Key Takeaways
Bill Tierney is the head lacrosse coach at the University of Denver and has 7 NCAA National Championships under his belt. In his 36 years as a coach, Bill has built an amazing championship resume, but he makes sure to not dwell on the highs in order to focus on the current players he is coaching.
“You’re cheating those kids and some of them come because of that hope that they can be a part of something like that”
Maintaining his drive and motivation has been simple for Bill. He tells Sean:
“If I didn’t remind myself that you’re one loss away from being fired, I would not be the coach I am today”
There’s a reason why Bill is known as one of, if not the best lacrosse coach in history, and that’s because his impact on his players goes beyond what he teaches them about lacrosse.
“I have always felt that coaches have had such great impact on my life all I want to do is hopefully continue to positively impact these young men so that they make more of themselves than maybe they would have had they not been a part of my life”
4:23 Bill’s Son’s Quote About Him
Bill’s son Trevor was a valuable member of the 2001 National Championship Team at Princeton that Bill coached. Trevor described his dad’s coaching as this:
“He makes life so miserable in practice that the games are fun and we know there will never been as much pressure in a game as there is in practice”
Bill reflects on the excitement of the game and the moment that his son said that quote.
“Sometimes when I start thinking you got to lighten up kids are different, I go back to that quote and go you know it’s our job to challenge them and bring them to the highest level they could possibly achieve”
7:42 Perfecting The Right Amount of Pressure
Bill believes that one of the keys as a coach or a leader is to make sure that you’re absorbing more pressure than the people on your team but that each player sees the value in failure.
“I think it’s really important to get them to understand pressure and to understand how losing builds you and small failures can make you stronger”
Bill talks about how COVID19 has impacted training and what he is teaching the younger players this year.
“The idea is to understand it’s always one step back two steps forward if you really work hard”
Bill is clearly an impactful coach, seeing as he is now coaching some of the kids of his first recruits from the beginning of his coaching career.
13:14 How Bill’s Coaching Has Changed
Throughout his 36 years as a coach, Bill says that his coaching style is a balance of keeping the more traditional elements such as no facial hair and dressing up to travel. Regarding how his coaching style has changed over the years, Bill says he’s learned to not always be stuck in his own ways.
“As long as they’re working hard and they see the light at the end of the tunnel, you don’t have to be so myopic to do things your way”
Bill says he learned this when he was coaching at Princeton but that it really came into fruition when he began coaching at University of Denver. His son Trevor was his assistant coach at University of Denver and Bill credits him to teaching him to trust the other coaches methods.
“Trevor, as my own son, has probably given me more advice in my life than anybody else”
Bill says that this mindset change has made coaching more fun for him.
“Don’t make yourself miserable trying to do everything the same way all the time”
19:34 Bill’s Introspection Process
While Bill isn’t much of a reader or self help snob, he says that once he was seeing the impact of the other coaches he was working with, he began to open up to their suggestions.
“Honestly Sean, it became a relief to me. To not have everything, you know, every little mistake piled up on a decision I might’ve made on Tuesday”
21:16 Bill’s Self Confidence
Bill says his self confidence goes back to the beginning of his coaching when he was operating his teams completely alone.
“I had to only trust me at that point”
When Bill transitioned from head coach to assistant coach at Hopkins he learned to be a teammate among the coaches and his opinion felt valued.
“I knew what it felt like to be trusted and when you know what it feels like to be trusted it’s much easier for you to entrust others”
23:17 Bill’s Experience as a Head Soccer Coach
When Bill was coaching lacrosse at John Hopkins University he was also given the opportunity to be the head soccer coach and turn around the program.
“I got them in the first meeting and I said listen fellas, I’m going to be clear with you guys, I don’t know a thing about soccer and I’m going to trust you guys to help me through that”
By establishing this honesty and trust with the players, Bill and the players worked together to build the program back up and within 3 years they were playing in the NCAA tournament.
“That taught me to not only trust my coaches but to trust my players as well”
25:59 Bill’s Reputation for Turning Around Programs
Bill’s reputation for being able to successfully rebuild programs all began in 1976 when he turned around Great Neck South High School’s lacrosse program.
