Jamy Bechler

Providing Insights on Leadership and Success. Coach Bechler is a John Maxwell Leadership Team Member.

Episode 017: Proactive Coaching Partner Rob Miller

Rob Miller is a partner and motivational speaker for Proactive Coaching, which is one of the top leadership training platforms in the country. Along with his Bruce Brown, they help coaches positively impact their athlete’s lives. Rob is also the commissioner of the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference, with schools in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. Throughout his career, Rob has been a coach at the high school and college levels. He was also instrumental in building up the NAIA’s Champions of Character program.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • Coaching “kids these days”
  • How coaches impacted him and left a legacy
  • Biggest challenges facing student-athletes

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Episode 014: Grace College Athletic Director Chad Briscoe

Chad Briscoe is the athletic director at Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana.  He earned the 2017 Crossroads League Athletic Director of the Year award.  He also won the award in 2010.  At the NAIA level, he has helped initiate several “Champions of Character” initiatives, starting various sportsmanship summits for the league and local high school conferences. He currently is the league’s representative on the NAIA National Administrative Council and is the vice chair of the Championship Committee on the NAIA-NAC.  Briscoe’s energetic vision of the future has guided Grace Athletics to unparalled success across the school’s varsity programs. His desire to pursue Christ-like excellence through the realm of athletics has led many of Grace’s teams to some of their best seasons ever. In addition to being a collegiate athletic director, Briscoe has also been a professional basketball player in Sweden, a minor league baseball general manager, and a college basketball coach.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • Mistakes leaders make
  • Traits that successful leaders have
  • How he develops his coaches and student-athletes
  • The importance of having a positive culture

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Episode 016: Crossroads League Commissioner Larry DeSimpelare

Larry DeSimpelare is the commissioner of the Crossroads League, which is arguably the best NAIA conference in the country when it comes to combining national-level competition and an emphasis on character-building. The Crossroads League has schools from the state of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Before becoming a commissioner, Larry served as a collegiate men’s basketball coach at Cleveland State University, Rutgers University, Kent State University, Eastern Michigan University and Concordia University. Along the way, DeSimpelare helped guide those programs to three league titles, eight NIT berths and four NCAA bids, where he helped Eastern Michigan take out Duke and Cleveland State upend Wake Forest in a pair of opening round upsets.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • The importance of loyalty and how he stayed with head coach Gary Waters for more than 20 years and at 3 different jobs
  • His journey to becoming a collegiate conference commissioner
  • Future Hall of Fame football player Antonio Gates playing basketball at Kent State University

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Marion Student-Athletes Learning Leadership Skills

(originally published on January 25, 2015)

Some Marion High School student-athletes are learning how to be better leaders in order to help their teams on the field of competition and improve the world around them.

About 25 student-athletes from various teams at Marion met weekly this past semester before school to learn about different leadership concepts.

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Bechler Becomes RedHawks All-Time Wins Leader

written by Wade Neely for www.GoRedHawks.com – originally published on December 16, 2013

PULASKI, Tenn. – In addition to guiding his squad to one of the best starts in program history this season, RedHawk Women’s Basketball head coach Jamy Bechler recently made program history on a personal level as he became the program’s all-time winningest head coach earlier this season.

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Kirsten Moore Overcomes Adversity

The following excerpt is from Bill Plaschke’s article in the L.A. Times (originally posted on March 31, 2013) about Kirsten Moore, the head women’s basketball coach at Westmont College.  She recently led her team to the NAIA National Championship.  This story is an amazing example of perseverance and overcoming adversity.  Kirsten is a first-class individual and is well-respected in the coaching profession.  She certainly has a bright future ahead of her in the coaching world, but as you’ll see from Plaschke’s great article, it is her past which fuels her present and future.

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Defense Still Wins Championships

It has often been said that “Defense Wins Championships”.  In fact, I previously wrote a post that talked about it. As a college basketball coach, I am certainly aware that there are a lot of factors that work together to contribute to a team winning a game and eventually a championship.  However, I am convinced that defense is the most prevalent common denominator when it comes to successful teams. As I recently served on the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Women’s Basketball Tournament Committee, I got a first-hand view of the importance of defense (originally posted on March 30, 2013).

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Coaching Short List for Athletic Directors

(originally published on March 20, 2013)

This is the time of the year when there are a lot of open basketball coaching positions.  Most good athletic directors should have some kind of a working list of potential replacements if they should ever have an opening in one of their sports. Yes, they can accept resumes but they should have some names and ideas of people that they might want to go after.  This is the same whether you are a DI athletic director or a small college athletic director.

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Best Basketball Not on TV

Westmont’s Tugce Canitez vs. Sue Bird

(originally published on March 17, 2013)

March Madness is upon us and eyes are glued to the TV watching conference tournaments to see who’s bubble bursts and who’s dreams come true.  However, there is some madness going on in Frankfort, KY that is under-the-radar.  The NAIA women’s basketball national tournament is down to its’ final four teams.  The “Fab Four” games will take place on Monday.  Westmont (CA) University will join three teams from Tennessee: Lee University, Freed Hardeman University and Cumberland University in the Fab Four.  This tournament may be lacking UCONN or Brittney Griner but it certainly is not lacking excitement, talent or story lines.

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Defense Wins Championships

All of us sports fans have heard it said that “Defense Wins Championships”.  Though that axiom has a lot of legitimacy, it is hard to say whether it is 100% true.  Lots of things go into winning a championship. However, I must say that this year, it seemed that I noticed more winning coaches praising their team’s defensive efforts as the main reason for their success.  This has gotten me to thinking about my team and whether or not we should emphasize defense even more next year. It probably can’t hurt. Regardless, here are some of the examples that I am talking about when it comes to defense helping a team win a basketball championship.

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