Episode #36: Chris Leonard

Chris Leonard in his 6th season as the Head Women's Volleyball Coach at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo.  He has the 2nd most wins in the illustrious history of Vulcans Volleyball.

Coach Leonard was inducted into the Big Island Hall of Fame in 2015 after a stellar career as a high school and club coach.  He started his second career in 2014 when he joined the Hilo staff as an assistant.  He took over the program in 2019 and has continued to shape into a national power including a 23-8 season in 2019 that culminated in a berth into the NCAA Division 2 National Tournament.

Coach where’s many hats as he’s also President and GM of New West Broadcasting Corp where he manages 6 radio stations throughout the islands.

As much as I loved talking coaching with him, I was mesmerized with his stories about meeting the likes of Richard Pryor, Tina Turner, Dwight Clark and his childhood idol Willie Mays.  It was a fun conversation with one of the best in the business. Enjoy!

Learn more about Chris Leonard here:  https://hiloathletics.com/staff-directory/chris-leonard/99

Transcript

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Welcome back to the significant coaching podcast. I'm coach Matt Rogers. Rogers. This week I sat down with Chris Leonard had women's. Volleyball coach at the university of Hawaii at Hilo. Coach. Coach Leonard was inducted in the big island hall of fame in 2015. after a stellar career, as a high school and club coach. He started his second career in 2014 when he joined the Hilo. Staff as an assistant. He took over the program in 2019. And has continued to shape it into a national power, including a 20. Three and eight season. In 2019 that culminated in a birth. Birth into the NCAA division two national tournament. Coach wears many hats. As he's also president and GM. GM of new west broadcasting Corp, where he manages six radio. So stations throughout the islands. As much as I love talking coaching. Coaching with him. I was mesmerized with his stories about meeting the likes of Richard. Richard Pryor, Tina Turner to white Clarke and his childhood idol. And one of my idols, Willie Mays. It was a fun conversation. With one of the best in the business. If you're enjoying these conversation. I encourage you to subscribe on your platform of choice. And leave me a comment with your thoughts and questions. You can always. Find me@coachmattrogers.com. When you want more information? Let's see. Coach Leonard, thank you so much for being on today. You have had a very interesting career and I want to get into your team at Hilo and I want to get into volleyball, but you and I had spent some time before we clicked record on this amazing world that you live in. As somebody that runs radio stations, talk a little bit about what it was like growing up with a dad that. Ran all these events, these huge events and all these stars you grew up with. Talk a little bit about how that shaped you as a coach and as a person. I grew up in the concert business. My father was a concert promoter. So I grew up around arena and stadium shows and as a kid running around backstage around people that were pretty famous. But for me as a kid, it was never they were people that my dad worked with. And, I knew that it was pretty cool. We used to it. Get picked up. We'd have cars on call for the bands during the day. So we'd get picked up in a big stretch and, roll through the backstage gates in a big limo with tinted windows with people jumping all over it. And that was cool and got to see and meet a lot of people over the years and saw more concerts than I could ever count. But for me, it was just, that was that was our normal. I grew up around all these people. And like I said, they were people that my, my father worked with. And I think as. But you also saw the appeal that, that show business had and how a big show could energize a huge crowd. And I think that's where some of the similarities are for me. I'm still in the entertainment business. I operate radio stations, as I mentioned to you previously. And we do a number of concert events as well that I produce. But I think even on the sports side, there are a lot of similarities. We're really fortunate in Hilo that we have what I feel is probably the best home court advantage in the conference. We have great energetic crowds. It's a great environment. It's a show our fans. Come and we've had some really exciting games. We make it fun. It's a very lively atmosphere. And I think that's where there are some parallels in what I get to do now. Really. And I've been really fortunate that, my entire adult life, whether it's being in the radio business and the entertainment business, and also coaching, I get to do things that I'm very passionate about. You told me you've spent time with Richard Pryor, Tina Turner, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, Dwight Clark, you've had these amazing experience with some of the most famous people on the planet and some of the greatest athletes ever to live. Has that affected how you teach culture and team play? Have those things had any effect of what you expect from your kids? I think they've had an impact on me. It's interesting, growing up in the concert business around famous people. I never really saw them as famous people. They were just people that my dad worked with. And then I had, but I also grew up in this crazy sports household. My dad played