Podcast - Ep

Coach John Powell is interviewed on MacePod episode 1. He discusses his recent coaching success, including leading the Nighthawks to a historic season and winning championships with the Laredo Heat. Powell emphasizes the importance of the relationships he formed with his teams and the support he received from his coaching and support staff. He also talks about the role of positive reinforcement in building players' confidence. Powell acknowledges the challenges faced by college athletes and the need for coaches to be aware of their mental health. He believes that a positive coach-player relationship is crucial for addressing mental health and facilitating open communication. Okay, welcome to MacePod episode 1. Today I have my favorite coach of all time, Coach John Powell. Welcome to the pod. I'm just going to read out a quick introduction, some of your accolades over the past couple of years. So Coach JP led the Nighthawks, Northwest Nazarene University, to the best season in program history in 2022, going 15-4-3 overall record, 9-2 in the GNAC play, earning the GNAC play regular season championship and winning three NCAA tournament games to make it all the way to the NCAA Super Region Final Four Elite Eight. NNU earned a program record 9 all GNAC honors, including Powell as coach of the year. Four different players received all region honors, including consensus first team. Powell has a combined 18-24-6 record with Laredo Heat, including 10-2-3 record in 2022 as Laredo Heat won the regular season and postseason titles in Lone Star Conference and advanced into the regional semifinals. After hearing this intro, how does that make you feel looking back at your recent history? I mean a lot of emotions come into play when you read it, pride, a big sense of pride, and then I'm obviously always pulled to the amount of people that I had. When you read that and you read John Powell did this, it sounds great and it'd be easy to be like just pat yourself on the back, but the reality of it is with NNU and with Laredo Heat, I was surrounded by so many good people and the relationships that I formed in that year alone and some of them were existing were the big reason to our success. So a lot of pride, I definitely like hearing you read it and I hope we can add to that list in the future, but you got to remember too that I had two very special teams, two phenomenal coaching staffs, and obviously behind the scenes you don't see, but my support staff at home, my wife who all those games, most of them I'm not at home, and she's taking care of the kids, she's taking care of the house, she's working herself, still supporting me, sending me the messages that we all need, that encouragement. That's really great to hear, so you had two incredible seasons in the summer season and the college season within the space of six months, two completely different states, two completely different coaching staff, completely different players of boys as well. How does a coach replicate two winning seasons back-to-back within a space of six months period? I mean, recruiting would be where I would start, like if you don't have the pieces then you don't have the pieces, and I was very fortunate at both NNU and Laredo to have very talented teams, but I think culture is something that was consistent between the two. And I was very clear, and now I've come good on what I said so I can share it, but I told the boys at NNU I was going to go to Laredo, I was going to win a championship, and I was going to come back and we were going to do the same thing. Manifestations. Yeah, and I remember when I got back some of the seniors were like, well, let's get to work on ours, and so that's definitely part of it. Yeah, I can imagine. One of the things that I love about you most as a coach is that you're always speaking positively to your players. Do you feel that allows your players to be more confident? I hope so. I don't think I ever provide fake confidence or fake praise, but I think just growing up in the youth system in the States, I played for mostly volunteer coaches, and they're great people, great human beings, but they didn't have a coaching background, and I remember very vividly some of them would say the confidence has got to come from within, and while I completely agree with that, to some degree I always felt like on that issue it would feel a lot better if I knew you trusted me, if I knew you had belief in me as well. I think definitely as a player, I think, yeah, confidence does come from within. I think it definitely does, but massively helps when I'm being supported by a coach. Massively helps, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you're blowing smoke at the person and trying to make them feel better than they actually are, but it's just constant small affirmations like, okay, you're doing well, you're doing well, we've got this and stuff like that. I think it gives players a world of confidence. I think so too, and I think that's the job, especially in college or even in the summer league where you're picking your team, at some point if you're just going to criticize and berate them, well, at some point why don't we have to reflect internally to, well, we've selected them, so if we're just going to focus on the imperfections rather than focus on what they're doing well, it kind of seems like, then why did you bring them there? No, I agree. I mean, just to give some sort of