Episode #158: John Baines

This week I’m joined by John Baines, head men’s basketball coach at Elmhurst University, one of the premier Division III basketball programs in the country.

During his time leading the Bluejays, Coach Baines has built a nationally respected program in the CCIW, leading Elmhurst to multiple NCAA Tournament appearances, conference championships, and a run to the 2022 NCAA Division III National Championship game after a historic Final Four season.

But what stands out most about Coach Baines is not just the winning.

It’s the way he builds people.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Developing toughness and resilience in players
 • Building leadership inside a team
 • Practice design and daily standards
 • Managing emotional momentum during games
 • Teaching accountability and responsibility
 • Why telling players the truth matters

This episode is packed with insight for coaches, athletic directors, and leaders who care about building strong cultures and developing young people through sport.

To learn more about Coach Baines and his career at Elmhurst, visit:
 https://elmhurstbluejays.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/coaches/john-baines/1092

For blogs, books, recruiting resources, and speaking opportunities visit:
 coachmattrogers.com

And make sure to come back Monday for Part II of this conversation, where Coach Baines and I tackle the world of college basketball recruiting.

Transcript

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On the latest edition of The Significant Coaching Podcast, a presentation of the coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel. Available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. There are days I simply miss being on the floor with a group of young basketball players more than others. And after my conversation with Coach John Bains this week, I could not have been more envious of the work he gets to do every single day and how he does it. I love his demeanor. I love his humility. He'll tell you he's not the biggest rah rah coach in the country, but don't let that fool you. There may not be anyone teaching toughness, togetherness, and resilience better than John Bains. And that's exactly why I'm excited for you to hear our conversation. John is the head men's basketball coach at Elmhurst University, where he has built one of the premier programs in NCAA Division three basketball and one of the most respected teams in the college conference of Illinois and Wisconsin. The CCIW. During his time leading the Blue Jays Elmhurst has won multiple conference championships, made five NCAA tournament appearances in the past decade, and in 2022 they reached the national championship game after a historic final four run. Yes, this guy can coach. But what really stands out about Coach Bains isn't just the success, it's how he builds his teams, how he develops leadership in his players, and how intentionally he is about teaching young men how to handle adversity, responsibility, and life beyond basketball. And before we get into the conversation, let's get into this week's significant question of the week. Inspired by this week's blog, and one of my mentees, Connor Kabe. Connor is a senior at Strasburg High School and he's worked his tail off to become a recruitable athlete. What makes this story even more powerful is that along the way he battled through injuries that could have easily ended his playing career, but he stayed with it. He kept working, he kept believing, and eventually he put himself in a position to get. Eight offers? Yes. This young man earned eight offers this year, but when it came time to decide, he was stuck, he was torn, he was confused and beating himself up because he couldn't figure out which opportunity was the right one for him. And what I needed him to understand was simple. He'd already won. The trophy was already his. The only thing left to decide was what he wanted his trophy to look like. So here's the question for recruits and a really good one for moms and dads to ask their kids this week as well. What do you want your trophy to look like? Not just at the end of your recruiting journey, but at the beginning? Drop your thoughts in the comments on the blog this week. I'm excited to hear what you think. You can find it all@coachmattrogers.com. And now let's get into this week's conversation with John Bains head, men's basketball coach at Elmhurst University. Coach Bain, so great to see you. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for having me. You and I had a short conversation about your year. I know you got a young group what a great year. You had so much to be proud of. I know the ball didn't bounce exactly the way you wanted it at the end, but now that you've had a couple of days how do you look back at this season and these young guys that really battled for you? It was a great year. I'd say the biggest thing for me was saw a lot of improvement and I think from a coach. That's always our love language is whenever you start a season and then you see what you look like in October and then what you look like in February, March. Yeah. And if it looks somewhat similar, then you really haven't done your job. And I thought maybe more than any team I've had, honestly our, the way we looked five months later was remarkably different. We were playing at a really high level. Didn't that feel good? It does. I don't, I don't know if there's a better feeling when the kids have come that far. I coached in the S Slack a for a long time. We had some epic battles that against Elmhurst. It was a great place to play. It's a great environment. The S Slack, we knew we weren't gonna get in at large. We just knew it we, we had to win the league, win the conference if we wanted a chance to go to the tournament. So I would always, the, our first 10 games, I would just abuse my kids. If we could get five division ones and six division twos to play us, we would do it. I just wanted'em mentally tough going into the conference. CCIW is a completely different world. You, I think you guys have gotten three bids in the past, haven't you? Some we have. We've had some. We've had a lot of years where we've had, yes. What do you do in terms of your scheduling to prepare for that gauntlet, which is the CCIW? How do you look at it? Yeah it's changed over the years. First of all the criteria on how they select the teams, it always is morphing and it's different. It's becoming a lot more mathematical than it is subjective. It's like putting a puzzle piece together. I'll be honest, and I it, you're just trying to get some good games that can help your strength, the schedule, but you're also trying to get enough wins to get in, and that's a right. Spine balance, especially when our league we had one point this year where going into conference, all nine of our teams in our league were in the top a hundred in the MPI that how they rank it and Wow. Crazy. And our last place team, north Central beat Illinois Wesleyan who's in the tournament and won our league. And so I think top to bottom you're gonna have a lot of close games. And so it, it is getting