Culture, what does it mean to you? To me, it defines the make-up and the way a group of people or an organization goes about handling their business.
During year one of Shawn Poppie’s tenure as the UTC Women’s Basketball coach that was his main focus, defining what their culture was going to be as a program.
“We spent all year this year directly attacking culture,” Coach Poppie stated, “I felt like if we stuck to that we could collectively come together and win enough games.”
Now, culture isn’t something that you just come up with, no, no it’s something that you learn, develop, and grow from experiences you’ve had, places you’ve been, and other cultures you’ve been apart of. With each experience you take what you like and leave what you don’t and al0ng the way you form your own definition of what you want your culture to look and feel like.
How did Shawn Poppie develop his definition of what he wanted this culture to look and feel like here at Chattanooga?
“I think it does go all the way back to my childhood… I was telling a recruit last night that I grew up in my family and my family had a nursery business (trees and landscaping) and it was a lot of hard work. On the other side, my mom’s side was farming community. I was taught what hard work looked like.”
That’s where the foundation was built for Poppie, that hard working attitude but now how about his first taste of sports culture…
“Going into my high school career my high school (basketball) coach did a phenomenal job with the culture. It didn’t matter if you were the best player or the 12th man he was holding you accountable to the standard that we lived by.” Poppie continued by saying, “I feel like every successful place I’ve been the culture was something that was established and it was consistent.”
As he continued to ascend within his basketball journey he took one crucial step which was working for Kenny Brooks at Virginia Tech and he really got to experience what a defined culture looked like at a highly competitive level…
“I felt like I was a really good basketball coach and that I could do it until I got to Virginia Tech and then I really realized what it looked like to instill it in your own program and how to do it. I think in today’s world it’s all about relationships,” He continued by praising his old boss, “Watching how Kenny Brooks did it and taking the blueprint from there to here and putting my own touch on things, he’s taught me so much of what it looks like.”
Culture is really about holding everybody to a specific standard of how you operate and coach Poppie has certainly established that in year one here at UTC. His hope now is that the players that are returning will instill those same cultural values to the new players coming in. If those players are able to do that, this program can reach heights it hasn’t seen in a couple of years as they continue to grow, develop, and hopefully dominate the Southern Conference.
To hear the full conversation with UTC women’s head basketball coach Shawn Poppie click here.
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