 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game are about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is the head coach of the University of Hawaii women's water polo team, and her team won the Big West Championship this year. She is Maureen Cole, and today we are going beyond coaching. Hey Coach Moe, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, I'm excited to talk with you. Now you have been creating such a great culture of excellence with your teams here in Hawaii, and I'm so excited to have you on the show and really talk about the insights about coaching and leadership and team building. But before we do that, can you talk to me a little bit about your background growing up? Sure. I grew up in Hawaii, went to a small school there through eighth grade, had a background in swimming. I had older brothers and a younger sister, both my older brothers coach and were primarily summers and went and swam in college. I went to Pono High School, from there went on to UCLA and attended college, and ever since then I've been back coaching for the most part at the University of Hawaii. Now Coach Moe, what got you interested in water polo? A ball rather than a black line. Now I swam since I can remember, and towards the end we used to put two water polo or two chairs and made them water polo goals and we used to just play around at the end of practice, maybe as I was becoming a teenager. And then when I went to Ponoho, it was the first time that they ever had a girls team, my freshman year, it was the trial year for women's water polo in high school and with a swimming background and the fact that I played team sports, I played soccer in high school too and growing up and I just love the team aspect of water polo and the fact that it's a game, you know, it was just a lot of fun. So I excited to be a part of that first first program at Ponoho and a long time ago, I won't date myself now. Now Coach Moe, I mean, treading water and swimming. I mean, that's tough enough already. I mean, let alone to play water polo and doing that as well. But you attended UCLA and while you were there, you and your teammates won three national championships. Now, when you reflect back, what are some of the reasons why you guys won those three national championships? I think number one, we worked incredibly hard. We were fortunate enough to have a great, fiery young coach who now is the women's Olympic team coach. He's proven to just put teams together and win. And I think he made us really tough. I think he loved to compete and he put together players and our team just loved to compete. Everything was a game kind of similar to what I do here. I just I love everything being in competition and my family is the pool everywhere. Everything's always a competition. It just makes it fun. And I think he did a really good job of making us compete every day, working hard. And at the end of the day, we played for each other. It was just a really fun, fun environment. Now, Coach Moe, I wanted to ask you this. You know, who is a coach that had the biggest impact on you? It might be that coach that you just mentioned, but who's the who's a coach that had the biggest impact on you? And what are some details about why? He's definitely one of them. But Ken Smith, who was my first coach at the coach at Pinot High School, well, he impacted my life in a million different ways. And he's still someone I call at least once a month. And we talk all the time. But number one, I wouldn't be playing water polo if it weren't for him. I probably would have gone on to swim in college and he just, you know, opened up that opportunity for water polo. But I think the thing that sticks out the most with him is just he was the first coach to ever really focus on the mental side of the game. And he's kind of known as the John Wooden of water polo at Pinot High School. And actually, I mean, even the Olympic coach will have him do talks. And from 13, 14 years old, I can just remember making books and memorizing John Wooden quotes and focusing on being just mentally strong, positive self talk, all those things that now we definitely spent a lot of time at UH doing. I was introduced to all of that with Ken Smith. And it was a big part of what stuck with me and something that girls really aren't very good at. It takes work. No, I'm glad you mentioned coach Ken Smith. I know him for many, many years when I was at Punahoe. And and I have great respect for him and all of his accomplishments. But he, like you said, I mean, he's inspired so many so many boys and girls through water polo in the state of Hawaii and really developed a lot of Olympians, right? He's developed multiple Olympians and just so many great people. I mean, I just the trust and respect that you don't meet someone who doesn't respect and trust Ken Smith. He's just an awesome person and great role model to young boys and girls. Thankfully, he's still coaching. Oh, I totally agree with you. And and Coach Mo, what why did you first start coaching? What got you interested in coaching? I well, Ken Smith, actually, so at Punahoe, they had the Hawaiian Islands summer program and it was a summer job. When I was away to college, I'd come back and I started giving back and teaching intermediates and the younger girls, water polo. And I I love doing that. It was a lot of fun. Then I graduated from or actually before I graduated from UCLA, I took a year off for the Olympics and then I