Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: OG Guest #7 Tyler Wingard-Christopher Newport University

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BONUS: OG Guest #7 Tyler Wingard-Christopher Newport University · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

0:00
You know how much I love bonus episodes.
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So for the months of August, September, and October, we're
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rerunning the Oh Geez, the 1st 10 guests of the Gill
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Connections podcast. This started back in 2020.
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We're up to 270 episodes or so. And today we're rerunning the OG
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#7 Tyler Wingard. Tyler is the head coach at
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Christopher Newport. This interview happened in
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February. I'm sorry.
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Yeah. February of 2020, we sat down in
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his office, put a phone in between US and just went at it.
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So the audio is not great, but his journey up to that point is
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extremely important. This capture this in time of
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what he's done up to that point, it's super important and I'm
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just so grateful. Just want to uplift and honor
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the 1st 10 guests that took a chance.
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And so here it is, OG #7 Tyler Wingard.
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Hey gang, welcome to the Guild Athletics Connections podcast
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where we bring you the stories of track coaches from around the
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world. I'm your host, Mike Cunningham.
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It is my honor and privilege to bring you the stories of these
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men and women this week. I've got Tyler Wingard from
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Christopher Newport University. Now, if you know Tyler, you know
1:10
he's a, he's actually a bit of an introvert.
1:12
So doing this kind of outward social media podcast type thing
1:17
was not easy for him. So very thankful that he would
1:21
come out of his comfort zone and talk to us about his career, how
1:27
he got to Christopher Newport, his athletic career, just super,
1:31
super interesting. And then as we dive in near the
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end about just how he puts on a track meet with 2000 high
1:41
schoolers, Indoor track meet, by the way.
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So I think you'll enjoy it. I had a great time and a blast
1:47
visiting with him and his facility.
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Please help me welcome the wise and wonderful Tyler Wingard.
1:51
As ready as you can. Yeah.
2:01
So, Tyler, we just jump right into it, man.
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You have what? What year coaching?
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Is this for you? It depends on the years you want
2:09
to count. This is my 20th year as a head
2:12
head collegiate track and field coach and I think 28th year.
2:18
I think of coaching somewhere, somewhere in that range.
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Well, let's go back maybe to the very beginning.
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You know, it's funny, we were talking about earlier about the
2:25
passion that track and field coaches have.
2:28
So where did that passion occur? Because we're we're actually in
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Virginia to Christopher Newport, where you're the head coach at,
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but you're actually from the opposite coast.
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Yeah, I grew up in little town, Gig Harbor, WA, got to in that
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part of the world grow up with the with a pretty famous coach,
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my my dad, Joel Lingard said. The Hall of Fame coaches in the
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Washington State cross country and track and field coaches Hall
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of Fame, the Tacoma Sports Hall of Fame as well.
2:55
So. I didn't know that.
2:56
And I know Gig Harbor, at least in my mind, where are where they
3:00
or are they one of the, I'm going to say famous cross
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country programs? Yeah, OK.
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Like always ranked in the nationals and.
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So. So yeah, that.
3:08
Was that was your dad? So my dad, dad was a big part of
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that foundation. All of the, the, the Nike
3:14
national kind of stuff started happening kind of after his, his
3:19
retirement. But one of his athletes coached
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with them for about seems like forever.
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Patty Lay took over the program when when when he retired and
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then the small world that track and field is one of my my rivals
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triple jump rivals in in high school.
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Kevin Eager is is heading up the program now and and stuff.
3:45
So, so, yeah, so it's, it's that's, you know, like that's
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the environment I I grew up in and one thing going to to
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Washington state high school state championship meet since I
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was, you know, real little. Since you could walk, basically,
4:00
probably, yeah. Were you, were you one of the
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kids that did they bring you out to the track for practice and
4:04
stuff like your little kid playing in the sand pit?
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There are babysitters, you know, when when parents need a night
4:09
out and and stuff. Yeah, I mean you.
4:12
Know it's here's been the the funnest thing about doing this
4:16
podcast now, you know, we're about seven in seven episodes in
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and a lot of them have been a long time frame.
4:23
You know, you and I have known each other for 20 years.
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Yeah, it's funny. A lot of those guys that I've
4:28
known for a long time have been through coaches education as
4:31
well, which, you know, is where we maybe probably started our
4:33
friendship and but always learn something new about these guys
4:38
and gals that are just, you know, it's it's amazing.
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That's I never knew that about your dad.
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Wow, that's amazing. So you mentioned a rival triple
4:44
jumper. I know you as a javelin thrower.
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Were you a triple jumper as well or?
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So I actually started out as a distance runner.
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Of course, right. Yeah, Everybody maybe does.
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Yeah. So my, my dad was a district
4:57
runner still training for marathons and, and stuff.
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And his, I was, I was growing up and, and part of it, there's a
5:03
good active running club that, that he was a part of.
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And we used to have like Saturday fun runs around Fort
5:11
Silicon Lake out in Tacoma and just kind of culture there.
5:16
So, and it was cool, you know, we had had little kids races and
5:18
stuff and, and they keep track of our time.
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So if he got APR, he got a certificate and that was always
5:22
a cool thing. So, so that was, you know,
5:26
played, played soccer, played baseball, played basketball,
5:29
everything growing growing up. And, and by the time we got to
5:34
middle school and started doing competitive, you know, competing
5:37
for the team and, and so on, everybody else was faster than I
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was Springer than I was all of that.
5:44
And, and, you know, I was still still pretty solid in the in the
5:47
distance events. But I had a middle school
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teacher who was an assistant coach for my dad, actually, who
5:55
decided to teach his, his PE class, the triple jump.
6:00
And so he explained it to us and showed us through.
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And, and, you know, I, I've always been good at being able
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to kind of hear, see and picture what it is and they get my body
6:09
to, to replicate it. So he said, you know, it's even
6:12
phases and so I won't bump, bump, bump even phases.
6:17
And because they were even phases, I out jumped everyone
6:19
else by like two or three feet. It's like.
6:20
Because everybody else did the very.
6:21
Yeah, it was like this, this might be a good event for me.
6:24
So so that got me into into that.
6:26
And that was that was definitely my passion through through high
6:29
school. The triple jump.
6:31
Triple jump, yeah. When did you pick up Jablin?
6:33
Because again, that's how I know you as.
6:36
A Other than just kind of playing around with it as I
6:39
always had a strong arm, you know, in baseball and and and
6:42
stuff played around with it but never quite connected with it.
6:46
In, in high school did a couple of decathlons and yeah.
6:52
And then then in my sophomore year in college, I convinced my
6:58
my coach to let me do a decathlon over spring break.
7:01
OK. And he kind of shrugged in like
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Occidental Occidental College in Los Angeles in.
7:07
LA Division 33 and how did you get from Gig Harbor down there?
7:14
Actually, a letter from the football coach was the first
7:16
recruiting letter I got. And when I looked into what Oxy
7:19
had to offer, it was everything I was looking for.
7:22
And pretty much every, every letter and pamphlet that came in
7:25
afterwards was like, is this any better than Oxy?
7:27
And it's like. Oh, wow.
7:28
They were the anchor. They were the Harrison.
7:30
Interesting. So I never, never really wavered
7:33
from, you know, from that one side as I found them.
7:35
So now there's a lesson there about recruiting and getting
7:39
your. Stuff in the kids hand and you
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know. And you know where you talked
7:44
about how long you've coached, so there's no secret about your
7:47
age. It was before the Internet as
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well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:50
Paper was the only way to go. Yeah.
7:52
You weren't following on Instagram, right?
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Right. So sophomore year.
7:55
So yeah. So you did did a?
7:57
Yeah, did a. Decathlon.
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So you were primarily a triple jumper, Yeah.
