LSU Associate Head Coach Bob Starkey ON: Coaching Shaq & Angel Reese, Growth of Women's Basketball, Learning From Bill Belichick & Nick Saban, Finding Your Passion & Embracing Failure

Welcome back to The Victory Degree Podcast! There are plenty of podcasts out there and so I thank you for choosing The Victory Degree today - the podcast where my mission is to interview the most influential people in sports both on and off the field. 

Today’s guest is Coach Bob Starkey. Coach Starkey has more than 30 years of SEC coaching experience including stints with both LSU Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams from 1989-2011. During this time, he coached LSU greats like Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles, Temeka Jonson, and Shaq. All in all, Coach Starkey has had a decorated career, having been a part of 790 collegiate victories, 24 NCAA Tournaments, eight trips to the Elite Eight and five straight trips to the Women’s Final Four (2004-08). He is currently the associate head coach on the LSU Women’s Basketball team, under head coach Kim Mulkey and was largely responsible for implementing defensive principles that ultimately helped LSU win the national title in 2023. 

In this interview, Coach Starkey reveals his journey to coaching, how to push through adversity, what he’s learned from studying coaches like Bill Belichick and Nick Saban, the growth of women’s basketball, experience coaching Angel Reese and Shaq, how athletes should approach social media, and much more. 

As always, I sincerely hope you enjoy this episode. And if you do, please consider leaving a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find this episode. It helps the show more than you know. With that, let’s get to the episode…

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Intro

(02:19) Coach Starkey's Journey to Coaching

(05:54) Differences Between Men's and Women's Basketball

(09:12) How To Fight Through Adversity & Focus on the Process

(17:40) Staying in the Moment & Kobe

(21:31) What Makes for Good Team Culture?

(25:39) The Downstream Effects of Poor Leadership

(26:48) Learning From Bill Belichick & Nick Saban

(29:39) Failure

(32:53) Angel Reese

(37:38) Social Media

(40:46) Growth of Women's Basketball

(45:52) Shaq

(53:05) Coach Starkey: Hall of Fame Coach

(55:08) Work Ethic

(59:40) Finding Your Passion

(01:08:28) What Coach Starkey is Most Proud Of

(01:09:59) Online Blog

(01:21:50) How Basketball Has Changed?

(01:29:29) Phil Jackson

(01:35:36) Life Advice

Connect with Coach Starkey: 

Twitter: https://x.com/CoachBobStarkey

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hoopcoachbobstarkey/

Hoop Thoughts Blog: https://hoopthoughts.blogspot.com/

Connect with Nik: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikatanackovic/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nik_Atanackovic