 Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My book Beyond the Lines is about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, and finding greatness, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today was my college teammate and roommate at Creighton University. And he's the head coach of the Creighton University men's and women's tennis teams for over 23 years now. He is Tom Lilly, and today we are going Beyond Tennis. Hey, Tom, how's everything in Omaha? Everything is going well here, Rusty. I want to say, it's not quite as warm as the background you have there with the beach and the ocean in the background. We're actually having a heat wave. It's up to 45 degrees today. Oh my goodness. I know you're in season right now. How's your teams looking like? You know, we're getting better. I guess that's the main thing. The girls are four and three right now, and the guys are two and four, so I think we're moving in the right direction, and we're having some fun. All right, I want to ask you, Tom, about your family, your wife, Jean, and your two kids. My sister, Laurie, and your wife were teammates at Creighton University for tennis, and they were friends. How's everything going? Oh, everything's going well. Yeah, there they are. My wife, Jean, she's been my assistant. She's also an adjunct teacher here in the math department. Yeah, but she's been helping me coach for the past 23 years, helping me coach the women's team that is, and I have a grad assistant for the men's team. My son is now a freshman. I'm kind of hard to believe he's a freshman here at Creighton. Wow. So yeah, I don't see him very much. He's only a couple of blocks away on campus, but I think I've only seen him twice ever on campus. He loves Creighton, and so that was an easy choice for him, and my daughter is big into archery, and she's a freshman in high school right now. Well, I can't believe how fast time flies by. Yes, it's hard to believe I have a son that's here on campus mingling with my athletes. Strange feeling. Tom, let's talk about our college years. I guess you better have a few hours then, huh? Well, what do you remember about our college years? Oh, man, I probably don't remember as much as I should, but I'm having a great time. A lot of long van rides for the tennis team. There we are. A lot of good times at the Westbrook Tower, where you and I lived together on the 17th floor, and I'm sure our neighbors weren't too happy with us a lot of the time. No, we had a lot of good times, you know, hitting the ball around in the Keywood Center, and like I said, we had quite a few tennis trips together, and a lot of memories there. You know what I really liked was our tennis practices. I mean, Coach Ed Hubs made it really tough, but really fun, and I always looked forward to practices. How about you? Yeah, I've never been a morning person, and we had a lot of those 6 a.m. practices, but yeah, Coach Hubs would walk around with, I think he had a six-pack of diet coke for every practice. Yeah, he challenged us. He made us better. He worked us hard and allowed us to have a good time as well. And the other thing I remembered was you were injured a lot. You know, you were very brittle. We had to be gentle with you. Yeah, well, when you're 5'11 and you weigh 120 when you get to college, I think our strength coach was putting me on every kind of weight gainer they had back then, and not much worked out for me. But yeah, I spent a lot of time in the training room, that's for sure. I gotta say, though, when you were healthy, I mean, you were solid. I mean, you were a tough, strong player for us. I mean, we had a really great team with some really good depth on our team, didn't you think? Yeah, yeah. I know we had some big teams back then. We had, I think, over 10 players at one point in time. But yeah, with you and Rick at the top, you know, being a year ahead of me, and you guys actually, because of my injuries, I didn't get to play one of those years with you guys. It was, I had two years when you guys left. And so I don't think you ever got to see the best of me. You and Rick playing those top two spots were a lot of fun to watch and you guys are a heck of a doubles team. Rick was awesome. And, you know, you nominated me for the Hall of Fame for Creighton University in 2014. And then you introduced me at the Hall of Fame in front of a thousand people, literally. And that intro was probably the most fun. I mean, it was the best intro ever. Well, it, yeah, I've heard a lot about that from a lot of people since I would tell you the truth. I was scared to death and speaking in front of about a thousand people is a very nerve wracking experience. And so I thought I had to start it with a few, a few funny stories. And fortunately, fortunately for me, I made a thousand people laugh because if it was quiet after one of those jokes, probably would have ran off the stage and you never would have seen big. Well, you know what I loved about it was, you know, Coach Ed was there along with you and Jeff Bisline as well. But I was able to really honor and thank Coach Ed for, you know, his impact that that he had on me for all of those college years. And I want to know what kind of impact, you know, Coach Ed had on you, you know, as a player and now as a coach. Yeah, well, he's, you know, he was not my first coach, but I started tennis pretty late. So for me, it was somebody who was finally given me a lot of direction. I had a good high school coach for one year basically when I was playing. But Ed taught me a lot about the game and, you know, when I was probably halfway through my college years at Craig and I decided I did want to get into coaching. So I, you know, I tried to watch what he was doing, how he handled himself in different situations. And, you know, he had a daughter, a young daughter at the time, well, a baby at the time who we got to see grow up. And she's actually coaching in college now as well. But to kind of see his family side of things and, you know, he let us have a lot of fun. But he always knew when to reign us in for the big matches coming up and, you know, to get us on the serious side when we needed to be serious because we were a bunch of clowns for a while. We did push it to the limits at times and you're right. He did reign us in a bunch. Now, that's for sure. What is Coach Ed doing now? He is now the tennis