 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. This show is based on my books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, which is about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is the highly respected leader and head coach of our University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine Basketball Team. She is Coach Laura Beaman, and today we are going Beyond Basketball. Hey, Coach Laura, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Thank you so much for having me today. I really appreciate it. Coach Laura, you've been making such a great positive impact with so many of your girls' teams throughout these years now, but I want to ask you first, what college did you attend and what jobs did you have before becoming head coach at UH? I went to Cal State San Bernardino. I had received a scholarship to Weber State in Ogden, Utah, and unfortunately, I blew out my knee between my junior and senior years of high school and made the choice to stay home and have the surgery, and after I had that surgery, I thought, I just want to stay home and play around my family. My grandparents were still alive at that point, and so I played at Cal State San Bernardino, had a fun career. Prior to Cal State San Bernardino and right after Cal State San Bernardino, I actually worked at two different places. One was my brother-in-law's printing company, where I learned how to do embossing and preparation, and it was kind of a trade company for printing. Absolutely loved it because I was with family and he's such a funny guy, so we had a great relationship, ran some deliveries for him, and then I actually worked at my dad's pharmacy for a few months prior to that job, just to put a little money in the pocket. Wasn't my favorite job new. I didn't want to keep working for Pops, love them to pieces, but just didn't want to work for Pops. And then fortunately, after Cal State San Bernardino, I went to University of Redlands and became a graduate manager, and that's kind of where I found my love for basketball. So Coach Lara, let's talk about your love for basketball. What is it about basketball that you love so much? It's actually the relationships that I get with kids. You know, as a young coach, it was the competitive nature and the intensity that I absolutely love. I'm a pretty intense person all the time. When I was younger, just getting into coaching, it was just a way to stay competitive, to see how badly we could beat people, to the challenge of getting in a kid's head and seeing how to unlock that door, right? As you know, being a coach, it's so much of what you can unlock within the potential of your players. And so it was always a challenge. As I've gotten older, there's a lot more to just the significance that you can bring as a coach, within not only your program and your staff, but the community. But it's the relationships, hands down that I absolutely, that is what I love about what I do for a living. I completely agree with you, Coach Lara. And who's a coach that you admire and why? I've been asked that question so many times in my career. And honestly, it has a lot to do with what I didn't wanna be as a coach, as much as what I have become as a coach. I love football, I'll be quite honest with you. And so I was always intrigued with how Bella Jack and Brady, that relationship, how they could create something so special and just how the different coaches throughout all sports, study the game, Sue Inquist, softball coach, great softball coach at UCLA, you know, just how she unlocked her players. And so I don't know if I can pinpoint one coach. My dad was a walk-on for soccer for 17 years. So I watched him firsthand and how he treated his athletes. So I can't really answer your question quite so direct, I apologize. No, I like that you mentioned Bella Jack and Brady because I'm like you, I like a lot of different coaches from different sports. And yeah, I mean, just to see how they handled their relationship for so long, having a star player but making sure that everyone felt part of the team. And Coach Lara, how would you describe your leadership style? You know, I think it comes down and you talk about this a little bit in your book about your four P's to success and the first P for you was people. And I believe that you have to meet people where they are. I don't think that you can just force your wishes onto people, I don't think you can make people be something they're not. I think you really need to talk to not only your team but your staff about the direction you wanna go. I'm not a leader that says do as I say, not as I do. I think that you have to walk the walk, right? I think that's huge. So I think in leadership, it's about one servant leadership. I think that you have to serve other people. You know, we have recruits to my house all the time and I'm the first one in the kitchen cleaning and picking up plates and doing those things, not just because it's my house and I wanna keep it clean but because I think your players need to see your model behavior. And so I think that as a leader, if I had to put it in one word, it would be modeling. You have to model the behavior that you want back from your players and from your staff. And then it's also how you treat people, right? If you treat people well, hopefully they reciprocate that. But I think the goal, I know the goal, the rule for me is treat people how you wanna get treated. Yeah, I know you're right about, you know, modeling. I mean, you're the role model for them. And yeah, I mean, it's great for them to see things that you do that, you know, hopefully they'll emulate that as well. And Coach Lara, what are some of the top priorities