The Ryen Russillo Podcast - All the Bad Arguments Surrounding NCAA Athlete Compensation, Plus Duke Women's Basketball Head Coach Kara Lawson

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on the “We Are United” letter from a group of PAC-12 football players and on the bad arguments on both sides of the player compensation issue (4:20), before talking with the new head coach of Duke women’s basketball, Kara Lawson. The two discuss her journey from playing for legendary coach Pat Summitt at Tennessee, to winning a WNBA title with the Monarchs, to her time with ESPN and her coaching roles with USA Basketball and the Boston Celtics. She talks about working under Brad Stevens, forming bonds with Celtics players like Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Marcus Smart, her recruiting pitch for Duke women’s basketball, and more (18:15). Finally Ryen answers a listener-submitted "Life Advice" question (54:58). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan mcsellar podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. I got to tell you, the Spurs almost winning against Philadelphia was unexpected enough for me to still have concerns about Philadelphia. Those concerns are never going to go away, really, until they're, I guess, holding a trophy up or not holding a trophy up. So yeah, pulled it out against the Spurs. Shake Milton, recently benched

in the Pacers game, redeeming himself a bit there. So that was unpredictable even in the win. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. Or maybe the Spurs are just bubble ready,

bubble tested, bubble ready. I don't think enough people when they looked at the schedule really factored in what it's like to never have to travel and how fresh the players should look how rested they should look if they've maintained some level of fitness throughout this although there's nothing that replaces uh the exertion of nba basketball you're not going to just find that on some kind of uh rowing machine are you a big rower kyle where are we at with the rowing yeah you know there was a time when i was like dude it's it's everything it's but then i was

like you have means you have to do it correctly for the whole 30 minutes that you're on so i was just more getting the bar towards me than doing it properly so i stopped i feel like i was wasting everybody's time you were an intense intensity guy but not a form guys what you're telling me is that we're exactly and it seemed like it was going to be a lot of work to get the form right so i just figured i'd do something else i tried to do this um you know look i'm a sucker for the can you do this navy seal workout or can how many of these navy seal things can you do and i would tell you the drowning and the gunfire alone and being cold and not eating would probably be enough for me to check out. But they had these different ones where I was trying to figure out how many I could do. And there was one that's this seven

minute rowing thing and you have to get to a certain number of kilometers and i tried for that for the longest time and then i finally got it and it sucks it's basically going bat shit crazy on the rowing machine and i think it's for seven minutes i'm i'll double check you know what well maybe we'll post a link to it some of the other ones i had absolutely no shot none zero did you take a picture of it of your of your time you know i didn't on the on the i didn't so who knows maybe i didn't do it did it even happen if i didn't somehow log it uh with everybody else but there's a like some of the strength ones you're like okay if you're decently strong like you can pass these but then some of the just sheer fitness there's one where you have to run full sprint for 10 minutes.

Like you're supposed to keep a level of pace because they're essentially saying like there's something that went off and there was a massive explosion or you had to retreat that you would have to be able to run this fast for this many minutes to cover this amount of time to put yourself in a safe place or away from harm. And that one was like, yeah, I was like, that one's not going to happen. That one's not going to pass.

So the rowing thing. All right, yeah. Shout out to the rowers. Didn't expect to be doing that. Just off the cuff here on the podcast. You never know what we're going to do. What we are going to do, though, as far as the plan,

is Kara Lawson is the new head coach of the Duke women's basketball team. She was with the Celtics this past season. I worked with her at ESPN. I love talking hoops with her. And I'm really excited about this interview. So once Minouche got the job, reached out, we're like, let's do this. So she's fired up to come on the podcast. We'll do that. We'll do one life advice at the end.

I'm skeptical about the one that we have. I think it's a fraud email, but we're just getting a lot of guys in their 20s saying, hey, man, not quite sure what to do. Not quite sure what to do with work. Hey, man, welcome to your 20s. Okay. That's pretty much what your 20s are. I'm not quite sure. You can start every sentence with that in your 20s, which leads us perfectly into this week's open. This week's open is about the growing college football slash basketball story but specifically football we talk about the pac-12 and the we are united campaign where the football players are like we want a bunch of stuff if we're going to play football this fall some of the demands are great outdated should have happened before some I don't fully understand and some are never going to happen. But whenever this topic comes up about should players be compensated, should players from

the revenue generating sports be compensated? Because it's the only argument that I will hear. There are a lot of bad arguments. There are bad arguments for paying the players. There are really bad arguments for not paying the players. And I want to go through all of them because there's probably a little something in this open for everyone to hate. Let's start with the selfish one. Well, my kid doesn't get a scholarship.

The scholarship should be enough. Whenever we apply our own experiences to somebody else who is more special than us, that's the first mistake that we are making. I'm going to use an example that will probably upset some more people. There are over 4 million teachers in the United States. Public schools, I think it's 3.8, but if you include other private stuff, let's not worry about the census here on this one.

There's a lot of teachers out there. Teachers have a really tough job. We are asking them to take care of our kids and spending sometimes more time with our kids than we can granted i don't have kids but you understand the general we on this one um it's a hard it's demanding job but there's also a lot of teachers and that's why they don't make as much as pro athletes so even though i once in my 20s said to a teacher at a bar teachers are the real heroes. You should be the one who gets the max contract. I just, I can't vibe with that argument whenever it's, well, these NBA players. Yeah, there's six, seven can handle and can shoot. And there's just not a lot of guys like that. And there's 450 of

them that we pay to watch all the time. And I don't have league pass on grade two. All right. A little harsh, but I argue for common sense, not for everybody to want to give me a big hug. So that relates perfectly to the angst to why should a kid get paid more than the scholarship when I didn't get a scholarship? I'm still paying off student loans. My kid is staring at a massive amount of debt or I'm staring at a massive tuition bill. Chances are your kid,

my kids, they are never going to be special enough to get a D1 offer, especially some of these power five schools. So if that athlete deserves to make a little bit more money, which I think he does, to say because your kid isn't getting any extra benefits, that's a bad argument. Some of the things that were brought up by the Pac-12 We Are United campaign that I thought made a lot of sense, and we'll get to some of those, but one that didn't make any sense was the 50% revenue share on all sports. That's a bad argument because most of those sports, almost all of them don't make any money. So you're getting 50% of what? As Andy Staples said, do you get a bill at the end of the year if you play soccer? The endowments, I've made this mistake too.

