Disclaimer: This post is intended to make you think. If you’re unwilling because you’re going to get in your feelings, pass on this post.
We hear the most from coaches who win. They get media attention and are thrown in front of our faces for better or worse. But in our memetic society, it is oftentimes for the worse because we only listen on the surface. Knowledge rests on the surface.
Okay Drew, what’s wrong with knowledge?
Maybe nothing, but this is also not the point.
In 2024, the world needs more wisdom.
What is that?
If knowledge is on the surface, wisdom is 2 and 3 layers below.
So when I tweet this about a viral ‘coaching’ clip(watch the clip for context on where we are going):
The surface-level pushback is this:
Knowledge says, “Get to know the parents in recruiting.” I’ll agree to that.
But the wisdom is deeper than the tactic.
And the wisdom is… Building a program is like dating, except you get to improve how you look every single year if you do it well. And doing it well doesn’t always look like Dan Hurley says it does after he’s won back-to-back championships. The interview information you get after a coach gets popular for winning has a name…
Survivorship Bias
My thesis is simple, it’s an anti-goal:
Hurley is telling coaches to ‘be selective’ and that sometimes it’s good to pass on ‘neon talent’.
You can do that in 2024 at UConn.
The question is, can you do it in 2012 at Rhode Island when you take over for a team that stinks and has no brand?
Can you do it in 2018 when you take over UConn?
I coached an expansion junior hockey franchise and if I would have recruited like Dan Hurley suggests, I wouldn’t have had a hockey team to coach. Our team would have folded because I would have had 0 players.
At the bottom of Tier 3 hockey, I was coaching kids that could have been on the TV show ‘Last Chance U’. All had broken character and most had ‘not the best parents.’ I would have chosen 5 based on Hurley’s system. 5 out of the 60 players I coached in that 2-year stint. 5 players don’t make a hockey team.
Building a program is like dating.
When You’re a 2… YOU GET WHAT YOU GET
Imagine you’re a 2/10 in the dating department. If my expansion team was a guy, he would have had 1 eye, hip dysplasia, crooked teeth, glasses, and freckles.
And if you’re a 2, you don’t have access to dating 10’s, no matter how great your personality is. Go ahead and try and be selective like Dan Hurley is at UConn in 2024.
I’m sure his 2014 recruits at Rhode Island weren’t model citizen kids with the greatest parents under the sun. And he wasn’t passing on ‘neon talent’ at this age, neon talent wanted nothing to do with Rhode Island. Don’t listen to what he says now, watch what he did then… Except nobody was paying attention and he won’t tell you.
When you’re a 2, you don’t get the luxury of recruiting for ‘cultural fit’.
When you’re a 2, you get what you get.
When You’re a 5… YOU MIGHT GET LUCKY ON A 7
So you do a good job as a 2, and you get surgery on your hips so you don’t walk sideways in front of attractive females.
You even had enough money to get Lasik. No more glasses.
But you’re still a 5 at best.
On your best night, you might convince a 7 in a poorly lit bar with a few too many drinks in her to go back to your place. You can outkick your coverage on your best night, but you’re still not ‘selecting’ from the best talent and best character in the country.
When you’re a 5, you might get lucky with a 7… But that 7 with slightly flawed character might be a baller and take your ‘nothing’ program to new heights.
Lake Superior State Hockey is a solid 5 in NCAA Hockey and they just took a risk on a ‘poor character’ kid… Or just a kid that made one mistake but I won’t bring back my Mitch Miller arguments…
After being dismissed from the Michigan Hockey team, John Druskinis sat out this entire season. Would he be blackballed by all of college hockey? Maybe…
But then a 5 decided to bet on the kid to help their program ascend from 5 status. And he just might help them do it…
Hurley wouldn’t have recruited him in 2024, but would he have in 2014 when his team was below .500?
Druskinis is ‘neon talent’, are you passing on him if your program is below average year after year?
When You’re a 10…
The whole point of this article is when you’re a 10, everyone wants to bang you, yet you can be selective and for the first time. You select exactly who you want. The list of people that want to be with you is for the first time, significantly longer than the roster you need.
And that’s when you give the viral advice to a bunch of people that aren’t coaching a wagon like UConn… And the worst part is, that’s when everyone is most likely to listen to every word you say in that interview and copy it.
This is the trap.