Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Welcome back to another edition of Unleashed Athletics. I'm your host, Brian Bonn. Moving on to episode eleven. And I gotta tell you, we're gonna go a little bit short this week. And it has no other reason than I saw something this weekend and it was like, man, I just gotta talk about it while it's relevant and let's just get after it a little bit. So this weekend, if you watch women's basketball, and by the way, don't be one of those people. Don't be one of those people that are like, who watches women's basketball? You're wrong if you're not watching it. It is so much fun right now. There are so many incredible athletes. But college basketball this weekend, LSU, South Carolina, you know, it's a tight game and you can tell there's some animosity and some buildup of just two great teams playing against one another. And things start to get heated late in the game. You know, only one foul on each team in the fourth quarter and. And you can just see there's a lot of pent up aggression and by the end of it, a scuffle breaks out. People are ejected from the game and you can just tell it's a high emotion game. And regardless to winner or loser in this game, what you got to see afterwards was South Carolina's coach apologize in front of all the fans for the way things went down at the end of the game. And she truly believed that the reason why the scuffle took place was because two great teams were playing against one another and how desperately they wanted to win took over.
[00:01:57] And that takeover allowed things to get fueled quickly. But that's not really the point of today's conversation. Today's point of conversation is when you see coaches say that they were wrong or say that this is not the way that we're going to play basketball here at South Carolina. Taking responsibility for your actions is absolutely incredible to see in a place where the game is getting uglier and uglier and justification is higher and higher. To have a coach come to the table and say, it's not who we are, things got out of hand. That's not who we are. It's not what we teach. And I'm sorry that it happened. Ton of respect for the other team, Ton, ton of respect for LSU and what they're doing. But what you saw today was not an accurate representation. That's big time. And if you're not doing it for your own players, when you make a mistake, your own fans, when you make a mistake. You're missing it. As a coach, you have that responsibility so that you're instilling what greatness looks like. Not even greatness. It's what a good human does. When you want to be at your very best, you have to be willing to say, I was wrong.
[00:03:24] I can do this better.
[00:03:26] This isn't how we're going to act. This isn't the responsibility that I'm handling it well, but it's not the way we want to act. And for her to grab the microphone, the arena microphone, and just say, that's not who we want to be. And we have a ton of respect for that team over there, and our emotions got the best of us. And a heated rivalry, man, is that the right message to send out? And when you see her talking as the girls are celebrating behind her, you can see the girls kind of step back a little bit. And that step back is, whoa, she's saying this right now. That is what a great coach looks like.
[00:04:07] You can win a ton of games and you can justify all day long why you did what you did. But when you know you're wrong, just tell people.
[00:04:20] Let your kids know that that's not the way we're going to act. Let the other team know, I'm sorry that that happened. Let the fans know we can be better.
[00:04:29] You know, the amount of respect that I have for South Carolina, I'm cheering for them full on from here on out. She earned that much respect from me by doing that act of service that I want to see them win the whole thing and then go back to this moment, the SEC championship, and be able to say, man, it could have all started because of this, this moment, the moment where she showed vulnerability and showed her players that she cares so much about the type of player that they're going to turn out to be, the type of human that they're going to be, that she is going to put herself on the line and say, it's not who we are. And I don't care if it's women's basketball, men's basketball, the pros. If you have coaches that are speaking that way and taking responsibility for the things that are happening out on the court as the head coach of a program, you earn my respect every single time. We can talk xs and Os, we can talk about who you played and who you didn't play. But at the end of the day, man, do I know that they're going to be good girls coming out of that program, man, do I know they're being taught by a coach that knows what she's doing and she's intentional in her actions. And I, and I would say finally that every girl that is deciding to go play division one, you best be looking there right now.
[00:05:52] You best be looking at a coach that is putting it on the line and saying I care too much about this to not bring it to attention. That that is somebody who cares about how you're going to turn out one day. That is someone who cares enough to say we have a program way and this is how my program is going to be run and when it isn't run that way, going to let everybody know.
[00:06:20] And I just, I'm fired up by it. I'm fired up on it. I think I watched Instagram clip like five or six times just to go, man, did she really say that in front of everybody? And then I watched it again. What are the players doing during that? And then I watched it again. How are the fans reacting to what she's saying? And everybody was eating it up. Everybody understood what happened in that game but respected the heck out of why coach took the time to make the announcement that she did.
[00:06:50] That is what great teams do when they play other great teams. They understand that the game is going to be high emotion, but they still have a ton of respect for the team across the way from them, regardless to ejections or anything else. You know, she even makes mention of it of there are girls that aren't on the court celebrating with us right now because they got ejected and that's going to hurt them even more. But we have a ton of respect for the team that we just played. And she actually says that she plans on seeing them in the national championship game, which I loved. I loved of like even though this was highly emotional, I still think we just played one of the best teams in the country.
[00:07:34] I just loved everything about this moment. So if you have a chance, you need to go and find this clip and, and you can hear LSU's coach afterwards to totally different responses. You know, LSU's coach hung her hat on. If the officials would have handled this differently, it would have been, it could have ended differently than ejections.
[00:07:57] Two really good teams playing so on and so forth. And then you got South Carolina going in front of everybody. I'm so sorry. Right? And you just get to, you get to experience both of those. But go on to Instagram or tick tock and look up the LSU South Carolina clip and take a look at what coach has to say. And it's actually during the celebration that she's talking to the entire crowd. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and I hope you understand that when we're talking about what great coaches look like. She already knows how to coach the game. She's won national championship. She's done that stuff. So her records already out there that she knows what to do. But when these critical culture moments come to a head, are you willing to do what is right so that everybody knows you're building your program the way that it's supposed to be built? And that's the question that needs to continue to be answered. Are you doing shady things around the corner? Are you not speaking to your community the way that you should be speaking to them? Or are you grabbing a microphone and making it very clear on who you are and who you just got to play and the responsibility you have as teams, and we got to see that full fledged. I'm so proud of college women's basketball. I'm so proud of South Carolina. What a great game. If you didn't get to see both those teams play just incredible basketball, really, really high level basketball, and I loved it. The very end is the absolute best part. Winner or loser, didn't really matter. That moment is spectacular. So take time. Go take a watch on it. And then I'd be curious for your feedback. What were you hoping to see other than the ejections themselves? Nobody ever wants to see an ejection. But in response to, would you want more to be done? And my answer is no. That check the box. This thing's done and over with. And they will meet again, most likely, and I can't wait to watch it a second time. Two respected teams playing against each other again will be a ton of fun to see. I hope you're along for that journey with me, but I wanted to get on tonight and make a point to just say that the little things matter.
[00:10:08] These coaches are doing a really good job.
[00:10:12] Really good job. And to go the extra mile to make sure your culture is stamped into your community is so sweet. So sweet. So that's all we got. Go take a look at that clip. I hope you have a wonderful week. Go do the work, coaches. Learn something from this, and let's get better because that's what we're here to do. Get better every single week. And this is a great moment to learn from and go, where can I do this? Where is my opportunity to show my team when I make a mistake, I do better or when things get out of whack? That I'm taking responsibility for my team's actions. So let's make it a great week. Let's do it up and hope that you get a chance to watch that clip. This is episode number eleven. Go have a great week. We'll see you soon.