you have in building your team? You know, I think you have to have a culture in your locker room of trust. And that doesn't happen overnight. You know, these are really hard relationships for these young ladies to develop over time because they're holding each other accountable. They're trying to figure out their own self-esteem. You know, you hold one person accountable in one area then you make a mistake in another area and you're like, well, how can I lead when I'm not perfect? Leadership's not about being perfect. It's about being accepting. It's about being open. So, you know, when we're in our locker room, it's about trust. It's about vulnerability. It's about having very authentic conversation and understanding how to deal with conflict. And so we talk about all of those different characteristics of what makes a good locker room, what makes a good program. When we recruit, we're very cognizant about, okay, does this young lady come in and... Not that she is exactly like everybody else. You don't want that. But does she have enough characteristics to character, character is the big word, you know, to be held accountable, to show up on time, to be part of a team, to be a part of something bigger than yourself. And that's what we really try to do in our locker room and how we build our program is you have to be a part of something, not all of something. Yeah, no, that's really great to hear. And Coach Lara, Naomi Osaka, number one tennis player in the world, came out saying that she had mental health issues and that she was gonna step away from the game of tennis for a while. Do you have players that have mental health issues that they're kind of dealing with as well? Absolutely, you know, I don't think there's a person that has come through this pandemic that does not have some type of mental health issue. It may not be of a huge magnitude, but I do believe that every coach, every player has had to deal with some things due to the isolation that they were able to, and I'm gonna use the term self-medicate a little bit, whether it's social media or overeating, under eating, you know, exercising too much or even unhealthy things that people do with drinking and substance abuse. I think self-medicating is one of those things that keeps you from dealing with your mental health issues. And so, yeah, we have, and I don't want it to be a stigma when I say, yes, I have players with mental health. What I say, they have kind of a mental strength, if you will, because they've come out and they've acknowledged, hey, I'm dealing with something, coach, and I need help with this, or I wanna overcome this, or I wanna know how better to deal with this. So I do have players. We talk a lot about, you know, you go to therapy not to be cured, you go to therapy to add more tools to your toolbox. And so I'm a huge encourager of go talk to someone because they're that architect. They're the one that's putting tools in your toolbox to help you deal with your anxiety, your depression, your loneliness. It's not about curing you. You're never cured from your mental health issues. You hopefully learn how to deal with them so they're not so impactful that they keep you from growing or keep you from being a contributor to the team or to your academics or to your relationships. And so that's how we address mental health is it's not a stigma at all. It's a strength. And what you have to do is get the tools in your toolbox to sharpen that. And when these young ladies learn that, then they kind of pass that down from class to class and inside their own family. And then you have a locker room where you can talk about a lot of great things openly and there's a safe space to do that. I agree with you, Coach Lara. I mean, everyone's different and everyone deals with issues differently. And you've created such a great culture of excellence with your teams. And to have that open and honest communication where your players and yourself, you guys can talk openly and freely about whatever challenge. I think that is absolutely fantastic. And Coach Lara, your team won the 2016 Big West tournament. I mean, that was so great. I remember when you guys won that. How special was that for you and your team? It's why I came here. Obviously the relationships and the things that I've already previously mentioned are of utmost importance, but as a coach, you wanna win. I believe that's why I was hired here. I believe that's why the kids come and play for me in this program. And it's my ultimate goal every year is you don't step on the court to lose. You step on the court to win. You work hard. Everybody works hard. And to be able to have all the stars aligned because winning a championship is as much about luck as you know, as it is about skill sets sometimes, but you want your kids to be prepared. That's absolutely why I coach is you wanna be able to hoist the trophy and you wanna be able to represent particularly a place like Hawaii and say, look what we've done for you. Thank you for being a part of this magic. And so what it meant to me was being able to bring home a trophy to a community that just wrapped their arms around us. And that was just an amazing, amazing experience for me. Well, I felt so proud watching you guys. I mean, that was so amazing. But you know, Coach Lara, I mean, you've been doing so many great things through these years and you've been making such a great positive impact with your players and your teams. I wanna ask you, why are you successful as a coach? I think probably there'd be some people that would debate whether or not my record is successful, but I'm kidding. I'll go back to relationships. You know, when you have young ladies that