 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Working Together on Think Tecawaii, where we discuss the impact of change on workers, employers and the economy. I'm your host, Cheryl Crozier-Garcia, inviting you to join the conversation. Please call us with your questions and comments at 808-374-2014 or tweet us at thinktechi. Many of us are following coverage of the Olympic Games. Elite athletes from around the world have come together in North Korea to compete in the names of their home countries. Victory comes in nanosecond increments. The difference between winning a medal and not winning occurs in the blink of an eye. What's interesting to me about the Olympics is that there doesn't seem to be any rivalry or negativity in the Olympic Village. Athletes from countries that are enemies everywhere else mix freely with one another in the Olympic Village. Why is it that sports is the great peacemaker? Joining us to discuss this is Coach Darren Vorderbrugge from Hawaii Pacific University. Coach V is the head coach of the men's basketball team. Today, he's going to share his observations about how sports can contribute to peacemaking between rival nations. Welcome, Coach. Hi, Cheryl. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time away from the guys to come in and talk story. Yeah, well, I always enjoy talking sports. I might not be an expert on the international relations part of it, but I'm a history buff, so I'm sure we'll have a good discussion. Good. So I guess the first question I'd like to ask you is, at what point does an athlete become an elite athlete? I mean, we could say, for example, that if you're a professional player, you play for a living and that's your paycheck, they're probably elite. So the NFL, Major League Baseball, golfers, tennis players, et cetera. We could probably all agree that they're elite athletes, right? Yeah. Olympians, clearly elite athletes, even though they don't necessarily draw a salary for it. Right. Okay. College athletes, are they elite? Yeah, I mean, good question. I think, you know, there's not a standard. There's not a straight line. You know, college athletes in America, in basketball, are considered in many other parts of the world to be elite athletes because American basketball kind of sets the standard. Whereas a collegiate athlete in Europe in soccer, which they call football, plays at a different level than we do here in America. So I think it varies a little bit. You know, you kind of depend on your definition, but you're right. It's not just professionalizing. I think it's getting to that championship level where you can compete with other top athletes, either in your region, your continent, or wherever you're competing. And kind of hold your own. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that you can compare yourself to others because that's what competition is all about. How do I stack up against somebody else? So I think the standard is kind of set, you know, in your area. You know, if it's an American collegiate athlete, are you winning championships? Are you considered all-conference, all-American? There's a lot of different definitions to set that. What about the differences, say, between male athletes and female athletes? There isn't currently no professional football team that has female players, no professional baseball team as female players. Although there have been fantasy TV shows about it. Is there a difference between what constitutes elite athletes between men and women? Yeah, I don't think so because I think it gets back to who you're competing against. Okay. I mean, you know, Michelle Wee is an elite women's golfer. And Jordan Spieth is an elite men's golfer. Jordan would, you know, beat Michelle probably most times, but that doesn't make her any less elite. Okay. You know, because I think, again, it's who she's competing against. That's why I think you can be an elite college athlete, an elite professional football player, an elite women's golfer because it's all about, you know, who you're competing against. That's always funny when they try to say, well, who's greater, Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan? Well, you know, not only is the time error a difference, but it's a different sport. They're not competing against each other. And those are good fun conversations to have. But it all comes down to how did you do on the field of play against your competitors? Okay. So there's an individual aspect to elite as well as a team aspect. You're a coach and you coach a team sport, basketball, five people from each team on the court at any given time. How do you figure out how you get really, really individually talented people to play together as a uniform, as a group? Right. That's a great question. And there's no easy answer to that. The cliche that if I had an easy answer to that, I'd be able to write a book. And I think not only is that the question for a basketball team or a football team, any organization, how to get leaders, sometimes be followers, to be servant leaders, how to get people to accept their roles, to put the organization before themselves. Well, it's just ultimately challenging. I think it's getting more challenging. And I start to show my age, but I just have a little philosophy that the technology aspect that now with everybody being able to, hey, I'm going to tweet, here's how I feel about this political issue. And like that has some relevance that we all care about how you feel about that issue. Hey, I'm going to tweet that I had this for dinner, like the world wants to know what your dinner looked like. We'll take a picture of it. Yes, exactly. And we'll tweet it and we'll send it. But I do think there's something there without being an expert in that area that this self-importance and this that we all have such a voice that needs to be heard and is cared by everybody. Well, that doesn't really build towards team building sometimes. That's