8:00
But I just played around the others and stuff and again, I've
8:03
been around it since I was little.
8:04
So, you know, I had a good visual sense of what all the
8:07
events were going to were going to look like and and it played
8:10
around with them to some extent. He grew up all along.
8:12
Go to the shop put area and just turn around.
8:15
So I threw, you know, a highly impressive, I think like 116
8:20
feet in the javelin, the competition I was on.
8:24
Pins and Eagles. Like if it was javelin or
8:25
disgusting. Pretty good decathlon discus
8:30
though for a while, you know. Yeah, no, it wasn't that tough
8:32
of it for those guys. So, so we, we got out of that
8:35
and, and, and I, I did well enough.
8:37
My, my claim to fame in that one was, was we had a a senior who
8:41
was right on the edge of qualifying for nationals and in
8:45
the, in the decathlon and we got down to the, to the 1500 and,
8:51
you know, he needed to run about a, you know, 445 for, you know,
8:55
that range to, to qualify, which is faster than he'd run before,
8:58
you know, but I did it quite, it's like, that's a 5 minute.
9:00
I can do that. It's like, just stick behind me.
9:02
I'll, I'll take care of you, you know, hit, I don't know how I
9:06
did this, but I hit even 75 splits for the, you know, he
9:09
kept trying to go around. It's like, no, we're fine.
9:11
Stay back. You know, he just he he
9:12
listened, he stayed behind me, towed him through the the 1st
9:15
1200 meters and he kicked down to A to a when it was a four
9:20
3439 whatever and got his got his qualifier.
9:23
He made it and on the Nationalist.
9:24
So that's like, who was? It was Ashton Eaton and the
9:29
Duke. Oh, Curtis.
9:30
Beach Curtis. Beach.
9:31
Yeah. You know, we said the world.
9:33
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's your Curtis Beach in
9:35
this. I'll take it.
9:39
I thought you were going to say your queen to fame was this kid
9:41
was close to qualifying. You beat him.
9:42
Yeah. No, no, no help.
9:44
Helped him with the Duke. Story there.
9:45
So I was, I was real, real proud of that.
9:47
What a great teammate, though. And so, you know, like that
9:52
convinced Coach Harvey that, yeah, junior year I could go
9:55
ahead and start training for the Catholic and, and make that make
9:59
that my, you know, my triple jump was going well, but but,
10:03
you know, I had had the opportunity to expand out a
10:06
little bit and stuff, so. Not to embarrass you.
10:08
You OK sharing any PRS? Very fair.
10:13
It is Internet, we could go a little.
10:15
Bit now, fortunately I'm old enough that most of those marks
10:19
are pre Internet and they won't be found.
10:21
I do I do have one world record that I'll I'll lay claim to it
10:25
potentially, but OK, a world that's a teacher.
10:27
Oh yeah, Oh yeah, and I did get it confirmed by a by a a former
10:33
Soviet pole vaulter and and Olympic.
10:35
OK coach and and stuff. But that's how that grass.
10:39
So you're officially going into Cathlon?
10:40
Officially going to the decathlon.
10:42
Body could not handle it. Blew out my hamstrings and and
10:45
and got stuck, you know, Got left in in January my junior
10:49
year. Now was that because did
10:52
something change with the coaches?
10:53
Like oh now he's a Catholic he has to do XYZ.
10:55
No, I was just it was I've always had, you know,
10:59
flexibility has never been my strength.
11:01
My hamstrings have and lower back have have always been a
11:03
little bit, little bit dicey. And it was just, you know,
11:07
practice day that I, you know, I, I tweaked it a little bit in
11:11
a December decathlon beauty of going to school in Southern
11:13
California December, but tweaked a little bit in the in, in the
11:19
pole vault, shut down on that. And then getting ready for a for
11:24
decathlon in in late January, you know, had a high jump
11:28
session, stood around a little bit too much over there,
11:31
transitioned over to over the hurdles and first full speed run
11:34
over over hurdle and and hamstring torque.
11:38
So your. Season's done well it.
11:41
Was we had a phenomenal athletic trainer who who, you know, took
11:46
really good care of me and and stuff.
11:47
So I was able to to, you know, get a few jumps in during the
11:50
course of the season, it turns out, but I kept kind of re
11:52
injuring and and so on. But in the short term, I I, you
11:56
know, wasn't running, wasn't hurdling, wasn't doing anything
11:59
else. So I was just I was just
12:00
throwing working with, you know, shot discus javelin and then our
12:05
our a little inner squad meet and you know, I feel like 157
12:10
off of a couple of crossovers, which is like so I guess you
12:14
were just with what happened there.
12:15
Yeah. And and that's actually the
12:17
event that that's qualified for nationals for my both my junior
12:21
and senior year. Oh wow.
12:23
And senior year, I missed missed nationals by a couple
12:26
centimeters in both long and triple jump.
12:28
So but but made it in the in the javelin.
12:30
So you didn't do decathlon at all your senior years like we?
12:33
Got smart after that. Yeah, it was a good idea.
12:36
Nice try, but now that we know that there's, you know, there's
12:39
three events that you can do, we'll we'll focus on that would.
12:42
You end up getting your degree in.
12:43
Mathematics, yeah. So yeah, mathematics minors in
12:47
physics. I was initially trying to be a
12:48
double major in math and physics and.
12:50
What was the impetus to be math? Well, high school teacher.
12:55
What was dad? Was he a math teacher?
12:57
OK there. We.
12:58
Go, which you know, you know, and it wasn't even I didn't even
13:01
grow up like, oh, I want to be like my dad, but my dad was so
13:04
good at what he did and, you know, had such a a rich life as
13:10
a as a result of it. It's just, you know, why would
13:12
you just kind? Of naturally, yeah.
13:14
Yeah, yeah. You know, my mom's a little
13:15
disappointed because she was an English teacher and and.
13:18
You know, so she oh, that's like weed opposite.
13:20
Yeah. They're like, why aren't you?
13:21
Reading more. So yeah, you know, I'm working
13:24
on it. Yeah.
13:25
But I did, I did minor in philosophy as well.
13:26
And. And did you really?
13:27
Yeah. Did you think you wanted to be a
13:30
track coach? I for For as long as I could
13:33
remember, I was, I, I was going to be a high school.
13:36
Teacher and coach and. That was that's what I was going
13:38
to do. And in in college one of my
13:41
professors kind of put the PhD bug in my head and and it
13:44
sounded easy, so why not? I've never, I've never heard
13:49
anybody say that honestly. I, I, I was rudely awakened to
13:54
stone on that. This is this is, this is another
13:57
level. It's a little more dedication
13:58
than I need to. So you got your undergrad and
14:01
went? To Long Island for for masters,
14:05
actually the PhD program for mathematics.
14:08
So how did you again, your West Coast guy, you know, Washington
14:11
and LA and now you just go all the way across the country?
14:14
Have you ever heard of Occidental College?
14:16
Yeah, absolutely. You have.
14:17
Yeah. Anybody who doesn't know
14:21
Occidental College has no idea. It's like, is that a dental
14:23
school? Is that a veterinary school?
14:24
You know, what are we doing here?
14:26
So, you know, so it was, it was a phenomenal school that has a
14:31
reputation amongst those who know it.
14:34
And, you know, I wanted, I wanted to be able to say this is
14:37
where I went to school and have people go, you know, and you
14:40
chose Stony. Well, I've chose that part of
14:43
the world. OK, That's, you know, but I was
14:46
looking, you know, I was looking at the, you know, the Columbia's
14:48
and Yale's and and stuff like that.
14:50
And, and, and, and actually in Princeton actually got into my
14:54
radar because of the, the area of mathematics that I was, I was
14:58
most interested in. I was doing my honor studies
14:59
and, and so on. What?
15:00
What area? I don't.
