"How to build a winning program" with guest Bill Lam
John:
Hello everyone, welcome to the only internet radio show talking about high school sports and the business of college recruiting, Collegiate Athlete Today, broadcasting live from Chicago, Illinois. I am John Kerr along side Chris Krause like he is every week, the founder of the National Collegiate Scouting Association. We are going to have another great guest joining us here today in a few minutes but lets give out our contact information, you can send questions and comments to CAToday@ncsasports.com Ok this is a back to the basics week on CAToday, and there is a great marketing slogan by a shoe company that says "great athletes aren't born, they are made," well I want to take that a step further. Great athletes aren't made without great coaching. And our guest today would certainly fall in that category. He has quite a resume here. He is one of the most successful college wrestling coaches in history and before becoming a coach he was an All-American at the University of Oklahoma. Then for 30 years he graced the mat at the University of North Carolina where he won 15 Atlantic Coast Conference titles and coached 5 individual NCAA champions and 37 All-Americans. And in 1982 was voted the National Coach of the Year. He currently is the director of sports camp operations for Dynamite Sports, we welcome Bill Lam to the program.
Chris:
Coach Lam it is so exciting to have someone who brings so much knowledge and experience of athletics to the table. As a former collegiate athlete and a coach at the highest level who has also built a program pretty much from scratch to become one of the most successful collegiate programs in history. Welcome. I'm looking at your resume and what you did over there, it looks like you out did Dean Smith in that winning percentage category didn't you Coach?
Bill:
I'll tell you what, if I did it was because I had some help from him when I got here. But the truth of the matter is that Chicago is a huge aspect for us, every winter they have the Midland Championship which is one of the biggest wrestling tournaments in the country and we are the only team on the East coast who has ever won it. Lehigh, Penn State all those other programs, none of them have ever won it. So we have a real good feeling about Chicago.
Chris:
The Midlands, as far as wrestling goes, what were some of your biggest rivalries?
Bill:
Well the reason that we came out here is because well, first its one of the oldest and toughest all around sports because they would use the event for people who finished their events but still wanted to train. Guys that were trying out for the Olympics would come to train there. And the top Big 10 schools, Iowa, Michigan etc would be there, and Northwestern of course would host it. And it was the only tournament throughout the year where schools from the West coast and the East coast would meet up. So it was probably the toughest tournament.
Chris:
Yeah I bet that was a great national tune-up to get yourself ready for Nationals. It sounds like everyone was there.
Bill:
Actually that's why we would go, I wanted to take a look at where we really stood nationally and see some things that we needed to work on. Plus you get to see the top individuals that you would be seeing at nationals. So yeah, it was a great warm-up.
Chris:
I know from talking to wrestlers etc that recruiting for that sport can be tough because you have so many state champions in so many different weight classes, and the single A and double AA divisions. One of the unique things that I started to learn about wrestling is where the talent comes from. How regionalized in terms of talent, I mean you could be the #1 kid in Wyoming but if they aren't wrestling great talent, is it tough for them to get to a Division I school along the caliber of North Carolina?
Bill:
It really is. And that's the thing, there are so many different aspects to that. First off, the number of collegiate wrestling programs is down from what it had been and that cuts it down some. And second, the high school programs have actually picked up wrestling programs so for a college coach to pick up the good kids there are a few tournaments that they would go to. But if the kids couldn't get to these tournaments and didn't have a special way of getting your attention, a good kid could be missed very easily.
(7:00)
Chris:
And in terms of looking at a kid on the national level you are looking two years in advance but youre also trying to project ahead as these young bodies are maturing they are adding weight and getting taller and they are getting stronger. How difficult is it to project a kid at a certain weight class?
Bill:
Well it's real tough, and that's the thing about it. You might have a real good kid in a weight class and the next year he has moved out of that weight class and you only have a limited amount of money to use on these blue chippers so it makes it really hard. And that's really when the NCSA can really help you because there are times when you think youre on top of it and then all of a sudden there are a few changes and you need to know how to get a hold of some kids at the last minute and the NCSA can provide that service.
Chris:
Wait you mean that you didn't have the kind of budget that Coach Smith had?
Bill:
I gotta tell ya, this is the truth, I have been here for 30 years and things have changed a lot and we have gotten where we were as a Top 10 team, finished Top 5 and we are competitive nationally but when I first got here, they didn't have a clue what the sport was about. I mean I came from Oklahoma where they were national champions and we had outgrown basketball there, it was a big wakeup call for me. And early in recruiting, ill never forget this, here is what my budget was, I would get in the car and leave town for a couple of weeks and then came back. And that was about it. It wasn't like we flew out to see them or we flew people in. But they do that now and I don't want the new coach to think that we are behind the times still or anything.