had one year school left, so I had a fifth year at UCLA and I was done with my eligibility. And so I was on scholarship and I came on as an undergrad assistant coach. And that was where I was for the first time on the on the deck instead of in the water for, you know, another NCA cycle, where we won the championship and I loved it. I love being a part of that just super high intensity and high level water polo. Then I graduated and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. And I came home, had an office job for about six months, and I was not the happiest human in the world. And then the assistant coaching job at the University of Hawaii opened up and the first coach ever here, Sherry Smart, was also a part of my water polo career. And she gave me a call and she said, you know what, this is open. You have to apply for this. And at that point, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. And I was kind of just trying to figure things out, like, all right, I'll apply. But never thought I was going to be coaching as a career. And here I am 15 years later, still doing it and loving it. Well, Coach Mo, you have created a superior culture of excellence with your teams. And can you share with me what your coaching philosophies are? Here, I think, well, number one, I just work really hard and I want everyone around me to work hard because I'm not the most talented coach. I wasn't the most talented player, but I think if you put everything you have into something and you love it, you're going to be the best that you possibly can be. And so that's a big part of it. But the question I asked myself, and that kind of guides me through trying to be the leader of this program, is just always saying, what's the best for the team? What decision? What's going to be best for everybody? Not what's best for me or what's best for the best player? It's what's best for the team? And I think by living by that question and asking myself that, as I make difficult decisions every day, a lot of the girls trust me and I'm not perfect. I make lots of mistakes, but they know that the intent and what I'm trying to do is respected. And and I ask everyone on the team to do the same thing. If you always make a decision and you ask yourself what's best for the team and you're doing that, it's a great guiding, guiding principle for me. Now, I like hearing what you said about hard work because hard work works and then how you said about, yeah, what's best for the team? I mean, that you can never lose sight of what's best for the team. And because if some of the players start to be thinking me, me, me, that that really starts to wear on the on the team aspect. And and I want to ask you, Coach Mo, how would you describe your coaching style? Say, I'm pretty intense. People around me say I'm a pretty intense person. I know that, but on the pool deck, I'm not a yeller during games. I'm not screaming and telling everyone what to do every second. I really think of myself and a lot of this comes from Ken Smith as just being a lifelong learner and trying to be a teacher. And in the water, there's a longstanding joke with the team every day. They always ask me, what should I do here? And I always say, my answer is always it depends. And there's so many different things that can happen. And you've got to understand the context of what's happening. And then that's going to help you understand why you're doing something. And then in a big West championship game, well, not this year, there was no crowd, but when it's really loud and you can't, you have to focus on each other and know what to do. You're not going to be able to hear my voice on the other side. If you have to hear me telling you what to do with the big final second, you've got to be able to make a read, be able to do that. And so it's just a process of trying to teach them to see the game and be able to talk and communicate with each other. Well, yeah, no, that's the communication. Yeah, that's so, so key. And Coach Mo, you know, within the culture of excellence that you've had, why, how would you describe your team's identity? You know, what kind of qualities does your team have? And what other qualities do you want your team to have? Oh, there's a lot of every year we meet and we talk about we have words. And it's exactly that we say, if someone were to talk or look at us, how would they describe us and what's important to us? And after 10 years, the same words kept on popping up over and over. And one of them is come compete, like you've got to compete. And water polo is like you said earlier, brutal sport. You're kicking or wrestling or doing all these things. And you've got to do it against each other all the time, every day in practice. And you've got to be able to leave it in the pool, but compete and battle. Otherwise, you're not putting yourself in position to get better and respect each other. I think respect is a big one. Communicating is also super important. There's got to be a love for the sport, passion. If you don't love something, you're not going to be able to do it well. And kind of going through that with my son right now, he's a basketball guru. Like loves basketball, obsessed with basketball. All he wants to think about, talk about, he's been just progressing so well. And then he does soccer and soccer is a sport he does. But he doesn't love. And it's just, it's crazy when, you know, you love something, how much more willing you are to put