“The one thing coaches are built for is change.”
Zenarae Antoine, the head coach of women’s basketball at Texas State University, sits down with us in this episode of the 35,000 feet podcast going over the past season for her team, her start in coaching, how she balances her work and personal life, the amazing adventures she has been on, and what she believes is in store this upcoming season for her team.
In this episode, we discuss:
How this past season went for Texas State University Women’s Basketball team (0:17)
How Coach Antoine got into coaching (5:27)
Zenarae’s favorite travel experience (15:35)
One thing that no one knows about Zenarae (24:24)
Zenarae’s next adventure (26:05)
The Exciting Past Season for Texas State University’s Women’s Basketball Team
Morgan: Hi, guys. Welcome back. It's Morgan. Today, I'm sitting down with Coach Z. Thanks so much for joining us.
Coach Z: I'm excited.
Morgan: We're excited to hear from you and just hear about your story. So I'd love to just dive into this and start getting to know you better. One of the first questions I wanted to ask you was if you could tell us about the highs and lows of your season.
Coach Z: Yeah. I would say this was the most unique season that I've had as a head coach. The wins and loss column has been the toughest of my career. It was a very difficult season from a wins and loss standpoint. But what makes it unique was it by far was one of my most favorite teams that I've coached. And I really grew a lot, and I feel like they did, too.
And when I say that, I've had two tough seasons in my nine-year tenure here at Texas State. That first go around, I call it my sophomore season. It just wasn't fun across the board. This year is unique in that I had eight freshmen and sophomores. And generally speaking, we have 12 to 15 women on a team. So the 12 women on our team, I had eight freshmen and sophomores, and then only two seniors and two juniors. And only one player on the team, a senior, was returning, who had substantial playing experience and was a three-year starter for us.
So with that being said, we were really young. We were extremely youthful. And as I've had opportunity to reflect, because we've had some time now, on what happened, we started out with an O and eight slide in conference play. And what made it tough was the fact that a lot of those games, we were up by anywhere between 20 points all the way to six points with three minutes or less left. So we were losing some games that were just really close where we were ahead substantially.
That created a lot of stress for my team. It was comical. Now, it's comical. But at the time, it wasn't. It sounded like a commercial for a pharmaceutical company because I'd ask, "What's going on? Stress, anxiety, sweat, fear."
And what I realized ... And in the game of basketball, a lot of us coaches like to run what we call situationals. We ran a lot of different situations being up, being down probably two to three times a practice. That ended up becoming a large focus where we're probably spending 30% of our time in a practice or 40% of our time in situationals, anywhere between seven to nine.
But if you were to ask them what was the biggest difference for them when we had a four game win streak or how we ended the last seven games, we won five, we could really that we turned the corner, but ran out of time, if you will, they'll tell you. They went back to the fact that we were able to run those situations.
And so what I recognize is as important as off-court chemistry is, and it's extremely important, being able to have that chemistry, the on-court chemistry isn't just about the relationship piece. It's also the experience piece of it. And I think being able to put them in major, stressful situations, right? Because these kids did a great job. You're talking about three minutes or less left and we're up and we're ... In those games, we were up substantially, where we lose a lead and that anxiety sets in. I think it was important to put them there as well as understanding that the leadership needs to be extremely strong and they need to be able to, as a team, when they're out there, those five young women, look to teammates to help them fight through that.
And the youthfulness really played into the lack of having strong leadership, to where you only get so many time outs as a head coach to get them going. So that's what I learned in this particular season, is that it's really important to be able to put your team in adverse situations if they're lacking youth. But there were so much fun to coach. They practice hard. Every game, we played hard. You never saw them quit. And I really put a lot of that back on my staff as well. We really coach from a place of love, and I think that's important. The last thing they needed is for us to get after them consistently all the time when they already had the feeling of letting each other down.
And so taking a look at this particular season, I know I've learned that. And I can tell you my leadership for the next season is already really excited and really engaged in the process of winning. And I think that's important, because we've set a tradition of winning since I've been here at Texas State University. We've been at post-season play five times. So [crosstalk 00:04:52] I know the expectation is going to be great from this senior class, especially because they were part of one of the greatest seasons Texas State's ever seen as far as winning at the division one era.
So I'm looking forward to it.
Morgan: Wow.
