Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #333: Mike Rosolino - Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University | Building a Program, Moving to DII, Staying Power

Transcript

#333: Mike Rosolino - Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University | Building a Program, Moving to DII, Staying Power · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

0:00
We're back here on the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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again, so humbled you would press play today right here to
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to do another one. Here we are.
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Every week we bring you men and women from around the country,
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around the world sometimes and they're amazing journeys in this
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great profession. You know, our goal is always to
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show you different pathways of coaching, different successes,
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different lessons learned, the importance of mentors, etcetera.
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And and I'm pumped for each and every week and I'm pumped for
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this week right here. So let's get right into it.
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Help me welcome the head coach from Emery Riddle University.
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I think I should have asked that.
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I think it's university. Help me welcome the wise, the
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wonderful Mr. Mike Rosalina. Mike, how are you, Sir?
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I'm doing excellent, Mike. I appreciate you having me on
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today. It's Emery Riddle University,
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right? That's what I had in my head.
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Yes, technically there's an aeronautical in there as well.
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It's Ember Riddle Aeronautical University.
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OK, Yeah, the whole, that's right, the whole name, I never,
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I noticed, you know, some are universities, some are college
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and I don't know the difference of those two things.
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So I kind of, I just call like everybody university until they
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like correct me. And then I'm like, well, what
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does that mean? And no one's been able to answer
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that yet, so I don't really. Really know, I think the
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technical answer to that is if you have more than one college
1:14
within the university, it's a university.
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And if you don't, let's say. College.
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So like College of Arts and Sciences, College of
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Engineering, College of Business or what that would make up
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university? You got it.
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Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So that makes sense that, you
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know, more people who are colleges are usually much
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smaller schools because, yeah, they have one.
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OK All right. Look at there.
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Didn't know we were going to learn that today.
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Hey, let's learn something else out.
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Something else as well. I love knowing the college
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mascots. Now I'm gonna have a guest
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before you tell me. I actually don't know because I
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know it is. It's a big flight school finding
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there. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go
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way out there and say astronauts.
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But I don't, I think it's less than an astronaut.
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What's the What's the mascot? It's an eagle.
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It's an eagle, of course. It's an eagle, OK?
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It flies. Things that fly.
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So you're not like in the the Emery Riddle F sixteens or
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anything. You're you're an eagle, Yeah.
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OK, that would be cooler though. Maybe we should have been.
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That would be cool, yeah. There's a lot of other
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connotations there, though, that maybe we don't want to get into.
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Exactly. And before we hop back in our
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way back machine and learn more about you, Mike, tell us more
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about the school because this is an interesting school.
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I knew of the school way back in the day when I coached at Troy
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University because we see each other meets.
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I think they came up to our meets.
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And then I remember one time when the Internet started, you
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know, becoming a thing, I found Emory Riddle, but it was in
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Arizona. So I got very confused.
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Tell us, just give us kind of a 30,000 foot level on Eagle's eye
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view, if you will of the school because it's a fairly unique
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school in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely.
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Yeah. It started actually about 100
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years ago exactly because we're about to celebrate our 100th
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anniversary as a flight school with they trained pilots and
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then they also trained people to fix airplanes.
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And so as a flight and flight mechanic school just out of, you
2:59
know, like a, a airplane hangar, you know, and then it kind of
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grew from that into, you know, moving in.
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The original campus was here in Daytona Beach, moved here to
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Daytona Beach in about the 1960s, I think it was 1962,
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moved here and at that point kind of became a college and
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university again, kind of centering around flight.
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So, you know, still teaching pilots how to fly, still people
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teaching people how to build planes, how to manufacture them,
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how to fix them. And then it kind of grew into
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some engineering, like how do we design airplanes?
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And then eventually into other things like designing rockets
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and, you know, other things that fly up in the air, leave the
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outer space, you know, those types of things.
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And gradually expanded and, and expanded more and more into more
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areas. But still most things do center
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around flight, space exploration and things around that.
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So we now do basically every form of engineering.
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We have meteorology programs 'cause, you know, pilots seem to
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know meteorology and weather. We have air traffic control,
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which you know, is very important.
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We have the business, you know, 'cause the business side of
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aviation is, is very important. And then like Homeland Security
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and now we have a lot of stuff into unmanned aircraft systems
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like drones and things like that, which is really kind of
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the growing area. But yeah, I expanded, you know,
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now we're, I think we set a record enrollment every year it
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feels like. Really like how many kids?
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We're up to almost 9000 on campus here, and then we
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obviously expanded to the Arizona campus as well.
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They're a little bit smaller. I think they're around 1500.
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So so that's like a sister campus then y'all aren't
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completely separate. That's like, OK, we we put some
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out West. Yeah, we technically have three.
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Well, I think we technically now at this point have 4 campuses.
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So the, the one in Daytona Beach, one in Prescott, AZ and
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those are and then we have a small, small campus in Singapore
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now and then we have what's called our worldwide campus,
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which is basically our online learning systems.
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But we also have small centers and a lot of military bases
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across the globe where people who are in the worldwide campus
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can go and have mentors and advisors and things like that to
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help them navigate through the system.
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And you have like someone can go there.
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I think I know this because I think I know this fact.
5:30
You can go there and major in like drones or drone technology
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or something like that, right. And I think you're you're 1 of
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only two because someone, and I can't remember who it was.
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I just had this conversation. Their son is going to and I
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think it's either North Dakota or North Dakota State and
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they're one of the other. They're the other two, the other
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one, you and and them. It it would be UND.
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Yeah, OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Who also has like AI can't. Well, what's their they they
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have some kind of eagle bird mascot too.
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I can't think of what it is. Maybe.
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Maybe it's a Falcon. It's a hawk.
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It's a hawk, OK. As I say, complementary to an
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eagle. Yeah.
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Yeah, Yeah. OK, Yeah.
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There's just a funny story behind that one too.
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Yeah, my daughter actually isn't doing her PhD at UND.
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That's how I know. Oh, OK.
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All right. Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so they used to be the
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Sioux and then had. To the Fighting Sioux, that's
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right. And had to get rid of it and
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somebody put in Hawks, which stood but stood for How about we
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keep Sue? That was the mascot that was
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chosen. That's awesome.
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Yeah. Like we tend to think sometimes
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some decisions are made, you know, after high level research
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and, you know, well, Hawks are native to the.
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What are they in Fargo? I think Fargo area.
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And it's like, no, someone made a prank, a meme, and that's how
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they became that. I love that.
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That's cool. It is a cool mascot, though.
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I do love that. Yeah.
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No. It is.
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It is really cool. And then your last fact of the
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day before we actually get to our guest today, Mike, I'm so
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sorry because we talked about eagles and Hawks and everything.
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You know, when you hear an eagle on TV, you know that screech,
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that's actually not what an eagle sounds.
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Fact. That's typically a hawk screech,
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an eagle. Like you should Google what an
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actual hawk. I'm sorry.
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Eagle sounds like. It does not sound like this
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majestic screech that we hear on TV's.
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It sounds actually pretty terrible.
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So they actually dub in a hawk screech for it, which I thought
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when I first learned that was like the most hilarious thing in
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the world. Like we had to dub our American
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Eagle. That's crazy.
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I love it. I love it.
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Awesome. OK, well, Mike, no one came here
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to find out how you and Dee got their mascot.
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No one came here to find out about an eagle's true screech.
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We actually want to learn more about you.
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So let's get back into our Wayback Machine and go back.
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You know, Mike, assuming, and we know what assuming does for us,
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that you were an athlete. Where does track start for you?
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It started in high school, actually.
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Growing up, I played baseball, soccer, some flag football, a
7:59
little bit of basketball. But at 5 foot 2, that was never
8:02
going to be a career. Knew that one.
8:06
So in high school, I grew up in New Orleans and Louisiana, and
8:10
so when I was going to high school, soccer was a winter
8:13
sport there. And so on the first two weeks of
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being a freshman in high school, I tried out for the football
8:21
team in two weeks, never got a helmet cause at 4 foot 8 and
8:26
baby 60 lbs wet, you know, I was small.
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I guess they didn't really see my future there either.
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So then the cross country coach was like, hey, you should come
8:37
run cross country, get in shape for soccer season.
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And then I was like, OK, I'll try that.
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Like whatever, this this football thing doesn't seem like
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it's working out. So went and started running
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cross country. About four days after being at
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practice we had our first, I wouldn't call it middle school
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because we didn't have a middle school.
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It was a freshman only race. It rained the night before, so
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my infinite wisdom of having been at practice for four days
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said you know, it's wet, I should probably wear cleats
9:09
today instead of running shoes. Went out, ran the the two mile
9:14
race in my soccer cleats. Finished I think 5th and which
9:20
was pretty. Solid.
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And then my coach looked at me and said, son, I think it might
9:26
be time to get you a pair of running shoes.
9:28
It's not soccer season yet. Not yet, not yet, not yet, But
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yeah. So that started there in cross
9:35
country, played soccer and then ran track in the spring.
9:40
Did you want so, so you know, I love this, you know, such
9:44
naivety of running in general. You put cleats on right.
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But but in, you know, if you think about it, you know, we're
9:49
we're too much in our bubble. We know about track and cross
9:52
country. That just seems foolish to us.
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But for a you know what 14 year old kid, that logic actually
9:58
makes sense until you know the whole particulars, right?
10:01
Did you know because you, you go on to do soccer and do track
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that freshman year. How much did you know about
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track? Like did you know, like, oh,
10:10
there's distance events and sprints and hurdles?
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Or did did you just know like, oh, OK, I ran cross and then I
10:14
did soccer. Well, I guess I just do track
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then. That's what I'm supposed to do.
10:18
Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I think I knew.
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I mean, obviously you watch the Olympics, so I know, yeah, I
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knew there was sprinting, there was distance running.
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You know, I obviously kind of knew those things.
10:28
I really wish I was fast enough to be a sprinter because that's
10:30
a whole lot easier training. Yeah.
10:32
Amen. Amen.
10:34
That was not in the cards, so no went into the distance running.
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Yeah, so through high school, all four years doing this combo,
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cross soccer and track. Yep, all three, All four years.
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Two of those years I'd played club soccer on top of cross
10:50
country. My cross country coach put an
10:52
end to that after my sophomore year when I broke my nose
10:55
playing club soccer, missed about two or three weeks of
10:59
cross country season, and he's like, maybe we don't need to be
11:03
doing that anymore. So.
11:05
You know, when I have coaches on here who were football players
11:08
and track athletes, one of my favorite questions is, were you
11:11
a football player who ran track or a track athlete who played
11:14
football? Yeah, it's pretty obvious.
11:16
This seems interesting to ask you because you did soccer all
11:18
through you were doing club soccer, Were you?
11:21
And maybe it changes at some point that that's that's allowed
11:24
through high school. But would you have considered
11:26
yourself more of a soccer player who ran track and cross, or a
11:29
track cross country who also did soccer?
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I would have at that point in my life, yeah, I would have said I
11:34
was a soccer player. Who ran cross country and track?
11:39
It was all to get better at soccer.
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That's that's kind of he defined like I was a soccer guy because
11:43
the track stuff helped me, not vice versa.
11:45
Yeah. I mean, I think I'd I'd liked
11:48
all three as competitive in all three, but yeah, if I had to
11:50
pick one at that point. Yeah.
11:53
Did that change at some point in high school?
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No, actually, I played soccer my first year and a half in
12:00
college. Oh.
12:01
OK, All right, Well, hold on before we get to college.
12:03
All right? That's fair.
12:03
I have to love that. What?
12:05
No, that didn't change in high school.
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Yeah. OK.
12:07
So why continue? And what I mean by that is so
12:13
you kind of look like all good coaches.
12:16
You got ahead of me already. We know you did soccer in
12:19
college. So so I'm starting to think like
12:21
senior year you have soccer season, there's still a track
12:24
season left, but I'm going to go play soccer.
12:27
Maybe I need to go back to club or something like that.
12:29
What What kept you going in track and field?
12:33
I would say a couple things, one like I was successful, so I was
12:36
doing well at it. And and also just kind of, you
12:39
know, obviously felt a sense of responsibility to the team then
12:42
as well to, you know, continue to contribute, continue to do
12:45
well. I'm also the type of person, you
12:47
know, just being active and, and doing 100 things at a time was
12:52
who I am. Like I was like, what else am I
12:55
going to do? Like I need to occupy those 3
12:57
hours a day. You know, I don't think there's
13:00
been a time in my life where I wasn't playing a sport.
13:04
So growing up as a kid, like, it was, you know, soccer in the
13:07
fall, baseball in the spring, You know, there's basketball
13:11
there. It was, you know, something
13:13
like, I mean, I was always playing, if not more than one
13:16
sport at a time. Like I was doing flag football
13:18
at school and soccer and club. I was doing what we call cabbage
13:23
ball as this elementary school student at the school.
13:27
Cabbage ball is, yeah. What is that?
13:29
Yeah. It's baseball with a bigger ball
13:32
than a softball that's soft. It's the size of a cabbage.
13:36
It's the term. So it's about the size of a
13:39
cabbage. It's softer, so you play it on a
13:41
much smaller field so you can do it like in a parking lot at
13:46
school and things like that. But but a slow pitch.
13:49
Now it's fast pitch underhand. OK.
13:52
All right. Because in Chicago softball is a
13:57
big cultural thing for adults. There's a ton of softball
14:00
leagues and they play and I can't remember.
14:02
They don't call it a cabbage. I love that name though.
14:05
They have they have the name for whatever the size of it really
14:07
is. Like they have like 6 inch
14:09
softball or 8 inch or sometime starting weight.
14:11
Maybe it's 10 inch for all I know that seems pretty big, but
14:13
but it's a huge culture thing to to play in your softball league
14:17
when you become an adult in Chicago.
14:18
And I just remember the bigger than normal, the ball that they
14:22
used up there down South, we call it the cabbage ball.
14:24
I love that of. Course, the cabbage ball, the
14:26
cabbage ball, yeah, yeah. So I mean, I play cabbage ball
14:30
at school and then go to play club and then be playing Little
14:32
League baseball, you know. So yeah, yeah, it's just that
14:35
was just who I was. Like, I mean, I was just was
14:37
always playing a sport. So did not play a sport would
14:41
have been like, I don't. Yeah, it's not, not your your
14:43
vocabulary. Yeah.
14:44
No, like that would just not even be.
14:46
That was never a thought at that point.
14:48
Yeah. When you're in, when you're
14:50
doing cross track in soccer, think about, you know, we have
14:54
hindsight now so we can think back, think about your
14:56
relationship with coaches where you and you know, I give a lot
15:01
of grace to 14 day, 10 year old kids.
15:03
You're a kid, but some of us, you know, with the spoiler
15:06
alert, we know you become a coach.
15:08
We can look back and go, oh, you know, I did pay attention to
15:10
coach and how they called plays or what workouts we did and
15:13
track or, or most kids are, you know, coach told me to run 4 by
15:17
4 so I ran 4 by 4. You know, you know, C ball, hit
15:20
ball for the track and field guys.
15:21
What kind of athlete relationship with your coach can
15:25
you look back at now? Well.
15:27
You know, I look at my first three years of running, I had a
15:33
different coach. Each year.
15:36
No, I had I'm sorry I had a different coach the first three
15:38
years of my senior year. My first three years it was an
15:41
ex football coach who smoked his cigar while he drove the bus.
15:47
Sometimes we felt like our fart lick intervals were wait a
15:50
minute by how long it took him to to inhale his cigar.
15:55
You're, you're not that old when I say that.
15:57
I think we're roughly the same age.
15:58
So you when you say that, I think of a guy who's like, oh,
16:00
back in the 40s, my coach had his cigar, dude.
16:05
Yeah, yeah, it was in. Wow, that's crazy.
16:09
Yeah. Yeah, you know, so, I mean, you
16:13
know, it was he, he, he was a great guy.
