Sideline Sessions: Caroline McCombs — George Washington University Women’s Basketball Head Coach, 20+ Year NCAA Division-I Coaching Veteran, and 2020 America East Coach of the Year on Success at the D-I Level
12/28/23 • 35 min
Happy holidays! We'll be publishing new episodes of The Authority in January (stay tuned for great conversations with Lacey Robinson, Michael Fullan, and Allison Rodman to start the year). Until then, we'll continue sharing more great content.
This week I’m excited to share the second episode of my new show, Sideline Sessions. If you're a youth or high school sports coach, or parent of a student-athlete, make sure to subscribe to the show: https://sidelinesessions.transistor.fm/subscribe
In this episode, I speak with Caroline McCombs, head women’s basketball coach at George Washington University. As a head coach and assistant coach, her teams have appeared in six NCAA tournaments and made two Sweet 16 appearances, and she also made an NCAA tournament as an all-conference player at Youngstown State.
We discussed Coach McCombs’ transition from playing to coaching, what young players need to know, and more, including:
- Went directly from being an all-conference college player into coaching
- How she defines the role of coach
- Recruiting vs. coaching and how each contributes to success in an NCAA program
- What high school coaches and parents should know about the recruiting process
- Coaching a veteran team versus a younger team and what to expect
About today’s guest
Head coach Caroline McCombs is in her third season at the helm of GW women’s basketball. McCombs' first two seasons with the Buff and Blue resulted in a run to the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Championship. During her first year in Foggy Bottom, McCombs helped lead a team that ranked first in program history in points allowed in a season (55.2) and upset #5 La Salle to reach the Quarterfinals of the 2022 A-10 Women’s Basketball Championship. 2022-23 then saw the Buff and Blue with McCombs at the helm earn the 7-seed in the tournament to notch a first-round bye, and then knock off the 10-seed before narrowly falling in the quarters to the second seed.
A proven winner at every stop during her 25-year coaching career, McCombs arrived at GW after seven years as the head coach at Stony Brook where she led the Seawolves to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021. The 2020 America East Coach of the Year, McCombs won 130 games in seven years at Stony Brook.
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. He also works directly with professionals at all levels, in all industries, coaching them in their pursuit of success.
Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or LinkedIn. Listen to The Authority: https://authoritypodcast.net.
Are you a professional looking for insights to reach the next level, find a fulfilling new career, or achieve peak performance? You may be a candidate for performance coaching. Schedule an introductory chat here.
Happy holidays! We'll be publishing new episodes of The Authority in January (stay tuned for great conversations with Lacey Robinson, Michael Fullan, and Allison Rodman to start the year). Until then, we'll continue sharing more great content.
This week I’m excited to share the second episode of my new show, Sideline Sessions. If you're a youth or high school sports coach, or parent of a student-athlete, make sure to subscribe to the show: https://sidelinesessions.transistor.fm/subscribe
In this episode, I speak with Caroline McCombs, head women’s basketball coach at George Washington University. As a head coach and assistant coach, her teams have appeared in six NCAA tournaments and made two Sweet 16 appearances, and she also made an NCAA tournament as an all-conference player at Youngstown State.
We discussed Coach McCombs’ transition from playing to coaching, what young players need to know, and more, including:
- Went directly from being an all-conference college player into coaching
- How she defines the role of coach
- Recruiting vs. coaching and how each contributes to success in an NCAA program
- What high school coaches and parents should know about the recruiting process
- Coaching a veteran team versus a younger team and what to expect
About today’s guest
Head coach Caroline McCombs is in her third season at the helm of GW women’s basketball. McCombs' first two seasons with the Buff and Blue resulted in a run to the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Championship. During her first year in Foggy Bottom, McCombs helped lead a team that ranked first in program history in points allowed in a season (55.2) and upset #5 La Salle to reach the Quarterfinals of the 2022 A-10 Women’s Basketball Championship. 2022-23 then saw the Buff and Blue with McCombs at the helm earn the 7-seed in the tournament to notch a first-round bye, and then knock off the 10-seed before narrowly falling in the quarters to the second seed.
A proven winner at every stop during her 25-year coaching career, McCombs arrived at GW after seven years as the head coach at Stony Brook where she led the Seawolves to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021. The 2020 America East Coach of the Year, McCombs won 130 games in seven years at Stony Brook.
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. He also works directly with professionals at all levels, in all industries, coaching them in their pursuit of success.
Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or LinkedIn. Listen to The Authority: https://authoritypodcast.net.
Are you a professional looking for insights to reach the next level, find a fulfilling new career, or achieve peak performance? You may be a candidate for performance coaching. Schedule an introductory chat here.
Previous Episode
Best of The Authority: Richard Gerver on Change
Welcome to Best of The Authority! Thanks to wonderful listeners like you, this Be Podcast Network original series is growing and going strong. In fact, it now ranks in the Top 5% of the more than 3 million podcasts globally.
