Kevin Claxton played football at the University of Wisconsin from 2007-2011, where he was a four-year letter winner as a standout linebacker on one of the top defensive units in the nation. During Kevin’s time at UW, the Badgers achieved back-to-back Big Ten titles and two Rose Bowl appearances. After his playing career, the Fort Lauderdale native entered the coaching profession, including stints at two of his alma maters, Boyd Anderson High School and the University of Wisconsin. In this SGG episode, we discuss: 1. The adults who impacted Kevin’s life: “Most of my positive influences have come through sports.” 2. Kevin’s uncle, an early influential coach in his life, “Every day he showed up. Never missed a day.” …and other coaches who devoted their time through coaching over the years. 3. “Where I’m from, playing sports is just part of life.” 4. Working through a challenging situation during his senior year of high school with the support of coaches and family. 5. Adjusting to college during his freshman year in Madison – including getting “lit up” in an early practice drill. 6. Learning the level of work and production at the college level. 7. Coaching the scout team – “sometimes you need to get their attention” – especially coming off a big win. 8. Following up with a player after a practice – wanting them to know that “it’s nothing personal when I yell.” 9. The relational bonds that form in position rooms: On video “you see guys at their highest of highs and at their lowest of lows…The guys are just really open and honest with each other. And that’s where those bonds are formed.” 10. Being vulnerable in front of and with peers. 11. “Culture shock” arriving at UW-Madison, where there are not as many African Americans as his home community. 12. Having “open dialogue” with teammates about being a black man on the UW campus. 13. “We had countless examples of guys coming in and working with the young guys..and just being mentors off the field.” 14. “Dan Ott, my learning specialist was great. He was always an open door. He would always make time. He was always there to talk. Or just to listen.” 15. “Not having had white teachers in my life before (college), it was difficult. It was kind of like, ‘why do I have to go talk to this person?’ And Dan was just great, just very consistent. Even when I came in with a bad day, he was just the same person. That was something that was huge for me. And that’s something that I try to emulate in my own life. Just being consistent, regardless of whether I’m having a good day or a bad day.” 16. How he got into coaching. 17. Getting to know the people on your team – not just as athletes, but as full people. 18. The special bonds of the 2019 Wisconsin football team, and how the “hero, hardship, highlight” sharings during the pre-season deepened their shared understanding and trust. “Everyone got a chance to see that guys weren’t afraid to share some of their darkest moments and some of their highlights and just be themselves in front of everybody…I felt like that exercise was one of the most powerful things we did all season.” 19. Highlights from his time in Madison: the relationships and memories and “Being able to travel and do things that I would not have been able to experience if I had not played football.” 20. The toughest aspects of his Wisconsin experience: injuries – including one particularly difficult challenge his freshman year. “Being injured and not being close to family, that was tough.” 21. What got him through difficult injury times. 22. Why he will continue pursuing coaching: “I genuinely love the game.” 23. Being an example to his eight younger brothers. “There are people who look like us who were deprived of education opportunities…It is a privilege for us to be able to do this…Having this education can impact your family for generations.”