16:17
He really cared about us. But training wise, like I, you
16:21
know, we trained well. We did OK, but it wasn't, I
16:25
didn't feel like there was the science behind it my senior
16:29
year. A guy you probably have heard
16:31
of, Mike Korn, became my high school coach.
16:36
Way. Yeah, so Mike was my coach, my
16:40
senior. I had no idea that is first of
16:44
all, what a small world. Second of all, that's awesome.
16:47
How how was he as a coach? I know him as a, you know, an
16:50
educator and a friend and business, you know, would do a
16:54
lot of business together and stuff.
16:56
Coach Korn. I've never been able to
16:59
experience how that was Coach Korn.
17:02
Is night and day different? I can tell you he wasn't smoking
17:04
a cigar. No, but Mike was great.
17:11
You know, I'll never forget the first, you know, like, just a
17:13
cultural change, right? Like we get done with our first
17:17
meet and she says, OK, we're meeting for a long run in the
17:20
park tomorrow. And we all look at each other
17:23
like, wait, what? Like, first of all, we haven't
17:25
done a long run period, let alone ever run the day after a
17:28
meet as we all looked at him like, are you crazy?
17:32
Like what, what or what? And so and then we meet him out
17:36
there and of course, you know, we all raced the day before and
17:39
we're all just dog, you know, kind of tired.
17:42
We've never done this before. And he just hammers this long
17:45
run on us. It just took off and we're like,
17:49
OK, this just got serious. But, you know, it's just, you
17:54
know, but he was he was a great coach, new to science behind it
17:58
made us a much better team, but definitely had to change, change
18:02
the culture a little bit, you know, because we weren't used to
18:04
that. Like we just.
18:06
And that wasn't that wasn't our MO.
18:08
Like, you know, we just, you know, but yeah, I definitely
18:11
learned a lot from him of, you know, kind of what it meant to,
18:14
to train properly and to train correctly and actually kind of
18:19
understand what we're doing a little bit more and.
18:22
Now, now you only had one year with them, but you know, you,
18:26
you've have a lot of experience with Mike throughout the time
18:29
here and you know, he he's probably, you know, thinking out
18:33
loud here, probably one of the most unknown big influence
18:39
impacts on our sport, on our profession of coaching, I should
18:42
say, of course, of course our sport.
18:44
But our coaches, you know, did a lot of USATF coaching,
18:48
education, directorship, you know, doing a lot of classes
18:53
level twos, things like that went on to really, I don't know
18:58
if either of these gentlemen would say this, but I I think I
19:01
would would be Sam seems right hand man to really take USTFCA
19:05
from, you know, on the ground to, you know, one of the finest
19:10
organizations we have around there, knowing that you only had
19:15
a year with them. So maybe it's not that fair of a
19:18
question. Could you see that in him?
19:21
I mean, you know, you're 17 again, you only have a year.
19:24
So all fairness to go. Yeah, no, he was just a coach
19:27
that didn't smoke a cigar. So we were happy.
19:28
But could you see like, oh wow, this guy is like he he loves
19:32
this sport. He's going to do something in
19:34
this sport. I definitely knew he had a
19:36
passion for the sport. He was also young at that point,
19:40
OK. Right.
19:41
You know, I mean, it was fun to have a young coach who could
19:43
actually run with us and and challenge us.
19:45
And you know, so I mean, he definitely saw the passion he
19:48
had for the sport, definitely the understanding of that he had
19:50
of the sport, the expertise and knowledge.
19:54
But if he had asked me back then, would he be the person who
19:57
is founding? Like I wouldn't have even
19:59
thought about that. Or known about.
20:01
That yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is cool to go to
20:04
convention and be like, hey coach, what's up, I.
20:06
Know, like I said, I I knew he coached, but he's never been
20:11
coached corn in my he he's been coached corn in my head of like,
20:14
oh, he helps coach coaches, right, You know, which is a, you
20:17
know, obviously a big thing in my life and just love him with
20:21
death and love his servant leadership.
20:22
So, you know, I haven't even thought of him as a coach.
20:25
So to hear that kind of blows my mind a little bit.
20:28
Man, that's so cool. I love Mike.
20:30
He's so good. I loved seeing him last year at
20:32
the US two CCA coming back and helping out.
20:34
Man, I love that dude. OK, senior year again, you do
20:40
the trifecta, the cross, the soccer and the track and field.
20:44
You're thinking about college. Talk to us about, you know, what
20:46
you're thinking about college, where you end up going and
20:48
really want to know. Kind of started with two
20:52
questions. One is coaching at all in your
20:54
mind as as your high school senior looking at college, is it
20:58
at all there? Yes.
21:01
So I went to college. I went to Rhodes College in
21:04
Memphis. Yeah.
21:05
Is that right? Yeah.
21:06
Grade school. Yeah.
21:07
Yeah. So I went to Rhodes with the
21:11
idea that I was going to be a high school math teacher and
21:15
soccer coach. OK, that's when you said yes.
21:17
I was like, I bet it's soccer though, 'cause that's still our
21:19
number one, OK, not track or, or, or maybe like, oh, you know,
21:23
if they, they make me do track, I will.
21:24
But I'm a, I'm a soccer coach. Yeah, OK.
21:27
And A and a math teacher. And a math teacher?
21:30
Yeah. Oh boy, me and you are at odds.
21:33
I I'm still working on 1 + 1 and you wanted to be a stinking math
21:37
teacher. Holy cow.
21:38
OK. All right.
21:39
That's what I went to school believing.
21:42
Yeah, I went to school believing that.
21:44
Yeah, I played soccer my first year and then my second year, my
21:48
sophomore year, I was a forward on the soccer team and the two
21:53
starting forwards was a sophomore who is the player of
21:56
the year in the conference and a freshman who is the freshman of
21:59
the year in the conference. And I kind of looked and went,
22:03
had an honest conversation with the soccer coach was like, I
22:06
don't see myself seeing very much on this field ever, and
22:10
knowing that. I don't know enough about
22:12
soccer. Could you not have changed
22:15
position? You know, in football, if you
22:17
just said I'm an offensive lineman, all 5 in front of me
22:19
are superstar, I'd be like, Oh yeah, well, you're done.
22:21
Yeah. I don't know enough about
22:22
soccer. Could you not change?
22:25
You know, he had already moved me, you know, I grew up playing
22:28
a different more in the midfield.
22:29
He had moved me to a forward and, you know, just with his
22:33
style and and that's where, you know, it kind of fit in.
22:36
And so we had some honest conversations during the first
22:39
part of my sophomore year of, you know, where do I really fit
22:43
in? Is there really going to be, you
22:45
know, with these two guys? Am I ever going to play?
22:46
And really, you know, and he was honest about it.
22:48
He said, you know, look, I love you.
22:50
You know, you, you, you work hard.
22:51
You do everything I ask you to. But, yeah, you know, by your
22:54
senior year, maybe you're getting a few minutes a game,
22:56
you know, but, you know, it's not going to be.
22:58
And I was like, well, that's fair.
22:59
And I said, you know, if I'm not going to contribute here, let's
23:02
contribute somewhere. Did you do track that freshman
23:05
year? No.
23:06
OK. So you're focused on soccer.
23:08
OK. OK.
23:08
Keep going. Yep.
23:09
Yeah. So then I went and talked to the
23:12
the cross country and track coach, Coach Shankman.
23:15
I was going to say, no way. It was Coach Shankman back then
23:17
too. I know he's been there for a
23:18
long time. Love Robin.
23:19
That's so cool. He's been, Yeah, he's been there
23:21
a long time. And so I went to talk to him,
23:24
talk to him about what I'd done in high school and, you know,
23:26
whether there'd be a chance to come out and run.
23:28
And he kind of, you know, gave me that look of, I don't know,
23:33
maybe you're kind of slow. You're slow.
23:37
You're a soccer. Guy, you're a soccer guy.
23:39
I don't know if I like you, but he agreed to it.
23:45
And so halfway through the sophomore's year, sophomore
23:49
fall, I started running cross country.
23:51
OK. Did you finish out at at Rhodes?
23:56
Yeah. Yeah.
23:57
Did you consider so soccer is over with if you stay at Rhodes?
24:01
Did you consider transferring schools to keep playing soccer?
24:04
No, no, I love the school, loved what I was doing there, you
24:09
know, and that was way before transfer portal and all that
24:11
stuff. People just didn't transfer.
24:13
Unless, but people did transfer. So it's not like it was you
24:17
couldn't do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:19
But. But it never was a thought.
24:20
It was like, you know, I love the school I love, you know, the
24:22
people I was with. And just like, you know what?
24:25
I I know I can contribute somewhere.
24:28
And if it's not on the soccer field, then let's go run cross
24:30
country and track. And I knew some of the people
24:33
who were running and yeah, I had friends that were on a team.
24:37
That that's just interesting to me because, you know, you
24:39
described yourself. I'm a soccer guy.
24:41
I'm going to school to be like, your major was picked partially
24:45
because of soccer, Not only because of soccer, but like, oh,
24:47
I'm going to be a teacher so I can coach soccer.
24:50
Soccer hits this. Call it a brick wall, but the
24:55
school has such a draw for you. It's like, yeah, boy, I love
24:59
soccer, but man, this school almost sounds like, not to use
25:04
too big of a word here, but transformational.
25:06
Like, oh, this school, this is where I'm supposed to be whether
25:08
I'm playing soccer or not. Yeah, definitely, definitely.
25:12
And you know, I mean, I my, both my parents were educators.
25:14
So I mean, I was there for school 1st and sports second,
25:19
you know, so I mean that, you know, sports was always the
25:22
extra like, you know, go out and get your education right.
25:24
Go to the school you need to go to and, you know, get
25:28
challenged. And so does the all those
25:29
things. Does the goal change?
25:31
Then I'm going to be a math teacher and coach track.
25:33
Or do you still think like, I'm going to still go coach soccer?
25:35
I got enough experience. Yeah, probably still kind of.
25:40
It is more like I I'm still going to be a teacher and then
25:42
I'll figure out what to coach later.
25:44
OK, yeah, but it's going to be something, you know, like you
25:46
said, sport has been in your life.
25:47
It's I'll coach something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:50
Oh, cool. So how did that change then?
25:52
Because this will be the first time.
25:53
So it sounds like for maybe 2 1/2, three years you're a track
25:57
guy, track distance guy, cross country with no soccer getting
26:00
in the way, right? I say that from the track side
26:03
of my life. Soccer getting in the way.
26:05
Soccer getting in the way? Yeah.
26:06
How'd that go? There's still some intramural
26:08
soccer. I was going to ask.
26:09
I was like, I was like, you know, I I almost like, I bet you
26:12
still played some club intramural.
26:13
Exactly, Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
26:15
Coach Shankman, he's so sorry. Yes, Yeah, No, I mean, I, I got,
26:22
you know, got into the running sophomore year, struggled a
26:25
little bit obviously because I wasn't in, you know, I kind of
26:28
say it like even when I was in high school doing cross country
26:30
soccer and track, like when I got into cross country season,
26:34
like I never felt like I really started in cross country shape
26:37
because I was in some other shape.
26:39
And then I get into soccer and wasn't really in soccer shape
26:42
because I was in cross country shape, not in soccer shape.
26:45
And then I get to track and be like, well, now I'm not in track
26:47
shape, I'm in soccer shape. And it's always kind of going
26:51
back and forth. So coming off of soccer, being
26:54
in soccer shape, I really wasn't ready for cross country and so
26:57
struggle a little bit that sophomore year, but put into
27:00
work and junior year got a lot better senior year.
27:04
I was actually the cross country team captain and and was doing
27:08
fairly well and did OK at the and I'm tracking the conference
27:12
and convinced Coach Shankman that I wasn't a 10K runner but
27:17
that I could do the steeplechase.
27:19
Oh nice, love it. Which I didn't like running, to
27:22
be honest. Running wise, I did not like
27:25
running circles around the track.
27:27
Sure, I loved cross country, going from one place to the
27:30
other, but running around the circle, I was like, yeah, So I
27:33
was like, if I can hurdle stuff and jump over water, like that's
27:37
a whole lot more fun than running 25 laps, so.
27:42
So you would agree with me that the steeplechase should be the
27:45
longest distance we do on the track?
27:47
I mean, I, I would, I'd agree with you as an athlete.
27:50
I would not agree with you as a coach.
27:53
I I, you know, not a distance guy, you know, you know, I've
27:56
talked about that before and I still say, you know, I've seen a
27:59
lot of great 5 KS. I've seen some like it was
28:02
interesting to me. I, I think maybe I can only
28:05
think of 110 K that I was like, wow, that was really cool to
28:07
watch. That was was it London with oh,
28:12
the two guys that were trying Gallon Rupp and not MEB, the
28:17
Great Britain guy. They they battled for it.
28:19
Now I distinctly remember sitting in my inlaws house
28:22
watching it was like, Oh my God, like this is a mate.
28:24
I guess it was a great race. I have, you know, coached for 10
28:28
years. I've had a lot of 10K kids on
28:30
the team and love them to death, love them.
28:32
But boy, I could their races no matter where they had some I had
28:35
some kids that won. You know, we had great distance
28:36
coaches and they won and I still like now this, this ain't it
28:39
man. The steeple though, every single
28:41
steeple chase race I've ever seen, slow, fast, doesn't matter
28:45
is amazing. It's awesome.
28:46
It's fun. There's something exciting going
28:48
to happen. You never know.
28:49
Somebody's going to hit the water wrong.
28:51
Somebody's going to fall something.
28:53
Even that, so that used to be my draw.
28:55
Absolutely. And that's still, I don't want
28:58
to wish ill on any athletes. So I don't say like I wish that
29:00
happens, but you know, it's OK. There's an element of danger.
29:03
But the races that I've seen where there has been none of
29:05
that, like, you know, they're all standing on their two feet
29:07
while they're doing it. It's still been and maybe and
29:10
maybe it's that element of like, oh, but it could happen.
29:12
It like it could. Somebody could slip, somebody
29:14
could fall. And that, you know, creates, you
29:17
know, drama, if you will. Yeah.
29:20
Well, it adds that technical aspect to to the race, that
29:23
there's something, there's something always you're watching
29:26
because something could happen at any moment.
29:28
Yeah, that that's a great point. If I if I call it doze off in
29:32
A10 Ki know things happen and there's a lot of technical,
29:36
tactical things that happen, but if I miss a mile, I'm still I, I
29:40
know what's going on, right? I I missed a couple laps in the
29:42
steeple and I could miss a lot. I could miss the whole race
29:45
essentially. Yeah.
29:46
Yeah, that makes sense. So that's cool.
29:47
You're a steeplechaser, man. I love that.
29:49
That's some tough dudes, man. You got to be tough to be a
29:52
steep slow or fast, it don't matter.
29:53
You got to be tough to be a steeplechaser.
29:56
That's so cool. Yeah, it was.
29:57
It was a challenge. It was fun.
29:58
Now I enjoyed it. Did you find yourself your
30:03
mentality of to the, you know, again, spoiler alert, you become
30:05
a track coach. Did you find yourself paying
30:08
attention more to workouts as you're now a call it 100% track
30:12
distance guy? Or is it still like, oh, coach
30:14
Aikman, you said go do mile repeats.
30:16
I go do mile repeats. Yes, Sir.
30:18
I no, definitely started paying more attention to it.
30:21
Yeah, absolutely. Trying to understand what we're
30:24
doing, why we're doing it, you know, what we're trying to
30:27
accomplish. But I was still a little bit of
30:31
a jokesure and, you know, still like to have a lot more fun.
30:35
So yeah, there were definitely sometimes where, you know, she's
30:39
like, all right, let's go, we have an ease run.
30:41
Let's go do something crazy today.
30:44
So we did some some things we probably shouldn't have done
30:47
and. But what are you?
30:49
What are you willing to admit on record?
