Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 375: Redefining Success Beyond the Scoreboard with Drake Bernstein

Transcript

Episode 375: Redefining Success Beyond the Scoreboard with Drake Bernstein · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  the only way where like you, you kind of check the box in a lot of people's mind is did you win at all? And then what's the next box? Did you go win it all again?
• 0:09
  Did you go? It's like you just realize it's not a good race to be running. And there's got to be something bigger out there than being, the biggest and the baddest at all time.
• 0:23
  Welcome to the Growth Project, a podcast brought to you by employers may have fired up for this conversation today,
• 0:29
  joined by coach Drake Bernstein. I'm not going to call you coach, so if that's okay, I'm just gonna call you Drake Week. Are you cool with that, my man? Fine. And preferred. Yeah. Okay.
• 0:40
  joining us from Athens, Georgia, I know that, we are in the heart of tennis season, so thank you for setting aside some time, Drake, to get in here and talk with us a little bit.
• 0:49
  Yeah. Happy to be here. Always great to to chat with drew.
• 0:52
  And gosh, I mean let's set the stage here. We've known each other a long time right? I like a long, long time.
• 0:59
  Going all the way back to,
• 1:01
  when you were a player at Georgia,
• 1:03
  which we would have met for the first time. Win.
• 1:05
  Do you recall?
• 1:06
  Probably sometime around oh eight. Yeah. And yeah, you were my you were kind of my intro to the, value of sports psychology and the value of, directing your mind. And really kind of some of the science behind it sounds simple. And it sounded, you know, I don't know that it was anything earth shattering at the time, but but to this day, I,
• 1:35
  I'll never forget we were sitting up there next to court one, and, we just were chatting through it all, and it's like, what? You've done the work, let it show. And I that something that I come back to, to this day, I tell myself that a lot of times, as the national anthem is winding up right before matches, you've done the work.
• 1:54
  Let it go.
• 1:56
  I remember that, too. I vividly remember that which was a as that was. There's not a bad seat. Right. As great as the Dan McGill Tennis Complex is, it's an awesome place. But I remember that conversation too. So okay, so so let's pause on that for a second, because I do want to tell some of the stories.
• 2:09
  But let go go back even further than that. And I'm curious obviously, much of your life has, involved the sport of tennis first as a player for many years, playing at a high level, and now your coaching career, although,
• 2:26
  you've accomplished so much already, I know there's a ton yet to be to be had there, but, like, how and why tennis?
• 2:33
  How did all of that get off the ground? Yeah, it's a great one. I actually played a lot less tennis growing up than probably about 99% of my peers. And I was, I played about every sport other than tennis until tennis came along. My parents were or PE teacher. So, you know, it didn't really matter what it was.
• 2:56
  If it was a game, I wanted to play it. I wanted to compete. I was the master of that trick where you tell your parents how sick you are and you get to go into work with them on that day. And, by about 9:00, I was always magically healed,
• 3:13
  playing basketball or, you know, playing games and P.E. with them.
• 3:19
  But, yeah, you know, it was it was all sports and it was all things competitive and and just loved the challenge of sports and really, I kind of fell in love with, with tennis because there was nothing that sparked me, the same way in a practice setting, all the other sports I love to go out on game day and, and, you know, shoot your free throws, all of that.
• 3:42
  But it was tennis that kind of kept bringing me back where there's something next or something next. There's something next. And my mind is, like, a little bit wired. What's the next thing? What's the next thing? And, in tennis, you don't really need a team practice. You don't really need any setting other than yourself and and a basket of balls.
• 4:03
  And so that was what drew me into tennis. Played a lot of tournaments on the weekends. My parents, again, with them being P.E. teachers, we couldn't travel and do the week long tennis tournament thing, you know. So I was doing the, the, Friday, Saturday, Sunday tournament and just practice, play matches, go do it again, go to another tournament, learn.
• 4:28
  Go the next week, learn. There was no academy or anything like that. It was just kind of, it was a different path, but one that, I feel like has made, you know, for a unique perspective in the sport. Now.
• 4:39
  Yeah, that's a really unique path. And I think for some of our listeners that might not be as familiar with kind of the junior tennis circuit.
• 4:47
  And I hope, I hope I don't offend anybody when I say this, but it isn't always the most sane. And,
• 4:53
  I think user friendly environment or culture, right? I mean, there's there are many unfortunate examples of kids from a very, very early age whose entire lives are dedicated to, to the sport of tennis, you know, and they're they're home schooled from an early age.
