John Boruk: Hello again and welcome into Raising a Champion. I'm your host, John Boruk. Before we get started and I introduce today's guest I want to tell you, if you haven't done it already, please subscribe to us wherever you. To podcasts. If it's on Apple, if it's on Google, Spotify iHeartRadio, you name it. Yeah, please give us a subscribe, a subscription, and follow us there, and then you will be notified when we have new episodes like we have today.

Our guest today is one of the more successful women's basketball coaches in division two. In fact, she is Westchester University's old. Winningest basketball coach with a record of 447 wins and 310 losses. In fact, you may have a few more than that, I'm not quite sure. During that time, she's led the the Lady Rams to the NCAA tournament four times, winning 20 games in a season on seven separate occasions and most recently inducted into the [00:01:00] Westchester University Hall of Fame in 2019. 

Deirdre Kane, welcome to the show. Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Retired in 2014 after 27 years. Do you miss it?

Deirdre Kane: I really don't. I loved it. It was a great way to make a living, but coaching is all encompassing and such a big emotional investment that it's nice to invest my emotions at other places now.

John Boruk:  So when you hear that coaches, and we were talking o off air about Jay Wright at Villanova, when we talk about coaches who suddenly retire, you're thinking even at the top of their game, what we don't really take into consideration, the 365 days that goes into it.

The recruiting call it keeping thing keeping up with the recruitment process, watching film, kids. 

Deirdre Kane: It never stops. It never stops. And the older you get the losses sting a little harder. [00:02:00] And the wins don't seem to be as satisfying. They're satisfying in the moment, but it doesn't last that long. You're always thinking about the next competition. 

John Boruk: You started coaching in 1983. This was well before, we had social media and probably cable television. Everything was probably a little in terms of even watching game film was probably a challenge back then. But when you think to your tenure, and from the time you started to the time that you were trying 2014, how much did you have to change in terms of connecting with players, in terms of communicating with parents, administration? How much did you have to evolve as a coach?  

Deirdre Kane: That was a loaded question. That was, Yes, . Let's go with relating to players. I actually started coaching in 1976 on the high school level. My first college job was in 1981, [00:03:00] but then I was like their big sister. So it was a complete different relationship and actually not too much older than they were.

And it was a whole different rapport, but it was one that I embraced and one that they embraced. Then it became like I was like their mother and that was also one that was easy for me because, I was somebody's mother and somebody there contemporary. In fact, Sean went to Westchester while I was coaching there and.

It became like I was their grandmother, so it was definitely a different type of relationship I had with them. But as long as you keep it honest, kids are okay with that. As long as you keep it real and you don't try to act like you're their peer, it's gonna be okay. 

John Boruk: Was it easier to do that in the beginning because you could probably relate to them a little bit more?

From a personal standpoint being closer in age, or did that become easier as you got older? 

Deirdre Kane: It became easier as I got older. Okay. Ironically, because when I was young, I was 21 when I started coaching on the high school [00:04:00] level. I had players 17 and 18. I so did not want them to think of me as their peer.

You so had to set yourself above to try and earn their respect. That was harder for me because, I'm a. Down to earth natural clown around type person and wanted to do that. And I really didn't do that as much until age started to separate us and I felt more comfortable. 

John Boruk: It's interesting saying that you had to earn their respect as opposed to them earning your respect.  

Deirdre Kane:  I think it's a two-way street. Yeah. Especially when you're a young coach. I was a head field hockey coach and I had never had any coaching experience at all. Outta. It was a jump for me, but then by the time I retired it was a grandmotherly relationship. I was coaching players that I had coached their mothers and it was easier for me then just to be who I was.

I was already cemented in at Westchester. I was cemented in their opinions, cuz [00:05:00] gosh, she coached my mom, yeah. So it was just easier then? Just easier, yeah. As far as rapport with the kids

John Boruk: As you as you got to see kids and girls obviously developing from the high, going from the high school game to college did you notice that we were getting away from or maybe were we getting away from the fundamental aspect or you were having to reconnect some of that, retrain some of that work on some of the things that probably should have been.

Deirdre Kane: Again, that might be something more on the men's side. What I noticed most with the women was the exponential increase in athleticism. Yes. And skill level. From the time that I played in the seventies to when I retired in 2014, what an explosive growth there was in women's basketball.

But you're right. Fundamentals. [00:06:00] I think all good coaches. Practice fundamentals every day. I don't think you can ever, cuz some of the talented players have gotten away with bad habits their whole life. So to take to the next level, you gotta go back and tear it apart and get down to fundamentals. We did fundamentals every single day.

John Boruk: So what differentiated you from  other division to coach because talked about off the top of the show, the success that you had. So what differential, what did you implement into your, into your coaching into your discipline, into your motivation? That maybe gave you an edge over, over some other programs, some other coaches?  

