Latest / From the Coach's Mouth / Episode 50: Dr. Tayler Onion

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Episode 50: Dr. Tayler Onion · From the Coach's Mouth

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  We know how important representation is, right?
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  I had again, a whole section of my dissertation that was if she
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  can see it, she can be it. And I think that is, it's a lot
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  of what I heard from the participants in my interviews
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  was that, oh, I knew that I could progress to this role, to
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  this deputy AD and senior woman administrator because I saw
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  another woman who was in the role or I saw someone who looked
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  like me. And I knew that that was a
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  possibility. Whether you live northeast, West
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  or South comes from the coach's mouth.
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  Welcome to the From the Coach's Mouth podcast with your host Jay
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  Bolden and Ken Krause. Hello everyone, and welcome to
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  the From the Coach's Mouth podcast.
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  This is Ken Kraus here as always with the unbelievable Jay
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  Bolden. Jay, how we doing today?
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  Well, thanks for the props, Ken, but I'm actually doing really
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  good, man. I'm super excited that high
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  school season tryouts and stuff are all upon us.
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  A lot of the states with the kids that we work with are
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  getting ready to to switch over to the high school side of
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  things. So how about you?
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  You got a lot of kids that are excited for high school season
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  this year. Yeah, yeah, I sure do.
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  You know, have a bunch of them that are just going through the
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  tryouts, finishing up already heard from a couple of them that
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  they made the varsity team. So they're all excited, waiting
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  to hear from some more that I'm sure we'll be there as well.
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  And you know, wherever they end up, whether it's varsity or JV
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  or freshman or whatever it is, long as they're playing ball,
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  I'm happy. Yeah.
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  You know, I got to give props out to Illinois for finally
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  doing something. I think that's intelligent.
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  They move the season up. And my understanding is the
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  reason they moved the season up is so that all four championship
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  games can be played in that same weekend or even day, right?
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  Which then allows those kids that are playing in the
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  championship game to make it out to the first tournament of the
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  summer, which is one of the, a very high or important part for
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  them to get recruited. So I think Illinois tipping my
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  hat to you guys, cuz I know in Michigan, those kids are playing
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  sometimes into the middle of June and they're missing out on
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  some of those recruiting opportunities.
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  So Illinois, good, good choice on that.
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  I don't know if anybody's going to get any games in earlier
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  because the season started earlier, but at least they're
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  conscious about the recruiting aspect of that.
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  So. Yeah, no, that's great.
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  I agree. I think it's nice too.
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  You know, when you think about it, the kids, you know, a lot of
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  the schools these days, they get out in the middle of May, but
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  yet their championship games are in June 1st, couple weeks of
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  June. So by that time the seniors have
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  certainly checked out mentally and then probably some of the
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  others as well. So they're just kind of getting
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  through it. And like you say, you know, from
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  a recruiting standpoint, this gives them more opportunity to
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  be seen, especially if they're really trying to get in, you
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  know, for the September 1st for the juniors and then the seniors
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  who have graduated, they can move on.
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  Yep, absolutely. So hopefully other states will
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  get get behind that a little bit too.
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  I I would hope so. Hey, enough Ramblin from you and
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  I you want to give some information about this guest
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  that we have today. Again, it's crazy that these
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  people just want to keep talking to us, but I I love it and and
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  again, it's so cool that we actually get to be educated.
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  So I think that and learn new things.
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  So let's let's get into our guest today, Ken, let people
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  know a little bit of information about them.
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  All right, well, today's guest comes from the world of
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  collegiate volleyball rather than softball, but we're not
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  going to hold that against her because she is a well known
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  expert in the fields of leadership in general and
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  women's sports in particular. As a student athlete at the
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  University of Illinois, where she graduated in 2013 with a
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  bachelor's degree in advertising of all things, she had the
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  opportunity to compete at the highest levels of volleyball
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  while earning Academic All Conference honors.
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  She then went on to earn her master's degree in sports
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  management from EU of I before securing her PhD in higher
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  education and higher education administration from the
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  University of South Florida in 2022.
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  While she was working toward her doctorate, our guests gained
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  tremendous real world experience in her chosen field.
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  She served as athletic events management graduate assistant at
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  the University of Illinois, assistant director for student
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  athlete enhancement at USF, athletic academic advisor and
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  career coordinator at Southern Illinois University, and
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  associate athletic director for external relations at Western
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  Illinois University, among other positions.
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  Our multi talented guest was also a volleyball analyst for
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  ESPN Plus and Head of Curriculum for Game Plan, the most widely
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  used education and development platform by high school,
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  collegiate and professional athletic organizations.
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  Today, she is an assistant teaching professor at the
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  University of Missouri St. Louis as well as serving as a
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  volunteer assistant coach for the volleyball program at
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  Washington University in Saint Louis.
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  She's also the host of the popular Hang Time Podcast, which
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  focuses on telling the stories of women in sports, as well as
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  an in demand speaker and consultant specializing in
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  personal or organizational branding, brand strategy,
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  curriculum development, content creation, social media planning,
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  marketing and more. Ladies and gentlemen, please
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  welcome Doctor Taylor. Yes, that's my real last name,
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  Onion to the From the Coaches Mouth podcast.
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  That's right, I gotta get you to read me an intro every time I do
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  anything. Ken, that was fantastic.
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  He's, he's amazing Tell he's, he is the, he's the big voice guy.
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  He's the Jingle guy. This is the guy.
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  He he holds this thing down. He keeps us running.
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  So yeah. Right, I'm listening like wow, I
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  is that my resume? I'm so from you, Ken.
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  Well, good to know my parents got their money's worth out of
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  my education, so that's right. That's.
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  Right. I didn't, I didn't go with one
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  of the hard ones like business or accounting or something like
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  that. I went with radio, TV, film.
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  Seemed like a lot more fun. I'm with you, that sounds way
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  more fun. Well, well, welcome to the
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  podcast. We're really excited to have you
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  on today talking about some really important topics.
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  I saw you on a podcast or I'm sorry, a webinar with BSN
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  Sports. You know, they were talking
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  about that and it was interesting because it was not
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  the usual approach to a webinar. You asked a lot of questions and
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  had a little small group breakouts and you made us all
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  think and it was like, I'm not ready for that.
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  That's that I think is the way to do it.
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  So you mentioned the the business versus the TV film.
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  That's my facilitation style too is I don't want to just talk at
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  my audience. I want you to be involved.
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  I think the my facilitation training background, if you
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  will, is the belief that the answer is already in the room
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  and we've just got to provide some, some guide rails to help
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  get everybody there through through dialogue and discussion.
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  So I'm glad that you felt like you had to think.
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  That certainly was was my intent for the day.
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  Yeah, although it is funny in in those situations, of course, we
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  get into the breakout room and I think you had a couple people,
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  at least in the room I was in, where they've been through it
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  before. So they, you know, were able to
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  facilitate a little bit more. But, you know, it's like they
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  ask a question and everybody's looking at each other.
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  Well, I don't want to look stupid.
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  I don't want to say anything, but eventually, you know, we
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  loosened up. That's right.
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  That's always the goal. It might start off a little bit
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  that way, but hopefully once you once the discussion gets rolling
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  that everybody's comfortable, that's the goal.
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  Well, that's great. And it was, it was really fun.
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  Anytime you're speaking or doing a webinar, I highly recommend
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  people get on it because they're going to learn some things about
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  themselves and just about leadership in general.
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  Thank you. So we we do want to get going
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  with, we actually do have some questions about it.
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  So so yeah, we know you're, you were a college volleyball player
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  at EU of I and all that, but did you play any other sports
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  growing up? And of course, we're
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  specifically wondering about softball.
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  I sure did and I'll start there actually.
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  So I, I played softball was on a traveling, it was called the
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  Cats, McDonough County Cats from Illinois, of course, originally
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  so down near Macomb, IL and Western Illinois University.
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  And then before the traveling softball team, I played on the,
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  this is a, a mouthful of an acronym, but it was the MC GSL.
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  So the McDonough County Girls Softball League, which was
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  sponsored by of course, all kinds of local, local
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  organizations. And so at one point there was a
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  Macomb. People will appreciate that.
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  I competed for the Ford Hopkins team one year and then Gene
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  Thorman had a a painting business.
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  This means nothing to you guys, but if you're from Macomb or the
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  McDonough County area, those folks will.
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  Those folks will remember for sure.
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  But yeah, played softball, played flag football growing up
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  and then in in high school went on to play volleyball, of
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  course, and then basketball and switched over to track, over to
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  the over to the dark side and in high school to the track team.
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  Yeah, a lot of times I think softball players switch over to
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  track when they have a a bad softball team at high school,
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  but they have a good travel team and they decide, you know what,
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  rather than playing down, I'm just going to, you know, we'll
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  go do something else. It was a purely social
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  experiment for me. If my friends had been playing
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  softball, I think that's probably what I would have
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  played. But they were all on the track
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  team, all my my basketball and volleyball teammates.
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  So I thought, well I'll just keep hanging out with them and
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  and run track. Well, that makes sense.
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  And it was probably actually good for you from a health
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  standpoint because over had sports, you know, volleyball and
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  softball sometimes can put a lot of stress in combination.
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  So we know, you know, we've talked to some folks about that.
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  So maybe it was the best thing for you and helped you with your
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  collegiate's career. We'll say that that it was
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  intentional, right? And that it wasn't just, it
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  wasn't just about the friends. Yeah.
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  So Taylor, you talked about you first went into your degree was
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  in advertising, but then you found your true calling in
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  sports administration. Like what?
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  What caused that change from the advertising over into the sports
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  admin? Yeah, well, actually fun fact, I
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  started off in the College of Business at Illinois and my
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  first semester of freshman year I was taking like an intro to
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  business and then a either a micro or macro economics.
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  I took a computer science class, I took a linear algebra class.