Rachid Ibrahim was a standout student and football player at the University of Pittsburgh and, after earning his bachelor’s degree, at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a master’s degree. Rachid won awards and accolades as a running back, but even more, was an exemplar son, brother, friend, student, and teammate throughout his athletic career. Rachid continues to inspire others with his message of resilience and positivity. He joined the SGG podcast and we discussed: 1.  His father passed away when Rachid was five years old. His mother, an immigrant from West Africa, raised him and his brother on her own. “She saw that sports was something that would keep us out of trouble and keep us doing well in school.” 2.  Being spotted with a Senegal soccer jersey in the grocery store… and starting football that same week. 3.  Middle school coaches “saw potential in me that I didn’t even see in myself.” 4.  “She (his mom) got herself a bachelors and a master’s degree while raising us. Academics were always the first thing for us.” 5.  “She knew I was going to handle the football part. She was just concerned about the academics…When I had a chance to pursue a master’s degree, she was really excited. That was what she was most excited about when I came to Wisconsin…That was amazing to her. It was unbelievable to her…I had the opportunity to go to two great schools, Pitt and Wisconsin. Never in my life did I ever think I would be in Wisconsin.” 6.  Facing a torn achillees tendon “I remember crying when they told me my season was over…It was tough, mentally. But then my roommate James Connor got hurt and we kind of fed off each other. We were going to help each other…That’s what the college journey teaches you. Adversity and getting through it.” 7.  Supporting his teammate and friend in his battle against cancer. 8.  “Adversity is something that, if you attack it with a mindset, you can overcome it. With great people in your corner, you can overcome it.” 9.  His relationship with “Coach Chryst, Coach Rudolph, Coach Settle, they’re some of the best people out there. I’m real grateful for all of them. They brough me into the college football journey…I remember as a high school student, sitting in Coach Chryst’s office at the University of Pittsburgh and he offered me a full scholarship. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I’m forever grateful for him. He’s out there leading young men all over the country and giving them opportunities to get a college education and play football…Just having those relationships with those coaches meant a lot to me.” 10.   “The coaches always believed in me.” 11.   His opinions on student-athlete transfer policies. 12.   What Rachid meant when he said, “These guys don’t know how good they have it” a year after he finished his career. “The college football experience is something so unique that very few people get to experience…I was just thinking, ‘Wow, there will never be another time that it will feel like this. That you’ll get to do this again…Nothing will compare. Nothing will bring that feeling again… These are the best times of your life. Being with your brothers…Being a part of that brotherhood, I was just real appreciative that I got to be a part of that for five years at Pitt and Wisconsin…Understanding the blessing we had.” 13.  One of his favorite sayings: “Be where your feet are.” 14.   “I don’t feel like I was supposed to be here. But I am. It would be a shame if I didn’t maximize it.”

How can coaches and leaders make their ways through internal team challenges? In the third interview with Coach Alvarez for the football in Wisconsin series, he discusses challenges associated with keeping a staff hungry. Coach also comments on being the leader through difficult periods and indicators of which assistant coaches are ready for head coach positions.  1.  Assembling his first staff and quickly recognizing that some of his coaches were not going to be able to keep up. 2.  Advice he received from Lou Holtz: “”You work for the university. And if they’re (the assistant coaches) holding you back, they’re holding your program back. They (the university) put you in charge of that program and it’s your responsibility. If they can’t keep up, you’ve got to let them go.” 3.  Having a staff that stayed with them for a long time: they got too comfortable, too complacent. 4.  What are the signs of staff complacency? Recruiting corners being cut. 5.  “It’s easy when you’re winning to get too comfortable.” 6.  Nick Saban’s skill in keeping his staff hungry. 7.  “If you have one guy who starts getting lazy, then everybody else sees it and they start cutting corners.” 8.  Changing as a coach over the course of one’s career. 9.  “I think my interactions with the players were always the same.” 10.  Giving everyone in the program a questionnaire at the end of each season to get feedback on the program. 11.  Navigating close relationships on coaching staffs. Drawing clear boundaries. 12.  Showing strength in tough times. 13.  “Don’t take yourself too seriously. I don’t have a problem laughing at myself.” 14.  The importance of bringing in new coaches. “Don’t be afraid to lose coaches.” 15.  How did he identify promising head coach candidates? “I think there are some guys who just present themselves as head coaches.” 16.  Little signs that Coach Bielema was ready for the head job. 17.  Getting losses out of the system. “Go in Sunday and put the game to rest. Find the good and the bad.” 18.  Tommy Lasorda visiting with the team at Rose Bowls about believing you can win. And that, “you’re better prepared than the guy across the ball from you.” 19.  On his wife, Cindy: “We’ve been a team.” 20.  “There were times I was moping around the house and she’d say, ‘Where in the hell is this ‘deal with adversity’ speech that you give? How in the hell are you dealing with it?’...She’ll snap you right out of it!”

