Coaching Hearts with Cori Close

Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we've spent all morning clapping and singing. Asia Wilson's on top, top Top, can't take.

Her spot, Spot Spot.

It's Monday, May fifth, and on today's show you'll hear my conversation with friend of the show, Corey Close, head coach of UCLA women's basketball, from Thursday's espn W summit in NYC.

We talk about trying.

To feel pride in a great season despite a disappointing ending, the challenges of the transfer portal and watching players leave her program, the unique challenge that she's going to face coaching sisters Lauren and Sienna Betts, and coaching hearts not jump shots. Plus it's been a while since we got you up on the news. From world records to coaching changes, playoff berths to statues, a whole lot has happened in the last week, so we'll get to everything you need

Her first w action.

Fellow Dallas rookies JJ Quinnerley and Aiah James added sixteen and ten points, respectively. It was also a homecoming for Dallas guard Arigaygunbawale, longtime ACES star Jackie Young, and new

They happen before they even get in a game, which we.

Saw on Saturday when the Golden State Valkyries waved number seventeen draft pick Chyenne Sellers before the Mariland grad got any run at all in a violet jersey, and unfortunately, we've already seen some heartbreaking injuries in this young season.

Two.

Former Kentucky guard and Mystics number six draft pick Georgia Amore sidelined indefinitely with an ACL injury suffered in practice last week. Also, Seattle Storm forward Katie Lou Samuelson is missing this season with her own ACL tair also sustained during practice. We're wishing both of them the best and we're sending out injury free vibes for the rest of the WNBA preseason. More hoops all of season two of ESPN's Full Court Press is now available on Disney Plus

They're there.

They need to be identified, they need to be in the right technical environment. They need to be invested in and developed in an age appropriate way that allows for them to ultimately graduate into what we need for our teams as we continue to scale, and what the US national team needs as well.

End quote. So more footy news.

We got a shout out nwslstar Midge Purse of Gotham FC. She isn't just talented on the pitch, she got acting chops too. Purse made her Broadway debut on Thursday, delivering the opening monologue for the critically acclaimed musical Chicago.

Now.

This isn't the first time Purse has flexed her creative muscles outside of competition. You remember, of course, she also created NWSL reality series The Off Season, which debuted last year to PWHL News. With playoff spots on the line, it all came down to Saturday's regular season finales. Marie Philip Puland scored twice to lead the Montreal Victoire to a three two winner for the New York Sirens that

She combined a third place finish in.

The hundred hurdles with a win in the one hundred meters All You Race. Officionado's Grand Slam track has two more slams on the schedule for this year to get excited for we'll link to the schedule in our show notes. And some more track news. Athlos NYC, the women's track event organized and back by Alexis Ohanian, is returning in October, and it's now boasting some field to a new event, the long jump. Tara Davis Woodhall, who took home gold in longtip at the Paris Olympics, is set to headline

Since being hired at SC in two thousand.

And eight, Stay has led the game Cocks to three national championships, seven NCAA Final fours, nine SCC regular season championships, and nine SEC tournament titles. She's also helped thirteen Game Cocks earn twenty nine All America selections and has sent eighteen players to the WNBA Draft, eleven of them first round picks. Staley rejected the idea of getting a statue at first, but it was those future generations that changed

Friend of the show Jenna Tanelli.

It outlines the moves that the pre professional club has been making to lay the foundation for a jump to the pro ranks. We'll link to it in our show notes so you can give it a read. Also a reminder, y'all, the Aurora's two game preseason starts May eleventh, and the regular season kicks off with their home opener on May twenty second, so mark your calendars. I'm hoping to make it out there for the June twelfth game, so I'll give you more on a slices get together that maybe

It's Corey glos.

Coach that bio is getting longer and longer. I just need to hang out with you more often. It's way better than it actually is.

Well that is, first of all, not true, and secondarily, I'm gonna start cutting it so we have more time to talk. What a season for you, unbelievable. Now, of course you want to win it all. Every year, you want to win it all. Your team came up short in the final four against the eventual winners in Yukon.

That's such a nice way of saying it. Thank you, kep short. Yeah, a little short, a little short, little short.

How long before that disappointment subsided and the raining emotion could be joy about what you'd achieved?

Or are we still working on it?

I'm still waiting on it.

There's this thing called the transfer portal, and you know, so literally the moment we touched down after the final four, it has been fourteen hours a day ever since then.

But there will be a time.

We did have one night where we had our celebration banquet that I was able to go, oh my gosh, we did do that. But I'm not there yet, but I am sure going to get there.

