Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen, Ph.D.

Athletic Coaching as Leadership with Chris Whritenour, Bret Beecher, Dennis Pluth, & John Dailey

• Scott J. Allen • Season 1 • Episode 299

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John Dailey – A high school diving coach for more than 45 years, John is known for his infectious energy, big-hearted mentorship, and focus on building confidence and resilience in young athletes.

Chris Whritenour – A trailblazing coach and former University of Minnesota diver (and its first female coach). Chris broke barriers as one of the first women to sign a collegiate athletic letter of intent and has spent decades inspiring divers (especially young women) to believe in their own strength.

Dennis Pluth – A passionate former diver and coach for nearly two decades, Dennis blends tough love with deep care, challenging athletes to take ownership of their growth while celebrating the lifelong community the sport creates.

Bret Beecher – A lifelong coach who began at 15 and has led athletes from high school to collegiate levels, Bret treasures the long-term relationships with his divers and the joy of watching them grow into confident, accomplished adults.

Quotes From This Episode

  • "Diving is 85% mental, 15% physical—we spend an awful lot of time running around inside these kids’ heads.” — John Dailey
  • “You can tell when someone’s genuine, just by showing up every day and making them believe they can.” — Chris Whritenour
  • “Diving accepted me for who I am." — Dennis Pluth
  • “Whether you finish in last place or first place, the kids will never forget the experience they had from their coaches and teammates.” — Bret Beecher

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

About  Scott J. Allen

My Approach to Hosting

  • The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.



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Scott Allen  0:00  
So before we jump into today's episode, I just wanted to say that this is an incredibly important episode for me personally. These are some individuals that really helped shape my path, and I imagine there's those individuals in your lives as well. So I think as you listen today, think about those people that perhaps you should reach out to that helped chart your course, that showed up at a time in your life when you needed them. I hope you enjoy a couple of these stories. These are some incredible people who have just meant the world to me. And now here's today's show. 

Scott Allen  0:42  
Okay, everybody. Welcome to the Phronesis podcast. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. Tonight, I have a really special episode, probably the most personal episode I've ever done. I have four mentors with me tonight. We have Bret Beecher, we have Dennis Pluth, Chris Whritenour and John Dailey and these individuals, some of whom I have not spoken with a lot in the last 30 years, but we have had a lot of adventures together, and they entered my life at a time when I really needed someone, and were mentors for me. But Brett, maybe we start with you. 

Bret Beecher  1:22  
First of all, Scott, you were a great kid growing up, honestly, one of the nicest kids I ever met as a athlete in high school. So I started coaching at age 15 or 14 at a country club in Edina where you and I went to high school, obviously, and I still coach today. So I think of those 40 years I didn't coach for five of the last 40 and it's been awesome. So that's my coaching career. 

Bret Beecher  1:51  
John Dailey 

John Dailey  1:52  
Let's see, I've been coaching for about 45 years. 46 years, a long time, still coaching High School coaching, in fact, at your old alma mater, that's really about it. 

Scott Allen  2:05  
Dennis Pluth!

Dennis Pluth  2:06  
What a great crew. And Scotty, you lived rent free in my head for too long. Just so you know, I was a diver. I only coached for about 1820, years, but it was most impactful time of my life. People like John, Brad, you Chrissy, everybody just enjoyed it. Didn't mean to make any impact. Just happened. 

Scott Allen  2:29  
And Chris! 

Chris Whritenour  2:30  
Hello, Scott, thanks for inviting us tonight. This is so fun to be back with the diving family. In fact, I was thinking about it. And as far as a family tree. Don Dailey was my coach. I coached you, and Brent had a little bit of Dennis, but then Dennis became a colleague. So it's just it is really fun to be out together. I started coaching right out of college. I'm going to say it in 1983 and I guess I can just leave it there for now. 