Deirdre Kane: I don't think I pretended to be something that I wasn't. I let them see, I wore my emotions on my sleeve and let them see that. Even to the point, much to the chagrin of my bosses over the years, like I had no problem crying in front of them. I'm a crier. I cry when I'm happy.

I cry when I'm angry. I cry when I'm sad. So there were a lot of tears, [00:07:00] even tears at halftime. However, they weren't allowed to show those tears while the game's going on and they're on the floor. They had to be in control of those emotions. That was an advantage I had, but I think I think discipline was I think not being afraid to discipline, it was just something that came naturally to me and I think a family at.

Yes, you can discipline kids and you can expect a lot from them, but you have to be willing to give a lot. I don't think I ever expected anything from my players that I wouldn't give them myself, and I feel like they knew that, and I feel like they still know that today. I've been retired eight years and the amount that I hear from players and that we network and we do.

And we've raised money for teammates that are in need or anything. It's amazing. It's a family atmosphere that makes you wanna excel, that makes you want to perform, that makes you want to be part of something greater than just yourself. 

John Boruk: I [00:08:00] know coaches always want to impart wisdom and impart structure and That these student athletes take with them no matter where they go. And you like to hear those. I'm sure that you just it, it warms your heart when you hear those stories

Deirdre Kane: Absolutely. And we tried to do things like, for example, I made them West Chester. Besides being a good athletic school is a very good school. For the performing arts. We went to plays, we went to ballet, and these kids were like, What?

And I'm like, No, we need to do this. Not only are we gonna support other students, but you need to have more about you than just knowledge of the athletic realm. So we always did something extra. We always did volunteer and service even before it became vogue to do and I think the buzzword today is culture.

I think that we created a culture there and I was on a great campus that had so many different parts and they welcomed us into all of those, whether it was service [00:09:00] learning performing arts, all the things I said that we just did. So they were always doing something. We even. Unlike programs, big time programs can go to Europe.

It's funded every four years. They can go. We raised the money because I wanted these kids to have a European experience. So every four years we were going on a European trip and we had to raise every penny of that.

John Boruk: Yeah. But I think I want to go back to something you just said. In the sense that develop some culture and this is something that you can cultivate at a very early age.

And I think as parents, especially those serious parents are getting away from that, taking your kid to a museum, taking your kid to a play or getting them involved in, in, in a school play or something that's not just sports, sports all the time. Something that helps. I don't know grow mentally, culturally 

Deirdre Kane: Because I appreciate other aspects and other people and appreciate diversity.

I'm doing [00:10:00] right that now with a grandson who is into sports. But every Christmas we try to take him to a cultural event, whether it's a play or a music event just to make sure that he sees there's other things in the world. Yeah. 

John Boruk: Have him volunteer. Yeah. Yes, there's food kitchen.

There's things that they can do so that they have a much better realm of what's out there. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. It's, it, the recruiting process is also different now. And if you're a successful high school player in today's game and you think that you have a good shot at playing at Westchester or even one of the, the big seven schools here in the city of Philadelphia, if you have a good shot at playing collegially, how much of that is on the coaches to kinda get the player recruited, and how much should that be left to the parents?

Deirdre Kane: That has really evolved since I first started coaching along with technology. And they evolved side by side. Before, [00:11:00] yeah, I used to read the papers, all the local papers, the inquire the carrier posts, the daily local, and see who were the good kids who was scoring. Thank God they started covering women so that I could actually see.

But and then everything became on the computer. Personally for me, it's, I'm one of. Most techno savvy of all of my senior friends now, because I had to stay up with all of that until I retired. But now I think the parents are more involved in the coaching aspect than the high school coach ever was in the recruiting process and, I'm sorry?

Yes. Yeah. In the recruiting process. Yeah. They're. People come up to them and say, Hey, I can make this video. And now you don't even need a hard video. You don't need a CD or a tape. It just goes over, a link gets sent out to coaches. Everything is done online. It definitely makes our job much easiter, coaches jobs much easier.

I'm still gonna say our, makes our job much easier because you can evaluate, but then you [00:12:00] still need to see in person and all these AAU events. Or club events in other sports allow us to see so many more kids under one roof. So the Coaching pro, the recruiting process has evolved more than anything, but it makes it easier.

John Boruk: And so has it gotten to the point to where. No. Really, no stone is left unturned anymore. You know what the athletes are. It's not it's the saying that goes, Look, if you're a good player, coaches will find you. Yeah. 

Deirdre Kane: And I think that's even more true today. And then if kids aren't happy, they can always transfer because that's become an evil I think today.

I think there, there needs to be some sense of commitment. I'm glad I wasn't around for that new transfer rule where you could just go, 

John Boruk: The same could be said for coaches. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Now you, you were committed. Yes. You spent 27 years. You spent 27 years at Westchester.