• 5:09
  And they are they're all over the map playing. There's my understanding, which is pretty much on target. Correct? Yeah, yeah. And I was, you know, kids were homeschooled and I was going to public school playing on my high school tennis team. And I think that it kind of gave me and gave me is uniqueness of like, you know, tennis is kind of something that you do.
• 5:30
  It's not your entire life. It's, I love what I'm doing. But but from a young age, I still had, you know, normal social interactions, friends outside of the sport. Really? In Winder, Georgia, there are not a whole lot of people who understand the sport of tennis.
• 5:49
  You know, so. So you have no choice but to talk about something else or to just kind of be a normal kid.
• 5:55
  yeah. So that's a context on that. As well. Winder is not far at all from Athens, Georgia. And, you know, the sport of choice. And near Athens, Georgia is usually not tennis, as you're saying. It's you're talking about that is not it is not the main event. It's not armies. So Drake like, at what age can you remember kind of making that conscious decision of, okay, I'm really going to dial in on this and try to go somewhere with this sport.
• 6:24
  Oh man. You know, I got such a really late, like such a late start to starting competitive tennis. We had no idea. My parents just signed me up for a tournament. We said, okay, I like playing in the park, and I think I could do well. And I go and I lose my first match. 6060, and a small level tournament.
• 6:43
  But then, you know, and in tennis tournaments you have a main draw and you have the consolation. So you're not just one. And done. So I got to play consolation. I'll never forget I won ten seven and the third set tiebreaker and the consolation. And that was kind of what kept me coming back. It's like, well like, yeah.
• 7:00
  Now, my first ranking ever, I was ranked 223 in the state of Georgia. I'll never forget it. And and the cool thing about tennis was that,
• 7:10
  for better or worse, you get this, this number next to your name, and you get to watch that climb. And and as you get better, it kind of stops climbing and maybe plateaus or fluctuates, but, it was kind of that number where I was like, okay, well, that's where I have to go.
• 7:26
  I'm 223, and maybe one day I'll be top 200 in the state. And then it was just kind of this addiction is not the right word because I feel like it was a healthy driver. But just kind of climbing up the rankings. And it never really was a choice of, I need to go do this with my tennis career.
• 7:45
  I need to go play college tennis. I need to get this out of the sport. It was just something that I love. And the rest kind of took care of itself over time,
• 7:54
  Yeah. And so, like, there's so many things in there that piqued my interest. One of them being that in a sport like tennis, where so many things are objectively measured and there's so much that's out there, right.
• 8:06
  And there's that the rankings and, and for so many people that breeds this really challenging dynamic of comparison based thinking, right, of like, oh, well, look at what he's doing and look at what she's doing and why am I not this? And like, it doesn't sound like you really fit into that at all. That it was more about kind of your journey.
• 8:24
  Is that is that right? Yeah. I mean, and it's the benefit probably of starting at the bottom. Is that pretty much anybody that I played was going to be a good win if I could pull it off. And so I had a lot of opportunity in front of me early. And then I do I think that maybe it helped with my understanding of, well, now that I'm 50, in the state of Georgia, there's another guy that's, 200 that's excited to play me.
• 8:51
  And so, you know, understanding that, hey, you're only as good as your your next match out. And so,
• 8:59
  yeah, I again, I, I really feel like like, like you say, it's totally accurate that the comparison game is a real thing in tennis. I was kind of fortunate enough, and I think that maybe some of the balance outside of tennis being my whole life, was really helpful and, and not getting too wrapped up in that.
• 9:16
  I, I always was able the way that my junior career kind of tracked, I was always able to kind of can at least convince myself of the underdog role. So, you know, it. I'd say that went a long way in terms of feeling pressure out there.
• 9:33
  All right. So you're going to need to bridge a little bit of a gap here force.
• 9:35
  Because what what you're describing, although it's a super unique journey and very, very interesting, it isn't exactly the track that you would that somebody would say, oh yeah, this guy's headed to go have a great career at Georgia, you know, which which at the time it really and still to date, I mean, for those that are less familiar with college tennis, Georgia has been really kind of the epicenter of college tennis for a long time.
• 9:59
  I mean, you're you're a junior player in the the heart of the many Diaz years. Manny will forever be one of the greatest college coach tennis coaches to ever do it, championship after championship. So how did it come together for you to be at Georgia?
• 10:17
  it was such a kind of incremental thing that the timing was right, that just by the time I was about 17, 18, I was I was good enough to think that I might have a chance one day to play a match at Georgia.
• 10:32
  And right. I so like I, I never, you know, growing up in Winder, a lot of people might think, well, you want to go to Georgia, right? Well, yeah, of course, but I'm never going to be good enough to play at Georgia. And it wasn't until about probably 17 where I was that was a possibility. Maybe my junior year of high school became possible.