harder because you never know there's teams that you thought were gonna be good and you have'em on your schedule. And then for some reason they, they go seven and 18 and Right. That really hurts you and you really don't have a lot of control over that. And I wish we had a little bit more, with the conference schedule. I wish it was really more part of the factor of getting in than it is right now. They've eliminated that somewhat. Yeah. And I think that's been hard on us in our league because we know how hard it is to play in the league. And then that's the only given that every year is that, okay, we're gonna play this schedule and there's gonna be 16 tough games. We're gonna, we're gonna spend a lot of time on recruiting the second half, so I'm, it's gonna take everything. I've got to hold myself back from asking recruiting questions for a little bit, but I wanna talk about getting a team ready to play that, that CCIW schedule and that tough non-conference that you play every year. What is your mindset going into October? Because I, I remember my first game as a head college coach was against Hanover. And you know how fricking good they were back in our heyday when we started. I think we lost by 50 points and I remember going, I remember getting to the end of that season and going back and watching that film three or four times. And they weren't bigger than us. They really weren't that much more athletic than us. But man, they were in great shape. There were no loose balls that they didn't get. They dominated glass they were just so much more physical than us, and that taught me so much as a coach about how I needed to prepare my team every year. So Sure. CCIW is like that every single night. So how did, yeah, how, what is your mindset when you're going, okay, I've got my team, I know what my team looks like. How are we gonna build out our fall practices to get us ready for that and to be able to retain that for five months? I it's funny you say that whenever you got there, when I got, I came back to Elmhurst. I've been here now 13 years. The head coach. Correct. And I come back and I was an assistant here for a while and then I left to, to take over at St. Francis as a an NAI coach and I came back. But they had fallen a little bit on harder times. I think they were six to 19 year before I got here. Yeah. Our first year we did a good job. We went 14 and 11 and we got the boat back on course. And then that second year we actually made the NCAA tournament. We went over 20 and we got the script flipped how, but that second year I was laughing because we went, we had a scrimmage with UW Whitewater who was always a perennial power and physical and everything. And. We got done with the scrimmage. I think we lost by four or five, and the guys were like, high fiving that's not too bad. And there was this idea that we weren't losing by 30 now, so that great job. And I had to just I think I lit into'em. I'm like, what do guys, none of the teams that we play in the league are gonna be any different than playing whitewater. If we wanna win the league, we're gonna have to beat them. And I just, I felt like there was a mindset that had to be changed. As you go in and be like we're not doing this just to, to be decent versus good teams. We're trying to be one of those. And so yeah, so there is a mindset to that. I every coach is different. They all have their things. And you're talking about the recruiting piece of it. We're trying to get competitive, tough guys and I think if you can see that in'em, you know that you're always gonna have some guys that are fighting. We always use the same around here to be a champion, you can't just throw punches. You gotta be able to take a punch. And I said, we don't have glass jaws in this program. And I think that's part of it. I think you build that into it. And over the course of years, I think now the guys know that. I think that's part of it. And when you're talking about October, you're like, okay, I gotta make this stuff competitive. I gotta make it, I gotta make it hard. I'm not an in your face type of guy, but we gotta make it hard and they gotta really compete in it. They gotta earn it. What does that look like in terms of drills? So this is the podcast where you can get into the weeds with me. No, that's good. I like it. That's good. If it's, if nobody listens to this, but me and you, then I'm okay with that. What is, we can, this is like the Huey Brown one, right? You can actually don't say all the stuff. Okay. That's right. This is the Huey Brown podcast because I want to talk hoops with you. So I'm this I'm a junkie like you are. What is what? How do you create that tough, that toughness? The elimination of the glass jaw? Because until you take a bunch, you don't know what your jaw's made of, so you can't wait till you get to Illinois Wesleyan or Carthage to figure that out. So what does those first two or three weeks practices look like in terms of drills to create that? Yeah. I think there's the one thing that I felt like over the years now I've, we've got, I've gotten better at with our assistance is. Telling them, okay, this is, if we're gonna have, we're gonna have three different types of stuff. We're gonna have the individual improvement, the skill work the stuff that everybody does. But we gotta make sure that we're purposeful in what we're doing. And it's not I think one of the things right now for young coaches is there's so much stuff on YouTube and everything. It's coach, that's a great drill. This is a great drill. And I'm like. Guys we can't just pick one little thing every day just to work. I said this is an accumulation of a lot of days. And so we gotta be purposeful in that. So there's your skill work, there's the stuff that we're trying to do, a lot of teaching and trying to do the team stuff. In those situations, I'll tell the coaches, okay, you can't, you can interject here. We can stop'em. We can we can correct some things. Or I'll say, Hey, we're gonna play, we're gonna play for five minutes and we're gonna huddle. And then that's when you can correct. And that's a lot of teaching. The third part of it is the what I just, you, you can you're feeding them to the wol we'll do a drill, we call work off 10, work off eight. You put eight minutes on the clock, and if you, it's, you're at eight, and if you get a stop, it goes down to seven. If you don't, it goes up to nine and you gotta work it down to zero. Love that. And. And in those, I tell the coaches we're not we're coaching, but I said, they gotta figure this out on their own. That this is the time that you're in a game and things go wrong and they have to all huddle up and coaches are out the window. That's leadership on the floor and you gotta teach that. I think that's a skill. I really do. I don't, I think it's just like anything else in practice, and if we're doing work off eight at the four minute mark. I'll say, Hey Dom, our captain. I'll say, you wanna huddle your guys? And they'll coach? Yeah. Gimme 32nd time out. And I go, okay. And they huddle up and we stay outta that huddle and I'll tell'em, don't get in there. That's them. And I think, so