true. And taking that step back. And so, you know, to me, you ask a great question on how you get people to come together. I think it's hard work. I think it's a lot of communication, establishing, hey, what is our goal? How do we get to our goal identifying roles? That's one of the hard things to do is to tell somebody, you know, that's not your role. You know, you're not to that point yet. It's this person's role. So they get to do that. You don't. And, you know, there's not a lot in our society that people are comfortable with. They get to do that and I don't. Right. You know, we all want to, well, that's not fair. Well, it is fair. It's not equal, but it's fair. Right. Right. Yeah. You're reminding me now of my softball coach from back at the day. Well, good. I hope he was a good guy. Oh, man. I took so many laps from him. But he had a saying, the width of home plate is 17 inches. All right. It's the same in Bobby Sock softball as it is in league play. Right. Into school league play. It's also the same in little league and professional baseball. Everybody that plays with home plate, it's always 17 inches wide. All right. They don't say, well, you can't put a ball across a 17 inch wide home plate. So we'll broaden it for you. We'll get 18 or 19 inches. We'll keep expanding it until you are able to put the ball across the plate and then you can be our pitcher. They don't do that. Right. And so he said that it was the athlete's responsibility to rise to the level of the game. It wasn't necessarily the role of the game to alter itself to fit the individual. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Great point. You know, there's that famous scene in the movie Hoosiers, if you've ever seen that old basketball movie where they go to the state tournament, they're from a small town in Indiana. And the first thing they do, they walk around and they're all looking around the room at how big the stadium is and they're not used to playing except in a small little gym and the coach gets a tape measure out and a ladder and goes, boys, it's 10 feet. It's the same it is back in Hickory, Indiana. So let's just play basketball. So I think some similarities Yeah. And I also think and maybe this is part of the sort of post millennial sort of eye generation with this issue of everybody has to listen to me and everybody has to what I say has merit just because I am who I am. Well, that's true to a point because everyone has the right to their own opinion. But how do you start dissuading people from that as a coach? Yeah. And you know, the biggest thing you can do as a coach is in the recruiting process. I say that a little tongue in cheek, but it's recruiting people that come from a background where they understand already that the world doesn't revolve around them. And I've made that mistake and other coaches have to when you get too many people. It's like I'm not able to get through to these guys. We share with our guys that people are interested in how you act a lot more than how you feel. And everybody wants, we have a lot of individuals that they want you to know when they're having a bad day, they want you to know when they feel mistreated, they want you to know I don't feel this is right. Well, if they'll just act like they're on board regardless of how they feel, the team will do a lot better. And it's hard for us to suppress. I think in today's society, we don't want to suppress how we feel. And again, that you don't always want to do that. But there are times when you've got to pick and choose, you know, how can we be successful as an organization? And is the important thing for me to express how I feel right now? Or is there a better time and situation to do that? And I think a little bit again, with the technology and the immediacy that we're so used to, if I feel it, I want to say it now. And a lot of times I find this in relationships with my wife, with my family, with my coworkers, a lot of times there might be a time in a day or two that's better for me to express how I feel. And that might allow us to focus on the game or the fight that we're having right now and get through that and then address it. Yeah. We've seen that happen in the Olympics, where there have been athletes and the commentators report on things like, well, their mother just passed away. So they're competing now with this enormous emotional bereavement. Or, gee, we just heard word that so and so is throwing the javelin with a broken collarbone or whatever it is, things like that. And that's news from a perspective that it's something different and interesting about that athlete. But it's amazing to me that people actually can continue to perform at that high elite level, even with debilitating physical injuries, big emotional events in their lives, things like that. To me, that's the difference between an elite athlete and somebody that's not. Regardless of, I mean, it could be the six-year-old that fell and scratched his knee and still says, no, I'm going to get up and play, it's my turn at bat. And they go and they do it. For me, that's the difference. But I think it's something that all elite athletes have in common. And maybe that's why the Olympics is the way it is. There's no internation sort of negativity or fighting or violence because they all know what it took to get there. And they can all respect the work that went into rising to that level of skill. And one of the characteristics, you hit it right on the head of elite athletes is the ability to focus. I use that word a lot. I think other coaches and athletes do. And that ability to turn off what's going on on the sidelines, that ability to turn off what's going on in your personal life or what's going to be going on when you're done. And that's always heightened when there is a death in the family or an injury. And at times, you see elite athletes just ratchet it up in that. I mean, there's famous stories about, again, Michael Jordan