Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #348: Lucky Huber-Univ of South Dakota | 40 Years, Olympic Journeys & Building a Championship Culture

Transcript

#348: Lucky Huber-Univ of South Dakota | 40 Years, Olympic Journeys & Building a Championship Culture · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey guys, real quick before we start today's episode, which is
• 0:03
  going to be a banger. You're going to love it.
• 0:05
  Thanks for being here. Wanted to make sure you were
• 0:07
  aware of this pull promo that we're doing.
• 0:09
  This is amazing. We never do this.
• 0:10
  The pacer pull promo January 1 through February 28 by three
• 0:15
  pacer vaulting poles get one free.
• 0:17
  Now of course there's a few stipulations there, so check out
• 0:20
  the website gillathletics.com, but call your preferred gill
• 0:24
  dealer right now and tell them you want to take advantage of
• 0:27
  the buy 3 get one free. It's over into February no more.
• 0:31
  We're not doing it, but go get it right now for your full vault
• 0:34
  coach out there who deserves it right now.
• 0:36
  Let's get on with the show. You're listening to the Gill
• 0:41
  Athletics Connections podcast with host Mike Cunningham.
• 0:48
  Track and field world tuned in to our humble servant Mike
• 0:52
  Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Gill
• 0:56
  Athletics Connections. All right, welcome back here to
• 1:00
  the Gil Athletic Connections Podcast.
• 1:02
  Man, I'm so humbled to be your host.
• 1:03
  Mike Cunningham here. I think my official title is
• 1:05
  National business development manager or something like that.
• 1:08
  But really my title is I'm the podcast guy.
• 1:10
  And every week bringing you just amazing men and women who choose
• 1:13
  to be track coaches from around the country, sometimes from
• 1:16
  around the world. And I'm so pumped, so excited
• 1:18
  that you would be here with us today.
• 1:21
  Little housekeeping. I think I always forget to do
• 1:22
  this. If you like today's episode or
• 1:25
  you know, maybe you're a long time listener, you like other
• 1:26
  episodes, do me a favor, rate and review or whatever the kids
• 1:30
  say nowadays. It does help to amplify these
• 1:32
  amazing men and women's stories that are out there.
• 1:34
  So I would appreciate if you just do a quick click and do
• 1:37
  that for me. I'd really appreciate that.
• 1:39
  I want to hop into this because I feel like this is going to be
• 1:42
  really enriching. I've known this guest for a long
• 1:45
  time, actually don't know a lot about his back story and so
• 1:49
  super excited about that. So help me welcome.
• 1:51
  He's the head coach of the University of South Dakota, the
• 1:53
  Coyotes. I do know this mascot, the
• 1:55
  Coyotes. Baby, help me welcome the wise,
• 1:57
  the wonderful Mr. Lucky Huber. Lucky.
• 1:59
  What's up, man? Well, let's start with coyotes,
• 2:02
  not coyotes. Oh, is that a?
• 2:04
  Like that's a. Thing.
• 2:05
  That's it. That's it.
• 2:06
  Coyotes, yes. So we say it the right way.
• 2:09
  Everybody else says it wrong. So it's OK, So it I'm saying it,
• 2:13
  I'm spelling it right, but I'm saying coyotes, but it's
• 2:16
  coyotes. Coyotes.
• 2:18
  There you go. Right What?
• 2:20
  You got it, yes. Wait, wait, is that a OK See I
• 2:22
  love mascots. That's why I always try to say
• 2:24
  the mascot. So this is cool.
• 2:26
  So is have I been saying the word coyote wrong or is coyotes
• 2:31
  how the University of South Dakota says it?
• 2:33
  Does that make sense? Well, it's actually how the
• 2:35
  people of that settled the state of South Dakota before us, what
• 2:40
  the natives would have called the animal that we're calling a
• 2:43
  coyote. So it really goes back to our
• 2:47
  alliance and our our friends that are Native American that
• 2:50
  would call it a coyote instead of coyotes, so.
• 2:52
  I'm going to remember that because.
• 2:54
  I feel like we're doing it right and everybody else is doing it
• 2:57
  wrong. Yes, yes, yes I will.
• 2:58
  I will. I love mascots.
• 3:01
  I get. For some reason, it's like one
• 3:02
  of my little nerd fascinations. I love knowing all the mascots.
• 3:04
  My favorite trivia question is, you know what, Mascots for
• 3:07
  college don't end in S And I thought for a second that's what
• 3:09
  you were saying. It was coyote, but you're saying
• 3:11
  it's coyotes? Yeah.
• 3:13
  Just I'm saying that with the coyote, probably, you know, I'd
• 3:15
  probably say it that way because of the old cartoon that that's
• 3:18
  probably. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:19
  That's why I'm probably. Saying that, it is fun when we
• 3:21
  do do play against the Roadrunners and get the Coyote
• 3:24
  and Roadrunner together. Who is that?
• 3:26
  Is that South Dakota state? No, that's the Jack rabbits.
• 3:30
  The Roadrunners are school from California.
• 3:32
  When we were Division Two, we'd run into them a lot, so it was
• 3:36
  always kind of fun to have that happen, the Coyotes and the
• 3:38
  Roadrunners. Playing that would be a lot like
• 3:40
  that. I could see the shirts and stuff
• 3:41
  you make with it that'd. Be cool having fun with it.
• 3:44
  So that's good. All right, well, I love that.
• 3:46
  I love fun facts. And that's a that's a good
• 3:47
  correction. I appreciate I saw you when you
• 3:49
  when I said it, I saw you smile and I was like, Oh my God, did I
• 3:52
  get it wrong? Are they not the coyotes?
• 3:53
  I was like, wait, wait, I thought this was I was right for
• 3:55
  sure. So I appreciate that correction,
• 3:56
  my friend. Lucky man.
• 3:58
  Thank you so much for being here.
• 3:59
  First of all, you know, I've done this, this we're getting
• 4:03
  close to 350 episodes and, you know, just blown away by the
• 4:08
  stories, the journeys of the men and women who choose to be track
• 4:12
  coaches. And you and I have known each
• 4:13
  other for quite quite a while now.
• 4:16
  I actually remember where I first met you.
• 4:17
  I don't know if you remember this.
• 4:19
  Excuse me, I'm dealing with a little bit of throat here.
• 4:22
  It was at it was in Las Vegas. It was for one of the like high
• 4:26
  performance seminars or, or whatnot.
• 4:30
  And I went and you know, I'm not a pole vault guy by any stretch
• 4:32
  of the imagination. I went in, I think Derek was
• 4:34
  talking and so I went in to listen to him, or at least to
• 4:38
  somebody, probably Toby and a Toby talked as well.
• 4:40
  And you came over and, and that's where I was introduced to
• 4:43
  you. And I was like, oh, wait a
• 4:44
  minute, this is the guy behind it all.
• 4:45
  Like this is the pole vault guy. And have just enjoyed a lot of
• 4:49
  great conversations and fellowship with you.
• 4:51
  So I'm, I'm really excited to kind of dive into who, who you
• 4:54
  actually are, not just a pole vault guy.
• 4:57
  Well, I I'm looking forward to sharing that story and telling
• 5:00
  you a little bit more about myself and hopefully we don't
• 5:02
  put the fans asleep as they sit here and listen to us.
• 5:05
  Today. That's my goal.
• 5:07
  I always tell people this is a hard podcast to listen to.
• 5:10
  I, I get it. And you know, it's not lost on
• 5:13
  me. You know, we average an hour and
• 5:15
  a half per episode. And so I get that, you know, on
• 5:19
  your average commute is what, 20 minutes.
• 5:21
  So I get that this is a if you're going to listen to this
• 5:22
  podcast, you are going to listen to this over days completely.
• 5:26
  It was actually designed. You know why?
• 5:28
  There's two reasons why it's a long form on purpose.
• 5:30
  One is I really like to get into stories like your actual journey
• 5:34
  and you can't do that in 20 minutes, you know, And two, I
• 5:37
  always kind of imagined it like, you know, I remember when I
• 5:40
  coached being on buses for a long time, being on a plane for
• 5:43
  like, oh, this is something like when you're traveling to the
• 5:46
  next track me. That's kind of really how I
• 5:48
  envisioned it. Like people would.
• 5:49
  It would help you on your travel times, for crying out loud.
• 5:53
  Nowadays, you guys are always recruiting 24/7.
• 5:55
  So you're busy. Even on the plane, on the bus,
• 5:58
  there's no downtime. Yeah, All right, lucky.
• 6:01
  Let's get into it, man. My first question.
• 6:03
  It's always the same question. It's predictable here, assuming
• 6:06
  that you are an athlete. And now we know what assuming
• 6:09
  does for us. We've had plenty of amazing,
• 6:11
  amazing coaches who were track athletes.
• 6:12
  But assuming you are track athlete, where in the world does
• 6:15
  track and field start for you? Starts in a really small town
• 6:19
  called Elk Point, SD and it begins with a pole vault pit.
• 6:24
  And I started out pole vault and had a a math teacher by the name
• 6:28
  of Glen Nelson who was my pole vault coach and he just kind of
• 6:33
  kept encouraging me. I wasn't very good at it, but he
• 6:36
  made a big deal out of working hard and success and
• 6:41
  improvement. And I think that really sets my
• 6:43
  foundation for the way I do it. I remember one day hearing that
• 6:46
  he had talked about me and in one of the classes how I had PR
• 6:50
  Ed in practice or at a meet and how it's just a matter of you
• 6:54
  just keep working hard. You can do things.
• 6:56
  And I think that's part of what I love about the sport of track
• 6:58
  and field. It really itself.
• 7:01
  I, I, I decide how hard I'm going to work.
• 7:04
  And yet I, I have other people support me.
• 7:06
  But if you you got to get it done.
• 7:08
  And so that's that's really where it all started.
• 7:11
  And then graduate from high school.
• 7:13
  Oh, hold on. You're like a good coach.
• 7:14
  You're always trying to get two to three steps on me.
• 7:16
  Now hold on. So first of all, we learned.
• 7:18
  So you're a native South Dakotan?
• 7:20
  Pretty much, yeah. Yeah.
• 7:22
  And 15 miles down the road. Is that oh really that close to
• 7:27
  Vermilion right if I remember. Vermilion, yeah, is that?
• 7:30
  Right. OK, When you when coach got you
• 7:33
  to start doing the pole vault, did you know anything about pole
• 7:36
  vault like that? You'd seen it in the Olympics
• 7:38
  or. Seen.
• 7:39
  On a team, you just, you didn't do nothing.
• 7:41
  He just said hey, look at this pole, grab it and run.
• 7:43
  Yeah, I had no really had no idea about it and really knew
• 7:47
  nothing about sport, the sport of track and field.
• 7:49
  I think my only memories, I remember that same coach giving
• 7:52
  a a goal setting thing and talked about someone who had
• 7:55
  triple jumped. We had a Cinder track and I
• 7:58
  remember the track being converted from Cinder to metric
• 8:02
  at that point. And I think in APE class we had
• 8:06
  a track and field day where we got to watch some different
• 8:08
  events and things like that. So I don't really know how it
• 8:12
  started. It just maybe I was a little
• 8:14
  wild and crazy when I was young and just had fun doing it and
• 8:19
  was. This in high school or middle
• 8:20
  school? It would be high school, be my
• 8:22
  freshman year would it would have started doing it and just
• 8:26
  kept doing it and had fun with it.
• 8:27
  And he was never a state champion.
• 8:30
  Went to the state track me a few times.
• 8:31
  But in South Dakota that's not the biggest deal.
• 8:33
  But just just just had a lot of fun doing it and being in track
• 8:39
  and ran a little cross country one year too.
• 8:42
  But just really like the the track atmosphere is a lot of fun
• 8:45
  and like that I could go in and work hard and have fun with my
• 8:48
  friends. Now, I was never a pole vaulter,
• 8:50
  but I do remember when I coached at Troy University, we, this is
• 8:54
  back in the late 90s of pole vaulting, especially for women,
• 8:58
  was still very infantile and just we had this gymnast on a
• 9:02
  team. So, you know, of course, every
• 9:04
  pole vaulter, I think female pole vaulter during that time
• 9:06
  was a gymnast, right? So me and a good buddy of mine,
• 9:09
  assistant coach Chris Baptista, we kind of played around to see
• 9:12
  if she'd be any good at it. She gets done and me and him
• 9:14
  look at each other like, let's try this thing, you know.
• 9:17
  And so I distinctly remember grabbing the pole, planting it,
• 9:20
  and my feet got about two inches off the ground and that was 2
• 9:22
  inches too high. And I remember like, that's it.
• 9:24
  I was like, I will never do this.
• 9:26
  This is crazy. Like I barely got the ground.
• 9:28
  And that was not a good feeling for me.
• 9:30
  And now, you know, people are going 20 feet and women are
• 9:32
  going, you know, near 60. It's it's amazing.
• 9:35
  Do you remember the first time either you got off the ground or
• 9:38
  cleared a bar? Do you remember kind of that
• 9:40
  like and and was it like a rush or?
• 9:42
  You know, I don't really remember that.
• 9:44
  I just, I'm sure it was inside. You know, we in our, in our
• 9:49
  basketball court, we had a spot the box cut out on the wood
• 9:53
  floor and we would vault in our tennis shoes on the wood floor
• 9:56
  until it got warm enough to move outside.
• 9:59
  And then it was a concrete runway.
• 10:00
  But I think the first year I jumped was the first year they
• 10:03
  had an actual pit. Before that they used the big
• 10:07
  bags of foam and they would pile those up and you would try to
• 10:11
  land on that. So.
• 10:12
  Lucky you're not that old. Hold on.
• 10:15
  I'm I'm old. I'm old buddy.
• 10:18
  Is that right? Yeah, so you know that that was
• 10:21
  probably 8188 somewhere in there 82 is when they would have got
• 10:24
  the first pit. So it's, it was, it was fun to
• 10:29
  do and I just, I just remember going to different track meets
• 10:32
  and having fun with, you know, back then you didn't know kids
• 10:35
  at other schools, but pole vaulters, whether they're high
• 10:37
  school or college or elite, all kind of connect together really
• 10:40
  well. So I remember, you know, the kid
• 10:43
  from Jefferson trying to help me out a little bit and just
• 10:45
  different things that really, really had a lot of fun with it.
• 10:48
  But I don't remember the first time making a bar, but I'm sure
• 10:52
  it's fun. I I love that.
• 10:53
  I love doing the drills, all that kind of.
• 10:55
  Stuff you stuck with it. So it must have been some good
• 10:58
  feeling too. Yeah, yeah, I'm kind of maybe a
• 11:00
  little jumping ahead here kind of leveraging your experience
• 11:03
  over the years. It was interesting you said that
• 11:05
  even back then. So you're in the 80s here and
• 11:07
  you remember the kid from Jefferson City helping you like
• 11:09
  because that that is a a fairly unique thing with pole vaulting.
• 11:13
  You see it a little bit in some of the other field events, you
• 11:15
  know, some of the throws and maybe a little the high jump
• 11:18
  don't necessarily see this. And like I can't think of a
• 11:20
  hurdler like giving cues to another hurdler, right, You
• 11:24
  know, from another team. But in the pole vault, there is
• 11:26
  this fraternity, if you will. I mean, even at the, you know,
• 11:30
  I've seen it at the, I've seen it at the Olympics where they
• 11:33
  will help each other out. I mean, you, you could cost
• 11:35
  yourself a medal by helping someone in, in, in pole vault.
• 11:38
  It's almost instinctual. Why do you think that is?
• 11:41
  I mean, you had that experience back in the, I didn't know if
• 11:43
  this was kind of, I'm going to call it a new phenomenon, you
• 11:45
  know, over the last 20 years. This has been going on for a
• 11:47
  long time. Why do you think that is in the
• 11:49
  pole vault? I think there's two factors.
• 11:52
  I think there's a little bit of the safety thing.
• 11:56
  I, I, I as a coach will help other schools kids because I saw
• 12:00
  a kid die in the pole vault once and I never want to let that
• 12:03
  happen to the sport. So sometimes I'm probably
• 12:06
  overstepped myself a little bit just kind of helping.
• 12:09
  I think the other part of it is, is I think so many kids grow up
• 12:12
  pole vaulting without someone there to help them that it
• 12:17
  becomes, oh, I'm going to catch my buddy step or did you see
• 12:21
  what I did? And they there's almost I think
• 12:23
  it begins as kind of a coaching each other and at the elite
• 12:26
  level. I think it's a little bit of
• 12:27
  that too. I think Brad, Derek and Toby all
• 12:30
  share ideas, you know, when they were in the circuit.
• 12:33
  So I think that happens all the way through.
• 12:35
  But I think there's a little bit of just helping catch my step.
• 12:37
  We catch back in the old days used to catch someone's pole
• 12:40
  form. So didn't knock it down.
• 12:42
  I mean, I think there was just a lot of helping each other that
• 12:45
  that led to that. And I think a little bit of the
• 12:47
  danger factor. We're all we're all the crazy
• 12:50
  pole vaulters and nobody else wants anything to do with us.
• 12:53
  But we're all going to bond together and, and have that
• 12:55
  relationship. That's pretty cool.
• 12:57
  So. That's great insight.
• 12:58
  I like that a lot of us, you know, in the, in the whole span
• 13:03
  of pole vaulting, don't have, you know, there's a lot of
• 13:06
  Sprint coaches, there's, there's not as many pole vault coaches
• 13:10
  as compared. And so there's more needed
• 13:13
  support amongst each other as well.
• 13:15
  That's interesting. I never thought about that.
• 13:16
  And just the I, I like that you kind of actually come from it
• 13:19
  described it as like a caring, like, Oh, I, I don't, I don't
• 13:21
  want to see that guy hurt or that gal hurt.
• 13:23
  So I am going to help, you know, so I I like that kind of the
• 13:26
  collegiality of it. That's pretty cool.
• 13:28
  I. Mean, Derek's talked about he's
• 13:29
  gone to meats and his polls haven't gone there, so he's
• 13:32
  borrowing someone else's poles. I mean, he threw to Bupka's
• 13:34
  meats and his polls didn't make it, so someone loaned him his
• 13:37
  poles. I'm not sure Tiger Woods is
• 13:39
  loaning out his. Golf clubs.