I've looked at university endowments, especially some of the private, older institutions where you go, how big is the endowment at Harvard? How many billions are we talking here? This is insane. How come that endowment can't be used for this? Or how come it can't be used for that? It's just because you don't understand how endowments work. And I didn't either until somebody called me and said, hey, that thing you said about endowments, do you know how they work?

I'm like, well, no, but I'm a talk show guy. So that means I'm just supposed to spout off everything without any research whatsoever. Yeah, yeah, that's not how they work. All right, so how do they work? Well, the money is given by donors for specific things, but the number, the total of the endowment is actually never supposed to go down because the interest from the endowment is the thing that makes all of the things work. So if you got one donor that said, hey, I'm donating this much because I want there to be some more revenue share and a bunch of sports that don't generate revenue, but it can only be used because of the interest off of my donation towards it. I mean, I guess that could be a start. So I'm not necessarily saying it's impossible, but there's a lot of bad arguments when it comes to endowment. Let's talk about some of the people in power. Mark

Emmert has argued against this because that is his position to represent the NCAA. And I'm pretty sure that most of this is the NCAA going, we will concede nothing. We will give up nothing as far as our own money. We're not going to share any of this money. We're going to not share it for as long as we can possibly not share it. And that is our goal. And when the day comes where we absolutely legally and a court rules that we have to share it, then we'll do it, but we're not going to do it voluntarily. And I think that's pretty much their tactic. Um, Emmert has said that if you were to pay the athletes, they wouldn't really be like real students on campus. Newsflash, the top athletes aren't like real people on campuses. How many times have we heard

about the top quarterback or the number one draft pick that's on a team that isn't even enrolled in classes anymore or is only taking a couple online because they've already graduated because they've been on campus all summer or they got to college out of high school and signed up for spring ball so to to worry about this separation of a class system on campus because a couple high profile athletes are going to have an entirely different experience and have a better setup i think a lot of that stuff happens already so So that's a bad argument. Oliver Luck, working for the NCAA five years ago, when asked why do coaches get paid and students don't, he said coaches are adults. That's a bad argument that speaks to just the generational bias where, let's face it, this country, decade after decade, has basically said to the young

people, yeah, we're just going to screw you over here for a little while. And then it'll be your turn to screw over the next generation. That's just kind of the way it works. It's a lot like insurance sales. It's going to suck in the beginning. You're going to have to prove yourself. You're not going to make a ton of money. And then after a few years of just making sure that all happens and you've got your book of business, you're going to be golfing three days a week, maybe a slight drinking problem, but you're going to have a younger guy who you can push around and he's going to have to do all the shit that you don't want to do anymore because that's just the way it works. You know what? If I'm young, that's a

really bad argument. Hell, I'm not young anymore. And it's kind of a bad argument, but we've just accepted that that's the way that life works. And for Luck, who did, to his credit, apologize for the comment. It got plastered everywhere. And you go, this is your argument? That's a bad argument. There's also been arguments that are bad about paying athletes and that they don't really know how to use their money. One person, I think it was Deb Yao when she was at NC State.

I know she had a couple bad quotes. And there was also a battle in Alabama where I read this article where it said they're just going to spend it on tattoos and hoverboards. First of all, do we have hoverboards? And how come nobody told me tattoos? Yeah, they can be expensive, but who cares? It's their money. That's a bad argument. Are you fucking kidding me?

Why is it that we are so good at criticizing younger people or certain people about how they blow their money? But how come when somebody does a real estate deal, you know, the guy from your country club does it with somebody else. And the guy that just kind of rolled into town and is from Scottsdale or sort of outside of Scottsdale, and they put together a couple of spec houses. And then all of a sudden he didn't do his due diligence. That guy runs off with his money. And next thing you know, the guy with his name on all the papers is being hounded by the bank because he trusted somebody with a six handicap how come that guy never gets called an idiot so again bad argument um here's one that i hear that is that is pro paying the

players that's also a bad argument and that as a scholarship isn't really worth it okay that's on you you just stop first of all the obsession with' educations that we will never meet is stupid. Number two, speaking from someone that showed up to college with no plan, who was just psyched to get away from home, I couldn't be told nothing when I got there. I signed up for all the wrong classes. I signed up for the highest French to get it over with. And as soon as I rolled in, we weren't speaking French. We were writing novels in it. And I was like, I'm confused. And I'm not even sure I can say that right now in French, even though I used to be decent speaking it. I couldn't write anything. All right. I failed that. I took music theory because I like jam bands and didn't play an

instrument. Failed that. And I was in a massive, massive hole. And it was my fault. It was no one else's fault except mine. Yes, I could have blamed an advisor, but the advisor sized me right up and was like, this guy's a genius apparently. And he knows everything he wants to do and he doesn't want to listen to me. So this sob story about, well, a scholarship isn't really worth this. It's up to you to make the scholarship worth it. Okay. It's up for you to network. It's up for you to find out where the alums are. So yeah, if you're a third string running back that graduates with a two eight and never played, is never going to play professional football again. And then you're on HBO five years later, bitching that you didn't take the right

courses and that nobody helped you out. That's probably more your fault than it is anybody else. So for people to argue that scholarship isn't really that valuable, it's really about the person and having some accountability. And that's a bad argument. The transfer stuff that always comes up. They should allow kids to transfer. I've evolved. Okay, just let everybody transfer. The coaches have said it's a free-for-all. It's a free-for-all right now.

The graduate transfer rule, that thing's actually, I thought the whole point was that kids were supposed to graduate. They show up in the spring, they stay all summer, and then they decide, you know what, I want to go play somewhere else. And the graduate transfer thing has worked out really well for a lot of people. But guess what? Coaches don't like it because they're not in control. Coaches love having control.

Coaches used to have an NBA draft rule where the kids had to withdraw from the NBA draft with college timelines in mind where it was a month before the actual NBA timeline. Why? Because the coach was like, I want to make this easier on me. But as much as you can sit here and say the job has become harder and harder with all the transfers, the job pays you more and more. And that's what the money's for. So to say that you need more control over the players, that's a bad argument.

