Dave Downey, Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at Brown University, joins the Samson Strength Coach Collective to discuss the realities of coaching insecurity and self-doubt. From difficult internship experiences to exploring sports psychology, Downey shares insights from his journey and his book Imposter Coach. He highlights how vulnerability and empathy can strengthen relationships between coaches and athletes, and how initiatives like Brown’s “Bruno Cares” support mental health and peer connection.
Key Takeaways
- Imposter syndrome is common among coaches and athletes.
- Mentorship and honest reflection are key to personal growth.
- Building genuine athlete relationships drives effective coaching.
- Mental health must be prioritized within performance programs.
- Leadership is developed through resilience, empathy, and consistency.
- Programs like Bruno Cares foster community and support among athletes.
Quote
“It got to a point where they told me, ‘Hey man, I don’t think coaching is for you.’ That’s hard to hear when you’ve invested everything into it.”
— Dave Downey
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Dave Downey :
But it got to a point where like they would tell me like, Hey man, I don’t, I don’t think coaching is for you. which is tough to hear. Cause at this point, like I had invested everything, my whole college career, my whole degree, like all this money, like I’m here, like I’m trying to do this because this is what I kind of discovered. ⁓ so to hear that like, Hey man, no, ⁓ it’s pretty hard. ⁓
You know, it got to a point where I was like, like sitting in my car in the parking lot, just like gathering the will to just show up for another day. Cause like, there’s, there’s nothing I could do. I need to finish this internship or else I’m not going to graduate.
Samson :
What’s going on Sampson Strength Coach collective listeners? On today’s episode, we have sports performance coach for Brown University, Dave Downey. Dave, thank you so much for coming on, man.
Dave Downey :
Of happy to be here.
Samson :
Dude, I’m stoked. For those listeners who are not watching live, you’ve got an absolutely sick Pokemon poster in the background and a great mic setup. So I can already tell this is gonna be a good episode.
Dave Downey :
yeah, hope so. is ⁓ my streamer setup, so it’ll be a little bit of a different vibe, I guess, than my day job.
Samson :
Exactly. I’ll give you a chance. Do you want to plug your streaming or no? Keep it private for now.
Dave Downey :
for now, if you come across it, good for you. It’s still very small, we’ll see.
Samson :
There
we go. Okay, last question. Non-related to strength and conditioning. What’s your favorite Pokemon?
Dave Downey :
So I actually have ⁓ a Nido King tattoo, or Nido King, depending on how you want to pronounce it. yeah, shiny Nido King. So he’s like a big pink Nido King on my left thigh.
Samson :
that’s awesome.
That’s sick. That’s awesome. All
right. So I think we got a solid answer on exactly who the favorite is. ⁓ I always grew up, I don’t know why, I’ve fell in love with Mudkip as a young boy and I’ve stuck with it ever since. I don’t know. Everybody makes fun of me for it. So.
Dave Downey :
Okay.
Not exactly the most powerful looking Pokemon for a strength coach.
Samson :
Exactly.
Possibly the least powerful looking Pokemon that you can come across besides like Jigglypuff. all right, well, can you just give us a breakdown of your career, your background, and then what’s led you to Brown?
Dave Downey :
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. like, you know, 95 % of other strength coaches, I was a mediocre high school athlete, absolute horrendous football player, but that got me in the weight room, which I love more than anything. So I was, you know, willing to take those hits as long as it could get me in the weight room more often. know, 115 pound defensive tackle isn’t exactly light in the world on fire, but
Got to wear the jersey and I was training as much as I could. ⁓ Didn’t really know where I wanted to go, but my dad told me to study whatever you love and eventually the money will show up. So I went to Rutgers for exercise science, minor nutrition. ⁓ Towards the end of it, I still really didn’t know what I was going to do with it, whether it was like personal training or physical therapy, but neither of those options were particularly appealing. ⁓
I don’t want to work with, sorry to say it. I don’t want to work with grandma after she falls down. it doesn’t, it doesn’t light my fire at all. ⁓ and I discovered that, ⁓ Princeton had a strength and conditioning internship, just, just on a list of possibilities that I could go to. ⁓ and I didn’t know that existed. had no idea collegiate strength and conditioning was a thing. ⁓ but I signed up for it and I was fortunate enough to be accepted into that program.
