The Northeast Florida Association of Realtors quarterly breakfast June 13 turned felt like a locker room before a big game, as University of North Florida men’s basketball coach Matthew Driscoll was the event’s guest speaker.
Driscoll captivated the room as if they were players listening to a speech from the head coach prior to running out onto the court or field for a big game.
As he walked around The Plantation Club Beach House he stressed several things that he believes are transferable life lessons that can lead to success whether the person is a coach or a realtor.
“Building genuine relationships is what life’s all about,” Driscoll said. “Don’t ever think you’re wasting your time, because that relationship could make all the difference one day.”
Never being afraid to put in the work is something else that he has developed his life around and it has helped him establish a career in coaching, which includes 15 seasons at the helm of the Ospreys’ men’s basketball program.
To help get the point across he quoted from the Bible and Proverbs 14, which states that “hard work brings profit.”
According to Driscoll, that includes putting all effort into the situation in front of them at the moment.
“It’s so important to focus on where your feet are currently,” Driscoll said. Every day has got to be ‘the day.’ Everything you do you have to do with a genuine purpose. Having a vision is two-fold. If you truly get out and win the day, you’re going to make a difference in people’s lives.”
His speech was incredibly relatable to the crowd, as he compared realtors working and searching for clients to the process Driscoll and his coaching staff encounter when recruiting prospective players to the program.
He also compared one-and-done players in college, those who graduate high school and play one season at a respective school before turning pro and entering the NBA draft, to that of high interest rates that realtors are all too familiar with.
Driscoll informed the crowd that something he has said for years is “it ain’t rocket science,” to the point where it is now going to be the Ospreys’ team moto for the 2023-2024 men’s college basketball season.
The moto is one he believes is fitting for most people because there is a tendency to let worries make things more complicated than they are or should be.
One of the lessons his father taught him is to treat others the way he would want to be treated, regardless of how they treat him back.
“The only thing I can control is how I treat others,” Driscoll said. “That’s something I’ll never forget.”