But we. Coaches always hop, go to [00:13:00] the next best thing, the next biggest thing the bigger paycheck. And so I think that's a two-way street as 

Deirdre Kane: Well. You're right, it absolutely is John  

John Boruk:. Yeah. But you, go back to the recruitment process. Is it okay if the parents really take the lead and everything when it comes to this and then the coaches can more than anything help fill in the blanks when it comes to character and personality? How are they in the classroom?   

Deirdre Kane: Yeah, I think it should be a joint process between the coaches and the parents. I don't think one of them should depend on the other one. That's a lot to put on the coach too, cuz most in high school aren't full time. They have another job, whether they're teaching or whether they're working outside of the school, so they can't be expected to put in all that time to make sure all the kids are seen, and a lot of parents feel that it is the coach's responsibility, but the parents can take.

The lead, but I think it's a great teaching moment for the kid themselves to take the lead. Hey, where do I wanna go? Let me go see some [00:14:00] games. And the parents should absolutely, to expose them to all the different levels. Division 1, 2, 3. Let's make sure the kids are at the right level. Maybe they'll be less transferring then, and explore the schools with them.

But one thing that's a big turnoff for coaches is you can tell right away whether a kid's writing the email to you or a parent's writing the email. By just the wording. Absolutely. Sure. 

John Boruk: Absolutely. And you always want the par the player. Yeah. Because it's the player. That's the one that's gonna have to come to your program. He or she's gonna be the one that is gonna have to go through the practices and listen to all of that. Not parents. You want it to come from them. 

Deirdre Kane: And I don't mind a parent reaching out, but then the kid needs to follow up, and please parent, identify yourself that you're the parent. Don't try to fool us that this is the kid writing, using all these polysyllabic words, it's not happening.

John Boruk: Skills training and player development. That's another aspect of college [00:15:00] basketball, high school basketball that I want to get into. And how much skills training should they? Should they have in, in their game as opposed to always playing whether that's pickup basketball, whether that's AAU tournaments the exposure that comes with all of that, because sometimes I feel like that, , there needs to be an emphasis on the skills training aspect.

Deirdre Kane: Absolutely. I think it's an area that's being neglected except for the kids that are really talented, in which case, most of the time their parents hire them an individual instruction you know, person to do individual instruction with them. But it's something that high school coaches should do, AAU coaches should do.

You can't get away from that if they're just playing all the time, lots of times. Reinforcing bad habits, reinforcing even bad team play strategies, so I definitely think skill instruction has to be something that can't be ignored, especially through grade school, through freshman [00:16:00] year and a JV experience.

John Boruk: In your experience, what are the most important years where sometimes you can really take. Take that next leap and maybe get ahead of your peers in, in, in those years that really are important in skills training. 

Deirdre Kane: I think definitely develop good habits as even elementary school, but then for as far as to take the leap where you start to see a separation in talent, I think middle and junior high.

Yeah. And you see the, kids they'll have a. They'll wanna do something. I personally know an eight year old that was dying to dribble through his legs in a game situation. And we went, we actually were lucky enough to get it on film, but he practiced in that driveway until he got it down.

But that's individual and self-motivation. But kids are gonna have that if they have some talent. And a parent can add to that. Camps, skill camps. [00:17:00] Don't just go to the big name camps because it's got 300 kids and maybe the head coach that's famous is gonna show up one day of the camp.

Go to a camp that emphasizes skills, skill, instruction, camps, and they're all over the place.   

John Boruk: And where maybe you're gonna get that personal instruction Absolutely. To the name camp that may be a money grab. How much of that is out there now? Is it more so now? Is it, cuz it seems like it from my end that there's more of that out there than 15, 20, 25 years ago. 

Deirdre Kane: Absolutely. Everybody has a camp. Yeah. Every grade school, every high school, every college, it's tough to run camps around here because of the amount of competition that you have, but we also have a lot of kids. Yeah. Parental presence, parental participation, and it's easy. 

John Boruk: I know it’s probably easier in basketball as compared to some other sports for them to sit in a. and yell at Johnny or Susie or whoever to [00:18:00] do this, to do that, and it. I think really hinder, 

Deirdre Kane: The process. It hinders everything, John. It hinders their own kids' development. It hinders the team play. It hinders relationships with coaches, relationships with other parents.

I can't tell you the amount of high school games I've been to where I just got up and moved because I was so afraid I would say something and it's none of my business, but I can tell you certainly I wasn't gonna. That young lady, if I could identify who she was connected with. It's just, there's nothing productive that comes.

Out of a parent trying to coach their kid saying anything negative about an official or coaching. There's just nothing. And throughout my career, especially when I was a younger coach, and I hate to stereotype, but it was usually the dads that had something they wanted to tell me, and come in and tell me, Oh, Susie [00:19:00] can do this, do that.

She just needs a chance, coach and I would. Dad, John, I see Susie every day at practice and I love her too. She wouldn't be on my team if I didn't care about her and she didn't care. I understand how hard she works and the minute I think she can help me win a game, I'm gonna put her in. And Dad's usually flabbergasted when I say something like that.