semi pro baseball. My dad was a huge Niners and Giants fan, a huge baseball fan. So I learned, I grew up with his sports heroes, with the Willie Mays and Willie McCovey and those types of guys. So when I had a chance to meet Willie Mays, that actually was the first time where I was in awe that, Hey, I got to meet this guy. That's absolutely amazing. But I think, one of the things for me is that you also learn when you grow up that way, that people are always in awe of the fame. I got to see a lot of these people as people. And. And I think that's one of the things that's important for me as a coach, I've had an opportunity to work with some really high level athletes both here at Hilo, I coached in high performance system with USA volleyball, and you get a chance to meet some really talented athletes, but I think the. The challenge is to see the people that are there first and foremost. And they have the surprisingly, I don't think most people realize this, but I think with high performing athletes they share a lot of the same challenges and problems that, that all of us face and they have the same insecurities and. Oftentimes they're their own worst critics and they're really tough on themselves. So you learned that while they seem on the outside to have it all put together, the challenge as a coach is to help them keep it all together. And it's not always as easy as it seems on the surface. And you get a chance to realize that they are people too. And sometimes they are, they are ordinary people that live extraordinary, lead extraordinary lives. That is for sure. And I think that gets lost sometimes they, they miss being a human being sometimes as well, where they can walk down the street and not have to take pictures and sign autographs and people on and things like that. And I think also, you struggle oftentimes the struggle is also living up to it, certainly for professional entertainers, professional athletes, and collegiate athletes as well or even high level. High school athletes that when you are that star athlete the challenge sometimes is one living up to everybody else's expectations of who they think you are. And dealing with the challenges of accepting that role with yourself and trying to get over that hump of that challenge in your belief system is, am I as good as everybody thinks I am and trying to live up to what you think their expectations are rather than just trying to be the best you that you can be. Whatever happens with everybody else's opinion happens, and you don't control that. I'm assuming you don't have to deal a whole lot with NIL yet, but one of my concerns about the NIL is we're giving these kids all this money, and they haven't really earned it yet outside of maybe a free education. What are your thoughts NCAA is headed Because it's going to have a trickle down effect on all of us at every division level. How do you feel about the changes that we're seeing? We're going to see changes in, in the National Letter of Intent in the next three months. We're going to see, we've already seen major changes in, in roster caps and scholarship have fluctuated depending on your sport. What are you, what's your take on all of this? It's hard to keep track of my office at the university is immediately adjacent to our compliance director. And he and I talk all the time about this because the rules are changing at a very rapid pace. I think it's appropriate for athletes to be. Taken care of. When you look at a high level and C double A athletics, football, basketball, men's and women's basketball, when you look at the amount of money that's involved that's generated the revenue that's generated on the backs of the student athletes. I think it warrants the discussion of, Hey, what's the athletes role in that? And what should they benefit from that? But that being said, there are also other challenges. I look at last year, I look at Texas, a situation And you've got Arch Manning who didn't play last year. He's playing this year, but he didn't play last year. And I believe his NIL deal was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million. And you have a kid who's the backup quarterback on a college team. Who's making twice as much money as Brock Purdy did starting for the 49ers in the Superbowl. And I scrapped my head and go, okay, that's a pretty big example of how this is a little bit out of balance, in my opinion that. It is becoming, it is not intended to be an inducement, but the reality of it is clearly NIL money is being used to induce student athletes to sign in a lot of places around the country, particularly at the Division I level. The rulemakings that are happening with the NCAA are happening very rapidly. And I think the NCAA is trying to stay a step ahead of the courts because they're getting challenged on a number of different levels. And The challenge is, I think the genie's out of the bottle, and I don't know that they're ever going to be able to put it back, and it's been, the last couple of years have been very, schools have been playing in a lot of places especially, again, especially at the Division One level, we don't see it really out here, but fast and loose with the rules, and and I'm not sure exactly where it's going to go. I think it needed to change, but I think we've swung really far in the opposite side, to the opposite side of the spectrum, and I'm not sure how that settles back down. So I'm probably just as intrigued as you are to