Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #219: Kenny Wheeler-Pleasant Valley (IA) High School

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#219: Kenny Wheeler-Pleasant Valley (IA) High School · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Alright welcome back here to The Gila buttocks connections track
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  and field pie it's a long name. The Gill connections, that's
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  what everybody knows this as the guild connections podcast I'm so
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  humbled to be your host Mike Cunningham.
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  side gig called the podcast and I'm super excited that you're
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  here today and I'm super excited about our guest today.
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  So let's get started here. Help me welcome from Bettendorf
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  and And we'll talk probably why I know Bettendorf hear a little
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  bit from Pleasant Valley High School in Iowa.
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  Help me. Welcome the wise.
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  The wonderful Mr. Kenny wheeler Kenny, how are you today?
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  I'm doing great summer is going well and yeah, just just excited
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  to be on. Do you, you know, as a high
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  school coach I can only imagine are you a teacher there as well?
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  No, actually, I'm an academic advisor.
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  So I've been working in higher ed for almost 20 years now.
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  So I'm working at Western, Illinois, University quad.
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  This. Oh yeah.
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  Okay. All right.
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  I was going to say is a high school coach.
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  I can't imagine the relief that some our brains, and I don't
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  mean that in a bad way because, you know, obviously you've loved
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  and we'll find out more but you love what you do, but we all
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  need a break, right? It's summer break.
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  It feels like there's a nice exhale to start getting prepared
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  for next year. Definitely.
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  Um, I know for us. So we normally host a, an
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  elementary and Junior High track and I'll Camp right?
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  At the conclusion of the school year.
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  So this past June, we had we hosted 240 like first through
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  eighth graders and so, that is a big project.
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  I mean, we have a lot of help from our student athletes our
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  coaches, our administrators from around our school district.
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  So once that is done, then I can sort of exhale.
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  And sort of look ahead to the summer and just spending that
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  extra quality time with my family.
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  Let's hop into that real quick. Before we jump into your actual
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  store your journey here 200 and something K through 8 emerge
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  track. Yeah that's amazing.
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  Like in I'm going to say legit track camp and what I mean by
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  that is are you actually like teaching them hurdles and maybe
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  the disc is and things like that?
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  Or is it like just running type of camp now we are.
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  So it's a four-day camp we do Monday.
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  Through Thursday, and we split up our days.
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  Mostly it helps us as a staff just to take a break, especially
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  if the weather is really warm. So we have our first through
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  fourth graders, come in in the early morning and then we bring
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  back our fifth through eighth graders in the afternoon and we
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  cover everything. We cover.
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  Our field events that we do in Iowa so disc is chopped long
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  jump in high jump, we do hurdles we do an acceleration station
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  one day. We go through the different
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  handoffs closed and opened for older kids.
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  We do like a plyometric station, core stations through the week.
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  And then we actually spend some time just talking with them
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  about high school track and field and that experience and
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  hope that that's something that might spark some interest once
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  they get to high school, and how many kids 240 this year.
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  Holy cow. How long have you been doing
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  that? So when I moved to the Quad
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  Cities in 2006, my wife was already teaching in the school
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  district. And so she's a, she's the girls
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  cross country coach at Pleasant Valley, high school.
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  So I just got involved with it right away.
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  I think, when I started we were right around like 110. 20 and
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  then I sort of took over the camp.
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  Oh gosh, probably sometime around 2011 2012 and we started
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  out around, 150 around that time.
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  And then the interesting thing was the covid year.
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  Kind of think that year off, I think, the next year when we
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  were able to have camp like parents were just like, please
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  kids, get out of the house we ended up having like 26 kids
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  that year. So it almost forced us to sort
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  of reimagine what camp was and reorganized it so that We can
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  incorporate that amount of interest in that amount of kids,
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  but it also just, you know, I think one thing that was really
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  special about this year's. We had 32 current athletes
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  coming assist that week. We had some alums come back and
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  help out. We have some incoming freshmen,
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  come back and help out. So it is is a full track and
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  field Community project. T'.
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  But we get great feedback from our parents and our kids.
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  And yeah, we'll just keep doing it big over here.
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  You know, the greatest feedback you can have is that people
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  continue to sign up for, I mean you know in a community like the
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  Quad Cities, it's not the largest city in the world right
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  side of Chicago. New York word can spread really
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  quickly of like, this is a waste of time energy sources, don't go
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  and you'll just do until down and die, but you continue to
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  grow and healthy things. That's amazing.
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  Yeah, I have to imagine After doing this for so long, have you
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  seen? I'm going to call it success
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  stories. Have you seen a kid who maybe
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  never knew of track but tried it and then went on to be really
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  successful in high school in the area from it?
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  So it's it's always hard to just keep track of your that amount
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  of kids you know over time there's definitely kids that I
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  remember coming through track camp, and watching them flourish
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  at the high school level. It was funny.
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  We had a A young man this past year, Luke nap and he had come
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  to track Camp as a kid, but I do remember him and track him as a
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  long jumper. Mmm.
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  And he has developed into a phenomenal mile into Miler for
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  the boys team. And so he actually he was The
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  Medalist at this year's Drake, Relays in the two-mile he
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  meddled at the state meet in the two mile and then he is actually
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  going to go and run. For the University of Iowa next
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  year. So it's been pretty cool just to
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  sit back and watch his journey on the fold.
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  Yeah, that is really something and when I said successful I
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  don't even and obviously Luke had a lot of success as far as
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  yeah steak meat and things like that but you know still being in
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  track through their senior you know kid comes to use a third
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  success in a we have the number one participation sport on both
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  high school and college level. When you had boys and girls men
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  and women together So, you know, little you walk through the
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  grocery store, you're more likely to run into someone who
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  ran track on some level than you are for someone who played
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  football or baseball Etc, and we need to continue to grow that
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  Sport and I think that's why I'm so interested in this camps.
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  Like that are what helps you know 99% of those kids aren't
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  going on to compete in college. But if they can have a great
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  experience through high school, they become coaches, they become
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  teachers their kids eventually maybe one day participate in the
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  sport so that's really Something in 200 of them.
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  Holy yeah. Well, that is a gaggle of kids.
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  And what's been really cool is in the last couple of Summers,
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  I've had coaches from other high schools in Iowa reach out and
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  just ask like, hey would you be willing to share like how do you
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  structure? Yes, Camp.
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  How do you advertise it? How do you get help for it?
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  And so, you know, just in terms of being an ambassador of the
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  sport and and providing opportunities for it to grow and
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  to sort of expand interest within the communities, wherever
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  that may be. If we can be, you know, one of
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  the examples for that Elder better.
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  Absolutely. I think you're spot on with
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  that, it's exactly what I think about 200 ish pods in.
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  Des Moines in Louisville and Lexington and Huntsville.
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  I mean just you know straight down.
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  What could this? For continue to grow into and B.
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  And, you know, I think examples like that, and examples, like
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  Drake, and even the Iowa State meet because, you know, when you
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  go there, you have a lot of people in the stands as well for
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  a journey, things like that. I think that that's what gives
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  me hope about college and professional track of like, one
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  day. Maybe we can fill the stands.
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  Ya know what's out there? You know, right?
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  We just haven't cracked the code and I think there might need to
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  be some drastic changes or, you know, maybe some out of the box.
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  Creative thinking on how we parent stuff.
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  But again I just think about we walk around and we are way more
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  likely to walk into someone who did some form of track or handed
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  out another level. A family member did track, you
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  know, father, son daughter. We've got people that have at
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  least some interest. Yeah.
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  Back in there, not in the stands and some people who never have
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  any interest in basketball football but they're in the
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  basketball football stands. We can do this.
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  I love that you're doing it right there in your community
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  for a youth camp man. And again, 200 plus that is that
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  is quite amusing. That really, that's really long.
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  Well, that's a awesome way to start off this episode.
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  Hold, we haven't even figured out who Kenny is.
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  Yeah, let's let's jump into that.
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  Kenny, let's get back in our way back machine here and somewhere
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  along the way, assuming that you were an athlete coaching had to
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  in your mind, had to change you. No coaching.
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  When we first start interacting with it, it's something that's
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  done to us. Go run this lift, this throw
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  this jump here, etcetera. And some where we get the idea
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  changes in was like, oh wait a minute.
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  Like maybe I could actually like I could maybe I could be a
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  coach. I mean I'd love to be, you know,
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  emulate my coach where his coaching and track and field
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  kind of stuff. So track and field for me goes
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  way back to the 84 Olympics in Los.
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  It was so my dad's a retired pastor and so like early in his
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  career we were we had moved around quite a bit but we lived
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  in Los Angeles at that time. So I think my first Memory is
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  Edwin, Moses in the 400 hurdles, so good Newman, just just his
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  grace. And just his consistency and
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  just greatness over a number of years, you know, in Carl Lewis
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  and Florence Griffith Joyner. So, you know, right then it was
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  like, I want to be an Olympic track and field athlete someday,
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  you know, however, realistic or non realistic, that that could
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  be. That that was it.
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  So, So, I ran track and field in high school into awesome.
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  Coaches. Were you in l.a. then?
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  Or word know we didn't move to Milwaukee Wisconsin so that you
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  did move. Okay, yeah, yeah.
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  And that's really where I spent most of my formative years,
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  okay? And so my first High School
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  coach, Jackie Wilkie. Her know Larry Gardener he was
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  Like this Fitness buff. I mean, the guy must have I mean
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  he was in his 60s but I'd never seen someone at that age.
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  So like physically fit right. But he was he was also my health
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  teacher and he just He just had a way of always giving me to try
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  new things, but but doing it in a way where like I felt
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  confident about it even if it was something completely
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  different and new, and then once he he retired Christy Wilkie,
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  she was our cross-country coach. So she took over our boys track
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  and field program. and and that was interesting because she
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  almost came to me for help at times since I was sort of the
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  veteran on the team and she didn't, you know, have a lot of
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  experience with the Sprints and jumps and so, You know, when I
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  think about that and sort of what it means to teach them to
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  coach, you know, that was sort of my initial experience with
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  that. I went to Luther College
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  division, three School in Northeast Iowa.
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  Yeah, no. I played football and ran track
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  there and it was a biology major.
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  And I had a fantastic college coach Jeff wedeck.
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  And I have never found someone more enthusiastic about coaching
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  and the sport. And when I think back to like,
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  myself as a coach now, like he is he is the person that I would
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  want to sort of emulate Yeah, just just his sense of like care
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  and concern. I mean, he certainly pushed us
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  and I think back to some definitely work out that we had,
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  you know, I don't know if they necessarily built character as
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  much as just like fatigue and wanting to just crawl into a
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  hole and go to sleep. But I mean it but it was the
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  challenge. That was, that was always fun.
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  He was fair. And and what I say by that is he
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  always gave each of his athletes any and every opportunity to,
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  you know, compete at the highest level compete on our top relays
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  when it came to our conference meet and making bits to try and
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  qualify for Nationals. But he was also just human.
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  I mean, coaching wasn't You know, bigger than than him, you
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  know? I mean he he was a very
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  authentic. Church-going Christian, loving.
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  I mean, just and that's who he is now, you know, to this day
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  when we cross paths and so, can you?
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  That's an interesting. I'm curious how you describe
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  that he was human. I like that might be one of the
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  best described as you can give someone and it seems so, like of
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  core, a human, you know, but it's actually yeah, I can hear
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  the feeling when that. Can you give us an example of
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  how that showed up with him? With there was to you?
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  You or to a teammate. Yeah, it's just you know for him
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  I think it was just this genuine compassion for everybody and I
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  saw, I'll tell you what, sort of a life changing moment for me as
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  an athlete. So we were, we were in a meet At
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  Augustana College here in Rock Island.
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  And I was, I was a triple jumper as well.
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  And so, you know, I was not having a great day and he could
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  see that. I mean he could always sort of
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  sense, you know, how I was feeling just in my my demeanor.
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  But I mean, I was just frustrated.
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  I was I was fouling I was in something that That I knew was
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  sort of out of character for me. I remember this clearly.
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  I finished a jump. I don't know if it was just a
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  poor jumper, I found that. I mean, I just took like a small
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  handful of sand and I just like threw it in frustration.
