Playing for an Audience of One
Scott Drew on a March with No Madness and the One Shining Moment That Wasn’t
In the sports world, March is known for one thing—Madness. And while we’re used to watching the madness play out on the court, COVID-19 has turned the world upside down and left a lot of athletes sitting with empty hands and unfinished seasons.
One of those teams was Baylor Men’s Basketball, led by Coach Scott Drew. Entering his 17th season, Coach Drew was leading one of the most talented teams in the country, and arguably one of the best Baylor teams of all time. But they’re dream of a deep run in the tournament vanished in the face of a worldwide virus.
In this episode, Scott Drew let us in on the challenges he faced early in his career, the faith that carried him through it all, and how he’s responding to life’s most recent curveball. As always, thanks for listening…
Useful Links:
Scott Drew’s Long Journey to Success
FCA Recognizes Scott Drew with John Lotz Award
Scott Drew Remains Focused on Faith as Baylor Remains #1
Cover Image from Bears Illustrated
Episode Transcript
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDA movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry Kaestner: [00:02:36] So welcome to the Faith Driven Athlete podcast. It is a super cool day for us here at the faith-driven media complex. And it's because we're releasing our first-ever Faith Driven Athlete podcast. And we've got an incredibly special guest, Scott Drew. Coach Drew is with us. Many of you know about the success of the Baylor basketball team. And Justin, who as many of you know, is the executive producer of Faith Driven Entrepreneur, and I were talking about the launch of Faith Driven Athlete. Justin, being a Baylor grad, was a strong advocate for Coach Drew coming on board. And while we've got a number of great commitments from some high profile athletes, Jeremy Lin and Adam Laroche, a whole bunch of great folks. It's a special treat for us to start with Coach Drew, a great story. [00:03:19][43.5]
[00:03:20] Topping the news with a basketball team that has done so well. And we're excited about the faith driven athlete and this particular interview because there's so much overlap between what a coach looks like and what entrepreneurs look like and what they work on and what investors look at as we look to lead in the marketplace. So the faith driven athlete is going to be a stand-alone media product is going to have its own podcast. We have its own Web site. And yet there's a lot of great parallels between what we also feel called to do, which is to minister, to faith driven entrepreneurs and faith driven investors. So welcome. We're glad you're here. Coach Drew, a special honor for us to have you on. And we're hoping that as we just get started off, one of things we always like to do when we have people on our programs is to hear a bit of their background and some of their stories. So start us off with that, please. [00:04:07][46.7]
Scott Drew: [00:04:08] Well, I'll tell you what. You're the first ones to see this beard. All right. So I've never had a beard. Look. I'm one of those clean shaven guys. So being at home now and since I'm the PE teacher, we have three kids, a fifteen year old daughter and then two sons, twelve and nine. [00:04:24][15.9]
[00:04:25] So mom handles the home schooling online and then I'm in charge of PE. So they're just about to finish this afternoon and then I get to go handle the PE classes with them. But what I actually did this is something that I'll get in the history in a second. But what I decided was since I'm gonna be at home and on the phone a lot. Why not take advantage of this and make the most of it? So what you see is you see the t shirt. So what I've actually done is if I would be on the phone for six hours, I might as well be on the elliptical or a treadmill or walking around the block and killing two birds with one stone. So that's what I've done, along with being a PE teacher. The one thing I know, investing wise, probably after this time, most people will say if teachers want to raise, everybody will be in favor of that because think everyone sees just how difficult their job is. But it's been a blessing to spend time with the family. [00:05:11][46.1]
[00:05:12] As far as my family history goes grew up in a basketball family. My dad got inducted this past year into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He's a great coach, a great mentor, but most of all, he's a better dad and he's the head of the household. And at an early age, it's great to be in sports, but just like investing and just like coaching. The only thing that really matters is winning the game a life and that is making sure we're all in heaven one day and taking as many people with us as possible. So this has been an opportunity where I've been able to coach with my dad and he's been able to mentor me. And then I've been able to run my own program and my brother's been able to work with my dad and then run his own program. And from that, it's really what our staff says. It's a ministry and basketball is the carrot and we get a chance to impact people's lives. And Baylor University, it's the largest Baptist school in the nation and preparing champions for life. It's not just athletics. It's also character. It's spiritual and it's academic. And we're blessed to have an athletic director in the present that cares about the total being of our students and want us to have an impact in all four areas. And that kind of gives you a brush over my history. And then we can get in depth if you want to talk about our basketball program or what we do spiritually with our guys. I will tell you this, and that is hopefully after this podcast, we don't ruin it where no one comes back on it. All right. So I know one thing. We start every staff meeting in prayer, and it was great starting in prayer with this group because hopefully we can be a positive influence being able to share some of the things of how God's impacted our lives. [00:06:43][90.7]
