Two of My First Four Wins Came in the Mail

A Proactive Coaching podcast interview with Steve Ridder, head men's basketball coach at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida — a 30-year program builder closing in on 700 career wins, with roughly 20 straight 20-win seasons, multiple Hall of Fame inductions, numerous Coach of the Year honors, and an NAIA Athletic Director of the Year award from his two decades doubling as AD — hosted by Bruce Brown as part of the "Greatest Coaches You've Never Heard Of" series. Topics covered: his abnormal path of never job-hopping — the three Ps (purpose, priorities, protect your priorities) and finding the "sweet spot" at one institution for three decades; inheriting an 0–22 program with no scholarships (and getting two of his four first-year wins by forfeit letters in the mailbox); Embry-Riddle as "the Harvard of the skies"; mentors (his blue-collar dad, his servant-leader mom Joyce with the coffee cart, Kentucky coaches, and Roland Wierwille at Berea College, who taught him to build a program rather than just coach a team); the faculty-senate scholarship vote and the Student-Person-Player promise that athletes would outperform the student body academically (which they have since 2000); growing the department from 5 to 22 sports; the biggest changes in coaching (are you in it for the right reasons, keeping it fun, and social media); the student-athlete experience and preparing players for life after basketball as his singular purpose; his coaching library (Coach K, Wooden, John Maxwell, Jon Gordon, Jeff Janssen) and using Twitter to stay humble; and advice for the next generation — prepare for your moment, build and protect your inner circle, and enjoy the journey, because "it's we, never I."