Episode #59: Jonathan Scott

Building a Championship Culture with Coach Jonathan Scott

What does it take to build a championship-level program? In this episode of Significant Coaching with Matt Rogers, we sit down with Coach Jonathan Scott, Head Volleyball Coach at Point Loma Nazarene University, who recently led the Sea Lions to their first-ever PacWest Championship and a record-breaking 26-2 season.

Coach Scott shares his insights on:
🏐 The key ingredients to building a winning culture
🏐 How offseason training develops both players and leaders
🏐 The mindset shift that led to Point Loma’s historic success
🏐 His approach to balancing relationships, competition, and long-term growth

Whether you’re a coach, athlete, or sports parent, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways on leadership, player development, and what it really takes to sustain excellence.

📍 Learn more about Coach Jonathan Scott and the Point Loma Nazarene University Volleyball Program at plnusealions.com.

🎧 Listen now on CoachMattRogers.com, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Music.

Transcript

0:08

Hey everyone. Welcome back to Significant Coaching. I'm Coach Matt Rogers. Today we've got a powerhouse guest coach, Jonathan Scott. Head volleyball coach at NCAA Division two point Loma Nazarene University. With over a decade at the helm, coach Scott has transformed the sea lions into a formal force in collegiate volleyball. Under his leadership, the team secured their first ever PAC West Championship in 2023 and then followed up by achieving a record setting 26 and two overall season in this past year, 2024, beyond the court. Coach Scott is known for his commitment to fostering strong relationships with his players and emphasizing personal growth alongside athletic excellence. Join us as we delve into his coaching philosophy, the journey of building a championship team, and the lessons he's learned throughout his illustrious career. If you're an athlete, a coach, or just someone who loves the behind the scenes of elite sports. This one's for you. You can catch this episode on coach matt rogers.com plus all your favorite podcast platforms, Spotify, apple Podcasts, Google and Amazon Music. Let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Coach Jonathan Scott. Coach Scott, you just had the best season in the history of Point Loma volleyball. Am I wrong? Yeah, That's right. What a great year you had. So I'm always intrigued as a former coach. What does that offseason look like? You got three more months realistically with the girls on campus as a D two coach. What can you do? What are you trying to get done before they leave for the summer? A big picture. I treat the fall, as Training the team, training our lineup, getting ready for the next game, trying to win. And I treat the spring more as individual development. it's a pretty good contrast. just day to day what it feels and then how we practice plan. with the nine returners we have in the gym right now in the spring. it's about each and every one of them individually. that's the way that my brain is working right now is thinking of each and every one of them. How do we get them better? what are we training? How are we building on their strengths as individuals? and then how are we working on, their weaknesses and areas of growth? Let's get them all better. Let's get them jumping higher. Let's get them understanding their technique better. Is it? Are you pretty tunnel vision with that? we're going to compete every day. I don't think there's anything more important than competition itself. Every spring, especially at the beginning, there's going to be some injuries. We're nursing. We're probably not getting a lot of six on six, but we're getting in a little bit of that. and then whatever else we can for competition that's definitely happening. But also we're more focused on the development right now. I haven't coached the D2 level in 15 years, and I know the rules, it seems every time I look at a rule that's changed, what are you able to do with your team right now in terms of days, how many kids on the floor, hours, what do you have available to you? Yeah, so that's called Kara count accountable, athletically related activities, right? number of hours that were allowed to, mandate our athletes doing something volleyball related. and then the number of hours we can actually be on the volleyball with them, with the coach. so currently, four hours a week, we can do volleyball and a maximum of eight hours total. Combined with volleyball and strength and conditioning, that's putting them up to that eight hours right now in about a month. We can go up to 15 hours a week total. and that can be all volleyball or any mix. it's a lot more convoluted than just the date. I want to say that the bylaw says something along the lines of. You have a 45 day window, to train 15 hours a week within those 45 consecutive days. And you get to pick when those 45 days are. I just always pick the end of the semester. You can maximize it. Yeah, so you get as much training before they're done. You can't touch them anymore for two and a half months. And then once they get to finals, we can't do anything. And then that one of the bigger differences with D2 versus D1 is, I don't know many D2 coaches. I actually can't think of a single one who mandate