(upbeat music) - Welcome to Forum 360, to our global outlook with a local view.

I'm Leslie Ungar, your host today.

Although we have returned to the studio, today we come to you on Zoom because we have three very special guests from Northeast Ohio.

Pre-COVID, wherever I would travel in the country or the world, when someone asked me where I was from, I would say, "Akron, Ohio, home of LeBron."

Those of you that know LeBron's story know that his friends and his coaches and his mentors are very, very important to him.

Today we are honored to have three members of the Joyce family, which kind of starts the Saint V dynasty as we talk about it today.

All three are now basketball coaches.

Coach Dru Joyce II just received his sixth State Basketball Championship at Saint V. His son, Dru III played for Saint V, the University of Akron, played basketball in Europe for 12 years, and is now an assistant coach at Cleveland State.

And his son Cam is now head basketball coach at St. Ignatius in Cleveland.

Welcome to all of you, although I do feel I need a shout out to the women in the Joyce family, mother, wife, and two sisters, so I give them a shout out as we get started.

Welcome, and thank you to all of you.

I want to start with Coach Joyce II.

Coach, you switched professions and have been amazingly successful, six State Championships.

Do you have any advice for people that are thinking about making a switch, or can you comment at all about that switch that you made?

- Yes.

It's a simple story of following your heart.

As my life transpired and I had spent 25 years in corporate America and enjoyed what I was doing, but there were times, I've said more than once, that when I used to pull up in my driveway in the evenings after work, and I'd ask myself, "What have you done today that really matters?"

And then later that evening, I would get in the car with Dru and five or six other guys, and we'd go to a practice, and it felt like everything that I was doing at that time meant something.

It was special, and I enjoyed it.

So it wasn't necessarily the plan to walk away from corporate America and do first time, full time coaching, but there was a time when the company I was working with was asking me to take a move from an account in Pittsburgh to an account in Syracuse, and at that point, my heart just wasn't in it, and I was, had fallen in love with the coaching and coaching my sons, and it was a leap of faith.

And what was special is my wife supported me, and we did this together.

It wasn't... she understood, she recognized how important it was for all of us 'cause she had been on that same journey for a number of years.

When all this happened, Dru was now in college, so, and Cameron was a freshman in high school when we made this decision.

So it was, I guess you could say, a long time coming.

But her support was crucial because I couldn't have done it without her standing beside me because honestly I didn't have an idea how I was going to earn a living at that point.

I just wanted to do, I wanted to coach, and we have been blessed to be able to build a life around the basketball and build a business around the basketball.

But the only thing I would tell people is, like someone told me, (laughs) he said, "You don't leave a job until you have another job already lined up."

(laughs) But we did it without having that other job lined up, but it was us following our heart and what we loved.

- Now I'm gonna follow up with Dru III.

What role did your father being coach play in you deciding to become a coach?

- Well, first, Leslie, I want to, before I answer that question, give a shout out to not only my mom and sister, but the other woman in my life, my wife and my three little ones because no different than the way my mom and my sisters supported us, they support me on a day-to-day basis, and they give me the motivation and encouragement to chase after this dream that I'm pursuing, and it's not an easy thing that they have to buy into with me.

But they appreciate what I do, and they allow me to be the best I can possibly be each and every day.

But to answer your question, the role my dad played was, it was a major piece of why I'm into coaching.

I got to see him coach me and my teammates and also my younger brother on a daily basis, and not only did I get to see him as a coach, but I got to see him off the court, and he still carried that same manner about him.

I got to see the interaction that he had with parents, the interaction that he had with players away from the court, and just those conversations, and hearing other teammates, not just me and my brother, but hearing other teammates look at my dad as a father figure to them and go to him for advice.

It was bigger than wins and losses and championships.

It was these lifelong relationships that you build, and that was always special to me, and I think my dad unknowingly poured into my life that I was a good leader, that I should pursue it, and he just placed me in a lot of situations (laughs) that I didn't know would come back and serve lessons for me at this point in time.