you got the skill work and you got the stuff you're teaching, but you're also teaching them about the leadership part and hearing voices and concentration and all of it. And I think that you do have to teach that. Have you found over the years. I don't know if I was there when I was a younger coach. I think it took me some time that you can develop coach on the floor. Yeah. Or do you have to recruit it? Do you, are you finding that the kid that maybe wasn't quite vocal when they came in, a little shy, a little timid, that you can teach them how to be a coach on the floor? I think you can. I really do. And here's I think one thing as a young coach, I did this too. And I think I've developed. We all have this idea of what a leader looks like on the floor. That's the slap the floor. I'm gonna get in the huddle, I'm gonna talk. And there's this vision. Yeah. And I think when we had an All American, we had Jake Rodie here and he was a quiet guy and he's a point guard. And I was, I think the first two years he was here, I was always on him. You're the point guard, you gotta talk. And it's just not his personality and he's the best player and so I had to say to myself. I gotta do a better job of coaching him. I'm not doing a good job because I've got the best player on the floor, is not connecting with our team the way I want'em to. We started doing personality tests and so in our leadership stuff and so we actually, that year had captains. We had we had four different personalities and his was you have your. Your competitive guys, you have your rah guys, you have your relationship guys the, hey we can do this man. And then you have your standards, goals, the analytic guys. And so he felt in that, that four spot, when we started doing that we split up the leadership. And so if we were having a dead practice on a Saturday morning, I didn't go to him. I went to the captain of the rah rahs and I just said I said you huddle the team. This is not, this isn't, we're not moving. And I think what happens in that is you're not asking somebody to be all four of those things as the leader. And that doesn't, that's what it is in real life. You have a job. The person in charge doesn't have to wear all the hats. They have to wear the hat that they do the best. And so I think when we started doing that, I think that helped and it made me a little bit more conscious of what we really needed from our leaders. And I think as, to go back to your question, yeah, I think that's something you can teach and develop because you gotta figure out the guy and what he does well, and then you gotta really cultivate that. You gotta, it's like a plant, you gotta water it. It's survival of the fittest. You playing college sports, you gotta figure it out. You gotta, you do it's not me, but I, my team needs me. Oh, let's talk about the other side of that. You talk about the rah guys and saying, gosh, we need that guy to step up today. That's his skillset. Can you be that rah leader if you're not a major contributor, if you're the 11th, 12th guy, can you still, can you get the attention of your team? Are you putting them in that position to. To develop that? Yeah. I think it's hard. I think at some point they have to get on the floor a little bit. You've had, we've all had the guy that's the great bench guy that doesn't play. Yeah. But I think I think guys have to be on the floor a little bit at least the guys that are really gonna make a difference because they're the ones that are talking. But I don't know everybody. It's all different. That, I think that's the part that it how you go, why do you coach the, yeah. One of those things that I really love is I love being around the guys and and pulling that out of them. And I played for some really, I played for a really good high school coach and a really good college coach, and they really taught me about introspection of me, myself personally and what my talents were. And I, I love doing that with our players because they start to see themselves and then you can hold'em on it you're like, listen, I've talked to you about this. You're the relationship guy on this team. You're the guy that always gets everybody back on track. And I can't have you, I can't have you folding right now. I need you to be that guy. And you put it on'em and then they start to feel like, I am that guy. I'm that person. And I feel like that's part of the, how you build up players. You, I take you, John, as somebody that was always introspective when you were younger. I don't see you as an extrovert when you were younger, were you? I was not. I I'm a math major. I I see the analytic brain always working. Yeah. I was, and it's so funny, whenever I didn't know if I wanted to be an actuary or an accountant or what I wanted to do, and then my high school coach, I think my sophomore year of college said you really, you should be a coach. And I, I said, okay. And honestly, I said to him. I would like to be a coach.'cause I don't ever really want to go into sales. I'm not an extroverted person. And then I became a coach and I realized that this whole thing is sales. It's recruiting and getting your team right and boosters and everybody. I said I said I basically signed up for a sales job, but I but I love it. I, it's actually made me more extroverted, but. I think I'm not the guy that we're at a party. I'm gonna be walking in the room and throwing the doors open. I kind of sneak in, but I like to listen. And then I like to talk to people Once I we get comfy. Nobody believes me when I tell'em I'm an introvert. I gotta work really hard to be an extrovert. I'm the guy that shows up to the party and I disappear 30 minutes later.'cause I'm so uncomfortable. I can't do it anymore. Wait we meet each other in the middle. That's right. Yeah. Let's not underscore this college coach that talked to you into coaching, let's talk about Denny a little bit, right? Because you worked for Denny Bridges. Yes. And Denny became a mentor of mine.'cause we and I really enjoyed our conversations and he was really kind to me and we, we played them in the national tournament at Illinois Wesley in, I don't know, 2003 or oh four or something like that. And he was so nice to me after the game and sent me a letter and then when he was stepping down. He contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested in applying. And it was just, I was a nothing coach. I was 28, 29 years old. And, but just the fact that he thought that much and he meant the world to me. So I, I have a great respect for Coach Bridges. What was that like playing for him and what are some of those things that you took from him that you still use today? He was great to play for. He really let I think he was a. Hands off coach in terms of we had good players, but he didn't try to over coach us. And I think that sometimes people misread that statement. Whenever you say you don't over coach'em, it makes it sound like. You're not doing anything right. And sometimes I look at a Phil Jackson and I think one of the best things he ever did was not over coach too much. He let the talent come rise to the top and he still organized it and he made