Leadership in sports: Bridging Impact with Coach Furtado
Justin Furtado is a basketball coach in Los Angeles. He has a brand called Bridging Impact that we will be talking about today. He graduated from the University of Oregon with his bachelor’s degree in Planning, Public Policy and Management.
Below I have written most of what we talked about but you can listen to the full podcast on Anchor / Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.
Q: Have you learned more about basketball as a player or as a coach?
A: I think one of the biggest influences when I started Bridging Impact was when I attended a basketball camp called PGC Basketball in between my Junior and Senior years.
I learned a ton about basketball at that camp.
This stood out as a camp that taught you how to be a great player and how to be a great leader on and off the court.
That’s where some of the foundations of why I wanted to become a coach really came from.
I will say I know more now about the game of basketball that I am a coach.
I see all of the moving parts on the floor and how they fit in versus as a player I was only concerned with my part.
Q: What is Bridging Impact all about?
A: It started as a podcast just to pass wisdom along to youth sports coaches and after school leaders.
I really wanted to focus on how I can build leadership into sports because so much of what I have learned in life is from sports growing up.
The majority of my memories and life lessons are from sports.
I have noticed that a lot of coaches don’t really teach in-game scenarios.
They teach movements that look cool but they don’t teach fundamental skills that are applicable in the game.
They are missing what it really means to be a great team player.
At Bridging Impact, right now we are starting with basketball and teaching fundamental team basketball.
We are also teaching young athletes how to be great leaders not only on but also off the court.
What does being a leader mean?
Number one, you have to lead yourself first in terms of how you hold yourself accountable and how you show up.
Do you show up to practice and give fifty percent or is it a hundred percent? How do you communicate to your teammates?
When you are giving them a correction, do you say “you suck” or “you need to finish better with your right hand”?
How you communicate with your teammates matters so much.
A lot of times we just expect our athletes to be great leaders but you have to model it.
You have to consistently teach, highlight and emphasize the key points that you want them to make.
Those life skills will then transition from when they are in sports to when they either go into college or when they go into the working world.
Q: What has been your top few favorite interviews?
A: I’ve had some pretty emotional conversations.
Our number one conversation of the year so far had an emotional connection with it. It was a conversation I had with Coach B, Andy Beronilla.
He is an assistant varsity basketball coach and a physics teacher.
He was giving so much great information on how he connects with his athletes and his students as a physics teacher.
He used Steph Curry’s shot as an example for angles in class. He made physics fun.
Another interview I liked was with Mary Ingram.
She does a lot of work with incarcerated youth in Nebraska.
Our conversation got moved to tears because we talked about the impact that we as adults have in the lives of the youth. That was really moving.
I remember a conversation with Lisa O’Meara and she was talking about how basketball is so much bigger than wins and losses.
We were talking about the connections of just coaches in general.
I think a lot of times we think “how can I beat this coach”.
Shifting our mindset from that to “how can we collaborate in the off season, continue to help each other grow as coaches, still compete our butts off during the season and still try to beat each other?”.
It’s more than those wins and losses.
I also had a great conversation with one of my former colleagues at the University of Oregon.
We talked about the importance of female sports.
Eventually I want Bridging Impact to have a girls division in a camp because I think it will encourage more female athletes.
I’m a big believer in physical activity being so important with our mental health.
I genuinely believe our society will be better for it especially when sports are taught in the right way.
Q: What are your goals for Bridging Impact?
A: Number one, our goal is to run a program and a summer camp.
After we run that camp, I want to evaluate it and understand what went well and how we can improve that.
The three to five year plan is that this will become my full time job.
We will start to really start impacting lives and transforming athletes on and off the court.
I hope that these leadership programs help these athletes become better in their classrooms and in their homes.
Q: What was the transition out of playing sports and into coaching like for you?
A: It was a big shift for me. Sports were my life from when I was born all the way until I was eighteen.
I probably could have played at a JuCo or something but I decided to go to a big school and stop playing.
I took a break from sports for awhile until I took a coaching class my sophomore year.
At that point I knew that I loved coaching.
I coached a few kid sports recreational teams. When I moved to Los Angeles, I needed to get out of the house and do something fun so I found myself coaching basketball.
I keep finding myself getting promoted and really enjoying doing this.
I feel like one of the reasons I was put here was to coach. I love it and excel at it. I love sports, I love working with youth, and I love leadership.
I really feel like I can make my mark and make my legacy on the world through Bridging Impact.
Q: Where can we find your content and support your brand?
A: bridgingimpact.org coachfurtadoo on Twitter and Instagram, coachfurtado on TikTok, coachfurtadotv on YouTube, Bridging Impact will be on Spotify, Anchor, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. I do interviews and I also do a ten minute wrap up of what I’ve learned in the week.
If you have any more questions for Justin, please leave comments below or contact me. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call or text the Suicide Hotline. It’s toll free and available 24/7 at 988 or 800-273-8255.
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