The national letter of intent for people to say, well, it's actually not going to be that valuable to the athletes. Again, bad argument. That's great. You just made our point for us. If it's not that big of a deal, it's going to only impact a few athletes, then let them go ahead and make money off their own likeness. It's un-American to argue against that.

I'm sorry. If you say that that's going to impact recruiting, guess what? Bad argument. It already does impact recruiting. And now instead of hearing about a car on campus or hearing about a dad that's working for a certain company that's aligned with a booster,

we're just going to know it. And it's just going to be out there more now. And it's really for a certain company that's aligned with a booster. We're just going to know it, and it's just going to be out there more now, and it's really not going to change that many things. For Cam Newton, for Johnny Manziel, even a Tim Tebow who didn't want the money, or for a Zion Williamson the past year at Duke, for those guys to be denied to make money that is out there for them or have to do it in a way that's considered shady by the NCAA, what's the problem? It's a bad argument to say that those guys shouldn't make any money. Here's one that doesn't make any sense that's pro-paying players. I've seen this argument a few times where it was a guy wrote about Texas and they're like, Texas football brings over $100 million a year. There's 100 players on the football team. Let's all give them a million

dollars. That is called the Thurston argument. And that is a really bad argument because you're not factoring in all the other different things. But the pro player party would sit there and say, well, yeah, makes sense to me. I'm aligned with this guy philosophically, so I will ignore all of the bad arguments that he makes along the way. So two final things here. No matter which side you are, anti-player, the pro-player party, don't get sucked in to being aligned philosophically but blind to how bad

the arguments actually can be. The athletes should get paid more from the revenue-generating teams. Don't let your own personal experience get in the way of accepting that the people that are really special at what they do have always been compensated more than the rest of us. Before we get to Carol Lawson, I want to remind you about the good folks at Miller Light. As the original Light Beerer, Miller Light has always been there to bring people together through Miller Time. But in a world where you can't always be with your people, Miller Time might be a moment on a Zoom call,

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I just don't think it works as well as it shows in the movies or TV. Anyway, from online happy hours to socially distanced picnics and every 500 piece puzzle in between we're enjoying new ways of spending time with our friends. I've been out in the water

trying to surf a shorter board. It's not going great, but you know what? I'm trying. I'm out there. It's crazy when you get out of the wetsuit and then you're dripping sweat and you go, wow.

I guess I really, just out there paddling, Kyle. You know, it kind of reminds you of your rowing days. Miller Lite, great taste with only 96 calories and 3.2 carbs. However, you and your friends are enjoying Miller time this summer. You can have the original Lite beer delivered by going to MillerLite.com forward slash RR

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per 12 ounces. Alright, there's big news in college basketball. Big news for Celtics fans as well because she has quite the resume. Gold medal, USA basketball, three final fours at Tennessee and WNBA title in Sacramento. And she was an assistant with the Boston Celtics.

And now, more importantly, she is the head coach of Duke women's basketball. It's Carol Lawson. Thanks a lot, and congrats on all of this. We ran into each other a few times at ESPN and always appreciated your time. Anytime we get a chance to talk hoops. So let's kind of start with where we're at right now. How did it all happen? How did you become the head coach of Duke? Well, it happened kind of fast. I'll tell you that. Um, it, uh, so unexpectedly, at least in my world, uh, I was really focused on preparing our team, helping prepare our team to go down to

the bubble. So in Boston and, um, you know job came open really late, honestly, in the calendar year. As you know, typically these college jobs turn over like in the spring, you know, post NCAA tournament or even during NCAA tournament. Got connected with Duke and then five days later, I was the head coach. So all that was happening while we were traveling down to the bubble. So I did not know that going into the bubble that that was that was going to happen. And so I'm in quarantine doing interviews with Duke. It actually made the day go by a lot faster. The day like the long one long day that you have to sit there and you can't go

out of your room and they're just bringing you these meals i was in interviews all day i must have had six or seven of them and uh came out of the bubble and then got a call that that uh they offered me the job and then uh had this i don't know if i had the shortest day in the bubble but it was pretty short it was about probably six days maybe six seven days uh before i left and left the guys and now i'm in durham yeah i don't think that's a violation of the nba protocol when you get the duke job i think they're like all right you can you can bounce out of here um can you help us just understand like you know from those of us that'll likely never be in that position but how quickly your world moves from, wait a minute, what?

Duke's calling, Kevin White's the AD who's been around a long time, and you're thinking, wait, is this real? How does that happen? How do you talk to yourself as you're going through what's going to be a life-changing decision? Yeah. Well, first off, let me, I should have said this at the top. I'm insane. So to like, I'm crazy. So, um, In what way? Define, give us a deeper definition. Okay. So all of these things that are going through your mind, they weren't going through my mind in five days. They'd already gone through my mind. Okay. So I think like you're always thinking about, not always, but you're thinking about like, what's next? I think if you're in a situation, not that you're not doing your job, not that you don't love it there, but you are having to be mindful of, hey, if an opportunity comes down the pike, that's X or Y or Z, would that get my attention? Would that be something I want to do? Is that

something that, you know, that even would come around for me? So to that point, I mean, I know Brad shared this story a little bit in his in his press conference after I got the job. You know, Brad and I and Tracy, his wife, went for a walk six months ago in Miami. We were playing in Miami in January and we went for a walk, uh, you know, for a while. And, um, we talked about the future, my future, not, not Brad and Tracy's future, my future. And, um, just kind of what interested me, what would, what would I want to do? What, um, what things out there could, you know, could potentially, I could see myself could see myself in. And it was great because working for Brad is awesome. And I know people say that all the time, and maybe some people get

tired of hearing that, but it is awesome. It's awesome in every way. And one of the reasons, one of the ways that it's awesome is he genuinely cares about what you want, want to do and like where you want to go. And he will help you do that. And Duke came up in that conversation. I'm not going to say other things that came up in that conversation, but in that conversation, Duke came up and I said to him, if I ever got an opportunity to be the head coach at Duke, I would do it. Like I would do it. Like that is an incredible school. It's an incredible platform and it would be an awesome opportunity. And so it was funny when that

obviously came around. I wasn't thinking that in six months. I wasn't, I don't even know if I was thinking that would ever come for me, right? You just don't know what's going to be for you when those opportunities come. But it did. And so those conversations I was able to have with Brad and Tracy through the process, through those five days, honestly, Ryan, were so pivotal for me and just kept me at ease. Because here's Brad, who's been through this before, right? I mean, he's been a guy at Butler that was highly sought after, that a lot of people were coming at him and to be able to talk about his decision-making process, be able to say, Hey, this is what I weighed. This was what was important. This was, um, kind of what, what we did.

