Brandon Rosenthal, the head coach of women’s volleyball at Lipscomb University, sits down with us in this episode of the 35,000 feet podcast going over the past season for his team, how he got into coaching volleyball, some memorable travel experiences, and his advice to future collegiate athletes.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How this past season went for Lipscomb University Women’s Volleyball team (0:17)

• How Coach Rosenthal got into coaching (4:30)

• Brandon’s favorite travel experience (10:08)

• One thing that no one knows about Brandon (13:37)

• Brandon’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (17:08)

• Brandon’s next adventure (19:39)

The Ups and Downs of the Past Season for Lipscomb University Women’s Volleyball Team

Morgan: Hi guys. Welcome back. It's Morgan. Today, I'm sitting down with Coach Brandon. Thanks so much for joining us.

Brandon: Thanks, Morgan, for having me. I'm really excited to be joining you during this time.

Morgan: Yeah, and we're excited to just get to know you better and hear about you and your team. And so one of the first questions I wanted to ask you, Brandon, is if you could tell us about the highs and lows of your past season.

Brandon: I think this was, I believe, my 18th season as the head coach, and kind of an interesting one at that, because we'd never had a season kind of riddled with injuries. We had had some injuries here and there throughout seasons. But from the get-go, we were just kind of challenged with injuries throughout and ones that were obviously major injuries that held out players that we were really suspecting to be major contributors, and quite honestly, starters.

It was a challenge, but it was also invigorating. And what I mean by that is, because of those challenges, we were kind of forced to go about how we did things and how we played in a lot of different ways. We'd, obviously like a lot of coaches, you put pen to paper for nine months and you work through some things and you have a pretty good idea of what direction you want to go in. And when that gets completely derailed, you spend a couple of seconds moaning about how you wished it wouldn't have happened and whatnot. But at the end of the day, it did and you got to figure out a way, how did to get better. And so each and every day, our girls really just stepped up to that challenge and fought hard.

I think the high for me was, we were playing our best volleyball at the end of the season. I'm not sure that you can always say that. And while we lost in the semi-final match of our conference tournament, I couldn't be more proud of our girls. I thought they fought all the way to the end. And quite honestly with what had happened throughout the year, I knew our girls left it all out there.

And so again, it's tough, but when somebody beat you at your best you have to just take a step back and congratulate them and recognize, what I called, a successful season for us. And it looked a lot different than what most people would say was successful. But at the end of the day, I mean, knowing what we went through, I just couldn't say enough about the staff and our girls and all that they poured into it.

Morgan: Yeah. No, and I loved hearing your insights because it sounds like it was very much a group team effort to where you got to where you're going.

Brandon: Yeah. Quite honestly, it was the next person up mentality and, and a lot of young players got a considerable time earlier than maybe we anticipated. I think it was a big move for me in the sense that we had to continue to instill that confidence in them. And that's tough sometimes because you're really throwing players to the fire in some sense. But you have to rely on the fact that you recruited these players and you know how good that they are, so that time that they lack in experience, especially at the collegiate level, you know that they'll pick up on it as quickly as they can.

Morgan: It's true. No, it's true. Even though there's club and things like that, collegiate level really is a different level of volleyball. And so I think that's awesome that, from what I can tell, your team stepped up to that and just is a wonderful team and I think that comes from coaching.

Brandon: Yeah, it was neat. It was, like I said, a lot of people on the outside would probably question why I would say it was successful, but being in it and every day, I loved going in to see how our team would respond to the adversity that we had been handed.

Morgan: Yeah. And that's what matters, handling adversity well, and so thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Brandon: Absolutely.

Brandon Rosenthal’s Start in Coaching

Morgan: Yeah. And how did you get to become a coach? How did you get there?

Brandon: That's a pretty unusual story. I think it's probably one of the most unusual coaching stories out there. I was a theater major at Pepperdine University-

Morgan: Oh really?

Brandon: ... and my lifelong goal was to be a soap opera actor.

Morgan: No way.

Brandon: Yeah, all of my roommates were a part of the men's team at Pepperdine and so I was around the volleyball team quite a bit. And fast forward, I'd moved to Nashville. My wife had graduated law school and was taking the bar exam, and I was offered an opportunity to do marketing promotions for Lipscomb University as a graduate student.