⁓ I’ll spend a little bit more time on this section, even though it was like 13 years ago now, but it’ll come up again. ⁓
Like I said, it was my first time being in a collegiate weight room. I had never seen anything like this, know, like 20 racks down the row, just all these kids who are way bigger, way stronger than me. And I’m at Princeton, so obviously they’re also smarter than me. ⁓ So it was a pretty intimidating space for somebody who just never seen it before. ⁓ So I was, I was also a pretty bad intern. I don’t ⁓ fault my, my supervisors for getting on me all the time about it. ⁓
But it got to a point where like they would tell me like, Hey man, I don’t, I don’t think coaching is for you. which is tough to hear. Cause at this point, like I had invested everything, my whole college career, my whole degree, like all this money, like I’m here, like I’m trying to do this because this is what I kind of discovered. ⁓ so to hear that like, Hey man, no, ⁓ it’s pretty hard. ⁓
You know, it got to a point where I was like, like sitting in my car in the parking lot, just like gathering the will to just show up for another day. Cause like, there’s, there’s nothing I could do. I need to finish this internship or else I’m not going to graduate. And I know for a fact that the people there don’t want me there. So I really struggled to keep showing up. ⁓ but I did, I did, ⁓ finished the internship. They passed me.
probably because they also knew that I wouldn’t graduate if I didn’t pass. From there, jumped around, different private sector jobs, volunteering at different colleges, small time, division three, division three in Moravian and Eastern PA. I knew he would take me because division three, football, 20 other sports, was just one guy by himself was like, he’s going to take help from anybody. He just needs a body in the room.
⁓ so doing both of those at the same time, eventually found my way to Lafayette college, ⁓ where over five years I got promoted every year to be the assistant director of strength conditioning, you know, started figuring things out. ⁓ hit them, hit my ceiling there, you know, there wasn’t really much, much else there. was the third guy out of three guys for five years, even though my title kept changing.
Um, but if I wanted revenue sports, if I wanted like control in a department, like I had to, had to move on, like those two guys are still there and I love them to death. Um, I still like, we’ll text them from time to time just to see what’s going on. Uh, but like I said, there was, there was nowhere else for me to grow, uh, at Lafayette. So eventually got the head strength conditioning job at Fairleigh Dickinson university. Um,
was there for three years, was able to really build whatever I wanted. Being in the NEC, like obviously that’s pretty low division one, but because it’s, you know, pretty low resource, you kind of have to be creative. You have to do a lot of stuff. You have to wear a lot of hats, ⁓ which is great for me because I could, I really cut my teeth. Like I built weight rooms. expanded my staff from one grad assistant to five. We built a nutrition station. ⁓
We partnered with the on-campus sports psychology doctoral program. So I could get doctoral sports psychology students in front of our teams. ⁓ So we were able to do a ton of stuff with basically no money, which is great. ⁓ But eventually, wearing all those hats does burn you out a bit, ⁓ which in turn led me to where I am now at Brown. ⁓
Still working with Hoopers. ⁓ That’s definitely my bread and butter. ⁓ really ⁓ expanding into that psychology realm as much as I can. Like now I’m on the leadership team for Bruno Cares. Bruno being the name of our, the bear mascot. But that’s like a peer to peer support group for athletes. So like we take a ⁓
class of athletes through every semester, just like this training progression, where we teach them active listening skills, how to communicate, what are the signs and symptoms of someone who needs some mental health. And now we have 50 or so kids who are across most of our teams, not all of them are on it, unfortunately, but across most of our teams where any athlete who needs help.
and doesn’t really want to go to a grownup just yet can talk to a teammate and at least get some level of assistance. And the teammate is trained in a way that like, okay, this is something I can cover or does this need to be elevated? So we have way more eyes and ears for our 1,100 athletes than our one sports psychologist can cover or any coach could cover. And yeah, that’s where I am now.
Samson :
I love that. That’s such a great process. ⁓ And I appreciate you being so candid with things early on about your experience at your first internships. You know, I think a lot of strength coaches can kind of relate to that sitting in the car just like alright, I’ve got to get this done. I gotta go in. I’ve got to figure this out. I can think back to you know when I was at Tennessee. I mean, I literally remember I would wake up 15 minutes earlier so I could have 15 minutes in my car just to like sit and collect my thoughts before I had to go in.
⁓ It’s a tough process that can be very mentally taxing. What kept you going throughout that process? Obviously, have the, I have to do it because I have to graduate, but what kept you within the field after that as well too? Because a lot of times I see young interns, kind of after they have a one bad internship experience, end up giving up on it. And then ⁓ they end up choosing a different career path and it can be unfortunate to see that.
Dave Downey :
Yeah. I mean, it is, it’s a super difficult field. Like it, chews up and spits out quite a few coaches that probably could have gone on to do great things if they just, you know, maybe received a little bit more support. ⁓ but honestly, like I knew that my supervisors were going to yell at me regardless. So it’s like, I don’t know, just keep, just do whatever then, because it doesn’t matter what’s going to, what, what I do, because I’m going to get screamed at.