That's valuable when you can bounce that off of someone and you know, it's not going to go anywhere. Right. I mean, you know, the trust that you have amongst each other. So I'm definitely not not here at Duke without Brad and Tracy's help. By the way, the insane thing. That's that's awesome. Like, do you rehearse speeches for jobs you don't have? I don't know that I'd go that far. I mean, I definitely rehearsed some of the podcast this morning on my walk through the Duke Forest. Is that is that is that. Well, I appreciate the prep on that. But no, Brad, there's more I want to ask about brad a little bit later kind of a little timeline of this stuff

but when he went to boston that was like whoa wait a minute what like that happened and brad will never tell any of us even 20 years after he's done but he's just so private about everything but i i can't imagine him as a resource knowing that oh wait and from what i had heard it was just hey it's the boston celtics like you if you become head coach of the boston celtics you take the job and um you know so far it's worked out all right so when you're coming up in high school you play anywhere you want and you know at that point tennessee is still as uconn's kind of growing and then you know uconn came on more of the picture kind of while you were at tennessee but was there a chance recruiting wise that you weren't going to end up there and that you could have ended up at Duke to play? At Tennessee? Yeah. I mean, I was pretty wide open.

So I grew up wanting to go to University of Virginia. I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, right outside DC. So a lot of times geography plays a part, right? And where kids go to college, it's maybe the state school they grew up rooting for. And for me, that was University of Virginia. Don Staley was the star player there and they had gone to final fours. And I went to basketball camp there every year. So every summer I'd go down to Charlottesville and play. And so that was the school I wanted to go to. But then as I got older, obviously a lot of interest from other schools and Duke was right in there. Stanford was right in older, obviously a lot of interest from other schools and Duke was right in there. Stanford was right in there, obviously Tennessee.

And it just came down to, for me, I wanted to play for Pat Summitt. I mean, that's ultimately what it came down to. Obviously, those schools have great traditions and had great programs and still do. But it came down to wanting to play for Pat and wanting to challenge myself in playing for her and how competitive she was, how demanding she was. I felt like that was something I needed, was a coach that was going to demand from me at the highest level. And she did that. And then when I got there, but that ended up being the best choice for me. I wanted to be a coach. I knew that. I've known that since I was a kid, that I wanted to be a coach. And I felt like playing for her would, uh, would, would give me, uh,

not only a great opportunity as a player, but would, would help me learn things about being a coach down the road. I'm embarrassed on this part, but I think you'll forgive me for not memorizing every single, uh, women's college basketball championship over the last 25 years. But when I was going back and looking at them like three final fours, I was like, Oh, Oh, you never won the title.

How much is there part of this? But look, you went to do, cause this is a great job and now you're fulfilling a lifetime dream. But I have to imagine there's like a little bit of extra motivation to achieve the thing you didn't achieve as a player, which I think a lot of people would be like, wait,

but she was a Tennessee. She had a one, one, and I didn't mean to bum you out by bringing that up again. But I imagine part of that's a little driving force in this., wait, but she's a Tennessee. She had a one, one, and I didn't mean to bum you out by bringing that up again. But I imagine part of that's a little driving force in this. I mean, I don't know. You know, I really think of it like this. I think you have your shot when you're a player and I think either you do it or you don't, and then it's gone and it sucks that it's black and white like that,

but that's kind of like how it goes. So I don't think that if, if we're fortunate here to build it the way we want to build it if we're fortunate here to win a championship that all of a sudden like this hole that's never been able to be filled is going to be filled like i think when you compete um the holes are there and they stay there and when you win you win when you lose you lose um so i know that's a nice cute story if it would no it's a better answer actually it is a better i like the answer better because it's not this vicarious thing where you go yeah look i can win one with duke and be thrilled but i think anybody that's ever played will tell you yeah

it's just not the same yeah it wouldn't be winning with my teammates it wouldn't be one of my coach would be winning with the whole group now for them do i desire that for players like yes and so that's where to be able to coach a group that gets to have that that doesn't have a hole like that that gets to have that moment and have that memory man that'd be super fulfilling but it's it's not to me it's like a separate set of feelings and a separate set of of accomplishments was the last loss the toughest one? Because you were there as a freshman, right? In the final? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Last losses are always the hardest, right? Because the finality of it in terms of college, when you're in the pros and you lose in a season, I mean, everyone says, oh, well, you're never promised. Yeah, but you're a solid player. You're

going to play. I mean, I played 13 years. I had 13 cracks at it. You know, like I felt like at the end it was like, well, I won one, but at least I got shots at it. Right. In college, man, you get four. That's it. Like, that's it. So yeah, definitely. There's a finality in the last one that that's, that's hard. It's hard. And especially at that age too, right? Like emotionally you're not as mature, um, as you will be. And, uh, so, so yeah, it's, it's hard it's hard, but I don't, I don't wake up every day thinking about it. You know, it's not something that, that, that haunts me now. I hear people talk about that and this loss haunts them. It honestly doesn't, it doesn't haunt me because I know that I know what I put in, you know, like, and so I've always been one of those people that's like, put in, put in everything you have. And if it happens, it happens. And if it doesn't, it sucks and it hurts and it's the worst.

