The Exchanges

Q When you took up tennis, you were learning that from scratch, whether it's that obsession, seven days a week, six hours a day, you're now told, here's the squash court, you're going to be the squash coach, and you'd never played squash before. How did you become a coach to a sport that you didn't play?

A You need to have some knowledge of the sport. You can go pick up a book and learn what you need to know. It's about people and managing people. Again, I stumbled into this, but I watched the first day of practice, and I called them in, and I said, man, I have no idea what you're doing. I don't know what the lines mean. I don't know how you score. I don't know anything, but it looks to me like this is a sport based on fitness, so I'm going to make a deal with you. I am going to make sure you're the most fit team in the country, and you're going to teach me squash. And we entered into that. Fast forward years later, I was coaching world team tennis. Billie Jean is a dear friend of mine, and when she speaks, listen to every word she has to say, because it's unmatched. So I called her and I said, Billie Jean, we just drafted Monica Sela. She's four in the world. What in the world am I going to tell her? And she said, there are two things you need to know. No matter how talented a person is that you're working with, they want your approval. And number two, never pretend to be something you're not. And the smartest thing I did back at West Point was not to pretend that I had a clue. And they appreciated that. And I got pretty good at squash.

AI assessment note: “I am going to make sure you're the most fit team in the country”

Q gain a decided advantage. That's why customers call it miraculous, game-changing, and an awakening. If that's not how you would describe your investment management tech, request a demo at ridgeline.ai. And now, back to the show. I'd love to dive into how it got to be that way. How did you go into this sport that you then knew something about and turn the program into such a perennial winner?

A It's really an interesting story. What it says to me is, a bad idea will never work, no matter how hard you work, and a good idea can never fail. So when I first came here, I was just thrilled to be rolling out the balls to the boys from Mainline, Philadelphia, and Brookline, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, New York, and that's what we were doing, and we were slightly better than a . . . One day, the president of the college, Evan Dobel, called me into his office, and this meeting honestly took about three minutes, and he said, coach, you play against the Ivy League schools. You don't ever win them, but you play against the schedule that I would like to be able to brag about. He said, so tell me, where is the best squash players in the world? And I said, they're in foreign lands, which was hard for me to admit because I was the U.S. national coach. He said, great. He said, go out and find the best and the brightest and understand that we're not going to give away financial aid that they're not qualified for and understand that we're not going to make academic compromises, but I want you to go out and find the best and the brightest. And he said, you're dismissed. And I got up to walk out of his door and he said, coach, and I looked back and he said, don't screw this up. And so off we went. I can honestly tell you that change, for better or worse, changed the course of squash forever. …

AI assessment note: “go out and find the best and the brightest... changed the course of squash forever.”

Q What did you learn in those early years from guys like Krzyzewski and Riley?

A They were like gods to me, because I didn't really belong. But I learned the importance of doing the job for the sake of the job. There was no bonus if you won a championship. There was none of that, 1976. You're at a military academy. You do the job, because that's what you're supposed to do. That's a healthy perspective. We don't have that in this world. It's, I'm doing this, and what am I going to get for it? And it's not the joy of just completing the mission. And Riley was great. You know, I had a son at that time, and I remember my son was misbehaving or something, and I was probably too tough on him. Riley said to me, you know, coach, don't break his spirit. Don't break his spirit. And with Coach K, it was Army-Navy week. I was giving my team the day off that day. Because when you play Army-Navy, you All of those seasonal sports play at the same time, so basketball and squash were going to be playing on the same day down at the Naval Academy. So I said, hey coach, can I come watch you practice tomorrow? He said, sure. So I go down to the field house, and I'm literally there five minutes, and he goes off, and he is just yelling and screaming, F-bombs echoing around the buildings, and he throws them out. That night, I knock on the door for our Diet Coke, and I said, is it safe to come in? And he said, what do you mean? And I said, well, you are a little out of control toda…

AI assessment note: “I learned the importance of doing the job for the sake of the job.”

Q What are some of the situations where it didn't work?

