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Trent Johnson former Nevada, LSU, TCU, and Stanford coach talks about NCAA recruiting, social media’s influence, paying college players, and what he saw that sets Lebron James apart.
August 22, 2017- Kidd & Watts are joined by the renowned basketball coach, Trent Johnson on The Real Spill.
Leading four NCAA Division 1 universities as head coach Trent Johnson has a unique perspective into the inner workings of men’s college basketball. From 2004-2008 Johnson was the head coach at Stanford and was recently the head coach at TCU (Texas Christian University) 2012-2016. His teams reached the NIT tournament three times and the NCAA tournament four times.
On this episode, the fellas discuss social media. Trent breaks it down using examples of pre and posts social media. He speaks on privacy and how it’s gone with the emergence of social media.
He also talks about work ethic off the court in regards to running the mile. It’s not all about being able to dribble, shoot and pass. Your endurance is key at the division one level.
At LSU Trent shares his story of Bill Walsh coming into the office once and sometimes twice a month and speaking to him. One visit that coach spoke on was when Walsh stopped by and said, you know Trent, “If you’re not getting better, you’re stupid or you don’t care.”
Trent wonders, how can you be an athlete and not be in shape? Which leads back to that quote about “If you’re not getting better, you’re stupid or you don’t care.”
Donald mentions how you need to separate yourself from other athletes. You need to be conditioned, have strength, your body has to be prepared for the battle.
Donald shares the battle versus UConn with Richard Hamilton in the Sweet 16.
Physically Donald knew he was bigger and stronger than Hamilton, but Hamilton had him beat in the conditioning aspect. Donald remembers giving Hamilton an elbow and the response was not to fight back but instead he took Donald through a track meet.
Watts reminisces of him running all over in the second half of the game, “I was with him the whole time in the first half. The second half I was on the opposite side of the court, he was standing in the corner by himself.”
Trent shares his philosophy about athletes wanting to stand out. One example he gave was the Lopez brothers. Two guys who have no tattoos, clean cut, love cartoon characters, went to Stanford University for a few years before going into the NBA.
He also mentioned Allen Iverson, yes he has tattoos, the jewelry now, but go back and look, when he got to Georgetown he didn’t have all of that. Once he got into the NBA he made his own decisions, but up until then, there was someone passing judgment on him, you must embrace it and accept it, Trent said.
Trent also evaluates the state of the game in regards to players transferring schools, talks about LeBron James work ethic, how he wanted coach Mike Brown who is now with the Golden State Warriors & so much more!
Donald’s son was in the studio with us and shared what he learned from The Real Spill with Trent Johnson.
“I learned that you can’t watch the outcome, watch the work ethic of what they were doing before the outcome.”
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