PODCAST · education
Captains & Coaches Podcast
by Tex McQuilkin
The Fast-Track to Becoming a Game-Changing Leader.Discover how the greatest minds in sports build winning cultures. Dive into raw, no-nonsense conversations with elite coaches and captains who've been in the trenches. We're not here for fluff – expect: * Hard-hitting strategies to skyrocket your team's performance * Insider tips on building unbreakable team chemistry * Career-defining lessons from both victories and failuresWhether you're calling plays or taking the field, we're building you up, not breaking you down. Ready to raise your game? Let's do it together.Press play. Listen and lead with purpose. Become the leader your team needs.www.captainsandcoaches.com [https://www.captainsandcoaches.com/]
Episodes
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154 - Captaincy, Complacency, & Earning the "C" w/ John O'Sullivan
Most captains get the "C" for the wrong reasons. Best player. Most popular. Loudest voice. Then complacency creeps in and the culture cracks. Pick up the book - Captain: The Athlete's Guide to Being an Exceptional Team Leader - https://amzn.to/4ionoFJ John O'Sullivan is the founder of the…
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153 - Buddies Become Brothers: Build a Team for All Seasons of Life
Every team ends. The great ones change shape instead. Tex just ran three Captain's Workshops in four days, starting at his alma mater, Marymount University, and finishing in Boston. Then he stayed a few extra days with his senior-year co-captain. They hadn't seen each other in seven years, and...
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152 - Be Where Your Feet Are: Building a New Team Every Year w/ George Greene | UMass Football
Half the roster was new. The season was months away. George Greene had to build a team out of strangers. Then the Minutemen shock the CFB world on Week 1. George is the head strength and conditioning coach for UMass Football. He started there as a paid intern in 2008. Now he leads the program…
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151 - The 6U Coach Field Guide w/ Dr Pat & Luke Summers
Your kid just joined their first team. The coach is a volunteer with a job, a family, and a full calendar. They raised their hand anyway. That takes heart. But heart isn't a practice plan. In Part One of our new series, Dad on the Sidelines, Tex is joined by Luke Summers and Patrick Ford, DPT....
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150 - Early Struggles, Heavy Squats & Sustained Success w/ Bert Sorin
Live from the NSCA Tactical Conference, Tex sits down with Bert Sorin, CEO of Sorinex Exercise Equipment. Using the seven stages of Predictable Success as a roadmap, Bert shares how Sorinex grew from his dad's trail in the woods to a five-lane highway. He talks about chasing his own athletic…
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149 - Hard of Listening
Jeff Fisher shared a story at the 2026 Soldiers to Sidelines Summit about a cornerback who cost his Titans a football game. The player heard his assignment, said "I gotcha, coach," and got it completely wrong. That gap, between hearing and listening, is the subject of this episode. Tex breaks…
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148 - Gen X Coaches, Gen Z Captains & the Leadership Gap w/ Martin Rooney
Are captains born, or are they made? And why do so many coaches get the pick wrong? Tex sits down with Martin Rooney [@themartinrooney] bestselling author of Coach to Coach and High Ten, founder of Training for Warriors, and a coach who's worked with everyone from Army Rangers to UFC champions to...
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147 - Glazing, Fake Hype & True Team Energy w/ CJ & Vinny
In this episode of CJ & Vinny's Secret Podcast, Tex sits down with CJ Appenzeller (Active Personal Training, ATS Systems) and Vinny Maltz (author and host of the Evolving Athletes podcast) to tackle one of the hardest skills a captain ever has to learn: how to inspire and motivate a team without…
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146 - Conquer Loss Aversion & the Locker Room w/ Dr. Ben Freakley
What happens when a team stops playing to win and starts playing not to lose? Dr. Ben Freakley, Certified Mental Performance Consultant and founder of Ready Set Resilient, knows that shift firsthand. Over two decades, Ben has worked inside some of the highest-pressure locker rooms in sport and…
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145 - Team Conflict Toolkit: 5 Styles Every Captain Needs to Read
Every locker room has small dragons. Left alone, they grow. Handled early, they're just Tuesday. In this episode, we break down the five conflict styles every captain will run into on a roster: Competing, Avoiding, Compromising, Accommodating, and Collaborating. For each one, you get a specific...
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144 - Sports, Shame & the Weight of Words w/ Tim Fletcher
In this episode, Tex sits down with Tim Fletcher [@timfletcherco], founder of RE/ACT and the LIFT program, to talk about the hidden driver behind so much of sports culture: shame. Tim breaks down what shame actually is. Not the emotion most people think of, but the belief underneath it. He…
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143 - Funishment: Reframing Discipline in Athletics
Coach blows up over something innocent. Wrong route. Empty water bottle. Kids laughing in the back of the huddle. So we hand out up-downs, bear crawls, and sprints and call it discipline. But what is that actually teaching? In this solo episode, Tex breaks down why punishment-based conditioning...