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  And I'm, I'm not afraid to say that those classes broke me.
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  So I made the move over to really what I was interested in,
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  in business was the marketing and kind of the creative aspects
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  anyway. And so had again, a friend who
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  went on to be a roommate and she and I kind of both were in that
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  creative space. She was coming, I think from an
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  education major. And the more that she and I
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  talked to each other and we'd had taken, I think an intro to
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  advertising course maybe in the, the spring semester of our
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  freshman year. And so Long story short, both
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  transferred into the College of Media and into the advertising
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  program and loved my experience there.
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  The ability to be creative and learn kind of about the history
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  of marketing and, and advertising and various
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  campaigns and construction of campaigns.
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  And what does that look like? Was was a lot of fun and also
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  very educational. I'll add that too, for my for my
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  mother's, for my parents sake, that it was a good education as
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  much as it was fun. And then, oh, you guys
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  mentioned, yeah. So the, the sport management
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  piece of it. Yeah.
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  So started off in, in College of business, made that move over to
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  advertising. And then from a sport
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  administration standpoint, I really, I thought I would get
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  into sports marketing after my, my undergrad and after I
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  graduated. And so for me, I, like many
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  college seniors, didn't want to go out and get a real job just
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  yet. And the opportunity for a
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  graduate assistantship existed. I had a couple of different
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  offers and, and couple in campus recreation, couple in, in
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  college athletics. And I thought that the college
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  athletics opportunity, that assistantship would allow me to
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  kind of pursue a career in college athletics.
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  And that's the advice I was getting at the time too, was if
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  you want to work in that space, you need to start off in that
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  space. And so I don't know that I would
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  say sport administration has felt necessarily like a true
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  calling. But I think working in sports in
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  general has felt kind of like everything I've done from the
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  advertising degree into the sport management masters into
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  even my curriculum and instruction PhD that's focused
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  on higher education administration.
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  I think all of those pieces have kind of laid the next level of,
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  of foundation for me throughout my career to, to get to where I
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  am today. So kind of a kind of a mixed
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  bag, but at the same time, for me personally, the just the
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  perfect marriage of educational and professional experiences
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  along the way. Well, that that's cool too.
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  And of course, anytime I see someone majored in advertising,
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  that's what I did for a living for a number of years.
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  It was advertising and marketing for a long time and then the
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  last 20 years or so was public relations.
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  So I, I get excited when I see someone who's got, you know,
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  some of that background, even if it was just in the school.
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  But, you know, that all makes sense.
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  So you had a few stops before your current position.
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  But since Jay is an SIU graduate, you know, we were
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  wondering a little bit what what did you do when you were at SIU?
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  I got to SIU in July of 2016, so it's been almost 10 years ago,
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  which is bananas to think about. But I was working there as an
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  academic advisor for the student athletes.
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  So that was my first real full time job coming out of my
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  graduate assistantship. And then I had a full time
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  internship at the University of Memphis.
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  And so the opportunity to be there and kind of help shape
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  there had been a complete staff turnover.
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  And so coming in at that time, there was kind of an opportunity
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  to shape some new programs and just kind of the structure of of
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  academic advising for our student athletes.
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  I created the, I don't know if they still call it this, but it
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  was the developing athletes with goals.
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  The dog program had dogs. Solutions.
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  That's right. And so at the time we were
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  building in programming for resume building for networking.
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  We had some local donors, I which I'm told that the pinch
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  penny pub has since closed. It has very sad.
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  You're gonna make me very sad in this podcast.
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  Today my my oldest daughter went to Southern.
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  I think she worked at Pinch. Yeah, the corn Nuggets
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  unmatched. It's still good.
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  But we so we had folks, I think the guy's name was Jimmy maybe
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  who used to run the kids mini pub.
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  So yeah, Jimmy came in and was a speaker on a panel that we had
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  local business folks and donors and supporters of athletics who
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  could come in and kind of connect with our junior and
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  senior athletes and and just do some networking, give them a
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  feel for their career path, all of those things.
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  And then we launched. I do know they're still running
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  this the dogs bees, which is the the SP style end of year kind of
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  awards banquet for all athletes that the first year that that
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  happened was the the year that I was at SIU.
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  And so a fun kind of program to launch the year after I left.
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  My cousin Connor, who is a a sports broadcaster now works for
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  Fox, FS1 and, and Big 10 network and all these things was the
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  voice of the Sulukis for several years.
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  He got to be the MC in year 2. So we just feel like chips
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  passing in the night. We just missed each other at
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  that stop. But SIU was it was a, a good
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  foundational experience for me and and an interesting one with
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  that. I got to have a lot of hands on
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  experience, you know, kind of mid level resource institution.
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  And so I got my got my hands on a lot of different things while
• 15:42
  I was there. Did you did you take in on the
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  Sunset concerts in the summer there?
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  Did you do that? I did take him on the the Sunset
• 15:50
  concerts. When I was here, I was, I was
• 15:52
  the SPC concerts director. So I did the Sunset concerts, I
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  did booked bands for Shryock Auditorium, amazing Spring Fling
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  and all that stuff. So yeah, SIU is a is a.
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  That's why I love it so much. I had a great experience even
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  outside of the academic side. So yeah, that's awesome.
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  Quattro Pizza and some of the different places there.
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  Yeah, man, forget talking the rest of this.
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  Let's just keep talking about. This are you What a great.
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  Place. I'm kidding.
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  I'm kidding. So when you were at Southern or
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  at when you were at Western, did you work with directly with
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  Carrie Blaylock or Elisa Goler? Both of them, yeah.
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  So Carrie, of course, was the the softball coach who I think
• 16:33
  since he's now retired and did I hear, is that Johnny Logan?
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  Yes, yeah, she's, I think a volunteer assistant there now.
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  We had her on the podcast of a few episodes ago.
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  And Elisa as well, so a family friend, their daughter is
• 16:47
  actually going to go in and play at Johnny Logan next year.
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  She's based out of Carterville. And so excited for her shout out
• 16:52
  to Colby, excited for her to go play and, and be mentored by
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  Carrie as well. But yeah, worked, worked with
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  Carrie again. I'm in the first year of, of my
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  experience there, you know, and, and she was very seasoned
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  administrator and and coach and just kind of veteran in the
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  space. And so a lot of respect for
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  Carrie and, and what she did, of course, with that program.
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  Still fantastic softball program.
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  And then Elisa, her office was actually directly across the
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  hall from mine at Western. So we we talked just about every
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  day. Maybe caught a few lunches
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  together. Yeah, that's right.
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  Two fantastic people to work with.
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  I mean, that's just awesome. Carrie is just I mean she's just
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  both of them are just so genuine.
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  So that's, that's incredible. I I do want to ask you, are you
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  doing any, do you do any athlete coaching or do you just, or is
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  that not something even like at the at a lower level like young,
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  young athletes? Yeah, other than my, my time at
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  Wash U last fall, that really was the first time I'd been back
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  in the gym since before I started my PhD.
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  So when I first moved to Tampa, I was coaching club Saint Pete
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  Volleyball Club down there and then a bunch of random clubs
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  throughout. When I was at Memphis, I coached
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  with Memphis juniors. And I'm trying to think before
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  that there was a club in, in Champaign, Primetime volleyball
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  club coached at Centennial High School as a volunteer for, for a
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  second there in Champaign as well.
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  So kind of various throughout my, throughout my career, but I,
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  I wouldn't say that that's ever been kind of the, the focal
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  point of my career, if that makes sense.
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  I enjoy it. It was certainly was fun to be
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  back in the gym last fall. I got involved through camps
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  and, and got asked to, to stay on as a volunteer through the
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  season. And so it just on a part time
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  basis couple times a week as I could get in there and, and home
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  matches. And so it's fun to be back in
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  that space. How did you end up in your
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  current position at Missouri St. Louis?
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  Great question. I, the director of the program
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  had actually we'd connected when I was at game plan.
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  So this has now been, I left game plan in 23.
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  So it's been 3-4 years ago probably when we first
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  connected. And she started the program from
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  scratch in 2020 and has kind of built it up to, to what it is
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  now. Obviously recruiting students
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  and, and building out the program that way, getting
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  experiences for them. We went to the the Super Bowl a
• 19:08
  few weeks ago. We're going to take a group of
• 19:09
  students to the men's Final four in Indy in about a month as
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  well. And they're in Atlanta.
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  She's got a group of students in Atlanta this week for a national
• 19:17
  sales competition. And so done just a great job of
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  kind of building some inroads and and opportunities for the
• 19:23
  students as well. And I had seen that online.
• 19:26
  I've been following along on LinkedIn and a few folks who I
• 19:29
  was connected with had been guest speakers in her classes
• 19:31
  and different pieces like that. And so again, just, we connected
• 19:34
  years ago and then in, gosh, I don't know, the maybe November,
• 19:38
  December of, of 2024, she had reached out and mentioned they
• 19:42
  were going to be hiring for a second faculty member to add to
• 19:45
  the program and, and would I be interested?
• 19:48
  And I thought about it and I thought, I think I'm good, you
• 19:51
  know, I think I'm OK where I'm at.
• 19:53
  And the more I thought about it and, and some of the flexibility
• 19:57
  that it, it might offer, the more appealing it became.
• 20:00
  And so had the opportunity to, to come back and be in a city
• 20:03
  which I had missed. I've been in Tampa for six years
• 20:06
  and. While I grew up in the Macomb
• 20:08
  area and have a lot of love for that area, I've, it's nice to be
• 20:12
  near a Trader Joe's and an Orangetheory and Chipotle, which
• 20:17
  Macomb did get a Chipotle right before I left.
• 20:19
  But just some of those, those, you know, basic things and, and
• 20:24
  I've got a, a good group of, of friends here actually from
• 20:26
  college who are in the Saint Louis area as well.
• 20:28
  And so, so close to home and, and can get back there.