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  And and I remember he came up to me like after that event and he
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  just, he just came and checked on me, say said, Kenny, how are
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  you doing? And like from that moment on it,
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  just changed a matter of perspective that No matter how
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  I'm doing like the opportunity to compete.
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  Is always a blessing in there, should never be, you know, you
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  can have some negative feelings about it performance.
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  I mean, that's that's going to happen, you know.
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  And when you strive to be the best at what you do and you fall
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  short of what you think you're capable of doing, yeah, that
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  that's going to happen. But to not let that linger.
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  And just to just to have him come and put his arm around me
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  and say, hey like things are gonna be okay, like will bounce
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  back from this? And, and I think like that now
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  becomes so more instructive as I work with athletes to help them
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  work through those, those same sort of ups and downs, and being
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  an athlete. It's just something that's just
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  always stuck with me. You know, it's interesting, we
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  say this a lot of times, but we don't necessarily reflect back
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  on. The actuality of it, we talked
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  about, you know, the experience of College athletics in general.
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  But, you know, track and field here specifically that you know
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  you're going to go through four to five years in college, four
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  years of high school you know as the years Move Along you're
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  going to forget most of the races and PR's and things like
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  that. But you're going to remember
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  your teammates and your coaches and those interactions.
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  And so that story there, it's interesting, you know, all the
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  things that Coach did for you guys.
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  The successes that you had the success that you had Etc.
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  One of your core memories is oh I was having a terrible meet and
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  he just arm around. Me was like, hey Kenny, how are
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  you like, are you? What I love about that is, we
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  heard the saying, coach, the person not the event that was in
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  my, the way I can hear that is that was his way of coaching
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  you. Like, they are person for your
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  kidney first. Not triple jumper first.
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  Your kidney, who happens, the triple jump in today, we just
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  didn't do that well, but guess what?
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  We got another crack at it next week and even if that bombs,
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  you're still an amazing human, an amazing?
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  Yeah, I love that story. It's it reminds me kind of the
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  opposite to, you know, I've seen some coaches and experience some
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  coaches who want an athlete has a bad race or jump at cetera,
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  you know, they'll turn their back on them in like will talk
• 20:27
  on Monday and what strikes me with that?
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  Truly believe, they still care about the person.
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  I truly, I don't think shut that person off as like, oh that
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  person is dead to me, will, you know, they'll come back alive
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  next week and we'll try it all over again.
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  I just think that they show it in a very Awkward way that also
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  sticks with. Because remember, we got to
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  remember, we're dealing with kids even a college.
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  Yeah. The 22 year old kids.
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  I think I think they walk away with an experience of like, oh
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  that, you know, if I was performing well, coach liked me,
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  but if I wasn't, he, yeah. He or she didn't like me when in
• 21:04
  reality, I truly think the coach really does care.
• 21:06
  I mean, it's hard to be in this kind of profession and not care
• 21:10
  highs and the lows. But boy, I think there's a
• 21:13
  lesson there of like, hey, They're always watching you kids
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  are always watching and I don't want to say they're fickle but
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  boy if you yeah you show some negativity because of a
• 21:24
  performance you what I think you you heard a lot of trust and
• 21:30
  love and admiration for the future there.
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  Yeah I think one of the things that we've really tried to point
• 21:37
  out at the beginning of our track and field season is We let
• 21:43
  our athletes know. First that failure is okay.
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  Like that is a positive step to to learning and improving and we
• 21:54
  are in such a high achieving School District that you know
• 21:59
  Perfection always seems to be like the goal and it just it
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  just can't be in sport but we also let them know.
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  When we critique them, we are critiquing them to help them to
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  be better athletes. It's not a reflection of our
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  feelings towards them as a person and I think as a
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  particularly as a girls track and field coach, We have to be
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  important about being able to separate that, you know, a
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  because we don't you know for for some of them like running is
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  their identity. And so when you start to step on
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  that or critique that you know, you have to be really mindful
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  about How are they going to take this?
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  And, you know, how do I as a coach?
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  Make sure that when I'm communicating to them is
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  Meaningful and will steer them in the right direction.
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  Yeah. I think you're right, and what a
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  tough task and, you know, you mentioned on the high school
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  level there girls. Specifically but, you know, I
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  think it's both. I know, you know.
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  Yeah, I think it's easy to say, oh, you know, boys are easier to
• 23:17
  laugh it off. But I think that's because of
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  the society may be pressure of May Tales of like, keep your
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  emotions to yourself. Don't show your.
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  I think, you know, and I think it's showing out there that
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  there's some real, you know, I don't know if it's the key Niche
• 23:33
  term or whatever mental health. There's some mental health
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  issues on both sides. Yeah.
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  It was saying and I don't hear you saying walking on eggshells.
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  I hear you more saying that being intentional and thoughtful
• 23:44
  to critique and positivity of what you're saying coaching wise
• 23:49
  and off the track stuff as well. Yeah, you know, I I took an FC a
• 23:56
  class with some other coaches a few years ago.
• 23:59
  And and one of the things that we talked about was Like, 44
• 24:06
  practice for example when we're in season I've got two hours and
• 24:11
  15 minutes with my athletes. Hmm.
• 24:14
  And Like gosh, am I fighting for like their attention during that
• 24:20
  time with all of the other pressures and activities and
• 24:25
  stressors that they have going on?
• 24:27
  And so like, for me, it's really Like how can I be most
• 24:34
  effective? How can my coaching staff be
• 24:36
  most effective in how we reach and impact our athletes.
• 24:40
  In that short amount of time that we get to fight for it.
• 24:43
  And so, That might be their only time where they hear positive
• 24:50
  messages during the day, you know.
• 24:54
  And so what what sort of stake can I claim to their heart and
• 24:59
  that amount of time that will impact them in a positive
• 25:01
  manner. So that when they leave practice
• 25:05
  they're like, you know, I can still go out and face the world
• 25:08
  and you know, I'll be okay. Yeah.
• 25:10
  That I love that. What kind of steak can you put
• 25:12
  in their heart positivity and love?
• 25:15
  You're right. They're getting so much. - tea
• 25:17
  from social media and their friends and city in general.
• 25:23
  How can you make this two-hour block?
• 25:25
  Like, okay. Here's something worth fighting
• 25:27
  for something that you're going to be admired for working hard
• 25:31
  and I mean, almost at succeeding, but trying because
• 25:34
  you're right failure is its track and field.
• 25:37
  I mean we're you're a school. We love to lift up the sport of
• 25:42
  track and field as the the winning and the pr is but guess
• 25:46
  what? It's a Sort of failure, meaning
• 25:47
  you're not going to be for every time you're not going to set the
• 25:49
  world record every time, if you're in a bar of it, that bar
• 25:52
  is going to fall down every time.
• 25:54
  Yeah, definitely. We have to build up athletes and
• 25:58
  coaches, who can withstand that and come back stronger every
• 26:03
  time whether actual physical part, or mentally and
• 26:07
  spiritually as well. I love that.
• 26:09
  Yeah, definitely. Okay, let's keep on your journey
• 26:11
  when you started school there at Luther and I know Luther, well,
• 26:16
  took four A great school. What did you when you came out
• 26:19
  of high school and you're going to Luther?
• 26:20
  What did you, what did you start as a major?
• 26:22
  Would you think a career? You might be, Maybe started, you
• 26:26
  want to be a lawyer, a doctor, a business owner start out as so,
• 26:32
  it was really between like computer science and yeah
• 26:36
  medicine and so, okay. Yeah, I literally Remember my
• 26:42
  freshman year. First day of intro to computer
• 26:44
  science class. I walked out of there and I'm
• 26:48
  like, I've never been more confused in my life, so I drop
• 26:52
  that class now. Hold on.
• 26:56
  No, I have a similar experience. I'm interested is what, what do
• 26:59
  you remember, what language it was?
• 27:01
  Was it like, basic or C++? I, it was C++.
• 27:04
  Yeah, yeah. So I was a computer science
• 27:08
  major in college, okay? And had never really tried hard
• 27:13
  and academics, but I wanted to like I was going to be a
• 27:16
  programmer. And so I decided this one
• 27:18
  semester I was going to like I was going to study, like, I
• 27:22
  mean, I was really going to buckle down and I did, and I
• 27:25
  even had, I was in a fraternity. My fraternity brother was
• 27:28
  already working for apple as a programmer, was the school or
• 27:34
  class tutor. But no one came to his sessions.
• 27:37
  But me, so I'd like a private basically tutor for this.
• 27:41
  I got A's and every one of my classes except C++.
• 27:46
  Yeah. And I remember, You can do.
• 27:48
  It doesn't get any easier than this.
• 27:50
  Like it's only continue to get harder and I just busted my butt
• 27:54
  and it ain't, it's not Computing.
• 27:56
  Yeah, I couldn't give it to me. It was a nomination of math and
• 28:02
  foreign language, that's what computer program was.
• 28:05
  And I was like, oh I'm not, I'm not catching on here at all.
• 28:08
  Yeah, you were smart enough. You saw on day one?
• 28:11
  Yeah, as like I'm not smarter than me.
• 28:14
  I was stubborn as I gotta give it a hole here.
• 28:17
  It's like I'm not going to dig myself in a deeper hole.
• 28:19
  So yeah I know I always like The Sciences you know particularly
• 28:24
  like anatomy and human biology. So biology ended up being my
• 28:29
  major. I went so far as to what we had,
• 28:36
  a human cadaver lab. So my sophomore year, when I
• 28:40
  took anatomy and physiology, that was kind of a big part of
• 28:44
  our class. And I mean, it was just
• 28:47
  Fascinating and oh, brag a little bit.
• 28:52
  I mean, I wasn't a 4.0 student, but we had a, we had an anatomy
• 28:58
  exam on the brain and it was a 40 question quiz.
• 29:05
  And so, our grading was done on a curve.
• 29:09
  And so, when grades came out, they would post like this
• 29:13
  printed sheet of paper and they'd have Like the line for
• 29:18
  like the curve, like the middle C and then like your ID number,
• 29:24
  and then you would just have to find that to determine like
• 29:27
  where your grade was. And I was the only one out of
• 29:31
  our class that tastes like the entire exam and I just remember
• 29:36
  like man. Okay, like I can do this.
• 29:38
  Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was fun.
• 29:41
  It was, it was definitely challenging organic chemistry
• 29:46
  was probably the one Class that kicked my butt.
• 29:48
  Yeah. And then the classic kills more
• 29:50
  Majors than anything. Yeah.
• 29:52
  Yeah. What is, you know, for a guy who
• 29:55
  I can't even spell organic chemistry, but someone who went
• 29:58
  through it and at least past it, what is that guy hear that all
• 30:02
  the time about? You know, there's the me there's
• 30:04
  jokes on TV's and movies so I ended up taking it twice.
• 30:09
  Oh um. What kind of cat it a little bit
• 30:12
  then? Yeah, I had a different
• 30:13
  instructor the second time I took it and so there were There
• 30:17
  were two things that happened. There one was The second
• 30:21
  instructor the way that he just taught it, I just connected
• 30:25
  better very important but also I think going back into it a
• 30:29
  second time. What I didn't do the first time
• 30:32
  is really grasps, it's such a course of understanding, some of
• 30:38
  the concepts and foundational equations that you learned
• 30:41
  within those first couple of weeks.
• 30:43
  If you do not, if you're not on top of that, because everything
• 30:47
  else Builds on those, Foundations and expands on that.
• 30:51
  And if you get lost in there, I mean, it's just like, calculus
• 30:54
  same thing if you lose. Something that happened in week,
• 30:59
  one or two, like you're going to be lost in 10 or 11, hmm.
• 31:04
  But yeah, when I took to get a second time, I mean, I did great
• 31:08
  just, just knowing, okay. Now I understand the
• 31:11
  expectations and how to learn, and how to study for it.
• 31:14
  But yeah, I want as far as taking the mcats twice and I
• 31:21
  think It wasn't so much. when I look back and the decision that
• 31:31
  I made to not pursue medicine, it really came down to What sort
• 31:38
  of time do I want to be able to spend with my family?
