34 The Truth About "Softness": Why Talent Isn't Enough to Win

"Being down 11 at the end of the third and losing by 30... that is softness."

Coach Rodo is back from a brief hiatus with a message that many parents and players might not want to hear, but desperately need to. Following Kalamazoo Central’s exit from the regionals, Rodo breaks down why local talent continues to hit a ceiling when they face teams like East Lansing.

In this episode, Rodo explores the difference between "hard" and "soft" athletes, the danger of "bleacher hype," and why a coach getting fired over punitive punishment—while rare—doesn't excuse a player from being uncoachable. We discuss the "JuCo" stigma, the reality of D1 work ethic, and why modern athletes are running to their cell phones instead of the gym after practice.

It's time to stop coming to our kids' rescue and start teaching them how to have heart. If you want to win regardless, you have to be willing to hear the truth.

#CoachRodo #WinningRegardless #HighSchoolBasketball #MichiganBasketball #KalamazooCentral #SoftnessInSports #YouthAthletics #CoachingTips #BasketballTraining #ParentingAthletes #WorkEthic #SportsMentality

(00:45) - The Hiatus is Over: Looking at the Michigan High School basketball landscape.
(02:30) - Scrimmage vs. Game: Why you can't equate summer stats to playoff wins.
(05:15) - The Coach I Got Fired: A father’s story on punitive punishment vs. hard coaching.
(08:45) - The "Softness" Factor: Analyzing the blowout loss to East Lansing.
(11:30) - Cell Phones vs. Extra Work: What happens the minute practice ends?
(14:00) - The JuCo Path: Why Jim Horn and KVCC are the best-kept secrets for local talent.
(17:15) - Five-In, Five-Out: The reality of bench-warming at the NAIA level.
(20:00) - Truth Telling: Why being called "hater" is just the price of being real.
(23:30) - The Talent Pool: Comparing today’s kids to the Mike Thomas/TJ Buchanan era.
(26:45) - Workforce Readiness: Why soft kids become soft employees.
(29:00) - Final Charge: Teaching your kids it’s okay to get smashed, as long as you learn.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Complete display of that is again being down 11 at the end of the third and losing by 30. That is softness. You don't complain when the coach says something to you. You don't talk back, you do what he says. Are you really having fun with the game that you love playing that style of basketball? Because let's let's just keep it what it is. You're not playing, you're just practicing. But the parents think these kids are great because they're having good games here in this conference and in this area. But we just can't seem to win when we go out the area. I'm glad to be back. Had to take a little hiatus to uh rock Coach Rotto's podcast winning regardless, had a few things going on, so had to take a little break, but we back now and just in time because um it's the end of the basketball season, you know, go blue, you know, college and high school. And um we saw some great basketball. And and seeing that, it it led me to want to talk about, you know, the land, the high school landscape around here and around the state of Michigan. Um if you're from our area, you know Kamazoo Central lost in the regionals again, um, which is what they continue to lose in, um, no matter how good the squad they have around here is. Um, you know, and the reason I say it's around here is because people are holding, you know, these kids to a standard that, you know, as a guy who trains them and knows them and, you know, come from an area that has won state championships and, you know, know what the kids put in in that area, um, I think they give these kids too much high praise around here. The team that they lost to, which was East Lansing, again in the regional, you know, everyone was talking about how this past summer they uh only lost to them in a scrimmage by one point, and um the referee screwed them out of that point, and this, that, and the third. And and, you know, I spent most of the time trying to get these people to understand that you can't equate a scrimmage to a game because the coaches are doing different things. They're trying to figure out different things. They're, they're, they're seeing if schemes will work that, you know, they're implementing this year, this basketball year, or trying to maneuver players around and seeing if they can get, you know, the versatility out of a player, like a player that worked on their handles over the summer that used to couldn't dribble. Oh, okay, well, let me put him in a position where he has the ball and let's see what he does. So when you're doing scrimmages, these are the things that you're trying to figure out. And, you know, around here, they took that shit, or I'm they took that shit too serious. Um we can comp, we we'll beat them. We'll beat them this, that, and the third, and you know, especially when they played uh and beat the crap out of Jackson the game before they played East Lansing, and East Lansing didn't play their best game against um Lloyd Norks, and they looked vulnerable, so to speak, even though they won that game pretty handily. People figure, and I was out of the country, so I don't know, but people said that they were vulnerable. I I just came back and I heard the tea leaves, and then I saw the game on a little video