So I might as well just like try. ⁓ But really like interacting with the athletes one-on-one figuring out, you know, how they tick, like what drives them? What do they want to do with their life beyond this? Like, and trying to help them as much as possible. Like I really enjoy working in the college space because it’s, they’re at a point where, where anything is.
is possible. And it sounds like corny and cheesy, but like they could go on and be lawyers and go on to be doctors and they can go on to be professional athletes. Like this is the last stage where they could really do anything. ⁓ and that, that really excites me. like just working with athletes directly kept me going. ⁓ there were a few people that like really stuck with me and, and I latched onto them because they were the only people that were nice to me.
But just sticking with those athletes as much as I could kept me showing up. Because I knew they were going to be there. And I was like, OK, if I can help these guys get a little bit better, then I can at least sleep at night because I did something.
Samson :
Yeah, you know, but I think it’s always really good to find something that can anchor you and help you understand why you want to continue to do what you’re trying to do, right? You need to have ultimate purpose behind it. And so to develop these relationships is really special. When did it start to kind of click for you that, okay, I like being a strength coach now, you know, I’ve gained some confidence in my abilities to do things. When did things start kind of like going your way in this field?
Dave Downey :
⁓ probably towards the end of my second internship. cause like I said, was with that division three school at Moravian, like he was all the willing to like give me stuff to do and not supervise me because he couldn’t like he was being asked to be in 25 different places at once. So a lot of times like I went from being yelled at and not allowed to do anything to, okay, you have to take.
the entire football team today. It’s like, all right, I’ll try it. ⁓ And just getting those reps really helped. ⁓ Like I said, so many athletes, only the two of us. So just, yeah, getting as many reps as I could and really building that experience up really helped me. ⁓ And then from there, the…
Headed Moravian used to be the assistant at Lafayette College. So he connected me with that staff. And the Lafayette staff was willing to pay me at that point. So it was like, okay, I must be doing something right. Even though it’s, you know, making two grand a semester, I broke that barrier at least. It’s like, if someone’s willing to pay me, then eventually I’ll be able to get more out of it. But yeah, just hitting my stride in the second internship and then… ⁓
once I was getting to Lafayette and I actually had my own teams, ⁓ that was really confidence boosting because someone was willing to actually give me something and say like, all right, you’re qualified to go do this now.
Samson :
Yeah, I mean, that’s it’s a relieving thought, right? To say, OK, at least I can get paid for what I’m doing and I’m getting better at it. That must be a good signal. Yeah, exactly right. Like somebody’s at least putting a little money into me so we can figure this out. But, you know, that’s the advice I try to give the young interns all the time, is ultimately if you don’t have an internship experience that was great, go to another one and then see if you really don’t like it. And then you can find out, OK, it’s training conditioning for me.
Dave Downey :
Yeah. Right? I must not be that bad.
Samson :
⁓ You know, because I think back to my experience again, I had an internship I loved and internship I really didn’t like. had another internship that I loved and then I had another internship or full-time job I didn’t really like. And then, you know, it just bounces back and forth a little bit. So I think there’s always a need to continue to try a little bit more as long as you still feel like there’s a fire within you to be a strength coach. Did you feel like any lasting effects in your career from this? you?
⁓ struggle with anything later on in your career ⁓ because of just having a rough start with your first internship.
Dave Downey :
yeah, absolutely. wrote a whole book on it. but yeah, just like, it’s tough to, to have that basically formative experience. had, had I been an actual college athlete, I’m sure I would have thought differently right away, but like that was my only exposure. So to be told that I wasn’t cut out for it and I’d only been there for a month was like, it’s like, well, I mean, they, must be right because.
Samson :
Well there we go.
Dave Downey :
They’ve been here for years and they should know. ⁓
But yeah, was ⁓ not my finest moment for sure.
Samson :
Yeah, well, it happens sometimes. seriously, think some of the best coaches end up being the ones who struggle at first ⁓ because all the adversity you face ends up making you a better coach. Can you tell me about the book? What’s the book title? What’s the book about?
Dave Downey :
Yeah. So the book is called, or actually have it.
Samson :
perfect, visual learners.
Dave Downey :
this straight.
It’s not the resale, it’s the proof copy, which is why it has that bar across it. But it’s called Impostor Coach Mental Health Strategies for Strength and Additioning, available on Amazon. Or if you go to my Instagram, you’ll see it there too. ⁓ But it’s a really short read. Half of it is just my story and how I came up. And the other half is just like, what do you do next? What are the strategies you can use? How can you…
kind of quiet that negative voice that continually comes up. And yeah, just a little bit about leadership even after. So dealing with imposter syndrome, dealing with any kind of, you know, like negativity that comes up and then just a little closing remarks on some leadership strategy. Cause honestly, I think that’s a major area that gets kind of glossed over in strength conditioning. I think as…
As coaches, like we are authority figures, we’re supposed to be leaders, but we spend all of our time on the X’s and O’s of programming and not how to deal with people or groups or teams, coaches, administrators, whoever. ⁓ so there’s, there’s definitely a gap, there, especially in,
early on in coach’s careers, I’ll say.