• 31:41
  What sort of time do I want to be able to have to do other
• 31:43
  things? Outside of my profession for me
• 31:48
  like autonomy and flexibility or big important pieces for me as
• 31:53
  as a professional. So I mean granted those were
• 31:58
  unknown because I really didn't know a lot of what the
• 32:01
  profession would be, right. But I think those were important
• 32:04
  enough to me that it's sort of scared Me away to say, like, you
• 32:07
  know, maybe this might not be the right fit.
• 32:09
  Hmm. And of course, the mcats weren't
• 32:12
  the greatest, so that's sort of close that door as well.
• 32:18
  I think there's a lesson when we, we don't talk X's and O's
• 32:21
  necessarily but the way you talked about organic chem and
• 32:24
  even calculus of like man, if you don't understand the first
• 32:27
  one or two formulas, like you're not going to be able to do the
• 32:31
  10th or whatever. Right?
• 32:32
  In with rack, you know we get a very caught up in the one Sent
• 32:36
  work out. And how do we this one percent
• 32:39
  of technique? And it's like, man, if you would
• 32:41
  just take a step back and do the basics, really?
• 32:44
  Really well, you would be way better off.
• 32:46
  Like, you'll be up to par just on those.
• 32:48
  Somebody said that, I was like, oh man, that's just like
• 32:50
  coaching track. But, you know, doing track.
• 32:52
  I'll give you get the basics and want to skip over the basics.
• 32:56
  And it's like, man if you would just pump your brakes, do those
• 33:00
  Basics really? Really well you'll be way better
• 33:02
  off than yeah, work on the 1%, I was just interesting.
• 33:06
  How you said that? Yeah, so what did you end up?
• 33:09
  Did you end up going into teaching education or so?
• 33:12
  After I graduated I was actually doing a it was this pre-med
• 33:19
  minority student program in Chicago, through Northwestern
• 33:24
  University's. So I spent the summer after my
• 33:27
  senior year doing that and at the same time, there was an
• 33:33
  admissions counselor position that it opened up at Sure.
• 33:36
  So I ended up applying for that. I got a call in June that they
• 33:43
  didn't. Select me.
• 33:45
  I mean, had an interview and that went well, but they chose
• 33:48
  another individual Well then they also came back and said,
• 33:54
  hey, we're looking at opening up this Multicultural recruitment
• 34:00
  admissions position, which is something they had never had
• 34:02
  before and they asked if I'd be interested.
• 34:05
  So essentially like they created a position for me because they
• 34:09
  felt like my interview is really strong that like we've got to
• 34:13
  get them on board and present. This might not be the right
• 34:15
  position but he's the right person for us.
• 34:18
  How do we get this person on the team?
• 34:20
  I'm right that's yeah that's a lot actually.
• 34:23
  Yeah, that wasn't actually that actually says a lot about them
• 34:25
  in my opinion, you know, it's real easy for someone who hires
• 34:29
  and you know for a company it's real easy for to be like, oh
• 34:32
  man, that person is great. Just doesn't work out here,
• 34:35
  maybe somewhere down the line and, you know, it's really have
• 34:38
  the flexibility and the creativity.
• 34:40
  Say, hey, I know this ain't the right position, but man, we
• 34:43
  would be stronger with this person on our team somewhere.
• 34:46
  How do we have that? Says a lot about them, as well,
• 34:50
  then. Hiring like one of my best
• 34:52
  friends, so it actually like, worked out, okay.
• 34:54
  But but yes, I worked in admissions for three and a half
• 34:59
  years at Luther, but during that time and this is where coaching
• 35:05
  came in. So my college head coach at us
• 35:10
  hey like, are you interested in helping out and And I was like,
• 35:14
  sure that'd be that'd be awesome.
• 35:15
  I mean for me it was more so I'll get to continue training
• 35:20
  and competing who but like I had some responsibility with our
• 35:26
  jumpers and but it really at that time was just I would love
• 35:34
  to help out and stay connected to my program.
• 35:36
  It wasn't a long-term goal or anything like that to get.
• 35:40
  It was just help. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 35:43
  Lee. So I did that for three and a
• 35:46
  half years and then it was time to go on to grad school and I
• 35:50
  think I had a few people nudging me like my future.
• 35:53
  Father-in-law and are our dean of enrollment and marketing at
• 35:59
  the time. They just kept saying like hey
• 36:02
  have you thought about graduate school or going in higher
• 36:05
  education and know this it was me I would have done that but I
• 36:13
  am thinking of how much I enjoyed My college experience
• 36:16
  and know that in fact that I could have on on college
• 36:21
  students and ensuring that my experience with them.
• 36:24
  I think it just it just felt right, you know so I what I
• 36:29
  moved on to the University of Iowa, I moved into their it's a
• 36:35
  long name, their student development and post-secondary
• 36:38
  education program and so That was a cohort program.
• 36:45
  So it's a two year program and and just, you know, lived not
• 36:49
  too far from kinnick stadium and that was a really fun
• 36:53
  experience. My youngest brother was a
• 36:56
  student at Iowa and was on the football team is first two
• 36:59
  years. So it allowed me to connect with
• 37:01
  him, because there's kind of a larger Gap in age are cool.
• 37:06
  But the, through my admissions work at Luther, I reached out to
• 37:15
  the guidance counselor at City High School in Iowa City and he
• 37:20
  was the boy's head track coach at the high school and he had
• 37:24
  just taken over for the legendary, John Ravensburger,
• 37:28
  from City High. And so I told him, you know,
• 37:33
  hey, like I'm happy to help. I'd love to volunteer.
• 37:35
  Like I have some experience coaching jumps and And they were
• 37:41
  actually looking for a jumps coach.
• 37:43
  So it just it just worked out. I had to get my coaching
• 37:47
  certification pretty quickly just at the start of the season
• 37:51
  and so that was my my my first year really sort of diving into
• 37:57
  coaching. I mean they just said, hey Kenny
• 38:00
  like this is yours like hmm, let us know when you need your
• 38:04
  jumpers will send them over like you can you know, write your own
• 38:08
  workouts. Pause right there.
• 38:11
  Oh, can it is with interested in your?
• 38:12
  We have listeners, you know, from every state and things like
• 38:15
  that in every state. Does it a little differently?
• 38:18
  I can remember when I first started coaching high school and
• 38:21
  Illinois, I remember I had to take some class that we got a
• 38:25
  certification might have been like an hour or two.
• 38:28
  I almost said online but I don't think we had online back then.
• 38:31
  But remember, I don't remember being very intense.
• 38:34
  I think it was more like I don't even know it to be real first of
• 38:38
  all, so long ago. Yeah.
• 38:40
  So it, but every state does it because some states don't have,
• 38:42
  it's like, oh, you want to coach?
• 38:43
  Great. Come on, let's go.
• 38:44
  And will Coach, you know, what did when you say you got had to
• 38:47
  get the Iowa coaching certification real quick.
• 38:50
  What did that entail there? In the state of Iowa?
• 38:53
  Yeah, so I took mine through Kirkwood Community College and
• 38:56
  we have to actually do it on site, so it was two consecutive
• 39:00
  weekends like a Friday night. All day Saturday and they say
• 39:07
  most of Sunday but they try and get you out of there by like
• 39:09
  2:00. Yeah.
• 39:12
  So a lot of it was, you know, coaching Theory.
• 39:17
  Hmm. One of the things that I
• 39:21
  remember, I don't I really don't know why but it stood out but
• 39:24
  just the motto of Do no harm when thinking about working with
• 39:28
  athletes, you know, we had to learn how to Tape an ankle and
• 39:34
  first aid training. Wow.
• 39:37
  You know, you dive a little bit into sports psychology but yeah,
• 39:44
  that was that was it was you were in a class with football
• 39:49
  coach baseball coach but this wasn't track.
• 39:51
  This was correct. High School coaching
• 39:53
  specifically for the state of Iowa and that's correct.
• 39:56
  Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah yeah yeah so that was you
• 40:00
  think that helped us? I'm just curious because I know
• 40:02
  there are some states. States where and I think it's
• 40:04
  the majority of states that you don't have this.
• 40:06
  Like it's just. All right.
• 40:07
  Someone is vetted. You that you can coach football,
• 40:09
  basketball, track, jumps. Go your now you're responsible
• 40:13
  for that person School athletic director when you think back to
• 40:17
  some of the things that you learned and I love that, you
• 40:19
  know, there's obviously some memories, they're like, you
• 40:21
  know, Do no harm you taped an ankle stuff like that.
• 40:24
  Do you think that helped you? It certainly didn't hurt you,
• 40:28
  but do you think as you at least started in the first week or
• 40:31
  two, or month of life, Okay, cool, at least know how to take
• 40:35
  an ankle or you know something might go wrong here or I was
• 40:37
  gonna make them run repeat miles for my triple jumpers.
• 40:40
  But that might be harms and I was learned, I taught.
• 40:43
  I was taught not to do no harm anything that helped you or was
• 40:46
  it just like I'm just checking off a box so I can actually get
• 40:48
  on the track and Coach? No, I think it was more like, I
• 40:53
  know I need to do this. I mean, I remember thinking of
• 40:57
  some of the coaching Theory and sports psychology stuff, being
• 41:00
  just really interesting because those are always things I could
• 41:02
  start. Of tie back into my own
• 41:04
  experiences but as far as how that changed, how I approached
• 41:11
  coaching, not so much. I mean, I relied probably more
• 41:14
  on my experiences helping out at Luther and then just the way
• 41:19
  that coaches had coached me, but I also was fortunate that the
• 41:27
  style of coaches, I had It wasn't.
• 41:34
  Always about the training or training was.
• 41:40
  Purposeful and not just volume, you know, sort of a kind of the
• 41:47
  old school, what people would call sort of coaching mentality
• 41:50
  or. Um, and so, I think for me, and
• 41:55
  I think when I think back to going into medicine, when I
• 42:00
  think of my work in higher ed, when I think of coaching now,
• 42:05
  For me, it's always been about like relationship-building.
• 42:08
  And so even though My first coaching experience was, was
• 42:14
  really sort of at City High. I think so much about the
• 42:19
  relationships I developed with those young men because for
• 42:25
  somebody coming in new, you know, they look at you kind of
• 42:28
  skeptical like, well who are you and what have you done?
• 42:33
  And how are you supposed to help me what street cred, you have.
• 42:36
  Right off the bat. That's right.
• 42:38
  Yeah, for sure. So, so, so it was it was I don't
• 42:42
  want to say it was a game but And this is, I thought of this
• 42:49
  this morning when you think about, like I've had, I've had
• 42:52
  an opportunity to coach both girls and boys. and people ask
• 42:57
  me often like well, which one do you like coaching more and my
• 43:03
  bias will say girls just because I've had more experience
• 43:06
  coaching girls and longer, but if you can, establish a
• 43:11
  relationship with somebody and They developed so much trust in
• 43:17
  you, that they're willing to do whatever it is.
• 43:20
  You ask of them They're going to perform.
• 43:25
  And then when they do that, That trust grows even greater now.
• 43:29
  They're like, all right. Now, I'm on board, i n.
• 43:32
  Yeah, I used to say, I don't know.
• 43:35
  It's probably outdated because again, I haven't coached in 18
• 43:38
  years now 17 years I used to say, I saw it kind of, like, you
• 43:43
  had had experience coaching boys and high schools, and an
• 43:46
  all-boys high school, where I coached I've had programs were
• 43:50
  Ball State where I just worked on the women's side.
• 43:52
  I've had co-ed and I'd say, you know, I preferred coaching girls
• 43:55
  or women because with boys and men, they all thought they were
• 44:01
  world record holders. And so I had to kind of like
• 44:04
  bring them off like you, you're not even working hard enough to
• 44:06
  be a first click there. You know, it was always kind of
• 44:09
  like, I had a reality, check them.
• 44:11
  We're on the girl and women's side in.
• 44:15
  These are Big generalizations here, certainly had athletes.
• 44:18
  In fact that we're not like that, but on the women's side,
• 44:21
  it was more like they never thought they could win it all.