Scott Allen  3:04  
Where I want to start is obviously you all have touched so many lives, 45 years, 18 years, everything in between. There you have worked with so many human beings. And I hope that the four of you know the impact you're making on people's lives. I mean, here I am, literally 30 years later, coming back, I'd written a textbook, and it came out probably last year. I sent each of you a copy and said, look, the book was dedicated to all of you because of the impact that you had had, because you were leaders. To me, you had incredible influence. And it was at a time in my life when I needed positive influence, when I needed someone to be there for me. And so Brett, very much kind of a peer mentor, because we were in high school together, but you were the kindest, most wonderful senior ever. Obviously. You were an incredible diver. You were an incredible mentor from a peer mentor standpoint. And then John, Denny, and Chris, I mean, the three of you putting up with me, guiding me, challenging me, having those difficult conversations, but celebrating some of the wins. I mean, you know, I'm literally at this point in my life where I'm at a crossroads, and you all are there guiding, and at the time, you may or may not realize you're guiding, but you all were guiding, and thank God I had the four of you in my life, because you helped me move a different path than potentially I could have. So I would love for you to just reflect on what this work means to you, because you're changing lives, and I mean that in the truest sense of the word changing lives, you're helping people build their confidence. You're helping people build resilience. You are guiding people to self efficacy really kind of changing the belief in themselves. You're doing that work, and you've done that work for a long time. I want you to reflect a little bit about how you think about doing that work, because it's just awe inspiring. It is John. Let's start with you, 45 years. How do you think about this work? 

John Dailey  5:20  
You know, it's kind of overused, but it's an absolute passion being able to be with these people tonight. In fact, it's, it brings back some really exciting memories, some really positive thoughts. It's funny, because there's still nothing that excites me more than to see the smile on a kid's face when a seven year old learns how to do a back dive fall in for the first time, something that they never thought they would do. It's still every bit as exciting as today as it was. The first time seeing the confidence in their faces is just an incredible an incredible gift. 

Scott Allen  6:02  
Well, and Dennis, I know that this work and coming to diving in a similar way. We've had pretty extensive conversations where diving was something that was incredibly influential in your path. 

Dennis Pluth  6:16  
I fell into the sport in a lot of ways, you know, for me, because, you know, a little bit of what we study. But at the same point, I just had to find something, and diving was it. 

Scott Allen  6:28  
So, Chris, I did this presentation about two years ago, and in this presentation, it was all about coaching, and I have this picture of you hugging me when I had somehow made it to the junior Olympic championships on the platform, and I think the gentleman from Nebraska - Bauman -  he had accidentally messed up a final dive, and somehow I find myself in the rankings to go, and I have this picture of you hugging me. And again, it's just one of those moments where it's an image where this is a kid who needs that hug, and this is a kid who probably didn't believe in himself, but you all saw something more in me than I saw in myself. So as you think about this work, because you've coached 1000s of divers at this point, talk to us about how you think about the work of coaching and some of the stories, maybe even have a couple stories where you literally saw the transformation before your eyes, because I think you all are seeing that transformation before your eyes, and it's such an incredible honor and position to be in. Would you talk a little bit about that Chris. 

Chris Whritenour  7:35  
Diving, it's one of the most individual sports you can imagine. You are standing up there by yourself, with God in the world looking at you. You don't have anyone else in the water you're racing against. You don't have a team behind you. It's you. And some of my most special coaching moments have been having a real introverted girl and picturing one in high school, and no one would have ever pictured her being able to do this, stand up in a swimsuit in front of an audience, and she was not a good athlete, but he did it. And what I saw, I didn't see her become a state champion, I just saw her become a more confident person and within a team really does come from me, Allen, there's a lot of opportunity to talk to each other while you're standing in line, and when you have good older divers like a Brett was to you, it keeps a circle of positivity going, keeps the bar high. You walk in just with the expectation that, all right, you're gonna do you're gonna practice. And so I think watching people come out of their cell that's super cool. Seeing someone have a moment like you did when you qualified for Junior Olympics. That hug is authentic. I knew that the time that you put into there, and I knew how nervous you were going into it, and there it was. It happened. And those moments are priceless. And another thing, though, is I find that former athletes might take, like, 30 years to have that aha moment that you were important in my life. There's something you might be asked who was a mentor, and then you have to dig and think about it, but having kids come back as young adults and appreciate the time and commitment you made. That's probably the biggest bonus

Scott Allen  9:48  
Having it kind of circle back around and you know, Bret, I want to kick myself because I would have included your name. I mean, it was literally a conversation with Dennis where he was like, we should get Bret on the phone. I'm like, Yes, we should! You were such an influential force in my growth and development. Talk about your approach to coaching and what it is that you love about the process of coaching, because you're coaching at the collegiate level, correct? 

Bret Beecher  10:13  
I did for years. Yeah. Saint Cloud State, but again, I want to thank you for your kind thoughts of having me and Edina and me being one of your role models, if you will, that makes me feel phenomenal. And as you coach and Chrissy just said about having those student athletes like you, love the fact, even though sometimes it takes 1015, years later, when you're invited to their wedding or they want you to see their first kid, that makes you want to cry. So cool. And when I was a collegiate coach, I was literally 25 years old, so I wasn't very much older than my student athletes at all. So for me, it wasn't much of an aha moment. It wasn't much of anything because I was still in the college world. Actually was going to college at the time, and it made a difference when they said, Hey, I'm getting married. Can you go to my wedding? And for me, this day and age now, coaching from 15 to 55 the big thing is watching his kids grow and become adults and become kids that are going to college and to produce for us in the United States and pay taxes and whatever it may be. But then have kids get married, it's just, I'm just very, very lucky. That's all there is to it. Just very lucky that I'm still here and doing what I do, and doing I love it. But again, thank you so much for thinking to me in that way when we were in high school. So I appreciate that very much. 

Scott Allen  11:53  
Yeah, I know that where I want to go right now and Bret, I mean, that's a that's a wonderful segue, because where I'd love to take the conversation now is I want your own kind of perspectives on what is it that makes a great coach? What are those things that you brought to the table that you think makes a really, really solid coach for a young athlete, to help them do that development and do that work? Because essentially, what's happening is you're kind of scaffolding that learning and ensuring that they get to whatever levels they can get to. And so John, when you think about obviously, when, when I think of you, I think of a big, huge smile. I think of joking around. I think of putting me in my place when I needed to be put in my place. But I think there's always love and care behind kind of that jovial presence. And you made it fun, and it was exciting and it was interesting. And I think of times when we were in the pool at Breck, I think we were and you're yelling at Danny Williams and yelling at me, and we're kind of doing our thing. And you brought an energy to the space that was just infectious. Talk about kind of your superpower when it comes to coaching, what is it for you that you think you do really, really well that makes you a great coach? 

John Dailey  13:13  
I think one thing that perhaps I bring is the fact that I actually care about the kids more than I care about myself. It's more about them than it is about me. It's watching them succeed. It's helping them face issues. Even at home, you become a confidant, someone who listens when they need that. Diving is 85% mental, 15% physical, and we do an awful lot of conditioning to make sure that the body is in good shape, but we spend an awful lot of time running around inside these kids heads, whether they wish to believe it or not. For me, what's so much fun now is I coached a girl, Sam Lenke, who is at Blake. I now coach her two daughters. I actually met someone in this, this is really embarrassing, but I I coached their grandmother.That's I've been around way too long with. I know, trust me, it didn't sit well. It still doesn't sit well. But, yeah, I think if I looked at the faces of the others here, and that's the same thing. You know, Chris, Dennis, Bret, they all care about the kids more than they care about themselves. It isn't about me, it's about them. And I think that's there's one commonality that I see in all coaches that I think are any good. It isn't about their success. It isn't about who's going to acknowledge me as a great coach. It's what can I do to help this kid and what can I help them better their position as they look forward in life? Pretty simple.

Scott Allen  15:00  
Chris, how about you? 

Scott Allen  15:01  
What's your superpower when it comes to coaching? 

Chris Whritenour  15:04  
Well, I'm the only one here that can count this statistic. Being a woman coach, I had the opportunity to have influence on young girls when I went to college, I was actually the first woman to sign a letter of intent at the University of Minnesota. It was 1977 and was the first year it was implemented. And I had this really great high school coach, John Daly, so I happened to do well in the meet, and I'm old enough that I can look back and feel like a pioneer. I've impacted girls and women's sports around Minnesota. You mentioned watching people move on to their careers after diving. And I'll tell you what, there's some smart people over there. It's really good. But I think that confidence does come from seeing the role models, and if they can do it, I can do it, or they think I can, so I'll give it a try. Also being a woman coach in the 80s and early 90s, it was a little tricky, because it was a good old boys club back then, but I stood my ground and I offered maybe a little compassion. You know, I was about doing things technically correct, and I did my best to improve my coaching techniques and learn from other coaches and hire coaches. I just kept trying to improve as a coach personally, so I could give that to my athletes. And you can tell when someone's genuine and just by showing up every day. And when we coach, we over coach our athletes, sort of because we tell them something after every time they go off the board, and it's typically you did this well, but fix this, and you can do it, or when they need that kick in the butt, because they're about to try a dive they've never done before, and they're terrified, like John said, you're playing in their head, and you make them believe that they can, and that's really life believing that you can. 