Justin Forman: [00:06:44] Indeed, coach, I will lay my cards on the table here early, graduated from Baylor the year that you came to Waco. Many people have come to know Baylor recently for so much of the success that few can appreciate the mountain of challenges that you faced when you first arrived. Prior to your arrival, there were infractions that led to most of the team transferring. You were even allowed to play non-conference games and had to watch as the season started for everybody else. Could you go back for us for a minute? What were some of the beginning steps towards really changing the culture? And when did you feel like it started turning around? [00:07:18][34.3]
Scott Drew: [00:07:19] Well, that's a great question from the standpoint. I think if you look at starting a new company, that's basically what we did was rebuild a program from the ground up, because I can't remember any other program where you come into it. And we had basically between five and seven scholarship players in that first year. [00:07:37][17.7]
[00:07:38] And most of our team were walk ons and you might have come to tryouts and I'm sorry if it didn't work out for you, but it actually was a great, great blessing for so many, because not only could you walk on the team, but you actually had a chance to play. So it was a great deal for any college student, because over half our team will walk on that year. [00:07:55][17.2]
[00:07:56] So the first thing we did was we looked all throughout the campus and tried to see if there was anybody over six foot three that could play basketball. And then the second thing is we had a big walkon tryout announcement, and we were so pleasantly surprised to walk into the gym. And we see a bunch of people that we hadn't seen around campus and a bunch of good looking athletes. And we call everyone over and we say, okay, what year are you at? They were what's your major? Where do you live? And at that point, a couple of hands went up and said, well, coach, I'm from Dallas. [00:08:23][27.4]
[00:08:24] And I thought I could just tryout for the team while I'm from Waco. I just thought I could try to figure out from a junior college. I thought I could just try out what we actually have to go to school. So we think we lost a bunch of the 6-3 and above walk ons. [00:08:36][12.2]
[00:08:37] And then we were able to put the team together for that first year. And really, what a blessing that year to win three conference games when most people would've thought that we were going to win zero. And then the next year, we were able to start to recruit scholarship players. And it was actually the third year what you talked about, where we weren't able to have a non-conference. And that was probably the most difficult of all the years. You're three into the rebuild from the standpoint. [00:09:02][25.2]
[00:09:03] Every other team starts playing games and your team practices all the way into January. And then when you finally start playing games, you're so far behind everybody else. It's kind of like everybody has Spanish one, Spanish two, and now they're on Spanish three. And you're just entering the class and you're like, wait a minute. Or if you use the analogy in Texas, you know, we drive seventy five on a highway. So you're on a highway going seventy five and then people getting on the ramp are going 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and trying to catch up. So I say all that to say. We waited all this time, we practiced all this amount. And then we start playing games and we're so far behind, we start losing it. Was it fun? It was an enjoyable. But we did finish the year on a high note. We were able to win some games and get some momentum, which led to us eventually getting into the NCAA tournament. [00:09:50][47.0]
[00:09:51] Believe is Year 5, 2007 2008 around that area. When you've been in the school for this is going on, you're 18 now. All the memories kind of go together. But what I know is really important and really critical with this is I prayed about coming to Baylor. I felt led to be here. We had a great staff and we were able to each and every day grow closer to God through the trials and tribulations of building a program and then be able to see the impact with a lot of those players still coming to games, still ask us questions about it, might be marital advice, family advice, spiritual advice. And to be able to have such an impact on their lives or be able to have an impact on their lives. And now to see the success of our program and then feel a part of it for what they helped start. That's probably the most rewarding thing and really blessed with the early years, even though we didn't get a lot of wins. Those guys help laid the foundation for what transpired. And now probably you might know this. But in the last 12 years and now since season's over the last 13 years were one of only a few power, five schools to win 18 or more games. The others being Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State and Baylor. And that's great consistency. And we owe all that to the players that began. It went through the tough times that allowed us to get where we're at now. [00:11:15][83.8]
