56. Dan Hays - Oklahoma Christian University - From Coach to Community Leader

Aaron Ackerman:

All right. Well, welcome to another episode of How That Happened. I'm really excited today to talk to somebody I've known for a long time and long admired, Coach Dan Hayes. Dan, thanks for taking time to join me today.

Dan Hays:

Thank you. Glad to be here, Aaron.

Aaron Ackerman:

So, Dan, I'm going to kind of read an abbreviated synopsis of your bio and then we'll get into it. If I say anything wrong, you can correct the record here, but... Dan is the winningest men's college basketball coach in Oklahoma, with over 720 wins. At the time he retired a few years ago, he was 42nd all-time in wins among all college coaches. He spent 33 seasons at Oklahoma Christian University and a few more in New Mexico, at College of New Mexico.

Aaron Ackerman:

Coach Hays has been recognized with inductions into multiple hall of fames, including the Oklahoma Christian University Hall of Fame, Eastern New Mexico University Hall of Fame, the NAIA Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and earlier this month he received the highest athletic recognition in the state of Oklahoma when he was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

Aaron Ackerman:

Coach has been a multi-time Coach of the Year. He's coached NAIA National Player of the Year twice, been to the National Championship game. He's coached against numerous NBA players including Dennis Rodman, in college, coached alongside Jim Boeheim and others with USA Basketball, competed in international competitions, and was given the prestigious Guardians of the Game award by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, which recognizes coaches who, in a special way, serve off the court as community leaders in service.

Aaron Ackerman:

So, Coach, that's a lot. Congrats, first of all-

Dan Hays:

Thank you.

Aaron Ackerman:

... on an amazing career. You've been retired now for, what, four or five years?

Dan Hays:

Yeah, 2016 was my last season.

Aaron Ackerman:

Okay, at OC.

Dan Hays:

[crosstalk 00:20:40] '16. Yeah.

Aaron Ackerman:

And when I say retired, I mean, you're coaching almost every day in some capacity, working-

Dan Hays:

Yeah, I'm still bouncing the ball.

Aaron Ackerman:

But when you hear and when you read through all of those awards, you've been recognized in so many different ways, including the great honor just earlier this month, with the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame... I know you're a humble guy. You probably don't like me reading all of that stuff, but what comes to your mind when you kind of reflect over your long career, and you hear all of these hall of fames and coach of the year and all this stuff? What comes to your mind? What do you think about?

Dan Hays:

Well, I look back to my humble beginnings as a coach, where I was a prestigious elementary PE teacher and sophomore basketball coach for the Roswell Fighting Coyotes in Roswell, New Mexico. Before aliens, by the way. They hadn't come out with the Roswell TV show yet and all that. So, it is pretty interesting, the journey that I've taken, because when I went into coaching I actually... All I've ever wanted to do is be a PE teacher and a coach, and play ball as long as I could.

Dan Hays:

Vietnam kind of took care of my playing career. When I graduated from college, took my physical for the Armed Forces, and actually did that the spring... When you're in your dorm room and you get a bus ticket in the mail, you haven't even finished your senior year, to get on a bus and drive to Albuquerque to take a physical for the Armed Forces, that's a little much for a college kid, when I was hoping to be in the NBA Draft.

Dan Hays:

Which, I didn't get drafted, so I was fortunate enough to, at the time... There was no CNN or anything like that, but I was a naïve college basketball player. And to be honest, I wasn't even sure what was going on in Vietnam. There was no media like that. And I'm ashamed to say it, but that's the way we all were.

Aaron Ackerman:

Sure.

Dan Hays:

And so I signed a teaching contract and I was given a deferment for teaching in a poverty area. I didn't know it was a poverty area, but because of that I was able to, instead of going to the service, I became a teacher.

Aaron Ackerman:

Okay.

Dan Hays:

So, when I think back to those beginnings... That was 1968, by the way. It's been a wonderful journey with 50 years of coaching. And, happy to have done what I've done. Never had to work a day in my life.

Aaron Ackerman:

You just loved what you were doing.

Dan Hays:

I enjoyed what I did. The last 33 years, I lived three blocks from my office, and so that made it even better.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah. So, when you were young and playing, did you know you would always be involved in some capacity with basketball, your whole life pretty much?

