Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #235: Ernest Martinez-Los Alamos (NM) HS USTFCCCA Girl's COY

Transcript

#235: Ernest Martinez-Los Alamos (NM) HS USTFCCCA Girl's COY · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field world. You were now tuned in to a home
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  servant, Mike Cunningham, for another extraordinary message
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  for Gill. Athletics connections.
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  We welcome to the show with the go to appreciate the coach, the
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  ones you point people most every season leads.
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  A voice of reason. Speak in the growth.
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  It's coffee to the soul for those of us to stay on the go.
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  Proper handoff. To stay in the zone which you're
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  packing for the road. There's more than one way to the
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  go. Take notes.
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  That's paying. You're told.
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  It ain't practice. If your purpose ain't clear, it
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  can't happen to you. Listen, both is You can't mentor
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  without a mentor of years of experience.
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  You can reinvent those years. Every plan's got to stand to
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  deliver up to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
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  It's a choice and to fight, not a win or lose.
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  It's not a ploy, but a device that y'all can make more moves.
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  It's not about how to. It's all about why you don't
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  know till you know who you are inside. 6,000,000 waist to tie
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  choose none. So be all for us finish line.
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  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts.
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  But y'all got to put in the legwork guilt.
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  Athletics is the network. It's all about connection put
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  together for the profession. To every track coach could be
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  blessed. Here we go back again on the
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  Gill Athletics Connections podcast.
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  So excited that you would join us today.
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  And these are some of my favorite episodes every year.
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  Now this will be year #3. We're in year #4 for the
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  podcast, but about three years ago we started interviewing the
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  USTFCCCA Boys and Girls National Coaches of the Year ago National
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  Coaches of the Year. That has been a lot of fun.
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  We have had some amazing, amazing people on the podcast
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  for that and I'm super excited. We're doing it again and today
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  we're starting with the girls, the USTFCCCA Girls Coach of the
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  Year. Remember this award is presented
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  by the US Marines. Shout out to them, really
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  appreciate their support of this amazing, amazing award.
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  Appreciate USTFCCCA. Doing this award and
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  administrating. It's not an easy task.
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  They have coaches of the year for each state.
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  For boys and girls. And then really an impossible
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  task. The national Coach of the year.
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  And we're super excited to have the girls Coach of the year here
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  from Los Alamos High School. The Hilltoppers out in New
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  Mexico Help me welcome the wise, the wonderful Mr. Ernest
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  Martinez. Ernest.
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  How are you, Sir? I'm.
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  Doing well. Thank you for asking.
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  Yeah, man. Hey, so have you come off the
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  high of being named? The national, I mean, I know you
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  probably have a lot of pride in, in winning a state coach of the
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  year. That's a big deal.
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  That's a big deal. But to go up against the other
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  50, right, the other 50 states in the, I think District of
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  Columbia has their own as well. That's a big deal, my friend.
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  Yes I I, I do try not to get caught up in a in a lot of
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  accolades and try not to you know base success or or or
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  failures I guess you could say based on those things but you
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  know it definitely has sink in a little bit that it's definitely
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  an an awesome honor. I mean one of the big things for
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  me too is to be the first New Mexican to ever win the award
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  and so that was very rewarding and special to represent New
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  Mexico and and a lot of the great coaches and.
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  And hardworking individuals that that grind it out here and so
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  definitely a huge honor for sure.
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  So you're not walking around, you didn't put the award like on
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  a big chain like Flavor Flav. You're not doing that kind of
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  style. Not yet, Not yet, no, I don't.
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  It's not really my style. But yes, definitely.
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  Maybe have to think think about putting that one on a big gold
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  chain. Never say never.
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  That's good. That's a sign of a good coach
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  and good teacher out there. I love it.
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  But we're going to talk about this.
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  Really magical year for you and what led up to the award.
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  Try to learn as much as we can from you, for our listeners and
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  just see what what kind of Stew you got to put together to make
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  something like this happen. But let's start with you.
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  Let's talk about your coaching, how you got into coaching, maybe
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  your athletic background. Where does coaching and
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  coaching, track and field start for you?
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  Yeah. I mean I I joke around with
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  people that you know my birthday's in May and and I joke
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  around that I haven't had a a birthday you know since I mean I
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  till I I can't remember you know without giving away too much of
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  of that it but it's it's something that is since I was in
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  high school has been a huge part of my life.
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  You know running in high school and then getting to go run
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  collegiately and and at a Division One level and that was
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  pretty remarkable in a sense for me and and it just kind of.
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  Feel that that you know that idea that track and field has a
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  huge it has a huge part of my life and you know whether it's
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  extremely stressful or it's long you know as a coach you put in a
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  lot of long hours and and it's sometimes it's not it's a
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  thankless job at many times in many times.
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  But it's it's something that is is center center to my life for
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  sure. You know.
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  Yeah. Did you So, are you from New
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  Mexico originally? Yes, I I graduated from Taos
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  High School, which is, and ironically the school I'm
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  coaching for now is almost they were arrival in a sense, you
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  know so pretty close to there. But I I did, I ran and graduated
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  from Taos High School in New Mexico and then I I went out to
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  College in Oklahoma to Oral Roberts University.
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  So that's where I competed collegiately.
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  I got recruited to go out there and.
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  You know you know on that note you know talking about
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  influences is that I I was really blessed in a sense to to
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  land there. I mean I think athletes and we
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  talk about it with coaches a lot is we always hear oh D1D1 you
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  know and you know that's the that's the mindset right.
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  Everyone wants to go and and and play for these large huge
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  schools and and have these huge experiences.
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  But you know, I feel like I was blessed, you know, because for
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  me, coming from a small. Smaller town in in New Mexico
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  and it it took me a while to get going.
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  I didn't have a lot of the the technique and and the coaching
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  that that. You know, I I would say that I
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  would have liked in high school and I I had great influences and
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  you know the people that impacted me as a high school
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  athlete definitely left their mark.
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  But you know from a technical standpoint and A and a really
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  you know nuts and bolts of training.
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  I was a little bit underprepared.
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  I was a good athlete, but when I went to college.
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  You know, I was impacted by a few coaches who who really kind
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  of laid the groundwork for me and how I would say about how I
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  am now coaching and and maybe not so much X's and O's, but
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  just how to interact with with athletes and with young adults
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  and and really, you know, forging, you know, relationships
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  1st and then also, you know, maximizing athletic potential.
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  So yeah, I mean, it's. It's it's been a long, a long
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  journey. You know, I don't say that I'm,
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  I'm really old, but I I do sometimes feel like I've, I've
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  been in the sport for a very long time.
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  Well, we love talking about mentors, especially track
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  coaches, right? Because that's what you're doing
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  in today's role as a high school track and field coach.
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  And you have certainly been influenced by your high school
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  coaches, your college coaches and Oral Roberts.
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  What a great. Little school.
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  I mean, it really is awesome. And what's fun is you are
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  actually the second or Robert's alum this year on the podcast.
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  So this little school in Oklahoma and Tulsa has now had
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  two alums. Rachel Andrus Discus Thrower,
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  now up in Canada, was on the podcast earlier this year.
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  So that's really shocking to me. I went to school with Rachel,
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  and so we were. At the.
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  Same time, yeah. Or roughly the same time.
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  And you know, it is. It's it's amazing we had.
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  A lot of all Americans and you know our our team and I don't
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  know if Rachel I think Rachel was a couple years younger so
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  she came after but we had you know conference titles and and a
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  lot of us that were you know national qualifiers and you know
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  I was fortunate to win many conference titles and and and
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  compete on those teams and and so it was just a really awesome
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  time and and I think that's kind of what I was alluding to with
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  Division One is that people don't hear it.
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  They don't hear that that school you know maybe it's it's doesn't
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  ring that it's a powerhouse but you know you can have these what
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  I would say a highlevel athletes that are competing you know with
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  the with these top schools and Division One and and really you
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  know I feel like we really made a mark in terms of what we were
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  doing and and got to compete with some of the best athletes
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  that competed you know internationally or you know and
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  beyond you know. So before we get to Oral
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  Roberts, let's take a step back to the high school side.
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  What was relationship likes names?
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  Can you think of and describe some of the mentors you had in
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  high school that helped develop you cuz eventually you had to
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  come figure out where you wanted to go to school.
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  And we'll talk about how you chose Oral Roberts and what you
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  ended up majoring in a second. But what were what was your
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  experience like with your high school coaches?
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  Sure. And and and so like I said
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  before I I feel like the individuals I had that were
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  influencing me in track and field in in smaller towns as as
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  many people know, like you know you're going to have coaches who
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  may be a football coach who also coaches track and field or
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  you're a basketball coach that coaches track and field and and
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  or vice versa or or other combinations of sports.
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  And so you know what? I do feel like we've had.
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  From my hometown in Taos, we've always had amazing athletes.
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  And you know, I feel like for me my experience was that I felt
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  like I was trained, you know, to be tough and you know and
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  resilient and So what I lived to earlier but not having
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  necessarily maybe the, the technical, you know, prowess of
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  of a coach who was really pouring into me in that way.
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  Time I had a few individuals of you know, my our head coach of
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  track field track and field coach at the time was was James
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  Branch and and a man that I actually coached with when I
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  came back to Taos because I I returned to Taos when I left
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  college and I and I coached there first you know and so
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  Benny Mitchell and and a few other coaches there.
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  But ironically, a funny story was, you know, a coach named
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  Robert Truhill was. A coach that was my middle
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  school coach and you know, I think I look back at my my
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  journey and it could have ended there because I remember one day
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  for practice it was like the first year I ever did track and
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  field and and it was hard and and I was going through some
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  growing pains, you know, I was stretching out and everything
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  hurts, you know, and I remember coming to my coach and you know.
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  Telling him that I didn't think I was going to be able to to to
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  run anymore and in in essence trying to cop out and quit and
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  you know his his response was was kind of nonchalant and was
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  was like well that that's what you want to do if you want to
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  take the easy way out And if you wanted it was a a turning point
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  for me. You know, I think I definitely
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  decided at that moment, you know, by his response that I
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  didn't like the way that sounded, You know, and and and.
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  I'm not saying that he disparaged me or or made me feel
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  really bad. You know, I really just thought
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  that I was going to have a different response and it made
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  me think twice about how I was, what I was doing.
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  And you know what I look at that moment as a as a moment where I
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  said, you know, not only am I going to going to continue is
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  that I'm going to be a kind of a a tough nosed kind of person and
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  and really kind of get after it. So you know those those
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  influences started at the middle school level, you know?