• 10:53
  So I was looking every, you know, across the South and keeping my options open. But I took my visit to Georgia and, about an hour into the visit and I had been around plenty. I mean, I, I would go to matches and all that. But about an hour into the visit, I knew, like, I told myself, Drake, if you ever play a match at Georgia in your four years, this will be, the most special thing ever.
• 11:20
  That's like the goal of your tennis one day play a match at Georgia. And so I came to Georgia as a walk on, and, you know Mannie and. Well, Glenn gave me, you know, a shot, and they gave me coaching and, and my, my freshman year, I was, you know, semi-regular in the doubles, played some singles matches, and, you know, really wasn't until my junior year or sophomore year that I was a regular in the lineup.
• 11:46
  But,
• 11:47
  again, one of the benefits of growing up in winter and then getting the exposure to high level tennis every day is that I wasn't even close to what a ceiling could be. As a junior, I hadn't had nearly the resources that most of my competitors had. I barely had somebody to hit with, you know?
• 12:06
  And so now when you get around that every day, and that's your day to day looks like you're playing with, you know, two guys that just won the US open, junior doubles. And and that's your practice partner. You have no choice but to get better. And, and it really just kind of took off throughout the time I was in college.
• 12:25
  Great mentorship, a great, grad assistant, sports psychologist, it all came together and,
• 12:33
  the story wrote itself.
• 12:34
  Well, let's be careful how much credit we give to the sports psychology person there, because I think I think that, that it's, you know, the work you were doing day in and day out out there, on the court had had more to do with anything else, but I appreciate the nod.
• 12:48
  Yeah. And I think, you know, what you're speaking to is, is fascinating also from the standpoint of, you know, we can't help but evaluate people's capability in large part due to the environment that they exist within. And, you know, the environment in which you function, whether you like it or not, will always be, a limiting factor of sorts.
• 13:12
  And, and so I think in your case, once you got into the environment there and as you said, you're surrounded by this degree of excellence in the standard, which is just dramatically raised the way that affected your capability, I you became an entirely new player. So I think that is that's a big, huge takeaway from that description for me.
• 13:33
  And then the other thing that can't be ignored is that we go back to your background. So many people whose junior careers are very different from yours when they get to college. Although this might sound strange, they're almost running on fumes already because they've played so much tennis. You know, they've they've grinded so much and they've beaten their body up so much.
• 13:59
  And so I think it had to be a huge advantage for you that when you came in to the program, you had so much energy and enthusiasm and excitement about what was yet to come. Yeah, I totally agree. And it's not even like, yes, you do have players that, like you said, are running on fumes, but you also have,
• 14:17
  players who may just be numb to how good tennis is and how great it is.
• 14:24
  And,
• 14:25
  to this day, I haven't found that numbness yet. You know, every day. Is it? I feel like it's the greatest thing. But but, you know, like I mentioned, with my junior career, my college career, I kind of felt like I got to do the same thing. I had the story in my mind, at least, of being the underdog and, man, like, what a great opportunity.
• 14:45
  I never would have thought that I'd get to play a match here. And now I'm coming out in front of 2000 people to play the NCAA tournament, and it always was this opportunity. This opportunity. How cool is this? How cool is this? And you know, when you're when you're in that state of mind and your competition is it's just another day for them or, yeah, I can live without it.
• 15:08
  You naturally start to get a little bit of a leg up, whether you realize it or not.
• 15:13
  But even in that what you're describing there, Drake, it's a great glimpse into, I think, what is separated you then as a player and now as a coach, like the, the the sophistication with which you are talking to yourself and, and choosing to kind of align to certain messages that set you up for success.
• 15:31
  So many people aren't doing that. You know, the internal dialog there of how you were mindful of, okay, this, this underdog mentality gives me an edge. And then there's a there's a degree of appreciation for and gratitude for the opportunity. Right. So like those are all conscious ways in which you are framing your story that make a big difference.
• 15:56
  I've had a lot of good people around me and and learning from smart people. I think it has probably been, maybe the one of the best things that I've done for myself is, is there are people out there that have perspectives that that help them forward, and there are people out there that have perspective that maybe hold them back and, and learning about those that that help you forward.
• 16:19
  Seems like the logical thing to do.
• 16:21
  Well, I want to make one more comment about your playing career, and then we'll get into a lot of the coaching things that I want to discuss. But, I don't want to I don't want to miss this. My memory of you as a player when we worked together, I would sum up this way, and it's such a unique combination of two things that are such a driving force in people's performance is, you always had the ability to to balance two things.
