S3 E19. Mindset Matters: A Conversation with 6X MIAA Champion and 4X COY Bryan Kelly, Part III.

In this episode of 'Get the Lax Scoop,' hosts Big Dawg and Jaybird dive deep into the world of lacrosse with Bryan Kelly, a six-time MIAA champion and four-time Coach of the Year from Calvert Hall High School. Coach Kelly discusses the importance of focusing on the process rather than the outcome and shares insights from his pivotal, life changing, 2012 season, when his team was ranked number one in the country. The podcast also stresses the significance of mental resilience, sportsmanship, and the principles outlined in Stephen Covey's 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.' Kelly advises parents on how to support their children better and critiques the current youth and club lacrosse culture, which is heavily influenced by social media and a preoccupation with rankings. The episode wraps up with entertaining coach impersonations and a discussion on nurturing young players' growth and development. A must-listen for players, parents, and coaches invested in the sport of lacrosse.

00:00 Introduction to Get the Lax Scoop

00:23 Meet the Hosts and Guest

01:02 Interview with Brian Kelly: Part 2

01:28 The 2012 Championship Game

02:08 Mindset and Process Focus

05:02 Challenges in Modern Lacrosse

15:43 Advice for Players and Parents

21:01 Listener Questions and Fun Stories

26:42 Conclusion and Sign-Off

NEW BOOK!
Inside the Recruiting Game: Insights From College Lacrosse Coaches
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Links to training videos:
Master The 5 Best Dodges From the Wing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_7LDOcQQ6Q&t=88s

Blazing Shots... on the Run!
https://youtu.be/XiptPlM63oQ

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Check out!... Coach Tintle's Lacrosse Barn:

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SuccessHotline with Dr. Rob Gilbert on Ironclad & Apple Podcasts