sure the personalities were right. I think he was really like that. He was a great offensive coach. Was really had a knack for it. We didn't guard anybody, but I figured if you could get to 85 you probably were winning anyway, but, no, he was just, I think that's the part that I've taken from him. And and he would always say to me get off the bus with better players. And so I think that part was the recruiting part. And I've learned that in college, I, you can do the best job in the world, but if you don't have good players you're losing. And you get good players and you get good people, and then he was, and then you let him go. And then you cultivate him, you work with him. But I think that's the best thing that I think he ever did. He really kept us all together. We played really well together. Yeah. His teams were and you were a part of some great teams there, some great teams. And always competitive. Always gonna put you on your heels from a defensive standpoint. When you I don't wanna bring, I know this season is so fresh, so I hate even doing this to you. Oh, go ahead. But when you're thinking about your team and those tough situations, I know you were up 18 and half and all of a sudden the other team's playing really well, and that lead goes away. What is your mindset going into those timeouts when the other team goes on a run? Or your team isn't playing at the level that was the thing I still struggle with today. And I, if I'm gonna become a better coach, that's the thing I gotta get better at is the emotion of that. What are you thinking about when you call that time out knowing you need it? I think one thing that's really important to impress on as. Especially young coaches that are talking is you have to prep yourself for that situation ahead of time. You can't call the time out and say, oh, we're losing it right now, and what do I do? I do a lot of reading, or you read the book and we're talking about a teacher that a kid's always putting their head down on their desk and they would. They would take, hit'em and get'em to their, get their heads up and then the next day they have their head on their desk and whatever. And so at some point the teacher has to think to themselves, what am I gonna do when this kid puts his head down on his desk today? How am I gonna do this differently so I can get'em to change it? Or what am I going to do? And sometimes we don't do that, right? We just the next day, like something goes wrong at practice. And so I don't think about it until the next days of practice. Of course it's gonna happen again because I haven't really thought about it. And so I think those timeouts I felt like we went down to Wesleyan and we got an 18 point lead at half. I was still thinking they're gonna make a run. What am I gonna say to these guys? When they're in there and usually it works. It didn't work in this time, but we hung in there. We missed a shot at the buzzer to win. But I think you have to be very intentional with your thinking on that stuff and anticipate that those things the other part of that, and it's kind of part of that situation is you meet with your coaches and you say, okay, we're gonna. They could change the lineup. Okay, we gotta talk about the, all the ripples that are gonna come through all this. It's going, who's on the bench? That guy, the guy you're replacing the guy, the freshman that now is like looking, and there, there's another guy in front of me and okay, let's anticipate all of this stuff and how are we gonna talk about it? How are we gonna handle it? What's gonna and you can't just do things and not expect there to be other. Things that come with it, reciprocally. And I think that's part of the everybody's what do you do in your office? You think about all that stuff and then you start planning it in your head. If you're doing what you're supposed to. What's that sound like? What's when you're doing that. Proactive thinking about those situations.'cause it can't happen in the moment. It can't happen at halftime and go, okay, I gotta be prepared for this. What are you, what's going on in your head for you to say, when I know I'm angry or I know I'm frustrated with these guys, my brain needs to be here. My I need to get myself here. What's that look like for you? Yeah. I. You, you well talk. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. I think for me, I think my, I try to be patient and I'm a pretty low key sideline coach, and so for me it's like I I gotta make sure that I'm holding it together because they got, the other guys are gonna have to do that. I think one of the things, one of, one of my good friends and coaching is Kent Dornbach and he's at Stevens Point and when he was at lacrosse, I remember we played him and. He was just yelling at his team to stop talking to the official. Just play. Play through it. Get tougher. Don't worry about it. And. And it really caught me. And I I talked to'em later about it. And I think it's the same thing for me. If I'm bitching at the officials, then the players are gonna bitch at the officials and then it's gonna be, the reason we're not rebounding isn't because we're not going and grabbing it, it's because we're getting pushed or all the stuff. And it's I need to eliminate all the excuses for our players. That, that they're gonna be using. And if I'm using them, then they're gonna use'em. And so I'm gonna say, I'll even yell at our assistants. I'll be stop talking to the officials, stop asking for the holds. Our guys will start playing through this stuff. When we set the example that we're not, I'm not even worried about it. I and that's not saying I don't talk to the officials, but it's I think that's what goes through my head is I've gotta have control here. And if I can get control, then our players can get their control. How much of that do you think about in practices as well? Because I love the fact that you do drills where it's five minutes. We don't talk to'em. We let'em do their own huddles and pull themselves together. Do you want your practices to be some of that holding and some, because it's such a fine line.'cause you don't want to teach your guys to foul because then it's gonna bite you into the butt. It comes to game time. But you need that because when those officials are swallowing the whistle and they're letting guys play, you gotta be able to overcome that. So how do you balance that? That was always a struggle for me. It is a, it's a hard balance, yeah. I think it's easier to back guys off than it is to rev'em up. So I usually go the opposite. I go the direction we're gonna get'em, fall on each other, and then we'll back'em down. It's funny, and one thing I we've done over the years now is John Korian this year, and I, he's at Christopher Newport. He and I are buddies and we sent each other practice film early in the year. Love that. And you have the huddle cameras now and it's real easy to do that stuff. Just another different set of eyes that's not in it every day that he gives you great ideas. And one of the things he said to me, he is you're calling a lot of fouls at practice that we would never call. And I watch, I rewatched our practice