Last week, Michigan’s new head coach Dusty May spent a day with the Miami Heat staff before flying to Pittsburgh to exchange ideas with Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy and Charlotte Hornets assistant Josh Longstaff. May reads any book or studies any basketball team’s film if he thinks he can get an idea, a play, or a leadership strategy.
And as part of his continued education, he’s listening to podcasts from two coaches most basketball fans have never heard of.
While driving to lunch last February, May heard Olympia Milano coach Ettore Messina break down spacing concepts in offense. The week before, Tokyo Hachioji Bee Trains head coach Tyler Gatlin’s voice came through May’s speakers. The week after, he would hear former NBA head coach Stan Van Gundy.
The Slappin’ Glass podcast, which features lessons from around the world and has aired 201 times over four years, has become a word-of-mouth hit with coaches at all levels of the sport.
“I listen to every episode,” May said. “My staff listens to almost every episode. I think most college coaches listen to it on a regular basis.”
Jeff Van Gundy stumbled upon one of the hosts’ video analyses. They have a weekly newsletter and a YouTube channel, and he was so impressed that he called them and told them how great it was. Since then, he’s been encouraging some of his close friends in the industry to come on their show, which led to two obscure basketball coaches who played together at Division III Chapman University talking to Hall of Fame football coach Bill Parcells.
“They’re wary of going on a podcast where they’re going to be talking about things that they can’t discuss,” Van Gundy said. “They know they’re going to be playing pure basketball. There’s no ‘Gotcha’ questions. There’s no overly dramatic clickbait like, ‘Who’s the best player?’ They’re really trying to help coaches coach better.”
The show’s guest list features some of the most respected basketball coaches in the country: Brad Stevens, Geno Auriemma, Rick Pitino, Tom Thibodeau, Mike D’Antoni, the Van Gundy brothers, John Beilein, and many more. And it features a host of international players, too. What started out as a self-improvement project for the hosts has become a shop talk paradise for coaches and basketball fanatics at all levels.
“You can do a workout like that in an hour and by the end of it, you’re generally a better coach,” St. Louis coach Josh Schertz said.
The night the podcast idea came to Carney and Krikorian in Berlin. (Courtesy of Dan Krikorian)
Dan Krikorian’s initial plan was to graduate from Chapman in 2007 and become a musician. Between tours, he made money by giving shooting lessons, coaching youth teams and eventually coaching the junior varsity team at his alma mater. “The minute I stepped into the gym to coach, I was like, ‘Okay, this is what I want to do,'” he said. In 2013, Krikorian returned to Chapman to take the head coaching job. This summer, he was promoted to head coach.
Pat Carney played 12 seasons as a professional in Germany’s top basketball league. In 2018, he retired and stayed in Germany to pursue a coaching career. The two young coaches and former teammates kept in touch by phone, studying other teams around the world and talking about baseball. Over beers in Berlin after Krikorian’s band played, Krikorian suggested they turn that jam session into a podcast and interview coaches whose systems caught their attention.
The idea was largely forgotten until a year later, when Krikorian and Carney were discussing the motion offense of Division III Yeshiva University, which had just gone 29-1 while running a modern-day replica of Indiana’s Bob Knight system. Krikorian and Carney set up a Zoom call, hoping to get the brains of coach Elliot Steinmetz. Just before the meeting, Krikorian suggested recording. He already had all the sound and editing gear. If it worked out, he could turn the interview into the first episode.
The pandemic has made it more common for coaches around the world to connect via video calls. The first episode of this podcast, posted on August 17, 2020, wasn’t as polished as what the Slappin’ Glass folks are making today, but they loved it so much they decided to make it a weekly routine.
At first, the audience was small. “Our moms,” Krikorian joked. But whenever a celebrity guest like Jeff Van Gundy joined the show in February 2021, the audience was a bit shocked. The hosts made a list of coaches they wanted to interview, got suggestions from their coaching friends, and then started filming. Surprisingly, they rarely got a no.
“They ask really good questions,” said Alabama assistant Ryan Fanone, who was the show’s third guest and coach of the G-League’s Erie Bayhawks. “And as a result, more coaches are willing to come out and listen to them because their product is good and good coaches are talking about it.”