SGG supports the development of coaches who can "grow the good" throughout their schools and communities. Coach Alvarez visited with an SGG room full of coaches and aspiring coaches to describe the plan he implemented when he first took the head coaching job at Wisconsin. 1.  Before taking a new job as a coach, you better have a real clear idea of what is expected of you by the leaders who hired you. “Where is the program today, and how are you going to support me?” You have to know the lay of the land before you take a job. 2.  The importance of identifying and securing the players you need and winning over their coaches. “The best players in the state weren’t staying here.” “I knew I had to win over the state high school coaches… I told them, ‘your program is important…You can visit anytime.’” 3.  How off-the-field problems affect on-field performance. 4.  Develop a thorough plan on how you are going to run your program. 5.  Figure out the best recruits you can get at your school – those that are athletic, academic, and geographic fits. 6.  Before you take the job, establish a detailed list of coaches you will try to bring with you. Know what kind of staff you want and get the staff you need. 7.  You have to sell your plan to recruits and high school coaches – but also to your own new staff. 8.  You must communicate your plan to “every person who touches the program.” You must be clear and precise about what you expect of everyone. You have to implement the day-to-day expectations. “If you do things properly during the day, during the week, things will go well on Saturdays.” 9.  Develop a “staff policy book” that addresses every detail about what you want/expect regarding people’s behaviors and expectations, all the way down to the way you dress and the way you conduct meetings. 10.   Among your staff, develop a specific recruiting plan. “What are we selling? What does this place have to offer.” Deliver a coherent, cohesive message. 11.  Be very specific about the roles/expectations for each of the assistants – including their key role in supporting the academic side of their players’ lives. 12.  Be clear and consistent as a staff about the way feedback is offered to players. 13.  The three questions every coach needs to know of his players: “Can I trust you?” “Are you committed?” “Do you care?” 14.  Develop a player policy book: What do you expect from your players? The importance of the “weekly truth statements.” 15.  The importance of maintaining success by staying hungry and not making compromises.

Coach Alvarez served as defensive coordinator for Notre Dame's 1988 National Championship season. He discusses his perspective on that experience, including important foundations that were developed for his head coaching career. 1.  The first time he was contacted by Lou Holtz. 2.  Hiring his first defensive staff at Notre Dame. 3.  His working relationship with Coach Holtz. 4.  Why he continually used the word “physical” with his team leading up to the first game of the 1988 season. 5.  “Re-purposing” players who didn’t find success at other positions, including Chris Zorich (“washed up linebacker”), George Williams (“didn’t pass the eye test”), Jeff Alm (“a skinny drink of water”), Frank Stams (“a converted fullback”), Pat Terrell (“a washed up wide receiver”). 6.  “Victory doesn’t always go to the biggest, strongest, fastest man, but to the man who thinks he can.” 7.  “I always want my guys to think they have an edge…I find an edge every week. On Sundays, I’ll come up with some kind of a theme and some advantage that we have. And our coaches will use it all week.” 8.  Coach Holtz was “really good on Friday nights.” 9.  Using Thursday nights to build belief. 10.  Keeping teams from getting uptight before big games. 11.  “Pick up your step. The kids read the coaches. If the coaches are excited, the kids get excited.” 12.  What it means to “think like a shortstop.” 13.  Lou Holtz’s love of Notre Dame. And the importance of representing your school. 14.  Making Michigan State “play left-handed.” 15.  The famous Miami game. 16.  How he built rapport with his defensive unit. 17.  When to be tough on your team: after a big win. 18.  Keeping up morale after difficult losses. 19.  The importance of grading players in practice as an aid to communicating about their roles on the team. 20.  The most gratifying aspect of coaching: following up with players years later and hearing about the impacts 21.  The end of season USC game. 22.  Making the transition from D-Coordinator to head coach – and waiting for the right timing. 23.  The importance of building relationships with players. 24.  Truth statements. 25.  Joe Moore: “he was uncanny in how he taught.” 26.  Joe Moore: “pretend like you’re going to pick that tree up.” 27.  Joe Moore: “I don’t want to be a train.”

