Episode #132: Bet Naumovski

🎙️ Coaching That Transforms: A Conversation with Bet Naumovski

In this week’s episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, Matt Rogers sits down with longtime friend and decorated Queens College Head Women's Basketball Coach Elizabeth “Bet” Naumovski. Bet is the all-time winningest coach in program history and one of the most respected leaders in NCAA Division II women’s basketball.

From building a nationally recognized powerhouse to developing All-Americans, Players of the Year, and high-character young women, Bet shares the principles, competitive standards, and people-first leadership that fueled her success at Queens. She also reflects on the relationships and defining moments that shaped her coaching journey—and the lessons coaches at every level can apply today.

This is a thoughtful, grounded conversation with a coach who has spent her career transforming programs and the people within them.

🎧 Listen now at CoachMattRogers.com/podcast

Transcript

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Welcome back to The Significant Coaching Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. When you've been coaching as long as I have, you learn over time that the world of college athletics is a very tight circle. You're usually only one or two relationships away from connecting with any coach at any level, and sometimes the people you meet along the way end up becoming far more important than the job you thought you were pursuing. I met Coach Elizabeth be Naski more than 12 years ago during an interview at Queens College. I didn't get that job, but that day I spent with Be created a friendship that still stands today. Maybe it's her Canadian roots, but it is hard to find someone as kind, as generous and as deeply devoted to developing young people as Coach Bet and her career speaks for itself. The all time winningest coach in Queen's College, women's basketball history, a coach of the year in multiple conferences, a leader who guided her teams to the NCAA division, to Elite Eight, multiple East Coast. Conference championships, national rankings and seasons that redefined what that program believed was possible. She's coached all Americans, players of the year, defensive standouts, and some of the most decorated athletes in division two. Beyond that, she served as the senior women's administrator shaping policy, supporting student athletes and strengthening the department from every angle. But what truly sets BET apart is not the wins, it's the standard. It's her commitment to teaching, mentoring, empowering and caring for the young women she leads. She's a builder of programs, but more importantly, a builder of people. Today, we get to learn from her. Before we begin, a quick reminder, if this episode resonates with you, please comment, follow, and share. On whatever podcast platform you're using. It helps us reach more coaches, more families who are striving to lead with purpose and significance. Let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Coach Bet Naski. coach Matt, it's so great to see you. You as well. Thanks for the invite. Can you believe that it's been 12 years since we met each other for the first time? Absolutely not. I was thinking about that. I was, this morning, I was like, it's been over 10 years, so Time really does fly. It does. And I interviewed for the Queen's job back then and, it was hard for me because I was a small town boy, and I was like, can I move my young family?'cause we had babies at that point. Can we, can I move my babies to the city in New York? But I just, I love the kids. I had so much fun, just the time I gotta spend with the kids while I was on campus and the athletes, student athletes. But I just, I connected with you and had such a great respect for you right away. So I've been following your career and I'm so glad that you had the run that you had at Queens. Thank you for all of that. It was, I enjoyed meeting you as well. I, listen, I think you're outstanding and I think those who've been coached by you are lucky to have been coached by you. Some might agree with you and some might the other, but Yes. I that's how coaching goes, right? You're either the best coach they've ever had, or you're the worst coach they've ever had. Yeah. There's quite a lineup, I think for both of those. You've had such an eclectic career. And you're Canadian, right? Yes, I am. I love that. Toronto, a very proud Toronto girl. Very proud Toronto girl. What piece of your Canadian DNA has followed you to New York all these years? Oh, that's a great question. I've never had. I think the purpose or the central focus of sports in Canada is very different from the us. There's pros and cons, obviously to both, in Canada, sports, collegiate sports, university sports is more of an extracurricular thing. It's definitely more of a division three model. So I think the. The goodness of sport is still at the core. And I think in the US it's, listen it's capitalism, right? It's more of a business for sure. There's more dollars involved. So the philosophy behind it is very different. So I think at times I can't help but bring some of my Canadian philosophy sport philosophy to what I do. And I think sometimes people look, listen, I remember my first year when I was coaching at Queens, my assistant was from Queens. She was a New York City girl. It was her first time assistant, and I think after about a couple months she looked at me, she said. She said, you, you really need to change. And I said what do you mean I have to change? She said, you are too nice. And I said I don't know about that. I said, it depends on who you ask. She said, no, New York City is going to eat you alive unless you change. So she was a little bit right in that.'cause I was probably a little bit too Pollyanna at the time. And definitely got a little bit tainted by New York City. But I think like a little bit of a sport purist. I think that's the Canadian that I brought. And the philosophy is probably a little bit different. I think it took me a while to adapt to the business side of college athletics. I think those, that part of your DNA is so important to sports and to coaching. So I'm glad you haven't, you didn't listen to that young lady. Thank you. Get that outta your DNA. When did you first fall in love with coaching? So that's interesting. I went to university, it's university here in Canada. So I went to university thinking I was gonna be a phys ed teacher. I didn't have coaching in my mind at all. I thought I was gonna be a phys ed teacher.'cause I always liked sports and activity. And at the time, the school that I went to, you had to take what they called practicum courses or activity courses. Sure. Two team sports, individual sports, things like that. So naturally, I didn't go out of my comfort zone and I chose basketball as my activity sport. And the person who ran that class was our head men's basketball coach. So he pulled me aside after a couple weeks and he said, have bet, have you ever thought about coaching? And I said, no I've, I have no interest. I've never thought about it. He said, I really think that you would be a great coach. And I think that. You would like it. And I said I don't know. I'm gonna be a phys ed teacher. So we had, at the school, we had what they called four strings. It was you could go, you could, you did your degree. So it's not like a minor, but it was like you got a certificate in it. It could be sport administration coaching, athletic training. And I think the other one was like, sport administration. I got a similar degree. Yes, I know. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So he said, listen, I'm in charge of the coaching stream, so I'm telling you if you apply, I'm gonna accept you. And I said I don't know. He said, listen, I'll make you this agreement, apply, do it for a year. If you decide you don't like it, I'll let you out. And I said, okay I'll do it. Okay. So part of what that entailed was practical coaching. And, I started taking the coaches classes. I started doing the practical coaching and, you were paired with a college coach. And my my, I was an apprentice coach and I just started to really fall in love with him. And I started, and listen, I think everyone who goes into coaching, I feel like you go into it because at the end of the day, the sport gave you so much that you wanna give that back to other people. Yes. And in taking those courses and the experience, I realized I have that opportunity. Like I really love this sport and how it shaped me, molded me, made me who I am today. And I've had great mentors through coaching and through sport, and I thought, here's my way of paying it forward and hopefully providing guidance and opportunities, same opportunities to other people. So that's where it started. It's amazing how many coaches I've talked to over the years, especially since I started this podcast a couple years ago, have a similar origin story to their coaching. How somebody grabbed him and said, I think you'd be good at this. It's, it's so interesting because I really wish that I, at some point would've asked him, what did you see in me? Because I really am curious to know that answer. But I never had the opportunity. I'm sure you've done it now in the last couple of decades Yes. Where you've grabbed a kid and said, Hey, you should think about coaching. I know. I've done that. And they have Yes. Hundred percent. People that, kids that have played for me that have gone on to coaching I think a lot of it comes down. You almost have to be a pied piper. You have to be that person that young people just will automatically follow a little bit, and they want to be mentored by you and wanna listen. You have to have that voice. And I think you're, there has to be that ability to deal with chaos and. To be able to walk through the fire without losing your mind a little bit, don't you? And I think you can see that early on in a 20, 21, 20 2-year-old if they have it or not. Am I wrong? I agree. No, I agree. I'm gonna tell you a quick story'cause I think that you'll appreciate this. So I say this, like I really would've liked to ask him like, what did you see? And a couple years ago, I remember, I forgot this for the longest time, but when I was playing eighth grade basketball no, it was ninth grade, excuse me, ninth grade basketball. And listen, it was not, it was a different time, right? For women, so we didn't have like our boys basketball coach, he just got inducted into the Hall of Fame here in Ontario. And we got whatever teacher would volunteer to coach basketball that year, right? So we didn't have someone who's dedicated to it. They were just like, Hey, I'll help the girls out. So it was our French teacher and she didn't know anything about that. She brought in a couple of guys from the senior team and they would help us a little bit in practice. And I still remember to this day we were losing. And she calls the time out and she had no idea what to say and I have no ill feelings towards her at all. She did the best she could and without her we wouldn't have had a team. So she called the timeout and she looked at all of us I don't know. So I said, okay. And I went into my bag and I took out a piece of paper and I was like, we're gonna go into a 1 3, 1 zone. And I started telling her this was ninth grade, saying, okay, this is what we're gonna do and this is your and a timeout. The funny thing is she let me and I think about that. Like she let me, and she looked at me like, yeah, what she said. So I think, I guess maybe I did always have it in me and I just didn't know. But the greatest thing in the world she could have done was said, way to go. That's right. Listen to her. Yeah. Yeah. I said, okay, that sounds like a good plan. Now, I'd love to tell you that the game turned around and we won it, but we didn't. But a spark was created, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Broley, that's pretty cool. I remember Jimmy Foth, coach Foth, my first year at Koch College, I was on the basketball team and I was like the 14th, 15th man on varsity. So they had me playing with the JV as well. So I would dress for both. And we played Ironman, JV basketball back then, we had five guys. We played 40 minutes and I remember the first game. Where coach just said he looked at the five or six of us that were on the JV and we're gonna play 40 minutes against a, we were a D three, we're gonna play against a D two JV team. And he said, get the ball to Rogers and run. And I was like, I've been waiting my entire life for a coach to tell me that. So I think there's those little points in our life where we just need someone to say, I believe in you, and go agree. Hundred percent. It can be so insignificant at the time, right? Yes. And that's the thing is it doesn't even, like I said it, I remembered this a couple years ago, but I had lost that story for a long time. Yeah. But you're right. Just those little flashes in your life that point you in the right direction. Yeah. It's, that's what's been fun about doing the podcast too, is there's, I'm like, that, there's stories of I haven't thought about that in 30 years, but at the, something triggered it and it brought it out of my memory. That's it's what's really cool. All right. Let's talk about the great run you had. Your 2017 run was fantastic. A lead eight division two East Region Champions, coach of the Year. What made that team special from the inside? I've thought a lot about that.'Cause you're trying to recreate that, right? And there's a lot of things and I think back at it and there, there were just a lot of things that, that we got right. And I think part of it was I'm gonna start with we recruited a core of four or five kids that we moved along. For four or five years. So they were with the program for four or five years. So they, so we had that consistency amongst the team. They understood the expectations, but they also started to understand what it took to win. And I think the, one of the other things is we were completely all on the same page about what our goals were. They were not just trying to win. That team really believed that they could win a national championship. I did not think that we were good enough to win a national championship, but I certainly wasn't going to tell them. I did think that we could, b, a Final Four Elite eight team. I did I had gone to the convention I think the year before was one of the years where division 1, 2, 3 championship for all held at the same spot. Yeah. So I watched the division two championship game and I was there with a coaching colleague and I turned to her and I said I don't think that these two teams are better than us. I think that we're at this level. And going into the 2017 season, I told my team that I think that we're as good as those two teams that were in the championship game. And they really