Justin Tatum | Illawarra Mercury | February 13, 2025 - video Dailymotion

Illawarra Mercury

Watch: Illawarra Hawks coach Justin Tatum speaking with Mercury sport journalist Agron Latifi after the team's training session at the Snakepit.

Transcript

00:00It kicked in when I got home, but it was basically an honor, a testament to my team and my assistant

00:15coaches how they helped me get to where I was at.

00:18I really wouldn't be in the Coaches of the Year conversation if my team did not really

00:23believe in our message and our techniques.

00:26When I got home and seeing how heavy it was and seeing my name on it, it kicked me.

00:31I'm like, man, I'm making a difference with this group.

00:48I had no idea, no clue, man.

00:50I was just going to coach Little League in high school and never knew where it was going

00:55to take me, but my passion and my understanding of the game grew.

00:58Then opportunities started coming along and my wisdom came along late last year.

01:05I took advantage of it.

01:07I said, hey, I need to battle myself a little bit and see how it goes.

01:10I didn't know I was going to be consulting to an assistant coach, to a head coach and

01:14all in six weeks, but I was prepared for it.

01:17I've been coaching for 17 years and I've played basketball more than half my life.

01:22When a guy puts something in front of you, you take advantage of the opportunity.

01:25That's what you do.

01:33Yeah, a ton of motivation.

01:34A ton of motivation to see the staff, himself and his team enjoy that, the city.

01:38Knowing how close we were the year before and knowing returning to pretty much everybody

01:42on our team, that was a tough layer that we can do.

01:45I have to say, I feel the same way.

01:47Learning a lot of things from the walk and run, I was able to implement a lot of those

01:51things in my technique.

02:03It's definitely not great, but the management part is something that we thrive off of.

02:07We want to make our practice interesting.

02:09We want to keep it competitive.

02:10You'll see we'll switch gyms here and there.

02:12We're working on two-a-days.

02:14We want to take advantage as much as we can, but also we want to make sure that everybody

02:17is recovering.

02:19We're just going to be in the gym.

02:20There's going to be some heat sensors, some conditioning things.

02:23We have a good mixture of things.

02:25We also do a lot of team bonding.

02:27We have three weeks of time because we want to play, but we have that one time in mind

02:31and fix what we need to do to help us in our practice.

02:44Whoever's playing their best ball by then, because we don't want no excuses.

02:48We don't want to say, hey, this team is missing that person or they weren't on the fun speed.

02:52We want to play their best ball by the time it's here.

02:54That's what we want to challenge us and hopefully that we can match their intention and win games.

03:07Working on him next week, he has done probably about 40% of the practice.

03:10It's just some things that we don't involve in there just because we don't want anything

03:14to reoccur too soon.

03:16So we'll just take another week of precautionary to probably put a bit of everything next week.

03:19But he's breaking that frame back.

03:21He's feeling 100% healthy and he's pushing himself.

03:24So it's good to see the majority of my guys back.

03:37Yeah, you expect a lot when you win.

03:40But the support that I've been getting around the city has been unbelievable.

03:43I know that this is the team that's been in the contest for 45 plus years.

03:48So that's saying a lot about the community and the support.

03:51Now they just want to back something and winning helps.

03:54And so I'm happy to be a part of it.

03:56I'm hoping to extend it as much as long as I can.

04:06Yeah, it always been.

04:07We kind of have a little motto.

04:09This is our regular season.

04:12Our preseason, which was our regular season.

04:14So we had 29 games prepared for this regular season to run.

04:18So we have five games to focus on to win.

04:20And all those things that we accomplished in that 29 games, we throw right out the window.

04:25So we're just like we're evil when everybody else is evil.

04:29Just kick ass.

04:32My man, appreciate it.

Justin Tatum | Illawarra Mercury | February 13, 2025

Category

Transcript

Recommended