• 16:46
  So one was belief. Like, you always have this underlying belief that you could do this right, which is huge. And then the second thing you don't always see, this is you just had such, a hunger to improve. And so and so I think, like you take the example of a person who maybe they have the belief, but they lack the hunger.
• 17:10
  And you just like they're not going to be who they're capable of becoming. It's just not. And so like your, your hunger for improvement was, was so apparent to me and everything that you did. So I don't know if you ever used that type of internal language or you thought of it that way, but for me, that was such a difference maker for you.
• 17:28
  Yeah. I mean, for sure it was always like, again, I was the beneficiary of being able to be, the one that hasn't proven it yet at every level. Is like, I haven't proven it at number six, first in college, and then I haven't proven it at number five, and then I haven't proven it at number four.
• 17:45
  And, my, my senior year. Well, I've done a lot of things with tennis and, but I haven't proven to be, a leader for the team. Right. And it's like, I don't know, always on to something else. Learning has always kind of piqued my interest. And I view the tennis and the what you're describing as hunger there as, what's the next thing to learn?
• 18:11
  What's the next thing to learn?
• 18:13
  And I want you to do this because I'm going to miss something. But but get real off real quick. What, like give me the accomplishments as a player. Championships like like give me, like, give us something here because I want to put this in perspective for our listeners. So. So coming into college, Georgia had won the NCAA in a seven and we won it in oh eight.
• 18:33
  And I was I wasn't a starter in any of the NCAA singles matches. I'd like to think that I had, a part we had some injuries mid-season, where I came in and we won some big matches, where we were a couple men down, which helped our seeding for the tournament.
• 18:52
  So we want to know eight.
• 18:54
  One a couple CCS late 2011 won the SEC and my tennis. Finished at the time was top 15 all time. Then Georgia tennis wins. Which, what put me up there with some incredible company who I would never associate my level of tennis with. But yeah, it was really, a magical four years. Yeah.
• 19:22
  And crazy even today. Like, I look back and I think about, you know, the profile coming in versus what actually happened while I was, here in college. And it's still a bit wild to me.
• 19:35
  All right. So. Yeah. Incredible. Right. Incredible run. And then I can remember. And you, you didn't tell me this, but somebody did. I can't remember who when I first heard that.
• 19:46
  The next step for you was going to be coaching.
• 19:49
  I was not the least bit surprised, but I was super pumped. I was like, man, this is going to be awesome because this guy has all the makings of a great coach, and he isn't even a coach yet.
• 20:00
  tell us a little bit about how did that decision kind of clarify for you that coaching was next?
• 20:07
  it's kind of interesting because, you know, this love for tennis that I've described, I knew I wanted to be in tennis. I knew I wanted to do something in tennis and and college coaching didn't really seem like a possibility to me as a college player. I just I have so much respect for my college coaches for for Manny Diaz and, well, Glenn's like they're like larger than life, you know.
• 20:32
  And so that never really registered as an option. So I was like, all right, well, I'll go to an academy, I'll go to a country club, and I'm in my senior year, I'm firing out, dozens of emails to, to, country clubs. Hey, I'd love to come work there. One day. And and, you know, my wife is from Vegas.
• 20:51
  She was a gymnast here. Georgia. We moved out to Vegas, and I was doing the academy thing. I was doing country club thing at night, and I just felt like something was missing from my coaching experience. And it was that side that Manny and, well, my coaches had, you know, they just had a broader perspective than what was going on for the two hours of practice.
• 21:17
  A day. And I felt like for me to be an effective coach, college actually was the perfect setting for it, because a lot of what I think is important for an athlete, goes beyond the lines and and beyond seeing them for two hours a day. So, pretty quickly, about three months into the private coaching thing, I realized I gotta find my way back into college, and I was fortunate enough to, get to start a University of Alabama with a longtime head coach experience head coach Jenny Mines, and got to learn about.
• 21:52
  I never would have would have thought, you know, six months before, I would be a women's college tennis coach and and, you know, it was always, okay, I'll do this. And then I'll, I'll go over to the men's side later. But but pretty quickly, I, I fell in love with the women's side of it because there's so much of a, I feel like the mental, the the emotional, the psychological side, outweighs where, where maybe on the men's side, it's, really physical.
• 22:24
  And if a guy's got a huge serve and a huge forehand, he's going to win. And you can't keep up. It's just too it's too good. And I feel like on the women's side, we on day to day. If we approach things right we can find a way to win. So I found, this love for the women's side.
• 22:41
  And then actually one year after being at Alabama, which is a great year, the Georgia job assistant job came up and I got to work with another college tennis legend, Jeff Wallace. And I guess, the rest was history
• 22:54
  there. Yeah. You've only watched legends, it sounds like. Which is one. Yeah. You're very fortunate in my mentorships.