Samson :
Yeah, for sure. What does imposter syndrome mean to you? Because I feel like a lot of people deal with it and they ⁓ don’t really openly speak out about it. So I appreciate you being willing to speak about it. What does it mean to you?
Dave Downey :
So at its core it’s basically like
It’s the gap between what you have and what you think you deserve. So like if I’m being hired at a power five school to run basketball, but I’m coming from division three Moravian, like I’m probably going to get some of those imposter syndrome thoughts. It’s a sense of phoniness, a sense of like undeserving what you get. ⁓ it’s just a feeling that you are.
almost tricking the people around you into thinking that you are competent and able to do what they’re asking you to do. And it’s also a sense of like attributing all of your successes to external factors. Right? So like, if I got that job, it like, ⁓ I was lucky. I was in the right place at the right time. I knew the right people. I don’t actually have the skills. I was just, you like I said, ⁓ So that’s basically imposter syndrome. Like, just
that mental separation between the successes that you have and what you think you should have.
Samson :
Yeah, you know what? I it makes complete sense and I think back to when I was hired at Texas Tech and what you say is, you know, I can relate to that 100%. Like I just remember I got the job because one of the strength coaches that I was close with at Tennessee was offered the job and he said, look, I’m not going to move my family out to Lubbock, but if you want this, the younger version of me, you know, talk to Connor. And so I interviewed for it and it went great. And I remember accepting the job.
Dave Downey :
makes sense.
Samson :
and getting there and I was like, I don’t know what I’m doing. Like I really had worked with basketball a little bit before, but I really didn’t understand ⁓ the depth of which I had to immerse myself in the sport, if that makes sense. And I mean, terrible basketball. I didn’t really watch a ton of NBA. I watched a lot of college basketball growing up, but ⁓ ultimately I just didn’t really have a full knowledge base for it. And I really struggled. And so what you say about, you know, my first year, like, you know, like
Dave Downey :
yeah.
Samson :
I think back to my first year about, well, I got the job because I knew somebody, you know, and I got the job because that person helped me out. And so I just got lucky. ⁓ And I even remember I literally went through and looked at the strength coaches for every other team in the big 12. And I looked at the year that they graduated college. And so I was like, okay, so if they graduated college in, you know, 2012 or whatever, a lot of them were a lot older than that, you know, I was like, okay, then they’re probably gonna
end up being about 30s right now. And so I literally guessed everybody’s age in the conference. And so I was 23 at the time I got the job. And I remember looking at it and I was like, I’m not only the youngest strength coach in the Big 12 for women’s basketball, I’m also the only one who’s under 30. And so I was like terrified. And to me, that was the thing of, okay, well now I have no experience for this, this is not good, and I’m not qualified for this position.
Whereas I would tell other people that stat, they’d be like, that’s awesome, dude. It means you’re crushing it. You’re doing a great job. you know, yeah, exactly. Right. And I saw it as a negative thing. So I think I really appreciate the way you discuss imposter syndrome because it’s a gap. It’s a gap of of what you see and what you think you deserve. So I appreciate that understanding of it. How do you feel like you can close that gap? How do you feel like you can start to recognize that?
Dave Downey :
Yeah, you must be the smartest guy ever.
Samson :
It comes from a skill as a coach versus just luck.
Dave Downey :
Yeah. So the things that I talk about in the book are really just about like negative self-talk and building a bank of success. last one is, is creating boundaries, but that’s a little bit of a, a bigger, bigger hurdle than the other two. Um, but just catching yourself and how you speak, like, are you, are you doing that? Are you deflecting your compliments? Are you pushing people away when they say that you’re good at stuff or are you actually accepting them? Like it’s.
It’s easy to be humble and like be the background guy. Cause that’s kind of what our job is. Like strength, initiative and coach. We’re not, when the camera pans over, it never reaches where we sit on the bench. Right. Like, ⁓ so more often than not, we’re just in the background. So it’s easy and our personalities tend to be more humble and, and in the background. And I don’t want to be in the spotlight. ⁓ so like when we do get those compliments, we tend to deflect them away.
so learning to accept them and learning to believe when people tell you that you’re good at your job, ⁓ is, a great way to close that gap. ⁓ the second one building a bank of success. And this is something that I keep on my phone, just in the notes app. It’s like every time you succeed at something, no matter how big, no matter how small, like write it down and make sure that it’s like, you know, I don’t know what the, what word I’m searching for.
⁓ whatever, just write it down to make sure you have it. So you can look back whenever you start feeling, you know, those imposter syndrome feelings come up. You can, you can scroll back and be like, Hey, I did produce a professional athlete out of a mid major school. Like, Hey, I did. You know, change my screen door without calling a contractor. Like I was able to take the door off the hinges and put a new one on. That doesn’t matter what it is. Just like, these are things that you can look back on and say, okay, I actually am capable.
