Matt Doherty — Former NCAA Basketball Coach on Leadership Lessons Learned and Applied

The Learning Bridge with Richard Gerver

Matt Doherty is an American former college basketball coach best known for his time as head coach of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team. Prior to accepting the head coaching position at UNC, he spent one season as head coach of the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's basketball program.

As a college player, Doherty started on the 1981–82 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team, which on March 29, 1982, won the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, defeating the University of Georgetown. Doherty played under the legendary college coach Dean Smith, and started alongside future National Basketball Association stars James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Kenny Smith, Brad Daugherty and Michael Jordan.

Prior to being named the head coach at Notre Dame, Doherty served as an assistant coach first at Davidson, then at Kansas. After leaving UNC, Doherty would go on to become head coach of the Florida Atlantic Owls, and the SMU Mustangs.

Outside of coaching, Doherty has also served as a college basketball commentator and as an NBA scout. His broadcast roles have included serving as a color commentator for various high school and college programs including Davidson. Doherty was most recently the Atlantic 10 Conference's associate commissioner for men's college basketball, resigning in April, 2019. Doherty went on to his current role as an executive coach, keynote speaker and author of the book REBOUND: From Pain to Passion - Leadership Lessons Learned.

In this provocative and thoughtful episode, Coach Doherty talks with deep insight about his own childhood, working in elite sports, about the parallels between coaching and teaching, the power of community, of coming to terms with failure, and about passion purpose, and self-care.

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