15:01
Know there was areas so essentially topology and four
15:07
manifolds and and differential geometry that that kind of stuff
15:11
shaking your head you can. See, yeah, you can see right
15:13
over my head. I'm.
15:14
I can do this. I can do the bobble head.
15:15
Yeah, yeah. Well, let's move on from that
15:18
topic. Well, and.
15:19
One of my one of my professors who became my honors advisor,
15:24
his son went to Princeton. So he had, you know, some
15:26
connections and and understanding out there and and
15:29
stuff. But but you.
15:31
Go to Stony Brook, but I. Want one to Stony Brook?
15:33
Does it actually fit fit a lot better with what I was what I
15:35
was I was looking for? And but the, you know, the
15:39
javelin was had had bitten me and, you know, I was still brand
15:44
new at the event and had some early success.
15:46
And I was like, you know, I kind of want to keep going that with
15:49
that. So, you know, I was trying to
15:51
continue training for the for the javelin, you know, on my own
15:55
for the for the first time with that, you know, helping coach
15:58
the Yeah yeah and G and the department, but just
16:03
volunteering to to help out a couple of javelins your.
16:06
Academics G Oh yeah. I mean, for the track team.
16:08
So you're just volunteering? Yeah.
16:10
Wow. And, and that, that balance, you
16:12
know, I found I had a lot of, a lot of fun out throwing javelins
16:15
and the, and you know, I was, I really enjoyed the teaching part
16:20
of my, my role in the, in the mathematics department.
16:23
But you know, the studying was starting to get to the point.
16:25
It's like I just didn't have the same interest at that level.
16:28
So my, my long term plan of being a teacher started kicking
16:31
in a little bit more. I was like, OK, that's really
16:34
what's what, where we're headed. And so finished up my masters
16:38
there, OK. Masters in mathematics.
16:40
Mathematics. OK.
16:42
And you know, they had a system where they had a minor to, to go
16:46
as well with their master's degree.
16:47
So a minor in education to, to kind of set up and then got a
16:52
job teaching back in Bellevue, which is outside of Seattle.
16:56
And again, small world, one of the other teachers there was one
17:00
of my teammates at Occidental College.
17:02
He was the head cross country coach.
17:04
So I they hired me on and and and offered me the the head
17:07
track and field position as well.
17:09
In in teaching. Yeah, so teaching math and
17:11
physics and, and coaching the track and field team and
17:13
assisting one of my, my high school or my college teammates
17:16
with cross country. And I was like, you know, this
17:18
is it dream job. I just, I just got it and, you
17:23
know, got to it was a, you know, small school, about 550 students
17:28
and 2nd year we had 66 kids on the, on the, the track and field
17:32
team. So over 10.
17:33
Percent. You would know the actual
17:35
percent of the kids in the school.
17:38
We're on the track, yeah. Yeah, so, so, so pretty proud
17:41
of, you know, being able to, to, to build that.
17:44
And I, that's kind of been, you know, since I've gotten into the
17:48
recruiting side and, and coaching at the college level,
17:51
you know, I've been good at being able to, to build pretty
17:53
sizable rosters and full, you know, full depth, full full
17:56
spectrum teams. And which is, and again, given
18:00
my, my background, starting as a distance runner, finishing as a
18:02
thrower, you know, I'm kind of run full spectrum.
18:05
And I, I truly enjoy all of the, the events and all the event
18:09
areas. And, and you know, the, when I,
18:13
I got my college coaching start again, still, still training in
18:16
the javelin looking, when I moved back to, to Gig Harbor,
18:22
Tacoma area, I was looking for a place to train Pacific Lutheran
18:26
University. My brother went to school there.
18:28
They had a track, you know, I knew the knew the coaches well
18:31
enough. My Kevin Eager, who's now
18:33
coaching at Gig Harbor, was was an assistant coach there.
18:36
The first college, Yeah. Coaching job, Yeah.
18:39
Well, actually I just got permission to train there for a
18:41
year and then after that year their javelin coach left and and
18:47
they, you know, said, Hey, would you like to, you know, like to
18:50
coach the javelin Thoris and and you.
18:53
Said yes before they got this and it's finished.
18:54
Well, I, I did, I did do the, you know, the calculation of my
18:57
head a little bit. So like, OK, I come out here
18:59
three times a week for free. I could come out here five times
19:02
a week and they'll pay me. Right.
19:04
Yeah, I I got this. That's a math problem I can
19:06
understand. So so that, you know, that got
19:09
me that got me started, you know, Coach Ford Focus on the
19:13
job for a for a couple of years and I had, you know, inherited
19:19
just a tremendous group in there and themselves, you know, got
19:24
got some good improvements out of them and, you know, coached a
19:26
225 foot thrower and you know, so that that was that was fun.
19:30
I just had 190 something PR going into it.
19:33
So I felt pretty, felt like I had something, something.
19:36
Working there and you know, we know each other and you were you
19:40
were way involved in coaches Ed for us ATF and and such were you
19:46
that coach. Is that coming in at this point
19:48
at all? So I I've done did my level ones
19:50
when I was coaching, first started coaching high school, my
19:53
dad had gone through and he was one of the early, early group to
19:56
go through. All the twos and stuff.
19:58
On. School like jovial days.
20:00
Like the original, yeah. So I think he did his his level
20:04
two he did down in at BYU. So, and that was, you know,
20:09
either, I mean, I can't even remember whether it was late 80s
20:12
or early 90s that that he was doing, but yeah.
20:14
That'd be like Lady was. Yeah, so he was.
20:16
He was. Definitely.
20:17
In the early story of the four, I think it was four guys that,
20:20
yeah, met up somewhere in a hotel and they just wrote the
20:22
whole curriculum. Yeah, yeah.
20:24
So he. Is always the only name I can
20:25
always. Remember.
20:26
But there's some other the other three.
20:27
Guys are like big time guys. The so, yeah, so I mean that
20:32
that was always an education. Obviously it was always a, you
20:34
know, the big thing. So as I, as I was getting into
20:36
coaching, as I was doing that, I was doing the coaches clinics,
20:39
you know, for the, the, the, for the high schools and, and while
20:44
I was coaching it at PLU is when I did my first level two, it
20:48
was, it was at University of Washington.
20:50
So convenient enough and. Would you do it in?
20:53
Was it segmented like it? Yeah.
20:54
Actually, I did. I ended up doing throws.
20:56
I, I really going into it because I, I was at the stage
21:00
where, you know, I decided that I wanted to be coaching full
21:03
time. You know, I was, I, I left the
21:05
high school, I was coaching Community College or teaching
21:09
Community College and then coaching on the side with that
21:12
and training and, and all the rest.
21:15
But, you know, made the decision that, you know, coaching is what
21:20
I, what I really wanted to do. I want to do a.
21:22
Switch flipped and yeah, OK, and I'm all in on this side of my.
21:25
Career. Yeah.
21:26
So, so I started figuring out what that was going to take, you
21:29
know, knew that I'd, you know, I, you know, coached at the high
21:32
school level, you know, coached at the college level a little
21:35
bit and, you know, had a lot of the, the field events pretty
21:40
well covered. I hadn't been at the header
21:43
directed at cross country programs.
21:45
Like so, you know, talk my dad's like, should I do my level 2IN
21:47
in endurance, you know, get that on the resume and, and stuff.
21:51
And you know, his advice was like, you know, these, you know,
21:54
this is this is a legit program, you know, education program, you
21:58
know, go in and with what you feel strongest with right now.
22:01
And then you have you can add the rest of them on as you as
22:04
you go through, which was great advice, great advice.
22:08
You know he, he. Knew the coaches Ed system
22:10
because that's exactly it, man. This isn't a it's not a clinic,
22:13
it is an education. Yeah.
