If you have never heard of Rosenthal, no worries. Despite amazing success at Lipscomb U., he stays involved in our sport in a huge way but doesn't call much attention to himself- spreading his program's success onto the athletes and staff.
But Rosenthal is an influential figure in our sport and one you should know! He is outspoken on many issues and in the next few blogs, we will give you a taste of what he's all about and some secrets into his success.
The day after his Lady Bison volleyball camps for the youngsters, he agreed to sit and chat with us. His baritone voice meandering in and out of volume, his eyes at times surveying the room, he is captivating in not only what he says but how he says it.
Enjoy Brandon Rosenthal unplugged, unedited in the coming posts.
His history with the Lipsomb Lady Bisons
The head coach ahead of me was here for three years and he went 6 and 84. They won zero matches the first year, two the second year. That was the transferring from NAIA to Division I. When I took over, we were fully fledged Division I. I was lucky in a sense that I didn’t play in college. I played in High School and I played the game well enough to play around in pickup games but I didn’t know it well enough to have my mind clouded with all these different thoughts.
To me it really wasn’t about volleyball, it was about a culture and how to change it. I was lucky in a sense that we didn’t have this great tradition, it was all about building. When I first looked at the program I had just finished my MBA here and to me it was simple: we’re just building a business basically. Everything I had read, all these case studies were about empowering employees and for me, it was just about empowering the athletes. So from day one, I just told them it’s not going to be my program, it’s going to be their program and I get to be a part of it. I made that very clear to them and I still say that to our recruits today.
It was about building traditions and family. I was lucky because the culture in the gym had to completely change so we had to do everything different. The girls were shocked right away. They went from really slow practices to two hour practices that are just going to kick your butt. What I mean by that is it was my job to plan a practice so we could maximize that time and not have one drill, take a water break then walk back and let’s talk for a bit. It was about the planning process and they bought into it right away because before they had nothing. There were no results. Six and 84 isn’t really getting after it.
For us, if we’re going to lose…we’re going to lose fighting. I thought we did a fantastic job that first year. I think we went 8 and 22ish. All of a sudden the writing is on the wall for me so I thought, yea, we can do this. If we doubled our win total this year, next year we could double our win total. It was real weird though. As it progressed and we won 8 and the next season 9 and I thought okay this isn’t going to work, if we’re winning one more than the year before. Then the third year we won 13. Year one and year three, I realized we can do this. In year four we stumbled because we only won 14 games; one more than the year before.
Year five was when it all came together. I knew we had the pieces but boy, did we struggle. We lost out first seven matches in that fifth year. I thought we had a really talented team that year: five seniors and a couple of transfers. It was a matter of just putting it all together. We had five seniors that were all very vocal. We had two freshmen that came in and started and then we had a transfer from Alabama. She was really good but to work all that together, I mean talk about butting heads. Everybody had their own agenda. It was a matter of bringing it all together. I literally remember we lost our last conference game on the road and shouldn’t have, but got beat bad. There was a big blow up on the bus and we had one more home game, a non conference game and I said to somebody we’ll see what our team’s all about. We were already going to our conference tournament but we came out and destroyed that team at home and I said ‘I think we’re going to win the tournament.’
I always talk about that season as an hour glass. As those grains of sand are leaving you think oh, we’ve got 30 games left then all of a sudden it’s 15 and then it’s 10 and suddenly you’re looking at the hour glass and it’s so bottom heavy. I think that’s what they realized that fifth year.
I always say this; it’s not about volleyball. I truly believe that. I think it’s a lot more about culture and a lot about empowering people. It’s kind of fun to see what Karch is doing now. There’s a lot of eyebrows raised taking Courtney Thompson attributing it to chemistry and leadership and culture. I truly don’t think enough coaches pay attention to culture of a program.
It started with ‘We’re going to outwork teams.’ We might not beat them, but we’re going to out work them. If they’re going to be more talented, we were going to have to tap into their ability to work. They weren’t just going to have to show up, they were going to have to work for it. That’s where we saw these teams that were just destroying us in three…we were pushing them 22-22. That’s what I wanted. I wanted to see us lay it all out there and just see what happens and see if we could push teams. I remember when Central Florida was in our conference and they were the top dog. Somehow we pushed them to five and for us that was a moral victory. We never took a set off them and now we’re pushing the top dog to 5. And a lot of it was just attitude.
For me, the analogy for our girls in volleyball and the rest of the program is if you take a wet wash cloth and wring it out, then wring it more, you’re going to get a couple more drops. I think that’s what my job is, to keep wringing it but not in a bad way. I love these girls and I think that was one of the things that needed to happen too. To show them that love: not just on the court or in the classroom but beyond. We constantly talk about this being not just a four year experience but a lifetime experience.