or what have you. And the thing that I I have to say is we as parents, we got to cut it out. You got to tell your kid he ain't good enough. You gotta let him know that. You gotta quit hyping your kid up because you see them in flashes. The thing about being a good player is, and I love how my youngest son turned out, as far as an athlete, what he was, because anybody around here who knows my son, the first thing they'll tell you is he was coached great. And it was by me, you know, until he got to high school, because I coached him the way that I came up. I don't care what anybody tells you how good you are. Motherfucker, it don't, I'm your daddy. I tell you how good you are. And you ain't good enough. You don't complain when the coach says something to you. You don't talk back, you do what he says. You come to me and tell me if you don't agree with it, but you still do it. You know, that's the way that he was raised. I mean, to the point where the thing that I'm against the most is which getting a coach fired, that I built him in such a way that I did it. I got a coach fired because of how he treated my son. And the thing about my son is he never came and complained to me. He never said a word. But, you know, me and his stepmom and his mom was noticing he would have anxiety about going to school and going to practices. And one of his teammates came up to me and said, Hey, man, Mr. Marshall, you know, I want to talk to you because I'm getting tired of it. And this was with starter, one of my son's friends. He was a starter on the team, senior. He's like, Man, you should see the way the coach treats Devin. I said, Well, how do you mean? Devin don't say nothing. Never, Devin don't complain. You know, he, you know, I go to the games, he's doing well, having great games. The coach seems to love him this now. He said, Mr. Marshall, um, when anybody else on the team messes up, Devin has to run their suicides. I said, What do you mean? He said, in practice, if you mess up, he makes Devin run. In the games, he'll come back and go over the film and all of the mess ups, Devin ran. I got so tired of watching Devin Ran, I tried to run with him myself, and it was my mistake that was made, and he made Devin run for me. And I tried to run with him myself, and I and he stopped me. Well, as a father, don't nobody punitively punish my child but me. And I had a problem with that, because as a coach, that's not something you do. Um, and as a parent, I wasn't gonna stand for it. So my first reaction was to walk down there in the bussy muck. But the principals and all of that found out about it. So my next reaction was to remove my son from the situation and send him to another school. Um again, my kid was he was he was the ultimate teammate, the ultimate player, did everything. So the school didn't want him to go anywhere. You know, to make a long story short, it came down to them calling me to not pull him out and them making adjustments and getting rid of the coach. So, with all of that being said, I look at a lot of these other kids, they're not built like that. These other kids, the parents don't understand that your kid's not coachable. And I don't mean that he talks back to the coach. I don't mean that he doesn't do what the coach says. I mean they're not coachable in the fact that they don't want to get better. The only time they spend in the gym is when it's practices and when it's mandatory. But the parents think these kids are great because they're having good games here in this conference and in this area, but we just can't seem to win when we go out the area. And I told people, I said, here's the thing, y'all don't understand. See, I train these kids. Me and my buddy do paramilitary training with these kids. We know these kids. I've known these kids for years. This is what these kids do. Even though they got Isaiah Theodine, who's going to Division I, going to Oakland, I said, here's what these kids do. They get done with practice. First thing they do is they run to that damn cell phone. And then they say to each other, where you going? What we doing? Whereas I know for a fact, down in East Lansing, them must get done with practice, and they say, Hey, I'm going up to the I am to hoop. I'm going to hoop with the college students up there at MSU. You know, some of their daddies play basketball at MSU, so they're able to go work out with the players. And when I say that, don't miss the point. The point means is after they get done with practice, they go play some more. Our kids don't do that. These kids here don't do that. It's like I tell people, they got mamas and daddies who make a great abundance of money and do a great job of making sure that their kids are taken care of and doing what they're supposed to do. And of course, the promise also spoiled them, which makes them not have to work hard because they already understand that no matter what, if I got good grades, I'm gonna go to school. But I love this game of basketball. I love this game of basketball. Yet you don't put in extra work in this game that you love. And I tell, and they say they got the same thing down in Nece Lancey. I said, they sure do. And they also got the want to get better. They coach have individuals set up for them guys. Ramsey can't get individuals set up for them guys because them guys, as soon as