wanted to win at that level as well. And I thought, and we had good leadership within the team. Like we had multiple leaders in the team who were bought in all of the way. So they were bought into me, into my vision, into what I was teaching. They would know a scouting report through and through. They would quiz each other on the scouting report. Awesome. When you were driving, they'd be in the van going, okay, number 22, what did she do? What did, and there, there accountability level was really high. And not just, me holding them accountable, but they held each other accountable to a very high level. I remember the I think it was the NCAA East Region final. And we were working, obviously, we went through our walkthrough on how we were gonna guard certain sets from the other team. And the first two plays out. They ran a set that we had worked on, how we were gonna help in that set. And we messed it up the first time and we all looked, I thought whatever one mistake, I reminded them what it was supposed to be. Next trip up the floor. Same mistake, but that mistake cost our best player, who's national player of the year two fouls. Oh. And and it was sister. So she turned to her sister and she said, we worked on that. You are supposed to help on this. And what was special about that team was we got to a point where I was just coaching basketball. Yeah. And I think that was the beauty of that team was I could just coach basketball. They took care of a lot of the other stuff. Sometimes I would turn, I would call somebody's name out'cause I was going to tell them that, and the captain or whoever would looked at me and went like this, said, I got it. I got it. I got it. Okay. Okay. That, that team was just really special in a lot of ways. And it was like, it was the people, it truly, they were, we had talent, but at the end of the day, they were really high quality people of really good character. It's amazing.'cause I can tell you almost the exact same story about a group of five or six boys that I brought in to Maryville, same time. They connected immediately, they pushed each other. They got over some really big adversity. So we got our butts kicked early, and by the time they were sophomores at some point it just clicked. And I would go to stop practice and I'd have one of'em had already stopped practice. Say, Hey, this is what we're supposed to be doing. We're not doing it well enough. We're not working hard enough. Yeah. And all of a sudden I could step back and I wasn't coaching by myself. Yeah. All of a sudden it was, there was ownership all the way through. Yes. Yeah. Ownership is a great word. And I found out that, we didn't lose a lot that year, anytime we lost, I think we lost like maybe three or four games that year had great. But I found out anytime we lost, they immediately when we got back to campus, because I don't, I think we were undefeated at home that year, if I'm not mistaken. So anytime we had lost and we got back to the campus, they had, they would have a team meeting immediately in the dorm room. And I didn't know about that. I found out, out about that five years later that they talked about, they held each other accountable, but it was also, what did we do wrong? We don't want it to ever happen again. And then they would move forward and I thought that was terrific. That's, those are such great memories. And it just, it and you talk about trying to replicate that, and it's so hard. It's just so hard. It's hard. And it's become so much harder in today's climate. It like to have a group of four or five kids to stay together for four to five years. And I say that because we had a couple who, you know, were injured red shirted, so they ended up getting five years. But it's just so hard, especially at division two. Yeah, because what I was finding in my last couple years, I would say my last two years especially, is I was starting to feel like we were the minor leagues for division one. Like we were a farm team. So to get them, I just think it's very, you have to have a lot to sell as a college to retain those students. Retention, I think at division two is difficult. Yeah. Yeah. How do you tell a lifelong middle manager not to take the vice presidency job? They just got offered. How do you tell a lifetime assistant coach who's won five national championships, assistant coach not to take the head coaching job? And the kids are feeling the same thing now, as I just had a great run. I scored 18 points per game and seven rebounds. The vision, two level played against the best players in the country. Country. Maybe I can play higher. Maybe I, I had a, I had an athlete come to me a couple years ago and this is when it would, it's, it I think probably really hit me that okay, it's, times have changed and I don't think that we're gonna be able to recreate what we did. Yeah. Great player, great kid from a great family, never gave me any trouble. Like she was everything you want a student to be, right? She's over a 3.5 student, terrific athlete. Never gave me any problems on the court, off the court. Great teammate. I don't have anything negative to say. And, we're heading into the next season and obviously she's gonna be a big part of it. So you're planning around her a, a central pork. And she came to me a few, I would say about a month after the season ended. And when she came to my office, I could tell, I said, I think she's gonna tell me she's gonna transfer. I could just see it in her face, something she was, I said you're gonna gimme bad news today, aren't you? She said, yeah. And I went, okay, sit down. So we had talked about it and I said, why do you wanna do this? And she, at first it was like my dad really wants me to do it. And I said but it's at the end of the day. What do you think? What do you wanna do? It's your career. And she said, you know what, coach? My dream has always been to play division one basketball, and I just don't wanna look back with any regrets. I thought to myself, I can't argue with that. Yeah. I get that. And I'll be honest with you, she walked out my door and I definitely shed a tear. Yeah. And when I asked her what do you want? She said, it's really hard. And she started to cry and she said, it's really hard because I really love it here. And I thought, wow. We've done everything. Yeah. Like she's happy, she's doing well academically, athletically, she's on a great scholarship and she's saying, I love it here. And she's crying as she's telling me this but still isn't enough for her to wanna try division one. And I, that's when I realized, okay, things are changing because this isn't someone who's going in the portal.'cause she's disgruntled, she's actually extremely happy here. Yeah. And there's just nothing I can do to make her stay. Yeah. It's so rough. Yeah. I, and I think that's my big red flag with coaching again, is the joy I got out of growing kids and seeing who they were. Were at 22 when I had, they were babies and insecure and lost. Yep. Couldn't find their dorm room at 18 all the time. They're men and women and great lives ahead of'em. And you're seeing the composure and the maturity. Yeah. It's a challenge. I, we're gonna spend a segment talking about recruiting, but I want to get into it. A little bit here.'cause you brought it up and I think it's, I think it's fascinating. Have you found yourself over the years changing how you went about building your team? Because I think when you start, it's I