Justin Forman: [00:11:16] That's great. You know, one of the guys that we just recently had on the related Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast was Pat Lencioni, always encouraged and challenged by some of the things he talks about. One of his books, Ideal Team Player, just talks about what are some of the key characteristics and culture when you talk about that process of shaping men and young men just through that turnaround. What were some of the ideal characteristics that you would say that you saw in your teams, but also that entrepreneurs can be looking for in their teams as well as they're listening to this? There are some of those, you know, ideal characteristics for building that new team. [00:11:51][35.1]
Scott Drew: [00:11:52] Great question. And that's one thing that's never changed since day one. We wanted to recruit people of high character, people that were great teammates. They were humble, hard working, blue collar type athletes that wanted to gross. Virtually academically and also in basketball and character wise, so for us that that's never really changed. Would I've always done with that is. Coaches are only as good as the players and their staff. So I've been able to learn from our players. I've also been able to learn from our staff. And that's why you always want to surround yourself with people that make you better and fill areas that you might not be as strong in. And that's where each and every year. If you look at our team, probably the best thing that we ever do is we have a chapel service on days of the game and on the road. It's our assistant coaches lead it on home games. It's Pastor Mark Wible. A local pastor leads it. And those are times where spiritually we're really able to have an impact on our guys and the coaches and Pastor Wible have an impact on all of us. And that's one of the toughest things with not having a march right now is normally that's during your most stressful times. That's when you you lean on God the most and that's when you grow the most. And missing that time is something that I know I miss as far as early on. I think any investor in business, everybody can relate to this. And that is with us. We practice real hard. You work really hard and your paycheck is the win. And what I mean by that is everything you're doing is geared and the payoff is getting the profit of wins. And same thing in a business you spend all this time and effort. But if you're losing money, that doesn't give you the positive reinforcement you're looking for. So it's even harder to have an impact in people's lives during that time. And that's why with us, I mean, especially early on, when you only win in a handful of games and our players weren't getting the praise or the affirmation from the wins that you normally get in sports. It was really important to make sure spiritually they knew just how proud God was them and our coaching staff was them and how at the end of the day, we want to control what we can control and keep improving and getting better. And eventually we'll get to where we're gonna be successful and the wins and loss column as well. [00:14:03][130.7]
Justin Forman: [00:14:03] That's great. Thanks for sharing that. You know I'm gonna hold back a little bit to something you were alluding to and I think Henry was talking about earlier. You know, I've seen you celebrate professions of faith as big as you do, some of the biggest wins in your career. And it's fun to see recently a post about, you know, one of the standouts in this year's team, Mark Vital, getting baptized recently. If he could just keep riffing on this for a little bit, what does it look like to walk out your faith in a place like Baylor? What are some of the things that makes senior day different than some of the things you need? [00:14:33][29.5]
Scott Drew: [00:14:34] Well, I think the best thing is coaches always steal great ideas from other coaches. And there's a book by Pete Carroll said that the smart take from the strong. And one thing that different ideas, different podcasts, just everywhere. Any good ideas that can help benefit our program and our young people we want to incorporate and just being at Baylor and having an athletic director and a president that wants you to have an impact, it makes it even easier to do that. But some things that we do that are different maybe at some places is like a practice. We have a no cussing policy. And if you cuss you got push ups, you run lines and that's reproaches for players. And none of us are perfect. We know we're saved by grace and we all sinned. But at the end of the day, we have a lot of young people that come to practices games. You have a lot of young people there. And we want to be positive role models and influences for them. We