There I was working on my MBA and working a couple of side jobs on top of that, and then working through the sports marketing department in entertainment and things like that. I just happened to walk through practice one day and noticed that the volleyball team did not have an assistant coach at the time, and I offered my help and was told I could, but I had to continue with the marketing duties. Did that for one season.

And as I was finishing up my MBA, the head coach resigned. The plan was I was going to do both marketing and volleyball as an assistant. I graduated early May and she resigned to move out of town. And there I was 25 years old, and I put my name and never dreaming that I would get the job, but I thought, why not? And in June, I was named head coach with... When I say zero experience, I mean pretty close to zero experience. I'd never coached high school. I'd never coached club. The only coaching I'd ever done was that one season as a volunteer assistant at Lipscomb University.

Morgan: Wow. Oh my goodness, that is so cool how you got there. When you said unusual, that is and that's awesome. I love that.

Brandon: Yeah. I get the question a lot about... Obviously, I've been doing coaching now for almost 20 years, so I get a lot of questions about my coaching lineage or where I coached before. I always tell them, I didn't. They're like, "No, no, not college, maybe high school or club." And I was like, "No, I've never coached before."

And so you have to understand too, this program, it had just transitioned from NAI to Division I. And I think our RPI, the season I took over, was 315th out of 330 school. We were at the bottom, and I loved the challenge of it and the excitement that turning around a program, what it would take to do that.

Morgan: Wow. Oh my. Well, and I love that too because I can tell the passion you have for the sport and how much you have helped the girls. Because I think that's something awesome, that coaches have all mentioned, is that they get to make an impact on players and see them go out into the world after their sport.

Brandon: Yeah, we say it quite often. I mean, in everyone of the recruits that we've ever talked to is, two things. One, this is not my program, this is their program. And two, this is not a four-year experience, this is a lifetime commitment to the program and all that it stands for. I think that served us really well. We've been really active with our alumni and some of the just most amazing things have kind of come our way because of my involvement.

I recently had the opportunity to marry one of my former players to her husband, which was to get that honor or to get that request was just mind-blowing. You take a step back and you're like, "How did this all come about? Here I am, I'm simply just a volleyball coach." But you realize those relationships that you've built mean so much more than just volleyball itself.

Morgan: Wow. You married them. Wow, that is an awesome experience. I've never had a coach say that. That's so cool.

Brandon: Yeah. Again, it was wild. And since then, I just got another request to do one in June of this year. I'll be honest with you, it was probably one of the most nervous times I've ever been because you realize the enormity of somebody's wedding and you wanting to perform at the highest level.

Morgan: Oh, I know my dad has married people before and he's always so stressed. Because it is, it's stressful. It's a lot of pressure.

Brandon: Yeah, I thought it was no big deal until it got to the night before and I'd worked hard to kind of build the ceremony to what they wanted. But at the same time, you take a step back and you're like, "Wow, this is somebody's wedding." You really don't want to mess up on it.

Morgan: No, it's so true. It is so true. Oh my goodness. Well, good luck with your next one.

Brandon: Thank you.

Coach Brandon Rosenthal’s Most Memorable Travel Experience

Morgan: And then I'm sure there'll be more after that. But anyways, if you can tell us about your most memorable travel experiences.

Brandon: We had an opportunity three years ago. We take a mission trip with our team, our program, every four years. And this was the second one. The first one we did to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And then this past one was to Malawi, Africa. And the university has a wonderful relationship with an orphanage/hospital there, so we had already had kind of the infrastructure already set up. We took our team over to Malawi and spent 12 days over there. I was really fortunate to have my daughter, who at the time was 12 years old, on that trip with me.

I think both times that we'd done these trips, we've been in these iconic places. The first one I remember very distinctly sitting on Copacabana Beach and thinking to myself, "This is wild. Here I am. Lipscomb volleyball has allowed me or given me the opportunity to travel around the world." And it's just amazing.

And then obviously this last one, we were on a Safari. Again, was struck that idea that, how much Lipscomb volleyball is given to me, not just the other way around. But the opportunity to travel around the world and really give our girls a once-in-a-lifetime trip to see and give back, but also to learn from that trip. It was just simply amazing. It was just one of those ones that I'll never forget. And we're looking forward to, as we're kind of in the planning stages of announcing our next one, that hopefully will be taking place next spring.

Morgan: Oh, wow. No, that's so exciting. I don't know, I think there's something so exciting about especially mission trips that you guys are doing as foreign tourists, because you get to see things that you wouldn't be able to. A lot of people don't get that opportunity, but sports gave you opportunities like that. That makes me happy that your team's doing that.

Brandon: Yeah, it was really unbelievable and I think that's the wild part about it. But as you said, especially with mission trips, you go to give or to serve, but what you receive back and what you learn about yourselves and about, in a lot of cases, how blessed we are. It's truly one of those eye-opening experiences as you come back and you recognize how much we do have.

And again, we see the world sometimes in a very small United States perspective. But when you go outside of those borders and see the love and the joy that people have with far less than we have, it sets you back as far as just the way you go about your everyday life and the struggles that we "deal with" on a daily basis.

Morgan: No, it's so true, and thank you for those insights because this will be awesome for people to hear too. Because I don't know, it's a good insight that people can have, so thank you.

A Lesser-Known Fact About Coach Brandon Rosenthal

Morgan:Yeah. What is one thing that no one knows about you that you can share with us?

Brandon: Right out of college, I was a Roman gladiator at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada... if you've ever seen the episode where Joey on Friends has the same job. I lived in Las Vegas, I grew up in Las Vegas and I went home for the summer. And as I said, I was a theater major so I had gotten word that this production company was looking for new Roman gladiators or Roman centurions, and so I got the job at Caesars Palace and I did that job.

It was wild because I had worked a food service job waiting tables during the days. And then at night, my shift was like seven have two in the morning where I walked around with Caesar and Cleopatra and handed out gold medallions. It was wild. People really, I guess they thought that the medallions were real. But it's kind of funny when people see the pictures of me standing outside of the Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in the centurions garb, they think it's kind of a joke, but it's definitely not a joke.

Morgan: Okay. Well, I think that's awesome. Well, I think it just shows that you're well-rounded. You have lots of different talents that you're using. And so I think it's awesome that you love that, and you're a coach. And I don't know, you're a well-rounded person, so I think that's awesome.

Brandon: Yeah. Definitely, I mean, I think you hit upon it. My coaching style is very passionate and I love to enjoy what we do, but I also love to get after it and work hard. And so that's the ebb and the flow of it with our program is I want to be surrounded with passionate people, and that goes not only our girls but also the support staff, and really want everybody to enjoy that idea of what we're trying to do each and every day. And so it's a total team affair for us, and there's no shortages of laughs. I definitely wear my emotions on my sleeves and have had to get better at it quite honestly. Sometimes you kind of have to put yourself in check.

Morgan: Oh yes. No, I totally get that. I don't know, I feel like I played sports growing up and in college, and I think coaches make a huge impact on your lives. And I like that you mentioned we've had our laughs, because I think along with sports is you are with team. It's like a team family and you guys laugh together, you go through the ups and downs together, so I love that.

Brandon: Yeah. People forget how much actual time you spend with each other and the influence that you have on each other. And again, you're pretty volatile in the sense that you're seeing some extreme highs, and quite honestly, some tough, tough lows, so you want to be around people that you enjoy and that understand what it means to kind of push themselves and push each other.

Morgan: Oh yeah, I couldn't have said that better myself. That is so true, and you just made me think of a question I wanted to ask you. If you are an athlete that's wanting to play at the collegiate level for a team or university, what would your advice be to them specifically?

Brandon: Great question. It's something that we talk about quite a bit is the idea that, especially at that age, that 12 to 18 age where you're really just trying to figure out what you want to do and what sports you want to be a part of, and you become obsessed with said sport, whatever it is, I think it's just keeping a good perspective on how many people really get to do this. And for me, as I went to college, I found out the harsh reality that I just wasn't good enough to play in college and I would have loved to have played a Pepperdine. But the truth of the matter is, is I just wasn't that level. And so I think we all hate that at different times.

And so I think what we always talk about to recruit some people that ask those general questions is, is trying to be real with yourself and understand where you fit into that mix. It'd be great to think that we could all play at that national championship level, but I think there's different levels for everybody. And the hardest part is just being real about what level you really belong in or what level you would be successful in.

And so I'm a very kind of straight-to-the-point person. And I've always believed that while it might be hard to hear, you never have to wonder if I'm giving you the truth because I'm always telling people how I feel. And if you ask me a question, I'm giving you an honest response. You might not like that response, but I always encourage people to take a step back and hear the words and understand that I'm trying to take some of that ambiguity out of things and answer in a straightforward manner.