you see them successful in their lives and their relationships, we see a group of young ladies who didn't know each other one day and then by six months to four years down the road, their sisters. I think it's how you measure success. It's the fine line between success and significance, right? You can have both. And I don't know if people understand that. You don't have to just be significant. You don't have to just be successful. I like to think that I can try to combine those two things to be something bigger for the state of Hawaii, for the community, for these kids, to be a great role model. We do win and that is fun to see these young women celebrate their hard work and celebrate each other. And so I think that success is defined so many different ways. I just feel very fortunate to live in Hawaii, be a part of such an amazing community, to have a great group of people surround me, embrace me and then be able to have an impact on these young ladies' lives. Yeah, and Coach Lara, it's not all about records. I mean, I've spoken with some of your players through the past few years and what they tell me is they just absolutely respect you and they love the impact that you're making, that you care about them. Not just as basketball players, but you care about them as individuals, you care about their wellbeing and their goals. And I wanna ask you, Coach Lara, in my books, you mentioned people earlier in the four Ps. What other parts stood out to you in the books? Well, some of the questions that you've asked me today are directly related to what you've written about, right? The impact of your relationship and, you know, what is it, courage versus, I think, is it confidence? You'll have to tell me, because I... Courage and conviction. There you go, courage and conviction. There are a lot of different things in your books that directly relate to the way I coach. The role modeling is huge. It's not about say, as I do, and then you do something different. And all of your books, whether it's through the shared experience of other coaches, the 22 conference championships that you want, you know, and how you got your kids, you know, to relate to you. I think the biggest thing that stood out, Rusty, in your books is how much you cared about your players. You wanted to win. But in every chapter, everything you talk about, it's about how much you cared about the kids, and that's why your kids bought into you and why you were so successful. So anybody, whether you are a player, a coach, you're in a business, these books are absolutely applicable to how you treat people. I don't think you can treat people poorly and get outcomes. Fear is not, as you talk about, fear is not a motivator, right? It's about respect. It's about leading by example. And so I think that within your books, it talks about how you treat people. To me, that's the core of them. And then you will get your outcomes from there. It's all about people. You're so correct about that. Coach Lara, what's a big adversity that you dealt with as a coach? I could go back just recently to the pandemic and that the challenge is with the mental health, the challenge is with our budget, the challenge is with no fans being around. This has been a very, very difficult time for Hawaii athletics. And for how we're trying to navigate something that nobody has ever navigated before, and then you couple our location on top of it. You know, when you couple all of the isolation factors, the unknowns, not being able to control, those things create kind of a wave of uncertainty for your players and for your staff. So I think recently it would be that, just the pandemic and the uncertainty. I think the other adversity, truly for me here in Hawaii, is we've had some turnover amongst staff. It's hard for people to come here and live. And I don't want to be a squeaky wheel on your show, but we have to pay our coaches the right amount of money to get them to stay. If they can go do the same thing for a lot less expensive or make more money, closer to family and friends, it's hard to keep people. So the biggest adversity for me is the continuity. First four years we had the same coaching staff. In 2016, we won the title. There's no mystery to why that happened. And since then we've had some turnover in staff where they've all gone on to bigger jobs, better paying jobs, and we haven't had the same continuity. So I'm hoping that through time and after the pandemic, we can kind of take a look at some of those things and say, what can we do to keep the coaching staff together? What can we, because with a loss of coaches, there's a loss of players, it's hand in hand. And so that would be my biggest challenge and the most adversity I think that I faced here is just trying to keep continuity. I completely agree with you again, Coach Lara. I mean, yeah, coaches have to be compensated fairly because I've heard it for so many years that a coach has so much more impact on a student, on a student athlete than a math teacher or English teacher does because they spend so much more time with the coach, with the team in their sport. And yeah, I mean, there are cause and effects. I mean, if you don't have the right coaches there, it's gonna affect the quality of players that a college team is able to recruit. And I wanna ask you about athletic director, David Matlin. He's, I mean, he's such a great leader. I don't know how he does everything that he does behind the scenes, but what are some things about David Matlin that you admire? David values you as a person. He doesn't value you as a coach. He values you as a person and all of the other things you bring to the department. I remember about four years in, three years in, I was a finalist's friend at the job, bigger job, more money. And I remember walking into David's office and him saying, I can't match the money you're going to make if you beat because I can't even come close. He goes, but what I can tell you is I value you as a person. I value what you bring to this department. I value your leadership. And he said, and I want you to stay, but, and he was authentic. He was transparent. And that has been an impact on my coaching career here. And one of the number one reasons that I stayed was because of how David values his coaches. He leads with emotion, but he doesn't get emotional. There's a big difference. He leads by example. I think that what him and President Lassner, particularly have navigated through this pandemic is not short of a miracle. Keeping coaches together, keeping kids, putting their emphasis on mental health, putting their emphasis on the things that matter and how they've navigated this and how they've had to ebb and flow with decisions that are completely out of their control, but yet completely impact them. They don't have control of whether fans come or not, but that decision completely impacts what we can do as an athletic department. And for those two men to lead with integrity, and David Matlin just to continue to lead by example, the grass is not greener. And that's one of the main reasons why Hawaii is such a great fit for me is I know who my leader is. And to follow someone with such great integrity makes it very, very easy for, as a department, coaching wide. If you asked every coach here, they'd have the same answer about David and David. Yeah, and being valued as a person and having those special relationships where you know that the leader cares about you and really the mission for the entire school. And I think we're just, we're really happy, I mean, fortunate to have David Matlin and you just to be here at UH, that is definitely for sure. And Coach Lara, how do you get, what do you do to get your team to buy in to your philosophy? Yeah, I think it starts in the recruitment process. You have to recruit players that buy into team. You have to recruit players that buy into how special Hawaii is and that the community here matters and what you give back to this place matters. If you come here to take, it's gonna be a short-lived experience for you. We've lost players who don't always want to give back to the program and give back to the state, but they want to see what's in it for me. That's not how it works here. And so in the recruitment process, I'm very transparent about you're representing something much bigger than yourself. And our program is kind of a microcosm within that macro view of this place matters. It's bigger than you. And so it starts in the recruitment process and then it's just a bunch of team builders from getting to each other, to trusting yourself, to trusting your teammates, relationships don't happen overnight. And I heard a saying once that we live in this microwave society, right? You put something in, you press 30 seconds and it's hot. That's not how relationships work. We're more like that convection oven where it takes, you gotta preheat the oven and let it go for a while for it to really taste good. And so that's kind of the same thought process I have in the philosophy and the buy-in. I don't expect kids to buy in immediately. I just expect them to come in with an open mind and want to. And if we've done our job in the recruitment process that happens, but relationships take time. And the more time and energy you put into them, the bigger the reward you get back on the backside. Well, Coach Lara, I love your microwave analogy. And Coach Lara, I mean, Hawaii is such a unique place and such a unique location that there's definitely a ton of positives for recruits to wanna come. What do you see as one of the downside of, you know, players not wanting to come to Hawaii? I think it's the distance. You know, they know it's gonna be beautiful here. They might like the beach. They absolutely fall in love with the community, but some of these young women need to be closer to home. And they come here and they think that they can handle the level of maturity it takes to be on your own. And when they get here, it's very difficult. You know, a lot of times we'll recruit kids and we let them know it's gonna take time to develop you and, you know, you may not be on the floor as much as you want. You may depends on your level of competition practice and how hard you wanna work. And they hear that and then they leave because they're not getting playing time. On the mainland, if they don't get playing time, they can go home to the mom and dad. And mom and dad can tell them how great they are, you know, bake them a cake or whatever they wanna do and make them feel really warm and fuzzy, rainbows and butterflies. And here they can't do that, right? They don't play. There's no one for them to go home and tell them how great they are. They can zoom and they can talk on the phone, but it's different. And we really have that hard conversation with recruits that if you deserve to be on the court, you're gonna be on the court. I don't care if you're freshman or senior. If you're applying the execution and there is a level of performance going on, then you're gonna be on the court. If not, then you have to continue to work. And for them not to be able to go home and again, hear how great they are. It's fine, this is too much for these young kids and they end up going home. I don't think I've had too many kids that leave because they don't like the coaches. They don't like the people of Hawaii. They don't like their teammates. It really comes down to they're just not mature enough to handle being so far with them. That makes sense there. And Coach Lara, performance goals directly influence results. What are some performance goals that you focus on with your teams? You know, it starts from the basics of you have to know our playbook, right? If you don't know the playbook, then you're not gonna be able to perform. So that is an expectation. So the goal is you have to know our playbook on the offensive end and the defensive end. You know, it's sitting each player down and having a conversation with them and saying, what are your goals? Here are our expectations. Where are your expectations and do we meet? And that's the bottom line because a player is gonna say, Coach, I wanna be all conference. I wanna be a starter. I wanna do all of these amazing things. And yet they don't wanna do the work to reach those goals. So the expectations don't match. So performance goals to me start with the basic conversation with your player about what are you willing to do? How do we get there? And what are those goals? It's our job as a coach to then say, that's realistic. Here's the plan of attack. And again, are you willing to do the plan of attack? Because to be conference player of the year, you can't just get into the gym every now and then and put some shots up. You have to hit a certain percentage. You have to put some time into that and you have to be willing to put the work. So I think performance goals vary to each player. Not every player is the same as you mentioned often in your books. You can't treat everybody alike. And so performance goals and how you approach those performance goals are very, very different with each individual. Well, you're so right about that, Coach Lara. And during a game, what's the number one thing that just drives you absolutely nuts? Whew, there's so many, no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. You know, I'll keep it to my players. I won't talk about officiating. I'll keep it to players. I think a lack of execution when you know they know it and the mistakes are made and you know your players know it. That's sometimes it has to do with former anxiety. Sometimes it just has to do with a lack of focus. I think that drives me crazy. I think the other thing is when a young lady makes a mistake and isn't able to overcome it and then they continue to compound mistake after mistake. They're humans. And the insecurities that sometimes accompany performance if you can overcome that, you get great play. If you can't overcome that then sometimes it just snowballs. So the bottom line is I wish these kids could see themselves through my eyes and when they make a mistake, it's not a death sentence. It's a mistake we learn and we move on. And if they could have that mindset then they'll make less mistakes. And so the frustration as a coach is, guys, you're not supposed to be perfect. You just gotta go out there, try, give some execution, keep your focus and it's always a work in progress. So bottom line, I love these kids. And again, I wish they could see themselves through my eyes because I think it would make their level of play for them a lot more easy to accept at times. Coach Lara, what's an important lesson you learned so far in coaching? I think compassion, empathy, forgiveness. I think realistic expectations. You can't expect more of others than you expect of yourself. That might be one of the things that drives me the craziest. As I've seen so many coaches that yell at kids and have these huge expectations of kids and yet they're not willing to do those things themselves. I don't think kids can smell through that, right? That doesn't pass the sniff test. And so I think that for kids, your expectations as a coach has to be realistic and it also has to be applicable to your own life. The first person that you lead must be yourself. And if you can't do that, leadership becomes very, very difficult. Oh, I definitely hear you there. And Coach Lara, I mean, in terms of risk, what do you do to keep outdoing what you've done as a coach with your teams? You know, a lot of coaches have a playbook that they open up every year and it's this week we do this and this week we do this and it's just kind of this thing that they've done forever. I reinvent the wheel a lot of times over and over and over every year because you have a different group of girls. It keeps it fresh for me. I think it keeps it fresh for them. You cannot treat kids the same way year in and year out because your players are different. So for me, the risk is assessing what I have coming in, what I have leaving, what our schedule looks like, what the team is capable of. And I really do kind of reinvent the wheel every year, not offensively and defensively. Those philosophy stay in place because we know what system we've recruited for. But as far as how you treat kids and how you try to get your culture cultivated, if you will, all of that matters. So for me, the risk is it goes hand in hand with assessing your team and evaluating what they can and cannot do. Coach Lara, I think I speak for everyone here in Hawaii that we are very fortunate to have you as our women's basketball coach and you're a coach that definitely goes beyond the lines and I wanna thank you for taking time to join me on the show today. Well, I really appreciate you having me. This has been really, really fun and I love your books. They're so applicable to every walk of life. So thank you for letting me come and be a part of this discussion. Thank you, Coach Lara. 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 & Noble. I hope that Coach Lara and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.