need a point guard. I gotta go find a point guard. I need a center. I gotta go find center that can do this or this. And you, and we talked about that. Four or five. Group of kids and how well they melded, and I had that group of kids as well. Do you find yourself recruiting pieces more than positions in terms of how they can get along and how they're gonna grow together and how they're gonna fit? Have you, has that changed at all with you over the years? It, it did. Some of the change was because the college was changing and they retention is a big topic for every college, with everyone's admissions numbers down the focus on retention is becoming greater and greater. It's just sometimes, sometimes you have to, colleges have to realize that part of that retention is you have to spend money to keep these kids as well. You've gotta do things that make them feel special, that make them feel valued, that make them feel appreciated, that make them feel that this experience that they're having at your college, they're not gonna be able to have somewhere else. And I think sometimes that piece is missing.'Cause yes, they might choose the school for the basketball coach or the program, but part of why they stay is, do I like it here? Yeah. With the college focusing more on retention, it forced me to have to focus on, what we started to focus really much more on kids who really wanted to be there.'Cause if they really wanted to be there, there was a better chance that they were going to stay there. But the challenge is, listen, like one of the biggest problems is a lot of coaches aren't transparent in the recruiting process. They're not. And I think that is one of the larger issues in recruiting and retention. And I just really wish that AAU coaches, high school coaches understood really what they're setting their students up for when they're not being transparent about that student's pros and cons. Because listen, like I know I'm not getting a perfect student, especially a student athlete, especially at division two. There's something she's not, and I'm not talking about the off the court, I'm talking on the court. Like one of my coaching friends used to say, when you're a division three player, you could probably do one or two things really well when you're a division two player, you could probably do two or three things really well when you're a division one, you could probably do four, three or four, four or five, depending on the level of division one. And I thought that was a pretty good way of saying that. Good summary. So I know at division two I'm getting someone who just took two or three things really well and there's a lot of stuff she needs to work on, but I wish they didn't assume that I'm gonna not recruit them because of the her weaknesses. I am gonna recruit her based, depending on what those weaknesses are in our program, what we need, what our fit is. It just gives me a heads up on what I'm gonna need to work on with that person and as if she fits into the puzzle. But, we talk about mental health. I know I'm a little bit all over the place right now, but when you're not transparent as a coach in the process and you lead a coach to believe that, hey, you're getting a, and then you realize you're getting b, that's when the mental health stuff really kicks in because that person realizes eventually that she's in over her head. And that's a tough position as a young person. But to answer your question, did we recruit differently? We did. We tried to focus on retention. I started to focus more on, because I didn't know if they were gonna come or they're gonna go. So it was just like, let's get the best talent we could possibly get, and then I could figure out a system to make all of that, come together. Where before it was positional, I, it was, I'm graduating a center, I'm gonna go get a center, I'm graduating a point guard, I'm gonna go get a point guard. But you had to, you have to keep recruiting with the portal because you don't know who's gonna go on the portal. You don't. So I had to spend a lot more time on recruiting with always in the back of my mind going, I gotta be ready to fill that spot re depending on who goes. And that's what kids and families don't understand. If we knew you were locked in for four years, we we'll recruit differently. If we knew you weren't gonna tear your ACL your sophomore year we'd recruit differently. There's certain things you just. You can't help. Yeah, I think we all want a 12 to 15 person roster, but we all, we know the pitfalls of that, that I may need 18 just to survive the season. That's a really good point because that's an example of how we started to recruit differently. Like my ideal number was always like 13, 13 players on the team because I would always say, one is likely to be injured one may have academic issues that takes me down to 11. I can still go five on five with a sub in practice we could still get ready for games. And then it became, we gotta try to get 16 people at least on this roster because you never listen. They're coming and going a lot quicker than they used to. And then. I was finding we were having more issues with injury injuries. And I think part of that is they don't invest in training like they used to. So what, they work with trainers, basketball trainers more than they ever have. But they used to go out for a run. They used to go, they never did strength training as much as we wanted them to, but at least they dabbled in it a little bit. Yeah. And now I found we were getting kids that like, never did conditioning, never been in a weight room, but they work with their basketball trainer a lot. And I did find that was leading to more injuries because they were just playing more but not preparing like they used to. Yeah. It's a common theme across all sports. I have baseball coaches telling me the same thing. Softball coaches, football coaches telling me the same thing, and I think it it always goes back to being a multisport athlete. Like when we grew up, you played everything. Yeah. You might love basketball, but you were, you had a bat in your hand in the spring or you were running track. Yeah. Or you were doing something to give those specific muscles a break in. I agree. Different way. Totally agree. Totally agree. I wanna get into Title IX a little bit. Yeah. Does Canada have a version of Title ix? Did they ever go through that process? That's a good question. I'm sure that we have some sort of version, but that's what I meant at the start about some of the it's a little bit more of a, it's a little bit more of a purist, support here. Because there's not, as, there's not the same dollars invested like the us Like I said, it's more of an extracurricular thing. There's not the same TV rights and things like that. So there is now definitely I would say a lot of equity between men and women. When I was going through it, I would say there was not, but when I got to college I never felt like the men were getting more than us. Yeah. We practiced in the same building. We flip flopped practice time, so they weren't getting all of the perks. But again I hate to say it, but I do think a lot of that has to come with just the dollars invested in sport in general. Yeah. So we don't we never really had the same. Again we had inadequacies when I was younger in high school and all of that, we, we never really had to, We never had the same regulations, I guess you would say, with regards to