Tom Izzo's Keys to Becoming a Great Coach and Running a Successful Program

with Tom Izzo,
Michigan State University Head Coach;
2000 NCAA National Champions;
8x Final Four appearances;
10x Big Ten regular season champions; 6x Big Ten Tournament champions;
2x NABC Coach of the Year (2001, 2012);
3x Big Ten Coach of the Year (1998, 2009, 2012);
2011 John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award;
2005 Clair Bee Coach of the Year;
1998 AP College Coach of the Year;
1998 Henry Iba Award;
Distinguished member of the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame (2016)

The old saying by Theodore Roosevelt is: "Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care." Coaching is about developing and fostering relationships with players so that players and coaches alike can achieve their goals.

In this video, legendary Michigan State coach Tom Izzo gives you insight on how he has become one of the most successful coaches in America. Izzo provides an hour's worth of key concepts and tips on what helped him during his career so you can immediately apply some of his ideas along your own coaching journey.

Relationship Building

The number one thing Izzo emphasizes is to put your time, energy and effort into relationship building with your players. Developing relationships should be prioritized over the drills and game plans you develop as a coach. Coach Izzo discusses:

• The importance of building honesty, trust and listening with your players.
• How he can be hard and demanding on his players based on the relationships he has built.
• The importance of culture and integrating parents and players into that culture.
• How to develop chemistry at any level of basketball.

You as the Coach

Next, Izzo explains why knowing who you are as a coach will help you achieve the goals of your program. In particular, Coach Izzo covers why coaches should explain the "why" behind what they do to help with transparency with their players, the importance of devoting time to fundamentals in practices, making your goals as a coach match up with the goals of your players, and the importance of being authentic to yourself.

In this rich presentation, Coach Izzo shares several firsthand accounts of how he builds relationships with parents and players, handles difficult situations within his program, stays true to his culture, and develops leaders within his program. This video will give you the tools to help you develop strong coach-athlete relationships and programs that can last for generations.

60 minutes. 2021.