Episode #142: Candace Moats

🎙️ 3x National Champions: How Candace Moats Builds Programs That Last

What does it really take to build a championship program—and sustain it year after year?

On this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, Matt Rogers sits down with Candace Moats, Head Volleyball Coach at Indiana Wesleyan University, AVCA Coach of the Year, and leader of a program that has now won three consecutive NAIA National Championships.

But this conversation goes far beyond banners and rings.

Candace shares powerful insight on protecting team culture, coaching with conviction, rebuilding when necessary, and what it truly means to “finish the race well.” She speaks openly about faith, leadership, accountability, and why sustained excellence is built through clarity, relationships, and standards—not shortcuts.

This episode is a must-listen for coaches, athletic leaders, and anyone committed to building programs that last—on and off the court.

🔗 Candace Moats Bio: https://iwuwildcats.com/sports/womens-volleyball/roster/coaches/candace-moats/777

🎧 Listen: CoachMattRogers.com
📺 Watch: youtube.com/@CoachMattRogers

Transcript

0:09

On the latest edition of The Significant Coaching Podcast, a presentation of the coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel, and also available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcast. I'm your host Matt Rogers. Have you ever met someone and immediately felt like you met your best friend and you were gonna be friends forever? That's how today's guest made me feel. We talked for an hour and a half and I was genuinely disappointed after we said goodbye. She's kind, she's smart, she's dynamic, she's generous, and she's not afraid to give you a kick in the pants when you need one. And she just happens to be not just one of the best volleyball coaches in the country, but one of the best coaches in the country. My guest today is Candace Motz, head volleyball coach at Indiana Wesleyan University, the reigning A VCA Coach of the Year. And the leader of a program that has now captured three consecutive NAIA national Championships. But what stood out most in this conversation wasn't the championships. It was her honesty, her humility, her dedication to her faith and building, and when necessary, rebuilding a culture that gives her the energy and passion. Of a first year coach and not someone who has been building dominant programs for the last 40 years at schools like Crown College, grace College, and for the last 23 seasons at Indiana Wesleyan University, where she has built a college program that is truly incomparable in the world of NAI sports. In this conversation. We talk openly about protecting team culture, coaching with conviction, holding people accountable while loving them well and what it truly means to finish the race. Well, coach Motz is the real deal, and I think you're gonna feel the same way about her as I do by the end of our two part conversation. Alright, let's get into it. Here's part one of my conversation with Coach Candace Motz. Coach Motes, it is such an honor to talk to you. You've had an amazing career and we talked before, we recorded about how you really didn't expect this and this wasn't your, the journey that you thought you were gonna be on. I read a quote recently attributed to you, and you tell me if this is wrong, but you said something like how important it is to finish the race. Well, and that's not measured by wins or awards. What does that mean to you? I. When I first started out on my own recruiting journey, I really followed after what I thought was the highest level that. Would give me the most attention, alos. So I went to a division one school and I really did believe that, I wanted to play at that level. It was exciting. This is what I wanted. But I also followed after the voices that were around me saying, you need to go there. Including my parents who were real excited about me going to University of Nebraska. I'm in Nebraskan, so anywhere I can get. Anywhere I can be in the University of Nebraska, whether it's the branch at Omaha or if it's in Lincoln that is high level, right? And so I went ahead and took that step, Matt, but what I found out when I was there is that as much as I loved. The challenge of high level volleyball, the intensity of playing. I love excellence on the court. Those are things that I thrive in. I'm a coach's dream kind of person, right? There was something inside of me that was so saddened because I wasn't connected. I wasn't connected with what really? Helped me thrive and that was that I am a Christian and I have a lot of faith values and a lot of the things that I was trying to do were to try to build community, try to build growth and development. Only, not only on the court, but off the court. And I just didn't find a lot of that experience and I started to realize that I was more anxious. I was trying to live up to the expectations that I thought my coaches wanted myself. Myself was a big one. My parents and I became, I didn't thrive. I was really just surviving and I started to realize that there's something more, there's something bigger for me to go after than just trying to be excellent on the court. Yeah. And so I chased after that, and that philosophy came from my experience. Then when I transferred. I went to another place that not only embodied excellence on the court and helped me to be the best player I could be, but it also helped me to relate and to build community in the intangibles of building my faith, of really being the best version of myself that I could be and free. Playing free, playing with love of the game again, rather than trying to prove myself right? And that's what I mean when I say let's run the race in a way that is best for you. If you're coming and you want to live your life in a way that is freed up, you are loving the game. You're playing at your height, you're having fun with your friends, you're playing at a super high level. You can still win championships. You don't have to give that up. That's what I meant, yeah. Just I, there's more to the game than just being, getting the most money. To play the game getting the most attention and all the things today that seem are screaming at kids. Yeah it hits me right in the heart.'cause I was that kid. I went to a school thinking, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna be great. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do all this and that. Yep. And somewhere along the line, I forgot how much I enjoyed having that ball at my hats, how much I enjoyed being around these people that had the same love of the game that I had. And yeah, that was my priority and I forgot that. And I forgot who I wanted to be and that talk about playing free and playing together and playing for fun and enjoying it. I, almost 40 years later, I'm still kicking myself in the rear end that I didn't treat it better. There's so many stories, Matt, my players this year that played at another level just because they had somebody in their. Here. Telling them they were enough. Yeah. That they could do it. Instead of the voices in their head that tell them, I'm not good enough. I'm gonna fail. My coach is gonna take me out. I'm not gonna achieve the level that I should. Those are stifling voices. And if you don't get into the right place, you gotta understand who you are. Yeah. If you can mentally handle those voices and you can be able to just. Push them away and still strive for whatever you're trying to strive for. But if you need a community of people that are similar to you and are embodying the same values that you are, those are when you become the best player of version of yourself. I think. I agree. I agree. I've written about that so much the last couple of months. I write a blog and, it's the idea of we're always looking for something. Yeah. And we always, we're looking for that right answer and sometimes we don't realize when the answer's right in front of us. Yeah. Everything we wanted is right here. I'm playing, I'm getting a great education. I love the people I'm around. People are developing me. What more do you want? Yeah. And you're hoping you're gonna get that repeated somewhere else, right? Absolutely. It's strange, but it's the way our minds work. I wanna talk about another quote. I've read that you've said about protecting your culture. And if you protect the culture, winning takes care of itself. Where does that begin for you? Where does that protecting that culture start? I think you gotta define what you mean by it because you know the culture word is shared many times with many programs. I think you gotta define the culture, and that's where I first start with recruiting. Even if I jump into that piece, it's where, what is the culture that we're trying to develop here at Indiana Westland, and I don't even go any further if you don't fit into this. These values and the things that most matter to us, then I'm not even interested, and you could be the best player. And people are gonna get you, and they're probably gonna be, I'm probably gonna look across the net and go crap, but I know that if you came to my place, you wouldn't be happy or you, we wouldn't be happy with you with the decisions that you make. Back to the question, you gotta define it and you gotta make sure that it's very clear what you're trying to achieve. Then from there. Those identified pieces then are developed at the very beginning. So this team that I have, that I've had for three years is finally graduating unfortunately. But when I get this new group coming in new players, whether transfers or whether they're true freshmen. We need to establish it again, right?'cause there's gonna be a lot of new people. So I've established it already in the recruiting process, but I'm establishing it again right away. And we do that. Everybody in preseason has us usually two a days. Usually. Yeah. We do a one a day, we do one a day on the court and we do one a day off the court. And that one a day off the court is. Completely meant to get together and to talk about those values and to do activities and to do specific things that are going to build that community that we need. So for example, we went to the Dominican Republic this last fall. We started early. We came back a week before we talked about how do, what does it look like to serve others? What does it look like to. Lean into each other, communicate all those things that are most important also on the court. And then we went to the Dominican, we ran volleyball clinics. I gave kids 10 days of just pure. Life can be fun for 10 days, and we brought swag, we brought all kinds of stuff and made these kids feel like a million bucks. And we took away not just from feeling good about helping others, but we felt great about ourselves because we established what we were going to build our foundation on, and that was to serve others. To make sure other people mattered, to take care of each other and to communicate. Yeah. And so we go through scenarios all the time. Matt okay, here's a real issue that could come up during our season. What are we gonna do to talk about it? How are we gonna handle it? How are you going to go talk to a coach when you're not happy about her?'cause nobody knows these skills anymore. Nobody knows how to communicate truthfully. They'll just talk. Sideways or to their mom or whatever, and they don't know how to handle their own issues. So those are important pieces that we establish right away. And that's what I mean by that, is that we have to build the skill