being sick with the flu and going out and scoring 30 points. And we've all seen that in athletes. And I think at the Olympics, you're right. When you're there and it's a once in four years event, the focus level when you know that there's no tomorrow, there's no next year, there might be 2022 is the next opportunity I'm going to get. I think those elite athletes put such an importance on it that other stuff is tuned out. So they're able to maybe create a sense of immediacy within themselves. Right. Yeah. On the other hand, though, we also have elite athletes that we have seen just clutch and completely blow it. A broken shoelace for a figure skater is the difference between perhaps placing and almost making a laughing stock of Hortania Harding. You can never tell what's going to happen and what throws someone for a loop. I've had in years of coaching, I've had athletes with a high level of focus that I had the highest respect for, but what throws them off of their game is something that wouldn't throw a lot of other athletes off their game. You know, and it's just that's the human psyche that, hey, my girlfriend broke up with me and that did get to me, or I failed this test and that got to me. It did, but the other day when you had a broken leg, you were still playing, but that's what threw you off. So people are also different. You can never predict what helps them focus and what makes them lose focus. That's true. I got to tell you though, your athletes aren't like that. I don't find. I mean, I've had many opportunities to have sharks in the classroom and regardless of the sport, they all exhibit some fairly similar, shall we say, character qualities. They're all really cordial. They're all very focused and dedicated to academics. And they're also, and this is what I find incredibly remarkable and makes them different from other college athletes that I've had an opportunity to know, is that they are fully willing to admit that they've made mistakes or they've blown deadlines or there's something else and they need help from the professor or from group members, whoever it is. To me, that's a huge difference. Well, and that's a huge lesson. We continue to work, I think, coaches all over the country with owning mistakes. I mean, it's hard for me to do when I didn't take the trash out at home and it's hard for athletes to do. None of us like to own it. We all want to, yes, I did that, but, and, you know, we always teach them, but once you say, but, you're almost saying, hey, but I have an excuse. And HPU is unique. I know all the coaches at our university and have the utmost respect for each of them. Having been here for several years now, we are forced, and it's a luxury, but we're forced to recruit a unique brand of student-athlete. You're either from Hawaii, you're either from about a 15-mile radius, or you're from 3,000 miles away. There's very few schools like that. Most schools, it's, well, there's some from around here and there's some that drive 30 minutes and there's some that drive an hour and there's some that were just a couple hours away. So, you know, we get a lot of kids from the mainland or internationally that, unlike me when I went to college, they got on an airplane and headed out and left their family at 18 years old. And I think that that embodies a little bit of independence, a little bit more maturity. And so I think our student-athletes are unique in that sense, that we've got that mix of these kids that have really made a jump. They've chosen their school primarily because of athletics. I mean, let's be honest. They want to get their degree, but a big factor is where can I play and where can I get a scholarship? And they've chosen to do that out here. And I think that breeds a unique brand of student-athlete. I think so. As I say, they're different from any other students I've ever worked with. I am seeing a flashing light, which means that we need to do some housekeeping and tell everybody about the other great programming available here on Think Tech Hawaii. So, let's take a break. You sit right there, and we will be back in 60 seconds. Aloha. I'm Kili Ikeena and I'm here every other week on Mondays at 2 o'clock p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. In Hawaii Together, we talk with some of the most fascinating people in the islands about working together, working together for a better economy, government, and society. So, I invite you into our conversation every other Monday at 2 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. Join us for Hawaii Together. I'm Kili Ikeena. Aloha. Welcome back to Working Together on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Cheryl Crozier Garcia. We're talking sports with Coach V from Hawaii Pacific University. And I've got to ask you a question I have been dying to know. In fact, I tweeted this person asking that question, and they didn't get back to me, so I have to ask you. Okay. You're the closest I'm going to get. So, in 1976, Bruce Jenner won the decathlon, took the gold. It's 10 track and field events. Very, very challenging. If he had been Caitlyn then and had competed with female athletes, would he have done as well? Great question. Let me give a little bit of back story, because you and I have just met today officially, and we didn't do a lot of planning on this, because we wanted it to be an open discussion. I've met Bruce Jenner, so you didn't know that. Oh, my gosh. So, in 1986, when I was a college athlete, we went to Hillsdale, Michigan for the National Track and Field Championships, the NAIA, Track and Field Championships. And Bruce Jenner had been at an NAIA school, Graceland University in Iowa, so he was the keynote speaker at one of the banquets. And I can remember being a 19, 20-year-old young man and looking at big, strong, good-looking Bruce Jenner that was on my Wheaties box and that I had admired. I had watched him in 1976 in Montreal with his shirt that