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  Yeah, you know, that's an interesting story because I
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  think you're right about. It's not the way coach said that
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  was not disparaging. Disparaging is, oh, Ernest, of
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  course you're quitting. You're a loser.
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  You're you're weak. Whatever, that's disparaging.
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  But we're talking about kids. I mean, you know, right now you
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  deal with, you know, 14 to 18 year old kids.
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  You were talking about a middle school.
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  So, you know, 11 to 13, I have a 7th grader.
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  So I'm, I'm right in the pocket with this.
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  When you talk about, you know, growing pains like, Oh yeah, my
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  kid, poor guy. And I remember my own
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  experiences as well with that, but.
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  You know, we're dealing with little kids, little minds that
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  are still growing, still figuring out the world.
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  Well, we need adults. We need coaches who are going to
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  help us. And so a coach who says, I like
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  that it was a little needle, right?
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  Like, oh okay, you know, if you want to take the easy way out,
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  it was. It was a little lesson of like,
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  hey, there's going to be times when things are hard and you can
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  either quit or or keep working and work hard and put your nose
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  to the grindstone. You're going to have more
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  success when you do the latter. By the way, that was his way of
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  kind of just like hey man, you know, if that's your choice,
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  that's that's cool. Not here to force you, but just
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  know you are taking the easy way out by not even really trying
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  and and that obviously is stuck with you from that moment on.
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  That's I I love that. That's that.
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  That kind of interaction, that positive impact that coaches are
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  making on young people happens every day and I love to hear a
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  real world example of that. Yeah I mean and you know when it
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  when I moved into the kind of started that that feeling where
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  you know working hard is okay and and that's something that I
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  mean I say I wanted to maybe get get rid of track but my family
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  and and my you know immediate circle is a very hardworking
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  background and and so it wasn't like it was new to me but it
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  translated into into track and field specifically and you know
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  moving into high school is we could talk about earlier those
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  coaches. They really we were, we were
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  tough. We were, we were tough.
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  You know, I mean I feel like some of the workouts we look
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  back and I say what would I do those workouts, you know, maybe
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  maybe not the best timing or or whatever, but back and I say
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  well you know, we were, we were strong, we were tough.
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  You know, we survived that, those kind of workouts, and you
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  know it, it really laid the groundwork for me moving forward
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  into college where you know, you have to have that mentality
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  because. You're not going to be the the
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  most talented person and you know there's always someone
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  faster you know and stronger and and more talented.
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  But you can work hard and and I think that that is something
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  that really, really paid dividends as as I moved from
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  through high school and and into into college for sure.
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  Hey, listen, no judgment for any high school coach, even a high
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  school coach today. You know your high school
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  coaches. Certainly didn't have the
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  advantages you have today in regards to coach and education
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  right. Sorry.
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  You know it's it's it's pretty hard today to not be able to
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  find a course or a book or a person to bounce ideas, a clinic
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  to bounce ideas and have some Ed coach and education going on.
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  However, even saying that, you're still.
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  High school teacher. And what I mean by that is
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  you're still teaching six, 7-8 hours a day.
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  You still have a family. You still have other passions.
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  Maybe you're the overseer of a club.
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  It's not just track for you. I I have a little bit more
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  pressure for a college coach who's a full time college coach
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  is like, hey man, I know there's other things you have to do as a
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  college coach as well, recruiting and paperwork and all
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  that kind of stuff. But your job is the coach, so I
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  expect you to really be honed in on coaching, education, a high
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  school teacher. Man, you're it's as much passion
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  as you poured into coaching track and field and your high
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  school coaches poured into coaching track and field.
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  It's still this part, a small part of their overall life.
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  So you know that they didn't maybe know the X's and O's as
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  well as either you do today or whatever the, you know,
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  classified good high school track coach should.
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  They were doing the best they could and definitely instilled
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  the love of the sport and the toughness of the sport into you.
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  I love that. A lot of love of the sport.
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  I feel like some of those coaches that I mentioned and as
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  long with there's a Bruce Gomez at the time as a cross country
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  coach, you know, there was a lot of love for the sport and a lot
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  of investment I can remember. Probably not a great idea to
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  write it out, but you know as a middle schooler, I remember our
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  middle school coach once again saying like, what are you guys
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  doing this weekend? Do you want to?
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  Go travel to the high school meet and we went you know a
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  group of us, you know the upper level middle school kids would
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  go to the the the meet and and you know and in other states
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  where you have a really large metro area, you know you can
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  have a track meet in Phoenix, right.
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  And you have a track meets in Phoenix every week and there's a
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  big track meet you can do it. But in New Mexico it's it's not
• 16:47
  that way. You know when you're in your
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  district, you're you can drive 45 an hour, You know, 75
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  minutes. Just to go to a school and
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  that's where the meeting, those other schools are coming from
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  different areas. And so it's not just, oh, you
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  want to see a track meet, you know, oh, you can just pop over,
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  you know 5 minutes and go watch track meet.
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  It's it's an effort and and so having you know, coach like that
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  saying I'm going to take you guys on my own time, you know,
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  you're not getting paid a lot. But I'm going to go over there
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  and I'm going to take you guys over there so you can just see
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  this, some of these good athletes and see this, this
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  upper level, you know? Track and field and and those
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  kind of things were were extremely inspiring you know and
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  and moving into high school you know the coaches that they had
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  there is you know they were extremely invested in you know
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  our interest in it and and trying to to get us prepared you
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  know physically to to go out and and be successful and and you
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  know be succeed yeah. Helping to envision what's
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  possible. I like that.
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  It's like and doing on their own time.
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  You're right, they didn't have to do that at all.
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  They could have been watching college football or whatever on
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  the weekends. You know, it's lesson planning.
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  We can get into, you know, about towels in our history where I
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  coached before when we kind of move that way.
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  But you know, there was some amazing athletes that I looked
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  up to, you know, during that time, you know?
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  As a young middle school athlete and I looked up and you know
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  Taco used to call him or Ben Ortega who used to who went and
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  ran. I think it's all American for
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  you and M those guys were house alums and and you know to see
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  some of them, you know, at that level and and they were just
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  these big athletes that that were just you know for us
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  younger kids they were. Intimidating, but also
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  inspiring. And you kind of look at your own
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  times. You say, Oh well, I ran this in
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  the hurdle as well. Now you go see these kids and
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  these these bigger kids. It's just it's always that
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  evolution of having that someone to look up to and having that
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  respect and just being excited about, you know, what the
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  journey can be, you know, if you follow that, a path that's
• 18:57
  dedicated to track and field. Well, we definitely want to talk
• 19:01
  about New Mexico and Taos specifically history because.
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  I'm always amazed that New Mexico track history, you know,
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  New Mexico is not one of our most populated states like a
• 19:11
  California, Florida, Texas, etcetera.
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  But the track and field history that has come out of that state
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  is it's it's unbelievable to me. I mean, when I first started
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  learning, I used to go to the New Mexico high school track
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  coaches clinic and started learning, you know, like who's
• 19:24
  in the Hall of Fame. I was like wait a minute, I know
• 19:26
  this person like holy cow. So let's let's get into that
• 19:29
  first, though, as you're going through high school, we know you
• 19:32
  went to Oral Roberts. But what was your mind frame as
• 19:36
  you're looking at school to go to college for career?
• 19:40
  Did you want to be a business person?
• 19:43
  Did you want to be a fireman? What?
• 19:45
  What? What did you think is going into
• 19:47
  college you were going to be professionally?
• 19:50
  Yeah, honestly, you know, I think that's why it's in so
• 19:54
  important for for athletes to have, you know, coaches and and
• 19:59
  school officials who are are. Very involved in what's going on
• 20:06
  and helping guide that. I think that's great.
• 20:08
  Not to say that I didn't have that in school, but for me, my
• 20:12
  parents didn't attend college. And so you're navigating that
• 20:15
  space of what it's going to be like, where do I want to go to
• 20:19
  school? Do I even want to run?
• 20:23
  Do I even want to compete? You know, is this something that
• 20:26
  I want to do? And and so honestly, for me, I
• 20:29
  could say without being too ashamed of it, I just was kind
• 20:34
  of along for the ride. You know, I I was going wherever
• 20:39
  I felt like it was going to be a great experience for me.
• 20:42
  And then getting to college and being there, I I did have
• 20:46
  interests of of where I wanted to go.
• 20:47
  But I kind of was like really just wanting to feel it out.
• 20:51
  I was just going with the flow I do.
• 20:54
  In hindsight, I wish I had a little bit more focused
• 20:57
  direction of what I wanted to do.
• 20:59
  But I also think that that's some of the lessons that we can
• 21:03
  teach our younger kids and is that I also feel like I did got,
• 21:07
  I got caught up in, you know, just really wanting to be that
• 21:11
  collegiate athlete. You know, I think that some of
• 21:13
  us, many of us that are, you know, wanting to go and and run
• 21:17
  at the collegiate level or Division One.
• 21:19
  You know especially is you're just so excited to be part of
• 21:23
  something that's big and getting paid.
• 21:24
  You know, getting your school and paid to go and do this and
• 21:27
  you you definitely make it everything which you you need
• 21:31
  to, you know, you have to commit to it.
• 21:33
  It's it's a it's a behemoth. You know, you you're like, well,
• 21:35
  my first meet is going to be at Arkansas and you know, I'm just
• 21:38
  this guy. Holy crap.
• 21:40
  And you're going to run against the NCA Division One champion
• 21:44
  reigning and you know it's it's like this this feeling that it's
• 21:47
  this looming and it's there and your coaches do a good job of
• 21:50
  putting you there. But for me, you know I've
• 21:53
  started to coach and starting to to to try and put it in your
• 21:57
  athletes minds that from my own experiences you're getting to
• 22:01
  college and you're trying to prepare them that this is huge
• 22:05
  and this is awesome but it's also just one part of your
• 22:08
  puzzle and and trying to promote the beginning stages of of
• 22:11
  balance you know of of what that means you know, so.
• 22:15
  And you end up going to Tulsa. Oklahoma.
• 22:19
  Now Tulsa to me is one of the like.
• 22:21
  I don't want to call hidden Gym because everybody knows of
• 22:23
  Tulsa, but it's not a Dallas or Phoenix.
• 22:27
  But man, Tulsa, my very, very good friend, used to coach at
• 22:31
  the University of Tulsa. So I got to go to Tulsa quite
• 22:34
  often and I used to coach just an hour and so north of it over
• 22:38
  the Kansas border. So love Tulsa.
• 22:40
  Oral Roberts is like this little Oasis of its own.
• 22:45
  You know, it's its own little, little thing there that they do
• 22:47
  a great job there. And you mentioned the.