22:14
And, you know, and I'd, I'd had, you know, I'd had good success
22:17
doing the the things that I'd done, felt like I, I'd, you
22:20
know, discovered a secret or two that that was useful.
22:23
That was really just like all of our secrets.
22:25
They were stolen from, you know, a handful of other people, you
22:28
know, butted heads with Larry Judge and and John or Bill
22:33
Gadina. And is that who taught that?
22:37
Yeah. They were teaching the Larry.
22:38
Himself and his. Name escaped to me and I feel I
22:43
feel bad. He did the Ironwood throws for
22:45
for a million years and and stuff, and he's probably going
22:48
to listen to this. Yeah.
22:49
Why doesn't he Remember Me? Right, Right.
22:51
He also was great. I can't think of the same
22:53
either. But yeah, Larry and Bill, I mean
22:54
two, yeah, I mean, just iconic teachers and obviously very
22:57
successful. So, you know, so we, you know,
23:00
we, you know, they're, they, they challenged me to really
23:03
think about, well, why am I doing the things that I'm doing?
23:05
And just because I because somebody had done before and and
23:08
stuff or because I did them and my kids were successful didn't
23:12
mean that my kids were successful because I did some of
23:15
those things and we. Get very caught up in that,
23:17
like, oh, I did this and look better.
23:19
Yeah, right. This would be the right thing
23:20
for everybody. Yeah.
23:21
And and so it was, I mean, it was, it was truly
23:25
transformational experiences, you know all and I've ultimately
23:27
went through and got all all 5. So I did.
23:29
Is that where all of the you know all the?
23:31
Sprint turtles. Jumps rows distance, distance
23:34
and multi yeah, yeah, right. Combined events yeah, use the
23:38
use the yeah, that's right particular term.
23:40
But you know, just great instructors, great, great people
23:43
to to draw on and and again, just really challenge, you know,
23:46
the way you're thinking about things.
23:47
And but because it's it's science based, which again, was
23:50
right up my right up my alley. You know, the the challenges
23:54
were, you know, you can, you know, there's a way to find out,
23:57
you know, A to BI mean we're not our athletes aren't computers
24:00
and and robots. So you can't just put a program
24:02
in and they're going to they're going to come out.
24:04
But yeah, but there is, there is, you know, there's, there's
24:09
certain things, there are cause and effect things that you can
24:11
track and see if they're really working and know this is, this
24:16
is too much or this is not enough to say.
24:18
So with your obvious education background and your your dad,
24:22
obviously you coming from education mom and everybody, did
24:26
you get into teaching with coaches at like level one?
24:29
Did you ITC? Yeah.
24:31
Yeah, I went through, went through ITC and and got to start
24:35
posted a couple level ones when I was at Valparaiso.
24:38
That was my first full time coaching position.
24:41
From PLU. To Alparaiso and you've.
24:46
Literally been coast to coast, yeah.
24:47
And everywhere in between and in between.
24:50
So, so that was, you know, that was a great situation.
24:52
It was, it was a program that was would had just been
24:55
restarted about three or four years before I got there.
24:58
That was at. Valparaiso It was designed to be
25:01
a recruiting tool for the for the university.
25:03
Division One right off the. Bat Division One, yeah, they've
25:06
already made that, that transition.
25:07
That's actually when the the track and field, it was a men's
25:11
cross country and track and field program in the 70s when
25:13
they went to Division One, track and field was dropped off.
25:16
They added women's cross country so that it that it continued
25:19
through. But but in the, you know, mid,
25:22
mid to late 90s, they had a track and field and again, men's
25:25
and women's and I came in in in 2000.
25:27
That's to continue on. Interesting.
25:29
I went to the greatest university in the world, Troy
25:31
University, and very similar. They had a great track program
25:34
when they were as they moved from Division Three to division
25:36
two as their transition to Division One and one AA for
25:40
football, they dropped track and then hesitates it quickly.
25:43
I think it was a few years, but brought it back as the, I think
25:46
they needed it for the conference they were going in or
25:48
whatever. And yeah, that's interesting.
25:49
Huh. Yeah, so and, and again, if
25:52
Valparaiso, it was, it was a recruiting tool.
25:55
And that being said, when I, when I was going through the
25:59
interview process and, you know, the, I asked the athletic track,
26:03
it's like, what are your expectations for the program?
26:05
It's like, well, you know, if you can recruit 6 men, six women
26:07
each year, that'd be great. And, and I in my head, I didn't
26:12
say it out loud, like, man, if I only bring in six men and six
26:14
women, I'm going to fire myself very good.
26:17
So we brought in 32 that my first recruiting class and 40 /
26:21
40 the second time. And my third recruiting class
26:24
was 50 kids. And maybe I missed this.
26:26
Did you come in about as the head coach?
26:28
How did they hire you that I mean you don't have much
26:32
coaching experience. Yeah.
26:33
So I I'd had, I mean, I was, I was fortunate.
26:35
Clearly our expectations weren't super high.
26:37
Sure. Which which adds to the sixth
26:40
choice and. There you are.
26:43
But one, one of the things, one of the things that that I was
26:45
able to do and and you know, I'm very thankful to, you know, to
26:49
the, the administration of coaching staff at PLU.
26:52
When I made my decision that I really wanted to to coach full
26:56
full time. I mean, I, I put my, I put in
26:58
applications for, for full time assistant coaches at a, you
27:02
know, a few times and previous and just didn't get anywhere.
27:07
You know, I, I applied my, my coach retired at, at Occidental.
27:11
So it's like, Hey, got to throw my hat in the ring there.
27:13
And, and you know, the athletic director I've, I've known for a
27:17
long time. So I, you know, called out and
27:20
was like, so how's the search going?
27:21
It's like it's, it's great. And it's like, am I going to go
27:23
smell? No, it's like you should, you
27:25
should see the list of candidates that that, well, they
27:28
they hired Troiangles. Oh yeah.
27:32
So it's like, you know, and we just kind of we just, you know,
27:33
talked to it was like, you know, these these are the kinds of
27:35
things that are on their on their resumes and and stuff.
27:37
So that was really helpful. And, you know, I had a few other
27:41
other ventures in the the Division One, Division Three
27:44
coaching realm head coaches for for a long time and, and, you
27:49
know, kind of pick their brains for what I needed to do.
27:52
And, you know, the biggest thing was was recruiting.
27:56
And, you know, the role that I had at at PLU originally, there
27:59
just wasn't a whole lot of recruiting.
28:01
I, you know, talked to her about Javelin Thor's, but that was
28:03
about it. So, but I was given the
28:07
opportunity to be be, you know, they built a new title for me,
28:10
recruiting coordinator for, for PLU track and field and.
28:15
Have that on your resume and actually, yeah, and.
28:18
Collaborate with my, with my buddy Kevin eager on, you know,
28:22
kind of a process how we're going to get information out,
28:24
how we're going to coordinate it.
28:26
You know, we built a, you know, build a system in Microsoft
28:28
Access, you know, to build a database in in there that, you
28:32
know, I've, I've used until just a few years ago, you know, grown
28:36
and expanded and, and stuff. But we were able to, you know,
28:39
reach out to a lot of, you know, a lot of kids got a lot of lot
28:42
of good response and we're able to track all of it and keep all
28:44
the coaches online. When I went to to Valpo was
28:48
basically a, you know, one person recruiting operation.
28:51
We had a head cross country coach who was also a law
28:53
professor at the school. So, you know, there's a lot lot
28:56
on his plate. So, so I got in, you know,
28:59
figured out how I was going to going to do it.
29:01
We sent out a couple 1000 letters, signed every last one
29:04
of them and, and got a great return on it.
29:08
Yeah. And the next year I I got behind
29:11
on a couple of things and end up doing 2 batches and didn't
29:14
realize until after they all went out that I sent out 6000
29:17
letters. So the 2000 responses we got
29:21
from that was forced me to to figure out how to be a lot more
29:25
efficient. How?