come back and stay in the summer and train. so for us, We're done at the end of April and we're checking in middle of August. It's almost a four month break. I want to get into what that four month break looks like in terms of your expectations to the girls and what you talk about. But I want to go back. You're trying to scrimmage a little bit every day and trying to compete a little bit every day. Can you bring a kid in? Let's say you got a kid at down the road at a high school you signed in November. Can they come in and practice right now with you? so for division two school, we can do what's called a tryout and they can practice with us one time. That's after they hit the June 15th date at the end of their sophomore year. So basically a junior or a senior. or a transfer, could do it one time. you can't do it more than that, and there are some stipulations around it, but basically you can do it once. anyone who we've already signed, we, we don't do that really. I guess in theory we could if we haven't done a tryout. but it's been a long time since I've done that. If they live locally enough and you weren't in the gym or your staff wasn't in the gym and the girls just were putting up the net and playing, could they use that as like an unofficial visit to just come and play? If there was absolutely no coach involvement whatsoever and nothing mandatory whatsoever. We couldn't stop them. Okay. I've had a couple of local San Diego girls in the last couple of years. and I've never, as far as I know, I don't know of them doing that. In the summertime. I know that they're getting together and they're training at the local clubs. Yeah. It's definitely without me there. When I was a D three basketball coach in ST Louis, we had so many kids, there's 300 high schools within 40 miles. So when we get a kid committed, my guys would play all spring on their own and those kids would just come in and play open gym because we weren't allowed in the gym anyways, so they would come in and play. So I always thought that was cool to build that community, but it sounds like your girls are doing that in the summer anyway, so that's great. Yeah. A little bit in the summer. and I would also say our sport and the calendar of it. All of our assigned girls are heavy into their club season, even if they are local they're plenty busy enough doing their own thing with their own team right now. Absolutely. let's talk about practices a little bit. This four hours you get this every week. How much of it is evaluating that returning nine? As much as training and getting them better, how much of them is evaluating them and how much of that evaluation is affecting how and who you're recruiting these next six months? Yeah, that's a big part of it. I will say this changes year to year, but we have six freshmen signed coming in for the fall. they've been committed for a while. so we know what that class is going to look like. We're not looking at any more seniors in high school. maybe a transfer, maybe one. so that's probably more my answer to that question. At least as far as this off season goes, look, evaluating our returners and a couple of them who are returners and not were not starters this past year. Will they be ready? will they be able to fill the shoes of Somebody who graduated, and then comparing them to our incoming freshmen. Will they be ready? that's the evaluation I'm going through right now. I bet. And then that's got to be a challenge when you've had such a great year. You lost a couple of studs. Am I wrong? we lost a few starters. one in particular who was a two time, honorable mention All American in the middle blocker position. Yeah. she was, she scored points. She was that plus minus superstar that you hate to see walk out the door and graduate. are you that type of coach that goes let's find a kid that come in and replace her or let's be smart about it. We may have different strengths next year, we might need two or three girls to fill what she gave us in the middle, and our strengths are going to change as a team next year. I. I try to just stick with what we got and see what our strengths are and see if we do need to compensate somehow. I try not to force, necessarily what I want it to look like, and, I believe we've got plenty of returning talent and talent where we can create something really special. Again, it very well might look some very well might look. pretty close and a very well might be completely different. I don't, that's more of the evaluation, right? So I don't know which direction I think we should go yet. Yeah. It's, you got a long way to worry about that. How much of that thought process starts with the relationship you have with your center and making sure you and her are on the same page, where the percentages, where the balls go. Yeah, a lot. I spent a lot of time my setters. I think that's an area we've done quite well. in my years as head coach that this past season, so we call her Sophia. So was an all american for the first time and she was our third all american setter that I've had as a head coach. Awesome. And I think that's an area we've definitely focused on. and so her returning, is real nice. I also have a freshman coming in who I believe is very good. So trying to make, we won't know that till the season is actually upon us if we're running a five, one or a six, two, but, back to your question, a lot of my thought process with practice design, with lineups, Do we take a, do we take a transfer or not? Is around, how do we maximize? As a basketball coach, I had August through October to figure some of that out. I got, I had my team on campus. They could work, I could talk, we could build relationships. Kids are getting there the first day and you're starting practice. And you basically have a two week window to figure all that out. Where do the challenges pop up there? What do you do to get over those challenges? Obviously you've got a great setter. what do you try and do in that two, three week window to go, okay, maybe we can play a five, two, maybe we can do this and be better that way. A lot of it is you cross your fingers and hope they stay healthy and see if you have some luck there and there's no doubt about it. We had some luck there with health this past season. the year before we had three starters during season, go down with the ACL injury past season. And one of those was one of our setters. So going into this past year, we only had one healthy setter, until that other one came back mid year. And we were just closing our eyes and crossing our fingers, praying that she didn't go down because. we would have been down and out and she was able to run the five one that whole time and, we didn't lose a match until November. so that's a big part of it. I'll also say that's one of the things I'm, I've always been jealous of with winter and spring coaches. As you get that time to develop and if somebody does show up hurt or if somebody does show up a little fat and out of shape, you can try to compensate, try to get them going. Yeah. If that happens for a fall sport, good luck. Good luck. If you show up a little bit out of shape, you're more likely to get hurt or you're just not going to be good enough. And You show up a little bit injured. There goes your ideal lineup right away and pretty tough. You're obviously doing something right. Your formula of how you recruit has been right on. You're bringing in the right kids, the right balance. Are you finding yourself, you've always had a great, you've always had good teams, but since COVID, you've really turned in the corner in terms of. What those teams are getting done and the relationships, how much of that do you owe to how you're recruiting and has your recruiting changed in the last three, four years? I've thought about that a lot. I think part of it has been completely out of my hands in the sense that, some schools at our level the smaller institution level have just not been financially well. there have been some schools that have shut down completely that have cut athletics, or just defunded. we haven't necessarily overfunded, but we've remained steady. And we, as an institution and as an athletic department, we've been healthy. Yeah. where a lot of schools haven't since COVID. So that's part of it completely out of my hands. I can take no credit for some of that. as far as how I've recruited, we had three All Americans this past season and one, was the Pac West player of the year, she was a first team All American, the first team All American we've had since being D2. She's a three time All American, and her name is Abby, she's one of those special talents where she's good, but she's also got that extremely deep edge of competition inside of her, and so a lot of it has been, we have that in the gym every day. That's Abby Newa. Yep. So she's got her fifth year coming up. as far as getting somebody like that, I think philosophically my recruiting strategy. I've, I have shifted it in the last few years to, to a little bit more near focused with what do we need now? And what does it look like we're going to need next year for a long time, I was really trying to win the recruiting game and get as many early commits as I could. And I was two years out a lot of the time, which is what typically D1 has always done. And I was trying to do that model at our level. I just think I've settled into a better overall philosophy lately. Yeah. I love when I look at your roster and I see five, seven, five, nine outside, five, five lib five, six lib setter, five, 10 outside, right side, five, 10 outside, it doesn't look like you're going in to your recruiting cycle with Here's the box I'm going to stay in. I've got to have these criteria points. If I'm going to recruit a kid, it looks like you're going after that kid that fits how you see the game. You don't really care about the size as much as can this kid do the things we need them to do? Am I wrong? When I look at your roster, that's definitely right. Don't get me wrong. If I could have six, two across the board and wildly competitive and all touching over 10 feet. I would take that. But, yeah I have this on phone calls with recruits a lot. What, how I coach and, what my philosophy is and that sort of a thing. And I always come down to two things. I've already I'm a really competitive guy and I don't want to shy away from that. So if I ever find somebody who actually competes. They're immediately a top recruit. I think everybody thinks they're competitive and I think most people aren't competitive. Everybody wants to win. I don't think everybody's very competitive. so the ones who actually are, I don't care how big you are. that's an