That's hard.

It is hard.

That stinks. Yeah, it had such a great season.

It is just part of our new landscape and as a whole sport, and it's some things we need to address in that. But I'm not going to forget about it, but it is. You know, we're talking about growing women's sports and NIL and all the different things, and the reality of how that translates in my world is I got the ground running right now.

I want to get to the transfer portal later, but I want to ask you an honest question. If not for the transfer portal, do you think you would have landed and been able to process what happened and be happy or is that just who you are that you're going to take a while to get over the disappointment.

I think both, you know, honestly, you know, I think that I usually, you know, do a deep dive and sort of like what happened?

What can I learn? And those kinds of things.

But I do try to pause and count the victories good and I want to live in sort of a healthy tension of diving deep about how I can grow and what it taught me and celebrating the things that we did right and we want to continue to do right.

Satisfaction in the moment is super important, even if you're ambitious. You've been at UCLA for fourteen seasons, the last ten of them postseason runs, last year's Sweet sixteen this year final four.

You just keep building. So in your mind, what would.

You say were the keys to getting the program where it is now, where you're among the best in the country.

What was the intention there?

Well, I think it's you know, coaching within your lane in terms of knowing who I am and I you know, you mentioned being mentored by John Wooden. One of the biggest gifts he gave me was that it was never about trying to do it like somebody else. He would always say, Hey, don't do it like me, do it like you're made to do it. And I think one of the keys for me is being really principal centered and value based and knowing exactly what kind of program

Yeah, I mean, I think you mentioned Woden. You had Tuesdays with wooden seventeen year mentorship. You're just an assistant. Yeah, starting out at UCLA, you're terrified to meet him, yep, and you end up having a seventeen relationship where you're now taking jobs far away and working to come back and make sure you keep that connection. What was the best or the biggest takeaway from those years with him?

I'm always asked that, and it's like it's this rolodex that goes if anyone knows what a rolodex still is, and yeah, I'm not.

But also important note, and you can be honest, is there any young person.

Here doesn't know who John Wooden is? We will not be met.

Most of my recruits don't until I educate them.

Okay, yeah, Like just just a legend of coaching, not just.

Basketball more national championships, ten national championships in.

Twelve years US and caremid of success is in every office, in every basketball of Like it's just it's worth noting that that is what we're talking about here is someone who took you under his wing, verry late in his life.

Very late in his life.

And you know, I just got done going to the Wooden Awards and his whole family was there, his you know, his grandkids and really his great granddaughter Corey is the reason I got in the door that my name was spelled correctly like hers. But I think that you know the biggest thing for me learning under him was it was really never about the championships. That was a by product of coaching young men's hearts. For him, it was

You're coaching people's hearts.

But if you coach their hearts really well, usually their jump shots end up pretty good too. Yeah, And it really was about He used to always say, I don't judge a season by whether we win the championship or not. I judge a season, all right, judge my coaching of young men, of who they are ten years down the road,

Well. I think the underestimation of culture is so massive, particularly now when there is so much movement, or when athletes you believe that they can kind of just coach themselves, or you know, I think I always find when I look at championship teams early in the season, there's already like a little bit of magic there that you see between them, and then when they win later, you're like, oh,

And that's such a huge part of your job.

You've been coaching in some capacity for thirty years, which is crazy. You're now the winningest coach in Ucilly women's basketball.

So while these hot flashes keep happening.

Yeah, that way Chili Faudi calls that personal summer.

Oh perfect, Yeah, I knew, I love Faudy. Okay, A nice way to put a spin on something exactly. To study with science so we understand this absolutely.

Yeah.

I want to hear how your job has changed since nineteen ninety three, because yes, it's been x's and oaths, but I'm thinking about what's happened since ninety You have cell phones that arrive in the locker room, you have nil deals, the transfer portal leaps and TV coverage popularity are known walking around campus. They're making millions of dollars.

How do you sum up what that.

Thirty years has been like in terms of growth and understanding what's different now?

Well, I think, you know, you were used to be leading a team and now we're leading an organization. And I think, so, you know, the good news is that we're experiencing all that growth. The bad news is there's a lot of competing things that could have the potential to erode your values or the reason people have fallen in love.

With women's sports.

And so I think the balance of trying to lead into opportunity, lead into great business models to maximize and pivot for what the women's sports industry is demanding of me as a leaders who's in essence of CEO now and still coaching people's hearts and caring about culture and seeing, Okay, where do we need to go?