and I'm like, I am, I'm, our guys are really, we're calling way too much stuff'cause our guys aren't finishing at the rim and we're calling it Yeah. And it's early in the year and everybody's missing lips and all this stuff and it's just that kinda stuff. I think that. He did that for me and I did, gave him some things that I saw. And so yeah, that, that is a fine line, but it's, I think it's really good to get other people to look at your stuff.'cause they'll tell you, that's awesome. You two are two are the best in the country. So the fact that you're sharing brains scary I love that. What makes you happy? What brings you joy? Coaching? Oh, I love being around the players. I really do it. It keeps me super young. I'm 49 going on 50, so I'm not old. But there's just something about being around young college males that like, I don't know, it just gets me like juiced up. And I also the other part to me is the rewarding part without sounding sappy, is you get invited to the weddings and you see these guys and. And you're like, look at these 15 guys you got some guy from the sticks of Indiana and then you got a guy from the suburbs of Chicago and you got a guy from OUTTA state and you're looking at it like, no, there's no other place where they would just, they would be friends and getting this together. And then you then I'd always I'm with my wife, him, and we're like, Hey, this is pretty cool that. We started this thing when they're 18 and I'm doing a home visit with them and talking to parents, and now they're 30 and all these guys are still together and we're sitting here watching this. That's incredibly rewarding to me. I agree. It's the part I miss more than anything else. It's the heartstrings for me. That's the part I miss. You've had such a great run. And I'm sure a lot of that run, you would point to the fact that you've built this great culture and you've thank you and you've built this continuous brotherhood over these last 13 years that, that make these guys proud to be a blue jay and be a part of your community. Culture is such a overused word. And there's a lot of people that have different. Definitions of it. How do you define that Blue Jay culture? What does it look like for you? What do you want it to look like? Yeah. That is, first of all, you're right. I think it's a very, I don't wanna say overused, it's a used term that a lot of people use, and I very rarely ever talk about culture. I, I don't even really, I feel if you have to talk about it, you don't have it, that's right. Yeah. And everybody, every coach has their stuff. We have our Blue Jay way that's in our coaches' offices and it's in our locker room, and our players have it in their rooms. And I think the stuff that, I think for me it's just, it's not what you say or you do, it's what you emphasize. And so for me, we're gonna emphasize the selflessness piece and staying together and being humble and just, I, I think when I first got coaching. I'm not gonna lie, I stole it from Brad Stevens. I'm sitting there looking at the Butler way and I'm like, I like all that stuff and I think that fits my personality and what I wanna see in a team. So I stole it and I changed it to what I thought was important to me. And I think that's been part of that. Cause I go back to it a lot. I really talk to our guys about it and I think I tell'em that's the foundation and for me it's like building that house. You're pouring the concrete and you screw that up and no, nothing else you do is gonna work. And if you don't get that right. So we'll spend a lot of time with that. One of the things that the NCAA did that I've loved, and I don't think a lot of coaches use it, which is crazy to me, but you get 90 minutes a week in the off season to do leadership training, and that's a pretty encompassing yeah. And so we'll talk about just goals and habits and mental toughness and just the leadership piece how to be a leader. I think all that stuff has been really important to us because whenever we step on the floor on October 15th, we've sorted a lot of that other stuff out. Like we're the there's definitely a pecking order already, and I think we've got a lot of that in it, and. Now I've been here for 13 years. I think the last part of that is, and every good team and every coach out there that's got a good program knows that there's residual leadership. It's the guys graduate and the next group of guys takes the reins and if they're any good, they bring those other guys along and then it just continues to go and that's part of. I think that's the one thing where people don't realize when coaches actually stay, they're not popping around all over the place and going to different places. That's, you really can get residual leadership when your players stay and your coaches stay and you start to see that happen. Ain't that the truth? Take us behind the curtain if you're comfortable. How do you break down that 90 minutes? What are you doing to kinda. Build those leadership ideas. Sure. We started, we when we first started doing it, it was PowerPoints and just the nuts and bolts of stuff. It's funny now speaking of like residual leadership we have some of our captains actually teach if we're doing a lesson on body language. We have our captains, they've already gone through the body language talk a couple of times, so they lead it now and I sit in the back and I kinda ask the guided questions and that sort of thing. And so it's just really it's a lot of things you talk about roles and it's not basketball stuff. It's more how do people fit into. Roles and how do they accept'em? And like I said it's just a lot of odds and ends things, but I think that it's all really it translates to the court, but it translates really more to the guys being able to run their lives. And here's another one, like you get in the end of the year and so you have your end of your meetings with all the players and they come in and they talk and they're with me for 45 minutes an hour. They'll say, coach, I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna be a better player. I'm gonna I'm juiced, right? I'm gonna get it. And I said, okay, where are you working? Are you taking vacation? Are you gonna hang out with your girlfriend? I, let's go through the whole list of the things that are gonna happen to you this summer and young. An 18-year-old guy doesn't necessarily, he's I'm gonna be back. And I'm like, okay, when you lift him. Are you lifting before work? Are you lifting at lunch? Are you doing it after at five o'clock? When you're done, when you plan, when you're getting your shots in, when are you gonna take the vacation? Because everybody needs times to get their bodies right. And. So now, like we actually part of this is we're like, Hey, we're gonna, you're gonna plan yourself. You're gonna send it to me. I'm not gonna sit here with you and plan your summer for you, but you're going to plan it.'cause if you don't, it gets away from you and you don't become the player you want to be. And so I think just that kinda stuff, but that's not necessarily a let's make our team better. I think that's a, let's help this guy. Plan his life better. And then whenever he's, and he's a better person for that, then he's gonna be a better player for us. Yeah. There's talk and then there's a plan. Yes. And then there's execution. And if you've built out the plan, it's a lot easier to execute it than to execute the talk. Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, everybody has the and I, we do the same thing. As coaches, right? We're gonna, we're gonna change the offense. We're gonna, we're gonna do all this stuff. And then okay, half the summer's gone. Did anybody watch any film? Okay let's we gotta plan this or else we're not gonna do it ourselves. I love it, coach that you're teaching 18 to 22-year-old men executive function skills, I appreciate it. You're, it's just not done enough. I kicked myself it took me five, six years as a head coach before I started teaching some of that, and I really didn't un understand executive function and how important it was at that point. But the fact that you're saying you're using the Socratic method, you're teaching executive function skills, you're teaching them how to be adults, you're doing pre-counseling, work with them. In reality. You're keeping them from having to go see the, get a therapist at some point because you're touching them. I don't think of it that way, but I guess that is true. But it's, you're doing work on the front end that any counselor would be doing with a kid that's struggling with anger, depression, frustration. You're doing that all on the front end. You're talking about body language, you're talking about how they represent themselves, how we communicate with each other. It's so fantastic and it's just a part of, again. I don't wanna use this word again, but I'm gonna because I can't think of a better one. It's your culture. It's, this is how we're going to talk as young men and we're gonna talk as partners in this collaboration we're in. Yeah. It's I can tell you that one time I was an assistant and we had a player it was captain for us, really smart. 31, a CT smart guy. He was hunched over. It was like, I think I was like 23 at the time. He's hunched over and on the sideline and after practice. And we had just put him in the starting lineup and he had a terrible practice. And I didn't I was a young coach. I didn't recognize that as it is, like I gotta go talk to him, whatever. And I said, Hey, bad practice Chris, and he came back the next day and he was worse. And I was I did a bad job. I was like, Hey, we put you in the starting lineup and now you're taking this for granted. And I was on it you gotta play hard. You got this, all this stuff. And what ended up happening, his girlfriend had broken up with him, who, he's now, by the way, it's his wife. But at that day broke up and he was feeling bad. And so I think on the third day I finally was smart enough to go over and be like, Hey, let's talk and, it was crazy to me. Like in my mind I'm a relationship person, but until that time I was like, these aren't just pawns in some chess game. They're real people with real issues. And even if breaking up with your girlfriend when you're 19 doesn't seem like a big issue to me. It is to him. Yeah. And so that really got me on the path of if I help our guys I'm helping them to help them. But it does make it better team if you your team is going to play better if you're invested in your players and they feel it. Yeah. And so when you're talking about giving them some counseling and helping them, they know you care about'em and they know that you're trying to help'em. And so then when I call you into my office and I tell you the truth about how you're playing, you're, I'm not gonna take that personally because I know you're on my side. I think then you can really coach guys and you can coach your team. So I think it's all intertwined on how to put a good team together. It's just, it's love man. It's love. We care about these kids so much and it takes time in our coaching careers to get past the need to wins get the wins. And you've gone five times to the national tournament. There's coaches that do this for 20 years that never get there once. And I would imagine because you've had such a good career in such a good league and you've done this at three schools and had all these kids, there's, I would imagine you've given yourself some grace to say, I'm gonna coach the way I know they need to be coached. Yeah, there is. There is something to that I think. You got? I think maybe it's our level, I think. I think that's part of it. Yeah. I think there's times where I sit there think if I was a D one coach, I might've been fired that year. Just because they're, it's quick. Oh, yeah. But you're. We've, if we have a down year or an average year you're like, okay, I'm I'm gonna evaluate how I'm coaching and our talent level and all this stuff, but I can still be me and I can still coach our guys the way I feel like we need to coach'em without feeling the pressure of I'm gonna lose my house, type thing. And I think there is, I think that's one of the nice things about the division three level that I've been in it a long time. I played in it you can enjoy your job without. We're still competing. It's still fun. But there's not the level of life or death that I think a lot of coaches get into. And I think it hurts their coaching because yes. They feel the pressure and and they can't do it the way they really would like to do it. My first seven, eight years at Maryville, I think I had one assistant and I think they were paying him 1500 bucks. Yeah. Talk a little bit about, in a tangent, to what we just talked about, how important your staff is to your soul and how you're able to walk into practices every day. How you're able to leave practice every day, the role that they play to keep you healthy as well as the boys. Yeah, and there's a, it's changed what I've looked for in assistance over the years. I, and I've. Not often, but I have screwed up on a couple hires.'cause I thought, yeah, I'm gonna I I want this I want this guy that's gonna get us some recruits and whatever that is. My first thing now you want hardworking guys. You want guys that are loyal all that stuff. Yeah that, the, all those things. But the thing that you, I'm really looking for is I wanna enjoy my time with somebody. I can't imagine now putting staffs together where I'm like, I I don't like being around you. I want to be in, I wanna, if I'm traveling on a charter bus with somebody for a whole day I wanna enjoy it. Yeah. And so I look for that. And then you gotta fill in the gaps and you're, you gotta be really intentional about yourself, about what are the things I don't do? I'm the certified strength coach and we don't have, we we have our weight program and I, that's not my strength. I can do it. Yeah. But it's not who, and so I, I wanna have somebody that really knows what they're doing. And we have Melissa Schwab on our staff. She does an awesome job with that stuff. She and she owns it. And I think I kinda like you talk about the players giving them roles. You're like, Hey this is your role. I need you to fill this part of my staff because this is not my strength. And then