• 20:31
  And in fact, I was back at Western about a month ago for
• 20:34
  some, some ball games. And yeah, so it's been, it's
• 20:37
  been a a good experience to be in Saint Louis and back in the
• 20:40
  city and, and get some flexibility and spend some time
• 20:43
  teaching. It's not something that I'd done
• 20:45
  really at any point in my career.
• 20:46
  I've facilitated a lot of programming, but it's
• 20:48
  interesting to be on kind of the, the higher Ed side, grading
• 20:51
  side. And my mom was a professor for
• 20:54
  20 ish years at Western in the College of Business and
• 20:57
  Technology. And so I certainly have a lot
• 21:00
  more empathy for her and and what she experienced in her
• 21:03
  career now being in the the role that I'm in for sure.
• 21:06
  Well, I would insult them too that the teaching end of it, the
• 21:09
  front end experience you're you're on the firing line.
• 21:11
  It probably has an impact on what you're doing in when you're
• 21:14
  advising as far as administration and program
• 21:17
  construction. You get the chance to maybe see
• 21:20
  this. Sounds good in theory, but I
• 21:22
  hadn't counted on this person and this person being in the
• 21:25
  group. Yeah, I think that that to me is
• 21:27
  one of the most like that's the area of the biggest crossover I
• 21:30
  would say with with curriculum development that I did a game
• 21:34
  plan and program creation and and development that I did at
• 21:37
  South Florida and SIU is that you get to try things right.
• 21:42
  Like you build out a lecture or you build out a session that
• 21:45
  you're going to facilitate. And as you get into it, you
• 21:48
  think, oh, that didn't hit how I thought it was going to, or I
• 21:50
  need to change the language here or add a different activity in
• 21:54
  or whatever it may be. And so I think that the creative
• 21:57
  freedom really that that is afforded to professors and to to
• 22:01
  folks who are facilitating or or leading group sessions like
• 22:05
  that, I think is, is a lot of fun.
• 22:07
  So I want to talk to you about in addition to your day-to-day
• 22:10
  work in the sports management department, a lot of your focus
• 22:13
  is on equity and opportunity for women in sports, especially in
• 22:17
  higher education. What drew you to that?
• 22:19
  Personal experiences truly. I grew up in a town of 500
• 22:23
  people and we did not have a ton of options for, for girls sports
• 22:29
  as I was growing up. We consolidated when I was a
• 22:32
  freshman in high school and that opened up certainly a lot more
• 22:34
  doors for me. But when I was, you know, in, in
• 22:37
  3rd, 4th, 5th grade, the options were just volleyball.
• 22:41
  There was no basketball team for the girls.
• 22:43
  So I actually played with the boys.
• 22:45
  And there's same thing for flag football.
• 22:47
  I mentioned I played that there weren't girls teams.
• 22:49
  So I played with the boys for flag football as well.
• 22:51
  Softball in, you know, in, in Macomb, in the in the big city,
• 22:56
  I had the opportunity to play softball and kind of be, you
• 22:58
  know, around some just more teams and more opportunities for
• 23:01
  girls sports at that time. But I think subconsciously that
• 23:04
  probably planted something within me and frankly from
• 23:08
  playing with the boys that I would get picked last just
• 23:10
  because I was a girl. And then I'm scoring the most
• 23:12
  points and getting that was kind of stocky.
• 23:15
  So I'm getting rebounds, I'm throwing elbows, you know?
• 23:17
  There you go, get in there. Yeah, that's right.
• 23:20
  I would get picked last and then, you know, again, score the
• 23:22
  most points. And so I think that
• 23:24
  subconsciously just kind of laid a foundation in me of that
• 23:27
  equity piece. And then I think about the time
• 23:29
  that I was growing up too, right?
• 23:30
  I would have been six or seven years old when the WNBA started.
• 23:34
  I can remember being a huge fan of, of Lisa Leslie and so much
• 23:38
  Cheryl Swoops and so many others who were, you know, in the space
• 23:41
  and kind of a part of that, that founding twin cash, part of that
• 23:45
  founding group for, for the WNBA.
• 23:47
  That was my my dream job, by the way, in fifth grade.
• 23:50
  I either wanted to be a a cartoonist or I was going to go
• 23:53
  and play in the WNBAI didn't either, of course.
• 23:57
  And part of that is just frankly, because my volleyball
• 23:59
  teams were always more successful than my, my
• 24:01
  basketball teams. And so I think that's part of
• 24:03
  what was there for me to in terms of thinking about college
• 24:06
  and, and what was next. But yeah, I think it's just,
• 24:09
  it's personal experiences as a woman who's worked in in sports
• 24:13
  and specifically in college athletics for the last 12, now
• 24:15
  almost 13 years, just seeing inequities in that space.
• 24:18
  And, and through my dissertation research on the senior woman
• 24:21
  administrator and some of the experiences of women who have
• 24:25
  served in that role and, and what that's looked like.
• 24:27
  And frankly, just doing the, the research for the literature
• 24:30
  review, which is a very lengthy process if, if you're not
• 24:34
  familiar, but just reading different studies and learning
• 24:38
  more history about Title 9 and things that I, as I was reading,
• 24:42
  I'm like, how did I not know this?
• 24:44
  Why was this not a part of my formal education and upbringing
• 24:46
  that I didn't know, you know, how Title 9 kind of came to be
• 24:50
  or what a struggle it was or hearing from the women that I
• 24:52
  was interviewing that were saying, you know, that's they're
• 24:55
  using the language merger now. But it really was a takeover
• 24:58
  when we think about this. And so I think it's, again, I
• 25:02
  talked about my experiences and how I feel like they've been
• 25:04
  kind of one layer of foundation after another.
• 25:07
  And I think the same goes for, for how I feel about gender
• 25:10
  equity in sports and, and kind of closing the gap in that space
• 25:13
  that it's been all personal experiences and learning and,
• 25:15
  and listening and frankly finding out things that I felt
• 25:19
  like I should have known being a, a woman in the space.
• 25:25
  Hey Jay, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important do you think brush
• 25:28
  contact is for pictures? It's pretty high up there Ken
• 25:32
  probably attend since it's hard to get maximum speed and or
• 25:36
  accuracy without it. Yeah I agree, but have you ever
• 25:39
  had a student who struggled to get good light brush contact?
• 25:43
  Sure, all the time, in fact. Especially when they've been
• 25:46
  taught hello elbow and are trying to throw around their
• 25:49
  hips or they're sliding their hips out of the way doing that
• 25:52
  crazy ninja move. So what do you do when you run
• 25:55
  into this situation? Keep railing on them until they
• 25:58
  get it right. I used to do that a lot, but
• 26:01
  then I learned about a product called Pitch Squeak Ken.
• 26:04
  Pitch squeak. What's that?
• 26:06
  It's a cool little armband with a squeaker inside of it.
• 26:09
  Like a dog toy. Yeah, kinda.
• 26:12
  So how does it work? Well, you slip the armband onto
• 26:16
  the pitcher's forearm and you set it so the squeaker is where
• 26:19
  the brush contact should happen. Then when the pitcher goes into
• 26:23
  release, she tries to get it to squeak like this.
• 26:27
  If she makes it happen, she got brush.
• 26:30
  If there's no sound, she knows immediately and can make a
• 26:33
  correction. Wow cool, so she gets immediate
• 26:36
  audible as well as tactile feedback.
• 26:39
  Oh, there you go again, showing off with those big and technical
• 26:43
  words again. But yeah, she can feel it and
• 26:46
  hear it. Does it really work?
• 26:48
  You bet it does. I use it with my students all
• 26:51
  the time and it helps them learn how to get brush contacts pretty
• 26:54
  quickly if they practice with it sounds.
• 26:57
  Neat. Where can I get one?
• 26:59
  It's easy, Ken. Just e-mail
• 27:01
  support@pitchsqueak.com and Jason, the inventor of it and a
• 27:07
  Polygirl certified pitching coach himself, will ask you how
• 27:10
  many you want and send them right out.
• 27:12
  I'll do that today. Thanks, Jay.
• 27:15
  What's that address again? You bet Ken it's support at
• 27:20
  pitch. Squeak dot com one more time for
• 27:23
  those of you who are listening, support@pitchsqueak.com and
• 27:28
  don't forget to mention in the e-mail that you heard about it
• 27:31
  right here on From the Coach's Mouth podcast and you'll receive
• 27:34
  10% off. Let's talk a little bit about
• 27:40
  leadership because I think that dovetails in with what you were
• 27:42
  just talking about. I think that, you know, there
• 27:45
  are a number of challenges there and especially for women in
• 27:48
  leadership roles. I think a lot of times it seems
• 27:51
  like they're, you know, they have the position, but they're
• 27:54
  still a little uncertain. How are people going to react to
• 27:57
  me how it's just going to happen?
• 27:59
  I mean, some of our, you know, Jade and my friends, when we've
• 28:02
  had them on the podcast, you know, we had to kind of convince
• 28:05
  them that, yes, you know, you, we want you to talk on here,
• 28:08
  you're going to be great. And they were a little
• 28:09
  reluctant. Do you feel like coaches in
• 28:11
  general and female coaches in particular sometimes thrown into
• 28:15
  positions of leadership in sports that maybe they weren't
• 28:18
  prepared for? Not as a knock against them, but
• 28:21
  they just kind of just get thrown in there and said see if
• 28:24
  you can figure it out and you know they don't get any
• 28:27
  guidance. How do you think it it should go
• 28:29
  from a coaching standpoint? I think we see that a lot at the
• 28:32
  youth in the high school level, right, where coaches are
• 28:34
  volunteers. It's not their full time job or
• 28:37
  maybe it is their full time job, but they got thrown into it.
• 28:40
  They might be an assistant principal and then they got the
• 28:43
  softball job or the volleyball job on top of that.