So what are these changes of landscapes really mean?

And how do we reverse engineer so that we're maximizing opportunities and pushing forward as well as really you know, staying with coaching people's hearts and knowing what you're made of as an organization, and there's no substitute for that.

How do you get the players to buy carefully? Yeah, Like if you're a kid and someone's dangling a bunch of money, and that's awesome, and that's great and we love that for them, but you have to help them see the bigger picture, the longer road, the future, and what it looks like if they keep the main thing, the main thing, which is.

Ultimately putting the ball in the basket.

Like, if you forget that, the money and the cool stuff goes away. Yeah, And how do you cause I hate to say it, but like, coaching people's hearts sounds corny if it's not followed by authenticity and everyday investment in people. So how do you get them to buy in that that's really what you're doing and you're not trying to use those platitudes to access some next level of basketball performance.

Well, I think there's two things. One is we still are demanding.

The standard is a standard, and there are still championship habits that need to be upheld. And that's in how we interact, that's in how we practice, that's in all the different areas of our organization. So you know, the standards don't change because people are pouring in money. It just takes more responsibility to much as given, much as required. But I think the other part of it is playing the scenario out for them and.

Say, hey, is that enough?

What if you do chase the money and what if you get all the money you want?

Is that enough?

And I really believe.

That comparison is not only the thief of all joy, it also stunts your maximum growth. So I'm like, you know, is that what you want? I always say, if you want to do nothing, you can experience self centeredness and a titlement and because that's just what the culture will tell you. But if you want to have a healthy organization, you want to have great relationships with your teammates, if you want to be proud of who you've become at the end of that season or the end of your

Right?

And is that enough? And I know a lot of people who have won championships and have been really empty and lonely the next day because they didn't keep the main thing the main thing, and they didn't really do it the right way, that that was a byproduct and not the outcome being the most important thing.

It's like so cheesy, but the process is really the point. It really not the end to point, because there are so many Olympic gold medalists that are like, oh wow, I thought when I finally want it would fix all my problems. You has fixed zero of my problems. That the problems were unrelated to my goal of winning. It was who I was, or who my relationships were and all those other things.

Well, just real quickly.

I always think about when Kobe Bryant was having his banner raised number retired in then Staples and he said, you know, this is not reward. The greatest reward of my career was the work and who I became as a result of the work. And I just always remember that that that is the real reward in all this.

That's a good story to tell you your players.

And I know another one you tell your players involved putting on your shoes and socks.

It's really interesting because one of the mentorship.

Relations and how hard it is to bend down as.

You get older. Well that yeah, or really it's getting back up.

Now they have a tool for that.

I found, So if things really start to go awry for me, you can use a tool to put it on.

Can you send me that? That would be great?

Okay, well, but that is really an amazing story that I'd heard a hundred times. Coach wouldn't used to tell everybody that the number one thing he did on the first day of practice is teaches players how to put on their shoes and socks the exact same way and to do it the right way and as well. Of course he needed to do that. They had terrible shoes and they got blisters, right, But I really missed the point.

Was rayfer Johnson.

He passed away several years ago, but he Olympic gold medalist, you know, lit the torch in the eighty four Olympics. So on and so forth also played basketball UCLA, and he was teaching our players and he was just meticulously saying, well, then you do this, and then you do that in this gentle voice. And I was like, oh, isn't this cute. We're keeping the memory alive. But he really got me because at the end of it, he looked around our room and he said, you know, actually I was really

And he said, but it didn't matter. We had guys from.

Different religions, different backgrounds, different geography, different strengths. And he said, but we actually learned how to become a team because we all started by putting our shoes and socks on the same way. I thought, oh, it's not just about avoiding blisters.

Yep, no, no, no, no, so simple, but very very profound. You mentioned the transfer portal London Jones, one of your players entered the transfer portal and has now headed of all places to your crosstown rival US. How do you imagine that matchup will be the first time you're on the court facing off against her.

Well, a mix of emotions because I will always adore.

And love London Jones.

And you know, we had really honest conversations right when we got back about what do you want for this senior year? And then is there alignment of what I can promise you? And there I had this moment. I didn't know it was going to happen at our banquet, but I go through the top ten moments, and I had talked about just her career and there's there's no animosity, it's it's I just I deeply love her and she will always be a part of that building process that

Yeah, you know. And honestly I was talking about.

Her and I just lost it at the banquet and I just looked at her and she got up out of her seat.

From the back of the room and just came up and just held me.