and then on my side I have to tell them, this is what I feel like I do well, I'm gonna carry the torch on that and you guys are gonna be my backups on that kinda stuff. I don't know, it's changed over the years, but I think it's funny, whenever you run into somebody. You say, that guy would be really good on my staff. And you always put it in the back of your head and you're like, you always have this short list of people that you're like, if and when I'm always gonna, I'm gonna call them. And yeah. And so I think that's part of it. I it's funny I have, I've coached one team in the last 12 years where I've been the head coach and I've helped a lot of teams, but I've been so busy with other things. Every five or six months, it pops in my head. If I had to put a staff together tomorrow, who would it be? Who would I wanna spend the next 12 months with coaching, coaching ball? Do you know how I got RGA name's Shane Miller. He's awesome. He actually played at Illinois Wesleyan, and last year I was the NCAA attorney rep at University of Chicago. You get hired, you go there and you help out and, I was in the restroom. Obviously I know the Wesleyan players'cause we recruit a lot of'em and you know'em and whatever, right? And I was in the restroom and Shane was in the restroom and I just said. Hey, Shane what are you doing next year? You're graduating. What are you doing? I coach, I really love to, to get into college coaching. I'm looking for a GA spot and I said hey, when all this stuff's done let's talk. Because I just always liked him. I thought he had a ton of energy and and Ron Rose is a friend of mine, I called him and so he is our GA right now. And it's just funny. I was like I'm washing my hands in the restroom and that's how I got a ga. Yeah. I was in the gym the other day and a kid that played for me here in town 10 years ago, just he's a former college player, had a great college career, and I'm thinking about helping a high school team and I go, if I go back and coach again, would you be interested? I just had that conversation the other day because he's just such a good kid. He's just dripping with role model and he's still in great shape. Talks with conviction, so I love that. Coach. I could talk all day. I want to get into recruiting. I wanna get into part two here in a little bit, but I wanna do a little rapid fire with you. Okay. I'm getting emotional with you talk talking about these kids and all this stuff that we love doing. But I'll, I'm gonna give you some fun quick ones just to get to know you a little bit better. Sure. Hardest place to win in the CCIW. That's Illinois Wesley. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think the, the crowd just it gives them a boost. I think we saw that the other night. I there's over two, 2000 people. It's loud. It's the bands playing and everything, and I think it just is a hard place to play. It is great facility. One word that defines Elmhurst Festival, one word that defines us resilient. I think we got a lot of tough is people think tough. They think the scrappy fighter guy. I think we've got a lot of mentally tough guys that. They own that. They, they really realize that if you're gonna be good, like I said you gotta take some punches and you gotta get up the next day and you gotta get at it. And you know that, remember that old Chris Berman on ESPN would always say no one circles the wagons like the buffalo Bills. That's right. I always said I feel like, without sounding un humble I think Elmhurst basketball players can circle the wagons. They're pretty resilient guys. When you're in the Final four next year, I'm gonna call you and I'm gonna remind you of that, where you were today after the season. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's your word. I hope you I hope you right. That's your word for the summer for your boys resilience. Yeah. You guys know how to circle the wagons? We're gonna prove it this year. Is there a leadership habit you refuse to compromise on a leadership habit? Yeah. Truth. I, Jim Leland said the old manager the pirates manager? Yeah. Tigers. And he said if you lie to'em, they hate you forever. And if you tell'em the truth, they hate you for 48 hours. And I, you know the truth I, it is, it's and I've changed, I, when I was a young. Head coach. I wanted to I was, I thought he did a good job, but I wanted to be liked. I'm not a confrontational person. I'm not in your face. Yeah. I just said I, you guys would come into the office, Hey, you're doing a great job and whatever. And I remember the player Eric Leonard came in my office good player for us was coming off the bench coach, what do I need to do to play more? And I said, Eric, you're doing fine. And he just said why the bs why can't you just tell me what I need to do? And we had a good relationship and still do, and so I, that really changed me'cause I'm like, this is a pretty, one of our smartest players. He works his butt off and I can't tell him, Hey you're not shooting it well enough or you're whatever it is. And that really flipped the page for me. And it's really funny with young males, I always thought you just had to not be confrontational. And that was great. They like the truth. They do, they, they really feed off of it. If you just say you're not going to the glass hard enough and you're shooting 30% from three and you gotta change that. And if I can, and if you have a good relationship with them, they take that the right way. They're like, thank you, I appreciate it. You wanna watch film on it? Okay, we'll do it. Let's do it. Yeah. And the other one I heard one time, and we've used this a little bit is there's day traders and then there's investment guys, and. I'm gonna watch you at practice. I am not a day trader. You, you're not gonna come up to me every day and say, how'd you do? How'd you do, how'd you do, how'd you do? I look at trends I want quarterly reports. I'm gonna watch you for two weeks and then if I see major change over a two week period then I need, and I need to start looking at you. But I'm not gonna do that on a day-to-day basis. You're gonna have to put in your time and and I can, and like I said, I can tell you the truth in those situations'cause I watched you and I'm watching the film and we can have a real conversation. I love that. Gosh, that's so good. Coach. Just it's not earth shattering, but it's such, the way you said it and the way you articulated it is so important for young coaches to understand that I heard too. We can evaluate it a day in and day out basis because we're not giving ourself the truth. The truth is what are you doing? What's the significance of what you're doing? Over a long stretch? Now we can talk about your habits. Now we can talk about your routines, and we've seen you really bust your tail. You've been so much phy, more physical for two weeks. It's not just the negative stuff, it's the positive stuff. It's not just the players. We like to operate this way. Yes. How would you like it if your ad sat at your door every day and evaluated your day? Every day. You'd hate that, right? That's right. You'd say he, my ad tells me what we need to do, and