in the effort. So I think that is something that I look for that our team loves, you know, loves the sport wants to be there every day. And then your attitude and having a good attitude and perspective. And there's that formula where there's an event plus basically your response. What what happens, there's always going to be something bad that happens and how you react to that is going to determine your outcome. And I think that's a big part of what I look for when I'm recruiting, watching people compete and what happens when they miss a shot. How do they respond? What's their body language and what's our body language going to look like? What are the opponents going to see when something doesn't go your way and focusing really on your response to adversity is a big one. Oh, I've done the same thing. I mean, I like watching players or athletes when when they make a mistake or an error or they lose a point, they lose a game to see how they respond. You know, it really shows a lot about their character. And and I talk about a lot of that in my books and Coach Mow, you have my books and I want to know if you like the books and if if you did, you know, what what stood out to you? You know, I enjoyed them. And I think that is exactly the one thing that I was like, yes, yes. I agree with that was when you talk about adversity and the fact that everyone in life is going to deal with something bad and it's your response to that and whether you get up and how quickly you can respond to that. And that that really says everything, because if you you're not defeated, if you keep going, you're only defeated when you stop. And I think you talk about that throughout one of the chapters. I just like, yes, because that just sums up this whole last year, year and a half, right, with covid is just one thing after another. And you can let it destroy you or bum you out. And how long are you going to let it bum you out before you get up and you figure out a solution and you keep moving forward? And I just think that's a big part of life. And for me, you know, I would focus a lot on on mindset because, you know, you need to look forward to challenges and adversities. It's inevitable. It's going to happen. And I know you do the same. And how do you what are your thoughts about the importance of having the right mindset in practices which will lead into games? So important, you know, you have different girls that come in here with different backgrounds where they're like their attitude in the beginning might be, I can just show up for practice, but I'm going to play better in a game and like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You practice how you play. And if you don't practice, well, you don't get to play. And so I think that that is basically being where your feet are is something we focus on. And, you know, when you walk through the doors of the Dukahonamoku Aquatics Complex, you're going to forget about your boyfriend or schoolwork and you're going to be present and be doing the one thing and just focus on doing water polo well when you're here and then you walk out. You can leave it and you can go focus on those other things. And if everyone does that, we can accomplish a lot of things and become pretty great. Yeah, the greatest athletes, I mean, they they compete the same in practice as they do in games. I mean, practices and games are the same. It's not like they're thinking, oh, I'm going to play one way and then a different way in a game like like you just mentioned. And I want to ask you, Coach Mo, in terms of teamwork and building trust and having the girls support each other, how do you get your entire team to buy in to the team's goals? We talk about it. We communicate. I think that being on the same page and understanding each other, that's a big part of creating great culture. And this year, you know, a great example of just having to deal with something where everyone felt a little bit differently about covid. Some people weren't really bothered by it. Some people are really scared and we're playing this super physical sport where we're breathing on each other every second. And you have to have trust of what the person next to you is doing every day. And the only way you can gain that is through communication, having hard conversations and not being afraid of a little confrontation, but having the respect to continue to communicate and become a family. And I think that's that's really what it was this past year and what we strive to be. And when you do that and you're playing for your teammate, that's, again, where great things can happen. It's not when you're worried about yourself. It's when you're worried more about the person next to you. Yeah, like you said, open and honest communication. I mean, it's so necessary to have success and for everyone to be real with each other and then to really, like you said earlier, to help the team, what's best to help the team? And Coach Mo, what kind of activities would you have your team do outside of practices and games to really add to team bonding? We do a bunch of different things this year. I looked a little different, but we've done ropes courses. We've done, I've had everyone in my house where I gave them a budget and we did we have a bunch of girls from like a different country. So I said, everyone's going to make a different dish, something from New Zealand, something from Spain. And you guys got to cook 20 girls in one tiny little