We grow from your feedback and consistent readership. Please let us know who we should interview next, or what content you would like to see, and subscribe to our blog, as well as to our Facebook!
Player Intro
Name: Isaac Speicher
June 2019-Present: Scott High School, Varsity Assistant Coach / JV Head Coach
March 2018-Present: Kentucky Storm Elite AAU, High School Head Coach
Spring 2015-June 2019: Calvary Christian High School, Varsity Head Coach
August 2010-December 2013: Covenant College, Varsity & JV Assistant Coach
As much as possible, we have worked to maintain Coach Speicher's exact words. Some edits and reorganization have been made to support clarity and flow of the narrative. Find the full audio file here.
Gameplan On his coaching philosophy… IS: One thing that keeps coming back to me is that in sports, it's very easy to get into the mentality that winning is the end-all, be-all. Especially if you're watching The Last Dance documentary about the 90's Bulls, the drumbeat often sounds like, “at the end of the day, you win or you don't win, and that's all that matters.” And I wrestled with that philosophy for a long time. I’m a very competitive guy and I naturally want to win anything I’m involved in. But I think I've come to a philosophy that I’ve sort of coined with most of the teams I've coach… and it’s that, winning is not the goal. Winning is a product, or a symptom, of the goal. The goal of our team should be unity. Because typically, if you have two teams meet on the field of play, and the talent is anywhere comparable, typically the team that is more united is going to win the day. So of course you want to win. Again, I'm a very competitive guy. But winning is not the end-all, be-all, it's a symptom of unity. You should focus on how to be as united as possible, and trust that winning will follow.
The goal of our team should be unity
pD: That'll be something we follow up on as we progress. So as you have played basketball and coached basketball, what kinds of habits have you built up from your time in sport? IS: I think specifically as a coach and as a leader, when you're leading a program of players, parents, maybe an administration, other coaches, or even just your family or your business; don’t say everything you think. And definitely don’t focus on “winning” during conflict resolution. In the age of Twitter and social media, giving the perfect “zinger” in an argument, even to prove that you're right, can feel really good! Delivering a perfect verbal blow to your “opponent” can make you feel like you won an argument or made a point. And again, in general we naturally want to win. But doing so can often come at the expense of that precious unity. At the end of the day, if you're attacking that unity, long-term, you're going to create other ways to lose in the long run. A big focus for me is to take a pause, take a breath, and not to immediately answer volatile questions. Instead, trying to find a way to be patient and keep fostering that unity. Often times that takes a lot of patience and I can really struggle with that from time to time. But again, unity of the group needs to prioritized over winning your conflict.
If you attack that unity, you lose in the long run
pD: That fits right in line with what you're talking about, especially in a position where you're the main influence directing the program or of your players, you want to have the last word or always be right. IS: Again, in today's world, winning an argument can be one of the greatest hits of dopamine to your brain. You feel like, “HA! I got him! I said something that they don't have a comeback for and I won that exchange!” But again, when you win at something like that, and your goal is just to win, you're going to hurt yourself long term because you're going to foster division instead of unity. You’re prioritizing the wrong thing personally and with the team.
pD: So that idea originated in being a coach. How has that habit of being able to watch your tongue and choose your words wisely carried over into other parts of your life? IS: I think you could look at it in reverse to that question; I think that should be the way you're living your life. And then it should play into how you approach sports. I mean, again, being the Head Coach or even an Assistant Coach, you've got to watch your tongue to foster that unity. But if you do that as a coach or business leader, and you don't do it as a husband or as a father or as a co-worker, it comes back to the same issue. You come back and you find ways to just “win in the short term” and not “unite long term.”
pD: As you're talking about this idea of unity, how did you come to this point where you've decided to stress unity with the teams you’ve coached and within your personal philosophy, as opposed to winning or any other quality? IS: A lot of it began when I was made the Head Coach at Calvary Christian a little over five years ago. The year before I got the job I started, the Varsity team was at 5-19. Then the players lost their Head Coach, a very good one, to retirement. Three seniors graduated. So we were left with a very young team, without a true star player or someone who was clearly rising as a star yet. Again, at the end of the day, I'm very competitive. I want to win. But I didn't feel like there was any way we were going to win long term without just stressing that absolutely everybody on the team was needed in some way.
If we were going to win long term, we needed to unite
My desire to win long term and find a way to do that, coupled with Scripture talking about the fact that people will know Christ's disciples by their love for each other, kind of sparked us saying “All you need to do to make this team, is work hard and love each other, everyday.” Those went hand in hand, and when I stepped outside of coaching at Calvary and started coaching AAU Summer ball with this the Kentucky Storm Elite, it's the same thing. You don't have to be coaching Christians or even people who agree with Christianity for them to understand the importance of unity, camaraderie, and togetherness. So I guess that's my five or six year journey of finding that.
pD: So compare and contrast your coaching style with your emphasis on unity compared to a hypothetical coach who's just focused on winning; how does your day-to-day approach differ based on your different values? IS: Good question. Frankly, I think a vast majority of coaches focus more on winning than anything else. Because at the end of the day, at least on the surface level, you play to win the game. But from a day to day difference, the first thing that pops in my head, is that you have to be vulnerable. And the two main things I mean by using that word are: 1) being willing to admit fault, and 2) being willing to pour your heart out to people even though you will definitely eventually be hurt by that method.