30:52
Meaning did you like coaching that says go for a 10 mile run
30:56
and you do 2 miles out of sight, take a nap, come back in for the
31:00
last two or. No, we would go run our 10
31:03
miles. But you know, we might run down
31:05
the yellow line, down the busy Rd. in the middle of the cars.
31:10
We may have done some loops through some playgrounds and up
31:16
and down some slides in the middle of it.
31:18
Just nothing bad. Just, you know, just.
31:23
I I hope that goes on more than we think, honestly, because at
31:26
the end of the day, beginning and the end of the day, it's a
31:28
sport. It should be fun.
31:29
And I know there's a lot of serious things that are, you
31:31
know, if you're a football, basketball player, there's a lot
31:33
of money on the line for track. There's a lot of money on the
31:36
line still So, but it's still a sport.
31:39
I hope kids are having fun out there.
31:41
Yeah, just. I think that's still, and I
31:44
think at that point in my life, I was still so competitive that
31:46
every, I think, you know, if I look back on it now, like I
31:50
don't, if I knew what I knew now, then I would have been a
31:53
better athlete because I think I still tried to compete in too
31:56
many workouts instead of really trying to maximize pace work and
32:00
things like that, that it became more of a competition and and
32:04
some things than than necessarily really knowing what
32:09
what I was doing. Yeah, isn't that the eternal tug
32:12
of war our older self, ourselves today going, man, if I would
32:16
have just done just taking it a little bit more serious, how
32:19
good I would have been. And the other end of that tug of
32:21
war is the 20 year old us going. Yeah, but I was having a lot of
32:24
fun with my boys. You know, it's like I knew I was
32:26
going to go pros who? What's the matter?
32:28
You know what? I've gotten 10 more seconds
32:31
better in this people that I still live in the same place who
32:33
care, you know? So it's that eternal tug of war
32:36
with our our future self and our past self.
32:38
And we're somewhere in the middle.
32:41
Absolutely, absolutely. The late night, the late night
32:44
brownie sundae, those kinds of things which were great for team
32:47
bonding. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
32:49
Not the best for, right? And and if you're even if you're
32:53
cognizant of performance and health, things like that, as a
32:55
20 year old, you go, yeah, but I'm doing so many miles, it just
32:58
burns right through me, which is true, by the way.
33:00
And again, this is where our older self goes.
33:02
Not anymore. Not anymore through.
33:06
Anymore how how was I've gotten a known coach Shankman since
33:10
I've been here at Gill so you know, almost 20 years now.
33:11
I've done a lot of work with him love him.
33:13
How was he as a coach? Man, I, I, I really enjoy when I
33:16
see his name pop up in my caller ID.
33:18
He's a a joy to talk to. How was he as a coach?
33:21
Oh, absolutely. I loved every minute of, of
33:23
working with him. He, you know, was, was down to
33:27
earth with us, you know, and, and we could have conversations
33:30
with him, but he was also challenging and pushed us and,
33:35
you know, had great training techniques and things like that.
33:38
And I love the fact that, you know, he was a four hurdler in
33:42
his career. So when I became a
33:43
steeplechaser, like he made sure I actually learned how to hurdle
33:47
properly. And, you know, we did like
33:49
hurdle practices and, you know, a lot of hurdle drills and
33:52
things like that. So, I mean, you know, just some
33:54
of that one-on-one attention, you know, but then also being
33:59
somebody we could just sit down and go in the office and just
34:01
shoot the shoot the bull with him and hang out with him and.
34:06
That's cool. I love that he's such a good
34:08
dude. Yeah, OK.
34:10
You, you, I mean, what are transformation colleges for you,
34:13
for your identity, right. I'm a soccer.
34:15
So now, so now it's fair to say the question mark here in this
34:18
sense now you're a track guy who now used to play soccer.
34:21
You're you're fully entrenched in being a track guy at this
34:24
point. Yeah, athlete watch Yeah, yeah,
34:28
yeah. But you I mean, but definitely.
34:30
Did not you still love soccer? That's yeah, yeah.
34:32
But did not see at that point when I graduated college, did
34:35
not see coaching as my career. OK.
34:40
So had gotten very involved as an RA working in housing and
34:45
really decided I really did want to work at a college and not
34:48
teach high school. So there's that first change.
34:50
OK, Yeah. Yeah, teaching was out the
34:52
window. I was like, did you?
34:54
Did you get a math educational degree though?
34:55
Yeah. OK, I got that.
34:57
Yeah. I had a math major with a minor
34:59
in physics. Dude, why are you?
35:02
Why are you a track coach? Holy cow, that's that's the kind
35:05
of degrees you go get some serious jobs, my man.
35:08
Yeah, cuz, cuz I didn't want to sit in front of a computer all
35:11
day. Joke, joke's on you.
35:15
That's my. That's my favorite thing when
35:17
someone's like I'm going to go into coaching cuz I like being
35:19
out in the ring with the kids and I like being in the sand pit
35:21
and it's like, you don't know what coaching is then.
35:24
No, no. That's this much of the job,
35:26
buddy. Right, right.
35:28
Love it, love it, love it. OK, but you get down to two to
35:30
go outside. That's the big.
35:31
Difference between our jobs yeah, yeah, yeah, I can go work
35:33
out for a couple hours and. That's right.
35:35
Yeah, I got wait till 5:00 to do that.
35:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Exactly.
35:37
Exactly. OK, So you started doing some RA
35:40
stuff, started getting to that. So you started thinking like,
35:42
oh, I like this college influence.
35:44
Yep. Yep.
35:45
And then then I went to went to grad school in South Carolina
35:48
to, you know, to in student personnel services and higher
35:53
education administration. Really to work in student
35:55
affairs. Yeah.
35:56
Yeah, yeah. What?
35:56
What school? I went to University of South
35:59
Carolina. Oh, you're OK, Very cool.
36:03
And then to so I'm noticing, you know, knowing that, you know,
36:06
you end up in Daytona, New Orleans to Memphis to South
36:10
Carolina, doesn't seem like moving is much of an issue.
36:15
No, Yeah, That was all good. Yeah.
36:17
I went to South Carolina. I worked at a small school,
36:19
Presbyterian College. Yeah.
36:21
PC Yep, Yep. PCI was at PC working in housing
36:24
while I was going to grad school.
36:26
OK. Oh, so you're doing both?
36:27
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
36:28
So I was working, working in housing as kind of a hall
36:30
director, became the director of residence life the second year.
36:35
That's a whole other story. But yeah, I was working in
36:38
housing there, going to grad school in South Carolina and
36:41
having fun for a couple years. Still running on your own at
36:44
least. Oh no.
36:46
No. No, actually, after college I
36:48
swore I'd never run again. I was gonna say, so you're not a
36:50
that. That was fair when you said
36:52
yeah, maybe not really. You're not a.
36:54
Yeah, OK. Graduated college, said I swore
36:58
I'd never run again. Which, you know, is kind of the
37:00
best thing. You know you want to do
37:02
something, say you'll never do it because you have to find you
37:04
a way. That's right.
37:07
Never going to run again. Do those.
37:09
Things. Working at PC and housing,
37:13
again, PC, small school, small community, everybody knows
37:17
everybody. So I'm working in housing, but
37:19
I'm still involved with athletics and doing PA and
37:22
basketball games. Or, you know, just kind of
37:26
you're just hanging out with, with the athletic department,
37:28
playing interminal sports, getting to know people and doing
37:31
those types of things. And I think it was my third or
37:34
fourth year there. The cross country coach found
37:38
out I ran cross country in college.
37:39
And she was not a cross country person.
37:42
She was the assistant women's basketball coach who got made to
37:45
do cross country. And she said, hey, can you, can
37:49
you just help me out? Come run some practices, come to
37:51
some meets. You know, I'll do all the admin
37:54
work. I'll do all the recruiting, all
37:55
that stuff. You just do that.
37:57
So. So they had cross country?
37:58
No track if I remember. Yep.
38:01
Did they have soccer? Yeah, OK, so cross country
38:05
basketball coach is made to do cross country.
38:07
This is unfortunately typical. I get it.
38:10
She sees wait a minute, you ran, call it.
38:12
You ran call it like she thinks of you.
38:14
You are the track guy. Like, oh, wait a minute, this is
38:16
the distance guy. Come help me out.
38:18
OK, This is a this is a Now this I talk about, you know, we're in
38:21
episode 300 and something here that there is no a common way to
38:26
get to coaching, right? But this is a sort of one of the
38:30
common themes of like, and someone asked me to help because
38:34
you never thought of like what? Well, you had thought about
38:36
becoming a coach with soccer, but you did not think like I
38:39
would become a track coach. Someone had to go, hey, can you
38:41
help and let's see if this sparks something.
38:44
OK, keep going. Yeah, so actually I was coaching
38:47
like club soccer and some other things.
38:48
Yeah, of course, Of course. Yeah, you're a soccer guy.
38:50
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
38:52
So she asked me to help and I was like, yeah, you know, so I
38:55
talked with my boss and was like, hey, are you OK If, you
38:58
know, I go help out at practices and and things like that and
39:02
take that time. I'll, I'll make sure the rest of
39:03
my job gets done. He's like, yeah, sure.
39:06
Like that's, that's what we're about, right?
39:08
We're we help each other out as a small community.
39:11
Yeah. As long as you're getting your
39:12
job done. Yeah, whatever.
39:13
And you're done with your grad work.
39:15
Yeah, that. Point You're a full time
39:17
employee now, yeah? And so three months later, I was
39:21
the head cross country coach and director of residence life.
39:25
That's a short, short part of that story.
39:27
She says, like, can you help out?
39:28
And then it became like, hey, I can't make it.
39:30
Can you? Can you just run it?
39:31
And hey, let me know how the cross country meet goes.
39:33
Hey, just give the guy the title.
39:35
I'm going back to basketball. Yeah.
39:37
Yeah, basic. What a.
39:38
Basic is a little more like, hey, you know, I'm the women's
39:41
basketball coach who asked to coach cross country and the
39:43
men's basketball assistant doesn't how you know, let's
39:46
let's talk about Title 9. I don't want to coach cross
39:48
country anymore, you know, and shouldn't have to coach cross
39:51
country and I don't know cross country.
39:53
Like why am I? And we have a viable source
39:55
here. It's not like it's not like we
39:57
got somebody off the street here.
39:58
It's like, OK, this guy at least did it.
40:01
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had had and we had the
40:03
highest finish at conference ever.
40:04
We had a freshman of the year in the conference, you know, some
40:07
things like that. So there's also, she's also
40:09
going, hey, you know, there, there's there's a reason why we
40:12
got better and it's not because I was doing practice.
40:14
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, sometimes that's a great point,
40:17
something to kind of double click into.
40:20
You know, a lot of times in our sport we will judge that
40:24
assistant basketball coach who's doing cross or that football
40:27
coach is doing track and you know, oh, they're not serious
40:31
and administration should be more serious.
40:33
And sure, I don't disagree with that latter statement that, you
40:35
know, administration should go find a track or cross countries
40:39
a person to do that. However, sometimes we like to
40:42
judge that person that that Lady that was doing it.
40:45
It's like, hey, she didn't ask for this.
40:47
And I feel like I bet you she was doing as good as she get
40:50
knowing that, hey, second cross country had to be at the best
40:54
secondary sport for her. Obviously basketball #1 she
40:56
probably had, she probably maybe didn't even know anything about
40:59
cross, but she's like, all right, well, I know they want to
41:01
be safe and think, well, you know, so she tried, probably
41:03
tried to learn some stuff, but that wasn't her passion.
41:05
Don't blame her. She didn't volunteer for this.
41:08
She was Volun told for this. And so I'm glad that I love how
41:12
the stars aligned. You, you go to work there and
41:15
that's lo and behold, wait a minute, you ran cross.
41:17
That's cool. Cool.
41:18
So what did that? And I know you're coaching, you
41:20
know, some club soccer and things like that, but this is
41:22
your first track, you know, cross country coaching.
41:26
Did that spark anything in you or was it just like, OK, cool.
41:29
It's just like soccer, except for I'm doing cross.
41:33
I mean, it definitely kind of, you know, it rejuvenated kind of
41:36
this this sense of hey, you know, there's this a sense of
41:42
the camaraderie, the team, the teamwork and and that kind of
41:45
stuff that, you know, kind of just rejuvenating me in that
41:48
sense of, Hey, there's a lot of comment coaching's coaching,
41:52
like no matter what the sport is, you know, like you're still
41:54
influencing people's lives and trying to change people and help
41:57
them be better, whether that's in their sport or as better
42:00
people like in general, you know, and then obviously we had
42:04
a little bit of success. So there's also kind of that
42:07
sense of, hey, you know, I, I feel like I'm doing something
42:10
here. Like I must have learned
42:12
something from Coach Corn and Coach Shankman that, that, that
42:16
I can use now to kind of help, you know, make other people
42:19
better and enjoy being around the athletes who cared about
42:22
something. We're passionate about that and,
42:25
you know, helping them to get better, make a difference.
42:27
And, you know, then I was also like, you know, this housing
42:31
stuff, this ain't all that fun either because at 3:00 AM, I'm
42:34
getting called every time somebody goes to the hospital
42:36
and, you know, drank too much or did that or get some trouble.
42:41
And, you know, at that point in my housing career, I've moved up
42:44
so much where the only people I saw were ones who were in
42:46
trouble. They didn't want to talk to me
42:48
or they didn't want to be there. And I'm like, well, you know,
42:51
the whole reason I got into this is to work with students.
42:55
You know, I want to work with students who want who want to
42:58
work with me too. So, you know, it's just a much
43:01
different atmosphere working with the cross country kids who
43:03
wanted to be there, who, you know, we could have fun
43:06
together. We got run together.
43:07
We talk about things and. Right.
43:09
And hang out versus the other students I was meeting with who
43:13
were forced to be in my office. Right.
43:15
Do not want to talk to you, do not want to.
43:18
That's right. So where do we go from there?
43:21
Cross country goes that first year, a lot of success.
43:24
They got better. We don't have track season, So
43:27
what what do we do? So some offseason training with
43:31
them and then the next fall, still coaching and working in
43:37
housing, which just became too much.
43:41
Did you have to or the better term would be get to but maybe
43:45
because of the looseness of this so far any recruiting for for
43:49
that next year. Did not because at that point,
43:53
like it was still kind of hairy as to who was.
43:56
Right, right. That's what I feel.
43:57
That's what I said. It's still kind of loose.
43:58
I don't hear like this official. This is our guy.
44:01
We want to bless this program. It's like, yeah, we got a guy
44:03
who can handle it. Yeah.
44:04
OK, so you just got who showed up?
44:06
Right. And and well, I mean she had
44:08
done some recruiting. So I mean she was still doing
44:10
some of that recruiting because that was kind of the our
44:12
agreement, right? She was recruiting and doing
44:14
admin and I was just there for practices.
44:16
So she had done some recruiting and bringing some people in and
44:19
so that was there. Yeah.
44:21
So then the next year, you know, same things kind of going on,
44:25
but I was working now really 2 full time jobs and starting to
44:30
go. I've got a one year old and a 2
44:32
year old at home who I leave before they get up in the
44:36
morning and I get home. Usually about the time to put
44:39
him. Basically time to put him to
44:41
bed. Right.
44:42
Right. And so then, you know, my wife
44:44
and I were talking about it and things and go, you know, like I
44:46
really enjoy this coaching thing more than residence life.
44:49
I'd really like to see if I can find a full time coaching gig.
44:54
So then start. That's when I started applying
44:55
for coaching jobs. Because you knew that wasn't
44:58
going to be at Presbyterian because there's like they they
45:00
have crossed. It's obviously a part time at
45:02
best position. Yeah.
45:03
So it's like, OK, if I want to go full bore, I I got to go
45:06
elsewhere. Yeah, got to go elsewhere.