begin every practice and every practice in prayer. Our chapel services, we have voluntary Bible studies for guys. So it's something where as a staff, when I meet with their staff, we usually we try to begin every meeting in prayer and we have a coaches Bible study and iron sharpens iron. And that's where I'm able to grow. And I've been blessed to surround myself with some people that are great coaches. But I tell you what, they might be better ministers and they are even coaches in a lot of our coaches have had ministry backgrounds. So one was a youth ministry for eight years. Another one's dad was a pastor and another one's family was in the ministry. And again, I think that's how I've been able to just grow as a coach and spiritually be able to each and every day by being around our staff, hopefully be able to improve. And with that, with our players, it's just our culture. That's part of what we do. And some years we had as many as six or seven guys baptized in a year this year. Mark Vital was baptized. And to see the players rally around that and support that and be excited for that. And at the end of the day, that's really the only winning that matters. And I know it's a little different right now of all of us spending time at home with our families. And I think it's a blessing to be able to do that because coaches, we spend so much time with our other kids and that's 18 or 22 year olds that we're with every day, that sometimes that's what we miss out as an opportunity to be around our kids as much as we are now. And that's where we're all blessed. If you're a successful coach, that means you have a great wife at home that's doing a great job helping raise your young kids. And now we're all having a chance to spend some more time at home and do that as well. But it's also a time to sharpen our axes. And what that means is there's great podcasters, great books to read. And some different things that we have an opportunity to all do that. Normally when you rip in and run and you might not have a chance to do that. [00:17:13][158.8]
Jason Romano: [00:17:14] Coach, I want to ask you, obviously, you've alluded just a few times that you're now home and it's a little bit different march than maybe you've ever experienced. We're taping this. Just to give some context for our audience in late March of twenty twenty and we're all going through this crazy time with the Corona virus and the pandemic. And obviously our hearts go out to everyone who's trying to recover from that and going through this difficult time in this tragedy and affected by it. But I want to ask you about specifically your situation. This was one of those unique years that you could sense. Maybe this is the year for Baylor with a 23 game winning streak. Twenty six and four on the year. And all of a sudden it's just gone. The tournament is canceled and there is no basketball. Can you take us back to when you found out that news and kind of how you processed it? [00:17:59][45.3]
Scott Drew: [00:18:00] Well, this is where our players, what they spend all their life for as far as their college experiences, the NCAA tournament, having a chance to play in the NCAA tournament and make your name for your university and yourself in the NCAA tournament, then getting bigger in March for us. And this is probably the first time school's history would have been a number one seed, because that's what everybody projected us. And we had so many accomplishments this year, setting a big twelve record with twenty three straight wins in a row. And that's a record that I don't know if we'll be broken any time soon because the record we broke was Kansas is that was then I think in 96, 97, and it's so hard to win games and stringing together with the parody of college basketball. But we're also ranked number one longer than anyone since 2015 with Kentucky. [00:18:44][43.3]
[00:18:44] And that was all geared up to. OK, what can we do in the big twelve tournament? What can we do in the NCAA tournament? Because those are your biggest goals and we're at the big twelve tournament. [00:18:53][8.8]
[00:18:54] We're getting ready to prepare to play Kansas State. And next thing we know is instead of going to shootaround, we call the guys together and say the big twelve tournament's just been canceled and right away started talking about this is what we're going to do. We're going to meet at 6:00, we're going to go home. And then one of the players asked, well, wait a minute, we had two what it was like. It didn't really sink in. Yeah, the big twelve tournaments canceled. We're not going to play. We're going home. They're not going to make it up. And then everybody kind of went their own separate ways. And couple hours later, we find out that the NCAA tournament is canceled and we bring the guys together. And normally in sports, the last game in a year. Coaches always want to thank the seniors for the contributions and what they meant to your program. And I want to make sure we did that as well, because when you get back to campus, a lot of times people go their separate ways. It's hard to get together. And we started to do that. One of our seniors right away said, coach, coach, coach, let's talk about all the blessings we had. [00:19:48][53.8]
[00:19:48] Let's talk about the twenty three game win streak. Let's talk about being ranked number one. Let's talk about this, this, this. [00:19:53][4.6]