29:26
Big was the school student body at that point. 5000, yeah.
29:29
So almost 50% is back. So still, you know, I'm coaching
29:35
now for 15 years. Do they still send recruiting
29:38
letters? I do.
29:39
There's no media guides anymore, right?
29:41
Yeah, it's all digital now on that.
29:45
So it's it's letters and hand flits or what?
29:48
So, and it's going to, it's going to vary with every
29:51
program, which is, which is, you know, kind of a cool, cool thing
29:54
now. I mean, there's some, some
29:55
programs that are huge on social media and they, they draw a lot
29:59
of attention that way. That's, that's not my
30:00
wheelhouse. You know, I actually, I got away
30:04
from the, the paper mailings, you know, the, the cold, you
30:08
know, cold letter mailings and stuff for, for a couple years
30:10
and just watched our, our recruiting numbers and equality
30:14
dip. And so I went back to it and got
30:19
an, you know, immediate response.
30:20
A lot of, you know, a lot of and, and part of it is, you
30:23
know, sharing secrets, I guess, but part of it is just the
30:25
novelty because most kids don't get letters.
30:27
Yeah, right. You know, so when they do, you
30:31
know, it's, you know, it's kind of unique and they actually have
30:34
something to to hold that that, you know, they can look through
30:38
and and look back at and stuff. Because I mean, that's the
30:40
problem with social media stream is that unless you're putting
30:42
something on there every single day, you're lost.
30:44
What you should that post that you should do?
30:46
More than once a day, by the way.
30:48
Big social media. Yeah, well, but.
30:50
You know, if, if it's not on there, I mean, it drops down.
30:52
That's why I don't like texting so much is because those
30:54
messages drop, whereas an e-mail sits on my inbox until I get
30:57
back to it, you know? I think one of my Division One
31:02
friends were telling me about like you can text all the time
31:05
now is that same year in Division Three.
31:07
Yeah, that that's me would drive me back.
31:08
I'm I'm glad I got out of coaching before cell phones.
31:10
We, you know, big deal. To be real honest, even though I
31:13
yeah, I love myself. I.
31:14
And there's, there's definitely a, a philosophical balance, you
31:17
know, to, to have in there. You know, one of the, one of the
31:20
things that when I transition from from D1 and Valparaiso to
31:23
D3 here at Christopher Newport. So I was reading through the
31:27
NCAA handbook and all the, all the legislation and you know,
31:30
there's one, you get one phone call a week and and that's,
31:35
that's it. And you log all your calls and
31:37
they're, they're, you know, very strict on that.
31:39
So I read through the D3 manual and it and it categorizes
31:42
emails, phone calls, faxes, all that are the same thing.
31:45
I was like, woah, woah, woah. I can only send one e-mail a
31:49
week. So I'm calling around about my
31:51
D3 coaching friends. Like, what am I missing here?
31:54
It's like there, it's like, no, you can actually call a kid all,
31:57
you know, all week long if you want in Division Three.
31:59
There's no restrictions on that. It's like interesting.
32:03
So, you know, but the, but the more I thought of this, like,
32:07
you know, I, I don't, you know, and again, every, every coach,
32:11
every program's got to have kind of their own style of, of, of,
32:15
of how they're going to recruit. And it, it really needs should
32:17
be consistent with how the experience that the student
32:21
athletes are going to have once they get to college.
32:23
You know, if you're all over them recruiting and then your
32:26
athletes on campus never see you because you're all over the next
32:29
recruiting class, then you know, that's a different environment
32:33
that they're actually, you know, competing for you.
32:37
And, and, and that can that can cause some, you know, just
32:43
dissatisfaction and so on. So how?
32:46
Long were you at Valpo? Six years and you built the team
32:49
up from From. Probably about 3030 to 35 kids
32:53
when I got there and we had our rosters were pretty steadily in
32:58
the in the 90s. So they.
32:59
'D be happy with you. That's a lot of income.
33:01
But And, and one of the one of the things I was most proud
33:03
about it and, and we'd have like I said, we had AI had a
33:07
preliminary roster, I think four years in of 120 kids that we had
33:12
some, some role in in bringing to the university and, you know,
33:15
some contact with before they made the decision to come to to
33:18
Valpo. Obviously not all of them stayed
33:19
on the team, but I think in the six years I was there, maybe a
33:26
handful of, of kids who recruited to transfer it out.
33:28
Wow, whether they stayed on the team or not, they stayed and got
33:31
their degrees at at Valpo. So that was that was something I
33:34
was, I was, you know, very proud of and, and, and, and, and I
33:37
think it was, you know, it was part of again, just having a
33:40
sense of the, the recruiting process and the, and what we're
33:43
how we're presenting, what we what we have to offer is bring.
33:46
The right kids to that campus, yeah.
33:48
And, and it matches the experience that they're going to
33:50
have there. So they didn't come in.
33:52
It's like, oh, I was expecting this, you know, and, and the
33:54
couple kids who transferred, you know, were, were lessons that
33:57
it's like, well, their, their perception of what, what we we
34:01
had to offer. I missed some of the, some of
34:04
the things that they thought they were going to have here or,
34:06
or that they needed that we we weren't going to be able to
34:08
provide once they got here. So yeah.
34:11
It's always interesting to me when you see, and you know, I'll
34:13
name no names here, but there's plenty of them of coaches who,
34:16
you know, will spout the hey, your kids should be choosing the
34:19
school they want to go to because the coach may not be
34:22
there. And then they'll leave the job
34:24
to go another job and be like, hey, she's totally following me.
34:27
They picked that school, not you.
34:28
Yep. Yeah, it's.
34:29
Interesting. Well, you know, I've, I've, I've
34:30
had that conversation. I had that especially at, at,
34:37
you know, at, at Balpo again, you know, I was new coach and D1
34:41
or whatever and, and I was, you know, I was there, I think, I
34:44
think Bobby and I either left that year or the year before or
34:48
somewhere there. So all kinds of conversations
34:50
like, so, you know, where all these players going to go if
34:53
they're not there and you know, and I was always like, well, why
34:55
aren't they Don't they love IU? It's like, well, or they just
35:00
love that, you know, they love the coach.
35:01
And it's like, and it's like, you know, I'm not, you know,
35:05
for, for my, for my programs, the way I'm, the way I'm set up,
35:08
you know, I, I'm, you know, and especially if alpha, I mean, I
35:11
knew that that was a stepping stone program for me.
35:14
And, and the athletic director knew that.
35:16
I mean, he told me that's like, this is a stepping stone program
35:17
when I was, when I was coming in, so that, you know, that
35:19
wasn't hidden or, or AI wasn't pulling that surprise on anyone.
35:23
But, you know, there's the, there's a truism in coaching.
35:27
It's like there's never a good time to leave a program because
35:29
you always have that next group of recruits that, that you've
35:31
developed a relationship with your freshman that you want to
35:33
see your juniors or your rising seniors who are, you know, are
35:36
going to finish off. And you know, so, so there's
35:39
always those relationships that you've built, built and so on.
35:43
But the reality is there aren't very many, you know, percentage
35:47
wise, there aren't many coaches who stay in the same place for
35:49
their whole careers and even they're going to retire at some
35:52
point. So, so I, I had to kind of shift
35:56
that to it's like, well, if, if I do a good enough job while I'm
36:01
here, then the applicant pool for, for my replacement is going
36:06
to be better than the applicant pool when I got here.
36:07
Yeah, right. And if I can do that?
36:09
Way of looking. At it then, you know, the, the,
36:13
the kids I'm leaving behind, you know, my kids that I'm leaving
36:16
behind are going to be in good hands because we've made this an
36:20
attractive place for, for high quality coaches to come in and,
36:24
and teach them even more lessons and you know, from different
36:26
perspectives and so on. So what led to coming out here
36:30
to Christopher Newberry? You came?
36:31
Yeah, they'll put it here, right?
36:33
So I was, you know, got to the got to the point where I, you
36:37
know, elevated the, you know, the, the program at Valpo, you
36:42
know, built it up and, and felt really good about where it was
36:44
going, but was starting to see it's like, you know, now we're a
36:47
non scholarship program there. And you know, well, we had 1 1/2
36:54
scholarships, you know, that that were that cross country got
36:57
to got to use. And you know, we're going up
37:01
against, you know, the rest of the the conference.
37:03
And, you know, there are a couple that were kind of poorly
37:06
funded, but there are a couple that were very well funded in
37:08
state schools versus US as a private school and so on.
37:11
And you're. In the Midwest, I mean, there's.
37:13
A ton of. Schools, yeah, Max schools.
37:17
And yeah, there's a million schools, yeah.
37:19
So, so it was, you know, I, I felt really good about where
37:22
we're at. We got to the point where we
37:24
were consistently, you know, 4th, you know, third, you know,
37:28
right behind the the three big schools in the in the conference
37:31
that were much better funded than we are.
37:33
We were and I especially felt good that all three of those
37:36
head coaches knew that if they had a bad meet, we were going to
37:40
get, you know, we were in that. We're kind of in that position.
37:43
And I'm, you know, really proud to say that the year after I
37:45
left, our women took third at the mid con championships and so
37:50
on. So that was, that was really
37:51
cool to see that they actually, you know, they, they got, they
37:54
had the opportunity and they, they took it When, when there's,
37:57
when there's that. Opportunity So I think it's cool
37:59
that you you conceptualize that as a good like, you know, some
38:03
people be like, oh man, why didn't they do that when I was
38:05
there? You know, but you know, that's
38:08
interesting that you, well, it's a lot of positivity.
38:10
Towards, I mean, those, those are, they're still my kids, you
38:12
know, we're still, you know, still very invested in, in, you
38:16
know, where they were. And, and it also helped that one
38:18
of my assistant coaches ended up being the head coach.
38:21
That's cool. So, so that you know that.
38:24
Yeah. And and so, you know, but I was,
38:28
I was at the point where, you know, it was it was time to take
38:32
a look at some other options. The coach Brown, Vince Brown,
38:36
who is the the long time Hall of Fame coach here at at CNU,
38:41
retired. Oh, you took his place.
38:44
Almost, almost. OK, so, so I, I applied, got a
38:48
phone interview, didn't, didn't get the, you know, didn't get it
38:52
that time around. They actually, you know, some
38:55
things happen and they end up with an, with an interim coach
38:57
for, for a year and then reopen the position the next year.
39:00
And I reapplied. They remembered who I was, which
39:03
I took as a good sign. And I, you know, I, I lamented
39:06
to them that I, I blew my, my phone interview because they'd
39:09
asked about hosting meets and, and stuff.
39:11
And, you know, Valparaiso, we had no facilities to, to host at
39:14
the time. And yet in my, my office at my,
39:17
at my house, on my board above my desk, I had a list of, of,
39:23
you know, operations control for, for hosting, hosting and,
39:27
you know, hosting meets, national meets or, or whatever.
39:29
And if. Anybody knows, Tyler, this is
39:33
not a surprise. Of course you did.
39:35
Of course. So I mean, there's a compliment.
39:38
Yeah, well, so, so I was explained to you.
39:40
It's like, you know, you asked me this question and and I
39:42
start, you know, just kind of answering it out of out of my
39:45
own head when the the the simplest, shortest answer.
39:48
And I'm never good at short answers, but it's the simplest
39:51
short answer. Was that, well, I don't have a
39:55
facility here, but on my bulletin board I have a list of
39:58
all the officials duties, all the, all the stuff that that we
40:00
need to have in place to how? Impressive.
40:01
Would that be like, man, this guy doesn't have a facility?
40:03
He's already thinking there? And they said, well, we kind of
40:06
got that impression from you anyway, but that's, that's OK.
40:10
So, so second time around, you know, I've got the got the job
40:14
and, and this is just a phenomenal university to to work
40:17
for, you know, I got to tour you around the campus today.
40:19
Hey, Super. Impressive.
40:21
You know, you have been great for us for a long time since
40:24
you've been here and this is my first time being here.
40:26
What a go. I told you it's a you know, it's
40:28
a state school, which you told me, which surprised me.
40:30
It has the feel and I don't know how I mean, I'm sure that's even
40:33
fair to say it has the feel of a private school.
40:35
It's probably not a great thing to say necessarily, but you
40:39
know, it's just it's super clean.
40:41
All the buildings look like brand new.
40:43
The the library is amazing. You were dead on about that.
40:47
And even one of the more impressive things, it's probably
40:50
a school that actually, and this is a positive, looks as good or
40:56
better at night. We drove last night and just,
40:58
you know, the way the lighting is on the buildings and it's
41:00
it's a cool little campus here. Absolutely, yeah.
41:04
It's it's a it's a ton of fun to to have recruits come on on
41:07
campus and let them go and then they come to see me.
41:09
It's like coach, this is this. They don't even have words most
41:13
of the time. It's it's, it's definitely A+ in
41:16
the in the recruiting column on on that.
41:18
Yeah. It's.
41:18
Got to be, you know, there's nothing to hide here.
41:21
Like, yeah, like I'll show you anything you want because it's
41:23
all top of the class. Yeah, it's awesome.
41:25
So it's so it's really, really great stuff and and you know,
41:28
obviously, you know, Coach Brown had a phenomenal program here
41:33
and the whole. Athletic record board The the
41:36
whole athletics. Department has been highly
41:38
successful and and expects to to compete at the national level
41:43
every, every sport. So, so just the, the, the
41:46
quality of coaches, kind of just the, the mindset, the way that
41:49
they think about things and and so on, you know, it's just a, a
41:53
great environment on, on that. And we've got, you know, you
41:58
know, phenomenal indoor facility.
42:00
It's it's one of the facilities in Virginia now.
42:03
But when I got here, you know, it was one of the only
42:09
facilities. I mean, tech tech had their, you
42:12
know, their their wooden bank track in the, you know, kind of
42:14
their in the little side field house.
42:17
You know, Liberty had a had a track inside of the mall.
42:20
Yeah, that's right. And and VMI was was still on the
42:23
pit and not. What's his name?
42:26
The Tulsima? Yeah.
42:27
The Tulsima Center. Yeah, I met him a couple years
42:29
ago. He was talking about that, yeah.
42:31
So, you know, George Mason had a, you know, had a, had a track
42:35
and, and it just there weren't very many options in this part
42:38
of the world. So everybody came to our came to
42:42
our track. Yeah, and you know, Speaking of
42:43
that, Tyler and I still, until I see it with my own eyes, maybe
42:46
I'll never believe it. Famous to me anyway.
42:50
You host high school meets here of you.
42:54
You've thrown 1900 at me at 1.1 this past December, maybe 22
43:00
close. Close just short of 20. 200
43:02
athletes at an indoor facility too, by the way, so not you
43:05
don't even have the whole 400 meters, 200m flat beautiful
43:08
track. How do you like?
43:11
How do you do that? How do you do it?
43:13
So again, it was, you know, some of it was built in when I when I
43:19
got here were. They hosting meets they're that
43:23
size. Well I don't know if they're
43:25
they weren't quite that big before I died.
43:28
The 1st The 1st 2 high school meets I hosted here are are
43:34
December winter frolic. We had 1400 athletes competing
43:40
in in that meet. This is right off the bat like
43:42
your first. Year, yeah.
