Last month, I had the debut episode of my podcast “Work Hard, Play Harder” with Marshall 12U girls hockey coach Mike Foley. This week, I had my second episode with Southwest Minnesota State University men’s head basketball coach Brad Bigler. The podcast is called “Work Hard, Play Harder” because that’s how I like to live my life. It is about finding out your why into sports, journalism, media or whatever profession you may pursue and getting to know you beyond your occupation. The podcast is informative about what you do but also asks fun questions about you as well. Building connections and being able to be relatable is an important aspect of my podcast as well.

In this podcast episode, Bigler, an Iowa native, talked about his father being the inspiration behind him coaching. He also commented on how much he learned from his Graduate Assistant days to coaching high school girls basketball as his first official coaching job.

“It is amazing, basketball is basketball,” said Bigler. “The same mistakes are made from a fifth grader or eighth grader or varsity player or college. The mistakes are just made at different paces but coaching the fundamentals of the game are the same and we try to coach using a lot of footwork.”

Bigler and I touched up on a lot of topics throughout the conversation. One of the topics was how to go about being a coach in this industry. Bigler used words like sacrifice, commitment and a strong work ethic to this profession. Bigler also advocated about the type of guys he recruits to be “Mustang men”. I got to learn more about him as a very competitive, but low-key personality that enjoys coaching and being around his family. In this episode, he also describes about being in the Florida Keys and really enjoying himself with his family doing all kinds of activities on that vacation. He doesn’t see himself leaving coaching anytime soon, but all tenures will come to an end. Bigler has reflected on a time when that may be but right now is enjoying the preparation of getting ready for the next season. To listen to the full interview, click the link below.

https://vimeo.com/698427041

— Chris Drummond is a sports

reporter for the Marshall Independent.

Email: cdrummond@marshall

independent.com

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