John:
Well coach you are doing something right, during your 3 decades at North Carolina the school had gone through 3 basketball coaches, 6 football coaches, 4 athletic directors and 4 chancellors. But the one constant was Bill Lam. You even outlasted Dean Smith.
Bill:
Yeah well he had been there for a few years before me. When I first got here I didn't know that Coach Smith used to coach at the Air Force Academy and used to golf with my dad. And when I met him I found that out and he said Bill you're never going to be able to build a wrestling powerhouse here, the interest just isn't there. But he became one of my biggest fans because when we became nationally competitive he was so impressed and shocked that it actually happened. So I was really lucky to have a person like him in my corner. He was a good friend.
Chris:
Wow, that is quite an accomplishment to be able to build a sport that doesn't have much of a following in a place like North Carolina. How did you visualize this program? What were some of the first few things that you did to start to get this team off the ground?
Bill:
Have you ever heard the saying, Ignorance is Bliss? Well I just didn't know any better. I mean I graduated from Oklahoma and I stayed in a coached in high school for 5 years and when I first got to North Carolina I thought that it was going to be like Oklahoma. And they hired me at a time that was past the recruiting season so I went back to Oklahoma and brought back a few guys who weren't blue chippers but they really understood the sport of wrestling. And I'll never forget before the first match I said 'guys things are going to be a little bit different but if you have faith we are going to be there someday.' And we went out into the arena and there were five people, my wife was one of them. And I thought Omigod what did I do. But I had always believed that it could happen and with a lot of work and by recruiting a lot of people we were able to turn it around.
John:
The passion and belief was there and when it was over with in 2003, 378 individual meet victories. An unbelievable story. More with Bill Lam after the break. We are going to talk about his own experiences with his own two sons as he went through the recruiting process on the other side of the fence. You're listening to CAToday with Chris and John, more when we come back.
(15:30)
John:
We are back, we are visiting today with Bill Lam the all-time winningest wrestling coach in the history of the University of North Carolina.
Chris:
Coach Lam I know that you had the chance to go through the recruiting process with your two sons. Maybe you could shed some light not only as a coach but as a parent. How did you guys go through the recruiting process?
Bill:
Well you know John, my oldest son wasn't really a great wrestler and I don't know if you're aware of it but it's pretty hard to get into North Carolina academically. And this is something that any parent or student listening right now should understand that sometimes its not about the money its about being able to get into the school that you want to. There have been times where people would pass on a scholarship just to get into the school that they wanted to. And sometimes I tell people that sometimes its harder to get kids into a school than to give them a scholarship. But anyway, he wasn't a great wrestler but I felt like I knew his work ethic and I knew what he had. Other people were recruiting him for track and hindsight is 20/20 because sometimes I wish I would have let him go run at other places in fact I tried to talk him into it. I said, Travis, you're a pretty good runner and youre getting these offers from pretty good schools are you sure you don't want to do that? And he dad those guys run to far, he was a distance runner and he said that he would rather wrestle than run forever. Plus he felt that he would get a better education at North Carolina but the decision that he made was based on academics.
Chris:
Well yeah were talking at least a 1400 SAT score for a kid coming in from out of state but we know that if a coach really wants a kid they will go as low as 960 just to get them in. And that really can make a difference in someone's life as far as your network and what you do with that degree afterwards.
Bill:
Oh that's huge, that was one of the biggest things when we turned the program around here. Pennsylvania has great high school wrestling and a lot of those kids knew about Penn State and North Carolina for their basketball and football and they thought well I want to get out of this snow and go down there. So I was able to give partial scholarships and was able to help get a kid into school which meant more to me at that time than money and that was one of the reasons that we were able to turn it around.
Chris:
Yeah that's one thing that a lot of people don't realize in terms of going onto college and playing a collegiate sport, very few kids are getting a full ride. I mean kids in the revenue sports like football and basketball are but for the most for the rest of the sports its rare. How did you go about dividing it all up when you were giving out scholarships?
Bill:
Well it's like anything else it depended on supply and demand. And it would depend on my necessity in a certain weight class too. Or I would use my national champions as a perk too, I would say hey if you come here you'll have a workout partner who is a 3-time national champion. But in the beginning I had to prove to other schools that we could compete nationally in the recruiting process with other big name schools.
