Two Coaches & a Coffee
With nearly 60years of professional experience between them across the world in Premier League, International Rugby, AFL and consulting in a plethora of other sports and industries; two old bulls of the performance, injury prevention, and rehabilitation world: Darren Burgess and Jason Weber catch up over a brew and discuss all things Sports Performance.
Two Coaches & a Coffee
Season 2, Episode 24
Ever wondered how top-tier sports teams maintain their edge? Discover the secrets behind cohesive staffing and unified team direction in our latest episode of Two Coaches and a Coffee. We kick off by sharing lessons from our visits to various football and rugby clubs, revealing why money isn't always the key to success. Instead, it's the skilled and context-aware practitioners who make the difference. Listen as we unpack the challenges larger departments face in staying connected and aligned, and how effective leadership can balance individual autonomy with the overall team vision.
As we continue, we delve into the complexities of consultancy within the sports industry, shedding light on the importance of supporting staff to maintain a cohesive environment. Learn about the intricacies of hiring for senior roles and the pitfalls of overly layered management structures, particularly in U.S. colleges, which can stifle responsibility and decision-making. We also share exciting developments in facility ownership and the personal challenges of balancing professional responsibilities while on the road. Don't miss our memorable moment with Dave Carroll, and the laughs over a Guinness, as we round off another insightful and engaging conversation.
Sponsored by SPEEDSIG.com
G'day and welcome to Two Coaches and a Coffee. We are two coaches today. Ojo, welcome back.
Speaker 2:Welcome you back. You've been away and back in Australia now. Welcome you back. You've been away and back in.
Speaker 1:Australia. Now I have. I took over the podcast for a little bit, mate. I thought we'd just keep things going and, given my last podcast, I had a friend of mine message me and say after that I think we might need to ensure you get some mental health recovery. You sounded a bit cooked. If anything, I thought it was an improvement, but anyway, An improvement on me or an improvement on us On the podcast. I think it was different, if nothing else. But yeah, I was pretty cooked.
Speaker 2:Five lessons, or let's start with three and see how we go. Three big lessons that you learned as a coach rather than as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:firstly, Three as a coach. Well, I'll tell you what's interesting. What was one thing? Obviously, I had the opportunity to visit everything from the very biggest, very biggest EPL clubs down to uh, league one, so championship in league one, and I actually thought there were a lot of great practitioners, top to bottom. But one of the interesting thing was staffing levels, and I'll go, I'll go further, I'll go for, I'll say beyond, because I didn't just go to football clubs, I went to pro rugby clubs as well. Staffing was interesting. So I've had for a long time, I've had a view that what I did in AFL for a long time was the way I would like to continue, yeah okay.
Speaker 1:So what did I learn? I probably got the opportunity to see a couple of other systems in place, systems that had a lot of people, what I would maybe say too many people which I think is a concern, because then you end up not so much siloed, but I think guys go off on tangents a little bit and when I could physically see some sessions where you would see particularly rehab going like there's two different philosophies happening here. So I learned that I think no matter the size of your staff, you need to make sure everyone still has a north star, and that's something I've talked a bit like. My last podcast was time right. As much as I've been super busy, you still do have a lot of time on planes and airports and stuff and I think a north star for a lot of things. So when you're doing whatever you're doing, making sure you've got a direction that you're heading in, and I think that piece around staffing is you've got to stay connected. I'm not saying I saw anyone that was disconnected, but it was more the fact that there were so many different numbers and so many different ways to do things and obviously there's budget to that.