• 13:40
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:40
  You know, I was trying to think of where that would be.
• 13:43
  Yeah. Golf, yeah.
• 13:44
  So it just doesn't, it just doesn't help.
• 13:46
  But they also understand that it's it's really not about
• 13:49
  beating the other person. Yeah, I think pole vault is
• 13:52
  maybe a little bit easier to. I'm trying to accomplish
• 13:55
  something here and it's making this bar where when I run, I, I
• 14:00
  just, it's me versus you. Nobody else really cares about
• 14:03
  the times. But I think in pole vaulting,
• 14:05
  maybe a little bit in high jumping, it's trying to get that
• 14:07
  next bar. And if I can help someone get
• 14:09
  that next bar, that's good because they're not, it's not
• 14:11
  going to affect me getting the next bar anyway.
• 14:14
  I think there's lots of things that that.
• 14:16
  Bar probably has something to do with it too, right?
• 14:18
  Your your competition against the bar as well as yourself and
• 14:20
  competitors. Yeah, You know, that makes me
• 14:23
  think when you talk about, you know, polls and, you know, not
• 14:25
  not showing up and you let a competitor use your polls when
• 14:28
  we're recording this NCAA championships just happened and
• 14:32
  I and I saw I just thought this was a great.
• 14:34
  I wish this story would have gone more viral.
• 14:36
  I think it only kind of went viral a little bit in the track
• 14:38
  and field world. There should be post past track
• 14:41
  and field I believe. If I have it right.
• 14:43
  Texas AM flew to Missouri for cross country nationals and
• 14:47
  their bags didn't make it so they didn't have uniforms and
• 14:49
  shoes to go for practice day. I assume they got them for the
• 14:52
  competition day, but University of Missouri like hooked them up,
• 14:55
  got them. You know, it's funny seeing the
• 14:56
  A&M kids having to put on Missouri jerseys and stuff and
• 14:59
  things like that. But I thought that was a, you
• 15:01
  know, what a an amazing story about sportsmanship because
• 15:04
  again, Mizzou busy, they're hosting national.
• 15:07
  So they themselves are like, guys, I you got to figure this
• 15:10
  out. I have no time for this.
• 15:11
  And no one would have blamed them, but they put that aside,
• 15:15
  helped out a competitor, helped out an SEC competitor, by the
• 15:19
  way. That's that plays into it, I
• 15:20
  think a little bit and help them out.
• 15:22
  And then the humility of a Texas A&M to like actually put that on
• 15:27
  social of them putting on the Mizzou.
• 15:28
  I mean, because again, they're, you know, in today's world of
• 15:30
  branding and you know, all this kind of stuff.
• 15:33
  I just thought, man, what a cool.
• 15:35
  Like you talk about college sports.
• 15:38
  That's it right there. A bunch of 18 to 22 year olds
• 15:40
  getting after it. Someone's in trouble.
• 15:42
  Another one steps up to help and the coaches are.
• 15:44
  I just thought that was so cool. And big shout out to those two
• 15:47
  universities for showing some great sportsmanship and
• 15:50
  humility. I just thought that was.
• 15:51
  Well, those both those two coaches are great people, you
• 15:54
  know what I mean? And I think that's the thing
• 15:56
  that you know, we we we look at and as non football people, we
• 16:01
  look at these football coaches and they're doing this and
• 16:04
  they're right, but they're even friends, it looks like.
• 16:07
  But with track coaches, we really are all friendly.
• 16:11
  And I would say the majority of them are people that I would say
• 16:14
  are friends that if I walked into a local adult establishment
• 16:17
  and had a cold one, I would love to sit and visit with.
• 16:21
  And I think part of that is the nature of standing at track
• 16:24
  meets for two or three days and it doesn't matter who it is.
• 16:27
  I mean, I've had tons of conversations with Pat Henry.
• 16:30
  I doubt he knows who I am, but I'm a track coach.
• 16:33
  So we sit and we talk and we talk about things and we share
• 16:36
  things and sometimes we talk about our families and different
• 16:39
  things, but we spend so much time away from our own families
• 16:44
  that that's, that really becomes our our second family that way.
• 16:47
  And I've got some great friends that that are that are fellow
• 16:51
  track coaches. And I just think that that's
• 16:54
  what makes our sport kind of special.
• 16:56
  And I hope, I hope other sports are like that too.
• 16:58
  But. Yeah.
• 16:59
  But you, you brought up a good point because again, as we were
• 17:02
  recording this, we're staying at the convention.
• 17:03
  So conventions where a lot of coaches will commingle, right?
• 17:07
  But and so I imagine football coaches, I know they have the
• 17:10
  same kind of convention. They all call me and go, I get
• 17:12
  that. But competition days different,
• 17:14
  right? Like you said, first of all,
• 17:15
  some beats were two or three days.
• 17:16
  Even if it's a one day meet, you're there for, you know, 8 to
• 17:18
  12 hours and we're moving around and we're talking and we're
• 17:22
  waiting for, you know, the warm ups are going on.
• 17:23
  So I get to talk to the other long jump coach or football
• 17:25
  coach, things like that. With football, you know, 3 to 4
• 17:29
  hours, let's call it six. Who cares?
• 17:30
  You know, with pre and post and all that stuff, but they're
• 17:32
  across the the field. They're not hanging out on the
• 17:35
  same field talking and waiting halftime.
• 17:37
  They don't go talk together, right?
• 17:39
  They are separate that entire time where we are together that
• 17:42
  entire time. So yeah, that's a good point.
• 17:45
  Well, you're right. Those two, both Staffs, the
• 17:47
  whole Staffs there are they're made-up of a bunch of holy great
• 17:51
  people, man. So I.
• 17:52
  Do they? Are they really are?
• 17:54
  OK back to you though. So we're in high school, we're
• 17:57
  pole vaulting, you're making to the state meet.
• 17:59
  And you know, I do have to maybe do a little finger wagging at
• 18:02
  you here. Lucky.
• 18:03
  I'm really on a tirade. Maybe tirade is a little strong
• 18:08
  to get rid of the words Justin only in comparison, because you
• 18:11
  said, well, you know, I made a couple state meets, but it's
• 18:14
  South Dakota. You didn't you didn't get to
• 18:16
  choose a where you lived. You didn't get to choose who
• 18:18
  competed. And maybe I'm very adamant about
• 18:22
  these kind of things when people do that because I'm from
• 18:24
  Alabama, which again, was not tough to make a state meet, but
• 18:26
  I did make it. I probably wouldn't have made in
• 18:29
  Texas, let's be real. But I didn't live in Texas and I
• 18:31
  again, to choose to live in Alabama.
• 18:32
  So you made it to the state meet.
• 18:34
  That is a cool and a big deal brother.
• 18:36
  So. And for me at that point, it was
• 18:38
  a great deal. Absolutely.
• 18:40
  My high school arrested sports weren't very successful.
• 18:43
  I think my parents were very proud that they had a kid going
• 18:46
  to the state meet. You know, I think I was the only
• 18:48
  boy from Oak Point that went. So it was a big deal and
• 18:53
  absolutely, I think it was probably a little bit of pride,
• 18:55
  point of pride, so. Absolutely.
• 18:57
  Yeah, absolutely. That's what I'm trying to get
• 18:59
  at. Like, man, that was a big deal.
• 19:01
  Take that. Don't, don't, don't push that.
• 19:03
  We're so humble. You know, again, we talk about
• 19:05
  track coaches and I know air quotes, all of them humble, high
• 19:09
  humility people. And I think that's why most like
• 19:12
  when you say that, I know you're coming from a point of like, you
• 19:14
  know, a lot of other people qualify, There's a lot of other
• 19:16
  good kids, but it's like, dude, you did that, You did that.
• 19:18
  That's there's a lot of kids that didn't do that Lucky.
• 19:21
  That's the key. So you did do something cool,
• 19:24
  right, All right, good, All right, I'll, I'll take away my
• 19:26
  my finger wagging now. All right, OK, so love that
• 19:31
  you're a pole vault coach now and a track coach and you're a
• 19:33
  pole vaulter in high school, you know, kind of spoiler, we know
• 19:36
  you become a a track coach, were you?
• 19:39
  And and it's pole vault. So there's a lot of technique
• 19:41
  going on when you're in high school and you're kind of my
• 19:44
  words here, falling in love with a pole vault here and coaches
• 19:48
  working with you. Are you looking at the event
• 19:51
  differently than say, you know, some teammates you had that pole
• 19:54
  vaulted that never pole vaulted after high school didn't coach,
• 19:57
  you know, they became accountants or whatever.
• 19:59
  So they like the event. Something that event changed
• 20:01
  you. It became a career for you.
• 20:03
  Were you asking questions of? Coach of like, hey, so why this
• 20:07
  and have we tried that not not questioning coach, but trying to
• 20:10
  learn or were you just I? Don't know if I was quite at
• 20:14
  that point. I mean you, you have to remember
• 20:15
  I was the kid who carried the one pole to the the track meet.
• 20:19
  Oh, that's awesome. And I'm sure it was a Gill pole.
• 20:23
  And would you would we, we, I had one pole and my buddy Steve
• 20:27
  Curry had another pole and I didn't bend.
• 20:30
  We were straight polers and we just, we just had fun and the
• 20:35
  meat would get done and we'd still pull ball and the coach
• 20:38
  from West Central would be there and he'd give us some advice.
• 20:41
  And you know, you go back to that.
• 20:43
  That's probably where I learned that.
• 20:44
  That's what track coaches do. You would think the rival school
• 20:47
  guy wouldn't be doing that, but he was a great guy.
• 20:49
  So he was helping and everybody was getting better.
• 20:51
  And so I I can't say that there was a spot where it's like, oh,
• 20:55
  this is this split the switch. And I was doing that.
• 20:58
  That really didn't happen till I got to college, that it was just
• 21:00
  something fun that I could do that at that point I stood out
• 21:04
  and I was different than all my buddies who were my friends, but
• 21:08
  I had something I could do just like other they one was a
• 21:11
  quarterback of the team. While I wasn't a quarterback,
• 21:13
  this was my chance to kind of be me and I really, that's probably
• 21:17
  what fed it a little bit. That's a great example of, you
• 21:20
  know, young kids then and young kids now.
• 21:22
  We're all looking for an identity.
• 21:23
  That's that's exactly right. Yeah, Love that.
• 21:25
  OK. No, that's perfect because, you
• 21:29
  know, you're 1418 years old here in high school, all grace in the
• 21:31
  world that you're the guy. Like coaches run and plant, OK,
• 21:34
  I run and plant, you know, so all grades that that makes a lot
• 21:36
  of sense. OK, Senior year, you're looking
• 21:39
  at colleges and you're thinking about, well, what am I going to
• 21:42
  become? Oh, boy, Wait a minute.
• 21:43
  You're already shaking your head no.
• 21:45
  In here from L point there's like 2 schools in the state. 1
• 21:49
  you learn to farm, do engineering, the other one you
• 21:51
  just got to come to. This is where I came and hung
• 21:54
  out with my friends. Don't tell my mom, but I'd come
• 21:56
  over and drink some beer with them.
• 21:58
  It's kind of natural that this is kind of where I'd go to
• 22:00
  school at, you know? So there was Mills down the
• 22:02
  road. I'm going to go become a coyote,
• 22:04
  was the I'm. Going to go and you know the
• 22:07
  you've been to the Dome. This is our, you know, the big
• 22:10
  rec center at that point, you'd come over here and play
• 22:12
  basketball and football. You'd come to basketball camps.
• 22:15
  And so it was just kind of almost second nature.
• 22:18
  I don't think I visited another school.
• 22:20
  I don't even know if I knew there was another school.
• 22:23
  It just this is what I wanted to do.
• 22:27
  This is where my buddies were going.
• 22:28
  This is where my older friends had gone.
• 22:30
  Love that. OK, so college choice is easy.
• 22:33
  Love that don't even know the word choice should be in that
• 22:36
  sentence. Cool, got that.
• 22:37
  What about what were you thinking as a 18 ish year old
• 22:40
  kid? Like are you going to I'm going
• 22:42
  to go become a business owner, I'm going to become a
• 22:44
  journalist, I'm going to become a an accountant.
• 22:47
  What were you thinking about? Becoming back then like that,
• 22:50
  you were thinking that I was thinking about something other
• 22:52
  than having a good time drinking beer.
• 22:55
  Drinking age was pretty young then.
• 22:57
  Got it. Got it.
• 22:57
  Yeah, OK. You know, I I can't, I can't say
• 22:59
  I was the best high school student for sure.
• 23:01
  Yeah, get that. I'm going to tell you this just
• 23:03
  because it might help another person.
• 23:05
  So I'm like, when I went to school, my dad would not let me
• 23:08
  take out a student loan because he was sure I was going to flunk
• 23:10
  out of college. Wait.
• 23:12
  I thought that story was going to be like, your dad wanted to
• 23:14
  be very fiscally responsible. Yeah, Dad was like.
• 23:17
  Look, man, you're going to be the fuck out of here.
• 23:19
  Yeah, because that's kind of what people from a point that
• 23:21
  went bid and I didn't really know what I wanted to do,
• 23:25
  didn't. I had no idea that there was a
• 23:26
  job as a college track coach. I remember one time moving the
• 23:29
  pits and thinking would be cool to have people that were pit
• 23:32
  movers. Maybe when you get to college
• 23:33
  there's pit movers. There isn't.
• 23:35
  I'm still a pit mover change. So just, you know, it really
• 23:42
  wasn't that driven. I probably had five different
• 23:44
  majors when I was in school. I think my dad pushed me a
• 23:47
  little bit maybe toward think about law school, but I I just I
• 23:52
  just kind of bounced around and found some things that I liked
• 23:55
  and found some friends that I kind of hung out with and kind
• 23:58
  of enjoyed the the first couple years of just trying to get
• 24:01
  through college and grades were fine, but I never got a four
• 24:05
  point until I went to grad school.
• 24:06
  Wow. And then when I got to state
• 24:08
  classes that were all about athletics, then I got my first
• 24:10
  four point. I remember calling my mom and I
• 24:12
  think she was crying because I'd been such a bad student.
• 24:16
  I just, I never found anything that really motivated me.
• 24:18
  You know what I mean? Yeah, math.
• 24:20
  And it's just, OK, I'll do the assignment, I'll get it done.
• 24:23
  But yeah. And when I got involved with
• 24:24
  sports, I started, I started really kind of asking questions
• 24:27
  of why and how does this work? And it kind of it really kind of
• 24:31
  fueled me when I got to grad school.
• 24:32
  Lucky I love that that that is your story.
• 24:34
  Honestly, knowing that it succeeded like, you know,
• 24:37
  knowing you're here today, right, because it's easy for
• 24:41
  guys and gals of our age to look at today's 1718 year old kids
• 24:45
  who don't know what they want to major in.
• 24:48
  Maybe you're recruiting a kid and you're like, man, that kid
• 24:50
  would do really well. So that's code and he's like,
• 24:51
  coach, I grew up five miles from Troy universe.
• 24:54
  What do you mean? What do you call me for?
• 24:55
  I'm going to everybody. All my kids go to Troy and all
• 24:57
  that kind of stuff. So it's, it's good for us to
• 24:59
  remember that there's kids out there like that, that you were
• 25:03
  like that. And by the way, my story's not
• 25:05
  terribly far from your side there.
• 25:08
  And yet we can be successful. Life can move on and we can go
• 25:11
  and do successful things and make positive impacts.
• 25:13
  That's a great story, man. I love that.
• 25:15
  Yeah, and I think that's what a college track coach's job is, is
• 25:19
  to help young people through that.
• 25:21
  I I tell people all the time that the toughest thing you'll
• 25:24
  ever go through is your freshman year of college and you, and
• 25:28
  they're all looking at me like, what?
• 25:29
  This is going to be fun. I'm like, no, it's not.
• 25:31
  Your roommate's not going to do the dishes.
• 25:33
  You're going to have a biology teacher that thinks you need to
• 25:36
  study biology way more than you care.
• 25:38
  About. Your legs are going to hurt from
• 25:40
  workouts that you don't even know why you're doing because
• 25:43
  it's September and your girlfriend's going to break up
• 25:47
  with you. I mean, they're just so many
• 25:48
  things and you're all alone, you know what I mean?
• 25:50
  And there's other bad things in your life.
• 25:52
  But when your parents die, you're usually married.
• 25:54
  So you have someone here, you are all alone.
• 25:56
  Mom gets in a car and drives away crying and leaves you and
• 26:01
  it's going to be tough. So that's what a college, that's
• 26:04
  what I do as a college track coach.
• 26:05
  I feel my job is to help those kids through that adjustment so
• 26:08
  they can they can get through it and and then then figure out how
• 26:11
  to really thrive once they find their path.
• 26:13
  Again, that is that's such a good reminder.
• 26:15
  I think it's easy for us as we go through, you know, you've
• 26:19
  seen decades worth of freshmen, so it's easy for us that have
• 26:24
  seen that to, to forget about that part.
• 26:27
  I, I just, I told you before we hit record, I was interviewing a
• 26:31
  kid. He's a college athlete, so I
• 26:32
  probably won't mention his name for maybe some reasons, I don't
• 26:36
  know, for an internship for this summer and this buttoned up kid,
• 26:41
  he's on the on the track college track team.
• 26:44
  You're pretty, pretty good athlete.
• 26:46
  He's in the ROTC at at at at the college.
• 26:49
  He's he works on the family farm and I'm just like, I'm like,
• 26:54
  dude, your kids your age get a bad rap.
• 26:57
  They're you're, you're a great example of what some young
• 27:00
  people are out there. Like holy cow, like I literally
• 27:02
  was as this kid was talking, this is kind of weird.
• 27:04
  And maybe a little bit, you know, my son's a freshman in
• 27:06
  high school and I literally was like, I hope my kid grows up to
• 27:09
  be kind of like this kid like this, like this, this kids
• 27:11
  parents. It better be.
• 27:13
  I know they are, but it's like, holy cow, all I hear about is
• 27:16
  how kids are lazy and don't go outside and I'm like, bro, this
• 27:21
  guy is rocking it like he's working harder than I am for.