• 23:01
  Okay, so this this is always the one that I enjoy. I want you to go back and critique the early, your earliest days in coaching. When you look back on it now, what were some of the mistakes you were making that you didn't realize you were making? Oh, that's a great one. Yeah. I was, as a player, like I said, I kind of had this chip on my shoulder and I was looking for something to prove all the time.
• 23:25
  And and as a player, that may have come off, a bit aggressively and potentially disrespectfully as a player and, as a coach early, I was kind of my thing is like, I wanted to make this kind of, villain story where and nobody people are out to get us. People are this and that. They're saying this about us and and, my focus was very external at the time.
• 23:55
  Who can I find to pick a fight with what? Can I find a problem with this team for? And, I don't know. The more that I do this, the more that I, I see how futile it is to to worry about anything other than yourself and your own performance on a given day, and, and, you know, putting the externals aside and focusing on what you have to offer.
• 24:17
  And so how did that clarify for you that the external really wasn't shouldn't be the focus? It's a good question because it wasn't like I don't think there was any kind of magic moment. It's just over time and, and and really watching, watching the teams that were winning, nobody else was doing that. It just looked like they knew something that everybody else did.
• 24:40
  And and they had this kind of secret that they were keeping quiet and how they were always performing at their best in the biggest moments. And it never was. It never was because they were picking a fight with somebody. And so you watch people, you watch some of these places beat you enough, you watch some of these places hold up trophies and you say, what is what is it that they're doing?
• 25:02
  I'm not I don't know, it just kind of simmered back a bit and and as we've experienced, some success, I really start to feel more and more validation of that approach. By the day.
• 25:18
  Okay. So you, you know, the year at Bama, then you come to Athens and you're working alongside Jeff for was it's eight, eight years.
• 25:26
  How many years for Jeff? 11. Oh, sorry, 11 years, which was an incredible run. How many championships during that time? I don't know. Maybe my guess would be six or so. Six. And we won a national indoor championship. Yeah, well, when you when you can't remember having a championships, that is a good problem to have a man.
• 25:48
  Maybe. Yeah, maybe that is. That is a good problem to have. So through those 11 years, you know what's normal for any assistant? I would, you know, in my experience is you're you're learning a lot. You're beginning to, kind of formulate your ideas around all right. I'm aspiring to be a head coach eventually. So I'm seeing the things that I really want to be sure, are, you know, remain a part of the program or I'm formulating my philosophies, like, talk a little bit about some of the things you can remember learning through those years, working with Jeff.
• 26:23
  Yeah. I mean, I think Jeff and I had a great balance early. Early? You know, I'm a 22 year old assistant, and I'm I'm, I'm coaching players that I was in school with, when I started here at Georgia, when I was at Alabama. I'm coaching. One of the girls on the team was older than me. And so,
• 26:43
  early in it, Jeff, Jeff had his kind of guiding me and directions.
• 26:49
  And I think as, we grew a confidence in each other, he let me spread my wings a little bit more. Let me try this. Let me dabble on that. Let me get a little bit more involved with the recruiting and, you know, really kind of figuring out, I don't know, that it was ever figuring out as much as it was experiencing.
• 27:12
  And it's like, okay, let's let's let this happen. And we took this bad loss. Okay. What does that mean? How do I interpret that to, in a constructive way for myself moving forward, or we've won this? How does that make me feel? Well, pretty quickly, you find that, you hear it all the time, but but you do find that, like, winning wears off pretty quickly.
• 27:39
  As far as, like, you think I'm. I'm going to feel like this when we win this championship. And it's like, that's great. And then two days later, you're back to feeling like yourself again, and it never last that long. So it had to be something that, that was bigger than winning. And I still feel like, you know, relatively young, in coaching terms.
• 28:02
  And I'm still figuring out exactly what those things are. But but I do know, it's way more about the process and way more about, you know, the years and, and the investments being made than, than the actual trophies to show for them. Okay. So let's let's pull something together here because I want to stay on this theme and that, you know, we had you had this great run with Jeff for 11 years.
• 28:25
  You then took over the program as head coach, and you're in your three and you guys have won. You just most recently won the NCAA indoors just weeks ago. How many national championships since you've taken over? Three. So three national championships and you're only in year three. You've been national coach of the year. So on paper, just a really full resume already.
• 28:50
  All these amazing things, lots of accomplishments. And yet I hear you kind of wrestling with, well, gosh, like what? What are we truly aiming for? And like what is the goal and what is the vision. So like tell us a little bit about like how are you wrestling with that? Right now. And like what are you what are you coming up with.