context to people who don't understand the American system when it comes to summer league football, you have one week, one week of pre-season. I mean, our first season together we had three days, three days of pre-season and straight into the conference, into the league games. I mean, you have such a small turnaround to try and give these confidence to these players and to get some sort of results out of that straight away, I mean, my hat is off to you completely for how, to be able to replicate something like that so quickly. Yeah, I appreciate it. No, of course. As a coach from the U.S. who coaches at the college level as well, how aware do you feel about your own players' mental health? I mean, I feel like I've always been aware to some degree, but I think recently there's been a big push and I'm sure as a, you know, NCAA standout player yourself, like I know you know this, but there's been a massive push in the NCAA for resources to be given to universities to discuss things like mental health. I would say it's probably the thing at the very top right now. So I believe everyone's aware of it. I'm aware because I see it every day to some degree. And then also it's reinforced by the NCAA or other organizations saying like, this is a thing right now in this country and in the world, let's talk about it and let's be more equipped to help the athletes. Yeah, yeah. And try and take some pressure off of that, off of those players. I mean, I've played in, and luckily I never got to play for you at the college level, which I would have loved to have done so. But I mean, with college level, you have all these kids have a complete, like they don't just have the focus of just football and soccer and they have classes, they have all these other things that can affect your own mental health and the stresses of, I mean, a lot of these kids are, yes, they're trying to play professional in some areas, but a lot of kids are trying to think about their futures and stuff like that. And not only is for some players that may not feel that they're not going to go to the extra level where they start to lose a little bit of love for the game, then they have to consistently kind of go through these like seasons and days and constant kind of slug days when they feel like they're not getting anywhere with in the, in the, in the soccer world. And now they're putting pressure on themselves for, okay, what's my next step for the life and what do I need to do? All that sort of stuff as well. Well, you know, I mean, there's, you'd be naive to just think that the day is the two hour training block that you have in any sport, not just football, but like, we know that our players are student athletes and it's a cliche thing, right? But the student part comes first. So like you have the stress of just being a student at no matter how good your high school is, when you come to college, it's different. I wouldn't say it's always necessarily harder, but it should be more demanding and it should challenge them in ways that haven't been challenged before. And so then those stresses, now you're not even talking about personal life and tragedies that come upon people and you know, the whole walk a mile in one shoot, like you don't know, you don't know what they're going through. Never. Okay. And as a coach, do you feel like your relationship with your players can affect their mental health? Absolutely. I always say, I don't, I would never on television, on a podcast, writing it down if I ever write a book, which Paul, you don't want to read that because it would be all over the place. I always say like the relationship component is the key because to just coaching in general, that's my belief, but a positive relationship with their coach should positively influence their mental health. And now it's not a catch all and fix all by any means, but the constant interactions that we get to have as coaches open the door for the conversations that maybe need to have. And if a coach is out of touch and doesn't have that relationship, maybe he or she misses a sign that a player of his or hers needs help or needs to be directed to someone. Yeah. No, I completely agree. Okay. So like pretty much takes me on to what I was about to say next. Another thing about your coaching style is I love how approachable you are as a person and as a coach. So like, I mean, my own personal story with you, I mean, we've, we had these conversations before where I may have not been cutting it and you, your door was always open. I was able to knock on the door, ask you what I needed to do better and how I could affect my own personal performance. How important do you feel like it is to build relationships to a point where a player can come find a new? I mean, I stand by it and like, I'll believe it until someone proves me wrong. To be very honest, it's everything. Because if we don't have that relationship as a coach, a player, how real are the conversations? How are they just surface level? Because a lot of things can't be fixed at the surface level, if you know what I'm saying. You have to dig a little bit deeper. And so if we don't have that relationship, I don't think we have, I don't think we're equipped to even dig into anything more serious. Yeah, no, I completely agree as well. And even though it is your birthday today, you are a year older today. Do you feel as being a young coach that it has benefited you in being more relatable to the