• 28:45
  And so I don't think it, to your point, I don't think there's any
• 28:49
  real formal education on coaching or best practices.
• 28:52
  I think a lot of coaches, especially again, at the youth
• 28:55
  and high school level, are left to their own devices in terms of
• 28:58
  kind of honing their skill and expertise.
• 29:01
  I think those that figure out the way to do that and kind of
• 29:04
  lead themselves and educate themselves are the ones we see
• 29:07
  maybe moving on to a junior college level or eventually to a
• 29:11
  college level as well. But yeah, I think there's not
• 29:14
  there's there's no school for coaching, right?
• 29:16
  You might go to college and and get a degree in kinesiology or
• 29:20
  sport management. You might take a coaching class,
• 29:22
  but there's no kind of degree that you have to have to become
• 29:26
  a coach and and to become a good coach.
• 29:29
  I'm very fortunate that I had the best coaches throughout my
• 29:33
  my collegiate career. My head coach, Kevin Hambley is
• 29:36
  now the the head coach at Stanford.
• 29:38
  Another of my assistant coaches who we often joke that if Flynn
• 29:42
  told us to jump off a Cliff, she's maybe the one person that
• 29:45
  we would just do it, no questions asked.
• 29:48
  Like that's the level of of respect and adoration that we
• 29:51
  have for her. She's now the head coach at at
• 29:53
  Ohio State University. And then a couple others who
• 29:55
  have gone on to Kent. Miller was at Slew at Saint
• 29:58
  Louis University for years. Dan Connors is is the head coach
• 30:01
  out at UC Davis and then Dave Niffen is the head coach at UC
• 30:06
  Irvine, now on UC Irvine on the men's side.
• 30:09
  And so again, just a a great coaching tree of people to be
• 30:13
  surrounded with. And I think that has laid so
• 30:15
  much of the foundation for me and the work that I do around
• 30:19
  leadership. I think we talk about like women
• 30:23
  in general and some of the, the, the work that I did in my
• 30:27
  master's courses was on this difference in communication.
• 30:31
  I think the way that we are kind of societally conditioned to
• 30:34
  listen to men as opposed to listening to women is different.
• 30:38
  If you think about it from a parenting standpoint, you expect
• 30:40
  to be disciplined from your father and get love from your
• 30:43
  mother, right? And sometimes that's the case.
• 30:45
  Sometimes it's not the case, but that's kind of the trope, the
• 30:48
  through line that we see. And so I think sometimes that
• 30:51
  shows up in in coaching spaces. Sometimes it's reinforced for
• 30:54
  how we show up, even in just applying to jobs.
• 30:57
  There's a, I don't know if it's a quote or just kind of a
• 30:59
  general saying that a man will see a job and he's got three of
• 31:04
  the 10 qualifications and he'll apply for it.
• 31:07
  And a woman will see a job and she'll have 8 of 10
• 31:09
  qualifications and she won't apply for it because she's not
• 31:11
  fully qualified. And I, I think that again, is,
• 31:15
  is kind of an example of those. It's an over generalization
• 31:18
  certainly for men and women and kind of how we approach things
• 31:21
  and think about things. But I also think that's part of
• 31:24
  the reason why you're seeing such a surge of kind of
• 31:27
  confidence programming, empowerment programming for
• 31:30
  women and girls in sport, sports.
• 31:32
  And we're talking about, you know, girls are dropping out of
• 31:34
  sports at two times the rate of boys.
• 31:36
  And this kind of confidence piece and empowerment piece, I
• 31:39
  think is why it's so important right now.
• 31:41
  We know that women and girls who play sports go on to be women
• 31:45
  who lead. And so that pipeline of women as
• 31:49
  leaders, we need sports and we need we need girls involved in
• 31:52
  sports to be able to develop these skills inherently and
• 31:55
  intentionally. But it's super important again,
• 31:58
  to have that participation in sports, whether or not you go on
• 32:01
  to the next level and compete or become an Olympian.
• 32:04
  I don't think that's the important part.
• 32:05
  It's, it's the participation and involvement in those team
• 32:09
  environments and, and the skills again that you get inherently
• 32:12
  just from, from kind of being a part of it.
• 32:15
  Yeah, and I think I've told the story on the podcast before, but
• 32:18
  I had a a girl that played for me when I was doing travel ball.
• 32:21
  She graduated high school. Very smart kind of person she
• 32:24
  was. She lost out on being
• 32:25
  valedictorian because she felt like she wanted to take a gym
• 32:28
  class instead of another academic class, and she lost a
• 32:31
  couple points, but that was just her.
• 32:33
  So anyway, Kathleen Trichta was her name and she went on.
• 32:37
  She was in school and she was starting to become a research
• 32:40
  scientist and she applied for an internship in the summer.
• 32:43
  I think TO might have been boss in general, but I'm not sure
• 32:46
  about that. Anyway, she asked me to write a
• 32:50
  letter of recommendation for her, which I was honored to do.
• 32:53
  And I did that. And I said honestly that the
• 32:56
  only thing I could really talk to was her participation in
• 32:59
  sports and what she was like as an athlete because that was how
• 33:02
  I knew her. And her mom later contacted me
• 33:04
  and said that my letter was very helpful because they said they
• 33:08
  love hiring athletes because they understand how, especially
• 33:11
  softball players, because they understand how to work in a
• 33:14
  group. They understand how you know how
• 33:16
  to deal with adversity, how to be persistent, all these other
• 33:20
  things. So a lot of the things you're
• 33:21
  saying there, you know, I've seen really held out in
• 33:25
  practice. Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:27
  Again, there the space and the things that you can learn from
• 33:30
  being in the space of, of sports I think is invaluable across the
• 33:34
  board, boys and girls. Yeah, for sure.
• 33:36
  So tell, I want, I want to ask you a question here.
• 33:38
  It's a little different. My wife and I had this
• 33:39
  conversation the other night. Do you think that how you're
• 33:44
  brought up in the society that that we're in and, and, and your
• 33:47
  upbringing, do you think that has a play to do with the
• 33:51
  leadership roles of women? Like for, for me, like my
• 33:54
  day-to-day is I'm a teacher, so I'm surrounded by women leaders
• 33:57
  all day, right? And some who I lean on all the
• 34:00
  time for advice and, and help. And, and I think like, that's my
• 34:05
  kind of like, that's my world, right?
• 34:09
  So I feel like I don't have that view of like, oh, well, the, the
• 34:12
  man is, is the hierarchy, because some of some of those
• 34:15
  educators I work with are, would blow me out of the water.
• 34:18
  It's not even close, right? And so I have to lean on them.
• 34:20
  And so I'm talking to my wife about like, you know, your
• 34:23
  upbringing and, and how you're brought up has a lot to do with
• 34:26
  your, your a little bit of your leadership.
• 34:28
  Like I have three daughters, right?
• 34:30
  So like my goal is like, I want every opportunity for my three
• 34:33
  daughters that I had it as a man and nothing's going to stop me
• 34:36
  as a dad from allowing them to have that.
• 34:38
  Whereas in other settings, I guess settings is probably a
• 34:41
  better, better word that I was looking for.
• 34:43
  In other settings, it might not be that way where you know, you
• 34:45
  have a son and a daughter or, or this thing.
• 34:48
  So do you, do you think that has a lot to do with some of the
• 34:51
  leadership traits that we see in women?
• 34:54
  If you've got a strong mom who's pushing her daughters to be a
• 34:57
  leader, they're going to go out there and they're going to look
• 34:59
  at that job and they, you know, they're going to be like, you
• 35:00
  know what, I've got three out of those 10.
• 35:02
  I'm going forward anyway. I don't care.
• 35:04
  Like, do you think that has a lot to do with leadership or,
• 35:07
  you know, because I know in the society we're in, not to get off
• 35:10
  off topic here, but like women's sports is making ginormous
• 35:14
  stretches, leaps and bounds. And I'm like, let's keep pushing
• 35:16
  it. Let's keep pushing it.
• 35:18
  All these Trail Blazers that we talked about in the title 9 are
• 35:21
  like, you know, like those people stood up for for women to
• 35:24
  have that equality. And like now we're it's getting
• 35:27
  there, but we still got to keep going.
• 35:29
  So do you think that the settings and the upbringing has
• 35:31
  a lot to do with the leadership piece of that or or my off base?
• 35:35
  No, I do. I think the, we know how
• 35:38
  important representation is, right?
• 35:41
  I had again, a whole section of my dissertation that was, if she
• 35:44
  can see it, she can be it. And I think that is, it's a lot
• 35:46
  of what I heard from the participants in my interviews
• 35:50
  was that, oh, I knew that I could progress to this role, to
• 35:53
  this deputy AD and senior woman administrator because I saw
• 35:57
  another woman who was in the role or I saw someone who looked
• 36:00
  like me and I knew that that was a possibility.
• 36:02
  So I think, yeah, the the representation piece is, is
• 36:05
  huge. I think from the standpoint of
• 36:08
  women's sports, Serena Williams was quoted recently as saying
• 36:11
  like, we've we've been here, this is like, it's not new,
• 36:14
  right? Like Billie Jean King has been
• 36:16
  doing this, Alice Coachman and Cheryl, again, I named all these
• 36:19
  people, right? Like we know these, these Lisa
• 36:21
  Leslie, we know the names. They've been household names.
• 36:25
  And now you're seeing this big swing.
• 36:27
  It feels like it's just starting to happen.
• 36:29
  But the reality is, and I use this analogy in another
• 36:32
  conversation recently, like the, the cameras have just been
• 36:36
  focused on men's sports and now it's like somebody bumped into
• 36:40
  it and it shifted over and now it's on women's sports as well.