they're done, they can't wait to run the hell out of the gym. But we blaming the coach. The coach can't get us over the hump. No, the kids can't get you over the hump. And it's because we're telling them that they're better than they are. For instance, we got a great JUCO program here in Kamazoo, KVCC, Kamazoo Valley. Jim Horn has brought them back. And you got kids on that team that said that they're too good to play community college basketball. But they're going to another, they'll go to another college and do the five in, five out every three minutes, or sit the bench. When you could come here and go, Juco, do one year at community college, get on the big stage because Horn puts him on the stage. Hell, my son played for Horn, Horn put him on the stage, and he got to walk off that stage. He got a got him a full rise scholarship, which we didn't pay for nothing. And he played. And that's the thing, these kids, you come into Juke, they don't understand. You come into Juice, JUCO, you come here to JUCO KVCC, if he was recruiting you, you're gonna play. And you're gonna play a ton. But you'd rather go to a four-year that's NIA or N-A-I-A, and nothing, nothing, there's nothing wrong with that. But usually if you go to an NAIA, you're gonna, you're going to because you're gonna play. But no, these kids are going to these N-A-IAs and they're doing the five in, five out every three minutes. How do you get better? How do you improve your game? Are you really having fun with the game that you love playing that style of basketball? Because let's just keep it what it is. You're not playing, you're just practicing. And maybe one or two of those kids stay on the floor. But they're too good to go to JUCO and be on the floor all the time. And I don't get it. Because as a parent, when Jim Horn came and recruited my son, he said, I'm here to recruit Devin. I said, Then why are you talking to me? You need to convince him because he's gonna be running your laps. He's gonna be shooting your free throw. He's gonna be doing everything that you tell him to do. So why are you talking to me? And I think now that the parents don't let the kids make their own decision. They kind of guide them to what they think they should do. How do you teach them to be a young man if that's the case? How do you teach them to learn how to be young men in society if you're guiding them and telling them what they need to do? This is the there's no better time than them graduating and picking a college for them to be independent. There's no better time in their life because they're becoming young men. And the thing that I saw with at the end of the season, the parents and all of our community want to place blame. And they want to place blame on the coach. And again, don't nobody want to blame the kids. The coach doesn't have you down by 11 at the end of the third quarter and you lose by 30. That's not coaching, man. That is freaking players and effort. I don't care what anyone says. You're down 11 at the end of the third quarter and you lose by 30. Come on, man. You're not putting in the effort. I could see, you know. Okay, we was down 11. We lose the game by eight. We lose the game by 11. Maybe we lose it by three, or maybe we even make a little run, and maybe we can close it to within one and maybe get the win. But not 30. That's not a, that's not, that's not a culture thing, but yeah, and still that's what everyone wanted to blame. That's your kids. That's your kids not up for the moment. That's your kids shitting their pants. That's your kids when the, when the when when when the when when the the necktie got a little tight, they unbuttoned the shirt. Instead of taking a bigger gulp of air and swallowing it and putting their chest out. And one and my buddy who I do the paramilitary training to tell you that I told him that was gonna happen. I told him that was gonna happen. I told him it was gonna happen. And even my my the kid who I who's like my nephew, who I love on, who's who is this kid haven't had a great season, had a great ending to a season, you know. I even told his father, I said, they will not go past the regionals. And they'll if they face East Lance, I think they'll get blown out because of the kids. It's not the coach, it's the kids. When you know that there is, that this ain't the end all be all. And I don't mean the end all be all like, oh man, after this, there's nothing else that's gonna happen. No, the end all be all me to me means when you know that there is no struggle at the end of this road for you, then there's no, there's no need for you, you know, there's no need for you to continue on. You know, it's like my coach, like like my lawyer tells me and my wife, you know, is the juice worth the squeeze? And in this case, to me, when I look back on this this season for these kids, for some of them, yes, the juice was worth the squeeze. But some of them, the ones that I thought would do more and would be better and would show up to the moment and wouldn't be scared. Nah, nah. That's you have to look internally. Because I'm a truth teller. That's a that a lot of people, you know, they'll tell you that they'll say that I'm hating or this, that, and the third. I don't have a reason to hate. That's what people call you when you're telling the truth about people. I don't talk bad about kids. I'm