Dan Hays:

Yes. Never did I have one other thought, and just glad it worked out. Now, I did have to teach biology for several years in high school. I had a minor in science. And so I was hired as a coach, and then they find you a teaching position. And so I did spend three years teaching five hours of biology a day. I did the best I could, but knew I did not want to stay in that business very long.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, right. So, I think I've heard you talk about this before, but you've got kind of a special place in your heart for small college basketball. With all the success you had as a player and a coach, I'm sure you probably had opportunities throughout those years to go to something higher profile, go to a bigger university, or go coach D1. Is that true, you did have those opportunities?

Dan Hays:

Yes, it is true. It is true.

Aaron Ackerman:

And why did you then make a real deliberate decision to stay where you were?

Dan Hays:

Well, I can honestly say, in my 33 years at Oklahoma Christian, I never applied for another job. I never filled out an application, even though I had opportunities. They were opportunities to be assistant coaches at D1 schools.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

And I just thought I had a better job where I was. People ask me that a lot, and you can't teach happy. And I was happy where I was. I went from high school in New Mexico to a graduate assistantship in the state of Washington. Then I took an assistant job at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant. I called it Durant and pretty much got slapped in the face [crosstalk 00:25:58] in Oklahoma.

Aaron Ackerman:

Get that corrected, huh?

Dan Hays:

I get that correction, and was there three years. Then took the head job at Northwestern Oklahoma, was there five years, loved it. Built teams that really ended up winning conference championship for the first time since the 1940s.

Aaron Ackerman:

Wow.

Dan Hays:

And then I really got lucky and got the job at Oklahoma Christian, and then just never, never wanted to leave.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah. I don't know if that's just something that you were kind of born with, this trait, but a lot of people, and I'm like this, I kind of get that attraction to the greener grass syndrome. It looks like something else is going to be better, and then you get there and you're kind of like, "Oh, jeez, I wish I was still where I was."

Aaron Ackerman:

I mean, you kind of had an ability to really project and say, "It's not going to be better. I might to a D1 and be an assistant, have an opportunity to make a little more money," but you loved where you were. You were able to see that most of these opportunities probably, for you, weren't going to be better once you got there.

Dan Hays:

No. That's right. I mean, I think if I would have taken another path, after being successful in small college, there's not a doubt in my mind that I would have been a head D1 coach in time. But, I had already moved my wife seven or eight times and didn't really want to... And she was a willing participant.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

Never held me back, understood my goals, and was always able to find a teaching position, wherever we went. Every stop we made along the way, she was Teacher of the Year somewhere. And so she had her own career. But, I just liked what I did. And to be honest, the money in those days wasn't that much different in places. Nowadays, it's not like that.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

And I can't say, nowadays, I wouldn't have been greedy. And if someone's writing you checks for a lot more money, I can't say I wouldn't have done it, but I have zero regrets.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, that's great.

Dan Hays:

And I certainly don't regret coaching now, with all of the stuff that's going on now with the transfer portal, with the NILs, where players are making money. All the things that coaches used to get put on probation for, they're all legal now.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right, yeah.

Dan Hays:

So, I don't know how they're going to monitor this thing, Aaron, I really don't.

Aaron Ackerman:

Oh. It's, yeah, definitely a lot of change. And I think a lot of that's probably driven by football, but certainly basketball's a big money sport as well. So, it'll be interesting to see.

Dan Hays:

One thing I would mention, Bob Battisti's a close friend of mine, longtime rival at Northwestern, retired, helped me at Oklahoma Christian, now he's going to help Bob Hoffman at Central Oklahoma. One of his son's high school teammates, a sophomore, plays at Utah State University. He, in the next two years, has signed contracts to make $50,000. His name is Justin Bean. One of his sponsorship is the Bean Burrito.

Aaron Ackerman:

Really?

Dan Hays:

Yes. It's restaurants in Utah, to give you an idea.

Aaron Ackerman:

Hey, when you were coaching, you would get sanctioned if you gave a kid a free bean burrito.

Dan Hays:

That's exactly right.

Aaron Ackerman:

Now you can get $50,000.

Dan Hays:

We couldn't go to Taco Bell.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

But that just gives you an idea what's going on.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, that's crazy. No, I saw the other day, kind of off-topic here, but ESPN put out their list of the top 100 college football players this year. Number one was OU's quarterback, Spencer Rattler. And the first thing I thought of was, "How much is that worth on the NIL?" You know, he's going to be on every list, and I know he's already signed some deals. So, that's definitely going to change recruiting and change everything.

Dan Hays:

Can only imagine. The Wild, Wild West, that's what I call it.

