Doug Noll on Passion, Perseverance, and Life Beyond the Court
Sports and Coaching · From Student of the Game
Doug Noll on Passion, Perseverance, and Life Beyond the Court
Brad Noll often says he earned a master's degree in business from the locker room. On this episode of Student of the Game, listeners meet the coach who ran that locker room: his dad, Doug Noll. Doug's hashtag is "call the coach," and Brad calls him the original student of the game.
Brad admits this one might be just for him, but he believes many listeners will see themselves in Doug's story. It is about chasing a passion, having it pulled out from under you, and finding a greater purpose on the other side.
A Basketball Life in Small-Town Indiana
Doug grew up in Berne, Indiana, a town of about 4,000 where there wasn't much to do in the 1960s and 70s but play basketball. His dad played semi-professional ball. Doug tried football, got hit too hard, and stuck with basketball and golf. He played until they turned the lights out at the school a block from his house, and his senior year the team packed a new 5,000-seat gym. Brad compares it to the movie Hoosiers, with caravans of cars heading to away games.
After a year at the University of Wyoming, Doug realized he wasn't ready for Division I and transferred to Grace College in Winona Lake, where the coaching staff recruited him. In his second game he scored 39 points. He averaged around 27 or 28 points a game, still holds some school records, and as a senior was the third leading scorer in the country, behind Portland State's Freeman Williams and Indiana State's Larry Bird. The New Orleans Jazz gave him a free agent tryout. He knew he wasn't headed for the NBA, but it was a thrill.
“If you're bitter and upset and angry, the people you're bitter and upset and angry at, they don't know that. It's just you carrying all inside.”
Doug Noll
From Auctioneer Back to the Bench
After a year as an assistant coach at Malone College in Canton, Ohio, Doug joined the family real estate business in 1981, when mortgage rates had come down to 18 percent. Brad, who knows plenty of agents frustrated by today's rates, uses it as a reminder: people move when their lifestyle changes, whatever the rate. Through the 1980s, Doug owned two real estate companies and two auction companies, selling everything from farmland and antiques to bowling alleys. He even treats listeners to a few seconds of his auctioneer's chant.
Then coaching Brad's youth teams rekindled his desire to coach. He called his contact at Grace College and asked about openings. There was one, but it didn't pay. Around 1990 the family sold their house in a day and moved to Warsaw anyway. Doug proposed raising money for the athletic department in exchange for a percentage, served as development director, head golf coach, and assistant basketball coach, and recruited two players from Berne. In his second year, Grace went 32 and 5 and won a national championship.
Brad says the lesson stuck with him for life. His dad wanted something badly enough to go without the promise of a paycheck and figure out a way to make a living doing what he loved. If you are struggling in your business, Brad suggests asking a simple question first: are you even passionate about this?
Building Programs at Spring Arbor and Fort Wayne
At Spring Arbor in Michigan, Doug took over a program that hadn't won 10 games in a season in 10 years. When a panel asked his goals, he said the national tournament, and they laughed. His first team won 18 games and came within 21 seconds of the tournament, and his teams later ranked as high as second in the country.
In 1996, Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne offered him its head job, but it didn't feel right, so he stayed in Michigan while Brad finished high school. Three years later the school called again. Doug let Brad decide where he wanted to play college ball and promised to coach him there, and Brad chose Fort Wayne. Moving so often as a kid taught Brad something he still believes: there is always opportunity on the other side of your comfort zone.
The program moved from Division II to Division I without a conference. With no conference games, the team played a heavy schedule of guarantee games, in which a school is paid to travel to programs like Notre Dame, Michigan State, Purdue, and Marquette. It brought in money for the university but plenty of losses, and Doug had to stay positive and keep his players' trust. In January of his sixth season, he was let go.
Better, Not Bitter
Doug remembers everything about that day. In some ways it was a relief, and in others it really hurt. He went home and stared at the walls. Then calls came from other coaches, along with offers. But his daughter, Abby, was playing college basketball at Bethel College, and after watching Brad play every game for four years, Doug wanted to see her play too. He stayed in Fort Wayne and watched her finish her career.
He says there are two paths after a setback. You can get bitter, but the people you are angry at don't know it. "It's just you carrying all inside," Doug says. Or you can get better, learn from it, and move on. Today the Purdue Fort Wayne coaches introduce him to their players as the man who built the program's Division I foundation.
Brad connects the story to his own team. Doug had huge success in one environment and struggled in a much harder one. When rates are low, everyone buys. When they climb, sales slow. That doesn't make someone a bad agent. The question is how to win in the environment you are in.
What Does It Mean to Keep Coaching?
Doug ran a basketball academy for local kids, then rejoined real estate in 2009 when Brad invited him onto his team. Brad says nobody was better at honestly coaching sellers on what their home needed before listing. Later, after Doug and his wife moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina, Home Warranty Inc. hired him as a sales representative. He was named rookie of the year in his sixties and now serves as national sales director, coaching a team of about 27 reps.
The irony isn't lost on either of them. Doug left a career to coach, lost that coaching job, and now coaches more people than ever. Some of the lessons he lives by:
- Pursue your passion, and find creative ways to make it work.
- Set goals that feel too big, then change the culture to reach them.
- Judge your work by how you handle the environment, not just the scoreboard.
- Choose to get better instead of bitter.
- Treat people the way you want to be treated.
- Remember that problems are the price of progress.
When asked who gets his flowers, Doug picks Brad, saying he has learned a lot from watching him grow his business for 20 years, and his wife, his partner through every move. Brad, in turn, thanks his dad for his childhood and credits him with inspiring the belief behind the whole podcast: relationships win.
▶ Listen to the full episode
Building a Legacy: Mastering Life Beyond the Court with Doug Noll, on Student of the Game.
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