Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #205: Dave Smith-Oklahoma State University

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#205: Dave Smith-Oklahoma State University · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field coach, the ones that point
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  people most every season. He's the voice of reason.
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  Speaking, the growth gotta prep for you carry the load.
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  Talk to the stove. For those of us, stay on the go
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  Alright, welcome back here, we are on the Gillis latex track
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  join us here today. Episode man.
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  to guess. Number one have been on the
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  podcast and I'm super excited about one of these.
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  He's amazing guest today, help me welcome head, coach of track
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  and field and cross country at Oklahoma State, the cowboys and
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  cowgirls, help me welcome the wise.
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  The wonderful mr. Dave Smith Dave, how are you sir
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  doing? Well, thanks, how's life in?
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  I'm going to get this wrong. Still water.
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  Got that right? Yeah, tough one, that's great.
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  The outdoor season and some good early season performances and I
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  think turned around into shape, right the right time.
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  Awesome. I love it.
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  Yeah, I can't. I'm always amazed, I'm amazed
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  the track coaches in general because you know what you do
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  from call it Labor Day. All the way through maybe June
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  that's Quite a feat distance coaches you know especially a
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  former Nan. Distance coaching coach.
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  It really does amaze me what you guys do.
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  So super excited to talk about some of the things that you do
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  at Oklahoma State and really how you got there and to the
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  position you're at today. So why don't we why don't we
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  start when we jump in our way back machine here?
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  Dave somewhere assuming that you were an athlete somewhere
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  coaching changed in your mind from something that was done to
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  you. Dave go run this, go lift that
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  jump here at cetera to an idea of like oh wait a minute.
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  This actually this might be Mike Career, where does coaching
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  begin for you as a career? I thought it was an evolution
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  kind of a slow process. My dad was a high school coach.
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  Always young coach to a lot of different sports kind of just an
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  all around, you know, different sport every year.
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  If you go to the Golf and Tennis football track, ask about the
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  Keiko, some of everything. And so I was always around he
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  was he was a high school teacher.
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  So I was always around my dad, interacting with Kids in the
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  Summers, we would go on backpacking trips up in the
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  state of Washington Olympic National Forest and National
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  Park. And my dad take high school kids
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  with him. So it's kind of always around
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  that and that kind of mentoring environment and just very
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  comfortable in it. And then I ran at Michigan
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  State. And what I was finishing up my
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  time at Michigan State. I just really loved being in the
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  college environment. I love college campus, I love
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  the university lifestyle. I liked everything that went
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  around the university with the kind of the, the information,
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  the the academic environment Athletics at Michigan State.
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  They had a great Performing Arts Center, we're traveling Broadway
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  shows would come through and as a student, if you want the day
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  off, you could buy the leftover tickets for $5.
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  So I saw a lot of great musicals and plays that way.
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  So I just love the whole university environment and so
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  when I finished my undergrad, I didn't know what to do with my
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  life and really want to be in the college campus, so I decide
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  to go to Doctorate and I didn't know what I wanted my degree in
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  didn't have a set plan, so it's kind of applied to a random
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  program. Sorry at the University of
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  Washington and didn't get into the program.
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  I applied to but got contacted by another part of the
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  University asking me to apply to their program and got into that
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  well as pharmacology and neurobiology and I can do
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  something to sound interesting. We've got no experience in this.
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  I have no idea what I'm doing in the lab, but I'm gonna go try.
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  I it and so I thought they'll keep me on a University campus
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  and maybe give me a route to be a professor and working with
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  young people and I popped out. So I wanted to do, but about
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  Midway through, I realized that it wasn't the university.
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  I love so much it was the athletic department and And my
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  last year of my PhD, there was a coaching change the University
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  of Washington in or enrich Berg became the director of both
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  men's women's programs. And I wrote him a long letter
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  kind of describing what I thought could be better at the
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  University of Washington in terms of track and field and
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  cross country. And my dad played football at
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  Washington. I always wanted to go to
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  Washington, it just the recruiting situation when I was
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  a high school kid just didn't work out.
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  And anyway, I thought I knew a lot.
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  Roaring this long letter, he called me and you know I'd never
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  spoken to him before but it turns out that when I was a high
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  school kid he had called Jim bibs and Michigan State and
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  said, hey you didn't recruit this kid from Washington because
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  our men's teams not recruiting him.
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  He can be pretty good. So he kind of guided my journey
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  to Michigan State without me knowing it.
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  And then I wrote in his letter, he called me said, hey, it
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  sounds like you want to be the coach here and I didn't but he
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  said very hard a guy. I want you to be hurt.
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  Volunteer and so we'd hired Greg Metcalfe and so Greg Metcalfe
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  was just starting and Warren said he's going to be here a
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  couple weeks. I want you to come down and meet
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  in the first day. So Greg and I had kind of
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  crossed paths in high school. We were both in the state of
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  Washington. Same age same same events but
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  but Greg was a one, a kid. And I was a to a kids.
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  We didn't really compete against each other but when I met Greg
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  it was instantaneous friendship. And we've been best buddies ever
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  since in fact, you called me as I'm a headphones, I was talking
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  to Greg on the phone who he's on the track right now at a Texas.
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  It'll work out with his athletes.
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  I just came off the track with my athletes.
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  This weird kind of compare notes.
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  Well, let's let's unpack this first of all, did you get your
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  doctorate? Yeah.
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  Yeah, I'm sorry. We don't have the wise, the
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  wonderful coach Smith here. We have dr.
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  Smith. Sorry about that eye doctor,
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  Dave Smith. Yeah, absolutely Doctor, Dave.
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  That's what? Yeah, it's all you.
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  You got to start your own podcast, dr.
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  Dave, on track and Uh, yeah, perfect that I love that.
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  Okay, let's unpack some of this. This is amazing.
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  Okay, I was wondering if you were from Washington, as you
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  mentioned going pack in there. So you went Washington.
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  When you were in high school, go back to high school.
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  Did your dad coach you in high school for track and field?
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  No, no, my dad never coached me, I think it was kind of a
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  conscious decision and as part, I think you want to be my dad,
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  not my coach. And I have three children my own
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  now and I kind of feel the same way.
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  I think, sometimes it's really hard.
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  Especially for daughters were coached by their dads.
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  I think that kind of creates a challenging Dynamic at times.
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  Yeah. And I don't know how I would
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  navigate it actively, so I just already decided, I'm never going
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  to coach my kids, I'm just gonna be their dad and they have their
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  own coaches, and that will be a separate relationship from mind.
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  If they even go into track and field, I don't know what they're
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  going to do or you're 75 and to so we got some time but yeah,
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  whatever they do, I don't want to coach them.
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  I just want to kind of be around and be supportive my my Son is
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  6th grade. He's just starting track.
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  And I didn't for you know, a little kind of like maybe you
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  don't, maybe do basketball, you know, everything you said, the
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  the bench at a D1 still full ride.
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  So you know, maybe we go basketball.
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  Yeah, but he's doing track and yeah, so I don't go to
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  practices, I go to the meats and I help out, and I try very hard,
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  not to be that dad, even though, you know, that Dad has some
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  credentials. Yeah, but I'm always like it
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  just listen to coach. He's fine.
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  I'll help you. If they're not, you know, they
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  got a ton of kids out here so I help, you know, a little bit on
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  the side when the coaches. Around.
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  But yeah, it's it is so hard for me one.
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  It's a hard because like you know what my son to do well in
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  the sport that I love and the other part is it so hard.
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  It's like, oh, I know we won't get along very well.
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  You know, maybe Dad don't be coach.
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  I respect that a lot. When how did you get into
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  assuming? You were distance Runner.
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  What Drew you to distance running versus sprinting or
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  jumping or maybe even throw in Washington?
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  You have the javelin. Maybe you could have been a
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  javelin thrower. Yeah, it's what I know.
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  And what I love, what I understand what I'm passionate
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  about and you know, what I discovered in grad school, was
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  that I think I'm I was, I was one night, I was at a bar with
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  one of my lab Lab mates and we had a break in our experiment
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  was probably about midnight, we had to get some foods, we ran up
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  to the, to the have to get some food and we're sitting there
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  talking and he's talking to me about his experiments about the
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  projects, he's working on papers.
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  These red things, he's about to right?
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  He's all animated excited and really you know, into what he's
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  doing. And I remember thinking in my
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  head thinking you know, I'm smarter than this guy because
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  I'm Other than everybody but I will never be as good at this as
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  he is because he's passionate about passion and I'm doing this
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  because I want people to know, I'm smart, I want to make money.
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  I want to walk in with a white lab coat and everybody say oh
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  there's the there's the neuroscientist but I wasn't
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  passionate about it and I realized that doing things for
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  those reasons. You follow the leech, Ace, those
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  types of things as goals or those objectives and you leave
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  your passion behind in your passion doesn't come after you
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  and I did that one year my last year started volunteering with
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  Greg and Oren University of Washington and I still didn't
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  want to do it, but I didn't want to coach that had to endure.
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  My idea about was a profession, but I knew that I didn't want to
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  be in the lab that does not just was never going to be great
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  because I don't think you can be great unless you have passion.
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  And so at the end of that first year, or in Richburg called me
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  from Buffalo, New York, is that the national championships?
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  He said, hey, I got a guy here. A buddy of mine is looking for a
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  distance. Coach, you'd be perfect for it
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  and you need to talk to him. Rig show Lars, he's a Texas
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  Tech. He's a distance coach and I just
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  I wasn't really into that. I did, I never heard of Texas
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  Tech. I'd never been to Texas.
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  I didn't want to leave the state of Washington and so I was just
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  I didn't want to do it but he got me on the phone with great
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  with great show Lars and Greg is the best recruiter on the face
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  of the planet. The guy is absolutely amazing
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  and he convinced me to come at least he's just come down and
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  come on. Deal.
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  And so I flew in to Lubbock Texas, Lumber Texas.
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  It was an August is probably 115 degrees that day.
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  I went for a run and nearly died and Lose Yourself vulture
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  circling at dr. J's?
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  Yeah, this is it. I feel it.
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  And anyway, Greg convinced me to take the job for one year and
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  now you're changed my life. I think I was there for maybe a
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  week and I realized this is it. This is my passion and I'm never
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  gonna make the money I want. I'm never To have the respect.
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  I thought I wanted. I'm never gonna have the
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  notoriety that I thought I might get as neuroscientist.
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  In the meantime. My advisers from Universal
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  washing or telling me, Oh, you could be a Nobel Prize.
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  Winner, you get all the things you would say.
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  As we say to track kids, you can be an Olympian.
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  Well to a scientist, you can be a Nobel winner, which is
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  probably be asked, but you say it right now, I can't think.
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  Yeah. But you know, I Nobel Prize
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  doesn't excite me at all. I don't it doesn't, who cares,
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  you know? And so I realized that I'm going
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  to give up all these things I want, but I'm not how my
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  passion. Pause there.
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  We got some more to unbuckle before we get there because that
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  to me what you're describing at. You said within the week, you're
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  like it was that aha moment of like, oh yeah, this is what I
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  was actually put here. Yeah, I love the Explorer.
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  So let's put a pin in that real quick.
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  I am always interested. You said you went to Michigan
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  State. First of all?
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  Did you run for Walt? No, Jim Stanzi, Walston.
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  See, ya. Was that right, okay.
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  All right. Yeah, I love Walt.
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  I love Stanzi to, but that's what was first person.
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  I'll behead, you know, not a lot of people even though People
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  that eventually become track coaches and maybe move around to
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  a lot of places have a hard time.
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  Many people have a hard time leaving home, right?
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  Washington. You obviously love that.
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  You went backpacking and all these kind of things.
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  Your dad's a coach there. What made you go all the way to
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  Michigan? That's a different.
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  That's a Midwest. That's not the West Coast.
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  That's a whole different life. What did you go?
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  Why did you choose Michigan State?
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  And what did you think? Your career is going to be?
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  When we go into college, we kind of think we're going to be
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  something and maybe it was that I don't know if you had Press at
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  this point that you're going to be in the lab and be a Nobel
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  winner. But what were you thinking?
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  Why Michigan State Well, Michigan State, my official
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  visits were Army Michigan State Auburn, and Mankato State like
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  my trolling Cal? Yeah, I try to get some of
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  everything you did very good. Yes, but the closest visit to
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  home was Mankato State and that was 2,000 miles away, right?
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  And so, part of me wanted to be different from all my
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  classmates, everybody was going to Washington or Washington
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  State. And I want to be different.
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  Washington did not recruit me how they recruited me.
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  A might have been different, but they didn't Washington State
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  recruited me. I think they called me, maybe
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  the week before my state. Me my senior year, you know,
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  John Chow. But he's.
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  All right. Are you gonna be a cougar or
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  what if you don't know, touch with that was perfect.
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  Yeah, yeah and Jon my mom was, was personal friends with, with
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  mrs. Chaplin.
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  John's wife, my mom worked in the state.
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  Education superintendent Public Instruction, she worked for them
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  and John's wife was somehow involved in education, in
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  Pullman and Eastern Washington. So my mom interact with her a
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  lot and I became close friends. So there was a personal
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  connection there a little bit. But anyway, you know, by that
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  point, I kind of already taken my visits.
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  And I canceled my last visit, I think was to Colorado, and I
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  just decided, you know, I was tired of visiting.
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  I just didn't want to take any more trips and I'll figure it
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  out between these four schools and so part of it was, you know,
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  I think I wanted to be different go see, something new and kind
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  of set off on my own and kind of figured it was like to be, you
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  know, on my own two feet. And so I want to get away and
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  try some different and that's Michigan State.
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  The reason emissions data of all those schools was really, Jim
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  Stanzi. Hmm.
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  I felt like in the recruiting process, he was the one coach
• 15:39
  who was completely honest. I think the first thing he said
• 15:42
  to me is hey we're not any good. And we do have a good program.
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  We got a long way to go, it's going to take awhile.
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  I like to promise you big 12 Championship since uh a just
• 15:52
  best. Probably not reality but it's
• 15:54
  gonna be a process that you're gonna be a part of it.
• 15:55
  You come here, we're going to start that way.
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  And during that recruiting process, I felt like it was only
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  one that wasn't trying to sell me thing.
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  And again, tell me you're gonna be Olympian, you're going to win
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  that he wasn't telling me that he said, likely, you're not
• 16:07
  because you're pretty good. We don't know where life is
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  going to go and he was just very honest and I just appreciate
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  that. He was not an aggressive.
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  Her. In fact, I don't think I talked
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  to him more than maybe a handful of times on the phone.
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  I'm, he did not come and make a home.
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  Visit everybody else did and so I don't know if it's just kind
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  of that. I don't know something about his
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  personality. Drew me to him.
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  Yeah. I just felt like he was a guy
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  that was going to stick with me, no matter what.
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  And I tell people this now, for a lot of reasons probably it
• 16:41
  wasn't the perfect choice for me.
• 16:44
  For working with Jim Stanzi. It was I picked the right human
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  being because I had I don't have an injury that kept me out of
• 16:52
  most a big chunk of my senior year.
• 16:54
  And then my first year and a half at Michigan State, and the
• 16:57
  injury I had is now called a sports hernia, but back then
• 16:59
  there was no such thing and no one knew and it was eventually,
• 17:03
  doctors told me it's either in your head right through the
• 17:05
  pain. Right.
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  Logical or I got two year and a half.
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  I've been told me it's okay. If my head I'm just go ahead and
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  run so I found a way to get through it.
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  I struggled for a year and a half two years, not to be only
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  trade at all, get a bunch of weight.
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  I got depressed in which the weight room and just really
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  bulked up, because I wanted to exercise those in the weight
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  room, and I think it went from about 150 pounds to 175 pounds.
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  So, as a distance, yeah, that was a big move.
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  I can't picture that Dave, I'm sorry.
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  How was I was benching, a lot of weight because I, you know, I
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  found my house, if I can't run me off some packs and but
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  Justin's eat never made me feel already.
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  About it. Now, if I feel guilty, I was in
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  a big scholarship and in Michigan State, the way they
• 17:48
  calculate. There's that, you know, they get
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  a scholarship poule Au pot of money, it's equal to twelve
• 17:53
  point six in in state scholarships.
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  But I was now stating, I think I say took, I took a lot more than
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  one point, the one in state scholarships, right.
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  I was costing them a ton and Jim never, let me feel ostracized.
• 18:06
  You never made me feel guilty. He never pressured me to leave.
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  Or to go on medical exemption. He stuck by me the entire Fire
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  time. And yeah, I probably never
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  thanked him for that, the way I should, but it's shaped the way
• 18:21
  I coach. The way I approach people now,
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  because, I remember the way it felt to feel guilty to feel like
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  you weren't part of the team, you were letting people down and
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  to have a guy who stood by me and just never keep on top of
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  that. And so for the most important
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  reason I chose the right place, we almost titled the podcast.
• 18:39
  The guilt that extracting field, shout out podcast.
• 18:41
  So shout out to Jim stingy honestly.
• 18:43
  Yeah and So, you know, now after 200, I get to do this, I get to
• 18:46
  challenge Our Guest, you mentioned that you maybe have
• 18:49
  not told Jim that story, your feelings and I'm gonna challenge
• 18:53
  you when we get done today. Sometime this week.
• 18:56
  I want you to reach out to Jim and just be like, hey, man, so
• 18:59
  this is what I talk about. The part of the podcast.
• 19:00
  We get to talk about people that have been through our lives that
• 19:03
  maybe we haven't thought about lately.
• 19:05
  I'm gonna challenge you to reach out to him this week, even if
• 19:07
  it's through an email I'm just like, hey, Jim man, thank you,
• 19:10
  gosh. I'm not where I am today without
• 19:12
  your authenticity and huh? Bonus back then.
• 19:15
  So thanks for not giving up on me.
• 19:16
  We all need coaches. Like that, that don't give up on
• 19:18
  us, and sounds like Jim was. You're right, the perfect coach
• 19:21
  for you at that time. That's awesome.
• 19:23
  I love hearing you. And you ever hugged a porcupine
• 19:31
  being from Alabama. You might be surprising though.
• 19:34
  I have not being warm and fuzzy with gemstones is like trying to
• 19:37
  hug a porcupine. Yeah, that's okay.
• 19:41
  We can reverse get, we can virtually hug.
• 19:46
  But, you know, like I said, Jim my life and my way I do things
• 19:54
  and, you know, to me, he was the best coach in America just the
• 19:59
  way he treats people. The way he is as a human being.
• 20:01
  I love it and I love how I don't know if you noticed this little
• 20:04
  faux pas that you put into that story there I love how
• 20:07
  singularly focused you are on Big 12 championships and
• 20:10
  incidentally championships. You talked about when Jim was
• 20:13
  recruiting you he didn't probably said something like he
• 20:15
  didn't promise me. Big 12 Championship etcetera.
• 20:17
  Well I was like sorry I hope he didn't because you're gonna give
• 20:22
  that to you no matter what but just so it's just interesting me
• 20:24
  when you said that I was like oh I know your mind is always at
• 20:26
  you, it's about 12. I love it, I love it.
• 20:29
  Hey real kind. A quick question to put in here
• 20:31
  and then we'll get on Google. Keep going to story.
• 20:33
  It just remind me when you're talking about visit something
• 20:35
  that's come up here. Recently is no more cap on five
• 20:40
  official visits. You know, my my old day that's
• 20:42
  not coaching and 05. It was 55 visits, you know?
• 20:44
  You're you're when you're recruiting, you were hardcore to
• 20:47
  get one of those five visits. What do you think about that?