intangible that doesn't go away. but the other one is the relational. we have an unbelievable culture and, we've spent a lot of time cultivating relationships. And, it's not just about the transaction of winning and losing and performing. It's about, long lasting relationship past graduation. so when I find that player, even if they aren't the most competitive, if I find that player who just fits in on the culture side, that's everything too. What role does your staff play in building that culture for you? good question. At our level, we don't have the most stable, or at least at our, at Point Loma maybe other D2 schools have figured out some have. financially how to keep assistant coaches for a long time. I've relied heavily on, on, volunteers and on former players coming back as a grad or as a volunteer, or currently I have a former player who is my assistant coach. We have one paid position. Okay. Is that full time or part time? Yes, she is full time. That's new as of the last couple of years. is that a huge part of the change in what you've been able to accomplish having that person in office full time and being able to, I don't know yet. I hope so. Going forward. This was her first year. Okay. I hope so, but I would say. Not necessarily specific to staff to answer your question. Just everyone in the program needs to take ownership of the culture. we have real conversation. being a Christian school, we dive into scripture together. We share our testimonies with one another we get vulnerable and we get uncomfortable. and so the coaches and everyone on staff. They're a part of that, just as every one of the student athletes are. That's great. It's how much of that can you get into when you're recruiting with a kid and their parents? Is that a priority for you or. Do you say, this is who we are, we really like you, but you have to understand this is what we do. This is how we do it. This is a big part of our focus. Is that a leverage point for you? Or do you feel like you lose a couple of kids because of that? I think it's both. Yeah. So sometimes it'll push someone over the edge in our favor. And sometimes it'll push someone over the edge. The wrong direction and I would say that's also in our favor because we probably didn't want them anyway. Yeah, because you can almost guarantee that they're not going to be as happy as they would somewhere else. Yeah. You want that kid that wants to be there for four years, especially the way you're set up. let's talk about your seniors coming back. You've got, it looks like you've got Abby, you've got Gabby, and Macy, are those your three seniors? Yeah. Gabby has decided not to take a fifth year. She's going to graduate and she's actually. She's already in the workforce. She's just waiting on her diploma at this point. but she, she was an incredible, integral role, more off the court, but heavy into our culture. yeah, so just Abby and Macy. Abby will be a fifth year. She registered, coming in her freshman year, and then this will be Macy's true senior year. both have started whenever they've been healthy. Macy was one of the three who tore her ACL in 2023. So she missed a good chunk about 11 months. But she came back and was immediately back into the lineup. That's awesome. I love the determination and the resilience when you, when a kid blows out their ACL like that to come back and be the player better than they were. That makes me really happy to hear about Macy. let's get back to the offseason with those two specifically. what conversations are you having with them about being the leaders, about their communication, about how they wrap their arms around the youngsters, the newcomers, focus on keeping our culture strong. What do those conversations sound like? Abby, is currently our only captain. I usually like to have two captains, occasionally three. and our other captain our fifth year middle who I talked about, who had a great career. so she and I are having more of those conversations right now. And, trying to figure out what to do with the captain situation. If we add one or add two. And Macy's definitely, as she should be, she's someone we're thinking about. In practice, they both work their butts off and, and they compete with joy. Like we, that's something we talk about a lot. They love the game and it comes out through the way they compete. It just changes everything when your leaders play with joy and they're your hardest workers, the kids that everybody says, I want to be more like that. I love that. Do you find yourself choosing captains the same way every year or do they often end up choosing themselves? I've done it a lot of different ways. I remember one of my years, I was bottom of the totem pole on the coaching staff at USC a long time ago now. And, legendary coach, Mick Haley. I remember one time was talking about the captains, and he did it different ways too. But I remember one time let the girls put it to a vote and one of the questions that came about by somebody was what if you don't think they're the right captain? he was. Basically like what they got to deal with it. so i've done that i've done the boat thing i've The authoritarian it's my way. I think this is the way it should be And that was what I did with abby to be honest. She didn't want to be captain I made her captain two years ago now I just told her You