director. I believe the tennis, the head tennis coach at Done University, Done College in Crete, Nebraska. It's just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. It's NAIA school and he's back doing what he's always wanted to do, I think. Yeah, and that's where he went to college at. And I want to ask you, Tom, you know, my longtime tennis student, Ashley Ishimura, you know, she, she graduated Creighton last year and she was your number one player for four years. What did, what are some things that you really liked about her? Well, first and foremost, her is a person. She's such a good person, such a caring person, you know, always first. She was always somebody that was willing to volunteer when we needed somebody to go do some type of community service or some type of volunteering. You know, just, just a really sweet girl. And, you know, other than, you know, not just on the court, she was tremendous on the court. She did a lot of good things here. Yeah, like you said, she played number one for all four years, competed as hard as she possibly could every time out. And, you know, she was somebody that wanted to be on the court. So she was a leader. She wasn't necessarily a vocal leader, because she's a pretty quiet girl. But she was always somebody that was willing to stay after, get to practice earlier. She just, she wanted the best, you know, to get the best out of her game and to make the team better. And, you know, there was, there was a pointer career, you know, probably, I think it might have been midway through her sophomore year, where she was just in a bit of a struggle and the girl behind her was playing really well and actually came into my office and, you know, basically said, I want you to know that you don't, you don't have to feel like I'm going to be disappointed if I'm not playing at the number one spot. If you need to, you know, move me down and move her up and, you know, do what's best for the team. And, you know, that was, that was just something that was great to hear. She always had the team in mind. Yeah, just a very special person. Yeah, it's a team first mentality. And that's, that becomes contagious with everyone else on the team. And, you know, you've, you've established a great culture of excellence for your teams for 23 years now. And I want to ask you, Tom, what do you focus on in building that culture of excellence with your teams? Well, you know, tennis is a sport, it's one on one. So growing up in the juniors, a lot of the players are just kind of focused on themselves. So we, we try to get them to focus a little bit more on the team and to make the team better. But, but the main focus, that's to start, I think, with the little things, you know, so we always stress those little things, the things that you can, you can control. Well, we can't always control how your opponent's going to act. And, you know, different things, the wind or the sun or something, something's not going well that day, but you can always control the little things you can show up on time if you're going to have that positive attitude. You know, that, that drive to overcome some, some challenges during, during practices or matches. So I guess those are the things that we try to get our players to focus on the most is what we can control and taking care of those little details. I totally agree with you because those little victories lead to big victories. And, you know, tennis is such an individual sport and, you know, you make everyone feel like they're part of a special team. And that's something that I would always try to do with my teams. But what specifically would you do on your teams now to really make everyone feel a part of a team in such an individual sport? Yeah, so I think we've, we mentioned in our first meeting, we mentioned in the first day of practices. Everybody will play a role and it doesn't matter if they're, right now we have 11 girls and nine guys. So it doesn't really matter if you're the number one player, the number nine or 11 player. It's everyone that's going to play a role if they choose to. And you're, you're there at practice to make the person on the other side of the net better. So if, you know, if you're not there with a good attitude or a good work ethic that day, you're wrong. And you decide just to not give it your best. Well, you're not making the other person on the other side of the net better. So it's something we continue to stress all the time. And, you know, I think we do a good job of my assistants and I have empowering the team and giving them some ownership of the team. Letting them know it's not my team, you know, it's not my assistant's team. It's all of our team. And we all should have a say in how we go about things. Yeah, I have to make the final decision on, you know, some big things, some big decisions that we have to make a lineup or whatnot. But, you know, they can all play a part in how we go about together as a family. No, I like what you said about, you know, everyone plays a role and everyone contributes. And, you know, if we go back to Ashley, you know, she got offered full scholarships from other universities. And she chose to accept a partial scholarship from you because when she visited you and your wife, Jean, she just absolutely loved you and Jean and the culture that you guys had on the team. And that just says a lot about what you've been able to build through these years. And, you know, I know you and I, we've experienced and learned a lot of life's lessons through tennis. How are you helping your teams and your players learn life's lessons through tennis? Through, well, you know, being that my life is my assistant for the women's team. I think that's that's something that's easy for them to see just how we go about with our relationship and our family and and how we've developed kind of having both of our teams kind of be somewhat of a tennis family. But, you know, life will have a lot of challenging moments, a lot of adversity and difficulties. And it's going to happen on the tennis court. It's going to happen in life. And, you know, it's something that we, I think, talk to them quite a bit about. And, you know, it's, it's how you handle those situations. You know, you can go one way or the other and you can make a bad match, a worse match, or you can try to do everything you can to make it better. And if you lose, well, you did everything you could. You know, those challenges and adversity are going to come up on life as well. And it's, it's how you go about handling those situations that makes you the person that you are. Tom, I want to talk to you more about adversities, but let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, we'll continue going beyond tennis. Okay. Sounds good. You're watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with my special guest, Tom Lilly. We will be back in a quick minute. Aloha. I'm Stan Osterman. Stan the energy man every Friday here on Think Tech Hawaii. If you're really interested in finding out what's going on in energy, especially here in Hawaii, but also all the way around the world, and especially if it has to do with hydrogen. Look into Stan the energy man every Friday, 12 o'clock, Think Tech Hawaii. Be there. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Christine Linders, a physical therapy specialist and the host of Movement Matters. My show is designed to teach you the simplest and most effective treatment strategies to get you out of pain and back to doing what you love. If you or someone you know is having pain in a certain area of the body, it would like a free assessment in treatment over media or in person. And then come on the show to talk about it. Email us at thinktechmovementmattersatgmail.com. Or if you have a topic you would like to know more about, please email us. My goal is to decrease pain all over the world, inspiring people to take better care of their bodies to enjoy life to the fullest. I look forward to hearing from you. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My special guest today was my college teammate and roommate, and he's the head coach of the Creighton University men's and women's tennis teams. He is Tom Lilly, and today we are going beyond tennis. Tom, I want to talk to you about my book Beyond the Lines. I know you're a big fan of it and you're a big supporter of it. What stood out most for you in my book? Well, I got it. It was a pretty cold day when we got it, so it made for a nice fire. No, it's a great read. It's very, very easy read. Quick, quick to read a lot of great examples in there. You know, you talked about handling adversity kind of what I was mentioned there a little bit ago about how you handle adversity, how you work through tough challenges in your life and with teams and whatnot. I think the one part that I remember the best is you had a little story about a Kaika Job. I hope I'm saying his name correctly. He played at St. Louis. So I coached against him. We played against St. Louis, and I remember him just being a very dynamic player, really strong player. And so reading that story kind of stood out how you had some challenges with him and had to discipline him and do things to basically make him not only a better player on the court, but a better person at handling tough situations and things that coaches have to do and in parents have to do at times. So that was one of the things that really stood out to me and one of the parts of the book I guess I remember the most. Yeah, it's so important to welcome adversity and look forward to challenges because it's inevitable. It's going to happen. And someone like Kaika Job, I mean, I love Kaika. He's now the director of tennis for Punahou School, and he's doing fantastic. Good. Now, I want to ask you, Tom, you know, what do you do to mentally prepare your teams for some of these big matches that you have? Well, we talk about how, I think if you don't talk about the challenges that will come up, then it's more of a surprise maybe and you're kind of just getting by the issues that could come out and it's best to talk about those things. We try to put our players in as tough a situations as we can in practices where, you know, making certain drills shorter so that every point is more valuable, making them do different running or burpees or what not be in between drills. If you're when you have a little bit less to do than if you lost that particular drill, you know, just trying to put a little more pressure on them in practice. We always talk that it's not going to be the same as in a match, but if we can try to close that gap between just through the motions and practice and just hitting the ball back and forth with your buddies, instead of, you know, we try to put some pressure on those situations, even though your best friend might be on the other side of the net. You still got to try to beat the brains out during whatever drill it might be and just having some consequences, I guess, at the end of those situations so that there's a little more pressure pack, I guess. I like what you said about communication, you know, so there's no miscommunication and no misunderstandings. And I also like what you said about, you know, simulating match conditions and having that big pressure situations where every shot that they hit is meaningful. And that's so huge. I like that. I want to ask you, Tom, you know, how important are fundamentals, you know, the physical fundamentals of tennis? Well, they're certainly important. I think a lot of times when we get the college players, you don't change a lot of the strokes necessarily, maybe for a few people, but when they're 18 years old, they've been through it all. They've sometimes had two or three different coaches and worked with them on every part of their game. So for us, I think it's more the intangibles, you know, the mental toughness that you get putting the team first and, you know, making adjustments mid-match, maybe slight strategy in somebody's game if you think they can be a little bit more of an attacking player whereas before they were just a complete grinder. You know, you try to implement those things into their games a little bit more, I think, at the college level. So as head coach now for 23 years, how has your own coaching style evolved over these decades? Oh, wow. Good question. I was kind of thrown in a little bit mid-season the year I took over because Ed Hubs, our coach, became the tennis director for the city of Omaha in February. So we were probably three or four matches in with each team and here I am, the assistant coach and thrown in as an interim head coach. So I would say I didn't know a whole lot about what I was doing back then. I think I've grown a lot. I've listened to a lot of people. My boss, Bruce