• 27:25
  Yeah, I I agree with you completely.
• 27:27
  I see so many great kids and someone will make that comment
• 27:30
  to me and I'm like, dude, come to track practice Saturday
• 27:33
  morning, 10:00. I'm not taking roll.
• 27:36
  The kids are showing up. It's what do we get to do today?
• 27:39
  I'm like, well, we're not doing very much.
• 27:40
  Can't we do a little bit more? And what college kid gets up at
• 27:43
  Saturday at 10:00? They want to come earlier so
• 27:46
  they can be done so they can go tailgate and support the
• 27:48
  football team. And I'm like these, this is
• 27:51
  that's what makes college track athletes.
• 27:53
  I think just amazing young people is that they balance that
• 27:56
  and they can get good grades, they have a social life, they're
• 27:59
  involved with FCA and all those other things.
• 28:02
  Then they come out here and they work their tail off for maybe no
• 28:05
  money or a little bit of scholarship money.
• 28:07
  They'd make more money at Walmart than they would on a
• 28:09
  track scholarship at my school. That's right.
• 28:11
  And yet they they love it and that's my job.
• 28:14
  Then if they love it and they're doing it, then I have to make
• 28:16
  sure I'm giving them the best experience I can.
• 28:19
  That's a great point. Again, you know, when you hear
• 28:21
  about, you know, young kids these days and then and we just
• 28:24
  said there made me think about like, oh, you know what, We just
• 28:26
  set a record in the high school level for athletic
• 28:29
  participation. So more kids are playing
• 28:31
  organized sports than they ever have on the NCAA level.
• 28:35
  When you add men and women together, track is the number
• 28:37
  one most like, wait a minute, you don't do track in football
• 28:41
  and other sports as well. You don't do that and are lazy.
• 28:45
  There's other, there's easier ways to be lazy.
• 28:47
  How about that? There are young people that are
• 28:50
  busting their hump out there. That's cool.
• 28:53
  I love that. Yeah, I can find any young kid
• 28:56
  and harp on the negative just like I can find.
• 28:58
  We forget about this sometimes. I can go find people my age that
• 29:01
  are not doing so many good things as well, and I can go
• 29:04
  harp on that and say everybody my age is lazy and blah, blah.
• 29:06
  It's like it's not true. You're just focusing on the
• 29:09
  subset of, you know, some, maybe some underage.
• 29:11
  Which is different, but we're there are I'm sure my parents
• 29:14
  thought we were going to be a different generation and how we
• 29:17
  do this, you know and you know and now these kids have these
• 29:19
  cell phones and it's no it's not they're they're communicating
• 29:23
  with their moms more than I did because they can call you twice
• 29:26
  a day mom. So I, I really think this
• 29:29
  generation is just really great kids and I, and maybe I just get
• 29:33
  to see the cream of the crop, but I really, even my wife, my
• 29:37
  wife's a high school teacher and she'll say even her bad kids do
• 29:39
  her homework assignments. You know what I mean?
• 29:41
  It's, it's not like they're just bad kids.
• 29:44
  They're just, they need, they need certain things that are
• 29:46
  maybe different because they come from a different situation
• 29:49
  with broken homes and so many other things like that.
• 29:51
  They maybe need different things, but deep down inside
• 29:54
  they are just rock star kids. And I've I've met very few kids
• 29:58
  that I would say just stay away from me.
• 30:01
  I heard a guy once say that we like to put the past on a
• 30:05
  pedestal and then demonize the present in the future.
• 30:08
  Like, oh, back in my day, we had it so good and we're all such
• 30:10
  great. And it's like you're just,
• 30:12
  you're glossy. You're, you're rewriting history
• 30:14
  because all the same things you say that kids do bad today.
• 30:17
  You did it back then, by the way.
• 30:18
  We just be getting caught on social media.
• 30:20
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 30:21
  I don't think I would make it through high school back in the
• 30:24
  80s. I'm I'm happy there was no cell
• 30:27
  phones and such. You know, I I do also on the
• 30:31
  flip side, think like man, it's so funny.
• 30:33
  We're getting so off topic Lucky, but that's okay.
• 30:36
  I was talking to my team yesterday about Mr. Beast.
• 30:40
  You know who Mr. Beast is? You not really.
• 30:43
  I love this. Okay, so Mr. Beast is this case
• 30:46
  2728? So he's a kid, right, who
• 30:49
  creates YouTube videos and has nearly 500 million subscript.
• 30:55
  He's a big deal. He's a billionaire.
• 30:56
  He just put out when we're recording this, you got to go
• 30:59
  look at this. This is track related.
• 31:00
  He just put out a video like 2 days ago where he got Noah
• 31:03
  Lyles. And then some of these, you
• 31:05
  know, these like supercomputer, like robots, like the the four,
• 31:08
  like a dog and the mipeds and and race them in like a 50 meter
• 31:12
  dash to see, you know who would win?
• 31:13
  Even a robot. Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
• 31:15
  It's fun video, but this guy 2810 years ago started so in
• 31:21
  what he did when he created his his YouTube channel, he filmed
• 31:25
  himself 10 years ago. So I was a 17 year old and said
• 31:28
  and said, Hey, in 10 years, I hope that I have a million
• 31:32
  subscribers and you know, but like basically spoke to himself
• 31:36
  10 years from now, right? Well, that video just posted a
• 31:38
  month ago because that was literally 10.
• 31:39
  So this kid at 17, this is amazing to me. 17 year old kid
• 31:45
  at that time had under 9000, had like 8000 something subscribers,
• 31:50
  which is huge by the way, 8000 subscribers on YouTube.
• 31:53
  Holy cow. But as a 17 year old said, man,
• 31:56
  in 10 years, if I want to have at least 1,000,000 subscribers
• 31:59
  and blah, blah, blah, this kind of stuff.
• 32:01
  And he actually has nearly 500 million.
• 32:04
  Like he's a million, maybe a billionaire, a million.
• 32:06
  I mean multi multi multi millionaire.
• 32:08
  And I was, I was just telling the the team I was like, dude,
• 32:10
  that is just amazing to me that a kid could have that foresight
• 32:14
  work his butt off to get he didn't, you know, it wasn't easy
• 32:17
  to get that right. That just amazes.
• 32:19
  And so when I think about like when I say I'm so glad I
• 32:22
  graduated without, you know, went through high school without
• 32:24
  a cell phone and stuff. I also think like, dude, I feel
• 32:26
  like I'd be the kind of guy that I've been doing something with
• 32:28
  that cell phone too, though I got I'd be the, you know, maybe
• 32:30
  I could have been Mr. Beast. I don't know, maybe not that,
• 32:32
  but I I would have. It's a toolman.
• 32:34
  I really, it fascinates me, actually.
• 32:38
  Anyway, I almost called this podcast the Tangent Podcast, by
• 32:41
  the way. We would just run anywhere in
• 32:44
  circles. You're in college, are you?
• 32:46
  You're jumping for the coyotes. I am I I had some friends that
• 32:52
  were on the team and they were older kids.
• 32:55
  And they said you should go talk to this coach Scott Slaben guy
• 32:58
  and ask him if you can get a spot on the team.
• 33:00
  And walked into his office, left a note with my phone number on
• 33:03
  it. And as I walked outside,
• 33:06
  somebody knew me and then pointed him out to he and he
• 33:09
  said, yeah, come to our meeting on whatever day we're starting.
• 33:12
  And I showed up and my life went went the way it went because of
• 33:16
  that and the opportunity to to walk on to a college trekking.
• 33:20
  I assume you stopped straight polling at some point.
• 33:24
  You know, I don't know if I got a whole lot about beyond it, but
• 33:26
  yeah, it it I had, I had more than one pole we could take.
• 33:29
  There we go. It was fun.
• 33:30
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, Coach Gots and I
• 33:33
  love him and, you know, we didn't know anything about pole
• 33:35
  vault. I mean, it was.
• 33:36
  I remember Coach Hood was up at Mankato one time, so I went up
• 33:40
  there and learned from him and. What do you say, coach at Don
• 33:43
  Hood? Yeah, Yep.
• 33:45
  He, he did a clinic up there one time.
• 33:47
  Matt Cole had him up there. So I was up there one time
• 33:49
  learning from him and just kind of trying to bit and choose.
• 33:53
  And then he started watching all these different videos and just
• 33:56
  trying to figure out how this worked.
• 33:58
  Obviously a lot of Rick addict stuff when you're in the
• 34:00
  Midwest, you're getting influenced by Rick just trying
• 34:03
  to figure out how to pole vault and how to do it and just have
• 34:07
  having a good time. And then then it kind of
• 34:09
  transitioned from there into starting to coach.
• 34:12
  So. So what happened in college?
• 34:15
  It changed. This is where it changed you.
• 34:17
  You said was it coach? Was it being more immersed in
• 34:21
  the pole vault team? What what?
• 34:22
  And you start taking some sport classes.
• 34:24
  So then it started thinking like coaching started kind of coming
• 34:26
  into play as a career, had that all meshed.
• 34:29
  Well, I I switched my major to elementary Ed, so I knew then
• 34:33
  that I was going to go to a school setting but probably want
• 34:36
  to coach track. So then I switched to the
• 34:38
  decathlon so that I could learn all the different events.
• 34:41
  Did a few decathlons. What I know you're going to wag
• 34:44
  your finger at me, but I wasn't very good, but I wasn't doing
• 34:46
  necessarily great. Adam and had some GA that taught
• 34:51
  me how to high jump and just did it, you know, learn to hurdle
• 34:54
  and just did different things like that so I could get
• 34:56
  different events. And then I was doing my student
• 34:59
  teaching and I decided that I did not want to teach
• 35:02
  elementary. It just it was a little it was a
• 35:05
  little different than what I thought.
• 35:07
  And I was having a lot of fun. And at one point in there I took
• 35:10
  a fall off and I coached a high school football team kind of
• 35:13
  that internship that you do as AL Ed major.
• 35:16
  So I had a great opportunity coaching there.
• 35:18
  I got to be a verse varsity coach and got to coach the JV
• 35:22
  team and the freshman team and. Did you play football?
• 35:25
  I did. I played football high school
• 35:26
  too. Small town Oak Point kids.
• 35:28
  We played. That's a good point.
• 35:29
  You played everything at all. Yeah, that's a good.
• 35:31
  Point so got into coaching a little bit there and kind of
• 35:34
  liked that and kind of didn't like it in some other ways, but
• 35:37
  did that. And then coach Scott Slabin
• 35:39
  asked me my kind of my last year and you know, do you want to
• 35:42
  kind of start leading fall track?
• 35:44
  So I started leading fall track. You know, there was probably
• 35:47
  6050 sixty guys. And at that point we had one
• 35:50
  coach and he was doing cross country in the fall.
• 35:53
  So here I am with the guys that I'm drinking beer with.
• 35:57
  One lives in the fraternity house with me.
• 35:59
  I mean, and all of a sudden now I'm I'm the leader.
• 36:02
  And I grabbed a Lauren Seagrave video and we put it in and we
• 36:09
  sat in the classroom and we watched the Lauren Seagrave
• 36:12
  video. And I said, OK, we're going to
• 36:14
  go. Outside speed dynamics?
• 36:16
  Yep, speed. Dynamics one and we're going to
• 36:19
  go outside and we're going to work on these drills.
• 36:21
  So we didn't have a track that at that point.
• 36:22
  So we went outside, stood along the tennis courts in the trees
• 36:26
  and did the claw drill. And at that point, those kids,
• 36:30
  though, my teammates, my friends bought into what I was doing and
• 36:34
  they knew I didn't know everything, but they knew I was
• 36:36
  going to pay attention to them and I was going to work really
• 36:38
  hard to help them. And we just, we just started
• 36:42
  clicking. And so I had a year and a half
• 36:45
  of that and then I graduated in December with my LED Ed degree
• 36:49
  and coach Scott Slavin arranged for me to have Aga position.
• 36:52
  And I sat down with the guy and he said, well, you're only going
• 36:55
  to be here for one semester. You're going to leave, go out in
• 36:57
  the world. So you can pick any three
• 36:58
  classes that you want for grad school.
• 37:01
  And I'm sure one was a Title 9 class and maybe facilities or
• 37:05
  whatever and got into coaching there a little bit and really
• 37:08
  kind of enjoyed that. So then I came back for another
• 37:10
  year and finished up my master's degree and I did my coaching.
• 37:14
  The women's coach at the time was Greg Willey, and the two
• 37:17
  programs were really separate. He let me start coaching a few
• 37:20
  few girl long jumpers. And so I kind of got into that a
• 37:23
  little bit and that was kind of how I got into coaching and just
• 37:27
  kind of fell in love with it. You know, I was going to ask
• 37:30
  like, how did you like, why was the thought process?
• 37:32
  I love that you switched to the multi so I could do and learn
• 37:36
  the other events, but I was like, well, why would you like,
• 37:39
  how would you think that way? But then when you mentioned
• 37:41
  coach was the only coach, so he coached.
• 37:43
  So it was kind of in your you only knew that, oh, a coach has
• 37:46
  to coach everything. Like you didn't think about
• 37:48
  like, oh, we have a pole vault coach, a sprints coach, a jumps
• 37:51
  coach. It was like, hey, you're the
• 37:52
  track coach. Right.
• 37:54
  And I, and I assumed I was going to go out to a school setting.
• 37:57
  I remember I had a football class one time.
• 38:00
  This is a weird little story that you said would pop up, but
• 38:03
  I remember one of the one of the parts of the football classes,
• 38:06
  you had to go to the football clinic that the team had.
• 38:08
  And I remember sitting in a bar afterwards and discussing with a
• 38:12
  kid who was playing football, all the XS and OS and all that
• 38:15
  stuff. And I figured out, shit, these
• 38:17
  kids that are playing football know a lot more about football
• 38:19
  than I'm going to do. So I better Start learning track
• 38:22
  stuff. And I just, that's kind of when
• 38:25
  I made a change of, OK, I don't really want to go into the high
• 38:27
  school setting and coach and I, I thought I'd coach football and
• 38:30
  track and basketball like every small town South Dakota coach
• 38:33
  does, but then really just kind of headed off into loving track
• 38:37
  and, and trying to see where that would take me and.
• 38:39
  And what did the guy mean? I didn't really understand this
• 38:41
  when he said you're going to do this grad school, you're going
• 38:44
  to do this for a semester and go away.
• 38:46
  But I mean grad school. Wasn't going to.
• 38:48
  I was. I was going to go out and teach
• 38:50
  and I was just going to be there for one semester so I could pick
• 38:53
  any classes and my advisor just let me pick classes that I was
• 38:56
  interested in instead of put me into a research class and a
• 38:59
  stats class and that other stuff.
• 39:01
  Just pick a couple fun classes. And then in just in May, the
• 39:04
  thought was that I would just go out and get a job someplace and
• 39:08
  and go be a teacher. Got it.
• 39:10
  And you know something that you describe there, it does
• 39:13
  fascinate me here. So I thought I've talked about
• 39:15
  this with kids transitioning from undergrad to grad, grad
• 39:19
  assistance. I've always said, you know, I
• 39:23
  almost to the point where I think there should be a rule
• 39:25
  that's that's harsh, But I don't I don't see how it's possible.
• 39:30
  You went through this. So it is possible how you can go
• 39:34
  from being on the team spring semester.
• 39:36
  So just like you said, hanging out with your boys, playing
• 39:38
  well, you are playing Xbox, but playing Xbox, you know, doing
• 39:41
  the things that we do as as college kids.
• 39:43
  And then the next Monday, you're now coach, have those same kids.
• 39:47
  To me, I'm always like, you need to go grad school somewhere else
• 39:49
  where they don't know you as lucky.
• 39:51
  They only know you as Coach Huber.
• 39:53
  You did this as a transfer. That's tough.
• 39:55
  I think they never saw me as replacing coach Scott Slavin,
• 39:59
  they saw me as a person who was going to help them.
• 40:04
  And give them some structure, you know what I mean?
• 40:06
  I developed warm up routines and we did core all together and,
• 40:10
  and we had some success. We won one of our first
• 40:12
  conference track meets right in that era.
• 40:14
  So kids were buying into it and they know I didn't know
• 40:17
  everything, but they knew I was working hard and trying to
• 40:20
  figure things out and trying to help each person.
• 40:24
  And I think I was probably more invested because they were my
• 40:27
  friends. Yeah, well, that's a good point
• 40:29
  too. That's.
• 40:29
  Right, You know what I mean? So I was really invested into
• 40:32
  helping them be the best they could be and I really had a lot
• 40:35
  of ownership of the team that they were part of.
• 40:38
  Yeah, it's tough. I mean, my hat's off to you cuz
• 40:41
  I just, I know so many athletes and.
• 40:45
  Oh, I agree, it's tough. Yeah, it's it's tough.
• 40:48
  I'm not sure we can all do it right.
• 40:50
  I'm glad you had a good experience with that.
• 40:51
  OK, so you go through that. I love also, it makes me think
• 40:55
  about, you know, I, I interviewed probably more track
• 40:59
  coaches in depth than anybody as far as their journeys are
• 41:01
  concerned, right? And one of the things that has
• 41:03
  stuck out to me is into, I don't want to say in today's day and
• 41:07
  age because I feels like I'm the old man yelling at the clouds,
• 41:10
  but we really like to get deep into like my, my assumption with
• 41:14
  you Lucky is like, oh, you are a pole vaulter.
• 41:16
  You're a pole vault coach, pole vault, pole vault, pole vault.
• 41:19
  And you know, because you're smart, you can coach long jump,
• 41:22
  you know, or something like that.
• 41:22
  You are very well-rounded. And some of the top coaches that
• 41:26
  we've had on this podcast have taught me that if you're going
• 41:31
  to be a track coach, if you're going to coach in this sport,
• 41:33
  you're maybe even doing yourself a little bit of a disservice if
• 41:36
  you are a, if you think of yourself as a sprints coach or a
• 41:38
  jumps coach, I think of like Brooks Johnson and Clifford
• 41:42
  Velto specifically, they both were like every event is the
• 41:46
  same, the same objective moving the center of mass.
