Marquette men’s basketball head coach Shaka Smart and Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn have more in common than one may think.
Belief in connectivity? Check. The drive to always improve as coaches? You bet. Having continued success as coaches? Run the numbers and see what they tell you; (hint, it’s “Yes”).
It’s these shared similarities that led to their friendship.
Just over two and a half years ago, when Quinn, then the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator, was at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. Marquette was also in town to play Butler.
Smart and Quinn, who were connected by mental-skills trainer Russ Rausch, met for a meal. They hit it off. That same day, it was mentioned to Quinn that Chase Ross, a first-year at the time, grew up in Dallas and was a huge Cowboys fan. Quinn was more than happy to meet Ross, who he has stayed in touch with since.
“The ability for [Smart] to have this connection with a player, that first told me a lot about him,” Quinn said. “That is way deeper to basketball; it’s about knowing the guys that you coach and their families and backgrounds.”
It’s no secret that Smart is different than other coaches when it comes to connecting with players’ families. He often talks about building genuine relationships, not transactional ones.
A year after meeting Quinn in Indy, Smart got the opportunity to attend workouts in Washington, D.C. with the Commanders in May 2024, where Quinn had been hired as head coach just two months prior.
“The biggest thing I took from (Quinn) was his relentless pursuit of helping the guys around him grow. And then making sure that everybody knows that [Quinn’s] part of that equation too, in terms of him needing to grow as well,” Smart said. “That way, they know he’s not up in some tower telling people what to do, he’s right there with the guys.”
The fifth-year Marquette coach is always looking for ways to improve both himself and the team. Even after Big East championships and a Sweet 16 appearance, Smart understands that in order to lead a group of people, you’ve got to get them all to buy into one common goal. That’s where learning from other coaches — specifically from football — comes into play.
“Football is way ahead, they have such larger operations,” Smart said. “They’re in charge of so many people, I think any time you can learn from someone that is dealing with more complexity than you are, it can help you in what you’re doing.”
Over the past five years, Smart has visited a total five different football programs. From these visits, came a seven-page document titled Stealing from football.
“There’s things in [the document] that I feel are very applicable to our coaching,” Smart said. “(They’re) applicable to our team building and communication too.”
While Smart came back with pages of notes from his visit with the Commanders, Quinn said that he learned just as much from Smart as the MU coach did from him.
“For a long time, I thought basketball has done a really good job, both in college and the NBA, of structuring practice time and specific to guys getting better,” he said. “And in football, we needed more of that. So he was able to share some ideas with me on how to utilize time.”
One of the things that impressed Smart the most about Quinn’s practice was the team’s attendance during OTAs — which are not mandatory and skipped often by NFL veterans. Every single Commander that was under contract and healthy was there.
“I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s a good start,’” Smart said.”That’s pretty impressive, these guys don’t have to be here, but they are. I think that’s a testament to the fact that [Quinn’s] a guy you want to be around.”
Last year, Smart was also able to go down and spend a day with Alabama football head coach Kalen DeBoer. Smart said that he was able to sit in on some of the Crimson Tide’s meetings and attend practice. He spent the whole day as “a fly on the wall.”
Smart has developed a relationship with Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur in his time in Milwaukee, too, making several trips up to Green Bay, including one with the entire team a few years ago. Smart has attended Packers practices and even spoken to the team.
Aside from the Commanders, Packers and Alabama, Smart also has attended football practices at South Carolina and Georgia. It’s having the opportunity to learn from coaches across all sports that Smart and Quinn have benefited from the most.
“I think you let your guard down a bit as a coach when it comes to other sports,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t even matter the sport, just to see the guys teach and coach, it’s a really big deal.”
Despite Quinn’s high-profile position and success in Washington, the respect between the two runs deep.
“I’m really honored to watch Shaka coach and teach and to be able to share some ideas with him,” Quinn said, “because I think he’s one of the best.”
This story was written by Matthew Baltz. He can be reached at matthew.baltz@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MatthewBaltzMU.