Idaho native Ryan Lundgren shares his experiences after his first season serving as the Assistant Men’s Basketball coach at the College of Southern Idaho. You can follow him on Twitter @RcLundgren.
1. Tell me about your coaching journey, how did you get to where you’re currently at?
I always knew I wanted to be a coach, from a very young age. As a Sophomore at Boise High School, I put together my own basketball camp “Boise Fundamentals,” and negotiated with local elementary schools in the Valley to use their gym for the camp. My first year I had about 35-40 kids at a camp in Middleton, which eventually grew to over 100 kids in Boise after year four. I played my four years of high school basketball at Boise High School and did not go on to play at the college level…instead I immediately got into coaching. My first job out of high school right after graduation, I was the Freshman assistant coach at Bishop Kelly High School. I did three years there, one as the freshman assistant coach and two as the freshman head coach. These three years were important years of my early coaching career because I was exposed to a highly successful program and an entire network of people in the Boise Valley that I hadn’t previously known. BK was a special place to coach. Side note: Entering my second year at Bishop Kelly, I had an opportunity to be a student manager for the University of Utah Men’s Basketball team under head coach Jim Boylen (who is now the head coach of the Chicago Bulls). I was enrolled at the U and about three weeks before heading to Salt Lake, I decided to save money and continue studying at Boise State while coaching at Bishop Kelly. This ended up working out alright in the end because I was able to graduate college debt free at BSU, which allowed me to take jobs for small amounts of money and not be forced to sacrifice career decisions based on money. Funny to think how different decisions and opportunities you take in your career lead you down different paths. After the three years at Bishop Kelly, I then went to Boise High School and was the Varsity assistant basketball coach for my old Varsity coach. Though it was a short stint, it was great going back to my alma mater and working with my old coach for that season. Following that year, I got on as a student manager with the Boise State Men’s Basketball team. Leon Rice had just come to Boise State from Gonzaga and I knew I could really learn from him and his staff. I also wanted to see what the college game was like and if that was a career path I wanted to pursue. After my first year at Boise State as a student manager, I found out that an un-paid position on the coaching staff was opening but I would need to finish 18 credits and receive my Bachelors degree before August in order to be considered. I took 18 credits in an 8-week summer session and was essentially at Boise State, either in the classroom, the library or the basketball offices that summer from 6am-11pm every day. It’s funny how it worked out because I know the coaching staff was looking at other candidates for the position and I just got lucky that none of them accepted and I received my degree in time to get the job. That’s when I first learned that timing is everything in the coaching business. In August, I was promoted to the un-paid position as the Director of Player Development. After year one, we had just made the NCAA tournament and Coach Rice was able to build some money into the position, which included a monthly stipend of $1,200 and free graduate school tuition. I was in this role for two additional years and learned so much during the process. We made two NCAA tournaments and won the 2015 Mountain West Championship. I was able to learn a great deal from Coach Rice and the assistants that came through during that time (Dave Wojcik, Jeff Linder, John Rillie & Danny Henderson). Even though I was at the Division one level, I really felt like I wanted to be a head coach, regardless of level. I also had such a positive experience at Bishop Kelly and Boise High School, that I was completely open to returning to the high school game. I began looking at the high school jobs that were open and Vallivue High School was essentially the only high school job open when I started looking in late March/early April. I applied for the job, but really didn’t think I would accept it if it were offered. It was in Caldwell, which was 25 miles from my house in downtown Boise and I didn’t really know anything about the school. After the interview, I was offered the job and they bent over backwards to create a teaching position for me, as well as give me a couple years to get my teaching credential, while having me on as a salaried teacher. This showed me they were committed to me and I felt comfortable accepting the job. It’s funny because several local high school jobs opened within weeks of me accepting the Vallivue position; Boise, Meridian, Borah, Centennial & Capital. Had you asked me before the Vallivue interview, I would have applied for all of those jobs before Vallivue, for the simple fact that I was far more familiar with them. Again, proving that timing is everything in coaching! I am SO FORTUNATE that Vallivue opened before those jobs, because I believe that going to Vallivue was one of the best things that happened to my coaching career. Not only did we experience a tremendous amount of success, but the administration, the school district and the community fully embraced my program and my coaching staff. I learned so much about running my own program, managing people, and all the other facets of being a head coach. I wouldn’t trade my four years at Vallivue High School for anything. I had a few opportunities to leave Vallivue during my four years, but never felt like it was a good enough reason to leave what I saw as a great job. I applied for the College of Southern Idaho Assistant job and felt like it was a long shot to get it. I didn’t know the head coach, it’s arguably the top Junior College in the country, I was a high school coach – I had a lot working against me. I was fortunate enough to persistently grind through the process and eventually get offered the job at CSI. After completing our first year as a staff here, I feel very fortunate to work for Coach Jeff Reinert and be part of the College of Southern Idaho campus community and basketball program.