Or I ask them what they do for a living. And when they tell me, I say geez, I don't come in and ask you how to sell tires or, tell you how to sell tires. So parents just need to back off. They can encourage their kid. The best thing they can do is be a cheerleader and be positive reinforcement.

There's no coaching to be done. Coaching's gotta come from the coach.

John Boruk: Yeah. And, and you see it at every level, every sport doesn't matter, the age, boys, girls none of that. But did. Were there times that you would cross somebody off your list [00:20:00] because of the influences and the voices around them? 

Deirdre Kane: multiple times.

I couldn't even tell you how many times that we just said, Nope. Moving from this game, in an AAU tournament, you might have a 28 courts. Yeah, no, that's her dad. Yeah. I'm gonna go over to this next game. That kid might have been great and that kid herself might have been a nice kid, but I don't need dad for four years telling me how to coach my team or sitting in the stands complaining to my other players that Susie's not getting the ball enough or even screaming at the of.

That to me didn't do any good. I was an official and I have great respect for officials, and I think officials are an endangered species because they're being so abused. 

John Boruk: And that's what they're doing. They're at a hundred dollars a pop or whatever. They're getting paid per tournament per game. Yeah. You just get to a point where it's isn't this isn't worth it? No. The abuse isn't worth it. I agree and it weeds out.   

Deirdre Kane: [00:21:00] People like it weeds out this is nice. People that wanna officiate, who you get in there, the kind of people that can take that. And so they're a little belligerent themselves because they can take being hollered at and it doesn't create a good atmosphere at all.

John Boruk: Yeah. Every coach that I've come in contact with always has a nice bookshelf of books that they've read and things that they've taken away from other coaches. Who was your inspiration? Who did you like to follow? Who did you li who inspired you? Whose words did you listen? And try to incorporate into your coaching style.

Deirdre Kane: Having played in the seventies, pre-title nine in high school, and then in the early seventies, just post Title nine, where it really wasn't, it was law, but it wasn't implemented. I didn't have any female role models. Luckily I had great female high school coaches myself that, believe it or not, I'm still in touch with, cuz they were young when they coached me.

But as far [00:22:00] as the books, John Wooden had a big influence on me. His pyramid of success hung in the office. His attention to detail, how the first practice he would teach kids how to. Put their socks on and tie their sneakers. And his demeanor, I believe it or not, was not a screamer and a yeller. I know I sound very animated today, and I was very animated at practices.

Practices were where I was the most forceful, the most impatient, the most. And I wasn't even a screamer yeller. I would just be like, yeah. Why don't you just run around the track until you can focus or do you know, But John Wooden's demeanor where he just expected his failures to perform and, Told them what to do and had his expectations.

He was definitely someone that I really looked up to. And plus he was one of the first guys back then that had so many books out. 

John Boruk: Yeah. He’s the one that really incorporated Yeah. Putting all of his teachings and everything that he experienced in his [00:23:00] coaching into a book. And a lot of people and a lot of coaches that came after him, followed in that.

But I think what's important about John Wooden, something I like to talk about is how. Everybody knows about the 10 national championships, Anyone at UCLA, You know how long it took him to get there? Very long time. A very long time. Like 16, 17 years. Yeah. He didn't win anything. Nope. And it goes back to where I think that we're, we live in a society of an immediate gratification, and when we don't get that, we pack up our stuff and we go and we're done and we're quick because all the work that you put into it isn't yielding immediate results.

Deirdre Kane: I, I agree with you so much, and especially with computers. Even if a kid's playing a video game that he's not liking the results, he. Goes onto another video game or 

John Boruk: it's another level we say, or I'm gonna exit out of 

Deirdre Kane: that stolen focus. That's a book I just got outta the library. I haven't even started it yet.

Okay. And so even to this day, you're reading books. Yeah. And trying to educate yourself a little bit [00:24:00] more. Stolen focus isn't so much about sports as it is about academic achievement and why culturally some of our test scores are going down and things like that cuz kids are so used.

Listening to this much, 15 second blurb or just paying attention for 30 seconds and our, their focus is being stolen. And ours too. Even the Amount USA Today, remember when that first came out? , there used to be articles in the paper. You had to turn to the next USA Today, that whole article was on one page.

We all, our focus got shorter and shorter, and it's minuscule. Now. 

John Boruk: But what's important about what you just said is itpermeates through if it's about education or your academics, and if you don't have the focus in the classroom, how are you gonna have focus on the basketball court? 

Deirdre Kane: You're not, because balls are rolling around and it's not as much structure and you're definitely not right. So stolen focus is, I can't even think of the author right now, Tim. Just my husband just got it outta the library for me. Yeah was recommended 

John Boruk:. But you've seen that's another thing that you've seen over the years is that people's attention span is minuscule from what it used to be. 

