#388 Mike Lee, High Performance Coach to NBA Stars on Developing a Champion's Mindset
Release Date: 08/02/2024
#420 Breanne Smedley, 4x State Champion Volleyball Coach on Incorporating Mental Training Into Every Practices
Way of Champions Podcast
Coach Breanne Smedley is a 14-year head coach, 4x state champion, certified mental performance coach, and co-founder of The Elite Competitor. She helps coaches build mentally tough, connected, and resilient teams so they can consistently compete at a championship level. After stepping into her first head coaching role fresh out of college, she quickly realized that while she knew the game, there was no playbook for the challenges that truly make or break a program—team culture, leadership development, and mental toughness. Determined to bridge that gap, she became a certified mental...
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#419 Dr. Jamie Taylor on Sport Skill Acquisition, Coach Development, and the Keys to Designing Effective, Engaging and Challenges Practices
Way of Champions Podcast
Jamie Taylor, PhD () earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Edinburgh in 2020. He is currently an assistant professor and lecturer in coaching and elite performance at Dublin City University. As a senior coach developer at Grey Matters UK, Taylor offers ongoing contributions to the development of coaches and coach supporters in athletics, netball, rugby union, football, adventure sports, and the Special Olympics. He has worked with over 150 coaches in a developmental capacity and consulted across a wide range of sports and contexts, including Olympic and Paralympic programs....
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#418 Rob Ramseyer, Founder of the Impactful Coaching Project, on Leading and Coaching the 21st Century Athlete
Way of Champions Podcast
Dr. Rob Ramseyer is the Vice President of Athletics and Strategic Expansion at Friends University, where he oversees 24 teams and also serves as a member of the President’s Cabinet. Under his leadership the athletic department has reached many milestones both on-and-off the field including two Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference Commissioners Cups (KCAC), many teams qualifying for post-season play yearly, record fundraising, and helping lead the first capital campaign in nearly 30 years for Friends University. During his tenure the athletes have exceed a cumulative 3.0 GPA each...
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#417 David Baird, UEFA A Licensed Coach and Founder of Scoreboard Soccer on How to Create More Engaging Practices and Small Sided Games
Way of Champions Podcast
David Baird (@CoachDavidBaird) holds a UEFA A License and a UEFA Elite Youth A License. He has coached youth soccer for more than 15 years. Currently, David works as a Coach Educator and Football Development Officer for the Scottish Football Association. Prior to this, he spent time coaching in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and most recently, with the Heart of Midlothian Football Club academy in Scotland. His book is a wonderful addition to your coaching toolkit, as he gives you dozens of ways to create more competitive and engaging games in your training session. These...
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#416 Jonah Oliver, World Renowned Performance Psychologist, on Taking Positive Action Instead of Waiting for Positive Thoughts
Way of Champions Podcast
In this replay from May of 2022, John interviews Jonah Oliver (@jonah_oliver1) one of Australia’s leading performance psychologists. Combining his training in sport psychology and neuroscience, Jonah brings a unique, simple and effective approach to facilitating peak performance. Over the past two decades he has worked with a wide variety of clients: ranging from professional golfers (caddying on the PGA tour), Olympic athletes, professional soccer teams, AFL clubs (Gold Coast Suns Football Club, Essendon Football Club), car racing teams (Porsche – Le Mans World Champion) elite tennis...
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#415 Damian DiGiulian, St Michaels College Ice Hockey Head Coach, on the Current State of Youth Sports and Being a Great Assistant Coach
Way of Champions Podcast
Damian DiGiulian is in his his 13th season as the men's ice hockey head coach at St Michaels College in Vermont. DiGiulian has also coached in the USA Hockey development system and at NCAA Division I and III as assistant coach at University of Vermont and Middlebury. John and Damian worked together at UVM from 1999-2003. DiGiulian has led the Purple Knights to a pair of Northeast-10 Conference regular-season co-championships and five league tournament title games during his tenure. Two of DiGiulian's student-athletes were honored as winners of the 2017 Hockey Humanitarian Award, with Danny...
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#415 Damian Digulian, St Michaels College Ice Hockey Head Coach, on the Current State of Youth Sports and Being a Great Assistant Coach
Way of Champions Podcast
Damian DiGiulian is in his his 13th season as the men's ice hockey head coach at St Michaels College in Vermont. DiGiulian has also coached in the USA Hockey development system and at NCAA Division I and III as assistant coach at University of Vermont and Middlebury. John and Damian worked together at UVM from 1999-2003. DiGiulian has led the Purple Knights to a pair of Northeast-10 Conference regular-season co-championships and five league tournament title games during his tenure. Two of DiGiulian's student-athletes were honored as winners of the 2017 Hockey Humanitarian Award, with Danny...