Morgan: Yeah. Well, no, I love that you mentioned honesty because I think that's something that we all need in the world, especially on teams, especially as a coach. And so those are great insights, great insights, and I'm excited for viewers to listen to this, especially those that are looking to play someday so thank you for that.

Brandon: You're welcome.

Coach Brandon Rosenthal’s Next Adventure

Morgan: Yeah. Well, I guess what's your next adventure?

Brandon: We're working on something we've been... As a lifelong Kobe Bryant fan, obviously, we're saddened by... I should say a lifelong Laker fan and kind of inherited Kobe with that, what I realized was our girls knew of Kobe, but didn't know him. And what I mean by that is most of them weren't really alive at that point where the height of his career was going on. They hear stories, but they haven't seen the games and some of the actions that have made him as great as he is.

We do this thing every Monday. Now it's called Mamba Monday, and we've taken it upon ourselves to really try to teach some of the messages that Kobe was all about and share some insight into our program as well. And so in two Mondays now, I guess on April 20th, I'm going to try something that I was challenged with was, I'm going to run four miles every four hours in a 24-hour period. It's a total of 24 miles. I'll start at 5:00 AM. My next run will be at 9:00 AM, then 1:00 PM, 5:00 PM, 9:00 PM, and then 1:00 AM.

I love to run and I hate to run. I love to run because it gives me an opportunity, I listen to books and different podcasts and things like that. I hate to run just in the sense that it's hard, it's challenging and I'm a big guy so it's not as easy on my body as maybe a true cross country runner. But I love the mentality of pushing ourselves.

And the thing that I'm challenging our girls, and not only our girls but everybody that has watched Mamba Monday, is what are we doing in this time? We'll never ever have this time again to focus on getting better. It doesn't matter what it is. If you want to learn a language or play an instrument or get better at a sport or start a healthier style lifestyle, we'll never have this concentrated time ever again. And so my challenge to everybody is what are we doing with that time? Are we making ourselves better?

And so I encourage everybody to challenge themselves, to find something that's going to make them better. And for me, I've continued to run. And just recently, I don't know why, but I came up with this goal to see if I could run 60 miles between Monday and Friday, so 12 miles a day for five days and accomplish that and it's kind of onto the next thing. For me, it's that constant idea of, how do I get better today? Regardless of what happened yesterday, wins or losses, good or bad, how do I get better today? And that's what we tried to surround our team with and we understand that the process is really what they're going through. And so I'm encouraging everybody to really enjoy that process because I think that's what's going to make you better at the end of the day.

Morgan: Yeah. Wow. No, I think that's awesome, and that's an awesome next adventure of the running. I've never heard of that before, so I think that's incredible.

Brandon: Yeah, it should be fun. I think we'll be all right, as far as the miles. I mean, 24 miles in one day is definitely a challenge. But what will be neat we'll be doing this on our Lipscomb Volleyball Instagram, and I would encourage everybody because we'll be doing giveaways throughout the day. We'll be asking and answering questions, so they'll be able to kind of watch the progress live. It should be a lot of fun. That's April 20th, our last Mamba Monday for the spring, and we'll pick it back up for the fall. I definitely encourage people to check it out because it should be kind of like a community event in which we're including all parts of Lipscomb University to help me get through this challenge.

Morgan: Wow. Well, no, seriously, good luck with that. I'm excited for you guys to do that, and I hope a lot of people join you because that sounds like an awesome experience.

Brandon: It should be fun. I'm excited.

Morgan: Well, I'm excited for you, and thank you so much for letting us just get an insight into your team and getting to talk to you, and the insights you had to share were wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Brandon: Well, I can't thank you guys enough. And as a coach and somebody that has a pretty small coaching background, as I said coming into it, I just encourage everybody to learn as much as they can, and quite honestly, just ask questions. And so I know it's sometimes tough to pick up the phone and get the courage enough to ask somebody that you see is somebody in the industry, but I encourage everybody to reach out to each other and help each other out because we've all been there before where we didn't have that knowledge. I think what you guys are doing is fantastic and look forward to listening to more of your podcasts along the way.

Morgan: And thank you so much. And I'll definitely be following your team and looking forward to that running program too. That's going to be awesome.

Brandon: Well, thanks again. I appreciate it.

Lipscomb University Volleyball:

• Lipscomb University Women’s Volleyball Team Twitter

• Coach Brandon Rosenthal Twitter

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Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle