(Ep047) Tony Dorado: What It Takes to Maximize Your Basketball Talents and How He Tried to Stop Jason Kidd's All-World Defense from Shutting his Team Down

When Tony Dorado was growing up, his father - a first-generation immigrant from Mexico - loved all sports. This wasn’t lost on Tony or his older brothers, all of whom excelled on the court and the field. But Tony’s first sporting love was always basketball, so much so that he decided when he was in his early teens that he would one day become a coach. 

Today, most people know Tony as Nike's worldwide director of high school basketball. But long before he joined Phil Knight’s company, Tony was living out his dream while he juggled high school coaching and teaching history and religion. The biggest obstacle to success at the state level? A precocious, do-it-all point guard named Jason Kidd, who was so good that his school of 400 kids was allowed to play against (and beat) the biggest powerhouse programs. 

In this episode, Tony shares: 

• What tactics he used to try and slow down Jason Kidd

• How he came to coach with his best friend from college

• Why he relied on passion to power him through long days of teaching and coaching, and nights of grading papers

• How he transitioned to working at Nike

• What are the secrets of playing and coaching well at the high school level 

To learn more from Tony, follow him on Twitter.