Speaker 1:Some of the League One teams in England don't have the same budget, yeah, but I still think they were really connected and they had really good people. They had some sharp people, man. Like there's some guys. One guy I met in League One I had this little test I was giving people I'd show some speed sig data and anyway, there's part where it dropped off and I said like this will be pretty, should be pretty obvious to most people and I would say to a man, everybody got it, but some just got it a lot faster than others, and the fastest I saw was a league one guy. He just went I don't know what that is and I was like super impressed. Um, so so that would be one long answer to that I still think. Then, the other thing is money is not necessarily everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Money doesn't solve every problem. I still think and there's some stuff that I've, some discussions I've had today that I still think making sure you've got really good context around what you're doing. I think there's people, there's things we learn at university, unquestionably, but there's a lot of stuff that we don't learn at university, that's just not taught, that you're going to need to learn by having worked with good people, and I think good people S&C, sports science, medical, the whole thing and so I think that I would say that my journey in that is not complete. I don't think it's ever complete. So there's two things, mate. What?
Speaker 2:about so when and I know sometimes in the role that you had you can't necessarily get a complete feel for each club that you went into. But what about how the practitioners there handled the frustration of impact on program?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. The question would have been time. I don't think I had enough time to see any of that. I think that as departments get bigger, you get that. Well, I've got to contribute my part.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:One of the bigger clubs. I went to one of the things I thought of the leadership that I met the guy that was running it I thought was very good at. He seemed to be able to keep everybody on the same page. So while I was presenting and I went, I'd presented to them before, so I was doing sort of a full workshop day with them, and there was always he kept not stopping me, but there were parts where he would say, look, this is where we, this is how it affects us and this is what your job, jimmy, is, and Billy, and where does it all fit together?
Speaker 1:So I guess it came back to that connected piece. Making sure you understand that people like making sure people have their own autonomy in spaces Tough one, though, and I see that in football coaches a lot. You know where they all need their time, and so is it time we really need to be spending, or are we just doing another fucking 25 minutes of line out, training or stoppages or whatever, because you need to have done something, irrespective of what the team needs?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think. I think that's an interesting one. I was travelling today as well, which is a story for another time, but I heard two podcasts in my travels and I won't say the names of them, but one was talking about having somebody outside of your club who is a consultant to your club, who's almost like an academic-based fact checker, and I've been. I'm sure I've spoken about Barry Drust and the influence that he had on what we did at Liverpool, right, and he was just amazing because we were taking creatine, kinase and a whole bunch of stuff. This is obviously 12 years ago, a lot longer than that, when I started there and he just said well, do you mind if I put this through an academic rigor process? And I just went by all means, and then so everything that we did, he put through this process and presented to us on where it should go and what benefit it could have, all with the express selfless aim of making the players better and, I guess, essentially making my job easier.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it was really.
Speaker 2:it was a really unique situation and the PhD students we had go through that program and now all you know, high performance, yeah, performance operators on their own you met a couple of them, so it was really yeah, program and so um, your ability to have that person in that environment, because in the bigger clubs the head count is massive.
Speaker 2:So your ability to allocate somebody in that environment, which is a bit like, you know, putting a round peg in a round hole. Phil Coles, who's just won the NBA with Boston Celtics I can't remember his title I was trying to think it's vice president of player performance or something or whatever it is but he's done an unbelievable job and he was as good as any with his team of physios at saying right, you are unbelievable at hands-on treatment, so that's what you're going to do. You have an academic background, so you know what the hands-on treatment isn't your thing. We are going to produce this process for rehabbing ankle hamstring evidence-based. We're all going to sit around and contribute, but you're going to pull it all together because you know the. You can imagine where I'm going. You're a Spanish video who is really good at these particular modalities and I reckon too often, like you said, some of the bigger programs just add headcount without thinking where that headcount is actually going to have impact.
Speaker 1:Mate, and you bring up another point which this did rise in my travels a little bit. So the consultancy piece. And I hear people coming out of our industry saying I'm just going to go and be a consultant, I would counsel very, very strongly on what that looks like. So I got asked a few times to come and work with players and I said I don't work with players. And I said I don't work with players, mate. I said I work with you, I work with the club as a consultant. I come in to work with you, with the staff. I'm not there to work with players because that's the coach's roles. I'm undermining somebody.
Speaker 1:Then, um, and I felt strongly that, because I've seen that before where coaches this was many years ago in particular a particular coach I saw working through a given sport which I won't mention but was at multiple places, and it was like I'm on a time here, I've got to move to the next thing, and it becomes sort of semi-divisive. But it also can be a pretty big grenade into the environment when you come in and start pointing your fingers and all care but no responsibility, then you bail. I get this very strong thing about saying like I will consult to the staff. I will support the staff. I'm there and the whole speed sick thing is about contributing a body of information to the staff. It's your job to deal with the players and bring it out because, yeah, the consultancy thing can be a bit wobbly if you put people in front of players and they're not necessarily delivering a consistent message.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, certainly you know, in the case of Liverpool, barry Drost didn't deal with the players.
Speaker 1:Yeah, correct. No, that sounded perfect. Yeah, that sounded perfect. Yeah, correct, no, that sounded perfect. That sounded perfect. Yeah, and it's something you don't consider.
Speaker 2:Well, one thing that's happened while you've been away is you might have seen that and this is completely we haven't spoken about this we're on a strict timeline for this particular Welcome Back podcast, but we've advertised two positions and I'm about to advertise another one. Yep, all right, right, so we've had a strength and conditioning coach, or strength coach, a head of fitness and conditioning. Yep, and a head of sports science will go out tomorrow by the time this podcast is up. Um, and they're all you know, the. The strength coach is a, I guess, assistant to our head of athletic development in, josh Emanuel, but the others are lead roles and senior roles, because people have left the job and gone on to bigger and better roles.
Speaker 1:I know I met some of them while I was away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm absolutely wrapped for them.
Speaker 1:What? That they met me or they got jobs? Yeah, that they got jobs, that's a bit of both.
Speaker 2:What that they met me or I got jobs yeah, that they got jobs, but we've taken the philosophy of I'm going to get the best people with the minimum standard skill sets, and by that I mean if I'm applying, putting out a job tomorrow which I am, for a head of sports science, then clearly and you've spoken about this as loudly as anyone they need to have data analytics programming.
Speaker 1:Some scientific skills.
Speaker 2:Scientific skills, ability to be curious, ability to have research stuff. So there's some skills there. But in the other two positions which is lead fitness, head of fitness and conditioning I've deliberately left that vague because I want those two other roles to almost assist each other. So let's say that person A comes in and they've got some incredible acceleration mechanics, coaching ability yeah, but it's not quite in the job description. Then I'd be an idiot to not use that person in that space. So we're trying to be a little bit more flexible so that this headcount doesn't grow exponentially and people are I am the head acceleration person and only I can do that. No, no, we're trying to be as flexible as possible and put these people where they are best suited to.
Speaker 1:But you see that in the States a lot, mate. So you get the guy who is the assistant strength and conditioning coach, then I'm the director of strength and conditioning, then I'm the assistant athletic director of strength and conditioning, and you get all these layers and layers and layers of what I'm not sure. I'm absolutely unclear as to what, particularly the universities. There is layer on top of layer on top of layer and it is a bunch of people who look like Elmer Fudd, pointing in two directions, going, hey, it went that way. You know they don't. The actual responsibility gets diversified.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then when they get somebody in. I'm working with one us college particularly where where the guy who's in there is like just frustrated because he's the only one saying, yes, this is the path, we'll go, I've got this guy. Everyone else is like hands up, you know, whatever, which is phenomenally ridiculous.
Speaker 1:when you see um, I'll speak generally about an acl reconstruction I'm saying, go back at the moment. It's like have you people not read anything in the research recently? Like there is so much stuff out there about the fundamentals that if you just did the fundamentals you'd get close, let alone actually knowing about how people run and decelerate. But these guys got nothing. And it's in programs that are worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Yep, yep, whatever, we'll just send them back. Recovery is a timescale, according to some people time scale according to some people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's um. Yeah, it's very much a frustrating um part of our um, of our workplace and and our industry that people think more is better and and perhaps some of those um some people, some are so risk averse they do nothing.