Coach Z: It's tough because my seniors that graduated, they're twins. It's tough because I really wanted more for them. But it's also important that I celebrate the positives that they had within their season. And they did a great job in the preseason with being able to put our team in a position where we won our home games. We went undefeated at home in preseason play, which is huge. One of the twins was able to hit that thousand point marker. So there are some positives, and I think really focusing on the positives, especially once the ball is done bouncing, it's important to focus on the positives and those positive contributions that our student athletes make to our program.
Zenarae Antoine’s Start As a Basketball Coach
Morgan: I love listening to coaches and talking about their season. So thank you for sharing that. I'm glad that you guys have such chemistry on and off the court. I think that makes a huge difference in sports. Well, how did you get to be a coach.
Coach Z: Well, it's a very unique situation for me. I can tell you that I always thought I was going to be an engineer or an architect or something along those lines.
Morgan: Oh, wow.
Coach Z: Yeah. My mother is ... Well, my mother was. She's retired now. She was 30 years. She was a registered nurse, labor and delivery nurse first assist. And then my father is a PhD in petroleum engineering. So he's an oil and gas guy. So I thought-
Morgan: Oh, wow.
Coach Z: ... growing up, I would be in that tier. And I graduated with a degree from Colorado State in natural sciences, and I have a geology and statistics minor. And I wasn't sure if I was going to go into engineering, like my dad from there. I got really excited about statistics and I thought I'd be an actuary and maybe go get a master's.
But my boyfriend throughout my entire college career always knew his path, and that was coaching. And so he had already left, he's a year ahead of me, and went onto graduate school as a graduate assistant at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. So being a student-athlete, there's so many blessings behind being a student athlete. One of them is, right, you have your ... At the division one level, you have your undergraduate degree paid for.
Well, at the time, at the same institution where my now husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, was getting his graduate degree, they had an opening in the women's basketball program for a graduate assistant. And back then in the late nineties, you could still coach and be a graduate assistant, because they just had two coaches and what they called a restricted earnings. And so for me thinking, "Well, you know what? It's really important that I increase my ability to be able to be marketable. And education is a big piece of who I am and it comes from my family. I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity and go to Ohio University as a graduate student."
I was very fortunate that I was able to obtain the position, number one, and then, two, I had some interest at the time and potentially becoming a coach, because the year after I graduated, I went home to Houston and I worked for a company by the name of Worldcom, and they merged with MCI. When that happened, there were seven of us that were interns working for this tech company, and they laid all the interns off.
Morgan: Oh okay.
Coach Z: So during that time period that we got laid off after a few months, I was like, "Well, geez. I got to figure out what I want to do and probably find another job." I didn't want to just sit around my parents' home, and they wouldn't allow that anyhow. So I started substitute teaching. I was substitute teaching and then just coaching a local AAU basketball team. I was like, "Oh, this is pretty fun."
So again, my now husband then, I think he's always ... He likes to say he's the one who got me jump-started in this, said, "I think you want to consider coaching." He's like, "I think it's something you're going to really enjoy doing." And I couldn't disagree at the time. I was enjoying coaching the high school kids at AAU level. So when the opportunity opened up for the graduate assistant position, I went ahead and jumped on it at Ohio University, and I got my master's in athletic administration.
Now I truly didn't want to be in school for very long and going from math and science to more along of a liberal arts line wasn't so fun for me. So I went ahead and expedited that process and I got it done in one year.
Morgan: Oh, wow.
Coach Z: ... the summer. Yeah. I took 18 and 17
Morgan: Credits?
Coach Z: ... something like that. Yeah. And graduated school because I really didn't want to be in school anymore, to be honest with you. And so it worked out well for me because Ohio University at the time was in trimesters as well. So I was able to obtain my master's degree.
And my first coaching job was at the College of Charleston and South Carolina. And really, it took off from there. I've never looked back, it's something I enjoy, and I truly listen to a lot of my mentors. The one ... There's two pieces of information, they all said the same thing. And that's, number one, hiring your staff is the most important piece of being successful as a head coach. And number two, the day that you really don't enjoy the job or it becomes really laborsome and tiresome and you're not excited about it, then that's time to start thinking about your next step.
And I haven't really thought about the next step at all. For me, I've just been really excited about being able to mentor young women in the game of sport, and specifically, obviously in a game I love, and that's basketball. So that's really how it got started.