45:07
Yeah. And that we always have some
45:09
conversations with the AD and the president actually at PC
45:12
about, hey, I, I just, you know, if I want to move into coaching,
45:16
these are some things that ways that I think it could become
45:18
full time. But, you know, kind of sent some
45:21
some proposals on it, but they were like, no, no, that's not
45:25
where we're at. Cross country's going to be part
45:26
time. Yeah, two years later they moved
45:28
to Vision. One is still part time like I
45:31
have AD. One cross country program is
45:33
with a part time coach. But exactly exactly.
45:38
What it is. But you know, that's, that's the
45:39
frustrating thing sometimes in our sport.
45:42
You know, like you said, some admins take it seriously and
45:44
some don't. That's right.
45:46
That's right. And you know, I'm OK with that
45:49
as long as they're upfront. Like I I would be more upset
45:52
with the using PC as an example here with the administration if
45:56
they, you know, sold the bill of goods, like, oh man, we're going
45:58
to we're going to start track in two years.
46:00
We're going to have a facility in five.
46:01
And the intention was like, yeah, where never are.
46:03
We just want to get this guy here to coach was like, well,
46:05
that's not cool. But if you tell, tell us
46:07
somebody who's appliance like, hey, man, that's a part time
46:08
gig. We want you to have 20 kids on
46:10
each roster. I'll be real Frank.
46:12
Don't care if you come in last. Don't care if you come in first.
46:15
You aren't going to get anything of you at first either, by the
46:16
way, you know that I'm OK with because then at least someone's
46:19
taken the position under those pretenses and they can make
46:22
what's best of it knowing what's in front of you.
46:24
It's the false pretenses, the the fake support that's told
46:28
during the interview. And you know, you talked about
46:31
how kids didn't want to be in your office as the director of
46:33
life. Well, you know, when the coaches
46:35
in the 80s in the 80s office and the 80s, like, I don't want this
46:37
guy here either. So I'll just tell him what he
46:39
wants to. Hear.
46:40
Move along. That's what we got to get past
46:42
in administration sports in this country, both levels, high
46:46
school and college, by the way, that that's the stuff that
46:49
irritates me. OK, Have a real conversation
46:51
with your wife. You've got two young UNS.
46:53
Hey, I think this is maybe where my life satisfaction might be is
46:56
actually to go into coaching. What did you do?
46:59
And did soccer ever cross your mind like, well, let's go be a
47:01
full time soccer coach? No, like, I mean, I at that
47:04
point, you know, I kind of knew that, you know what I'd done
47:08
open up doors to be a cross country and track coach was
47:11
enjoying doing that and and enjoying the coach.
47:13
That guy was enjoying the coaching aspect probably more
47:16
than the running aspect there. Like I enjoyed enjoyed that part
47:19
of it. And so was looking for, you
47:22
know, something full time in in the cross country area.
47:26
Still, I'd never like we didn't have a track program, so had
47:30
never really coached track and not necessarily ever thought
47:33
about that from that standpoint. But, you know, it's definitely
47:35
something that would be out there.
47:38
Yeah. So started applying, looked up,
47:39
you know, look for jobs, you know, and that's how I, you
47:43
know, applied for a job at Ember Riddle.
47:45
And here's another funny story with that one.
47:47
So applied for a job at Ember Riddle, completely missed the
47:51
fact that on the job description says a part time position.
47:56
Oh. I missed that.
47:58
Came down for an interview, interviewed, you know, and right
48:02
before the interview, I think I found out it's part time and
48:04
they're like, you know, you're really interested because we
48:06
started talking about it and you're like, well, you're really
48:08
interested in part time. I was like, well, you know, the
48:10
situation I'm in now is not great.
48:12
So, you know, but I really don't, you know, I've really got
48:15
to find full time. I got to support my family like
48:17
it's part of it. So I'm really looking for
48:19
something full time. But you know, I'm open to some
48:21
other, you know, thoughts or, you know, if there's something
48:24
else on campus, there's other opportunities in the athletic
48:26
department. Like those are things I'm open
48:28
to. Like whatever, whatever could
48:30
happen. Came down interviewed and after
48:34
the interview like that, we'd really like you to be here.
48:37
Right now we only have permission for a part time.
48:39
We're working to try to make it full time and adding a few
48:41
things on to it, he said. By the time you get here I think
48:45
it'll be full time, but I can't guarantee you.
48:49
Wow. You know, I kind of, you know,
48:52
we, we talked it over. I trusted, I trusted our AD at
48:55
that time and I was like, you know, I trust he's going to try
48:57
to do his best to make this full time.
48:59
And if it doesn't happen, you know, there's there's always
49:01
Walmart or somewhere else to supplement.
49:03
We'll figure it out. I guess.
49:04
I don't know. But you know, I guess too, I was
49:08
like what, 26 at the time, Eve a little bit as well.
49:12
And it's like, you know what, it can't be it, it it'll work out
49:16
somehow or the other. And trusted that he was going to
49:19
do that. And we put the house on the
49:22
market. 2 weeks later, it's sold still, still looking at a part
49:26
time potential position starting in like a month.
49:30
And about two days before we moved he was able to make it a
49:33
full time position. Wow, yeah.
49:37
So I mean, I thankful that everything just kind of worked
49:40
out there, but yeah, it's kind of crazy.
49:42
Was was wife working at that point or taking taking care of
49:46
the kids? She was taking care of the kids,
49:48
Yeah. So she was teaching like
49:50
aerobics or something at the YMCA just to have.
49:51
A supplement, yeah, but no secondary income of like that.
49:54
No, we can scrape by if it is part time.
49:56
This was man, this is going to be the the majority of our
49:58
income here. Yeah.
50:00
Like we need to be a little bit more than part time.
50:02
Yeah. Like in two or three months, our
50:04
savings gone. Yeah, wow.
50:06
Figuring life out. What what that, that's so
50:10
interesting to me. I mean, that's a leap of faith,
50:12
right? I mean, that's maybe not in the
50:15
same level, but in the same stack of who you choose to
50:19
marry. Having kids, you know, those are
50:22
leaps of faith. You don't know what it's
50:23
actually going to work out or not getting married, having
50:26
kids. Well, I guess it works out with
50:28
kids, but you don't know all the tumultuous stuff that happens
50:30
with them. You're in it, right?
50:32
So for you to put in a lot of our relationships, you know, and
50:38
major cornerstones of our lives, housing, etcetera, are banked on
50:42
our job. And you had no, I mean, what was
50:45
it about the AD that was like, you know what, I believe in them
50:49
and if they don't, I believe in us that we'll figure it out to a
50:53
new place. By the way, no family, no
50:54
support, no support down there. Yeah, nothing.
50:57
No, we're 12 hours away from both families.
51:00
Yeah, you know, I mean, one, I mean our AD at the you know, he
51:04
was a very charismatic person, very energetic.
51:08
I everything that, everything that we talked about, like
51:11
philosophy wise, like we all aligned, you know, the, the
51:14
sense of, you know, we're, we're in this to, to be competitive,
51:18
but we're also in it to, in a holistic approach of the student
51:21
person player, you know, in all of our conversations, just kind
51:26
of trusting that, you know, he was going to work for these
51:28
things and, you know, he'd been successful in getting other
51:31
things done and growing the program.
51:34
You know, as we talked about, like Embry realized as a school,
51:37
you know, athletics didn't exist here till like mid 90s.
51:41
Yeah, I was going to ask about that, right.
51:42
Yeah. You know, it's like very young
51:44
programs. It was still growing as very
51:48
much in that growth stage. And he had been, you know,
51:50
basically the person that helped all that grow.
51:52
And so, you know, he was telling me about what his, you know,
51:56
ideas were and some of the things and and there were a
51:58
couple other positions on campus or if it didn't work out, like
52:01
there were some other opportunities too.
52:03
Maybe there's some things here. And it just felt like a good
52:07
fit, you know, and just really and truly, I just, I think
52:11
there's a little bit of me that always is over trusting of
52:14
people and overly into that faith and said, you know what,
52:19
this is going to work out as I trust, trust him, I trust God.
52:22
I trust, you know, this plan is what our plan is.
52:25
And you know, it's, it's going to work.
52:28
And if not, you know, we've got two or three months, we can
52:31
figure it out. Yeah.
52:33
I, I, I kind of like that attitude, you know that the
52:35
reverse of that attitude is never trusting, always hedging
52:39
your bats, things like that. But both, no matter how you
52:42
attack life, stress is going to come into it.
52:45
Both are stressors. One just seems more of like,
52:48
well, at least there's less stress from the beginning.
52:49
Like I don't worry about things and then when things go bad, OK,
52:52
that's a stress and I got to figure them out.
52:53
But I don't think that's there's anything wrong with that at all.
52:56
I'd love that, that kind of attitude.
52:58
So it's just. Well, problem solved when we got
53:00
a problem. Solved.
53:00
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
53:01
Instead of, you know, problem solve, everything's that you
53:04
think is going to become a problem and then, you know, 99%
53:06
of them don't actually end up becoming a problem.
53:08
So it's a little bit of a waste of time, etcetera, right?
53:10
Yeah. So what year was that that you
53:12
got to Emory Brittle? 2002.
53:15
OK, I thought 02. OK, this is fascinating because,
53:18
you know, I remember a couple years ago me and a bunch of
53:21
coaches at USTFCCCA convention were talking about coaches that
53:25
had been at their place for, you know, a long time basically.
53:29
And, you know, we we got the first like 5 real quick.
53:31
You know, back then it was before Curtis Frye retired.
53:33
So Curtis Frye and you know, Mouse and guys like that and
53:37
Damien Damon Martin and then it got real quiet after about 5 or
53:41
6. And then we started like, Oh
53:42
yeah, well, what about Oh yeah, they've been there for a while.
53:44
What about someone's Oh yeah, they've been there.
53:47
We couldn't just spattle off 20304050 coaches off top of our
53:51
head, right? It's it is, it's I hate using
53:55
like real definitive words here. I want to say it's rare, but
53:58
it's not rare. Rare.
53:59
It's not like no one does it, but maybe the majority.
54:03
The the normal the normal coaching progression.
54:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you. Start as Aga, you move up to an
54:08
assistant coach, you move up to head.
54:10
And then when you become a head coach and you're looking at OK,
54:13
now where do I move up to? Yeah, like if I'm AD 3 coach,
54:16
maybe I'm going D2 and going. Yeah.
54:19
And then how do I get to more stability on the head coach than
54:22
an assistant coach? So you right out the Gator, a
54:24
head coach, there's a little bit of stability there.
54:27
Back then, did we have cross and track or was it just a cross
54:30
program? Just cross.
54:31
OK, love that. So and that and to be fair, it's
54:35
part of why I've stayed here as long as I have because this job,
54:38
I've had five jobs here and one job, if that makes sense, you
54:43
know, so starting here, so. Explain that a little bit more.
54:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
54:47
So when I first started, for the first three years, it was a
54:51
cross country only program. Cross country when I got here,
54:55
had been around here for three years, The coach was a part time
54:58
coach who was an aerospace engineering professor.
55:02
Great guy, love Doctor Hill, He's awesome.
55:06
But to be fair, it was a glorified club program.
55:09
Like they ran in the fall, they barely did anything in the
55:11
spring. They, you know, they, they, he
55:13
did what he did and it was great.
55:15
But you know, so then those first three years was culture
55:18
change. What level were you back then?
55:21
Meaning NAI? Yeah.
55:23
Perfect. Go ahead.
55:23
Your NAI and cross country only and I was also running helping
55:29
run our athletic tutoring program.
55:32
So three nights a week I was running study hall for all the
55:35
other for all athletic teams, I. Could see that for sure, yeah.
55:39
So getting to know all the different athletes, helping them
55:41
out, doing those kinds of things.
55:42
And what else? And again, that's that's right
55:44
up my alley of being part teacher, part coach.
55:47
What? What all sports did we have back
55:48
then? Soccer, volleyball, men's
55:54
basketball, but not women's at. Oh wow.
55:58
We had baseball, but not softball, yet we had golf and
56:03
tennis. That may have been it at that
56:07
point. OK.
56:08
Yeah, OK. Keep going.
56:10
Yeah. I want to help build the picture
56:11
of your growth as a coach and the school athletic department
56:16
at the same time. OK, keep going.
56:17
Yeah, the first. Three years cross only doing
56:19
some tutoring makes sense. Math and physics guy?
56:21
Yep. In an engineering school, yeah.
56:24
Yeah, yeah. You're a smart engineering
56:28
school. Well, you know, there's a little
56:29
bit of a leap there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
56:30
But you're doing it. You're doing it, Yeah.
56:31
Yeah, that math physics part, that's where the math physics
56:34
are still helping me out a little.
56:35
Go walk into the Cal tutoring lab and be like, yeah, you need
56:39
to do this. So now I can't.
56:41
That's those 25 years ago. I can't remember.
56:43
Half that stuff. Yeah.
56:47
And then in the third, I think it's in the third year, they
56:50
decided to add track. So we added track in that third
56:53
year. We phased that in over 4 years.
56:56
So year 1 was just running events, right.
56:58
Year 2, we added jumps. Year 3 was pole vault.
57:03
Year 4 we added the throws. Yeah.
57:05
OK, OK. Talk to us about that because
57:07
that's interesting. You know, I think there are
57:11
there, there's several different ways of adding the track and
57:15
field portion. Some have no cross country
57:18
track. They add track and typically
57:20
cross country with that as well. Some have cross country and then
57:23
add track. How did you, because this is
57:26
interesting. You're you're let's be real,
57:28
you're a cross country coach, right?
57:30
There is no track background at this point.
57:32
And they say, hey, OK, we're going to add track.
57:34
How did you and administration, how did y'all come up with that
57:38
plan of running events, field events, add pole vault 3rd and
57:43
then the third? How did you like instead of just
57:45
saying, hey, next year we're going to get them all or or hey,
57:48
next year we're just going to do distance until I feel like
57:51
adding throwing events or whatever, you know what I'm
57:53
saying? How did that plan come to
57:54
fruition? There's a lot of negotiating at
57:57
first, you know, at first when when we decided to add it, you
58:01
know, our proposal was we're going to go full blown into
58:04
everything. Year one, OK, for maybe year 2.
58:07
Year one, we didn't have a facility yet.
58:09
So we've been year two. Yeah, let's let's go full blown.
58:12
Here's our, you know, proposal, which was, you know, fun for me
58:16
as a person who never coached track before being asked what
58:19
all do you need to run a track program?
58:22
You know, and so I did, I had to lien on mentors.
58:24
So, you know, I'm reaching out to Shankman, I'm reaching out
58:26
to, you know, some of the other coaches that I kind of gotten to
58:29
know and being like, hey, like, what do I need?
58:32
Like if I'm building a track program, what do I need?
58:34
What You know, what do we need for throwing implements?
58:37
I've never done that. What?
58:38
Yeah, right. Yeah, I.
58:39
Mean I knew a little bit about hurdles that was OK what I need
58:42
for throwing implements. What's a what what do pole
58:44
vaulters need? What do high jumpers need like?
58:46
And never coached these events before.
58:48
Just said ever, you know, watched them before.
58:50
But you guys said building in this proposal, how many coaches
58:53
do we need? How many what kind of size
58:55
roster do we want to have? You know, what's the equipment
58:58
cost that we need to doing a lot of research and building a
59:01
proposal with, with our AD, with our, with our, you know, our,
59:06
our athletic secretary, you know, kind of putting all those
59:09
things together, sending it into our administration, our
59:13
administration going that cost too much to do right away.
59:17
Are you, are you looking at sorry, sorry to keep
59:20
interrupting. Are you looking at your other
59:22
conference schools primarily or are you looking at other people
59:25
within NAI back then? Because you don't go and compare
59:29
yourself to like South Carolina. You don't go and like, Oh well,
59:32
their budget's X and they have this much roster and it's like,
59:34
well, OK, that's not Emery Riddle and South Carolina are
59:37
not in the same conference, same league, etcetera.