sets that have not, that are lost. They're not here today anymore. And so we gotta build them and we gotta understand how to navigate each other so that we're successful. Any chance I can get you to run for president next term, wouldn't that be awesome? We need some communication here, I know. I love that approach. Because it's with kids. They're 17, 18, 19 years old. They really feel like they've got it all. They understand it all. I'm 18, I'm an adult now. I get it. And they don't understand what's coming and then they don't understand how to deal with it and they keep digging themselves a whole. So I love, every championship coach I've talked to can tell me a story about how they. Use preventative medicine from the beginning. Yeah. To get, to make sure they got where they were supposed to be. So you taking your team outta the country, serving, giving, being generous, learning how to take care of each other. Learning how to see how the other parts of the world are living. That's so great. Yeah. What a great opportunity. Talk a little bit about Indiana Wesleyan. I coached in that league 30 years ago in the late nineties. I coached at St. Ambrose University a long, long ago. Oh yeah. Okay. So is that the same conference now? It's the same division? Yeah, same division. Okay. They're not in our conference, but they are, yeah, they're in our division. NAIA. Yep. And I just I played at the division three level and coached a little bit at the D two and the D one level as well. And for me, the NAI level was just yeah. Again, it fit my soul because what. What was talked about from a mission standpoint, it was education. It was your faith, it was being a member of the community. And it was across the board that was taught in the classrooms and outside of the classroom. Absolutely. What Indiana Wesleyan has done with your facilities and the physical part of the campus is just beautiful. Yeah. Talk a little bit about what that journey's looked like since the time you got there. Yeah. This is a really cool thing to even talk about because right now we're in the middle of doing something that no other NAI University is going to have in the space of volleyball, and that is that we are building a new arena that is for men's and women's basketball. They are funding that, they are charging that. But what's happening then is we are taking our arena that we're in right now, that's been a shared space and we're. Really renovating the whole thing into a actual volleyball only gymnasium. Fantastic arena. So we are starting men's volleyball now this coming fall, and we are now going to the locker rooms that we are going to take over. Matt are so the coach that is going to, the coach that's coming in to coach the men's side. Came from a Division one Ohio University. He has never seen locker rooms even in the D one space that is like these locker rooms. They are phenomenal. I'm, I went and took a picture and showed a video and I sent it to all my recruits. Hey, check this out. This is our locker room space that we're gonna have. So cool. Major, big lounge. Two big lounge areas. It's got a juice bar, it's got, massage chairs, it's got all this stuff and then you go into another space, it's got your bathroom showers and all that. And then you go in the back and there's all these open face wood. Lockers. It's beautiful. That's great, but great. The arena itself is gonna be renovated about a half million renovation, where it's going to put TerraFlex all down on the floor, which is a big deal in volleyball right now. Yes. We're gonna put some box seats in the, where the bleachers are, and then we're gonna have we're gonna bring down a scoreboard that's gonna be up on the ceiling and we're gonna have a light show on the court, rather than doing it up on the little screen that usually do, when you have a hype video, you know it's gonna be, did I come play? Yeah. Yeah. You got eligibility left. I wish I had some years left. Good heavens. Oh yes. That's really cool. It's gonna be really neat. And but the thing that Indiana Wesland does that is probably the trademark of them, is that they do excellence in everything. All our sports are in the top 10 of the NEI and so there's a lot of hype coming on board with our school on. We're gonna support you. Urban Network. We're gonna support you Web's, jewelry. We're gonna come in and we're gonna start pouring some money and funding in to really make this a flagship school. And it's pretty exciting because, not only we doing excellence in the court. On the court, on the field, all of the different areas and spaces of our sports of 24. But we are also doing it in a sense of honoring the Lord, keeping our faith, being being just undeniably Christian. There is a. A lot of Christian schools today that are maybe like, oh maybe we shouldn't do this because it might attract or distract people from coming. We're very Christian and we're keeping that very strong in our university. So it fits me perfect because I want to live my faith out and I wanna do it in a way that is gonna give glory to God. But I want to win, Matt. I wanna win and I want excellence, and I want the best of the best. And so with us doing it that way, it's attracting a lot of people that want that kind of thing. Yeah. And there are, there's a lot of families and a lot of kids that want exactly what you're talking about. And gosh, I hope at some point you start winning. I'd like to see you turn the corner here. Alright let's talk reality. Thousand plus wins three national titles. Yep. In a row. In a row. Multiple Coach of the year honors. What's still driving you? What's still motivating you? Because you sound as motivated as a 26-year-old getting a first job. Yeah. Where does this come from? Candace? Yes. So here's, this is a, it's a crazy thing. I, when I graduated in my undergrad, I was an elementary ed major. That's what I was gonna head towards. It happened to be in the situation that I was in, that my coach that was. Coaching me in at the Christian University coaching me, had another gig that he took and he went to the ad. I couldn't play my last year'cause we didn't have all these fifth years, COVID years, all those kind of things. So I had to help out'cause I went four and a half years undergrad'cause I transferred and I was visited by the ad. Because I had helped out and my head coach had gone to the ad and said, I think she can, I think she can run the program. And of course I was overwhelmed. I was 21. I had still had many two years of my peers on the team. And I was like, there's no way I'm an elementary ed major. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm maybe gonna go do elementary school or whatever. And maybe coach a high school team or something, and it took a lot of prayer and it took a lot of just back and forth way pros and cons. But I decided to do it, Matt, and what I realized. Is that it trans, it transitioned me from thinking of myself and making me be the star of the show to how can I make everybody a star of the show? Because as a coach, you have to make everybody feel at least seen and heard. That's right. And to be able to do that was. The greatest thrill I could ever experience when I saw somebody's life change because they were having a good time, or they were building a community, or they were growing in their faith, or they were growing as a athlete on the court and all those things that came that we're enhancing their lives, and that is my drive. That is my why. That is what I wanna do when I step in the gym every day. I wanna see how can I make these anxious population, these overwhelmed kids today? How can I help them understand that this is, yes, you're getting paid to do this you're getting money, you have to perform at some level, and commitment, accountability, and all those standards that. As old school coach, I'm not gonna let go of, I talk to Ruth about this all the time. It's no, you know those things. Discipline is gonna be part of our program. It's just the grit side of it. But I also want to help them experience the fact that you're doing something. And the last thing we said in the last time out before we went out and won the championship this last year was girls go have the. A blast with your friends doing something that a lot of people haven't done before, and that's to win three in a row. And they so cool. Had smiles on their face and they were and not just the kids on the court, but the kids off the court. They were all, we had the greatest huddle. Release ever because we knew we were gonna build memories here that were gonna last forever and these friends are gonna be friends forever. And that's what makes me keep going is that I purpose in what I'm doing. This is life changing purpose. This lasts forever. This isn't just, oh, go win something and then. Hang it up and forget it, yeah. It's changing. Lives last forever wins. I can't remember what our record, what my record's been 10 years ago, yeah. But I can remember the players I had on the team. Yeah, so inspiring. You're probably gonna get an angry phone call from my wife in the next month because you are inspiring me. I'm, what you're talking about is what I miss. I miss working with the kids. I miss the being able to see the light bulb come on and see them figure things out and figure it out together and find that joy in what they're doing together and get on that same path and mission. So just love every ounce of that. I can tell Matt, just listening to you talk and the deeper questions that you have and the things you understand, what I'm talking about do and I love it. It resonates with you deeply. Yeah, I can tell. I love it. Yeah. It's it's so much fun for me. If I, I don't make any money with this podcast. I do it for me and I do it for the students that I work with and the families that I work with. But for me, this is my joy every week getting to talk to coaches like you because until you've done it, until you've had, until you've watched a group of seniors walk across the stage and get their diploma and, yeah. You start getting those phone calls, coach, I'm getting married. Would you come to my wedding? Would you would you speak at my wedding? And I just had a baby. And those things are it changes you. Yeah. It changes, whatever was driving you before no longer is driving you. It's, I want more of that. I want more of happy kids and healthy people and that are becoming healthy adults. So it's very cool. I. I've got a reputation for teasing people that use the word excellence as their driving force.'cause I always ask the question what does that mean? Yeah. Because if I talk to 10 different people, they're gonna gimme 10 different answers. You have epitomized what excellence is and how you go about your business. How do you teach that word to the young women in your program? And how do you define it to them? Yeah, so I think a lot of times when we think, oh, I'm excellent at something means I never make a mistake, right? I never. I never struggle. I'm always achieving greatness every minute, and it's not perfection. It's not right. And I think that's the first place we start, if we're gonna be excellent. It does not mean of the uncontrollables. That you gotta figure out how to control all of those things. You have to be yourself, and you have to be true to your ability. I think excellence is something that deep down inside you have a, you have. You have a drive in you that you identified something that you really wanna go after, and you give it all you got at the best ability that you can while keeping the joy. Because joy is the number