Scott Allen  17:17  
Yeah, I remember standing on the 10 meter platform doing a back two and a half tuck, which is scary to think about. And yeah, Chris, you were calling me out, and the bubble is going and I'm scared as hell. I think I only did two in my career. I was done after that. I was like, I've had enough of this. But I always remember, Chris, you were always so very tactful in your feedback. It was always kind of a nice little quiet kind of I'm going to pull you aside and I'm going to have this conversation with you, and it came from a place of love. Now, Dennis Pluth would just yell. He would just say, "Scotty, what the hell are you doing?" good back up there. And he'd push hard, Dennis, your superpower as a coach?

Dennis Pluth  18:02  
At one point, I got tired of telling people, you know, hey, come out of the water. What? What I do, Coach, what you tell me? No, you saw it now you tell me. I'm waiting here. And she went dig, okay, I'm trying to get you to understand, Okay, I'm not like John Daly, if you don't take control or ownership of what you're doing, what the hell are you doing? I just got in your noodle and said, Hey, what's going on? You tell me that's all simple, and it works. 

Scott Allen  18:31  
And the blend of the four of you, I mean, Brett, I remember you doing a dive, getting out, and then watching me do my dive, and then you were coaching me and David and Hans, and you were basically doing double duty while you were practicing and avoiding swimmers in our lane so that we went on coach Downey had them in our lane as we were practicing, and we had to avoid clipping them, which was always an interesting exercise also. But Brett, as you transition to coaching, what do you think is your superpower?  I mean, obviously we know that you are authentic. You genuinely care about the people that you're working with. What do you think of when you come... 

Bret Beecher  19:10  
Well, the three of the people that influenced me a lot in my life are here with us today. Chrissy was the one who found me. Daly was the one who beat on me to become better, and pluth was the one who scared the shit out of me. So I think with those three, that's where I never wanted to quit coaching. Yes, Dennis, that was you, and Chrissy still is, and so is John and so is Dennis. They're still in my lives, and I still lean on them to give me help to become better, a better coach. And as John said, and Christy said as well, we're there for our student athletes. We're there to make them better. And this recently, our team in Orono won the state championship for single a. Unfortunately, John, your team got second to minute talk, no problem, but we're good. It was just so much fun to watch these kids become day champions at the same time. They're just so happy to be there and love their student athletes, their teammates, their coaches. That's what it's all about, whether you're in last place or first place, because unfortunately or fortunately, a lot of these kids will never go to college to be a swimmer or a diver or hockey players or football or whomever it is, but they'll never forget the experience they had from their coaches and their teammates, and that all comes from three of these people here that are in this podcast. For me huge, and I want to thank all of them. And Scott, thank you for bringing me onto this, by the way, and thinking highly enough of me to be here. And that's what life's all about, is all the people that make impressions on our lives so we can continue to move forward, be parents, be friends, be husbands, be wives and be good people, and that's it. 

Scott Allen  21:08  
And I think you summarized that so wonderfully. Brett, when you look at all the research on leadership, boil it down. I mean, it all comes down to relationships, and when it comes down to what are the attributes of an effective coach, that literature lines up beautifully with. What are the attributes of an effective leader? Primarily, what it boils down to is relationships. Are you working with someone who you believe cares about you, wants you to develop, grow, wants you to have a future, and cares about you as an individual and knows you as an individual. That's a great leadership. And John, back to what you said, it's not about me, it's about their development, their growth, their process and their journey. I'm a guide to help them along that road. You also need someone who's going to push you, someone who's going to challenge you. Can it's called the zone of proximal development, that person who's not challenging you too much, but not challenging you too little. They're just kind of scaffolding that learning and keeping you just outside of your comfort zone so that you get better over time. And if you have a leader who's doing that work with you, it's incredible. If you have a coach who's doing that work with you, it's absolutely incredible as we begin to wind down our time, what I'd like to do is just go around and maybe you have something that listeners would be interested in. What is something you've read or streamed, or maybe something along the way that has to do with coaching or has to do with leadership, that's caught your attention that you would want listeners to know about Brett. Anything come to mind for you? 

Bret Beecher  22:46  
Honestly, it is still my relationships with my coaches that I have, my friends, my family, people that are impressive, my mentors. I have a significant amount of mentors. I have a very successful company, and it didn't happen because of me. Had nothing to do with me. Had to do with all the people that have impressed me in my entire life, and the mentors and people that don't even have anything to do with my business. They've never been in it, never know anything about it. Ever read some books? Yeah. Do I stream No. Do I watch TV? Much? No, for me, it's my life experiences, and a lot of that happens to be the people that we're talking to right now.

Scott Allen  23:28  
Nice. It's those relationships, John? 

John Dailey  23:32  
I would have to say that for me, a big part of it, or at least something that I've looked at as kind of a teacher. For me, has been John, wooden, wooden pyramid of success. I don't think there's any of us who count championships or state titles, whatever else, when a kid graduates, or when a kid leaves me and moves on, the measure of success is, if we've been successful, then they're able to go out there, believing that they're capable of doing anything that they set their minds on, understanding too, that it's they're going to have to pay a price for it. You know, in diving, we crash a lot. We hit the water. But in life, there are going to be downsides to moving ahead, but you're not going to be able to move ahead without a few of those downsides, either without having to face them. And are you comfortable enough in your own skin to be able to know? You know? How many times was I scared to death to learn a new dive, but once I learned it, that became more of a repetitive process each time I faced that fear I had behind me a wealth of experience of having faced it successfully before. So the goal when they leave is there isn't anything that they really can't do if they set their minds to it. 

Scott Allen  24:54  
Love it. And I got my John Wooden book right here! Okay, Dennis, 

Dennis Pluth  25:01  
Going back to this whole thing, right? This whole you know, Brad, Chrissy, John Scott, myself, we're all interconnected. That's the beauty of it. I didn't bring anything special. I have been my love and joy of the sport. And Scott, you were kind of getting on that sport of diving accepted me for who I am, and I can be part of all your lives, which is really unfathomable to me when I was like 12 or 14, what a wonderful existence, and it's been lifelong, and I'm so blessed, I'm so happy, I'm successful, and I love all of you, 

Scott Allen  25:38  
Chris!

Chris Whritenour  25:40  
Like Bret, I was really young when I started coaching at the University of Minnesota. I was only 26 and I coached the men's and women's team there. There was one other woman division one coach at the time, Cynthia Potter, at Arizona, and in the big 10 I was with, like, the Olympic coaches. I had everything to learn, and what I did was stand on deck next to them, I listen, and then I go to conventions and other opportunities to learn more coaching skills, that's how I looked at progressing as a coach. Again, the technical piece... 

Scott Allen  26:20  
I think that's a wonderful answer, because really, it's about you standing next to Hobie Billingsley or Dick Kimball Olympic coaches and listening, like you said, and better understanding how they're approaching the work, what you could take from them, what you can learn from them, what maybe You don't want to do that they were doing. I mean, it's fascinating when you think about the position you were in and some of those personalities you were surrounded by. That's at 26 Chris?

Chris Whritenour  26:51  
Yep, oh yeah, I was not quite their peer, and they were the best. So what better opportunity than to learn from the best, and just have your eyes wide open and your ears open and you're right. You learn how you want to be, and also it's a big lesson learning how you don't want to be what you don't appreciate... 

Scott Allen  27:14  
The four of you. Thank you so much again. Just so very, very, very thankful for the fact that our paths crossed, that you had the influence on me, that you did, and again, just 1000s of lives that you have impacted collectively and as John, I think you said, helped people move out into the world and believe that they can accomplish anything because of what you've helped them accomplish in the pool, out of the pool, in their head, physically, just multi dimensional. And it's just, I'm thankful. I really am. And to the four of you, thanks for the conversation. It's been so much fun. 

Scott Allen  27:58  
As always. Thanks so much for checking in 20 years, 30 years from now, will people be reaching out to you, letting you know that you've made a difference in their lives? I hope so. I hope not only have people like Brett, Chris, Denny and John entered your life in the past, I hope you are that person for others. For me, that's leadership as always. Thanks so much for checking in. Take care. Be well. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai