Last month in Indianapolis, the NCAA leadership development team hosted 38 full-time intercollegiate men's and women's basketball coaches from NCAA member schools in all three divisions for the Basketball Coaches Academy. During the program, the coaches had the opportunity to engage with industry experts and peers and learn tools to become more effective leaders of student-athletes on and off the court.
"I felt extremely privileged to be chosen for this academy," said Tessa Johnston, women's basketball assistant coach at Shenandoah. "As a young coach in this field, any opportunity to share a room with other people that share the same passion as I do, I walk away from that learning so much."
Over the course of three days, group members reflected on who they are and why they do what they do, while learning from professionals in the field.
"Since I'm a young coach, I'm still learning, still trying to grow my core values, grow my coaching philosophy," said Tristan Spurlock, director of player development at Iowa. "It gave me a lot to think about as far as how do I want to run my program, what kind of kids do I want to recruit. It also allowed me as a young coach to see where do I need to step it up at. Recruiting, OK where are my hotbeds where can I recruit at?"
Many of the participants were assistant coaches, so throughout the academy, they were challenged to think about how they would run their own basketball program.
"We got to talk about what we want our program to look like because right now, we're all kind of following in the footsteps of our head coaches," Johnston said. "It challenged us to look at things at a deeper level and imagine being in that top seat ourselves and how we are going to lead our student-athletes when we're the ones in charge versus just following the leadership of our head coaches."
Talking with Gina Lehe from NCAA communications, participants learned strategies to enhance their social media presence and brand their program. They also learned tactics to communicate effectively with their student-athletes.
"Now that the NCAA has allowed us to have more coaches on the court, so a guy like me now fully thrusted into being on the court, being allowed to have my voice heard, I want to make sure I'm saying the right things and things that are impactful," Spurlock said.
Citing the relationship building and great messages and speakers, Spurlock said he came away from the program grateful for his experience.
"For me to be going into year two of coaching, it was probably the most impactful thing I went to all year," he said. "Genuine networking and genuine relationship building. For me to be a young coach, I thought I got everything and more from it. I left there wanting more. It was big time, 10 out of 10."