Aaron Ackerman:

That's for sure. Well, kind of along these lines, I think I want to try to tie this back. But, I've known you for a long time. I know a lot of your players, and have been really close with some of your ex-players. You may have, both you and players may have a certain remembrance of practice and on the court and in games and things, but once you kind of get removed from it I know, probably almost to a man, your players love you, respect you, and a lot of them see you as a mentor.

Aaron Ackerman:

How important is it for you to, not only to have mentors... I know you've mentioned names of guys that have mentored you when you were a young coach... but also, after having experience achieving a certain level of success, to also be a mentor, whether that's for your players as they get out of the program and move on, become coaches, you mentor other coaches. Just talk a second about how that's impacted your career, the idea of mentorship.

Dan Hays:

Well, I had many coaches who influenced me along the way. And it's funny, because sometimes you don't realize it until 10 or 15 years later. You just think back to the times where maybe he was getting on you as a player, or running after practice. And the thing about coaching is, you need to understand players. They don't remember all the praise from a practice, but jump on them one time during a two-hour practice, that one time is what they remember.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

So, I used to have a saying, "It's nothing personal. It's strictly business."

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

Well, that's not the case, but it's a nice little thing to rely on. They'll usually come around. I've had several players who I ended up with, probably not on a good note. Either, maybe they would dismiss from the team or ended up not getting much playing time, and so there's some definite friction involved. And I've been that way before as a player. But time, for most of them, heals. And I'll get cards in the mail from guys that I haven't talked to in 10 years, wishing me happy Father's Day-

Aaron Ackerman:

That's special.

Dan Hays:

... or something along those lines. And I was that way as a player. And it usually, if you do the right thing, it usually comes out on the positive side. And that's what I always tried to do. I always tried to treat people fair. Now, you can't treat them all alike. You know, when the coaches used to get up and say, "I'm going to treat you all alike." Well, you can't treat them all alike, because they're different.

Dan Hays:

Some kids, you can correct by being in their face and loud. Others shrivel up, they won't perform when you do that. And you tell them the exact same thing on the side of the court, where nobody can hear it but him. "That was the stupidest play I've ever seen. Don't ever do it again."

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, just one-on-one. Yeah.

Dan Hays:

One-on-one. Whereas some other guy is totally built different. You would tell him, "Well, that's stupid. What's wrong with you?" And then he'll come right back and show you. Well, your job as a coach is to find what button to push for every kid. Did I do it? I tried. I tried. It usually worked, but sometimes your emotions get in the way and you say things you really shouldn't say.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah. So, I've been kind of fascinated for a while with trying to see how coaching in sports can sort of translate to coaching a team in your business, your company, your nonprofit organize, or whatever. And I think family is kind of the same way as sports. My kids get immediate feedback. Right? Do something silly, they hear about it right away, just like your players.

Aaron Ackerman:

You didn't wait until quarterly review to tell them, "You know, you lost us that game by not playing defense," and whatever. You get immediate feedback. But a lot of times, in other situations, we're not good at giving immediate feedback. We wait, let it fester. We don't correct the behavior or whatever. So, how do you... I know for most of your career the OC was in the NAIA. The roles were a little different.

Aaron Ackerman:

I know you and JoAnn would spend a lot of time with your players. They'd come over and eat at your house. And some of them were probably from Oklahoma City, some were from other countries, but you kind of created this home away from home. You're building relationships with these players, so that when you do yank them by the jersey and say, "That's the stupidest play ever. Don't do it again," they know you love them, and there's a relationship there. But, is that a key to giving that immediate, sometimes hard feedback?

Dan Hays:

It is. The key to it is, you can't correct a problem without addressing a problem.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

They don't take care of themselves. You might think, "Well, I'll take care of it after practice." Well, sometimes after practice, things come up and the kid's out, and you don't get to see him. And so, you can't correct a problem without addressing a problem, so you just need to make sure that you address it when it becomes a problem. And I was good about that. The players might not have liked it.

Dan Hays:

And I learned one time, from a coach... If you remember, I always had candy in my office, and lots of candy. Cost me a lot of money through the years, candy jars, Jolly Ranchers, Hot Tamales, Fireballs, little Tootsie Rolls.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

And this coach said, "Put candy in your office so your players will come by during the day to get a piece of candy, and not have to be called in the office, because anytime word gets out Coach Hays wants to see you in the office-"

Aaron Ackerman:

It's like going to the principal's office or something, yeah.

Dan Hays:

Exactly. "What did I do wrong?"