But there's not residual for me. Like I'm super happy with my college career and happy with my basketball career. What surprised you the most about your experience being an assistant with Celtics? Just being in the NBA life every day. Oh, surprised me. I think how close I got to the players, the emotional attachment. I did not anticipate that. I did not think that going in. And it just hit me. And it hit me really when I left. And I was honestly emotional basket case for three days. Like you would say something

like not even sad or not even sensitive or just say something days. Like you would say something like not even sad or not even sensitive or just say something normal. And I would just cry. It was really hard. It was really hard to leave. And I wrestled with it. Not because I wasn't sure about what Duke was for me and what Duke could be and all those things, but because, oh my gosh, I love those guys. And I just had such great relationships with them and you know being on teams when you're on teams Ryan like when you leave it's never the same right it just isn't like your friends you're gonna you're gonna text with them you know for the maybe for the rest of your life some of them maybe some of them not but there's nothing like being a part

of a team and the relationship's never the same. And so it was almost like, I mean, not to use the word, not to go overboard, but it's like a morning that goes on, right? Because you're just never going to have those types of relationships again with those guys in that moment. And that was really hard to give up. What were maybe some of the things that some of the guys on the team said to you? Oh God, don't get me crying here. Come on. I don't want you to cry i just i just want to hear like no what is what is like a jalen brown say to you or a smart oh you're gonna get me crying um

um i think i think the thing that, uh, that, excuse me, that maybe people that aren't on a team don't understand is that you, you share a lot with people and it's personal. It's, um, and it's personal. It is like a family, even though I know people say they don't like it sometimes on the outside when you say this is a family or we're brothers or whatever it is. It's all true. And so you share things with guys about your life. They share things about their life and you're close.

And I'm not going to share things like that about our players, but I think that's, that's what's hard is you know them on, on levels that are much deeper than surface. And so their happiness and their appreciation for me and for their excitement for me in leaving was very heartfelt. And I think that's what made it harder. And I thought I was done crying about this.

So I apologize, but yeah, I think, I think those guys just, they were so happy for me and they were, had always been so open with me and I could feel that, you know, it's one thing for someone to say, been so open with me and I could feel that, you know, it's one thing for someone to say, I mean, we all can distinguish this. Like when someone's like really happy for you, like not just saying it's like, Oh, it's great. Like they're really happy for you. And some of the things that we, that we shared. Um, so I cried a lot. I know by the end they were, they were done with me crying, but, um, they all, they all said very nice things um you know i i remember the start of practice it might have been a day after two days after um in our huddle tatum you know started practice and said something some very nice things um about me and obviously i'm going to duke and

he was very excited about that being uh being a guy that played at Duke. All the waterworks got going even before practice started. I had to take some time to get focused and get back in practice with the team. Yeah, just there's a lot of guys. Smart, obviously. I'm really close with Smarty. I love Smarty and really enjoyed working with him. And Carson Edwards, I worked with, and I miss Boog every day. Tremont Waters, I worked with as well, and I miss him every day.

We still talk. I still text. You know, Smarty's down there getting fined still. So all is right in the world. More from Kara Lawson, including Tatum versus Jalen Brown one-on-one. I'm excited about that. The Ryan Russillo Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Put on your checkered pants and your most ridiculous shirt

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Four. How about this script? I yelled four in it. Age and location restrictions apply. Okay, we'll lighten it up a little bit. You get $100. Jalen or Tatum, one-on-one? They're playing each other? Yeah, one-on-one uh they're playing each other yeah one-on-one oh jeez i don't know i don't know i don't know it's good i don't know i don't know it's not the answer i

wanted it depends on the day honestly like i feel like if they played like i think they would just get each other i don't know they're both unreal unreal i feel like j they played, I think they would just get each other. I don't know. They're both unreal. Unreal. I feel like Jalen would maybe take it more seriously than Tatum would, and that might be the difference. No. No? No.

I just feel like Jalen would be mad about it. Jalen would be like, all right. I mean, no. That's what I mean. Yeah. I'm not saying everything you're saying about Jalen is true, but what I'm saying to you is Tatum is a killer. He just shows it differently, and he's very competitive, especially if there's stakes.

So I wouldn't say that one is more competitive than the other. I think they're just different. Yeah, that's not necessarily what I meant. I guess maybe, but you're right. Sometimes facial expression alone can change your perception of a player and and it can be totally wrong um can can we back up then to the how the Boston thing happened because you know I've seen you do the interviews on it and it just it it almost feels somewhat similar to the Duke thing not in the same stage but it's just like whoa what's this text is that essentially what happened with brad well i had i had interesting coaching as i shared with you before since i was young

but i had been playing that whole time right in the wmba so i played 13 years and then i found that broadcasting was like a great thing to do concurrent with my with my playing career because i could stay in the game and be around it, but I wouldn't have to sacrifice training time, which when you're trying to play at that elite level, I didn't feel like I could coach in the off season and be the player I wanted to be. Like, I felt like I needed to be able to have four to five hours a day in the off season to train. So when I finished playing, I thought, okay, like now I need to start thinking about coaching and where where's my entry point? Like what level do I want to start? Who do I want to coach? And I got involved with USA Basketball and that was great for me because I started working with high school kids.

So they were really good high school kids. They were like top high school players in the country, but they were like under under 18. So they were really good high school kids. They were like top high school players in the country, but they were like under 18. So 16, 17 years old. I started working with young women the first summer. It was awesome. I really enjoyed it. And my whole thought with that was,

I still have this ESPN career. Let me try coaching. I might not like it. I don't know. Like I've never done it before. Like I might not like it. Let me try it and see if I like it. And if I like it,

then I can decide to like jump in all the way. But if I don not like it let me try it and see if I like it and if I like it then I can decide to like jump in all the way but if I don't like it I haven't given up like this career that I built because I feel like a good career like I had worked my way up through ESPN like I had I had you know jumped jumped a lot of rungs there so that's what I did for three summers I just did the or two and a half I did USA basketball. And each summer, I liked it. Each summer, I was getting more and more pulled into coaching. And during that time, I was getting calls from NBA teams about coaching, about jumping in two feet, and talked with different teams. Ended up, you know, not working out with a number of teams. And some of that was

me, some of that was them. It just varied. And then Brad called last summer. I was down in Florida working and I got a text from him and said he wanted to chat. And we talked on the phone and he asked if I was interested in interviewing for a position on their staff. And fast forward, you know, some time and calls and all that and ended up offering me the position. And similar to the Duke position, Ryan, I had already thought this through. So it wasn't like the decision was from when they offer to the acceptance. like the decision was from when they offer to the acceptance. I had kind of thought it through and I had had certain people in mind as people that might be great to learn from. And Brad was certainly one of those. And to me, it ended up being an easy decision as a way to start my coaching career.

I want to ask you something and it's set up with a story and it relates to like friends of mine that played sports for a living. But I remember when Becky Hammond was hired as an assistant, it's a huge story, right? And the NBA, I believe one day is going to have a female head coach. I don't know when it's going to happen. And I know that my thoughts on it have changed, not as the ogre male, you know, Neanderthal over here saying a woman could never coach a man's team. It was simply knowing, as I said at the story, like I had a bunch of buddies that played hockey and they had a season where it was disappointing. And I would ask, you know, back to the off season, I go,

hey, what happened? And they're like, I'm the coach. I'm like, well, wait a minute. This coach had an incredible resume. He'd won a Stanley Cup before. I was like, wait, it was the coach? And they're like, well, you know, he didn't play. And I went, okay. Now, again, you guys are in the locker room. You're the pro athletes. I'm just your buddy. You know, happy to see you this summer.

But I got to ask you, like, you guys all just checked out on this coach with this incredible resume just because he didn't play. So as soon as things went south, you guys collectively were like, well, he never really played. And they were like, you don't get it, Ryan. You don't get it. He never played. He never laced them up.

He didn't go through the stuff like we did. And I've never gotten over that in that athletes a lot like us, if you give them an excuse, sometimes they will use it. And so if I were an NBA owner and I thought that a female candidate was just as qualified as a male candidate, that would always be something that stuck in my head. Now, I've definitely evolved in my thinking,

and I think your experience and Becky's experience and other experiences around the league where you go, hey, you're not giving the players enough credit for understanding how they would adapt to it. And sometimes I would say maybe the best reason for diverse hiring is that you force people to experience something that they didn't experience something before and it changed their entire perception about it. How do you feel now about the reality of when it happens and how today's player will deal with, I don't want to call it a challenge because that's not fair, but deal with, oh, the excuse making part of it if things don't go the right way.

Yeah, I mean, I just kind of feel like the excuse-making part of it if things don't go the right way happens regardless of gender, right? I mean, it's going to happen with anybody that it doesn't go well with. I think the hard part is whoever the first female head coach is in the NBA, it kind of needs to go well. And so that's where you're like, well, what if it doesn't? And then there's excuse making is whatever. And so that's to me is what is what is the pressure and is the challenge of whoever that is. the pressure and it's the challenge of whoever that is uh it needs to go well just like it needed to go well when when Becky uh was hired as San Antonio as the first assistant coach and by all accounts it has gone well and there there are more women now being a coach but I think that

one of the hardest jobs of being a head coach in professional sports is keeping the locker room on board. Like that's that's one of the hardest things. Like you have to be able to continually keep that group together and continually keep them believing in what you can do. And that's that's like number one, because the the second i mean you're talking about the second you lose that it doesn't really matter the talent that you have the second they check out like the check out you're done right i mean you're done you're done right i mean it's and it's happened to countless number of men that have had the job that it was like oh you know well it was always this and sometimes it's accurate and a lot of times it isn't accurate. You're like, you know,

you guys are just kind of building up all of this stuff and playing the results just because it didn't work out. And I think in Becky's case, and I don't know if she ends up becoming the Spurs head coach at one point to establish it through the assistant path is a massive advantage. Cause I'm sure like, did you wonder about that at all when you when you took the Celtics job and then how quickly was it like oh okay you know like because you I try to explain you to some people like when you meet Kara it is all basketball like the way you walk like I just it looks like you're about ready to go play yeah and you were just oozing basketball in every single possible way you were so great as an analyst both with us and when you were doing

the Wizards game, and I'd be at home and I'd shoot you a text, like, you're just so good at this. And so you were all baller. And so I would imagine guys that grew up with it, like, as soon as they see it, they could just see it and go, oh, all right, you know, like, there's no problem here, let's just go.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think, like, yeah, I am all basketball, man. And so if you're not about basketball, I'm not going to say I'm not interested in like talking to you or not interested in being around you. But we're going to run out of stuff that is interesting for me to talk about like real quick. All right. So once we get past the surface stuff like we're there's just not going to be a lot of depth to our relationship. You're not into basketball. That's just anybody. Right. There's just not going to be a lot of depth to our relationship. You're not into basketball.

That's just anybody. Right. And so I think that. Yeah, I think that people know people sense that people feel that. And I think that NBA players are such great observers and they're so nuanced in their observation that they're able to see a lot more and feel a lot more than probably the average person gives them credit for. Last question. As a recruiter, you know you've rehearsed this. What is your pitch going to be? Because whatever it is now, you know it's going to tweak a little bit. So in your head, you're like, I've been waiting my whole life for this part. I have

rehearsed it. No, I didn't rehearse the recruiting pitch. You're not as crazy as you say you are, Karen. I didn't rehearse the recruiting pitch. My whole life is the recruiting pitch. I'm just telling you that I can't talk to you unless I'm talking about basketball. So what do you want to talk about? Where do you want me to help you go? where do you want me what do you want to be

like you want to be a WNBA player okay like you oh you're interested in being on television ESPN okay 16 years at ESPN like oh you're you want to play for the Olympic team okay yeah did that like they're they're it just depends on what what the kid wants to do and where they want to go with their life. And I think that obviously having a great university behind that helps in terms of what you're selling, because we're selling obviously this top-notch academic experience as well. I mean, whether you want to be in medicine, you want to be in law, you want to be whatever you want to do at Duke. I mean, it's one of the best educations in the country. I think my style of recruiting is just transparent and direct. I'm definitely a direct person. Like, you know that

from being around me, like there's not a lot of fluff. Like you asked me a question, I'll give you an answer. If you don't want to hear it, I'm still giving you the same answer. But you know, that's just the way it is. And so I just try to be direct and transparent with everybody. Yeah, that's a, I like that when you run it through your resume, you're like, wait, all this, all this already. And here you are ready to take this next big challenge. And you should be really proud of everything you've accomplished. And I can't wait to see when at Duke. And I leave you with this thought, like, as you were talking about being part of the Celtics and then feeling like you were part of coaching and all this stuff, the community feel of a place like Duke or any

major program, it's an incredible life experience to be able to say, I am part of this community. I represent this community. I take this as an honor to be allowed to represent this. But there are very few things in sports that are as rewarding as winning and being at a place in a long time. And I expect that to happen for you at Duke. Well, listen, I appreciate that. And you're right. I was blown away when I got the job.