Deirdre Kane: Think of basketball itself and how the game has evolved. It used to be set plays, run the two, play the UCLA play, pass the w go through inbound plays. We call it sideline. Inbound plays outta bounds, slob, baseline outta bound plays, blobs we used.

10 slobs, 32 blobs. The kids could remember all that. We had such structure. Now it's all read and react, and I think it makes for good basketball, but it's just different. The different brand of basketball, and it's a different type of athlete that can play that. More cerebral athletes who wanna think and see two passes ahead are probably better in some structure.

But more athletes that are what I call basal ganglion athletes that wanna just [00:26:00] read and react. And there's nothing wrong with either one. Your best teams have some cerebral, usually at the point handling the ball and some basal ganglion who are your slashers to the basket. Now it seems like the whole game is read and react and positions are even going away.

You're playing four out, one in and anybody can be that one in, anybody can be that post up back, to the basket game. It's changed the game's evolved, the technology. How did that happen? 

When did it happen? It happened right at the end of my career. Because I remember it being, that was very hard for me to coach because I had come up through, set plays and, and set plays you still have to play basketball in.

But this became just all, just play basketball. I'm gonna go and if I dribble to my right, then people have to move this way. And there's still rules to it. But it happened probably like in the 2000 Knot. 

John Boruk: So I was gonna say over the last 10 years we've seen that. Yeah. It became really, we've seen that transition [00:27:00] to a different brand of basketball. 

Deirdre Kane: And for some people it was genius. For Jay Wright, it was genius cuz he had a lot of guards. So he was playing four out, one in for a long time. In fact it hurt him sometimes cuz he didn't have a true post presence when he got to the NCAA tournament. But then he did and he's had great success.

John Boruk: Yeah, but I'm still I'm, I still favor in Phil Jackson, the triangle offense or Pete Carrell and what he did at Princeton. The constant motion. That's almost prehistoric basketball now. It is. The movement that he incorporated, But to me it was it was brilliant. Yeah. It's just so brilliant to watch.

Deirdre Kane: But if kids can come by that naturally, like just practice pieces of it, kids are still cutting back door, they're just deciding themselves when to go back to her. And if you don't, if you don't get used to the other four pieces that are out there on the court, you're gonna be running into them a lot.

Yeah. Pete had it all orchestrated, [00:28:00] whereas now kids are just reading and reacting to each other. I like it. I like to watch it. Yeah. It's just a different brand.   

John Boruk You see more of that type of basketball in the NBA now. But that's, look, that's five guys at the three point outside the three point arc.

Deirdre Kane: And everybody knew Harden was gonna take that shot last night, . I know. 

John Boruk: Absolutely. Yeah. It's very predictable what, what's gonna happen. But one thing that I read about you that I thought was really interesting, that you were the first. Woman athlete at the University of Dayton to get a scholarship. 

Deirdre Kane:  I was. Okay. It was 1975. Title nine was enacted in, or passed in 72 and the big, bigger state schools, Dayton's a small, not small, mid-size Catholic school, so private school and they were slower to, really pull everything up. For example, like my junior. We were playing Ohio State, University of Kentucky Big schools out in the Midwest.

And, [00:29:00] being competitive with them. By the time I was a senior, they had already given so many scholarships and we were going and playing, freshmen and sophomores and we really struggled. But yeah, Dayton decided to finally do that. And it was a small amount of money, but it was the principle of the thing.

It was the first one, it got me a lot of ink at. They picked it up. It was in the Enquire on the bullet and on the daily news even my picture was in there, a little headshot at that University of Dayton gave the first scholarship. So it was quite an honor and it opened a lot of doors for me.

John Boruk: It did. And then I also feel as if it helped put you in a position to whether it was the fight for Title IX, more women's opportunities to where you, you became more active in that aspect and that element, being the first kind of says, Okay I'm pe people look at me a little bit differently.

Or not differently, but they [00:30:00] look at me as somebody who has now spearheaded the effort and it's up to me to now make sure that everybody gets that type of exposure.   

Deirdre Kane: Exactly. And I wasn't even aware of the differences. When I was at Dayton, we're driving around and station wagons in a van and, singing songs and having a great time and not even realizing the men were flying on planes.

Playing a different schedule and different teams and their locker room was permanent with their names on it. Ours wasn't, we played some games in the UD arena with them. So those things all became obvious to me and. I had no idea. I would've certainly not majored in biology and chemistry if I'd known I was gonna be a basketball coach.

I had no idea I wanted to be a veterinarian and didn't get into veterinary school, and some priest offered me a job coaching and I was like, All right. And the fact that it turned into a full-time career, it just still boggles my mind. 

John Boruk: Being a [00:31:00] chemistry major , there is some. It does apply to basketball.