• 22:51
  The impact that your coaches there made on you, I hope that
• 22:53
  starts with my good friend Joe Dial and his wife Shawna.
• 22:58
  Absolutely. I think with Coach Dial, I mean
• 23:03
  the first experience I had was at the great Southwest track and
• 23:07
  field classic and I met who was my immediate coach was his name
• 23:10
  is Chris Brown. And so going into that place and
• 23:15
  and visiting Oklahoma and you know for me, I'm a mountain
• 23:18
  mountain boy, you know, and I love the mountains of skiing and
• 23:21
  hiking and all that stuff. And so Oklahoma was a, it was a
• 23:24
  little leery about what that's going to be.
• 23:26
  But it's you're right. It's beautiful.
• 23:28
  It's it's hilly, it's green. You know it's there's a lot of
• 23:30
  water. You know, there's a lot of great
• 23:32
  things out there and so you know, to to go out there and to
• 23:36
  meet, you know, that team, it was kind of a perfect storm in a
• 23:40
  sense as well because if I'm not mistaken, I, I believe that our
• 23:45
  school had restrictions on scholarships prior to me coming
• 23:49
  in and then my freshman year it opened up, you know, just the
• 23:53
  way everything opened up and it was just a great recruiting
• 23:56
  class. We just had an amazing team you
• 23:57
  know we had you know team members from the Bahamas and
• 24:00
  Jamaica and and all over the place and and really amazing
• 24:04
  athletes and distance runners from different parts of Africa
• 24:08
  Zimbabwe and Kenya and and Uganda and and all these great
• 24:12
  places. And so it was just this feeling
• 24:15
  of like a lot of new faces and the talented athletes and you
• 24:21
  know but guiding the helm was like you said our our friend Joe
• 24:26
  Dial and you know I I still have a a good relationship.
• 24:29
  We still try and talk on the phone a little bit and I've even
• 24:32
  helped. I've even tried to send some of
• 24:34
  our kids up to to to evolve that you know when he's there during
• 24:38
  the summers and I I really respect Coach Dial and and his
• 24:43
  wife Shawna and and and Chris Brown and like I said it was the
• 24:48
  beginning of how to see coaches who are incorporating all facets
• 24:54
  of of your life to try and and mold you into the best.
• 24:57
  I think that you can. You can be for sure.
• 25:00
  Yeah, Joe was a yeah, as you know was a pretty good vaulter,
• 25:03
  right, Really good vaulter and vaulted with our CEO, David
• 25:07
  Hodge. And so through their friendship,
• 25:09
  I got to know Joe and visit campus and and hang out and do
• 25:13
  some work with him on that new on the new track facility and
• 25:15
  everything and just, you know, just great people.
• 25:18
  Him and his wife, he's always had great assistants that have
• 25:20
  fit the mold of what he is, what he created there and just
• 25:25
  always. You can't help but have a smile
• 25:27
  on your face when you're talking to Joe Dial.
• 25:28
  He has some amazing stories. He's full of energy and I can't
• 25:32
  imagine what it's like to be coached by him.
• 25:34
  I know Chris was your direct coach, but you know you still
• 25:36
  had Rob Ross speeches from Joe before meets and conference and
• 25:39
  things like that. I can't imagine what that's
• 25:41
  like. Well, you know, so my background
• 25:45
  is I became a multievent athlete.
• 25:47
  I was a Catholic so I my strength coming out of high
• 25:52
  school were were high jump and and kind of the corridor and
• 25:56
  hurdles and so that was the foundation for my my career
• 26:00
  that's what we kind of started with and but you know anyone
• 26:04
  knows decathlon are multi you have to ball so I coach dial
• 26:07
  although he's he's the head coach he he's also you know I
• 26:10
  spent a lot of time with him because you have to learn how to
• 26:14
  ball and so I had never even touched a pole you know when I
• 26:17
  got to college you know and you know that that shows you that
• 26:22
  shows you the level of of coaching and then how much he's
• 26:25
  been around where he took he took me from someone who I I
• 26:28
  never touched a pole until I got to college and and I ended up
• 26:32
  you know got to the point where I was you know podiuming at
• 26:35
  conference and and became conference champion in pole ball
• 26:38
  And so it's it's something that it speaks to to that I I always
• 26:44
  love. And sometimes people ask me and
• 26:47
  they're like you know you you're coaching the vault and you know
• 26:50
  these little things that you're saying and they make a big
• 26:52
  difference and you know that's a direct result of being around
• 26:57
  Christower. I mean, I know there's times
• 26:59
  where you'd see him and he would say something, you know, as the
• 27:02
  vaulters running down the runway and he saw what was going to
• 27:05
  happen before, before it happened.
• 27:07
  I mean the background and how much vault a man has seen in his
• 27:12
  life is, is just unbelievable. You know, it's the first, I
• 27:15
  think it's the first high school over 18, first collegiate man
• 27:18
  over 19. I mean just you think about it
• 27:22
  being such a long time ago, but the level they're vaulting at
• 27:26
  with the materials and the the equipment, you know, So there's
• 27:30
  a lot of respect that comes with that too.
• 27:32
  And I think that's a big thing is, is, you know, there's this,
• 27:36
  you go to his house and you have these medals from Europe, or you
• 27:39
  have this sense of this grandiose sense of who it is.
• 27:43
  And it's not everything, but it does help with this feeling of
• 27:48
  trust. That person has your best
• 27:51
  interest in mind, for sure. Yeah, well, that's quite
• 27:54
  impressive. Not vaulting at all.
• 27:56
  To become in a conference medalist in the ball and you're
• 27:58
  the Catholic, so you could have all excuses of like, yeah, yeah,
• 28:00
  I cleared a bar so I could do the other nine or eight events
• 28:03
  and then, you know struggle to the 15 that would be the typical
• 28:05
  to Catholic. But I knew there was something
• 28:07
  special about you when you said you were a multiventer.
• 28:09
  We we, we love the Catholics around here.
• 28:11
  Come on, man. That's awesome.
• 28:12
  I love to do that and and Coach Brown you know I think he he
• 28:17
  definitely I would say is one of the most direct influences in my
• 28:22
  coaching style. Because one thing I realized
• 28:24
  from him and and I think in my experience prior to that was you
• 28:28
  have coaches and they're very true to themselves and I think
• 28:30
  you can be very successful that way and you have a coaching
• 28:33
  style that you have and you you kind of just you have a coach
• 28:37
  you're you're you're the coach this is your style and athletes
• 28:39
  have to kind of acquiesce to that in a sense and I think you
• 28:42
  can be successful with that. But what I learned from Coach
• 28:44
  Brown was you know he treated he treated us athletes differently.
• 28:49
  You know, I would say fair, but not always, you know, equal in a
• 28:53
  sense. And I and I think that that's
• 28:55
  very important, especially when you're coaching people from
• 28:57
  diverse backgrounds and and different opinions and different
• 29:00
  levels of of athletic ability. When you're in high school
• 29:03
  especially, is that you know what's great for Tommy might not
• 29:07
  be great for Timmy. And those are actually Coach
• 29:10
  Dallas Sons names. That's right.
• 29:13
  He what's great for one may not be great for the other and and I
• 29:17
  my is my first exposure to that with coach Brown where he was
• 29:22
  you know I had a friend and and I mean Coach Brown could not
• 29:25
  officially but he could he could smack me if I was freaking out.
• 29:28
  You know he could smack me You know he could really get in my
• 29:31
  face and and that's something that I could respond well.
• 29:33
  But maybe there's another athlete that he knew he wouldn't
• 29:37
  speak to in in such a strong way because they would shut down,
• 29:40
  you know and so you know those things sound very.
• 29:44
  There's nothing really profound about that but it's it's
• 29:46
  surprising to see how many you know how hard it is or how many
• 29:50
  coaches aren't able to do that where you're able to balance
• 29:53
  that and and it's it's also more time consuming and it's hard
• 29:57
  it's easy to show up to practice right and and just blanket
• 30:00
  statement things and and just get in or get out.
• 30:04
  But when you start taking the time to have individualized
• 30:07
  plans, not only from a training perspective but from an approach
• 30:10
  perspective, those are some of the foundational pieces that I
• 30:13
  was those imparts me by by those coaches for sure.
• 30:16
  We're starting to understand why you got named National Coach of
• 30:20
  the year here, cuz you're exactly right.
• 30:23
  You know, it's easy, you you nailed it.
• 30:26
  It's easy when you're dealing with a group of 10/20/30,
• 30:30
  whatever amount of kids are in your group to treat them as one.
• 30:34
  But those 10/20/30 kids people are individuals.
• 30:39
  You you nailed it. And that is.
• 30:42
  I saw something the other day on Twitter.
• 30:44
  It was talking about, you know, the X's and O's are less
• 30:46
  important than the culture you build with the individuals.
• 30:50
  And I was like, oh man, that's right, Like.
• 30:51
  And you always hear about, you know, coaches who have the kids.
• 30:54
  Like, they believe in them so much they'd run through the
• 30:56
  wall. If that was what it took to
• 30:58
  become a better vaulter. The coach don't know that much
• 31:00
  about vaulting, but boy, he has got them.
• 31:04
  Whipped into a lather of what it takes to be a good vaulter or a
• 31:08
  good athlete. And so they follow them blindly,
• 31:10
  almost in that context. But that means that person knows
• 31:12
  them individually, not just. OK, I'm going to say this one
• 31:15
  thing for everybody and you know, you better get on board.
• 31:17
  And if you don't, oh, well, I'm not going to change for you.
• 31:20
  I'm not going to say something differently.
• 31:22
  I think you hit that nail on the head.
• 31:24
  That's perfect as you're going through Oral Roberts to become a
• 31:28
  multiathlete, which is really. I don't want to say key because
• 31:33
  there are plenty, plenty of amazing, amazing coaches who
• 31:35
  were single inventors, you know, vaulters or sprinters, etcetera.
• 31:38
  But boy, when you're at the Catholic, you get a taste of
• 31:41
  everything. It's that buffet of coaching the
• 31:43
  entire team. What was, where was coaching in
• 31:47
  your mind at this point? Are you thinking like, Oh yeah,
• 31:50
  I'm OK. I'm, I'm a multi and I'm
• 31:52
  majoring in maybe education. I'm definitely going to be a
• 31:55
  coach when I graduate. Where was coaching at all for
• 31:57
  you as a career? Yeah.
• 31:59
  I mean it was definitely not objectively, it was it was not
• 32:04
  on the radar. But you know when you my first
• 32:08
  response is to say that it wasn't on the radar.