What are the daily and weekly rhythms of a football team? How are relationships developed? What roles do rituals play in team culture? These and other questions are considered in this first episode of a special series examining the game of football in Wisconsin. Using an embedded approach, Professor Miller, describes one week of action... and considers how this one week is tied to multiple layers of preparation across broad time and places. The special series lends close attention to to coaching -- from youth on through college levels. SGG aims to support the development of coaches who "grow the good" throughout Wisconsin and beyond.

Sydney Storey (formerly Sydney Smallbone) was an exceptional basketball player at South Bend St. Joseph’s High School and the University of Tennessee. She went on to coach at St. Joseph’s, where she led her team to another Indiana state basketball championship. Sydney, who later earned an executive MBA from Notre Dame and transitioned fully into the business world, joined the SGG podcast to reflect on her experiences playing for one of the all-time great coaches, Pat Summitt. We discussed:  1. The first time she saw Coach Summitt at a summer tournament: “When Pat walked in, I think the gym pretty much went silent…She really was a show stopper…I instantly wanted to play for her.”  2. How Coach Summitt carried herself, her charisma and demeanor.  3. Why Sydney and her teammates referred to Coach Summitt as “Pat.”  4. “She really took the time to get to know you individually…She wanted to know about our daily life and not just our life on the court.”  5. Where Coach Summitt held individual players.  6. Coach Summitt’s emphasis on communication, something you can always control: “A noisy gym is a winning gym.”  7. Coach Summitt’s excellence in teaching: “Her practices were long, intense, and intentional. Everything we did had a purpose.”  8. “We were held accountable on every drill. Everything mattered. Instant feedback was something we always got.”  9. How Coach Summitt communicated roles to players, many of whom were challenged to accept supporting roles after having been stars in high school: “We all got treated the same.”  10. “She always had a pulse on how you were doing and how you were handling any given situation…Everyone bought in.”  11. The time Coach Summitt made the team managers run sprints.  12. How Coach Summitt handled losses. “She was really good at judging where we needed to go to work.”  13. “It truly was her life… So when we lost, she took it on her shoulders really heavily.”  14. Coach Summitt’s limitations: “Because she cared so much, it was hard for her to dial that down.”  15. How Coach Summit addressed the team at halftime when they trailed Rutgers by 22 points at halftime: “We’re going to win this game.”  16. How she developed her own coaching identity, know what to draw from Coach Summitt and what was not reasonable to expect of high school players.  17. Her emphasis on developing her team’s “knowledge of the game” while coaching at the high school level.  18. Sharing coaching responsibilities with her assistant coaches.  19. Why she chose to not continue on the coaching path (for now).  20. Leaning on and learning from her athletic director, former Notre Dame volleyball coach Debbie Brown. “I confided in Deb Brown, as my mentor, every day before practice.  21. Her favorite memory of Coach Summitt: “I just remember her walking up to me, gave me a big hug, looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Thank you.’ And that was all she had to say…Those two words meant the world to me coming from Pat.”

Ty-Ron Douglas is an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Missouri. He is also actively engaged in his community – as a pastor, parent, entrepreneur, and leader. Dr. Ty, a native of Bermuda, was an accomplished athlete as a youngster who continues to see sports as vehicle for individual and community improvement. He is an inspirational leader, teacher and author whose work has been profiled at the highest levels. Dr. Ty joined the SGG podcast to discuss: 1.  Growing up playing soccer and cricket in Bermuda. 2.  Hitting a ceiling in sport. 3.  Lessons from his barber and mentor. “From him, I learned how to be a teacher.” 4.  The black barbershop as an educational space. 5.  “He saw me through the various stages of my journey. He literally gave me my first haircut. He saw me in boyhood. He saw me in my teenage years. And he was always there…For those of us who know of the transience of life, it is beautiful to have constants. He was a constant.” 6.  “From him I’ve learned how to have joy.” 7.  Finding joy in sports. 8.  Athletic spaces as “sanctuaries.” 9.  “Homophily”: finding commonality with others through sports. 10.  “I have a theory that our athletes are probably and perhaps the most underutilized educators in the world.” 11.  Border crossing – moving from space to space and building bridges. 12.  “Where we come from experiences how we see things and how we engage the world.” 13.  Thinking of “integration” instead of work-life balance. 14.  His “So Amazing Life” perspective that permeates all that he does. 15.  When things are broken, where do I go? 16.  “Broken crayons still color.” 17.  Where do you find your wholeness? 18.  “Our brokenness is a platform for our purpose.”