Brian Cain Daily Dominator on Apple Podcasts

Lacrosse Charities Mentioned in S2 E36:
https://www.4thefuturefoundation.org/

https://www.harlemlacrosse.org/

https://15forlife.org/

Transcript

0:00

It's time for Get the Lack Scoop, a podcast bringing you all the people and stuff you should know in the game of lacrosse. We take lack seriously, but ourselves, not so much. Join host Big Dog and Jaybird and the biggest names in the game brought to you by Jay McMahon lacrosse. That's JML skills, mindset, and lacks IQ training. Ron Doglish, the big dog, was a collegiate football and lacrosse player at Brown. He was also an assistant lacrosse coach and the executive director of the Sports Foundation. And Jay McMahon, the Jaybird, a three time All American midfielder at Brown. He was the captain of the U. S. Junior National Team and is the founder of JML. And Joining us in the studio, Steve Grisolfi, who's collegiate lacrosse career statistics equals one goal against Dartmouth brought to you by Jay McMahon lacrosse. That's JML skills, mindset, and lacks IQ training, helping the next generation of lacrosse players get to the next level Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. We're so glad you're joining us for this interview series with six time MIAA champion, and four time coach of the Year from Calvert Hall High School in Baltimore. The great Brian Kelly. If you have not heard part one of the series, we highly recommend you go back and check it out. As it was pure Podcast Gold. Now we will roll with the recording and you will find this interview picking up right where we left off last time. In 2012 was probably, we were number one ranked team in the country and we played Conestoga and they were four in the country and we were loaded. I had Ryan Brown I had Garrett, apple, apple, Evan Connell. Wow. Steven Kelly. Like I had five PLL guys on that team. Like we were loaded and we ended up, we were winning 10 to five going into the fourth. And they started pressuring us and, and, and, and, and, and created havoc. And they got it to ten seven. And prior to that I started working with a sports psychologist because of the year before we lost in the championship and we kind of faltered a little bit and didn't like how he did it. So I started working with a sports psychologist and and it, he really helped me to understand the pro, like a lot of things. And so, yeah. I, mindset minute, Ron, we do this little mindset thing. We talk about the mindset. Ended up, that's huge. Losing the game. Kind of soga ended up winning in overtime and Oh, man, it was that. Like I wasn't, I was, so after the, the next day of that game, I, we had practice and I didn't practice. I, I, I had him write down on a piece of paper three things they were thinking about when the comeback came because mm-hmm. My guy who mentored me the most was Dave Huntley, who was my assistant, and he was brutally honest. Okay. So like, I would go into the coach's room and he would tell me if I stunk as a coach or if I did a good job. He is like, we did a good job. It was, this one's on the kids. Mm-hmm. So, make a long story short, they all get their tallies. They bring it to me. We tally up the things, the number three thing that they were thinking about when the run was coming was mm-hmm. What will lacks power and all those things would say, what would they say? Oh my god, that's great. The, the number two thing was the rankings and what will all my friends say? Yeah. What do you think? This is great for that to come out, right? Yeah. What's number one? What do you think the number one, number one thing they were thinking about? Don't wanna lose that maybe you might be mad or ju you know, something external. What will my parents, my parents say, what will my parents think? Oh my God. Yeah. Right. What will my pa That was the number one thing. So there's a study and if you ask the study, if you could ask a kid to pick one person to watch them play, who do you think they would pick? You'd think would be their parents. It's their grandparents. It's because grandparents have no expectations of them. They don't have that. Yeah. They just enjoy the lot watching em play. Right. Well, I shared that information with Dr. Spencer and he to said, Brian, you're totally outcome focused. Yeah, your kids are all thinking about outcomes. And so that's when we started really tackling process and I was outcome focused because when I started thinking like, I gotta win this game in order to make the playoffs, I get anxious and I get all this stuff. But when I started realizing I just gotta coach each quarter, each second, each moment, right? And that loss transcended our program to be since 2012. It's been all about the process and it's all everyday thing. You have to continue to retrain these kids' mind to be process, process, process. So very cool. I think that's something that's really important. The next 200 feet there, there's some saying in that, like, think of yourself as like a car driving down the road in the pitch black. You know, you don't need to see, if you're driving cross country, you don't need to see 3000 miles across. You just need to see the next 20 or 200 feet in front of you kind of thing. So yeah, a hundred percent. That was very cool. A hundred percent. Excellent. Love it. Love it. Yeah. So, so Brian. I, there's so many things from what you just said that I