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

So, I made it a point where I have all this candy. The problem was, PE majors, track guys, girl basketball players-

Aaron Ackerman:

Everybody's coming in.

Dan Hays:

... they're coming in, but my own players would come in and I wouldn't talk to them about basketball. Say, "Hey, man, how's your day going? Class going good? What do you got going on?" And it just was a way to connect with your players, where you weren't on the job all the time.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yep.

Dan Hays:

And that was hard for me to do, because I'd been ate up with basketball since I was 14 years old. And a second thing that I did, that I learned from a wise coach, was every day in practice, before practice started, he told me, "Go individually, talk to every kid as they're warming up. As they're coming in shooting, I'd make a point to walk to every kid, say, "Hey, shot looks pretty good today," or, "How was class? You got a test? What are you going to do tonight?" It might be a 20 second conversation, but I tried to talk to every kid. They didn't know it.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

They didn't know what I was doing. And it just became a habit with me.

Aaron Ackerman:

Whether it's the All-American or the walk-on into the bench.

Dan Hays:

It didn't matter-

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, that's awesome.

Dan Hays:

... because they're all a part of the team. And that's why I didn't do anything special gear-wise, uniform-wise, for the 15th man for the National Player of the Year. They all got the same thing. I never left a kid home on the road because I didn't have enough money. If they practice with us, they're going with us.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah. Wow, that's great. There's a book, I think it's called Culture Code, I think that's what it's called, and it kind of looks at all these different teams, like high-performing teams, and not just in sports. It looks at Navy SEAL team and something else. But they do a chapter on Popovich, and there's a story just exactly like what you've described, where they come in after a bad loss and everyone thinks he's going to come out just ripping and roaring.

Aaron Ackerman:

And he just does exactly what you described. During warmups he goes around, puts an arm around each player, asks them about the wife, the kids, whatever, moves to the next player, just building those little relationships in those small moments.

Dan Hays:

It's an easy thing to do. It's not hard. And I see so many coaches that they're just sitting on the scores table as their players are warming up. And that was always hard for me to do. Plus, I get a few more shots in, myself.

Aaron Ackerman:

Have you very often had to apologize to players, like after... Like you said, you sometimes, in the heat of a competition you-

Dan Hays:

Oh, yeah.

Aaron Ackerman:

... you're giving that immediate feedback. Then you come back the next day and it may be like-

Dan Hays:

Nah. I mean, I had no problem. Many times after games I would say, "Hey, I wish I hadn't called that timeout. That one's on me. We might have lost this game because I didn't make the right decisions," but I didn't say it as a crutch. If I meant it, I said it. Then many times I said, "Hey, I might have blown the game today." That's just part of being yourself, being real.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah. I'm sure that kind of vulnerability too just kind of extends the goodwill with the team. They're like, "Hey, look. Coach isn't always going to throw us under the bus if he's sharing responsibility." That's probably empowering, you know?

Dan Hays:

No, no, you're in it together.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah. So, kind of staying on the theme of just relationship building. I am very dedicated, in my profession, to networking. I don't really like that word, but just building relationships with people that have common interest, helping each other out. I've got friends that are in coaching. I think every industry kind of seems like a small club, to some extent, but coaching really seems that way. I know it seems like every coach knows every other coach.

Aaron Ackerman:

So, how important is that in basketball? And how do you give and receive value with your coaching counterparts, even maybe coaches that are in your league, you're playing against? Is there still sort of a relationship there with those other coaches?

Dan Hays:

You know, there is. There's a common thread, common bond. It's getting less, in my opinion, because nowadays a lot of coaches learn through YouTube. You look at that NBA bench nowadays, and there's 15 coaches in three rows.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

You look at some colleges, and there's more people in suits than there are in uniform.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yep.

Dan Hays:

And you think back to the Boston Celtics, Red Auerbach coached the Boston Celtics for a long, long time. Never had an assistant coach.

Aaron Ackerman:

He didn't? I didn't know that.

Dan Hays:

Never had an assistant coach. Bill Russell was a player-coach of the Boston Celtics and didn't have an assistant coach. The trainer sat next to him.

Aaron Ackerman:

Wow.

Dan Hays:

So, things have changed.

Aaron Ackerman:

Sure.

Dan Hays:

I'm not sold on being a coach of analytics.

Aaron Ackerman:

Okay.

