🏀 Billy Donovan - No Ego, Love & Enjoying the Journey
“The relationship part, the journey, the process, the coming together as a team -- that's where the worth is. The trophy and the ring are symbolic.” — Billy Donovan
Good morning, coaches!
Today we have a deep dive on 2x NCAA National Champion and the 2019-2020 NBA Co-Coach of the Year, Billy Donovan. Everything here exemplifies what he focuses on as a coach.
If you have any feedback or content you think could be helpful for other coaches, feel free to reach out or leave a comment.
✍️ Q&A: Florida's Billy Donovan on resiliency, reloading for 2014-15
🎙️ Ep. 174 Billy Donovan, Donnie Jones & Brendan Suhr from the Stetson Virtual Clinic
If you have any feedback or content you think could be helpful for other coaches, feel free to reach out or leave a comment.
Here we go!
✍️ ARTICLES
Florida's Billy Donovan retains fire, gains perspective: This really covers the arc of Coach Donovan’s career, from being hired at UF, focusing solely on building the UF program and winning to then embracing the process and relationships along the way. It talks about him handling work-life balance, maturing about realizing what matters in life, and handling personal tragedy along the way.
"Early on, it was probably more about wanting so badly to be successful," says Donovan, 48. "You actually think you're going to be more complete as a person (if you win a title). When it happens, you expect to feel more complete, and you don't, necessarily. … What ultimately ends up completing you as a person are the relationships you have in your life and how genuine and sincere they are.
Q&A: Florida's Billy Donovan on resiliency, reloading for 2014-15: This is a great interview that dives into some of the topics that makes Coach Donovan who he is. He talks about the importance of enduring failure, embracing the process, having a strong culture which allows you to win, and studying championship teams, which taught him that the commonality was the players loved each other.
I do believe the more and more involved I get the one thing that resonates is that culture wins. That’s not to say that one culture is right and one culture is wrong, but I think that’s what wins. We were a group that the sum was better than the parts. It’s amazing to me what can be accomplished by a group of people that maybe was not looked upon as that talented of a group.
With Shyatt's Touch, Florida Gets Defensive: After UF had a few underachieving seasons in the early 2000’s, Coach Donovan hired Larry Shyatt, a seasoned veteran coach who could help improve the defense and offer an experienced voice that the staff lacked. While some coaches may have had an ego or been too insecure to hire a seasoned veteran and former head coach, Coach Donovan wasn’t.
Younger coaches are sometimes hesitant to bring in a veteran coach because it can be viewed as a sign that they do not have faith in their own ability.
🎙️ PODCASTS
Jeff Goodman Basketball Podcast: 130: Catching Up w/ the ‘06-’07 Florida Gators Coaching Staff. If you want to hear what a true team is like, you have to listen to this fantastic episode with the coaching staff of the last college basketball team to win back-to-back national championships: Billy Donovan, Anthony Grant, Larry Shyatt and Donnie Jones. They tell stories about Joakim Noah being frustrated as a freshman while not playing behind David Lee, senior Adrian Moss being frustrated that he wasn’t playing over Joakim and Al Horford and then crying in the NCAA tournament realizing the sacrifice was worth it, and Joakim Noah chest-bumping Ric Flair as Flair entered the locker room to give a pre-game speech in the NCAA tournament. [April 23, 2020–1 hour, 2 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Google | Breaker
Sports Illustrated decided to do a cover story on Joakim Noah and his father, Yannick Noah. Joakim later said he refused to do the story unless they put his other teammates on the cover with him. Sports Illustrated said they couldn’t, so Joakim cancelled the story.
Coaching U Podcast with Coach Brendan Suhr: Ep. 174 Billy Donovan, Donnie Jones & Brendan Suhr from the Stetson Virtual Clinic. Donovan talks about the differences between coaching in the NBA and college and how he would adjust his coaching if he was a college coach again. At the 31 minute mark, he discusses team building and leadership — he talks about connecting with players, how you can push a player to be great and push them hard, and that the #1 thing to have in a great team is a love for each other. [May 6, 2020–59 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast | Google
Every single day that player is a seed and we’re watering that seed everyday. We’re doing different stuff to try to get that seed to grow. Sometimes those seeds grow really quickly, other players develop a little later… And then there are players that come back and see you 8–10 years after they’re gone and say “I understand what you’re talking about now.” You’ve got to be able as a coach to accept that that seed may not flower at a time when it benefits your program. That seed may flower when that player is long beyond your program, but maybe in some way, it helps that player in their job, in their family, as a father, as a husband, or whatever it may be.
💭 MISCELLANEOUS
"I was depressed." Billy Donovan on how he felt after winning his 2nd national championship with Florida. He was responding to a question about Tom Izzo saying he needed a 2nd title to validate his career.
“I was depressed. I lost total sight of what it’s all about,” Donovan said. “And I don’t mean what it’s all about in terms of what goes into winning, but the fact that it doesn’t change your life one bit, other than someone may write next to your name, ‘national champion coach.’ Outside of that, it does not change your life.
“And then what happens is you get to a place — and the first time it really resonated with me was I saw an interview on '60 Minutes' with Tom Brady when I think the Patriots had won three of their five Super Bowls and after the third one he asked himself, ‘Is this what it’s all about?’ Because at the end of the day if it’s all about the ring and the trophy, you lose the most valuable thing, and it’s the group of people and the relationships that are established, of people working together to accomplish something they couldn’t accomplish on their own.”
Former UF Assistant Coach Rob Lanier on Billy Donovan (via Coaching U Podcast):
"Billy is as successful as anyone has ever been in basketball relative to his ego. You'll never see a guy that's more successful with less of an ego than Billy Donovan.
A lot of the times you can be on a staff and you feel like this territorial presence of some of the guys on the staff either for attention or for credit or for the head coach's ear and Billy's culture isn't conducive to that. Partly because he knows what he wants when he's making hires, but also his disposition. But the flip side of that is, he's so into preparation that you actually spend time wondering what questions he's going to ask you and it makes you a better coach.”
📺 VIDEOS
Repeat After Us - 30 for 30: This 30 for 30 documentary covers the back-to-back seasons in 2006-2007. This is as good as anything you can watch about a team coming together, sacrificing their game for the good of the team, and having love for one another. (It costs $1.99 to watch on YouTube)
2006 National Championship Pre-Game Speech: Great 36 second speech prior to the 2006 national championship.
You’ve gotta live in the moment and understand there’s going to be adversity and there’s going to be challenges. That is what’s has brought us close together as a team.
🗣️ QUOTES
“When I look at the best teams I've coached, the first thing that comes to mind is an enormous amount of love and care and acceptance for each other,” Donovan said. “Another thing that's big for me is being unselfish.” (Source)
"There's so much emphasis on (physical skills)," he says. "I put the same emphasis on a guy's love for the game. ... When I recruit, I want to find out how much they love the game, how much they want to get better." (Source)
“You can look at the material things -- trophies, rings, and things like that -- but the real joy you get is the things inside you get from seeing people reach heights….You need calluses. You need to go through disappointment sometimes to have great success.” (Source)