players of this generation? I think so. Even though I feel old, I always joke. My wife, when I got my first head coaching job, what I wanted was a recliner. Okay, we didn't get it. I had to settle for a television, which I'm very happy with. But I just I'm like, I like to just relax and chill. I don't I don't like going out late and all that. But I think being being a younger coach does allow me to relate. And it's tough in the coaching world where a lot of times you don't get the jobs like I felt like early on, I was passed up because you don't have that experience component on the resume. And that's the whole age old question is like, you want me to have more experience, but you don't want to take a chance on me. And so I think now I've kind of leveraged it into a strength of mine. No, definitely. I want to be relatable. Yeah, I think you get from my my own personal experience of just working with you. You have you working with soccer players who have the biggest egos in in the whole world, I would imagine. So for you to be able to, like we've already said before, manage all these personalities into a winning winning teams, it's an incredible work that you do do. Being a relatable coach means understanding what a player needs. After playing for you for two seasons, I can definitely vouch how much you tap into us as players. Yeah. Constantly asking how the body feels preaching to us about nutrition and sleep and habits. How important do you feel the psychological aspect of the game is? It's massive. This is why I'm hoping you ask. There's obviously multiple components in the physical part, but there's like the psychology of it all is, is everything as we talked on confidence already. But I think you you tap into a side that a lot of people, coaches, maybe players are fearful to speak about. And that probably should be like a red flag. Like if we're scared to talk about where I am in my own head, then I think it could lead doesn't always it's not like a red, you know, panic button, but it could lead to scary places and scary places. It seems dramatic again, but it could just be the insecurities and then the insecurities lead to poor decisions. The poor decisions start eroding good habits that you've maybe created and all that. It's like fear based and I think it's, it's massively important. That's why I'm a big fan of what you're doing. I really appreciate that. Um, yeah, I mean, you've spoken, uh, I mean, I feel when I usually ask people about the psychological part of, um, sports that a lot of people tend to see the psychological standpoint as something that can be perceived in kind of a negative way. I'm not necessarily saying that you, um, have, have just done that, but when I'm talking about psychological things, the reason why I asked you onto this podcast, you have given many people confidence, you've given people second chances, you've given these things like this. When I'm talking about a psychological standpoint, I'm also wanting to touch on how important it is to think positively to make sure that even though we have these bad days, bad games, bad training sessions, that we, how mentally tough the player needs to be to just brush it off. I mean, this season alone, we've had games where emotions get too high and it takes even myself who's sitting here preaching all of these psychological, uh, days and things and, uh, for you to kind of be, uh, more mentally tough. I mean, I have to do the same. I'm still, I'm not perfect. I have to, uh, control my own emotions in certain aspects and things like that. And I also don't want people to start to think that the, you have to be psychologically tough and you can't let any show any weakness and stuff like that. So I, I, I think that when we're talking about this stuff, yes. Okay. We need to be mentally strong. Yes. We have to brush off bad days and stuff like that. But with the support of coaches and good coaching staff, you can help someone be mentally tough without just having to tell them to get over it, constantly get over it. Right. Like we can't, we can't be mentally tough 24 hours out of every single day for a week, for a month, for a year. Like for example, personally, but like my wife and I had an extremely difficult day yesterday. Okay. So it's just her mental state, my mental state. Right. And it's obviously wake up in it and we're all better. We've helped each other through communication. I think that's obviously a big piece of it, but it's, it's, you'd be so naive to think that, yeah, I'm just, I'm always tough just like the off days in anyone's training regimen. There's no, very few people are training seven days a week at a load of a hundred percent training load because you, at some point you will catch up to you. And so there's, there's a lot of, I mean, I do think it's a good time to probably bring up in 2022 since, since Jordan already mentioned it. I already knew we had won the, I woke up and knew we'd won the final because we went on a team walk and Jordan came over to me and said, we've won today. And I was like, okay, hey bud, like I'm the coach saying like, let's not, let's not be overconfident. And it wasn't, there wasn't an arrogance to his, to his statement. It was basically manifested it. I've seen champions already four or five times today. I saw it on my phone, on my alarm. I saw it as I was driving and I took that with me. And that's the reason why in my apartment right now in Laredo, I have