see exactly where it's going to go. I think ultimately it starts to trickle down into the division two level. It actually already is in some parts of the country. And I think the concern is ultimately is does it create a situation where there's a greater divide between the haves and the have nots? I think there's also a significant argument that disparities oftentimes between male and female athletes and Title IX has attempted to address that, but I think that's going to become a bigger factor as it pertains to NIL opportunities. And then I also feel for other sports that Not necessarily as popular with a fan base. So when you look at it, a number of teams and sports that universities field teams and around the country that don't have the attendance and revenue opportunities that basketball or football or some of these other sports have there's a select group of kids and only a handful of sports that have the opportunity to reap the benefits from this and other kids are not going to see those same opportunities. Yeah, it's it's scary and it's disappointing sometimes and it's enlightening. It's exciting for those kids that are getting an opportunity to almost get set up for life at 18, 19, 20 years old. But my concern is the misinformation and the disinformation that's out there. I had a couple of people call me the other day about they read an article that the national letter of intent was going away. Correct. Okay. So I picked up the phone and I called my contacts at the NCAA and they said here's the reality. And I've always known this. The National Letter of Intent is a private organization and they've decided to shut their doors. So very similar to what happened 20 some years ago with with how we measured kids grades and test scores coming out. That was an independent company in the N. C. W. A. Brought in. It sounds like the national letter 10 is going to be brought in underneath the instability umbrella. And they're thinking that there's not going to be a lot of changes to that. Are you hearing the same thing? I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen with that. We actually have a staff meeting coming up this week and it's on the agenda to talk about what we feel the impacts are. Because you've got, excuse me, you've got to sign kids in a month, right? We have players that are committed that up until two weeks ago, we thought we were going through the same national letter of intent process that we always have. And we're not sure at this point, whether or not the national letter of intent change will in fact happen at the division two level. I don't have an answer for that yet. It's, I think the assumption is that it's likely is that going to change with this upcoming signing date, which was supposed to be in November, a handful of weeks away. So yeah, we don't know. That's the thing there's been more change. In the last three months in NCAA rules, and there probably have been in the entire 11 years that I've been involved with our program at the university of Hawaii at Hilo. I was joking with, I had mentioned our, my compliance directors in the office next door to mine. And I was joking with them that we have as coaches, we have to take a NCAA compliance test every single year. And I'm like, next year's test is going to be really interesting because all the rules that we know, or many of them anyway, have changed. And, you look at, a lot of these things that have happened, where timing's a factor, the Reggie Bush situation, a handful of years ago the Adidas issue that happened in the Midwest where people went to jail for their actions that are now. Legal. Yeah, and so I don't know. I, it's I'm not sure where it's all going to go. I think there are some benefits certainly in some areas where it may create some better opportunities for our student athletes and I'm supportive of that. But I do have some concerns about You know how they keep it from being completely out of control or how we create a scenario where the rich get richer. And the rest of us that are trying really hard to provide opportunities for student athletes may have a more difficult time because money is going to be the only, will be the primary driving factor everywhere. I understand we can build a legal implication for just about every scenario, but at the end of the day, you have to be able to offer a kid, get a commitment from a kid and have some support that kid's going to be on your roster in August. So for me, when I called the NCAA and they said, we're not quite sure what we're going to do yet. I was like, Signing Day for 45, 000 kids is three weeks away. And they go, yeah, we know, we just don't have any answers yet. I'm like, is there a reason we're not doing this after signing day? And keep, keeping a, keeping things, and they go, we just don't know yet. We, we haven't been told. I think a lot of it is that they're facing ongoing legal challenges and. They're making decisions to, to stay in front of some of those, including conceding some things that a couple of years ago, I think would have been considered inconceivable that they would concede. I'm not sure. I certainly can't speak for the NCAA in that regard, or even for my own institution, other than to say from my own experience, it's changing at a pace that is unlike anything I've ever seen. And it, I'm uncertain of exactly what tomorrow brings from a rules and legislative standpoint. Yeah, I was a division two coach for a long time and I just, I'm trying to put myself in your shoes, trying to figure out how I'd be dealing with this. And I was an athletic director at that level. I've got my fingers crossed for all of you. I'll you're in such a special position, coach being. In Hawaii, and I have so many families and high school coaches and student athletes that listen to this. And I want to talk about the challenges and then the things that are really positive about being on the islands, talk a little bit about travel. Because you can't get on a bus and get to eight universities. Like most of us used to be able to do in a two, three hour radius. How do you guys handle travel and how do you schedule knowing that you've got to get on a plane probably? 