want to ask, but I I, I feel like I want to ask you what's, because I know you're gonna, well, I, I, I'll, I'll tell you what I, I'm hoping you'll do is turn this into a positive, but so many of the things that just said make me think about the things that are wrong in the game today. Oh, yeah. You know what, what's your sense of what we need to do better as people who care about the game and care about kids? And, you know, when we see what's happening, you think about your youth experience and you see what's happening in youth, and you see what's happening in club and the way that impacts your ability to try to build the kind of culture you want to build on your team. Like, what, what do we just need to do better as steward of the game? I think there's a couple things in my opinion I think we live in a world of style over substance and it's the Instagram feed and it starts with our announcers and it starts with the people in some levels. Like they praise kids through shoot two for 20. And all you see is that one highlight. And you get kids that think that's what the game is, is the, you gotta break so much junk outta kids when they come to high school because they play club and they've lose that competitiveness because there's always another game. There's always another game. And it's not that thing. And they don't value the ball and they don't, and you have to break that and, you know, and I think we live in a, a world of like it's style over substance. And to me, I want it to be substance over style and like is, is the thing. And then I think we are so outcome focused as parents and as, as as club coaches. Like I'm coaching my son's 20. 30 team. He's a seventh grader, and teams are running a zone defense in seventh grade to win a game, or they're shutting a kid off in seventh grade to win a game, and they're running all these plays. And I sit there to these parents, I'm like, listen, I, we'll never, ever run a zone. I'll never shut a kid off to win a game.'cause we're gonna have to learn how to slide and recover. We're gonna have to learn how to do these things. Yep. And it's all about the process. You just gotta trust the process and the problem that you have in the game today. It's, it, it's so fear driven that these parents feel like, if I don't win, if I'm not at this event, if I'm not at that da, I gotta do this. We gotta do more. And they're like my kid and I'm like, no, you gotta do less. Less is more. Yeah. You know and they say, well, my kid loves it. I always say, well, my kid loves candy. I just don't let'em eat it every day. You know what I mean? It's like we have to protect ourselves from our kids, you know? And they get back injuries, they get overuse injuries, they have all these things. And, and then the other thing too is like sportsmanship is gone in the sport. Hmm. Like, it, it, it's, it's really bad and I blame the coaches and I blame the parents, like they tolerate it and it, it, it to me, you know, I have to remind myself it's not my job to police the other kids on the other team, you know, when they're disrespectful or things like that. And I think it's a real problem. And I think you see things like that and they're, they're the things that, that, that I think, you know, I'm going quick. That, that, that bother me about the game. And I just think, you know, I, it's funny, I had an exit interview with a ninth grader and I said, listen, you know, the recruiting starts the following year. And I go, what I want you to do this spring, this summer is go out and fail. I want you to fail as much as you possibly can because I want you to work on all the things that you're not good at that you have to improve on. I want you to go play left-handed. He's a right-hand attack man. Play left hand. It's okay. And he's on my club team. And my thing that I'm gonna say to this 2018, which is my son's team, is go out and fail today. Like Right. It's okay. Take a, take a chance. Right. Take a chance. Like work on your game. They can't work on their game.'cause they're always evaluated. They're always, and then they want to be ranked. Always gonna be perfect. Yeah. And there's like inside the crosses watching my, like these eighth graders and they're gonna get ranked so they all think about, that's crazy. About the outcomes and it's crazy. So my whole thought with them is like, go out and fail. That's what I want you to do. Right, right. I like it. Try something, take some chances. Challenge yourself. Right. Do something. Well, don't worry. I mean, you know. As a saint, it pains me to say that if I had a son and I was living down that area, I sure as hell want blame for Brian Kelly. Coach, thanks. It's it's clear why you're so successful, not just in the wins, but in developing young people who have the right approach and the right values. How about if we, how about if we transition to. J m l and let's do that. We'll get into a little bit of the mindset. We'll do a mindset minute here. Coach Kelly and my co-host, the big dog, make some great points there. But is there really a right way and a wrong way to go about things? I mean, I just wanna say, you know, whatever man, I mean, well, um, wrong. No hesitation. Absolutely positively, 100% guaranteed. Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about things. And when people think the way they do things doesn't matter, then they are part of the problem. Why? Because we live in a world of cause and effect. So everything matters. It really does. Young players out there and parents and coaches with players. Coach Kelly is telling us there is a quote, end quote, right way to do things and a not right way to do things for a reason. Coach Kelly is a six time MIAA champion and a four time coach of the year, and what he's getting at here is the right way, would be the principle way, which turns out to be the most productive way on so many levels. The not right way is counterproductive and is not based on principles, but is based on whatever feels good in the moment. Whatever is most convenient, or whatever will satisfy one's ego's most pressing need immediately without any regard for the others on the team. And we need to ask ourselves, what happens with these two approaches? Which one is more likely to tuck tail? The moment there is any difficulty, which one is going to be more stable? Which one will be able to ride out a storm? Which one will be most likely to break down versus the one that is most likely to endure? I think we all know the answer to that question. We want to base our actions on principles that may not always be convenient, but that are always self-evident in and of themselves, principles that we have talked about repeatedly on this podcast. And another good source of these principles would be to check out a great book, an oldie, but a goodie. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Some of those principles are to begin with the end in mind. So that would be to think about how you wanna evolve your game this summer. What skills do you wanna acquire to improve your overall effectiveness on the field? Another principle of the book is to be proactive. That means don't sit back and wait for practice to come around. Instead, work on the skills you're looking to master and try out this summer between practices and tournaments. And another principle from Covey's book is something we've heard from just about every coach we've had on this show, and that is sharpen the saw, also known as take care of yourself. That is your physical body. Instead of staying up all night playing video games online and eating bag after bag of talkies or Doritos, make sure you were taking time to get enough sleep every night, eat right every day, and give your body time to recover after workouts and after tournaments. In the end, it's all about focus. Where focus goes, energy flows. So what Coach Kelly is recommending to his club players is for them to put their focus on growth, on expansion, on making themselves a better, more effective player come next year. Because it is next year, that really matters, not what inside lacrosse thinks your ranking is in the eighth or ninth grade. The players that focus on being perfect in eighth or ninth grade are not going to stretch themselves. They are not going to use their offhand or attempt to do anything if it's not perfect. Basing your actions on principles such as being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, and sharpening the saw can have a huge impact on your production, not just this summer, but for next summer and every summer to follow. Staying within the guardrails of highly effective habits while having you leading the pack in no time. Now we will hear a word from our sponsor. Speaking of no guardrails that so many of our listeners describe the college lacrosse recruiting trail. So we've responded by putting excerpts of our 10 best interviews with legendary coaches, such as bill Tierney, Lars, Tiffany and Andy towers. Into a book on Kindle, and for those. Who would like a book in their hands? It is available on Amazon, under the title inside the recruiting game insights from college lacrosse coaches. Also we would like to mention the Harlem Lacrosse Boston Summer Camp for Boys and Girls will be offered again this summer and run by Brown Lacrosse alum and guest on our show, Sam Jackson. This camp is targeted for players who are with Harlem Lacrosse, but will be making that all important transition from middle school to high school. It is a critical time to help these young people feel connected to lacrosse and to their program players who continue with Harlem lacrosse into high school not only have nearly a hundred percent high school graduation rate, but also have a significantly higher chance of going to college compared to those who leave the program after middle school. Even a small donation can make a big difference. So with that, you will see the description of these items in the show notes. So it's really fun talking to you. Yeah. And we do, most of our listeners are either players who are gonna be on the club circuit coming up or their parents. Yeah. Those are great tips you just gave us for the players. Yeah. Now, what would you say to their parents as they're coming up to this, you know, they might be, obviously the big year is the year after your son's year. Yeah. But, but any year. What, what are some good guidelines? You're, you're obviously a great high school coach, played top D one lacrosse, and you've been coaching in this travel, circuit. What would you say, like, all right, parents, here, here, here's something that, that you can take home from this podcast and, and think about and maybe do things a little differently. Well, one as a parent, don't, your kid knows when he plays bad. So when you get