2. What was the interview process
like to get the job at CSI? I know coach Reinert said he had nearly 100
applicants. How did you approach the process?
The interview process was long and drawn out. It lasted over a month from the day I applied, to the day I officially accepted the job at CSI. When it initially opened and I had heard Jeff Reinert got the job, I called my friend Brian Swindlehurst at Salt Lake Community College, who had worked with Jeff at Santa Margarita Catholic High School. He had conversations with Coach Reinert about me and Brian said I would have a chance at it. I still knew it would take some luck to get the job, which it did. Coach Reinert had a long list of highly qualified candidates for the assistant job, and I knew I would have to hang around during the process and show why I would be an asset to him and the program. I was in constant daily contact with Jeff during the process, whether it was creating photoshop graphics for the program or building lists of available recruits for the upcoming year. My goal was to show him that I was hard working, resourceful and an asset to him. Like any interview, I had former employers and mutual contacts of ours reach out to Coach Reinert, which helped get my foot in the door. Finally, he had narrowed his list to five candidates and he invited me down for a campus interview in mid-June. The interview went well and I was offered the job that day. I guess my biggest takeaway during this whole process was to be patient while also being persistent. I stayed on Coach Reinert for 25+ days and pulled everything out that I thought might show him why I was a great asset to him and his program. Again, timing is everything and you have to get a little lucky!
3. When looking for coaching
positions, what are the top 3 things you look for in a program?
I think that this question is dependent upon the candidate…everyone has different things that are important to them. For me personally, I would say the most important thing is the resources of the job itself. How much does the school invest in basketball? Do they support the program financially, logistically and socially? It is very hard to win at any level if you don’t have the necessary resources to do so. The second thing would be the administration. This really goes hand in hand with the job resources because in most instances, it’s the administration that makes those decisions. I learned the importance of an administration during my time at Vallivue. I was so fortunate to have an athletic director, principal and superintendent that backed and supported me completely. I heard from coaching friends at other high schools about the administrative nightmares they dealt with, usually stemming from parent complaints, and it made me realize how fortunate I was to have an administration that would go to war with me no matter what. Our administration at CSI has many parallels to the administration at Vallivue…They fully support our program and coaching staff, which makes our job enjoyable and much easier to do. The third and final thing for me would be the type of job it is in relation to where you are in your coaching career. Being 31 years old, taking a high school job in Maui sounds like a great quality of life, however it might not be the best job for me to take as I’m looking to advance my career. If I was 60 years old and at the back end of my coaching career, something like that might make more sense. A big reason I went all in on the assistant spot at CSI is because it’s a great place to learn and help me advance as a young coach. It’s a place where I can grow my coaching network, while being at one of the top programs in the country.
4 What was the first thing
you did once you secured your current job at CSI?
Hard to narrow it down to just one thing. When you take a new job there is so much coming at you at once. We had a unique challenge in the sense that we got the job in June and had zero returning scholarship players on our roster. We essentially had 7 weeks to sign a roster of 15 guys that could compete at a National level. Coach Reinert was in Southern California, Coach Fred Brown was in Seattle and I was in Idaho. We were on the phone for a couple hours each day just discussing recruiting and planning on who was going where during the summer months. I was the closest one to campus so I would go down for a few days at a time and meet with administration to get a lay of the land as far as academics, student housing and many other logistics that were imperative for us to know as we prepared to bring kids on campus. Not to mention, I’m planning a move to Twin Falls and I was preparing for my wedding in August! It was a busy but full-filling summer, for sure.
5. How did you successfully
make the adjustment from the high school game to the college game?
My time at Boise State really helped prepare me for a more seamless transition from Vallivue HS to CSI. Had I not had those four years on Coach Rice’s staff at BSU, I would have been much more overwhelmed as there is definitely a learning curve to the transition. Obviously, recruiting is a huge part of the college game and it’s something you have to do every single day if you are going to build the level of team that you need to be successful here at CSI. It was really more of a transition of my day to day duties. Where I was teaching during the morning and afternoon at Vallivue HS, I am now doing individual workouts, watching film and on the phone recruiting here at CSI during the day. I think if you’re a high school coach who is fully invested in his program year round, you won’t see a lot of vast differences between the two. I just found myself really enjoying being full-time basketball again this year. I missed that part of it.
6. What are the biggest differences between HS and college from a coaching perspective?
The talent would be the biggest thing. You are able to do much more with the level of talent you have in college. In high school, you might have one or two kids going on to play college ball, but for the most part you are coaching kids who will stop playing after their high school career. This means that as a HS coach you probably have to be a little bit more creative in your schemes and strategies to put those less talented kids in a position to succeed and give your team the best chance to win. Another huge difference is the fact that college kids are away from home and living on campus away from their families. Many of them don’t have cars and they need assistance in many of their day-to-day responsibilities. As a high school coach, your players are living with their families so you often times aren’t having to help them with stuff outside of school and basketball. Driving college players to doctor appointments, tutoring meetings, grocery stores etc is a daily responsibility of a college coach.
7. We often hear about coaches being player development guys, offensive
gurus, or defensive minded. What are your thoughts on coaches being an expert
in one area or being more well rounded in multiple areas?
I think it’s extremely important that a coach finds his niche. A seasoned coach told me this early in my coaching career and as I get further along in my own journey it becomes increasingly evident to me just how important this is. Whether it’s recruiting, defensive schemes or offensive ingenuity, every coach should try and find their niche and what makes them the most compelling as a coaching candidate. While it’s important to have a specified niche, it is also important to be well-rounded as a coach…always looking to improve your weaknesses. In college, so much of what you do is recruiting. If you can develop a proven track record of recruiting and retaining talent in your program, you will find success and have many opportunities to advance in the profession.
8. If you could go back to
the beginning of the season knowing what you know now upon season completion,
what advice would you give yourself before the season?
Spend as much time with your players as possible. Players are the lifeblood of your basketball program and it is imperative to spend as much time with them as possible. As a coach, it’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day duties of scouting reports, paperwork, recruiting, etc and not commit as much time to relationship building with your players as you need to. This was something that I made sure to do a great deal of every day, but it’s also something I want to become even better at. Choosing a player every day to watch film, review academics, have lunch with, cook dinner at my house, workout, or just simply talk. This is something at the high school level that I really tried to focus on and I think had a lot of success doing. At the college level it is even more amplified because you have much more time to dedicate to them during your daily work schedule, and they are away from home for the first time and need that added support and mentorship from you as their coach. It aligns with the old adage: “they don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”
9. What advice do you have
for current high school coaches looking to make the jump to coach collegiately?
Three things I would suggest to any high school coach looking to make the jump to the college game: Be willing to work for free. This is the number one piece of advice I give to young coaches that might be looking to make the jump into college basketball. Rarely ever will your first college job be a salaried position. You will probably need to be a student manager, a graduate assistant or a volunteer coach for a few years before you get your first full-time coaching position at the college level. It’s smart to try to save a solid nest egg of money so you don’t have to turn down jobs because you can’t afford it. The four years I spent at Boise State as a young and broke staff member were the most influential and important years of my coaching career. Had I not been able to afford living on that amount of money, I couldn’t have taken that job and I believe my career path could have been much different. Sometimes the best jobs for your growth and development are the un-paid ones. The other part of making the jump to the college level is the importance of networking. Get to know as many people as you can in the basketball business and work to build solid relationships with them. It’s amazing how small this business is and how everyone knows each other and will eventually look to lean on each other for help at some point in their career. The fewer enemies you make and the more friendships you form, will only benefit you down the road as you grow and advance in your coaching career. The final piece of advice would be to be where your feet are and enjoy the journey! In this business, so many people focus on the next job – how do I get to the next job? How do I move up? It’s good to have that goal-driven mindset and have that light at the end of the tunnel – however, don’t get so caught up in what your next move will be, that you don’t enjoy your current situation. Because I promise, once you leave, you will miss the job you are currently in. Try to find ways to learn daily and embrace the moment with your current position.