• 44:23
  And so my time and energy was spent on, you know, picking them
• 44:27
  up and like, oh you can't like look what your look, what your?
• 44:29
  Yeah. And I always like that building
• 44:30
  up more than I did that. Hey, these were tearing down but
• 44:33
  that, you know, like a man reality check here.
• 44:36
  Yeah, you ain't even running this, so you can't be winning
• 44:39
  that. But on the women's side, as
• 44:41
  always. Like oh, man.
• 44:42
  No, you're getting down on yourself.
• 44:43
  Look what you just accomplished like, yeah, you're in the right
• 44:47
  position. Here is always preferred
• 44:48
  coaching women for that reason. Yeah, alone.
• 44:51
  Yeah, for sure might be hello. Those are probably similar
• 44:55
  experiences that I've had as well in working with men and
• 44:58
  women. Yeah.
• 44:59
  So you were at City High and you don't say it's your first
• 45:03
  coaching job, but it's your first formal or however you want
• 45:08
  to do. Yeah.
• 45:08
  How did it? How did it go?
• 45:09
  How did it go again? It went, it went really well.
• 45:12
  I mean we had some really Stellar athletes.
• 45:17
  So, I'll give this young, man. Ben Evans was one of the first
• 45:22
  young man. I had an opportunity to coach in
• 45:24
  the long jump, and so, my first year coaching, him was his
• 45:27
  sophomore year? He ended up winning state that
• 45:31
  year. I think he jumped, 20, 27 or
• 45:33
  8:40. He was Drake Relays Champion
• 45:39
  that year and then we In state as a team which was I mean we
• 45:44
  had some pretty special guys on that team.
• 45:46
  We had a quarter mile ER that was run in 47 seconds.
• 45:50
  We had an 800 guy Colin Sweeney that was running 154 and I mean
• 45:59
  we just had a bevy of sprinters and athletes and then my second
• 46:04
  year so I spent three seasons with them.
• 46:06
  My second year, we ended up as runner-up at State then.
• 46:11
  State again and Drake Relays. And then his senior year, you
• 46:17
  know, when you have that type of success, you start just
• 46:21
  expectations weigh on you a little bit more.
• 46:23
  But um, he had a lifetime jump his senior year.
• 46:27
  He went 23 for we had a couple other guys that were in the,
• 46:32
  like, high 20s low 21's. I think Ben was my, I think he
• 46:39
  was second or third that year at state, but and then I also
• 46:42
  actually spend some time coaching some of the female long
• 46:47
  jumpers that year as well. Their coaches asked if I just
• 46:49
  would be willing to kind of work with them a little bit.
• 46:52
  So, But that that community and not just City high.
• 46:58
  But just Iowa City as a whole has such a huge running.
• 47:04
  Tradition that. like the support from from parents and from
• 47:12
  athletic directors and former people involved, in those
• 47:15
  programs were was so supportive that I mean, it was, it was just
• 47:23
  awesome. How they Embrace those, those
• 47:24
  kids and those programs and there was just such a great
• 47:28
  histories, particularly around City eyes program.
• 47:30
  So so yeah, that was and I think back to City Heights program and
• 47:42
  when I eventually finished graduate school and moved to the
• 47:45
  Quad Cities area, I just knew that if I had the opportunity to
• 47:51
  to build a program it was going to be like City High.
• 47:55
  Like I mean they just They just built kids the right way.
• 48:00
  They always performed really well at the end of the season.
• 48:04
  You know, they did a great job of just continuously developing
• 48:07
  kids through their program and they always had a ton of kids
• 48:11
  out for track and field. And so, you know, the, the
• 48:16
  interesting thing was and we can get to the how I was hired at
• 48:21
  Pleasant Valley because that's a story in itself, but when my
• 48:27
  wife and I were both hired as coaches for track and field at p
• 48:31
  v, just after that City High girls had a coaching opening and
• 48:38
  they actually asked us to come back and Coach their program,
• 48:44
  which was And honored to be able to just to be asked to do that.
• 48:49
  I mean, that just said, a lot about how they thought of us and
• 48:53
  in our relationships with them. Um, but we also knew like no,
• 48:58
  like we want to be able to just try and start our own program
• 49:02
  and you know, we want to get to your level, you know, eventually
• 49:06
  but you know, we just wanted to sort of kind of build Our Roots
• 49:10
  here and see where that went before we get to how you
• 49:14
  transition to Pleasant Valley. What was your experience like as
• 49:19
  not being a teacher in school? You know, it's one, it's one,
• 49:22
  it's an interesting aspect. When a teacher at a school is
• 49:25
  one of the track coaches because, you know, there can be
• 49:27
  a continuation of what happened at practice this past week, you
• 49:31
  know, continuing building up of like he had a bad practice.
• 49:35
  Hey, we're in math class and whatever, you know, there's you
• 49:38
  have more touch points when I coached School up in Chicago at
• 49:42
  that voice. Cool deal.
• 49:43
  Sal. Same thing.
• 49:44
  I was not a teacher. So I only came Min for practices
• 49:47
  and meats and and such and so there's uniquenesses, they are.
• 49:50
  Did you find any positives to it?
• 49:53
  I don't know that there's necessarily A positive.
• 49:55
  I think there can be not, it's automatic that there's
• 49:58
  negatives, but there can be some negatives.
• 50:00
  How was that experience for you as not being a teacher in the
• 50:02
  school? So I would say more.
• 50:05
  So in my role at Pleasant Valley as either an assistant or or a
• 50:11
  head coach, It's twofold. So from the administrative side
• 50:19
  of things is for being a head coach.
• 50:22
  I mean, I've had great relationships working with our
• 50:26
  athletic directors and their support staff.
• 50:32
  But it forces me to really sort of be on top of my
• 50:35
  organizational skills. Like I just, I just have to be
• 50:42
  because I'm not in the school. Like, I don't have that ready
• 50:45
  access to planning period to go down.
• 50:48
  Sit down. Ha.
• 50:49
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 50:52
  I think for my athletes, and you have to be, I mean, I feel like
• 50:58
  I've been really careful about this so, you know, whether it's
• 51:01
  through email. Email or social media.
• 51:04
  Like I use that just to like check in and say like how you
• 51:09
  doing, sometimes, we don't even talk about track, you just just
• 51:13
  like what's going on? Or I think what I've started
• 51:17
  doing in the last five or six years is.
• 51:21
  Sometimes I'll schedule individual or group meetings
• 51:24
  with athletes, you know, we might meet for launching this
• 51:27
  summer. We might meet in the Commons at
• 51:30
  the high school after school. and we'll talk about, You know
• 51:36
  what sort of work into like, what are your goals for the
• 51:39
  year, but sometimes will take some time.
• 51:41
  And and for me, we'll talk about some personality things or What
• 51:48
  gives you life like who are the people closest to you and how do
• 51:52
  they motivate you? Sometimes I'll ask the question
• 51:55
  of What do you fear? What are you afraid of?
• 51:59
  And sometimes those things. Give me far more insight into a
• 52:04
  student-athlete. You got a garnet actually on the
• 52:06
  track. You guys are going to be a lot
• 52:08
  of trust first, right? I mean, asking like that like,
• 52:11
  like, there's a reason why the first question for you today.
• 52:14
  Kenny was not, hey, so what are you afraid of?
• 52:15
  Because we like well hey Mike, I don't even know.
• 52:17
  Talking about a little pump, the brakes, Big Daddy.
• 52:20
  Yeah, you don't say like you have to really have earned some
• 52:23
  trust to get authentic answers, right?
• 52:25
  It's easy to give you that. You know what?
• 52:27
  You fear? Yeah.
• 52:28
  Spiders coach next, but you know real answers of like, man.
• 52:31
  I fear making a fool of myself in front of my peers, you got to
• 52:35
  really have checked with that. But some and some of these
• 52:39
  conversations don't happen until junior year, right?
• 52:42
  In the end of sophomore year after I've had a chance to sort
• 52:44
  of yeah. Mmm.
• 52:47
  Get to understand how they work through things, how they process
• 52:51
  things, how they react to certain things you know you Read
• 52:57
  and understand body language after a while.
• 53:00
  And, you know, and they're not afraid to come up and say like,
• 53:06
  Hey, this is how I'm feeling. You know, I mean for me I think
• 53:11
  one of the things that my coaching staff and I do a great
• 53:14
  job of doing, is we ourselves try and bring our authentic
• 53:20
  selves to practice. And I think in part that creates
• 53:25
  a sense of comfort and Sort of gets rid of that, like, we're up
• 53:32
  here, so you can't, you know, there's, there's obviously, I
• 53:36
  think I try and be mindful of being in a leadership position.
• 53:41
  There's a power Dynamic there, you know.
• 53:44
  So how do you, I take myself down to their level so where
• 53:48
  they feel comfortable, you know, approaching me with, with
• 53:52
  whatever it might be. And I think, particularly really
• 53:57
  at any level like that's, that's important.
• 54:01
  Yeah, it's interesting how you said that have a, my authentic
• 54:06
  self to practice as well. You know, it's you don't have
• 54:09
  this facade just because you're a practice and now your coach,
• 54:12
  it's like, yeah, you know, you're still can t ya did it the
• 54:15
  day, you have your own fears and motivations and faults, and
• 54:20
  things like that and I think, you know, I don't know that
• 54:24
  necessarily that 14 days. In year olds or are more
• 54:27
  perceptive to that but they certainly aren't less perceptive
• 54:30
  than other people out there. You know, they've been an
• 54:33
  adult's enough at that point that they know who's trying to
• 54:35
  Hoodwink them. Who's trying to who actually has
• 54:38
  their back in real life. You know, there's a, there's a,
• 54:41
  there's an understanding of like who's showing up as their
• 54:44
  authentic self and whose high def, if you will.
• 54:47
  Mating could be, you know, fears Etc, absolutely, okay.
• 54:52
  Get a nice smirk on your face when you talked about how
• 54:55
  pleasant This Valley, how did that, what's the story there?
• 54:59
  So in 2007, there, their previous track coach step down
• 55:06
  and my wife had been coaching the girls cross country team
• 55:09
  since like 2003, I think. And so they had a head coach
• 55:14
  opening. So both my wife and I applied.
• 55:18
  And it's funny because it wasn't It wasn't competitive or
• 55:24
  anything. In our, in our house.
• 55:25
  It was like, well, good luck. If ya as long as one of us gets
• 55:32
  hired, like somebody's gonna be the assistant coach.
• 55:34
  Yeah, whoo, whoo. Whoo.
• 55:35
  What would happen if a third party?
• 55:37
  Yeah. That would really mess me
• 55:39
  results. Look.
• 55:43
  So she got hired, she got the position.
• 55:45
  And it's funny because my sister person was about a person.
• 55:47
  Got the job. I get it.
• 55:48
  Yeah, my sister-in-law was like, So did you and Kenny get along
• 55:55
  after that? This is and it was, yeah, it was
• 55:59
  totally fine. So, um, but yeah.
• 56:02
  So, my wife took over his head, girls track and field coach.
• 56:07
  And then I was hired as an assistant, I was about to say.
• 56:09
  The real awkwardness would be if she didn't hire you as an
• 56:12
  assistant. Yeah, yeah.
• 56:14
  It's like, yeah, it's like any, I'm gonna go a different
• 56:16
  direction. Yeah.
• 56:17
  See you at home? yeah, and that was really That
• 56:24
  was a really, like, oh crap moment because that was the
• 56:29
  first time that I really had to think about like training and
• 56:35
  writing practice plans, and how to organize things, through the
• 56:39
  season. So, I was scared.
• 56:44
  I mean my first year in that role and And we had, you know,
• 56:51
  we probably had about 45 to 50 girls out our first year you
• 56:55
  know, and there's a little bit of a transition there just from
• 56:59
  you know, previous coach to two new coaches.
• 57:05
  But it was good. I mean, I look back on that
• 57:07
  first season and I just knew I was going to make mistakes.
• 57:14
  I mean, it just it's gonna happen.
• 57:16
  And and I think back to that first year and I made so many
• 57:20
  changes the kidney after that, I want to make sure we hear this
• 57:23
  story, but here is the snafus of filming these at my house.