• 41:49
  We just do it differently, right?
• 41:50
  We either run straight for 100 meter dash or we run with a pole
• 41:54
  in our in our hand. And so then we got to make that
• 41:56
  center of mass go up or we're in a circle.
• 41:58
  So we spin with that center of mass.
• 42:00
  You got to learn to be a track and field coach, not a sprints
• 42:04
  and heralds coach. And so you're you kind of, it
• 42:07
  was almost like I'm gonna call it accidentally ingrained into
• 42:10
  you that Oh yeah, I I can't just go become a football coach or a
• 42:12
  jumps coach. I got to know all the events.
• 42:14
  It was kind of ingrained in you from the get go of like, oh, I
• 42:17
  need to learn all the. Events I don't know if I really
• 42:19
  would call myself a coach. I think I'm an educator.
• 42:23
  And so I think there's two things that I focus on.
• 42:27
  One, you know, I was in L Ed, so I was trained on how how to
• 42:30
  teach people how to teach different people different ways.
• 42:34
  And I think the other thing that I'm really good at is I'm a
• 42:37
  problem solver. And so if I see that you have
• 42:41
  100 feet to run and throw yourself up in the air, that's
• 42:45
  just a problem. So how am I going to help you
• 42:47
  solve that problem? That makes sense.
• 42:49
  So I think those are the two things.
• 42:51
  And I think under the term coach, you'd have a lot of these
• 42:54
  things. And those are two of the things
• 42:55
  that I think I'm probably better at than some of the other parts
• 42:59
  of being a coach, you know, understanding the science of it.
• 43:02
  I'm not a not a great science person, but I understand I'm not
• 43:06
  a great dad a person. I can't, I'm not like Dan Path.
• 43:09
  And I can watch you run and tell what's wrong, but I can help you
• 43:12
  solve the problem of what's wrong.
• 43:13
  And that's kind of how I look at it.
• 43:15
  And then it's my job to teach you.
• 43:18
  And so I want to find kids that are teachable, that are
• 43:20
  trainable. And then I, I, what I believe in
• 43:23
  is easy for me to teach. And because I believe in it,
• 43:25
  they they take it in very well because it it makes sense and it
• 43:30
  works. That that that helps me
• 43:32
  understand some things because you know, a lot of times when we
• 43:34
  talk about when someone says, Hey, I want to become, if if
• 43:37
  some a kid came to you in high school and said, Hey, I know I'm
• 43:39
  going to be, I want to be a track and field coach, what
• 43:41
  should I major in? It's very easily for us to say,
• 43:45
  Oh, go do exercise, phys or bio mechanics, right?
• 43:47
  I mean, just kind of, you know that that'll you'll be so good.
• 43:50
  And in reality, so I hear that and that's what I would have
• 43:53
  said, you know, a year ago, whatever.
• 43:55
  But in reality, it's like, wait a minute, you know, again, I
• 43:58
  know a lot of coaches, very few actually majored in exercise,
• 44:02
  phys or bio mechanics. A lot of them were education
• 44:05
  majors, some were history majors and account.
• 44:08
  I mean, all these well, the best.
• 44:09
  Coach, I know Vince was an architect, Major, you know.
• 44:13
  A great example. Exactly.
• 44:15
  And so I started thinking I was like, well, wait a minute.
• 44:17
  Well, it can't be the science then, because you can learn
• 44:19
  this. I I wasn't a science guy was
• 44:21
  public relations for crying out loud.
• 44:23
  So it's like, OK, so that must be still learnable even past
• 44:26
  college, Like, OK, because there are some science things you need
• 44:29
  to know to to coach properly, but it's the teaching you're
• 44:33
  that, that that was that kind of like illuminated something there
• 44:35
  for me. It's like, oh, but at the end of
• 44:37
  the day, no matter what event you're working at, no matter
• 44:39
  what age level, by the way, either middle school to pros,
• 44:42
  you've got to teach those things.
• 44:45
  That is the real key. If you're going to be a coach,
• 44:47
  maybe you need to go learn how to teach people.
• 44:50
  So maybe an education type of major?
• 44:52
  Really. And when I'm in the classroom,
• 44:54
  I'd consider myself the same way.
• 44:56
  I'm coaching this student on how to learn English or how to do
• 44:58
  math or those types of things. So I think that I think those
• 45:01
  terms need to be interchangeable.
• 45:03
  And I think I learned that from probably my high school teachers
• 45:07
  that were coaches, that it was the same type of format that
• 45:10
  they used to do so. Yeah.
• 45:11
  I love that and I appreciate you bringing up Vince.
• 45:13
  I was just with him at A at a clinic and I made that point of
• 45:16
  like, hey man, this is the best architect Sprint coach, you
• 45:20
  know, and then you know, he tells the story.
• 45:23
  It's funny to me. He he got fired.
• 45:25
  Let go 3 times and I remember obsessing this the audience and
• 45:29
  I was like, I don't, I don't. Maybe Vince was a very good
• 45:32
  architect cuz he got let go three times for crying out loud.
• 45:36
  But thank God he did cuz that led him to his passion of track
• 45:39
  and field and that has changed many, many people's lives.
• 45:41
  So I do love that a lot. OK, so you're, I'm gonna call it
• 45:45
  student coaching. You're leading, you're on the
• 45:47
  team you're leading for. You're being a captain
• 45:50
  extraordinaire is really what you're doing here, that you go
• 45:53
  into grad school, you start doing some high school coaching,
• 45:55
  some football and track. I love that interaction of you
• 45:59
  sitting down with that kid and that kids like, Oh yeah, the
• 46:01
  X&O. And you're like, oh, whoa, this
• 46:03
  dude knows it better than I do. Well, then I better learn
• 46:06
  because that shouldn't be the case, right?
• 46:08
  So that kind of maybe drives an educational front for you.
• 46:11
  And you're an education major as well.
• 46:13
  So you're seeing this teacher education side of it.
• 46:16
  Where do we go from there? And so I, I got my master's
• 46:21
  degree and two things happened to me that were probably pretty
• 46:24
  consequential. One of them was, is they were
• 46:28
  opening a new office on campus called the that would be called
• 46:31
  the Academic Advising Center. And part of my role in this GA
• 46:36
  student coach thing was I ran the study table for the track
• 46:39
  kids. And so I was able to go into
• 46:42
  that interview with this is what I see kids need.
• 46:47
  They need someone to give them some guidance.
• 46:49
  They need some way to teach them how to study.
• 46:51
  They need someone to help them get their tutoring lined up.
• 46:54
  And so they hired me and I did that and then was a volunteer
• 46:58
  coach for a year or two with the men's team.
• 47:02
  And then at one point I became the head women's coach and the
• 47:06
  director of academic advising. So for about 15 years, I did
• 47:11
  both on campus. So in the mornings I would go
• 47:14
  into the advising center. I had a great staff.
• 47:17
  I ran summer orientation, I was in the vice President's hall.
• 47:20
  I was a busy guy on campus. I loved it.
• 47:23
  Advising everything from pre Med students to the the flunking out
• 47:27
  kids. If you flunked out of college,
• 47:29
  you had to meet with me because we'd write a letter to the Dean
• 47:32
  and I had to say whether I thought you could get back into
• 47:34
  school or not. I mean, it was that was kind of
• 47:36
  my jobs and I enjoyed those things.
• 47:39
  And then in the. Afternoon I tried.
• 47:41
  How many times did you write that letter and actually say,
• 47:44
  yeah, this kids not coming back? Well, there were a lot cuz I'd
• 47:48
  meet with the Dean, I'd meet with the Dean and then I'd say I
• 47:51
  think we can get help. This kid or this kid, he's not
• 47:54
  ready yet to do this. Wow, you know that.
• 47:57
  'D be tough though, because you know, knowing now a little bit
• 48:01
  about your academic background, you had to see yourself in some
• 48:03
  of these kids a little. You see, Yeah.
• 48:05
  But the thing that I never quit doing is I always went to class.
• 48:09
  You know what I mean? There There's a minimal things
• 48:11
  you have to do and you can't to me, you can't just come to
• 48:14
  college and want to be the party kid and do those.
• 48:17
  You you got some minimal things. You got to have a little drive.
• 48:19
  You got to be able to come in and present a plan that you're
• 48:22
  going to at least be able to be successful and not blow off the
• 48:25
  meetings and that kind of stuff. That's a good point.
• 48:27
  It it wasn't a real high bar, let's not put it that way.
• 48:31
  It is minimal. There's that minimal word.
• 48:33
  Yes, yes. So, but I enjoyed those things.
• 48:38
  And then somewhere in my young coaching, I went to Level 1
• 48:44
  school in Colorado. George Williams was there and
• 48:49
  George, we were division two at the time.
• 48:51
  So I got to know George pretty well and we remained friends
• 48:53
  throughout his whole coaching. And that was a great experience
• 48:57
  and kind of got my feet wet. Our women's coach at the time
• 49:01
  had gone through one and two and done some things with Lauren.
• 49:05
  And so there was the kind of person that could mentor me a
• 49:09
  little bit on some of this stuff, you know, overspeed
• 49:12
  training and what it was and things you just never heard of
• 49:15
  in South Dakota. And then I got to go to Level 2
• 49:18
  school in Louisiana, and that's probably, that's probably my
• 49:22
  life changers. I met Boo.
• 49:24
  Yeah. I don't know why Boo took the
• 49:26
  liking to me, but Boo and I have remained very good friends since
• 49:32
  then. He's I definitely my mentor.
• 49:35
  But beyond that, I mean, I'm not text Boo everyday type of guy,
• 49:40
  but every month we're trying to check in how we doing.
• 49:44
  Just a great, great resource for so many people, but including
• 49:48
  myself and and when you look at it and say, well, how in the
• 49:51
  heck does a kid from a point that has never gone 15 miles
• 49:54
  away to coach know anything about anything?
• 49:58
  It, a lot of it goes back to Boo and the things I learned from
• 50:01
  him that I were able to come back here and apply.
• 50:04
  And that's that's really what led to the way I coached Derek
• 50:08
  and the way we kind of start building the pole vault program
• 50:10
  and the jumps program and everything really goes back to
• 50:14
  to Boo and what he's done for me in my life.
• 50:17
  Dude, I love that and I love that I didn't know this actually
• 50:22
  you, we could have flipped images right there and I would
• 50:25
  have said the absolute exact same thing about Boo.
• 50:29
  I, I tell people, you know, I coached for 10 years.
• 50:31
  I tell people I had Boo at the end of my fifth year.
• 50:34
  So literally 50% of my career. I then met Boo level 2
• 50:38
  accidentally was in the jumps. I, I tried to do because I, I
• 50:42
  was, I was a sprints and hurdles guy.
• 50:43
  Like that's what I coach. That's what I'm going to be the
• 50:45
  best at. And so I, I signed up for
• 50:47
  sprints and hurdles level 2 and Mike Corn calls me and says,
• 50:49
  Hey, I'm sorry, it's full. I do have a spot in jumps and I
• 50:52
  was like, I coach jumps, but man, I don't, you know.
• 50:55
  And he was like, trust me, you'll learn as much, if not
• 50:58
  more about how to coach the sprints and hurdles by being
• 51:01
  that. And I was like, all right, I
• 51:02
  guess I I do have to coach long jumper and trouble jumper.
• 51:05
  So I better go to this class and Boo chain.
• 51:08
  It's so funny. So you're gonna you're gonna get
• 51:11
  a little early access to something that this won't
• 51:14
  publish, I think until February. But so, you know, in a couple of
• 51:18
  weeks at convention, Boo is getting inducted into the Hall
• 51:21
  of Fame, right? Like a Hall of Fame life finally
• 51:23
  gets into the Hall of Fame for USFCA, right?
• 51:26
  So he I was so humbled and I mean blessed all time favorite
• 51:31
  interview was Boo for this podcast cuz I got to tell my
• 51:36
  mentor what how you changed my life, my life, not my coaching
• 51:39
  life, my life. And so we are on Tuesday,
• 51:43
  December 16th. So you guys who are listening
• 51:45
  already know about this. We're republishing that
• 51:49
  interview that night that he's it's just a way to honor like
• 51:53
  just more people need to hear his story.
• 51:54
  I mean, it's it's it's amazing. And and a little bit of a
• 51:57
  selfish was like, man, I get to tell the guy I love.
• 52:00
  I mean, he changed, like I said, changed my life.
• 52:01
  So to hear that from you and what's cool about this lucky and
• 52:04
  you know this because you know, you're really close to him on a
• 52:06
  you know, I'm gonna call it daily experience.
• 52:09
  There are, I would have a line of hundreds of coaches that
• 52:14
  would be in line to say the exact same thing.
• 52:15
  That man has done so much for the for the sport and for the
• 52:19
  profession of coaches. It's unbelievable.
• 52:22
  And I just, I just want to make sure people like that hear that
• 52:25
  story, you know, not when I agree, not when he passes.
• 52:27
  He'll have a huge funeral because it'll be a huge miss
• 52:30
  when he passes. I want him to hear it now before
• 52:33
  that time comes the influence he's he's made on people.
• 52:36
  So I love hearing that story from you, man, that is.
• 52:39
  So it, it, it was just, it's just an amazing, amazing thing
• 52:42
  that he's been able to do for so many people.
• 52:44
  Whenever I give a presentation or speak, I just tell people,
• 52:48
  this isn't me. This is Boo.
• 52:50
  I mean the cult of Boo I call. It Yeah, yeah, I say Boo,
• 52:53
  disciples. Yeah, So this is going to be,
• 52:55
  this is what Boo's taught me. So if it sounds like I'm just
• 52:59
  plagiarizing it, no. I've been drilled in for 25
• 53:02
  years that this is how you do things and these are these are
• 53:06
  the terms you use. I can remember sitting in that
• 53:09
  level 2 class and why? Like, it took me, you know,
• 53:12
  maybe years after to be able to verbalize it, but I know why him
• 53:17
  and his teaching and how it stuck to me.
• 53:19
  Do you remember being in that class?
• 53:20
  Why? Like, what was it that it was a
• 53:22
  guy that knew way more than you? Was it how he taught?
• 53:25
  Was it just his? Nice, I think.
• 53:27
  There were two things that clicked with me on that.
• 53:29
  One, he had the background of being having been at LSU.
• 53:33
  So just as an outsider young coach, you think, OK, LSU
• 53:37
  probably knows what he's doing. I think the other thing is, is
• 53:40
  Boo keeps things so simple, yes, that it's easy to understand.
• 53:45
  And I never felt like Boo has ever talked down to me, you know
• 53:48
  what I mean? I could ask him a stupid
• 53:50
  question and he would still remind me that I probably knew
• 53:53
  the answer to that. But yeah, don't forget about
• 53:56
  this. You know what I mean?
• 53:57
  And so his ability and that's why he's a great coach too.
• 54:02
  He never puts anybody down, but he's an educator and that's all
• 54:06
  I see him doing. And, and we all know that's
• 54:08
  Boo's background. He was a he was a teacher, high
• 54:10
  school football coach and all those other things before the
• 54:14
  sport was blessed with him, but not not a track athlete.
• 54:18
  I don't know if Boo's ever done a track event.
• 54:20
  He's probably demonstrated a few times out of triple jump, but
• 54:23
  other than that. So I think that's probably part
• 54:25
  of what that that I learned from Boo is just that keep it simple.
• 54:31
  Be honest with what you're saying.
• 54:33
  It's OK to be smart, but keep it simple that so other people can
• 54:37
  understand that you don't have to try to impress people.
• 54:39
  Yeah, that that that was it for me.
• 54:41
  It was just the like, I up to that point and actually past
• 54:45
  that point, never coach pole vault.
• 54:46
  It's always been this black box. Like I just, boy, I can get you
• 54:49
  to the plant and then I am lost in what you guys do.
• 54:51
  It's amazing to me, right? And I walked out of level 2
• 54:55
  going, I think I can coach pole vault.
• 54:57
  He just simplifies it. So I'm like, I think I could do
• 55:00
  this. Thank God for our pole vaulters.
• 55:02
  I did not. But it's just his simplicity.
• 55:04
  And you know what, you're right. You bring it back to that
• 55:07
  education side. He's a teacher.
• 55:08
  He's not a take the word coach out.
• 55:11
  He is a teacher. And that is his real gifting.
• 55:15
  That man, anybody can walk in and listen.
• 55:18
  If you, if you open mind and listen to him, you, you can
• 55:21
  coach at a high level, by the way, not just coach fundamental
• 55:23
  like you can coach. He's so good at teaching and
• 55:26
  stick fingers. Very, very, very good.
• 55:28
  I think one of the things, and you mentioned this a little
• 55:30
  while ago, is he keeps everything in commonalities.
• 55:34
  So it's not like a high jump or a high jumper is that much
• 55:37
  different than a pole vaulter that jumps on a long jumper that
• 55:40
  much different than a sprinter. It's the common things that they
• 55:43
  do and what they actually do in their event is a little tiny
• 55:46
  difference. And I think that's what makes
• 55:49
  him such a great coach or and able to to connect with so many
• 55:53
  different people that Sprint coaches all know who Boo is just
• 55:57
  as well as jump coaches. I mean, it's not like he's a
• 55:59
  cult of just jump coaches. It doesn't matter.
• 56:03
  You go strength and conditioning coaches and they're all trying
• 56:05
  to tell you what Boo says. And I'm like, dude, you ain't
• 56:07
  got that right. But it's good that you, it's
• 56:09
  good that you're trying. It's a good point.
• 56:12
  It's a good point. Yeah.
• 56:13
  I think one of his most common statements is when he's like
• 56:16
  he's giving a presentation a long jump and he's showing some
• 56:18
  kind of drill and he'll say, hey, by the way, it's also good
• 56:21
  for your sprinters or, hey, by the way, doesn't this look like
• 56:23
  pull vault? Yeah, yeah.
• 56:24
  Your pull vault guy should be doing, you know, it's, it's just
• 56:26
  like, yeah, again, the commonality.
• 56:27
  You're right, man. Well, I love that guy to death
• 56:29
  and proud of him and USTFCA getting him into the Hall of
• 56:33
  Fame because, again, to give him kudos today is it's valuable.