Chris:
Well it's amazing because a lot of families think that you are walking around these wrestling tournaments with a full pocket of scholarships and the first thing that we teach our kids here at NCSA is how to talk to coaches and ask intelligent questions. Because a lot of times the first question that a coach will ask is "who else is recruiting you and what are they offering?" When you are talking to a family and trying to measure up what it's going to take to get a kid what are you looking for? If you could get a great kid to come for less versus giving that kid a full ride, how much does that play into your strategy?
(21:00)
Bill:
Well every coach is different but for me honesty was more important than anything. I didn't like to play the game but there are coaches out there who do. And when I was recruiting against a coach who did play games I would tell the kid that but if the kid is not educated and doesn't have some help and if parents don't understand whats going on than they can get caught on the short end of things. I knew what we had for certain weight classes and I would tell the kids up front what I was going to do and I wouldn't play the games. If something opened up there were times that I could add a little more but otherwise I was very upfront. And with any of these Olympic sports like wrestling, there isn't a lot of money in it so if they are even offering you help than that speaks highly of what you are going to be able to bring to their program. You have to look at what kind of education you are going to get and your long range goals. And talk to the coach and ask if there will be any upgrades in help if you were to be All-American that sort of thing. Because my philosophy was that I was never going to take it away from you if I made a bad choice in a kid well that's my fault but if you do better, before I go out and get a new kid and you are an All-American, I'm going to award you for the work that you've done before I go get someone brand new.
Chris.
You mentioned before about a family's need and a lot of family's don't realize that a need can actually come into play. Maybe you could hit on that concept a little bit.
Bill:
It's a huge aspect and an aspect that I used in building our program. We would look for kids who were getting financial aid. I mean when they are sending that questionnaire out to you two years in advance they are looking for need based kids. Because if it's need based the money that you give them doesn't count against your numbers. And you can actually stretch your numbers a little better through the financial aid aspect of it. So the more that parents and athletes know about this need based money the better, it's a huge opportunity. And that's a big thing in terms of recruiting, the NCSA is a huge asset because a lot of people need it because a lot of people are blue chip athletes who are getting offered full rides from all over. And so for the NCSA to help to inform these families about the need based help which most people don't even know about is huge.
John:
Well Bill like you mentioned, at your level every kid is good, every kid is All-State and every kid at athletic credentials but it's now when and how to ask the right questions and making that point difference and impressing that coach. That's what can be the difference. But more with Bill Lam when we come back.
(29:10)
John:
We are back, welcome to Collegiate Athlete Today. Chris Krause and John Kerr here visiting with Bill Lam, the former wrestling coach at the University of North Carolina. And the coach of 37 All-Americans during his 30 seasons down in Chapel Hill.
Chris:
Coach there are a lot of families out there wondering how a coach of a non-revenue sport identify talent. Obviously you mentioned that you start looking at them 2 years in advance. But can you shed some light on how does a coach identify talent these days?
Bill:
Well in the sport of wrestling there are hotbeds, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and Oklahoma so you know that if you get a get who is competing at the State level in those states than he is probably pretty good. The trouble is that a lot of times you find a good athlete but he doesn't have the grades. Or you get the grades but not the talent. So finding the combination of both is extremely difficult. I mean there are national and junior national events that showcase some kids but it's still very challenging. And that's where the NCSA can be a huge help. Had I known about the NCSA when I was coaching, I would have used it as a backup and found some people that maybe I wouldn't have known about.
Chris:
Absolutely Coach. Had I known about it when I was going through it too I would have used it. But what are you thoughts about going out of the state while recruiting? I mean obviously you were going to Pennsylvania and Ohio but was it tough to do that?
Bill:
Well one of the toughest things is knowing the individual. It's important to know the kid and the family because sometimes it's a quick sales job but that's not healthy. And that's not what you want to do. Spending time and doing it professionally to do the job right is really important. You need to get to know the kid and the budget is limited so you can only do that to a point but the parents need to be involved to insure that everyone is making the right decision. With wrestling especially once you are done with college you wont be doing it anymore unless you join a national team or something so you have to make sure on the academic side too that the school is right for you.
(32:45)
Chris:
Yeah what we tell a lot of kids is that you aren't just making a 4-5 year decision when you're choosing a college, you are making a 40-50 year decision. And that makes it a decision that you just cant take for granted. You have to make sure that you're going to get that degree because after college most athletes have to go back into the real world. How important was academics to you when you were looking at a student athlete?
Bill:
Athletics and academics were both always into consideration. But I have to be honest with you, we wanted to compete with the Oklahomas and the Iowas so there were times when we brought a kid in with a 960 SAT score when the average was 1400 but we also let the parents know that we had study halls and tutors and all of that to help them. And we made the kid understand that the academic side was going to be part of their working out. And what I'd also always tell them, is I would ask them if something were to happen were they at a school that they wanted to go to without sports. If they couldn't compete anymore was this school where they wanted to be. And I was lucky being at the University of North Carolina because people still wanted to be here.
John:
Absolutely coach, transitioning to when you were coaching to now, you retired in 2003.
Tell the folks out there kind of what you are doing now and about Dynamite Sports.
Bill:
Well the reason that I coached was certainly not for the financial aspects of it although I have had a nice life because of it and I wouldn't change it. But the real reason that I coached was to help other people to be successful. I got more excited about my kids who became National champions than when I was in the finals myself. So working for Dynamite Sports and getting this information out to the kids knowing that this was going to help them to make good decisions was what it took for me. I like getting in front of a group and talking to the kids and having parents come up to me and thanking me for the information that I gave them. I like helping people. Because I was involved in college sports and it was tough for me with my own kids so these parents don't have a clue. And even before I ran into Rick Wire who informed me about this program I knew that there was a need for a program like this. So running into him and getting involved in this was the perfect thing for me.
Chris:
We need to send a shoutout to Rick Wire, the President and founder of Dynamite Sports. He is just a terrific advocate of education and he has developed one of the most world class programs out there. And you save parents the money of carting these kids to camps all over the country hoping for scholarships when that's not really what goes on at camps, there a whole other process to that that they need to know about. Can you tell us a little bit about your program and how it adds to this camp environment?
Bill:
Ok, first thing I tell parents and students, those of you who are paying 3-5,000 dollars a year to be a select team in soccer, baseball, basketball etc team that travels and thinks that is going to get them a scholarship is wrong. That's just not the case. I'm a firm believer in the kid going through the high school programs and being competitive through that. And in regards to summer camps, coaches have summer camps for two reasons, one because it helps their program financially and two because they are helping the sport grow. But for the most part they aren't doing recruiting at camps unless it's an intensive camp where they pick out particular kids to look at. And those are few and far between and not worth a person spending a ton of money to go to a camp. Besides most of the time the head coach is so busy that he has other people doing the teaching and running the camp. And the one thing that I say about recruiting, I break it down into 3 aspects. First we go to the kids who have the most natural talent, the quickness, the balance, the ability to jump those boundaries. Second we'll go to the kid who has done the work, done the running, who has done the weight lifting. And third goes to the person with the most heart. You might not understand wrestling but anyone who watched the Olympic team they never lost the 3rd period where the heart comes in. So by using this criteria you can let a kid know that at least he possesses two out of the three parts. He will know that he can control how much he works how much he learns and how much he knows.
Chris:
Lessons for sports, lessons for life! Well Coach Lam is as www.dynamitesports.com if anyone wants to get in touch with him regarding the programs. Coach we can't thank you enough. Thanks for sharing all your knowledge with us.
John:
Hey great athletes aren't made without great coaches. Coming up next is Tom Thayer with Profiles of Success.
(43:50)
John:
Bill Lam who is just a wealth of knowledge, I mean I could have spent 2 hours with the guy.
Chris:
Yeah Coach Lam, you look at education and there's no one who puts a bigger emphasis on education that he does. Families are being educated because he travels the country making sure that people know that this is the biggest decision of your life. If you want to play in college, get educated, get started early and get realistic. Go to www.ncsasports.org and fill out an SAEF and talk to one of our scouts to find out if you realistically have what it takes to compete at the next level.
John:
And be sure to check out www.dynamitesports.com and you can get in touch with Coach Lam about where he traveling. This brings us to our Profiles of Success segment with former NFL linebacker Tom Thayer. A member of the 1985 Super Bowl Champion Chicago Bears and currently the team's radio analyst. And each week Tom talks to a former or current athlete with a unique story, this week he profiles the General Manager of the NBA's Miami Heat, Randy Pfund.
Tom:
Welcome everybody to this afternoons segment of Profiles of Success, today we have the general manager the Miami Heat, Randy Pfund. Randy you have been the gm for 10 years and during that time there have been some huge changes. You started at Glenbrook South High School, went through Westmount College and now you are involved with one of the most high profile organizations in the NBA. And my first question is that when you are involved with a sport weather it's coaching or as a player, is there something that the top people all have in common that you have seen throughout your experiences.