• 36:44
  Or there's, you know, it's A2 camera system, however you want
• 36:46
  to use that analogy. But the the focus has just
• 36:49
  shifted because people have caught on to, oh, there's a
• 36:53
  conversation here. I think in the very same way
• 36:55
  that in the early 80's, the NCAA kind of abruptly started to
• 37:00
  sponsor women's sports because they saw that the AIAW, which
• 37:04
  was the original governing body for women's collegiate sports,
• 37:08
  the AIAW was getting $1,000,000 contracts from TV.
• 37:11
  I think it was NBC and ABC and whatever.
• 37:14
  And the NCA starts to see this like, oh, maybe there is some
• 37:17
  money here. Maybe we should have, you know,
• 37:21
  sponsorship for, for women's sports in this space.
• 37:23
  And then you can get into the, you know, went from 90% of of
• 37:28
  head coaches for women's teams were women pre Title 9.
• 37:33
  And then now we're at, I think we're back up to 46%.
• 37:35
  In 2014, that number was 14%, which is a crazy thing.
• 37:39
  And so I think to your point, again, the more we see women in
• 37:43
  those spaces, and it's not even just for women, right?
• 37:46
  This is about diversity in general.
• 37:48
  If you see someone who looks like you in a leadership role, I
• 37:51
  think there's a subconscious thing that happens that makes
• 37:54
  you feel like, oh, I could do that too.
• 37:57
  I think for for me, for my kindergarten graduation, we got
• 38:00
  to dress up as whatever we want it to be.
• 38:03
  I dressed up in a, a pink blazer, not because pink was my
• 38:07
  favorite color, but because that was the only blazer that they
• 38:09
  had for a kindergartner. But my plan, my, my dream job as
• 38:13
  a kindergartner was to answer phones and go to meetings like
• 38:16
  my mom, who at the time was working in the alumni house.
• 38:20
  She was the assistant director of alumni relations at Western.
• 38:23
  And my brother and I, if she had a meeting, we would be at that
• 38:27
  meeting with her, you know, if we were out of school or out of
• 38:29
  daycare or whatever it was. And so I think that seeing that
• 38:32
  at a young age for me, there was never a question in my mind of
• 38:36
  whether or not I was going to be able to pursue a job in the
• 38:38
  field that I wanted to because I saw my mom in those spaces.
• 38:42
  I think the same thing goes for my brother.
• 38:44
  He saw my dad farming from a super young age and that is now
• 38:47
  what he wants to do and is doing.
• 38:50
  And so I think again, if if you see especially people that you
• 38:54
  love and respect, like there has to be a level of accessibility
• 38:57
  there that you feel like, oh, I can, I know that person and I
• 39:01
  love and respect that person. And I can probably now get to
• 39:04
  that space as well or get to that leadership position or
• 39:06
  whatever it may be because they've shown the example that
• 39:10
  it's possible. So yeah, I think you're you're
• 39:13
  spot on with with what you're thinking.
• 39:15
  Taylor, I want to ask you about the differences or the
• 39:18
  challenges between being a leader as a player.
• 39:21
  You know, like you could be the team captain and being a leader
• 39:25
  as a coach. I think one of the things people
• 39:28
  struggle with, I think men do to some extent.
• 39:30
  But I think from the female coaches I've talked to, when
• 39:33
  they first get their job, it's like they are trying to be
• 39:37
  friends maybe more with the players than then being, you
• 39:41
  know, the the leader or they go the other direction And they
• 39:45
  feel like they have to be really tough to show how you know how
• 39:48
  they're separated from them instead of maybe, you know,
• 39:51
  building the relationship. So what are some of the
• 39:54
  challenges of going from student leader to coach leader?
• 39:58
  Yeah, I think that's, I don't even think that gender is a a
• 40:03
  piece in that. I think what we see both from
• 40:06
  men and women coaches is. Whatever was modeled for you as
• 40:12
  an athlete is same thing with parenting, right?
• 40:15
  Like whatever was modeled for you, that's probably the type of
• 40:18
  parent you're going to turn out to be.
• 40:19
  It's the same thing for coaching.
• 40:20
  Whatever was modeled for you as a player, as an athlete, as
• 40:23
  somebody who's on the team by your coaches is going to
• 40:27
  influence how you show up in that space.
• 40:28
  If it worked for you, if somebody was, I don't know if I
• 40:32
  the language I can use, but if somebody was a hard ass and you
• 40:34
  know, as a coach and, and pushed you in that way and that worked
• 40:38
  for you, then you're probably going to show up in that same
• 40:40
  way because you think that it worked for you.
• 40:42
  So it should work for everybody else.
• 40:44
  I think what we've seen, especially in recent years, is
• 40:47
  this shift away from that style of like old school coaching
• 40:52
  into. Space control.
• 40:55
  Yeah, of of trying to get to know the athletes better.
• 40:58
  I think it's also led to some really interesting generational
• 41:00
  stuff where we're seeing the swing with Gen.
• 41:04
  Z for kind of a disregard for the usual hierarchy of spaces.
• 41:09
  So instead of going to the team captain 1st and then to the
• 41:13
  assistant coach and that like working your way up,
• 41:16
  essentially, they might just go straight to the head coach or
• 41:19
  straight to the athletic director or straight to the
• 41:20
  university president, right. And so for better or for worse,
• 41:24
  I think there there are instances where that type of
• 41:28
  like self advocacy and feeling like you can do that is a really
• 41:31
  good thing. And I think there are other
• 41:33
  times where we're also missing out on opportunities for
• 41:35
  critical conversations at the peer level, Like we're going
• 41:38
  straight to kind of blowing a whistle or, or whatever it may
• 41:42
  be instead of trying to handle things on a human level face to
• 41:44
  face. Again, this is a complete over
• 41:47
  generalization. There are certainly instances
• 41:49
  where you need to blow the whistle and, and go straight to
• 41:51
  the the top to get things handled.
• 41:54
  But I think the yeah, I, I think in general, what is modeled for
• 41:58
  you as an athlete is how you show up in the space of, of
• 42:01
  coaching. For me, it was like clear, I'll
• 42:06
  say clear authority lines in terms of like we knew that Kevin
• 42:09
  and and the coaching staff were in charge, but we also knew that
• 42:12
  we could go to them. So we met with Kevin every other
• 42:15
  week almost. We joke now that it was like our
• 42:18
  first foray in the therapy, right?
• 42:19
  That he was like, like, tell us what's going on, how you
• 42:22
  feeling? And so I think that that level
• 42:25
  of, again, accessibility and just kind of getting to see our
• 42:28
  coaches as also human was such a big piece for us in terms of how
• 42:33
  we operated as a team. We spent a lot of time talking
• 42:35
  about team culture. This is a running joke now
• 42:38
  because I think it was my sophomore year, we had a very
• 42:42
  lengthy debate about whether to include in our core values for
• 42:46
  that season the word balance or healthy balance.
• 42:50
  And I like looking back, it's like, does it really matter?
• 42:54
  But it was like, no, we need healthy in front of it because
• 42:57
  of our health. And no, it should be balanced to
• 42:59
  be more brought like these types of things.
• 43:01
  You know, those are the conversations that we were
• 43:03
  having And and that's intentional, right?
• 43:05
  Like that was driven by by Kevin and and by our coaching staff.
• 43:08
  So again, I think it's about what has been modeled for you
• 43:12
  and and how you feel that worked for you as an athlete.
• 43:16
  I think it's how you show up in the space of leadership.
• 43:18
  Yeah, I think that that happens even with coaching skills, is
• 43:22
  that we tend to coach the skills of the way to do things with
• 43:25
  what work for us and don't really realize that, you know,
• 43:28
  there are other motor preferences or other body types.
• 43:31
  There are other things that go on that we may not work for this
• 43:35
  athlete here. It works for some, but not for
• 43:37
  all. I think I just want to add on to
• 43:41
  this too. I've got a post that's going to
• 43:44
  be coming out today about differentiated learning, right?
• 43:47
  Like as an educator, not everybody learns the same way,
• 43:51
  right? And so your goal as a coach
• 43:53
  isn't that they learn the skill, it's that they learn how to do
• 43:57
  the skill their way, right? Like it, it's the, the skill is
• 44:01
  there and, and it'll be there. But how people get to that
• 44:04
  finished product is kind of their own journey.
• 44:08
  And I think we need to do more of that in coaching instead of,
• 44:10
  oh, well, you got to hit like this and you've got a coach like
• 44:12
  this and you've got to pitch like this.
• 44:14
  Instead of it being like that, it's got to be like, where are
• 44:16
  we at as leaders? If you even even leadership,
• 44:21
  right? Leadership comes in many
• 44:22
  different forms and, and, and fashions and, and some people
• 44:26
  can lead by being quiet, some people can lead by being vocal,
• 44:29
  right. I think all of that is
• 44:31
  differentiated depend depending on the person.
• 44:33
  So, you know, that's I just wanted to comment on what you
• 44:36
  said. I thought that that was that was
• 44:37
  really, really great that, you know, we have to find different
• 44:41
  ways of doing things and, and people are learning different
• 44:43
  ways of doing those things too. I want to switch gears or just
• 44:47
  get some get some, some feedback from you, Taylor, on a lot of
• 44:52
  the people who listen to our podcast, our parents, there's,
• 44:55
  there's a lot I hear from them weekly.
• 44:56
  So does Ken and some of them are jumping into this role of
• 44:59
  leadership and starting to coach their kids.
• 45:02
  What advice would you have to them about dealing, being first
• 45:06
  of all, being a leader and second of all, maybe how they
• 45:09
  handle parents in that leadership role?
• 45:12
  This is a, this is a tough question.
• 45:14
  I don't know that I'm the right person to, to answer it.
• 45:17
  But I think from what I've gleaned, I'm, I'm in a space
• 45:19
  where a lot of my friends now have kids who are starting
• 45:22
  T-ball programs and, you know, the, their dads are taking over
• 45:26
  as their softball coach. And, and whatever that might be.