Speaker 1:I know you're on a schedule, mate, but let's, while you've you've said very nicely talked about what I've been up to, but you've branched out, mate. You're into a bit of facility ownership that you got your eyeballs into um I have seen some shots of it on social media looks awesome.
Speaker 2:No, we've um uh.
Speaker 2:So I'm just a very small uh investor in a performance facility called peak performance um, which is paq paq, which is run by looking for a really good, uh, strength coach named sean baker, and he's got a great team there and his wife, jamie, have done an an awesome job and, um, the really quick summary because I really am on a bit of a time schedule is I've had the opportunity to invest in a whole bunch of different like like a lot of us who've been around a while, and whether that's you know F45 or you know some of these franchise places, and I was tempted a few times, but I didn't find anything that was that I was really passionate about and that had people that were genuinely interested in developing semi-professional and sub-elite teams and athletes and people who are really serious about what they do, as well as developing a pathway for coaches.
Speaker 2:But ultimately, mate, if I'm completely honest, there's a large part of it that is um, okay, I'm not going to be in this industry forever and yep to um have backup plans, and this is one of those, and we've spoken about those, and so I've got a few of those, and so this, this is one of them and, um, if you're going to have a backup plan, be passionate about the backup plan that you have, and that's what this is so in a couple of weeks I'll probably be a bit of a social media.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about it more on the podcast. Mate, you've got to pump it up, but I will say what I do like about what you're doing and I know you've got your fingers in a few pies and all the rest of it but it's not so much different or original, but you're taking a path that's specific to what you want to do. What I can't cop at the moment is the number of people like as much as we're doing a podcast, we get on chat, right, but people who are doing the oh, we're going to interview other snc coaches and this is going to be my new business, like you know. There's so many people doing that. It's like be creative. At least you and I are sitting here together talking our own bullshit, and if people are into it, that's great. I really hope that some are. They like I get feedback that we're doing okay, but I think we're getting paid a fortune for it too.
Speaker 1:We are getting paid a month so much, so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1:We've got sponsors coming out of our ears. But I would encourage people to be original and think like you sports scientists think, go and and solve problems. Don't just reinvent the wheel over and, over and again. And what you've done in adelaide, from what I can see, yeah, she looks original yeah, it's a look.
Speaker 2:It's an impressive facility. Um, they're running off of basically a single size basketball court at the moment and now it's going to be I don't know there's. There's probably two and a half basketball courts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at least it'll be good.
Speaker 2:I'm only playing a small role, but it might start off small and end up somewhere if the crows keep going crap.
Speaker 1:So you just never know well, that's all right, mate, I might come and apply for one of your jobs. You never know. Come down there, we can do the podcast live together we'll.
Speaker 2:we'll make up for it next week by doing uh, we'll have a chat about some of the Olympic stuff and, yeah, there's a few other things going on which are definitely worthy of chat. The NFL starts their pre-season games this weekend.
Speaker 1:Yep, my college football's on the ramp. They're all in camp which has got another. There's a bunch of stories behind some of that. Some of the stuff I'm hearing is like if I had any hair it would be standing on end or falling out one or the other.
Speaker 2:The social media influences that we are. Jason. It's excellent content.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I'm not very good at the social media. I forced myself while I was away to do a couple of things, but everyone kept saying why don't you take photos of where you are? I'm like I'm speaking to people, I'm meeting them for the first time, I'm trying to talk to them about a brand new piece of tech in an area of sport that no one's thought of. I don't want to be standing there saying, hey, do you mind if I take photos of everything, like it's just fucking drives me mad. So I took a photo of me and dave carroll and having a guinness yeah, that's me.
Speaker 2:That's basically the only photo I've got from you guys you and Dave, who we almost went on a podcast without mentioning. It's extraordinary.
Speaker 1:Well, we can't, like I said to Dave, like he's paying me a commission now, so I've got to mention him every time.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Anyway, mate it's a pleasure. Let's catch up again as soon as viable before I disappear into the Netherlands again. All right mate, speak to you later.