in the car, he doesn't need to have a conversation about his performance. Mm-hmm. Right. So, you know, if my one recommendation to all parents is like, just say like, I love watching you play. You know, and if you want to critique him, critique him on his effort, not on anything else, but let him go home. Let him eat. Let him take a shower. And then if he comes down and he wants to talk about it, he probably will talk about it. And then that's when you can talk about it. But my biggest thing is don't, don't, don't, don't talk to him right after the game. They, they know. Mm-hmm. And they don't need that. The second thing I would say to parents is the whole La Cub world is, is rooted in fear. They are all gonna try to get you to say, I gotta do this event, you gotta do that event, and then you're gonna talk to someone else and they're gonna say, well, did you hear about this event? My son's doing that event. Your son's not doing that event. Why aren't your son doing that event? My son's going to do the circuit. My son's playing for the Red Hots. My son's playing for this club team and he is doing this national team. And, you know, like, look, my kids, they, we play three events. That's it. And then they might. Do a prospect day or like, they, they might, they're gonna do the na, my one son made the Nike team, and then next year when he's a sophomore, he's gonna do more things because he's gonna have to, could get recruited, but it's, he's only gonna do five. He's not gonna do 10. The more you do, the worse you look and the more you do the, the more picky the coaches get with your sons. So like, if you just do five events when you're in the recruiting, that that's plenty, like plenty. And that's great advice. Yeah. You know, so to me, sometimes less is more. And just manage your kids' minutes. And, and this just trust the process.'cause it, it, it, it all works out and they'll, they'll, they'll find you, you know? So just don't get caught up in, in the fear as ing of it and the fear aspect of it. And that's my biggest advice. That's great. Jay. It reminds me of Lars who we asked, you asked a similar question and mm-hmm. Brian to what you said, LAR said. Look, you have to remember if the one time I'm seeing you is the last game of the fourth weekend in a row that you've played and you're gassed, I'm not gonna know that. I'm just gonna see whatever that performance was on that day. And even if you tell me it's gonna be very hard for me to get that outta my head because that's what I saw with my own eyes, right? And so it just, it's, it's just like you have to think about the reality of what this is, and that you're not gonna know when that coach is gonna pick that field on that day. So you better be fresh if you're gonna be in those tournaments and you're gonna get evaluated. You better make sure that you're ready to play and you're ready to be at your best look. Our championship game, we played on a Tuesday McDonough, and then we played Friday. My number one job was to get my kids to recover. Right. Like I, I didn't have them practice hard. You know, we walked through game plan, we wanna recover these kids play three games a day at 90 degree heat on a Saturday, and then they have to play three more on another Saturday. You know, the thing, if I was ever running tournament, I would never have any consolation games anymore unless it's a recruiting event. Right. Like, let the kids go home, you know? Right. If we lose your out, like who wants to play for eighth place? You know, like Right. It's just like, let's, let's go. And personally, if I ran an event, I wouldn't even have it be a, a for a championship. Everyone gets four games and we'll try to seed it up and then it gives coaches freedom to play kids that, you know, you got kids playing club that don't play. Right. It's crazy. Like you're paying the money. Like, because these coaches are all about wanting to win. You know, I coach the championship game on a Friday and then I'm helping my son's team play on a. Saturday and we lost 15 to four. And you know, I, I'm watching like, like, it, it just, you know, it, it, IJ and like the team we played was phenomenal and so well coached, but at the end of the day it's like, you know, it's enough is enough. You know, like it just gets right. Gets a lot and, you know, so can, they could overdo it. Doubt. Yeah. It can be over known. Well, we usually have a roving reporter who could not make it tonight, but he's great for listener questions. And we do have a few to wrap things up. Good. If you have a minute. Yeah, I got'em. One, one was from an email from a coach Andy Towers, and the question was, who's the best camp lacrosse team you ever assembled and played with? And would it be that team from Cornell in 1985? Yes. Yeah. So you guys were on the same team? Yeah, we were. It was great. And it's so funny'cause that the final four, this y weekend I ran into our coach Coach de Mayo at Oh really? At the final four. So we were talking about it. Yeah. We had a, we were pretty legit. Yeah, it was great. That's hilarious. With legendary Peter code there. And, you know, remember Peter? Yeah. He, I think he had Hil Gartner on your team and Flug. He gave me a few of the guys. Yeah, we had some players. Yeah, it was good. We had a good team. It was fun. That was a great camp. Yeah. That's awesome. And then I had a question someone wrote in I