Like, I knew the Duke family. Like, I knew, like, working at ESPN, I know a lot of the guys, right? That played. Yeah, there's a few Duke guys there. Few. And then of course, playing in the WNBA,

I played against a lot of the women that came through the Duke program. And it was crazy. The phone calls and the texts that I got. Now, the overall was crazy, but that was like other stuff, right? I'm talking like from Duke people. It was, it was crazy. And I'm sitting there like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? And I'm not, I'm not a name dropper, so I'm

not going to do that. But what I'm saying is it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it gave you a sense of that community. It gave you a sense of that, of that family that I'm, I'm so happy to be a part of now, um, where, where, uh, there's such a great tradition here of basketball. And I'll say this, I know you're, I know you're a football guy too. So one of my men, one of my mentors, one of my biggest mentors is David Cutcliffe. Okay. And so we go back to Tennessee, you know, he was at Tennessee, I was at Tennessee, and we go back a ways in terms of our relationship. And I'll tell you what crystallized for me, actually going two feet in in my mind for coaching. Four years ago, 2016, it's my first summer that I haven't played. So my last year in the WNBA was 2015.

Okay. So now it's your first summer you don't play. Man, that first season you don't play, it's weird. It's really weird because you're so used to the rhythm of what you do. You're getting in shape. You're doing all that. That same summer, start of that summer, Coach Summit passes away. She passed away in 2016. Okay. Tough, tough summer for me all the way

around. I'm not playing for the first time. And one of my biggest mentors passes away. So I'm kind of just everywhere. I'm bouncing around. I'm just not in a good mental space, to be honest with you. And I land in Durham. I land in Durham. I land at Duke for a week in August. I come down to Duke and I spend the first week of training camp with Cut. First week of Duke training camp with Cut. I think Daniel Jones was like a red shirt freshman that year. Okay. And I'm, I'm, I'm in every meeting. I'm in all the coaches meetings. I'm in the team meetings. I'm sitting in the back. I'm in the special teams meetings. I'm in, I'm, I was a safeties coach volunteer. Did not know what was happening half the time, but I'm in the safeties room.

I'm with the safeties. I'm in the safeties room all right the safety guys i'm with the safeties i'm in the defensive meeting i'm doing all this stuff and uh it was in that week that i was like yeah this is this is it this is what this is what i'm doing this is what i'm gonna do like this is next this is what's next man like this is it watching cut coach coach his team, watching him teach, watching him coach his coaches within those staff meetings. I got two full yellow legal pads and notes from that. And then obviously getting a chance to interact with him and talk with him, building relationships with the football players. They tried to get me to sing like I was a freshman. I was like, no, I ain't singing at mealtime, guys. Like that ain't me. I ain't a rookie. Like, I got 13 years in. Like, this is not what we're doing here. But to be around that from that perspective, not as one of the players the first time for summer out,

but to be around it from that, that's where I got hooked. And I was standing last week on – I have a little balcony off my office at Durham or at Duke. And I was standing there reflecting a little bit. I was late in the office one night last week. And it wasn't lost on me that four years ago, I was in that same place, that same place like Durham, Duke on campus, really lost, man, like really lost, not kind of knowing what I wanted to do next. And four years later, I'm in the same place and I'm the head coach of the women's basketball program. That's crazy. Like that's crazy. So that was a cool moment for me, you know, to see like, you just never know, man. Like four years ago, you could not tell me I'd be head coach at Duke.

I was at Duke lost, like trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. And now I'm here. And so Coach Cut has been an influential person in my life. I'm a big football fan. I couldn't have landed in a better place as a first time head coach with David Cutcliffe, Mike Krzyzewski as the football coach and as a men's basketball coach. And I plan on using those guys as resources as much as they'll allow me to because they're two of the best. Final thought here, just to put Celtics fans' minds at ease. Brad didn't say, hey, I'll see you down there in five years when Kay's gone, did he? No, no.

Any talk that we had about the future, as I stated at the start, was all about my future. I don't know what Brad's going to do in the future, but whatever he does, I'll definitely support him and Tracy. I know. They told me that when I got down here. A lot of people. It's like a hot topic down here. I had no idea. Oh, yeah, I know. I had no idea. It was something Bill and I talked about the other night on the pod. idea it was something bill and i talked about the other night on the pod and i go i get that it's duke but it's a bit insulting to think that like okay well once this celtics thing and something

better opens up i'll go i'll go so you're like yeah like that's a little dismissive of who the celtics are as an organization i always hear that brad is like so into the pro thing now that he's a junkie about it um which you have to be to be a head coach to begin with. But this pioneer missing college. Yeah, go ahead. No, I had someone tell me, it made me laugh. Again, this radio here,

or I don't know if it was radio. I don't remember. I've done a lot of interviews, but somebody said that me getting this job, I'm being sent as a scout for Brad. And I was like, what? So apparently I'm the scout. There you go. That's why I had to ask. I had to ask. Which is not true. Obviously not. None of this is true. Like not true at all.

And I'm going to do you a favor. I'm not going to title this podcast is Carol Austin sets the record straight on Brad Stevens, but not, not definite, but just so you know, like that's going. But just so you know, that'll turn into a little... But you did a good job with it. None of that stuff is true. And like I said to you, I didn't even hear about that until I got down here and people started asking me and I thought, I'd never even heard of this. What is going on?

Oh, no, it's been going on for a while. It's always that when Kay leaves, Brad will just take over. But I go, what if he's winning with the Celtics? I don't know. Thank you very much for the time. I can't tell you how excited those of us that get the chance to work with you. We all were like, oh, yeah, layup, perfect.

And let's see what happens, man. I can't wait. All right, sounds good. See you. Thanks, Ryan. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet.

What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the south fork i have every toy you can possibly imagine and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required oh this week's life advice not sponsored we could get that sponsored though kyle get on that uh if you want to go ahead and hit up the email to the screening process, it's LifeAdvice, LifeAdviceRR at gmail.com. Guys are fascinated with the rich guy who was bored. A lot of emails about that, people checking in on him. So somebody sent in this.

