Best of Sideline Sessions: Charlie Miller on Teaching Young Athletes to Find Their "Bright Spots"

01/29/25 • 67 min

Next week, we'll have the final episode of Season 3. Today we're sharing a "Best Of" episode, one of our earliest conversations with Charlie Miller. This chat is packed with great insights.

Charlie is a master basketball coach, author, and owner of ATTACK Basketball Academy in the Dallas, Texas area. As a player, he was a McDonald’s All-American and Florida’s Gatorade Player of the Year at South Miami High School, played at Indiana University and in the Junior Olympics, and played professionally in Europe and the US.

As a coach, he began by training hundreds of players individually and on teams, founded ATTACK Basketball Academy in 2009, and has been a head coach with Breakthrough Basketball.

We talked about:

What Charlie learned from the coaches you played for and how he developed a process over outcomes approach
Coaching the whole player
Harnessing the power of the mind to enhance performance on the court.
How can coaches integrate mental toughness development, and lessons learned from personal coaching experiences to create tailored training strategies for young athletes?
Tailored strategies to bring out the best in young athletes.
It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you have

About today’s guest

Charlie Miller is a master basketball coach, author, and owner of ATTACK Basketball Academy with almost 2 decades of experience working with players who desperately want to achieve their basketball goals but are frustrated by confidence-crushing roadblocks. By coaching the whole player (physically, intellectually, and emotionally), Charlie creates breakthrough experiences from the inside out, allowing his clients to accelerate the realization of their dreams and have fun in the process.

Charlie has taken the collection of his experiences over 30+ years as a player along with his gift for connection and created a simple system of coaching to reach any player. Since 2009, his business has helped tens of thousands of players achieve their next level of success both on and off the basketball court.

An internationally recognized expert basketball coach, Charlie has been a recurring host of Indiana Sports Beat Radio and has previously been featured on ESPN 30 for 30, the B1G Ten Network, the Sports Psychology podcast, Breakthrough Basketball podcast, and many others.

Learn more:

Next week, we'll have the final episode of Season 3. Today we're sharing a "Best Of" episode, one of our earliest conversations with Charlie Miller. This chat is packed with great insights.

As a coach, he began by training hundreds of players individually and on teams, founded ATTACK Basketball Academy in 2009, and has been a head coach with Breakthrough Basketball.

We talked about:

What Charlie learned from the coaches you played for and how he developed a process over outcomes approach
Coaching the whole player
Harnessing the power of the mind to enhance performance on the court.
How can coaches integrate mental toughness development, and lessons learned from personal coaching experiences to create tailored training strategies for young athletes?
Tailored strategies to bring out the best in young athletes.
It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you have

About today’s guest

Learn more:

Previous Episode

Running a Championship Practice with Adam Sarancik

This week Adam Sarancik returns to the show. Adam is a longtime baseball coach teams have consistently won championships at every youth league and high school level. In administration, he has served as league founder, board member and coaches’ and players’ clinic director. He is also owner of Elevate Sports Academy.

Building on our previous discussion, we cover:

Running a championship practice and who has a role to play
Goals and determiners of a championship practice
Selling players on the idea
Top 3 questions for coaches to ask
What do you do if you’re getting “no” to these Qs?
Taking championship practices into the game
Goal for a coach: players are excited to come back tomorrow

About the guest:

Adam Sarancik is the owner of Elevate Sports Academy and mentors student-athletes in physical conditioning, nutrition, career and college counseling and sport skills. He has spent most of his adult life mentoring youth ages 8-22 in baseball, softball, soccer and basketball.

In baseball, Adam’s teams have consistently won championships at every youth league and high school level. In administration, he has served as league founder, board member and coaches’ and players’ clinic director many times in his 40+ year coaching career.

His articles have been frequently published in ABCA’s Inside Pitch, in Collegiate Baseball News, and on the CoachesInsider.com, SportsEngine.com and CoachDeck.com websites. He is also a favorite guest on national baseball coaching podcasts. Adam is the author of four Amazon Top 100 Best Selling Baseball coaching books, Coaching Champions for Life – The Process of Mentoring the Person, Athlete and Player, Takeaway Quotes for Coaching Champions for Life; A Ground Ball to Shortstop – How and Why Coaches See Their Game Differently Than Anyone Else, and Teacher, Role Model, Mentor: Lessons Learned From a Lifetime in Coaching.

About the host

Ross Romano is co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and also hosts The Authority Podcast. He began his career in the pro sports industry before becoming a leading communications, marketing, and management expert working with education companies. He is founder and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success.

Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or LinkedIn. Listen to The Authority: https://authoritypodcast.net.

Next Episode

Matt Doherty — NCAA Champion Basketball Player and Former North Carolina Head Coach on the 6 Principles of Leadership

This is the final episode of Sideline Sessions season 3, also simulcast on The Authority. I speak with Matt Doherty, former head coach at Notre Dame, the University of North Carolina, Florida Atlantic, and SMU.

As a starter on the 1982 National Championship team at UNC, with his teammate Michael Jordan, Matt began his leadership journey under the legendary Dean Smith. As a coach, he was the 2001 AP National Coach of the Year after leading UNC to the ACC regular season championship. After his coaching career, Matt worked with ESPN, the Indiana Pacers, and the Atlantic 10 Conference. He’s also author of the book, Rebound: From Pain to Passion.

Hear about:

Who Matt learned from, as he played for and worked for Hall of Fame coaches, played with HoF athletes, and coached many great athletes
What he wishes he learned sooner
His mission statement
Leadership is a learned behavior
Putting yourself in position to learn
6 principles of leadership
Adversity: What went wrong? Why did this happen? How do you prepare for your next opportunity?
Gaining perspective on the things outside your control
Culture and culture-building

Connect with Coach Doherty at https://dohertycoaching.com

About the host

Ross Romano is a co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on LinkedIn or Bluesky.