not talking about these kids. I'm talking about their effort, which comes down to their heart. Hell, I come from a place where, you know, we had 40 kids trying off for varsity. Football, we had a hundred kids trying off for varsity. You know, you did you you had to bring it every day. Hell, our coach was cutting seniors and juniors for sophomores because of potential. You know, when I look at some of these kids, and I knew that they were gonna be stagnant for the simple fact is they didn't get better than they were last year. You always look for a kid to get better. What kind of improvement did he make? And a few of these kids made none. There was no improvement in their game. The game was the same. Either you were slow on defense, you were still slow on defense. Either you were herky jerky when you had the ball on offense, you were still herky jerky on offense. Either you couldn't think the game, you still couldn't think the game. There was a few of these kids whose games stayed the same, and the coach had to rely on them to possibly do something different, and they just couldn't, because they don't understand the work you got to put in. You know, a few of them got caught up with the, got caught up into the girls. Now the girls is coming along, so now you're not putting in the work because you got the girls coming along. You know, one of my favorite rappers used to always say, you know, a man's biggest downfall. And I mean, and in high school, when you catch it early, it definitely is because you're not thinking about it no more. You know, it doesn't, you don't understand how it zaps, you zaps your energy. You think it before the game, you know, you can get your little thing on and it, you know, it zaps your energy. But you don't think about things of that sort. The parents and the people around here have to be real with themselves and be real with their kids. That's not saying that you don't love your kid because you're telling the truth. You know what I'm saying? I would tell them kids all the time what I felt that they would need to work on. They would look me dead in my eyes, shake their head. Great, great kids. All of them are great kids. But I just knew because I would see the same effort, I would see the same movements, I would see the same lack of respect for the game of basketball, a lack for what it takes to get better, to get up to that upper echelon. And I would see that. And I would know that. Nah, because you know, kids over from my area where I'm from, they're getting better. Them kids is out in the park hooping. I don't see I don't see the kids out here hooping in the summertime out in the park. They'll go into a gym, but then you only got a few of them that'll do that. I know for a fact, Don Atlantion, them kids is at the park and they at the gyms. You know, it's it's and people say it's it's bigger. Well, that means then the talent should be better here when you squeeze it together. Because Kalamazoo used to be a talent pool for basketball. Teams out of Lance didn't go to the States all of the time. Kalamazoo, shoot, when Mike Thomas was here, shoot, I think he went three or four times in a row. With Kalamazoo kids down there busting kids up. Them kids would go to Chicago and bust kids up in Chicago. But those were some different kids. TJ Buchanan was a different kind of kid, you know. Quay was a different kind of kid. Devin Oliver was a different kind of kid. They parents did good well, but they were different kids. They were like them kids that's Donna Lansing right now. Don't matter what my mom and daddy do, it matters what I do. And I got to represent myself and I got to represent my family. And man, them boys did it. Now, to say that these kids, again, don't get what I'm saying till you misconstrued. What I'm saying to you is basically these kids are soft. Those kids was hard. These kids are soft. That's what I'm saying. And that's not an insult, because again, they're great kids. You can be a great kid and be soft. You know? It's a matter of you have to accept that about yourself. And the community has to, the community has to accept that about these kids, whether they're yours or not. You have to accept that. You know, the kids is soft, and you can change it. You can actually change it if you allow your kid to be coached. If you allow, if you tell your kid, you know, man, you playing soft. I I rarely heard that. I mean, I rarely heard that from, you know, the people who the kids needed to hear it from. I mean, I would see Ramsey tell them, but, you know, again, with the kids being the way they are, you would tell them that, and they weren't like we were, or the Mike Thomas kids were, or like my son was, or, you know, you tell him they saw, you tell them they saw, well, they do. Something about it. These kids, you tell them they saw, it's kind of like with Kid Gloves. You know, that team was with Kid Gloves. You tell them they saw, you felt like their heart would cry. So you couldn't tell them those words. Even though I felt it. And I love them to death. You know what I'm saying? I love them kids to death, you know. But in basketball standards, and what you need to win standards, they were soft. And that's what, and that a complete display of that is, again, being down 11 at the end of the third and losing by 30. That is softness. Skill has nothing to do with that. That's shitting your pants and getting scared of the moment and getting scared of the opponent. Because they've owned you. And I just, it just upsets me knowing how talented this area is, knowing how talented these kids are to where we need to try to push it. We need to bring that back. We need to, you know, bring back cussing at them. You know what I mean? Because the thing about it is, we got cussed at all the time. And guess what? We knew it wasn't to harm us. It was to teach us. It was to learn us. You cuss at these kids today, you got parents writing emails and letters. You don't think my boy Ray Mitchell down there cussing them motherfuckers out down in these landscene? Excuse my language. As I say, man, get out of here. Man, are you serious? But they respond. And not in a bad way, because they understand that, man, we all have the same goal at the end, and he's trying to get us there. And sometimes it's colorful language, but that's sometimes I need that to motivate me. I need you to cuss me out to tell me that I'm not doing my job. Like my man yesterday, Yaxo, man. I love that part about him. Man, I'm playing soft. You think any of our kids would have said that about themselves? Mm-mm. Mm-mm. And that's a problem. You know you soft. You know you're playing soft. Like he did. And I used to always tell him, the way you do anything is the way you do everything. I will watch them during some of our workouts just lollygag on through. That's why I would make them do, you know, leg lifts extra time. I will make them run because you're lollygagging. So imagine when they take that over to the game. Yeah, they stepped it up when they played against the teams that they were supposed to blow out. What about the teams that everybody came to see you play? The team up in Muskegon. You know, the team up in Detroit, the two teams up in Detroit. Blowouts. Both of them, three of them blowouts. And that's strictly, in my opinion, and my opinion only, comes from softness. It's because these kids today are coming up soft. And it's because we as parents allow it to be so. And we try to say it's the coach that allows it, and it's not because you got so many parents that get on a coach for talking to their kids a way that they don't want them to, but not understanding that the coach has a job to do because I look at it in the military way. My enemy is not talking nice about me. So why should I be practicing nice when I'm about to face him? I should be thinking the same way about him that he's thinking about me. And our and they don't. Because they're so dominant over here in this conference, they don't look outside of it. And they have to start doing that. We have to start, we have to start telling these kids how soft, how soft they really are. Because if we don't, soft parents raise soft kids. Guess what happens with them soft kids? They become softer dogs. And in the workforce, I mean, I'm an owner, I'm a business owner. I don't want no soft people working for me. I don't want you working for me if your feelings get hurt. Because my feelings get hurt when I don't win a contract. So I don't want your feelings to get hurt when I come at you and say that you didn't manage your project correctly. I don't want you to go in your office, close the door, and not talk to nobody the rest of the day. That's softness. I want you to say to me, you know, okay, I appreciate you bringing that to my attention. What do I need to do to fix it? That's what we need to get our kids to doing. Okay, I'm I was soft on that play. What do I need to do? Or I know I was soft on that play. This is what I need to do. So, in closing, what I would like to say is let's do a better job of basically making our kids have heart, letting them know it's okay to cry. It's okay to get hurt. It's okay to hurt yourself because you gave it everything that you had. It's okay to go up against a bigger opponent and get smashed because you can learn from that. How do I not get smashed the next time? Oh, I know how. Just be quicker than him. Simple. Let's quit coming to our kids' rescue all the time. Let's let them figure it out, especially when it comes to this sports landscape. Unless a coach is punitively punishing your kid, unless a coach is violently, violently doing something to your kid. What's wrong with the little words? A few words. It's not gonna hurt them. They come home, cry to you. First thing you say, motherfucker, well, why was he getting on you then? What were you doing? What were you not doing? Because coaches usually get on you when you're not doing something, not for something that you are doing. Let's be better in that aspect and raising our athletes to be tougher so that when they come into tougher situations, it's okay that I lost, but I gave it everything. Because I guarantee you, Kalamazoo Central walked off of that court, not giving it everything if you lose by 30 in one quarter. That's not giving it, that's not walking off the court saying, man, I gave it everything I had. No, that's walking off the court saying, man, my diaper was wet. At least where I'm from, that's what it is. So again, I just want to say, hey, let's make our kids tougher. You know, let's coach them, let's teach them how to win regardless of the situation. Thank you for tuning in and win regardless. It's Coach Rotto.