• 32:10
  But then as I know as you're as you're talking about that, you
• 32:13
  know when you're an athlete like that and you're you're
• 32:15
  competing, you know collegiately in that sense and you have you
• 32:19
  have a great coach. You know, but a lot of times you
• 32:23
  know you're in a situation where, especially coming from a
• 32:25
  small school where you know that coach can't be everywhere.
• 32:29
  It's you're over at Texas Relays and there's someone at the long
• 32:33
  jump in and someone's vaulting and someone's doing this or
• 32:37
  whatever. And so you learn as an athlete
• 32:41
  to help each other out and you learn as an athlete, especially
• 32:45
  even in the field and the technical events where you know
• 32:49
  you're you're the eyes, you know.
• 32:51
  And so we have one of our, you know, female athletes who's long
• 32:54
  jumping and you know I'm not doing anything for another
• 32:57
  couple hours and you're there and you're you're supporting,
• 32:59
  you're catching steps. You know you're recording you're
• 33:03
  you're doing these things. And because you you're starting
• 33:05
  to accrue this, this knowledge base of it, you can become very
• 33:10
  helpful. And you you do have that mindset
• 33:13
  where it starts turning and say, well, well, yeah, this is
• 33:15
  something that I enjoy, but also I do see this, I see this in
• 33:21
  real time. You know, sometimes there's just
• 33:23
  people who who can't see it, you know that a long jump will
• 33:26
  happen and it's kind of even if they're an amazing long jumper,
• 33:30
  they don't they they won't see it.
• 33:32
  They won't see what what you know, objective, what are the
• 33:34
  next steps or what what is the first thing that we need to talk
• 33:38
  about. And so I think that was where
• 33:41
  those little experiences where you're you're working with your
• 33:43
  teammates and and helping them out where those kind of seeds
• 33:48
  started to be so. Yeah, we we had our teammate
• 33:52
  Dean Jordan here at Gill Athletics on the podcast who
• 33:55
  coached before he came here and it was interesting the same
• 33:57
  thing. He was helping out his in high
• 34:00
  school, helping out the better long jumper on his team at the
• 34:03
  state meet. Coach had to be somewhere else,
• 34:05
  high jump or something and he remembered coach said something
• 34:08
  about the penultimate or whatever.
• 34:10
  And you know, he helped his his teammates same age, you know, 18
• 34:13
  year old kids. And the kid end up winning state
• 34:16
  and he's like, man, he goes, I had done some cool things like
• 34:18
  I'd, you know, won some awards and set some records and all
• 34:21
  that kind of stuff up to that point in my career.
• 34:23
  He goes, but nothing made me feel as good when I helped my
• 34:27
  buddy, my teammate do better and win the state title.
• 34:30
  And he goes, I think that's when coaching was like, oh he goes,
• 34:33
  he couldn't verb like a little bit like you're explaining here.
• 34:35
  I couldn't verbalize and say, Oh yeah, I want to be a coach.
• 34:38
  But it was like, oh man, that felt good.
• 34:40
  And why? Because, you know, I'm 18 years
• 34:42
  old. I'm supposed to be selfish.
• 34:43
  It's supposed to be about me. Why am I not out there winning
• 34:44
  the state title? Why did that feel good?
• 34:46
  So I like how you're you're processing becoming a coach
• 34:50
  through an athlete by the help that you're helping your other
• 34:52
  teammates. And as a multi you're able to do
• 34:54
  that in a lot of different events not just long jump you're
• 34:57
  watching hurdles pole vault shot put even.
• 35:00
  Yes yeah I mean there was you're you're out there and you're
• 35:05
  you're exposed to especially on the team we've had a lot of of
• 35:09
  great athletes is that you're high jumping with with great
• 35:12
  athletes that are high jumpers you're you're throwing with
• 35:15
  athletes who are are good throwers and you're you're doing
• 35:18
  these types of things and and maybe you are just as good as
• 35:21
  them in one event. But for the most part you know
• 35:24
  as as a rule you know the Catholics you you may not be the
• 35:28
  best in the world at one event but you're very strong across
• 35:31
  the board. But as you start gaining, moving
• 35:34
  up the ranks. Well, you know sometimes you can
• 35:37
  have a really bad event or or two or three.
• 35:39
  But the higher you want to go you have to realize that you
• 35:42
  can't really have those events. And and maybe you're what you
• 35:45
  what you view as your best event is no longer your you're no
• 35:50
  longer just smashing it and and smashing everyone in that event
• 35:53
  like you're like oh you know I jumped 610 okay.
• 35:57
  Yeah I'm. I'm crushing it for, for, for
• 36:00
  the Catholic. Well now you start getting in
• 36:02
  the upper ranks and you're like there's a lot of guys jumping
• 36:04
  over you know 25 or or whatnot or or or pole while you're like
• 36:08
  oh I'm I'm a good pole vaulter for decathlete you know and then
• 36:11
  you know we're we're jumping over 17 feet and and and there's
• 36:14
  just this this feeling that it's it's growing but I I I think
• 36:21
  you're you hit the nail on the head for me and I always I
• 36:23
  always go back to that as I do feel multi multievent training
• 36:27
  for me has it just set me up to be successful or as a coach
• 36:34
  because you do have that background in such a wide
• 36:38
  variety of events. And I gotta we're talking about
• 36:42
  decathlete. So I gotta make two plugs here
• 36:44
  real quick. One is Harry Mara, one of the
• 36:47
  greatest decathlon coaches we've had in this almost in this
• 36:50
  country, in this world first. Gil podcast along go back.
• 36:54
  He's one of the OG's I think he was episode like 25 we're on 200
• 36:58
  and something and he was 25. He actually did a three-part
• 37:01
  series. So whatever app you're listening
• 37:03
  to now, go back. Just search Harry Mara Gil
• 37:06
  Athletics. It'll bring it up quite, quite
• 37:08
  amazing what he did. But he also recently wrote a
• 37:11
  book that you got to go check it out on Amazon Tales from the
• 37:15
  Passenger Seat. It's.
• 37:16
  Awesome. It's kind of Harry's like, you
• 37:18
  know tales from the Passengers. He's along the Ride on a A Brie
• 37:23
  and Ashton Eaton and many, many other vaulters, the Catholics
• 37:27
  that he's had. It's a fantastic book.
• 37:28
  And then just recently I also read Dan Steel another amazing
• 37:32
  decathlete we had here in America who was a medalist in
• 37:36
  the bobsled. It's awesome.
• 37:37
  American Steel by Dan Steel. I got to pub those two books.
• 37:40
  You got to go check them out. Highly, highly recommend them.
• 37:43
  They're they're awesome. They did amazing job.
• 37:45
  We need more people pouring. And their stories into written
• 37:48
  form as well like a Dan Steel and a Hairy Mara.
• 37:50
  So I'm proud of them for taking the time and energy to write
• 37:53
  those books and I think you would be better by reading them
• 37:56
  as well. So go check them out on Amazon.
• 37:58
  Hairy Mara Tales for the Passenger Seat and Dan Steel
• 38:01
  American Steel that's my my book club.
• 38:04
  I'm a big. I love reading.
• 38:05
  So I I love when people send me books and those were were quite
• 38:08
  amazing. So you're not really, you know
• 38:11
  some people, some not everybody. This is what I love about.
• 38:14
  The podcast here, the Connections podcast is
• 38:16
  everybody's journey is unique. It's not the same.
• 38:19
  It's not everybody went to college because hell or high
• 38:21
  water, they were going to become a track coach.
• 38:23
  Heck, we've had many, many coaches who became accountants
• 38:26
  first and marketing directors and then came back around to
• 38:29
  coaching track and field. It doesn't seem like your heart
• 38:33
  was on fire to become a track coach.
• 38:35
  What are you majoring in and what did you end up getting a
• 38:37
  degree and and doing? Yeah, I think it goes back to
• 38:40
  the the malleability of being a young athlete.
• 38:43
  I I wanted to start it off majoring in in chemistry.
• 38:46
  It was going to go into forensics.
• 38:48
  I wanted to go into forensic science.
• 38:51
  And you know as a young athlete and this isn't any coaches
• 38:55
  putting the pressure or whatnot, but I started having labs that
• 38:59
  were were happening right during track practice.
• 39:02
  You know, and and you know like I said from my journey, you
• 39:06
  know, coming in, I ended up becoming very successful in
• 39:10
  college as well. But initially I was, I was
• 39:13
  strong and I worked out well. But just pure talent wise, I
• 39:18
  was, I was a little bit what I would say a little bit behind of
• 39:21
  where I wanted to be compared to some of these you know,
• 39:24
  freshmen, Allamericans that were coming in or competing at these
• 39:27
  levels. And so my mindset was like I'm,
• 39:31
  I need to go buy in more and it just needs to be everything.
• 39:35
  And so you know coach is saying okay, well you can train at
• 39:38
  another time apart from your teammates and go to your lab and
• 39:43
  and that'll work those days of the week.
• 39:45
  And as As for me as an athlete, I'm saying no, you know, because
• 39:49
  I'm going to, I'm going to fall behind.
• 39:51
  You know, I'm not with the group that's, this is not what I
• 39:53
  signed up for. And so decided and I changed my
• 39:57
  major and went to behavioral sciences, you know, and that's
• 39:59
  what's in the end, that's what I ended up getting my, my
• 40:02
  bachelor's in. It's something that's that was
• 40:06
  very interesting to me and it's something that I I enjoy.
• 40:09
  But it's it's back to what we were saying where I I do feel
• 40:11
  like looking back I I wish I had a little bit more balance in
• 40:16
  terms of what I was seeing from me and and that kind of leads me
• 40:21
  to where coaching came in where. Track ends for everybody in it
• 40:24
  from a from a competing standpoint track will end.
• 40:29
  You know it's going to end for everybody from you know Noah
• 40:33
  Lyles is on the turn now to you know someone who goes through
• 40:37
  their 8th grade year. You know it it's going to end at
• 40:40
  some point and being okay with that is something that or under
• 40:45
  at least understanding that is something that's that's very
• 40:47
  healthy and and I feel like for me it was something that I
• 40:50
  didn't necessarily balance as well because you know my indoor
• 40:54
  season my senior year I had a great year and I qualified for
• 40:57
  nationals and and you know set school record and conference
• 41:02
  record and you know your mind always goes to what's next.
• 41:06
  You know you you set a record and you're not really happy
• 41:09
  because you're just saying okay. Well that's great.
• 41:12
  Now you know what's next? Like I oh, that was great.