got to be captain for a number of reasons. It was the right call. Good. she doesn't as much as she loves the spotlight where she wants to get the match point kill. She hates the spotlight as far as something along those lines. Being in charge, right? But she's stepped into it. with amazing grace. usually it's somewhere in the middle of those, though, we have, regular one on one meetings or coffee or something and just pick their brains. Hey, what are you looking at? What does this team need for leadership? Are you interested in, who do you think would be a good captain? Those sorts of little conversations, and then eventually go with our gut. I love that. I want to go back to your new staff. You've got one, you've got a new assistant coach been with you for a year. You coached her before. What did those one on ones look like in terms of, because obviously you'd love to have somebody on your staff with you for the next 10 years. And we're, you can go, all right, you got that. You got that. I don't have to worry about it. I know you know how to do 10 different things. What are those coffee talks sound like? What are those one on ones look like in terms of developing her and letting her spread her wings a little bit more in year two, I think that's exactly it. the developing, so far, in my tenure as a head coach, every one of my top assistant coaches, even when they were part time, they all moved on to another coaching position, that may or may not have been an upgrade in my opinion, but was a good career path move. Good. and that's something that I make it pretty clear with them. If and when that needs to happen, I want to help you with that. so getting them prepared for that move whenever that needs to be the case. living in San Diego, being on an assistant coach salary at a Division II institution. You're not making a lot of money. You're not, I'm not making a lot of money on a head coach salary. That's for sure. So I know it, I know what it's, it can be pretty difficult. so making sure that they're ready if, and when they want to do that, that's always one of the priorities. And then it's more back to what we were saying with, thinking about the lineup, what are our strengths as a staff? What are our strengths as a program? And then how do we meet those? so it's a give and take and just trying to figure out what they do well and how to compliment what I'm doing. And you have to, every assistant coach you have is going to be a little different. They're going to have a different skill set and you got to find, you've got 50 things on your plate. How can you get rid of four or five of them where you don't have to worry about those four or five things? What can that person do that you don't have to do? And when you're in your 11th, 12th year as a head coach somewhere, you've got a system now of what you want, how you like it, right? Yeah. and it's also the art of that delegation is figuring out. What you can delegate versus what you want to delegate, but shouldn't I've in the past tried to delegate Oh, I don't want to do this anymore. Like you take this and then realizing it completely changed everything. And now it's twice as much work or if they move on and now I've got to take it back it's really an art, more than a science. Yeah, I've always found if I have somebody who's really talented at anything technical, anytime they can get into software, Excel, film breakdown, I feel like a thousand pounds come off my shoulders. Are you in that boat too? That's how I am with expense reports. Getting that one off was the hugest burden. That's awesome. When you have somebody that could do that for you, you don't have to worry about it. It's fantastic. All right. I'm going to keep on this theme here. I see you're a father. I see you're married. What for you are your strengths and finding that balance? As a family man, as a coach, as an administrator running a program, how do you do all that? Yeah, I gotta have your priorities set and straight and organized. And you gotta know, you gotta know what they are and stick to your principles. I think it's really sad. That even in our sport, which is a small community, a lot of coaches don't have their priorities straight, in my opinion, at least looking from my vantage point. And I think it's really sad. I, my three years at USC, I got to experience that big D one life and I made three final fours and had a really good fun run. and I also saw that has to be priority one to be at that level. at least for most people and I didn't want to get caught up in that. I really felt called to a place like Point Loma, where we can still have unbelievably good volleyball, but I don't have to sacrifice everything else to be number two. so I, I think a really big strength that I have is that of compartmentalization. I can. I can leave this morning. I left my front door at five 15 in the morning. Cause we do spring morning practices and I am all in volleyball practice design. Like it's all about those girls and what they need and how we're going to win in the fall and what February practice looks like to win in the fall. Yeah. But as soon as I get home later or whatever, it is a hundred percent. I'm a husband, I'm a dad. And I'm not thinking about that stuff, not intentionally, at least it's certainly there in the back of my mind, but I'm not taking phone calls at home unless it's an emergency. I'm not doing those things. I can organize well and I can compartmentalize. and I think it can be done. I think young coaches that are getting into the field need to understand how important that is. that needs to be a priority for them and a factor for them in their growth is learning how to decompartmentalize. I was terrible at it. That's why I got out of coaching. we had two kids and they both under four and my wife was working and I didn't have the capacity in my late thirties to do both, it was either going to be a great dad or a great basketball coach. Cause I'm not doing either one So I have great respect for you. And for me, it's amazing to me how often I'm talking to a coach like you. Where the fit is so right, the school and the coach somewhere in the stratosphere. Somebody made a great decision to say, this is the person that fits us. And I think we're really good coaches fail is when they get to an institution where it's not a good fit, doesn't fit their character, doesn't fit their emotion. The leadership doesn't fit them. and they never become the coach they're supposed to be. And do you find that point Loma has been that. That perfect fit for you, the circle in a round hole. Yeah, it really has been. as I said I really felt called and I don't use that word lightly. and the, my wife and I left full time jobs, for, I started as the assistant coach at point Lama for 6, 000 and I felt called to it. And my wife and I were all in. Three years later, I became the head coach. I've had the same athletic director and the same president the entire time up until this past summer. Amazing. That's unheard of. They're both unbelievable leaders. what I told my former AD, who recently passed, was. I never want to leave. And I would preface it with, I know this is a bad negotiating tactic because I want to raise, please give me a raise, but I'm also not leaving. unless I get fired or, you don't want me around anymore. and I've said that to many recruits on phone calls. I have no intention of ever leaving unless obviously I get fired and it's out of my hands or God is making it very clear to move. I feel like he's made it very clear that this is where we are to stay and to move this community. we are plugged in, we're all in, my wife, my girls, our church and our school is in the Point Loma community. And we're, you're right, I do think it's the right fit. It's so cool for me, cause I do talk to coaches where, I can tell at the end of our conversation, this is the last stop for them. they're still searching for something that fits them. They like where they're at. They're doing well, but there's something more profound out there for them. But it makes me really happy to hear. The joy you have for your school and your community and how happy your family is that's we can't ask for anything more. You're going to be a better coach because of that support system you have and the faith you have not only in your soul and your spirit, but in that school and the people around you. So it's going to make your girls happier too because of it. All right, Coach, let's dive into recruiting a little bit because that's really where I live these days. If I put you in a room with 300 volleyball families, I put you in an ABCA event, USA Volleyball event. what are your keys of advice to families about recruiting? What do you think they need to know that maybe they don't hear enough doesn't always get through? Yeah, I think there are a couple of things I do try to hit on. And I also coach on and off, but I coach club volleyball as well. So I have this conversation, as a club coach, as someone who's trying to help them in that setting and there, I think there are two keys that lean on, the first one, maybe it's my bias showing I've chosen D2, I've chosen small Christian school, I've chosen not to quote unquote climb the ladder and find the next best thing, and That sort of thing that a lot of people get caught up in, but that's the first one. It's not all about the appearance of quote unquote, big time D one. It's not all about the full ride even. maybe that's a necessity if that's your social income status and you need it. Go get it. but it really is about finding that place that works well, that fits you, finding the coach, hopefully it's the one head coach for your career, but finding the coach and the players on that team where you're like, these are my people, those girls are going to be my bridesmaids. That coach is going to be a lifelong friend and mentor, not just for your coach, that would be by far the most important one. And that's obviously not easy, but if you frame it that way, you're starting off differently. and then the second one is. Don't do the comparison thing. Like everyone is on their own journey. And as soon as you compare your journey to your teammates journey, something's going to go bad. I totally agree. That's great advice. we get so caught up into it. I can't tell you how many times a parent will say to me, Matt, this kid just got an offer here and my daughter ate her up. I go what does that, what do you think that means to a college coach? Why can't they see that she's better than that girl? They just signed because there's a thousand other things that go into that decision. What does that coach need on their roster? What kind of character are they looking for? What kind of teammate are they looking for? Grades, test scores, faith. how do they handle diversity? How do they handle adversity? if you're not looking for happiness and health. You've completely gotten off the rails. If all you're looking for is that scholarship or that prestige, there's a good chance you're going to be one of those 42 percent that end up in the portal or quitting. So it's fantastic advice. What's a piece of advice you've been given over the years about life, about parenting, about coaching, that you find yourself given to others. I'll give you mine because it's so on my wedding day, 27 years ago, my history teacher was the father of my best man. And he gave us a card. And all he wrote the card was be generous, Jerry. It was to this day, almost 30 years later, it is so profound for me. And, and I've grown those two words into, I could write a book on it now, what being generous really means to me so that I always ask that question because it was so simple, but yet it changed how I approach my life. That triggers one. I've called back on this. several times with the team, maybe every couple of years, I'll bring it back. and it really was similar to what you just said, like life changing for me in a lot of ways. I had a, you said history teacher, mine was an English teacher in high school, I had him freshman year, his name was Mr. Poe, freshman year high school, and I was a, basketball and volleyball, but I was the athlete who Only cared about sports, and did not care really at all about paying attention in class or listening this was freshman year. It gets better. So freshman year, I have this guy, Mr. Poe, and I remember, really starting to respect the man, good teacher. one of the things that was pretty amazing is regularly he would have college students just randomly show up, knock on the door during class, and he would stop class and go give him a hug or give him a handshake, and they were his former, his former students who would come back just to say hi, and I never really thought anything of it until I was older. Of how impactful of a man he really was on a lot of people anyway, on his wall was a quote that says. Attitude is a decision. Attitude is a decision. And I remember all freshman year, not really caring about that quote whatsoever. anyway, senior year comes around. I get to take AP. this seems like it's getting better, but it gets worse before it gets better. I get to take AP, English, whatever AP English writing or whatever the class was called. You can tell I still didn't really care about classes, senior year, but I'm like, I'm going to take Mr. Poe. Cause I remember really at least respecting the guy. I'm still not respecting him as far as listening, as far as doing what a student ought to do. He takes me out of his class. We walk around the building and he cusses me out and he says in, I'm not going to use the words he used, but. Get out of my class. Like you should not be in my class. And I, after a little bit, I realized I'm not going to pass this class and I'm a senior, so I drop it and it takes me several years till I quit volleyball my freshman year of college with a back injury and I began coaching. And then I start to realize, oh. Mr. Poe attitude is a decision. And I'm able to call back on that as such a failure, but call back on it of like how important. And I still got a life lesson out of it. Sometimes I hope you've been one of those people that have gone back and given him a hug in the middle. I've tried to he's since retired. good guy. Isn't it amazing how a message like that subliminally. in a classroom resonates with that one kid. And that's really why he wanted, if this helps one kid, maybe now, maybe later, I just love that, that he cared about you enough to say, you and I are going for a walk because if I don't do this for you now, you may never see what you're capable of. Walk around the corner where no one can hear us I love it. I just love it. Thank you for sharing that story. I'm so glad I got to know you. What an impressive career you've had. And it feels like it's just getting started. Thank you so much for sharing your stories and your advice with me and our audience. Yeah, thanks, Matt. Thanks for the spot. What a great conversation. Huge thanks to coach Jonathan Scott, head volleyball coach at Point Loma Nazarene University for sharing his insights on building a championship culture, developing athletes in the off season. And the leadership mindset that keeps his program thriving, his dedication to his players and the game is truly inspiring. And to our listeners, thanks for tuning in to the Significant Coaching Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a rating and share your thoughts. It helps us grow and bring you more valuable conversations. For families navigating the college athletics recruitment process, you can visit coach matt rogers.com for expert resources and to schedule a personalized strategy session with me. And don't forget to check out my book, significant Coaching, the Playbook for Prospective College athletes filled with insights and strategies to take ownership of the recruiting journey. You can also explore past episodes and my blog for more on coaching, leadership and recruiting. Thanks again for listening. See you next time on The Significant Coaching Podcast.