10 to 15 times a season. It's a huge part of what we do. We're in we are in a unique situation being here on, in Hilo on, on the Island of Hawaii, the big Island, southernmost Island in the state. We're the only university on this Island. So every road game for us involves an airplane. Yeah. To for the most part that doesn't exist anywhere else. Even Anchorage and Fairbanks, I think five or six hours they can bus if they choose to we don't have that option. We're on a plane for every road trip, whether it's Honolulu as we're going to this weekend or Northern California and Southern California, we play in the pack West. So we were in Northern California a week and a half ago on a 10 day road trip. Yeah. We go to Honolulu this weekend for a real quick one, we're home for a little bit and then we go back to Southern California in a handful of weeks and that's I think a 10 or 11 day road trip for us. We have two and then we did a non conference tournament in Northern California as well. About four and a half weeks ago. So we've been to NorCal twice in the last 40 days or whatever. And we're in a multi year deal with the two Alaska schools. So they came to Honolulu this year. We went to Honolulu for non conference next year. We go to Anchorage the following year, they come to Hilo, we go to Fairbanks and then they come back to Honolulu. So we're in a multi year. What's that flight like coach? To California. It's about five hours for us to go to Alaska. When we went last year, we went to Fairbanks. We had a two hour commute to Kona. We flew outta Kona, the west side of this island and about a six hour flight to Seattle. Okay, another couple of hours from Seattle to Alaska. So some red eyes. On that one. And that was a challenge, the California trips we've gotten used to, it's about five hours from we actually go from here to Honolulu, which is 50 minutes. And then it's about a five hour flight to California. And, it's, I will say this, it's a five hour flight to California, there are, despite the fact that we have to fly you have a lot of schools. My daughter played in the Ivy league and they bust everywhere. And their New York road trip was a 12 hour bus ride, five hour flight, 12 hour bus ride. Either way, it's a long haul. I think college athletes have gotten used to having to move around the country a little bit, with the, with your realignment and division one, then some of it's been funny to watch the realignment of division one and the PAC 12 going away and they're like, wow, these PAC 12 schools are going to have to fly to Colorado and I'm like two and a half hours not a big deal, or they might have to fly to the East coast. I'm like, Hey, it's five hours. We do that on every road trip to California. But I think for a big part of the country, they're not used to having to go that far. We're flying commercial. We don't, we're a small school. We're not flying charters. But I think it's a big part of what we do and it's what we know. I think for kids that come in that haven't done it before, it's a little bit more challenging. If you're a Hawaii kid and you stay at home and play in our state school, if you played club ball you went to Vegas, you went to Nationals, you went to AAUs in Florida, so you've done a little bit of that before you get to college. But if it comes out of the Midwest, And you're used to playing mostly regional tournaments. You're a couple hours out and just about any direction. And that's about as far as he goes. So I think for kids that come in from out of market, it's a little bit of an adjustment, but it's manageable. I think people make a lot out of it. But we make it work. It's what we do. It's what we know. There are times where it's challenging. I'll tell you when you've got a. Five hour flight and then two or three hour drive. We go to NorCal, we play or excuse me in our SoCal road trip. We have coming up. We fly into LA, we go down to Costa Mesa. Then we go up to Montecito, which is near Santa Barbara. And then we go from there all the way down to San Diego. Then we go back to LA. Oh my gosh. And it's. A lot of time, not sleeping in your own bed and bouncing from a hotel to hotel and long van rides. And again, we're not in charter. So those are long van rides that I'm driving and my assistant coach are driving vans and and the end of your eight to nine hour bus ride still, no, absolutely. We're going to go from Montecito up near Santa Barbara to point Loma. So from Westmont down to Point Loma, and that's, about three hours to LA, and then depending on traffic, it's another hour and a half or two hours or more down to San Diego. That's going to be a long one this year. And, and then you also have to deal with the fact that we're out for 10 or 11 