said, feet don't fail me now on it. And he was kind of a hero to a whole generation of people and a dynamic speaker and the world's greatest athlete. The whole gender reassignment and the hormone therapy, it's highly controversial right now. There are people changing teams to both sides. There are males that are trying to become females to compete and females wanting to become males. And it's so complicated because it's such a personal decision and a feeling to not feel like you're the right sex with your body. But it's more than a personal thing to go compete against other people because then that goes beyond you. And now you're affecting a lady who thinks, well, I was born a lady and am naturally a lady and you were born with some things I wasn't maybe muscular wise. And so I don't know, I don't know where they were with gender reassignment back then and hormone therapy. Bruce was a great athlete and probably to win the Decathlon, probably the biggest thing he had going for him in the books that I've read and listening to him was what he had up here. I mean, to not give in to fatigue, to have the discipline to train across 10 events, to be able to, okay, I gotta only go this hard in this because I gotta be able to do this in the next one. That goes across all gender and I gotta think that would have helped him in anything he's done and he's been successful in everything he's done since then, not solely based on being a good athlete. He's also a good-looking lady. I think she's pretty myself. But I personally think that if Bruce had been Caitlyn, Caitlyn would have if there had been female Decathlon at the time, Caitlyn would have taken the gold. And I say that because that for the same reason, what's inside your head doesn't change. Right. A determination and that strategy and that will. Yeah. A highly motivated man and a highly motivated woman have something in common that overrides gender and that's a high level of motivation. So that's kind of interesting. On the other hand though, there's kind of a, at what point does doping come into play with that? Because the Russians were banned from this Olympics. Right. Because allegedly of doping. And at what point does legitimate medication to deal with the pain that comes from being an athlete or things like that? At what point does it become doping? And I don't think those guidelines are clear cut either. I don't think everybody's caught. It goes back, you know, just recently they had the election to the Baseball Hall of Fame and they're still not electing Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa because they accused that they did steroids and performance enhancing drugs and the controversy continues to be weighed. Well, they're the ones that got caught and they were hitting home runs with performance enhancement, but the pitchers were also using performance enhancement. So does that balance it out? And what they did, they obviously had great skill and talent. And I think the same thing now with with the medications, we deal with it at the NCAA level is the list is so long. I mean, and you can take things unknowingly. You can take things knowingly and claim you took them unknowingly. So a lot of it just gets kind of down to who got caught and who didn't. And you can't test for everything. And it seems like every time a test comes out, there's a way to mask that test and the technology just keeps chasing each other. So it's it's an ugly part to the sport and you're right because of all the medications that people are taking that aren't on the band substance list. Boy, the lines get blurred very easily. Yeah. And at what point do we say you have children? Yes. I presume they played sports at some point. All three of them. So imagine for a moment you have a kid, they have a legitimate injury from playing sports and in order to treat that injury and alleviate that pain, they are prescribed some fairly heavy pain medication. You know, at what point does that become a factor in literally keeping the kid off the field because they are taking these medications that might affect performance either positively or negatively. Right. And I think that's where we're still in the process. I say we, but the governing bodies of the NCAA and the International Olympic Committee are trying to determine, you know, what's a band substance and what's not and how much of a substance is allowable and how much isn't. And well, you see it all the time. Somebody has taken something. I think Maria Shepova happened recently, you know, again, she claimed innocence that my trainer told me to take it. I took it. It does treat this symptom I was having, but it turns out it's a band substance. And supposedly, you know, I think they're still trying to identify, does it make a difference? There may have been a knee jerk initially that we put too many things on the table. And probably like most things in life, it's going to cycle and swing back and we'll figure out what the next approach is. You're making me think of my coach again. I can hear him saying, walk it off. There you go. I got hit in the head with the ball. Walk it off. I'm bleeding. Walk it off. Everything was old school. Yeah, really. And you didn't cry. You ever hear the expression, there's no crying in baseball. That's from league of their own. That's right. And there's no crying in softball either. That's right. They will, they will take you out. So it's, it's interesting. I have to say for myself, though, as a, as a recovering college athlete and a recovering high school athlete, and a recovering community league athlete, especially for the younger ones out there that are getting involved in sports, I got to tell you, man, the best advice I can give, listen to your coach, especially when he says stretch, because if I had, I certainly would not be waking up now in the morning with the aches and pains I wake up with now. I think it's great advice. I know that parents, I think listening to