• 29:12
  Yeah, yeah. And it's it's a crazy thing, you know, like, I like I was talking about with, with you win and and you feel good for a couple days and, you know, actually the, after we won indoors, like, or won NCAA last year, I was like, oh, I've kind of, like, checked off all the boxes and and I got named national coach of the year.
• 29:36
  And it's like, what else is there to do? I've done everything. And, you know, you're going on vacation. We're going to Hilton Head, and, you're excited for this vacation. You've played, you've played it out in your mind a million times how great it's going to be to be at the beach. And now you're a national champion at the beach.
• 29:55
  You know it's going to be that much cooler. Well, as soon as you get to the beach, you run into the beach with your with your, five year old son, and a stingray gets you in the foot and it's back to reality. So that was kind of the moment where I'm like, man, the world doesn't really care that you just won the NCAA.
• 30:13
  Yeah. And neither does the Stingray. Right. And neither does the Stingray. Surely doesn't care. So I couldn't walk the rest of the vacation. But, you know, it's interesting cause you you you do kind of run into this thing, because what I know now is that, well, you win. And let's say that you go win another one.
• 30:33
  Well, then what's the expectation people are going to say, well, okay, Greg, don't do it again. Go do it again. And you'll you'll just run this rabbit hole until you exhaust yourself and you realize that that was never really what you are after. So after last year, I knew there would be more to this. And it's like, I don't know what I'm going to learn next.
• 30:54
  I don't know where, where I'm going to kind of continue to develop as a coach. I just know that, like, there is more out there. There is something out there. And really the last, the last few weeks, it's started. I feel like it's starting to crystallize a bit more. And really that in kind of summary where my head's been at, it's like the most important thing that I could do every day.
• 31:21
  And the most important thing that I could teach anybody, any of our ladies, things that I could, interactions I could have with our staff, is that we're doing what we do and what we're doing. Everything with love and love. Overflowing amounts of love. Not obnoxious, but. But is our heart fully in everything when it when it's a practice on Tuesday and it's, and it's cloudy.
• 31:46
  Can we still go out and practice with love when it's time to play another top five team in the country? What is showing? It is our love showing, right? And I think that that's been, a really big thing with, with, you know, college age student athletes these days is there's so many distractions out there and there's so many, externals that can get you distracted away from, like, why am I doing what I do?
• 32:15
  I have this appreciation for what I'm doing. Yeah, but the other, like, I also have expectations. People want me to win, and it's like, we can. It's really, really easy. Easier than ever. I feel like. And I'm sure you you have more experience, but I feel like it's easier than ever to lose sight of what's important. And that's like, man, we all get one life.
• 32:36
  We need to make the most of it, and you don't make the most of it by sitting on the couch and taking naps or sitting on an Instagram Netflix all day. You get it by going out and living. And, when we get to play these big matches, that that's really where we can feel alive the most. And so again, just kind of dabbling with these thoughts of how do you how do you let your love for whatever it is that you're doing in the moment show?
• 33:04
  Man, there's so much in there to to think through. So and it's so applicable, I think, to all walks of life. I've said for years that I feel, particularly in the world of sports, people are in one of two camps. They're either like on the climb where they're trying to achieve many of the things that you have already achieved, and there's good reason that they're on the climb and there's all these discoveries they haven't made yet.
• 33:32
  Or if they have fulfilled some of these goals like you're describing, they're now trying to make sense of everything. Because inevitably what happens is, and I've seen this in so many ways, shapes and forms that when you check those things off your list, if you're fortunate enough to do so, you realize very quickly that although they should be celebrated, the fulfillment that comes with them fades pretty quickly.
• 34:00
  It really does. It really does. I mean, I'll never forget and, you know, you're familiar with my work with football over the years, and I'll never forget, after what, our first national championship. We were on the bus. We had you know, late game. Stay the night. Of course, in Indy. We're on the bus the day after, headed to the airport, and I'm sitting on the bus, and there's a I'm not going to say who, of course, but there's a staff member, that I kind of see out of the corner of my eye, and he's kind of got a long look on his face, and I'm thinking like, well, okay, a
• 34:35
  lot of possible reasons for that. Right? Late night, a lot of celebrating that took place. You know, I don't want to assume anything here. And so I kind of just made my way over there and sat down next to him and I said, hey, man, like you good. Like, what's up? And he knew I was maybe the right person to talk to about this, but he said, man, I just thought it was going to feel different than it does.
• 35:01
  And I was like, I was like, what do you mean? And he said, I've spent it because it was his first national championship. And he said, I've spent so many years, you know, making sacrifice after sacrifice, chasing this in my career. Right. Like chasing this thing. And we did it. And I know, although, you know, it hasn't been long, obviously, we just did it last night.