• 41:15
  That was a great mark. I could have won the SEC with
• 41:17
  that or, you know, but then you're like oh, but I I didn't,
• 41:20
  I didn't. I wasn't an Allamerican this
• 41:21
  year, you know, and I was an Allamerican.
• 41:23
  So I need to go here. And so you're always, you just
• 41:26
  keep raising the bar for yourself and and for me it was,
• 41:30
  it was kind of an anticlimactic into my collegiate career where
• 41:33
  I mean I had success outdoors that my senior year, but I had
• 41:36
  some injuries and and you know, it kind of plateaued and in a
• 41:39
  sense like that. And so once, you know, fast
• 41:43
  forwarding to when track ended, you know, for me from a
• 41:47
  competition standpoint and I was a little bitter.
• 41:50
  You know, I didn't want to be around track and field initially
• 41:54
  right away. You know, in those things
• 41:55
  because I, I see my friends who are still competing.
• 41:58
  And you know for you there, you can't help to have this selfish
• 42:01
  thing where you you're saying like I didn't envision it ending
• 42:04
  like this for me. You know, I I, I envision myself
• 42:07
  going to the trials and competing for the spot there.
• 42:10
  You you envision yourself, you know, moving up and and having
• 42:14
  all these successes. And I'm not saying that you're
• 42:18
  being delusional. You know, you you just have no
• 42:20
  end insight. But you know, there's these
• 42:22
  hopes and dreams that you always feel like it's going to be there
• 42:25
  for you. And so when it ended, you know,
• 42:28
  I I was a little distant from track and field in a sense like.
• 42:33
  Do you. Sorry, I want to interrupt
• 42:35
  because I'm curious about what you said there.
• 42:37
  It's it's interesting where you talked about like the what's
• 42:40
  next and even if you PR right and and I think all.
• 42:47
  Good to great athletes have that right.
• 42:49
  If they they hit 7 meters in the the long jump it's like okay
• 42:52
  well how do I get to 710 and 7:50 then 8/8/50 whatever is
• 42:56
  that right? Do you think though the multi
• 43:00
  athletes, the Catholics and have athletes have it more because
• 43:05
  it's nearly impossible to PR and all 10 events when you compete?
• 43:09
  When you can do a decathlot, I'm sure someone had beginning
• 43:12
  decathletes, etc. But that's extremely hard.
• 43:14
  So typically you are, especially when you get to a good level.
• 43:19
  So you're experienced in a lot of the events.
• 43:21
  Typically you'll have maybe 1 or maybe.
• 43:23
  That's still a big deal to have APR and a decathlete, but that
• 43:26
  means you're hitting subpar. Of your PR and it's always based
• 43:30
  on that point total. So you have something like the
• 43:32
  always like oh man, if I could have just gotten 100 more points
• 43:35
  here, 51 bar here, that's another 23.
• 43:37
  Do you think it's worse for multi athletes?
• 43:40
  Yeah, I mean that's just eats you up.
• 43:43
  And I think that you see some of the most successful multi event
• 43:45
  athletes are the ones who have a good coaching background where
• 43:50
  there's a great and healthy mindset and you can.
• 43:53
  I'm talking about it. It's something that changed from
• 43:55
  when I looked at things to at the beginning to the end where
• 43:59
  yeah, like you're going in practice and you're like oh I
• 44:01
  did this, I cleared this and then you know, oh I went to
• 44:04
  this, this meet and I ran on the four by four and I split this
• 44:07
  this time. It was such a great time, you
• 44:09
  know, Oh my gosh, I ran amazing. And then you go to the you know
• 44:13
  the four open on the first day of the deck and you you know run
• 44:16
  49 nine or fifty point and you're like you know where is
• 44:20
  that great time that you know I I had you know and so it's it's
• 44:25
  unhealthy and that's something that is is I I've tried to to
• 44:30
  base with my coaching on is is trying to have a healthy mindset
• 44:34
  because it's very unhealthy to to hold yourself to to
• 44:39
  perfection you know and to hold yourself to that And it's great
• 44:45
  when it happens but you're right you're absolutely correct.
• 44:48
  I mean some of the best point totals you know weren't PR late
• 44:53
  and you know and actually some of the ones that I felt like
• 44:56
  ended up being bombs and I didn't even finish it.
• 44:58
  I started off with amazing P R's you know.
• 45:00
  And so you're you have to develop this mindset where you
• 45:03
  you move on from one event to the next and you you move on and
• 45:07
  yes you look back and you say, I kind of wish I would have ran a
• 45:11
  little faster in those sixty hurdles for that hip.
• 45:14
  If I would have done that then maybe you know there's always
• 45:17
  the what ifs but you're able to to let go.
• 45:20
  You're able to release that and say okay.
• 45:25
  Yeah. Because for many people who
• 45:27
  aren't really aware of the decathlon, I mean the worst
• 45:29
  thing to do is to be thinking about the previous event going
• 45:32
  to the next event because then it affects you.
• 45:34
  You know and I think this goes back to where my coach I said he
• 45:37
  could he could smack me because I, you know especially younger
• 45:41
  me is that I would be there and shot put and it was a weak event
• 45:45
  to begin with. And if I scratch or I'm starting
• 45:47
  off with a a bad throw, you know I'm just letting it linger and
• 45:51
  linger you know and before you know it I'm I'm hoping as we're
• 45:55
  going into you know the next event and so you know then it
• 46:00
  screws up maybe what is what are your strong events.
• 46:02
  So it's having that that great balance of of what it takes to
• 46:09
  to get through a couple pace you know.
• 46:11
  It's amazing that compartmentalization that multis
• 46:15
  have to have and really, honestly, and we don't talk
• 46:17
  about this in individual events, but individual event athletes
• 46:20
  too, you know, a long jumper can't be thinking about the the
• 46:23
  scratch on the 1st jump. As they're going to their second
• 46:27
  attempt, they got to know what to correct and what to do
• 46:29
  better. But they can't be like, oh man,
• 46:30
  the first one's gone, That suck. But but it's like, man, you got
• 46:33
  another attempt right here. You better be focused on this
• 46:34
  one. Same with the shot.
• 46:36
  But like you mentioned there as well, Okay, I cut you off.
• 46:38
  You mentioned as you're going through your senior year because
• 46:41
  of some injuries and things like that, you're a little bitter
• 46:43
  about track and field. Tell me more about that.
• 46:47
  Yeah. And it just stings, you know.
• 46:49
  I think it's it's one of those things that having that that
• 46:53
  realization that you know I mean the Catholics I could have
• 46:57
  pushed through but you know then you start getting into the idea
• 46:59
  where you know even if you're getting a small sponsorship and
• 47:01
  you're and you're you're doing these things you know and even
• 47:04
  if your coach is working for free or whatever it may be
• 47:07
  you're you're trying to hold down a full time job.
• 47:11
  You know you're you're you're starting life and and you know
• 47:14
  am I going to continue to try and and and train and all these
• 47:17
  things. A lot of the struggles that you
• 47:20
  know you you look at someone we were talking about Rachel
• 47:22
  earlier. You know you you have these
• 47:24
  track and field athletes and the meaning of pro athlete is
• 47:28
  totally different in in track and field.
• 47:30
  And I I hope one day that changes.
• 47:32
  But you know you're going to have someone just to
• 47:34
  specifically talk about her is you know you have someone who is
• 47:37
  fighting for you know spots on on the World Team and and
• 47:41
  setting these records. But at the same time as as being
• 47:44
  a mother and and and and and having a career and trying to to
• 47:48
  navigate the stresses of practicing and training, which
• 47:52
  is it's maybe not as much as the Catholic because you're having
• 47:56
  to work so much, but it's so much and you're exhausted.
• 48:00
  And so that realization, that track and field was over for me.
• 48:05
  And maybe my idea of the success that I wanted to have didn't
• 48:12
  come to fruition the way I wanted to.
• 48:15
  It just left a little bit of a sting on there.
• 48:17
  And you know it's a feeling that I feel like a lot of athletes
• 48:22
  probably still have, I would say probably even some of my
• 48:25
  athletes at the high school level, collegiate level is
• 48:27
  where, you know you're going through this and you're
• 48:31
  competing for this program and then you graduate and then it it
• 48:35
  it moves on, right. There's a a new recruiting class
• 48:38
  and there's new kids that are coming up and you know the
• 48:40
  coaches aren't forgetting about you.
• 48:41
  But it's just the reality. It moves so fast.
• 48:44
  You know that that it starts and then it's over and whether it's
• 48:47
  injuries or maybe just you know other interests take into
• 48:51
  account or you you run out of time in that sense you it it
• 48:55
  will end. And for me that didn't really
• 48:58
  that feeling that bitterness didn't didn't even subside.
• 49:01
  I I moved back to New Mexico and I had one of my previous coaches
• 49:06
  who ended up coaching with my first years.
• 49:08
  He asked me if I wanted to to start.
• 49:11
  You know you're back in town do you want to come in and coach
• 49:15
  high school And I was kind of like no I don't.
• 49:19
  You know, at that moment I was, I was still trying to transition
• 49:23
  and and you know, then I started seeing, you know moving back
• 49:27
  like the state of what the program was.
• 49:29
  And it was just wasn't having a lot of success.
• 49:32
  And you know, and I think for me it shook out of there and I was
• 49:35
  able to distance myself enough from my competing days.
• 49:38
  But also to see that this was an Ave. to experience something
• 49:44
  that was that is such a huge part of my life, you know.
• 49:48
  And you know when I got back into coaching, you know, we
• 49:52
  went, you know, for me I went head over, head over heels back
• 49:57
  into it and and that. And I know that the award this
• 50:01
  year was for this last, this last season and having a great
• 50:06
  season. But in those years and towels
• 50:09
  where I started my coaching career, was able to build a
• 50:13
  program that hadn't won any state titles and we won eight
• 50:17
  state titles. So it's five boys and three
• 50:21
  girls, you know and and you know sent kids to New Balance and
• 50:25
  they were all Americans and state records and you know, all
• 50:29
  these great things. But people hear these and I was
• 50:34
  talking with a a new coach, actually a coach that reached
• 50:38
  out to me from New Mexico. She coaches a small school and
• 50:42
  she was just trying to get not only from me but from other
• 50:45
  coaches some input. And it's her first year coach.
• 50:47
  You know, it's it's daunting. You know, even though it's a
• 50:49
  small school, you know, it's there's a lot to it.
• 50:52
  And I think that people hear these stories and and they start
• 50:55
  hearing like, oh, you know, I want to be that coach.
• 50:57
  You know, I want to have those titles.
• 50:59
  And maybe they see the programs that, you know, I've been
• 51:01
  fortunate to have where they're just dominating.