then after a month he looks at our record and says, you guys are playing hard and you're doing a decent job. And okay, thanks for evaluating me. That's right. And that's what we're trying to do with the players. I don't need to be at the end of practice telling you. Everything about that practice every day. Yeah. I just need to be able to evaluate you over a course of a period of time, and I'll help you if you wanna, if you want some help, but I think that's how we all wanna operate. Yeah. I've had some great conversations with ads the last couple weeks. It's the same kind of theme when talking to us coaching staff is I'm your boss, but don't make me be your boss. Do your job. Come in, let's collaborate let's wherever I can help you. But if I have to be your boss, we're something's wrong. Yeah. If I have to discipline you because you're showing up late for practice, or you're not working hard what are we doing here? What's our purpose? Yeah. I part and you're talking about the recruiting piece. You pick the right people, I think. A lot of that takes care of it. And like I said, if you can have good conversations and real conversations with them, I think you can get everything you want. Honestly, last question. This is a doozy. You can take this however you want. What separate, you've had an All-American, what separates an All-American from an all conference player at the D three level? Yeah. We've had, we actually have four All Americans here, but we've had a good run of'em. I think. Obviously there's the talent level, but the will to improve. How are you gonna get a D? Most people are like, okay, if you got a D three all American, they probably could play at a higher level, which is true. So how are they here? And they're not at that other level. Probably they weren't, they didn't get that scholarship because they weren't at this level yet. And then they worked and it's that thing where the people talk about Steph Curry and they're like, I wanna shoot like Steph Curry. Are you going to do what he was doing when he was 14? And doing all that stuff because you're seeing the finished product, you're not seeing all the stuff that went into it. And I think all of our guys have embraced that will to improve. And I think it's what's been really good in our program. And this happens a lot. All the good programs I think is. Don Berg right now is he was our, he is our best player. He is a all league player. He was working out with those old guys that he was working out with an All American for a couple years and he got to see the level that you have to put in to get to that. And so now he's doing it. And I love that. We've got a young sophomore, Benny at Jung Beta, he just became an all league player. He was working out with Dom all summer. And yet, and those guys, I think they drag other guys in and then they become the player they wanna be, and then it turns into the next player. Gets that. Yeah. And you're making my brain go back years, but I think this is a huge point that you've brought up. Is the kids when you tell him if you wanna be Steph Curry, you gotta put the work in. You got it's time and after time. But I think the real difference is, and I'm thinking of Benny Hebel, who was one of my all-conference players there was a point his senior year where he wasn't working hard for me to see it. He was working hard'cause he wanted to be great. I think there's that kid that's wants you to come in the gym and notice that they're working hard. Yeah. Yeah. Ben got to that point where he was like, I don't even want you in the gym. You're bothering me. I'm here to work. Get out of the gym. I don't need you. I don't even need you to know that I'm doing this. I'm gonna be great. Is there some congruency there to what you've seen in your All Americans? I think that's true. And I think you recruit that, don't you? Yeah. You recruit gym rats. Yeah. Especially at this level. But I think it's also it's part of the motivation the part that the coaching part that you have to continue to do. And it's not like you're doing the comparison game with them. But I'm constantly saying I bet you Mason Funk from Illinois Wesleyans. Probably in the gym today. And if he's better than you today and he's working at his game, you're never gonna be better than him. That's right. So you're gonna have to be in there. That's right. And I think if you've got competitive people, they're going to, they're gonna soak that up. And that's the, those all Americans, they do soak that up. The ones that don't soak it up they usually don't make it because they don't have that drive. And that inner they're just kinda I just wanna be here type of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Coach, you're fantastic. Thank you so much for doing this. You are a role model for all of us. And just how you go about your business, how you care about your players, how you care about that life to death model. Yeah, it's not just those four years, they get to be with you. You got a big fan of me and that's why I'm wearing my blue jay blue today. Thanks. I noticed that we're gonna be cheering for you and we're excited for next year for you. Thank you. I appreciate being off. I. You've just been listening to my conversation with John Bains head, men's basketball coach at Elmhurst University in Chicago. What I appreciate most about Coach Bains is that he reminds us that great coaching doesn't always have to be loud to be powerful. There's a quiet confidence in the way he approaches his work, a belief in truth, accountability, resilience, and helping young people become the best version of themselves. His teams win. They compete. They've reached the NCAA tournament multiple times and even played for a national championship. But if you listen closely to the way he talks about his players, you quickly realize that the wins are not the point. The point is the people. It's the relationships that last decades. The weddings you get invited to the lessons that stay with young men long after the final game is played. That's the kind of coaching that leaves a mark. And make sure you come back Monday for part two of this conversation with Coach Baes where we shift gears and tackle the world of college basketball recruiting. Including what Division three coaches are really looking for, how prospects should approach the recruiting process and how families can navigate the journey with a little more perspective. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you subscribe, favorite, and leave a comment wherever you listen to the podcast. And those things really are important for us to keep going. So please take the time to subscribe and leave a comment. It helps us a lot. It helps more coaches and leaders find these conversations, and it helps us continue building this community around significant coaching. You can also find blogs, books, recruiting resources, and speaking opportunities@coachmattrogers.com. And if you'd like to bring these conversations to your school or organization or community, you can schedule a time to connect their. With me as well, and as always, until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.