• 45:29
  I think the, I've, I've said it already, but the, what was
• 45:34
  modeled for you as an athlete or as a kid is going to be how you,
• 45:38
  you show up in that space. I think for me, neither of my
• 45:42
  parents, I don't think, unless it was on like a before I can
• 45:47
  remember team, neither of my parents were my coaches.
• 45:51
  My mom's background was in cheerleading, which I which I
• 45:53
  never got into and and dad played football, basketball,
• 45:56
  baseball and track all those things.
• 45:59
  So they they would have things to when it came to track, I
• 46:03
  think especially my dad would sit, you know, Hey, how about
• 46:05
  this or you should try this way, train this way.
• 46:08
  But they never were overly, you know, trying to correct things
• 46:12
  or post game. It wasn't why didn't you do this
• 46:15
  or why didn't you do that? So I think for me that
• 46:18
  separation of kind of parent and coach is always something that
• 46:22
  was useful. There are of course people who
• 46:26
  do that successfully as both, but I think it's got to be such
• 46:30
  a fine line to to show up in that space and kind of
• 46:35
  demonstrate the love and support that you would have for your
• 46:38
  your kid as an individual. And then also kind of be in the
• 46:43
  space where you're, you're nudging and trying to push them
• 46:46
  beyond what they're comfortable with.
• 46:47
  And then you got to take that back home, right?
• 46:49
  And then hang out there and have all those same conversations.
• 46:52
  So I think what I would offer and what I know has been useful
• 46:57
  to me as an athlete, from my parents and from my coaches was
• 47:01
  operating from a place of love first and foremost and kind of
• 47:06
  providing that support. I think the this kind of mantra
• 47:11
  or idea of of being someone who's a challenger and a
• 47:15
  supporter is important for leaders in our lives, whether
• 47:18
  there are coaches or not, but somebody who can kind of call
• 47:21
  you on things and and say, hey, is that, you know, is that
• 47:25
  really how we should show up in this space?
• 47:27
  Or I'm going to challenge you to think a little bit differently
• 47:29
  about that. But I'm also here for you if you
• 47:31
  want to talk more about it or if you're having a tough day or if
• 47:34
  you are in a hitting slump or whatever that might be.
• 47:37
  I think the that kind of tightrope walk of challenge and
• 47:41
  support is is probably the best information.
• 47:44
  I wouldn't even call it advice. That's the best information I
• 47:46
  could offer on that front. You know, and along those lines
• 47:49
  with any, I guess with any kind of coaching is I know a topic
• 47:53
  that you've talked about a lot is resiliency for coaches.
• 47:57
  You know, certainly you want to avoid burnout.
• 48:00
  You want to be able to come back from difficult times.
• 48:02
  You know, some sometimes you just no matter what you do, your
• 48:06
  team just can't win. It can't really perform.
• 48:08
  So what exactly is resiliency and how do you go about it?
• 48:13
  Oh boy. I know we can do a whole podcast
• 48:16
  just on that. Yeah, right.
• 48:17
  Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna.
• 48:18
  Be Segway off of this thing in a million ways.
• 48:21
  This is great. What a what a question.
• 48:23
  I'm gonna, I'll give you the, I guess the SparkNotes, the Cliff
• 48:26
  Notes version. You know, I think resilience is
• 48:29
  the ability to bounce back and kind of the ability to to let go
• 48:33
  of something and persist anyway. I don't know if you guys are
• 48:37
  familiar with Ted Lasso, but that idea of like the memory of
• 48:40
  a goldfish, right, has become pretty popular in in recent
• 48:43
  years. I think that in a nutshell is
• 48:45
  resilience to me. It's, you know, you get no
• 48:49
  matter how many times you get knocked down, you still show up
• 48:52
  and you still try. And as a coach, you have to do
• 48:55
  that. You're getting, you might be
• 48:57
  getting knocked down really from every angle if your team's not
• 48:59
  performing well. You might be getting it from
• 49:01
  parents, from, from players, from if you work in a school,
• 49:04
  from your administrator, from, from, again, just all the
• 49:07
  angles. And so I think that resilience
• 49:10
  and the ability to, to compartmentalize things, we used
• 49:14
  to focus on that a lot, again, when I was in College of kind of
• 49:16
  check your bags at the door. So we only have these these 2-3
• 49:20
  hours a day to practice and to get better and to be together in
• 49:24
  that space. And so if something's going on
• 49:26
  with school, you got to check that bag at the door and then
• 49:29
  you can get back to it at 7:00 or 8:00 or whenever we get out
• 49:32
  of here. But worrying about it while
• 49:33
  you're at practice doesn't really do any good for anybody
• 49:37
  involved. And I think that's a form of
• 49:40
  resilience too, right? That mental resilience and the
• 49:42
  ability to separate, OK, I'm at practice right now and there's
• 49:46
  nothing I can do about my linear algebra class that I'm probably
• 49:49
  going to fail. So I'm going to leave that
• 49:51
  outside and I'll come back to it when I, when I leave the gym.
• 49:54
  But I think it's important for coaches.
• 49:56
  And as we talked about on that, that webinar, can, I think
• 50:00
  resilience is really rooted in identity.
• 50:02
  And the better we know ourselves, the better we know
• 50:05
  how to navigate those difficult situations and and
• 50:08
  conversations, and the more we can show up resiliently in those
• 50:15
  spaces. It's funny because I remember
• 50:17
  going to a coaching clinic and I can't remember who it was, but
• 50:20
  it was female Division One softball coach.
• 50:24
  And she was talking about understanding your athletes and
• 50:26
  said then men, you have to understand this more than
• 50:29
  anything is that for males, you, you guys have the ability to
• 50:33
  have one box open at a time. So if you're at practice, you're
• 50:36
  in the practice box, you're in a game, you're in the game box.
• 50:39
  If you're in school, you're in the school box.
• 50:41
  You're in a relationship, you're in the relationship box.
• 50:44
  The other boxes are closed, said us females, all the boxes are
• 50:48
  open all the time. Do you agree with that?
• 50:51
  I'm laughing because this I think if there's a generational
• 50:54
  piece to this, like I've heard my mom talk to my dad about that
• 50:57
  as well, where it's like, you know, you're worried about the
• 51:00
  farm and that's where you're at and then you come home and then
• 51:02
  you're worried about the kids. And for her, she's like, gosh, I
• 51:05
  have to run this student program tonight and I got a tomorrow
• 51:08
  morning meet with a an alum and we're trying to do this and the
• 51:12
  kids have to go to practice afterwards and what are we gonna
• 51:14
  have for dinner? And did I do the laundry today?
• 51:15
  It right. It's just all these, these
• 51:17
  different things at once. And so I, I haven't spent a ton
• 51:20
  of time kind of researching in that space.
• 51:23
  But again, I think from personal experience and just again,
• 51:25
  laughing from, from remembering my mom kind of talking about
• 51:29
  that same concept of women have all the boxes open at all times.
• 51:34
  Yeah, that's that's funny. Yeah, I think it's valid, Ken,
• 51:38
  because you were literally just describing me.
• 51:41
  So I was like, Oh yeah, that's me.
• 51:45
  OK. Yeah, that's yeah, that's pretty
• 51:46
  valid right there. So yeah, I want to ask you,
• 51:50
  Taylor, do you, do you find imposter syndrome to be a common
• 51:53
  issue among coaches, like even at the highest level?
• 51:56
  Yes. I think the constant through
• 51:59
  line of getting older is really just discovering that nobody
• 52:03
  actually knows what they're doing.
• 52:05
  And I think that some people feel that stronger than others.
• 52:08
  Like you get to a certain position and you're like, oh
• 52:10
  crap, why did they hire me? And I think for folks who have a
• 52:15
  stronger sense of, of identity and resilience, like they handle
• 52:18
  those things better, right? They might have that imposter
• 52:20
  syndrome, but they kind of know how to, to work through it.
• 52:23
  But I think it's, it's prevalent.
• 52:25
  It's everywhere. I'm grateful to, to there's a
• 52:28
  lot of folks I think who are, are starting to talk about
• 52:30
  imposter syndrome and, and mental health in general as
• 52:33
  athletes, Naomi Osaka and Kevin Love and several others in in
• 52:37
  recent years who have done that. Simone Piles But I think that,
• 52:40
  you know, understanding that imposter syndrome is not like
• 52:46
  it's a, it's a real thing and it's a feeling that should be
• 52:48
  validated, but it's not a real like diagnosis, if you will.
• 52:52
  It's not a real, it's something you can work through and get
• 52:56
  past. Like it's not a finality if
• 52:58
  that's something that you're feeling.
• 53:00
  And so again, I think that the more we're having those
• 53:02
  conversations, the other piece about imposter syndrome is that
• 53:05
  it's really rooted in shame, right?
• 53:07
  Like you're feeling a shame that you shouldn't be there, that
• 53:10
  you're not good enough, all those pieces.
• 53:12
  And we know that the kind of best way to combat shame is to
• 53:15
  talk and to share your feelings and, and probably, frankly, to
• 53:19
  be validated by somebody else who's saying, Oh yeah, I don't,
• 53:22
  I don't feel like I'm qualified for this either.
• 53:23
  Right. And to just kind of get on the
• 53:25
  same page and, and have community in that space and, and
• 53:28
  to be able to work through those things together, I think that's
• 53:31
  the best way to kind of fight those, those feelings.
• 53:34
  One of my favorite stories about that was somebody was talking
• 53:37
  about being at a cocktail party and they were standing there
• 53:39
  with an older gentleman. And the other guy is like, wow,
• 53:42
  I don't know why they invited me here.
• 53:44
  There's all these really, really accomplished people.
• 53:47
  And, you know, these, these leaders in their field, they've
• 53:49
  done all these wonderful things, you know, and I, I'm just a guy
• 53:52
  who flies planes. Well, the guy that was saying
• 53:56
  that was Neil Armstrong, First man to walk on the moon.