• 51:05
  But they don't see that those first years.
• 51:08
  When I started in Taos, I was in a gym in snowing New Mexico,
• 51:13
  northern New Mexico, with four kids or three kids or sometimes
• 51:17
  two kids. And we're lifting weights and
• 51:19
  we're starting, you know, indoor track.
• 51:21
  There's not really an indoor track at the time.
• 51:25
  They don't see the small beginnings, right?
• 51:28
  You know, they don't see those. The birth of of the of a coach
• 51:32
  you know who's saying I have the the technical background I feel
• 51:36
  I have this you know started this but you know just because
• 51:39
  you have all of this you don't have the facilities you don't
• 51:42
  have the equipment you know and so it's it's it's awesome to
• 51:48
  look back and see you know where that where that the tide kind of
• 51:52
  turned in terms of me becoming a coach and beginning the journey
• 51:56
  of of where I am now. 1st, I have to give a shout out to that
• 52:00
  coach that called you. I mean that takes guts,
• 52:04
  especially in your first year to reach out to someone and you
• 52:06
  know, really you're you're laying your soul out like, hey,
• 52:08
  I know nothing here, I I need help.
• 52:10
  What, what what? How have you done it?
• 52:12
  So maybe I can implement some of those things in there.
• 52:14
  I really like that sometimes we don't reach out for help until
• 52:18
  we're desperate, like we're, you know five years in and we're not
• 52:20
  having success or something like that.
• 52:21
  So I love that she did that. Bravo to her for for doing that
• 52:25
  and with others as well. That's that's amazing.
• 52:27
  I love love hearing that. Because that's the type of
• 52:29
  person that that can 10 years she's going to win the New
• 52:32
  Mexico coach of the year or the national coach of the.
• 52:34
  You know what I'm saying? Like that's that's awesome and I
• 52:36
  love love love hearing that. So tell me.
• 52:39
  I don't think we'd, you know after 200 plus interviews.
• 52:45
  We've had a lot of amazing topics here from recruiting.
• 52:48
  You touched on one earlier about selfishness of an athlete
• 52:51
  meeting. When you're an athlete, it's a
• 52:53
  selfish pursuit. You you're taking in with the
• 52:55
  coaches telling you to for you to get better, right.
• 52:57
  So we we've talked about that with Cameron Babb from Washburn
• 53:01
  out in Kansas. It's amazing, amazing, really
• 53:03
  important topics. But a topic that has not come up
• 53:06
  that you broached on there was you said, I'm paraphrasing here
• 53:10
  a little bit so correct me where appropriate.
• 53:12
  You had to separate yourself. Ernest the Athlete.
• 53:16
  To Ernest, like more like the person because you're still just
• 53:20
  not even really getting into coaching at that point.
• 53:22
  And then now it becomes Ernest the coach.
• 53:23
  That's interesting topic there, I think to me of your identity
• 53:28
  is wrapped up into us as an athlete.
• 53:30
  And like you said, it ends at some point for everybody,
• 53:34
  whether it's an eighth grade or 80 years old somewhere, track
• 53:37
  and field eventually stops. For for most of us, I've seen
• 53:40
  100 year old person do 100 meter dash, which still just boggles
• 53:43
  my mind. That's amazing.
• 53:45
  That person has not stopped tracking field.
• 53:46
  But for the majority of us it it does end and then you have to
• 53:49
  transition. You have to become not the
• 53:52
  athlete, not the person who gets claps on the back because you
• 53:55
  scored 7000 in the decathlon or you vaulted 60 whatever.
• 54:00
  It becomes different. So how did you handle that
• 54:03
  transition from? You know, everything coaches
• 54:06
  were pouring into you was so that you could go become a
• 54:09
  better to Kathleen, a better long jumper, shot, putter,
• 54:12
  javelin, thrower to now you're in that gym, it's snowing
• 54:17
  outside. You got two kids that maybe
• 54:19
  can't, you know, walk and chew gum at the same time and you've
• 54:24
  got to now take what you have learned and your ideas of
• 54:27
  coaching, of of how to get better.
• 54:28
  And now. It has to go out of you instead
• 54:31
  of into you, to these athletes. How did you handle that
• 54:34
  transition before you became very?
• 54:36
  I mean, obviously these were steps that became part of the
• 54:39
  8th state title, which Oh my goodness, that's amazing.
• 54:42
  How did that transition occur for you?
• 54:44
  Were there people that you reached out to or how did you do
• 54:48
  that? You know, I think it wasn't us.
• 54:52
  I don't want to say that. It was like a stark transition
• 54:54
  where it was like oh I don't want to I'm too, too scarred
• 54:58
  with the memory of track and all of a sudden oh it's amazing.
• 55:00
  I mean during that time it's it's you're starting to to
• 55:04
  really think about what it what you really enjoyed about track
• 55:07
  and field and that's what and that's what changed for me.
• 55:11
  And I think that when I said no to it it was it wasn't that.
• 55:14
  I was just strictly saying you know I don't I I I just I don't
• 55:17
  want to be around it. It hurts.
• 55:18
  It was you know that life you know there's a lot of things
• 55:20
  health and and transitioning back to New Mexico, all these
• 55:24
  things. And it wasn't the right time but
• 55:26
  really what it is is it's this building of well, what were the
• 55:30
  most important things for me when I was competing.
• 55:33
  And you know when I look at it I think of even just from a war
• 55:39
  wing, I say OK you win athlete of the year for the conference
• 55:43
  and or you win the conference title in this you you you get
• 55:47
  invited to go to Texas release decathlon which is kind of a a
• 55:50
  big deal. They don't let allow people in
• 55:51
  there. But then I say well what was the
• 55:53
  my what was my most fond memories.
• 55:55
  And it's like actually, you know it's not being on the airplane
• 55:59
  going somewhere with your team. It's it's the the conference
• 56:02
  titles we want a couple of indoor conference titles and and
• 56:05
  you know the the joy that everyone has and celebrating
• 56:08
  those types of things. And so you start saying like you
• 56:12
  start realizing that you're you're not so much in love with
• 56:16
  with the accolades. I mean at least I wasn't you're
• 56:21
  you kind of love the sport you know you enjoy the sport you
• 56:23
  enjoy being around the sport but you enjoy being around the sport
• 56:27
  with other people you know and and so I feel like that's where
• 56:32
  it wasn't to where it was like you know I I have a lot of this
• 56:36
  knowledge and I started to realize that I think I can be a
• 56:40
  better coach than I was ever was an athlete by far you know by by
• 56:43
  far by far and so that feeling of this is this is something
• 56:49
  that I want to give it a go that that really set in and and it
• 56:54
  was it was you know it's an awesome decision it takes a lot
• 56:57
  to be a high school coach or and a college coach obviously and a
• 57:00
  professional coach middle school coach but it you know if it's
• 57:06
  something that is in you that that is something that's very
• 57:08
  important to you it it's not it's not as as hard you know
• 57:11
  because you're it's it there's a there's a passion there for for
• 57:14
  the sport. I love that you mentioned
• 57:17
  conference championships because that's that's actually my
• 57:19
  favorite meets of the year. I I'm so blessed, I get to go to
• 57:22
  you know all these NCAA national championships, Olympic trials,
• 57:26
  Nike nationals. I mean I you know, pin relays,
• 57:29
  Drake relay, the biggest in the quote, UN quote, best track
• 57:32
  meets in the world. But there's nothing like a
• 57:34
  conference champion, even in the new conferences that are coming
• 57:38
  up. And there's nothing like, oh,
• 57:40
  these are the 1012. 16 out of how many they're going to put in
• 57:44
  some of these college conferences but like these are
• 57:46
  the people like I I got a score and and because of the limited
• 57:50
  amount of teams you know call it 10 to 16.
• 57:53
  You know, 8th place is still very very hard to to get in an
• 57:56
  event, but it still gets you a point and that could be the
• 57:59
  point that. Makes the team title nationals
• 58:02
  is a little different because you're dealing with you know
• 58:04
  everybody there. And so 8th place is still
• 58:06
  obviously very, very hard to get.
• 58:07
  But that 8th place could happen to someone who is not in the
• 58:10
  team title hunt. So it's just a little, little
• 58:11
  different. Still love it, just different.
• 58:13
  So I do love love college and high school conference
• 58:17
  championships. Those are those are amazing.
• 58:19
  It's a it's a mental shift. You know it, you can't help but
• 58:23
  be away from you. And maybe people won't agree
• 58:26
  with this decision but I remember one indoor
• 58:28
  championship. You know I had a lot to do.
• 58:30
  You know I was doing obviously lots of events indoors and and
• 58:34
  high jump was one of the early events and we were fortunate
• 58:37
  enough. I think a teammate and I
• 58:39
  actually three of our teammates we went, we went 123, we were
• 58:43
  the last three in right. And one of our teammates, you
• 58:46
  know to me he, I think he he was out.
• 58:48
  And so my good friend CJ and I, we were the last two in and I
• 58:51
  think we had cleared maybe it was like 610 and CJ was just
• 58:56
  kind of a high jumper. And so Coach Brown tells me well
• 59:00
  you're done and I said it's like what do you mean I'm done And
• 59:07
  he's like, no, you have more to do.
• 59:10
  Point wise, we're one and two and you know I wasn't super
• 59:15
  upset about it. You know, when I look back at
• 59:18
  it, I think I was like confused. I was like you know how man, I
• 59:20
  want to, I want to beat him. I want to you know, win.
• 59:23
  You know, there's that competitive nature.
• 59:25
  But you know it was starting to click for me that okay, it
• 59:28
  doesn't matter, you know, and then and I think like I said
• 59:31
  some coaches might not agree with that an athlete deserves
• 59:34
  that. But for me as a multi event
• 59:36
  athlete, it's also he's also thinking about me.
• 59:38
  It's not like he just says, oh, he wants CJ to win and that he
• 59:45
  wants me to be relegated to 2nd place.
• 59:47
  He's saying you still have to do XYZ and this might be all that
• 59:52
  Cj's doing this. So of course he's gonna jump
• 59:54
  till his legs fall off. And obviously he's also he's
• 59:58
  like a more consistent high jumper.
• 59:59
  That's his thing. So it's just this mindset that
• 1:00:03
  it's not about. Only about me, you know and and
• 1:00:07
  I think that that was something that I carried on later on and I
• 1:00:10
  think I had some of my best meets were conference meets
• 1:00:12
  because you know I think that's where I thrived where it was
• 1:00:17
  one. I just loved it.