Their curiosity and research are jaw-dropping. Always cautious about sharing publicly about his two-guard offense, Baylin has no hesitation in explaining the key points he teaches the Slapin’ Glass guys, then praises the questions they ask him.
“I’ve never talked to anyone about basketball like this before,” Bellian said toward the end of the interview.
Most coaches expect to be dragged into story time when interviewed on a podcast, but Slappin’ Glass guests soon delve into the intricacies of their methods.
“That’s ideal for us,” Carney said. “It’s not an interview. Let’s talk basketball.”
The spirit of the show is that everything the coaches do is interesting.
“The great thing about basketball, and what keeps us having fresh conversations every week, is that there are so many ways to win,” Carney said. “Because there are so many ways to teach, we never assume there’s only one right way. Otherwise, we’d probably have that conversation and just get it done.”
Krikorian and Carney begin every interview with a few ideas they want to talk about, drawn from background material and film research, but their ability to listen and ask insightful follow-up questions guide the conversation and sometimes lead them off in strange directions.
“My favorite part of the podcast is when we go to unexpected places,” Krikorian said.
They often take coaches into uncharted territory in a regular segment called “Start, Sub, Sit,” a basketball-centric variation of the standard forced-choice game. When Stevens joined the show, they asked him which of three Ted Lasso quotes he would use: start, sub, or sit. (Stevens’ opening: “You know what the happiest animal in the world is? A goldfish. Why is that? It’s a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish” — because no matter what anyone says about you, you shouldn’t worry about missing a shot. “That’s great,” Stevens said. “Just let it be. I’ve got shot amnesia.”)
It all always comes back to the game, and it doesn’t go in a direction that doesn’t apply to coaching.
“We know coaches have 45 minutes to get on the treadmill, and we know they have a 40-minute commute to work,” Krikorian said. “We don’t want to waste their time on something that isn’t valuable.”
Kirkorian (left) was named head coach of his alma mater in August. (Alex Vazquez, Chapman University)
While relationships with coaches like Van Gundy have helped Krikorian and Carney land some of their most high-profile guests, what gives them the most pride is that the show’s downloads and audiences no longer rely so much on name recognition. And they’ve been able to provide a platform for talented, but lesser-known coaches to share their knowledge and ideas.
“If you think about it, like the best players, they evolve. They find a level. That’s not always the case for coaches,” Van Gundy said. “Some do. And some don’t, either by choice or simply out of lack of opportunity. But too many fans think the best coaches evolve like the players. That’s not true.”
Krikorian and Carney have made a decent side hustle. Their podcast has several sponsors and averages 30,000-40,000 downloads a month. Their newsletter has over 7,000 subscribers, and close to 1,000 of them pay for premium content.
Their content is niche, but anyone who enjoys the game can consume it – not just coaches. But the goal was never to become famous. It was to become a better coach.
“You have to be skilled at coaching,” says Carney. “You have to know yourself. You have to work hard. But a lot of it is also relationships, and through this, we’ve been able to build real relationships and continue the conversation beyond the podcast, which has had a direct impact on our careers.”
During the interview for this article, Carney was in Poland with the German U-20 national team. The team’s head coach, Martin Schiller, was a guest in 2022 and kept in touch with Carney, eventually asking Carney to join his staff this summer.
Krikorian says he’d be lying if he said he didn’t think about coaching at a higher level than D-III, but he’s making a pretty good living right now as the head coach of his alma mater, in the backyard of where he grew up, and building a sustainable business that’s sprung up during the pandemic.
“These are the people I can turn to for advice now,” Krikorian said. “Honestly, this is our dream.”
Fran Fraschilla, a fan and two-time ESPN analyst, said what Slapin Glass did reminds him of the old days when coaches like Hughie Brown and Dean Smith would travel overseas to teach baseball.
“What’s happened over the last two or three generations is that the world is now re-educating us about the game of basketball,” Fraschilla says. “Slappin’ Glass has provided an incredible menu of international basketball ideas. They’re a great conduit of basketball coaching information.”
(Top illustration photo courtesy of Alex Vasquez and @ralf.zimmermann.fotografie)