Absolutely. You gotta find a way to bring that chemistry on the court. . It's interesting. There's so many good women's basketball coaches now. Yeah. That's one thing that I, everybody, when I was in Tennessee and I was reporting and doing sports in Nashville Pat Summit was the one. 

Deirdre Kane: One of mine and all those contemporaries, Pat was only like a year or two older than me. Yeah. Yeah. But, I just really respected her. And she never big timed you as I would call it? No. You would see her at the final four. Of course. That's where our coach's convention was. So I went for 27 years and Pat always made it a point to say hello and be personable.

She was wonderful. And there's so many more now because, All the women Pat's coached, all the women, Jody Conrad's coached all the women. Tara Vandeveer’s coach. Yes. They're now coming through the ranks and getting into coaching and yes. And of course we have the W N B A and, [00:32:00] Dawn Staley now, doing Philly Proud all over.

John Boruk: Yeah. She has built one of the preeminent programs in the country. Absolutely. South Carolina, everywhere. But I, it, and be, before you got here today was I was going over some clips and. Saul Carol Lawson, who's now a coach at Duke. Yes. Yeah. And she says and they're just, they're even so inspirational to listen to says, players think it will get easier. You have to handle hard, better make yourself a person that handles hard. Not somebody waiting. 

Deirdre Kane: For the easy. Yep. And parents can really help with that instead of having expectations of their kids to go to one level and immediately make an impact that they have to work harder. It's a huge transition and parents need to be supportive instead of blaming the lack of impact on the coach right away, and perhaps say to their kid. You need to work harder to fit in.   

John Boruk: Is that something that's not being taught well [00:33:00] enough? Is, or something that's not being instructed, whether it's by parents or even teachers? Cuz I feel like even in the educational system, Testing's getting too hard. Let's do away with testing or Yeah.

Or let's ease the testing requirements.

Deirdre Kane: Yeah, it is is a little scary. But I don't think that's being done all over. But again, the instant gratification, even the parents want the, want, the instant gratification. My kids's been the best player all the way along. Why isn't he continuing to be the best player?

John Boruk: Did you know how many times over your coaching career. The player that may have been the big fish that scored 25, 30 points a game at their high school level. This, And then they got into your environment and they got into the co the, to the collegiate environment, and they seem lost. 

Deirdre Kane: This is a great question because we, I only coach at the division two level quote, not the top level.

Yep. Every kid I coached was a thousand point score in [00:34:00] high school, just about every kid I was the big fish. And some of them weren't even starting. So it's a big transition for them. And yeah, they're lost in the beginning and it takes them a while. Things are faster. The ball's coming at them harder, the defense is in their shorts more. So there's a whole lot of things to learn, and it's a big learning curve. 

John Boruk: Is it better for a player to master one skill set, be a great shooter? As opposed to trying to learn to do everything. You they're good at dr. They're good at driving. They're good at defense. I'll always tell my kid, be coachable.

Be the best defensive player. Coach will always find a place for you if you could do those two things because, you're 

Deirdre Kane: the VP of parents, if that's what you say, . 

John Boruk: Yeah. If you can be the best defensive player and be coach. , somebody will find it. Somebody will find a spot for you. 

Deirdre Kane: And those are certainly things within a player's control.

John Boruk: That's exactly why. Yeah, because look [00:35:00] you may not be able to jump the highest or what have you, but. Is it important to really excel at one thing as opposed to trying to do a little bit of everything?

Deirdre Kane: I think it's better to be a well-rounded player, but I think your question was how to get into it to go to the next level.

Yeah, So you're this well-rounded player. You wouldn't have even been recruited to that school or you wouldn't even be on your high school. But now you have to look at your team. If you want more playing time. What is my team missing? Now, if your team's ultra-successful and undefeated, it might just be you might be coming off the bench and you're gonna have to deal with that.

Or you might be a role player coming in situations and you have to deal with that. But if there's something your team is lacking and you can see it, whether it is a defensive role a stopper, whether it is a three point shooter, whether it is an offensive rebounder who needs to give your team extra chance.

Then maybe you can key on that in order to see more minutes for yourself on the floor. [00:36:00]  

John Boruk: There was an interesting article that I wanted to bring to your attention. In the Wall Street Journal, it was a couple weeks ago, talks about how girls basketball has lost 20% of its players since 2002. It is now the fourth most popular sport behind number one, track and field number two, volleyball and.

And the other sports I've mentioned, track and field has grown by 10% over the last 20 years. Volleyball 15%. Soccer, 30% now. Now, I think the soccer explosion has a lot to do with the US Women's National Team and everything that you seen, the gold medals, the World Cups, I think they've brought a lot of attention.

But I was really surprised that according to this article, that the number of girls participating in basketball has declined.  