• 20:49
  I'm just curious for someone who's in that position where
• 20:52
  that's going to affect you and your staffs recruiting.
• 20:55
  What do you think about this? No more cap on official visits.
• 20:58
  I'll be going to fix this at all.
• 21:00
  I think it was your exact Island.
• 21:02
  Are you talking about on you at Oklahoma State or us as a
• 21:05
  coaching body honestly? Miracle per se?
• 21:08
  But I submit was coaching body as well at least.
• 21:12
  Well in the I thinks we coach. It's rare that I have someone
• 21:14
  take five visits rare, really rare.
• 21:18
  I'm usually, two three, maybe four as a lot.
• 21:22
  Like my experience, I took four and right before that I was just
• 21:26
  like okay, another academic building another study hall,
• 21:29
  another Other track, you know? Honestly this is exhausting.
• 21:33
  Hmm, like yes like that and so I don't know.
• 21:38
  It's going to affect us. If someone has taken five visits
• 21:42
  and they call me and say, hey I'm going to looking for, I want
• 21:44
  to come, I'm not showing be interested in that.
• 21:47
  I think, you know, you got to give me a one in six chance and
• 21:50
  maybe it's better than 16. You've already ruled out five,
• 21:53
  but probably not. You haven't found it.
• 21:55
  Vibe, you're probably to come, you're safe and think I still
• 21:56
  haven't found it. So it's not gonna go that way.
• 22:00
  I'm talking about kids today, one of eight business I'm
• 22:02
  taking, I'm probably say, yeah. Well, you get us narrow down to
• 22:05
  the three or four and I'll bring you, but I'm not, you know, I
• 22:07
  don't want to waste your time or my time or you know, our time,
• 22:10
  you know, it's money but our time is incredibly valuable and
• 22:13
  there's just not enough of it. And this weekend I'm staying
• 22:16
  home from a track meet because I'm hosting a kid on a visit.
• 22:18
  It was a junior and you know, the were speeding things up now
• 22:21
  and kids are trying to decide earlier.
• 22:23
  So you know, the recruit, I'm hosting is a really good
• 22:26
  athlete. So I'm going to, I'm going to do
• 22:28
  it, but you can't do that very often.
• 22:30
  And like, you mentioned earlier, spending time with your family
• 22:33
  and kind of having time to do things.
• 22:35
  Personally, you know, I don't want to have 50 kids, 50 visits,
• 22:39
  you know? So I don't think it's gonna
• 22:41
  affect us much at all. It's like affect me.
• 22:43
  Yeah, good, I like that. Yeah, we hear about these, you
• 22:46
  know, it kind of goes both ways here.
• 22:48
  We hear about these kids who are, you know, on social media
• 22:51
  talking about their 27th and 28th 29th offer.
• 22:53
  And I hear coating, here's, you know, I push back the no longer
• 22:56
  being a coach, I get to put, you know, sit on the outside in the
• 22:58
  kind of see the whole Spectrum. And there's certainly coaches,
• 23:01
  who complain or, you know, I don't want a kid who's on his
• 23:03
  28th offer below blah, this kind of stuff.
• 23:06
  And I asked back, we'll who offered the 28th in the 29th and
• 23:09
  coaches. We we are the ones who offered
• 23:12
  them. So, I mean, you know, some kids
• 23:13
  on his ninth visit and someone's going to complain about, you
• 23:16
  know, no longer five. It's like, well, people are you
• 23:19
  coaches. The ones who are offering the
• 23:21
  9th and 10th and God knows we, you know, we're going to hear
• 23:23
  someone on their 20th, visit by the way, it's just it's going to
• 23:26
  happen. Someone's gonna have to do
• 23:27
  something. Okay?
• 23:29
  One more topic. Before we get to Texas Tech
• 23:31
  here, I am curious about this letter to Oran.
• 23:36
  Richburg. I cannot omit first walk in.
• 23:39
  Imagine Oren reading it. I'm shocked.
• 23:41
  When you said he read it and reached out to how did like
• 23:44
  that, you know, could it be? I ripped it up.
• 23:46
  What was in your mind that you're emailing or, and maybe
• 23:49
  you didn't even know who Oren was, you certainly know Warren.
• 23:52
  Now, great guy has his opinions, of course, but you wrote him a
• 23:56
  letter of how Washington could be better.
• 24:00
  You already in the guy who's responsible for it, basically
• 24:02
  town. Yeah here's how I would have
• 24:05
  done the job sir. Yeah um it wasn't it was just
• 24:11
  generally I looked at the state of Washington and the the
• 24:17
  athletes that came out of that state and went to other places
• 24:19
  and the things they did in other places and it always drove me
• 24:23
  nuts that you couldn't. And honestly any credit and
• 24:26
  apology doing this right now, you couldn't stand up 30 to 50
• 24:29
  mile, radius of that campus, and have a really good team.
• 24:33
  And you don't have to go looking all over the world and you have
• 24:35
  some of the best young distance runners in the world right there
• 24:39
  within, you know, like I said, 50 100 100 mile radius of your
• 24:43
  campus. And you know, I just I just felt
• 24:46
  like Washington for me because I had this emotional connection to
• 24:52
  its, my dad played football there.
• 24:53
  I went to every single football game or as a kid we went every
• 24:56
  single weekend, drive up to Seattle.
• 24:57
  We lived, you know, an hour away we drive up every single
• 25:00
  Saturday at a home game. So, you know, I kind of wanted
• 25:03
  it to be great and they just, I just wrote things, you know,
• 25:07
  kind of from the heart about, you know, kind of frustrations
• 25:10
  is. I wasn't Alum but I wrote like a
• 25:12
  long I guess I am not alone. Finishing my PhD, right?
• 25:15
  And as a, one of the reasons I 0 I went to grad school, I only
• 25:19
  apply to Washington. Because number one, I'm back
• 25:22
  around my family never to, I'm going to go to Washington
• 25:24
  football games again. And, you know, back then gone.
• 25:27
  James was still the coach and I wanted to, they were rolling and
• 25:29
  so, so. And so I was there, I went to
• 25:33
  every basketball game or a football game.
• 25:35
  I went to baseball games as a student athlete is a student,
• 25:38
  was nothing more. I was around the athletic
• 25:40
  department and the thing that frustrated me is that the track
• 25:43
  program. I am was struggling with the
• 25:45
  cross-country team was not, you know, it wasn't any one coach.
• 25:49
  It wasn't any one, any one set of people because it had been
• 25:53
  over time, you know, from for several years many years that I
• 25:57
  kind of was frustrated. So, yeah, it was probably a
• 26:01
  pretty arrogant to write is probably pretty high, you know,
• 26:04
  but I wasn't in athletics. I didn't care if you're right.
• 26:07
  What was gonna happen is gonna happen.
• 26:09
  I wasn't here from Any connections, you know, with the
• 26:16
  these Marvel movies are exploring the Multiverse, right?
• 26:18
  So let's say, you go on to become a doctor and your
• 26:21
  professor at Washington, you win the Nobel or in a still grabbing
• 26:25
  you that Professor. He had the audacity to write me
• 26:28
  a letter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:31
  And I just you know, I also I did not understand like I do now
• 26:38
  the limitations that every place has I saw Washington has this
• 26:42
  you know, shining Mecca on. He'll when you get into the
• 26:45
  weeds of it, you realize it man. Washington like Oklahoma State,
• 26:49
  like University X. All has their own advantages and
• 26:54
  disadvantages that to deal with. And you don't understand that
• 26:56
  when you're looking at it from the outside and like now I drive
• 27:00
  it. I was Nor local radio station
• 27:02
  every day and morning it's just talks about Community.
• 27:04
  What's going on in the afternoon becomes Sports Talk.
• 27:06
  I listen to every day. People call in with advice for
• 27:09
  Mike Gundy our football coach Wright, and every guy who calls
• 27:12
  in knows better, what? Do with our football program.
• 27:15
  Then Mike Gundy does or basketball team with with Mike
• 27:18
  Boynton or whatever. You know, there's there's
• 27:21
  everybody has an idea, they know better what to do.
• 27:24
  Well turns out, you know, when you listen to it, now you think
• 27:27
  these people have no idea how the world works are, you know?
• 27:30
  And so the letter I wrote I I don't even remember what I said,
• 27:34
  but I'm sure if I was to read it.
• 27:35
  Now I'd be embarrassed. It would be a real.
• 27:38
  It's run.com post is what that letter would probably.
• 27:41
  Yeah. Yeah we just had this
• 27:43
  discussion. Russian.
• 27:44
  I can't remember if it was Clifford, Jason just here in the
• 27:46
  last few episodes here. The podcast we talked about,
• 27:49
  there's one thread on. Let's run that I read
• 27:52
  religiously, it's the coaches, you know where people are going,
• 27:55
  what jobs are open everything and it really, just it the
• 28:00
  audacity of some people to say, oh, if I was at that school,
• 28:04
  we'd be the national champ that's like, oh, you have no
• 28:06
  idea how much scholarship money they have recruiting
• 28:10
  limitations. Whether it's, you know, what
• 28:13
  states get in. In State versus out-of-state,
• 28:15
  things like that. Budgets, what or people?
• 28:18
  Look at these great programs that go.
• 28:19
  If I was, there are women, you don't know that the pressure and
• 28:23
  the expectation, and the personalities and the people who
• 28:27
  think they have a say in your program, your understand what
• 28:31
  that does what you're trying to do.
• 28:33
  You know? And yeah, you know, I stayed
• 28:35
  open mistake now for 21 years and there have been other
• 28:37
  opportunities and people as a, why did you take those?
• 28:39
  I said because I know what I got here and people aren't looking
• 28:43
  My shoulder, they're not micromanaging.
• 28:45
  Me, they're not second-guessing everything.
• 28:47
  I do, I get to be, you know, kind of complete control of what
• 28:51
  we're doing. And yes, we have some
• 28:54
  disadvantages, but there's a huge advantage and maybe School,
• 28:58
  whatever it's got, you know, all this money in this resource and
• 29:02
  his name brand In His Image. You think all go there?
• 29:05
  Oh, now I don't do recruit, things are going to happen
• 29:07
  naturally, and that's not the way it is, and the grass is not
• 29:09
  always greener. And with that, you know, that
• 29:13
  bigger name That bigger, you know, brand Tom's, bigger,
• 29:18
  expectation bigger, involvement from the alumni, more people
• 29:23
  thinking they can do your job better and you can the pressure
• 29:26
  from administrators anything. You know there's a trade-off.
• 29:31
  So yeah when you're young and arrogant not in a sport you
• 29:34
  think you know everything you can you can pick apart what
• 29:36
  should be done differently but probably half the things I said
• 29:39
  to be done were probably and civilly.
• 29:54
  I think I remember. I just, you know, is iddp
• 30:15
  volunteered come down here at what you mean?
• 30:17
  I got a great guy used to be them to Greg and like I said,
• 30:20
  that's awesome. You know, Greg McKeown out.
• 30:23
  There is awesome. Absolutely.
• 30:26
  I called the mayor because he's always kissing babies and
• 30:28
  shaking hands. And, you know, there's nobody,
• 30:30
  he doesn't know and he lights up a room and makes everybody feel
• 30:33
  welcome. And, you know, we were the same
• 30:35
  age and he could have very easily felt, you know, like wait
• 30:38
  a minute. We need to keep this guy away
• 30:40
  because I'm just starting here. It's my first.
• 30:43
  Yeah, I don't need some guy who thinks he come in here but Greg
• 30:46
  was the opposite. He was welcoming inviting just
• 30:49
  included me in everything. You know really what I do is
• 30:52
  hold the watch for him and I advance for him but he made me
• 30:55
  feel important and a part of the program.
• 30:57
  So yeah. That's a skill and he's got that
• 30:59
  skill for sure unbelievable. Yeah.
• 31:02
  And last thing before we moved back to Texas Tech here, when we
• 31:06
  talk about, you know, people outside of the program thinking
• 31:08
  of they also, don't forget I think they some people sometimes
• 31:10
  forget because when we're fans Someone is winning all the time,
• 31:15
  right? If you're in a program, you're
• 31:16
  only winning when you win winning is hard.
• 31:20
  Like, when you look at, I remember going up to Robert
• 31:23
  Johnson at indoor Nationals when they won the women by like 40
• 31:27
  points or something, it was a huge, you know.
• 31:29
  And I went up to him as like I know everybody's going to say
• 31:31
  how easy this was but I know even by 40 points, you were
• 31:34
  sweating it the whole way until it was.
• 31:36
  The points are fine. It's hard to win whether you are
• 31:40
  Juco, any, IED, three Duty, one state meet at High School.
• 31:44
  It's hard to win. And people think that they just
• 31:47
  had the magic clue that they would win, automatically not
• 31:50
  knowing that there's a hundred other great coaches and programs
• 31:53
  that are gunning for that. Same trophy, you are PAL, it's
• 31:56
  tough. Yeah, I think getting to the top
• 32:00
  is fun. It's a lot of fun climbing the
• 32:02
  mountain and I think at least from my experience in talking to
• 32:07
  the coaches for my colleagues who have kind of been in the
• 32:09
  same position getting there as fun.
• 32:11
  Staying there is Is a different kind of challenge a different
• 32:16
  board. It's to me, it wasn't as fun.
• 32:19
  It was, it's stressful, it's exhausting.
• 32:22
  It's, you know, when you get to the top, like, anybody in your
• 32:26
  profession or any athlete, even top, there's like one way to go.
• 32:30
  You can stay there and be stagnant at the top or you can
• 32:33
  fall. And that's, it's a different
• 32:35
  feeling and I think coaches who get to the top and stay at the
• 32:39
  top for a long time. It's Unique.
• 32:43
  I think we had about a six or seven year run from about 2007
• 32:47
  to 2013 were we were really really good.
• 32:51
  And then we went through some tough times here at OSU and I
• 32:54
  think no watching what any you has done over the last six,
• 32:59
  seven, eight years under, you know a large part of it under
• 33:04
  Mike Smith, but also under Eric Hines who could have built it
• 33:06
  got in there and before them, they went John John Hayes.
• 33:09
  It was a it was a good progression where That program
• 33:13
  has been very good for a long time.
• 33:15
  And now it's been the best, four, six, seven, eight years,
• 33:18
  depending on how you characterize it.
• 33:20
  They've been really, really, really good and they're always
• 33:22
  in the hunt that's incredibly hard.
• 33:24
  And what Mike Smith doing right now is he's a good coach that X
• 33:28
  is knows but there's a bunch excellent of those guys.
• 33:30
  That's not that's not what makes you special.
• 33:33
  I think what he's been able do with this team culture and he
• 33:37
  attitude and keeping the edge. We have a wrestling coach here.
• 33:41
  John Smith who is largely recognizes, maybe the greatest
• 33:45
  wrestler of all time. He won six straight World
• 33:47
  titles, including two Olympic to Olympic titles in until just
• 33:51
  recently. He had the record for the most,
• 33:53
  someone finally passed him, get 27, but it took him 14 years.
• 33:58
  John did it all six and six years?
• 33:59
  The sixth grade. They were hired by dr.
• 34:02
  John I said, God first, how did you do that, right.
• 34:04
  Secondly, you know why stop at six?
• 34:07
  You're on top and he said, because I couldn't find a way to
• 34:10
  keep my Edge. I just After six type of 61 was
• 34:13
  really hard to kind of create in my mind, the edge, or the hunger
• 34:18
  or the, you know, you know, kind of the disrespect from somebody
• 34:22
  else. Something to fire me up because
• 34:24
  I couldn't find any more. I thought I knew it was over and
• 34:27
  so he left after 6th. And I think that's true, it's
• 34:31
  really hard to kind of keep manufacturing.
• 34:34
  This US versus them to, you know, against the world when
• 34:37
  when you feel like you got a chip on your shoulder or
• 34:38
  disrespect when you're climbing, you can say that No One Believes
• 34:41
  us. No one respects us, you know, as
• 34:43
  us against the world where in the Foxhole together, it's you
• 34:45
  and me. And these are five guys, we got
• 34:47
  to get this done, that's different than when you're on
• 34:51
  the top. Your now you've won, you'll five
• 34:53
  out of six or six out of seven or if you're John Wooden, you
• 34:56
  know, eight or 12 or whatever it is.
• 34:58
  You're trying to think. How do I create this sense of
• 35:00
  urgency again? And it gets harder and harder
• 35:03
  and harder. So coaches, who can do it?
• 35:06
  May, I hats off. It's a tough thing to do.
• 35:08
  Well, let's keep exploring that. How do you do it?
• 35:11
  You know, we can't. You mentioned wooden some of
• 35:13
  those other guys and I immediately thought about
• 35:14
  McDonald and you know, I had already.
• 35:19
  Yeah, sure, exactly, right. So we can't guess how they do
• 35:23
  it, you know, Dave you'd won, many, many championships.
• 35:26
  How do you, how do you do it? And what I mean by that is when
• 35:30
  you when you talk about John Smith and he did it
• 35:33
  individually, meaning he was the one competing that seems super
• 35:37
  super tough, right? Because like you said, how do
• 35:38
  you manufacture the disrespect on the kind of stuff you?
• 35:41
  You at least are doing it with a different mix of kids, each
• 35:45
  time. Yeah, I would say it's pretty
• 35:47
  rare. You probably have the exact same
• 35:48
  five and all that kind of stuff. So how do you do it?
• 35:50
  Every year, you've been to the top, you've been to the bottom
• 35:54
  and you're doing a lot of at the top here in the last, you know,
• 35:57
  really decade. How do you continually find the
• 36:00
  motivation to help motivate the troops if you will to always be
• 36:04
  given their best and trying to win and things like that.
• 36:07
  Well, first thing I would say, just in case the story is that
• 36:10
  in 2010. When we won by, we won the
• 36:13
  national championship by 120 points. 120, we went, we
• 36:19
  returned our entire roster and had a kid transfer in, who
• 36:23
  finished 27th and Nationals. Oh, you're golden.
• 36:26
  Yeah, can't lose. And now your Wisconsin with Five
• 36:29
  Guys, they have five guys that were great and then some good
• 36:34
  college Runner but they weren't, they were working to make a
• 36:36
  difference. Those Five Guys beat us by 35 or
• 36:40
  40 points and how do we how do we lose them?
• 36:45
  Yeah we lost it because we went into the year and every single
• 36:48
  guy that we've got five returning, all Americans.
• 36:51
  We added a sixth, we got our seventh guy who just finished 66
• 36:55
  of the national championship season, 43, Turner.
• 36:57
  So, we've got seven guys returning in the top 40 can't
• 37:01
  lose. Yeah, I don't have to be great
• 37:03
  because so and so is going to be great and I have to be great
• 37:06
  because someone's gonna be great.
• 37:07
  And I think our Our attitude. All year was, hey, we're going
• 37:10
  to get this done because we are gonna get this done.
• 37:13
  Not I'm going to get it done. Hmm.
• 37:15
  And I watched Wisconsin and no disrespect to their sixth and
• 37:20
  seventh. Men were younger guys and just
• 37:22
  you know, they had five veterans who they looked around at that
• 37:26
  man is the five of us in this box hole and we got to hold the
• 37:29
  line and there's no Cavalry coming and we got to get it done
• 37:33
  and all year long, you could just I could feel it coming and
• 37:37
  I thought we won two straight. You just won by.
• 37:39
  We should win this one but I'm nervous.
• 37:42
  I'm, I'm I see. Wisconsin has got something
• 37:45
  going. I got something Brewing right
• 37:47
  now. And sure enough.