59:39
Are you comparing yourself more to that or more generalities of
59:43
college track and field? I was a little smarter than to
59:47
go with just our conference because I was looking at the
59:50
conference and going, you know, we're, that might not be where
59:54
we want to be for future. We, you know, we were in the top
59:56
two or three already in cross country.
59:58
Like why, why do I want to be, you know, we're already one of
1:00:02
the top teams in in the conference in cross country.
1:00:05
I don't necessarily want to compare ourselves to.
1:00:09
You know, yeah, fair. Fair.
1:00:10
So let's look at who are the top teams in NAI and who has the
1:00:13
biggest budget so that maybe I can get something better, right?
1:00:18
Yeah, work from there. So we look at a national, you
1:00:20
know, look, all right, who are the top teams in the country at
1:00:23
the NAI level? And let's go ask them and do
1:00:26
some research. So we got, you know, got some
1:00:27
numbers from some of the top teams in the country from the
1:00:31
NAIA. We really probably did not look
1:00:34
at division two like we were looking at NAI specific schools
1:00:37
and going, OK, let's get some ideas from them.
1:00:39
So, and then people I knew obviously like Coach Hankman
1:00:42
and, and some of the other people that have been working
1:00:44
with asking them some of the questions and then taking that
1:00:48
to the admin, OK, here's 7 or 8 NAI schools who have been doing
1:00:52
very well. This is what they're doing.
1:00:54
And then that's when our admin, you know, is looking at that
1:00:56
going, we're not doing that in year 2.
1:00:59
You know, here's here's what we can do.
1:01:01
And then, you know, we when we came up with a plan for four
1:01:04
years, the original plan was just to do distance.
1:01:07
The first year we held an open tryout on campus and had a
1:01:12
hundred kids show up to tryouts. Whoa, wait.
1:01:14
So how big was the school? Because it wasn't the, IT wasn't
1:01:16
9000 or whatever you said. Today we were at like 4 or 5000
1:01:20
at the time. Wow and 100 kids.
1:01:23
First of all, that shows you the power of track and field as a
1:01:27
participation sport, right #1 participation sport in high
1:01:31
school #1 participation school in college.
1:01:34
You Emery Riddle no track program has an open tryout and
1:01:38
100 kids, which I'm I know some percentage of them had never
1:01:41
done track at all, but I guarantee you a high percentage
1:01:45
had done whether it was one year or four years.
1:01:47
Wow, did that surprise you? Did you show them and be like
1:01:50
what the Frick? Yeah, no, absolutely.
1:01:54
Number one, we were shocked. Yeah, 'cause we're a nerd
1:01:57
school. I'm like, let's be real, right?
1:01:59
Yeah, we're not an athletic school.
1:02:02
Like, you know, we're high high IQ school where people who come
1:02:07
here know what they want to do. Yeah, yeah.
1:02:08
Right, right, right. Want to fly?
1:02:09
They want to be an engineer. They, you know, they're, they're
1:02:11
smart kids. No.
1:02:14
Well, and you know, so, yeah, first of all, we're like, holy
1:02:17
crap. Like, I'm not, I'm not prepared
1:02:19
to do a tryout for 100 people. I've got like me and a grad
1:02:22
assistant maybe. Did that show again?
1:02:24
I'm sorry, Mike, did that show your administration?
1:02:27
They're like, oh, wait a minute. So this is 100.
1:02:30
Kids are already here. If we actually recruited like
1:02:33
this could be a pretty big or I shouldn't say, you know, 100 to
1:02:37
5000 is not well, I mean that's what. 5000 It's still a big
1:02:40
moment. Yeah, that's you're the math
1:02:43
guy. What's what's Thank you.
1:02:45
I literally tried. I was like 500 is 10.
1:02:47
Yeah, OK. But it's more, I mean, and you
1:02:53
know, I mean, Riddle's probably not the cheapest school in the
1:02:54
world. Doesn't matter what it is, it's
1:02:56
still that's 100 extra tuition payers, etcetera.
1:02:58
So did that, did that kind of show them a little bit of like,
1:03:01
oh, wait a minute, guys. Yeah, I think that was eye
1:03:03
opening for them. Yeah, obviously we'd go out to
1:03:05
that trial and we start talking to kids.
1:03:06
Well, you know, you know, there's a group of them that
1:03:08
want to be throwers. There's a group of them that you
1:03:10
know, want to jump or do those kinds.
1:03:13
Of things you said, hey, who wants to be a thrower?
1:03:15
And they, you know, they all gathered up here and he was
1:03:16
like, all right, we'll come back in three years.
1:03:18
There's no tryout buddy, sorry. That's not happening this year.
1:03:21
That's not happening this year. I we didn't really need to ask
1:03:25
that question kind of you kind of.
1:03:26
Looked at him. No, no, you're a thrower.
1:03:29
Come back in a couple years. Yeah.
1:03:32
No. So, you know, we convinced that
1:03:33
our admin, hey, we have this many kids here on campus.
1:03:36
There's no reason why we can't. There's no reason why we can't
1:03:38
Sprint this year. Right.
1:03:40
You know, let let's let's go out.
1:03:42
We can do all the running events, right.
1:03:44
We still don't have a track. We don't have a facility at that
1:03:47
point. So, you know, we're going to
1:03:49
train on a on a grass field. You know, that was known as the
1:03:54
softball field. We didn't have a softball team.
1:03:57
We didn't have a real softball field.
1:03:58
But you know, eventually that was going to be that ground was
1:04:01
set aside to be the softball field eventually.
1:04:05
So that was our that's where we trained most of the time was
1:04:07
this grass field that was meant to be the softball field.
1:04:10
And occasionally we go to a high school track a couple days a
1:04:13
week and train out there and. Who Who coached those sprinters?
1:04:17
I did the first year. I mean, that's a little
1:04:20
different, Mr. Distance, man. Yeah, that's where my soccer
1:04:24
background came in. Oh, yeah, OK.
1:04:27
All right. You know, but yeah, but also,
1:04:30
you know, again, reaching out to people who did and, you know,
1:04:35
kind of, hey, how do, what do sprinters need?
1:04:37
And you know, we did that for that first year.
1:04:40
And then the second year I was able to hire to a a a full time
1:04:46
assistant and a part time assistant who came in kind of
1:04:48
that second season. So then I had an assistant who
1:04:51
helped with cross country in distance and then we hired a
1:04:53
Sprint coach. And the crazy thing is they,
1:05:00
well, the one retired last year. He stayed with me for 20 years.
1:05:05
And that same Sprint coach you started with me as a part time
1:05:08
coach is still is now my full time assistant Sprint coach.
1:05:13
He's been with me. This is your.
1:05:15
Emery Riddle is a school of yeah, like stability.
1:05:21
That's the word I was thinking of holy.
1:05:24
That's that alone is amazing. Honestly, just that that right
1:05:27
there. So did the you, you said what
1:05:30
the original plan was over the four years, did that met out all
1:05:33
the way or what other changes? You said you weren't necessarily
1:05:36
going to do sprinters right off the bat and.
1:05:37
No, it stayed. It stayed that way.
1:05:39
We sprinted the first year, we added long jump, triple jump,
1:05:44
high jump the second year and then added pole vault the third
1:05:48
year and then throws the 4th year.
1:05:51
Wow, did they on that fourth year as you add throws, how many
1:05:56
is on your roster? Like did this you know, 100
1:05:58
person try out thing actually met out the way we were talking
1:06:01
about? Did you have close to 100?
1:06:03
Like we had, I think at that point when we did all the
1:06:06
proposals and budgets, it was for about 60 to 70 athletes.
1:06:10
That's about where we were. Yeah, OK.
1:06:11
Got it, got it, got it. Yeah.
1:06:13
And that that's the kind of where we met it out originally.
1:06:16
Now we're at 100 to 100. And did did they add any other
1:06:21
sports during this time? I.
1:06:24
Remember when we added not, not right then now?
1:06:33
So you so the focus was on you. We're adding this track.
1:06:35
Yeah, we had program. Yeah, it was, it was a few years
1:06:39
later when we added other sports.
1:06:42
Yeah. So yeah, track.
1:06:44
Yeah, we added track. And then we said in the third
1:06:47
year we won our first conference title on the men's side.
1:06:51
Yeah. And then the.
1:06:52
Next year we won the women's first conference title.
1:06:56
Dude, those other schools were ticked.
1:06:57
It's like, yeah, you could have just stayed cross country.
1:07:00
Yeah. Wow.
1:07:01
What what did through this time period?
1:07:03
So you know, the first, I guess we're probably about year
1:07:06
seven-year 8:00-ish when we had the for you total when we had
1:07:09
the throws guys and gals in there, No.
1:07:11
It was year 4, year 40 for me. Oh, sorry.
1:07:15
Yeah. For you.
1:07:16
For you. Yeah, yeah.
1:07:17
So yeah, yeah. Hey, Matt, when we do the four
1:07:20
years and no it's. I do that math.
1:07:24
Yeah, sorry, sorry. So I was still thinking about
1:07:27
just track. Sorry.
1:07:29
Total, because what I wondered then is in year 7, you have, I
1:07:33
mean, you have gone from a soccer guy who does track to a
1:07:37
guy who is going to help out cross country to a cross country
1:07:40
coach to now you're a director, you're running a program here.
1:07:45
Your development as a coach, you had to, while all this stuff was
1:07:49
going on, you're putting on proposals about what you know,
1:07:51
what events to add and how to, you know, do the budget and
1:07:54
travel just got a lot more complicated by the way,
1:07:56
etcetera, etcetera. How did you, what were some of
1:08:00
the things that you did to to further that development?
1:08:03
You know, you had to go from a cross country coach to a full
1:08:05
blown the whole 9. Was it administration,
1:08:09
administrators that you leaned on other coaches?
1:08:14
I can't think of a coaching class that would help on this
1:08:16
aspect. It would help with coaching,
1:08:17
but. All the above, but I mean
1:08:19
definitely going to you know, the the USATF level 1 schools
1:08:24
going to level 2 schools, you know, kind of learning from
1:08:27
those things about especially about other events, you know,
1:08:29
like how do I coach sprints? What what are we looking for in
1:08:32
long jumpers? What are we looking for, you
1:08:34
know, and throwers, you know, how do we, what are we doing
1:08:37
there? So, so one would be kind of that
1:08:40
to, you know, the leaning on administrators here as far as
1:08:44
you know, how do we design budgets?
1:08:46
How do we do those things? You know, they had been through
1:08:50
the process of adding two or three sports beforehand.
1:08:54
So you know, so they were very helpful and kind of that aspect
1:08:57
of OK, these are things that we need budget wise.
1:08:59
These are things, you know, that we may, you may not be thinking
1:09:01
about cause hey, not only are we asking for money for you, but we
1:09:05
got to build our sports medicine staff, our training staff, our
1:09:09
sports info staff. Like we can't just add 50 more
1:09:13
athletes in a track and field program and not have support
1:09:17
staff around it. So they're also guiding some of
1:09:20
those conversations of how do we add this?
1:09:22
Absolutely. You know, and then leaning on
1:09:25
some of the assistant coaches too.
1:09:27
Like, I mean, I think I've been blessed with that as well.
1:09:31
You know, I was, you know, bringing in Coach Juke, who's
1:09:35
been our sprint's coach. You know, he'd had, he was a
1:09:37
decathlete in college right down the road at Bethune Cookman, you
1:09:42
know, and then he had been coaching there and, you know,
1:09:45
just was looking for a change, you know, So when he came over
1:09:49
here, you know, being able to rely on somebody who had
1:09:51
expertise and had already been coaching in in the sprint's
1:09:54
jumps area and, you know, being in and learning from him, you
1:09:57
know, picking his brain like, hey, why are we doing this?
1:09:59
What are you doing with this? You know why?
1:10:01
You know, talk to me about how we develop our Sprint schedule.
1:10:06
Right, right. What what events are you doing?
1:10:09
And then, you know, we we've picked up some some volunteer
1:10:13
coaches and some other part time coaches along the way.
1:10:16
So you know, we've had, you know, in that first couple years
1:10:20
we had a part time slash volunteer coach who's probably
1:10:23
one of the best hammer coaches I've ever witnessed.
1:10:25
Like, I mean, just did an excellent job.
1:10:29
He actually left our program for 10 years and now he's back
1:10:31
volunteering with us again. He's like 83 years old out there
1:10:36
at the Hammer Cage. It's awesome, you know, but you
1:10:41
know, being able to pick their brains and, and doing those
1:10:43
things and from them, you know, we got the same thing right now
1:10:47
in our pole vault, our first, I think our very first pole vault
1:10:50
coach. He was a in school as a for
1:10:53
chiropractor right down the street from a set of different
1:10:57
chiropractic school Head was a pole vaulter at UF and was like,
1:11:02
hey, you know, do you need help? I was like, yeah, I could
1:11:05
absolutely use some help coaching pole vault.
1:11:08
He coached pole vault for us for four or five years.
1:11:10
He was actually, he was an excellent coach, great in bio
1:11:13
mechanics and other things. He actually helped coach some
1:11:16
other events and wrote a lot of our Med ball routines, our
1:11:19
weight routines for about four years.
1:11:21
Then decided he didn't want to do chiropractic and left us and
1:11:25
went to PA school up in Indiana, moved to Minnesota, well about a
1:11:30
month ago, moved back here. So now he's back helping us in
1:11:33
pole vault again. Like full circle.
1:11:36
Your mascot should be the Boomerangs.
1:11:39
Something something like, yeah, I mean, there's something about
1:11:42
this place that just brings people back.
1:11:43
No, but it's been, you know, But you know, I really kind of feel
1:11:46
like, you know, as much as, you know, as much as I've learned
1:11:51
from mentors and other things, I think I've learned as much from
1:11:53
my assistant coaches as as anybody else.
1:11:57
Like I mean, I really trying to learn about other events and
1:11:59
what we're looking for. And you know, I've had been
1:12:02
blessed with some great assistants who really have been
1:12:04
very knowledgeable, who've really been able to kind of help
1:12:07
not only grow the program, but help me grow as a coach.
1:12:10
You know, for the past couple of months we've had a lot of
1:12:14
conversations centered around that maybe the XS and OS are the
1:12:17
easy part. And it's all this other stuff
1:12:19
kind of goes back to when we said, you know, like, oh, I
1:12:21
don't like to be behind a computer.
1:12:22
It's like, well, sorry, bud, only this much is actually on
1:12:24
the track. The rest of it is in front of
1:12:26
the computer, you know, and I say in front of the computer,
1:12:28
it's all the other stuff, right? It's one-on-one with your, with
1:12:30
your athletes, it's fundraising, it's working on your budget,
1:12:34
etcetera. And and that's where I'm struck
1:12:38
with you. It's like, man, it's amazing.
1:12:39
Like there is no playbook. There's no playbook today in
1:12:42
2025. You're trying to do this in 2000
1:12:44
and five, 2006 where you know, a lot of people you could call
1:12:47
could tell you like, oh, if you want to coach spinners, do these
1:12:50
kind of workouts. Many, many people you call there
1:12:52
very few people could you call and go, hey, so I'm used to
1:12:55
managing a roster of 20 kids, whatever it was, and now it's
1:12:59
going to be 50. Oh, and by the way, they're not
1:13:02
all distance guys and gals. So, you know, that was much
1:13:04
easier to herd them into this run or this workout.
1:13:07
Now it's going to be like, well, some of them need this and some
1:13:08
of them need that. And by the way, they have class.
1:13:10
This is a pretty academic school.
1:13:11
They have classes. Some are going to be able to go
1:13:12
at 1:00 or whatever. That's where we just have little
1:13:16
to no resources for people who are building programs from
1:13:19
scratch or adding to the even if you have a great program right
1:13:22
now and you don't have throws for whatever reason, you're
1:13:24
going to add it next year, There's no reason you can go to
1:13:26
throws coaches and say, Hey, what do you need?