one word. In fact, a lot of our parents wore their shirts at the national championship matches. Choose joy. Choose joy, and I think joy is something that has to be a part of excellence. If you are achieving something and you get to another level. You will have joy just'cause you see the result. But I think that the process of getting there is where we lose the joy, i'm trying to get to something and I'm struggling and it's taking way longer than I wanted it to. And so therefore, now these voices are telling me I can't do it. It's not achievable. It's not what I was thinking after 37 years of coaching, I'm never gonna win a championship. And what happens when you have those voices that are routinely scripts in your mind, right? You start to lose the love of why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah. I think excellence is going after and finding the love of what you're doing and it making you come alive. With the things that make you the most happy. And that is, striving. Like how do we work hard every day and that be joyful. Exactly. And that be something that when you walked away in the gym today, you just felt great about yourself because you gave everything you had, and it didn't, you didn't look at the end result, but you looked at the process and the journey and man, that's hard. That is so hard. It really is. We always wanna see the end. Always. Okay, coach, be my coach for a few minutes. Be my mentor here, if you don't mind. Okay. You talked about that idea is, I don't know if we're ever gonna get there. I don't know if we're ever gonna win that championship. And you talk about the script. Did you change that script three and a half years ago in your brain? Yes. Did you or did the championship allow you to change the script? That's such a great question. I can't believe how cool that question is. So nothing changed for me until. When I got to three years ago I am a workhorse mat. Yeah. I could tell Thrive or not thrive. I just, I am endlessly putting time in endlessly. Stomping the pavement. I'm, I, if I don't do this level of work each day, it becomes, I wasn't good enough. Somebody else is doing more than I am. And it was a comparison. It was a drivenness inside me. All of those things. It was just. Burning me out. It was burning me out and I was, I can't tell you how many times in maybe the last, prior to the last three years, how many times I had said, I think I'm done. I, nobody coaches this long. And I would, I'd look at the, how many years people have coached and it's I have met that standard. It's okay to quit. It's okay to look for something else and right. I never ever had a release in me to do that. So three years ago, after comparing and thinking that I had to run my players in the ground, I decided to take to, to do one a days in practice because we were so tired. We never could do anything off the court. Everybody just wanted to go to their dorm room and take a nap because we were so beaten down on the court, two a days, three a days. So long story short, the one a day in fear and trembling thinking, I wasn't gonna be ready, we weren't gonna be good enough. We were gonna, we were gonna probably see the end result of this decision at the first match. I. Spent. Then the second on off the court, we had a off the court practice. That, off the court changed me, did it. It helped me start to realize what I really. Needed. It wasn't how great of a coach and great drills and how much I could get out of each player every day, and how we had to progress from this to this. Like in two days I started to see what really brought life to me, and that was to feel respected by my players, for me to respect them, build a trust. Build a community where we started to be vulnerable with each other, where we started to have fun together and I couldn't believe how much life I was getting from that and joy I was getting from that. And the kids would come in their first practice of the day. The one practice we did just was intense. It was exciting. It was, we only know we got one shot at this for today, and it gave us time to go and do some community stuff with. Our team to go bowling to go and serve at the university with something that others, other areas and spaces of our university needed. And we started to find the fun of what we were doing. And it built a community. It built a community. And that's the year we went undefeated. We were 38 and oh and no, no mindset at all was as we were in this run, we started winning and we just kept winning. Was ever in my mind thinking, oh, we're gonna win a national championship. I did not think that. I thought little goals. Small little goals. Let's try to win. Let's try to win the conference again. Let's try to, let's try to build each other up. Let's try to reach to this place. That's where we started to develop this thing called ICU, which is after every practice we sit down and we identify, Hey, I saw you today. In that drill, and man, you really went for it. And every kid on the team, whether they were playing or not playing, somebody identified them as I saw you and man, when you can be seen. Isn't it true today? Like we just wanna be seen, we just wanna be heard. Yeah. So many times we're just not, we're just coming to practice. We're not even being talked to about. Anything to maybe you're going through the whole practice and nobody said a word to you. That's right. And you just leave with your own voice and your own script telling you. And that's what changed our program. It completely changed it, and we got a. We started down that path and now I'll never go back to two practices a day. I love that so much. Yeah. I can see you in, in the circle or in at the end of practice with your team saying, I saw you today. I saw the effort you putting today. I saw you were hurting today and you still gave us everything you got. I can see that. I can see that in your practices. That is so powerful. It was inspiring. It's inspiring to hear it. Yeah. Not just to be told it, but to hear it from other people, and then they started even saying, coach, I saw you today. Instead of getting mad at what we weren't achieving, you decided to address it differently and it really helped me. And knowing that you cared about me, oh my gosh, I walked away from that practice, almost had tears in my eyes. Somebody saw that I made an effort to care about them rather than just trying to achieve winning. That was huge for me. So things like that are of what changed our culture. And honestly, Matt, I think that we have not been the best team. Necessarily in the three run year that we have gone, but I think we're 107 wins and six, in three years. And we have never, ever thought in ourselves that, oh, look at us. It's created humility, it's created. And these kids, like again, they're going to never forget. These three years and we're making three T-shirts and I'm hunting down every kid that contributed to this program and going to give them a shirt and say, we, I saw you. Where each of the kids that know someone, they're gonna write a note. I saw you and this is how you helped us get to the level of where we are today. Just every kid is gonna get a note from somebody that knew them. And if they don't know'em, I know'em. So I'm gonna write the note, but we're gonna put that in the shirt and we're gonna send it to'em. So inspiring. Coach you, you got tears in my eyes. Just the love that you have for the young women and the people in your program and your school and what this community means to you and what it's done to you. Yeah. People always say you can't. And don't take this the wrong way. You can't teach an old dog new tricks and, i'm finding the older I get, the more I wish I would've learned these tricks 30 years ago. Yeah. The more I would, I wish I would've had this conversation with you 30 years ago. I wish somebody would've hit me in the face and said, Hey, you have the ability, you have the choice to do this. Yeah. The way you want to do it, why aren't you? Yep. So I love that for you, mad it takes some humility to even hear, like couple players coming into the office and saying, coach, you're just, you just need to say it differently. We're not relating and it's causing a lot of stress on our team. And so good to be able to hear that and to not be mad about it, but. Like I have all, every time I get talked to about, from anyone, it's just okay, Lord, help me to remember the things that are from you and the things that are just speaking because they aren't getting playing time or whatever. Help me to just let those go. But most of the time it is because they care about me and they want our community to stay healthy and man, when you can build that kind of thing. And that kind of loyalty and accountability where your players now are starting to. Build the community and build the accountability of, we want our team to be healthy, and these are things that are taking away from it, whether it's the coaching staff or whether it is players, teammates, to have courage to do that. That's huge. That's huge. It really is. Coach, if you don't mind. There's some things that I'm not gonna talk about on this podcast, but I'd love to call you at some point. Yeah, of course. For the conversation on some things. Absolutely. I would love it, Matt.'cause I've loved talking to you. You're gonna get sick of hearing from me after today. Because I love you. I believe in you and gosh, I would send every one of my young women, I'd send my daughter to you in a heartbeat. Oh. So thank you. Thank you so much. For being you, for being vulnerable, for being willing to look in the mirror and say, I want better for me. I want better for the people around me. Yeah. I want better for my faith and my heart and what that has turned into. The fruits of all that. Yeah. I wish I was a movie director'cause I'd write, direct your story. I want to do about 10, 15 minutes with. On recruiting. If you're okay with it, we'll come back. Yeah, let's go. We'll have another episode, so anybody's listening. Come back and if you're watching on YouTube, come back and we're gonna talk some recruiting with Coach Motz and pick her brain on that idea. Thank you so much. You're welcome. That was Candace Motes head volleyball coach at Indiana Wesleyan University. In part one of our two-part conversation, and if you're anything like me, you didn't just hear a championship coach, you heard a conviction driven leader. Candace has a rare ability to speak honestly about faith. Culture, accountability and standards. Without watering anything down, she understands that sustained excellence isn't accidental, it's intentional, it's relational, and it's deeply personal to her. Her perspective on rebuilding when necessary, protecting what matters most, and finishing the race well is something every coach and leader needs to hear. I wanna thank Coach Ruth Nelson for introducing us. I'm being 100% honest when I say that I'm so thankful to now call Coach Motz and Coach Nelson friends. They both continue to inspire me in ways I can't explain. Make sure you don't miss part two of this conversation where we're gonna shift the lens towards recruiting and building healthy and happy championship rosters. And as always, you can find more tools and resources to support your journey@coachmattrogers.com, including the significant recruiting book and my newest release, the Volleyball Recruits Journal designed to help volleyball players stay organized, be intentional, and stay confident throughout their recruiting process. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.