Deirdre Kane: It actually doesn't surprise me, and I'm surprised women's lacrosse isn't included in that list. Look, I 

John Boruk: I, and I know from [00:37:00] friends and parents lacrosse and field hockey have really exploded, 

Deirdre Kane: But they're more regional sports. Correct. Regional might be why I made that list. Correct. Yes. Here's what I think has happened in. It's become the elite. It's become the most competitive, and there's only five players out there at a time. Probably only, and this is a sad thing that's happened in Elite Women's College basketball.

There's probably eight to 10 players on the team because they practice against. They have male practice players, so they might be allowed to give out 15 scholarships, but a lot of the elite levels only give out eight or 10 scholarships because they're practice against men anyway, So they don't want disgruntled players that aren't even seeing time at practice.

So I think parents are seeing more chance for their daughter to play a varsity. And if not, get a scholarship help [00:38:00] her gain admission to a more elite institution as having played lacrosse or played field hockey here, played soccer or track and field. So I think the competition of basketball and the reduced numbers is scaring athletes away.

John Boruk: Really. And I do. Yeah. There's more and more programs that are competitive. 

Deirdre Kane: Softball's gotta be on that list too. 

John Boruk: Softball is this was just in the top four. Okay. But no, I know. So softball's not too far behind. You're right. But more numbers 

Deirdre Kane: on the team, more scholarships available   

John Boruk: But that's the mentality behind it is Okay. Maybe you like basketball a lot, but that's not gonna give us the best opportunity to get a college scholarship. Correct. And so there's the drive. It's like we, we don't care as much as if you love the sport we need what's the best opportunity?

Deirdre Kane: I don't necessarily think that's right. I don't either.[00:39:00] And I also, I can see the reduced numbers even on the high school. Kids are good at, if a young lady's good at basketball, they get weeded out young. And by high school it's only, they're only gonna have about 12 kids on the team.

Whereas field hockey and lacrosse and soccer are gonna have 25 kids on the team. They need at least 22 to practice against each other. 

John Boruk: Yeah. And I, but as you see, I think some of these other sports incorporate leagues coaches as that's expanding. It's just natural to think it's gonna take from other pools.

You only have Yeah. You only have so many athletes. Exactly. But one of the things that the article also mentioned was that girls today, and I don't know if this was necessarily the case 20, 25 years ago girls Today find basketball less girly or less womanly. Is that make sense? Do you see that?

See, at [00:40:00] least see that mentality is. 

Deirdre Kane: I think so, and I think the same could be said for softball. And I think it's because they're so comparable. Softball's so comparable to baseball, women's basketball is exactly the same as men's basketball. Men's and women's lacrosse are very different.

Field hockey, we don't even have a comparable sport. And women's soccer can be compared to men's soccer, 

John Boruk: Part because as a parent we still want to be able to separate, Hey, this is athletic time, this is family time. It's still important to go on family vacations in the summer, right?

Yep. At what point though, and what age do you start, do you say, Okay, maybe. W our summers should start including going on AAU trips that involve your kids' sports… 

Deirdre Kane: Which is crazy to me. But I'm a dinosaur, I'm [00:41:00] a senior citizen here. And when I coached my college basketball team, if you had a family event, I handed out the schedule for practice the day we had our meeting in September when everybody got back on campus.

And if you looked at it and you said, On February 17th, my Aunt Mary, my godmother's getting married and you know you have practice scheduled. I would move it. I would move it. And if we couldn't move it because of a facility issue you were allowed to miss because to me, family had to come first.Even a game. I had a kid miss a game because her uncle was getting. And she was very 

John Boruk: close. That's pretty understanding. I don't know a lot of coaches that would be that understanding.  

Deirdre Kane:. I know, that's what I said. I'm a dinosaur, it's. A game, Division II women's basketball. When my kids played poorly, it was mostly them putting too much pressure on themselves, and I used to say, people are dying in third world countries.

There's a lot more serious [00:42:00] problems in the world than you missing that foul shot at the end of the game. And you try to impress upon them. It's. And that's, that perspective is really missing today. I think there's too much pressure leading to a lot of other issues that we're having with mental health and athletics and absolutely there should be time in the summer.

That's dead time. The NCAA tries to legislate that. But of course, clubs and AAU, they don't fall under the auspices of the NCAA or ev any governing body. Anybody with any kind of common sense would realize that families need family time and there should be a time. It's downtime. 

John Boruk: What did you have your athletes do in the off season when they weren't obviously involved in the structure of practices and games? How did you structure your off season?

Deirdre Kane: That evolved as well. The longer I was there, because actually back when I first started coaching on the college level, I myself referee college field hockey in [00:43:00] the fall. So they were doing. I started at a division three school at Salisbury, and they were playing pickup, maybe coming in.

Some of them were even playing field hockey or a fall sport. And then as it became more and more I had to give up Coach Reffing, which is a shortage of field hockey officials. But I had to stop doing that because we were having individual instruction in the off season. We were having weightlifting program.