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142 - Living Legends Lead By Example w/ Shawn Lyght | Notre Dame Lacrosse
Shawn Lyght [@slyght_90] made history as the first defenseman ever to win the Tewaaraton Award (the Heisman Trophy of lacrosse). A national champion at Notre Dame, he's back for his senior season carrying the weight of a program built to win it all again. In this episode, Shawn breaks down what...
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141 - Top 10 Blindspots at Practice | Soldiers to Sidelines Presentation
Tex McQuilkin takes the stage at the 2026 Soldiers to Sidelines Summit with a talk built for coaches at every level: 10 blind spots you are overlooking at practice, and the one practice plan that fixes them. He breaks down the athlete development Venn diagram, Bloom's Taxonomy applied to the...
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140 - Strength Meets Standards w/ Cory Castro | Texas Football S&C
Cory Castro [@strength_coach_castro] is the Football Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Texas, working directly with the quarterback room and specialists. His path started as a walk-on running back at John Carroll University. It ran through internships at Kent State and Texas, a...
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139 - 5 Tools for Freshman Athletes: Surviving & Thriving Your First College Season
Every incoming freshman was the best player on their high school team. Then they show up on campus and find out everyone else was too. This episode breaks down 5 real tools for freshman athletes entering their first college season. Redefining your role before day one. Building a support system...
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138 - Staying Within Striking Distance w/ Bo Sandoval
Bo Sandoval has spent three decades coaching everyone from Olympic wrestlers to UFC champions, and he says the secret was never chasing peak performance. It was staying within striking distance. In this episode of Captains & Coaches, Bo traces his path from a moldy weight room at a small...
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137 - Ask the Coach: S&C Q&A Live at the Soldiers to Sidelines Summit
Live from the 2nd Annual Soldiers to Sidelines Coaching Summit: the Ask the Coach panel, unscripted and unfiltered. Moderator Johanna Zabal hands the mic to the room, and Tex, Nate Palin, and Kat Oswald field whatever comes, from youth lifting age and PVC-pipe progressions to burnout, creative...
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136 - When Perfect Breaks, What Emerges w/ Erica Lowery
Erica Lowery is a strength and conditioning coach at South Alabama working with volleyball and soccer. She's also a former Division I libero, a two-time Apex Games competitor, and a USA Bobsled camp invitee. This episode covers all of it. Erica walks through her transfer from Texas A&M to Liberty...
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135 - Coaching Crisis: Lacrosse Roundtable Live at Soldiers to Sidelines Summit
Live from the 2nd Annual Soldiers to Sidelines Coaching Summit in Nashville, this lacrosse roundtable tackles the coaching crisis head-on: the pathway from playing to coaching, why coaches are leaving the profession, and what it takes to stay in it for the long haul. Joining Tex: Harrison...
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134 - The Language Arts of Coaching w/ Nick Winkelman
Nick Winkelman wrote the book on coaching language. Literally. The Language of Coaching has become required reading for anyone who talks to athletes for a living. The Language of Coaching: https://amzn.to/4gUKhjU In this episode, recorded live at the NSCA National Conference, Nick breaks down the...
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133 - Fall to the Level of Your Leader
Advocacy + Inquiry = How Real Captains Lead Where did you learn to lead? Most first-time captains never got taught. They just copied whatever they saw growing up, a parent, an older sibling, a coach from another sport. But copying what you saw isn't the same as leading well. In this episode, Tex...
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132 - Return to Play on a Budget w Dr Dylan Seeley
Every coach has a shin splint kid. A low back kid. A concussion protocol they're guessing their way through. This episode fixes that. Dr. Dylan Seeley joins Captains & Coaches live from Summerstrong 2026 to break down the injuries showing up on the lacrosse field and what's actually driving them....
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131 - Transformational Leadership Theory: The Four I's in Team
Sports don't teach lessons. Coaches do. This week, Tex breaks down transformational leadership theory's Four I's, connects them to social-emotional learning, and lays out the model anchoring his doctoral research on collegiate team captains. Education - Captains & Coaches course, "Why They're Not...
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130 - Consistent Discomfort & Realized Potential w/ Joey Bergles
Joey Bergles [@joeybergles] has trained NFL athletes, a top-60 pro tennis player, and lacrosse standouts like the Kavanaugh brothers. None of them got better because of a magic program. They got better because they chose consistent discomfort, over and over, long before any potential showed up....