But he just put me in different roles as a child, whether I was running a practice for one of his teams or running a tournament, or sitting in board meetings, all of these things gave me an awesome view, an awesome experience, and it just, I feel like it made me a well-rounded coach in the situation that I'm in.

And I'm just, I'm blessed to be able to see it firsthand and witness these things firsthand.

So he definitely played a major role into why I'm coaching today.

- Thank you, now, Cam, I'm gonna change up the question a little bit for you.

It seems like often the best players aren't necessarily, don't go into coaching.

What would you say are three qualities that make a good coach a good coach?

- You can't have an ego, that's one thing, right, because players are gonna make you happy and they're gonna disappoint you.

So you can't have the ego and think you know it all.

You've gotta be willing to learn, but also willing to listen because every player and situation is a lot different on a day-to-day basis.

I would say you gotta obviously have leadership.

You gotta be able to not necessarily motivate guys, but you gotta be able to lead guys, especially young kids and the young men.

You're getting them ready for college, whether that's to play college basketball or maybe play another sport, or just to be a student, you're getting them prepared for life.

And then I would say the next thing would be... Man.

Obviously you gotta know the game.

I mean, that makes a good coach, right?

You gotta be willing to study, gotta be willing to learn your craft, right?

And so just as much as you want the kids to get in the gym and prepare and to get better, you should be trying to get better, too, and that means studying the game, studying maybe your film from the previous season, maybe studying another coach or another team.

Going to clinics, going to camps.

You gotta be willing to sacrifice some of your time to help you grow your career.

So I think all those things are important, and just like Dru said, I want to give a shout out to my wife, Devin Joyce, who I wouldn't be where I am today without her, so.

But I think those are the three things, for sure.

- Thank you, now, I'm gonna ask you first, Cameron, and then anyone else can weigh in on it, it seems like not only in basketball, but in so many professional sports that now coaches, it seems like they have to have played the game, whereas before they could be five feet tall and coach.

And now it seems like they have to have played the game.

So at your levels, with high school and college kids, is it important that you played the game?

Is that important to players today?

- If I can go first, (laughs) 'cause I'm the anomaly 'cause I didn't play organized basketball.

I was a pickup basketball player, like most kids.

I played football and ran track all the way through high school and my first year in college.

So I'm not that guy.

But the one thing that, and I tell people about it is, the one thing is, as Cameron said, I become a student of the game.

I spend that time off the court learning, perfecting the craft.

And then the other thing is, I understand and know what my strength is.

I tell people, there's a whole bunch of coaches who knows Xs and Os maybe better than me.

But I knew how to build a team.

I know how to get guys to buy in, to buy in and understand that they're working towards something that's bigger than themselves.

And so I think that that's a key and that's very, very important, too.

There definitely is some space where you need to know the game, and I think that, honestly, I say to my sons, and I've said it many times to them and to others, that there are gonna be better coaches than me because they do know the game and they did play it at a high level, all the way through college, both of them, and through into the professional level.

So I think that it's gonna weigh in, but I still don't want to have anyone think that just because you don't play, you can't be involved and you can't coach.

You can, but it does take a lot of work and a willingness to learn from a lot of different people, and I had that.

- Cameron, Dru, do you want to weigh in on your advantages, then, of having played at a different level than your dad?

- Yeah, I'll weigh in, but I also would say, sometimes because you've played the game, you may think, you may be a little bit too overconfident in your ability when you're trying to coach a kid, thinking that they can do it, and you're maybe telling... a lot of coaches say, "Hey, play hard, play hard."

But what if the kid doesn't know how to play hard, right?

And so it comes naturally because when a coach told you when you were playing, well, okay, that means I gotta pick it up.

Well, that kid may not understand that, and so how can I show this kid how to play hard?

A lot of kids don't know how to work themselves out.

You may have known how to work yourself out in the gym by yourself as a player, so how can I give these kids a baseline or a template to show them?

So I would say sometimes when you play the game, that can hinder you, but it can also help you a lot because it's certain little nuances that you just see that maybe others won't see, certain things that you knew were hard to defend as a player because you guarded it, certain things that you knew worked well offensively because you did it.