Hey, Ryan and nephew Kyle, I listened to the recent podcast. You talked to guys eight figures in the bank was bored. I was curious to know if he has close relationships with friends or romantically. Golf and poker are competitive, but also individual sports games, whatever you want to call poker. It is not uncommon for people to feel like they are bored or that their life is missing something when they are lacking close interpersonal relationships with others, especially during times like these. If this is the case, it might be a good recommendation for him to start seeing a therapist. Someone in his shoes might benefit from taking this time

to work with a professional to improve his life and relationship instead of finding something to distract himself, which he might already be using as a negative coping skill. Props on a lot of the advice you give. Would love to hear you talk more about the writing. I will when it's worth talking about. I'm a licensed therapist,

so I thought I'd share my thoughts. All right, so people may think I'm laughing at the idea of therapy. I'm not. I just think it's amazing how serious. There have been so many follow-ups to the guy who says he has eight figures because, you know,

if you don't have eight figures in the bank you find it impossible that anybody could be unhappy with that uh now as i always said when people were like oh not having money builds character i was like i have enough character now i would the cash. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Here we go. All right. This one is definitely a little different here. This is from Alan. And this is a dicey topical one here. It's all right. Kyle, Ryan, my wife and I live here in Houston. Our wedding was scheduled for May 30th, but due to COVID, we went ahead and rescheduled it for August 15th. We had a smaller family ceremony back in May to go and get married. The Shindig in Austin is mainly for pictures and the reception,

given we already paid for all of it. We've been getting a ton of backlash from our family, friends, and even wedding party over still having the wedding. My grandma called me and opened the conversation asking, quote, do you want me to die? my grandma called me and opened the conversation asking quote do you want me to die okay that is a there's a harsh opener to a to an old grandma too that's tough we're aware of the situation but however cancellation postponement isn't really an option like it was in the past given texas's continued state of being not locked down if we wanted to cancel we basically lose over

60 grand we've put in this thing and honestly that's just not something we can stomach my question is you how do we proceed multiple groomsmen have dropped out setting concerns over travel yet were involved in heavily populated protests and some even travel by car to various vacations in other states yeah i'm not i'm not touching that part of it um i mean look you can't tell your groomsman hey you went to a protest come to my wedding then that guy is going to go from former groomsman to former friend um our family's pretty split on coming my mom cries daily about this gosh seems like we're just treading water at this point and don't know how we're supposed to move forward as a happy couple while getting

shit on by friends family and the rest of the world okay uh that's a tough one man that is a tough one i think the easiest thing to do like you know sometimes i just think about what you know there's there's a ton of people listening to this right now being like it's 60 grand you're gonna have to eat it you can't you can't invite people to this. You can't expect people to show up. And there's probably a good chunk of people being like, hey, you can't eat that 60 grand. That's way too much money. That's crazy.

Right, 60 grand is a lot of money. My first thing I would be trying to do here, it depends on how important your friends are to you. And for most people, friends are very important to you, despite how they kind of go in and out of your life and a lot of times out forever and you run into them like hey we need to do something and then you never do anything but uh i don't know this this one's really tough i mean my my first thing i would do if i were you i'd go back to the wedding place and be like look i'm not eating 60 grand. We're figuring something out and see if you can postpone it again. I know that's

not what you want to deal with, but I mean, if you've already paid them, it sounds like you've already paid them. And then you think about their business too, like that somebody's on the other side of this. It's kind of like some of the rent forgiveness stuff where you go, okay, some of this I get, but there's also people that are paying the mortgage on the rental properties too. So I would try really, really hard to see if you can postpone this thing again. That would be about it. It doesn't sound like that's an option based on this email here, but you're probably just going to have to go ahead with the people that want to be there. And for the people that don't, no hard feelings.

The thing about weddings, man, I mean, I can't even imagine trying to pull this off during all this stuff, but like there've been Sunday weddings where the wedding party gets really pissed about it and talk shit about the bride and groom and they probably hear about it, but there's like way more shit being talked about you

after the fact. There've been weddings where it was a long weekend where i think somebody did it like july 4th i think there's a memorial day one two and right but half half the crowd and again i don't know if it's 50 50 but half the group will go oh that's really great like we have the three-day weekend we have the extra day to kind of get things back in order once we fly back we can use that as a full travel day and then other people will go why are you fucking with my holiday like july 4th is my day and you're going to make it about you you know sunday makes my thing inconvenient friday i've done a couple friday night weddings because look when it's not on the saturday it's just a hell of a lot cheaper and i don't blame people that are just trying to make it work that want to get married and share the time and really the people

that care about you the most aren't going to care about the day so i mean that's a tough spot from your grandma there maybe throw her on a zoom put her in the corner on a laptop you know maybe have a bartender bring her a couple of aperol spritz in person i don't i don't know what to do i'm not trying to make light of any of this this is just an almost impossible i don't have a great solution for you here can we normalize the small wedding and then just have a big ass house party at like somebody's? My mom got married twice in the Pleasant Valley Town Hall. I was the only person there at the second one. 50 bucks each wedding it cost her. And then you could just have a cool party.

I don't get that. Why do we have to go to the mega church or something or the golf course? I don't know. Well, some people just are going to do it that way, man. When I thought I was getting married, I wanted this this one spot like i was determined i was like that's going to be the spot because i've grown up seeing people get married there and i thought there's like the coolest place ever i can't believe i gave a shit about that now i'm like what and i also think when you're me at my age like i can't treat it like a real normal like guys are gonna be like what are

you acting like you're 25 and about to like really set off on life kind of yeah we're gonna get you toasters and shit yeah why don't you just big spoons we're gonna buy you a toaster and a serving dish like why don't you just marry yourself you know that person the best um yeah i i would i would be just fighting with the wedding people i would just be fighting with them going hey you know i don't care what the texas part of this is but they're going to tell you to screw off because they already have your money so uh i don't i don't know they may be a big um in a mass email that you send to everybody individually just make sure you get the names right in the front of it and go look this is the deal but you just can't yell at your friends to make them come to this wedding you can't you

can't um so because if you do that come to this wedding. You can't. You can't. That's crazy. Because if you do that, I imagine some of these people you really care about. Next thing you know, you could lose some friends over this. That'll bum you out a lot more than a bill. But that's a lot of money, man. I'm not making light of any of that. I don't have any advice on that one, honestly.

I don't think that's the worst job I've done so far on the podcast. Alright, so with that in mind, please subscribe, rate, and review the Ryan Rosillo podcast, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. And remember, Sundays with Bill Simmons. We just did one Sunday night, just a few days into the bubble. And look at me.

I got basketball here in about an hour, taping this early out on the West Coast. So thanks, Kyle. We'll talk to you Thursday. Thank you.