• 37:48
  They got to Nationals and they ran like they're like, you know,
• 37:51
  their hair was on fire. They were unbelievable and we
• 37:54
  ran a good race but they beat us pretty solemn.
• 37:58
  And so and then we lost have that team by the next year, came
• 38:02
  back and warm. I think again because we lost
• 38:05
  that that team and and also you could encounter in German
• 38:08
  Hernandez, right. Where John cause whoever else is
• 38:11
  coming, you can count those guys.
• 38:12
  Now, write the other guys that, well, it's art, we got to do
• 38:15
  this. And I think that's how we came
• 38:18
  back and want to get in 2012, you know.
• 38:20
  So in a guy like you is analyzing it, the whole season
• 38:24
  like said, you saw Wisconsin, you're watching their media,
• 38:26
  probably watching. NAU.
• 38:27
  Whoever else, you know, there were probably three, four, five,
• 38:29
  teams that could have been in the mix that you're so you're
• 38:31
  kind of watching analyze, you know, guy like you dr.
• 38:34
  Dave, you know, all the courses. So you know, if someone runs
• 38:36
  quote-unquote faster slow That really means for that course.
• 38:39
  And you know the guys that are that are the generals there, you
• 38:42
  know, Mick burn and all those guys who, you know, amazing he
• 38:45
  actually is committed to be on the podcast as well and I'm
• 38:47
  like, this is gonna be great because I got to remember, I
• 38:49
  want to get his side of it as well.
• 38:50
  This will be fun to complete the whole circle on that story.
• 38:53
  But how do you as a coach as you're watching?
• 38:56
  You can see it. You can, I mean, I can almost
• 38:58
  like I can almost see you seeing it.
• 39:00
  Like, you see it playing out like you ever seen the movie, A
• 39:03
  Beautiful Mind. Yeah, he's got all the, you
• 39:06
  know, it's like I'm helpless but I could see it all.
• 39:08
  That seems helpless. How what are you doing during
• 39:11
  the year to quote, unquote. Wake up the true you know, or is
• 39:14
  there anything you can do to just feel very helpless there,
• 39:17
  you know, you try and you try not to project Panic although I
• 39:23
  was feeling Panic. No, you try to project, weakness
• 39:27
  or nervousness but to project urgency and I know Focus, you
• 39:32
  try to project those things. But again I think we had some
• 39:36
  some absolute killers in that team with German for Mr. Machado
• 39:39
  Colby low, Shadrach capture cheer, Tom Farrell.
• 39:42
  I mean, these are all guys that were were, none of these are
• 39:46
  not, you know, shatters. Now on 2700 German was German,
• 39:51
  Durham has run 27, low or 27, mid curable, Ross it was on that
• 39:55
  team caramels. Now run 27, low and 13 low and
• 40:00
  these guys Tom Farrell in 1310, these are guys that ended up
• 40:03
  being you know, back when that was still fast, really good
• 40:07
  honors. And I just again, I can see it
• 40:10
  coming. I could you'll plan out.
• 40:12
  It's funny. You describe the Beautiful Mind
• 40:14
  thing because I like I told you guys this year, hey, we went out
• 40:17
  to our cross-country course. We're about to host a national
• 40:18
  championships. I say, hey, look at this course,
• 40:21
  now, there's no one here in see it.
• 40:24
  See this course as the chessboard see where it is.
• 40:28
  And now relies on race day, there's all this crap going on.
• 40:31
  There's all this. There's chaos.
• 40:33
  You gonna date when you get on the day that cash.
• 40:35
  You got to see the course. Let the chaos disappear.
• 40:38
  There's nobody else here. Do what you do?
• 40:41
  Run like, you run it, know how to know how to be you.
• 40:43
  And you got to just let the, the, the noise, the chaos
• 40:47
  evaporate, and just go back to this moment and see the course
• 40:50
  is empty. It's you running on the course.
• 40:52
  So you know, that's a race specific but the seasons the
• 40:56
  same way I tell, guys hey there's always noise going on
• 40:59
  around if people talk about who's going to win and who can't
• 41:01
  lose, and we can't lose. No, that's the worst thing we
• 41:04
  can hear. We can't lose because Gary, I
• 41:06
  guarantee we can lose And you mentioned, there are other
• 41:09
  teams, Stanford was rolling. They had, they had a great great
• 41:13
  group. There are several teams but
• 41:15
  Wisconsin's the one that scared me and honestly, Mick burn
• 41:20
  created this sense of urgency. He created a belief.
• 41:24
  He had those guys, you know, angry pissed off at the world.
• 41:28
  It's, you know, that's when he started this Badger, tough
• 41:31
  stuff. And, you know, I could hear it
• 41:35
  in his voice, I could hear it in the guys, I got their little
• 41:37
  interviews. Races that they knew.
• 41:41
  It was the it was we got we got five, six, seven, guys, and
• 41:45
  there's no no Cavalry coming. It's up to us.
• 41:47
  We got to defend this to her. We got to get it done for each
• 41:50
  other, and that team was locked in.
• 41:53
  And so when I start to see teams that are locked in and I, you
• 41:58
  know, that's when I get nervous and there's a lot of teams that
• 42:00
  have guys run fast, they don't always really get get to, you
• 42:04
  know, I think yeah, they run fast but right fast.
• 42:06
  Isn't that important, especially this time of year.
• 42:08
  But when you start to hear this attitude and that you can feel
• 42:11
  it, you can this Vibe, I can't really describe it.
• 42:14
  We just know, and I knew, I knew we were in trouble, and I kept
• 42:18
  thinking, well, well, I got, you know, if they lose in that top
• 42:21
  five, they're in trouble. That's good.
• 42:23
  There's a drop-off there. Other guys are young and it when
• 42:26
  you count on young, guys, it's tough, you know?
• 42:28
  So yeah, I love how you describe that.
• 42:31
  Dave, you know what, you described there about how you
• 42:34
  were talking to the kids about, you know, see in the course and
• 42:38
  Is a blank open Chess board right now, but chaos is coming,
• 42:41
  right? And you got to be able to.
• 42:42
  How do you see past that? How do you not get caught up in
• 42:44
  that moment what you're describing there?
• 42:47
  David this is what you know, track coaches around the
• 42:49
  country. Do, you're describing leadership
• 42:52
  and to me it's one of the I had this apoptosis I'm using.
• 42:55
  I was using JB Jerry baltus up, a Grand Valley and I came here
• 42:58
  who the guest was, but I was like, you know, what?
• 43:00
  I honestly think if Jerry was put, I don't know, Jerry knows
• 43:04
  anything about hockey, but I think if he was a head coach of
• 43:06
  a hockey team, like they would be really Be good.
• 43:08
  He may not know anything about the X's and O's of hockey, but
• 43:11
  he knows leadership and what? You're just that you made me
• 43:14
  think of the exact same thing. I'm like, oh man, and dr.
• 43:17
  Dave was the head of a football team, maybe not a little
• 43:20
  mistake, you got a good one there, my Gundy, but of some
• 43:22
  other, you know, a chess club. When we talk about Chess is like
• 43:25
  oh I'm not sure. Dave knows all the ins and outs
• 43:27
  of Chess but you know what he would be able to explain to the
• 43:30
  team and lead the team to the best performance that they're
• 43:33
  going to give because that's what good track coaches do their
• 43:36
  leaders first over the edge. The nose and that's not poopoo
• 43:39
  and X is a nose. That's important.
• 43:41
  That is just talking about what the leadership of this very
• 43:43
  diverse sport that we have and how important it is.
• 43:46
  Because it's in the day, we're time of 18 to 22 year olds.
• 43:49
  They need leadership. Yeah.
• 43:51
  Well, I'll tell you a story without mentioning the the coach
• 43:54
  or the school but okay, very well known coach, a future Hall
• 43:59
  of Fame coach at one point in his career, the Vault women's
• 44:05
  volleyball job was came. Up.
• 44:08
  And it was, they were doing a search and this coach put his
• 44:12
  name his resume in for the wings because the salary was Far
• 44:17
  bigger than his and feel like we're trying to make a point.
• 44:20
  Well, yes, but he puts his name in and eventually ad says, hey
• 44:24
  what's this? What are you doing?
• 44:26
  I want to go to the volleyball. Team me.
• 44:28
  And he says, what do you mean? I could Supply gold team?
• 44:30
  You don't I think about volleyball because I don't
• 44:32
  anything about volleyball, but I know people and I know when I
• 44:35
  can figure out my ball and Just like you're saying, I think
• 44:39
  that's true. And I think, you know, this,
• 44:42
  this particular coach has a lot of stories like that, he's I
• 44:45
  think an incredibly intelligent human being and he had this
• 44:50
  conversation. I think his point was made and
• 44:53
  the guy was like your points made blah blah blah.
• 44:55
  He's not. I want a coach that team and I'm
• 44:57
  the best coach for it and I'll do it and I want the salary.
• 45:00
  I want you to recognize and, you know, whatever he did not coach
• 45:03
  the volleyball team, but his point was what exactly you're
• 45:06
  saying? I know.
• 45:07
  I know. People and I know winning.
• 45:09
  Yep, I suspected that person did not get the job because we would
• 45:13
  all know who that person is immediately that ever happened.
• 45:15
  Yeah, that's right. Okay, like a bad cross country
• 45:18
  Runner. Dave, I'm off course.
• 45:19
  Let's get back on course because really, honestly what I'm so
• 45:24
  fascinated with our guest here on the podcast is the aha
• 45:27
  moment. So you mentioned after your
• 45:29
  first week of Texas Tech. Yeah, I mentioned.
• 45:33
  I mean, I even wrote it down like oh, this is it.
• 45:36
  Yeah, and I'm paraphrasing now, but this is This is this is what
• 45:39
  I'm supposed to be. What was it about that first?
• 45:42
  We are in Lubbock, Texas God was Killian crew.
• 45:45
  I love you. I've been to love of the few
• 45:47
  times. Lubbock was the first place I
• 45:49
  ever saw a real honest-to-god Tumbleweed.
• 45:52
  I thought it was just a cartoon stuff, man.
• 45:54
  No, no. I took my Jew coating there for
• 45:56
  Nationals and I was like, oh my God, this is real.
• 45:58
  I had no stinkin clue, but you're in Lubbock as a
• 46:01
  cross-country coach, which I think in Lubbock is little
• 46:03
  tougher because of the Heat and things like that, where, you
• 46:05
  know, you're not exactly in the quote unquote idea.
• 46:08
  A place there in Stillwater either but but tough place there
• 46:10
  in Lubbock. What was it?
• 46:12
  What was that first week? What was that?
• 46:14
  This is it this? Oh, screw this doctor thing.
• 46:16
  Screw this Nobel thing. This right here.
• 46:19
  This is why I'm here. I was super excited and happy
• 46:26
  Every single day, getting up going to work, couldn't wait to
• 46:29
  get there. Couldn't wait to get the office,
• 46:31
  couldn't wait to get to the track.
• 46:32
  They just would find myself. Just in my car was about a about
• 46:36
  a Four Mile Drive to the track at a speed.
• 46:39
  My way there justjust mind, raising about we're doing today,
• 46:42
  it was going to come next. I thought, I never felt this way
• 46:46
  going to the lab when I lived in Seattle, and I was beautiful
• 46:49
  place, great surroundings, who I grew up mountains, trees,
• 46:53
  hiking, backpacking, outdoor things.
• 46:55
  I mean, Me and is like, oh is there any way I can?
• 47:00
  I just call ins, I should call in sick and not going today.
• 47:03
  I thought I don't want to live my life this way, but when I was
• 47:07
  in Lubbock and I was in honestly, that first group of
• 47:09
  athletes, I had it weren't the most talented athletes as you'd
• 47:12
  expect, you know, they had a volunteer coach coach in the
• 47:17
  distance Runners for a year, the previous women's Coach had, you
• 47:22
  know, there was not necessarily great break up with the
• 47:24
  University. I think you know the the general
• 47:28
  feeling around the distance team was kind of a morale wasn't
• 47:31
  great. And you know I think they're
• 47:35
  headed a lot of recruiting over the past few years.
• 47:37
  So it there was there was a few good athletes but in terms of
• 47:42
  the health of a program it wasn't fantastic and we did have
• 47:47
  one young lady on the team from right there and lovingly.
• 47:50
  Daniel who hadn't become the lead angle yet.
• 47:54
  Yeah. When did we're junior year?
• 47:56
  Here. But, you know, so I'm working
• 48:00
  with athletes. That number one, I was probably
• 48:03
  well. I was like 27 years old at the
• 48:06
  time but I was definitely the best distance runner on the
• 48:09
  team. And, you know, and I was like,
• 48:13
  you know, I was I was in pretty good shape.
• 48:14
  I was kind of doing some marathon training and I was in
• 48:17
  pretty good shape and I would run with the team and do
• 48:18
  workouts with some of the guys kind of help lead.
• 48:21
  So it wasn't about for me at that point going in winning Big
• 48:25
  12 titles or having kids make the national meat.
• 48:28
  That was something that we're not making no one's going to
• 48:30
  Nationals right. There was no regions that it was
• 48:33
  a straight You know, descending order list or even scoring a
• 48:37
  point of the conference meet. I knew those that was
• 48:39
  far-fetched at least on the men's side.
• 48:42
  But it was about seeing guys men and women who are excited about
• 48:45
  training, want to get better committing to it, trying to see
• 48:49
  how could they be? They can become.
• 48:51
  That was fun and exciting to me. And I wasn't a good coach at the
• 48:54
  time. I never coached before and my
• 48:57
  attitude is kind of a blue collar.
• 48:59
  Kid growing up with the harder, you work, the better you're
• 49:00
  going to be. And when I first started
• 49:02
  coaching, that's good. I coach the same way, I coached
• 49:05
  myself same way, my attitude which probably was detrimental
• 49:09
  to my own career and probably not great for some of those
• 49:12
  athletes where we probably over trained as I think honestly,
• 49:15
  even now when I consciously trying to be conservative, we
• 49:22
  probably still over train over race.
• 49:24
  I think most of the unstable a for distance Runners over
• 49:27
  training. Over racing, we probably all do
• 49:30
  better. If we had a better editing pane,
• 49:31
  we just edit ourselves a little bit.
• 49:33
  I'm a back. Then it was, you know, those far
• 49:36
  more aggressive with our training and become more
• 49:38
  conservative every year since. And when you're at Texas Tech
• 49:42
  you had recent Gil, podcast alone D on Miller.
• 49:45
  Yeah. On step.
• 49:46
  Yeah, he mentioned you. And I, yeah, that's when I
• 49:48
  learned that no clue, you were Texas Tech and I was like, oh, I
• 49:50
  had no idea. Yeah, that's awesome.
• 49:53
  You mentioned about training. I love how you said that editing
• 49:55
  pin. You know, I, when I used to
• 49:57
  speak, when I used to coach level ones, and at each level
• 50:00
  ones and speak at clinics, I'd always say, hey, when you're
• 50:03
  right your workout, I think the Ten Commandments it's not in
• 50:05
  stepping stone here. Yeah, it's really interesting
• 50:07
  depending on the day whether lot of lot of factors.
• 50:10
  What were you doing? Is this is your first on your
• 50:14
  own coaching job and you're not a volunteer somewhere and things
• 50:16
  like that. This is your solely responsible
• 50:19
  here for these kids and I totally love that you.
• 50:21
  I did not know you coach. Leah, Daniels.
• 50:22
  I'm obviously, again, not a distance.
• 50:24
  Runner coach and not, you know, Leah, Daniels, I know exactly.
• 50:27
  I mean I've never heard this. He was amazing.
• 50:30
  What were you doing coaching? Education, wise.
• 50:33
  And what I mean by that both formally and or informally
• 50:37
  meaning, did you do any back then?
• 50:38
  I think we still would have just had usatf and things like that
• 50:41
  but more, maybe it's more informally, where their coaches
• 50:44
  would you call backup coach didn't seem like, hey, I'm
• 50:46
  thinking of this or I'm having this issue.
• 50:48
  What are you doing to help yourself, professional
• 50:50
  development wise? I talk to students a little bit,
• 50:54
  but not as much against in Z is a great guy and he's a Is it a
• 51:02
  little more formal is relationships?
• 51:04
  You know, and he was obviously busy as old program.
• 51:08
  Like talk to Greg Metcalf a lot. Hmm.
• 51:10
  Sure. Who was, you know, one of my
• 51:14
  best friend's the world still is.
• 51:15
  And the other guy was Jerry Schumacher whom he started.
• 51:18
  It was constant the same day. I started at Texas Tech, right,
• 51:22
  Gary and I that the two people I talk to you more than my wife
• 51:25
  are Jerry and Greg. And if they were females, my
• 51:29
  wife would be very concerned. We embedded night, I got a phone
• 51:33
  call. Oh God, my wife knows.
• 51:39
  It's either cheering Greg Goodell so.
• 51:42
  But, um, I talked to those guys a lot and I talk to Dick weeks
• 51:48
  who was it? Yeah.
• 51:49
  Oh sure. He's the conference and I would
• 51:52
  be it when I went to meets he was in his early 60s that had a
• 51:55
  really good career at a place, it was hard to have a great
• 51:57
  career at the time and so and if you ever talk to Dick, Wiest
• 52:02
  that guy can tell stories. Yeah.
• 52:03
  He remembers every split of every race down to the tenth of
• 52:07
  a second. Can tell you in detail what
• 52:09
  happened and you know he was just a great guy to talk to and
• 52:14
  kind of pick. His brain and I said coach, I
• 52:17
  want to make it to Nationals. How many what do I got to have?
• 52:19
  How many guys under 1410 back then?
• 52:21
  Well, you get Five Guys under 1410, you got a team going to
• 52:23
  Nationals and cross, you know, now that's laughable.
• 52:26
  But back, then you got Five, Guys needs.
• 52:28
  You might be top 10. So, you know, just picking his
• 52:30
  brain and kind of, you know, him, Greg Jerry a few others,
• 52:36
  Jim stings, a little bit. But yeah, I had a very close
• 52:39
  knit group of people that I would talk to you.
• 52:41
  That they were kind of helped me along too.
• 52:45
  Great guy. I coached in the same when I was
• 52:47
  Jus coach same conference as his son, I think it was at Johnson
• 52:51
  County Community College - yeah and I was down in English.
• 52:55
  Oh yeah, that's right. So how long were you at Texas
• 52:58
  Tech and how did it go kind of, you know, your first you writing
• 53:01
  all the workouts now how did that go during your time?
• 53:03
  They were the first year was amazing.
• 53:05
  I you know I had this group I think the men were 12 out of 12,
• 53:08
  the Big 12, the women I believe were probably 11th so that was
• 53:15
  Ruff. Another one point, I remember
• 53:17
  the conference meet at this big camera back, then his big-ass
• 53:20
  hole or with a telephoto lens, because back then we had no
• 53:22
  Sports media people. There was no online button,
• 53:25
  right? We're going to have a presence.
• 53:27
  I need pictures to show athletes of, here's our athletes and
• 53:30
  emotion, you know, well recruiting.
• 53:32
  So I took the camera, I'd be out taking pictures.
• 53:33
  I remember maybe the last mile of the men's race had that big
• 53:38
  camera of wearing hiking boots was a wet muddy day at Nebraska,
• 53:42
  and that's where the converse meat was.
• 53:44
  And I remember, What fast walking up a hill with this
• 53:48
  camera, in my boots, talking to a couple of my guys as they're
• 53:52
  running and walking alongside them.