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#414 Meredith Civico, Rutgers Field Hockey Head Coach, on Taking Your Core Values from the Wall to the Ball
Way of Champions Podcast
This week we welcome Meredith Civico to the podcast, a coach who worked with Jerry as a 2005 national champion player at Maryland and whose program currently works with John. She enters her 14th season at the helm of the Rutgers field hockey program in the fall of 2025. She has won 135 games in that time, reaching at least nine wins in 10 different seasons and leading the team to three NCAA Tournament appearances and the 2021 Big Ten Tournament Title. Since Meredith and John began working together in 2018, the Knights have 43 wins over Top 20 teams, including 3 top 10 wins in 2024. The...
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#413 2024 NCAA Champion Vermont Men's Soccer Coaches Rob Dow and Brad Cole
Way of Champions Podcast
As John has spoken of many times on this podcast, he spent 1999-2002 coaching soccer at University of Vermont. So needless to say when the Catamounts won the 2024 NCAA Championship, he was over the moon. And he was even more excited when Head Coach Rob Dow and Associate Head Coach Brad Cole agreed to join him on the podcast. 2024 was Head Coach Rob Dow’s 8th as Head Coach and 13th overall at Vermont, and it was a doozy, winning his second America East Championship and oh yeah, the 2024 NCAA Championship in thrilling fashion. In eight seasons at the helm, Dow has accumulated a...
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#412 “Every Child is One Relationship Away from a Successful Life:” A Lesson on Transformational Coaching from Joe Ehrmann and Jody Redman of the InSideOut Initiative
Way of Champions Podcast
Joe Ehrmann is the critically acclaimed author of InsideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives. He was an All American football player, was named to Syracuse University’s All-Century Team, lettered in lacrosse and received the Arents Award, SU’s Most Distinguished Alumni honor for his contributions to society. Joe played professional football for 13 years and was named Baltimore Colt’s Man of the Year. He was the NFL’s first Ed Block Courage Award Recipient, and named “The Most Important Coach in America” by Parade Magazine. The Institute chose him...
info_outlineMike Lee (@whoisMikeLee) is a globally recognized keynote speaker, internationally sold author, and coach who shares high-performance leadership lessons from inside the hearts and minds of NBA’s elite. His work helps individual contributors, leaders and organizations elevate engagement, win the war for talent, and create cultures of belonging in a world of disruption. For 15 years he spent time with basketball’s 1% including NBA MVPs Steph Curry and Joel Embiid. While leading his basketball training business, he was blindsided by a period of personal and professional adversity, and dove deep into the practices of mindfulness and meditation. Today he’s blended diverse backgrounds of mindset, mindfulness, and high-performance to create a counter-cultural approach to the future of leadership. Learn more and connect at www.mindshiftlabs.com.
NEW WOC MASTERMIND AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAM
As you may have heard, we decided to cancel our 2024 Way of Champions Conference, which opens up the opportunity for us to begin a year long mastermind and coach certification program in the Way of Champions and CTGP materials. If you want to simply take a deeper dive then ever offered before into your coaching and personal development, or work within your school or club improving coaching or transforming the culture, or you want to hit the road as a speaker and presenter working with teams and youth sports organizations, we will give you the tools and support to do so. We are collecting names who are interested at this moment in learning more, you can do so by clicking here and adding your name and email to the list.
PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS! Programs such as UNC soccer and lacrosse, Syracuse lacrosse, Stanford Lacrosse, Middlebury College, Colby College, Rutgers University, and many other champions are using THE CHAMPION TEAMMATE book with their athletes. Schools and clubs are using EVERY MOMENT MATTERS for staff development and book clubs. Are you? We have been fulfilling numerous bulk orders for some of the top high school and collegiate sports programs in the country, will your team be next?
Click here to visit John’s author page on Amazon
Click here to visit Jerry’s author page on Amazon
Please email [email protected] if you want discounted pricing on 10 or more books on any of our books. Thanks everyone.
This week’s podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sprocket Sports. Sprocket Sports is a new software platform for youth sports clubs. There are a lot of these systems out there, but Sprocket provides the full enchilada. They give you all the cool front-end stuff to make your club look good– like websites and marketing tools – AND all the back-end transactions and services to run your business better so you can focus on what really matters – your players and your teams.
Sprocket is built for those clubs looking to thrive, not just survive, in the competitive world of youth sports clubs. So if you’ve been looking for a true business partner – not just another app – check them out today at https://sprocketsports.me/CTG.
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- Downloadable transcripts of our best podcasts, so you don’t have to crash your car trying to take notes!
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- Other special bonus opportunities that come up time to time
- Access to an online community of coaches like you who are dedicated listeners of the podcast, and will be able to answer your questions and share their coaching experiences