Rich Halverson is a professor and associate dean in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A native of Manitowoc, WI and former school principal, Professor Halverson is a scholar, author and international leader on technology, leadership, and learning. In this episode of the SGG podcast, he addressed a key question facing many coaches: How can I use technology to help members of my team learn and my team get better?  In our conversation, we discussed: 1.  His early interest and work in technology. 2.  Adapting technology to a pre-existing practice. 3.  A big problem: When technology developers don’t have a sense for the settings where practice occurs. 4.  William James: “People change their practice when they have a felt need.” 5.  Technologies must answer questions that people cannot answer on their own. 6.  “Human centered design.” If you’re trying to change people’s practices, you must understand those practices. 7.  “Old-school” coaches and leaders accepting and adapting to innovation and technology. 8.  “Sometimes you can measure things that you can’t see. Sometimes you can see things that you can’t measure. Good leadership is hybrid leadership.” 9.  Relationships still matter the most for learning and trust-building. But relationship-building creates closed networks. Combining relationship networks with technology can deepen and enrich networks and practice. 10.  How to better use video: The key is formative feedback. Specific, just-in-time feedback. As soon as possible! Video has the power of immediacy. 11.  The learning principles that can be found in TikTok videos. 12.  Technology does not replace work. 13.  “If I was a coach or a principal at a school, I would liberate the tools that are in kids’ pockets (phones)…The machinery is absolutely accessible.” 14.  Kids’ expertise with technology – and how we can better tap into it. 15.  “Our obstacles are social, not technological. The delivery mechanisms and the technologies are fully available to solve all these problems, but it’s our beliefs that hold us back.”

Sidney Moncrief was an NBA superstar with the Milwaukee Bucks, earning countless awards and accomplishments, including the ultimate honor of being selected into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Sidney’s successes are not limited to the court, as he’s also emerged as a leader in business, coaching, writing, and consulting. In our conversation in the SGG podcast, we discussed: 1.  What he learned from his high school coach, the legendary Oliver Elders: “He placed a very high emphasis on being a quality person. That superseded anything you did on the court… He made us realize that life was much more than just basketball.” 2.  “We knew he cared about us as people.” 3.  “Your impact lasts beyond those three or four years that you have with those players. It’s going to stay with them for a lifetime. If you instill just selfishness and you caring about being a winning coach without caring about them academically or as people, that’s what they’re going to spill out for the rest of their life. If you show them love, you show them compassion, you show them that accountability matters, that being a good teammate matters, being a good person matters, character matters, that’s what they’re going to show for the rest of their lives.” 4.  The critical time that Coach Eddie Sutton offered compliments to Sidney and his teammates – an occasion that built their confidence and spurred them on to the Final Four the next season. 5.  The importance of Coach Sutton’s assistant coaches giving him advice to instill confidence in his players… and Coach Sutton’s willingness to listen to them. 6.  What it felt like to get “called to the coach’s office.” 7.  “Greatness was not even part of our mindset. He interjected that greatness theory.” 8.  The importance of timing in coaches’ conversations with their teams. 9.  His wake-up call to the physicality of the NBA – and how Coach Don Nelson guided him to playing defense at the highest level. 10.  The thing that really makes you a great coach: Maintaining high expectations of players. 11.  “Players today need to know why they’re doing certain things.” 12.  The influence of his upbringing on his development as a tenacious competitor. 13.  The importance of having experienced players as models for younger ones to learn from. 14.  Discipline as an everyday part of life. 15.  His new book. 16.  Exercise, rest, rejuvenation, and personal care: “There’s only so much film you should be watching…The players don’t get the best you when you’re constantly watching film and are constantly stressed out.” 17.  Knowing and respecting the different motivations that players bring to the table. 18.  What he means by “tenacity” in his new book. “Pace, aggressiveness, focus, determination…” 19.  “Love what you do and do what you love…and change the world!”