days, and it's a lot of missed class time for our student athletes. So we spend a lot of time, which we try to make arrangements with the hotels that we stay at for a meeting room or a ballroom that we can do some mandatory study halls and make sure that our kids get study hall time. I've proctored exams on the road quite a bit. I actually sat with a student athlete on this last trip to Northern California for an hour while they were taking an exam. Some of them can do exams online when it benefits. I think post COVID is a lot of our professors have learned how to do more online work. That just made it a little bit easier for the teams that are traveling because the professor better set up for that environment. But yeah, it presents some challenges for sure. But I think you can find as a college coach, you can find challenges in a number of different ways. Ours happened to be travel related, but we've got it figured out and we make it work. When I was coaching at the D two level and the D three level, I would take my team to Hawaii probably every couple of years and we would play at Pacific or Hilo or Chaminade and play in a big tournament. And it was funny and I'm really good friends with one of your compatriots, Dave Kenashiro, and I've talked to Dave about this. All those coaches that I would talk to on those trips would talk about how hard it is for them to recruit incoming freshmen that recruit high school kids because every kid thinks, Oh, why is the dream, I'd love to go to Hawaii and go to school, and then they get there and. They're on a plane a lot. They're on long bus rides. There's a ton of travel for you. Are you focused on building your roster with that mentality that maybe we have to bring in more transfers than high school kids? Cause those transfers are a little bit more mature. They're not going to get as homesick as much. What's your opinion on all that? I, so we've had transfers for sure. I think sometimes it's more about the fit of the positional fit. And the experience there are times where, Hey, we needed somebody that was plug and play ready to go. And it was more about a maturity on the court than it was personality. But that being said, when we recruit, whether they're a transfer or they're a high school senior coming into their freshman year of college recruits ask all the time, what are you looking for? And I said, obviously we're looking for talented athletes that have the technical skills and the physical ability for the position that we're recruiting for. But I, I'm looking for great athletes. I'm looking for better people. I want somebody who's going to fit team culture. But I also want somebody who has a value system that fits this community. If you value community and family, we do that in a way here in Hawaii, I think. That is different than anywhere else. There are places with bigger facilities. But if you value closeness and relationships Hawaii, it's a very special place. It's culturally rooted. Family is a huge deal. It's an even bigger deal for me as a program. So we want kids that value that if you want to be a nameless face in the crowd and want to be at a football game on Saturday with 100, 000 people, you can go to Ohio State or Michigan. That's not us. You want to be in a packed gym. With 800 to a thousand crazy volleyball fans that are all in for you and our team, we're the place to be. And I think that's really the interesting thing. You touched on it. I had somebody tell me a number of years back, they're like, Hey, this is the easiest place in the world to recruit to. But it wasn't a coach that told me that. And I said, it would be easy to convince a kid to come to Hawaii. You can sell the romanticism of Hawaii. Correct. And we talk to kids sometimes, like they'll reach out to us and they say, Hey, I'm really interested in your program. And I always ask what interests you about Hawaii or about Hilo. And I hear this more often than I would like to think I should. It's it's Hawaii. How bad could it be? And for us, for me, as a coach, I want a connection that's a little bit deeper than that. Correct. And so we try to find somebody, not just with the skillset, but also I want to bring kids in that, that we feel have a. chance to stay for four years. I do like to bring, if I can bring in a a high school kid and I can develop kids in our program over time, we like to do that. The last four or five years have been crazy because of COVID. I have three fifth years on my roster this year, plus four actual seniors. We're going to graduate a big and it's changed the recruiting dynamic. Not just for us, but for our competitors, the number of kids that are coming to programs that are one and done in a program because they've got one year of eligibility left is higher than I've ever seen it. Obviously, this is the last year of the five year kids due to COVID but it's changed the game. So you saw a lot more transfers. The transfer portal has been a huge part of that. And that's something that, that we see, we have to learn to evolve our recruiting game to, to build our team based on the situation at hand. And the situation is different today than it was five years ago, for sure. Yeah it's. My, my sister in law is from Hawaii and I work with a lot of Hawaii kids and high school coaches. And obviously I have nieces and nephews that are Hawaiian, and a number of them live on the islands right now. And I don't think people that were raised on the mainland understand