[00:19:53] We went to Italy as a team and right away that kind of summed up our team. We had a bunch of guys that really love to spend time together. They love to work really hard every game they brought it, but they really played for each other. And in coaching, we say, if you like who you're with, you fight form a lot harder. And I know our guys really enjoyed one another and had a great attitude. But probably the thing I was most pleased with with our group was that we'd been ranked number one back in 2016 2017 and lasted only one week. This time when we were ranked number one, it went five weeks and again went longer than anyone since 2015 with Kentucky. And so, so pleased and impressed with how our players handled the attention in the platform. And one thing we always say is we don't play with joy and that's Jesus, others yourself. And during all the interviews, just seeing how our players would give the honor and glory to God and then to their teammates and not make it about themselves was just encouraging, really uplifting. And hopefully for those that listen or great role models for a lot of young people out there, because that's what sports is really about. And then at the end of the day, the people that get that, it's very similar to successful companies. I have a lot of Christian business owners. And for instance, during this time, those owners or how can I take care of the needs of my employees? How can I help them that people that I know that aren't necessarily Christian business owners, it's more about their profit and themselves. And it's so refreshing to see great Christian business owners that want to make sure their employees are taken care of. And at the end of the day, that's that's what matters is helping others. [00:21:31][98.2]
Jason Romano: [00:21:32] And yet there's still disappointment and there's still you know, you have to allow yourself to have those emotions that are just like, man, if we just have the shot. Take us back to where you were kind of processing this yourself before you tell your team, because it sounds like what you just described. Your team handled it pretty well, but you have to imagine that was hard for you. [00:21:51][18.8]
Scott Drew: [00:21:51] Yeah, well, the first thing is after the big twelve tournament was canceled, I'm a guy. I got to be doing something. And right away, I was talking with several of the other college coaches and some of the bigger name, more successful coaches. [00:22:04][12.5]
[00:22:04] What do we do with the NCAA tournament? Can we postpone it? What ideas, suggestions can we to maybe help salvage this? And then the announcement came down that we weren't going to have it. [00:22:14][10.0]
[00:22:14] And right away. My shift in focus was on the players and after they lifted, my spirits went back to the room. And then when you're packing and then when you first get home, that's when it really hits you. The next day. [00:22:28][13.1]
[00:22:30] Some of us are a glass half full kind of people, and that's how I am and probably get that from my dad. And so the next day I moved on to how can we help? Can we get a fifth year for our seniors? How can we help them with their careers? [00:22:42][12.8]
[00:22:43] And then right away, we had to find out, do we get our players home? Do we keep them on campus? Because everything was shifting as far as how the rest of the semester would turn out. And really, after that, I was good with it. [00:22:53][9.7]
[00:22:53] And when I mean, good with it is God always has a plan. And let's focus. We say control what we can control. [00:22:58][4.7]
[00:22:59] We're not going back and changing and bringing the tournament back, although our players did tell me to make sure the NCAA knew if they ever want to have it in August or June or July, we'll be there. All right. [00:23:08][9.4]
[00:23:08] But besides that, it was really focusing on the future and how we could help. And again, that's where you get your greatest reward. I mean, Christmas time, it's not the gifts you get. It's the presents you give. And seeing the excitement and joy on other people's faces when you're able to bring them joy. [00:23:24][15.6]
Jason Romano: [00:23:25] One more for me, coach. I want to ask you about playing for an audience of one. And I know not only you, but your players say things like that a lot in the post-game interviews. You've alluded to that and living for a greater purpose. But this weekend, as we're kind of taping, this could be a time where you could be playing for a final four berth and yet you're not. So what is that phrase playing for an audience of one mean to you and your team maybe right now? It certainly looks a little different than maybe it would have if you were playing well. [00:23:52][27.5]
Scott Drew: [00:23:53] The first thing is since the tournament was canceled, we decided that we would've probably won it. So we're good with knowing that they would have tournament. We would've probably won. The good thing is there's 68 other teams saying the same thing. So a lot of national champions this year. But one thing is, again, for me, I was blessed to coach on a couple of athletes in action tours. [00:24:11][18.8]