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129 - Bricks & Bridges: Coaching the Difficult & Defiant Athlete
Every coach has the athlete who's easy to reach, and the one who's checked out, arms crossed, wall fully up. This episode is about that second athlete, and why they're usually the one who needs you most. Tex breaks down the Coach-Athlete Reinforcing Loop, the five-stage cycle of trust extended,...
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128 - Earned, Never Given w/ Fairfax Hackley
It has to be earned. Not given. Fairfax Hackley spent 34 years with the Arnold Classic. He trained with legends like Vince Gironda and Steve Maholic. He is the Senior Vice President for the International Sports Hall of Fame, now in its 15th year, inducting names like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronda...
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127 - The Praise Trap: Hidden Costs of Conditional Confidence
Most coaches don't praise enough. The ones who do often praise the wrong way without ever knowing it. In this episode, Tex breaks down why coaches stay silent when athletes get it right, the three mindset blocks holding that silence in place, and a concept from neuro-linguistic programming that...
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126 - Strength, Suffering, & the Masculinity Crisis w/ Sean Waxman
Sean Waxman has spent 32 years in weight rooms, from Olympic weightlifting platforms to high school football programs, and he's convinced we're getting something seriously wrong with how we raise young men. Strength used to be something you coveted. Now it's treated like a threat. Aggression gets...
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125 - Coaching Kids in 3D: The Instructions That Actually Land
You've heard it a hundred times on a youth sideline: "Hustle!" "Not like that!" "MOVE!" And you've watched kids look back with zero idea what you actually want. This week, Tex breaks down a framework called Coaching in 3D: three dimensions of instruction that eliminate confusion, build…
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124 - Pitcher Quirks & Trusting Your Stuff w/ Trey Dombroski
Trey Dombroski is a lefty starter in the Houston Astros organization, currently pitching Double-A ball with the Corpus Christi Hooks. Fourth round draft pick out of Monmouth University. Nearly 380 innings of pro experience and still climbing. But this conversation goes way deeper than stats. Trey...
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123 - Win Now, Not at Life: Researching Gaps & Assumptions in Sports
Six months into a doctoral program in Educational Leadership and Organizational Innovation, and the research is starting to ask harder questions than the coaching did. In this episode, Tex breaks down research questions from the doctorate worth every coach's attention and reintroduces Social...
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122 - How to Raise Gritty, Multi-Sport Badasses w/ Brianna Battles
Brianna Battles is an athlete, strength coach, mom of two, and the founder of Pregnancy & Postpartum Athleticism. She's coached at the Division I level, competes in jiu jitsu, and has spent her career helping women pursue a lifetime of athleticism. Today she's bringing that same lens to sport...
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121 - 5 Stages of Team Development: A Field Guide for Coaches & Captains
Every roster goes through the same predictable stages of development, whether coaches and captains are aware of it or not. In this episode, Tex breaks down Bruce Tuckman's Five Stages of Team Development through the lens of athletics, from the optimism of Day 1 fall camp all the way through the...
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120 - Hammer & Chisel Lessons from Weight Room to Locker Room w/ Jon Heck
What does it take to build a leader? According to Jon Heck, it starts under the bar. Jon played offensive tackle at UNC, two-time All-ACC, four-year starter, then spent nearly a decade coaching S&C for football at the NFL and Division-I level, including stops with the Houston Texans, Carolina...
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119 - Halftime Adjustments & Double-Loop Learning: Are You Actually Changing, or Just Guessing?
Most halftime adjustments aren't real adjustments, they're just louder versions of what wasn't working in the first half. In this episode, we break down double-loop learning, the concept developed by organizational theorist Chris Argyris, and why it's the cognitive skill that separates coaches…
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118 - Strong Ankles & Olympic Feat w/ Cal Dietz
What if the secret to reducing ACL risk, unlocking elite speed, and fixing broken movement patterns starts at the bottom of your athletes' feet? In this episode, we're live from Summerstrong with Cal Dietz, creator of Triphasic Training and the strength coach behind USA Women's Hockey's Olympic...
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117 - It's Not Conditioning, It's Getting Sexy
Your athletes hear the word "conditioning" and the intent dies before the first rep. So stop calling it that. In this episode, Tex shares the full presentation he gave at the Soldiers to Sidelines [@soliderstosidelines] Endurance Coaches Summit, a real-time breakdown of how he reframes fitness…
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116 - Recruiting, Reps, & Resilience w/ Nick Tintle
Most athletes think showing up is enough. Go to the tournaments, hit the showcases, get seen, and the offers will come. Nick Tintle has spent nearly two decades watching that belief cost athletes the opportunity they worked their whole career to earn. Nick is a 2x All-American, MLL Champion, and...
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115 - Speed is Simple. People are Complex.
Matt Erdman spent 14 years in law enforcement before stumbling into a coaching opportunity he wasn't ready for. He'll be the first to tell you he didn't know a thing. So he learned. Now he runs Veritas Athletic Performance in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska — a speed and performance facility built on one...
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114 - Beyond Sport: Teaching Lessons That Last w/ Jim Davis
Jim Davis is the founder of the Good Athlete Project and author of Get Steady: Essays at the Foundation of Sustainable High Performance. This conversation was recorded live at New Trier High School the day before we both presented at the Beyond Strength Summit in Chicago. Grab Jim's Book, Get...
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113 - What a Season of Real Leadership Development Looks Like
Every season, coaches name captains. Hand out the 'C.' Fire everyone up. And then the season hits, and half the time, those captains don't know what to do with it. Not because they don't care. Not because they're bad leaders. Because nobody ever taught them how. This episode is the story of what...
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112 - Environment, Experience & Excellence w/ Matt Nein, Salisbury University & USA Lacrosse
What separates a good strength coach from a great one? According to Matt Nein, it's not the programming. It's the environment you create and the experience you deliver — every single day. In his 21 years at Salisbury University, Matt has built one of the most decorated strength and conditioning...
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111 - Connection Before Commitment: The 3-H's That Build Unbreakable Teams
You can spend an entire season with someone and still not know a single real thing about them. You know their position. You know what they do when the game's on the line. But you don't know their story — and that gap is exactly where teams break down. In this episode, Tex breaks down the Three…
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110 - Creatine, Concussions & Contact Sports w/ Dr Mike T Nelson
Dr. Mike T. Nelson [@drmiketnelson] is a PhD exercise physiologist, metabolic flexibility expert, and one of the most applied performance scientists in the game. He's been researching and using creatine since 1995 — and today he's helping coaches and parents cut through three decades of myth…
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109 - The Disease of Me: Pat Riley's 7 Sins That Destroy Teams
Pat Riley called it the Disease of Me — and it doesn't start with losing. It starts with winning. In this episode, Tex breaks down Pat Riley's 7 Danger Signals: the warning signs that individual ego is quietly taking over a team that's supposed to be chasing something bigger. From chronic...
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108 - Strength, Service, & Navy Football w/ Jim Kiritsy
There's no game like Army-Navy. No neutral site classic, no rivalry week hype machine — just two military academies, one football field, and everything that comes with wearing the uniform. Navy just won. And I wanted to talk to the guy who makes sure those Midshipmen are ready to play it. Jim...
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107 - Know Your Role: Why the Best Teams Don't Have One Leader
Most teams hand one athlete a title and expect leadership to follow. It doesn't work — and now there's research to prove it. In this episode, Tex breaks down why the traditional captain model sets athletes up to fail, what social network analysis reveals about how leadership actually operates...
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106 - Self-Esteem & Service Reflexes w/ Luka Hocevar
Luka Hocevar [@lukahocevar] didn't choose coaching because it was safe. He chose it because nothing else gave him the same feeling — watching someone go from doubt to capable, from stuck to moving. Twenty-one years later, that hasn't changed. Luka is the founder of Vigor Ground Fitness in…
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105 - What Got You Here Won't Keep You There
You made the team. You earned the spot. You hit the goal. Now what? In this episode, we break down one of the hardest truths in sports—and in life: the habits, effort, and mindset that got you here are now just the baseline. If you don’t evolve, you get passed. We dive into why athletes lose...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The Fast-Track to Becoming a Game-Changing Leader.Discover how the greatest minds in sports build winning cultures. Dive into raw, no-nonsense conversations with elite coaches and captains who've been in the trenches. We're not here for fluff – expect: * Hard-hitting strategies to skyrocket your team's performance * Insider tips on building unbreakable team chemistry * Career-defining lessons from both victories and failuresWhether you're calling plays or taking the field, we're building you up, not breaking you down. Ready to raise your game? Let's do it together.Press play. Listen and lead with purpose. Become the leader your team needs.www.captainsandcoaches.com [https://www.captainsandcoaches.com/]
HOSTED BY
Tex McQuilkin
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Captains & Coaches Podcast have?
Captains & Coaches Podcast currently has 154 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Captains & Coaches Podcast about?
The Fast-Track to Becoming a Game-Changing Leader.Discover how the greatest minds in sports build winning cultures. Dive into raw, no-nonsense conversations with elite coaches and captains who've been in the trenches. We're not here for fluff – expect: * Hard-hitting strategies to skyrocket your...
How often does Captains & Coaches Podcast release new episodes?
Captains & Coaches Podcast publishes regularly with 154 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Captains & Coaches Podcast?
You can listen to Captains & Coaches Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Captains & Coaches Podcast?
Captains & Coaches Podcast is created and hosted by Tex McQuilkin.
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