the term Ohana and what that really means when you live on the islands what family means. to native Hawaiians. What is your take on that as a program builder and as a leader of a program? Where does Ohana fit into your program? It is a huge part of almost everything we do. I was born and raised in Hawaii. Not Hawaiian by blood but born and raised here. And family is huge. It's everything. It's it culturally. It's a big deal here. As I mentioned previously, it's a huge deal for me and our program. And I think, you touched on, kids being away and homesickness. I think that's one of the other things that is super valuable for us is that we value kids that value relationships and family and the challenges for some of those kids are super close to their family. So going away. They're inclined to be homesick because they're going to miss the people that they care about. They don't want to be that far away from them. However, the flip side of that is that we have a team and a team culture that when you get here, you become family. You're not just teammates. You walk into our gym as a new player and you've got 18 or 19 new sisters for life. And you walk into our gym on game day and you've got more aunties and uncles than you ever knew you had and you feel that very quickly. So I think if you are away from home and you value family, one of the things that you find here is that you have a second family away from home that that cares about you. And I think in a lot of places, the relationship between coach and player. Programs and players, community and players is very transactional. The coaches coach, the players play. And that's not the case for us here. It's, I care very much about our players and about their success. Our institution, our university cares very much about our players and their success. And our community does. If you come to one of our games at the end of our match, we just won our eighth in a row the other night and we shake hands with the other team. We high five real quick, but before we have our team conversation, our girls bolt for the door and we do this win or lose at every home game. And they're at the door. At the main exit and they're high fiving and talking to everybody on their way out the door. And we make that connection with our fans, but the fans make that connection with us. And. Yeah. And it's, it, it's probably not something that you do. And it's definitely not something you do in a stadium with a hundred thousand people, or maybe even in an arena with 15, 000 people, but it's something that, that you feel here in a way that you're not going to feel in other places. And, I think when you're on the recruiting trail, there are a lot of coaches that will make very big, bold statements about, Hey, we're this, we're that we're better here. We're better there. And I'm always hesitant to speak in these big platitudes and, try to oversell things. But the one area where I'll plant my flag sometimes is to say, if you value family and connection, this is something that I firmly believe that we do better than anywhere else. Yeah. And if you value that it's super important. If you don't, It doesn't make sense to, I've had players that we've talked to recruits that we've talked to and they don't value that. And they're like, Oh, that's all warm and, fuzzy stuff, but that's really not me. Okay. And they might not be our kind of player. That's right. And that's okay. I'm a huge advocate as a father of a daughter who played division one athletics as a long time club coach who sent kids all over the place. I've learned that the right fit is really a two way street. And so I talk to players a lot about making sure they're the right fit for us, the right skill level, the right athleticism, the right personality, team culture, fit and all of those things. But I also tell the players, it's really important for me to know that we're the right fit for you. And I've had players tell me nobody's ever told me that before. And I said here's the thing. If we're not the right fit for you and you're unhappy, then at some point, we're both going to be unhappy. You're going to be another kid in the portal. And the last couple of years have been over a thousand women's volleyball players in the portal. And we have very few of them. Most of our players that end up in the portal are kids that are going to do a fifth year that want to grad program that we don't have. Yeah, the logic, the portal has changed a lot of things for sure. But it's also sometimes tough to going back to your question about Juco kids we value some of those kids. I'm not as big of a fan of one and done kids, because I think it's tough to build team culture on that as well. When you're. You are a collection of mercenaries, so to speak that we building team involves building culture and sometimes that takes time. And I think it's tough to do that sometimes with a one and done. And I try to really preach to kids the idea of. If you got a chance to be with a Chris Leonard for four years, you're going to leave so much better as a person, as a player, because you had that person caring about you for that whole stretch. Instead of playing for two or three coaches, looking for a better opportunity for more playing time, more money, whatever that may be. So I really preach to kids. You've got to take your time. You've got to have lots of conversations. You've got to find that person, that program, that community that really speaks