1:13:27
Well, you know, they, they got there, they had all the stuff
1:13:30
they needed or they had to supplement things.
1:13:32
You're going to be building from scratch.
1:13:33
You built the whole thing from scratch.
1:13:35
That to me is amazing. I love that people were put with
1:13:40
you that helped, could help with those things and your
1:13:42
administration as well of like, hey, here's the things we have
1:13:45
to budget for. Because the other point you
1:13:46
brought up, this is a great point.
1:13:48
I can't remember who we had, forgive me, after 300 guests.
1:13:51
It was here recently. It was this this season, this
1:13:54
year in 2025, coach at a small school.
1:13:58
And he was like, you know, oh, I, I, you know, I can build this
1:14:00
program. We can have 100 people and
1:14:02
they're like, yeah, we don't have dorms for, for an extra 100
1:14:04
people. And he was like, you know, it
1:14:06
frustrated me a little bit. And I was like, well, you know,
1:14:08
that's expensive, by the way. So you don't just snap your
1:14:12
finger and it gets done. I go to no offense, you're a
1:14:15
track coach who has no experience with this, meaning
1:14:18
you may bring in 10. You can say 100 all you want.
1:14:20
It may just not happen, not through your own fall.
1:14:22
Just, you know, you don't know, you're excited.
1:14:24
You'd say 100 and it ends up being 10.
1:14:26
They're out of a lot that could that could that could depend on
1:14:28
the size and the financial stability of the school that
1:14:30
could wreck a school. The school could be closed
1:14:32
because of a track coach. Sorry, bub, not going to happen.
1:14:36
We're we're important in our world, not in the academic world
1:14:39
of a university here. So to your point about the the
1:14:42
rest of the administration, they're sitting there going, so
1:14:44
how many kids are you going to have at 70?
1:14:45
All right, well, that means more trainers with figure out dorms
1:14:49
for that many extra people. English one O 1 has to maybe we
1:14:52
need another professor. What?
1:14:53
Whatever. You know, there's all the that's
1:14:54
the things that they have to think about where we just go.
1:14:57
Yeah, 70 kids. OK, well, I need a budget of
1:14:59
buses and implements or whatever.
1:15:00
And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool.
1:15:02
We got these other things we got to worry about with 70 extra
1:15:04
kids, man tutors, etcetera. You know, it's a it's it's a
1:15:08
lot. It's funny as a track coach will
1:15:11
say how important and impactful, you know, 75 to 100 kids of a
1:15:16
track team will be for university and, and you're
1:15:18
right, by the way, but then we forget how impactful that really
1:15:21
it, it goes beyond our circle of like, oh, the university, again,
1:15:25
depending on the size and scope of the university, the
1:15:28
university has to figure out how to put these kids in and every
1:15:33
year, by the way, and they're thinking beyond you, like, man,
1:15:35
you might be gone in five years. We still got to have these kids
1:15:37
here for, you know, every year for the rest of our lives that
1:15:39
we're open here. So it's just interesting.
1:15:42
There's other aspects. I'd love that.
1:15:43
You brought up the trainer that just made me think about that.
1:15:45
Yeah, no, it's interesting. You know, when you think about
1:15:48
it, you go, OK, we're going to bring in an extra 50 kids at 50
1:15:51
grand a year. So we're bringing in two and a
1:15:54
half million or whatever it is. And you go, hey, this is great
1:15:57
for the university. The university is all, you know,
1:15:59
the the reality of that is OK of that.
1:16:02
We've got a higher two more, you know, two or three more
1:16:06
professors. We got a right, you know, we are
1:16:08
great in all that extra income, but it's not just that.
1:16:12
It's not two and a half million net that's gross and we got a
1:16:15
right, the kids cost us things and for rightfully so.
1:16:18
So we have to figure those out. Student athlete, rec center.
1:16:22
I mean, there's so, so much to a whole ecosystem of a university
1:16:26
that goes to the town as well, by the way, again, depending on
1:16:29
the size of the town as well. It's there's there is no just
1:16:32
simple like O50 kids, who cares? Big deal.
1:16:34
Well, you know, I'll be a genius.
1:16:35
I was like, man, this takes so much more than you, bro.
1:16:37
I know you're smart and you're a track coach, but this is way
1:16:40
more than just that. Yeah, OK.
1:16:43
But those are things you also got to think about when you're
1:16:44
proposing it. Is that's right?
1:16:46
That's right. You know, hey, this is the
1:16:47
impact. We're going to bring in an extra
1:16:50
$1,000,000 to the school, you know, so that it's going to
1:16:53
allow you to hire whatever to help in other areas that we need
1:16:58
help in. And that's how you spell the
1:17:00
program, right? And that goes back to what we
1:17:03
said earlier about administration has to be real
1:17:05
and upfront and honest with their coaches then too.
1:17:07
So that literally just made me think of I was out of school
1:17:10
where we had like 3 kids on the team when I first got the job.
1:17:13
We grew up to like 20 my first year.
1:17:15
Well, I didn't have many kids to coach, so I just recruited all
1:17:18
year, right? So I had 80 coming in the second
1:17:20
year. And as I was signing these kids
1:17:22
out, you know, I was going to the president in AD saying, you
1:17:24
know, I know what my budget is. You know how many buses, not
1:17:27
vans next year? Like no problem, you bring the
1:17:30
kids in, we'll take care of the budget.
1:17:31
So, you know, 80 something kids show up, you know, for fall and
1:17:34
I get my budget and it's not one red cent higher.
1:17:37
And I was like, guys, what are you, what are we going to do
1:17:39
with these kids? Like I told them, you know, you
1:17:41
told me because of what you told me.
1:17:43
And they're like, yeah, next year.
1:17:45
And and you know, honestly, I'll tell you what, whether I
1:17:46
chickened out, cowered out, whatever I I left, I had another
1:17:49
job offer. I helped the kids leave and go
1:17:52
to where they could. But it was like, man, this ain't
1:17:54
happening. This university is not this
1:17:56
college isn't serious about this.
1:17:59
They, they lied to me. And well, golly, if they're
1:18:01
willing to lie about this, well, well, what hope do I have for
1:18:04
anything else? So administrators and coaches
1:18:05
have got to be on the same page, have got to be honest with each
1:18:08
other. And it goes both ways.
1:18:10
Coaches, you've got to be honest with your administrators and and
1:18:12
vice versa, They have to be honest with you.
1:18:15
OK, Year 7, you've got a full program now you're winning
1:18:18
conference championships. That's amazing.
1:18:22
Spoiler alert, you're there for another What?
1:18:25
You're, you're 23 coming up now. Is that right?
1:18:27
If I do math, see now every time I have to do math, I feel a
1:18:30
little inferior to you here. Just be honest with you.
1:18:34
It's all addition and subtraction.
1:18:35
You're good. You know, I always tell people I
1:18:38
went to high school and College in Alabama, so that'll tell you
1:18:41
my math skills and maybe my English skills.
1:18:42
Sometimes, no. I mean, you got to do a little
1:18:44
bit of math to figure out what you're doing in the poker world.
1:18:47
Yeah, well, that's true. There's a little bit of odds
1:18:51
going on. There.
1:18:51
That's a good point. I thought you're going to bring
1:18:53
up footballs like well, I do not account by 6 sevens and threes.
1:18:55
I've got that down fairly well. The national sport of Alabama is
1:18:59
football. OK, So what has kept you there
1:19:05
so long? You're a very competent coach.
1:19:07
You're, you know, the, the, the experiences that you've had
1:19:10
through here. You're 7.
1:19:12
And I know they just keep building onto each other.
1:19:15
That's the kind of coach that's very attractive to me as an
1:19:17
administrator. It's like, oh man, this guy, OK,
1:19:21
he can coach. Cool.
1:19:22
That's table sticks. We need that.
1:19:23
OK, fine, he can coach. But he understands all these
1:19:26
others that he built it from, you know, they had nothing and
1:19:29
he built it. That's the kind of coach that's
1:19:31
attracted to me. You're still here, my friend and
1:19:34
I, and I love that. I hope that part of it is your
1:19:35
own choice, and I it must, because you're very attractive
1:19:38
to other schools. What's kept you there at in
1:19:41
Daytona besides the beach? Yeah, besides the beach, which I
1:19:45
probably see twice a year, you're.
1:19:50
Not a beach. They give me the beach, you
1:19:54
know, I'd say it's been, you know, again, there were new
1:19:58
challenges all the time. You know, so one was building
1:20:01
that program over that four years, but once we built it
1:20:03
there, it wasn't just stopping there.
1:20:05
You know, we built to where, you know, when we left the NAIA in
1:20:10
2015, sixteen, 1516, kind of whenever that somewhere in that
1:20:15
year is our transition, you know, we were one of the top
1:20:18
five teams in the NAIA, at least 5 to 10 teams in NAIA, you know,
1:20:23
so we had built from nothing to being a conference champion to
1:20:27
being top 15 to top ten top. Like there's there's something
1:20:31
new going on every year for a while, kind of building that
1:20:34
program and seeing that, you know, and then we announced that
1:20:38
we're moving from NAIA to Division 2, you know, which then
1:20:41
was a whole nother challenge. What'd you think about that?
1:20:44
I assume they didn't ask you your opinion.
1:20:46
What did you think about that? We, I actually to be fair, like
1:20:49
we did get asked our opinion quite a bit and to our adminant
1:20:53
and to our administration's credit and to especially our AD
1:20:57
at that point, you know, he was very open with us as coaches and
1:21:01
asking our opinion about, you know, what are the pros and
1:21:03
cons? What do you guys see as the
1:21:05
advantages or disadvantages of it?
1:21:08
You know, and we gave input. Oh, it's cool.
1:21:11
You know, and kind of understood, like a lot of our
1:21:13
other sports, it was a, you know, it was a real priority for
1:21:16
them to move from NAIA to, to to Division two in a sense that,
1:21:20
you know, it the facilities they were having to go to and the
1:21:25
problems they were having, you know, of, of, you know, playing
1:21:29
in a church gym, playing soccer on a baseball field, really, you
1:21:34
know, oh wow, you know, our tennis coaches hosting almost
1:21:38
every conference match because nobody else had a tennis court
1:21:41
to, you know, whatever that was, you know, just some challenges
1:21:44
they were facing right with, with other.
1:21:47
Teams in that, yeah, I don't. I don't want to bash on any high
1:21:50
school, so there's a lot of yeah, yeah.
1:21:51
And that was 10 years ago too, which things have changed.
1:21:54
Yeah, things have changed. And those are issues that you
1:21:57
example there you didn't have because it's track.
1:22:00
So you could go to University of Florida every weekend if you
1:22:02
wanted to. They host it and stuff.
1:22:03
Right, exactly. So we're having these
1:22:05
conversations and I'm sitting back on, you know, if it's up to
1:22:08
me, I'd stay anyhow. Like I'm.
1:22:10
Good. You know, track Nationals has
1:22:13
1000 kids at it. We're getting 25 to 30 kids at
1:22:15
national meet. Like that's not going to happen
1:22:17
when we go to division two and only 300 kids get to go, right?
1:22:22
Like this is this is a big difference when you have
1:22:25
standards and whoever hits the standard gets to go versus the
1:22:28
top 20 get to go, right? You know, so I'm going we've got
1:22:32
life great. Like if I'm not hosting, I'm at
1:22:36
AG1 school. I never have that issue.
1:22:38
I'm I'm at U, I'm at UFUCFUSFUFFSU.
1:22:42
Anything that has AU and an F in it like and maybe add Miami,
1:22:46
right? Like thanks for.
1:22:47
Saying U and an F and not an F and AU.
1:22:49
Good job. Exactly, you know, so, I mean,
1:22:54
you know, from our standpoint, I'm going, I'd stay right.
1:22:57
Like this is great for us, you know, but for the other coaches,
1:23:02
I'm understanding where they're coming from, you know, like this
1:23:05
is an improvement. Like our kids are going to have
1:23:06
a much better experience 'cause they're going to other places
1:23:10
that have similar facilities. They're, you know, getting the
1:23:13
right quality experience. You know, they're finishing the
1:23:17
game and getting to go into a locker room, not expected to
1:23:20
shower in a pool or whatever it is, you know, and, and again,
1:23:24
it's just what resources people have and, and things like that.
1:23:26
And it's what it was, you know, so we're having those
1:23:30
conversations and, you know, and so I mean, I understand where
1:23:33
we're coming from. We all understood why we're
1:23:34
making the decision. You know it, you know, again,
1:23:39
from our standpoint, it didn't matter, but it was, you know,
1:23:42
it, it was a new, but it was a new challenge.
1:23:44
And so as we kind of moved in, so that was a new challenge.
1:23:47
Yeah, I was going to say it did matter, right?
1:23:48
Because that's different. AD 2 roster is different than an
1:23:51
AI an AI roster the rules are different, right Scholarship
1:23:54
allotments things like this. How how do you again what again
1:23:59
you know, so valuable Mike that you've got you've LED through
1:24:02
these things not just gone through them like you've LED
1:24:04
through them from a cross country only program to a full
1:24:07
track and field cross country program now moving from NAIA to
1:24:10
an NCAA Division two. What are the things like what
1:24:13
did you have to change through that in in kind of walk us
1:24:18
through the transition. I I think I know like if you go
1:24:20
division two to Division One, you have to sit out four years
1:24:22
and maybe that's changed and I don't know.
1:24:24
Did you have to sit out? Talk to us about like how how
1:24:26
you had to change the program to, I don't say catch up to D2,
1:24:30
but to transition to D2. Yeah, that trans, the transition
1:24:33
was rough. I mean, the, I think the first
1:24:36
thing we had to change was a little bit about obviously
1:24:40
learning the NCAA rule book, you know, NAIA rule book, NCAA,
1:24:44
sure, it's a little different. You, you said the NAIA word book
1:24:50
was this big. I I was JUCO.
1:24:51
It was. It was a couple pages, yeah.
1:24:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, first it was just
1:24:58
kind of learning what are the rules, What are we allowed to
1:25:00
do? What are we not allowed to do?
1:25:02
Definitely change the recruiting process some, you know, not
1:25:05
being able to contact students, you know, at the same time who
1:25:10
you could recruit, when you could recruit them, those kinds
1:25:12
of things. And then a little bit changed a
1:25:14
little bit too with our the relationships with athletes.
1:25:18
You know, we really felt like in those first couple years in the
1:25:20
transition that we were being watched so much for NCAA rules,
1:25:25
you know, that it was we had to be extra careful with
1:25:28
everything. So it really felt like we, the
1:25:32
personal relationships we had with athletes and some of the
1:25:34
like, you know what, what would be perceived as NCAA extra
1:25:39
benefits were things that we were used to doing.
1:25:43
A kid come flies in and needs a ride from the airport, OK, we
1:25:46
give them a ride home. You know, after practice,
1:25:48
somebody needs a ride home, we just give them a ride home.
1:25:51
I never thought twice about that.
1:25:52
Like, you know, one of our core values in our program is family.
1:25:56
Like if I'm going to treat you as family, like that's what
1:25:58
family does, right? I give you a ride home.
1:26:01
You get stuck somewhere, you know?
1:26:04
Yep. You don't have something to eat,
1:26:06
come over like whatever, like, you know, just.
1:26:09
You. Know so we're kind of like that,
1:26:11
that those first couple years where we're being watched extra
1:26:13
carefully and just really kind of it felt like we had to be a
1:26:17
little more standoffish with athletes.
1:26:20
So that part was something that we had to learn kind of where's
1:26:23
that balance between still being family, but being family a
1:26:29
little bit different and and where there's boundary lines.
1:26:33
So I think that was a little bit of transition.