Dan Hays:

I coach by feeling the game. I know when we need to call a time out, the game's slipping away. Unfortunately, TV and media timeouts become a huge thing. And I look around Division II basketball and they're taking four media timeouts each half, 16, 12, eight, and four, of each half. Eight free timeouts, and I look around and say, "Where's the media?"

Aaron Ackerman:

What are these media timeouts for?

Dan Hays:

So, I think that's ridiculous.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

Now, if you're selling million-dollar advertisement and stuff, I get it.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

But you're sitting in a small college gym, especially nowadays, where the crowds are not like when you were in school, where's the media? I think it really hurts coaching, because you build resting players and stuff around timeouts. How can you be tired with eight media timeouts and five other timeouts, 13 timeouts? How can you get tired?

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

So, that's how the games have changed. Coaches don't coach from the gut, like they used to. Remember the cage camps?

Aaron Ackerman:

Oh, yeah.

Dan Hays:

Where I'd have 30 or 40 different coaches a week come in?

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, yeah.

Dan Hays:

They coached everywhere? I see these guys everywhere now. I talk to them on the phone all the time now. They don't have camps like that anymore.

Aaron Ackerman:

No.

Dan Hays:

It's all done on the internet. And so-

Aaron Ackerman:

Well, it's a lot more of... Even the youth sports, it's a big business now. It didn't used to be that way.

Dan Hays:

Things are really changed. I don't particularly like it, but they just say, "Ah, you're just old and grouchy." And they're probably right, but it used to be so much more hands-on. Now they'll say, "Well, go to your computer, go on your Synergy, and click onto the player you're going to play tonight, all of his offensive touches in the last four games." And so a player can look at the guy they're going to play and see every basket he scored the last three games. Well, there used to be a saying, "Just guard your man."

Aaron Ackerman:

It's more complicated, huh?

Dan Hays:

It's way too complicated. And I think there's so much going through kids' heads, plus plug in their phones and all their other stuff, and it's hard to get their attention.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, lot of distractions.

Dan Hays:

Lot of distractions.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

But I'm just old and grouchy.

Aaron Ackerman:

So, we were talking about you giving feedback to players, but I'm sure a coach gets tons of feedback, a lot of it probably unsolicited. You probably get feedback from fans, friends, players, your assistant coaches, athletic director. How do you, in season or whatever, how do you process and kind of filter feedback that should just be dismissed and not let it take any hold in your mind and your heart, versus feedback that you need to take and think about, because...

Aaron Ackerman:

Some of it's probably crazy fans that don't know what they're talking about. If you let it, stuff like that could really bother you, because you may go to the coffee shop with this fan, you may go to church with this fan, and they're your friend, but then they're telling you, "Coach, you screwed it up." That probably needs to be dismissed, but you've got all this different kinds of feedback coming to you. How do you process and filter that to make you better and not bring you down?

Dan Hays:

That's the thing, you process. Remember Elmo Hall?

Aaron Ackerman:

Oh yeah.

Dan Hays:

Elmo Hall was a long-time English professor, maybe the greatest Eagle fan ever. He'd walk in the gym for practice, and he'd come up to me. He didn't care if I was at mid-court, wherever I was, he'd come up and say, "Dan, when are we going to scrimmage?" We might have been five minutes into practice, and we got an hour and a half of drills coming. All Elmo wanted to know was when we're going to scrimmage."

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

The other thing Elmo wanted to do was start the five biggest guys I had on my roster. He'd tell me every year, multiple times. Plus, he was a P.A. announcer at the games, if you remember. "Hey, Dan. We got to go big." I might have Terrance Gaines or Greg Brown or [inaudible 00:48:26], a great point guard, Brady Page, and he's wanting me to play five big guys. "That's okay, Elmo. I'll think about it. I'll think about it."

Dan Hays:

So, Elmo was an unbelievable fan, we never had a cross word with each other, but I filtered what he said, every day. So, as a player, I tell people, "A kid might be right in his thought process, with what a coach told him. The coach, just out of emotion, might have told him the wrong thing. I'm sure I did, many times. If you are positive the coach was wrong, show no emotion. Tell him, 'Yes, sir,' and move on."

Aaron Ackerman:

Yep.

Dan Hays:

I have a grandson that plays now, and that's what I tell him. He said, "Well, the coach told me this and he was wrong." I said, "Okay. I don't care if he tells you the ball is green, and it's really brown, you say, 'Yes, sir,' and then just play through it." And that's a skill that, as players, the ones that become mentally tough, they learn. We're always telling them, "Get to the next play. get to the next play." (silence)

Aaron Ackerman:

... bored or distracted, and make a career move, a mistake. Like you, you were able to stay focused, grow, do this thing you love for 48 seasons. What's the secret?