• 1:00:18
  It was better. I mean I feel like it was
• 1:00:19
  exciting because even Nationals I think there's it's a little
• 1:00:24
  different there. I mean you have the upper, the
• 1:00:27
  the the upper tier teams that are competing for national
• 1:00:30
  title. But you know if you're going
• 1:00:32
  down the the road the list and you're saying okay.
• 1:00:34
  There's probably 5 teams that have like a legit shot at
• 1:00:38
  winning and the rest of the teams, it's kind of a less
• 1:00:42
  personal experience or it's a more personal but a less team
• 1:00:45
  environment. Because you know, you may have a
• 1:00:48
  whole team at a conference meet, but you know when you go to
• 1:00:51
  nationals, you know you you have just a handful of athletes.
• 1:00:55
  Maybe you have 10 or 20 versus when you have 40 or maybe you
• 1:00:59
  only have one or two, you know. And so it's a different
• 1:01:02
  experience for those athletes that are going to going there.
• 1:01:04
  And I think it mirrors it now that I've become a coach and you
• 1:01:08
  know we have our state championship and our whole teams
• 1:01:11
  there and we're excited. And then there's a little drop
• 1:01:14
  off you know from the intensity standpoint because you have a
• 1:01:17
  couple athletes that are going to go to to nationals or
• 1:01:20
  whatever and and now they're training in a smaller group.
• 1:01:23
  And so, you know, I I think that call back to to the team A-Team
• 1:01:29
  and what track was important was really what kind of sent me over
• 1:01:32
  to come back and to be a coach. Yeah, isn't that why you see
• 1:01:38
  kids who will split something crazy on a relay but can never
• 1:01:42
  get anywhere close to it on an individual?
• 1:01:43
  Because it's like they're competing for someone else.
• 1:01:46
  Same with I I think that's a big reason why you see some kids who
• 1:01:50
  really excelled in college who GoPro go to the next level and
• 1:01:53
  never get there. There's obviously a lot of
• 1:01:55
  factors that go into it, but they're also now not competing
• 1:01:57
  for someone else, they're only competing for them.
• 1:01:59
  If you're 100 meter sprinter and you were an oil Roberts team
• 1:02:02
  man, you know you need to get points from that pole vaulter
• 1:02:04
  that was on your team and you need to get points for that shot
• 1:02:07
  putter. And now when you go to the next
• 1:02:08
  level, it's like I own. It's only for me, it's just for
• 1:02:10
  me. And that's different.
• 1:02:12
  That's, you know, competing for someone else is.
• 1:02:16
  Bigger than competing for yourself that that's why you see
• 1:02:19
  I think that's why you really see I know the Olympics and
• 1:02:21
  world champs are obviously a big deal because you know people
• 1:02:24
  stands and it's what we all have worked for our entire lives as
• 1:02:26
  little 8 year olds thinking about winning a gold medal.
• 1:02:29
  But I think there's more of the psychological factor of we all
• 1:02:32
  have Team USA. I I know it's not team score but
• 1:02:35
  I, you know I care about that vault.
• 1:02:36
  I've never watched vault in my life and since I've been out of
• 1:02:38
  college. But you know what their team
• 1:02:40
  USAI want them to win a medal because I'm going for a medal as
• 1:02:43
  well. So I think that's.
• 1:02:44
  Tremendously. Well said.
• 1:02:46
  So help us understand. You go back to New Mexico, you
• 1:02:48
  go to Taos, you start coaching first.
• 1:02:50
  Alluded to this earlier, I'm always amazed at the history,
• 1:02:54
  what I've learned about the history of track and field
• 1:02:56
  inside of the state of New Mexico.
• 1:02:58
  You have the Henry's, of course, right?
• 1:03:00
  I mean, so Pat Henry, his brother Matt, the Henry family,
• 1:03:04
  they came from New Mexico. We probably, you know, maybe
• 1:03:06
  today everybody thinks they came from Texas or maybe if you
• 1:03:08
  remember Louisiana, LSU. No, no, they're New Mexico
• 1:03:12
  people. Mario.
• 1:03:13
  Satania. Now at Texas A and M Court with
• 1:03:15
  with Pat Henry. See, I didn't realize they put
• 1:03:17
  the New Mexico connection back together there.
• 1:03:20
  Yeah, good friend of mine, the NFHS, one of the VP's and CEO of
• 1:03:25
  NFHS Network Mark Koski, who's also a Gil Podcastlem.
• 1:03:29
  He is from New Mexico. I can't ever talk about New
• 1:03:32
  Mexico without talking about my good friend Kurt Thomas, now the
• 1:03:35
  head coach at University of Alabama Birmingham.
• 1:03:37
  He was my GA at Mississippi State.
• 1:03:39
  He's a very proud Hobbs New Mexican.
• 1:03:41
  So cannot not ever say things about him.
• 1:03:44
  Adam Kedge from Albuquerque Academy.
• 1:03:46
  We've had on the podcast Spencer Sealshot from the Mexico High
• 1:03:48
  School Association Track Coaches Association.
• 1:03:51
  I mean really amazing people and athletes have come out of this
• 1:03:55
  honestly tiny state. When you come to population here
• 1:03:58
  it's it's unbelievable and you were talking about Taos, you won
• 1:04:01
  eight state titles. How did you build up to that?
• 1:04:03
  And you mentioned some really good athletes that you had as
• 1:04:07
  well through that build up. Yeah, I mean I I think when we
• 1:04:12
  look back at that and and you know such a fond memories of
• 1:04:15
  some of the the coaches that we coached with and and athletes to
• 1:04:20
  to because it was also the beginning of my coaching career.
• 1:04:23
  You know. And so I look back at some of
• 1:04:25
  the things that I was doing maybe from a technical
• 1:04:27
  standpoint at that time as well and we're like, what were you
• 1:04:29
  thinking? So, OK, pause right there,
• 1:04:31
  though, because I truly believe that if you don't say that as a
• 1:04:36
  coach, if you've been coaching for any amount of years, you're
• 1:04:39
  not coaching, right? I mean, think about this.
• 1:04:41
  If you, if you were like 10 years into coaching and you go,
• 1:04:44
  Oh yeah, man, I was doing what I do now is what I did my year
• 1:04:46
  one. I was doing it right.
• 1:04:48
  That's a red flag to me, right. But when a coach says because
• 1:04:52
  the same thing when I coached for, you know, a little bit over
• 1:04:54
  10 years, I'm whenever I see some of my athletes For my first
• 1:04:57
  couple years of coach in high school, I was like, hey, I'm
• 1:04:59
  sorry. Like, well, boy, how good could
• 1:05:01
  you have been. I'm just so, so, so sorry what I
• 1:05:03
  did to you. I don't know what I was
• 1:05:04
  thinking. Whenever I hear a coach say that
• 1:05:06
  it's an automatic, if if there's red flags, I guess this is a
• 1:05:10
  green flag, It's an automatic like, oh Ernest, OK, you're
• 1:05:14
  doing a great job because if you can say you should apologize for
• 1:05:17
  your year or two, that means you're you're growing so bravo,
• 1:05:21
  That's the way you should be coaching in my opinion.
• 1:05:23
  I love that, yeah. And so it it.
• 1:05:26
  I came in that first year and you're a little bit removed
• 1:05:30
  from, I wouldn't say the community.
• 1:05:32
  It's somewhere I grew up, but you still know I still knew some
• 1:05:34
  of kids maybe their younger siblings or or what not.
• 1:05:37
  But you're you're kind of coming in and what I talked about
• 1:05:40
  earlier is my my impact or the impact that I coach Dial had on
• 1:05:45
  me or some of the older house kids that were running when I
• 1:05:49
  was there. I think that there was some of
• 1:05:52
  that as well when when I came back, you know, and it's this
• 1:05:56
  feeling that okay, this guy knows what he's doing, you know
• 1:06:01
  this guy. So it's it's it's a small team
• 1:06:04
  and some of them that's one of the battles we have in in New
• 1:06:07
  Mexico is, you know, track and field from a sports standpoint.
• 1:06:11
  I mean, there's not a lot of, like there's a lot of kids that
• 1:06:14
  do it and maybe do it well. But, you know, it's just
• 1:06:17
  something to do in the spring. You know, it's it's a precursor
• 1:06:20
  to football or, you know, it's something to do after basketball
• 1:06:23
  or, oh, I don't play baseball, so I'll just go to track because
• 1:06:25
  I'm unhappy, right. And so they're not really into
• 1:06:29
  it. They don't know anybody that's a
• 1:06:30
  professional athlete. They don't know what's a good
• 1:06:32
  time or a bad time. They don't know what's you know.
• 1:06:34
  So it's this blank slate of, wow, okay.
• 1:06:38
  You know, I think that the year prior to me getting there, I
• 1:06:41
  mean it was just just maybe one or two athletes that even went
• 1:06:45
  to state. And so, you know, not to say
• 1:06:49
  that that's the way it always was or that there wasn't
• 1:06:51
  success, there's always been great athletes and tells, but
• 1:06:54
  that's just kind of where it was heading into there, into me
• 1:06:57
  coming back. And it's just this this thing
• 1:07:00
  that we have to start somewhere, you know?
• 1:07:03
  And my when I look back at it, something that I think it was
• 1:07:06
  really successful was I just said whoever's gonna be here,
• 1:07:10
  we're gonna get after it. You know that I don't care who's
• 1:07:14
  gonna be here. And I know that's more talking
• 1:07:17
  about, you know, preseason cuz that was something that was not
• 1:07:20
  heard of in Taos at the time. It's like track started.
• 1:07:23
  You know our first meet, you know when you look thought about
• 1:07:26
  it was you know at the beginning of March, right.
• 1:07:29
  And that's late for many, you know many states that's that's
• 1:07:32
  extremely late. But not only that is everyone
• 1:07:34
  still playing basketball. So those first few meets
• 1:07:37
  basketball is going into March. And so you know you have the
• 1:07:40
  situation where you don't your best athletes, you know if you
• 1:07:43
  even have them coming out, they're not even out there.
• 1:07:46
  And so it's just not a really big priority.
• 1:07:49
  And so it's this feeling that if you think that you're going to
• 1:07:51
  start with this stable of amazing athletes and they're
• 1:07:54
  going to be refined. It's that's not the case for all
• 1:07:57
  you new coaches out there that you're not going to have this
• 1:08:00
  awesome, you know, 6 foot, 6 high jumper that steps out and
• 1:08:04
  you know scissor kicks 6 feet for you on, you know, his first
• 1:08:06
  day. And so I feel for us is that
• 1:08:11
  there was a great buy in from a just a handful of athletes, our
• 1:08:15
  coaching staff that we talked about even you know coach
• 1:08:18
  Mitchell, Benny Mitchell, he he was the one who invited me.