to you and your soul. Are you going to be miserable? Yeah, for sure. And we talk to players about that a lot. And I used to do this as a club coach, but I do it with the players that I'm recruiting. And I don't want to talk a player out of coming. But I also don't want to convince a kid. I could sell Hawaii. Hey, this is a beautiful spot. It's an amazing place to be, but I want a kid to be here because this is the right place for them to be. And it's the right fit. And there are times where I had kids that were probably interested, but I knew that the fit wasn't going to be good for both of us, and sometimes you have to make that tough decision and say, Hey, this is probably not going to be the great fit. And the right fit is different for everybody. So for all the athletes that you talk to, for all the athletes that I talk to, the right fit means something different. Big school, small school large class, small class team culture, climate, warm, cold, far away from home, close to home. And when I talk to a player, I'll tell them, Hey, look, what you value is different than your club teammates. And you look to your left, look to your right, to your high school teammates, the same thing. And. I encourage them to ask whether it's me or any other coach that they talk to on the recruiting trail, ask as many questions as you can and check off as many boxes of the things that are important to you as you can. You may not be able to check off all of your boxes, but if the only box that you're checking is D1 or bust or full scholarship All those other things that you neglect are the things that you either have to live with for four years, or in some cases without, because they don't exist there, and you have to ask yourself whether or not you can do that, and I see a lot of kids that make that mistake, that they are so focused on just one aspect, whether it's the scholarship, and I get it, the financial part's very important, but I've also seen kids that got scholarship that went away, and halfway through the first semester or halfway through September, they're on the phone with their parents saying, Hey, I hate it here. I want to come home and I don't ever want to come back. And the ego gratification that came with that scholarship fades very quickly when you're miserable. And I think that's the challenge is trying to find the thing that delivers the things that you need to be fulfilled and it's different for every athlete. So we spend a lot of time Ask lots of questions and you can ask me questions that are not volleyball related. Ask me questions about life in Hawaii. Ask me questions because you're going to be here for four years. Hopefully that's the plan. Exactly. And thank you for that because that piggybacks the blog I just wrote for families and teenagers this week and you hit it right on the head how important it is to figure out your value system before you start looking for a place to go to school and live. If you don't know who you are, And what you need to be happy. And it surely isn't a scholarship and money. And those aren't your priorities, no matter how much you think they are. You have to think about how are you going to be healthy for four years? How are you going to be happy for four years? What does that look like? So love that coach. You were a high school coach like I was before I became a college coach. When you look at the 11 years you've had at the college level, what are some of the things you wish you knew as a high school and club coach? That you've learned as a college coach that you wish you would have had back then. It's actually interesting for me in some regards. It's almost the reverse of that. Having been a high school coach and a club coach we really had an opportunity here in Hawaii to Raise some great young ladies. And when I say that, it wasn't just teaching them how to be better passers or hitters or setters. But having learning how to find success learning that and we were very competitive. We always had outstanding club programs, high school programs that I coached and boys and girls the. I think the worst that I ever was involved with on a high school staff as an assistant was a second place finish in conference. And I did 20 seasons, I think. So we were in the championship game, didn't win all of the championship games, but we were in the championship game in the years that I coached boys as an assistant years that I helped coach girls as well And then our same thing with our club, we won regionals at every single level and every age group and had some great runs. But I learned pretty early on that. And when I first started coaching, I think my mindset was, Hey, I can take this competitive drive that I have and put together a good team and win some games. And I figured out very quickly that it's more than just the sport. And you have an opportunity to have an impact on the people that you coach in a very positive way and potentially a negative way, depending on how you handle them and those impacts have the ability to be a greater impact well beyond the four years or whatever the period of time is that you get to work with that athlete. So I actually think for me going into college, coming out of the club in high school side was good because I realized that it wasn't transactional. I realized that you had an opportunity to. You can build a relationship with your athletes and in some of my, I've had, one big tournaments had success. My first year as a