And I think that's where that experience of playing comes into play when you're coaching the kid and they can see it and you can go out there and show it to them.

And I think that's important, as well.

But just like my father said, whether you play the game or you don't play the game, coaching is hard work, and when you get rewarded for it, you feel great about it, but you gotta put the time in, you gotta study the game.

And you can be the greatest player ever, but that doesn't mean you're gonna be the best coach ever.

And so you don't want to get that loss.

But playing definitely helps you, for sure.

- Before I ask Dru III to weigh in, I want to reintroduce today's topic.

We are talking with the newest family dynasty in high school basketball coaching, and that is the Joyce family from Akron.

And we have Dru II, Dru III, and Cam Joyce all with us today.

So Dru III, I'm gonna ask you to quickly weigh in on the advantages of having played 12 years in Europe, does that transfer to a college kid in Cleveland, Ohio?

- It's a tool, right, and it could be used the wrong way or the right way, no different than how my dad and Cam weighed in on.

You don't have to play this game in order to have success.

It's what you pour into the game, and there's so many layers to coaching.

It's not what's your experience on the floor, it's not drawing up a play all the time, or just the Xs and Os.

It's, can you motivate a team?

Can your words be fresh daily to a team, or are your words falling on deaf ears?

Can you read the temperature in the room?

'Cause there's days where those guys, they just don't have it, or they may not be feeling a certain way.

Did you even check in with the players before they came to practice and seeing how their day was going?

Or there's just a lot of layers that go into it, and it's managing personalities at times more than anything, right, because everyone is their own individual and you're trying to get 15 or 15 plus individuals to come together for one common goal.

And that may not have to do with anything with a skillset or Xs and Os.

So yes, does playing 12 years in Europe help me?

It does, I can talk about some certain things about the pro level because I've been through it, about college because I did it.

But these guys are living out their own dreams.

So yeah, do they want to hear about some of the things I did?

Yeah, maybe, but what's most important is them because it's their dream that I'm trying to protect and their dream that I'm trying to help them fulfill.

So they're the main character.

- Now, let me ask, if I can ask each of you to answer in a sentence, there's a saying...

I'm an executive coach.

There's a saying I heard years ago, that any coach does not have control over a player's talent or discipline.

I'd like to ask each of you to weigh in in a sentence, how much control do you have over a player's talent or discipline?

Coach Joyce II.

- Oh, wow.

I think you have a lot of control if you build the relationship first.

If you build the relationship and you know that the player knows that you love them and you're for them, then you can definitely have that effect.

- Okay, Cam?

Talent and discipline?

- I would say more discipline because you have more control with their mindset and how they operate on a day to day, which, if you help them, as far as with the discipline part, the discipline goes in and helps them from a talent standpoint.

So if you're able to pour in them how much they need to work hard, and teaching them the game, if they use that on a day-to-day basis, their talent will increase.

- And Coach Joyce III, talent and discipline, what things do you have control over, what things don't you have control over?

- Right, and both my dad and Cam were really, really great answers.

I wouldn't say the word control, right?

I would use influence or impact, and I think no different to what my dad said earlier, a relationship has to be built.

There has to be a two-way friendship for it to work to its best ability.

There has to be a bond and a certain love there, and when you get that, then you can build on the discipline, then you can make that impact, and it rolls over, like my brother said, it rolls over and begins to spill into that talent.

- I'm gonna ask some different questions.

I'm gonna pinpoint this time and I'm gonna ask for an answer in maybe a sentence.

So we'll see how much I can get through.

Cam, best piece of advice you ever got from any coach?

- Oh, (laughs) wow, that's tough.

I would say it comes from my father.

Coaching is a service, and you're providing a service, and how you choose to provide that service day to day is your choice.

And you can negatively impact somebody, or you can have a positive impact on someone, and that's what it's about.

- And Coach Joyce II, what is a piece of advice that you remember that you now know in retrospect was a really good piece of advice you gave someone?

- I think there's a saying, and both of these guys have heard me use it many times.