• 57:29
  There's someone going to be at my door.
• 57:30
  So, hold on one second. I'm okay.
• 57:32
  Well, you, you can tell a funny joke.
• 57:34
  I have no idea, but I'll be right back.
• 57:36
  Okay. All right.
• 57:37
  Yeah, no problem. Alright, I'm back.
• 58:09
  I'm not even gonna cut that out. I'm not.
• 58:10
  You know, I'm not even edit that out.
• 58:12
  That is just life right there and just happens.
• 58:15
  Yeah. We're, you know, we're actually,
• 58:16
  you know, behind the scenes here, dear listener.
• 58:18
  We're actually recording this on a Saturday, which means I'm at
• 58:21
  the house. And, you know, my wife is out
• 58:25
  with my son. My daughter will die.
• 58:26
  Thought she was here. She must be outside and so a
• 58:28
  friend. Come, you know, you've got, we
• 58:29
  talked about this kids. Yeah, doorbell always ring.
• 58:33
  So, a great friend of mine, my daughter.
• 58:36
  They're like we talked about the gaggle of girls That come over.
• 58:39
  Yeah, the time. Okay.
• 58:40
  We were in the middle of a really good story.
• 58:42
  I want to keep going here. This, you found yourself.
• 58:45
  First time really like having to write the prescription and you
• 58:48
  find yourself kind of nervous, a little scared.
• 58:50
  I think might even yeah there, you know, and that's the first
• 58:53
  time you're, you know, working with parents and, and just just
• 59:00
  a lot of things. I remember a young lady came up
• 59:05
  to me and we were Indoors and she's like, Kenny, I got to go
• 59:12
  to the bathroom and I was like, do you have to go right?
• 59:16
  Like right now, like, we're in the middle and she's like,
• 59:19
  Kenny, I have to go to, and I was like, okay, finally caught
• 59:23
  on you. Okay.
• 59:24
  Yeah. You know, but but I think one of
• 59:29
  the great fortunate things of coaching with my wife is Her
• 59:35
  experience coaching girls her experience as a former high
• 59:39
  school and Collegiate athlete. Just opened up so much more in
• 59:46
  terms of my sense of awareness of just working with female
• 59:51
  athletes understanding Just just everything things they go
• 59:57
  through. Physically, mentally
• 59:58
  emotionally, some of the Perceptions that people have
• 1:00:05
  about female athletes and, you know, the whole idea that
• 1:00:10
  they're only good their first couple of years as they grow and
• 1:00:15
  things like that. So, I mean that was such an
• 1:00:19
  instructive experience that first year.
• 1:00:26
  But then after that, I just you know, and I think going back to
• 1:00:31
  my time at Iowa City I was like, you know, I love this sport.
• 1:00:38
  coaching really started to I just felt its purpose, calling
• 1:00:47
  me, you know. Um, and then I thought, yeah, I
• 1:00:53
  want to be really good at this, you know?
• 1:00:56
  And so, I mean, I I studied I mean, I just, I just don't VIN
• 1:01:04
  on the coaching education side and and I really, as I've gone
• 1:01:10
  through my coaching experiences, I think one of the things that
• 1:01:15
  has really stuck with me is the power that you have as a coach
• 1:01:21
  and the the influence that you have as a coach and it's To know
• 1:01:27
  that. Kids have put like their trust
• 1:01:32
  in your hands is like the ultimate responsibility.
• 1:01:36
  So if I'm not doing everything that I can To put them in a
• 1:01:43
  position to succeed. then, I don't know if I'm giving them
• 1:01:53
  the right value in this position.
• 1:01:56
  So let's get into some specific skinny because I love how you
• 1:01:59
  said, you know, you felt the the weight of it all in you're in
• 1:02:03
  and that's one thing. And some people run from that
• 1:02:05
  weight whether it's coaching or other responsibilities and
• 1:02:08
  others lean in certainly sounded like you wanted to lean in and
• 1:02:12
  you said, so I did some things. Let's get into some specifics
• 1:02:15
  because we've seen this with the athletes as well, right?
• 1:02:18
  Well, I want to be the best high jumper, but I'm going to skip,
• 1:02:20
  practice, two days. A week, you know, that they
• 1:02:23
  don't actually, Let's help some other coaches that are listening
• 1:02:26
  right now that are like, you know, I have as well.
• 1:02:28
  So what did you do about it? What are some?
• 1:02:30
  You said you leaned heavily into coaching education?
• 1:02:32
  What are some specifics? Yeah, you know, so the first
• 1:02:36
  thing I did was this, this old like coaching track and field
• 1:02:41
  manual and I still have it. I think Daniel Bryan was on the
• 1:02:46
  front cover, hmm was it? The Hannah?
• 1:02:48
  What's that was at the Omni book.
• 1:02:51
  II don't even know. That's why haven't we can see
• 1:02:56
  the picture of Dan on there. Yep.
• 1:02:57
  Yeah, yeah. It's it's a thick book so I kind
• 1:03:00
  of dove into that, but then I did my found out about the USA
• 1:03:04
  track and field level 1 coaching.
• 1:03:06
  So, I did that through an area University and and that was for
• 1:03:13
  more of a sort of a more Global, you know, training, all aspects
• 1:03:20
  of Of the athlete and understanding some different
• 1:03:23
  things. I probably would say that I, you
• 1:03:30
  know, Clyde heart was obviously a big influence for a lot of
• 1:03:33
  coaches. Absolutely.
• 1:03:35
  I'm obviously with his success and Longevity and, you know,
• 1:03:38
  both at the at Baylor and then at the professional level with,
• 1:03:42
  you know, with Michael Johnson and Sonia Richards and Warner
• 1:03:46
  and dirt Williamson and others. But but also knew that that type
• 1:03:53
  of training was it for us, you know, So, to some extent.
• 1:03:56
  So after a few more years, I I approached my athletic director
• 1:04:04
  and I said, hey, would you support like me doing the USA
• 1:04:07
  level 2 class? And she's I remember saying
• 1:04:11
  like, you know, like, no one ever asked me like, To do these
• 1:04:15
  things. So like they actually funded me
• 1:04:19
  like to do the usatf level to school.
• 1:04:23
  Did it through Marian University in Indianapolis was?
• 1:04:26
  Yeah I just loved it. I mean the science.
• 1:04:34
  Yeah, jump Source prints. Which one did What?
• 1:04:36
  Attracted you? I did Sprints and relays.
• 1:04:40
  Yeah, I want to go back and eventually do the the jumps.
• 1:04:45
  Lulu. But I mean the science stuff
• 1:04:49
  wasn't too bad just being about achieve major as like right.
• 1:04:52
  All right, this stuff's this stuff is fun.
• 1:04:55
  But I mean the next four days of just really like immersing
• 1:04:59
  yourself in it communicating with coaches of all levels.
• 1:05:04
  Hmm. You know, it's it's a, it's a
• 1:05:06
  really cool mix of people that run developmental programs high
• 1:05:10
  school programs youth. Collegiate professional and and
• 1:05:18
  just the classroom sessions. Charles Clinton in from Los
• 1:05:21
  Angeles and Lauren Seagraves where our instructors.
• 1:05:25
  And I mean I just couldn't listen to those guys for
• 1:05:28
  everything. But yeah, I think really diving
• 1:05:35
  into that was like, yeah, this is, this is great stuff but but
• 1:05:39
  it's just, it's just been this continuation of.
• 1:05:42
  Like, I just want to pick up more information.
• 1:05:45
  So, you know, Todd Lanes, a friend of mine, he's a jumps
• 1:05:50
  coach at LSU. He's also a Luther grad.
• 1:05:52
  So like he was a bit of a mentor, Joey Woody at the
• 1:05:58
  University of Iowa. There's there's a group out of
• 1:06:07
  Texas. They have a handle called Fast
• 1:06:10
  University, that's on on Instagram and Twitter.
• 1:06:15
  So I follow those guys quite a bit, but I'm just always, just
• 1:06:18
  trying trying to learn. It's just this never-ending,
• 1:06:25
  like wanting to grow but in knowing like, what else can I
• 1:06:29
  take that to my athletes? Right, so help them improve.
• 1:06:34
  How do you eat? It's funny.
• 1:06:35
  We had this conversation a few weeks ago, or maybe we could go
• 1:06:39
  about. Like, will say, things very
• 1:06:42
  similar to what you are sharing your experience about of that,
• 1:06:45
  we should all be lifelong, Learners that we should be, you
• 1:06:48
  know, if you think, you know it all and how to cook the jump.
• 1:06:51
  So the Sprints get out of the ghetto other profession because
• 1:06:53
  you don't, we are always learning things like that and I
• 1:06:57
  kind of, it's funny the way the, and I can remember who said it,
• 1:07:00
  but the way the guests said it, It hit me in a different light
• 1:07:04
  than it, hit me before. And I started thinking about
• 1:07:06
  some coaches, like John Smith and Brooks Johnson and they like
• 1:07:13
  I keep forgetting his name and it's embarrassing.
• 1:07:16
  These guys who've done it for fit Lauren, see gray 50 years
• 1:07:20
  and high level like no one's going to say, they don't know
• 1:07:23
  what they're doing, they've won Olympic Golds and things like
• 1:07:25
  that, right. And I just curiosity, hit me was
• 1:07:29
  like, should they be continually changing and tweaking?
• 1:07:33
  Yeah, have a formless. But what I'm what I'm really
• 1:07:35
  getting towards is with you, is that the exact opposite side?
• 1:07:38
  I'm interested as you continue to learn and you go and you
• 1:07:42
  here, Lauren, say, X, Y, and Z, and you're like, oh, like, oh, I
• 1:07:46
  never thought about doing it that way.
• 1:07:48
  How do you actually come back into your program and Implement
• 1:07:52
  these changes? Is it a wholesale change?
• 1:07:56
  Like, okay, boys and girls? We are changing up our warm-ups
• 1:07:58
  completely is it minor tweaks like they almost don't even
• 1:08:02
  Sighs continue to mold your your program.
• 1:08:09
  So to a fault like I can be really patient and deliberate.
• 1:08:15
  So I might Have implemented implemented something.
• 1:08:19
  This year that I learned about two years ago, right?
• 1:08:22
  Right, right. But I have to like study it and
• 1:08:25
  make sure that I trust it and know how to teach it before I
• 1:08:28
  implemented it right. I don't want to just do it to do
• 1:08:32
  it or do it because it looked cool.
• 1:08:34
  That's right. I think, I think that's to your
• 1:08:37
  point about Coach Hart, right? So coach heart again, no one
• 1:08:40
  could. Or should from the outside say,
• 1:08:42
  oh, his system was bunk, like wait a minute, eaten.
• 1:08:45
  You know, I understand he got A great quarter Motors at a high
• 1:08:48
  school but they all improved tremendously so it's the works
• 1:08:52
  at least for the people that he had there and Baylor.
• 1:08:55
  So I think team meet their of. You can't just oh, why did that?
• 1:08:59
  Okay, well then I'm going to do it that may not work in Pleasant
• 1:09:01
  Valley and may not work delay. It may not work for your level.
• 1:09:05
  It may not work for your personality and style either.
• 1:09:09
  Right? Yeah you're right I don't think
• 1:09:10
  you do it, just because Lauren said it, Clyde said it, it's
• 1:09:13
  Etc. It has to fit into your program.
• 1:09:17
  Your situation where you are. Everywhere.
• 1:09:19
  You are is extremely unique. Yeah.
• 1:09:22
  And it's it's hard because it's, you know, like I've done like
• 1:09:26
  the Altis coaching classes online last few years and I
• 1:09:30
  mean, It is just so much information that it's just
• 1:09:35
  overwhelming. Mmm, you know.
• 1:09:37
  And so you just learn to, you've got to learn to just what are
• 1:09:43
  they trying to teach but also like be mindful of I can still
• 1:09:48
  pick and choose like I don't have to we have a great program.
• 1:09:53
  I don't need to like go and change what we're doing, right?