Dan Hays:

Yeah, and that didn't account for all those years as a kid, playing. Like I said, my first job I ever had, I worked for Albuquerque Parks and Recreation, and I ran a playground. I was a ninth grader, running a playground in Albuquerque. Had a Little League team, and those kids came to me every afternoon. And those were job. I was the scorekeeper at summer basketball leagues, outdoors, under the lights, on the asphalt, downtown Albuquerque. Got paid to be a scorekeeper, and got to play every forfeit.

Dan Hays:

Then I became a summer league referee, when NC2A rules wouldn't let me play in the summer. And so, every job I ever had was related to what I said I was going to do when I was a kid. And so my basketball court was dirt. I had a homemade backboard. My dad made a backboard out of plywood, nailed it to a pole in the backyard, a dirt court, hung on a little rusty rim. I got a picture of me out there when I'm like 14 years old, just shooting out there.

Aaron Ackerman:

Shooting hundreds of shots every day.

Dan Hays:

And so my beginnings were, I was just a middle class kid, good genetics. My mom and dad are the only married couple, still, in the University of New Mexico Athletic Hall of Fame. But I got two brothers who played sports, but not like I did. So I was focused on what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be, never deviated from it. And with those cage camps, which ended up being... We figured it up one time. Almost 75,000 kids, we had, [crosstalk 00:53:42].

Aaron Ackerman:

I mean, people came to your camps from all over the world.

Dan Hays:

Everywhere. They did.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah. I mean, you recruited players that showed up from England and-

Dan Hays:

Eddie Fontaine, John Nottley, guys like that? But, no. It's all about finding a profession that you enjoy. And I know it's harder. I was lucky that I was able to do it, but I had a lot of good mentors along the way that helped me. And I wasn't always the star player. I had to beat people out, every year. That's what I tell people is, "Yes, genetics have something to do with it."

Aaron Ackerman:

Sure.

Dan Hays:

"If your mom's short and your dad's short, you better be a point guard."

Aaron Ackerman:

Study the books.

Dan Hays:

Yeah, exactly. I tell kids at Solid Rock all the time, "The ball doesn't lie."

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

That means shooters come to the gym early and they stay late. People that can't shoot, they don't come early, they don't stay late. The ball doesn't lie, in any sport. You know that. And so it's genetics and effort.

Aaron Ackerman:

I want to ask you kind of a character question. I remember when I was coming to your camps, and you may get a chuckle out of this. I still have... you handed out to every camper a little stack of cards. Do you remember that?

Dan Hays:

Motivational cards?

Aaron Ackerman:

Yes. I still have a couple sets of those cards.

Dan Hays:

Yep.

Aaron Ackerman:

They say, "Compliments of Oklahoma Christian Basketball."

Dan Hays:

Yep.

Aaron Ackerman:

And there was, I don't know, 15 or 20 little kind of index cards in there that had-

Dan Hays:

I have a whole notebook full of motivational cards. Yes.

Aaron Ackerman:

But you know, it was great stuff, though.

Dan Hays:

Yes.

Aaron Ackerman:

It was character, it was people first, and all of these great little lessons, encapsulated in a quote or a little short story. So I know that character... You're a character guy. You demand high character from your players, your assistant coaches. You've always been that way.

Aaron Ackerman:

I'm assuming, you can talk about this, but I'm assuming over your career you would be sitting there at OC, coaching, and you'd look over at some other coach. And you know he's cheating to recruit, or doing something that, even if it's not against the rules, highly questionable-

Dan Hays:

Questionable?

Aaron Ackerman:

... from an ethical standpoint.

Dan Hays:

Yeah.

Aaron Ackerman:

How hard is it to say, "I could get an advantage by bending the rules or doing that same thing, but I'm not going to do that, even if it hurts me in the records, on the floor, whatever"? Again, I'm making assumptions that that's the case, but talk about that a little bit. I'm sure you had opportunities where you could have-

Dan Hays:

Sure.

Aaron Ackerman:

... "Ah, nobody would even know, because everyone else is doing it. I'm going to do the same little trick on recruiting or whatever."

Dan Hays:

Well, I had... Some of my closest friends are guys that I coached against.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

So I coached against some very high moral character people, Bobby Martin at Southern Nazarene, Bob Battisti at Northwestern, Bob Hoffman, bitter rivals at OBU. Now he's at UCO and former D1 coach, one of my closest friends, so, many, many guys like that.

