Teaching basketball and lessons for life | Michael Deutsch, founder of Hands On Hoops

Early Care for Every Kid

Michael Deutch, basketball coach and founder of Hands On Hoops, a youth basketball program, joins me to discuss:

• (02:12) what is the Hands On Hoops program?
• (03:17) on learning to be part of a team, a community
• (05:07) transferrable skills from basketball to real life
• (08:04) using his platform to help the community
• (16:32) how traditional gender roles harm men also
• (18:23) on transitioning to more personally fulfilling work
• (25:30) the power of "word of mom"
• (27:39) the magic words

and more.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Hands On Hoops https://handsonhoops.com/ | [e-mail]
• Coach John Wooden https://coachwooden.com/
• Coalition for the Homeless https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/

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• transcript https://share.descript.com/view/gAxxvdI2Lon

AI-generated transcript below. Please excuse any typos or errors.

What could we learn from the game of basketball? Today, I'm joined by Michael Deutsch, founder of Hands On Hoops, a basketball program based in New York City. Besides being a coach. Michael is a father, an entrepreneur, and an active community leader. We talk about his path and inspiration for creating a basketball program for our kids.

The transferable skills that young children and families take away. And how he shows up as a leader and role model, not only for his daughters, but for so many in our company.

This is early care for every kid, a podcast for people who want to make learning, living, and loving more harmonious for everyone.

I'm your host, Danielle An. Each week, I interview fellow parents, educators, advocates, and community leaders. Who care for and work with young children and families. I share their experiences, insights, and specific, actionable tips on how you could help make the world work better for everyone. Here's my conversation with Coach Mike today.

Coach Mike, Michael Deutsch founder of Hands On Hoops based in New York City. I am so glad to be talking to you today, coach, because you really do embody what a true coach and role model would look like and you teach what's really important in instilling in our kids. So welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Danielle.

Really nice to be here.

I'm so excited. I just want to share that I first came across you through our local New York City, Facebook parenting group review. One of the moms who would normally not leave any reviews, had raving reviews about you and how you were engaging with the children and how you came and made it so easy.

So Hands On Hoops is for children between the ages of two to six. Is.

Well, actually the program is for kids between ages two through 17.

Okay. Please tell me about Hands On Hoops.

Sure. Hands On Hoops is a kids program. It's a basketball and transferable skills program where kids learn to share the basketball.

Be a great teammate. Build a positive attitude, listen to instructions and apply them, learn through having fun and also learn core basketball skills on an adjustable basket. So we have all kinds of classes throughout. New York City and also virtual classes, right? The world. We just did a virtual class in Israel.

And is that because of COVID times?

I would say it's because. For every parent has zoom on their laptop and zoom has made it so easy, but I would say COVID has been a spark, for parents to find something for their kids to do while at home.

Right. And I find that consistent in how you show up in our community.

You find ways to offer support, not just to obviously teaching children basketball skills, but also to the parents. When my younger child, when he was a three-year old and I think 2018, I just recently saw some pictures that popped up on my phone. He was an itty-bitty and he was. Not the best at waiting for his turn in line and always very eager and physical.

I noticed that you were crouching down for his eye level patiently guiding him to take turns and instill a team spirit.

Yeah, it is about that. It's about transitioning a toddler age. Think about it. A kid has been getting all the attention. A child's been getting all the attention. So now they're in a class with a group of kids.

They're studying every other kid, their insecurities come out. But when you throw that team concept at the kids and start to express, Hey, what is a team? Everyone? Oh, a team means we work together. We help each other and we share the basketball. So now it's that good feeling of being this team and not having all the focus on myself.

I'm now going to focus on every other child in the class and it takes a child out of their head. Right. And the insecurity goes away because a team is stronger than an individual.

So these are part of what you call transferable skills. That's right. Yeah. And what were you seeing in your personal, or I guess professional life that led you to believe in the importance of these transferable skills from basketball to real life, personal life?

I was doing this with my dad, but my dad had me playing basketball when I was about three years old. And unfortunately we didn't have a basket that was lower and more kid friendly. It was the regular basket. So my dad, he actually had me learning a basketball skills, pure basketball skills. Which I apply to a classes as well, but as I got older, I started to read more books.

I started to read books about John Wooden, the greatest basketball coach, ever, his team, UCLA, the UCLA Bruins college basketball team. They won 10 championships, seven in a row. So he was talking about the importance of a team. And how working together is critical, giving your best, trying your hardest.

Those are two of the most important things that a kid could learn giving it your best, trying your hardest. So I tried to take what Coach Wooden was talking about and bring it to real life with kids. And I realized I was also the captain of my team in high school. I just realized that it was about, we, it wasn't about me and that's what made our team successful.

So the books, the teams that I played on. That all had a role in imparting the knowledge to the kids currently.

So you were in athletics through high school. And did you also play in college or?

No,

I didn't play college ball, but I played soccer, basketball and baseball throughout my early years to a high school year.

Being on all those teams had a tremendous impact on my life.

And how would you say being on those team sports helped you in your personal life specifically?

Well, that's interesting because it really did help me in my personal life because I just realized there are a lot of people compare themselves to others and I just, I've always taken a mindset of.

We, how can we do it together? So instead of being a quote unquote seller where everything's about, I it's about we, and that's the way I've always lived. My life it's narrative. I've never been the one to sit there and dominate a room about, I am this. I am that. No, it's about we work. We do. That's bigger than us.

How can we help the homeless people? I started a program called homeless helpers.

So that's another thing. I also am active in our local community, even online. And besides sharing information about your basketball Hands On Hoops program, you are always seeking ways to connect to people and provide ways for people who might be interested in helping other community members.

By offering chances to donate or even coordinate donation, pickup or drop off. How did you come to be interested in people experiencing homelessness?

So I was at a, what was it? A super bowl party a couple of years back. And I started speaking with a guy and he was telling me about, uh, Coalition for the homeless, how he goes out Tuesday nights in event that coalition for the homeless supplies to him, they also supply the food.

So he goes out and he feeds people who are experiencing homelessness. So it's every Tuesday night and 50 times a year. And he also goes to two shelters and listen, I have a pulse. I get it. Yes. There was an, is a serious problem in New York city. So hearing him speak, thinking to myself, wait a second. I've built up this brand with parents through my social media.

And through basketball and kids, soy thinking, wait a second, we could work together. He and I could work together. I could supply him with all the clothes and he could give clothes and feed the homeless. And it was as simple as that. And it got me so excited and jacked up. I had to jump in the water ahead first.

And that was it. Bang, let's go.

It seems to me that one of the consistent threads is team spirit. Understanding it's not all about your strengths or your personal individual victories, but also just understanding that it's a team effort. The team wins. It's not just your personal, not about me or I, and even when people are experiencing, uh, difficulties that may not necessarily be their personal flaws or faults. Right? So you are in a position to see that it is more of a community, like a team effort when one person is vulnerable, the whole team is vulnerable. Yeah.

That's true. So true. That vulnerability is an opportunity and it's an opportunity for people to lift that person up.

And it's not something that I'm just sitting here saying I've seen that happen so many times in my life. One of the things that I'm part of, I'm part of a man, the men's team has been great because it's a bunch of men who are on a we're on a call now. Cause it's zoom related, but we were meeting in person.

And I've seen men countless amounts of time get lifted up when they had a problem. When I had a problem, when I had issues going on, everyone else was asking me questions was giving me their advice. If I wanted advice. And I have seen that work so many times. And again, it gets back to teams.

Would you say that there's a lot of pressure to be perfect and strong, especially for boys and men.

Yeah. Cause I find that I personally find that the pressure to be perfect and not just seem perfect outwardly, but even to have those expectations for yourself, women and girls feel this too. But I think especially for. Boys and men, they have an idea of what perfection may seem. That's perhaps a little different from what girls and women feel.

What would you say about that?

Yes, absolutely. Hey, look, that could have started when they were younger. When I was younger, I was definitely very conscious of myself, really young, and I find that even with my kids, I have to. So I let them know. They don't have to be perfect. So I love them. They don't have to be perfect.

And when they're not perfect, it's okay. We can just laugh about laugh seriously. No, no problem. It's okay. And it's really worked well.

Can you give me an example of what perfection might mean for your, you have two daughters, correct?

Yeah. I have a 14 year old and an eight year old.

What is their idea of perfection that you are seeing?

I feel like with my 14 year old, we've gotten past that she can make mistakes. There are times where we all make mistakes and I'll make a mistake. And let's say I was late two, three minutes late. And I gave her a time. What I'll do is right in front of them, just to clean up, it's called clean up, clean up for me being late right there.

I'll do some jumping jacks and then make it fun. And so we goof goof around so that not to take it so seriously. But also remind like, Hey, I should have been on time and I should have been my word. Right.

So acknowledging, recognizing whatever it was that perhaps needed correction or addressing just the recognition of that and not taking it so seriously, like a character flaw.

Right,

right, right. Exactly. It's not like a crime has been committed, but. If it was something that was really big in my life or their life and we were late or, or we weren't our word or my daughters weren't prepared for school, it would be something important. It would be maybe their grade would be effected or, and again, even if there are bad grades, we'll move past it.

It's not the end of the world. It's, we'll move past it. We'll figure things out and figure out a ways to study better ways. I remember when my daughter, she didn't get her, her homework in, or she forgot to hand it in. We had conversations about that and the conversations were really meaningful to her and it changed the way she did things.

They weren't beat up verbally for doing something wrong. It's Hey, let's discuss it and see if she can come to a conclusion from our conversation and she could be better at it, or we'll just do better next time. And it worked this one instance, which changed my daughter's way of doing her homework and taking notes and being prepared.

Right. I love hearing you say we had a discussion of how we. Do better next time. I love the, we that's coming through there where it's not an actually having discussions on the tools that she might be able to use next time. So she can develop that for herself, even without someone watching over her. I love that.

Yeah. Going back to more of the. Perfectionistic ideas of what maybe you yourself or society may have for men. Could you speak a little bit more to that

for men as hunters, quote, unquote hunters, I would say there's definitely a pressure on men to provide for their families. And to still live that prototype of a life where men are providing and making money and paying for everything and women are taking care of the kids.

And I would say a lot of the pressures for men are related to that

deep down like a hunter for the family protection provider security. I would agree with that. And

shame shame is on the other side. When men don't come through the way they think they should then change, takes over. Did you

ever struggle with that cow to make it work financially for your family?

Oh, no doubt. No doubt. Uh, I, you know, I wasn't doing what I love. And that set me back. That totally set me back. I was in a business and wasn't really happy with it. I had a partner and I even worked for a company for awhile and it was always that pressure of, Hey, the money's not the money that I expect to be making.

And I'm not even doing what I love and, you know, we only have one life here and well, but wait, I have this rent to pay and I have these expenses to pay. And how am I going to transition? How am I going to turn things around to where, you know, I wake up with a smile on my face and I had that for awhile.

Absolutely. I had that too, before I was able to find the basketball, the basketball program and come to that realization and take that first action. On basketball. I know

you were in a corporate environment professionally before you transitioned. Yes. Tell me a little bit more about that process of identifying what gave you that spark and feeling of purpose and joy that made you feel like it was worthwhile to wake up in the morning, do what you do.

I listened to a lot of podcasts to find some inspiration did that morning and night really looking for inspiration. And I found it, it was about 10 and a half years ago. A friend of mine, he said to me, Hey, you should be doing what you always love to do my nephew. He needs to learn about basketball and he has friends and you can do classes with all of them.

And I said, oh, what a great idea. Let's go. I'm in, I mean, right. Always come from an entrepreneurial family, my grandparents, my grandfathers, they started businesses. So in my mind, I was going to be starting something. And thankfully the world, the world for me just came together. Everything came together. My friend bringing that up to me, having two young daughters.

And having an entrepreneurial mindset. Which I've been building up all for a lot of years. I've been reading a lot of books over the years, starting when I was 18.

Right. You are a basketball coach. How did you settle into that as a way to get. Young children and families that sense of community and learning these transferable skills through play.

In fact, I had a vision that it's kind of funny. I had a vision that at some point I was going to be doing something with young kids. It was when I woke up one morning and I was thinking to myself, wait a second. I can see myself. Working with young kids, because I already work with kids who play basketball and they're older.

So they're seven years old to a 17 years old. Then all of a sudden it changed. It was like two 30 in the morning. And I decided to work with young kids toddlers because I had toddlers. And I just felt like there was so much to show them the kids in the playground. They can. Plan a swing. They could jump on the monkey bars, but they could learn a sport.

Right. But that was the aha moment. And I had an Amazon moment of, Hey, I'm going to order everything at two 30 in the morning. I ordered everything. It was like, all right, I'm doing okay. And it was such a joy. It's a joy to know that I was going to be doing what I loved and giving back to these kids and giving to parents because a lot of parents were in need because they didn't know much about sports and they felt insecure about teaching their kids.

They're two year olds or three-year-olds basketball,

possibly the wrong way.

Dads. You talk about an insecurity. There it is for dads. Hey, I'm a man. I'm the man of the household, but I can't teach my child a sport. It was beautiful when they would come up to me. Um, and they would say to me, you know, I don't really I'd be in the park. I don't really know how to teach my kids a lot of basketball.

I, so can you help my child?

Were you at the time, just more informally hanging out at your neighborhood playground with your toddler or with your friends is deaf use who are older, or you were just inviting children to come and play