1:26:35
We had to sit out two years, no conference or no conference or
1:26:40
national postseason, right? You know, so that was a little
1:26:43
rough, but you know. Especially for a program that's
1:26:45
used to go into nationals. And then we do that and we do
1:26:48
well, by the way. Yeah.
1:26:50
Yeah, yeah, we're sending 25 to 30 kids to track nationals every
1:26:53
year. At that point, could still, I
1:26:55
assume you went to a conference right off the bat.
1:26:57
Could you compete in conference for those two years?
1:27:01
So we moved into the Yeah, no, but.
1:27:04
So you couldn't even make that like you're nationals, like,
1:27:06
hey, we're going to go to conference.
1:27:07
This is our big meet of the year for two years.
1:27:09
We couldn't do that and that was a conference decision.
1:27:12
So every conference is different.
1:27:16
So our conference would not allow us to do that.
1:27:19
And I and I see both sides, but my initial reaction is, dude,
1:27:23
come on, that's your it's your new conference brother.
1:27:26
I've never thought about what you said there about being
1:27:29
watched and monitored more. I never thought about, oh, a
1:27:32
school that's transitioning. They don't, they don't know the,
1:27:34
it's not ingrained in them to know the rules.
1:27:36
So it's much easier for them to slip.
1:27:37
So we need to pay a little bit more attention.
1:27:38
Like, hey, slap the hand. You can't do that anymore,
1:27:41
right? So, so I, I, so I can see the
1:27:44
conference brother and sisters kind of think of the same things
1:27:47
like, oh boy, they've been running off the NAA rules.
1:27:49
We need to give them a little cool down before we allow them
1:27:51
to come in, get underneath our rules.
1:27:54
But on the other hand, I'm also like, yeah, but you trusted them
1:27:56
enough to accept them into your conference.
1:27:57
Like, come on. Yeah.
1:27:59
Yeah, You know, it was, it's rough and a lot of conferences
1:28:02
do allow it, but ours did not, you know, and again, the same
1:28:07
thing. It's like, OK, are they
1:28:08
following the rules? Are they not following rules?
1:28:09
But the other side of it is what happens if we win the
1:28:11
conference, right. And they and that's the auto
1:28:15
qualifier to nationals. Not that it isn't cross country
1:28:18
or track, but thinking about. It basketball baseball, but.
1:28:22
If you go out and win it, then how do we determine who gets the
1:28:24
AQ? Yeah, second place.
1:28:26
This is easy to answer here, guys.
1:28:28
Yeah, come on, let's let's not complicate this, right?
1:28:32
But that's also where they're coming from.
1:28:33
Yeah, sure, sure what? Happens if you if you win and.
1:28:37
Yeah, I I get I see both sides. I mean not agree necessarily
1:28:40
with one side, but I can see both sides and not necessarily
1:28:43
fault them. But so how did you, the staff,
1:28:45
the kids, I mean, like June of one year, you're at nationals
1:28:52
having a good time, you're top ten and Labor Day of that three
1:28:57
months later, four months later that fall, you're like, OK, so
1:29:01
our last meet is going to be May 1, the Clemson invite or
1:29:04
whatever, and then I'll see you again in the fall.
1:29:07
Boys like what? No, no, you know you.
1:29:10
Build Your Country ended in October.
1:29:13
Oh wow, I didn't even think of what a Oh my God, you had like,
1:29:15
no. Yeah, cross country is like 4-4
1:29:17
meets. I was gonna say with you like 4
1:29:18
meets. Yeah, exactly what?
1:29:20
And then track, you know, track it's like why are we going, you
1:29:23
know at that point in track indoors were going, the closest
1:29:26
indoor track to us is 6 1/2 hours away.
1:29:29
Oh, right. Yeah, if not 9 hours away, it's
1:29:32
like, why are we taking these trips from this?
1:29:33
Is super early. We had no indoors back then,
1:29:36
yeah. Yeah.
1:29:37
So it's like, where? Where are we going to go?
1:29:38
Why would we even do indoors and then outdoors we're like, we're
1:29:42
going to stop. We're going to stop before
1:29:44
school ends. So we're stopping end of April.
1:29:48
So the conversation we had with the athletes was like, you know,
1:29:51
these two years are going to be a little rough, but here's what
1:29:54
we're going to do for you. We're going to red shirt half of
1:29:57
you this year. And.
1:29:59
We're going to red shirt the other half next year and that
1:30:01
way you all get you're not losing 2 years, you're losing
1:30:05
one year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:30:06
Yeah. And then in your 5th year, you
1:30:09
know, that's, you know, most of you're going to get to stay here
1:30:11
5th year. We did a special spring break
1:30:14
trip both years. OK, there you go.
1:30:17
We're saving some money because we're not going, we're not
1:30:19
travelling as much indoors. We're not, we're and in our
1:30:22
season in April, you know, those kinds of things.
1:30:25
So we're like, you know what, we can, what we'll do something
1:30:29
special. So, you know, one year, one year
1:30:32
I think we went up to Myrtle Beach, and the other year we
1:30:34
actually took a trip to Puerto Rico, which was really cool.
1:30:37
Oh, yeah, that is cool. Did you?
1:30:39
Did you? And again, I give all grace to
1:30:42
young people. Even in college, 18 to 22 years
1:30:45
old, you're still a young kid. You're a kid.
1:30:47
Did you lose any kids? Any kids?
1:30:49
Like, you know, I didn't sign up for this.
1:30:51
I'm going to transfer out to. Be honest.
1:30:54
Not really. And you know, again, part of
1:30:57
that is who we are. Yeah, part of that's, you know,
1:31:00
because of the school we are and because of the degree programs
1:31:03
we have. Sure.
1:31:04
Here for the education. Yeah, yeah, kind.
1:31:06
Of similar what you know, we talked about like, why did I not
1:31:09
leave when I wasn't playing soccer, but I didn't just go
1:31:11
play somewhere else. Right.
1:31:12
Kind of the same thing like people who are coming here,
1:31:14
coming here for the education, for the program and for what
1:31:17
we're doing. So yeah, I think that was part
1:31:19
of it was they, they were kind of bought into the education or
1:31:21
bought in there. So they.
1:31:23
That's still amazing to me, dude.
1:31:25
I mean, we're still talking. I don't care that that all
1:31:27
you're what you're saying is true.
1:31:29
You didn't have something that only you had.
1:31:32
Meaning there are other flight schools or other engineering
1:31:34
schools. Let's be real here.
1:31:36
But there was something you had the culture that kept people
1:31:40
that that is impressive to me especially.
1:31:44
Like I can just imagine that kid that comes there is like, oh
1:31:47
man, I'm on the outskirts of qualifying for nationals.
1:31:50
Maybe they qualified or just missed it their first year.
1:31:52
Like, oh, but the hunger, like, oh man, I can go, I can make
1:31:55
nationals, I can score. And then two years of like, Oh
1:31:58
no, no, you can't. We're not even going to allow
1:32:00
you the chance. Like I mean, just kind of
1:32:02
deflating a little bit. So your job as a coach, as a
1:32:06
coaching staff and the administration and by the way,
1:32:08
the administration is dealing with this with all sports,
1:32:10
basketball, baseball, golf, etcetera.
1:32:13
So I get that. How do you keep kids engaged
1:32:17
academically and athletically? I mean, how do you, how do you
1:32:20
recruit? How do you bring a kid in and
1:32:22
say, yeah, but we're going to sit out a a year or two,
1:32:25
whatever, you know, depending on what he is.
1:32:26
That's, that's hard, man. Holy cow.
1:32:29
Yeah. And it was a challenge, you
1:32:31
know, But again, it's, you know, we're going to have some
1:32:34
special, you know, that that's how we sold it.
1:32:36
Like we're going to have, you know, the special trips.
1:32:38
We're going to try to make this a great experience.
1:32:41
You still get to compete and we're still going to great
1:32:43
meats. It's not like it's not like
1:32:46
you're you're not competing at all.
1:32:48
Yeah, Yeah, good, good point. Yeah, you didn't, you know,
1:32:50
we're. Still competing, we're still
1:32:51
going to big meats. We're going to have a, we're
1:32:54
going to add an extra trip or two.
1:32:56
You're going to get, you know, in theory a lot of them were
1:32:58
getting an extra year. You know, that's how we sold in
1:33:00
recruiting is hey, you're going to get an extra year of this.
1:33:03
You're going to get to compete this one year.
1:33:05
You know, you're going to red shirt, but when you're
1:33:07
redshirting, we're still hosting 3 or 4 meats.
1:33:09
So you're going to get to compete unattached in four or
1:33:12
five. All right.
1:33:14
You know, you can travel. It's an hour to tour, you know,
1:33:17
UNF. Yeah, yeah.
1:33:18
Yeah, yeah, you're gonna get split.
1:33:20
Yeah, yeah. You can get some places so.
1:33:22
How do you kind of maybe the technical side of it, how do you
1:33:25
as a coach handle the scholarship changing or or did
1:33:29
that not change all that much, whether whether it was how much
1:33:32
scholarship being or your allocation?
1:33:35
Because you know, you're a smart guy.
1:33:36
I guarantee you, you will look to the conference you're getting
1:33:39
into and looked at the division two nationals was like, OK,
1:33:41
well, I've been a little too heavy on this side.
1:33:43
I might need to focus more on these or whatnot.
1:33:45
So you at least had those thoughts whether you made a
1:33:47
change or not. What technical, how do you, how
1:33:49
do you, you know, make that correction to the D2 side of it
1:33:54
wise? Now, I'd say on the scholarship
1:33:56
side, we didn't change that much.
1:33:58
So it's very, very similar for us.
1:34:01
We weren't at the NAI Max, we're not at the D2 Max.
1:34:03
So we're kind of halfway in between.
1:34:06
So, you know, we didn't have much of A transition with that
1:34:09
aspect. You know, we are still kind of
1:34:11
looking at, you know, obviously the conferences are a little bit
1:34:14
different and kind of figuring out where are we putting effort
1:34:17
into winning. You know, if we're going to try
1:34:20
to win this conference now, we have a really big challenge
1:34:23
because we're we're probably the only school ever in the history
1:34:27
of America that in track right now we compete in two
1:34:30
conferences in outdoor track. You know, a lot of times when
1:34:33
people say we're the first ones or the only ones, I'm always
1:34:36
like, you know, you're just thinking about all yourself.
1:34:38
OK. What do you mean that's that?
1:34:39
That's weird. Yeah.
1:34:40
It's totally weird. So we're in the Sunshine State
1:34:43
for every the Sunshine State conference for every sport, OK.
1:34:47
The Sunshine State last year added an outdoor track
1:34:51
championship without field events.
1:34:54
Is that right? Hey, Well, better than nothing,
1:34:55
I guess. OK.
1:34:56
It is what it is. And, and to be fair, you know,
1:34:58
the 7-8 other schools in, in the Sunshine State were primarily
1:35:03
doing cross country and distance track, right, right.
1:35:06
And so they're, they, you know, they were looking at let's,
1:35:08
let's, you know, at least we, we took that step.
1:35:10
We added a track championship. Yeah.
1:35:13
But since there was a track only championship and we're we've
1:35:16
been an affiliate member of the Peach Belt since we moved
1:35:18
division two for track and field.
1:35:21
Sorry, I need to be careful when I say these things.
1:35:24
Dude, Hey, first of all, no, I got in trouble with that online,
1:35:28
you know, Twitter one day I said I I distinctly remember this
1:35:31
tweet. I said because I copied office.
1:35:33
I like taking other people's tweets that are about like
1:35:35
something else or another sport or something and then adding
1:35:37
track and coaches into it. And so I'm sorry, quote tweeted
1:35:40
something, but the gist of it was I like track and field.
1:35:45
I love track coaches. That that's what I tweeted.
1:35:47
It was something about passion. I like something, but I love,
1:35:50
you know, I was just that was trying to convey like, you know,
1:35:52
I, I do like track and field, but man, my heart is track
1:35:55
coaches. But I said so I said I love
1:35:57
track and field, but I love track coaches.
1:35:58
And I had someone who is a huge person in this sport.
1:36:02
I love her to death. And she messaged me and said,
1:36:04
what about the field coaches? And I was like, OK, well, you
1:36:08
know what? I was saying the same thing,
1:36:09
man. So no, when you say track, I
1:36:12
think of the sport. I mean, remember our real name
1:36:16
is athletics, by the way. So it's the whole enchilada I
1:36:19
can't stand, I feel. Feel well, I have to be, I have
1:36:22
to be careful when I talk about it because of the the difference
1:36:24
in our conferences. Oh, yeah, you do.
1:36:26
OK, good point. Yeah, you've got a track
1:36:28
conference and a track. You can feel the conference.
1:36:31
Yes, yes. So we've been, we had been
1:36:33
affiliate members of the Peach Belt since we moved division
1:36:36
two. Yeah, that is.
1:36:37
Wow. When they brought that in, you
1:36:40
know, it was agreed upon and by the A DS and then the presidents
1:36:43
and by both conferences that until the Sunshine State adds
1:36:47
field events that we can do track in one and track and field
1:36:51
in the other. One and you're the only one.
1:36:53
Yeah. Wow, so that can't be the same
1:36:56
weekend, thank goodness. No, yeah.
1:36:59
But back-to-back. So back-to-back you've got
1:37:01
conference, so you can win an outdoor track and field 2
1:37:04
conference championships every year.
1:37:07
That is a trivia question. I can't.
1:37:11
Thank you. Thank you.
1:37:11
Thank you. Thank you.
1:37:12
That that I will take as a correction.
1:37:14
I'm Yeah, it is men and women. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:37:16
Those are separate teams and separate championships.
1:37:19
I will take that correction. Yeah.
1:37:21
That's a fun little trivia question.
1:37:22
I'm going to use somewhere invention or something.
1:37:25
Man, I love that. That is really cool.
1:37:27
Are you, I mean, I know you said that, but are you like, have you
1:37:30
looked into, are you the only school that has that?
1:37:33
I'm sorry I've. Never heard of it.
1:37:35
I can't even think like oh, what about Gonzaga or something?
1:37:38
I'm trying to think like distance or you know, wow,
1:37:41
that's crazy. That's good.
1:37:43
That's really cool. I love that at.
1:37:45
Least for another year, you know, at least for another year
1:37:47
or. Two, yeah, yeah.
1:37:48
So things is there is a Sunshine State, Sunshine State
1:37:53
conference, right? Is that what you called it?
1:37:55
Is there plan to add like? Amongst the coaches for sure,
1:37:59
yeah. Yeah, Well, that's a big, that's
1:38:01
a big part of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:38:02
Amongst the coaches, yes that that is kind of the plan is that
1:38:05
we are hopeful and you know couple years or so that yeah,
1:38:10
that'll change. But As for now, it's.
1:38:11
Great for our sport. So that's that's good They'll
1:38:13
they'll they'll in some forms of fashions, they will add field
1:38:17
events throws like they'll they'll add more to it as well.
1:38:20
So that's cool. I love that Do they do so this
1:38:22
is interesting. So you said running events only.
1:38:24
Yep, hurdles, yes. OK, so we we found that.
1:38:30
Relay Sequel, Yeah. And steep, I'm trying to think
1:38:33
like, because it's equipment base is what their issue is.
1:38:36
So I'm like, OK, you need hurdles.
1:38:37
OK, so they're doing that. So it's literally just the we're
1:38:40
not doing jumps, we're not doing throws that I missed something
1:38:44
just jumps and throws, right? Yeah, jumps and throws.
1:38:46
Yeah. So you're doing the relays
1:38:47
steeple? Wow man, that's interesting.
1:38:51
Yeah, well, you know, and if it's the definition of an NCAA
1:38:54
meet, you know, when you look at the definition of NCAA meet,
1:38:56
it's got to have 10 events. So, yeah, right. 124 eight 15510
1:39:03
steeple 110 hurdles 4 hurdles 4 by 1 4x4 yeah it's like 12 yeah,
1:39:09
yeah, yeah. That's interesting.