• 56:37
  And I'm blessed. And I'd love that you've been
• 56:39
  blessed with him as well. Love that.
• 56:41
  OK, lucky you are busy. You are you're not a full time
• 56:46
  track coach. You're doing this academic
• 56:48
  thing. I mean it was there when you're
• 56:51
  doing this, are you thinking this is what it means to be a
• 56:54
  track coach in the collegiate level?
• 56:55
  Are you thinking like are you trying to strive for full time?
• 56:58
  I got, you know, I can lead this academic counseling side and
• 57:02
  induce do track coaching. I don't think I thought that
• 57:06
  much about. I think what I, what I wanted to
• 57:09
  do is just do the best I could at whatever I was doing and
• 57:13
  didn't really know where that was going to lead.
• 57:17
  Enjoyed it. It was hard like you said.
• 57:19
  I mean, there were, I worked every Sunday because I'd have to
• 57:23
  get ready for everything you had to do for practice Monday
• 57:25
  morning because I was in advising in the morning.
• 57:28
  So it raised two daughters, have a wonderful wife that supported
• 57:31
  me through that. So it was tough, but I, I just,
• 57:35
  that's kind of what you do. You, you got a job and I, I, I
• 57:38
  love it. I love USD.
• 57:40
  So it was easy to just kind of keep doing things and expanding
• 57:44
  it and making it bigger and making it better.
• 57:46
  How can I do things different? And, and most of the time I
• 57:49
  viewed it through the eyes of a track athlete.
• 57:52
  What does this track athlete need so they can be successful
• 57:56
  in this math class or this English class or I wish there
• 57:59
  was supplemental instruction for the kids when they're traveling.
• 58:02
  So how do we get that added here?
• 58:03
  Because it'd be good for all the students.
• 58:05
  And so that was just kind of, that was just kind of my life.
• 58:08
  And then then USD made the decision to go to Vision One.
• 58:12
  And at that point I knew I couldn't keep doing both.
• 58:16
  It was just, it was too much. My Boston academics told me,
• 58:21
  Lucky, we'd love to have you go full time.
• 58:23
  And I went in and saw my AD and my AD said, Lucky, we'd love to
• 58:28
  have you go full time. And so I was able to kind of
• 58:31
  choose which way I wanted to go. And at that point, then I I
• 58:34
  chose to leave academics and come over to full time.
• 58:39
  That's when I became the director of track and field and
• 58:41
  cross country. And I've been the women's coach
• 58:44
  and been very involved with coaching men.
• 58:45
  But we just kind of did a little switching up as we went Division
• 58:48
  1. And in a lot of ways, I feel
• 58:51
  like, you know, people are going to say, how is someone at the
• 58:53
  same school the whole time? Doesn't it get boring?
• 58:56
  Well, for a lot of time I was pretty busy.
• 58:58
  And then when we made the transition, it was almost like
• 59:01
  it was a new job. Everything changed.
• 59:04
  You know, we, we built an outdoor facility.
• 59:07
  We had all new rules, we had new scholarships, we had new travel.
• 59:11
  I had to, we had to learn everything.
• 59:13
  And I always explain it to people.
• 59:15
  It's like, it's like I own a little gas station and I come
• 59:18
  out and I pump gas and I wipe your windows and that's what I
• 59:21
  do when I pump gas. And then all of a sudden the
• 59:23
  Interstate goes by and then like same guy that pumped your gas
• 59:27
  and does your windows and check your tires ain't the guy that
• 59:30
  can run the gas station anymore. It's now a very big truck stop
• 59:33
  and you have to be a different person.
• 59:35
  So I had to almost reinvent myself in into what mid major
• 59:41
  Division One coach was going to have to do.
• 59:44
  And I had some mentors. Beth with Sullivan was very big
• 59:48
  in helping me with that transition.
• 59:50
  And I just because I'd had a good network in Division 2, I
• 59:54
  could reach out to some of those people and kind of, OK, how do I
• 59:56
  do this? What's it supposed to look like?
• 59:58
  What's it not supposed to look like?
• 1:00:00
  And then start putting together the pieces for what the
• 1:00:04
  University of South Dakota track programs like now.
• 1:00:06
  So. So how many years as the women's
• 1:00:08
  head coach before moving to the director position?
• 1:00:13
  Probably 11:50 something like that.
• 1:00:16
  And then what, what year did we transition to Division One
• 1:00:19
  probably about? 10-15 years ago, probably.
• 1:00:21
  Yeah, OK, probably. About 15.
• 1:00:23
  It's been a It's been a long time.
• 1:00:24
  Yeah, OK. I've been at this university as
• 1:00:28
  a employee for 35 years. Yeah, that's amazing.
• 1:00:31
  You know, I love that. I remember a few years ago, this
• 1:00:33
  actually might have been pre COVID.
• 1:00:35
  I, you know, time, COVID messed up all my timelines.
• 1:00:37
  But I remember being at a convention with a bunch of guys
• 1:00:40
  and we were talking about coaches who'd been at their
• 1:00:42
  school. Like, you know, cuz the, the
• 1:00:44
  whole trope, and it may not be a trope, may actually be a little
• 1:00:46
  bit of reality. If, you know, everybody moves,
• 1:00:48
  you know, jobs and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:00:50
  And you know, whenever anybody says that, I always go, yeah,
• 1:00:52
  I'd coach for 10 years and I was at 5 different places.
• 1:00:54
  So I was that guy as well, by the way.
• 1:00:55
  I was always searching for something.
• 1:00:59
  We started trying to give examples of people that had been
• 1:01:04
  at the university for a long time, right?
• 1:01:05
  So, you know, we had the mouses and George Williams and things
• 1:01:08
  like that. We got about 10 real quick.
• 1:01:09
  Curtis Fry's before he retired, right?
• 1:01:11
  So we got about 10 real quick. And then it was kind of
• 1:01:14
  crickets. And then it was like, oh, wait a
• 1:01:15
  minute. What about like Lucky?
• 1:01:17
  How long he been there for a while?
• 1:01:18
  Like it was harder to get to those.
• 1:01:19
  So to hear you've been at that institution and I would never
• 1:01:23
  ask the question. I'm going to say it this way
• 1:01:26
  because you brought it up. I love, I like how you said it,
• 1:01:28
  but I would never ask it this way for maybe some obvious
• 1:01:30
  reasons. I think about being at some
• 1:01:32
  place for 30 years now. I've also been here at Guildford
• 1:01:35
  20. So I also have the perspective
• 1:01:36
  like, Oh yeah, it's it's new every day, every year it
• 1:01:39
  changes, right. But I could see that where it'd
• 1:01:41
  be like lucky. So you're very successful coach,
• 1:01:43
  you've been there for 30 years, blah, blah.
• 1:01:45
  Why haven't you left your perspective of like, man, we
• 1:01:49
  went division two to Division One.
• 1:01:51
  That was like a whole new job, if you will, a whole new
• 1:01:54
  program. That's interesting.
• 1:01:56
  What we're what we're when you when that transition was
• 1:02:00
  happening, what were some of the harder parts?
• 1:02:03
  Were there parts that like, oh man, we get, we used to be able
• 1:02:06
  to do this in division two and now we don't Division 1 and I
• 1:02:08
  don't talk about rules, but it could just be, you know,
• 1:02:09
  protocols and stuff like that. Were there any win?
• 1:02:13
  That was a lot. Of division two trophies, we had
• 1:02:15
  a lot of top 10, not not a ton, but we have probably we won a
• 1:02:20
  cross country title in division two.
• 1:02:22
  We probably had five or six trophies from venishing Top 4.
• 1:02:27
  We we knew that that day was just never going to come.
• 1:02:31
  So that was hard for me. I think I'm like all coaches is
• 1:02:34
  I can say I like to do all the other things, but I like to win
• 1:02:37
  and have my athletes have that experience.
• 1:02:39
  So that was hard. But fortunately for me, the
• 1:02:43
  Summit League came along and that's a league that we we're
• 1:02:46
  all pretty even in and it's kind of like what I'd call the old
• 1:02:50
  North Central Conference where we all competed against each
• 1:02:52
  other anyway. So 2 Dakota, the four Dakotas
• 1:02:55
  are all back together. That's kind of what I grew up in
• 1:02:58
  in the North Central Conference. So it's, it's that part of it I
• 1:03:02
  think made it maybe a little bit easier for us to have the same,
• 1:03:05
  the same rivals. Were you at a different
• 1:03:07
  conference or conference less when you first moved?
• 1:03:10
  We went through a conference, it was called the Great West
• 1:03:13
  Conference, and wasn't very long, lasted a few years, but it
• 1:03:17
  was an amazing experience. Utah Valley was in it and I have
• 1:03:22
  a ton of respect for those guys. And there's a school in New
• 1:03:25
  Jersey called New New Jersey Institute of Technology.
• 1:03:28
  Yeah, NJIT, yeah, yeah, yeah. They hosted our conference meet
• 1:03:33
  in the Armory and it was one of the most amazing experience I've
• 1:03:37
  ever had. So our our move to Division One
• 1:03:41
  was we're flying to Utah and we're going to new we're at the
• 1:03:44
  Armory. How cool is this?
• 1:03:46
  You know, and so far athletes, they're like, wow, this is, this
• 1:03:50
  is different than going to, no, no offense, going to Mankato or
• 1:03:53
  going to, you know, SDSU for local meet where we had those,
• 1:03:57
  some of those experiences and our, and our kids bought into
• 1:04:00
  our transition and we lost very few kids during the transition
• 1:04:05
  and just said we're going to up our game.
• 1:04:08
  And I think our administration gave us permission to kind of
• 1:04:11
  create the program the way we wanted to.
• 1:04:13
  Did you have that transition? Did you have like 4 years where
• 1:04:15
  you weren't allowed to qualify anybody for?
• 1:04:17
  National Four years for outdoor track, but only two years for
• 1:04:20
  indoor track. Two years for outdoor track that
• 1:04:23
  it took each. Each Division Two school could
• 1:04:26
  have one sport other than football or basketball.
• 1:04:28
  That was Division One and so that was only a two year, so
• 1:04:32
  they moved men's and women's track up first.
• 1:04:34
  That makes sense. That's why you have Minnesota,
• 1:04:37
  Minnesota Duluth having Division One hockey, same cloud having
• 1:04:40
  Division One hockey. So we went under that for
• 1:04:43
  outdoor track and field and some of the other schools that had
• 1:04:46
  gone in front of us chose volleyball and wrestling.
• 1:04:49
  So those other schools kind of got, they got stuck there and we
• 1:04:52
  were able to make that transition very quickly and, and
• 1:04:57
  show and showed recruits that hey, they, our school thinks
• 1:05:00
  we're important if we're going to do this.
• 1:05:01
  Yeah. Oh, yeah, right.
• 1:05:02
  That's a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:03
  I think it was Mike Rosalina at Emory Riddle.
• 1:05:06
  We were talking about that transition period and it's, you
• 1:05:10
  know, I kind of get it why that rules in place.
• 1:05:13
  I don't know that it's actually in place for track and field and
• 1:05:16
  actually any other sports besides the footballs and
• 1:05:18
  basketballs. But I'm also, it just, it feels
• 1:05:21
  like, first of all, super tough recruiting and your program, you
• 1:05:24
  know those kind of things, but you know, tough on the athletes.
• 1:05:27
  It's like, well, you didn't do anything wrong.
• 1:05:29
  In fact, you probably came to that school because of this
• 1:05:31
  decision. So why do you get penalized?
• 1:05:33
  I don't. I'm not I.
• 1:05:34
  Agree, I think that was tough. Saint Thomas up in the cities
• 1:05:36
  went through that, yes, you know, they went from Division
• 1:05:39
  Three to Division One and they're in the summit League and
• 1:05:42
  the coaching staff has handled it really well up there.
• 1:05:44
  But it's, it's tough, but it it really and I, I think it's AI
• 1:05:49
  think it's a stupid rule. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 1:05:51
  I'm not sure I'm a fan. Yeah, so there's a lots of
• 1:05:54
  things, but it showed that those kids that were at Saint Thomas
• 1:05:57
  were there to get an education and it got those schools time to
• 1:06:01
  get prepared. And that's part of what we had
• 1:06:03
  to go through was OK, your Division One, what do you have
• 1:06:06
  to do different now? And so I had to become the
• 1:06:08
  expert on how many meets you had to go to.
• 1:06:11
  You know, so many of them have to be Division One.
• 1:06:13
  So we can't have this track meet at at Wayne State anymore
• 1:06:17
  because there weren't enough Division One schools there.
• 1:06:20
  So then we need more budget money to travel and just all
• 1:06:23
  that kind of stuff that eventually got worked out.
• 1:06:26
  That's a good point. Do they bring in?
• 1:06:30
  Yeah, I was trying to think of Troy State.
• 1:06:31
  We we were one AA when I got there, so we didn't go through
• 1:06:33
  transition. Do they bring in like a
• 1:06:35
  consultant or is it just the coaches and the administration
• 1:06:39
  that has to? Because you're right, there's
• 1:06:40
  some blocking and tackling rules, right.
• 1:06:41
  There's, you know, how many meets and how many kids on the
• 1:06:44
  roster that are different. Do they bring in like a
• 1:06:46
  consultant to help go through the different sports or is it I?
• 1:06:49
  Think that's where the conference, the conference, that
• 1:06:52
  that's why you have a conference and that conference helps you
• 1:06:54
  with that. But I remember walking out of a
• 1:06:56
  meeting with our football coach and he looked at me and goes
• 1:06:59
  lucky I'm going to get fired. And I'm like, what are you
• 1:07:01
  talking about? Goes whenever a school goes
• 1:07:03
  through a transition, they fire their football coaches because
• 1:07:06
  he was and he got fired, but they need something different.
• 1:07:10
  It's the gas station attendant. You know what I mean?
• 1:07:12
  It you need a different person who has different experiences
• 1:07:15
  and from from nothing else of how do you schedule and how do
• 1:07:19
  you do things is a little bit different.
• 1:07:21
  So it's it's been tough on people, but you know, it is what
• 1:07:25
  it is and it's a job. And I think as coaches, we're
• 1:07:27
  just glad to have a job and we go down and we can coach someone
• 1:07:31
  to hurdle and doesn't matter what level it is.
• 1:07:32
  And let's let's just get back to work.
• 1:07:35
  How did how much did your recruiting have to change that
• 1:07:38
  transition from division to Division One?
• 1:07:40
  Well, it really hurt our men's program.
• 1:07:43
  Our men's program went from 5 scholarships down to two
• 1:07:46
  scholarships because you had title 9, so you had to spend
• 1:07:50
  more money on football. So our our men's team took a big
• 1:07:52
  hit there. You go back and look at our time
• 1:07:55
  period. We, we, we struggled there that
• 1:07:57
  couldn't have as many men on our team and, and only two
• 1:08:00
  scholarships. So it's hard to go out and find
• 1:08:03
  the best kid in the country if you're, you're not have many
• 1:08:05
  scholarships. Women's went up right away.
• 1:08:08
  So then that allowed us to kind of expand a little bit.
• 1:08:11
  But then you've got, well, we got a good men's team or not so
• 1:08:13
  good men's team, but a good women's team and some of those
• 1:08:16
  issues. But we we made a very tactical
• 1:08:19
  decision that when we made the transition, we wanted to be good
• 1:08:23
  at something. I don't know if I can say this
• 1:08:26
  without maybe offending somebody, but I didn't want to
• 1:08:28
  be a shitty Division One school. I wanted to have something that
• 1:08:31
  we stood out as. And at that point Derek was
• 1:08:35
  ready to move back from Earl back to Vermilion and train
• 1:08:40
  here. So we knew that bringing him
• 1:08:43
  back would help. I had another guy that was my
• 1:08:46
  pole vault coach. So Derek kind of coached the
• 1:08:47
  long jump, a triple jump during that transition time.
• 1:08:50
  And we just kind of started building it up with the idea,
• 1:08:54
  OK, this is what we're going to do first with if we can be
• 1:08:57
  successful at the Division One level, then can we start adding
• 1:09:01
  on the other events And she can use that as our model.
• 1:09:04
  And it really, it was a hard discussion with an AD because a
• 1:09:07
  DS, think of it as well, you have to win your conference to
• 1:09:09
  go to the national meet. I'm like and ain't connected,
• 1:09:13
  you know what I mean? So we were able to have all
• 1:09:16
  Americans and kids very quickly and it it kind of helped our
• 1:09:21
  whole, I feel like our whole athletic department with OK,
• 1:09:24
  there, this is working. Does that make sense?
• 1:09:27
  The track team is in front and they're having an all American
• 1:09:30
  and they're winning a a great list title, which nobody knows
• 1:09:32
  what that is, but they're winning something, you know what
• 1:09:34
  I mean? And so just able to kind of keep
• 1:09:36
  building on that and that was kind of our that was kind of our
• 1:09:41
  point at that time. And then we just kind of after
• 1:09:43
  getting pole vault going, we tried to add some other areas to
• 1:09:46
  it. Now we've mentioned a name a
• 1:09:48
  couple of times and it's not his podcast.
• 1:09:50
  Maybe we'll we'll have him on the podcast, but it I believe
• 1:09:53
  it's central to your story here. We talked about Derek Miles.
• 1:09:56
  Now Derek is from T South Dakota.
• 1:09:59
  I don't know why I remember that.
• 1:10:00
  Maybe it's just because of TI remember that.
• 1:10:03
  Is it similar? Did he come to school at South
• 1:10:05
  Dakota? Cuz he's not that.
• 1:10:06
  I don't think it's 15 minutes, Derek.
• 1:10:08
  Actually grew up in Sacramento. Really.
• 1:10:12
  California and his mom at Sacramento, CA.
• 1:10:15
  His mom had gone to school at USD and his mom and dad were
• 1:10:19
  from South Dakota, and his dad was a computer science professor
• 1:10:23
  at Sacramento State and didn't really want Derek to be in the
• 1:10:27
  California system. And when I say didn't make the
• 1:10:31
  state meet, he didn't make the state meet.
• 1:10:32
  So nobody else recruited him. Literally send Polaroid pictures
• 1:10:37
  to Coach Scott Slavin and say, can can my son come here?