head coach, the college level, we were pre season five and the coaches pull finished second, beat the number one qualified for the NCAA tournament. And that was a great year, but some of my favorite stories from that year are things that will never make it on our school's website or in a newspaper article. It was an impact that you made on a player that was very direct that maybe only that player and maybe their families know, but it makes an impact on those players well beyond their playing days. So I think for me, it's almost the opposite that there were things that I learned about how to manage the people, not just the athlete and the sport at the club and high school level that actually helped me at the collegiate level. And. As I mentioned earlier, the collegiate level, oftentimes it's very transactional coaches, coach players play and players are just pieces of a puzzle that help a coach keep their job or cost them their job. And sometimes they're treated as such. And I've never felt that it was, that it needed to be that way. If you look at great coaches, if you look at John Wooden as a basketball coach, or you look at John Dunning who retired after winning another national championship at Stanford. I had a chance to spend a little bit of time with John Dunning right after he announced his retirement. I did a camp with him, and one of the things that I told him is I said, your resume is amazing. Over a thousand plus wins, AVCA, Hall of Famer. National multiple national championships. Hey, I get Stanford, but you want a couple of national championships at UOP. You can win a national championship in Stockton, California. You're doing something right. And I said, one of the things that I was most impressed by was when he announced his retirement, I'm reading, the various articles on it, and they quote all these players that went on to be some of the best players in the world, Kerry Walsh and, all these ladies that went on to be Olympians on the beach Pretty much without exception, they all talked about the impact that John Dunning had on them. And I don't think I saw one of them that said, he made me an amazing hitter or an amazing setter or an amazing passer. They talked about the impact that he had on them. And these were all elite athletes. And I shared that with him and and I said, and he did that without being a raving lunatic and he, one of the things that he told me is he said, that was one of the knocks on me sometimes is maybe I wasn't hard enough on my athletes. And I cared about my athletes. And I said I see that. And I get that from time to time as well. But I've just never been a big believer that you have to scream to get your point across. You can challenge your athletes, you can demand that they be better, but you don't have to be a raving lunatic to do that. I admire coaches that have been able to have success doing it. And clearly, you've been around this and doing this for a long time, that there are lots of different styles. But for me, that's one where I felt most comfortable was that you can build a, an environment where you have high expectations and requirements for your athletes, but at the same time, you can care about them at the same time. Great answer, Coach. Fantastic answer, Coach. I know you got to go. I know you got to run real quick. I'm going to put you on the spot 30 seconds. What's the best advice you give to a family with a prospective recruit that wants to play volleyball in college? What's the best piece of advice you could give them? We just touched on that. I think it's ask lots of questions, define what you value and then ask questions and check off the boxes of the things that are important to you. And you need to make a decision as to what you can live with and what you can live without, but get as many of the things that you value. You may not be able to get all of them but certainly don't settle for just one big box. And. And disregard all these other things that are important to you because you're going to find out very quickly that those are missing when you get somewhere. I think it's really important finding the right fit. If I can sum it up in a sentence, I think the most important thing is finding, find the right fit for you. And your fit's different than anybody else's, only you know what's important to you. Define that. Then ask questions and see if your values line up with the coach and the programs that you're looking at. And if they don't, then perhaps keep looking is the best choice. Great answer, coach. Thank you for all you're doing. Thank you for the love you give your kids and the love you give our sport. And and you're a great example for coaches and I'm glad I've got to spend some time with you. It's been a joy. I appreciate it. Thank you. Good luck in Shamina. Thank you. That's a wrap for this episode of the significant coaching. Podcast. I'd like to think. Coach Chris Leonard for sharing his fantastic story. Stories. And his genuine love for coaching and mentoring. I may have to convince them to come back again, down the road, just to talk rock and. Role and bay area sports. If you're enjoying these conversations. Conversations, please click that subscribe and like buttons. If you're. You're interested in working with me or scheduling me to speak at your school or organization. You can schedule a free strategy session at coach Matt Rogers. Dot com. Thanks again for listening. Have a significant week. Goodbye until now.