Episode 85:
Coach Scott Davenport began his coaching career as a graduate assistant coach under Denny Crum at Louisville in 1984. He then moved on to VCU for one season as an assistant to Mike Pollio. He returned to the Louisville area as a high school head coach at Ballard High School where he’d stay for 10 seasons from 1986–1996. Davenport won a 1988 state championship team and later coached future NBA players DeJuan Wheat and Allan Houston. Davenport returned to the Cardinals under Crum in 1996, and would stay on as an assistant coach for Rick Pitino until 2005, when he accepted the head coaching job at Bellarmine.
Since joining the Knights, Davenport has become the all-time wins leader at the school, and has led the team to six Great Lakes Valley Conference regular season titles and five conference tournament titles, along with 12 NCAA Division II Men’s Basketball Tournament which includes four Final Four appearances (2011, 2012, 2015, 2017), and the 2011 national title.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- What the difference is between a vocation and an advocation
- Why it is so important for your players to be your best recruiters
- How it was coaches who shaped his life after he lost his father as a Nine-year-old.
- What was it about him that convinced Rick Pitino to keep him as an assistant after Denny Crum retired
- Why he believes it is so important to treat your people first-class
- Why it is so important to pay attention to detail as a leader and what the impact will be on your people
- Why, in his first team meeting after taking over at Bellarmine, he excused the four seniors and how that helped build the powerful culture which has helped them sustain an elite level of success
- What it takes to create a culture where your people think “this is where I want to be.”
- What the one thing is that extraordinary teams do
Additional resources:
- Twitter: @Bellarminehoops
- Website: https://athletics.bellarmine.edu/sports/mens-basketball