[00:24:12] And at that point, really some of the playing for an audience of one hit home with me and with our players. At the end of the day, if we're playing for God and we're doing everything we can to bring him honor and glory, then everything else will take care of itself. [00:24:25][13.5]
[00:24:26] And we have a lot of spiritually strong guys on the team. We have some guys on the team that the relationships are growing or hopefully everyone's are growing, but have grown over this past year. And I know as a coach there's nothing more exciting for me when you see a player get baptized or you see them take the relationship to another level. We had one player that accepted Christ as they were and then turned around and led some Bible studies with his junior national team and just seeing how his transformation, how God was working through him. I mean, at the end of the day, when we get to heaven and we see all the people up there that we're blessed to have a chance to have an impact with, I think that that'll be the real winning coach. [00:25:08][41.3]
Henry Kaestner: [00:25:08] I'm just I'm incredibly impressed by the way that you've processed all the things that have happened this year, the way you've led the results that you've had and also your commitment to your faith and your openness and sharing that not just on a feature of an athlete podcast where you'd expect you would, but in mainstream media as well. It's just a great encouragement for me. And when I do, one of the things we do when we close out any interview that we do with a business leader, an investor or across any of our properties is we want to ask them what they're hearing from God through their time in the Bible. And it doesn't need to be this morning necessarily could be over the last week or in the last month. But is there something that right now that you feel that God is showing you through time in his word? [00:25:48][39.9]
Scott Drew: [00:25:50] Well, actually, we're starting every morning with a family devotional. And my wife. [00:25:56][6.0]
[00:25:56] She's a technology person. So we're able to use some different things on TV with that. But it's amazing how a lot of times as coaches, we're trying to always impact 18 to 22 year olds. And then just to see the difference of spiritually trying to I don't know how to say dumb it down, but how to be able to influence a seven year old or a 6 year old or an 8 or 9 or 10. [00:26:19][22.8]
[00:26:20] So anyway, that's really been my change or my focus because this is really a blessing when this is over. Hopefully everyone chooses to make the most of this time. And we have a great impact opportunity with our young people where maybe we don't always are around for a chance to give them devotionals in the morning because normally they're going their separate ways. So I don't know if I'm answering your question, but what I'm searching for now and in the Bible, what I don't know if it's something that God speaking as far as through his word. But right now, what I'm hoping and praying for is that I can continue during this time where we can look back and spiritually the last two or three weeks at home or a month or whatever it is, we've been able to have an influence and impact on our children that normally we wouldn't be able to. And what I mean by that is normally, you know, you're getting up late Russian for school. And some people do devotions on the morning before school to have our kids go to a Christian school and they get out in the morning. But this is my prayer is at the end of the next two, three or four weeks, however long we're at home, that's what we've been able to do with our kids. And trying to find different ways to reach them and impact them, I think is an area that I'm. Focusing on right now. So, again, I don't know if it's through the word right now. And one thing I try to do is this is right, wrong and different. Everyone has different ways reading the Bible and I try to take two chapters a night and go through it. But right now, that's if if we could look back at this time, I think I told my staff we can really have an impact on our kids because with our coaching profession and maybe some business owners that are gone and working 18 hours a day or 16 hours a day, our kids are going to see us more in this short period of time than they would any other time besides the family vacation. [00:28:01][101.0]
[00:28:01] And I think we can really have an impact. [00:28:03][1.4]
Henry Kaestner: [00:28:05] We absolutely can. I'm left with this impression about how much joy that you have. I'm so grateful that you would come on board. Of course, all the things that have happened that have negatively impacted sports has allowed us to have you as a guest. But the illustration of this, the image that I've got in my mind is you being this PE coach to these three kids instead of being in front of millions of fans on CBS and all the lights and all that stuff. And yet I get a sense that you're leaning into that and that opportunity just as much as you lean into the other one. So that's a great encouragement. I've got three kids, too. So thank you for that. Thank you for your time and sharing your story. May God bless you. And Baylor basketball. [00:28:43][38.8]
Scott Drew: [00:28:45] Well, and thank you for what you do with this podcast. And the last shout out I will leave is for all the teachers out there. We love you. [00:28:45][0.0]