I always tell people I stumbled into being a basketball coach, because I can tell you as a student athlete, I would look at the coaches. When you're taking these early bus trips or early plane rides, your coaches would be happy, excited, smiling. And I could never understand who would want to be in a profession where you'd have to wake up and travel so much and watch so much film and be so happy about it the whole time.
So I could tell you a lot of my teammates definitely knew that wasn't going to be my track as well. And everyone was really surprised that I ended up becoming a coach. And this has been lifelong now for me, over 20 years of coaching, because initially it's an unforgiving profession in some ways, but very rewarding in many others.
Morgan: Well, it sounds like you were meant to be a coach then. It sounds like you worked hard to get where you're at, too.
Coach Z: Yeah, I'm a non-traditional start. I think it's different now in this particular generation. I really came up through the ranks, if you will, because I was able to be a graduate assistant that could coach. I actually got to coach as a basketball coach. Then I went to the College of Charleston, right?
Morgan: Yeah.
Coach Z: Which would be considered a low major. And then from there, I went back to Ohio University to coach, and then from there to Louisville, and then from Louisville to Arkansas. So obviously, that'd be the pinnacle, being in a Power Five conference at that level, and then having the opportunity to be a head coach at a mid-major program.
So I appreciate, Morgan, the fact that I was able to have those stops, because if it wasn't for those opportunities, I think it would have been very difficult for me to be able to navigate through some of the things that you need to navigate through as a head coach. And honestly, as an assistant, when you're able to house more responsibilities, I think it really forces you to be thoughtful in what you do and really creative and innovative in problem-solving. And that only helps when you have resources, right? Because then you're really maximizing those resources you have, as well as you're also grateful for those opportunities when they arrive.
How Coach Zenarae Antoine Balances Coaching and Parenting
Morgan: Well, and I can tell the hard work you put into being a coach and that passion. So I know you have kids. How do you balance being a wife, having kids, and being a coach?
Coach Z: Well, I think that the most important thing is you have to understand there's always going to be sacrifices across the board. And there are definitely times ... And we have a particular group within our sport, a coach mom, if you will, support group, because there are times when your kids start to recognize your absence and you have to be honestly pretty strong in your response to truly believe what you tell them when you navigate through being a wife ... or a wife and a coach. Sorry. I'm also a coach's wife on top of that. So there's two to it.
But from as far as being a coach, I always point to the time that I remember. There was a student-athlete I had. She received a really prestigious academic award. And it was late in the evening and I was on my way out the door, and one of our twins said to me, "Mom, where are you going?" I was like, "Oh, well, this student-athlete got this great award. She's been working really hard. You know how hard it is to get a good grade, right?" "Yeah, Mom. We get that." I said, "Well, I'm going to go celebrate." And he's like, "Well, is she more important than us?"
And I had a pit in my stomach and I said, "Well, you know what? No, she's not more important than you, but this is really important to her. And it's important for Mommy to be there to help celebrate her. It doesn't lessen the fact that I ... with our relationship and my love for you as a mom, because when these types of special things happen for you, I want to be there to celebrate it as well."
And one day ... And it was Zachary, one of my twins. It was Zachary. I said, "One day, Zachary, you're going to have the opportunity to be celebrated, or you're going to be celebrating someone outside of your family and it's going to be really special to you. And you're going to understand better where I'm coming from."
Plus, the older they get, there's more of an understanding of their coaches' kids. They get the timeframes of when we're present and when we're not. So being present means this. If we're together as a family, I make sure that all my attention is on them. If it's during mealtime and I know a recruit is going to call, I make them aware early enough. I try to involve them as much as I can in what our day to day looks like so they don't have questions or concerns that they're being marginalized.
And then from there, as the older the twins have gotten, I think they've done a better job of understanding and they actually have a lot of fun, because the team ends up becoming like their sisters. So those time periods where I'm gone for four to five days, it's definitely difficult for them. It's difficult for me as well. But the older they've gotten, they also have their own lives. And I do my best of making sure that we communicate. Obviously, with technology now, it's pretty easy. So I'm able to celebrate the fun things that happen the day for them. I'm able to leave them fun things, notes, things of that nature, and I'm able to communicate with them to where they clearly understand how much I love them.
And then when I'm home, I'm home and I'm with them. So I spend the majority of my time at home when they're awake with them, with the exception of recruiting calls. And then when they're in bed, so between ... I don't go to bed until 1:00, so that's the first piece of it.
Morgan: Oh, wow.