In case you haven’t been with us since the beginning, the “Best Of” is designed to catch you up on some of the best and most popular episodes you may have missed.
In this episode, I spoke with internationally renowned speaker Richard Gerver, a multi-time bestselling author and acclaimed thinker on human leadership and human transformation. His career began as a classroom teacher and he eventually worked with an extraordinary range of people, from elite athletes to former US President Barack Obama.
And if you enjoy this episode, I have more good news: Richard is launching a new podcast series, The Learning Bridge, here on the Be Podcast Network!
- Listen to the trailer of The Learning Bridge: https://bit.ly/4asbpB9
- Subscribe to Richard's new show, The Learning Bridge: https://bit.ly/478h903
Our conversation on The Authority is built around Richard's book Change: Learn to Love It, Learn to Lead It. We talk about the following and more:
- How the pandemic necessitated change and changed Gen-Z’s perspective on the inevitability of change.
- “We are living in the first age where we no longer determine the rate of change.”
- How Richard navigated the change from teacher to three-time UK Business Speaker of the Year.
- Overcoming the fear of change caused by “imagined consequences.”
- What the innovation of “Total Football” shows us about embracing change.
- Is loving and embracing change necessary for leading it?
- Overcoming artificial complexity and self-constructed barriers.
- CQ — the Curiosity Quotient.
Find Change, Simple Thinking, Creating Tomorrow’s Schools Today, and all of Richard’s other books and work at www.richardgerver.com
Subscribe to The Authority to get more deep-dive interviews with education authors. It’s available wherever you get your podcasts.
About today’s guest
Richard Gerver is a sought-after speaker, bestselling author and world-renowned thinker. His career began in education, first as a teacher and then as a school principal, when he turned the fortunes of a failing school and its pupils around in just two years.
Since the success of his first book, focusing on his experience in frontline education, Richard has devoted himself to advancing society’s thinking on learning, change, and how best to realise our full potential. He has since written several books on leadership and innovation, including the bestsellers Change and Simple Thinking
Now regarded as one of the world's leading thinkers on human leadership and organisational transformation, Richard has worked with an extraordinary range of people, from elite athletes to former US President Barack Obama. Named UK Business Speaker of the Year three times, Richard has been invited to speak on the world’s most recognised stages, including TED, the RSA and the BBC.
Follow Richard on Twitter @richardgerver and on LinkedIn.
About the host
Ross Romano is a co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and CEO of September Strategies, a 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
Next Episode
Best of The Authority: Who’s Your Founding Father? with David Fleming
Welcome to Best of The Authority! Thanks to wonderful listeners like you, this Be Podcast Network original series is growing and going strong. In fact, it now ranks in the Top 5% of the more than 3 million podcasts globally.
In case you haven’t been with us since the beginning, the “Best Of” is designed to catch you up on some of the best and most popular episodes you may have missed.
In this episode, I had a ton of fun chatting with David Fleming, a senior writer at ESPN who has been one of the industry’s most prolific, versatile, and imaginative longform writers over the last three decades at Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, and ESPN. He has reported on everything from the Super Bowl and Steph Curry to the Musical Chairs World Championship and the NFL’s obsession with glutes.
We discussed his great book, Who's Your Founding Father? One Man’s Epic Quest to Uncover the First, True Declaration of Independence:
- The Mecklenberg Declaration of Independence (the MecDec!) — what it is who wrote it, and who signed it
- John Adams accuses Thomas Jefferson of plagiarism — the evidence and the defense
- Traveling to London to uncover an international conspiracy and discovering North Carolina’s Freedom Spring, previously lost for a century
- If 11 US Presidents along with Ken Burns, David McCullough, George Will and others acknowledged the MecDec, why haven’t we heard more about it?
- The South’s critical role in the American Revolution
- Thomas Jefferson...shockingly awful
- Captain James Jack, the Paul Revere of the South (only braver)
- The playlist at the Musical Chairs World Championship, and more!
Who's Your Founding Father? is available from Hachette. Find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your books: https://bit.ly/43Wt6F6
Read David’s 2013 ESPN story about the Musical Chairs World Championship here.
About our guest
David Fleming is a senior writer at ESPN. During the last three decades at Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine and ESPN he has been one of the industry’s most prolific, versatile, and imaginative longform writers, traveling the globe while penning more than 35 cover stories and numerous groundbreaking pieces on everything from the Super Bowl and Steph Curry to the Musical Chairs World Championship and the NFL’s obsession with glutes. Fleming’s unique work has earned numerous national awards as well as a handwritten note from the White House.
He is also the author of two previous books, Breaker Boys: The NFL’s Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship and Noah's Rainbow: A Father’s Emotional Journey from the Death of his Son to the Birth of his Daughter. A native of Detroit, Fleming and his wife, Kim, live in North Carolina with their daughters.
Follow him on Twitter @FlemESPN
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 and beyond clarify their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. Connect on Twitter @RossBRomano or LinkedIn.
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