• 1:10:42
  Will you recruit my son to come to USD?
• 1:10:44
  That kind of thing way. So that's how we recruited
• 1:10:47
  Derek, and Derek will tell you no one else recruited.
• 1:10:49
  Him now, he said he didn't make the state meet.
• 1:10:51
  Now this is the California State, not South Dakota.
• 1:10:53
  So there's a lot of kids that don't make the statement that
• 1:10:55
  are good. Was he good?
• 1:10:57
  14 he'll say 14-6 but I'm not sure.
• 1:10:59
  OK. So he wouldn't.
• 1:11:02
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:03
  Right now I wouldn't be able to recruit him to USD.
• 1:11:05
  Yeah, great point. That's a good, that's a good
• 1:11:06
  problem. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:11:07
  So he comes, but. You know, and he just, he had a
• 1:11:10
  love for the pole vault and he came out here and his dad
• 1:11:12
  brought him out here and got him settled in and left.
• 1:11:15
  And then at that point, Derek and I became probably best
• 1:11:19
  friends. I was his coach and I'd go drag
• 1:11:22
  him out of bed, get him to practice or to attract me or
• 1:11:25
  whatever it took. And we just kind of got this
• 1:11:27
  dream together of let's see how good we can be.
• 1:11:31
  And he was an All American a couple times in Division Two and
• 1:11:34
  just kept growing. So the connection to T is his.
• 1:11:38
  He married another one of my track athletes, Tori, and she
• 1:11:41
  was from up by Sioux Falls, went to West Central, but then she
• 1:11:46
  wanted to move close to her home so she lives.
• 1:11:50
  They live in Tea where Tories parents live, and then Derek's
• 1:11:53
  mom has moved out here since then.
• 1:11:55
  Okay, so he didn't grow up in tea, Okay, He lives in tea.
• 1:11:59
  Okay, okay, that's phenomenal. And what I mean phenomenal is
• 1:12:05
  you never know what kind of kid is gonna show up at your
• 1:12:07
  doorstep kind of thing like this.
• 1:12:10
  His parents would decide to go to he wasn't on your radar by
• 1:12:12
  any stretch, right? Like, that's amazing.
• 1:12:15
  Holy cow. And he grows to become Derek
• 1:12:17
  freaking my. I mean, that's amazing.
• 1:12:19
  That's so cool. What was it like?
• 1:12:22
  This is usually a question I would ask like a Derek.
• 1:12:26
  Sometimes as athletes, we end. It's rare, but we end up
• 1:12:30
  becoming a coach for our coach. You know, the person who coached
• 1:12:34
  us. We come back and Coach Derek is
• 1:12:36
  one of those guys. You coach Derek and then he
• 1:12:38
  comes back and starts working for your program.
• 1:12:40
  What's it? I'm always amazed because it's
• 1:12:42
  like when you're when you're an athlete of a coach that there's
• 1:12:45
  a relationship there. That's that's a type of
• 1:12:47
  relationship. And then when you get on staff,
• 1:12:49
  if they're head coach, they're still ahead of you, they're
• 1:12:51
  still the head coach. But it's a different relate you,
• 1:12:53
  you talk and interact with that coach differently because you're
• 1:12:57
  on the staff. You're not an athlete.
• 1:12:58
  Now. How was it?
• 1:13:01
  And you know, you guys are very close.
• 1:13:03
  So maybe this was easy. Maybe there was some some not so
• 1:13:06
  easy parts. You coached him, coached him to
• 1:13:08
  a high level. He goes and, you know, wins
• 1:13:11
  medals. He's he's so good.
• 1:13:12
  He gets coached by Earl and then he comes back on staff.
• 1:13:15
  Now he's on staff with you. So you're responsible for him
• 1:13:18
  and he's he's responsible to you differently than as an athlete.
• 1:13:21
  How was that transition of athlete becoming your assistant?
• 1:13:26
  Well, I, I think, I think it's a lot different for him than the
• 1:13:28
  rest of my staff because we have such a long relationship.
• 1:13:32
  I, I, I think, I mean, he, we joked that we've known each
• 1:13:35
  other longer than we've known our wives.
• 1:13:38
  So we've been together a long time.
• 1:13:40
  And even the time when he was in Arkansas, I was still in
• 1:13:43
  constant communication because I was right in the, the, the
• 1:13:46
  training part of what Earl wasn't doing.
• 1:13:49
  Went to all three Olympics with him, sat there and cried when he
• 1:13:52
  was forced with him underneath the you know, So I, I think the
• 1:13:56
  thing that I don't know how it is with other coaches, but the
• 1:14:00
  thing about working with Derek is Derek is the most sincere,
• 1:14:05
  honest, loves his kids, loves his university, will do whatever
• 1:14:12
  help solve problems, raise the standard type of person that's
• 1:14:16
  on my staff. So if we decide that we're going
• 1:14:19
  to do something, Derek is going to figure out how to get it
• 1:14:22
  done. He is going to make sure it's
• 1:14:24
  done perfectly and he's not afraid to go in and and paint a
• 1:14:28
  wall or haul the hurdles or do whatever else.
• 1:14:31
  He, he's a hard working guy and when he coaches it's the same
• 1:14:35
  way. He is very, very committed to
• 1:14:38
  every one of his kids. It doesn't matter if you're the
• 1:14:41
  #5 women's pole vaulter on his team, if you don't PR and the
• 1:14:46
  other four do. He's staying up all night
• 1:14:48
  feeling bad because the number 5 girl didn't PR and usually
• 1:14:52
  waking me up halfway through the night saying we look at this
• 1:14:55
  video and see what she's doing wrong.
• 1:14:56
  I think it's this, what do you think?
• 1:14:58
  And I go to bed. We'll do it in the morning.
• 1:15:01
  But so I, I think one of the things that I've got to
• 1:15:04
  experience is, is literally coaching with my best friend.
• 1:15:07
  And I remember one time I was talking to a coach and he had
• 1:15:11
  just taken a head coach job at a power for school.
• 1:15:13
  And he was talking about, you know, how are you friends with
• 1:15:16
  your assistants or whatever? And I'm kind of like, well, I
• 1:15:20
  spent all my time with them. You know what I mean?
• 1:15:22
  If I'm not friends with my assistants and we can go have a
• 1:15:26
  have dinner together and track me, what the heck am I doing?
• 1:15:30
  So I it really has made it special.
• 1:15:33
  And our relationship is very, very unique to the spot where my
• 1:15:37
  wife thinks it's unhealthy because sometimes we talk to
• 1:15:40
  each other like an old married couple ways.
• 1:15:43
  But he just, he has been so great in everything that he's
• 1:15:46
  done for this university and just I wouldn't be where I was
• 1:15:50
  at today if it wasn't for Derek. Obviously the coaching helped me
• 1:15:53
  raise up my coaching, but it's the day-to-day stuff that he
• 1:15:56
  does that is just just an amazing young man.
• 1:15:59
  It's awesome the experiences we get to have with athletes.
• 1:16:02
  What was that like? You know, you're a, I'm going to
• 1:16:05
  call it a little kid from little town, South Dakota and you're at
• 1:16:10
  the Olympics. Dude, first of all, you didn't
• 1:16:13
  grow up necessarily be an Olympic fan.
• 1:16:15
  You know, like we've had some people.
• 1:16:16
  It's like, dude, every four years I was watching Olympics.
• 1:16:18
  You didn't have that. But you still, especially as you
• 1:16:20
  grow through your profession, you know what the Olympics are
• 1:16:23
  like. That's the, you know, call it
• 1:16:24
  the Holy Grail, if you will. What's that like getting that?
• 1:16:27
  Out. It was amazing sitting in row
• 1:16:29
  one because I had the coaches pass.
• 1:16:31
  So I was in row one and you're sitting there on the curb and
• 1:16:34
  Bolt's doing some stuff and Derek's on the runway.
• 1:16:36
  Like pay attention to me, not Bolt over here.
• 1:16:39
  But I remember sitting there and, and, and I'm sure a lot of
• 1:16:43
  other coaches have experienced this.
• 1:16:44
  My first time. I'm like, none of these guys
• 1:16:46
  even speak English. So I took out my bag of licorice
• 1:16:49
  and I opened up my bag of licorice and I tried making
• 1:16:52
  friends by giving everyone some licorice just because you know,
• 1:16:56
  that's what you do if you're from South Dakota, you share.
• 1:16:59
  And so that was kind of my experience and, you know, super
• 1:17:04
  excited. So many people donated so that I
• 1:17:07
  can make that trip. You know, there was no magic.
• 1:17:11
  Derek's parents helped for part of it.
• 1:17:13
  But, you know, the South Dakota track coaches put together a big
• 1:17:17
  donation pile for me. The high school coaches and
• 1:17:20
  people just gave so I can have this experience of going over
• 1:17:23
  there. And then I was fortunate enough
• 1:17:24
  to get to do it two more times. And the third Olympics I was
• 1:17:27
  able to take my family over and they were able to have that
• 1:17:29
  experience. Which one was that?
• 1:17:32
  That was London, So my kids, my daughters were old enough and
• 1:17:36
  they grew up, you know, with Derek, like their brother,
• 1:17:38
  right? So that was a really cool
• 1:17:40
  experience to, to, for them to see Derek's career kind of end
• 1:17:44
  there at London. And obviously it didn't go as
• 1:17:46
  well as we'd hoped, but we knew that limping in.
• 1:17:49
  But it was just a great experience for me to kind of
• 1:17:52
  have my family understand what I did and why, why daddy was gone
• 1:17:56
  so much. Yeah.
• 1:17:57
  Well, how did you you know, I remember the first time I
• 1:17:59
  qualified a kid to NCAA nationals.
• 1:18:02
  Actually, I can remember go back to I can remember the kid, first
• 1:18:04
  kid I recruited to a high school state meet and the first time
• 1:18:08
  you just don't know anything and and you know, you have a people
• 1:18:10
  that will help you and say, hey, make sure you do this or you
• 1:18:13
  know, some people don't even tell you because they think, oh,
• 1:18:15
  you already know it. How you know, I I know the
• 1:18:17
  logistics of the state meet. I remember the logistics of my
• 1:18:20
  first incident. Blaze.
• 1:18:21
  There's a lot going on. Pack and pick up all this kind
• 1:18:23
  of stuff. I can't imagine.
• 1:18:24
  I've never been at that level. Never.
• 1:18:26
  So how did you, on that first Olympics even navigate where
• 1:18:29
  you're supposed to go? Where?
• 1:18:30
  There were two people that were really special to me.
• 1:18:33
  Ralph was the jumps coach and so Ralph Lindemann just did a great
• 1:18:37
  job of OK, lucky I'll meet you at this spot.
• 1:18:40
  Here's a shirt for you to wear that says USA, here's your pass
• 1:18:42
  to give in. That was your Derek's pole
• 1:18:45
  cracked on the way over there. So Ralph's epoxying it back
• 1:18:48
  together. I mean, and so Ralph was super
• 1:18:50
  and that was really and then Beth was on that Olympic staff
• 1:18:54
  also. So when I was in Greece before
• 1:18:58
  the the days before then, I was able to go out with the whole
• 1:19:01
  Olympic staff and have some beers and visit with Beth and
• 1:19:04
  meet Ralph and do all that kind of stuff.
• 1:19:06
  So, you know, really went back to those connections of those
• 1:19:09
  people. And Beth, the reason Beth and I
• 1:19:10
  were good friends is she used to coach at Mankato, Oh.
• 1:19:13
  That's right. Yeah, before.
• 1:19:14
  Stanford, she was at Mankato, so we were kind of rival coaches
• 1:19:17
  and getting ready to kick her butt one more time and then she
• 1:19:22
  left. But we we became friends.
• 1:19:24
  So she became really that mentor that kind of helped me meet
• 1:19:26
  those people. And so it really, really was
• 1:19:28
  easy. Once you this is where you want
• 1:19:32
  to be, this is what you want to do, have this pass so you can
• 1:19:34
  get to the seat, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:19:36
  And then it was just then it was just coaching.
• 1:19:39
  Doesn't matter if it's junior high or the Olympics, you got to
• 1:19:41
  run down there and you got to hit it and you got to have your
• 1:19:43
  mid and you got to have all that stuff.
• 1:19:45
  Yeah. But it was, it was a pretty
• 1:19:47
  amazing experience for a kid from a point.
• 1:19:50
  I love the people in your life, you know, you're missed to make
• 1:19:53
  sure people can learn more. So you mentioned George
• 1:19:55
  Williams, great coach, Saint Augustine, he's been been on the
• 1:19:58
  podcast. Again, just high character
• 1:20:01
  individual. Love George to death.
• 1:20:02
  Beth has been on the podcast. Fact she might be #4 all time.
• 1:20:06
  She's very, very popular. She was been on the podcast.
• 1:20:09
  Love her story. I've totally forgot about that
• 1:20:10
  Mankato story because I think if I remember correctly.
• 1:20:14
  She had to like go to a payphone.
• 1:20:15
  Vin called her for the Stanford job and she was like in this
• 1:20:18
  payphone in the middle of nowhere, like I guess I'm going
• 1:20:20
  to Palo Alto. So love her journey.
• 1:20:25
  Just love that so much. And of course, Boo on the
• 1:20:26
  podcast. What was it?
• 1:20:28
  I mean, again, because I just have no idea.
• 1:20:34
  I love that you had oh, Ralph Lindemann, sorry.
• 1:20:36
  Also Ralph and his staff was on the podcast.
• 1:20:38
  Love Ralph and miss him dearly and did you're right just what a
• 1:20:43
  great servant leader for our sport and for our coaches.
• 1:20:45
  An amazing guy. You you coached you you coached
• 1:20:50
  at the US trials that year and that you know, had probably
• 1:20:53
  maybe more fans in the stands that you'd ever been to as a
• 1:20:55
  coach. Things like that.
• 1:20:56
  And the Olympics just amps that up.
• 1:20:57
  I mean there's a billion people in the stands.
• 1:21:00
  What was the like coaching is coaching.
• 1:21:03
  I get that, but there's also logistics right?
• 1:21:06
  It's easier to coach at a conference meet.
• 1:21:08
  Let me take a step back. It's easier to coach at a a duel
• 1:21:12
  meet where I can be on the runway with my kid.
• 1:21:15
  Conference. OK, maybe I got a coach's box,
• 1:21:16
  but it's still not that far. Nationals, OK, coach's box, but
• 1:21:20
  it's a little farther and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:21:21
  Olympics, you can be. It could probably feel a miles
• 1:21:25
  away. It's hard to get to them That's
• 1:21:26
  louder. How did you even just go
• 1:21:28
  through? Like were there things?
• 1:21:31
  Here's probably the better question.
• 1:21:33
  And you might not even known to do this, if you even did this.
• 1:21:37
  Did you and Derek work on like, hey, there's gonna be times when
• 1:21:39
  I can't. You can't hear me, so this hand
• 1:21:42
  signal is gonna mean this or, hey, be prepared for this.
• 1:21:46
  How did you even know to be prepared for anything?
• 1:21:48
  It's your first time. There was definitely a huge
• 1:21:50
  learning curve. One of the things is that
• 1:21:53
  they'll let you run across the track and where the TV cameras
• 1:21:55
  zoom by. So you you don't want to get
• 1:21:57
  stepped on by the track. So there was a little bit of
• 1:22:00
  come back and forth, OK, OK. But there was also a time when I
• 1:22:03
  was trying to get him to grip up.
• 1:22:06
  So if you got a pole ball pole and you're trying to get him to
• 1:22:08
  grip up, you're doing this. Right, right, right at.
• 1:22:10
  That moment they put me on the big screen at the Olympic
• 1:22:13
  Stadium that I'm doing best. So you can think what you want
• 1:22:18
  on that one. But that was probably, we
• 1:22:20
  probably should have figured out a different signal.
• 1:22:24
  But yes, that was on the big screen.
• 1:22:25
  Beth was there to attend. Things you never think are going
• 1:22:28
  to. Happen, buddy.
• 1:22:29
  Yeah, You know, so, you know, I think there's a little bit of
• 1:22:32
  that, but you know, Derek and I always kind of had a plan ahead
• 1:22:36
  of time. Like I remember being at the
• 1:22:37
  trials and we'd sit down the day ahead of time or the morning of.
• 1:22:40
  This is what we need to be able to be prepared for.
• 1:22:43
  Part of that was, and that's how Derek learned to kind of be more
• 1:22:47
  organized. When he was young, he wasn't
• 1:22:49
  probably the most organized person.
• 1:22:51
  So it took a little while to be able to do that.
• 1:22:53
  But then once that becomes your paycheck, you, you, you get a
• 1:22:56
  little bit more focused on it and you're ready to come and do
• 1:22:59
  that. So it's, it's just really just
• 1:23:02
  communication. There's just a lot of excitement
• 1:23:05
  when you have that happening. But it's still, it's still, you
• 1:23:08
  got to go out and you got the pressure.
• 1:23:09
  You got to do it and you got to perform.
• 1:23:11
  And you can't just go in there being happy.
• 1:23:13
  Part of that was the the trials before that, Derek had a jump
• 1:23:18
  off and he lost the jump off at the trials.
• 1:23:21
  So that was kind of the turning point in our kind of, well,
• 1:23:25
  maybe we can do this. I believe it was Chad that beat
• 1:23:29
  him in the jump off. And I didn't even know how they
• 1:23:32
  did a jump off at the Olympics trials, you know what I mean?
• 1:23:35
  So I'm literally sitting there and one of the older coaches in
• 1:23:38
  front of me turned around, said, OK, now we'll finish this and
• 1:23:40
  then you'll have to come back and jump.
• 1:23:41
  I'm like, thanks, coach, but that was when we were in
• 1:23:45
  Sacramento. And so it was just that kind of
• 1:23:48
  started this whole thing of, OK, we can do this and now we can
• 1:23:52
  make an Olympic team and what can we do to kind of keep
• 1:23:54
  getting up to the next level here?