Title ix. It's amazing how many times I'll talk to a female coach and she'll talk about the problem that they're having, and every once in a while it'll be, but the football coach stood up for us, or my men's partner stood up for us, because, you and I have talked about, it would've been great if we would've got to coach together and Yes. Share that. And I think that's a big part of coaching, is that shared relationship between the teams, especially when there's that men's and women's group that are playing together, whether it be softball, baseball, or basketball, or whatever it may be, or soccer. How important was that for you when you were at, you were SWA for a long time? And getting coaches just to understand that and getting the kids to work together and that, that student athletic advisory committee understanding, hey we're doing this for everybody. We're doing this because of this thing we have on this name we have on our chest that we wear every day. Was that important in your role? It was very important to me. And again, I think that's where some of my Canadian roots had a strong impact on me because I never felt those, if those battles were being fought behind the scenes when I was in university I wasn't aware of them. I never saw them. Yeah. I felt like we were treated equally. We had basically the same apparel, practice gear, all of that. So for me it was bizarre that there were inequities between male and female because I didn't experience that in university at all. At all. So I just thought it's a no brainer. What do you mean we have to fight for it to be equal? Yeah. So I was pretty vocal about that. I, listen, what are you gonna do when you try to champion things? Some people love what you have to say and some people wish she would just be quiet already. But it was very difficult for me. And I used to say, I have a hard time recruiting and trying to recruit a female. And when I know that she's not going to be treated equally to the men how, and I'm going to tell that parent, that family, that I'm gonna take care of her. So I do believe in being a p person of my word. So just things like practice time. I don't believe the men should have their pick and then we work around it like, no. Yeah. Yeah. Even I started to really challenge the conference and a lot of the men's coaches didn't, weren't happy about it. But, I got to the point where we tried to have equity because I was really big on this. I wanted to have equity in our game times. Absolutely. Sure. Because what I was finding is, listen, we're New York City and families. Listen, division two is a regional model, that, and, we're not ne we're not recruiting kids from the west coast to come to New York City. Division two, it's a regional, so you're recruiting people for the most part within your region. Sometimes you get a couple internationals or whatever, but most of the time they're from the area. Yeah. And I thought like it's not fair for a male basketball player to have and their family to have. To be able to watch their son play more than their daughter's family. When our games start at five o'clock, how many parents do you think are gonna be in the gym at five o'clock? They just finished work and now they're gonna have to fight through New York City traffic. So if we're gonna always be the early game, these they're never gonna have their parents in the stands. Yes, they can do the live stream and all of that but why should they, why should our men or our player have that perk and our women don't? So I was successful and I was lucky because I had a female ad and she said, you know what? Bet I think you got a good point. So we would flip flop it. Sometimes we played the early game, sometimes the men did. And then some of the men's coaches on the men's basketball side started to complain that, Hey, like when we play Queens why should it be different from our other games? We should always have the second game. But on the other side, our men's coach was all for. And he said, I'm all for it because I get to go home and put my daughters to bed. And I never have that opportunity. And I think people don't think about the other side either. So he said, I'm all for it because I can go home and I can put my daughter to bed that night instead of not seeing my daughter that day. So it was very important to me. And I was an ad and I went through this as an ad, and I would have, I'd sometimes have the girls say, we like going first. And this is at New York City. This was, St. Louis and California. We like going first.'cause when the men are playing after us, the crowds get bigger at the end of the games. What's your thought on that argument or that piece of the debate? So sometimes I would get into it with my players because they would say, we wanna go first because then we go to the men's game and we can cheer for the guys, right? And I'd say, but you're not here to be a cheerleader. And that's a visual that I think it's time for us to change because I don't see the guys showing up or staying for your games to, to cheer for you guys. So what are we doing here? And when I started to really push for the games being switched, we were one of the top teams in the region and we were nationally ranked. And I said, listen, like I, I could really be a stickler and say we are the show. Like we are doing way better than our men's teams. I could make the argument that we should have the primetime spot every single night. That's right.'cause we got to the point where we actually had a good crowd in our gym because the students started to be like, Hey, our women's basketball team is pretty good. We should go check'em out. The students in the dorms would start coming over. Teachers would start staying saying, Hey, I've heard about the women's basketball team. Let's go check them out. So for me, it was like, why can't, why sh why can't we be the show in town? Because our record shows that we should be the show in town. Absolutely. And people should be here leaning for us. Yes. So for me, it was just like, I don't know, think bigger than that. Like, why can't you be the prime time show? And if you're not hey guys, we have something to work towards. Yeah. I've been trying to pound that into my daughter's head, it's I think too often they have this idea and young girls that. They can't have what the men have, it's'cause they're bigger and stronger. The TV money at the higher levels, it's all a bunch of garbage. When I was at Maryville, the women's team, I think, I don't think they lost the game at home for eight straight years. I think they went to the national tournament six or seven straight years in a row. It was unheard of, it only challenged me. I only felt okay, I've gotta get to the level that our women are playing at it. I've gotta recruit better. I've gotta work hard. And you went to that stretch. I know there was a couple years after you and I met, I don't think the men won a game for a long time. Yeah. Or they struggled. They struggled. There was a couple years they were, they struggled. Yeah. So why shouldn't we have that value proposition? This team is doing really well. Let's showcase them. Let's, yeah. And the other thing too is like their experience should be equal. Like your experience as a student athlete at that college should be equal. And that should not have to do with gender, and it shouldn't have to do with sport. PE people should be treated equally in terms of how they look back at that. I always