• 54:01
  Right. It's like if he can have that,
• 54:03
  yeah, I think that any of us could have it at sometimes.
• 54:05
  And, you know, there are, to me, I think if you have at least a
• 54:10
  little bit of that in there, it's probably, you know, some
• 54:13
  humility and the idea that I have to continue to learn versus
• 54:17
  the person who thinks they know everything.
• 54:21
  Yeah, I was going to ask you what popped into my mind when
• 54:23
  you were just talking about that was the growth mindset, right?
• 54:26
  Like, you know, maybe we're not as good as we think we are now,
• 54:30
  but I'm going to grow and try to get there, right?
• 54:32
  I think, you know, the growth mindset is, is something I think
• 54:35
  is is huge that people should really focus on too.
• 54:39
  And I was going to say too, Ken and I say that all the time.
• 54:42
  Like, man, we can't believe that people are actually want to talk
• 54:44
  to us on this podcast. So, you know, I mean, we're I
• 54:48
  think we're a part and then all of a sudden, you know, we're Ken
• 54:50
  and they're talking. Well, look at this persons
• 54:52
  commenting and it's it's you know, and I'm like, wow.
• 54:54
  And we, he and I converse all like whoever thought like this
• 54:57
  could could be something. And and again, I think that's if
• 55:00
  you don't try, you never know, right?
• 55:01
  And if you don't dream, then you never you never really try to
• 55:04
  get there. So, you know, I think that's
• 55:06
  great that that we're talking about that, especially as
• 55:08
  coaches too. And I was going to say one other
• 55:10
  thing, and this is a question for you, Taylor, is like, do you
• 55:13
  think the older you get, the more perspective you have?
• 55:16
  And then at some point you're just like, I don't, I don't
• 55:18
  really care what people think anymore.
• 55:19
  I'm just this is who I am. And if you don't like it, you
• 55:22
  have the ability to go your own way.
• 55:24
  And so do I and we don't have to mesh together.
• 55:26
  But you know, and especially when you get Ken's age, I don't
• 55:29
  think he really cares about him. So I'm not trying to make jokes.
• 55:34
  I'm, I'm really just trying to be like, do you think like with
• 55:37
  the age and experience comes that perspective of like, OK, I
• 55:41
  used to worry about this, this and this and who liked me and
• 55:44
  this. And now you're just like, you
• 55:45
  know, what if you don't like me, OK, see you later.
• 55:48
  I don't, you know, we don't have to be a part of that.
• 55:50
  Yeah, I do. I I just was having this
• 55:52
  conversation with one of my students the other day.
• 55:54
  She'd been rejected from an internship that she was really
• 55:57
  excited about, first rejection that she's really gotten.
• 56:00
  And she's like, I just, you know, I don't know, I feel
• 56:03
  awful. This is terrible.
• 56:05
  I don't know if I'm going to get over it.
• 56:06
  And I'm like, you will. I can remember, you know, the
• 56:09
  first few jobs I could paper the walls in my house with all the
• 56:13
  rejections that I've gotten over the years.
• 56:16
  But I do think it, it's age, it's perspective.
• 56:18
  It's to your point of, of trying, the more you try things,
• 56:22
  the less kind of scared you are of failing because you know that
• 56:26
  if you don't try it to begin with, nothing can happen, good
• 56:28
  or bad either way. So I think that rejection stings
• 56:32
  significantly less the wider your kind of experience in the
• 56:36
  world is. Most times that comes with with
• 56:39
  age and and time and perspective.
• 56:41
  But I think, yeah, just the older you get, the more you're
• 56:44
  you don't care as much. You know, if I don't get that
• 56:46
  job, OK, it wasn't for me. If I don't get this, you know,
• 56:48
  offer or whatever, I don't get the promotion I thought I was
• 56:51
  going to get. OK, whatever.
• 56:53
  Something else will come. I think that's the the other
• 56:55
  piece that that is important to this.
• 56:58
  And I had a friend say it on my podcast.
• 57:00
  This has been almost a year ago now since we did that interview,
• 57:02
  but she was like, what what's for you won't miss you like it's
• 57:06
  going to circle the black for you every single time.
• 57:08
  So if there's something you didn't get, or again, a
• 57:11
  promotion, a job, whatever, that one wasn't for you, don't worry
• 57:15
  about it. Like that was a closed door and
• 57:17
  something else is going to open and then come back for you.
• 57:19
  Yeah. And I think too with that is
• 57:21
  that as you get a longer timeline, you're able to go back
• 57:23
  and look and say, wow, this thing that I really wanted, if I
• 57:26
  would have gotten it, I wouldn't have gotten something else that
• 57:29
  became very important in my life.
• 57:32
  So sometimes, you know, it's like I think it was on MASH
• 57:36
  where they said, you know, God answers all prayers, but
• 57:38
  sometimes the answer is no. Yeah, yeah, there it is.
• 57:43
  There he goes, dating himself again.
• 57:46
  Yeah, well, who else is going to date me?
• 57:49
  Certainly not my wife. So I'm.
• 57:53
  All right, we're deteriorating here.
• 57:55
  Let's get back on track. Have you developed any programs
• 57:58
  to help coaches with resiliency or to help, you know, kind of
• 58:02
  bounce back from anything that's, you know, bothering them
• 58:05
  at the time? I think, you know, I'm just kind
• 58:07
  of in the space where I'm starting to build out more of
• 58:09
  that programming, the partnership I've got with, with
• 58:11
  BSN sports right now. There's going to be some more
• 58:12
  curriculum down the line. I hope I can say that that
• 58:15
  that's going to come. But I think that, you know, the,
• 58:18
  the space I'm starting off now in terms of these webinars,
• 58:21
  group sessions that I've done and, and just having these
• 58:23
  conversations, a lot of talk about growth mindset, the work
• 58:27
  that I did when I was at University of South Florida, we
• 58:29
  built leadership Academy for our student athletes while I was
• 58:33
  there. That's one of the programs that
• 58:34
  I oversaw in that role. And a lot of what we talked
• 58:37
  about, again, was building upon leadership skills that you get
• 58:42
  inherently being involved with sports, but you don't, we don't
• 58:46
  necessarily set aside spaces and places to talk intentionally
• 58:49
  about these things. And so these conversations, I
• 58:52
  think about identity and knowing yourself about communication
• 58:56
  styles and how to read people and, and better understand your
• 58:59
  audience and who you're talking to.
• 59:01
  And, you know, let's talk about accountability and
• 59:04
  responsibility and, and what is our, what's our responsibility
• 59:08
  as leaders in this space to define, you know, the culture
• 59:11
  and, and accountability levels of, of the people who are around
• 59:15
  us. I think those things are all
• 59:17
  very, very important. I'm excited to continue having
• 59:20
  conversations. Would love to, if there's folks
• 59:22
  in your audience who are looking for people to talk about those
• 59:24
  things. I'm more than happy to to have a
• 59:27
  conversation and see if there's some kind of connectivity that
• 59:30
  that we can put something together.
• 59:32
  How did they get a hold of me for that Same you can shameless
• 59:36
  self promotion time. Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding.
• 59:38
  Yeah, that's right. You can go to hangtimep0d.com.
• 59:42
  We've got a form on there that you can fill out and, and get in
• 59:45
  contact directly that way. And there's also, we've got of
• 59:50
  course, all the links to all the podcast episodes we've done, as
• 59:53
  well as some of the, the kind of services and, and topics that
• 59:57
  we, we cover as far as, as consulting and group sessions
• 1:00:00
  and webinars and keynotes and, and all of those things.
• 1:00:03
  But yeah, it's hang time. P0d.com.
• 1:00:07
  Good. Till I want to ask you a
• 1:00:09
  question here, and that's not on the list that we gave you today.
• 1:00:12
  You and and this is something from that you you said earlier,
• 1:00:15
  you talked about all of your coaches in the, in that coaching
• 1:00:18
  coaching tree. And I heard a lot of a lot of
• 1:00:21
  men names in there. What was the what was the common
• 1:00:26
  theme of them to help empower women who they were coaching to
• 1:00:31
  be leaders? Because I'm sure that you, like
• 1:00:33
  you talked about, you took away from each one of those coaches.
• 1:00:37
  And if anybody's listening to this podcast, I think especially
• 1:00:39
  if you're a man, you need to listen to what I think Taylor's
• 1:00:43
  going to tell you here as to what was the commonality with
• 1:00:46
  all of those men coaches to help empower women to be leaders.
• 1:00:51
  Such a good question. Sorry, it's not on the list, I
• 1:00:54
  got to think. No, yeah, you're good.
• 1:00:56
  And I'm thinking too. Like so.
• 1:00:58
  So I mentioned Flynn, Jen Flynn Oldenburg, who's at Ohio State
• 1:01:01
  now. Fantastic.
• 1:01:03
  I think during the rest of the time.
• 1:01:06
  Jen Fry, I would have been, she was a volunteer assistant with
• 1:01:10
  us my junior year and most of the rest of the time to your
• 1:01:12
  point, we did have either men who were our volunteer
• 1:01:15
  assistants and then obviously our head coach and assistant
• 1:01:18
  coach in that space as well. I think again, to me it's a
• 1:01:22
  culture based thing, so it comes from the top down.
• 1:01:25
  Kevin was really passionate about setting a culture and
• 1:01:30
  having us be involved in that as players.
• 1:01:34
  So everything that we did was as a unit, right?
• 1:01:37
  And the coaches might have been having these side conversations
• 1:01:39
  of all right, what can we say to encourage them to do this or
• 1:01:43
  that or whatever it may be. But I think our investment as
• 1:01:47
  players was a form of empowerment that looking back,
• 1:01:52
  you know, we can say, oh, we were invested in and we cared
• 1:01:55
  about each other. Like the group chat still goes
• 1:01:58
  crazy. We still are all in touch.
• 1:02:01
  Somebody just texted the other day that they were wait.