A Early on, we faced a tremendous amount of prejudice. It's interesting. We had a young man on our team from Lahore. Anytime we flew, it got to the point where he would simply get off the plane and go directly to the area where they interrogate you. It didn't even stop. He just went straight there because he was always picked to do that. And it got to the point where, my God, what are we doing? This is the model citizen student-athlete. We had a young black man from Harare, Zimbabwe, and he is now doing amazing things in the world. And we were playing at one of the Ivy League schools, and I was standing next to a 120 year old man wearing a bow tie with his school colors. And my guy was wearing lime green sneakers. And this gentleman looked at the boy, and he looked at me, and he said, I say, coach, why is he wearing those colored sneakers? And I said, well, I think he likes to Express himself. He likes to be a little different. And he looked at me and said, but he's black, as if that wasn't difference enough. And we faced that as we went through, and now it's changed. Thank God.

AI assessment note: “Early on, we faced a tremendous amount of prejudice.”

Q So how long did it take to get from a 500 team to a championship team?

A Well, it took us two years to make it to the finals, and you only need nine players. We already had nine good players, and then we bring in three world-class international players, and it was interesting. We beat Harvard at home in a duel match for the first time in history. It was otherworldly, and then the last match of the year, we went down to play Princeton in a duel match, and they beat us. So we go down Back to Princeton the following weekend to play in the national championships, and we have Princeton in the semifinal. I get a phone call from Evan's secretary. He says, coach, Evan's in California. He wants to know when the finals are. I said, you have to tell Evan we just lost to Princeton, and we play them in the semifinals. She says, okay, hold on, and then she goes over, and she talks to Evan. She comes back, and she says, Evan wants to know when the finals are. He was like, oh my god. He flew in, We beat Princeton in the semifinals, and we lost to Harvard, five, four. And he came up to me with tears in his eyes, and he said, coach, could you imagine if we ever won one of these? That year, he left to take another job, and we won 13 in a row.

AI assessment note: “Well, it took us two years to make it to the finals”

Q How have you learned to coach your kids about losing?

A Celebrate it. Absolutely celebrate it. It's awesome. That's your moment. When you're winning, you're not learning anything. When you lose, the train stops. Everybody comes out with their magnifying glasses. What just happened here? You know, oh my God, were we good enough? Did we train? Were we sick? What happened? Why did this? And then you make your adjustments. It's the perfect story. And to me, That's where champions are made. The single most important thing in life to be successful, in my opinion, is resilience. And if you're not failing, what are you going to recover to? You know, it's like I tell my seven-year-old, you cannot show bravery if you're not first afraid. You cannot be resilient if you don't first fall. Cute story. When I was coaching at Army, I had a great player on our team who's just recently retired as a four-star general. And he was playing number three for us, and he had an amazing year. He was maybe 14 and three, and we go down to play at the Naval Academy, which is all that matters in life, and they've got a kid with like a six and six record, and their kid was a lefty, and their coach out-coached me on that day, and that boy hit every single ball, every single ball to my guy's backhand, and my guy lost, and he was devastated, and I went up to him, and I said, Rich, What I learned today is the importance of dominating the backhand cross court exchange.…

AI assessment note: “Celebrate it. Absolutely celebrate it. It's awesome. That's your moment.”

Q One of the things I've always been curious about when you have so much success as a coach, just measured in terms of winning and losing, winning national championships, coming so close, What happens the day after a win or a loss?

A You go back to work. You go back to the business of evolving as a human being, helping people understand what just happened, helping them understand that it's never quite as good as you think it is, and it's never quite as bad as you think it is. To me, Ted, the paycheck is not the wins, or the rings, or the banners. It's the relationships with those people all through life, and It's amazing when they come back, or when you're invited to a wedding, or you're made a godfather of a child. That's the paycheck. We put a tremendous amount of value in what student-athletes think about the program. At the end of the season, our players are going to be given an evaluationary form, evaluating my performance as a coach. And I go down to the athletic director's office, and he hands me this packet, and I thank him very much, and I put it in the garbage pail. I don't care what a nineteen-year-old thinks, and half those kids weren't in the lineup. They shouldn't be happy. They should be working harder. I want to know what they think five years later. That's the paychecks.

AI assessment note: “You go back to work. You go back to the business of evolving”

Q As the leader of the team, what do you say or do to get each of your players to practice at the max capacity for that day?

A I believe the single most important quality for a leader is empathy. You have to be able to put yourself on the other side of the desk to know where they're coming from, and you must be an expert at observing what's going on. I can tell from their body language, from their eyes, when they're struggling, when they're off, when it's not fully engaged, and then what I do is I try to help them understand that they're not there. When they walk down from the classes, I want them putting that all down step by step by step. So when they come into the center, there's nothing else on their mind. And we talk about the awesome power of now, which I didn't make up. That's Dr. Richard Peck, but thank you, doctor. But we talk about making every single moment of your day full engagement. When you go to class, don't just sit there and wait for the professor to give you something. Engage with the professor. Make that the best class you ever went to. When you come to practice, make it the best practice you've ever come to. When you go to the dining hall, chew every bite more than you've ever chewed it before. Make that the most delightful culinary experience you've ever had. When you go out on that date tonight, make it the most romantic tryst of your life. You do that. And then when you go to bed and you look up at the sky and you say, St. Peter, if I have to go, I'll go. If you get one person t…

AI assessment note: “we talk about making every single moment of your day full engagement.”

Q so much more interest these days in the benefits of diversity. And the challenge of that, of course, is you take two people that are very different. It's hard to get them to be on the same team, as you said. You've got players from different countries. You said even warring countries. How have you gone about bringing them together to manage the diversity that you're bringing onto the team?

A Well, I was born in the Bronx, so I'm totally colorblind. Maybe in some ways it's been a failing of mine, but it's been amazing to be in what is America has always been predominantly sort of a white toast upper sport, and we've changed that. For us, it's just helping them understand how beautiful the differences are. And to me, the two largest differences in our program are socioeconomic, When kids graduate from here, we have an area called Tent City. Dozens of tents down there. My guys are in the tent. They've got some beers, some pizza. The tent next to them has ice sculptures and caviar. And so, we're just breaking down that socioeconomic thing. The second thing is the religion. Religion is a huge factor. Not so much color, but the religion. And the reason it is, when I wake up in the morning, I look in the mirror at an ugly old man, but I see myself as a white man in society. When Ziad wakes up in the morning and he looks in the mirror, he sees a Muslim. That is how important his religion is to him. So we talk about the differences. Isn't it interesting? We're coming upon Ramadan where you won't eat in daylight or drink for 30 days or 40 days, whatever it is, We're now in the middle of Lent. Isn't it interesting? Supposedly, Christ went out into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. I made the ultimate sacrifice for Christ. I gave up chocolate. And we laugh, and we joke abo…

AI assessment note: “For us, it's just helping them understand how beautiful the differences are.”

Q And how about managing within the team some of the challenges of bringing those diverse people together?

A Oh, it blows up every so often. Initially, I just thought, Pollyanna approach, it's all fine, never a problem. When it ignites, it ignites hard. One of the things I really focus on with these boys is learning to let other people be right. When they're sitting around on a Saturday night and they're drinking, is when I'm sleeping with one eye open, because they get aggressive. Things happen. And invariably, that blows up the family. So we have to monitor that closely. One of the things we talk about in the program is taking back the night. And what we tell the young man is, you are probably the biggest athletic stars on campus. You're leaders. Be leaders. If you're out and you see a teammate maybe moving into a dangerous situation, don't look the other way. Additionally, if you see anyone in the student body who looks like maybe they're getting over-served, Or it looks like maybe there's a fight that's starting to brew. Get engaged. So we've focused on that a lot.

AI assessment note: “One of the things I really focus on with these boys is learning”

Q What have you seen as the application of what you've learned as a coach and what's different in the business environment?

A I think they're much more similar than they are different. Again, harkening back to Billie Jean, not pretending to be something you're not. Usually when I speak to these companies, I go in in sweats, because I don't want them to know that I can't afford a nice suit. And I also am a big fan of self-deprecation, so I tell a lot of funny stories at my expense. But mostly, everybody's trying to find a way to make the organization successful. And trying to understand how to get the most out of people. I don't think that's that different. I'll speak at a retreat, and very often the CEO will get up, and they'll have a slide show, and they'll talk about, well, this was fourth quarter earnings, and this is our goal for first quarter earnings, and this is our North Star, and blah, blah, blah. When I get up, I'll say, well, that's all well and good, but I believe it's nothing but people. If you really take care of your people, They'll take care of the business side of things. I have never met an athlete that's playing their sport while holding the scoreboard clicker, and I think that is really critical. One of the interesting things that I have found that I think is a challenge for companies is very often I'll come across companies where you have super bright people sitting in a room trying to figure it out. Instead of Get out of your chair, walk down the hall, and ask the question. You s…

AI assessment note: “I think they're much more similar than they are different.”

Q Which two people have had the biggest impact on your professional life?

A Firstly was my dad. I was raised with love, and we would talk virtually every day. And when he passed away, it was like a cataclysmic starburst. I could no longer pick up the phone and call him, but I am awash in his essence everywhere I go. The interesting thing was, he would always ask me, what's next? What's next? What's next? That wasn't the best thing for me. I should have been able to say, this is next. Right here. This is enough. Then all of the coaches that I got to work with along the way had such a big influence on me because they had all learned so much and they had so much to share. Some of it was good and some of it wasn't good. Some of it applied to me and some of it didn't apply to me. Look, I've never had a creative thought in my life. Everything I know I've stolen from other people and I've had a lot of great people to steal from.

AI assessment note: “Firstly was my dad... Then all of the coaches that I got to work with”

Q What have been some of your other favorite themes over the years?

A The overriding thing is I coach an individual sport, and I've never treated it that way. I teach a team sport. So we have 11 different countries on this team. I have a boy from Mumbai, India, next to a young man from Lahore, Pakistan. One's a Hindu, one is a Muslim, and yet I'm trying to teach them that they're brothers, and that they truly need to buy that, even though their parents back in their countries won't talk to each other. So it's this constant team It's all about the team. We've won 17 national championships in 25 years. We haven't won that many individual championships because we don't focus on the individual. So that has always been the underlying theme. These are brothers. To see Tommy Wolfe come to Trinity from Park Avenue and Riverdale High And on his first day at Trinity, he befriends Eduardo Pereira from Sao Paulo, Brazil. And Tom and Sheila would go to Brazil for Christmas, and they would come to the Hamptons for the summer. That's the stuff that is meaningful. So the themes underlying everything, obviously, is team, team, team. The other thing is having each other's back, being there for each other, not just Giving it lip service. When I go to raise money, I will walk into a person's office, and I'll notice that there are pictures on the wall. And now they're stuck in the Asciente spiderweb. Because I'll start asking them questions. Oh, is that your daughter…

AI assessment note: “So the themes underlying everything, obviously, is team, team, team.”

Q How did the complexion of your team and the other teams you competed against change such that you were able to win so many titles in a row?

A I have a friend who was in finance, and he told me one time, there are three I's in life. There are innovators, there are imitators, and there are idiots. The interesting thing was, and I apologize for telling you this as a Yale graduate, but the Ivies, rather than saying, wait a minute, what's going on here? It became a pity party. Woe is me. They're bringing in illiterate people. They're cheating. We weren't doing any of those things. So instead of saying, what is the secret sauce here? It was like, woe is me. Woe is me. Woe is me. Then one day they said, wait a minute, not only can we do this, we can do this better than them. Well, who wouldn't come to Harvard? So now it's changed. And for the last few years, we haven't been that competitive. For us to make the finals this past weekend is otherworldly.

AI assessment note: “instead of saying, what is the secret sauce here? It was like, woe is me.”