43:43
So the second, the second meet I'd hosted, well, third meet
43:46
because I hosted a conference championships when I was at
43:48
Valpo. Somehow that's a totally
43:49
different story. But the, you know, we hosted a
43:54
collegiate meet the next week we had our our high school meet.
43:56
So my second meet was 1400 athletes competing in here.
43:59
My third meet was 1800 athletes. And, and part of the reason that
44:03
those were so big was that, you know, Vince Brown, probably to
44:07
his his greater wisdom than I had had restricted entries and,
44:13
and, and the, the teams who, you know, were invited in and and
44:17
kind of, you know, made made coaches, They had to choose
44:19
between 1:00 and 1:00 meet or the other.
44:22
And, you know, coming in, I was the new guy.
44:24
I didn't, you know, I didn't have those relationships, you
44:26
know, I had had relationships to build.
44:28
So I was like, I don't, I'm, I'm just going to take the
44:33
restrictions off and floodgates open.
44:36
And so we had two really, really big meets.
44:39
We had great official, official staff.
44:42
You know, there was, you know, I've been going, you know, going
44:46
to meets for a long time and you know, our, you know, is one or
44:49
two person operation working the the timing system and so on.
44:52
We had like five who I and you know, and it's like, well, this
44:55
is how we do things. It's like, why do you have so
44:58
many people? And I saw how big, big those
44:59
meats were and how smoothly they moved.
45:01
And it's like, oh, that's why we, yeah.
45:03
But we got, we got lit up on, on Milestad, the Virginia version
45:08
of of Milestadt, the mile split network going into that second
45:11
meet and all this like, you know, this meet is completely
45:14
out of hand. We're not getting out of there
45:15
till 1:00 AM. They're just doing this for the
45:17
money. They don't really care about the
45:18
athletes, all that kind of stuff.
45:20
You know, just, you know, comment after comment after
45:22
comment, it's like, you know, This is why I don't read this
45:24
stuff, right. And so we, you know, went
45:27
through random meet, you know, we, we restructured the, the
45:30
facility a little bit to, to allow things to be a little bit
45:33
more efficient and, and stuff. But we went really smoothly.
45:39
And, and you know, for the dozens of comments ahead of time
45:42
about what a disaster was going to be, there was one comment
45:44
after me. It's like, well, that wasn't so
45:46
bad victory. On the Internet, yeah.
45:51
So like how many like the the most common events, like a lot
45:54
of people are like your 60s, your long and triple jump, maybe
45:59
your shot put or something like that.
46:00
How do you flow through? It's got to be hundreds of like
46:03
long jump triple jumpers and stuff like that, which take time
46:05
because you got to raise the pit and all that stuff.
46:07
How do you? So.
46:09
So it's. That chaos after?
46:11
That after that first hit that first year, you know, we've,
46:14
we've got a lot better at getting the, the team to, to own
46:20
the, the meet. So it's our our team.
46:23
Yeah. So we've got a great set of
46:24
officials. We have certified officials at
46:26
every venue, at least one at every venue and usually two.
46:30
So, so we've got good quality people, you know, running all
46:33
that through. And then we've got our team, you
46:36
know, doing all the raking the pits, pulling the tape measures,
46:38
returning the shots, you know, moving blocks, moving hurdles,
46:42
all that kind of stuff. And we've really gotten them to,
46:45
to buy into this is, this is an experience we're creating that
46:48
nobody else can do. And you know, the, the, the
46:53
close to 2200 athletes that we, that we had in here this past
46:56
December, you know, we ramped the team up and this was, this
47:00
was the, the end of finals week for our, for our kids.
47:03
But they came in, their energy was up.
47:05
They kept things, kept things rolling and, and again, we ran a
47:10
really smooth meet. Everyone walked out.
47:12
I was like, that's, that was tremendous.
47:13
We did, we did have, and again, we have the capacity to be able
47:16
to do this. We moved the some of the slower
47:19
sections of the 3200 and the 1600 meters outdoors.
47:23
So and it's Virginia. So we had great weather for it.
47:26
Temperatures were fantastic. And then we had the 1900 for a
47:30
one day meet in January. And again we moved some of the
47:35
the distance races sections outdoors trying out there.
47:38
But we, you know, put the music on.
47:40
We had the lights on. We had, you know, so it was all
47:42
kind of. Stuff thrown outside, yeah, you
47:44
were still part of the media that you weren't into.
47:45
And we? Tried, tried to hype, you know,
47:47
got that hyped up as as best we could and and had tons of P Rs
47:50
out there and then more great competition going on on inside.
47:55
We've got a big enough team. We've got about 8080 plus on the
47:58
roster. So they were able to kind of
48:00
shift through as they weren't all working 13 hour, 13 hour
48:04
days straight. They were, you know, working
48:05
each other out to keep the energy up and move and, and and
48:10
like I said, I mean, it's it's it's something that our
48:12
officials are excited about that this, that they can do this.
48:17
And you know, and we've got a great and the, the underside of
48:23
it are our housekeeping and facility staff crush it.
48:30
I mean, there's about two times I think in the during the whole
48:33
day on either one of those meets or someone came up said, hey,
48:36
you know, the bathroom's out of or whatever.
48:38
You know to. Have that many people, you know,
48:40
crowded through there and never have those kinds of issues.
48:43
Didn't you think about that aspect?
48:44
I'm thinking of the logistics of the meet.
48:46
Yeah, the restroom, the type thing or?
48:48
Parking parking crew outside, moving, moving around, keeping
48:52
buses from from getting all tied up.
48:54
Oh yeah, buses, right. So you mentioned about like
48:58
taking them some of the sections of the mile and two mile
49:02
outdoors. What are their kind of
49:04
innovative type things? Last night you were talking
49:06
about the for the 60s, the starting block kind of
49:10
coordination dance that you have to.
49:11
Do yeah so so we've actually started buying the the Gill
49:16
fusion blocks several years ago and love them.
49:19
And because of those high school meets in particular, it's like,
49:24
well, we need to have two full sets so we've got got 16 of
49:29
them. So, you know, we've trained our
49:32
athletes to train the the high school kids and that's includes
49:34
all the freshmen who were there at their, you know, one of their
49:36
first meets or whatever. So sure blocked out but we've
49:39
got our our crew there It's all right.
49:42
Heat one your blocks are are set at the 55 meter start line heat
49:45
2, your blocks are set at the 60 meter start line.
49:47
So they're all getting that done while they're while they're
49:50
through. Heat 3 is standing in front of
49:52
heat 2 of heat 2. So when the gun goes off and
49:54
Heat 1 takes off, Heat 3 picks up the blocks, their blocks
49:58
brings them back. Heat 2 brings their blocks up.
50:00
They're already set. They just have to get them far
50:02
enough back from the line. Heat three start setting up
50:04
their blocks, Heat 4 moves in front of them and and we just
50:07
get them cycling through. How coordinated do you have this
50:10
for those Heat 3 athletes? Like are they all going in one
50:17
circle back around we had two or did they just they?
50:22
Honestly, I I don't I don't have time to and I don't spend a lot
50:25
of time back there because I know it's working.
50:26
So we have a gun firing every 60 seconds.
50:29
Wow so even for the hurts, so it just it just gets it gets you
50:35
know, for a three hundreds and five hundreds.
50:37
We have a 200 meter track so that the start lines on the far
50:39
corner. Yeah, you.
50:40
Have that added complexity too? You know when.
50:42
It's it's by the time the the race is finished, you know, our
50:49
finish line group was good enough they could crawl them off
50:51
the track so that they're coming across the line.
50:55
You know, the, the the camera operator say, Yep, save those
50:58
flag goes out guns fired there. They already had them, you know,
51:01
on the line ready to ready to go.
51:03
So there were there a couple of times where the, you know, the
51:06
the flag was just ruffling as the as the gun went off and
51:10
there and my finish line crew was still corralling kids off of
51:13
the off of the track so that they weren't in the way as the
51:16
as the next group came through can.