• 35:28
  But I told myself all these years it was going to feel a certain way, and it does it, and, and I think, I think so many athletes or coaches or both get that realization and I don't know what quite to do with it. Yeah, yeah. Spot on I mean it there there are moments where you look back and you say, well, it's it still hasn't really sunk in all the way to me, kind of, you know, the, the success.
• 35:55
  But, there are other times where I was like, well, well, so what? Like it's you still have your day to day problems. You still have your challenges. And one of the things I think the fortune that that I have my my first season, we made the final of the NCAA tournament and, which, by college, tennis's standards, I don't think anybody was predicting that for Georgia.
• 36:21
  And that year and then the following year, in our minds, we were we were the happiest finalist you would ever meet. People say, oh, tough. You lost in the finals. No, no no, no, no, you don't get it that we are the happiest people on the planet. We just had such a great run. And then the following year, you, when you win the national championship.
• 36:42
  And one of the things that was so apparent to me was like it, it's so disproportionate. The difference between being celebrated as a finalist and a champion is second and first, that you cannot possibly make sense of it. It makes no sense because in college athletics these days, to do anything, even to make the round of 16 of a national event, there's so many people that are trying out there.
• 37:10
  There are so many competitors out there who are much less a final form, and that should be celebrated to the moon. But but meanwhile,
• 37:18
  the only way where like you, you kind of check the box in a lot of people's mind is did you win at all? And then what's the next box? Did you go win it all again?
• 37:28
  Did you go? It's like you just realize it's not a good race to be running. And there's got to be something bigger out there than being, the biggest and the baddest at all time.
• 37:40
  And I think Drake like what you're describing to this is where a lot of kind of the importance of us being able to have nuance to our thinking comes in here.
• 37:49
  Right. Because there is a way although it's not easy, there is a way to recognize and acknowledge that, hey, winning national championships won't make me happy forever. And yet we still don't minimize the accomplishment. And that's that's the that's the nuance that we you want to be able to get that I think a lot of people are wrestling with and trying to get there because it is a huge deal.
• 38:13
  To your point, it's it's unbelievable. It is awesome. However, it isn't the thing that's going to like make me feel great in perpetuity. In perpetuity. Right? It just isn't what it is. Yeah, it will fade. And it's like you said it it is nuance because we sit here and my kind of tennis example is we talk about how winning doesn't matter, and we sit here and, and it's so confusing for a student athlete, to hear from their coach.
• 38:41
  I don't care if you win. I don't I care about what it looks like when you set out, for a match and when you set out, everything should look like you're doing everything within your willpower to win. But ultimately, we've got to detach a little bit from that result of winning and worry more about the way, what what's our focus of the day is, are we only going to be happy?
• 39:08
  And I kind of I was chatting with a player last week. It's like, you know, you going out and the way that you perform it, like you're match to match, it's almost like you're preserving your contentment. You're just making sure that you're not upset about your performance. And if you win, you're preserved for another day. And if you weren't bad, then you're preserved for another day.
• 39:33
  And it's like, that can't be how you approach anything. You know, you you've got, you've got to get out there and just know who you want to be with it. And, I don't know. I don't know, really know where I'm going with it, but it is a nuance of can we do our best to win but not focus on wins and losses?
• 39:52
  Yeah. Well, that's that's the brilliance of great coaching. What you're describing. I mean, I think of it literally just yesterday, I was in Athens with football and I were sitting in a team meeting and, and, you know, another brilliant, great coach who sits right, not far from you, Kirby Smart puts up on in the team meeting a clip of a player who made a really bad mistake and then proceeded to turn around and run toward the ball so much faster than everybody else on the field.
• 40:25
  I mean, unbelievable effort, unbelievable effort. And his comment was, don't care about the mistake. Like, I'm not I'm not showing this clip because somebody made a mistake. I could care less about the mistake. What I want to be sure no one misses here is look at that effort. Unbelievable effort. And it's the same thing you're saying like hey let's show up a way that we can be proud of.
• 40:46
  Absolutely. And that's the only thing within your control that's not to there's too many variables in sports and life. And in your world with business there's too many variables to worry about controlling all of them. You can't.
• 41:00
  Right. No doubt about it. Okay, so a couple more things here I want to cover Drake in our time.
• 41:05
  One of them would be this,
• 41:07
  how do you hope to be described by your players?
• 41:11
  That's a great question. I, I want them to walk away from this experience the same way that I walked about, walked away from mine, knowing that I wouldn't be who I am today without it, and knowing that I grew from from my freshman to my senior year.