I can get ooked up right now thinking about it, because bottom line is, we've shared so much and so you know, the transfer portal will always be hard. It's not even though it's a lot more now. It has

And I support you one hundred percent.

I love that the Transfer Portal. Fifteen hundred and fifteen players entered the transfer Portal when the season ended. Just for those who don't know, you could stay with your team even if you enter. If your coach welcomes you back, you can go somewhere else, or your coach can say just heads up, if you enter the transfer Portal, your position here is no longer valuable to us or available

So it's a risk.

And I never really got the idea that, like, yeah, if you're gone, sometimes you can come back, but you have to have that relationship in that conversation before you try to enter. All four players from your freshman class entered the portal.

Why, yeah, I think there are a lot of things.

You know.

Nol Fortner, who just retired from Georgia Tech and a great coach. She said to me during the NCAA tournament. She said, sometimes Corey, you can have too much talent. And I think that was a reality for us that we had thirteen I mean too many. There was only one other team in the country that had more McDonald's all Americans than we did, and I think there was just not enough minutes to go around, and we didn't

And you're going to root for them every game except for when you're.

Yeah, well that is interesting because all of them except for one went to Big ten schools and the other one we're playing that team.

Great, so see all of them.

Here we go ice reunion.

Yeah, hug it up.

How do those moves really affect your planning though, because it almost becomes like a professional team where if you have everyone on essentially one year deals, if you're recruiting and thinking I'm not going to need that, I've got another three years of this player that has a similar skill set.

You can't really do that anymore.

No, you have to be very adaptable, and we're lucky to be in a place like Los Angeles that we've been able to actually leverage that to our own benefit.

But I don't think everyone has that luxury.

We've been lucky enough to have an nil budget that can attract people, as well as to have opportunities in LA that people want to come to on especially the second time around.

So, but it's really hard.

And I think the other danger that's really important for especially this room, is that one of the things that's been so great about women's sports is that fan bases can develop a connection over time. We don't have as many one and done's before the transfer portal like men have it in the transfer portal and in the NBA.

We got to be.

Careful that we really people love to support our teams because they love to be connected to the journey of our student athletes.

And so I think it's a real challenge for me as a leader in.

With all this mobility is how do we keep the connections with our fan base and how do we make them still fell apart when we have a lot of turnover. So that's going to be a real challenge that way, But it really is a pro model. Now we need to have some better boundaries. We need Congress to get involved, We need some other things to help put some healthy boundaries, salary caps and things like that in women's basketball, in

It is not the same.

It is not our We can't pretend it's this amateur, little pure college environment anymore. It is a pro model with some additions of scholarships and going to class and other things. But I have to adopt as a leader, and we're going to have to try to find a healthy tension in that.

And I think that's what a lot of people are saying.

They're saying, we agree with the transfer portal and players having the chance to make a choice the same way coaches can leave.

But there might need to be some more guardrails around.

Maybe it's the first one is a freebie, I agree, and then after that you have to sit out a year to make it really worth that decision that you're making for both yourself and the program you're leaving. And also you mentioned salary cap. A lot of people may be confused about that. In the college space, we don't

Ha ha. That would never happen. And that's gonna be wild.

Because also when you're recruiting, you're gonna have to start telling players, hey, we have this much of our nil house versus NC double a budget allocated to our women's basketball team, and I'm willing to give you thirty five percent of it right for the first year, But then the second year the amount changes, and then we have to change the percentage because now we have to also act like a pro team in that way.

It's gonna be a mess.

Yeah, it's gonna keep a lot of lawyers in business, I'll say a lot of lawyers in business. But also on top of that, it's like, where does Title nine fit into all that? Ye, women's sports you described a rocket ship and then we have this going well, but we're going to give you eighty five percent of it to in sports and so and I am all for that. I want men's sports to continue to do great things.

Ultimately the might they reinforce decades and decades of history, which is while men perform, so we'll give it to them. Oh, we've never tried to see if women will perform if we give it to them, we're going to continue to not do like It's just it could be a repeat of that and fights we've already had over and over again. I want to talk to you quickly about your player rotation and how that affects the transfer portal, because this

Are you gonna have to adjust that with the transfer portal.

I don't think actually it's gonna be more. I think it's actually gonna be less. I think you can do it maybe more during this early in the season, but there's gonna be an adjustment where people are like, well, but I thought this was gonna happen or I thought I would owe this or can I just get a few minutes, And I'm like, there's no you know, charity minutes here. You know, like this is a pro model. Now, this is professional sports, and you're gonna have to perform.