1:39:10
That's really cool. That's interesting.
1:39:12
Well, I mean, there's another fun fact.
1:39:13
We learned about eagles to start and now we're learning about two
1:39:16
conferences, outdoor championships.
1:39:19
That's amazing. Yeah.
1:39:21
So Mike, again, all this experience, I mean that's, you
1:39:24
know, transitioning from cross country to to a full track and
1:39:27
field program, that's amazing. Transitioning from any I8 of
1:39:30
division two, that's amazing. And during the you know, I keep,
1:39:33
I keep trying to figure out why you haven't left right.
1:39:35
And and I mean that in a good way, but, but I'm also thinking
1:39:38
in the background here in your foreground, you're raising at
1:39:43
least two kids we know of. So you're raising a family.
1:39:45
I mean, there's yeah, there's there's other things.
1:39:47
It's like, yeah, but they're in high school.
1:39:49
One of my you know, I'm not going to miss them.
1:39:51
I've got a good thing I don't need to leave.
1:39:52
Why would I uproot their lives? So you're, you're, you've
1:39:55
established real roots there in the Daytona area.
1:39:59
Yeah, and for seven years I had my one of my kids here.
1:40:04
In school and for six of those years, one was on.
1:40:06
At least one, if not both of them are on the team, so.
1:40:09
No, wait, I did not know that. Yeah.
1:40:12
Did you coach? Like, were they distance
1:40:13
runners? My daughter was a pole vaulter
1:40:16
for two years. Yeah.
1:40:20
And my son, and that's an interesting story.
1:40:22
We talked about that one in a second.
1:40:24
And my son, my son, yes, my son was cross country in distance.
1:40:28
What's that like Coaching your son, man?
1:40:30
It was really cool, you know, I mean, we had a great
1:40:35
relationship and we kind of joke about the fact that I probably
1:40:37
saw him more in college than I saw him in high school, right?
1:40:40
Cuz actually saw him everyday maybe not so much.
1:40:44
Sad. Sad but true.
1:40:45
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but no, it was great.
1:40:49
I mean, you know, he, he learned, he got a whole lot
1:40:52
better. We had a whole lot of fun
1:40:54
working together and we and we still, he's still training and
1:40:57
still running and so we still kind of talk about his training.
1:41:00
So not like his dad, OK? Yeah, no, not like his dad.
1:41:03
What was what's easier or harder?
1:41:04
I just kind of thought about this.
1:41:06
So you've got in different time frames, you got a daughter on
1:41:10
the team and a son on the team. The son, you're directly code
1:41:13
like, you know, you're given the workouts, you're, you know,
1:41:16
monitoring the results, things like that.
1:41:18
The daughters across the field per SE on the track team, you
1:41:21
know, you're obviously you're over, you're the head coach,
1:41:23
you're over. But it's like, I don't know
1:41:24
really what's going on over there.
1:41:25
And you might not even be able to get to watch her all that
1:41:27
much during meets, depending on all that kind of stuff.
1:41:29
What's what's easier and harder as a dad slash coach?
1:41:34
I don't know, like, I mean, I think probably a little bit with
1:41:37
the daughter just, you know, not being able to to he is hands on.
1:41:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the challenge with having
1:41:44
the son on the team, like, you know, is you're always balancing
1:41:47
off that sense of I need to treat him the same as other
1:41:51
athletes. But the reality means I'm
1:41:53
treating him harder than other athletes.
1:41:54
Cause anything I do that shows, you know, I don't, I want to be
1:41:57
careful not to show favoritism, right.
1:41:59
So I'm going to be harder on him than everybody else.
1:42:02
And that's not really fair to him either.
1:42:03
So kind of balancing that relationship of how can I hold
1:42:08
you accountable without being overly holding you accountable.
1:42:13
You know, that was that's also kind of always that challenge
1:42:16
and you know, the sense of, you know, how other how are other
1:42:21
athletes reacting to it of reality?
1:42:24
One perception, by the way. Yeah, giving him enough
1:42:27
attention, but not too much attention.
1:42:31
Holding him accountable, but also giving him some leeway to
1:42:33
make mistakes like everybody else.
1:42:35
Has yeah and you're his dad so you've been through that for 18
1:42:37
years up to that point too yeah yeah, yeah.
1:42:41
I'm always amazed and we've had a few I think of two off top of
1:42:45
head, but I feel like it's a little bit more.
1:42:47
We've had married couples who coach together and I'm always
1:42:49
amazed. Like how do you, you know,
1:42:51
choose in simple term times here at 5:00 practice is over and you
1:42:55
go home for dinner. How do you not continue
1:42:58
coaching? You know, the the how did you
1:43:01
and son handle Christmas dinners?
1:43:04
I'm assuming he probably maybe he did.
1:43:06
Maybe he's smart enough to save board.
1:43:07
He stayed with you, but but how do?
1:43:10
You we kicked them out for. Him probably the way to ask this
1:43:17
is how did you stay dad during dad times and then stay coach
1:43:23
over and coach? How did you keep those separate?
1:43:27
You know, I mean, I don't know, I guess it was just about what
1:43:30
we talked about and how we handle things and, you know,
1:43:34
trying to just relax, you know, being able to relax at home and
1:43:37
not have that relationship. Yeah.
1:43:40
But yeah, I guess it was kind of always walking at a fine line.
1:43:42
But still a lot of our conversations still around cross
1:43:44
country and track because that's.
1:43:46
Who you are? That's who we are, that's who he
1:43:48
is, that's who I am. It's like, that's what we're
1:43:50
passionate about, so why would we not talk about those things?
1:43:53
But, you know, but being able to go on family vacation and being
1:43:57
able to chill and say, hey, you know, you know, but I hope that
1:44:02
we do that with all of our athletes too, though in the
1:44:04
sense of, you know, when we talk about, you know, we're, we're
1:44:10
all about family in our program. We're about student person and
1:44:12
player, that when we're not at practice, we're able to talk to
1:44:17
you about how are you doing as a student?
1:44:19
How are you doing as a person? How are you, you know,
1:44:21
functioning with the rest of your life and you know, what are
1:44:24
your relationships like outside of track and.
1:44:27
Yeah, that that's a great point because I was thinking, you
1:44:30
know, you shouldn't be talking to your son only, but I know
1:44:32
this who you are. But it's like, man, you have
1:44:33
other person's passions, charities, whatever, but take
1:44:39
away that he was your son. I would hope that our coaches
1:44:41
are having these discussions with their kids about what's
1:44:44
going on, how are they doing? How's your parents, You know,
1:44:46
how are you handling the far away from home like non track
1:44:49
and cross country stuff? Yeah, that's a great point that
1:44:51
maybe it, it just feels like it would be easier because Dad's
1:44:55
been there for 18 years. Like, you know, you've seen
1:44:57
everything when they quit soccer, quit track, then join
1:45:00
back, back the, you know, the girlfriends and whatever you
1:45:03
know, you've seen it all. Where you know another freshman.
1:45:06
You're like, wow, I've known you for six months.
1:45:08
I got a lot to learn. But you know, it's like man,
1:45:10
Junior, I've known you forever. You know, Dad, I could see where
1:45:13
it's still different, but I can see where there's similarities
1:45:15
of like, man, I hope you're having off the track
1:45:18
conversations to get to know the human that's in front of you,
1:45:21
not just the steeplechaser or the hammer thrower, etcetera.
1:45:24
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
1:45:27
Tell me both of them are like pilots or something.
1:45:31
He's an aerospace engineer. He's doing flight test
1:45:34
engineering for a drone company. Oh, dude.
1:45:37
Oh, that's right. You mentioned the drone.
1:45:38
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he gets he gets paid a lot
1:45:40
of money to fly a drone around how to.
1:45:41
Fly a radio rope controlled plane.
1:45:44
Dude, come on, let's be real here.
1:45:46
Wow. Yeah, he gets paid more than I
1:45:48
do to do that, so that's great. Yes, he's smarter than I am.
1:45:52
And my good. Job mom and dad by the.
1:45:56
Way he's doing great and and he's training he's still
1:45:59
training he's doing the marathon in a couple weeks so.
1:46:03
And you never picked it back up. I was waiting for you to tell me
1:46:06
when you said, you know, I didn't run anymore, but I was
1:46:08
waiting for you to say, but I ran some marathons and stuff
1:46:10
because that's what you distance.
1:46:11
You did? Yeah, I did.
1:46:12
Yeah, I know. It's what all you distance guys
1:46:14
do, man. So you did start getting back
1:46:16
to, you know, jogging and then running and.
1:46:18
Yeah, no, yeah. Once I started coaching, I got
1:46:21
back into running. I'd run with the team quite a
1:46:22
bit. I don't anymore.
1:46:23
I'm too old now, but yeah, when I first was coaching, yeah, I'd
1:46:26
run with them most days. And that made me a better coach,
1:46:29
to be honest. Yeah, 'cause you know, the days
1:46:32
when they're going out for an easier run, the days I could go
1:46:34
out, run with them and have those conversations while we're
1:46:36
running and getting to know how they were reacting to things and
1:46:40
really got to know them a little bit better.
1:46:42
And now that I can't do that or, or, or really what I think that
1:46:45
transition was when we had a track where now they go for a
1:46:47
run and I go coach somebody on track, right?
1:46:50
Right. You know, so that was that kind
1:46:52
of balance of, OK, the distance, guys, they're going for an 8
1:46:54
mile run. I'm not going for an 8 mile run
1:46:56
with them. So what am I doing?
1:46:58
I'm going to hang out at the track and go work with the
1:46:59
sprinters. I'm going to go work with the
1:47:01
throwers. I'm going to go work with this
1:47:02
group. So I feel like I kind of lost a
1:47:04
little bit in that transition because now I don't know as much
1:47:08
about you because I'm not running every day with you.
1:47:11
Yeah, Oh yeah, Those first years I definitely went running, ran
1:47:15
with the most of the time. We just had this conversation,
1:47:18
I'm pretty sure it's going to be the podcast right before that,
1:47:20
because I think it was my last interview where we talked about
1:47:23
as coaches age and we were talking about sprints and
1:47:26
hurdles of demonstrating like hurdle drills.
1:47:30
And as you get older, you know, less demonstrations happen until
1:47:33
eventually where you can't demonstrate at all, depending on
1:47:35
you, how far you get into your age with that.
1:47:37
And it was like, oh, you've got a continue to evolve as a coach.
1:47:41
Like you gotta go from someone who can show the kids how to do
1:47:43
these drills, etc, to someone who now has to speak it or
1:47:48
relies on film, etc. The same thing with our distance
1:47:51
guys and gals coaches. It's like, man, when you're a
1:47:53
spry 2829 year old a couple years off the circuit, you can
1:47:57
still run with them all day. As we get a little older, it's
1:47:59
like a couple things. One is maybe we just can't go on
1:48:02
8 miles runs with our kids. They're too good.
1:48:04
Yeah, but also we have other responsibilities.
1:48:06
To your point, I got other members of the team or I've got
1:48:08
a meeting that gotta go to. You're probably sometimes people
1:48:12
forget about this for head coaching in a lot of
1:48:14
universities, no matter what sport you coach.
1:48:17
But if you're the head coach of say, track and field, you're
1:48:19
going to be in the hiring committees of other sports.
1:48:21
A new basketball coaches said you're going to be interviewed,
1:48:23
that that takes time that we don't.
1:48:25
We still all got 24 hours, but now all these other duties as
1:48:28
assigned pop up. So you've had to learn to
1:48:30
continue to coach differently as you go through your different
1:48:33
ages and stages. Absolutely 100%, you know, kind
1:48:37
of going from running with them and being able to just kind of
1:48:41
hang out to not being able to do that and, and working on
1:48:44
coaching new events. Because now, you know, currently
1:48:49
now I have I don't just have the distance group now I have the
1:48:51
multi eventers, the decathletes and heptathletes, which I
1:48:54
thoroughly enjoy. Yeah, that's so much fun.
1:48:57
You know, kind of being able to coach a different event every
1:49:01
day and, and, and having fun and, and the technical aspects
1:49:04
of that, like that's just so much fun for me.
1:49:06
Like I, I really enjoy working with them just as much as the
1:49:08
distance group. And, you know, but that's a
1:49:11
whole new challenge of learning how to deal with every one of
1:49:14
those events. You know, Mike, you drop that,
1:49:16
right? As I know we have to go because
1:49:18
I'm wait a minute, there's 1000 questions there.
1:49:20
But what I do love, and I got one more question to kind of a
1:49:24
quick summary is I love your evolution, dude.
1:49:26
You know it. It's easy for us to sit back and
1:49:28
for a guy who has been in a place for 23/23/24 seasons and
1:49:33
go probably pretty stale, you know, probably the reason hasn't
1:49:36
gone is it's just easy. Just gets to do the same thing
1:49:38
over and it's like, whoa, bro, you have done.
1:49:41
I mean, looking back at 2002 and 20252026, bro, that's a
1:49:45
different school, a different program, literally, literally
1:49:50
different organizations in the IAD NC double golly, you may
1:49:53
have been at the same institution, but you actually
1:49:56
hit the nail on the head. You've had five maybe more jobs
1:49:59
during that. I that is really amazing to
1:50:02
continue to evolve and to continue to lead through those
1:50:05
transitions. That is, that's very impressive,
1:50:07
dude. Whether it was this school or
1:50:09
five different schools, you've been able to do it at one
1:50:11
school, which there's a lot to be said about that.
1:50:14
No, for sure, for sure. It's been, it's been great that
1:50:17
you know the whole reason. The other reason I stayed is
1:50:18
because of the school itself. Yeah, yeah, it must be.
1:50:22
It's a it's a great program to sell like I can sell.
1:50:24
This is education is going to get you a great job and you're
1:50:27
going to be better off for being here.
1:50:29
And that's ultimately why I'm here.
1:50:32
Yeah, I love that. All right, Mike, give us the
1:50:35
last 60 seconds here. I love asking this question of
1:50:37
all of our coaches. You get to define what future
1:50:40
means as you stare into the future of Emory Riddle, track
1:50:43
and field and cross country. Man, what's got you excited?
1:50:47
You know, just a continued opportunity to keep growing, You
1:50:50
know, like, you know, our challenge in Division 2 is to
1:50:53
try to do what we did in NAI, which was, you know, move up the
1:50:56
national ladder. You know, we moved from being
1:51:00
nothing to being top five and now we're in that 20 to 40 range
1:51:04
and, you know, trying to breakthrough that ceiling.
1:51:07
That's that's the new challenge. I love it and I don't see
1:51:10
retirement anytime soon here, brother.
1:51:13
I'm too young. I hear it, I hear it.
1:51:15
You're too in it. I mean, I just it's amazing to
1:51:18
the legacy you're building there.
1:51:19
I mean, that program is no nothing but you and I hope that
1:51:22
stays true for a long time. Honestly, that's so cool.
1:51:26
I'm I'm going to do a quick wrap up here.
1:51:27
Normally I do a good 60 seconds here, but he's got to go.
1:51:30
I got to go. And so we're going to keep it
1:51:32
short. This was a lot of fun.
1:51:33
I hope you enjoy this. And this is a great example of a
1:51:36
coach who does really, truly grow roots in their program,
1:51:40
planted the freaking seed at the program, right with the track
1:51:43
and field and everything. And I think there's a lot to
1:51:45
learn there. I could spend a couple more
1:51:47
hours with this guy learning more about that because there's
1:51:49
a lot of value in the experiences he's been through.
1:51:51
So if you see him at a track or at the convention, ask some
1:51:55
questions because I know there's some things you're you're
1:51:56
continually growing in your in your programs.
1:51:58
He's got some knowledge there first hand of going through it.
1:52:01
So join us next week. We'll do it all over again.
1:52:03
Have a great day guys.