don't mess with it, right?

I think about golf all the time, right.

Nobody's got the same swing and no one swings like professionals.

But if it goes straight, we're probably going to feel pretty good.

So as we're shooting or as we're working on things like, you know, again, if it's crazy stuff we're shooting with two hands, then maybe we'll adjust that.

But some of that stuff, I'm like, they'll figure it out, they have the understanding and then we'll just keep building it as they get stronger.

So those are, those are a couple of the things that I have to be a little bit careful with as I talk with parents.

Yeah.

The physiology of someone's shot I think is interesting just to look at the mechanics of how different players shoot.

And it's, it's always, you can make, you can make small little tweaks and things in the end depending upon the age.

But it's as you said, if, if you're having success already with it, a lot of times messing with it in the idea of that you're going to make it better not only makes it worse in the short term, but sometimes makes it worse in the long term.

In the long term too.

There's no doubt about that.

So I have a college, yeah, I have a college kid I'm working with now and his shots flat, shoots threes really well, but he's flat, so if he misses, it's a hard rebound every time.

The guy has never had a soft bounce up from three ever.

So we started talking about like, we just need a little bit more arch, so we need a little bit more elbow to your eyebrow.

So we talk a little bit about some of those things.

And then he sent me a text and said, I, I shot really well the other day and it was because I, I knew I was using more legs so I had more arc and you know, some of those things.

But those are like, when they get to those college age stuff like that, you might fine tune a few things.

And, and normally it's legs like 90 of it.

When I'm working with shooters that are college or above, it's like, where's the mechanics of the lift out of your hip into your shot?

And so those are things that I just, because I've been around it so long, you can see those things.

But yeah, you're right.

You gotta be really particular on those bigger, those higher end guys.

All right, tell me about the opportunity at Simpson.

You know, I, it was been, ever since I can remember I wanted to coach in college and so, you know, the, the rap always with high school coaches is they don't translate great to college coaches because they can't recruit.

Right.

Well, I t. I speak teenager, so all I needed was chance.

And so going from high school at a very high level to a college game, you think you know an awful lot in high school until you start coaching in college.

And then things are substantially different because of how things are structured and not just the mechanics of who you're recruiting, but how that fits into your scheme.

And, and so I, I've always been a big fan of practice, probably because I didn't get to play that much when I was younger.

So I always loved practice.

And so for those things, like whether we're working through, you know, what our, our preparation is going to be for practice that day.

But I always try and figure out how can I make a difference in this one with this kid and how can I make a difference with this one?

And when you start looking at all of the film and the margin for air in college basketball is.

And it on up, I know it translates up.

But like, your margin of error is like this.

And so like you look at like our first year, we inherit.

This is going to be our third year as a staff at Simpson.

We lost by pounds, we didn't lose by points.

We were thin, we were small.

And so trying to figure out a scheme on where we can make some differences there.

Well, now we've upgraded and we've got some pretty nice pieces.

And so now you look at how are we now attacking instead of how are we trying to survive?

And so the planning and the scouting and that stuff like that, I just really enjoy that because that's the preparation piece that I always.

That was where I spent most of my time.

I wasn't getting a lot of game action.

I think that one of, I think one of the things that surprised me the most was that I think I expected maybe a little bit different attitude as they came into work.

And again, it's, it's changed over the years.

But, you know, I, I just think about, I never had to be asked twice to come to an open gym.

And so, you know, as those pieces and if you've upgraded through your recruiting, now you have those guys that you like, you don't have to worry about that stuff anymore.

So that was a little bit of a, like, from my perspective, I'm like, you're planning college, you gotta love this.

And you're, you're playing at D D3.

It's not because you're uber skilled.

Okay.

It's because you love the game, you have some skill, but it's, it's playing big time basketball.

Division 3 basketball is really good.

And I think about Kyle, where he came from in Wisconsin, you have all of those state schools, you know, Eau Claire, Stevens Point, Whitewater, Oshkosh, like those are programs that have been around forever and are hugely successful.

And so as we look at the conference that we're in, compared to that, like, it's a little bit different landscape here.

It's, it's almost like if I don't get a Division 1 or Division 2, I'm going to go juco until I get my Division 1 or Division 2, which maybe never is going to come.

So that's a little bit of the, the difference that when as I'm out talking to kids because I just love the opportunity to play.

Right.

And maybe it's because I wasn't great and this was the only opportunity I was going to have.

But be able to talk about, you know, you want to be a big fish in a small pond, here's your chance.

You want to go and sit for a couple years, then, yeah, I mean, maybe that's what you want to do and that's great.

But so trying to understand the athlete these days is sometimes a little difficult because I think that they're hit with so many different things.

And you know, we have, there's nil in our conference right now, so you're dealing with that part as well.

So it, you just really have to hone in on what is it exactly that the kid's looking for.

And so I always take that back to education.

You know, what do you want to go into?

How far away do you want to live from home and what are your expectations as a player?

So if we can have those conversations up front, that helps us understand a little bit.

Like this is a kid that's probably on our radar or this is a kid that is never going to play Division 3 because he's too good for us.

Like he'll go be in a, in a fraternity somewhere and just not play anymore.

Like that, that's his, his choice.

So that's a little bit of what's been different.

I've always been sort of a defensive guy and so with a lot of the actions offensively, Princeton, and a lot of those things that people are running right now, like you don't face that stuff in high school and if you do, it's watered down.

You're not getting to the level that we're getting.

You're getting three actions here.

And, you know, if that doesn't happen, then you have this backside action.

So, like, all of that stuff going on at once was a little bit difficult for me to pick up in the beginning.

So that was.

That was something I definitely had to adapt to.

The relationship side of it, which is something that we've talked about throughout our conversation tonight.

How is building a relationship with a player as a high school coach similar and different to building a relationship with a player at the college level?

I think, again, it always goes back to the individual kid.

So, like, I don't know if I could give you just a blanket statement on that.

I can tell you you can definitely be more direct with college players.

You know, you have that high school connection in there where they're gonna go home and tell dad that you yelled at him for something and now dad thinks you're picking on their kid.

Well, it's because three times in a row you let his guy drive past him.

So, you know, you can be more direct with those college guys.

But again, they've been in basketball long enough.

They don't need to sugarcoat it.

Like, they've been.

They know, like, you can just say, like, here's what I need you to do, or I can tell that things aren't going well in this class.

Tell me what's going on.

So some of those pieces that you can just dive into rather than having to set it up with, how are you going to ask it?

You know, those sorts of things.

So I think being more direct, I also think that you're now talking about people that are maturing into men.

And so the conversations that you're having outside of basketball are different than what you're having in high school.

And so it's now it's, what's your major?

I don't have any idea what I want to do.

Right.

Just broke up with my girlfriend who I've dated since she was 15.

Right.

So you have now all of these things.

It's not just high school problems, but now you're starting to face some real world problems.

You know, I don't know if I'm going to have money for tuition next semester.

So, like, those types of things are real world conversations.

And I think that's part of being a little bit older and having a little bit more life experience.

I can help, help some of those guys understand that, like, this guy's not falling.

Okay, Come up with a plan.

You know, you can fix, you can work through this, but in some of these scenarios, right, you got a freshman in college that hasn't been away from home, that's from small town, you know, wherever, and now he's not playing as much as he thought he was, and school is hard.

And so now you have a kid that's like, in disarray and has nothing to do really with basketball yet.

So some of those conversations are.

I will have.

I will definitely have more of those conversations than I would have with high school, just because I think a lot of those high school kids and my Des Moines north was different because that was a different demographic, but it's the same kind of thing, right?

You know, your, Your buddies, you're hanging out with, your friends who's dating this girl, like it.

That's all sort of the same.

This is some bigger, bigger issues for them.

That's a good question.

I've never been asked.

It makes sense.

I mean, just in terms of, again, as we mature, right, the problems become bigger.

It's always.

I remember people telling me when I was a parent, like, when your kids are little, the problems are little and they're.

It's.

It's you trying to get them to sleep or eat or whatever, or corral them, whatever.

And then as they get bigger and they're out in the world, then the problems that they face and the things that they bring to you are much bigger.

And so in the coaching world, it's the same thing, right?

Each.

Each.

At each level, their life is expanding, and consequently, those conversations and those relationships that you build with them continue to expand and to grow as you go over time.

How do you guys there at Simpson develop leaders in your program?

What's the process for.

Whether it's identifying leaders, whether it's building guys up, who you see that leadership traits and those leadership traits in them.

How do you develop leaders in your program?

Well, you know, and again, that is going to lead right into the.

The biggest topic of any team, which is culture.

And, and, you know, everybody has a belief in that.

We did a book club.

This is the second year in a row.

Last year it was on the All Blacks, which is the Australian football team.

Rugby, I think it is.

But unbelievable character building things.

And so as we would have those.

And you'd have those discussions, you could see some of the depths in some of the guys that are talking.

And so you could sort of see that.

I just think, again, the biggest challenge that I think we have at the college level is getting people to talk more on the floor, right?

So if we get them to talk more off the court in a structured environment that hopefully will translate.

And so, you know, we've done some of that.

Again, we've had a young team, and so we had, you know, some people that were older but weren't necessarily being leaders was not in their wheelhouse.

Like, just because they were older doesn't mean that that makes them a leader.

And so, you know, we struggled with that a little bit to find, you know, who's our voice, who on that team is the voice.

And so I think now, as you have those conversations, and that was part of what I loved as a.

As a head coach, is that every.

During every free throw or anything, like, I was always talking to a kid, and it was always about, like, you know, and it was.

It was, you know, whatever that leader was on the team.

You know, one year I had it, it was the center.

The other year it was a five.

The other year it was a point.

Two years, it was point guards.

And so you're having those conversations off on the side.

I'm like, what do you want to do here?

You know, and so making them think and making their.

Verbalize it, which I've always learned, you know, the hard way, is that not just kids, but people will always remember their idea better than yours.

So if you can get them to formulate your idea with their words, home run.

So that's the dance, and that's.

That's the trick.

And so if you can help kids understand what your message is and then let them take it and talk about it, you know, that's.

That's sort of what we've opened up, and we've got some leadership stuff that's.

That's coming back this year, which is nice, because it's probably the best.

Maybe as a core, I don't think we've got just one.

I think we've got two or three that are probably core guys that we could lean on for that role.

But again, those are things that just naturally have surfaced.

So I think there's sometimes just because you're older or you've been really good, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a great leader.

And I. I think that goes back into coaching.

Like, just because you were a great player, I don't know if that necessarily means you're a great coach, you know, so those are things that you would have to work on and develop.

And so I think those are some of the things that.

That we've tried to do.

The book, the book club stuff has been nice.

Because it gets them talking about things other than basketball or social media or school.

And so that's where you really get a chance to see the depth on where some of these guys think.

I do think right at the college level you have that opportunity to be able to have a little bit more time that you can invest in things like that.

And again, guys are thinking a little bit deeper and when they're in college and being able to process some of those situations and things that you can maybe bring up.

And then again when you're developing leaders on your team and the goal clearly is to be able to help those kids, to be able to bring those traits to the forefront.

And then when you have good leaders in place, as you know, especially at the Division 3 level, where your contact as a staff is limited, both while you're in school, and certainly in the summertime, people think about all the Division 1 and Division 2 and the amount of access that coaches have to their players.

And then Division 3, obviously it's almost the polar opposite.

You got your, you got your eight, you got your eight days now, but other than that you don't really have much opportunity.

So it really falls on the leaders of your program to be able to put some things together, to be able to make sure that everybody's doing what they're supposed to do in the off season to, to come back ready to go for, for the next fall, whether that be in the spring, whether that be in the summertime, whether that be getting guys together in the fall to be able to play open gym or work out together, whatever.

To be able to have good leaders in place for your program, I think is, is really critical, especially at the Division 3 level, just because again of the limited access that you have as a coaching staff.

So we've kind of bounced back and forth between your two lives as a, as a private individual trainer and then first as a high school coach and then as a college coach.

So as we get towards the end here, I want to ask you a final.

I usually say it's a two part question, but yours is going to be a three part question.

So if we, so we might have to, we might have to bounce back and forth, but.

So usually the question is what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

But since you have two basketball lives here, I'm going to ask you for your biggest challenge in each one.

So on the training side, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And then on the college coaching side, what's the biggest challenge there?

And then I'll save the third part.

I'll let you answer those two, and then I'll jump back in with the third part.

So we're not trying to remember what that third part was.

Good, good.

I think I'll take the training the piece first.

And, you know, it comes down to gym space again.

And as I said, I've been blessed with a lot of people that have been good to me for running gym space.

And the Walkie Jam program has been top notch, and that's why they're turning out great players.

But I think one of the things that you run into at 57 years old is how much time can you spend still doing this?

And I love what I do.

And.

But there are times when you're like, you know, the right knee doesn't have a lot of cartilage left.

And so the challenge has been how do I continue to grow if it's not just me?

And So I have four people that are in our 4V legacy training piece.

And so they are all kids that I either coached at one point in time or had trained.

And so I've got two.

Two guys.

Ryan Tamatai, I coached him in high school.

He's 27 now.

He, he's kind of a mini me in that he loves kids and he just loves being in a gym.

So he does a really nice job.

I've got another one, Ben Hoover, that I, I worked with all through high school.

He's a crowd favorite at all of our camps.

Paige Hilgerson, she's a girl that struggled with her shot for a long time and spent just countless numbers of hours in a gym.

And then Lydia Smith is another one who's a college basketball player at a rival college, Central College, that's near us.

But all of those people have the number one thing that they understand that comes from me, and that is that we are player driven.

And that is we're not going to.

It's not going to be the video, this video that like that.

We're just not going to do that.

That's not.

That's not who I am and that's not what I want to be known for.

And so having those four that have now helped with camp stuff, I have a couple that are going to help take on some training stuff for me.

So continuing to grow that when it's not just me going to be in a gym, you know, I went from, let's see, yesterday was eight to noon and then four to six, and I'll have anywhere between one and six kids during that time.

And so I kind of have a, I have a, a Google Doc that they all sign up on.

And then I, I share all the ages, the kids.

So, like, if your kid is 10 years old, you're not going to sign him up to be with the kid who's 18.

So I've kind of, through process of trial and error, I've got that piece sort of working well together now.

But that's where the growth is going to come from because as I get more involved with, with this college coaching.

Because the worst part is when you get into season at Simpson and I'm still having to train, I mean, As a Division 3 assistant coach, you're not making a lot.

And so again, you've got to figure out how you do both.

And so that's one of the things that, that was my biggest struggle and that's been probably the best thing.

Those four individuals are the, the salt of the earth and, and just blessed that I have them.

But so that, that growth was definitely the number one, I think, for Simpson.

As you look every year on how your role evolves.

And so, you know, you're my first year there on the bench, like, you're getting blasted with stuff right and left and you know the game and you know things that you want to comment on, but there's so many, there's so much more depth to things that you don't quite know yet.

And so I didn't talk a whole lot unless spoken to.

You know, that, that first year, last year allowed me to again because I was a part of the recruiting process for the guys that we brought in.

Now some of those relationships and some of the training stuff has gotten easier.

So now as I look at how do we get into this third year?

And that's where now I'm to the point where I'm just, I want to think about it in terms of I'm the head coach, I'm not the head coach, but I want to think about it in those terms so that again, I'm going to go back to what I talked about earlier was trying to be able to anticipate.

And so if we're struggling offensively, if we're struggling, whatever it would be like, I just want to start thinking about those things in terms of, like, if I'm sitting at that seat to the right, like, how am I handling this?

And so I'm not, I'm not necessarily just waiting for direction anymore.

And I feel like that was probably a year and a half in.

That's sort of how I was.

And so I think now that I've got a landscape on it and understand it, understand our players better and the game, I think that will be sort of the next step.

But obviously there's a whole lot of things in there that, that I still have to learn.

So.

Kyle does a really great job at what we do.

And you probably know guys like this too.

But like, Kyle's the guy that will never, for the game, never forget a game.

We were like, he has that just.

I'm like, I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.

So like, he never misses a beat with that stuff.

But I think in terms of how I absorb what I'm learning and then how do I use that at a different level than where I've been at?

And so it's that constant searching for how do I get better and how do I add more value to our program?

Makes sense.

And yeah, that memory thing is amazing.

The guy I worked with, my first job as an assistant coach, he'd be like, do you remember that game and 19, no.

97 Where we played Hawking and we were down by six with two minutes to go in the fourth quarter and then Steve stole the ball and he laid it in and then we had to.

I'm like, dude, I don't.

Like you said.

I, I have no, I have no, I'm like, are you making this up?

Like, is this even real?

You know, I would have no idea.

But yeah, those people always are amazing to me.

And the guy I worked for initially as a, as an assistant, yeah, he had the same, he had that same type of memory.

And I certainly, I certainly do not have that type of memory.

There's some things that I, that I can grab onto, but not, not nearly what he can grab onto, let's put it that way.

So.

All right, last part of the three part question.

Okay.

With what you get to do every day, what brings you the most joy about collectively what you get to do with the game of basketball?

I think it would be seeing others succeed.

And I think as a coach, you have to be rooted in that.

You know, I, I think you've heard several people say, I mean, Shashevsky said it for years, right.

I'm a leader.

I just hoping to, I happen to coach basketball.

And so I think that at the core of things, that understanding, I, I, I, that's probably the most important, that, that's what I would say makes sense.

And it it dovetails with the entire conversation that we just had and talking about again, the impact that you get to have on kids using the game of basketball as the conduit to be able to do that.

So before we wrap up, Danny, I want to give you a chance to share.

How can people connect with you?

Find out more about what you're doing.

Share, email, website, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

Sounds good.

You know, I have a website, it's4vlegacy.com.

It goes through everything that, that I do.

You can set up with trainings there, has my past, has background, all of the things that we sort of covered today.

And, and so that's, that's the first one.

My Instagram is all basketball driven and that's 4V legacy.

You might see an occasional picture of my daughter in there, but she was never a Hooper.

So that was, that was never our, her deal.

She played every sport but basketball.

Here's my, I'm going to give you my one daughter story right here she is now.

She graduated from Grand Canyon University last year with a degree in psychology.

But she played sports all through softball and volleyball were her sports.

And so I never could get her to play.

Like, I just, it just wasn't her thing.

She's always like, dad, that's your thing.

So the day before her eighth grade season for the eighth grade basketball season, she calls me and she goes, hey, dad, I need basketball shoes.

And I was like, ha ha.

For what?

And she goes, no, they talked me and I'm gonna go out next year.

And I'm like, you're what?

She's like, yeah, I'm gonna play next year.

And I was like, we could have been working.

So like I come unrude and so somebody gets hurt.

She ends up being a starting point gardener, eighth grade school team, and I'm a hot mess.

I'm working my way down to the bench, telling her to start on the left corner.

So you only have to use your right hand all the way up.

So, but she just wouldn't touch it.

So that, that was, that was my one daughter story.

But 4B Legacy is my Instagram.

4B Legacy dot com.

You can email me there.

It's Denny at 4B Legacy.

So it's, it's pretty easy to find if you're interested.

I, you know, there's kids that I travel to and, and work with and train.

We'll put together plans ahead of time.

I'll send them over to Proof.

So I'm not just a local guy.

If you want to come to me or you want me to come to you, like, those are things that I've all done.

Awesome.

Denny, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to join us tonight.

Really appreciate it.

And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads podcast, presented by Head Start Basketball.

Sa.