I’m able to do these things. So when the next thing comes up, I’ll be able to do that too. Um, the last one, creating boundaries. That’s definitely a little bit of a deeper problem. Like if you’re a guy, like you said, if you’re 23 working in Texas tech, you’re probably never going to say no when the coach asks you to do something right. Because panic inducing, I’m sure.
Samson :
I never did. Yeah, absolutely not.
Dave Downey :
But if you can’t protect yourself, then you’re not really displaying a level of expertise. If your coach says, hey, I want to run these guys into the ground every day for the next month, and you don’t say no, that’s a bad idea, you’re not being a coach, you’re just being a yes man. So that’s also a way to lose ground ⁓ as far as the gap between. ⁓
The imposter syndrome gap, really.
Samson :
Yeah, that exact scenario happened to me. I mean, literally, we started conditioning four days a week in April. I mean, and so like I just, yeah, and we always wondered why we were hurt, you know, so, but I was just too scared to say no, you know, and I was like, well, this is a successful coach, you know, she’s done a lot of really great things. It was a coach I liked working for. And so I said, you know what, I might be, I just must be the wrong one. All of a sudden, all of these training conditioning principles I learned all about.
Dave Downey :
the
⁓ wow, okay.
I’m Athelon.
Mm-hmm.
Samson :
Uh, are completely incorrect and I’ve got to just roll with what she’s saying. Uh, and it was, you know, not at the, for the best interest for our athletes. So I can a hundred percent relate to that. And especially the deflecting compliments to like, uh, my, my tagline and what everybody always says to me is just a guy, right? So like, I’ll take a compliment. I’m like, man, I’m just a guy, you know, like I never accept compliments. It’s something I definitely still struggle with. Um, you know, and it’s one of those things where it’s easy to deflect and.
I try to work on it and I just try to say thank you. I appreciate that, right? And let it kind of settle in. But you know, it can become almost like addicting to look for that external feedback, that positive feedback of like, okay, you know, especially when you start to deflect things like, you know, all right, well, I haven’t gotten a compliment in like two weeks now, so I must be doing a terrible job, right? And it’s obviously not the case. So I think it can be something that a lot of coaches end up struggling with.
Dave Downey :
Yep.
Samson :
How did you first catch it yourself? Like in your process of understanding imposter syndrome and really ⁓ seeing the negative effects on your career, like how did you first catch those things? Because I think the hardest part is taking the first step, right? Of just saying, okay, I’ve got to make some changes in what I’m doing so that I can be a better coach. Like what were the things that you did in order to catch it?
Dave Downey :
I mean, for me, I’d never really thought about it until I started talking a lot more to other strength coaches. And then I was like, wait a minute, all our stories are the same. Like we’ve all had these scenarios where coaches have told us what to do and we just said, you got it, yes sir. We’ve all had like these job transitions where I’ve got all these new teams. I have to convince all of these people that I’m good at what I’m doing. And just.
Yeah, just like hearing all of those examples from other strength coaches who are going through the exact same thing over and over and over again. And I was like, there’s, there’s too much similarity here. Like there has to be something that we can acknowledge and like look for and try and fix. ⁓ because yeah, like if, if you’re not the kind of person who can
live through imposter syndrome, you just get kicked out of the industry. Trying to create a space where it’s not the norm and then trying to continue to close that gap and talk about it as much as I can. Because I’ll tell you, dealing with imposter syndrome, the last place I want to be is talking in front of other people about what I think you should be doing.
Samson :
Absolutely.
Dave Downey :
So
yeah, like this is not a fun place for me to be, but I think it’s important enough to just continually get out there and do it ⁓ as much as I can.
Samson :
Well, I appreciate that. mean, because again, it’s something that people will talk about a lot in private conversations, right? Like, and if this was year one of me doing the podcast, I’d probably be scared to say a lot of the things that I’m thinking, right? But now it’s kind of just reached a point where it’s like, no, I understand the importance of publicly speaking about these things because this is the whole point of having platforms like this is to be able to talk about things that.
Dave Downey :
Yep, for sure.
Samson :
Typically people hold in private conversations that it can help other coaches who may not have the network or may not have the connections. You know, I just think it’s so valuable. So I really appreciate you being able to speak about it. Even I know it can be, trust me, I get it. I’ve been there and I know it can be the not the most fun experience, ⁓ but it is very valuable at the end of the day. You know, one thing too, and I don’t know if you can relate to this, but I think about, ⁓ was to me, it was a success off of a failure I had earlier in this week, right?
Dave Downey :
Yeah, absolutely.