It's discipline, not just desire that determines your destiny.

And I use that and it's important, because I want kids to understand that there's some structured work involved in achieving anything in life.

And to have a desire, a warm fuzzy about something that you want to do, that's not enough.

You have to have that will, and that's the discipline.

So it's discipline, not just desire that determines your destiny.

- And Coach Joyce III, I want to ask you, how do you think you may be different after having lived in Europe for 12 years?

Has that affected how you look at this country, how you look at the world, how you look at players?

That's an experience few of us will ever have.

How has that influenced you in some way that you may think you would not have been influenced if you had not had that experience?

- Right, and (laughs) when you said those 12 years, I almost felt foreign when I came back to the USA and lived here for the first time in 12 years.

But it is, the impact that living in Europe made on not only me, but my wife, Lenee, and two of my three kids got to experience it, it was, I mean, something that can't be bought.

It was very impactful, it allowed me to see things from a different perspective, it allowed me to integrate myself in different cultures that I never thought I would have the chance to.

It wasn't just a vacation, I actually lived there.

- Coach Joyce II, tell us something that would surprise us about the Joyce family dinners.

- Years ago, those dinners, for a long time, we ate together.

And on the weekends, we still did, but once they got to an age, hey, we were, my wife and I were like taxi drivers.

We were moving them here and there, (laughs) taking them around.

So it was always exciting and something was going on, someone had to be somewhere.

And there was times when someone might have been left somewhere a little longer than they expected to be because we're trying to transport another child somewhere else.

So those were kind of fun, but it made for a special life for us.

- Cameron, you lived outside of the country.

Is there something that you missed, besides family?

- I didn't live outside the country, but I've been outside the country.

- You played- - Four or five times.

So I was in Italy with Kent State when I went there early in my college career.

I think what you miss the most is, I mean, like you said, outside of family, is the food sometimes.

Sometimes, as good as the food is, you're just used to food in America, right?

And I think every now and then, you just, you want that Chick-fil-A or you want your mom's cooking or your wife's cooking, I think the food sometimes.

But Dru had it way more than me.

I was only out of the country for weeks at a time at most.

- I want to ask each one of you, and we have a minute to answer this, if you gave it a percentage to winning a game, what percentage is coaching and what percentage is personnel?

I'm gonna start, Coach Joyce II, give me percentages.

- Yeah, I'd say it's 90% personnel and 10% coaching.

I think at that point in the game, all we can do is maybe help them get past something that, somewhere where they're struggling in that moment.

- Coach Joyce III, percentages?

Coaching and personnel.

- Yeah, I would, I think my dad is right on.

I would linger around that 90 to 10%.

It's definitely weighing heavy in the favor of personnel.

They're out there, right?

The players are, at that point, they're playing to their instincts, they're playing to their habits.

Most of the coaches' work had already been done before, right, we schedule practices in the right manner, we tried to make the game adjustments, and it belongs to the players.

- Cam, you have my last question, Skyway or Swensons?

- Oh, this is Swensons, for sure, for sure.

(laughs) I'm glad you didn't ask me for my answer on the previous question 'cause I was thinking of something different, but I couldn't, so I'll go with Swensons.

(laughs) - We were honored today with our guests, Coach Joyce II from St. Vincent-St. Mary, Coach Joyce III, now at Cleveland State, and Cam Joyce, now head coach at St. Ignatius.

It seems like just yesterday that we were reading and watching the Joyce boys play basketball from Germany and France and Michigan.

They now live and coach in our corner of the world.

Thank you to the Joyce family, the newest coaching dynasty, to Dru and Dru and Cam and the women in their lives who have supported them.

I'm Leslie Ungar, thank you for joining us today on Forum 360, (upbeat guitar music) our global outlook with a local view.

Thank you to all of you.

- [Announcer] Forum 360 is brought to you by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Akron Community Foundation, Hudson Community Television, The Rubber City Radio Group, Shaw Jewish Community Center of Akron, Blue Green, Electric Impulse Communications, and Forum 360 supporters.