THIS WEEK’S GUEST on How To Win At Dominoes, The42‘s coaching podcast, is Billy Walsh.
Former Wexford Youths and Galway United manager Shane Keegan interrogates some of Ireland’s sharpest coaching minds — like Gary Keegan, Padraig Harrington, ‘Cheddar Plunkett and Stuart Lancaster — on the weekly podcast, which is exclusive to members of The42.
After an excellent amatuer boxing career, Wexford native Walsh oversaw Ireland’s transformation into a powerhouse in the sport as high performance chief, peaking with our best-ever Olympic Games in the ring in 2012.
He was later persuaded to become Team USA’s head coach, a job he still holds, where he’s been honoured as AIBA world coach of the year for his work there.
Walsh explained the kind of instructions he gives from the corner during fights, how he transitioned from fighting to coaching, the art of communicating with different groups in different ways and the need to be the bad guy sometimes.
“The nature of the beast — who I am as a person — is to be friendly, welcoming and I get on with people, that’s who I am,” he says. “I don’t want to offend people, it’s not my style to do all that stuff. I like keeping people happy, that’s the type of person I am.
“You have to become tougher. I’ve just done some really tough stuff over here in selecting a team or de-selecting some guys to go to the Olympic team and that was very tough. And you have to sit down with the guy one-to-one and explain to them you’re not doing it. That is very difficult for me to do. But I had to do it.
“I’m here to win medals for the US Olympic team and in my view this is the best team I would have to try to do that.
“It goes against the grain for me” he continues, “I want to keep everyone happy, that’s my style and that’s my personality and I’m always in good form so it was difficult but as you get a bit older and you’ve done it a while it’s probably easier for you to have these tough and hard conversations.
“I want it to be face-to-face, gloves off and we sit down and talk about it and give it to them hard and straight.”
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