Samson :
I made a small mistake. I mean, literally nothing big at all. And I spoke with my head coach about it he was like, yeah, don’t do that. Right. And, you know, he said it in coach speaks. I was a little aggressive and then we moved on and then I literally saw him two hours later for practice and he was like, Hey Connor, how are you? Right. And so it was one of those things where if that happened early in my career, when I was really struggling with believing I didn’t belong, I would hang onto that for weeks. I mean, like literally I’d come home, my day would be ruined. I wouldn’t be able to.
move on from those things and mistakes were like, okay, well, today’s day I’m getting fired that, you know, I finally figured it out. I made the world’s smallest mistake and I’m gonna get fired. Then I’ll just have to go, you know, do blue collar work and I’ll be fine with that. And I’ll accept the rest of my life, right? And so ultimately, I think those mistakes become so big when you’re dealing with this imposter syndrome. But then as you start to be more comfortable with your position, I mean, I literally moved on like right after it happened. I was like, yes, sir.
You know, I got it, my fault, I made a mistake, we’ll move on and it’s not a big deal at all. So I don’t know, have you been able to relate to that at all that the mistakes become less drastic too as you kind of close that gap?
Dave Downey :
Yeah, for sure. And a lot of that is just like building a relationship with your coaches. Like if they know that you have their team’s best interests at heart, like, yeah, we’re going to make mistakes, but we have to continue to try new things. ⁓ like we have, we have vault force plates. We just got them this summer. and we’re still really struggling to get them.
like lined up properly so that they don’t like they have to be perfectly level. And if you jump on them, they go out of being level and you have to level them again. Otherwise you’ll get an athlete who is 28 pounds and jumps 700 inches. ⁓ I’m like, that can’t be right. so like I’m, I stopped sending reports to, ⁓ our men’s basketball coach because I’m like, look, I’m, trying to put these things together, but they’re damn near unreadable right now. And he’s like, all right, whatever.
Samson :
Yep.
Dave Downey :
Like I know he wants the data, but if I send him 15 reports, 15 PDF documents every week, and then next week I send him another 15 documents that he has to cross reference with the previous week’s 15 documents, he’s going to, he’s going to strangle me for real. ⁓ so I’m just saying like, coach, I’m getting this data. I promise, but I need to figure out a better way to get it to you because right now it is insane. And.
Like, yeah, I could perceive that as a threat to myself because it’s like, well, you’re not giving your coach the data. But if I’m not giving it to him in a way that he can understand it, then it’s pointless to be doing it in the first place. So I telling him like, Hey, I’m doing it, but know that it’s not, it’s not ready yet. Like I can’t distill this down yet. It’s all brand new. I need to figure out a way for me to pull out the important stuff and then give it to you.
And he was perfectly fine with that. He’s like, do what you gotta do. So like, it’s very easy to build up those scenarios in your head to where like the worst possible thing, he’s gonna fire me like on the spot because I’m not sending a jump report that he doesn’t understand. ⁓ But like that scenario is never gonna happen. Like he wants me on his staff, he needs me. I can’t leave right now.
Samson :
No, exactly. mean, it’s like you said, so easy to build up in your head. It’s so easy to get inside your own mind and just say, well, ⁓ I’m the worst strength coach in the world. And obviously, I’m going to get fired tomorrow. And it’s all got to go down. And it’s just not a place that is conducive to making you enjoy strength and conditioning or making you enjoy being a coach. And it really takes away from the fun part of the job, which is creating relationships with your coaches, with your ⁓ athletes, with
other strength coaches, like that’s the fun part. And that’s where you get to realize all the stuff that will make you stay in strength and conditioning for a long time and give you the staying power. You know, you mentioned really having an emphasis on sports psych within your departments that you work in, right? And at Fairleigh Dickinson, joining up with sports psych and then doing the Bruno Cares at Brown, like is this, do you think that your own experience with kind of the mental health aspect of coaching, do you think that’s translated to?
your coaching of the athletes themselves too.
Dave Downey :
Yeah, a hundred percent. ⁓ while I was at Lafayette, I didn’t have a master’s degree at the time. And I was kind of shopping around cause like you can’t, it’s really hard to be a head strength, an auditioning coach without a master’s degree. ⁓ I really wasn’t super interested in doubling down on exercise science, no disrespect to, you know, everyone who does that. ⁓ but I just wanted to branch out. wanted something a little bit different. ⁓ and the
women’s volleyball team at the time was always telling me their problems like constantly, whether or not they were, know, gently inflated or not. That might be for another time, but yeah, like our relationship with athletes is different. Like we are not in control of scholarship. We’re not in control of NIL now.
⁓ not a control of playing time, whether or not they’re on the team, who gets recruited. Like we don’t control any of that. Right. So it’s far easier for athletes to be open with us. About like their actual problems that are going on than it is to be with their coaches. Right. Like if you tell your coach that you’re not feeling well and like, you don’t know if you should be playing the sport anymore. Like they’re not going to put you in the game. They don’t want that person in the game. Like you’re getting benched immediately. So.
Like because of that relationship that we have with our athletes, like, it’s like, okay, let me try and lean into sports psychology. Let me see what that’s about. ⁓ So I went to Mizzou and got the full title is a master’s in education in positive coaching and athletic leadership. But it’s basically a sports psych degree. ⁓ Cause I wanted to be equipped with more tools to be able to help my athletes perform well.
Like I can improve all the physical qualities in the world, but if they’re in a depression, none of that’s going to show. So like making sure that they are mentally healthy, mentally prepared so that they can most exemplify their physical preparation ⁓ was like, I thought was far more interesting than being a double time exercise science guy. ⁓ So I did that at Lafayette so I could…
in turn get a head job, ⁓ got it after you and yeah, just really try to expand it as much as I can ⁓ through those different programs through my career. But it’s definitely been beneficial being able to talk directly with my teams about like how they should see ⁓ a bad play and what they could do after it happens. How do you, how do you rebound after some, some kind of adversity?
⁓ I think carries a lot of weight coming from me because, you know, I’m in the trenches with them. I’m training with them. So it’s, it carries a little more weight than like a guest speaker who comes in to talk about sports psychology, right? Like I’m here with you. know exactly what you’re going through and here’s how we can all get out of it. ⁓ So I, that’s, that’s pretty exciting for me.
Samson :
Yeah, so again, no disrespect to those who doubled down, but I also got my degree in sports psych. And I think it’s really opened up a lot more opportunities for relationship development with our athletes, right? And ultimately, I remember like it’s funny to me that your degree is in positive coaching because I remember getting in sports psych and I was like, all right, we’re going to figure out how to get inside these people’s minds and motivate them and do all the intense coaching and stuff. And then all of a sudden I found out it was
self-determination theory and a lot of behavioral techniques and things to help them be more positive. And I was like, what is this positive stuff? come on, that’s not how you’re supposed to coach, you know, and everything. And then it took, you know, two years of me getting my master’s degree to really understand that positivity breaks down a lot more barriers than just the intense and negative coaching and really trying to fire people up and trying to be the, you know, woohoo guy every single day, right? Versus understanding techniques about how to relate to athletes and how to
help them understand how to get through tough situations. And like you said, coaches are the ones who have the most contact hours outside of sport coaches with their athletes. And so sometimes it’s even more, strength coaches can be the number one on staff who spend the most amount of time, especially during the summer with their athletes. So if you have all this time you’re spending with somebody, it’s very important that you have the skills equipped to be able to handle things when they come in and say,
I really am frustrated with how this is going on the court or all these things are happening outside of basketball or whatever sport it may be. And I’m really struggling with those things, right? Because again, they’re going to be most likely to talk to us. So how do you handle those things? How do you approach those conversations? And so I am a strong advocate for also getting a master’s degree in some form of psychology because it’s a massive part of the job that people don’t really talk about.
Dave Downey :
Yeah, I mean our job is 100 % dealing with people. You could have the best program in the world, but if you can’t get them to do it, doesn’t matter, right?
Samson :
no, a thousand percent. So I really like what you did with Bruno Cares too. And I haven’t really heard of somebody approaching it from this angle, right? Because I do think that, you know, they’re willing to speak to strength coaches a lot of times, but at the end of the day, the number one person they’re willing to talk to is either going to be their family or their teammates. And so having somebody who they can go to with zero judgment whatsoever, I think is a really, really valuable tool. I think back to many instances where
you know, and as you know, as somebody who’s well versed in psychology, right? Like if you force somebody to talk about it, it’s not going to be productive for them, right? So I always leave the door open and a lot of times athletes kind of take, take that opportunity. And a lot of times I kind of say, know what, Connor, I don’t really want to talk to you about this. And it’s like, okay, that’s fine. Like you don’t have to talk to me about it, but you got to talk to somebody about it. Right. And so ultimately having somebody who can really relate to them, who’s on the same team as them is probably friends with them, I think is a really.
beneficial tool, how did that program kind of start? And then, what are the things that you’ve been targeting with your athletes to help them support their teammates?
Dave Downey :
⁓ so we’ve seen it at a few different schools, ⁓ generally smaller schools who like us, like only have the one sports psychologist who can’t cover, can’t cover our 1100 athletes, right? Like they, it’s just mathematically impossible. It’s not going to work. ⁓ so just having as many eyes as possible around, ⁓ has been super helpful. Like we.