Typically, from what I've experienced, to stimulate and encourage unity and kill division, you have to be vulnerable enough to admit your shortcomings. I think one of the best things that help people open up is when they see their leader being willing to do it first. So finding ways to say that loss or that bad stretch was on me because I did this, and I should've done this. Accepting faults and accepting when you should do something better. You'll find that players are often willing to snatch blame away from you then, because again, when the leader teaches people how to accept responsibility, others are willing to do the same. I’m not saying that any of this is a surefire path to unity; it's not that simple. But I think being vulnerable, being willing to admit fault, being willing to lay your heart out and tell people that you love them, over time, seeps into people's understanding of how to handle these things.
When you accept responsibility, others do the same
And that’s the second piece of vulnerability. You have to work to find a way as a leader to prove to everyone, not just tell them, that they all matter to you. That you genuinely care about them and their well-being. Not everyone will believe you, and not everyone will return the feeling. But it’s on your shoulders as the leader to keep making the effort to show your love for them. And that’s where real unity happens. When the leader shows that he or she will keep pursuing the people following them, even when it makes the leader vulnerable to some pain.
pD: What is one of the major challenges you've faced, and how did you overcome it? IS: So I’ve been thinking about this lately and my wife pointed out something that’s made a big impact on me.
When I was in high school, I was a pretty good athlete. I was able to play a lot of different sports and play them pretty well. I had a handful of offers to play college basketball. I defined a lot of my personal identity in my ability to athletically dominate the person across from me. So I went to Covenant College, an NAIA school which has since made the switch to NCAA Division III. For whatever reason, I was handed injury after injury after injury during my time there. It was really devastating to my personal psyche because, again, for someone 18 or 20 years old, I had wrapped up in my mind "when I'm healthy, I'm a good athlete; I'm tall, I'm fast. I just need to get healthy, and I'll be back to who I really am."
There was a night early in my senior year when I was in a dunk contest for the pep rally of the men's basketball team. Earlier that day I was practicing a few dunks, and I threw out my back. It was probably the sixth random, bizarre thing that had happened to me in the past couple of years. So I went through and still did the dunk contest. But I did absolutely awful. I had no motion, couldn't twist, couldn't lift. It was terrible. If you were looking at me, you would be like, "this guy can barely move." And I remember driving home that night, and screaming at myself: "What are you even good at anymore?! Who even are you?!” That pride and false identity was something that God had to tear down a lot in me; it got to the point where I could not play basketball my senior year of college, which was, again, really a blow to my pride and personal identity.
As soon as I got out of college, and being athletically competitive, I really have not had a single injury. I haven't had a major injury in about nine years, knock on wood. It's been very interesting to me for the longest time, looking back, that I had found a way to idolize an ability that I had and hold it over other people. I wasn't very good at understanding the concept of unity. I was very good at understanding what I was good at, and when that was taken away, it blew a lot of things up. And really, it had taken until when I got more into this understanding of coaching, how to lead, and how to approach sports in a more Christ-like manner, that I saw that God was taking away an idol of mine. And He did it in a pretty painful way over those years. So that was one of the hardest things I ever had to go through. Him yanking away this source of pride for me, and over time, He's showed me "this is how you ought to approach sports."
pD: Thank you for sharing that; that's quite a journey. I'm curious as to some of your thoughts about youth sports, where there has been a lot of focus on the winning and competitive aspect. IS: I know this might not be a popular opinion, but I believe that people in general, myself included, are selfish. My wife and I have a baby girl who was born on Leap Day of this year. When she was born, her first thought and noise was not “Hey, how can I help and serve others?” Her first thought and noise was “AHHHH!!” Because our natural inclination, like I was in high school and college, is to look at what I am, what’s going on with me, what I can do, and find a way to maximize that. To some extent, that's not wrong at all. Because that's the gift God has given you, and you should tend to it and make it as good as you can. But again, when you're doing it without the mantra of unity, you may end up getting what you want, but you'll be pretty lonely when you get it. So congratulations on achieving your scholarship or your award or your playing time…
You might get what you want, but you'll be pretty lonely
If you achieve something that is apart from what what the group wants to achieve, and apart from unity in the program or team, you might get what you want. There are a lot of people who get great things alone. But in my experience, that's completely counterproductive to happiness. So that's the main thought I have about youth sports. Youth sports are probably the greatest portal to teach unity, health, how to handle confrontations in a healthy way, how to communicate in a stressful situation, and those things are all incredibly helpful. But like anything else in life, if you do it with the attitude of selfishness, you are either going to be disappointed, or you are going to get what you want, and you are going to be alone.
Execution
Coach Speicher has kindly shared a video explaining a drill for coaches or team leaders to implement with their teams to build unity.