felt like you chose in my last school, you chose Queens. And I really hope that when you graduate that you will look back and say, man, I had an experience there that I don't think I could have had anywhere else. But it's, to me, it was always about the experience that we are providing them. And listen, sometimes people were with me on that and sometimes they weren't. But yeah. But again, I think that's where my Canadian roots come in and I just feel like regardless of, your gender, your race, what, whatever, like it's the experience that we are providing for you. Yeah. And I do think that unfortunately is changing and we're talking less about student experience than before, but that to me was central, I think for all of my decision making. It's it at a very basic bottom, and that's Title IX is you should have the opportunity to have an equal experience. Your coaches may be different. One, one team may get a little money for playing a division one that the other team can't get. There's some of those things that we may never fix. We never may never get to an answer, but the opportunity should be there to have that equality. Yeah. And when I say experience, I'm talking about the basics, right? Like the same access to the trainers at the same times of the day. Like you shouldn't have to go, at nine o'clock at night because you are tennis. It should be those opportunities. You have an equal opportunity to go to the training room at a time. That makes sense of the student schedule. Yeah. You should have you, your mode of transportation should be the same. It shouldn't be one person in a great coach bus and everyone else is in vans. That's what I mean by experience. That what everyone's day to day is as much as possible should be the same that the same resources, equipment available to you. You can't be, like one team has a shooting machine and one team doesn't. Yeah. Or one team has the top of the line shooting machine and the other has the lowest model. Yeah. So that's what I'm talking about with experience is your day to day and what you are experiencing day to day, what is being presented to you should be equal. I really believe that. And I think the problem often starts at the top. You might have a brilliant president who never played sports or never played in college, didn't, doesn't understand that what that's doing. If there isn't that oppor equal opportunity to that experience, how that's affecting retention. Yeah. And you've only got two athletic trainers and you've got 12 teams and that's 340 some, 350 kids. Those people are gonna get burnt out'cause because they can't do the job that needs to be done at the times. Yeah. That need to be done. Yeah. It's such a, it's such a big topic, but again, like you talked about in the beginning, it all comes down to finances, it comes down to funding. Where's the value in putting the money into that? And it's hard to always make that argument every year. It is. And I think the trend, to go to your point about college presidents, but also college athletic directors. The trend right now, because of name, image, and likeness, and, this revenue sharing model the trend right now is to hire presidents and athletic directors who come from business. Who, who don't necessarily come from athletics. So now they're making, business decisions. Yes. More so financial decisions. So the money is the center or dictating a lot of the decisions made. Where before it probably was more on academics and student athlete experience because you wanted your students to have a really great experience. You want them to be there for four years because you want them to be alumni who come back and say, I had a great experience here, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a donation'cause I wanna pay it forward for the next student. Had the same experience. Yeah. But again, that's not happening anymore when kids are transferring 2, 3, 4 times. Like what alumni group are you a part of now? That's right. So I think those, I think it's probably be gonna become a bigger topic. It's always been a big topic, but I think it's gonna continue to be a, maybe even a greater one because of the new revenue sharing models. I'm excited about where they're going. I, I hope it's sustainable and I hope it's, we always have agents and the money, the big money corporations that are involved in sports they throw money at something and all of a sudden that great plan that we have is broken up because they found a way around it. I'm interested what the next two or three years gonna bring. Coach I'd be remiss if I didn't talk some hoops with you and get into hoops Coaching with you. Let's talk about player development. Is there an underrated, sorry. Oh, sorry. Hands. You got puppies. I have a dog who bark every time. Someone, sorry. Good we'll cut it out. Okay, cool. No worries. What's the most underrated part of player? Lemme grab her. One thing. Oh, go ahead. Do what? What's the most underrated part of player development that coaches still overlook? What are some of those things that you're like, this is where we were able to really grow your program. What are some of those things that you've made some changes with in player development? I, listen, when the more you coach, the better you become as a coach, right? Like you improve every year as well. And I really think the part that, let me back up. The last couple years I've was starting to get really surprised at what I was teaching at the college level that I was never teaching before. And I would say that if I was to summarize what parts they were, it was in team concepts. Decision making? Yes. Because so much focus is on individual development because like I said, everyone is working with a trainer right now, right? If you don't have a trainer, God forbid. But like the understanding the of the game, the ability to know what a good shot is and a bad shot and what a good pass is and a bad pass. And I think when we when we were, willing, winning at a high level, that is also something I would say we did at a high level, was they read the game very well. They had a really good understanding of the game. Like just time score situation. What do we need to do right now? I found in the last couple years, like if I wasn't explaining that to them, they really didn't know, but they didn't even think to consider, things like, I would sub somebody in and like they didn't know to tell that person, oh, I have number 12. You know what I mean? So like that decision making part of the game, I think is as bad as it's ever been. Yeah. So to me that is part of player development. Like I'm a big believer that is player development as well. I agree. One time, I'll tell you a quick story, like I, I had a kid who was very skilled very skilled, but really struggled to score in games and so she comes down the floor, great ball handling, makes a move and just gets, stood up by the player'cause it's the wrong move at the wrong time. So I pulled her over and I said are you are you thinking about your move ahead of time? Oh yeah. Yeah. I said I think that you come down the floor and go, okay, that didn't work. So the next time I'm gonna go two times between my legs and cross over. And she said, oh no, that's exactly what I'm doing. And I thought, whoa. But I think she was just the only one who would admit it out loud. And I had a post player once, I said the same thing are you reading? Like she's on this side, so go the other way. And she said no I can't do that. So I just go, okay, the next time I'm gonna do an up and under or the next time I'm gonna. And I thought, wow. So they're so skilled, dependent, but it's like the wrong move at the wrong time. So that ability to understand the game, read the game, know what the game needs, read the defense. Like people will come off and I'll say, do you have number 10 guarding you? And they go, I said, you don't know who's guarding you, do you? No. But how do you know if you have the mismatch or not? So those like nuances, which I do think very much are player development, I think have absolutely been lost because there's so much focus on just raw skills. Yeah it's like cutting. I'd have kids get mad and say, coach, it's our, the part of the play is I have to cut there. I go, yes you do. You're right. That's a part of our, part of that play. But the person that's supposed to pass you the ball hadn't caught the ball. Doesn't have the ball. Yeah. I went through the same thing. Yep. They were looking the other way. Turned to look at you yet, and you'd already cut. Yep. Yes. You were wide open, but the person that needed to throwing the ball didn't have the ball. Hundred percent. How do we get back to those instincts?'cause obviously we have to teach it. It goes back to John Wooden. Maybe we have to get back to teach the kids how to put their socks and shoes on, the right way. I think it was Houston, I think what he said was really Samson, I think what he said was really on point. I think last year at the end, or at some point during the season, he said the guys need to just go out and. Yeah. And I, like again, when I was growing up, there weren't as many opportunities to go out and just scrimmage as a female right. But I looked for those opportunities and when I was in university, I found those opportunities. So I was playing a lot all the time. So I would say a lot of my development came in university'cause I was playing so much and I didn't care if I was playing against guys or with girls. I didn't care. The females now do not want to play with guys in any way, shape or form. We did not care. But they, I'll again, going back to coaches and recruiting, coaches always say she is a gym rat coach. Like she's always in the gym. And then I realized, what does that mean? Does that mean when you invite her to a workout, she shows up? Because to me, a gym rat is somebody who goes out and finds opportunities That's right. To go into a gym. So you're just telling me she's very, she's compliant, she listens very well. She's disciplined, but I wouldn't say that's a gym rat unless she was out there seeking opportunities constantly. That's right. So I think that they need to play more because like I play pickup a lot. Yeah. A lot. And I would play against anybody and I knew sometimes I was gonna lose, but I wanted to get better. I wanted to improve. Yeah. But the other thing is, if you've played pickup, and when you're playing five on five and it's a true pickup where winner stays on and the loser is off. You might have to be off for a half an hour if you don't win, because there's three or four other teams waiting to get on. Winning becomes more important, making good decisions becomes more important. But also conflict resolution becomes really important because you'll bicker, you'll fight. That was a travel was not a travel. So those, that taught me a lot of the nuances of the game. Again I don't wanna come off and sit for half an hour and wait to come back on. So you get really smart about who's shooting the ball? Let me give that guy the ball. I wasn't really good shooter. So when I would play pickup with the guys, I played with a good group of guys who, who would be like, we're gonna, we're gonna, at the beginning of the game if I had a guy on me who usually doesn't come to pick up, didn't know who I was, the guys would give me the bulk at the beginning of the game because the guy would be like she's a girl. I'm not gonna guard her. And then I make the first two shots or three shots and you're down three zip and now the guys are like, go guarder, because we're gonna lose, we gotta wait 30 minutes. That's right. So all those nuances of understanding the game and understanding how to win, I think you, you get from play the game play, just play as much as you could possibly play. You still see it at the WNBA and NBA level. There's still times when I'm like, why aren't you cutting? Why didn't you block your man out? Why didn't you were right there. Why didn't you set the screen? Yeah. There's still, you see it at the highest level and I, I don't know how to recreate that. I, I, that idea of there's a court, I've got a ball. I'm gonna call some friends and let's see if we can get some games going on. A hundred percent not because when they play, and I would say even more so on, on the women's side, like when they do play five on five, four on four, it's always with an out, an adult leading it. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's if they would get out and they would play without an adult taking charge where they would have to, someone would've to step up and take, take charge and lead it. I think that would solve some of the issues going on right now. Yeah. It's, you gotta have a love of the game too. You gotta want it. Yeah. You gotta miss it. You gotta say, that's what I wanna be doing right now. Yeah. And if that's not in your heart and it's, ah, I gotta go to club practice at seven o'clock, we're gonna do this, and this. There's a part of that's missing. All right. Yeah. I wanna wrap up this segment. Give a piece of advice to some young coaches out there that wanna get into the game, want to coach at the college level. What are some things they need to be doing and thinking about? Great question. When I was first getting into coaching I, so I just really loved every part of coaching. I have a library of books and articles. I mean like thousands of stuff, because I couldn't get enough of it. So I always at the beginning took the approach of when I find, when I get my chance, I'm gonna be ready. When I get that opportunity, I'm gonna be ready. So I think that's been a little bit lost as well with. The young coaches is really studying the game. Different philosophies different like I'm really big into defense, so I used to read a lot of, books on defense, people's philosophy on mans defense because you take little nuggets, you make it your own. So I think studying the game, because it's become a lot of, who, get on their staff so it's become more of a networking game than any, than anything else. But I, I wanted to listen. I wanted to be successful at the highest possible level I could as a coach. So I wanted to be ready. And then I do think that part of it is coach as much as you can. And I was always less interested in the. I didn't really care if I was division one, division two, or I didn't, I just,'cause that's not what I got into coaching for. I got into coaching because I enjoy working with young people. I hope that I can make an impact in their life, provide a transformational experience, something that helps them in the next phase of their life be, I knew that not everyone is gonna graduate and be pro but again, what what sports was, what basketball was for me, shaped me into the person that I am now. So I was just trying to shape them into a strong leader or someone with confidence. So I coached anytime I got a chance to coach. So