Dan Hays:

The thing I think that separated us at Oklahoma Christian, I always told people, my players, "We might not have the best team, but we have the best program." By that, means we were beat many times by Oklahoma City University, by Oklahoma Baptist, by Southern Nazarene. And we beat them many times also, but certain years we might not have the best team, won/loss, but that doesn't mean we can't have the best program, highest integrity, best GPA, graduation rate, and all of that.

Dan Hays:

What made my job easier at Oklahoma Christian is the rules we had to follow. And many times, there were players I didn't recruit because I knew they couldn't follow the rules that they were going to be under at our school.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

Our players weren't perfect. We had players mess up just like everybody else did.

Aaron Ackerman:

Sure.

Dan Hays:

But as a whole, we graduated over 90% of our kids. And it's not quite the same now. Things are a little bit different, but we had chapel five times a week. You had bible every semester. Every student had curfew, every night. Am I speaking to the choir here, Aaron?

Aaron Ackerman:

Some of those things have changed, but, yep.

Dan Hays:

Yes, they have changed, but in most of my career, those things... So, in order for kids... And I supported those things. I mean, I took the job knowingly. It's the only private school I ever coached at. Every other school I was at was public or a public university.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, different environments and rules and-

Dan Hays:

Yeah, but I recruited kids that I thought could flourish in that environment. When I talked to their moms, recruiting them, my thing, I'd say, "You're going to know where your kid is at midnight every night. He's going to be in his room. He's not going to be running around downtown Oklahoma City.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

And so we tried to flip it and use it to our advantage. But, we were very, very selective, and there was a lot of kids we'd end up playing against, where I'm scratching my head saying, "Oh, I should have took him. I should have took the chance."

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

But I never gave in, I really never gave in. And it paid off in the long run, because I've got so many former players who I'm so proud of. Kevin Jones, just yesterday... I don't know if you remember Kevin Jones.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah, I sure do. Yep.

Dan Hays:

Teammate with Rob Seat, Jay Mauck, and those guys. Kevin Jones just sent me a picture two days ago, standing in front of Douglass High School. He's the new principal-

Aaron Ackerman:

Oh, wow. That's great.

Dan Hays:

... at Douglass High School, and so proud of Kevin. But I get things like that all the time. Like with Jay down in Durant and all the things he's doing, Rob, with all the things he does here in Edmond. And so this, this is what's fun now, because I got guys I talk to and I see and little things like that. I mean, I'm so proud of those guys and what they did, even more so than making points.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right. Yeah. That's ultimately more important, the life stuff that [crosstalk 01:01:20]

Dan Hays:

At the time, it might not have been, but right now as I look back, it certainly is.

Aaron Ackerman:

So, what you're talking about there is culture. There was a culture at Oklahoma Christian and in your program. And you could go get a different player that might be a great player, but if it wasn't a culture fit or a culture add, it wasn't worth the risk.

Dan Hays:

Yes, yes.

Aaron Ackerman:

And I think that's the same way companies do sometimes, and should look at things. If we've got a certain culture here at HoganTaylor, and I can go get a really, really smart, talented person, but they're a jerk or they're not a good cultural fit, it's just not worth the risk.

Dan Hays:

It's not worth it.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

And the same thing academically. We graduated our guys because, like Abe Lemon said [inaudible 01:02:13] one time, the funniest coach ever, I said, "How many of your guys graduate?" "All of them that want to." Well, that's a pretty good answer.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

So, don't recruit guys that don't want to get a college degree.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right, yeah.

Dan Hays:

It's really not that hard. I've got three degrees. It's really not that hard. I'm living proof.

Aaron Ackerman:

I got one more question, and then we'll kind of wrap up. We're close to the end of our time. So, being in one place, like you were for over three decades, you have a system that probably didn't change a lot over time, from year to year. There's a lot of things that stay the same, but you've got players turning over pretty fast.

Aaron Ackerman:

I was thinking about, like in a business setting, if you have more than a few percentage points of turnover, you've got a real problem, but in your world you're having 20, 30, 40% turnover every year. At a minimum, you're turning over your entire team every three or four years.

Dan Hays:

Yes.

Aaron Ackerman:

So, you've got a lot of consistency with you, your coaching staff, your system, but you got completely different personalities. How do you approach sort of almost rebuilding from scratch a team and sort of that... Each team probably, to some extent, had its own sort of personality and culture. How do you do that so frequently over time?

