The Culture Club

A text message came in recently saying, “Your culture is the best,” this from a current parent who now has two kids in our program. It reminded us that the Next Play culture has been the key to our growth as a program that now serves 500+ kids from 3rd-11th grade each year.

We spend a lot of time on building team culture. We have borrowed many of these ideas from observation, study and our own experiences. Most recently, we have implemented several ideas from The Swarthmore College Men’s Basketball team, where co-founder Coach Ryan Ansel was an assistant coach for six years.

Each Next Play team practices the same, huddles the same, and communicates the same. We celebrate the pass, cheer from the bench, and encourage one another when we miss a shot.

In fact, three of Ryan’s former players are now Next Play Coaches (Coach Zo, Colin and Connor) and have impacted our coaches, program and players in a very positive way. They hammer home practice and game principles every day, and even our most seasoned coaches learn new drills and coaching strategies every night.

The most recent contributor to Next Play was by SWAT’s all time leading scorer and two-time All-American basketball player, Vinny D’Angelo. Vinny was outstanding with his coaching, care and energy at our final camp of the summer and even stayed to play against some of our high school players.

What we noticed reinforced our belief that culture matters. With every missed shot or turnover, Vinny yelled out, “Next Play”. A made bucket by his teammate, he encouraged them by saying good shot, then again he called out “Next Play.”

Vinny trained the Next Play Way, the same standard that we set for our players as well. For those who don’t follow D-III basketball, Swarthmore College has gone from one of the worst basketball programs in the country to consistently being ranked top 10 every year. They were ranked as high as #1 in 2020 and were National Champions runner-up in (2021) and Vinny’s teams made the NCAA tournament every year.

When asked what made Swarthmore successful, Vinny replied, “Culture.”