Coach Z: Between 9:00 to 10:00 on every school day, we are working ... I'm working on getting them ready for the next day. And then from 10:00 to 1:00 is generally when I'm working. And that's when I get my most peace because when I'm in the office, I'm pretty busy tending to a lot of different things, my players, practice, meetings, things of that nature. So that is actually my favorite time to get some work done. It's that 10:00 to 1:00. I get a lot of work done.
And that's really what my day to day looks like, with the exception when I'm out of season. It's a lot more open and we have weeks at a time that I can spend with my kids and my family where I'm really involved and I can pick them up and things of that nature.
Coach Zenarae Antoine’s Most Memorable Travel Experience
Morgan: That's some of the best advice I've heard about balancing between life. And I'm excited for people to listen to that and take that advice that you just gave us. So thank you for sharing that. What's one of your most memorable travel experiences?
Coach Z: I've had quite a few. So my mother is Chinese and my father's Guyanese. So my mother was born in China. Back then, it was Canton, China. My father was born in British Guyana. So with having international parents, they both came here to the US and met in college, but I've had the opportunity to travel internationally because of my family.
But then the other piece, I've been able to travel as well as a coach. I can tell you I've had quite a few amazing experiences as a coach. With my team, there was a team when I was at Ohio University, we took a trip to Belgium, Germany, and France, and that was a lot of fun. But as a coach, from a recruiting standpoint, going out to the FIBA tournaments, I actually had a ton of fun when I was in Slovakia and Slovenia. And I say this because any time someone asks me about driving, people know I don't have any issues at all with boasting about my ability to be able to navigate. So whether it be something as easy as "Coach, can I get your bags?" "No, I had twins. I had twins and my husband and I were apart because he's a coach. So I can navigate holding a bunch of things at once."
And the thing I'm pretty good at navigating is being able to navigate, period, because I'm very lucky in that my dad taught me when I was 13 how to drive a stick shift. So I remember arriving at the airport in Slovenia, being able to hop in a car, right, in an international country, in a very small car, if you will, I'm 6'2, and drive that stick shift and get myself to my hotel and able to watch those games.
That's probably one of my most fun adventures, because if I was to do that now, I wouldn't say I would necessarily have anxiety, but I would probably be a little stressed. I would be overthinking it. But back then, in my late twenties, to me, it was really nothing. It was just another fun adventure. I had a great time doing that, especially when you're younger and you don't necessarily have a family then. When you get to recruit internationally, as well as growing up having international parents, you really enjoy those moments.
And so I would go off the beaten path as well. So those in-between times where I wasn't watching games, I would go out and I would walk the city. And then I extended my time. I met some friends out there. I made some additional friends out there. I extended my time another month, and then we went traveling in Italy and had a good time.
Morgan: Oh, wow.
Coach Z: So I've been very fortunate that way, from a coaching perspective, whether it be with the team or whether it be with my ability to be able to recruit. And my favorite trip since I've been here at Texas State, because I am a big believer in being able to have these experiences, actually taking a bunch of girls from the South to New York. We had the opportunity ... Generally, I generally go South, I will say that, being here at Texas State, to keep it nice and warm. And I don't like to change but one time zone. I think time zone changes make a huge difference in your athlete's body and their central nervous system being ready to play a game. So I really don't want to go too far away from a time zone.
But the majority of my team had never been out East, and none of them had ever been to New York. So we set up this trip, okay, where we played at Dartmouth, which is New Hampshire. And then with some time in between, we were going to go down to Morgan State in Baltimore.
Morgan: Yeah.
Coach Z: So we flew into Boston and had a great time taking it to Boston. The best part of Boston we flew in was we flew in, we went to Faneuil Hall, we walked around a little bit, boom, turned around and we practiced at Harvard. And so to be able to talk to your student-athletes about playing on the court at Harvard, and then have the opportunity to go play up at Dartmouth and them understanding that Ivy League student-athletes aren't scholarship athletes and what that looks like is pretty special.
And one of the best players actually this year in the state of Texas is going to Harvard. So it was neat for those kids from Dallas to know, "Oh gosh. This is where she's going to be playing and going to school." So sharing that experience with them was really awesome. Taking them to a place like New Hampshire, taking them up to Dartmouth, seeing the snow was really fun. Played a game, came down, took them on down to New York, and we stayed in Jersey. So then they had an opportunity ... So we started the Jersey side at the transit station there, took the ferry across the water, none have ever been on a ferry before, got to talk about the Hudson River. And then I picked my spots in New York that I thought would be important that we can get to in a day, if you will, especially with student-athletes and you know you have a game.