Dan Hays:

Well, just because you have a good year one year, doesn't mean it's going to translate into a good year the next year, even with the same players.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

One year we were 30-6, and we had [inaudible 01:04:04] back and, or maybe lost one kid. And we come into the next year, and that year we end up like 22-10. And things just didn't click the way they did the year before. My favorite saying in developing skills and developing as a coach is, "Players and coaches who concentrate on the little things get better little by little."

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

So, you've got to be always looking for something better. And I was good at that. I never stayed pat, but I had all of these coaches coming into camps where we stayed up late at night, talking and watching them teach. And I always picked up nuggets from people. A nugget is something that may be just a little something you can add to what you're already doing. And I was really good at that.

Dan Hays:

And I had what you call a readiness to learn. Still have it, still have it. And I see too many people nowadays that say, "Well, I see what Lincoln Riley's doing here, so I'm going to do just like Lincoln Riley."

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

Well, you don't know what he's doing in practice.

Aaron Ackerman:

Right.

Dan Hays:

And so, have a readiness to learn and concentrate on the little things, and it'll work out. It really will.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah. No, that's great. All right, well, I've got five kind of rapid fire questions we ask all of our guests. You ready for this?

Dan Hays:

Rapid fire, huh?

Aaron Ackerman:

What's the first way you ever made money? You mentioned getting paid to do score-keeping and stuff. Was that?

Dan Hays:

For one week, I sold Daylight donuts in Albuquerque, door-to-door. Once I got to the end of the week and got through with all my relatives, I'd just sit at the end of the curb and eat them. And I quit the job.

Aaron Ackerman:

All right, selling donuts door-to-door. I got to say, Coach, that's the first time we've had that answer.

Dan Hays:

Southern made donuts.

Aaron Ackerman:

You may just say there's not an answer to this question, because you've known you were a basketball guy since probably you can remember, but if you weren't a basketball coach, if you had not done that with your life, you had to go a different route, what do you think you would have done different?

Dan Hays:

Just been a PE teacher, physical education teacher.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

That's it.

Aaron Ackerman:

That's good. I love it. It's like I'm always a little bit, I don't know if jealous is the right word, but just have a real admiration for people that know exactly what they were put on this Earth to do, and they just have such a focus. I mean, that-

Dan Hays:

Play.

Aaron Ackerman:

What would you like to go back and tell 20-year-old Dan Hays?

Dan Hays:

I think now I could do the things that I didn't do then, and could have been an NBA player, but I was just a street ball player at that time. And coaching at that time wasn't about individuals. It was just putting a team together and put them on their little railroad tracks.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah.

Dan Hays:

Knowing what I know now, I think I could have been a much better player, based on that. I'd like to have another shot at it.

Aaron Ackerman:

Yeah? So, what's the title of your book? What would you title your... If you wrote an autobiography, all the stories of coaching and playing, what would you call it?

Dan Hays:

From a Dirt Court and a Homemade Backboard with a Rusty Rim, to Six or Seven Hall of Fames.

Aaron Ackerman:

I love it. That's great. Yeah, I didn't mention this in your bio, but the basketball court at OC is named Dan Hays Court. Right?

Dan Hays:

It is.

Aaron Ackerman:

So, you started out on dirt and now there's courts named after you. That's [crosstalk 01:08:28]

Dan Hays:

Yeah. I was up there the other day, and there was 30 volleyball girls out on the court, stamping on my name. And they had no idea [inaudible 01:08:35] as I walked in the gym. So, it's all relative.

Aaron Ackerman:

That's funny. Well, let's see, last one here. What's the best advice that you've ever received?

Dan Hays:

Best advice I ever received was from a football coach. I was a junior high football player in Albuquerque, city champs, never lost a game, quarterback, throwing no-hitters in baseball, and gave all that up to play basketball. So, the football coach at Highland High School, great coach, he would ask me to come out for football. And I was in the gym, huge high school, biggest in the state, shooting in the spring. I was the only kid that played year-round basketball. I don't know why, just a mutant I guess.

Dan Hays:

He came walking across the gym, and I thought to myself, "Oh, no. Here we go again." He walks up to me. He says, "Dan, if you're going to waste all this time out here, shoot every shot like there's someone guarding you." And I didn't know what to say. And I've never forgot that. I was 16 years old, I'm 75 now. I remember like it was yesterday, "Shoot every shot like there's someone guarding you," and I never forgot that.