“I guess I had some sort of blueprint or somebody looking down on me or a lot of luck to be able to turn these programs around”
30:00 Shifting Goals
Bill’s goal was to always coach football for his high school, but when he was living that dream out he was given the opportunity to be a lacrosse coach at Rochester Institute of Technology and his goals shifted.
“I loved what I was doing and I was teaching but what a cool challenge to be a college lacrosse coach.”
31:31 Bill’s Reminder to Himself
Sean asks Bill to fill in the blank on a sentence and Bill answers this:
“If I didn’t remind myself that you’re one loss away from being fired, I would not be the coach I am today”
Bill explains what his goal is for the impact he leaves on his players.
“I have always felt that coaches have had such great impact on my life all I want to do is hopefully continue to positively impact these young men so that they make more of themselves than maybe they would have had they note been a part of my life”
33:00 Freddy Smith’s Impact on Bill
When Bill started working at John Hopkins University in 1987, him and the head coach Don Zimmerman went out to lunch every Tuesday with Freddie Smith. Bill says that Freddie’s legacy with working with some of the best lacrosse players in history has had a lasting impact on him.
“He just had this quiet way of impacting these guy and demanding discipline of them and making sure that they did things in such a correct manner, a manner that I was just in awe of”
Bill took over Freddie’s position as defensive coordinator when he became sick.
“He was just such a good man and so thankful for every little thing you did and yet taught me so much and I still say to this day, he taught me more than anybody else in this game”
39:38 Bills Defense Strategies
Bill explains that his defense strategy at John Hopkins University and Rochester Institute of Technology was the complete opposite of the Princeton defense that would become well known.
“My first two years at Princeton we tried to do what we did at Hopkins and couldn’t do it so I said to myself we got to do something different”
Bill went back to thinking of the lessons that Freddie had taught him and other defense strategies ideas and combined them.
“What I always tell people in lacrosse, I’m sure it’s in business too, if you think you have a new idea try to enjoy it but it probably was a new idea thirty years ago and if you think you have an old idea and it’s getting tired put it in your memory bank because it will be new thirty years from now”
43:36 Aligning Others Ideas With Your Own
Bill thinks that aligning other coaches’ ideas with his own was sometimes out of necessity and that he learned in those pivotal moments that he was a smart coach.
“You kind of get this feeling that you’re blessed number one, you’re supported so much by the people around you number two, but also, maybe you know a thing or two”
49:13 Recruiting His Son Trevor
Bill tells the story of how his son was recruited onto his Princeton team.
“I still kind of get the chills over it, it’s such a cool moment”
Bill explains how he regrouped himself after Trevor told him he wanted to be on Princeton’s team and said,
“Okay I got one question for you, you come to Princeton, you’re out on a Saturday night with the boys and somebody says, your father’s an asshole. What’re you going to say?”
51:57 Bill’s Humbling Coaching Moment
Bill references his last high school coaching experience for a girl’s basketball game as a humbling moment.
“We scored the first basket and the last basket and lost 72-4”
He says that taught him to let the players enjoy the victories and let the coaches suffer the failures.
52:45 Sustaining Elite Teams
Bill says that it’s important to not be stuck riding the highs of previous wins and championships, because then the current players he is coaching are being cheated.
“You’re cheating those kids and some of them come because of that hope that they can be a part of something like that”
Bill says that he checks in with himself two days a year, making sure he is still excited on the first day when the freshmen come in and on the day of the first game.
“If the answer to those two questions are yes than I feel like we’re doing our job”
55:47 Preparation Focus
Bill says that he has been a team planning person throughout his career but has learned to be more of a preparation coach.
“We are more preparation coaches now than gameday coaches because if you prepare them right they’re going to take the gameday and run with it”
He explains how the COVID19 adaptations to practice has improved so many players dramatically because of the individualized emphasis on preparation.
57:46 Final Questions
What’s the greatest play you’ve ever seen on the field?
“We lost this game to Loyola in the quarter finals and to put us within one Mark Matthews made a one hand catch, turn and stuck the ball from about 18 yards”
If you could have an evening to interview anyone dead or alive, who would it be?
Bill names Jesus and his deceased father as two he would want to interview.