• 41:29
  And we like to think of our young ladies coming in as a as a girl, as a recruit. And they they come out as a woman. And if I have played any role and accelerating that, then I've fully done my job.
• 41:44
  Yeah. I mean, I think it's cool to hear you because you're a part of your story that I love so much as when you're talking about Manny and Will, and I can just, even in your voice, hear the fondness you have for them.
• 41:56
  And I know those guys, too, so it's cool. It's cool to to hear you reflect that,
• 42:00
  about them. And so, and then let's think about this one, too. How would you describe the, the like let's do it this way. When players leave your program and they might be asked, what's the culture like within Georgia women's tennis?
• 42:18
  What do you hope they'll say?
• 42:19
  I think really a couple things. You and Josh Brooks, our athletic director, has this wonderful thing that that he tasked us with in every head coaches meeting, he says, make sure we're passing the, 20 year test. And, you know, championships are great. But are we passing this 20 year test where, pretty much what I just described of, when a player comes back 20 years from now, they say this was the greatest experience of my life.
• 42:47
  Right? And I think what goes into that, is growth is understanding where I've gone from from point A to point B and what like I want them to be able to look back at their experience and say, while I had the greatest experience, while I had so much fun doing that, I was, I learned kind of the standard about myself of how I'm going to go about my business.
• 43:15
  And yeah, I do think it's one of the benefits of being at, let's say a championship level program is that we're allowed to keep a high standard and the expectations are high and it is demanding. And, if they can walk out fully understanding that and look back at their time and say that this was a four year period where they were asked to, dig deep and elevate themselves while learning to have fun while they were at it at the same time.
• 43:42
  And that's the culture that we live in. Then then we're really on to something. Great balance. Great balance. Okay, we got to end with a really serious and important question here. And that is have you discovered pickleball yet? I have I was an early adopter. Okay. What what does that look like? What's the pickleball looking like these days?
• 44:01
  It was, at one point I was like, so, but so much pickleball. I actually put a pickleball court in my backyard, and, these days, it it gathers a lot of pollen. With very young ones. It doesn't have much time, but. But, I'm thinking that it'll be a nice surface for them to, to learn some tennis.
• 44:22
  But pickleball is great. It's, to me, it's a much more accessible racket, sport, if you're picking up later in life, if you're, you know, 40 years old, it's a way to kind of identify with a racket sport without having to, you know, learn the intricacies of tennis. You know, I could I could take Drew Branden out on a tennis court, for lessons six months, and he'd be worse than when we started.
• 44:49
  I could take him out for a pickleball lesson. And in about, ten minutes, him feel significantly improved. And so, I don't know, it's really accessible. I think I there's this kind of in the tennis world, people think that it's you're your tennis or pickleball. It's like now there's room for both. There's, there's room for, basketball and baseball and the NFL.
• 45:14
  And there's room for college, football, and there's room for NFL football. I think that it's all good. It's great. Well, hey, you're in good shape because I'll tell you, we put a pickleball court in our backyard about two years ago. And you, you can't have a better teenager, gathering spot. So. Yeah. Hey, the kids will be at your house whether you want them to be or not in the future as you get older.
• 45:38
  So you're. Hey, you're ahead of schedule. Logically speaking, we need to play now. You you you. When you say you play, we need to play. I'm not that interested in matching up against a guy who's in the top 15 in wins in Georgia tennis. Hey, we could play together. How about that? Okay, I'll do that.
• 45:56
  I'll do that. I'll be your doubles partner any time. Well, man, look, this has been, really, really fun conversation. I mean, I'll connect two things here as we finish, but, you know, as I go way back to 2007, 2008, whenever it was of, like us sitting in the stands that day, if you had said to me, hey, guess what?
• 46:15
  In 20 years, almost you guys will be doing a podcast talking about, you know, your Drake's many accomplishments. That that is just cool to think about that, right? It's really, really cool to think about that. Yeah, it's funny, you sit here and you get lost in your day to day, and, and it's just amazing to watch life play out the way that it does.
• 46:38
  And obviously with what you're doing and, you know, you're helping the football team here win championships. And from great assistant days, helping and helping some tennis player figure as head out all the way to now. It's amazing. Like I said, it's crazy to think that it was almost 20 years ago, but but time flies when you're having fun.
• 46:57
  That's right. Well, I can't thank you enough. I know this conversation is going to be a big contributor to so many people's growth and reflection around their life on all levels, whether it be personal or professional. So thank you for taking the time to do it. And we are will be pulling hard for for you guys the remainder of the year, which I know is you're in full swing right now.
• 47:20
  So wish you guys in both the best the spring. Thanks for having me on go Dawgs.