think it was George G, he said, you're a defenseman now. Please explain to me why all of your sons play attack. That's a really good question. You know, they just, they just, they naturally went that way, you know, and honestly, I think I, I love coaching offense. I coach the offense at Calvert Hall, so it's Oh, you do? Nice. Yeah, I've always been, I didn't know that the offensive end since probably 17, you know? Gotcha. So may, but they were playing attack prior to that. I just let'em play whatever they wanted to play, you know, and that's where they all kind of navigated towards. Good stuff. And this last one, we'll, we may include it, but we don't have to. But there's a rumor that you're really excellent at striking a pose. For example, you have one of the best poses of an Olympic sprinter that's ever been seen. Can you describe to us and to our audience what that pose is all about? It's probably something that we won't put this on. Tell dog what that was though. I, if I can explain it. Jay, it seems like you really got Coach Kelly there. I dunno what the hell that's all about. And I think we'll probably have to stop recording to find out. But it took you, it took us an hour and a half, but Oh yeah, you got Coach Kelly. A little nervous. Now he's unflappable. Except when you bring up the sprinter. Yeah, he's, he's unflappable. But you finally broke him down. Jay, just say I was really fast. No. Oh my God. It was hilarious. You'd have to, you, you'd have to take the recording off to be honest with you. Right. Let's take that off. We can take it off. Alright. Yeah. Now, now. Coach Kelly, we're gonna end this way. We're gonna do a coach impersonation off because my favorite coach impersonation to do is Coach Coddle. And I'd like to hear your coach Coddle. And then I'm gonna do my coach coddle and we'll let Jay judge this. Okay? Yeah,'cause I just, I think Coach Coddles sort of a caricature of himself and I, and I'd love to hear your coach Coddle. I, I can do shrives, Bobby do really well. God coddle, that would be tough for me. Really. Well mix it up. You could do Shriver then, if that's, if that's just you want me to do, I can do Shrives. Alright. Do you know Shrives? Oh yeah. All right. Alright, so I'll dohr. So, background story, Kevin Hunt was my player, and I was going in the to the officials before the game. Like everybody would just try to pound this kid. And I'm, I'm meeting with the officials and I'll do my Shriver invitation at the meeting. He, you know, when you meet with the officials before the game, usually the other coach stands off, but Shrives is listening the whole thing. And I said to the officials, like, you know, Kevin Huntley gets beat up. They're gonna come after him. Like just, you know, really just, if you can call it like, and then tribe's comes walking. He is like, bk, wait a second. Bk, I mean, it Hunts initiates the contact. I mean, he can't, he can't call that. I mean, come on, bk. And so that's my SHS invitation. That's what Taman do. They just, you know, running into people and then I'm like. Who, wait, what Attack man doesn't initiate the contractor or going the goal. He's like, well, mean, come on bk, lemme stop you let me interrupt you. That's great. Or lemme hear call limitations. Yeah. So this is my, oh, that's gonna be tough to beat. That was, that was, that was very strong. So I got to coach with Coach Breschi at Brown for a couple years. Okay. And, and I, we, we would always, you know, we had our way with with Coach Coddle at Brown for a, for a few years there. And so every time before the game, the little conversation, you know, during the pregame warm up, Hey, hi Ronnie, how you doing? I mean, I'll tell you, you guys are just a hell of a ball club. I mean, you know, and you always got a little something for us. Got a little wrinkle. You always got a little wrinkle for us. Well coach, but not this year. We're, no, I You always think like this was the year they were gonna beat us, right? Yeah. And I'd say, well coach, how, you know, you guys seem to be really coming together and playing well. Well, I don't know Ronnie. I think we're still trying to find ourselves, you know, I mean we're, I mean, we'll we're giving it the college try Ronnie, but I don't know why it's gonna be a tough one today for us. I mean, you guys are really strong. I think you, I think you got me. I think you got me. I think that's better. And he's just like, buttering it up.'cause you talked to the guys Oh my god. After the game and Oh, are so full of shit. Right. We never thought in million years we would lose you guys and Coach Co. Never did either. No. Oh God. That's hilarious. It's so, so true. Good. Well Coach, it was awesome to talk to you and thanks for giving us all this time. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Absolutely. It was great. It was, it was great. Really appreciate it. It really was on many levels. So friends, what a, what a tremendous job coach Kelly has done. Wrapping up. Jay, the 2025 college lacrosse season and another tremendous season of Get Let Scoop absolutely. And couldn't have thought of a better way to, to polish things off. So thanks a million, Brian. Thank you. And we will, we'll sign off from there. Until we meet again. Here's to hoping you find the twine. We're signing off here at the get the lax scoop. Thanks again so much. We will see you the next time.