• 1:09:56
  Yeah. But if there are ways that if
• 1:10:00
  there's gaps, we need to fill in or if there's Concepts that seem
• 1:10:05
  to be missing as I reflect at the end of the season that I
• 1:10:08
  need to think about how do I need to teach this more
• 1:10:11
  effectively or what sort of coaching cues are going to tie
• 1:10:16
  into certain Kids a little bit more, you know, those are things
• 1:10:19
  that will will enhance our kids experience.
• 1:10:23
  Awesome. We have a saying on our side of
• 1:10:27
  things here on the business side, more better different.
• 1:10:30
  So what are we going to do more of what's working?
• 1:10:32
  So we need to do love it, what do we need to do better?
• 1:10:36
  Where we, where do we have deficiencies and where we going
• 1:10:38
  to do things differently? Things that we're just you know,
• 1:10:41
  our were banging her head against the wall.
• 1:10:42
  So how do we do differently when I think about?
• 1:10:44
  I was kind of thinking you're saying there is like, when
• 1:10:47
  Valuing your program, where are there things?
• 1:10:49
  Where there's deficiencies you know, things that you can see
• 1:10:52
  you're like oh man, you know every quarter mile ER we have
• 1:10:56
  you know, we all died in the last hundred but boy and my boys
• 1:10:58
  and girls really die, cut something.
• 1:11:00
  I'm not, we're not catching on the last section of the quarter
• 1:11:04
  mile or, man. You know, we got great 200
• 1:11:07
  meter, 4 meter Runners, and we got great to milers.
• 1:11:09
  We just can't get the 800 down. It feels like we have the
• 1:11:12
  talent, so those are places, maybe you go.
• 1:11:15
  And like, okay, we need to change.
• 1:11:16
  Some things and then for better, maybe use in your sprinters and
• 1:11:21
  heard. There's you're like, man, we're
• 1:11:22
  pretty good at accelerators. The boy would be better if we
• 1:11:26
  did even better. So how do you what are some
• 1:11:28
  Peaks things that you can learn inside of that?
• 1:11:30
  But the wholesale change, I think that.
• 1:11:33
  And I don't know that anybody does that because that's a
• 1:11:34
  actually, that's a kind of a hard thing to do for your ego to
• 1:11:37
  write if you. Yeah, I was going to change
• 1:11:39
  everything because obviously what we're doing is not working.
• 1:11:41
  You're really saying, boy, everything I've been doing in
• 1:11:43
  learning and it's wrong. And I'm not saying that That's
• 1:11:47
  wrong but boy they be a Hardy. Go check for probably 99% of us
• 1:11:50
  out there for sure. Yeah, yeah I think you know,
• 1:11:54
  assessment is is scary like it's important though and I think,
• 1:11:59
  you know, last year Yeah, I was a little frustrated with, with
• 1:12:04
  how we serve ended our season and, you know, so, I reached out
• 1:12:07
  to Matt Jones, who's the head coach at Loris, and they've had
• 1:12:11
  a lot of great success in the last five, six years.
• 1:12:14
  And I reached out to you Brent, Ewing at Indian Hills Community
• 1:12:17
  College. Yeah, he's just like you did
• 1:12:20
  before in the eighth. Yeah, and those are areas that I
• 1:12:23
  was like, Let me, first of all, let me like, go back into, like,
• 1:12:29
  what have we been doing to make sure I'm not missing anything.
• 1:12:34
  And I think one of the things that I had a conversation with
• 1:12:37
  Coach Jones at loras about, was he's like, Kenny he's like, You
• 1:12:41
  guys have a great program. Like what do you need?
• 1:12:44
  Like, like why are you trying to change everything?
• 1:12:48
  And it and then it was like, Okay.
• 1:12:51
  Maybe I need to slow down a little bit but you know, you
• 1:12:54
  needed to hear that from someone else to write like we get in our
• 1:12:57
  box. I mean, there's a reason why
• 1:12:58
  they call it in your box, get out of your but you are you are
• 1:13:02
  always going to be in your box. You need to help to see it from
• 1:13:05
  the outside. That's the hardest thing and
• 1:13:07
  maybe the most impossible thing. So that was awesome.
• 1:13:10
  That coach was able to. Hey, hold on.
• 1:13:12
  Kenny. Yeah, what is it?
• 1:13:14
  Don't throw the baby out with the bath out of the bath water.
• 1:13:17
  Yeah, it's like hold on. Now you've got a lot of
• 1:13:21
  Certainly, you can improve. But yeah, maybe you're trying to
• 1:13:24
  think about too much here. Yeah.
• 1:13:26
  Maybe you just need to do the more like, okay, you need more
• 1:13:29
  of what we're doing to continue with our success and grow our
• 1:13:31
  success. Yeah.
• 1:13:33
  We, you know, and the last couple of weeks, like, I've been
• 1:13:36
  reaching out to like, some of our incoming freshmen and some
• 1:13:41
  of our current students that don't do track.
• 1:13:44
  But, you know, just trying to recruit some some athletes to
• 1:13:47
  our team. And one of the things that I
• 1:13:49
  tell them is You know, because there's always the perception of
• 1:13:52
  track equals running like track and field is just running and
• 1:13:59
  and so much of, you know, you're trying to fight some of that
• 1:14:03
  perception a little bit, but but I think one of the things that I
• 1:14:07
  tell them is we were really intentional and purposeful and
• 1:14:12
  efficient about what we do. So we don't do things just to do
• 1:14:17
  things. I mean there's there's a purpose
• 1:14:20
  and a meaning behind and every single thing that we do from the
• 1:14:23
  warm up, all the way to the work out through the cool down
• 1:14:27
  through our talks, after practice through Group
• 1:14:33
  activities that we do. I mean, I mean We know where
• 1:14:39
  we're trying to get, you know, and and we're not here to make
• 1:14:43
  track and field an awful experience for you.
• 1:14:47
  So we're going to make this, the most positive and fun experience
• 1:14:51
  that we can have and we're still going to work hard. but you're
• 1:14:55
  still going to be able to walk the next day, you know, That's
• 1:15:06
  awesome. You need to wrap us up here
• 1:15:10
  today. I'm curious I'm going to put you
• 1:15:12
  on the awesome responsibility to represent all of Iowa and Iowa
• 1:15:18
  high school. There's some real uniquenesses
• 1:15:20
  in Iowa you know. So again we've had High School
• 1:15:23
  coaches from Texas and New Jersey and Kentucky and there's
• 1:15:27
  all every state has some just culturally differences and
• 1:15:32
  differences, Etc. Start with Iowa.
• 1:15:35
  There is a fairly unique Drake Relays versus state meet and
• 1:15:39
  they're both at the same place by the way and Drake.
• 1:15:41
  Yeah, but it's the Drake Relays has a culture of being very
• 1:15:47
  important for high schoolers in the state of Iowa.
• 1:15:50
  In fact, that's only no out-of-state kids can even come
• 1:15:53
  participate there. And it's interesting because
• 1:15:56
  when you talked about some of your athletes, you said Drake
• 1:15:59
  Relays champion and state like no other state.
• 1:16:03
  Would say no one would say like an Alabama, they wouldn't say,
• 1:16:05
  oh, they were the Hornet relay Champions and also this that,
• 1:16:09
  you know what I'm saying? Talk to us about the cultural
• 1:16:12
  importance of Drake, Relays as it relates to the state meet.
• 1:16:15
  So so drank relay is that is itself is just the singular
• 1:16:19
  entity of where it's this Crossroads of, you know, there's
• 1:16:25
  a High School Division, there's a university and in college
• 1:16:29
  division and then there are specific And they have different
• 1:16:35
  titles every year. But sort of a professional /
• 1:16:38
  Olympic division, we have paralympians come in.
• 1:16:43
  And so for that, for the high school experience, To be in the
• 1:16:51
  same Arena and to be in the same track and field event venue.
• 1:16:57
  With individuals that do it at the top of their craft.
• 1:17:05
  I mean, it's an awesome experience.
• 1:17:08
  You know, I think for us and where it falls in our season,
• 1:17:12
  it's important. It's important to us as track
• 1:17:15
  and field coach has, at least in my perspective is, it's, it's a
• 1:17:20
  great. Preparation for our state mean,
• 1:17:25
  you know, we try not to place to high value on Drake Relays
• 1:17:29
  because it's not a score to that, for us, there are but I
• 1:17:32
  mean, obviously, understanding its history and Prestige and,
• 1:17:36
  you know, Michael Johnsons are on there and Sonia Richards and
• 1:17:42
  you know, Drake stadium has hosted a couple of USA track and
• 1:17:45
  field championships in the summer.
• 1:17:48
  So it's a special place and instead of had the opportunity
• 1:17:51
  to To compete at that meat mean they always though they remember
• 1:17:54
  the me. They also at least for us
• 1:17:56
  because we have to travel That's such an important part of that.
• 1:18:00
  Experience is move our state meet.
• 1:18:05
  So, we have four classes in Iowa and we all compete over three
• 1:18:09
  days at our state meet. And I know this past year, the
• 1:18:14
  weather was perfect for once all three days and it's sold out all
• 1:18:19
  three days. But I was a little bit unique,
• 1:18:25
  we have I don't know if any other state has Evan relays as a
• 1:18:29
  part of their meat schedule. Okay, hold on, you know, I know
• 1:18:34
  this stuff fairly well, and I don't think I knew seven.
• 1:18:36
  So let's count it out. So I know there's the 4 by 1 4,
• 1:18:38
  by 4 4 by 8. Yeah, there's the shuttle hurdle
• 1:18:41
  cause that's on my list to talk about to because that's the
• 1:18:43
  greatest event in the world of the four by two.
• 1:18:48
  Okay. We have the distance medley
• 1:18:50
  relay. Now, our distance medley is
• 1:18:52
  different from college. So ours is 200, 200 400 800,
• 1:18:57
  okay. So the 2248, Might call that the
• 1:18:59
  Sprint medley and college. Okay.
• 1:19:01
  And then we have a Sprint medley relay.
• 1:19:03
  And what's that 100? 100. 100 200 400. 7 relays.
• 1:19:10
  Yeah, you don't do anything crazy like Texas.
• 1:19:12
  You don't double the points at stake for the relays.
• 1:19:15
  Do you know? You do in Texas?
• 1:19:17
  They do that, right? I did not know that but I also
• 1:19:23
  have it sort of done my own thoughts about like our
• 1:19:26
  swimming, the way, our state swimming meet scored more points
• 1:19:31
  are awarded for Relay events. Mmm.
• 1:19:34
  I've always sort of, been curious about that with the high
• 1:19:37
  school level, but no, I wasn't aware that Texas, double them.
• 1:19:40
  So if you win the, the for buy one, you get 20 points not.
• 1:19:44
  So it's I mean, it's kind of interesting because on one hand,
• 1:19:48
  I kind of like it, I think. You're kind of thinking that
• 1:19:50
  with assuming it's like, oh you're showing a real team event
• 1:19:53
  on a relay versus an individual, but on the other hand, I've
• 1:19:57
  heard a lot of concerns that because they're so alike.
• 1:20:01
  You you, if you have a shot at school or in the 4 by 1 or for
• 1:20:03
  before you really should put all your kids there, even to the
• 1:20:07
  detriment of their individual events and so therefore kids
• 1:20:10
  don't get marks for the open 100 because they're doing nothing
• 1:20:13
  but the four by one and maybe they have the four by two.
• 1:20:16
  I'm not sure. I don't, I don't think so.
• 1:20:18
  I think they do I think. I couldn't member if they just
• 1:20:21
  had the big three for high school for about 14 and 8, but
• 1:20:25
  but I wasn't sure but 7. Relays.
• 1:20:30
  Yeah. So when you really think about
• 1:20:33
  wow. So And, and that can also be
• 1:20:38
  harmful, I mean, you know, in Iowa, we have some really
• 1:20:42
  smaller communities or we have communities that have to combine
• 1:20:47
  them just because of school district size.
• 1:20:49
  So, you know, there's going to be teams that can't even fill
• 1:20:52
  the full meet lineup, you know, or they have to spread kids too
• 1:20:57
  thin. It's a little bit easier to do
• 1:21:01
  when you have larger programs to be able to fill those.
