Brian Bohannon is an American Football coach.

He started as an Assistant with Gardner-Webb in 1996, and then over the next 17 seasons progressed through roles with Georgia Southern, Navy and Georgia Tech. In 2014 he started as the inaugural Head Coach for Kennesaw State. That team has gone on to become the the best five-year start-up program in college football history. Along the way he has won 3 Big South Coach of the Year, the AFCE Coach of the Year as well as leading the team to two Big South Conference championships.

Some of the key highlights are:

• How he describes mental toughness as the ability to execute a simple task regardless of circumstance. And the way he strctures the teams culture around effort, attitude toughness to help re-enforce this.
• The story he tells about starting up the team from scratch and taking it to be the most successful 5 year startup program in college football history.
• How the number one thing the great coaches have is the leadership ability to take a group of people from different places and backgrounds and get them to buy in to a common goal and vision.

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

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This week, my co-presenter the gold medal winning coach Hugh McCutcheon and I continue our exploration of Thriving Teams with the American Football coach Mike Bloomgren.

Mike started his career in 2000 as a graduate assistant and the the University of Alabama..

He then held various assistant roles before starting at the New York Jets in 2007. From there he moved to Stanford under David Shaw where he was part of the coaching staff that won the Pac 12 championship in 2012, 2013 and 2015.

In 2017 he was appointed head coach of Rice University.

Mike has terrific energy and some of the highlights of our interview were:

• His belief that optimism and pessimism are infectious when you are the leader, and they spread more rapidly from the head down than any other direction.
• The structured way he goes about building connection across the 107 players and 50 staff and their families, and the role this plays in building a sense of care across the team.
• His philosophy which he describes as Intellectual Brutality, and the role this plays in unlocking the decision making power of the athletes.

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

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This week my co-host, Professor Eric Knight and I are joined by Kevin Eastman.

Kevin is an American Basketball coach.

He started coaching in 1978 progressing through assistant roles to become the Head coach of Belmont Abbey College. He then went on to lead the lead Washington State University and then the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

In 2003 he was Nike’s Basketball National Director of Skills and through that role met Doc Rivers who invited him to become an Assistant with the Boston Celtics. That team went on to win the 2008 NBA championship. These days Kevin is an in demand public speaker and the author of the terrific book: Why the Best Are the Best: 25 Powerful Words That Impact, Inspire, and Define Champions

Some of the key highlights are:

• How he believes that the most important question great teams challenge themselves with is, what are you willing to sacrifice for this group? And how sacrifice is not just about what you give up, but rather what you choose to do for someone else.
• The acronym TIPS he uses to illustrate what all Teams whether in the sporting or corporate world need to do to be at their best. T stands for Truth which is the most important element, next is Intentional which he expands to describe as, what we do intentionally to fulfil our purpose, P stands for Preparation and S for Standards.
• The way he talks about the concept of Ubuntu which is an African word that embraces 2 key ideas, People are people because of other people and second tenet is, I can only be all I can be if you are all you can be. And the way this idea formed the foundations of the connections within the team.

You can learn more about Thriving Teams at https://thegreatcoachespodcast.com/thriving-teams/

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.