• 1:02:03
  So for more context, we my junior year, we advanced the
• 1:02:06
  national championship match. We ended up losing to UCLA in
• 1:02:10
  that match. And you might as you might
• 1:02:12
  imagine, we don't care for UCLA because of that.
• 1:02:15
  Dang, UCLA. That's right.
• 1:02:18
  And so now that they're in the Big 10, of course UCLA is
• 1:02:20
  competing in Champaign on a relatively regular basis.
• 1:02:24
  And so somebody texted they had gone to the UCLA gymnastics
• 1:02:29
  match up at Illinois, which they moved to the State Farm Center
• 1:02:32
  to be able to accommodate more fans, of course, because Jordan
• 1:02:34
  Chiles, The Olympian, is on UCLA's gymnastics team.
• 1:02:38
  And so one of my teammates sent the photo and was like, I just
• 1:02:40
  want you to know I'm unhappy that I spent money to see UCLA,
• 1:02:44
  but I'm never going to do it again.
• 1:02:45
  And I only did it because of Jordan Chiles.
• 1:02:49
  So again, I think that that that kind of family community feeling
• 1:02:53
  that we had is something that the coaches instilled in US.
• 1:02:56
  I think the level of respect, frankly, that that Kevin and our
• 1:03:02
  our other assistant coaches who were men showed to Flynn, like
• 1:03:06
  if you ask any of us, Kevin was the head coach.
• 1:03:09
  Flynn was kind of running the show as far as the behind the
• 1:03:13
  scenes. You know, she if we were
• 1:03:16
  traveling, like Flynn's the one who had the per diem and be here
• 1:03:19
  at this time and do this and all of these kinds of things.
• 1:03:22
  And of course I'm joking. Like of course it was a A-Team
• 1:03:25
  effort from the coaching staff. But again, I think the level of,
• 1:03:28
  of like trust and responsibility that Kevin instilled in Flynn as
• 1:03:33
  the assistant coach was something that subconsciously we
• 1:03:37
  were seeing and, and like knew how important she was, of
• 1:03:41
  course, and knew how much that he truly valued her opinion in
• 1:03:44
  that space as well. And I think I'm going to go back
• 1:03:47
  to the, the foundation of like operating from a place of love.
• 1:03:50
  I think that's really the key for us and why we had the the
• 1:03:54
  culture that we did. That was such a big piece of it.
• 1:03:57
  All right. I wanted to ask you one other
• 1:03:59
  question here about your research and are you doing
• 1:04:02
  anything, at least anything that you can share new things around
• 1:04:05
  leadership or female empowerment or any of the areas that are
• 1:04:10
  part of your passion? Oh yes, I think the the, the
• 1:04:16
  piece that I can share, this is not new stuff.
• 1:04:19
  There's a couple projects I have going on behind the scenes right
• 1:04:21
  now that I don't want to I'm an assistant on or will be an
• 1:04:25
  assist on. So I don't necessarily want to
• 1:04:26
  share those pieces, but the thing that's not new would be
• 1:04:31
  the research I did for my dissertation.
• 1:04:33
  And I mentioned that dissertations are very long on
• 1:04:36
  my personal website. I have some of the breakdown in,
• 1:04:40
  in a couple of blog formats of the work that I did for that
• 1:04:43
  dissertation. If you're interested, go check
• 1:04:45
  it out. It's it's focused on, on Title 9
• 1:04:48
  again on sharing the history. There's one on National Girls
• 1:04:51
  and Women in Sports Day and some of the history of that, but also
• 1:04:54
  the work that we still have to do.
• 1:04:57
  So for women's sports specifically, there's the the
• 1:05:01
  research I did for my dissertation was specifically
• 1:05:03
  focused on the self perception of power of women serving as
• 1:05:07
  senior woman administrator at the D1 level, which is a
• 1:05:11
  mouthful, but generally is about the the self perception of power
• 1:05:15
  of women in leadership roles in college athletics.
• 1:05:18
  And you'll find throughout the, the literature review and, and
• 1:05:21
  the discussion in that dissertation, I think just a lot
• 1:05:25
  of, I'm biased because I wrote it, but what I found to be very
• 1:05:29
  interesting insights from women who are serving in those roles
• 1:05:32
  in college athletics. I think things that both I
• 1:05:35
  anticipated hearing from them and also some things that were a
• 1:05:39
  little bit of a surprise to me as far as as that role goes.
• 1:05:42
  But I think again, that the self perception of, of leadership is
• 1:05:47
  such a floaty way to talk about leadership because we're really
• 1:05:51
  getting into not just like what is leadership, but what's your
• 1:05:54
  perception of how much leadership you have?
• 1:05:58
  Again, it's, it's kind of a, a deep cut academically, but I
• 1:06:01
  think that stuff is so interesting because it really
• 1:06:03
  drives how we feel and think about leadership and, and how we
• 1:06:08
  show up in those spaces as well. So again, selfishly plug the the
• 1:06:12
  dissertation in my personal blog, which has been a while
• 1:06:15
  since I've I've put some new stuff out on there, but I think
• 1:06:17
  those are good and maybe more more accessible, a little bit
• 1:06:21
  more consumable than the the long form dissertation.
• 1:06:25
  Well, and you have to hope that someday there won't be a need
• 1:06:29
  for women in and girls in sports day because it'll just be taken
• 1:06:34
  for granted that, you know, just like it is for men.
• 1:06:37
  You know that women and girls participate in sports, and why
• 1:06:40
  wouldn't they? Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:42
  But it's a normal, a normal thing.
• 1:06:45
  And it's not this novel kind of discussion that we we've seen
• 1:06:48
  around it for years. Yep.
• 1:06:50
  OK, one other question for you, and this is our our fun one.
• 1:06:53
  We'd like to ask this one a lot. It's funny that I'm asking it
• 1:06:56
  because it was originally Jay's question and I seem to have
• 1:06:58
  taken over it. So, Jay, you're going to have to
• 1:07:01
  start taking ownership again. OK, OK.
• 1:07:05
  All right. Anyway, do you have any hidden
• 1:07:07
  talents or any unusual hobbies or anything that people would be
• 1:07:11
  surprised to learn about you? I feel like I'm kind of an open
• 1:07:16
  book, so I don't know that it would be a surprise.
• 1:07:20
  And it's not, it's certainly not a hidden talent.
• 1:07:22
  The thing I'm the thing I'm thinking about as far as like
• 1:07:24
  hobbies go, I've, I've been into golf in recent years, trying to
• 1:07:28
  get better at that. Played the saxophone in high
• 1:07:31
  school, which I think is a, is a unique one.
• 1:07:34
  Yeah, I don't know, it's been a couple years since I've tried
• 1:07:37
  it. I still the saxophone is still
• 1:07:39
  at my parents house so every once in a while bust it out see
• 1:07:41
  if I still got it. Isn't.
• 1:07:44
  And, you know, I'm a musician as well.
• 1:07:46
  And sometimes it's funny when you take something out like
• 1:07:48
  that, an instrument that used to play so fluidly, and you're
• 1:07:51
  like, OK, it doesn't sound like it used to.
• 1:07:57
  Right. Like man, I used to be good at
• 1:07:58
  this. What has happened, man?
• 1:08:00
  But yeah, the other I'm thinking of, we used to have to introduce
• 1:08:03
  ours and share a fun fact at the beginning of if we were
• 1:08:07
  introducing ourselves to donors or whatever it was or at camps
• 1:08:10
  to the kids, whatever it may be. And the things that I
• 1:08:13
  consistently would share are the saxophone, I would share.
• 1:08:18
  I think it's now expired, but I used to have my motorcycle
• 1:08:20
  license. Got that while I was in college
• 1:08:23
  and then my high school. We used to play donkey
• 1:08:27
  basketball as a fundraiser. And so they would have like a, a
• 1:08:32
  senior, you know, the seniors, juniors seniors had their own
• 1:08:35
  team. There was like a celebrities,
• 1:08:37
  which was just like local townspeople who would come in
• 1:08:39
  and play. And to call it basketball is a
• 1:08:42
  very loose definition of the game.
• 1:08:45
  It pretty much was. There were donkeys in our gym
• 1:08:49
  and we're like, drag it. We're wearing, you know,
• 1:08:51
  softball, baseball helmets, like trying to drag the donkeys from
• 1:08:54
  one end of the court to the other.
• 1:08:56
  But that probably is the most interesting thing that I that I
• 1:09:01
  could possibly share. OK, so anybody if you're looking
• 1:09:04
  for someone to run a donkey basketball fundraiser for you,
• 1:09:07
  Taylor Onion is your person. I could put you in contact with
• 1:09:10
  somebody who knows. That's right.
• 1:09:14
  Well, well, Taylor, we said it would be about an hour where
• 1:09:16
  we're running a little bit over that.
• 1:09:18
  We appreciate the extra time and you know how it is with your own
• 1:09:21
  blog hang time. So we do want to thank you for
• 1:09:25
  joining us today. It's it's been a great
• 1:09:27
  conversation. We really loved it.
• 1:09:29
  Absolutely, thank you guys for for hosting and for asking me to
• 1:09:32
  come on. This has been fun.
• 1:09:34
  Absolutely. OK, well, that's it for us this
• 1:09:36
  week. Thanks to all of you for
• 1:09:38
  listening and the kind words you've been sharing with us.
• 1:09:41
  If you like what you're hearing, Please remember to give us a
• 1:09:43
  like, leave a comment and share this podcast on your social
• 1:09:46
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• 1:09:49
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• 1:09:52
  And remember that now includes YouTube as well.
• 1:09:55
  If you're so inclined, you can also leave us a great preview on
• 1:09:58
  Apple Podcast to help more people find us.
• 1:10:01
  On behalf of the From the Coaches Mouth podcast, have a
• 1:10:03
  great rest of your week and weekend.