• 1:21:04
  But you know, when we talk about Track and field as a
• 1:21:08
  participation sport. I mean, we live.
• 1:21:12
  It I mean, with seven relay events, there's a number of more
• 1:21:16
  opportunities for kids to be able to compete.
• 1:21:19
  So if you're a good to Great 200 meter Runner, you could be on
• 1:21:23
  the Sprint, medley distance medley for by one 4x2.
• 1:21:28
  We haven't even got to the 4x4 yet.
• 1:21:31
  Yeah. And you have your 4.
• 1:21:32
  Are you have your for event limit?
• 1:21:34
  So you gotta you can do for ya. So you're not even, you're not
• 1:21:38
  running the open one or two or four, you're not long.
• 1:21:40
  Jump in. If you.
• 1:21:42
  Wow, I did not see. I love this.
• 1:21:46
  I'm sure a lot of people listening right now or like, I
• 1:21:48
  had no clue. You know, this actually makes
• 1:21:49
  the Drake Relays more understandable, in regards to
• 1:21:52
  the high school culture and Iowa because it's like, oh well, your
• 1:21:54
  whole every meet you go to is almost like a mini Drake Relays
• 1:21:57
  in the sense of there's a lot of relays there.
• 1:22:00
  Well and you have basically any official indoor meet And any
• 1:22:07
  outdoor meet counts as an opportunity to qualify for the
• 1:22:12
  Drake Relays. So, I mean, you know, some teams
• 1:22:17
  are gonna take a meat and put together their top line up for
• 1:22:22
  maybe a couple of relays and, and that'll be, you know, their
• 1:22:26
  focus or, you know, and so on. So, and then you're just sort of
• 1:22:31
  at the mercy of whatever the weather is, like, in the spring
• 1:22:33
  here. Yeah.
• 1:22:35
  So we learned about some unique events.
• 1:22:36
  Those Sprint medley and distance medley.
• 1:22:38
  Let's talk about some other events where I was a little bit
• 1:22:40
  unique. First of all again we have to
• 1:22:42
  talk about like I think it should be an incidental a event.
• 1:22:45
  I think it should be an Olympic event.
• 1:22:47
  The shuttle hurdle relay, there is no better events than the
• 1:22:51
  shuttle hurdle relay. So I love Pat.
• 1:22:54
  How's that Ben is an experience. I mean it's all you know because
• 1:22:57
  you're you know IMA call you from.
• 1:22:58
  I think we're there. It's been awesome.
• 1:23:02
  I mean I think You know, for us for us specifically as a school.
• 1:23:08
  I mean the hurdles has been one of our primary just events over
• 1:23:14
  the years and so but as most people like to call it it's 40
• 1:23:20
  opportunities for disaster is that.
• 1:23:22
  That's what makes it so great. Yeah.
• 1:23:25
  Yeah. But yeah it's fun and I think,
• 1:23:31
  you know, for us specifically here at PB, I mean we've had
• 1:23:33
  some Some great success. We set the state record back in
• 1:23:36
  2016, walkie and Waukee, Northwest have been kind of the
• 1:23:43
  two prominent hurdle programs, the last decade plus, but it's
• 1:23:51
  it's Unique, it's fun. You can sort of see where the
• 1:23:57
  you always know where the race is at because you always know
• 1:24:00
  who's ahead, you know? It's you don't have to deal
• 1:24:02
  with. The curve ever staggered you
• 1:24:05
  doing that. So it's fun.
• 1:24:10
  It can also just be a very heartbreaking of that.
• 1:24:12
  Yes. I mean you really do is sort of
• 1:24:14
  the emotional ebb and flow in that event.
• 1:24:17
  A heartbreaking event of something that he has no you
• 1:24:21
  didn't do anything wrong like someone else hits a hurdle yours
• 1:24:24
  or what you know gets thrown off into the other lane and you're
• 1:24:27
  coming right at them. It's like either kill this kid
• 1:24:29
  or I pull out. Yeah we both kids pull out.
• 1:24:33
  It is amazing. What do you have to have a
• 1:24:36
  hurdle crew? That is on point knows what
• 1:24:39
  they're doing because they got to go in and statutes hurdles
• 1:24:41
  during the race stand while a kid runs by them and then move
• 1:24:45
  out of them. I mean you're aware there is no
• 1:24:48
  other event. Like I remember the first time I
• 1:24:51
  coached High School in Chicago so there were a few shuttle
• 1:24:55
  hurdles down there, we had more modified shuttle hurdles and so
• 1:24:58
  instead of like for by 110 or something like that we would do
• 1:25:00
  like you know, for by 110 but there would be five hurdles at
• 1:25:04
  36 like that and We went when I was coaching at Troy University,
• 1:25:09
  went to the Alabama relays and that was the first Collegiate
• 1:25:12
  one I saw. And I was like, I mean, I was
• 1:25:14
  instantly like oh my God, can we not do this everywhere?
• 1:25:17
  Like the greatest thing in the world for the collisions?
• 1:25:22
  There hurdles are shuffled which creates more of a like visual
• 1:25:28
  disaster, because disaster. Hmm, because they're not at the
• 1:25:31
  same same Mark, like they are at the high school, the same Mark
• 1:25:36
  as I Iowa high school because you guys do things a little
• 1:25:39
  different. And that's the next event.
• 1:25:40
  I wanted to talk about is your one of the few states that does
• 1:25:43
  a 400 hurdles, most the vast majority.
• 1:25:48
  In fact, Florida just changed from the 300 to the 400 but most
• 1:25:52
  high schoolers are doing the 300 hurdles versus the 400.
• 1:25:55
  Another unique thing that's been around for a while, I think in
• 1:25:57
  Iowa, yeah. So it's a little different so
• 1:26:03
  you know the girls 400 hurdles hurdles are at 30 inches which
• 1:26:06
  is what they would run at the Collegiate level.
• 1:26:09
  I still think I can't remember if they raise them for the boys
• 1:26:14
  but they used to still be at like 30 or 33 inches a year to
• 1:26:17
  be. I thought they'd change that but
• 1:26:19
  I'm not sure either. Yeah.
• 1:26:21
  Yeah. Because when you get to College,
• 1:26:22
  it's 36 inches. So I never thinking when you
• 1:26:25
  recruited a foreigner hurdler from Iowa, you couldn't just
• 1:26:29
  match up that time like okay, they are going to go up and
• 1:26:31
  hurdles here a little bit. Yeah yeah yeah.
• 1:26:33
  So there's a little different of energy expenditure when right
• 1:26:38
  have that. But in your girls hurdles They
• 1:26:41
  recently moved High hurdles. Moved from 30 to 33.
• 1:26:45
  We did that in 2009. Yes, that's thought recently.
• 1:26:48
  So you know what I'm watching? Here's that's, that's a
• 1:26:50
  significant as well. Yeah.
• 1:26:52
  And girls are running faster over the 33s and they ever do or
• 1:26:56
  30 33 is still, the majority of athletes is, you know, it's,
• 1:27:00
  it's a step that's all it is. Yeah, I do, if I remember
• 1:27:04
  correctly, we do not have triple jump, and Iowa.
• 1:27:08
  We are going to see if we can make a push for it, but we do
• 1:27:11
  that. Okay.
• 1:27:13
  And then the other one that, you know, as a selfishly, as a
• 1:27:16
  manufacturer of equipment, we really want this back in Iowa,
• 1:27:19
  is the pole vault, the Concorde Balton Iowa.
• 1:27:23
  Yeah, if you want to bring some costs down on that equipment.
• 1:27:28
  Yeah. If I could trust me, I will
• 1:27:32
  absolutely you're dealing with big old blocks of foam.
• 1:27:35
  Yeah, yeah. Are you aware right before
• 1:27:39
  covid? Some Senator and we certainly
• 1:27:42
  are not going to talk politics. That's the last topic will ever
• 1:27:45
  discuss here. Yes, but some senator in Iowa,
• 1:27:49
  tried to bring it up as a like, like you have to have pole vault
• 1:27:54
  in high school and then Coke it. I think that just crushed it,
• 1:27:57
  you know, but we can't do the one time that Gil.
• 1:28:00
  I thought it was like all right Paul were in politics.
• 1:28:01
  We has we support that person. Yeah yeah I just think.
• 1:28:08
  You know, the more we can create opportunities for athletes to
• 1:28:13
  open the door for them at the next level.
• 1:28:17
  You know, we have a young lady that graduated in 2021 and was a
• 1:28:21
  fantastic Sprinter in long jumper and she qualified for
• 1:28:25
  Nationals this year in the triple jump, you know?
• 1:28:29
  And and so You know, had she been introduced to that a little
• 1:28:34
  bit earlier, you know, who knows where that would have taken her,
• 1:28:37
  you know, she still has two more years of college left, but we
• 1:28:41
  just don't have the weird thing, both boys and girls.
• 1:28:45
  Don't have triple jump right? Correct.
• 1:28:47
  Okay, because there was some State and I think it's been
• 1:28:50
  rectified. Now we're the boys did triple
• 1:28:53
  jump in the girls didn't and not only in today's day and age but
• 1:28:56
  in any day and age I'm like I mean what he I don't get that at
• 1:29:00
  all. It does go on to the Last topic
• 1:29:03
  here and if you're not from Iowa so maybe don't have history
• 1:29:06
  here. But something that's really
• 1:29:08
  unique in Iowa is your girls applet.
• 1:29:11
  So your boys and girls. So in Illinois, we have the
• 1:29:13
  Illinois, High School Association, and that's boys and
• 1:29:15
  girls Athletics for the High School Association in Iowa.
• 1:29:19
  You have separate entities and if I remember, right of one of
• 1:29:25
  Logan's Griner was teaching me about this.
• 1:29:30
  I guess it's the country's Oldest Girls, Athletic
• 1:29:34
  Association for high school, like, it's a really powerful and
• 1:29:38
  influential and strong Association there.
• 1:29:42
  How much do you know about about that?
• 1:29:45
  Not a whole bunch of the history.
• 1:29:46
  I mean it we've had some some amazing ambassador's within the
• 1:29:51
  girls Union that have done an amazing job with the motive.
• 1:29:55
  Not a girl. That's right.
• 1:29:56
  Yeah, you ain't cool. Yep.
• 1:30:00
  We used to have separate state track and field meets.
• 1:30:03
  Oh, and that actually, that changed to a co-ed me probably
• 1:30:11
  within the last 20 to 25 years separate weekends or the same
• 1:30:15
  weekend, but different locations, separate weekends.
• 1:30:18
  Okay, good. Because there's a lot of
• 1:30:20
  crossover. So, in Illinois, we do the same
• 1:30:22
  thing. We have separate boys and girls.
• 1:30:24
  And it's on separate. We can still cause it's known
• 1:30:25
  issues, right? Because regionals with Quantum
• 1:30:27
  state meet. Yeah, yeah. but I think, you
• 1:30:33
  know, on my wife probably would be able to speak more to this
• 1:30:36
  but I think, Particularly for girls. to have a union that
• 1:30:44
  highlights them supports them and their aspirations and can
• 1:30:54
  can lift up, you know, the female student athlete.
• 1:30:58
  I think his is a powerful powerful message.
• 1:31:02
  Yeah, it's very strong. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:31:04
  I love it. Well, that's awesome.
• 1:31:06
  Man. Again, you know, I put you in an
• 1:31:07
  unfair position to speak for all Iowa.
• 1:31:09
  High school for, by the way, for someone who's not a native
• 1:31:12
  Iowan, so you didn't go through the system.
• 1:31:14
  Obviously, you've picked up a lot and do the success you've
• 1:31:16
  had. So you've had been involved in
• 1:31:18
  conversations of, you know, how to continually improve High
• 1:31:21
  School, track and field in the state of Of Iowa.
• 1:31:23
  So it's always good to you know, our sport is, you know one of
• 1:31:26
  the oldest sports in the world. You know we're very
• 1:31:30
  traditionalist but yet we have a lot of extreme uniquenesses
• 1:31:34
  which to me is the part of our sport, you know, as far as the
• 1:31:40
  person of track and field athlete.
• 1:31:42
  You know, we're the sport of of everybody tall, short black
• 1:31:45
  white, slow fast. By the way, strong week there
• 1:31:49
  isn't meant for you to be to achieve some form.
• 1:31:52
  Of success, if you're willing to put in the work and then but
• 1:31:56
  then across the board from Iowa to Illinois to California.
• 1:32:01
  We do things uniquely and in a one hand I'm kind of a not
• 1:32:07
  conformist. What's the word?
• 1:32:09
  I like things to be balanced on one hand I kind of like wow I
• 1:32:11
  wish every state would just be the same however I think you
• 1:32:14
  know that I love that kid in Iowa gets an experienced, the
• 1:32:18
  shuttle hurdle relay a local. The kid in Florida now gets to
• 1:32:23
  do the 400 hurdles and a kid in California to do triple jump.
• 1:32:26
  I do just wish there was like four triple jump and pull Vault.
• 1:32:29
  I wish there was more opportunity for kids to try it.
• 1:32:34
  It's a, you know, they're great hints.
• 1:32:35
  And of course because we have that on the college side,
• 1:32:38
  there's more opportunities for kids earn scholarship and places
• 1:32:42
  on teams. If they know how to triple jump
• 1:32:43
  out of high school and but I take that across the board.
• 1:32:46
  I want the javelin and every state, love the hammer to be in
• 1:32:49
  every state as well because great events They truth truly
• 1:32:54
  are so I appreciate you. Appreciate you ripping every
• 1:32:56
  Iowa high. Yeah well you're hungry the way
• 1:32:59
  they don't come after me. Yeah yeah looks like you're here
• 1:33:01
  is gonna listen to be like can you didn't mention?
• 1:33:04
  Yeah yeah well and I just want to say I you know I think
• 1:33:09
  speaking to the diversity of the sport.
• 1:33:13
  Yeah it's it. Welcomes everybody.
• 1:33:17
  And I think about one thing I've we didn't touch on this but one
• 1:33:20
  thing I've really been intentional about Out.
• 1:33:23
  And one thing I've really enjoyed is like my coaching
• 1:33:26
  staff and, you know, we're fortunate to have for paid
• 1:33:32
  coaching positions. And then, I have two additional
• 1:33:34
  volunteers, but we have three male coaches.
• 1:33:37
  We have three female coaches, a number of them, teach different
• 1:33:44
  ethnicities, different college and high school experiences.
• 1:33:49
  And I also think that one's so much to the experience that our
• 1:33:54
  student-athletes get to have, and It doesn't necessarily have.
• 1:34:00
  I don't have to be like their coach mean, if they find that
• 1:34:05
  they get along with another coach, Or develop a closer
• 1:34:10
  relationship with them or goes to that person for more advice,
• 1:34:15
  all the better. And I think that's what's really
• 1:34:18
  helped our program floor. So like I always say like I can
• 1:34:23
  only be as good as the people. I surround myself with and I
• 1:34:27
  know my coaching staff has been amazing and has helped me to be
• 1:34:32
  the best coaches. And I can be well, we know,
• 1:34:36
  there is no solo I know on this podcast, it Luckily we have one
• 1:34:39
  coach on at a time and what we try to stress is that, you know
• 1:34:43
  who you are, and where you are today is a mixture.
• 1:34:45
  You stand on the shoulders of your mentors, your coaches that
• 1:34:48
  you mentioned, your family, friends, Etc.
• 1:34:51
  And so, as a member of a staff, I think the I love how you put
• 1:34:55
  that. I couldn't agree more that, you
• 1:34:57
  know, you are who you are, because of them, you're better
• 1:34:59
  because of them. And we almost named this podcast
• 1:35:02
  that Gil track and field shout-out podcast.
• 1:35:04
  So why don't we end it? Give a shout out to that.
• 1:35:07
  Great staff. You have their place.
• 1:35:08
  Valley. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:35:11
  And first foremost, my first shoutout goes to, to my wife, it
• 1:35:15
  was a test. I was gonna see if that's where
• 1:35:16
  you would go, first honest? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:35:19
  Both you know I've learned a lot from her as as a coach, she
• 1:35:24
  stepped down as track coach back in 2019.
• 1:35:28
  So we had coached together for about 11 years but as our kids
• 1:35:34
  got older, it just, it was just the right time in the right.
• 1:35:38
  Thing to do. Yeah, definitely my wife.
• 1:35:42
  And then my assistant coaches Kaz, Jason Maddy, Maddy, and
• 1:35:47
  Alyssa. You know, they're the people
• 1:35:51
  that get me through the season and inspire me, and hopefully, I
• 1:35:56
  Inspire them much the same way to mateys.
• 1:36:00
  Yeah. Different spellings us Maddie
• 1:36:04
  with the, why Beauty with I or something?
• 1:36:06
  Yeah, yeah. So there, There there my family
• 1:36:09
  in and out of season, you know, aside from my own family so you
• 1:36:15
  know it's been a fun fun experience with those.
• 1:36:18
  Those folks will no doubt man and I love learning your journey
• 1:36:22
  from The High School, coaches that spoken to you.
• 1:36:24
  You know someone who moved around a lot.
• 1:36:27
  You know I know how that can be. I reflect that I've moved around
• 1:36:30
  a lot as well. You're always the new guy and,
• 1:36:32
  you know, you're always having to learn quickly whose friends,
• 1:36:36
  who's not going to be friends, whose might rivals.
• 1:36:38
  Who's not, you know, I think that helps in the regular world,
• 1:36:43
  the business world and then also as a coach of just like, okay,
• 1:36:46
  let's, you know, this is how we need to help these people.
• 1:36:48
  Adjust to either be a new on the squad, or new to the school, or
• 1:36:52
  new to the event Etc. So I love that background.
• 1:36:55
  I love the mm. I mean, it just it seems the way
• 1:36:59
  you described it, your college. Time and and and your
• 1:37:06
  relationship with with Jeff just seems really impactful.
• 1:37:10
  Like I heard the way you talked about how he interacted with you
• 1:37:13
  and the rest of the team and then I heard it again.
• 1:37:16
  As you talked about how you interact with athletes and your
• 1:37:19
  staff and thinking like there's a lot of influence from him, I'm
• 1:37:23
  gonna like to give challenges and I have a feeling that you
• 1:37:26
  may be already done this, but I'm going to challenge you
• 1:37:29
  anyway because it's a challenge for listeners as well.
• 1:37:33
  You know, some people, Like, giving roses things like that,
• 1:37:35
  you know, the great YouTube show coaches, and that, coaches
• 1:37:41
  collab. They do a great job of doing
• 1:37:44
  this every episode as well. But if you haven't, or if you
• 1:37:47
  haven't done it in a while, I'm going to challenge you to reach
• 1:37:51
  out to Jeff phone, email text. I don't think the, we like to
• 1:37:56
  put a lot of love into handwritten letters, but to me
• 1:37:58
  the mode doesn't map is the intent behind it, but I would
• 1:38:01
  encourage you just to reach out and be like, hey, man, I I got
• 1:38:04
  to relive some memories. That were really fantastic.
• 1:38:08
  And impactful on me. And just just say, thank you.
• 1:38:11
  You know, we as a society, we're really quick to point out
• 1:38:16
  negatives, and really slow to point out positives.
• 1:38:20
  And I would love to flip-flop that, at least make it on par of
• 1:38:25
  one-to-one ratio, would be amazing to me where we just.
• 1:38:28
  Thank those people that have spoken into us that have made us
• 1:38:32
  who we are. Again, we stand on the Shoulders
• 1:38:34
  of all the people that have poured into us.
• 1:38:36
  I thinking right now the great Harvey glance who just passed
• 1:38:40
  away recently and you know, he's someone who he just he just did
• 1:38:45
  what he does. So it was nothing special to
• 1:38:47
  him. But something very air quotes,
• 1:38:51
  small to me when I was a beginning coach that really
• 1:38:55
  meant a lot and kind of helped me like oh man, maybe I should
• 1:38:58
  do that too. Because he didn't have to do any
• 1:39:00
  big time. Maybe I should do it.
• 1:39:02
  I never got to To thank him in person through text, whatever
• 1:39:06
  through Facebook Messenger it didn't matter.
• 1:39:08
  I never got I never I should say I didn't get the chance.
• 1:39:11
  I had plenty of chances. Shame on me, I never took the
• 1:39:14
  time and I have a little bit of regret on that.
• 1:39:16
  So I just want to, you know, challenge you, whether it's Jeff
• 1:39:20
  and there's many, many other people obviously that have
• 1:39:23
  melted yet challenge, you just to reach out and just give a
• 1:39:25
  thanks, man. You you affected my life, and
• 1:39:28
  here's the cool part, you affected my life positively,
• 1:39:31
  which means I now kind of expand that through.
• 1:39:33
  Bunch of other kids, which means you have.
• 1:39:35
  You have influence over them as well.
• 1:39:37
  Like your, your your coaching tree is much bigger than just me
• 1:39:40
  individually. It's all the kids that I coach
• 1:39:43
  as well so just challenging that, can you feel like, you may
• 1:39:46
  have done that though? Your feel like you're kind of
• 1:39:48
  the Yeah, we actually had our coaching Clinic couple of years
• 1:39:53
  ago coach wedeck was there, and we actually shared with him that
• 1:39:57
  same story. Awesome.
• 1:39:59
  I love God. And I actually see him this next
• 1:40:01
  week, so, oh good. A big hug and just be like, man.
• 1:40:05
  Thank you, may those two. Those two words are some of the
• 1:40:09
  most powerful words we have in society and we keep you keep
• 1:40:13
  them locked inside and you know, I'm a mission.
• 1:40:15
  I'm on a mission of gratitude and attitude and so I just, you
• 1:40:19
  know, I would just challenge you for that.
• 1:40:21
  You know, when I do that what it really does is kind of selfish,
• 1:40:24
  I kind of go. Oh man, I'm saying this to
• 1:40:25
  Kenny, you know, who I have not spoken to in a while.
• 1:40:28
  Why do you do I need to? I need to enact not just access
• 1:40:32
  to it as well. But thank you.
• 1:40:36
  I'm just so grateful, you know, to take time out on a weekend,
• 1:40:39
  you know, I'm a, I'm a big proponent of, you know, there's
• 1:40:42
  coaching in your personal life and, you know, coaching is not
• 1:40:45
  the most important role that you have husband.
• 1:40:49
  Father, son, brother, those are way more important roles than
• 1:40:53
  coaching and you've allowed me to take some of that time to
• 1:40:56
  talk about your coaching role. So I'm really, really thankful
• 1:40:58
  for you. And the time that you would
• 1:41:00
  spend with us today, Well, I'm appreciative and humbled to be
• 1:41:05
  to be a guest and to be invited. So thanks for allowing me to
• 1:41:08
  share my story a little bit today.
• 1:41:09
  Absolutely, man, you deserve it. I really appreciate you and I
• 1:41:12
  appreciate you being here and listening.
• 1:41:14
  Once again what an amazing store I really do.
• 1:41:17
  I need to do a better job of getting more High School coaches
• 1:41:20
  here. You know, my world is more in
• 1:41:21
  the college world. So that's kind of my first
• 1:41:25
  thought on guest and things like that, but I am always fascinated
• 1:41:29
  by how much I learned from The High School, coaches.
• 1:41:31
  Has and their differences in their uniqueness has.
• 1:41:33
  I mean, you got to admit if you're a high school coach in
• 1:41:35
  Iowa and you've got seven relays, you've got some coaching
• 1:41:39
  to think about and strategy and how you implement your kids, and
• 1:41:43
  maybe it makes your roster size, even more important than it does
• 1:41:46
  for Alabama, or South Carolina or wherever.
• 1:41:49
  But it's always fascinating to, I'm going to put it on myself to
• 1:41:53
  do a better job of getting more High School coaches here on the
• 1:41:56
  Gill podcast so we can all learn together.
• 1:41:58
  And let's do it again next week. Join us next week.
• 1:42:00
  We hope to see you here. McGill, track and field
• 1:42:02
  connections podcast by everybody.