Yeah, that's hard.

Some are arriving, though, like Sianna Betts, five star recruit es fans number two player in the twenty twenty four class, joining her superstar sister Lauren, who is already completely unguardable and a total problem. Now we're gonna have another Bets in the mix there. I was just at a conference last week and I was talking to you about this, and you got to watch this. I'm so glad you did, because these two sisters. What a fascinating dynamic. So much love,

Well, first of.

All, they both want to win, and I think that's what I keep going back to, is right now, do you help each other win? And that has to trump everything else, right, And so you know, the reality is a Sienna. You know, it was hard when when Lauren committed to us to transfer. You know, Sienna wasn't very happy for a while, and so really trying to convince her for that one year that this could be a

And that doesn't change just because your sister is here.

Absolutely, but it does add some interesting wrinkles. It could be absolutely incredible, and it'd also be a very new.

Challenge for you.

Yeah, and I didn't have enough right exactly, I didn't have enough.

To do. List what have you learned over the years thirty years of coaching about how each individual person needs to be coached, differently led, differently managed, inspired, motivated differently.

I think the biggest thing is uh, you know, I know, I keep going back to coach John Wooden, but he said the biggest form of partiality is to treat every player the same. And I think there's a misnomer that if you're treating players differently, that means you're changing the standards for them.

Those are not the same.

I can my style of teaching can be different and still hold the standard the same.

Uh.

Sienna and Lauren are actually a great sample of this. I think I will coach Siena much differently than I coach Lauren. And you know, they are wired differently, they're motivated differently, they have different things that get in their way.

You know.

I always say that performance equels potential minus interferences. So really it's not about how much talent you have, but how you manage.

We all have interferences that come in.

How you manage those And I just think that it all goes back to genuine relationships and authentic culture, because if you don't have genuine relationships and understand what each individual's interference, you know, is, then you're going to have a hard time helping them reach their potential.

So you know, I think that you can ever substitute.

Quality time and really being a good listener, and as that happens, you earn the credibility. My mom used to say, you have to earn or you have to listen to one hundred mundane things to have enough credibility to say

Or that they can share the one thing that's really pivotal. Exactly, they have to share those hundred things with you and have you be there to hear them and see them so they feel comfortable enough to tell you the thing that you actually.

Need to hear in order to help them well.

And I encourage anyone to read the article about Lauren Bets's journey in her mental health. That's exactly what I'm thinking of and and it will inspire you. Her courage has taught me so much, but the reality of that is, that's exactly what happened. And I give my associate head coach, Shannon lebuff is probably the best I've ever known in doing just that.

Is she related to Shia Labuff, not that I know of, but you know she like combination, justsed on some of his previous as I.

Would think not because she's about as pure hearted and steady as I've ever known.

So, now, what's the thing you do differently now that in your early years of coaching? I know you have this great story about a player from UCSB that taught you a ton that's now in this weird.

Unique I was texting with her right before this. She didn't even know I was here.

She's in New York right now, but she will walk on for us at U see Santa Barbara.

Her name is Melissa Corpus.

And now her fiance is on Real Housewives of New York, so if you want to check it out, Raquel, we just love their whole family. But when she was came to Santa Barbara, she you know, we are so easy to be entitled and to take things for granted. And she came as a walk on and right before and she didn't travel with us and right before we went on a trip for Thanksgiving, we gave her a one Duffel bag of gear, and she not only wore the gear the entire time we were gone, but she wore

And have ended up in not so good places.

And she said, you know, I'm the only one in my family that had basketball, and it absolutely changed the trajectory of my life. And now she's a PhD, incredible psychologist, worked her way through NYU to get her PhD by Djning.

In Manhattan, of all things.

But it just taught me that the structure and life lessons and combined with gratitude, changes people's lives. And I don't care if it's my first year of coaching or now that's ultimate goal.

And you never know what someone's bringing to you, right like you never would have known that her family had all those struggles, had so many people incarcerated, all this stuff. You just would have known that she had had a little different than you. And then she shows up and the gratitude and everything pours into you as well.

I definitely would say, I just have to say that my players have taught me more than I've taught. Yeah, and that's probably what keeps me young and keeps me in this and when that, if that ever flips, I'll get out.

Yeah. Well we do have to get out because we're out of time.

Everybody, Coreclost, thanks everyone, thank you very.

Yes, thanks to us for the honor of hosting the summit again and to coach Close for being such an honest and authentic interview. We got to take another break when we come back. Another shameless plug because this is my show and the book is good, damn it.

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