We probably train about 20 give or take kids a semester. ⁓ and we give them all, like they have these bag tags, so they put them on their backpack and, and you can see them around campus. And if there’s, you know, not every team has someone in Bruno cares. ⁓ we don’t, we don’t want to like force a team representative because then it’s not really going to carry much weight. So it’s, it’s all an application process.
athletes choose to sign up for it if they feel they are interested in it or want to be equipped with these tools, which does lead us to a little bit more waiting on some teams versus the others, but trying to grow it as much as we can. ⁓ As far as like what areas to cover, like it’s really anything as far as like…
different levels of stress management. Like is it a normal level of stress? Are you just being coached hard? Is it like an excessive level of stress? I don’t know, something a little bit bigger, like some kind of suicide ideation or something like that. ⁓ There’s a lot of different areas that we look at, but it’s really just making sure that we’re actively listening, providing resources if…
if asked for or if we can direct them to anything, whether it’s, know, ⁓ caps or we have like online therapy available. have, ⁓ try to think of what else we have a million different things. Well, we have a million different things available, but like, is if we’re teaching 50, 60 of our athletes to at least listen for those different cues, be able to provide.
the direct resources, ⁓ then we can at least bridge some sort of gap. ⁓ Whether or not athletes who need the help actually seek it out, they at least have another point of contact where someone is saying like, hey, you could be doing this, you could be doing this. Or like, hey, this is beyond a Bruno Cares teammate. I need to tell someone that there’s like an actual emergency happening. ⁓ So really just having as much eyes as possible out there.
⁓ and teaching those, more or less basic concepts of like motivational interviewing and, ⁓ active listening and being.
Empathetic instead of sympathetic, if that makes sense.
Samson :
Yeah, it makes complete sense. And I really appreciate the approach of this because one of the things that I find a little frustrating about kind of the psychology community is they always, and I understand the reasoning behind this, right? But they’re very, very big ⁓ on, well, some people aren’t qualified to do those things, right? And I get it, for sure. But at the same time, ⁓ if you…
Dave Downey :
Yeah, of course.
Samson :
are not equipped for the conversation and an athlete comes up to you with like you with you said something like suicidal ideation like you have to understand. Okay, what are the resources that I can connect these people to? ⁓ You know, is this something that I can help them out with as a teammate right now? Or is this somebody we should get something, you know, somebody who is more qualified to speak about this, right? Because those things are realistic, right? It’s not like ⁓ every single scenario, somebody’s gonna be like, you know what, I’ve been feeling really down lately, I need to go speak with the counselor.
They’re going to talk with their friends, they’re going to talk with their family first. And so I appreciate you giving the tools to these athletes to be able to, again, either help them out in that moment or say, okay, well, this needs to be elevated to somebody who can really handle this from a bigger standpoint, right? Because like the joke we always had when it was…
as interns when I’m struggling with stuff, right? It’s like, it is what it is, man. You like you just gotta kind of roll with it, right? Yeah, live the dream, right? Just another day, you know? And those things are funny, but at the same time, it’s like, well, if there’s a larger problem, you need to address it. And you need to know where to go to be able to help people out with those things. So I really appreciate the approach of this because it’s realistic approach to mental health and supporting teammates, because at the end of the day, you need to be realistic with these things, because these conversations are gonna pop up.
Dave Downey :
Yep, living the dream.
Samson :
at times that are not convenient and with people who may not be convenient to speak to, but there has to be way to approach those conversations. Yeah. man. Well, I really appreciate everything. I really appreciate you diving into everything so deep. It trust me, seriously. It’s not just podcast speak or being a host that is trying to be super positive. Like these conversations really do matter at the end of the day. And, and, you know, I know listeners really appreciate it I always get feedback on.
Dave Downey :
Yeah, for sure.
Samson :
episodes like this for people who are very open about these things. You know, my last question for you, okay, I lied about not having any more straining conditioning related questions. So non-straining conditioning related, who is your main in the Mario universe?
Dave Downey :
Jeez. Let’s see. It’s… Hmm. I feel like I jump around between like Boo and Yoshi.
Samson :
Sick picks. Those are fantastic. Yeah, no, that’s perfect. I’m a Waluigi guy, so I can relate to picking the non-main characters, because it’s way more fun. Waluigi’s yeah, it’s lame, dude. And Waluigi’s devious. I like his vibe. So, okay, so one more time, Dave, can you just tell us if somebody’s interested in the book, where’s the best way to get it? What’s the title of the book?
Dave Downey :
Right? Two real obscure ones.
yeah, can’t just pick Mario, like come on.
Samson :
But then if somebody wants to follow you on social media, what’s the best way to do that too?
Dave Downey :
all in one place on Instagram at Dave C Downey, super creative name. ⁓ I have all the links on there. So if you’re willing to go to my Instagram, you can click through and the I have a link that will take you right to Amazon and that will get the book. The book is called Impostor Coach, Mental Health Strategies for Strengthen Editioning. So yeah.
Samson :
Awesome, dude. Well, thank you, Dave, so much. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Absolutely.
Dave Downey :
Of thanks for having me. It’s fun.