kitchen and you got to make it work and figure it out. And then we get to have this great dinner at the end. But the process of being able to communicate, get to a store on a budget, make all these different things. It's that was one of my favorites that we've done. We've done we go bowling. Just things to laugh and have a compete and do little things outside of the water, but just continue to develop relationships this year. We went to the West Side and had a nice ocean swim where we could be socially distanced and do it safe. So just different things where and you're continuing to form relationships because the team sport, it really is all about relationships. Then you can't just show up, practice every day and do that and think that in the end, you're going to have that background and foundation to be able to work together. It takes a lot of work outside the pool and we do that a fair bit as a team. And then our team does a great job of doing it even more together. And I think that's a big part of our success. No, I like hearing that. It's so good to do things outside of the normal practices and games like you do. And Coach Mo, this this year's Big West Championship, this is your fourth Big West Championship. And now that you've had some weeks to reflect back, why did your team win this year's Big West Championship in such a challenging year? I think it's exactly that. They they played for each other because if you look on paper at who we had and who we lost relative to some of the other teams, we were definitely not operating at 100 percent strength just due to off doubts and people doing different things this past year or leaving altogether because they wanted to go back home to their countries. But the people were here were 100 percent all in and played paid a tremendous attention to detail. And because we were such a small team, I think they've got really good at working well with each other and understanding how each person wants the ball. What to do in this moment and just being able to communicate really well in those in those moments. But it comes down to they loved each other. I mean, I've never seen a group so having so much fun. I mean, they work their butt off because they have no choice if they're part of my program to work really hard. But they had so much fun. And I think losing everything a year ago and then having it back, there is that appreciation. But they just they truly enjoyed each other and I wanted to do it and work hard for each other. And I think that that really set us up. And Coach Mo, when you went to the NCAAs this year, you played against your alma mater, UCLA, and you guys were were winning. And can you tell me about how close that game actually was? And we were up, I think, to nothing. It was a game, a very close game into half, and we were competing. And, you know, I think one of the parents, mom said, they were the better some team, we were the better water polo team. I mean, we were playing really good water polo and the depth just became an issue in the second half a little bit. But, you know, there are a couple of situations where the ball is going far and it just goes on the line. And if that would have been in, you know, they don't go down and counter the other way. It's a tied game going into the third, fourth quarter. And I just love the way it didn't even matter, though, what the score was at the end, we brought the goalie out. So it was a really close game. And we actually brought seven on six, which is a new rule towards the end. And then they got a couple of cheap goals at the end. But it was a really close game. And and even though we knew we had lost just the again, connection within our team and the respect for the game and each other to keep battling until the very last second, it just it was the I hate losing. Some people say, you know, do you like winning more or hate losing? Like, I hate losing, but that was the best losing feeling I've ever had because I was just so proud of the group and how together they were and how hard they worked. And it was like, there's nothing really to be mad at. We did everything we possibly could. And it just it was a great process, a great journey. No, it's so funny. You said that you hate losing because I'm the same way. Winning is OK. But for me, I really hate losing. And it's I like that you said that. And Coach Mo, I mean, obviously, like we said earlier, you're a three time national champion. What what do you think it's going to take for your team to win the NCAAs? I think we just got to keep progressing and getting a step further each year. And I think we've continued to do that. I'd be lying if I didn't say like talent matters. I mean, in college, you've got to recruit and have girls that can do athletic girls that can compete with the best girls in the world. I mean, there will be I don't know how many American Olympians that are coming back to college next year, and they're the number one team in the world. And we've got to be able to recruit and have some of those girls on our team. And we're getting those athletes. We have several alumni and one current player that is coming back this next fall that will be at the Olympics playing for Canada. So having those caliber athletes is is important. And then just focusing on getting one step further each year. I think John Wooden, it took him 15 years before he won his first championship. Like it doesn't happen overnight. And I just it's got to continue to trend in the right way. And the culture is so important. I think our team culture is strong and stronger than it ever has been. And we just got to keep continuing to get better each year. So, Coach Mo, when you reflect back on your life so far, what's what's a big adversity or a big challenge that you have to deal with? And how did you overcome that? And I think, well, the one that sticks out the most was just this covid situation. And the last year and a half personally, also work wise, it was really hard for everybody. But I think having a support system is incredibly important and continue to work for solutions. I mean, a year and a half ago, we were 11 and two. We were at a we were on our way to having a great season. Probably, you know, going to be contending for a big West title, potentially an NCAA championship, one of the best teams we'd ever had. And then the rugs pulled out from under us like everyone a year and a half ago, and it's over. And and then the aftermath of that and not knowing what's going to happen and never having any answers. And we had girls not come back because they wanted to stay in Europe. It's too far and too dangerous. Then we have girls, you know, back in the fall that say, we don't know if we're going to have a season. So they're leaving and just continuing to work to find solutions. And it's exhausting. But I know what you talk about in your book. You're going to get knocked down over and over and over again. It's like, how quickly can you get up and figure out which way to navigate? And it's through hard work and communication and having a great husband or a great team, a great assistant coach that helps just continue to steer the ship in the right direction and figure out the moves. And I think they're just working through it this year and ending up with a big West championship. When if you would have told me that a year and a half ago that we would have had a season, you know, then games are getting canceled. What do you do then? I mean, there's just like trouble, like problem after problem after problem and just solution, solution, solution, keep finding it, keep working. And and then you get to the other side. Well, Coach Mo, you know, the greatest leaders continue to learn and which makes them become even greater. And I want to know what what are you doing to improve yourself as a coach and a leader to ultimately help, you know, improving your team every single year? I will water polo wise, we're on an island, right? So I'm limited in a lot of ways of what I can see, but I'm not anymore because of the internet. So from a coaching standpoint, I watch a ton of video. I watch different styles in Europe and I try to bring that back. I also communicate and listen to my team. We have so many girls from around the world and they do things differently than I was coached or I would ever do. But I try to stay open minded and create a team that's our best version of ourselves. And that means that I'm going to have to do things differently than I thought I was going to do or I used to do them because we have this different piece. And so it's really listening and watching our athletes helps me get better as a coach. And my, yeah, I'd say those are one of the main things. Yeah, and you have to, depending on the team and talent that you have, you know, you have to adjust and adapt to who you have and the type of strategies and tactics you'll use, right? Yeah, some things never change, but then some things have to change because of who you have. And if you stay firm and we only do it one way, it's not going to work consistently because, you know, there are injuries, there are strengths and there are weaknesses to every team. And you've got to figure out how to exploit other teams weaknesses and get the most out of your team. So it definitely changes. Coach Mo, before we wrap up, I want to ask you one more question. What's an important lesson you learned in life so far? And I think that life is not going to be you can work super hard. But you can't determine the outcome all the time. And bad things are going to happen. I mean, I, you know, we have had the best team and we've lost under those circumstances. And then we've had teams that, you know, aren't the best and we we win. And you just, you never know what's going to happen in the end, but you've got to keep going. Personally, things have happened in my life that are really, really hard. I had a couple of late miscarriages at 20, 21 weeks. A couple of different times and, you know, you can, you can let that dictate how awful your life is going to be or you can rebound and figure out a solution. And now I have a beautiful five year old daughter and things just aren't always perfect, you know, but you get through things and then you're stronger for them and just got to keep working. But you definitely can't, can't control everything. But you can control your response. Coach Mo, I have to, I totally appreciate you sharing, you know, a lot of these insights and being very personal right there at the end as well. You are a leader, a coach of great character. And I think we're just so fortunate to have you as one of our coaches here in Hawaii and I want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so appreciative to be here and to be coaching at the University of Hawaii. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I hope that Coach Mo and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find their aloha.