Randy:
Well I have been fortunate enough at the professional level to work with some of the more special athletes and coaches, having been an assistant coach with the Lakers and working with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and James Worthy and then there was my time with the Heat. Alonzo Morning, Tim Hardaway and now Shaquille O'Neal. So I think that the guys who are successful as players, certainly have to have the talent but then what goes along with it is the drive to want to get better. And I saw that first and foremost in Magic Johnson, I was there when we won championships in 87 and 88, and it was like Magic was never completely happy with what he did or what we did. All the honors just seemed to drive him more to improve himself. So I think that talent and the drive is that thread that separates these athletes. I also had the opportunity to work with Pat Reilly and certainly he is driven and works to do things better and more successfully. He came along with video and strength training and worked to motivate his players. And so I think the common thread is being driven to get better.
Tom:
You talk about the drive to get better and that's important in every sport. I have a brother who coaches. Tell us about your dad coaching at Wheaton College and you playing for him. How did he separate coach from father and instill that drive in you. And how did that experience make you a better player but also a basketball lifer.
(49:20)
Randy:
Well my background is kind of interesting because my dad was, first and foremost, a professional baseball player. He played in the 40's and was with the Dodgers for a short time. And growing up with that affiliation I grew up being affiliated with some pro baseball players that were his contacts when he had played. And of course he coached baseball at Wheaton for about 30 years. So I saw that professional side of him, I remember going to Yankee/White Sox games and getting down in the dugout and having that inside and also having him as a coach at Wheaton which is a liberal arts college that looked at the whole person and was about developing yourself as a whole person both physically and spiritually so that was a great mix. I saw how hard you had to compete and what it took to get to the professional level but I also saw that there was another side to life that you couldn't just put it all into the competitive side of sports you had to have a total character. It was great to grow up in a coaching family and I didn't really even know that I wanted to coach, I started out as a teacher at South and started as a Freshman B coach but I saw there how much I liked working with players and the fact that you can take athletes and work to improve them and they wanted to improve. Whereas I didn't always see that in my history classrooms, because they were there because they had to be but on the athletic field all those kids wanted to be there and be the best.
Tom:
You know watching my brother-in-law coach his sons or my brother coach his son, is there anything that you can learn as a young kid being coached by a parent that you carry through your life. Either the decisions that you make throughout your life or just as a person.
Randy:
Well I don't think there's any down that the lessons that can be learned through competition, the lessons that can be learned from working together can all be applied whether you are working together as a family or as a coach/player relationship. There is no doubt that there are the mavericks out there who do it their own way and are still successful but for the most part, success in life takes a combination of people working together and understanding that there is a quarterback who is going to call the play. There is a coach who is going to make a decision. And my experience even in the little league games that I played as a kid all the way up the NBA championship games is that there has to be a level of cooperation on the playing field as well as off the playing field to be successful.
Tom:
When you fast-forward you life and you look at what you are doing now, is it easier to see success in someone like Shaquille O'Neal or looking forward to what Dwayne Wade is going to bring to an organization?
Randy:
Well I have the utmost respect for the great ones and like I said, I think that Shaq is an example of an athlete at the highest end. And I have great respect for those kinds of guys because not only do they have a certain level of talent but the compete on a stage every game. So the great ones are a great type of athlete to watch, I remember Kareem Abdul Jabbar as an assistant with the Lakers. But then of course there is the development of a young player like Dwayne Wade and that's always exciting to watch because a couple of years ago we were sitting on that draft pick a few seasons ago with a tough decision. It was a very important pick for the organization and we were excited to have hit it good with Dwayne.
Tom:
Being closely involved with the NFL as I am, it's very frustrating to see what happens to some athletes when they leave the college level and get ready for professional life. That's why I have so much admiration for Shaquille O'Neal and his willingness to go back and get his education. No matter how your financial situation is or where your stats are in life, can you talk about how important it was for him to go back and get his education? And what a positive reflection it is for men and women who are just trying to reach the next level in sports.
Randy:
Well there isn't any doubt that Shaquille is one of those players who knows who he is. He knows that he is bigger than life. If you watch him he has a little bit of flare and fun to what he does. He is a very competitive guy but he will also poke fun at himself. And I think that that part of him is very unique. And he is very much looking to the future and has interest in improving himself. And my first point was that these people are driven and they don't except failure and they are always looking to get better by doing more. And this case is a great example with Shaquille working and looking towards his post athletic days where he wants to be able to have a profession and be educated and having coming up as a teacher, I have a lot of respect for the players who continue to work and to improve themselves in the educational realm.
Tom:
And I think that everyone here at NCSA Sports has complete respect for every teacher. Randy thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule we appreciate it and all that you have done and that is why we chose you for Profiles Of Success.
Randy:
Well I enjoyed it and I hope it's a great Fall for the Bears!