• 53:54
  So, you gotta get it done, you gotta move up your, I think, in
• 53:57
  a hundred place and there's 108 people, the runner, and we're
• 54:00
  running with. Honestly, some of the Baylor
• 54:02
  guys were quarter milers. That Clyde heart may be on the
• 54:05
  team. We're I along with them.
• 54:09
  I'm thinking, man, we got a ways to go.
• 54:13
  So if you want from there, did you take that as a challenge of
• 54:17
  because, you know, I'm always amazed at, we don't really see
• 54:21
  them in the moment, but you had a decision, a fork in the road
• 54:24
  right there. You could have been like hey
• 54:26
  these guys are just not good, they're not listening, whatever
• 54:29
  mobile. I'm going to go to a different
• 54:30
  school or whatever. I'm going to get all new
• 54:31
  recruits, whatever. There's a lot of that or a coach
• 54:34
  can take a hey. Okay.
• 54:36
  If we put in another year or two like there's potential here, I'm
• 54:39
  going to stick with these guys and these guys are going to
• 54:40
  stick with me. How did you decide that route?
• 54:43
  I mean, that's that's a little demoralizing.
• 54:45
  Who you are, what you are, what your past success?
• 54:47
  What your goals are? That's pretty, you're at the
• 54:50
  bottom here at this point. How did you choose to go the
• 54:54
  route? You did why, I know past success
• 54:57
  at that point. So I had coached a club team in
• 55:00
  Seattle, a post-collegiate or postnatal women seen Club
• 55:03
  Northwest and that women won the Club Nationals that year.
• 55:06
  And so that was my one Venture into coaching.
• 55:11
  The grand writing workouts, do my own thing.
• 55:12
  I was also at the same time volunteering with Washington,
• 55:15
  but it's, that was it? I didn't find it demoralizing.
• 55:20
  It wasn't they didn't. Listen, they did.
• 55:21
  Listen, they weren't that talented.
• 55:24
  They were hard working. They want to be great.
• 55:27
  I'm going to say, well, their names because I don't think he'd
• 55:28
  mind one of them. I'm still very close friends
• 55:31
  with this day. Jesse Williams who now does own
• 55:35
  Sound Running does also, he found a Brooks P R Group.
• 55:40
  He was instrumental in the Brooks Hansen's group when he
• 55:43
  worked for Brooks. Justin Williams is a, you know,
• 55:46
  as a major figure in kind of post-collegiate track and field
• 55:50
  right now with meets he puts on. And that's amazing.
• 55:53
  Yeah, it's so Jesse holes guys. A human being loving.
• 55:57
  God. He was not the most talented
• 55:59
  athlete. He worked his butt off like he
• 56:01
  does. Now he is a same thing.
• 56:03
  He's a blue collar, kid, he grew up.
• 56:06
  Low-income he grew up struggling.
• 56:08
  You know, Mom worked hard and so identified with him.
• 56:12
  So I wasn't Disappointed, those guys, I was disappointed for
• 56:18
  them because like everybody else, they work hard, they dream
• 56:21
  big, that's an important distinction, your top 10 guy
• 56:24
  that in the in the Big 12 but it wasn't going to.
• 56:26
  I wasn't going to be his his path and he did improve and get
• 56:29
  better and has a once he grabbed.
• 56:31
  I think I coached of water a year and a half is all he had
• 56:33
  left, but he continued to run after college it became you know
• 56:38
  kind of a pretty good long distance.
• 56:39
  Runner marathoner and did some pretty good things.
• 56:42
  In fact, I was in grad school. He was living in Seattle.
• 56:45
  We had some long Tempo runs together at times and sorry,
• 56:48
  wasn't grad school but when I came back, when I was at Texas,
• 56:53
  Tech out, come back or even out from say, come back to visit my
• 56:56
  parents. He was living in Seattle and we
• 56:58
  get together. Do long 20 mil Tempo runs and
• 57:00
  man, he'd give me everything I can handle.
• 57:02
  So yeah. So anyway guys like that.
• 57:05
  I wasn't disappointed doesn't spy, I was motivated.
• 57:07
  Yeah, I got to do better because whatever I did we didn't run
• 57:12
  very well at the end of the year and probably like I said,
• 57:14
  probably we A overtrain. Probably we got too aggressive.
• 57:17
  And I said, okay, here's a bunch of 1530 guys.
• 57:19
  Westray, like, 14:30 guys, before today, guys, instead, I
• 57:22
  mean, I'm 16 minute guys, right? Because we just, don't forget
• 57:25
  it. I was just, it was, they did
• 57:28
  everything. I told him to do probably I
• 57:30
  should have been telling to do what I'm telling them to do, and
• 57:33
  then I go from that to we read, surely Daniel that cross country
• 57:38
  season and she comes in the indoor, or PR is about 17
• 57:41
  minutes about 36 minutes. And I think about, Ten minutes
• 57:45
  in the 3K and the first we go we go run a 5k and Joe Franklin
• 57:51
  lets me get her into the fast heat and the cannon meet up in
• 57:55
  Annapolis. Yeah, and I've got, let's rip
• 57:58
  out my head and with great shoulders and she's in the race
• 58:02
  and she's up in the front group and my split chart.
• 58:05
  I'm like, what is this? Where is she?
• 58:08
  And Greg comes over and he says, Hey, where's what you have to do
• 58:10
  go. I'm like, I don't know.
• 58:11
  What it was. What we just watched chart.
• 58:12
  I go. I got my splint sure.
• 58:14
  But let's let's Don't make sense.
• 58:15
  I don't know if she's way ahead of way behind no idea where she
• 58:18
  is. I can't imagine a lobster, the
• 58:19
  times I go, I'm lost and she has a brand 1659 day and winds and
• 58:25
  back then was the fastest time in the country and goes into the
• 58:28
  blaze is one of the top four or five times in the country and
• 58:32
  then wins the insula Championship, you know, totally
• 58:35
  expected. And I think I'm a genius.
• 58:39
  This is these gemstones. He's never won a big.
• 58:43
  He's never had an individual title.
• 58:44
  He says to me, I've been coaching for 20-some years,
• 58:47
  whatever. I heard of titled, you get one
• 58:48
  in six months, you'll see, you know, I kind of said that
• 58:50
  comment to me was like, yes, government cheese and the best
• 58:53
  coach in the world. Let me write you a letter.
• 58:56
  I'll tell you all about it but yeah, let me know how it turns
• 59:01
  out. I was extremely lucky to have an
• 59:03
  incredibly talented woman who probably could have done I
• 59:07
  wasn't jumping jacks a day and won a national title because it
• 59:10
  didn't matter what she was doing.
• 59:12
  She was ready to be great. Hmm.
• 59:14
  And then we get to the outdoor season.
• 59:15
  She wins the 10K outdoor. You might remember, she's the
• 59:17
  one that lost her shoe. Yep.
• 59:19
  Took her about 30 seconds to get it back on.
• 59:21
  Right comes back on the track. She's 180 meters behind last
• 59:24
  place. That's coming back and wins.
• 59:26
  That was amazing, amazing. So again, I thought, yeah, look
• 59:30
  at me. I'm gonna happen.
• 59:31
  I'm gonna happen Titleist. Every are people with national
• 59:34
  titles over here. I didn't have another National
• 59:38
  Champion until 2009. So yeah, dry spot really didn't.
• 59:41
  So yeah. Wow.
• 59:43
  So Dave, you know what, you're describing there.
• 59:47
  We've said this many times on the podcast.
• 59:49
  Ego is not bad. Bad ego is bad.
• 59:52
  It feels like I'm being a little judgy here, so you correct me
• 59:55
  where appropriate but it feels like you're beat the guys.
• 59:58
  You're showing a lot of bad ego at during this time, Yeah, I'm
• 1:00:04
  not sure. You're also, you're also, you're
• 1:00:07
  also describing it. We have hindsight as well, so
• 1:00:12
  I'm not sure in the moment, you could have thought, oh, I'm
• 1:00:15
  going to have a national title every year, you know, that's
• 1:00:17
  that's a bad ego thing right now?
• 1:00:19
  You about experience. But I thought this is not as
• 1:00:22
  hard as everything as it is, and I'll tell you that's what.
• 1:00:25
  So we get to the national championships in Boise and Lee
• 1:00:27
  is projected to be, you know, she's a got a little faces in
• 1:00:30
  the crowd and Sports Illustrated.
• 1:00:33
  Other things she's with 30 to 40 32:53 that year at Stanford and
• 1:00:37
  it was like you know back then those whoa someone's rope 33
• 1:00:40
  minutes and you know blew my mind blue, whoever he's mine.
• 1:00:43
  And so she comes as one of the heavy favorites and I remember
• 1:00:48
  looking up to Mark Wetmore and maybe is Mike McGuire.
• 1:00:55
  Lance harder Heavy Hitters. Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  The Heavy Hitters and we're all standing down there at the kind
• 1:01:02
  of by the steeple. Pit to watch the 10K and I go,
• 1:01:06
  and I kind of Sidle up to those guys.
• 1:01:08
  I'm like, hey guys, this is where I belong.
• 1:01:12
  I'm in the club that I see her talking to people
• 1:01:31
  on the infield, like officials, Are you kidding me?
• 1:01:35
  She's like having conversations. What is she doing?
• 1:01:38
  She comes back around the next time.
• 1:01:39
  She's looking our main, she's talking to just a chelating
• 1:01:42
  doing these weird things and she pointed, I looked down at 0, her
• 1:01:45
  foots out of her shoe and she's holding it on.
• 1:01:48
  And in retrospect, I said, what were you doing when you were
• 1:01:50
  talking to officials? She was asking them to restart
• 1:01:52
  the race. She wanted to stop the race two
• 1:01:55
  laps in, because she lost her shoe and restart it.
• 1:01:59
  The resume a little slowly again.
• 1:02:03
  What do I do? Kick it off and run.
• 1:02:09
  Barefoot stop and put it back on or Dropout.
• 1:02:12
  Come back and fight. She had the five k's one.
• 1:02:14
  Yeah. Okay.
• 1:02:15
  And I just say, you know, okay, least least offensive thing to
• 1:02:19
  do stop and put it back on. Now I figure it's 5 or 6 seconds
• 1:02:22
  at most. You can stop reach down, pop it
• 1:02:24
  under a heel, right? She stops try to Poplar Hill,
• 1:02:28
  can't get it. Then she squats down.
• 1:02:30
  Trying to untie it. I think she literally sits on
• 1:02:32
  the track. It is.
• 1:02:33
  Picking up the knots because yet so tight, she could get her foot
• 1:02:36
  back in. So she finally gets what I'm
• 1:02:39
  tied. Get them back.
• 1:02:40
  I'm like, hey, we gotta go, we gotta go.
• 1:02:42
  Hey, okay, did I? Let's go.
• 1:02:44
  She gets a tide and now she's like I said about 30 seconds
• 1:02:47
  behind. Not quite 200 meters and I
• 1:02:51
  immediately starts. Idling away from the 18 guys.
• 1:02:57
  I'm like I don't need to be near them.
• 1:02:59
  I need to be over here. Where the B-Team sense?
• 1:03:03
  I kind of went around to my own Side by myself.
• 1:03:06
  I tell her hey you just got to be even don't be too aggressive
• 1:03:10
  and she starts rolling off, whatever I think was 78 and
• 1:03:13
  we're a little bit altitude and she starts cutting off.
• 1:03:15
  Seventy eight, seventy eight. Seventy be very very patient and
• 1:03:19
  at the front for some reason they kept running e2s you know.
• 1:03:24
  They just if I had been someone coaching, it's Lee Daniel and
• 1:03:29
  her shoe comes off. And she I would have said, hey
• 1:03:31
  we gotta get let's just get this over with now.
• 1:03:33
  Yeah, we're going to stay in the group and by 5K, she's getting
• 1:03:40
  close. And there's a big crowd that
• 1:03:42
  stayed to watch the 10K. And this is Boise, Idaho.
• 1:03:45
  And there starts to be this wave of Applause following week
• 1:03:50
  because she's inching our way back and each time she passes
• 1:03:54
  somebody who's got the pack, there's a, there's a there's a
• 1:03:57
  clot form and this momentum it is energies building.
• 1:04:00
  This is building. I'm coming back to the The 18th.
• 1:04:04
  I proved a back over when she caught the back of the main
• 1:04:10
  pack. I thought.
• 1:04:11
  Okay, good. Now, sit down with these twelve
• 1:04:13
  or thirteen women, just write it.
• 1:04:15
  But as soon as she caught it, it was like, it was like, this
• 1:04:18
  Roar, and it's hard to describe that in a 10K hear this.
• 1:04:21
  But there was, and she, she hears that she's both to the
• 1:04:25
  front. But no, no, no.
• 1:04:27
  That's a don't, you can be toast now, right?
• 1:04:29
  Yeah. And how much, Left in the race
• 1:04:34
  by. Okay?
• 1:04:35
  Maybe 64k it was writing at 5:55 a rake, or she, still a major
• 1:04:39
  portion already. Yeah, and I remember it came
• 1:04:43
  down to lie and Taro attend ski, and Tara, is a phenomenal
• 1:04:47
  athlete from BYU billion, right? Bernice is now one of BYU's top
• 1:04:52
  young Runners, so it's kind of cool.
• 1:04:54
  Yeah. And if you fold, yeah, now one
• 1:04:57
  of the best writers in the n-c-double-a But I, but it's her
• 1:05:02
  and Terra to go. Tara's, got a kick and Lee is
• 1:05:04
  not known for her speed. But with 600, goalie, really put
• 1:05:08
  the hammer down and up winning by two seconds.
• 1:05:10
  And, you know, I now, I'm standing right in the middle of
• 1:05:13
  the, of the, a team, again, looking around.
• 1:05:14
  And you think, boys. Nice try Dave, you know, I've
• 1:05:22
  been trying for a long time. I'm almost dead.
• 1:05:26
  I'm famous for. I will routinely.
• 1:05:28
  Say, I have never seen a good 10k race.
• 1:05:30
  The the only ten carries that I've ever seen that I've that's
• 1:05:33
  memorable to me, is the Olympics when Galen and mo.
• 1:05:39
  Yeah, almost said man, I do that one, right Mo, that was a
• 1:05:42
  phenomenal race. I've ever been in my in-laws
• 1:05:43
  house and they almost an American.
• 1:05:45
  And then Moses training me. It was just a great race that
• 1:05:47
  was only 10K. And I was at program, I've been
• 1:05:50
  with Sue parks that Eastern Michigan.
• 1:05:52
  She's had great 10ks for our conference in that of like like
• 1:05:54
  I've had my own little routine interest into and still it's
• 1:05:57
  like man. This 10K stuff is just too far
• 1:05:59
  on the track for me. That might be the greatest 10K
• 1:06:02
  story I've ever heard and I knew, I knew Lee.
• 1:06:05
  I you know I knew Hadley had one and I knew I'd heard about the
• 1:06:07
  shoe thing that was amazing. I can't imagine like it's all
• 1:06:11
  downhill for you there, brother. I mean there's no better story
• 1:06:13
  than that right there. Well yeah.
• 1:06:15
  And so again, I watch this and it also becomes men.
• 1:06:19
  I'm pretty good at what I do and again now looking back as a
• 1:06:22
  coach or some some, some seasoning to them.
• 1:06:25
  They think man. She was phenomenal.
• 1:06:27
  Yeah, she was ugly and I Don't know what the hell I was doing
• 1:06:31
  coaching? I told my outfits.
• 1:06:32
  Now this that she was a 36 minute 10K girl, when I started
• 1:06:36
  coaching at the okay, we need you to run 34 flat.
• 1:06:39
  So I got my, there was a little book I used to have.
• 1:06:42
  You might remember all these computerized charts of Paces?
• 1:06:45
  It was like, you know, if you're going to 1550 1315 person, runs
• 1:06:49
  this pace for this. If you want 2 mi here on this
• 1:06:51
  page will give orders. You're in the face.
• 1:06:52
  It was just tables and tables and tables tables.
• 1:06:56
  I got that chart is already. What's a 34 Minute girl?
• 1:06:58
  Need to do and so we did. We trained like a 34 Min ago.
• 1:07:02
  And what I didn't know is she was a 32:30 girl.
• 1:07:06
  So I'm under training her but I think I'm over Turner, right?
• 1:07:10
  Oh, well, I'm under training her.
• 1:07:12
  You know, when she runs her fast tank, a turns out that all her
• 1:07:14
  workouts that we were doing to be fast.
• 1:07:17
  Were slower, paced that are actual 10K pace and she ran
• 1:07:21
  fantastic. You know, she just did in
• 1:07:23
  fantastic years. I look back at that.
• 1:07:25
  Now I go I made a mistake because I underestimated her and
• 1:07:29
  I made Mistake because I was overtraining her but by
• 1:07:32
  overturning was actually under trendy because they
• 1:07:34
  underestimate. So I met all these mistakes.
• 1:07:36
  Yeah it turned out to be really beneficial at the same time.
• 1:07:39
  I had a guy named Michael and Jenga was a Kenyan athlete with
• 1:07:42
  just graduated from Texas Tech, but was finishing Ellen who's
• 1:07:44
  finishing his degree and he was a 2940 guy.
• 1:07:48
  I thought the same thing let's run 29 minutes or 2840.
• 1:07:51
  It's like having a hey Mike you run with me.
• 1:07:54
  I'll do work out with you and I you try to keep up with me.
• 1:07:57
  I'm a 29:29. You try to keep up with me.
• 1:07:59
  So Mike don't Work out to me, he probably was like no I didn't
• 1:08:03
  know this but it was over. We go run a 10K, anyone's 27:40
• 1:08:07
  and his neck and neck with It was Bob Kennedy's, first, real
• 1:08:14
  10K, and Culpepper, and he's leading those guys.
• 1:08:18
  He's wearing a white plain tank top, you know, undershirt that's
• 1:08:24
  as uniform season sponsored opinion guy, and the announcers
• 1:08:29
  think he's a rabbit because they don't know.
• 1:08:30
  We have, they all the rabbits go wrong is going for months.
• 1:08:33
  G Going five rounds, stain, in there.
• 1:08:36
  He's leading those guys to a lot to go and the end of rank.
• 1:08:38
  27:30. Hide here. 27:42 but the same
• 1:08:42
  thing happened. I thought he was a 2040 guys
• 1:08:44
  that was just BR. And so I coach him like a 2840
• 1:08:47
  guy who runs 27 point and at the same time I'm doing that a lot
• 1:08:52
  of my workouts with some of the women.
• 1:08:54
  So I'm honored raining and I jumped a couple races and I
• 1:08:56
  don't I run that fast. I'm not training and so my
• 1:09:00
  wheels started turning like you know maybe less is more, maybe
• 1:09:03
  there's some tunes and so that's when my whole kind of evolution
• 1:09:07
  towards beagle, more conservative starting in
• 1:09:10
  Watching mistakes. Yeah, that's where, you know,
• 1:09:14
  you can go to every class and I, you know, I'm a huge proponent
• 1:09:17
  of coaches education. So this is not me poopoo and
• 1:09:20
  coaches education, you go to every class, listen to every
• 1:09:22
  coach. Sometimes not sometimes.
• 1:09:24
  A lot of times, you got to get your hands dirty and make the
• 1:09:26
  mistakes. That's the experience is the
• 1:09:27
  thing that no one can speed up for you.
• 1:09:30
  No one can give it to you. You have to go in and make a
• 1:09:32
  mistake find something that works.
• 1:09:34
  I have that aha moment that that's that's what you're going
• 1:09:37
  through. That's I love that, that's
• 1:09:38
  amazing. So how do I think Young coaches
• 1:09:41
  asked me is all the time and they'll say, I don't know.