On the college level, we can't be in the weight room with them. So there were strength coaches that were doing all of that. But yeah, they were on a weightlifting program. They had individual instruction, they had conditioning. I also was a big believer in water exercise. We even talking before this, I'm in a pool every morning trying to keep mobility and water is just a wonderful thing to use all those muscles without the wear and tear on those joints, especially women with all the knee problems and all the joint problems that we have. But we were in the pool at [00:44:00] least two mornings a week at 6:45. Yeah. Westchester swimmers were great. Shared. They have two pools down there, but they shared one with us.

John Boruk: Oh, my kids have taken swim lessons, yep. 

Deirdre Kane: We got the shallow pool. You got the shallow in, and we were doing defensive slides and running backwards and piggyback carries and explosive jumps, pretending we were grabbing rebounds. I have a whole basketball water workout, so we did that in the pre-season.

John Boruk: I like that resistance training. It's a form of resistance training to be a pool. 

Deirdre Kane: And then in the post-season, I tried to do fun things, like crazy things, make them play volleyball. Just different things. Just things to keep them active, keep in shape team building activities. We did ropes courses.

John Boruk: Yeah. But it's also good to just step away, do things Other basketball? Basketball? No, 

Deirdre Kane: basketball. Oh, and this and the post-season. No basketball, unless they wanted to do it. If they were just playing pickup, they. 

John Boruk: Yeah. You did say that [00:45:00] today, the game and maybe what's steering them away, is it, could it be money? Is it starting to separate the haves from the haves and have nots as far as scholarships?

Deirdre Kane: Looking for scholarships? Yeah, because I think there's definitely more scholarships available. I can think of one young lady, right? Who came to my camps when she was really little, and she was talented, she was coachable, she was sweet, she was talented.

She didn't like the physical contact at all. And I told her parents right then and there, I said, I think volleyball is gonna be her sport. And they were like, Oh, both of them had played basketball. And I said, I think she's gonna be good at it. And she's on a volleyball scholarship right now at Colgate.

From Bishop Shanahan you had the eye and she was very young. Because it's, there's not contact. And she hated that contact from a little kid. You can tell kids who like it and embrace it. Embrace it. Yep. And kids that are shy and away from it. Yeah. 

John Boruk: What [00:46:00] advice, and this is an opportunity cuz I know parents, or it could be a kid may listen to this.

They don't have, they don't, It's not every day. They have the opportunity to get really good advice from somebody who's been there as long as you have. What would you tell somebody who's in those stages, middle school, high school what would you tell them in terms of how they would approach their sport, their training?

Just any life lessons or anything associated. Maybe taking that next step.  

Deirdre Kane: Am I giving the advice to the parent or the kid? 

John Boruk: Give it, to, give it to both. Okay. A little 

Deirdre Kane: bit of both. I'll give it to the kid. You gotta love it. You gotta wanna be out there, you gotta wanna do it. You don't need anybody else to practice individual skills.

At our summer camps, we had a whole thing called Ram Tough, where it was literally like 20 individual skill. That they can do in their driveway with just a ball and [00:47:00] just them improving. Left, improving ball handling. Anything they can do, if they wanna do it, they need to do it. They can't depend on somebody else to make them better.

And if you don't have that passion, be honest with yourself. Because if you don't have that passion, you're not gonna make it. Even on the high school level, it's so competitive now. And to the parents, it would piggyback right on what I just told. If your kid doesn't have that passion, maybe try another sport and definitely play multiple sports.

You will absolutely avoid all those overuse injuries. You'll avoid the horrible burnout syndrome, play other sports. I would encourage that all the way through unless you have a phenom that by the time they're a freshman, I would it up to the JV level. If you're a good enough athlete to play three sports in high school, do it.

Yeah. 

John Boruk: That's been a common theme here on this podcast. [00:48:00] Don't just be sports specific. Get out there, Play as much as you can. Expose yourself to as much, because there's a lot of crossover from playing one sport to the next that you'll get footwork the mental to, to read a 

Deirdre Kane: game. I. Just say angle, anything, angle of pursuit.

There's so many things that are similar in all the sports. Yeah. And team camaraderie and just not being burnt out, not thinking, Oh my God, this is drudgery. I hate basketball. 

John Boruk: Yeah. Dear Kane, thank you so much for coming on raising a champion. I know that You had a wonderful basketball career and you left it all out on the court.

As I said, you left it all on the court. 

Deirdre Kane: I did. Thank you, John. Really thank you for having me. Yeah, and it's great to be able to try and encourage parents and kids to play and be at the best level they can be, but to realize that unless you're gonna make your living of it, it's not the most important thing.

John Boruk: All right. We leave you once again. Our quote of [00:49:00] the day pressure is a privilege and means. Are expected of you once again. Thanks for listening to Raising a Champion. Make sure you subscribe to us, Spotify, Apple Podcasts Amazon Music, wherever you listen. We appreciate it so much. And thanks for listening.