We’ve had a lot of great times: winning championships and now girls getting married and having kids but we’ve had some tough times too, some tragedies. For me it’s about being there for them regardless of how old they are or how tough the situation is. I think they needed to see that. So it’s not about volleyball, it’s about some simple principles of unconditional love, hard work. There is a sign in our locker room that says ‘the only things you deserve are what you earn.’ I’m not a guy that was academically gifted. I wasn’t the best in sports. I think the one thing my parents always taught me was work ethic which I’ve tried to instill into my girls. More so now than at the very beginning since I now know how hard it is in the real world, especially Division I athletes who have been catered to all their lives. Then all of a sudden they get out there and you’re pulling the tight rope out and it gets kind of crazy.
The type of player he recruits
What we look for is we obviously want talented players. Everybody wants talented players but what we found as we’ve gone back and examined our top players: who were they and why were they successful and we found they kind of play with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder. They have something to prove.
We’re in an interesting mix where we’re a top 50 program but we’re still a small name. So we’re competing against everybody. Now we’ve beaten PAC-12, Big-12, Big 10, SEC; those are the teams we’re competing against. For us, it’s the kids where the big names schools have said, you might be a little too short or you might not be able to touch ten whatever. I don’t even know what everyone touches. A jump touch; I don’t know, I don’t care. I’m not saying that’s the right way, I’m just saying for me, that’s not the way the game is played or even scored. So you’ve got these kids that had dreams of playing at these huge schools and for whatever reasons they were told no and here we are, kind of the breath of fresh air saying I could care less what you touch. I love the way you play, I love the way you see the court. For me, when we go out and watch, it’s just that; the ability to score, the passion that they play with. The blue collar kids, there’s plenty of them out there but you have to look past the fact that they’re a 5-8 outside hitter.
We’ve got a girl, Carlyle Nusbaum, who’s probably 5-9 or 5-10 but she jumps 34 inches so it becomes one of these things that on the surface, you say 5-9, that’s way too short but you haven’t even looked. She’s got a canon for an arm. So it just became easy for us. Why are these teams passing? We find ourselves asking that question. Why does this team want to change our other outside hitter, Lauren Anderson who is a true L2, into a libero? She doesn’t want to be a libero. I get it, she’d probably be great at it but she can score. She can tool the block; she sees it, hits hard angle.
When we recruit, we don’t change a whole lot. If this is who you are, I just want to take it to the next level. That’s it. We don’t want to change you; we just want to make you even better. The kids like that, they appreciate that. They’ve worked hard to become who they are. To hear someone tell them we’re going to change everything you do, then they ask, well what have I been doing wrong? It’s an interesting mix.
(Wisconsin Coach) Kelly Sheffield just has a video out where he says, “It’s not my job for them to like me. It’s my job to know that I love them unconditionally. But it’s not my job for them to like me.” I think that’s an interesting statement. It’s this idea that we’re in a tough position. We have to push you each and every day. There’s going to be things that rub you the wrong way but if you look at things in the big picture, we’re just trying to make you better. If you’re willing to learn and willing to trust- I think that’s a key term- trust the idea that we have your best interest at hand. It’s hard and it’s scary. A lot of these girls are naturally gifted and now all of a sudden you’re saying we’ve got to go further, you’ve got to dig deeper.
We’ve chosen to do different things in recruiting. We don’t have a questionnaire. So where as most programs have a questionnaire and you go online and you fill it out the next thing you know you’ve got 45 kids for one spot at the outside hitter. You feel this obligation because they filled out a questionnaire and we probably need to go see them even though they’re 30th on our list. But I want 1, 2 3 and 4. That’s no offense to them but to me it’s a waste of time. I think the other side of it too is number 34, when they fill out a questionnaire they feel like wait a second, I’ve done my part. I’m shocked I wasn’t contacted. So we’re real careful with that. When we say we’ll work with really just 3 or 4 kids per position and really try to get to know them and hopefully get number one but if we don’t we also know number two is a really great option and we don’t have to go back to the process. It’s hard because the majority of schools have these huge lists and maybe that’s what happens at camp. Our camp is not overrun. I guess it could be but I think it works together.
I was just talking to one of our current recruits who’s going to be a senior and she has a younger sister who’s a really good player and she went to a bigger name school and she’s all excited and showed up and realized that there were 10 other girls that were there for the same thing for the same reason and she didn’t know that. So a light bulb went off in my head: alright, I don’t want that feeling from people. We’re very up front with people, we don’t have to judge and go over all these kids, and we’re working with 3 or 4 per position. When we do talk, we’re very honest with them and that’s a hard conversation to have with a 15 year old or 16 year old. But I’ve always believed I’ve told them my expectations and I can never be accused of, well he told me this and did that.
For part two of Brandon Rosenthal's interview, go to the next post of Arizona Sidelines.
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