• 1:09:43
  I'm afraid. I'm afraid of making mistakes.
• 1:09:45
  I go, you're going to make mistakes.
• 1:09:47
  Yeah. What you believe in absolutely
• 1:09:55
  believe in what you're doing? Your athletes won't either.
• 1:09:57
  Yeah, no, no I couldn't because it wouldn't be my belief.
• 1:10:05
  I couldn't take one Mark. What more did in his 22 here or
• 1:10:08
  anybody else, you know, Couldn't do a built for build out again
• 1:10:12
  because it wasn't what I believe.
• 1:10:14
  I had to go through my own experience, develop my own
• 1:10:16
  velocity, get where I believe do what I believe.
• 1:10:19
  Now, I used to publish all my workouts and hand them out, it
• 1:10:22
  seminars, that gives a here's what we did exactly Pace by Pace
• 1:10:25
  day by day and people say well you're not going to get all your
• 1:10:28
  workouts back. This is before Strava and when
• 1:10:30
  there was no secrets, everybody kept their stuff secret, I don't
• 1:10:33
  care if you have what I do every single day, it's not going to
• 1:10:35
  work for you because you're not going to believe in it and
• 1:10:38
  neither is your team. So, No, I don't care if you
• 1:10:40
  have, there's no secret formula with.
• 1:10:42
  We all have the same ingredients.
• 1:10:45
  Yeah, but there are certain chefs who can cook better than
• 1:10:48
  everybody else because they do things differently.
• 1:10:50
  We all have the same workouts. We all have.
• 1:10:52
  We always have access to the same physiology and biomechanics
• 1:10:56
  and biology but they're certain coaches who put that into play
• 1:11:00
  differently and to your point that leadership in that knowing
• 1:11:03
  your athletes knowing what works for you and your program that
• 1:11:07
  you got to learn you how to build and it looks day by day
• 1:11:09
  cease. By season.
• 1:11:11
  So how long it Texas Tech and where to next and why for is the
• 1:11:16
  Texas Tech and I came here. Yeah, right.
• 1:11:19
  Yeah. So why?
• 1:11:23
  Well Still Waters a little bit like Lubbock.
• 1:11:26
  Well this this program is heavily focused.
• 1:11:29
  In fact back, then it was pure distance running.
• 1:11:32
  They weren't fully funded right? That's right.
• 1:11:35
  What? Wait, when do we call me?
• 1:11:36
  You still had coach. He hired me as his assistant,
• 1:11:39
  they were fully funded. They were there then fully
• 1:11:41
  funded or they haven't been. But I think the roster limit the
• 1:11:44
  entire track team, I think we had 20 or 22.
• 1:11:48
  That was it? Uh-huh.
• 1:11:49
  Your number is 22. And go over him.
• 1:11:51
  Well, 22, you can't have attracted.
• 1:11:53
  There's just no way. You can barely have a cross
• 1:11:55
  country team, you need 75 to score, you fired on team.
• 1:11:59
  And if you have, you need seven in the Congress meet.
• 1:12:02
  Well having 722 you need 22x, you got some kids redshirting,
• 1:12:07
  some kids, hurt some kids, you know how whatever she its 2020,
• 1:12:11
  or whatever was barely enough. So they were all distance, they
• 1:12:14
  told him, we don't care if you get a 19-foot Walter, we're not
• 1:12:18
  having Vault, we're not, you know, that was kind of Coach
• 1:12:21
  Lisa directed from the administration back then.
• 1:12:23
  And so as a distance coach like you said for me, love it was a
• 1:12:28
  hard place to recruit to Sure awfully hot.
• 1:12:30
  You know, there weren't a lot of great places to go on a runner
• 1:12:34
  train. It was kind of running through
• 1:12:36
  the city streets. And, you know, it was, it was
• 1:12:38
  difficult and I try to recruit the Northwest because I was
• 1:12:41
  familiar with North West and Northwest kids.
• 1:12:44
  Coming to Lubbock Texas. It was a, it was a culture shock
• 1:12:47
  and a geographic shocked to see it and it was hard to sell.
• 1:12:50
  Oh, that. Yeah.
• 1:12:52
  Also we got a new head coach and West kitley who's obviously
• 1:12:55
  built a juggernaut at Texas Tech.
• 1:12:57
  And Wes is idea of where the program need to go did.
• 1:13:02
  There wasn't really a great place for me and that it could
• 1:13:05
  be in distance coach and who he saw the program he has.
• 1:13:09
  Now he saw that 20 years ago and I thought you never have that,
• 1:13:14
  but he was right. You know, he's got more, the
• 1:13:18
  best track programs in the country.
• 1:13:20
  Now has a facility that might be the best in the in the country.
• 1:13:24
  It's one of the best for sure. Yep he has built an Empire there
• 1:13:27
  that is his own kingdom. So as you know, I think it just
• 1:13:32
  for a lot of reasons. Oklahoma state was really
• 1:13:35
  attractive to me coach. We said said how many?
• 1:13:38
  Yeah, although Will for one more year and then we tie up my hand,
• 1:13:41
  it off to you. Anyway, head coach?
• 1:13:45
  Yeah, I thought, you know, like I said, I had spent Every meat
• 1:13:48
  where he was around. I just sit and stand with him
• 1:13:51
  and kind of pick his brain. So we'd become pretty close and,
• 1:13:55
  you know, he was awesome, really good to me.
• 1:13:57
  He brought me in for a year, he did not retire, in one year,
• 1:14:00
  when your became two became three became for, I think he
• 1:14:02
  understands six forty years before he finally retired, but
• 1:14:06
  he gave me the head coaching title into the head Cross
• 1:14:08
  Country Coach in 2006 so four years into it.
• 1:14:12
  And two years later made me the hit or he retired and became
• 1:14:15
  head track coach in 2008, does that?
• 1:14:17
  Said, 06 does that seem like a long time ago?
• 1:14:21
  When I see somebody athletes, I coached back then having kids
• 1:14:25
  that I'll soon be coaching. Yeah, it seems like a long time.
• 1:14:28
  Yeah. But in other respects.
• 1:14:29
  It feels like it was yesterday. Yeah.
• 1:14:31
  I think of a Ryan veils and, you know, David Jankowski, he's in
• 1:14:36
  the John McCain's. And some of those guys I had
• 1:14:38
  back then I think how can they be 40 years old?
• 1:14:42
  That that does not seem possible.
• 1:14:44
  Yeah, you know where we are. When you said 06, that's the
• 1:14:47
  year I got here to Gill. And you, I'd already had a
• 1:14:49
  coaching career and I did the biggest thing.
• 1:14:51
  And so, when you said 06, I'm like, man, have you been at
• 1:14:55
  Oklahoma State forever, but but when you said 06, I'm like,
• 1:14:58
  well, I feel like I just got here to guilt, you know, that's
• 1:15:00
  why I was like, I wonder if that felt like long time for you.
• 1:15:03
  That's just amazing how you look at it, right?
• 1:15:05
  Yeah. Time passes.
• 1:15:06
  The most for me, in the growth of other people's children, like
• 1:15:09
  some economy. They had a baby and I'll see
• 1:15:12
  them sometime when I go. What's your son?
• 1:15:14
  Three or four? Purpose.
• 1:15:31
  But you mentioned like, they told Coach weeks that if even if
• 1:15:33
  you get a 19-foot vaulter we ain't having it.
• 1:15:35
  Well, you had a really good valter and Joe dial their do
• 1:15:37
  closed out. So, we had several good Walters,
• 1:15:39
  yeah, great athlete. I mean there's some salty school
• 1:15:45
  records there at Oklahoma State before they made a decision to
• 1:15:48
  go, a different route. So, I'm gonna ask you a trivia
• 1:15:50
  question. Oh, You're gonna know the
• 1:15:52
  answer, but I'm asking you to make to me you don't have
• 1:15:55
  answer, okay? Who and Oklahoma State Track and
• 1:15:58
  Field, history who has scored the most points at the national
• 1:16:02
  championships. Man, I want to guess Joe but I
• 1:16:06
  don't think that's the right. It is Joe.
• 1:16:07
  Okay don't die. All right, good sure.
• 1:16:09
  Joe Domino. Second.
• 1:16:11
  Man, if you say Garth Brooks because that's the only other
• 1:16:13
  name. I got no from back in the day
• 1:16:15
  but he Garth Brooks. Yeah.
• 1:16:16
  You want that good? Yeah.
• 1:16:18
  Nick Miller. Who was a hammer thrower during
• 1:16:21
  my era know, every talks about our business.
• 1:16:24
  Yeah. Joe dial and Nick Miller.
• 1:16:27
  Joe dollar. Voltar.
• 1:16:28
  What eventer? And Nick Miller.
• 1:16:30
  I hammer way through her one event.
• 1:16:31
  Her 1/2 of enter. Yeah, the two highest-scoring
• 1:16:35
  athletes in school history today I shall teach.
• 1:16:38
  Yep. No way.
• 1:16:40
  Yep. Is that right?
• 1:16:44
  Yeah. And that crazy.
• 1:16:45
  That is crazy. Yeah, I I mean I guess I have to
• 1:16:49
  believe you of all people. You're gonna know.
• 1:16:51
  Yeah, that is totally shocking. Yeah.
• 1:16:53
  Wow. Okay, so speaking of growth you
• 1:16:58
  were distance, only 20-something distance athletes and now you've
• 1:17:02
  got, I mean, you've had some of the best sprinters around you
• 1:17:06
  that jumpers vaulters. You feel the energy of some
• 1:17:09
  great all-around athletes, talk to us about that, growth of the
• 1:17:12
  Program. How did it?
• 1:17:13
  How did he go from? Hey, just be distance.
• 1:17:16
  Have a good program don't cause problems will move on to not
• 1:17:20
  only have any full program that's really good but also
• 1:17:24
  having a distance program that went from good to great if you
• 1:17:27
  will Well, I'm, I am a process similar to erosion and you, you
• 1:17:35
  know, you go to the Grand Canyon.
• 1:17:36
  You look at it. Now, it's hard to imagine that
• 1:17:38
  at one time. It was a drop of water on a high
• 1:17:41
  plane, right? And now, it's this over time, it
• 1:17:44
  becomes as incredible thing in my programs kind of same way I
• 1:17:48
  work slowly and we had 20 guys as, as our limit even when
• 1:17:53
  you're at, go to 22 and I start arguing saying, hey, if I have
• 1:17:57
  14 and Cross country. And then, if each guy has to
• 1:18:01
  count in each sport, there in terms of Thailand.
• 1:18:04
  If so, if I like, if you give me 22, that's 66 counts over the
• 1:18:08
  course of the year. What if I like 14 and
• 1:18:11
  cross-country can I add 25 and endure and 25 an outdoor?
• 1:18:15
  Yeah. Okay.
• 1:18:16
  You can do that and then I might fudge outdoor to 20.
• 1:18:18
  So and so I just slowly over different administrators going
• 1:18:23
  to grow our numbers and now no one talks to your ultimate
• 1:18:27
  anymore. It was a slow process.
• 1:18:30
  I think the first time we kind of stepped out of really
• 1:18:34
  spending our resources on middle or long distance.
• 1:18:37
  Runners was Nick Miller. I gave him a full scholarship or
• 1:18:40
  what amounts to a full as a hammer thrower.
• 1:18:43
  And it got, we took a chance on ended up being great as a
• 1:18:46
  national champion. He's now the British national
• 1:18:48
  record holder, he's a three-time world champion ship athlete and
• 1:18:53
  an Olympian two-time Olympian and you know is phenomenal.
• 1:18:57
  But we took A chance on him. And then we got guys, like Tyree
• 1:19:02
  kill. We came out from the football
• 1:19:03
  team, we signed up another took a chance on a long jumper.
• 1:19:06
  From England, gave a big scholarship, he ended up being,
• 1:19:10
  you know, I think a two or three time first-team All-American, a
• 1:19:14
  long jump 802. I think he's now jumped 820 post
• 1:19:17
  collegially. We got we had we got we got a
• 1:19:21
  guy who just walked onto the team.
• 1:19:25
  Who ended up. Hello.
• 1:19:28
  Big one of the best Spinners in the country.
• 1:19:30
  John tears, Teeters. Yes, it's okay.
• 1:19:33
  I actually could paint his face because Diego's your coach back
• 1:19:36
  then, Peter. Yeah, he does was lock on.
• 1:19:41
  Yeah. He was a, he was a Tulsa here
• 1:19:43
  and 10:30 and he wasn't good much money there.
• 1:19:47
  And he was kind of a book Sky, they're going to come here will
• 1:19:50
  give you books. It's a hell of a lot cheaper
• 1:19:51
  because the state school I was driving.
• 1:19:53
  Yeah, right. Yeah.
• 1:19:55
  And you know, when 650 T2. I believe he was a stud.
• 1:20:00
  Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:08
  So yeah. But you are also as the head
• 1:20:21
  coach, you're developing your coaching staff.
• 1:20:24
  You're allowed one more coach, and, and you got to convince a
• 1:20:26
  coach to come. Min, by the way, we've never had
• 1:20:29
  a sport program. Basically, so you're building
• 1:20:31
  from scratch and you know, over in the Big 12.
• 1:20:33
  So it ain't easy. How do you, how are you working
• 1:20:36
  on? Developing your staff hard?
• 1:20:37
  You know, what were the things that you were looking for in
• 1:20:40
  coaches to come and join you in this?
• 1:20:43
  Because they got to be walking step with how you're running the
• 1:20:45
  program. Well, Mike holder, who is my
• 1:20:48
  athletic director for a long time, just retired a couple
• 1:20:51
  years ago was a legendary golf coach here. 18 national titles
• 1:20:55
  is golf coach and I probably learned more about coaching for
• 1:20:59
  my colder than anybody else I've ever met and just he and I kind
• 1:21:03
  of had a special relationship. We go on walks together on time
• 1:21:07
  or both in to get our steps. And so we spend time walking
• 1:21:10
  talking and he always told me and he's right, never hire a I'm
• 1:21:16
  a resumes, don't coach has higher human being could be much
• 1:21:20
  better off. And so, when I was hiring, it's
• 1:21:23
  Prince, coach in 2013 for the first time in maybe 20 years, 25
• 1:21:27
  years, they understand it's go to your, you know, I hired Diego
• 1:21:31
  flocker and his resume a way, Been Everywhere.
• 1:21:35
  He bounced around a lot. That's sometimes a red flag.
• 1:21:40
  He didn't necessarily have the credentials to say, he can be
• 1:21:45
  the primary. A Sprint coach, a big full
• 1:21:47
  program yet, but why talk to him?
• 1:21:50
  I liked his personality, I liked.
• 1:21:53
  I thought. This is a guy can spend time
• 1:21:54
  around. In fact, my interview with him
• 1:21:57
  as I flew up to Drake, to go to us Nationals.
• 1:22:00
  And I met Diego Drive me back to Lubbock in my car.
• 1:22:02
  Arness allotted. Sorry to Stillwater, Diego
• 1:22:06
  jewelry back to Stillwater. I said, yeah.
• 1:22:07
  Go your interview, I'ma come up there and by the way, I'm gonna
• 1:22:11
  drive up there, you're going to, I'm going to buy you a one-way
• 1:22:13
  ticket from Stillwater back to where He was Auburn.
• 1:22:16
  I think I'll burn you, but you're going to drive me in my
• 1:22:20
  car. Back from back from Des Moines.
• 1:22:23
  I love those. We literally, I think it was
• 1:22:27
  Jason from Catawba, when we're talking right now, David hasn't
• 1:22:31
  published. But when you're listening right
• 1:22:33
  now to our conversation with Dave, it has dropped.
• 1:22:35
  We literally brought that up. I said, hey, I think every dang
• 1:22:39
  it or was it cliffordville toe? We just talked about this where
• 1:22:41
  I said, hey I personally think every interview for track
• 1:22:43
  coaches should be in a van ride. Did you're gonna Be a lot of an
• 1:22:46
  rides. Yes.
• 1:22:47
  So it should be it should be in the office who were never in the
• 1:22:50
  quote unquote never in the office.
• 1:22:51
  It's what we're driving were going somewhere were flying for
• 1:22:53
  this recruit. We're doing this meat, I love
• 1:22:56
  that. I did not, you know, we had
• 1:22:58
  Diego on the podcast, I got to go back and listen and see if he
• 1:23:00
  brought that up. That's amazing.
• 1:23:02
  We spent eight hours by car together, we got back.
• 1:23:05
  Can you imagine being on a job interview for eight hours and a
• 1:23:08
  half ounce, an hour for your likeness ain't the guy but we're
• 1:23:11
  still got four hours to go. Yeah.
• 1:23:14
  Yep, we were eight hours in and he got back and he came in and I
• 1:23:17
  dropped over the hotel. I came in the next day, he came
• 1:23:19
  in all dressed up and he popped out his, his PowerPoint as they
• 1:23:25
  Diego Diego. Love it, the PowerPoint away
• 1:23:28
  because I don't care. You know, I mean, there's
• 1:23:30
  nothing in your PowerPoint is going to change me one way or
• 1:23:32
  the other, but just put it away as always a time.
• 1:23:35
  You see, I've got all my coaching philosophy, go don't
• 1:23:38
  eat it. I go, I talk to you.
• 1:23:40
  I listen to you, we sat in the car and just be F.
• 1:23:42
  We talked about track and field. We talked about the meat.
• 1:23:44
  We just watched performances. I hear your passion.
• 1:23:47
  Yeah, I'm good. Dude.
• 1:23:49
  Now I can play this game with you, I'm gonna hire you.
• 1:23:51
  And so, yeah. So I've tried to hire people.
• 1:23:58
  My most recent hire was an employer Thorpe, who was one of
• 1:24:01
  my former athletes and I hired her, she had zero coaching
• 1:24:06
  experience. She didn't want to coach.
• 1:24:09
  She was married to one of her former teammates.
• 1:24:11
  When the guys on my team that was on the team with They're
• 1:24:13
  living in Dallas. They both have careers and they
• 1:24:15
  were doing this very quickly and I called her and convinced her I
• 1:24:20
  called. And I remember telling my
• 1:24:22
  colder, my idea that I might say, hey, I'm going to catch
• 1:24:24
  some Flack and there's going to be some blowback about another
• 1:24:27
  coach hiring. Some young females got no
• 1:24:29
  experience blah, blah, blah. And he said, when I tell you
• 1:24:33
  what about, we told you. Who cares about the resume?
• 1:24:35
  Their resume is going to do anything?
• 1:24:37
  Is she a great person? I said I'm you're going to meet
• 1:24:39
  her and he said he talked to her about, you know, 20 minutes.
• 1:24:42
  He said, Higher. That woman.
• 1:24:44
  Get her here and honestly, I could not have hired a better
• 1:24:48
  person, but I was an issue. That's what about two hours ever
• 1:24:50
  made not the best. She isn't, she's become a great
• 1:24:53
  coach but she's always been a fantastic human being the way
• 1:24:56
  she talks to people. The way she lights up a room,
• 1:24:58
  she makes other people feel just little people believe, just what
• 1:25:01
  she can do as a human being is and also I come into the office,
• 1:25:06
  I go at her office, I lay down on the couch, I start my
• 1:25:08
  therapy. Such know, that's all yeah, I
• 1:25:12
  hire hire a Not a resume that is really like, that's solid
• 1:25:17
  advice, right there. Yeah, yeah, I love that.
• 1:25:20
  I love that. You had one coach in here, on an
• 1:25:21
  interview for another position. Again, I'll say the coach, but
• 1:25:25
  that coach said, hey, you can call my ADD and call this idea
• 1:25:27
  by former a deed in mic holder things.