my championship t-shirt hung up on my, on my door that leads to my balcony, my championship rings on my nightstand. So every night when I go to bed, I see it every morning when I wake up. So on those hard days, it's kind of just a little trick I've had to, to see it. And you know, even as a coach, you feel low or you feel not good enough to get what the result, what you want, what everyone around you wants, the organization wants, the players all want. And so it's just a little reminder that like, Hey, you are good enough and you can still do it. Just what has worked for you. It's not habits. No, I completely agree. I think having those constant reminders of your achievements that's already happened is enough for you to prove that you can pick yourself up and do it again and again and again from any position. Yeah, I agree. And also I can, you touched on your support, um, that your support groups are, I mean, every person needs that. Every person needs some sort of safe support, whether that be in family, wife, girlfriends, teammates, that like we said, you can't be mentally tough 365 days of the year. You have to fall upon some people. And that's where the stigma of mental health has arised because, I mean, the message now every day is to share your thoughts and to be speaking to people about your problems. Um, and I think that's massive in this, in this industry because there's many factors to why you don't necessarily perform at your a hundred percent every single time. Yeah. I mean, we're not robots, right? And so I think to your point, I think sometimes the mental health stigma becomes negative and I think it's a double edged sword. I think when you, when you, whenever you talk about something so much in the media or in the, you know, paper, nothing's on paper anymore, but you know, online, whenever it keeps coming, it almost does it. There's an argument that it plants the seed in someone's head and like, I don't choose to go that route. I just think about the communication piece. Like I think it opens the door for, to have those conversations, but then through that, hopefully we can now attack it each individually, but also like, I mean, yeah, as a country, as you know, like globally, can we, can we have conversations? Can we help? Cause that is a big thing in college. I've seen. There's not a lot of the young student athletes coming in that know how to communicate with a coach. Now it's, that's two sided coaches need to know how to communicate with the newer age student athlete or whatever we're calling them now. But I do believe the ability to have a conversation is massive. And then from there, can you develop these good habits that we keep referencing and talking about? But, but you're, you're one that knows, but I mean, yeah, completely. How important would you say that it is to have a sports psychologist within a club and a team? I mean, I think it's beyond important for a lot of reasons. I think the easy answer as a coach is I want to win games and it helps you win games. I think, but deeper than that, like the really good coaches and there are so many out there, they want what's best for their, their athletes after they're done working with them. And I think when you add that component, that extra resource for them, it's, it's a massive advantage and it helps them better themselves. And you know, maybe I'm a little old school, but like, I really do want to make sure that when I'm done working with my athletes, they go on to be the best version of themselves and in all areas, not just like, I know I'm coaching guys that are going to be professional footballers and that's awesome. But also there's going to be a time when the professional football stops and if they continue on in the field and coach, great, that would be the biggest sense of pride probably. But even just to be, you know, the head or the co-head of a family, to be fathers, obviously I only work with men right now, but like, you know, however that goes, just be the best version of themselves in all areas of their life. And it's, that's so, that's so tough that you can't do that without teachers, without coaches, without proper communicators. Support groups and stuff like that as well. Support groups. It's everything. I completely agree. My last and final question that I'm going to ask everybody on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What would you tell your 16-year-old self if you was able to? Remember, that's 20 years ago. Honestly, I think it kind of ties in a little bit, but I just vividly remember having a problem in that age, 16, so whenever they say you're an adult, you know, 16 to 20, in that range, I lacked confidence really, really badly, and it wasn't until I was given a note from my mom, and it was a really good quote that I know I'll butcher, so I'll just leave it at, basically it says, like, besides hard work, determination, and grit, confidence is the key to all locks. And so I would just say, there's a lot of, there's a lot of external factors that affect one's confidence, and so many of those are not controllable. So my advice to myself would be to block out the things I had no control over that were affecting my self-confidence, and then just, like, cling to my strengths, cling to what I knew I was good at, and, like, let that motivate me to improve the areas that I was deficient. Amazing. Thank you so much. Of course. I really appreciate it. Anytime. Yeah. All good?