Rasmussen, has created a great culture amongst the coaches here. We have very little turnover and a lot of great coaches on this campus. So, you know, talking, there's just a lot of good people to talk to about coaching. I think early in my coaching career, I was very, I wouldn't say various. I was pretty strict. I would yell a lot more. I'm more of a, probably more of a listener now, but if I feel a team or a player needs a little talking to, I'm able to do that. But I think I'm a little more cautious, a little more hesitant and take my time a little bit before making some quick decision, I guess. You know, I also talked in my book about listen first, speak last. And I know you remember that part and, you know, Bruce Rasmussen as the athletic director. I mean, he's one of the top athletic directors in the nation. And, you know, the basketball team with Greg McDermott, I mean, they're doing really good. They are. What, you know, you mentioned about culture among the Creighton coaches. What, what are you learning from some of these other coaches, from these other teams? Just, I guess, handling different situations. You know, if there's some situation that comes up amongst your team or a player, we have some great people who have offered some, you know, good advice over the years about handling how they may have handled a situation or sometimes it's how maybe they handled the situation one way and they wish they would have gone the other way. You know, there's no, there's no necessarily class or, or book that you can read that tells you how you're supposed to be a coach. It's a lot of it's just learning on the fly and, and dealing with situations as they come up. But yeah, our culture amongst us coaches is that, you know, we can, we can, we've become friends over the years and we can talk to each other about all these different situations that, that arise and, you know, it's, he's harassed has really developed a great culture here and, and, you know, kind of kind of like Creighton is one big university family. The athletic department is a part of that family and then each individual team is a smaller part of the family. And that culture really resonates here. I totally agree with you because it's such a, I mean, it's such a great advantage and opportunity because there's such a wealth of knowledge among all of the Creighton coaches and, you know, I know that you and I both highly respect Father Daniel Hendrickson the Creighton University president. Why, why is Father Daniel such a great leader. You know, he's, I don't know how he does it and he's, he has to be in a lot of different places it seems like he has to wear a lot of different hats and, you know, just he's got his, got his hands all over the university and different different ways I it's somebody can be in charge of something so big and do it in such a smooth manner. I know you've met him a few times and he's just a, he's a really smart guy and he, he just has a knack for whatever opportunity, whether it's in athletics or sciences or, or with boosters, you know, he's, he's able to deal with all those situations with class. No, I totally agree. I want more Father Daniels and more Coach Tom's in the world. Now, Tom, I want to ask you what, what do you feel, you know, knowing all, you know, through these decades, what do you feel the best leaders do. I think the best leaders can, can just take different situations. You know, whether they're positive or negative or adverse situations and make the most out of them. You know, that's something Rass always tells us that you got to try to make the most with what you have and do the best with what you can and whether that's a tennis match that you are competing against a really strong opponent or, or not. And you have to make the most of that situation and, and so I think a leader does that, whether it's fully or not or more by example. They are going about things with a process in mind and knowing that it's the process that comes first and how you lead up to those successes is what is most important. Tom, I know through all of these years you've idolized Larry Bird. I want to, I want to ask you, who else inspires you. My parents, they've, they've always been, I guess my mother, my, my father was in the Air Force for 28 years and moved us around the country quite a bit and that also meant that my mom had to be there dealing with a different move every three years and, and having, having to handle five kids too could not have been easy and, and all of our sports and activities. I don't know how they did it. So yeah, those, those are two people outside of Larry Bird, Larry Ledge and those, my mom and dad have been my biggest inspirations for sure. You know, we talked about adversity earlier. What, what's the biggest adversity that you've dealt with in your own life? You know, I, I think for, for me, and maybe for a lot of people, it's themselves. You know, I guess my adversity would be that my wife always tells me I'm a worrier. I worry about every little thing, every little detail ever, every little thing that might come up and that's something that may not sound like that's a large adversity. You know, I guess, of course, I've had people in my life that have passed away and those are tough times. But, you know, on a, on a daily basis, dealing with, with yourself and your, your own, you know, the own battles within your own head that you have to deal with and, and try to make yourself a better person. You know, you worry about your kids, your wife, your family, your teams. And, you know, I would think those are the things that maybe I've had to overcome more than, more than other things. I think you worry so much because, you know, you care about what you're doing and you care about your family and your team so deeply. And I think that's the reason, you know, knowing you so much so well that I do. That's right. Yeah, that's true. If you care about something a lot, you're going to worry about things too. Tom, I got to tell you it was, it was fantastic having you on the show today and you are definitely somebody that goes beyond the lines and you need to keep going beyond the lines. So thank you for joining me today, Tom. I appreciate it. Rusty, this was a good time. It's good to see you again, too. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Tom and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.