• 1:25:30
  Why would I call those be like? Well, you know, they can tell
• 1:25:33
  you because you think they're going to tell me anything,
• 1:25:35
  valuable good or bad. You think I'm gonna trust
• 1:25:37
  anything? They say, good or bad?
• 1:25:39
  I've looked you in the eye, I formed an opinion of you.
• 1:25:42
  I think what I think about you. You and no one's going to change
• 1:25:44
  it, right? It doesn't matter what your
• 1:25:47
  current 80 or your Posse D is going to say about you, good or
• 1:25:49
  bad. I don't care if you want me to
• 1:25:51
  call him I will but it's a waste everybody's time.
• 1:25:53
  Yeah, this is great. This is great advice.
• 1:25:56
  And if you're listening and getting value from this, I'd
• 1:25:58
  also recommend, we had Jamie Pollard, the ad of Iowa State
• 1:26:02
  Radio podcast. Yeah, and I asked him
• 1:26:04
  point-blank I go. Hey, so you've hired many many
• 1:26:06
  head, coaches and and have been involved in the assistant
• 1:26:09
  coaching for track and field processes.
• 1:26:11
  What someone's listening right now?
• 1:26:13
  What I need to know from an 80s perspective, to get ahead job
• 1:26:16
  like this and he laid it out for so go back.
• 1:26:19
  So I gasped. I probably won't.
• 1:26:20
  So yeah, that was a long time ago, 200 interviews.
• 1:26:25
  I knew you're going to say that it was really great advice.
• 1:26:28
  I don't want to spoil it so everybody else.
• 1:26:30
  What's up to it? But he was really good.
• 1:26:32
  It really was about if I remember, right?
• 1:26:35
  Someone's going to correct me on Twitter here.
• 1:26:36
  A lot of it was passion, like, you got to know what the job,
• 1:26:39
  like we're in the Big 12 here. There is no playing around here.
• 1:26:41
  You better know what you're doing.
• 1:26:43
  And at the end of the day, I think he said, I don't know if
• 1:26:45
  this is your quote, but I think in the day he said at the end of
• 1:26:47
  the day it's a people business. So not only do you need to know
• 1:26:50
  how to coach the kids and deal with them and their parents and
• 1:26:53
  things like that. He goes, but you're dealing with
• 1:26:55
  a lot of people in an athletic department and marketing SI D
• 1:26:59
  compliance etcetera. So you better know how to work
• 1:27:02
  with people at the end of the day.
• 1:27:04
  So I really enjoyed his time. So talk to us about, you
• 1:27:08
  mentioned earlier that it's more fun and maybe More satisfying to
• 1:27:14
  win the first one and it's harder, and maybe a little bit
• 1:27:18
  less, satisfying to win, two, three, four, whatever, Etc.
• 1:27:21
  So talk to us, when was the what was the first national title in?
• 1:27:25
  How did, what did that mean to you?
• 1:27:27
  Honestly say the first one, the second one was more fun.
• 1:27:30
  Okay. The first one it was a lot of
• 1:27:33
  stress, a lot of pressure, a lot of feeling like here's our
• 1:27:38
  window and it's closing we better get this done because
• 1:27:41
  Ryan veils graduating John Kasich he's graduating and guys
• 1:27:44
  are get this done for me that have been kind of the heart and
• 1:27:47
  soul, they're gone. I got all these other schlep
• 1:27:49
  significant kind of next year, right?
• 1:27:51
  And so it was going into with a lot of anxiety and stress.
• 1:27:57
  And thinking that I hear this from coaches, who have won
• 1:28:01
  titles, other sports all the time, I listed this and it's
• 1:28:04
  very true that you're striving for this thing.
• 1:28:07
  I think athletes experience the same thing.
• 1:28:09
  This thing, you think you want this, ultimate goal, the place
• 1:28:12
  you want to be at the top of the mountain, whatever it is, and
• 1:28:16
  you work so hard for it and we got it that first year.
• 1:28:20
  Also, part of the what shape. This was the race itself.
• 1:28:23
  We were ahead of Oregon by a significant margin at 5K and
• 1:28:28
  that lead kept shrinking. We were hemorrhaging points all
• 1:28:31
  the way. Hmm.
• 1:28:33
  Mainly because German Fernandez was our fifth year unbeknownst
• 1:28:37
  to us was anemic and he was, he was just sliding at the end and
• 1:28:41
  in term of Hernandez is one of the nominal.
• 1:28:44
  He's the most talented athlete I've ever worked a phenomenal.
• 1:28:46
  Yeah, and watching him, go from the 30s, to the 40s, to the 50s,
• 1:28:51
  to the 60s that and thinking, Armory win with a fifth man at
• 1:28:55
  100 place. You know?
• 1:28:57
  Being 99, I think we end up winning by 16 points and I got
• 1:29:00
  done. I remember going home.
• 1:29:03
  I want to celebrate our me. Excited.
• 1:29:04
  I'm exhausted. I'm like, it was kind of just
• 1:29:07
  relief. It wasn't the moment.
• 1:29:09
  I thought it'd be. It didn't fill me up.
• 1:29:12
  It didn't make this the world change, you know, nothing was
• 1:29:15
  different from the day before, except for now.
• 1:29:17
  I got to try to figure out to do it again.
• 1:29:18
  So, notice the difference Daven words that you're using and even
• 1:29:22
  your body language of you just won the national title that I
• 1:29:25
  mean, yeah, no one does that. I mean, there, you can probably
• 1:29:28
  count on two hands, you know, me and your hands together.
• 1:29:30
  How many coaches today that are coaching that have wanted.
• 1:29:33
  Channel title and cross, right? It's just doesn't happen a lot,
• 1:29:36
  right? And go back to when Leah one.
• 1:29:39
  And when the next kid, when 27, and you were, you know, I'm
• 1:29:43
  guessing up. I mean, they agree, but got your
• 1:29:46
  ego is different. Your confidence in yourself is
• 1:29:49
  different now as well. It's not based on necessarily
• 1:29:52
  what the kids on the track do. It's you and as a person and
• 1:29:56
  here's my profession, it's different.
• 1:29:58
  I'm just noticing again the language and body language here.
• 1:30:01
  Well in my My early coaching career, I had zero to lose.
• 1:30:05
  There was Zero expectation, you know, going into that year or
• 1:30:09
  even, even in February of that year, I had no clue that lead.
• 1:30:14
  Daniel could even make a national championship well on
• 1:30:17
  win one or two or and then she won the gold medal at the world
• 1:30:20
  University games that year. So I had no idea what was
• 1:30:24
  coming. Had I thought that was a
• 1:30:26
  possibility. It might have changed everything
• 1:30:29
  because now all the sudden you start to again, worry about Get
• 1:30:33
  up or losing something. There's something you something
• 1:30:35
  you can lose your tongue, my expectations.
• 1:30:38
  Yeah, hmm, expectations. And just again, like I said
• 1:30:43
  going into the 2009 year to year 10.
• 1:30:45
  I changed a lot since 2009 as well.
• 1:30:48
  Try to evolve as a coach, what I expect.
• 1:30:49
  So that's what I hope is a light them.
• 1:30:52
  But, in 2009, I remember finishing in, like I said not
• 1:30:57
  having this big euphoric Rush of You know, whatever it was more
• 1:31:04
  just than God. Hmm we got it done, it's over
• 1:31:06
  I'm getting on a plane tomorrow I'm going to Hawaii which I did.
• 1:31:09
  Okay so you know I think That first one was tough.
• 1:31:18
  The next one? Everybody graduated.
• 1:31:21
  I going to the year, I didn't really think we were going to
• 1:31:24
  win again. I was rebuilding the team.
• 1:31:25
  I thought I was rebuilding and a bunch of young guys and it was a
• 1:31:31
  lot more fun when we won that one.
• 1:31:33
  It was fun partly because it 5K, I remember watching them come we
• 1:31:38
  were Terre Haute I was on at the 6th Kmart be look across the
• 1:31:40
  valley you can see them coming down that Long Hill from 5 to 6
• 1:31:45
  k i remember stick my fist. The are going back.
• 1:31:48
  I said, Stubbs was our fifth man.
• 1:31:50
  At least owe. This guy saw stops flying down,
• 1:31:54
  just eating people up. I thought this race is over.
• 1:31:57
  I told Bobby Locke hurt my sister.
• 1:31:59
  Let's go to the Finish Line. We don't need anybody else.
• 1:32:01
  This go to the finish line and celebrate this and I could just
• 1:32:04
  see, I knew my team I knew they weren't giving up places in the
• 1:32:08
  last five k and we were just mowing people down and like I
• 1:32:12
  said, we won by 120 points in your so so that was different.
• 1:32:17
  Different feel from that point. Forward 2011, we lost that was a
• 1:32:20
  stressful year. It was, how do we stay?
• 1:32:22
  On top? 2012, came back and won again in
• 1:32:26
  2013. Again, I thought we had the team
• 1:32:30
  to win. We returned the core.
• 1:32:31
  A core group of guys, it was good enough to win but again we
• 1:32:35
  kind of didn't have that same Edge.
• 1:32:37
  We didn't have that same Killer Instinct.
• 1:32:39
  We got every is looking at someone else to get the job done
• 1:32:42
  and we got third. And then we went on the slide
• 1:32:45
  third 98. Back to 1229 back to 13th, did
• 1:32:52
  not qualify and then third third type of burst.
• 1:32:57
  I'm not going to say I'm not going to say second.
• 1:32:59
  I was a tie for first. Oh yeah.
• 1:33:02
  That's right. I just I just remembered that.
• 1:33:06
  I don't know how called a controversy that was the rule
• 1:33:07
  but her it is the rule. So is there a rule?
• 1:33:10
  Yeah, yeah, that okay, let's get into it because I'm going to say
• 1:33:13
  this and you correct me. It is the rule.
• 1:33:16
  So what he's talking about here, explain a little bit.
• 1:33:18
  So the top five, the team scores were tied at the end of the day.
• 1:33:24
  Most people probably assume that in cross country because it
• 1:33:26
  isn't like this in other places. Maybe high school and stuff.
• 1:33:29
  The 6 plate, Whoever has the best six Place, Runner, then
• 1:33:32
  becomes first place, that's the tiebreakers.
• 1:33:34
  If you're six Runner was 100th and their six Runner was 120th.
• 1:33:38
  You, you win first. They get second because of that,
• 1:33:41
  but in NCAA, I don't know, if it's all divisions or if it's
• 1:33:45
  just Pacific Division, One, Is they do basically a one on one
• 1:33:49
  count, right? So we look at where did the
• 1:33:51
  first place Runners first person on each team's Runner get.
• 1:33:54
  So your first runner was third and there's was fifth, you get a
• 1:33:57
  point because first guy matched up to theirs, right?
• 1:34:00
  And second it goes all and whoever gets the three first
• 1:34:03
  because three out of five and that's how you won.
• 1:34:05
  So you know, you're going to be mad at me.
• 1:34:08
  You got S as a team because of that rule, I understand why
• 1:34:11
  you're saying tied for first in, there were a lot of people
• 1:34:14
  upset, you know? I yeah, I'm Social media every
• 1:34:17
  day all day. So I read all the post and
• 1:34:20
  there's a lot of validation of why people would be upset and I
• 1:34:22
  understand why you would maybe be upset.
• 1:34:24
  But at the end of the day, is it true?
• 1:34:28
  I'm gonna say you, meaning you the general body of incident
• 1:34:31
  play cross country coaches, you voted for this.
• 1:34:39
  Probably, but that's not who changed the rule.
• 1:34:43
  Okay, that's approaches don't change.
• 1:34:44
  These rules, the incident, light outs, right?
• 1:34:47
  Comes down to the instantly committee, right?
• 1:34:49
  And I may have been on the committee when it's changed.
• 1:34:52
  I can't remember. Sure.
• 1:34:54
  First of all, in all honesty, I'm not upset about it because I
• 1:34:59
  knew the rule that's a good cry. Smith William everybody in the
• 1:35:03
  country, knew the route. Well, not every people who were
• 1:35:05
  too drunk. Yeah, yes, we do.
• 1:35:08
  I nest. Like the rule or see this being
• 1:35:11
  a great way to break ties. That's apparent.
• 1:35:13
  Yeah. But going and I knew what it
• 1:35:14
  was. Yeah.
• 1:35:15
  And I'll tell you this. I have had three championships
• 1:35:18
  now decided by this tiebreaker rule.
• 1:35:20
  No way two of them. I've lost one of my one.
• 1:35:24
  I think we're the only school. We three years ago, we won a
• 1:35:27
  conference title against Iowa, State Martin Smith last year.
• 1:35:31
  We beat them at the conference meet on this tiebreaker rule.
• 1:35:34
  They were the better team and I walked away thinking I'm not
• 1:35:38
  giving this trophy back. Back because we need it.
• 1:35:40
  They won three in a row and but it was Hollow to me because
• 1:35:45
  their sixth and seventh beat our sixth so they I look at them
• 1:35:50
  like they were the more complete team and people can say well you
• 1:35:53
  just ran better than they did. In the day, we didn't run
• 1:35:55
  better, we scored the same thing they scored, right?
• 1:36:00
  But we got the title because this weird rule but there are
• 1:36:02
  six and seven Runners were better than our sixth write to
• 1:36:06
  me. If you're looking at, who's got
• 1:36:07
  the better more complete team, They do at the regional meet
• 1:36:12
  this year, we lost at Olson on this tiebreaker and then a
• 1:36:15
  national loss, the Nationals to Northern Arizona on the
• 1:36:19
  tiebreaker. So you've been involved in more
• 1:36:22
  bees than anybody else in this country.
• 1:36:23
  Holy cow. So I was very aware of how this
• 1:36:27
  tiebreaker work so it wasn't like but I'll tell you this.
• 1:36:30
  In most systems of our tiebreaker, you were going to
• 1:36:33
  make coaching decisions that might affect the tide the tide,
• 1:36:37
  how you part of what you do. Do is okay, but there's nothing.
• 1:36:42
  I or Mike Smith or Ed Eyestone, anybody else would do
• 1:36:45
  differently. And what's my tiebreaker to me
• 1:36:50
  this tie breaker is like a coin flip and someone could say, you
• 1:36:53
  know, well, you got the title at that conference title that
• 1:36:56
  Congress Championship, because our state, because you just ran
• 1:36:58
  a little better, we didn't run better.
• 1:37:00
  We scored it to me. This is the only tie Breakers
• 1:37:03
  interesting sport anywhere in the world that I know of that.
• 1:37:07
  Breaks a tie based on New information, you take the same
• 1:37:13
  result that's already given you a tie and said, we're going to
• 1:37:18
  look at it in a different way. It's not a ton, but if we're
• 1:37:21
  saying it, you know we're saying this is the way we score a
• 1:37:23
  championship, it's a tie, you can't.
• 1:37:25
  Look at the same result with nothing new and I'll say it's
• 1:37:28
  not a time. And so, to me, that's what's
• 1:37:30
  weird about it. I think it'd be like, saying in
• 1:37:33
  basketball where I can play over time, we're going to say, okay,
• 1:37:36
  your top score scored. 20 points are scored R19 we went out and
• 1:37:40
  go through okay there's nothing that.
• 1:37:42
  Yeah you would have known that my top guy scorable, you might
• 1:37:45
  have. You might, that's not the way we
• 1:37:48
  play. You might have changed my mind
• 1:37:49
  on this because yeah, I was looking at it as, you know, your
• 1:37:53
  sixth and seventh Runners are on the team, but top five is what
• 1:37:56
  we score in football. We don't go and say well what
• 1:37:59
  was the kick returners yardage or the backup quarterbacks yard
• 1:38:05
  here. Are the team and they were
• 1:38:06
  instrumental in the winter. What happened?
• 1:38:08
  But we do, we'll look at that. Salt.
• 1:38:09
  But, in that example, you just gave I start thinking about
• 1:38:12
  football, four quarters. We don't go.
• 1:38:13
  And look at well, in the first quarter, you scored 14, they
• 1:38:15
  scored zero point to you. Yeah, that's a good point.
• 1:38:19
  You're taking no inverted over everybody else plays over time.
• 1:38:21
  As you know, golf goes to the fifth man, cross country
• 1:38:25
  everywhere. Else goes to the fifth or sixth
• 1:38:27
  man depending on the league, right.
• 1:38:28
  Everybody goes to another man or another.
• 1:38:31
  Yeah, it's not the plate extra time.
• 1:38:34
  Even in soccer, which a lot of people think.
• 1:38:36
  Penalty kicks are stupid, and they don't have any do it again.
• 1:38:39
  And I kind of agree but at least there's new information, right?
• 1:38:42
  There's something going on right now.
• 1:38:43
  There's some information. So to me, that makes it weird,
• 1:38:47
  and I tell people this, you could run a dual meet with a
• 1:38:50
  team, where you tie and your Sixth Man.
• 1:38:56
  Beeps. There Sixpence your seventh man.
• 1:38:58
  Beats are 6 & 7 but you still lose the tie breaker.
• 1:39:00
  Hmm, and it's a duel me. You've already said it too
• 1:39:02
  tight. Now you're going to say, well
• 1:39:04
  this head-to-head think it takes annoying new information to me,
• 1:39:06
  that's just odd. So would you?
• 1:39:09
  Because I heard the argument of, and I kind of see both ways on
• 1:39:14
  this one about the six-man tiebreaker.
• 1:39:16
  Well, what if you only have five people because that's still a
• 1:39:19
  team by the way. So but do people like?
• 1:39:21
  Well that shows you you didn't have your depth either but I'm
• 1:39:23
  also like yeah but the team is 5.
• 1:39:25
  If I 11 people on the football field.
• 1:39:27
  I don't need a second string. I probably do but you know,
• 1:39:30
  saying I could just have those 11 and went so what?
• 1:39:32
  Well if you go to the team is 70 score five you score five but 77
• 1:39:40
  plane he's gonna he's gonna score five out of the seven.
• 1:39:44
  Yeah, I gotcha. So what would he make magic
• 1:39:48
  wand? How would you tie break?
• 1:39:51
  Six Runner fell on her, I like to do.
• 1:39:54
  You know saying, I'm just going to say that in 99.99% of racism
• 1:40:02
  consequence, A team's not going to have five finishers.
• 1:40:05
  I mean, it happens. Every once awhile that a teen
• 1:40:08
  vying for the title, doesn't usually do it with try.
• 1:40:11
  I can't remember a time when a major changes, when one with
• 1:40:15
  five finishes. So you might be breaking the tie
• 1:40:18
  it 15th and 16th in the region. In that and think all the teams
• 1:40:21
  up with Manuel, okay? It's kind of inconsequential.
• 1:40:24
  Definitely, right. So I think it's much more rare.
• 1:40:28
  And honestly, like you said, I don't know that that's a problem
• 1:40:30
  because I don't think any teams going to start with you and
• 1:40:34
  seven. They may finish with fewer and
• 1:40:35
  Southern correct. They're probably gonna start
• 1:40:37
  with something. That's probably more apt, right
• 1:40:39
  to that level. You're gonna, you're gonna put
• 1:40:41
  somebody in everything. Got just in case of something
• 1:40:43
  goes wrong, we got to have a finisher, you can put some water
• 1:40:45
  meters, guys, in their basketball, you can play with
• 1:40:48
  for right. You have to have four on the
• 1:40:49
  floor but you can play with four but five is that pies would
• 1:40:53
  normally play but you can put it forward.
• 1:40:56
  So I don't know what the, you know, six man I think is
• 1:40:59
  probably what I would use if I broke a tie.
• 1:41:04
  The last time. There's a tie at the NCAA
• 1:41:05
  championships across country. It was a tie, it was code Co
• 1:41:08
  national champions. All right.
• 1:41:09
  Now it was I think 1942 and so you know in track if we have a
• 1:41:15
  tie it's a tie. Yeah, I'll just say what's wrong
• 1:41:18
  with that, right? Yeah.
• 1:41:19
  Yeah. Put a shim Shams in wrestling.
• 1:41:21
  If you have a tie it's a tie. There's Co national champions.
• 1:41:25
  So I get break. If you can play over time, I get
• 1:41:30
  it. If we could go light up, say
• 1:41:31
  hey, we're going to run a every line.
• 1:41:33
  I'm going to run to more K. Alright?
• 1:41:35
  Yeah. So I get the argument against
• 1:41:47
  that argument, that doesn't make sense.
• 1:41:50
  Well, maybe not scoring five and then maybe it's just a tie.
• 1:41:55
  I just think that the The system we use now doesn't necessarily
• 1:42:01
  you know like it doesn't just say pick the team around better.
• 1:42:04
  Hmm my definitions not we tied we came through the exact same
• 1:42:08
  score. How did they run better?
• 1:42:10
  What about like average time? I don't get that either.
• 1:42:14
  I don't think that's valuable. Yeah.
• 1:42:16
  Because you know, one guy winning by a minute changes
• 1:42:21
  everything. And you might pound them soundly
• 1:42:24
  at two, three, four, and five and six and seven.
• 1:42:27
  But you know, I don't know if that's valuable either.
• 1:42:29
  Yeah, he when you really want to, if you get a break the tie
• 1:42:34
  you want to say because of this this team is better and not be a
• 1:42:41
  coin flip, which is really nice. Current systems almost a coin
• 1:42:44
  flip. You know, it's like You know,
• 1:42:48
  when we finished and I saw it was a tie, I can quickly go
• 1:42:51
  through my okay, they had wanted to say because there for sure I
• 1:42:55
  know we got 3 because 4 out of 12 are trying to thank God.
• 1:42:58
  We beat them at five. We have the same score.
• 1:43:02
  That means they had to have been, you know, so it was like
• 1:43:04
  couple points here and there, right?
• 1:43:05
  They went to three, we went 5812 know they were 18 that God yet.
• 1:43:11
  They had to be innocent, but it was like a it was like we could
• 1:43:15
  have beaten them up, you know? Because you know, You might, you
• 1:43:18
  might have changed Minds by what you said about the no new
• 1:43:20
  information thing that think that's key to maybe that
• 1:43:23
  argument there. Honestly, when you said that, I
• 1:43:24
  was like, oh yeah, we do an overtime in football.
• 1:43:26
  We don't just go back and look at this.
• 1:43:28
  Yeah, that's that's interesting. Let's keep moving on for the
• 1:43:30
  sense of time, no one expected me to talk that much about cross
• 1:43:34
  country and cross-country ties. But we're going to keep going
• 1:43:36
  cross-country, because one of the cool things you have there
• 1:43:38
  at Oklahoma, state is this cross-country course.
• 1:43:40
  I haven't been there my, our CEO here, actually, his son runs for
• 1:43:45
  Baylor and so he's been on your core several.
• 1:43:47
  Times. And he came back actually, like,
• 1:43:49
  asked me, have you been on Oklahoma State's campus?
• 1:43:52
  And I said, yeah, I have he was their cross-country course.
• 1:43:54
  I was like, I don't think they had it when I was there but tell
• 1:43:57
  us about this cross-country course.
• 1:43:59
  And what kind of Advantage is that give you not necessarily?
• 1:44:02
  I know you've hosted Nationals and I want to talk about that
• 1:44:04
  briefly as well, but having a place, having a home for your
• 1:44:07
  cross country team, that's different.
• 1:44:09
  You know, we all have a track for our track team, most of us
• 1:44:12
  have a track for a track team. Talk to us about your cross
• 1:44:14
  country course, how did that come in involvement?
• 1:44:17
  I know. A little bit of the history of
• 1:44:18
  Wisconsin's, cross-country course, because I'm now friends
• 1:44:21
  with woodsy, the guy who Zimmerman, who designed he's a
• 1:44:25
  great friend of mine now talk to us, what your cross country
• 1:44:27
  course because it's it's first-class my friend, it's
• 1:44:29
  awesome, no offense, Wisconsin, but it's best cross country
• 1:44:32
  course in the country. No, man.
• 1:44:33
  You know, I stay would Zim when I go up there, all right.
• 1:44:37
  I'm gonna try to that ours is it's the widest.
• 1:44:44
  It's a 33 feet wide throughout. Arrows point is 33 feet, it's
• 1:44:50
  irrigated the entire thing is irrigated, so it's got Fairway
• 1:44:54
  quality grass, the entire way through.
• 1:44:56
  Wow. Yeah, the start is 900 meters
• 1:45:02
  before the first team. Turn a 9R M straightaway.
• 1:45:06
  I think it's challenging. It's got Nuance to it.
• 1:45:09
  There is a strategy to how you run it.
• 1:45:13
  Every has a different strategy, how to put a play it, it's like
• 1:45:15
  a good golf course, you know, it It plays different than every
• 1:45:18
  other golf courses. And I think it's interesting
• 1:45:21
  beneficial do to kind of come with a strategy, know what
• 1:45:23
  you're doing, and you better go to our bathroom.
• 1:45:24
  But there's there's a strategy to new wants to it.
• 1:45:28
  It's on campus. So it's literally 600 meters as
• 1:45:32
  the crow flies from The Freshman.
• 1:45:34
  Stay about 400 meters from our track, you know?
• 1:45:38
  Yeah, on it's right there. We can get to it everyday and a
• 1:45:42
  two-minute job. That's cool.
• 1:45:43
  So, even go up to it. And so, I think for all those
• 1:45:46
  reasons, I've never seen anything like it in the world
• 1:45:48
  and it came about. It's the course we've had for
• 1:45:51
  the last 70 years, but maybe 10 years ago, we were, we want to
• 1:45:57
  host Nationals and we had a course that wasn't by it.
• 1:46:01
  By now today, it wouldn't be a host Nations then we might have
• 1:46:05
  been able to budget, but it was too narrow.
• 1:46:07
  It was down to three or four meters in places and the footing
• 1:46:10
  wasn't great and it'll run through piles of bark chips
• 1:46:13
  because we have Hill to wash out so he's always cover him.
• 1:46:17
  March, if there's probably over the years you know, two or three
• 1:46:19
  feet of bark, chips piled up. So was a very we got was very
• 1:46:22
  spongy, hard work. But it was a great course.
• 1:46:25
  It was through the woods and up and down through there being
• 1:46:27
  very challenging. And so we put in a boat bid to
• 1:46:30
  host Nationals and the NCAA committee asked me.
• 1:46:33
  So tell us about your course, and I just told about the course
• 1:46:37
  I wanted. Instead, of course we had and I
• 1:46:40
  was honest. I said, Hey, listen, it's not
• 1:46:42
  the right now but it will be, we gotta plan.
• 1:46:44
  We're going to we're going to build this course and we The
• 1:46:47
  bid. And so, I went straight to my
• 1:46:49
  a.d.d., my coldest a median. Hey, we got the big, we have to
• 1:46:52
  make some improvements, good news, bad news.
• 1:46:55
  So we got to do, I told him and I had a plan to spend, maybe up
• 1:46:59
  to a million dollars, to kind of redo it.
• 1:47:01
  And he said, you're not dreaming big enough.
• 1:47:04
  You got to dream bigger Hills, that's what we got to do.
• 1:47:06
  We got a national championship course?
• 1:47:08
  Yeah. Well mic holder, come on
• 1:47:10
  Administration, mr. Ad.
• 1:47:12
  Thank you. So I think he has spent about 5
• 1:47:14
  million on. It was all said and done and
• 1:47:16
  we're still going. And it if you take the value of
• 1:47:19
  the land on top of that were well into the 20s, maybe in the
• 1:47:25
  30s, in terms of what. So it is the most expensive.
• 1:47:29
  Cross-country course in the world.
• 1:47:30
  I have zero doubt of that and like I said, your get, it water
• 1:47:34
  is expensive. We are getting all your long,
• 1:47:36
  keep this Bermuda grass growing, it's maintained like a fair way.
• 1:47:40
  We're continually improving, we spend, you know, a couple
• 1:47:43
  hundred thousand dollars more every year to kind of keep it
• 1:47:45
  bent make it better than the last year.
• 1:47:46
  Where are you? Only that kind of keep improving
• 1:47:48
  it. So it's now you know it's this
• 1:47:53
  fantastic thing. It's a gem of a course.
• 1:47:55
  I think most of us I tell track out baits.
• 1:47:58
  Kids we recruit usually facilities aren't going to make
• 1:48:01
  a difference. Someone could say, we got this
• 1:48:03
  locker room, we got this storm, we got this track, this hot tub
• 1:48:07
  and honestly the day it's not really a benefit because if you
• 1:48:10
  got a track and you got along German way and you got there a
• 1:48:13
  good shape, it's kind of the same This cross-country course,
• 1:48:19
  I think is a game changer because of the soft surface
• 1:48:23
  running on grass, being able to get on Hills being right there
• 1:48:26
  on campus. Having this place you can go and
• 1:48:28
  do we do our 10-mile Tempo runs on our Cross Country course.
• 1:48:30
  We should go to the dirt roads. The roads are in Rocky and
• 1:48:32
  places they're rugged, they're great but this is like you know
• 1:48:37
  ten times better. So I think in many ways this can
• 1:48:42
  lead to you know building better distance Runners just by having
• 1:48:45
  this this facility Well, I think I'll also just demonstrates the
• 1:48:49
  commitment that Oklahoma State University 100% across country.
• 1:48:53
  If you're willing to tie up this 120 Acres on campus and don't
• 1:48:57
  spend this money to make it an elite cross-country course.
• 1:49:00
  Well, you think highly of the sport?
• 1:49:02
  Yeah, that that's what was going to say.
• 1:49:03
  You know, we talked a lot about in our sport of, you know, we're
• 1:49:05
  a poor sport. We don't have budgets and things
• 1:49:07
  like that and we can't get the money and all that's true.
• 1:49:10
  We don't have big enough budgets, not only for travel
• 1:49:13
  equipment, Etc, but also for our salaries, for our coaches,
• 1:49:16
  things like that. But it's not that we don't have
• 1:49:18
  the money in athletic departments, we don't have the
• 1:49:21
  priority, her track and cross country overall.
• 1:49:24
  And as you were explaining that and that's why I said shout out
• 1:49:26
  to Mike holders like oh Mike realized oh my priority for
• 1:49:30
  cross country and track is higher than other places and so
• 1:49:33
  we are going to spend the money into that.
• 1:49:35
  I think that's just what a fantastic example of an
• 1:49:38
  administrator that cares about the athletic department and not
• 1:49:41
  just specific Sports. You can pick those Sports out.
• 1:49:44
  By the way, I love that Onna quid a great example.
• 1:49:47
  We're getting close to time, just a couple more questions.
• 1:49:49
  Are you good or not good. So talk to us about hosting
• 1:49:53
  Nationals. You know.
• 1:49:55
  A lot of people think that's awesome to host a national
• 1:49:57
  championship and there is there's a lot of, you know,
• 1:50:00
  home-field advantage, and all those kind of things, all that
• 1:50:02
  kind of stuff. But as a coaching staff, I just
• 1:50:06
  can't imagine the amount of work that you have to do in your
• 1:50:09
  staff has to do, in your athletic department, has to do
• 1:50:11
  to make it a successful Championship.
• 1:50:14
  Talk to us about the workload in this.
• 1:50:17
  Dresses and top of your kids are trying to perform as well, about
• 1:50:20
  hosting a national championship. Well, first of all, I have a
• 1:50:25
  assistant athletic director, Stacy Standish, who oversees the
• 1:50:28
  cheese, the meat record for us. She is absolutely phenomenal.
• 1:50:32
  And then the people around her, Ben Dyson is one of our
• 1:50:35
  compliance directors, who was with her Lisa, Fischer are one
• 1:50:38
  of our head, grounds had facilities, people and events
• 1:50:42
  people. Those they took all about off of
• 1:50:45
  me. I didn't have to Move sweet.
• 1:50:48
  But you need to imagine hosting a gigantic party with the most
• 1:50:54
  important people in the people. You respect most in your life at
• 1:51:00
  your house. And now assume they're all home
• 1:51:04
  decorators Caterers and event planners and they're coming into
• 1:51:10
  your house and you all of a sudden start to see all the
• 1:51:13
  flaws and you want to clean them up and fix them.
• 1:51:16
  You're just nervous about how they're going to feel about the
• 1:51:18
  way you posted the party because their party planners and the way
• 1:51:21
  your house looks because their interior decorators and you want
• 1:51:24
  to impress them. So I brought all the people, I
• 1:51:27
  respect the most my closest friends, the one people, I love
• 1:51:31
  these cross-cutting coach Is into my house and said, what do
• 1:51:35
  you think? And you feel vulnerable your
• 1:51:37
  later. Self open.
• 1:51:39
  You're just terrified. Someone's going to say well it's
• 1:51:41
  nice but you know but yeah but terrified.
• 1:51:46
  So the stress was immense. Yeah.
• 1:51:48
  Probably because of that, the expectation in the Perfection, I
• 1:51:53
  expected out of Stacy and those working with her was probably
• 1:51:56
  unfair to them. But like I said, I would see a
• 1:51:59
  blade of grass out of place or a little cut Mark in the I go to
• 1:52:03
  our groundskeeper Tracy stylist, who's also awesome.
• 1:52:06
  We have a full-time basis. A golf course, administrator.
• 1:52:12
  Who now runs are caught. That's his job runs across.
• 1:52:14
  Cody course and maintains its full-time job.
• 1:52:17
  Wow, I go Tim Tracy there's a dead spot here maybe like a
• 1:52:21
  patch of grass as big as dead. It Go coach do this but you only
• 1:52:25
  Acres of grass were managing, did you see all of this?
• 1:52:29
  I don't see it. I see the dead spot.
• 1:52:32
  We get that fish. We had a grass growing their
• 1:52:34
  next two months. There's gonna be, it's gonna be
• 1:52:36
  great. You know, well parmesan and
• 1:52:38
  yellow but time Nationals gets here because we have Bermuda,
• 1:52:41
  but it's got to be covered up. And so I probably drove them
• 1:52:44
  crazy, but it's just because I knew I was bringing in the
• 1:52:47
  people. I love and respect the most, all
• 1:52:49
  my peers, all my colleagues, the people I look up to her coming
• 1:52:51
  in to my house, I want it to be macular.
• 1:52:54
  Yeah that's a great it's a great way to describe it as far as
• 1:52:56
  like the host of the party. Oh and by the way all the people
• 1:52:58
  you're hosting, our party planners.
• 1:53:00
  Yeah. They all have to have courses or
• 1:53:01
  at They have their own mind of what they want, of course of one
• 1:53:04
  day. And oh by the way in there's so
• 1:53:06
  many intangibles that you have no control over the weather,
• 1:53:09
  whatever etcetera and it's like, oh, Dave, how could you have
• 1:53:11
  this? It's raining.
• 1:53:12
  It's like, yeah, you know, I didn't.
• 1:53:13
  I didn't order that. You know, that just happened.
• 1:53:16
  Yeah, that's painfully the feedback we got from coaches.
• 1:53:19
  The incidental. A media athletes was phenomenal.
• 1:53:24
  I think the most important thing to me is, how does the course
• 1:53:28
  run? And how is it for athletes?
• 1:53:30
  This is their thing. Like you said, we're a Prison is
• 1:53:32
  re our customers, our bathrooms, we are here for them.
• 1:53:37
  What do they think that was the most important thing?
• 1:53:39
  Then there's the things. Like, what's the meat a
• 1:53:40
  presentation? Look like, what's the, what's
• 1:53:42
  the exposure? All experience, like periods,
• 1:53:45
  town, like what's this training days, like, and those become
• 1:53:47
  less and less important as we get further out there important.
• 1:53:50
  But to me, it's on race day in the race.
• 1:53:53
  What's it like for us to do now things?
• 1:53:54
  And I think we got really high marks for that and that that's
• 1:53:57
  what was most important to me. And we had one or two people
• 1:54:01
  that kind of You know, had a little, they had some complaints
• 1:54:05
  but okay. Overall it was it was very good
• 1:54:08
  so we got delicately ha ha. You know we did do a good job in
• 1:54:11
  our house is okay. And you know people are
• 1:54:13
  impressed and so it was it was a sigh of relief in 2020 we hosted
• 1:54:17
  but it was during covid. We are in a much different
• 1:54:19
  circumstances, much different budget.
• 1:54:21
  We were not allowed to have fans at the last minute we were
• 1:54:24
  allowed to have fans. We got to create this double
• 1:54:27
  wall of bike racks everywhere. They all dates can be to keep
• 1:54:30
  some six feet away from fans and it.
• 1:54:32
  Whooping prison. You know, it didn't look like a
• 1:54:34
  change, of course. Look, like you were breathing
• 1:54:36
  because always fence walls everywhere.
• 1:54:38
  And it just, I'm overseeing a gun.
• 1:54:40
  This doesn't look like a championship experience, but the
• 1:54:43
  second time around much different experience and I think
• 1:54:46
  it was fantastic. Well, let's talk about that was
• 1:54:47
  one of the last two questions I have here.
• 1:54:49
  You brought up covid and this came up in an earlier, podcast
• 1:54:53
  episode as well. You know, we did something
• 1:54:55
  pretty radical that year, instead of cross-country being
• 1:54:58
  in November, it was in March a, a week after indoor.
• 1:55:02
  Is that correct? Three days three days.
• 1:55:04
  Those on Monday following the Saturday, completing the called,
• 1:55:08
  the same weekend, right? Yeah.
• 1:55:09
  Okay. Yeah.
• 1:55:10
  Indoor Naturals is over on Saturday and Monday, you have
• 1:55:13
  the race. That's right.
• 1:55:13
  Because Nationals was in Arkansas.
• 1:55:15
  I think the members close. Yeah.
• 1:55:17
  Okay. Now, I thought that that was
• 1:55:19
  fantastic Outsider here, right? For a couple reasons.
• 1:55:23
  One, I was so in, we had a forced break because of covid,
• 1:55:27
  but I thought, man, our distance coaches are track coaches in
• 1:55:31
  general, but our Distance coaches, you have a competitive
• 1:55:34
  season in the fall, you have an indoor season, you have an
• 1:55:37
  outdoor season outdoor season. In sometime in June, could go
• 1:55:41
  later because a different National meats.
• 1:55:42
  And by the way, July 1 starts senior recruiting.
• 1:55:45
  So you're right back into it, your kids are right back in the
• 1:55:47
  cross country, there is no date. There are no days off.
• 1:55:49
  Literally, there are no days off when you count recruiting trips
• 1:55:52
  Etc. And I hate that, like, I just
• 1:55:54
  dislike that at all. I want, I want Dave Smith to be
• 1:55:58
  Dave Smith, whose job is coaching track and field and
• 1:56:00
  cross country, not days. All Zooming identity and 24/7 is
• 1:56:04
  coaching track and field. So when they moved it to call it
• 1:56:08
  the week of indoor Nationals, I was like oh man, you gotta you
• 1:56:11
  gotta fall like you could go to football games, you can go to
• 1:56:13
  your sons or daughters soccer games and cross-country meets
• 1:56:17
  things like that and it kind of lined up if I know International
• 1:56:21
  cross-country a little bit that's kind of more of an
• 1:56:23
  international like marches like when worlds and things like that
• 1:56:26
  are and I thought it went really well.
• 1:56:29
  Again, Outsider Internationals didn't feel like Like there was
• 1:56:32
  anything being lost at the competition level, their Cross
• 1:56:35
  Country Nationals at your place even though it unfortunately had
• 1:56:38
  my cracks everywhere seemed like that was still a very
• 1:56:40
  competitive and the quote unquote, right?
• 1:56:42
  Team won and all that kind of stuff and I thought oh, this is
• 1:56:45
  gonna be one of the positives that comes out of covid.
• 1:56:49
  Like people are going to bark like hey man, I actually had a
• 1:56:51
  life in the fall. I got to do my lawn fall.
• 1:56:54
  Let's keep this going and it didn't talk to us about not
• 1:56:59
  necessarily why it didn't. But Could, or should we do this?
• 1:57:04
  And I mean, more for the mental health of our coaches and the,
• 1:57:08
  the physical health of our coaches, everything else that is
• 1:57:11
  important. So the day that you can coach
• 1:57:12
  until you are 60 or 70, you have world, you decide.
• 1:57:15
  You want to be not, I get out early because I'm just burnt out
• 1:57:18
  and things like that. Talk to us about that a little
• 1:57:20
  bit here. Well, he's not even talking to
• 1:57:25
  Finland Anna because I wish I wish he kind of feels the same
• 1:57:29
  way you do. Yeah scenario, I didn't like it.
• 1:57:33
  Oh come on I think June 2 March is a long time to go without a
• 1:57:38
  major competition for our teacher mentoring around.
• 1:57:41
  I also thought The National meet, you know, not to take away
• 1:57:44
  from what we did, we got third that year but it was diluted we
• 1:57:48
  had teams that went All in on track Oregon.
• 1:57:51
  For example, they went to the track Nationals.
• 1:57:54
  They didn't send a team. They would have qualified.
• 1:57:57
  They would've been selected didn't even submit their team
• 1:57:59
  for selection, right? Same with the University of
• 1:58:00
  Texas, they had a team that probably would have been
• 1:58:02
  selected, but they went all in on the indoor track Nationals
• 1:58:05
  and said we're not going to even do, Brian, consider
• 1:58:07
  cross-country. The other teams, like Arkansas.
• 1:58:09
  That said, we're gonna go all in on track.
• 1:58:11
  There were a drive over when goal and I'm on cross-country
• 1:58:14
  and Arkansas. Did that and finish?
• 1:58:15
  I don't know with the interval forth and cross.
• 1:58:17
  If we're here, And then we have teams like our men's team.
• 1:58:21
  NAU. And BYU.
• 1:58:22
  It said, yeah, we've got these qualifiers in track, we're not
• 1:58:25
  going to take them. We're going to go all in on
• 1:58:26
  cross-country. So both Meats, got diluted a
• 1:58:29
  little bit and I didn't like that.
• 1:58:32
  I think that if you have an indoor track season where it is
• 1:58:35
  in a cross-country season where it is you're going to force us
• 1:58:37
  into that conversation. Every year about what do we do
• 1:58:40
  with our distance Runners? Do they run in track or
• 1:58:42
  cross-country? Because it's awfully difficult
• 1:58:45
  to do both. So let me there was a similar
• 1:58:48
  argument. I meant that I remember
• 1:58:49
  occurring. When Division 1 outdoor went to
• 1:58:53
  afford a meat that alternated women on call it Thursday and
• 1:58:57
  Saturday and then on Wednesday, Thursday the argument was well
• 1:59:01
  we're forced into less doubles because there's let you know,
• 1:59:04
  the meats condensed because it's a called a three-hour window.
• 1:59:09
  And I don't think that's her outdoor championships, right?
• 1:59:12
  I mean, that's the one of the most amazing meets in the world.
• 1:59:15
  We've had to coach differently, you know, maybe less doubles,
• 1:59:18
  or, you know, kid doesn't get on a relay or something because
• 1:59:20
  they have to do the 12 in the long or something like that, or
• 1:59:22
  God knows what, you know, you crazy distance Runners of your
• 1:59:24
  doubles are just amazing actually.
• 1:59:27
  So with this, just cause us to coach differently, we would have
• 1:59:31
  a different cross-country team as a as an indoor team.
• 1:59:34
  Maybe You would remember who were talking about, this is for
• 1:59:38
  student-athletes and ultimately, for most of them, it's not about
• 1:59:41
  their Olympic career, right? Whether closure that's correct,
• 1:59:45
  it's about their collegiate career, it's about what is fun.
• 1:59:48
  What do you want to do? What inspires you what?
• 1:59:50
  Excites you. What sounds when do these kids
• 1:59:53
  want to run into our track? Sure.
• 1:59:55
  Because it's fun, they want to run across country and how kids
• 1:59:59
  can never tell because it's fun. So if you force them to
• 2:00:01
  situation we're saying hey there two days apart we can't do both.
• 2:00:05
  She's definitely one, we're taking away from their
• 2:00:07
  experience and yes, it's exhausting for them and we could
• 2:00:10
  be paternalistic and say in your best interest we think he should
• 2:00:13
  be one of the other not but screw that this is what they
• 2:00:16
  enjoy, right? This is what's fun for them,
• 2:00:19
  right. And there are certain athletes,
• 2:00:22
  I would say you know, you've got a career that could go well
• 2:00:26
  beyond your days at OSU. So we need to manage this very
• 2:00:30
  carefully, right? Can't do everything that seems
• 2:00:32
  fine. But ultimately, I tell my Chris,
• 2:00:35
  my athletes, this all the time, each athlete in our program has
• 2:00:39
  to be a captain of his or her own ship.
• 2:00:41
  And as the captain, you have to decide where the ship is going.
• 2:00:45
  Then our job as coaches to be the navigator at once.
• 2:00:49
  You tell us where we're going, will show you the route and the
• 2:00:51
  routes. Not going to may always make
• 2:00:52
  sense to you. And sometimes we're not going to
• 2:00:55
  be be able to do every fun thing to the destination.
• 2:00:58
  But if you want to get to the destination where you give you
• 2:01:01
  the best route to the destination, you can have a
• 2:01:03
  different. Some of you might want to.
• 2:01:05
  Be Olympians or prose or NCAA Champions or I want to max out
• 2:01:09
  my experience at the you know, I want to run everything I want to
• 2:01:12
  go to this meeting, whatever your destination is.
• 2:01:14
  We will cater your experience to that destination But ultimately
• 2:01:19
  they have to be able to decide what's fun.
• 2:01:20
  I think hold most of these distance from.
• 2:01:22
  If I told Alex Maier, hey, you can run Cross or indoor he's
• 2:01:26
  going to not he's going to be disappointed in that scenario,
• 2:01:30
  he wants to do, he loves cross-country running with the
• 2:01:32
  team. He he went 13:11 indoors this
• 2:01:34
  year. He Loved it.
• 2:01:35
  Okay, you ready to events at the enemy and he's a fifth, he's a
• 2:01:38
  senior, I wouldn't let him. I don't let usually like kids
• 2:01:40
  double but I let him do it and because it was fun to him and he
• 2:01:45
  wanted to do it and, you know, Cynthia has taken a while to
• 2:01:48
  kind of recoveries but tired and I think, I'm sure.
• 2:01:50
  Yeah. What was best for him is
• 2:01:52
  probably not to double down on one event, but at some point I
• 2:01:55
  got to not be kind of this paternalistic going to guide,
• 2:01:58
  protect you and everything. You got like kids, my ID, again,
• 2:02:01
  mic holder. He told me once he goes look, I
• 2:02:03
  got to the National Tournament and golf.
• 2:02:06
  I've been walking around some golfer we'd be on the.
• 2:02:08
  We got that on the tee. He pulls out the Three Wooden,
• 2:02:11
  three iron and say, what are you doing?
• 2:02:13
  So I'm going to lay up coach, he was layup, get the driver.
• 2:02:16
  We didn't come all the way across the country of layup.
• 2:02:19
  Take your driver and swing. That's what.
• 2:02:21
  Let's see if he can hit you. Let's get it.
• 2:02:22
  A secret water and it goes sometimes there would sometimes
• 2:02:25
  they would. Well, let's go for it.
• 2:02:26
  That's why we're here. It's the to see how good we can
• 2:02:29
  be not how safe we can play it and you know my strategy.
• 2:02:34
  I'm getting off topic. My strategy in races has always
• 2:02:36
  been very conservative mic. Holder has made me much more
• 2:02:38
  aggressive with my teens, huh? Those conversations.
• 2:02:41
  But you know what? We didn't come here to lay up,
• 2:02:43
  we're here to we are to Swing Swing, Swing Swing, Swing for
• 2:02:46
  the green and I think sometimes kids want to swing for the
• 2:02:50
  green. They can do it all the time.
• 2:02:51
  You gotta pull the reins back a little bit but I worried if we
• 2:02:55
  go to that model that you're discussing, you brought up that
• 2:02:58
  we would say you know you kind of got to choose one of, you
• 2:03:00
  know, you can't do both and you know, I think some older fun.
• 2:03:04
  Does it change? At all, if we have separate
• 2:03:06
  scholarships for cross-country distance, Runners, that was on
• 2:03:11
  the table 10. Because those cross-country kit
• 2:03:13
  want to run track builder. Try.
• 2:03:14
  Yeah, I can get mirror on a cross-country scholarship or a
• 2:03:16
  track scholarship, has to do both.
• 2:03:21
  He wants to get in with the best to see what he can do.
• 2:03:23
  That's what's fun. That's what's exciting and
• 2:03:25
  inspiring. So why you know, why dumb it
• 2:03:28
  down eliminated for him? It is not going to affect his
• 2:03:31
  ultimate destination, if we can still get there right away.
• 2:03:34
  That's why we're going to. We're going to go to Penn relays
• 2:03:36
  here. Dewey's does it get us?
• 2:03:38
  Anything? No.
• 2:03:39
  Is it fun? Hell, yes.
• 2:03:41
  So we're going to go do it because it's fun, some fun to
• 2:03:43
  do. And guys are excited about it.
• 2:03:45
  They want to line up against Washington and Villanova and
• 2:03:48
  Wisconsin where we going to show up.
• 2:03:50
  Say all right, let's see who's got it.
• 2:03:51
  And at the end of the day we're gonna walk out of the wheel or
• 2:03:54
  nothing else, but the Ultimate Prize is our wheel.
• 2:03:57
  We can do that. Tommy, stick it back here with
• 2:03:58
  some other stuff. Is there we got hung up, let's
• 2:04:00
  go sit there for the next 10 years and so we don't really get
• 2:04:04
  anything out of it. Other And it's fun to do.
• 2:04:06
  Yeah well I'll uh I'll see you there.
• 2:04:09
  I'll be up in relays this year. Okay, so let's wrap up Dave.
• 2:04:13
  By the way I just have to let the audience know, you know, we
• 2:04:16
  asked a lot for our guests and in the middle of season and they
• 2:04:21
  we've we've gone over time. So Dave, thank you so much for
• 2:04:23
  that. So wrap us up here, you know,
• 2:04:26
  you're in, when you say you're 21 at Oklahoma State.
• 2:04:29
  All right. Well, yeah, you're 21.
• 2:04:31
  You've got some years to go. What's got you excited about the
• 2:04:34
  future? There?
• 2:04:34
  At Oklahoma State. Well well, I really love right
• 2:04:39
  now is we went from being a struggling program to one of the
• 2:04:44
  best in the country to struggling again, to back to one
• 2:04:48
  of the best in the country and that Journey.
• 2:04:51
  One thing hasn't changed. I haven't changed my philosophy
• 2:04:54
  hasn't changed. The workouts haven't changed, we
• 2:04:57
  do get better athletes than we used to, but we were getting
• 2:05:00
  better output when we struggling.
• 2:05:02
  Got to the top we're doing with the guys, nobody else wanted.
• 2:05:06
  I know we got the guys, everybody wanted and we
• 2:05:07
  struggled, and I think what's got me excited right now is
• 2:05:12
  we're back to where we were in 2007 8 9, we have a group of
• 2:05:15
  guys that really like being around each other.
• 2:05:17
  We got the great team chemistry, I don't know if the most
• 2:05:20
  talented get we got some pretty talented guys and some of them
• 2:05:22
  make me the most talented intensively, but many of them
• 2:05:25
  aren't but it doesn't matter because they're running really
• 2:05:27
  well. And it's this this chemistry.
• 2:05:30
  They have this connection to each other that that's What
• 2:05:35
  makes good teams? Great and right now we have that
• 2:05:38
  and I think in the 2014-15 I kind of lost sight of what was
• 2:05:43
  important and it was more about X's and O's and what PR is were
• 2:05:47
  coming in. Who'd run, fix it fast guys.
• 2:05:48
  And put them all together and mix them up.
• 2:05:50
  It's gonna come out. Great.
• 2:05:51
  That's not always the case. You got to get guys that just
• 2:05:53
  love being around each other and our women's teams the same way.
• 2:05:56
  We got this group of women who are competitive challenge each
• 2:06:01
  other but support each other. And I, I think we're On the
• 2:06:06
  front, end of one of these ways. We're going to ride for a while.
• 2:06:09
  It's really fun to work on a ride and all these waves break
• 2:06:12
  everybody's wave breaks. Eventually you got to wait for
• 2:06:15
  the next one. But we're I think just on the
• 2:06:17
  front end of one of these really good ride.
• 2:06:19
  So I'm excited about the next four or five years.
• 2:06:21
  That's awesome and dr. Dave, I could have never thought
• 2:06:25
  I'd have this much fun with a distance crying.
• 2:06:26
  I'm sorry, I just, you know, I'm just rinse hurdles jumps guy,
• 2:06:29
  back in the day distance. I love it.
• 2:06:32
  It's a great part of our Sport and the Steeplechase is
• 2:06:34
  literally one of my top. Five events, I do really enjoy
• 2:06:37
  the Steeplechase but man, I have had a lot of fun today, man.
• 2:06:40
  You your kind of a nap and I like this has been.
• 2:06:43
  We didn't really explore this in your career but I don't know if
• 2:06:46
  you've always been your kind of a natural Storyteller.
• 2:06:48
  I don't know if anybody's ever said that to you but the way you
• 2:06:50
  tell stories, it's a just kind of natural for you to roll off
• 2:06:53
  and tell stories, man, and kind of give you a natural
• 2:06:58
  Storyteller. I heard this story before you
• 2:07:03
  can add to your repertoire. Decreases that I heard.
• 2:07:07
  I've heard every one of the stories at least a hundred
• 2:07:09
  times, I can tell that better than he can.
• 2:07:11
  And yet I still hear them and people say that they students
• 2:07:15
  becoming the master. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:07:17
  That's you mimic who you see, right representation matters.
• 2:07:20
  Right? Yeah.
• 2:07:21
  Well bad. Thank you so much again.
• 2:07:23
  You know, I we ask a lot of you have for these podcasting.
• 2:07:26
  These aren't 20 Minute Podcast. These are two hours.
• 2:07:29
  Plus we've been going for 2006 right now and most people say
• 2:07:33
  yeah there's no way we can go two hours Mike I don't have
• 2:07:35
  enough. There's not enough about me.
• 2:07:37
  I honestly feel like you and I could go for two more hours.
• 2:07:39
  I mean, there's just so much to explore and why can't talk?
• 2:07:42
  Yeah. And what's really interesting
• 2:07:45
  about you Dave is, you know, you're still so young like
• 2:07:48
  you're not even. It may seem like you think
• 2:07:50
  you're near the finish line of your career, my friend but, you
• 2:07:53
  know, to use a 10K example, which I never thought, I'd say
• 2:07:55
  that out loud, you know, maybe you're the 7K.
• 2:07:58
  You still got a good part of the race to go my friend and a lot
• 2:08:01
  to explore. And I'll have to win a lot to
• 2:08:03
  affect positively. The young people that come
• 2:08:06
  through your program and that is the biggest Mark that you can
• 2:08:09
  make really on our society, as well as our sport.
• 2:08:12
  I don't know Jerry Schumacher Greg Mecca and I have a plan.
• 2:08:15
  That's some point. The near future.
• 2:08:17
  We're going to be some place on a beach Community, send out
• 2:08:19
  under a tent. Drinking our whatever's playing
• 2:08:23
  cards criticizing all the young coaches, how bad, the spores
• 2:08:28
  become being bitter, angry old man.
• 2:08:31
  You know, each other on a beach being those guys.
• 2:08:34
  And you know, if Jerry has this way, it'll be tomorrow bringing
• 2:08:39
  that kind of a wait, a little longer but yeah, we know, it
• 2:08:44
  seems like we've been in this together for a long time.
• 2:08:47
  We do have I have I have a two-year-old daughter so I've
• 2:08:50
  got Another 15 years, I think I got a not going to be around it,
• 2:08:53
  going to get her into college and then maybe then maybe I can
• 2:08:55
  go to the beach and play cards of Jerry.
• 2:08:57
  Yeah, I love the Greg jury Dave. Sounds like the, the origin of a
• 2:09:00
  boy band all for cross country though the God after the first
• 2:09:05
  cross country boy band. Yeah.
• 2:09:07
  Hi. Dave man.
• 2:09:08
  Thank you so much, man. I'm just so grateful and humbled
• 2:09:11
  that you would share your journey with our listeners here.
• 2:09:14
  Definitely, a lot of value. I mean, we we touched on your
• 2:09:16
  career but honestly, I feel like we've given just so much value
• 2:09:19
  to those who are going to Who are listening right now in the
• 2:09:22
  podcast on just you know, philosophy ego luck.
• 2:09:27
  We prepare is the hopefully we prepare as much as possible, but
• 2:09:30
  sometimes we don't want to credit how much luck has to do
• 2:09:32
  with things as well. But I also know that the more
• 2:09:35
  prepared people, the harder worker people tend to get lucky
• 2:09:38
  or so, I think that's a kind of a theme of your story of working
• 2:09:42
  hard. Hard work in writing
• 2:09:43
  seven-letter Pages page, letters to people and really kind of
• 2:09:49
  backing up side. Okay, well yeah, I'll volunteer.
• 2:09:50
  I'll help out, man. I just think it's actually guys.
• 2:09:54
  Good luck. We have a quote on our Gala
• 2:09:56
  driver and it's I think it's as luck is where hard work meets
• 2:09:59
  opportunity? Yeah.
• 2:10:01
  Amen. I love it.
• 2:10:02
  I love it. Well, thank you again for being
• 2:10:03
  here. Dave, man.
• 2:10:04
  I'm just so thankful for you really am appreciate it and
• 2:10:07
  thank you for being here. Listening.
• 2:10:08
  Once again, you pressed play on a two hour plus podcast and if
• 2:10:13
  you're still here you're for the better of it.
• 2:10:14
  Because dr. Dave which I will always call
• 2:10:17
  you now from now on dr. Dave here gave us a ton of value
• 2:10:20
  Amazing Stories. I can't wait for people to hear
• 2:10:23
  that Leah, Daniel story. That's just hilarious to me and
• 2:10:26
  we're going to do it all again next week.
• 2:10:27
  Join us. Next week.
• 2:10:28
  We will be back here with a Guiltless connections podcast,
• 2:10:30
  bringing you another awesome coach around the world.
• 2:10:33
  Have a great day, guys.