Morgan: Yeah.
Coach Z: So New York, I've probably been to New York 10 to 15 times. So for me, I thought, "Okay, I need to do something extremely educational." So we went right away to St. Patrick's cathedral, spent a bit of time there, talked about that, took them to Rockefeller Plaza, where a lot of us get to see the tree lighting every year. So they got to see the tree. Ice skating was off limits. I wasn't, as brave as my coach as a student-athlete. They took us and we got to go ice skating. I just wasn't going to allow them to do that.
But then from there, we took them to Grand Central Station, which you know you get to see in a lot of movies. It was a lot of fun. We did a TikTok there at the time. I didn't even know what I was doing. They asked me to join part of it and it's now Renegade. So there is a TikTok out there of me with my team.
Just a couple. Don't hold me to it. We did Renegade in Grand Central Station, as well as other spots. They just kept doing it wherever we were, so it was really cool. And then from there, we took him to, of course, Times Square. Everyone knows Times Square. Then we got on the subway, which, again, none of them ever been to New York. You got to go. Quintessential, right? New York, you got to get on the subway.
Morgan: Yeah.
Coach Z: So we took the subway down to Ground Zero, and we ended at Ground Zero for a lot of different reasons, again, another historical memorial here in the United States. And then from there, we hopped on the bus and went on down to Baltimore. So I will tell you, that's probably my favorite trip that I've been on since I've been here at Texas State. And that does include we've taken them to Cancun for a trip as well. But by far, I would say New York is my favorite. And I've already said we're going to go there again in the next four years, because it was quite an experience for a lot of them, because a lot of them have never been out of their region.
Morgan: Wow.
Coach Z: Some of them have been out of the country to Mexico or the Bahamas, but they'd never been to New York. So I would say that is my favorite trip.
And then outside of that, it's just visiting family in Asia, just having the opportunity to visit my family when I get a chance to. I've got family in Malaysia and in Saba. I'm pretty far removed from our family in China because my mom was born, and then her family left when the communists came and they-
Morgan: Oh, wow.
Coach Z: They immigrated to Malaysia. So that's where a lot of my family is, in Malaysia and Singapore and Australia.
Coach Zenarae Antoine’s Next Adventures With Her Team
Morgan: Wow. Okay. That's a cool story. I love hearing where families come from and the different things you can learn, because I feel like so much knowledge comes from learning about different cultures and, I don't know, coming from different cultures. So I think that's amazing. What's your team's next adventure? New York. What's after this?
Coach Z: So now, next year, this is still ... this is not a downer. They get to go to Disney World next year.
Morgan: What?
Coach Z: We're going to Orlando. Yeah. I just was very fortunate, and I recognize that. And I point to a particular tournament. I won't name that particular school when I was a student-athlete. But we went to a tournament in a really ... And back then, they did these banquets where the student-athletes would mingle. They don't do that as much anymore. And so I found myself asking these other teams, "Hey, did you guys get a chance to go to Disney in California and Anaheim?" They said, "No." I was like, "What have you guys been doing?" And they all were saying, "We haven't gone anywhere. We've just been staying at our hotel room." And it was at that point I realized that I was very fortunate to have the coaches that I did, because as a student-athlete, I was able to experience a lot.
Morgan: Yeah.
Coach Z: And so for me, it's really important to be able to do that. Even if it's something as small, Morgan, as we're flying it to Atlanta and taking them to the Martin Luther King Memorial, we'll do that. We're able to visit the Naismith Hall of Fame. If I know it's along the way or off the beaten path, we're going to go there. And my director of basketball operations, she's right in tune with me as far as getting excited about trips, whether we be driving or flying. Just taking 15, 20 minutes out of our day to expose our student-athletes to the things that they may or may not have been exposed to before and making it really fun is exciting for me.
So next year, right now, it's Disney World, but I can tell you there's always two or three other stops along the way, depending on where we're going that will give them an experience. Sometimes, it's a culinary experience, because women's basketball players, we do like to eat.
Morgan: Yeah.
Coach Z: Other times, it's a chance to just see sights to be seen. And so I'm excited to see what next year brings, but for sure, they've known now Disney World is on the map. We're going to Orlando.