51:17
You think of anything else you've been doing, like with the
51:19
like, I think of the trouble areas like the long and triple
51:22
and the shot of like, you know, getting the shots back, you know
51:25
anything. Actually, it's just, you know,
51:26
letting the again, you know, I, I get a coach up my athletes as
51:30
the, as the work crew. So they're the ones that have to
51:33
move the fastest. Yeah.
51:35
What's your role during all this?
51:36
Just troubleshooting and, and, and also, you know, both of
51:40
these meets, you know, other than making sure that there was,
51:44
I mean, I spent as much time, you know, moving cash out of
51:47
cash boxes from a bit from the admission counter and, and
51:49
things like that and making sure we had enough ones and fives
51:51
and. And all that.
51:53
And, and just hanging out with, with some of the the coaches in
51:57
the in the field events and talking about their kids and,
51:59
and stuff like. That.
52:00
So you got a chance to do that? Yeah.
52:01
Yeah, that's amazing. So you know, because because the
52:04
kids, you know, the kids are just like, hey, you know, and
52:07
you use their self-interest too. It's like we've got, you know,
52:11
10 flight, whatever it was of the of the shop foot.
52:14
Like, you know, every second counts if you guys stay, keep
52:18
your energy up and keep moving through here.
52:19
We're done an hour earlier. Right.
52:22
Yeah. What did, what did you say last
52:23
night? If you added 30 seconds or
52:25
something like that, it adds 3 hours, yeah.
52:27
Yeah, yeah, with that, with when we've got hundreds of races that
52:30
were they were put together and and hundreds and hundreds of
52:33
throws and jumps that were that were measuring right.
52:36
You know, I mean, we had we have minimum Marks and and stuff that
52:39
OK, helps, helps a little bit with that.
52:40
But you're still measuring the, the, the first legal mark and
52:44
that kind of things because we don't, we never want, because we
52:46
know, I mean, our, our meets are in December and January.
52:48
So they're really early in the season.
52:50
They're big meets. And so there's a lot of energy,
52:52
but it's also an early, early. So we still have, still have
52:56
athletes are learning how to, how to deal with a lot of stuff.
52:59
And I'd, I'd hate to, to send a kid home in a December meet
53:02
without a mark because, well, you aren't good enough.
53:05
It's like, you know, so we're, you know, everybody walks out
53:08
with the, with the mark, everyone walks out with the,
53:11
with the performance. And you know, we do our best to
53:14
make sure that that you know, they, they walk out with a good
53:18
experience. And you know, we we coach up the
53:20
the coaches and the coaches meeting so they know what.
53:23
Do they have to work to meet? No, because you're kids, they're
53:26
athletes. Yeah.
53:27
And and you know, obviously with that kind of controlled chaos,
53:31
safety has to be paramount because you got a lot of things
53:33
going on with trying to feel how, how has that been?
53:36
I, I inherited a meet operations leader when I first got here was
53:43
a type A+ plus plus personality. And we are tremendously over
53:48
engineered for crowd control and, and things like that.
53:52
You know, most, most indoor, indoor meets, you know, there's,
53:55
there's some flags around the, the, the timing crew at the
53:58
finish line and otherwise, you know, beware you're to track
54:02
meet heads up. So we have, you know, we have
54:06
windscreen to to set off, you know, on both sides of the the
54:10
straightaway. Now we've got it going all the
54:11
way around the inside of the track.
54:13
We've got, you know, the high jump areas roped off.
54:16
So there's, there's there's facilities.
54:18
Yeah, yeah. They do have the.
54:20
Facilities and, and you know, our, our, my coaching staff
54:23
pitches in we're so we're not 100%, you know, we just hand it
54:25
off to somebody else. But, but we get a lot of help
54:28
and, and you know, we turn, you know, it's, this is also our
54:31
competition basketball facility. You know, this coming weekend,
54:35
we've got a 2 day field indoor field hockey tournament that's
54:38
going on on Friday and Saturday. They finish up at 9:00.
54:41
We have a meet on Sunday. So we're going to turn the
54:44
facility over from from four or five field hockey courts to a
54:48
track and field meet. And we'll, the way our crew
54:52
works and knock on wood, but you know, we'll, we'll start working
54:55
it a little bit after 9:00 and by midnight it'll, it'll look
54:58
like a, you know, a first rate track and field facility.
55:01
So you don't get that done without a first rate facilities
55:04
crew. Takes pride in what they do and
55:06
gets the job done. Yeah.
55:07
Wow, that's amazing. Lot of lot of lot of support.
55:10
I mean, that's, that's The thing is.
55:11
And like I said, you don't, you don't think about you don't real
55:14
don't think about the the housekeeping staff that's got a
55:17
you know, it's collecting all the garbage and stuff.
55:18
And then, you know, and you know, two hours after the meets
55:21
done, the facility is clean and ready for the next day.
55:24
Wow, and that's, you know, we just have we just have great
55:28
support on on that side and and none, none of the stuff that we
55:30
do, you know, happens with without that, you know, it's
55:35
people taking a lot of pride in in in the work that they do and
55:38
the results they can, they can put together well.
55:40
It's cool to have that along with an athletic department
55:43
that, you know, does choose excellence over mediocrity and
55:47
pushes each other and has high expectations.
55:50
You know, we we rise to the level of our expectations and
55:53
you know, some people have don't have high expectations and you
55:56
could tell. So that's cool.
55:57
And you've been here 20. This this is my 14th year. 14th
56:01
year? How long year?
56:03
Forever? Just going to become Tyler
56:05
Wingard University. The the, the the names I would
56:09
have to overcome to to put my name on anything here are are
56:14
pretty huge names. So no, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm
56:17
this is a great place. And, and when I, when I came
56:20
here, my expectation was this is, this is a career position
56:24
since this is where I'm gonna be and.
56:25
It definitely fits you again, knowing you for a while like
56:28
this is like this is your university type of thing.
56:32
Yeah, you've obviously had great success here and put your
56:35
fingerprint on what they've done here after replacing a legend.
56:39
It's not like you came into building a program from new like
56:42
out of alpha this, you know, this program, you know, look at
56:44
the school records. Man, that was that was a pretty
56:46
impressive school records inside joke, except for that men's high
56:50
jump indoor. Sorry, Joseph, But hey, man, I
56:54
really appreciate you can't say thank you enough for your time
56:59
and forthrightness here. It's really cool to see the
57:02
different ways people not only get into coaching, but how they
57:06
get it to their current position and how, you know, I'll say
57:10
lucky, but we make our own luck about how you know, get your
57:12
first full time job, you know, kind of job was right as a head
57:16
coach and obviously major mark there and now head coach at a a
57:20
really, you know, preeminent institution here on on the East
57:22
Coast. Man, you've done a great job.
57:24
Appreciate it. Thanks, Allison, man, I
57:26
appreciate you. Thank you so much, man, that was
57:29
super interesting. So thankful again for Tyler's
57:32
time and really going over again just the intricate details that.
57:37
Have to occur for a 2000 high school track and field meet.
57:41
I just my mind explodes when I think about that.
57:45
So again, just a great job and really appreciate his
57:48
forthrightness and openness during his interview here.
57:53
So hey, if you are still listening to this, if you've
57:55
made it this far, really appreciate you joining us here
57:58
on the Guild Athletics Connection podcast.
57:59
Hope you enjoyed connecting with Tyler as much as I did.
58:02
Make sure to subscribe to be notified of future episodes and
58:06
if you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the show,
58:08
contact me at HURDLE at gillathletics.com.
58:15
That's right, Hurdle at gillathletics.com.
58:17
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58:22
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58:25
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58:27
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58:31
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58:34
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