your coach and obviously I'm jaded because I am one, but I even told that to my children and made sure not to, to impose on their relationships with their coach, you know, coaches get into that profession usually because of two reasons. Number one, they're competitive and they want to win. And number two, every coach I know likes young people and wants to impart the lessons of sports that they can take as life lessons and move them forward. And boy, as parents, we see so many times they, they get fired up, they get emotional because their child's not getting the playing time they want or their child, they don't feel is being treated fairly. And it always goes back to, you know, that, that coach is not picking on that kid. Coaches want to win and they want to do what's best for kids. And as a parent, I also learned I'm not objective with my own children, you know, but I can be objective with other people's kids. And I think that's great advice that we can support coaches, you know, obviously, if you see something that's, you know, physically damaging or emotional damaging, but if, if it's, well, I think that they're practicing the wrong drills or my kid doesn't get to play or they should be starting usually supporting the coach gets back to, again, that's the way to move the success of the organization forward. Right. It seems to me also that that would be a good opportunity for parent and coach to sit down. It's like, okay, what do I need? My child, obviously, is not performing well. I'd like him to be a starter. I think he's got the skill. What can I do to help you, coach, see my kid as your next starting quarterback? And that's a great point. And I've had that conversation so many times because you're right. The first thing when at the collegiate level, when a student's unhappy and the parents are unhappy, they call home and mom or dad says, well, go in and talk to the coach. Go find out why you're not starting. Go find out why you're not playing as much. And on paper, that theory sounds great. But unfortunately, what typically happens is they come in and as a coach, you share with them, well, you're not achieving at this level. And some of that is subjective. And rarely does the student athlete walk out of there and say, oh, I see it. I see what coaches say. Typically, it's, well, this is what you say, coach, but me and my family think that we're better than the person that's playing ahead of us. And so it's so hard to quantify that with, well, you know, and sometimes you can get numbers. You're turning it over too much. You're shooting percentage, or you're not hitting enough, the highest batting average. But there's more to it than that. And if you're just sharing, well, you kind of got a bad attitude, they're not going to be, oh, okay, I've got a bad attitude. I mean. Oh, my charming little snow tail. Oh, no, no, no. She's practically perfect in every way. She's Mary Poppins. You're right though. And I do think that there has to be some level of objectivity, which you have already said it's difficult for you with your kids, but easy with other peoples, but also an objectivity from the perspective of the parents, where they're not pushing and fighting and behaving in a way that does not inhabit good sportsmanship in the way their kids see them around sports. Yeah. And our kids, the longer I coach them or I just continue to see, they are reflections of their parents, whether the parents are presents or absent, that is reflected in them so much. And it's amazing what supportive parents can do even when it's, I support you, I love you, but I'm not going to support you and ask the coach to play you more. I'm going to support you and let you know, hey, whatever you're playing time, whatever your athletic success, we're here for you, but we're not here to try to get that for you. Right, right. That's, I think that's an important point. And I think we've seen it over and over again where parents have gotten involved in a negative way and it kills the fun for the children and it just creates drama among the league and the other involved parents and families. So thank you for sharing that wisdom. I know that so many times you hear parents say, well, this is an old story I like to share, parents will say, well, coach just plays his favorites. I've heard them when my kids were in school and when I was in school, I'd hear parents coach just plays his favorites and my come back to that has always been yes and understand that my favorites are the ones that will help us win the game. You know, it's, I don't like you because you mow my lawn. I don't like you because of any other reason, you know, so figure out how to be one of coach's favorites. And by that, I don't mean brown nosing or bringing me an apple. I mean, are you defending? Are you rebounding? Are you shooting the ball? That's how you become a favorite. Are you not giving up? Exactly. Right. It's those things. That's probably the most important thing. I'm guessing that if you, if you take two kids with equal skill, one is motivated, one is not. The one that's motivated, it will be much easier to get every time, every time. From them. Yeah. Well, Coach V, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. This is a blast. Well, you're gonna have to come back. All right. All right. So, you know, when we watch little kids during their introduction to sports, we sometimes can spot a future Olympian or professional elite athlete. Natural talent is a piece of the puzzle, but there are other factors that make champions. Dedication, willingness to make sacrifices and sheer determination are part of the Olympian's character. And those traits, developed in the quest for victory, can also be used to bring peace and justice to areas that need them. On behalf of all the volunteers here at Think Tech, Hawaii, thank you for joining us on Working Together. I'm Cheryl Grosje Garcia, and I will be back in two weeks. Till then, take care.