• 1:23:56
  And then how do we get involved with Earl to kind of take him to
• 1:23:59
  another level and just kind of keep that relationship going
• 1:24:03
  and, and, and fuel to the fire? I can see this visual because I
• 1:24:06
  remember vividly from old Hayward of that first two rows
• 1:24:11
  right before the pole vault pit. All the pole vault coaches are
• 1:24:14
  there and it's like this again. It goes back to kind of this
• 1:24:17
  fraternity. You guys were obviously very
• 1:24:19
  focused on the athletes, but there was a lot of cross helping
• 1:24:22
  like I, you know, people would turn to Earl, Hey, what do you
• 1:24:24
  think about this? And people turn to you and
• 1:24:26
  people turn to Dan and just it just it.
• 1:24:29
  I always thought about that kind of like, what's that?
• 1:24:32
  There's a famous painting of like the diner, the Starlight
• 1:24:35
  diner, I think, or whatever. And it's, you know, these
• 1:24:36
  different, you know, rat pack and all these people talking
• 1:24:39
  that that kind of like that culture in that those first two
• 1:24:42
  rows always could make me think of like, man, these are heavy
• 1:24:44
  hitters in this sport. And by the way, there's some
• 1:24:46
  rookies right here in this sport, you know, coaching right
• 1:24:49
  here and they're all commingling and helping.
• 1:24:52
  That rookie is now going to get a little bit more of advanced
• 1:24:54
  degree because a lucky is there and a Dan and a heart wig is
• 1:24:57
  that you know, it's just it's it's a really interesting like
• 1:25:00
  culture, if you will, that coaches box for meets like.
• 1:25:04
  That I mean, if you if you're a young coach and you can go in
• 1:25:06
  the coaches box and remember that you don't know everything
• 1:25:09
  yet, it's a good opportunity to go in and see how does each
• 1:25:13
  coach handle different situations.
• 1:25:14
  Yeah, you know what I mean? It don't worry just about what
• 1:25:17
  the athletes are doing. And I do like to look at every
• 1:25:19
  pole vaulter and say, well, that's what if I was their
• 1:25:21
  coach, this is what I would tell them different.
• 1:25:23
  So but I also like to look at those coaches and see what
• 1:25:25
  they're saying and be like, oh, I thought this well, they I went
• 1:25:29
  up a pole. That's what the problem was.
• 1:25:30
  And I didn't know that. Or just to kind of be able to
• 1:25:32
  get the back story a little bit and sit and listen and see how
• 1:25:35
  they interact or or don't interact with those with those
• 1:25:39
  with their athletes. I think is a really young, good
• 1:25:42
  thing for young coaches to do. My favorite one was always Earl.
• 1:25:45
  Do you know, the athlete would be like, you know, like he'd
• 1:25:47
  make it or miss it and look at Earl and be like, yeah, just do
• 1:25:49
  the same thing. Like he was very like one of the
• 1:25:52
  most understated coaches that I've ever seen in pole vaults.
• 1:25:57
  And guy says 2 words, do it again.
• 1:25:59
  Yeah, I mean, and Derek, you'll hear Derek do the same thing.
• 1:26:01
  Grab another pole, take an inch grip, do it again.
• 1:26:03
  You don't do anything different. Don't change, right, right,
• 1:26:05
  right. You know what I mean?
• 1:26:06
  And then sometimes kids, while the bar is higher, I got to go,
• 1:26:09
  harder. I got to go.
• 1:26:10
  No, you just screwed everything up.
• 1:26:11
  Just do what you did the time before.
• 1:26:13
  So there's probably like hitting a golf ball or something.
• 1:26:15
  Maybe I suck at that so I I would not have any knowledge I
• 1:26:19
  suck at pole vaults equals a golf.
• 1:26:20
  I just don't do either of them anymore.
• 1:26:22
  Just don't mess around with it. OK, that's amazing.
• 1:26:25
  Again, having the Olympics experience.
• 1:26:27
  I mean, it's that's that that puts you in a unique club.
• 1:26:29
  I always tell, you know, we'll have coaches that were
• 1:26:31
  Olympians. I'm like, man, if you made an
• 1:26:33
  Olympic team, you are in a fraternity of, you know, zero.
• 1:26:35
  Who the Hell's an Olympian? No one is.
• 1:26:37
  And then the guys and gals that make multiple, I'm like, well,
• 1:26:39
  you're just a Unicorn. You're a freak.
• 1:26:40
  No one has that right. It's the same in the coaching
• 1:26:42
  coaches who have coached Olympic athlete man, That's that's.
• 1:26:47
  Really, I was very blessed to have to have that experience of
• 1:26:50
  Derek coming into my life and then for us to be able to play
• 1:26:54
  that out because it took a long time to be able to to get to
• 1:26:56
  that spot, to be able to do that.
• 1:26:58
  I'm glad it rode long too, because, you know, the the the
• 1:27:01
  career of a professional track athlete, not just pole vaulter
• 1:27:04
  is typically pretty short. So that Derek had, you know,
• 1:27:07
  longer than normal. And, you know, there's a lot of
• 1:27:09
  things that attribute to that with, you know, health and luck,
• 1:27:12
  you know, not getting injured and things like that.
• 1:27:13
  Those those all play into a lot of those things.
• 1:27:15
  So that's really cool. So what's it like as the
• 1:27:19
  director of University of South Dakota?
• 1:27:20
  Man, what did you, let's start with what did you have to learn
• 1:27:24
  besides the, you know, difference between division two
• 1:27:25
  and Division One? You go from women's head coach
• 1:27:28
  to the director of the whole thing, the whole enchilada.
• 1:27:30
  What did you what skills maybe did you have to learn or pick up
• 1:27:33
  or to become a better overall program head coach?
• 1:27:40
  Lots of them. I mean, I spend, you know, for
• 1:27:42
  young coaches, if you look at the 24 hour day, I maybe spend
• 1:27:46
  an hour coaching. I'd like to spend more time than
• 1:27:48
  that. But I've got piles of paper.
• 1:27:50
  I've got an administration that I've got to please.
• 1:27:53
  I've got facilities, people I got to work with.
• 1:27:56
  You got kids that are having problems.
• 1:27:58
  I mean, if you think about it, we got about 110 athletes on our
• 1:28:01
  team. That's bigger than a football
• 1:28:02
  team. So somebody's always got an
• 1:28:05
  opportunity for us to help them. Recruiting, great way to put
• 1:28:09
  that, by the way, I would put that out.
• 1:28:12
  I heard what you said there. Recruiting is another thing.
• 1:28:17
  I'd say recruiting is one of those areas that we had to kind
• 1:28:20
  of relearn on what we were going to do and how we were going to
• 1:28:23
  do it because we obviously went much broader in that.
• 1:28:26
  In our division two days we had a few Jamaican athletes here,
• 1:28:29
  but now we've literally got kids from all over the world coming
• 1:28:32
  in. So that's been a big changing.
• 1:28:36
  Managing a staff is is a very difficult task.
• 1:28:44
  I call it coaching. The coaches, what do they need
• 1:28:47
  to do? I need to have an involvement.
• 1:28:49
  I may not be able to have a day-to-day involvement with
• 1:28:51
  every kid on my team, but I need to have a day-to-day involvement
• 1:28:53
  with their coach on what's going on, what's working, what can I
• 1:28:57
  do to help you help them. Those types of things,
• 1:29:01
  fundraising has become a very big deal.
• 1:29:05
  We're about to build a brand new indoor track.
• 1:29:09
  So we've got design things that we're talking about and we
• 1:29:13
  flooring companies come to talk and somebody wants to sell me
• 1:29:15
  this and all that stuff. Plus, you know, we're going to
• 1:29:19
  try to raise between that and remodeling the Dome about $65
• 1:29:22
  million here in the next year. So just lots of things that are
• 1:29:26
  going on. So one day you're one day you're
• 1:29:29
  part psychologist, the next day you're on the road with a
• 1:29:31
  fundraiser person to go meet someone and ask for $1,000,000.
• 1:29:34
  And you, you do those things and then you try to squeeze in being
• 1:29:38
  out there with your kids and, and try to not miss, miss their
• 1:29:42
  practices of their training sessions.
• 1:29:43
  Yeah, unless we forget, also be a husband and a dad, maybe
• 1:29:48
  someone who goes to church or has charities or other passions
• 1:29:51
  or yeah, it's, it's really we we like to boil down, especially in
• 1:29:54
  the athletics world, we like to boil down people to just their
• 1:29:56
  that job, the coaching job. And it's like, yeah, that's
• 1:29:58
  still a human. That's still lucky first more
• 1:30:00
  than Coach Huber and you're a son and a maybe a brother.
• 1:30:04
  I mean, there's so many other while you're also fundraising
• 1:30:07
  coaching. So one of the things that you
• 1:30:10
  brought up that I'm, I'm always fascinated with because I don't,
• 1:30:13
  I don't think we do a very good job of this in the athletic
• 1:30:16
  world. You mentioned a staff, right?
• 1:30:17
  We, we forget sometimes when we as young coaches, we want to be
• 1:30:20
  a head coach and all that kind of good stuff.
• 1:30:22
  And we think we know what the job is.
• 1:30:23
  And you never know until you're actually in the seat, which
• 1:30:25
  that's, that's part of the bad job that we do in athletics.
• 1:30:28
  We don't prepare assistant coaches for head coaches very
• 1:30:31
  well overall, but when you become the head coach, you're
• 1:30:35
  right, there's hiring of staff, there's a valuation of staff.
• 1:30:38
  Sometimes that means there's firing of staff and there's no
• 1:30:41
  class. They don't when you got, I
• 1:30:42
  assume because I've yet to hear it from you, where when you got
• 1:30:45
  promoted, they didn't say, hey, and so we're going to put you in
• 1:30:47
  this class so you know how to evaluate your staff and the
• 1:30:51
  proper things that you have to document if you're going to move
• 1:30:53
  towards the other end of it. And here's why you hiring best
• 1:30:56
  practices, maybe not your best friend and things like, well, in
• 1:30:59
  your case best friend, but you know what I'm saying?
• 1:31:01
  Like, you know, and how to feel fulfill your staff that they
• 1:31:04
  don't teach you that. How did how have you you've
• 1:31:06
  evolved and you've had some boy banger coaches.
• 1:31:09
  You know, I was just on the phone with one of your former
• 1:31:11
  guys AG the other day. I mean, you've had some great,
• 1:31:14
  great, like not just coaches that that almost is like table
• 1:31:17
  stakes. You've had great people on your
• 1:31:20
  staff. How have you learned to to to
• 1:31:23
  to, I guess, evaluate how do you have you learned how to to hire
• 1:31:27
  and who not to hire and why not to hire that person?
• 1:31:29
  And and then actually gel them to your staff.
• 1:31:32
  Yeah, so IA lot of that goes back to my time in advising,
• 1:31:35
  because in advising I went from two of us to literally a staff
• 1:31:39
  of there's probably 3035 people that worked for me by the time I
• 1:31:43
  was done, by the time you had all the tutors and learning
• 1:31:46
  specialists and all that other kind of stuff.
• 1:31:48
  And so I, I think it's just something that evolved.
• 1:31:53
  I think you just got to go back to trying to always do the right
• 1:31:55
  thing. You know what I mean?
• 1:31:57
  I think anytime you're in a situation and you can say, OK,
• 1:31:59
  if I make a mistake, but it's because I'm trying to do the
• 1:32:02
  right thing, you're probably going to get through it.
• 1:32:05
  You know what I mean? So that that's the, the way I
• 1:32:08
  try to do that, try to let people help me.
• 1:32:11
  I try to, I try to always feel like I'm not the smartest person
• 1:32:15
  in the room, but I can be if I need to be.
• 1:32:17
  Does that make sense? So that I'm listening and taking
• 1:32:20
  ideas in and, and getting input that way.
• 1:32:22
  So I think the other hard part that people don't realize is
• 1:32:26
  just the budget between trying to balance scholarships.
• 1:32:30
  I mean, we're still, we're doing scholarships the old way.
• 1:32:33
  We're not doing them quite like everybody else's where they're
• 1:32:35
  just giving them a check to the, the travel budget, to the
• 1:32:39
  equipment budget, to your fundraising.
• 1:32:43
  I mean it, I probably have 5 or 6 different accounts that I've
• 1:32:47
  got to keep track of. And you think it just taking,
• 1:32:50
  taking care of your checkbook at home is something you get all
• 1:32:53
  these different accounts and you can't just call the foundation
• 1:32:56
  and say dial up on the computer, your foundation and look and see
• 1:32:59
  what your balance is. So there's a lot of tricks that
• 1:33:01
  way to, to it. But you know, it's all fun.
• 1:33:05
  I think you decide what you want to take on and then as a
• 1:33:08
  director, you decide what you can delegate.
• 1:33:10
  And you have to learn that boundary of, OK, I'm going to
• 1:33:13
  delegate this to you and you're going to go do it, but I'm still
• 1:33:16
  going to be this much involved. You know what I mean?
• 1:33:18
  I, I'm not a, I'm not a very good hands off person, but I
• 1:33:23
  like to have my staff do things and then be there to kind of
• 1:33:26
  help and make sure it gets done partly so it gets done right?
• 1:33:30
  Because what they're doing not only effects me and them, but it
• 1:33:34
  affects my student athletes, right?
• 1:33:36
  So that's kind of my out for why I don't just let people go do
• 1:33:40
  whatever the heck they want to do.
• 1:33:41
  It's yeah, that's fine with you. But you affect my student
• 1:33:45
  athletes and then then that's something different.
• 1:33:48
  So yeah, I was going to ask you about that because that's part
• 1:33:51
  of what I think we don't do. My my experience tells me we
• 1:33:54
  don't do a very good job with our assistant coaches is the
• 1:33:56
  first time they become head coaches.
• 1:33:58
  They're lost. They've never done the
• 1:34:00
  scheduling and budgeting exactly the points you've made.
• 1:34:04
  And I was going to ask you, how good are you at that?
• 1:34:05
  And you, you already beat me to the punch.
• 1:34:07
  I appreciate that openness and authenticity.
• 1:34:09
  Have you gotten better in what? I mean, like, did you start as
• 1:34:13
  like, oh man, I'm going to do it all because it affects and like,
• 1:34:16
  OK, I've got a guy I can trust. I can put a little bit of this
• 1:34:20
  over on him, but still have the oversight.
• 1:34:21
  You're right. You're the head coach.
• 1:34:22
  I I agree with that. I don't know if I've gotten
• 1:34:25
  better or not. I think I change.
• 1:34:28
  My wife reminds me that I'm a guy and I'm a horrible
• 1:34:30
  communicator. So I just, I'm always trying to
• 1:34:33
  communicate. I hate meetings, but got to have
• 1:34:36
  meetings. So you get everybody in the same
• 1:34:38
  room. They're not going to read the
• 1:34:40
  e-mail. Just because you put it in an
• 1:34:42
  e-mail doesn't mean Derek's going to read it.
• 1:34:43
  So you're going to have to have a meeting where you talk about
• 1:34:45
  things. I think part of making it work
• 1:34:49
  is getting them to buy into what you're trying to do, just like
• 1:34:55
  you would your team. Like one of the things that we
• 1:34:58
  do at the end of the year is we do a what did we like and what
• 1:35:02
  should we have done better? The staff as a staff.
• 1:35:05
  Oh yeah, OK. And then everybody gets to, you
• 1:35:08
  get to be a little critical. You know, we went to California
• 1:35:12
  and we maybe didn't take enough kids or we should have won that
• 1:35:16
  conference meet, but we didn't run the right kids on the 4 by 4
• 1:35:18
  or whatever those things are. If you're asking it that way,
• 1:35:22
  you're asking for feedback. And then then they can tell you
• 1:35:25
  what's wrong. And then as a leader, you've got
• 1:35:28
  to be able to say, OK, I'm going to listen to this.
• 1:35:31
  And there's probably some truth to it.
• 1:35:33
  May not all be the truth and it may hurt, but I've got to take
• 1:35:36
  this in. And then how do I process it so
• 1:35:38
  that I can change and help make it make things better?
• 1:35:41
  So listening to your staff is really, really important.
• 1:35:45
  I. Love this.
• 1:35:47
  So right now there are head high school coaches, head college
• 1:35:51
  coaches that are listening and maybe more importantly or as
• 1:35:54
  importantly, there's a lot of assistant coaches that will
• 1:35:57
  become head coaches one day. How do you so I kind of want to
• 1:36:00
  double click into what you just said there.
• 1:36:02
  How do you do that? Meaning when you have that
• 1:36:05
  meeting, is that something you're like, hey, e-mail me your
• 1:36:08
  one thing we wish or is it like, all right, we're going to meet
• 1:36:11
  at 8:00. Bring your one thing I'd do
• 1:36:14
  differently and one thing that we that I like the one thing I
• 1:36:17
  liked, one thing I didn't like, right kind of thing.
• 1:36:19
  Do you do you allow them to have more than one?
• 1:36:22
  Do you? Drink all they want.
• 1:36:23
  Do you just sit there and know? That yeah.
• 1:36:25
  So we schedule. We have two meetings on the
• 1:36:27
  schedule for every week we have. My daughter made me read a book
• 1:36:32
  about death by meetings or something like that.
• 1:36:33
  So I went to two meetings. Our Monday meeting is very
• 1:36:37
  functional. You come in, we talked about the
• 1:36:40
  last track meet, we talked about where we're going next.
• 1:36:42
  We talked about the logistics for the week, the advisors
• 1:36:45
  there, the sports medicine is there, the strength and
• 1:36:48
  conditioning staff is there. Everybody's in the room.
• 1:36:51
  We cover everything we can hopefully in an hour, but then
• 1:36:56
  everybody knows what's going on. So if if your girlfriend breaks
• 1:36:59
  up with you, then the train, the trainer knows that's why you've
• 1:37:02
  been hanging out and the advisor knows that OK, that's why he's
• 1:37:06
  he's not going to class. We better do a great check on
• 1:37:09
  him or whatever. So try to have a really holistic
• 1:37:12
  everything. And then on our Thursdays we
• 1:37:14
  focus more on recruiting. And our Thursdays are either A1
• 1:37:17
  on one meeting where they just come in and meet with me as a
• 1:37:20
  coach and we go through very individual stuff that they're
• 1:37:23
  doing, or we do it as a group and say, OK, these are the kids
• 1:37:27
  that are coming in this week. This is the schedule.
• 1:37:30
  The DO is there to kind of help organize everything.
• 1:37:32
  And this is Johnny. And This is why we want Johnny
• 1:37:35
  and this is what we're going to offer him.
• 1:37:37
  But let's make sure everybody gets to meet him.
• 1:37:39
  And what kid would he be good to have as a host?
• 1:37:42
  And so think that's the key. And then my door is always open.
• 1:37:48
  I try to be the first one at work, so when they come in in
• 1:37:51
  the morning, I really did that in advising.
• 1:37:54
  Every time that I would come to work in the morning, I would
• 1:37:56
  walk by and see every one of my staff people.
• 1:37:58
  Yeah, and ask them what they what, what they need for the
• 1:38:01
  day. Is there anything I missed
• 1:38:02
  yesterday because I was gone in the afternoons, right?
• 1:38:06
  But then they could, then they could always know, they could
• 1:38:08
  connect with me. And if there was a series of
• 1:38:10
  emails that didn't get done, then I knew that I could kind of
• 1:38:13
  pitch in and try to help them or give them some guidance that
• 1:38:15
  way. But I think communication is
• 1:38:17
  really key to to making a staff work.
• 1:38:20
  Yeah, there's actually a a like an actual term for management of
• 1:38:24
  leading by walking around that that's like, so I remember
• 1:38:26
  someone saying that they thought it was just like a joke and I
• 1:38:28
  was like, Oh no, no, that's not actual.
• 1:38:29
  Like they teach that in in business class.
• 1:38:31
  Like that's a real thing of just connecting with someone for 10,
• 1:38:36
  10 seconds to two minutes on a daily ish.
• 1:38:38
  You know a point and you made a great point to you, you you were
• 1:38:42
  you were in a tougher position, meaning you were gone for a
• 1:38:44
  certain amount of time in the in the afternoon because you're a
• 1:38:46
  coaching. So that was time you could have
• 1:38:48
  had some connection and you didn't.
• 1:38:49
  So you had to be real cognizant of that in the in the morning on
• 1:38:53
  that end of year meeting. I want to circle back to that.
• 1:38:56
  How is that AI think that like this is this is fascinating.
• 1:39:00
  I think this is where people can improve their Staffs like this.
• 1:39:03
  I like this idea a lot. Is it a meeting?
• 1:39:06
  Like do you go like hey, we're going to meet at the restaurant
• 1:39:08
  for a couple hours? Is it an in office meeting?
• 1:39:10
  Is it? This doesn't sound like it's an
• 1:39:12
  hour meeting, It sounds like. A little bit it's a longer
• 1:39:14
  meeting, but it but it's our end of the year review and we're
• 1:39:18
  sitting all we always try to have a big table where we can
• 1:39:21
  have our meetings and we just sit and everybody on the staff
• 1:39:25
  kind of shares and you have to listen and you have to get
• 1:39:29
  everybody to talk and you have to understand that if if this
• 1:39:32
  coaches bring up a certain point, you got to get the other
• 1:39:36
  coaches to yeah, that's true. Or yeah, this is the reason that
• 1:39:40
  happened or whatever it is to get everybody to share.
• 1:39:42
  And then I take notes on it so it lays on my desk.
• 1:39:45
  And then as I'm trying to build the OK, next year's schedule, we
• 1:39:49
  want to do this different. Or this is where we want to
• 1:39:52
  change our priorities with our budget.
• 1:39:54
  Or why did we not have enough shoes or how come we went on
• 1:39:57
  this meet so we didn't have enough food, food for the kids,
• 1:40:00
  those types of things. So you can figure out what the
• 1:40:02
  problems were so. You always have to look at what
• 1:40:06
  can you do better and if you're driving that to your staff and
• 1:40:10
  trying to get that feedback, then it's not they're
• 1:40:12
  criticizing what you did, it's what you can do better the next
• 1:40:16
  time. So I think that's really the
• 1:40:17
  important part of those kind of conversations and meetings.
• 1:40:20
  This sounds like a meeting where you are more quiet than normal.
• 1:40:24
  You're asking questions and you're making statements Less is
• 1:40:28
  what I'm kind of getting to just cuz you're they're saying
• 1:40:30
  something. You're like, OK, so why was that
• 1:40:32
  OK? What happened there?
• 1:40:33
  Like you're not like, well, the reason I did, you're not
• 1:40:34
  defending necessarily. You're listening.
• 1:40:36
  You're you're taking in and and I feel like you just said a lot
• 1:40:39
  of notes for you. Like this is just writing down.
• 1:40:41
  Yeah. Yeah, and it and it could be in
• 1:40:43
  topics, it could be you could do that, just have the topic just
• 1:40:46
  be recruiting, you know what I mean?
• 1:40:48
  So there's different things that you can do, but I like to do
• 1:40:50
  that end of the year usually happens after the NCAA
• 1:40:54
  championships. Let's sit down and start
• 1:40:56
  planning. And you know, this is your
• 1:40:58
  input, but what could we have done better?
• 1:40:59
  What what's something you like? So you want to start with
• 1:41:01
  something positive, what you think we did really well this
• 1:41:03
  year? And then what's something you
• 1:41:05
  didn't like? And it could be big picture.
• 1:41:07
  We didn't win a conference title, OK.
• 1:41:09
  That's what do we do differently.
• 1:41:10
  Yeah, yeah. What, what can we do to, Or it
• 1:41:12
  could be something really simple that you feel like, oh, we can
• 1:41:15
  fix that problem here. All we need to do is change some
• 1:41:17
  priorities or order new hammer gloves for the kids earlier or
• 1:41:21
  order the Nike shoes ahead of time so they're there on time.
• 1:41:24
  I mean that. But that's what you have to do
• 1:41:26
  is get that input from your staff, because you can't do it
• 1:41:29
  all by yourself. Yeah, that's a cool.
• 1:41:31
  I love that concept. I I I don't know that I've heard
• 1:41:33
  that. Maybe I've heard it in some
• 1:41:34
  different fashions, but I think that feels like something most
• 1:41:37
  of us could in. Well, first of all, all of us
• 1:41:40
  could do this. This feels like more of like
• 1:41:42
  more of us should do this. I mean, you have a staff for a
• 1:41:44
  reason, right? If you're not going to trust
• 1:41:46
  them to listen to the good and and the not so good, by the way,
• 1:41:49
  then why in the world are they on your staff?
• 1:41:50
  So I love that that shows actually, I'm kind of thinking
• 1:41:53
  this through. That shows how much trust you
• 1:41:55
  have in them. It's like, hey, this isn't a
• 1:41:58
  dictatorship where it's like, just shut up and go coach your
• 1:42:00
  distance runners. Like I want to actually hear
• 1:42:01
  from you. Where did you think we did some
• 1:42:03
  good stuff? Where do you think we should do
• 1:42:04
  some bad stuff? And and then by the way, we'll
• 1:42:05
  talk it out and see if we can correct some of that bad stuff
• 1:42:08
  because no guarantees. I may have a reason for that,
• 1:42:11
  but I'm going to hear you out. And that might be something,
• 1:42:13
  right? And by the way, I'm not the
• 1:42:14
  smartest guy in the room. So if I have you 5 to 6
• 1:42:16
  individuals, I can become better if I'm here actually hearing
• 1:42:19
  from you guys. I love this concept.
• 1:42:21
  Yeah, No, I think it, I mean, if you look at Nolan, our distance
• 1:42:24
  coach was at Illinois for six years.
• 1:42:25
  That's right. So the, the concepts and ideas
• 1:42:28
  that he can bring from having been in Illinois, right are, are
• 1:42:31
  huge. This is how, this is how Turk
• 1:42:33
  dealt with it. You know what I mean?
• 1:42:34
  And it's not telling me I did it right or wrong.
• 1:42:36
  It's just how someone else did it.
• 1:42:38
  And our throw coach was an athlete at Arizona State.
• 1:42:41
  So you've got 2 great throw coaches that were in his life
• 1:42:44
  and they bring different ideas. So it's just, you just want to
• 1:42:47
  have different. I think he goes back to you
• 1:42:49
  can't act like you're the smartest person in the room.
• 1:42:51
  Yeah, you gotta just at some point sit back and listen and
• 1:42:55
  you know, yeah, you got it. You're going to get hit a little
• 1:42:58
  bit, it's going to hurt, and maybe you're going to reflect a
• 1:43:00
  little bit. But then sometimes like, OK, I
• 1:43:02
  know I'm getting defensive, but This is why that happens right
• 1:43:05
  now. Let's go back and let's look at
• 1:43:07
  to make sure that we can fix this problem, because obviously
• 1:43:09
  you wouldn't bring it up if it wasn't a problem.
• 1:43:11
  Yeah, I love that. I think, you know, there's
• 1:43:14
  humility in that and maybe maybe we learn humility as we go
• 1:43:19
  through years, but maybe that helps somebody who's a 25 year
• 1:43:22
  old coach today, they maybe they'd get there when they're
• 1:43:24
  35, but maybe we can help someone today at 25 put some of
• 1:43:28
  this processes in to help because it makes our sport
• 1:43:30
  better, makes our profession. But you know, the profession of
• 1:43:32
  coaching track and field. So I love that.
• 1:43:34
  That's really awesome. It's better for the student
• 1:43:36
  athletes. That's right.
• 1:43:37
  Yeah, that's that's right. Everything.
• 1:43:38
  That's why it's it's funny to me.
• 1:43:40
  Sometimes people say, hey, man, thank you for what?
• 1:43:42
  You know what? Me Mike Cunningham do for
• 1:43:44
  athletes and I'm like I really don't do much for athletes
• 1:43:47
  directly. I was like my my passion is OK
• 1:43:50
  if I can help lucky become a better coach.
• 1:43:52
  Well then I've affected a lot of athletes at that point.
• 1:43:54
  So that's where you know if we can help the profession of
• 1:43:56
  coaching check and field. You're right.
• 1:43:58
  It trickles down to all of our athletes and and pass that right
• 1:44:00
  officials meet venues, etcetera. So yeah, I love that lucky man.
• 1:44:05
  Let's wrap up here as you look at what what year is this for
• 1:44:08
  you at South Dakota? This is amazing 30. 35 years of
• 1:44:13
  working here and next year will be my high school reunion of 40
• 1:44:17
  years, so that's will have been 40 years since I walked on as a
• 1:44:20
  member of the track team here. 40 years at South Dakota and
• 1:44:24
  you've seen so much transition. I mean, it's unbelievable from
• 1:44:27
  the outdoor facility got there. That's amazing.
• 1:44:30
  And you've had a cool indoor facility, very Northern Iowa
• 1:44:34
  ish, right? Like the Domes, I think.
• 1:44:35
  And now you're getting your own as you look towards the future,
• 1:44:38
  man. I mean, you've got 40 years in
• 1:44:40
  Vermilion. That's amazing to me at the
• 1:44:41
  Coyotes. What's got you excited, man?
• 1:44:45
  What's got you just you ready to what wakes you up in the morning
• 1:44:48
  to still coach and be there and be part of that administration
• 1:44:51
  and that athletic department and that track and field team there.
• 1:44:53
  The student athletes, I mean, they are just, you know, like we
• 1:44:56
  were talking about before they're, I really believe in the
• 1:44:59
  these young kids that come in here and I'm just blessed that I
• 1:45:03
  get to have a little time in their life, hopefully to
• 1:45:06
  influence them in the right way, hopefully to help them through a
• 1:45:09
  couple problems so that they don't stumble quite as bad as
• 1:45:14
  maybe other people have that they can move towards that
• 1:45:17
  college degree. I'm really a big believer in how
• 1:45:21
  important a college degree is and an affordable college
• 1:45:25
  degree. So helping them afford it
• 1:45:27
  without going too far in debt. I think it's really important.
• 1:45:31
  You know, I think there's lots of confusion about what the NCAA
• 1:45:34
  is going to be and what it's going to be.
• 1:45:36
  Track and field isn't going to change.
• 1:45:38
  Track and field is going to be line up, shoot the gun, run down
• 1:45:42
  the runway, throw things and it's not going to matter what
• 1:45:46
  happens in the football world and all that other kind of
• 1:45:48
  stuff. So maybe we'll have to compete
• 1:45:50
  against some people in different jerseys, but it's still the
• 1:45:53
  greatest sport ever. And I'm just so honored that I
• 1:45:56
  got to got to be involved with it for a little time here, pass
• 1:46:01
  it on to some kids. I got some of my former athletes
• 1:46:03
  that are coaches now. That's exciting.
• 1:46:06
  But I just think the sport of track and field, I know
• 1:46:08
  everybody kind of wants to hate on it.
• 1:46:10
  And I just think it's a great sport and I think it's great for
• 1:46:13
  a lot of reasons. And we just need to figure out
• 1:46:15
  how to get more people to understand that and give more
• 1:46:17
  people positive experiences when they are involved with it and
• 1:46:21
  whatever level that is. I absolutely love your attitude,
• 1:46:24
  man. It's so easy for us to be
• 1:46:26
  Chicken Little and the sky is falling.
• 1:46:28
  The world of track and field is going to die.
• 1:46:31
  And, and you know, I caught myself 1516 years ago, You know,
• 1:46:35
  this whole power for breaking off all this stuff.
• 1:46:37
  This is not new news. We've had this from earlier even
• 1:46:40
  then. And I remember talking to my
• 1:46:41
  boss and I was like, oh man, like this whole, you know what
• 1:46:44
  we, what we call back then Power 5, BCS whatever.
• 1:46:47
  I was like, man, you know, that could affect us.
• 1:46:48
  And I remember my boss who's not a track guy, he's not a track
• 1:46:51
  background guy. He's a business guy.
• 1:46:52
  He goes, hey, how many programs are in Division 1?
• 1:46:55
  And I was like, I don't know, it's like 200 or something,
• 1:46:57
  whatever it is. And he's like, how many programs
• 1:46:59
  are in Division Three? I was like, Oh yeah, it's like
• 1:47:00
  300. You know, he's like they don't
• 1:47:02
  give out any scholarships. He's like the sport of track and
• 1:47:04
  field is fundamental. It's the original sport.
• 1:47:07
  But you know, maybe wrestling, but it's fundamental.
• 1:47:10
  So it may look different. You're exactly right.
• 1:47:13
  But track and field and it's it's healthier than it's ever
• 1:47:15
  been on the high school participation level on the
• 1:47:17
  collegiate. I mean, you guys and gals from
• 1:47:19
  all levels are doing a great job of convincing kids to do a very
• 1:47:22
  tough sport. By the way, this ain't
• 1:47:23
  tiddlywinks here. You're convincing these 14 to 22
• 1:47:26
  year old kids to come and do this tough sport.
• 1:47:28
  And it's growing. And so it might look different.
• 1:47:30
  It probably will look different. By the way, it looks different
• 1:47:33
  today than it did 20 years ago and 20 years past that and
• 1:47:35
  etcetera. Healthy things grow.
• 1:47:37
  We're always going to have change.
• 1:47:38
  So I love your attitude of like, you know, we're in a good sport,
• 1:47:41
  we're in a good profession. It may look different, but we're
• 1:47:44
  going to be OK. Well, I really enjoyed this
• 1:47:47
  today, Mike. I hope we didn't put everybody
• 1:47:48
  to sleep before we got to the. End of it.
• 1:47:50
  No, man. I'll tell you what.
• 1:47:51
  This has been fascinating. I love your journey.
• 1:47:53
  I love the mentors that have poured into you.
• 1:47:56
  The Georges the. Dan, Dan, I can't believe Dan.
• 1:48:01
  Dan said a lot. He Dan, probably doesn't know
• 1:48:03
  who I am, and he's mentored me a lot.
• 1:48:05
  Yeah, another guy been on the Guild podcast.
• 1:48:07
  Yeah. And then of course, Beth Alford
• 1:48:09
  Sullivan, just another just again, the I just when you talk
• 1:48:12
  about those people and, you know, think about you too is
• 1:48:13
  lucky. It's just like servant
• 1:48:14
  leadership. That's that's what it is, man.
• 1:48:16
  I'm just so proud you guys chose to be track coaches and not
• 1:48:20
  kindergarten teachers. Lucky man.
• 1:48:23
  Thank you so much. The most valuable thing you can
• 1:48:25
  give me is your time. And you know, I asked for a lot
• 1:48:27
  of time for this. So thank you so much for being
• 1:48:28
  here with us today on the Guild Podcast.
• 1:48:30
  Perfect. Thanks, Mike.
• 1:48:31
  I really enjoyed it. Awesome guys.
• 1:48:33
  Thank you for being here. I told you this would be a fun
• 1:48:35
  one. You know, this guy's done it
• 1:48:37
  all. And I love the example of being
• 1:48:39
  at 1 university for decades. I think there's some lessons
• 1:48:41
  there in growth there. And I really like his attitude
• 1:48:45
  about how was a whole different job when they went to Division
• 1:48:47
  One. I think we we hear a lot of
• 1:48:48
  those examples. That's pretty cool.
• 1:48:50
  So thanks again for being here. Hope this was valuable for you.
• 1:48:53
  Join us next week, we'll do it all over again.
• 1:48:54
  Thanks guys. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:49:02
  coach, the ones that point people most every season needs a
• 1:49:06
  voice of reason speaking the growth you got to prep before
• 1:49:08
  you carry the load. Ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:49:11
  For those of us stay on the go. Pop a hand off to stay in the
• 1:49:14
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:49:16
  There's more than one way to go. Take notes S pay on your toe.
• 1:49:19
  It ain't practice. If you hurt the Saint Clair, it
• 1:49:21
  can't happen until you listen with both is can't mentor
• 1:49:25
  without a mentor of years of experience.
• 1:49:27
  You can reinvent those years every plan's got to stand and
• 1:49:30
  deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
• 1:49:33
  It's a choice and the fight not a win or lose.
• 1:49:36
  It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
• 1:49:38
  It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
• 1:49:41
  you know who you are inside 6,000,000 waste of time choose
• 1:49:45
  none so y'all cross the finish line.
• 1:49:47
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts, but y'all got
• 1:49:50
  to put in the leg work you'll athlete.