Total Reading Time: 4 minutes

Happy Monday! Today I’m diving into a couple of the Final Four Basketball coaches who’ve caught my eye for their deep commitment to improving themselves as well as their teams. Coaching is hard work and too often we get stuck only trying to improve our players instead of ourselves.

So let’s Go!

Table of Contents

• A Masterclass in Coaching

• A Mental Performance Opportunity

A Masterclass in Coaching

This past weekend both the women’s and men’s Basketball Final Four had some incredible coaching examples that we can all learn from.

Too many coaches say you can’t be nice and win - and to that I say bullsh*t. Nice people make great coaches! Being a nice person doesn’t mean you can’t be competitive.

Instead, it means you choose to treat people with respect and kindness, which are traits that great teams have. Traits that both of the coaches in this article - UCLA’s Cori Close and Michigan’s Dusty May have in spades.

“Talent makes you comparable. Character makes you Unforgettable!” (Cori Close)

This article is an accumulation of some content I read on how these two great coaches have worked to improve both their teams as well as themselves.

As we all know, creating great teams isn’t easy nor is it an accident. All of these coaches have taken some great steps that we can all learn from. Their commonality is that they’re both extremely:

• Curious

• Open

• Vulnerable

• Collaborative

• Authentic

• Obsessed with Personal Growth

CORI CLOSE (UCLA): Cori’s UCLA Bruins won the National Championship yesterday and her “Went Wells” are no doubt a big reason for it. At the end of every practice Cori has her players journal what “went well” that day. It’s based on the concept that you find what you look for. You look for and notice the bad and you’ll find lots of it. But, if you look for and notice the good, then you’ll find that!!

Cori Close does this, not in an oblivious way, but in a way that fills her players with hope and reminds them of the skills that they have - on a daily basis. Players usually put the things they screw up on in a never ending loop in their heads, so these “went wells” are a great way to try and help them change that negative self-talk loop.

Take a listen:

DUSTY MAY (Michigan): Dusty has focused his career on “Coaching Like a Teacher” - He’s hired coaches to coach him, so that he can be a better teacher of the game. He has worked with transformative educator Doug Lemov, to help him teach his players how to better watch video, teach him how to ask better questions and how to be a much better teacher. Lemov wrote two incredible books that I’d highly recommend:

• Teach Like a Champion

• The Coach’s Guide to Teaching

May also worked with J.P Nerbun, who wrote The Culture System, another AMAZING book that details a step-by-step method for creating a healthy and thriving culture for any program.

A Mental Performance Opportunity

Here’s a great opportunity to either watch Live or catch the recording of the Mental Performance Summit. Hear from 6 experts who work in the field of elite sports and gain actionable mental performance strategies.

Friday, April 17, 2026

8:30am - Noon Central Time

Thanks for reading this week’s Curveball Chronicles. I hope you gained some insight, some encouragement, some knowledge or some grace.

Go make this a Great week!!

Missed some previous issues? Don’t worry, I’ve got them all on my website: https://pitchingcoachcentral.com/curveball-newsletter/