I didn't care if it was a basketball camp whether it was on a university team, whether it was a u like, I mean there was years I was coaching three teams. I was coaching like on a university team. I had my own team during the year, and then I had a, another team in the summer. Because all of those experience, again, you learn something from, and it helps you get ready, whether it's how you're going to deal with a certain problem when it arises you start to put in your offensive philosophies, defensive philosophies, and you realize that didn't work, so I'm gonna change it. So that, that's your learning through experience, like for me, I was, again, reading books and all that, but I also wanted to learn from experience. But I find a lot of the young coaches are like I'm not gonna do that because I wanna be a division one coach. But you gotta you gotta test yourself out. You've gotta make adjustments to your line of thinking and problems come up every year off the court. And you've gotta have some sort of ability to deal with that and some experience to lean on and say I did that, that didn't work, or that led to this. And so that would be my philosophy or my word of advice is just study the game, get ready and coach anytime you have a chance to coach. Absolutely. Yeah. I look back at my years as 16 and 7-year-old teaching t-ball and being able to coach my own team in T-ball and then running camp, going to camps and coaching kids I'd never met before and coaching them for four or five days. How valuable that was to practice my skills and practice my, where my voice was and what voice I wanted to have with kids. Yeah I love that advice. I gotta ask. And you know what, I'm gonna say one more thing. I'm I'm sorry Matt. Like when the first time I coached. One time I coached at a basketball camp and they gave me like the young kids. And I didn't wanna coach the young kids, right? Like I, I was in a coaching stream in university I'm ready for some sort of elite that's, they gave the right, they gave me the little kids and I thought, all right whatever. Like at the end of the day, it's a job. But I was surprised at how much I learned coaching kids who don't know the fundamentals. That's right. Because it forces, and I know you can relate because it forces you to stop and think and go what does my body do when I do a crossover? Like, how do I explain that? Like how do I teach? So when I coached those young kids, when I was first starting to coach, that made me so much of a better coach because I really had to think about how do I explain this skill? And I think it helped me be a better teacher for when I did get to college. So that's what I mean don't pass up those experiences. It made me a better player once I started college. Yes. Yes. I was like, yes. I didn't understand that before. Now I do. Now I, yes, my coaches were frustrated. Totally agree. Totally agree. All right. I gotta ask you this. I drop you in a gym. I give you five 18 year olds who've been playing high school ball. You got an hour to teach'em defense. What do you teach'em? What's it you gotta play a game in an hour? Yeah. What do you teach'em? What are you doing today that maybe you didn't do 20 years ago? I think that I've just become more efficient at teaching. And so my, one of my colleagues used to always talk about sound bites. Like what's your sound bites when you teach, right? So I think my, my, my sound bites, my keywords are more effective and the way you teach and the way you break it up. So for us, like we always taught this is your on ball defense. This is all your off ball defense. This is how you help. At the end of the day, that's how I would package it. So I think everything is how you package it and how you teach it. So absolutely we're gonna, we're gonna ball pressure. What are you gonna do off the ball? And if there's a baseline drive, how you help. If there's a middle drive, how are you helping? But that's what I wanna know the specifics. What are you doing on the ball with these five kids you've never coached before? You gotta play a game in an hour. What are you doing on the ball today? So we are, we, listen, I've always been a pressure type of person, so I know other teams like that pack line defense. I don't like the pack line. I don't either. So I'm one of the only ones who doesn't play the pack line defense. We're pressuring the ball and when I had that, lead a whatever team we used to force weak hand. But to my point about, not understanding, yeah, we started to force everybody baseline because they couldn't, it was too much. It was too much, so we would pressure, we're forcing baseline, we are trapping on the baseline and then everyone else you trap and drop and rotate. Yeah. So we're pressuring the ball and we're trying to get after the ball and we're gonna force the baseline. That's what we doing on the ball. I think about this lot. I've gotten to the point where it's force, I force everything. Sideline, keep everything outta the middle. Do whatever you can do. Force everything out in the middle. Yes. If you're, we're gonna let anybody get in the middle, we're giving them options where we have to help. Yeah. We have to leave a man. So I just wanted to get your, so we're really big on no paint touches as well. No paint touches. So to your point of No, no middle. So we, we fronted the low posts, so no point, paint, touch. We deny the high post, no paint touch. We're trapping any live so that there's no paint touch. Love that. I love that. And as a player, you want that, you wanna be coached that way because you, there's instincts involved and aggressiveness involved. And you and you're taking away certain things. So if I'm forcing baseline or if I'm forcing baseline, I know there's only one place that person can go. I know where my help is and all of a sudden I'm three steps ahead just because I've made that one decision. So I agree. I love that. Agree. Helps people anticipate. You can anticipate your help. You can anticipate your rotation. See, coach, this was my dream 12 years ago. You and I in a, in an office talking hoops every day. So Yeah. We would've left, we would've been gone home late every day. That's true. I dunno if I'd still be married because, your wife would've been like, can you come home before 11 at some point? Thanks for doing this. For those that are listening, come back on Monday. Coach and I are gonna break down recruiting a little bit more and get her advice for parents and families go in the recruiting process. But thanks for doing this, coach. Thanks for having me, Matt. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. And that's a wrap for this week's coaching episode. I'm so thankful for my friendship with Coach Bette. It's amazing, the great people we accumulate in our journeys bette is one of those people for me. Her wisdom, and her steady commitment to the craft of coaching are reminders of why relationships, not resumes. Are what truly endure in this profession. Come back on Monday for part two of my conversation with Coach Bet, where we'll pick her brain on the uniqueness of NCAA division two recruiting and what families need to understand about that level. If today's conversation meant something to you. Please follow, rate and share the podcast on whatever platform you're listening on. And don't forget, you can find more tools, resources, and weekly content@coachmattrogers.com. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.