Morgan: Okay. That's so exciting. I think it's awesome when coaches take their teams to do fun things, because they'll remember the sports, but they'll definitely remember those trips that they had, those relationships, building experiences.
Coach Z: For sure.
Something Noone Knows About Coach Zenarae Antoine
Morgan: What's one thing that no one knows about you that you can share with us today?
Coach Z: One thing that no one knows about me, and if you saw, I'm very tall.
Morgan: You said 6'2, right?
Coach Z: I played soccer. I played soccer for quite some time, all the way until ninth grade. I was a striker. I'm 6'2. Yeah. And I don't think a lot of people knew that I was a soccer player for that long. And then the other thing I could say people probably would never know, I don't talk about anymore, is I've been to 12 different McDonald's in 12 different countries. But with that being said, I've probably not eaten at McDonald's in about 20 years. So just growing up and traveling so much as a youngster, I've always thought it was really cool. If there's one thing my parents had kept consistent, they allowed us to go to McDonald's. We would never go to McDonald's in America. But when we traveled, it was a thing, being able to see the different cuisine in different countries. And so that was a known fact about me for quite some time.
Morgan: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Wow. That's cool, though. I used to do that with Chick-fil-A's. I'd take a picture the Chick-fil-A signs, because they make them unique. And I love that you guys…
Coach Z: You've been to the original, Dwarf House in Atlanta?
Morgan: No, I haven't. I want to so bad, though. Have you [crosstalk 00:26:04]?
Coach Z: That's a stop where we actually took our team years ago. Yeah.
Morgan: Really?
Coach Z: Yeah. I want to say we played at Kennesaw State, maybe the time ... And we always played Georgia State and Georgia Southern, but I think it's where it was located, we were able to go by it. Yeah, The original Dwarf House. Oh, you got to go. You got to go.
Morgan: Oh yeah. I'll add that to my list. That's so fun. You guys are getting all these experiences. I'm like, "What?"
Coach Z: Well, it comes with age. I'll be honest with you. It comes with age.
What Coach Zenarae Antoine Can Expect With the Upcoming Season
Morgan: I'll keep that in mind. But Oh my goodness. Well, what are you most excited for about this upcoming season?
Coach Z: What I think I'm most excited about is the team looks so different. And when I say that, we've added a lot of personalities and a lot of personalities I think that are going to help from a leadership standpoint. And in addition to that, a lot of our dynamic has been pretty guard-heavy over my tenure. In this case, it's going to be really competitive in that forward position. So I think that's going to be really fun.
And then I'm really trying to be a glass half full person navigating through COVID. And there is a little bit of excitement for me as far as doing the best I can for our athletes and finding a way to win. Because basketball is a winter sport, right now, we're probably the last ... Not probably. I know we are. We're not at the forefront of what the NCAA and administrations are really looking for helping, right?
And so student-athletes that were in a season, so you're talking about your spring sports, your golf, your softball, your baseball sports, those young women and young men need to be taken care of as far as navigating through. They were able to receive an extra year. What does that look like for them?
So over the next sports that are going to be coming up for you is going to be your cross country and your soccer and your football and volleyball. So those student-athletes then just navigate through what that might look like as far as playing seasons, what we're going to be allowed to do in this country and whatnot. So knowing that we're a winter sport, I'm just curious to see what that looks like for us, right? Budgets are going to change now. There's so much that's changing and constantly morphing.
But the one thing I feel like coaches are built for us change. And the other thing I really believe, Gen Z, is that they're really good at change. There's certain things that need to be structured, but there are other things that they just roll with. And so I'm excited about being able to navigate those waters with the team that I have. I feel like it's a really good team. If I had to have any team going into this situation, this is the team that I would want to take with me, if that makes sense.
Morgan: Yeah.
Coach Z: And so I am curious to see how it all plays out. But most importantly, for me, it's just making sure that they know that I'm here for them. And that means that I'm going to make sure that we get our degree and that we find a way to make a run for a championship this upcoming season, regardless of what nature throws at us.
Morgan: Yeah. Well, I'm excited to see where your team goes and how they work through things, because I think this is going to be a good test for the teams to keep working, even with everything going on, do what they can. So thank you so much seriously for letting us get a glimpse into your wonderful team. I had a blast listening to you, getting an insight into your team and your life and your family. That was so fun.
Coach Z: Well, thank you, Morgan. I appreciate it. And I appreciate your podcast.
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