• 1:08:21
  He was a coach of mine. You know when I was in high
• 1:08:23
  school he coached football and he comes track and he was
• 1:08:26
  someone who I even look back and for him just to come out and say
• 1:08:29
  can you, can you, can you come out, can you come coach looking
• 1:08:33
  at those things and and just the trust of saying all right well
• 1:08:36
  you know what you're doing so let's just let's move with this
• 1:08:39
  and you just starting with you know we didn't even have pole
• 1:08:44
  vault pits. We didn't have pole vault mats,
• 1:08:47
  excuse me, or poles, you know, we didn't have a lot of things
• 1:08:51
  that just were that you needed to okay.
• 1:08:53
  So we just start with that stuff.
• 1:08:55
  And we have athletic director Nick McCarty at the time who was
• 1:08:58
  just extremely supportive in a sense.
• 1:09:03
  It was like, we don't have that and it's really expensive, but
• 1:09:07
  let's see what we can do, You know, You know, it's it's not
• 1:09:11
  great. Like I said, times were a little
• 1:09:12
  different then. But you know, I wanted to start
• 1:09:15
  with Poleball. I wanted to start introducing
• 1:09:17
  that into our repertoire as a team.
• 1:09:19
  And it's an exciting event. And so I would take kids down to
• 1:09:23
  to another school and we would go practice on theirs.
• 1:09:26
  We would borrow their poles. I was stealing polls from other
• 1:09:29
  people and saying can we bring those back to you a week or two
• 1:09:32
  later? You know, you're you're trying
• 1:09:33
  to do this. We don't have this equipment.
• 1:09:35
  So we're using some of this as as as and instead you know and
• 1:09:40
  and we're just trying to make do but if you carry that weight I
• 1:09:45
  mean some coaches it's hard and and maybe you've done that for a
• 1:09:48
  long time but if you carry that weight and you really drive that
• 1:09:51
  you're going to have buy in you know from hopefully from kids if
• 1:09:54
  you're doing them the the right way you know and so little by
• 1:09:57
  little it's it's started to grow you know it started to to to
• 1:10:02
  kind of fester into this program that was like okay we're showing
• 1:10:06
  up to meet and we're fielding a full team and now we're showing
• 1:10:10
  up to meet and we're competing and now all of a sudden you're
• 1:10:14
  going to the state meet and I'll never forget we went that it was
• 1:10:18
  my second year and we went to state and that was the first
• 1:10:23
  team trophy we we got third on the on the boys side but the
• 1:10:27
  year prior to that I mean that first year we had some really
• 1:10:31
  good athletes and I look back at it now and I say man I wish I
• 1:10:34
  would have had those kids for you know four years because
• 1:10:38
  there was some athletes there that that were really talented
• 1:10:41
  and and and they they just they ran for you they they did
• 1:10:45
  everything you could ask for and if we would have just had some
• 1:10:48
  more time technically that would have been great and it just
• 1:10:51
  starts to build you know the more you're invested and the
• 1:10:55
  more the kids trust you and then and they buy in then you get
• 1:10:59
  more kids that are wanting to come out and be part of that and
• 1:11:02
  it it just kind of snowballs but it's it's not a passive thing I
• 1:11:07
  know I'm going to round me but it's not it's you're you have to
• 1:11:11
  be extremely active with your presence and and getting kids in
• 1:11:14
  you have to be caring about what's going on in their lives
• 1:11:17
  you have to really make sure that you're having some patience
• 1:11:21
  with kids who don't know about track and field who maybe think
• 1:11:24
  that oh I went on Monday and I'm not going to show up you know
• 1:11:28
  you you can't just say especially in a small town oh
• 1:11:30
  okay these are the you if you miss one day of practice you're
• 1:11:33
  off the team you know you have these these roles because you're
• 1:11:36
  starting to build this foundation from from scratch you
• 1:11:39
  know and and that's that's very challenging A daunting task for
• 1:11:43
  sure I like to bust myths and one of the myths that I quite
• 1:11:48
  enjoy busting is high school coaches can't coach on the
• 1:11:51
  college level and typically that's for one major excuse that
• 1:11:55
  I hear and that's you can't recruit you, you never recruited
• 1:11:58
  before that's such a big part of college coaching etcetera,
• 1:12:01
  etcetera, which if you go back and look at our library here of
• 1:12:04
  passing guest. A lot of them started as high
• 1:12:06
  school coaches by the way, so let's just stop with this myth.
• 1:12:10
  I'm wondering as you cuz you mentioned you know, being in the
• 1:12:12
  gym with two kids and and you built into a state champion
• 1:12:16
  multi multiple times, state championship team there.
• 1:12:19
  Tell us how much of it was cuz success.
• 1:12:24
  People want to be connected with success, right?
• 1:12:26
  So as you started winning like that second year when you got a
• 1:12:28
  team trophy, I imagine you maybe had more kids coming out.
• 1:12:31
  The very next year. It's like, oh, wait a minute,
• 1:12:32
  they want to see maybe, maybe I should be on that team, right?
• 1:12:34
  Maybe I can be a state trophy winner or something like that,
• 1:12:37
  right. And so you get kids that want to
• 1:12:39
  join a successful program because they again.
• 1:12:42
  Success breeds success that's that's one part of recruitment.
• 1:12:45
  But then every high school coach I've had here on the podcast
• 1:12:48
  we've had many has talked about Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:50
  If you want a successful program which means you need numbers you
• 1:12:53
  better be recruiting. You better be in that hallway
• 1:12:55
  saying hey Johnny saw you at the football game you did a great
• 1:12:57
  job. You ever thought about throwing
• 1:12:58
  the shot foot for us or you know whatever.
• 1:13:00
  How much of your? Team success and team size came
• 1:13:05
  from kids just joining because you started getting better as a
• 1:13:07
  team and and how much of it was the activity, part of you
• 1:13:10
  actually and your staff recruiting the hallways, Yeah.
• 1:13:15
  And that's something I want to bring real quick and it's really
• 1:13:17
  challenging because for me, you know, not being at the specific
• 1:13:20
  time in the classroom or in the school.
• 1:13:22
  OK. I was going to ask that.
• 1:13:23
  That's a great point. So you're you're an outside
• 1:13:25
  coach at this point. Still, there's a huge thing
• 1:13:28
  there. But that that can't, you have to
• 1:13:31
  go to the basketball games and you have to go to football.
• 1:13:34
  And to be fair, I have relationships with the football
• 1:13:37
  coach at the time and the community as a whole.
• 1:13:39
  So it's I'm not there's a lot of impact there.
• 1:13:45
  But I think it's a blend of everything what you had just
• 1:13:48
  said, these kids, it's not like oh there was this magic formula
• 1:13:51
  from this golden coach that just came and shine this light and
• 1:13:54
  they were successful. You know you you have a lot of
• 1:13:56
  great kids who who buy in and they're they're extremely
• 1:14:03
  invested in what you're they see you.
• 1:14:06
  They see the effort that you put in.
• 1:14:07
  They know you're not getting paid very much or at all and and
• 1:14:10
  they know that you're you're there for them.
• 1:14:12
  And so there's this feeling that this is exciting.
• 1:14:15
  And then when they have a little bit of success, they start
• 1:14:18
  realizing, wow, if I listen and I do this, this is going to work
• 1:14:24
  out. And then like as you said,
• 1:14:26
  there's a mixture of of the success but then also the
• 1:14:29
  failure. We we have some kids who you
• 1:14:31
  know after that that year I think our boys came back and our
• 1:14:35
  boys they had gotten 3rd and we were thinking you know we're
• 1:14:42
  we're ready you know this team we can have success.
• 1:14:44
  Well actually that year next year you know we have a
• 1:14:47
  situation where our girls win and our boys didn't.
• 1:14:51
  I think I might say like girls win and our boys get their.
• 1:14:54
  And on the ride home, you know, it's just it's something, you
• 1:14:57
  know, as a coach, it's euphoric. You're just like, I can't
• 1:15:00
  believe that we we want a state title.
• 1:15:03
  You know, it's like it's just this feeling like, you know, you
• 1:15:08
  believe in your team, you know, having a track mind.
• 1:15:11
  You see the writing on the wall early.
• 1:15:12
  You start seeing how it's coming together.
• 1:15:14
  You see how kids are developing and you're saying we we have a
• 1:15:17
  good shot. Maybe no one else believed in us
• 1:15:19
  because we were. You know, I've even had some
• 1:15:22
  coaches call us a doormat. You know, we were at a coaches
• 1:15:24
  meeting. I don't think they made it in a
• 1:15:26
  bad way. But they had said, I don't know.
• 1:15:28
  You guys are looking good. You know, you guys are have
• 1:15:29
  always been the doormat. You know, it's this this feeling
• 1:15:32
  that, you know, wow, like they're you're coming up.
• 1:15:34
  But our boys on that ride home, they were extremely upset that
• 1:15:40
  the girls had won. And don't get me wrong, they
• 1:15:43
  were, they were very happy for them.
• 1:15:45
  But we came home and we did like a lap around the track, like
• 1:15:47
  when we got home from the state need.
• 1:15:49
  And you know, we were excited for the boys because they got
• 1:15:52
  there too. But they were in the back and
• 1:15:54
  they were just kind of Mokey and we had a lot of underclassmen
• 1:15:56
  there and that started the fire of five in a row.
• 1:16:01
  The boys, they didn't lose for five years in a row.
• 1:16:05
  And so it was kind of this this play on it that that it's a
• 1:16:09
  mixture of success and trust and all these good things.
• 1:16:12
  But if you start turning the right screws and you start
• 1:16:15
  really building a team and and developing like healthy fire in
• 1:16:19
  these kids, like they they want to to be successful, you know,
• 1:16:23
  and and they really thrive on that success, right?
• 1:16:26
  See, This is why I'm so glad God put me in the lane of track
• 1:16:29
  coaches and not football or baseball or softball or
• 1:16:33
  volleyball. Because listen to that
• 1:16:35
  uniqueness and it is unique to track coaches.
• 1:16:37
  I know there's some other sports, maybe golf and tennis,
• 1:16:40
  maybe on some high school levels.
• 1:16:44
  But the track coach, you, I mean, I'm seeing this picture
• 1:16:47
  that you're painting. You get on this on the bus to go
• 1:16:49
  back home. Your girls team just won.
• 1:16:52
  There is no better elation. Everybody is pumped.
• 1:16:54
  They're hot and your guys didn't when I know they got third, but
• 1:16:57
  they, you know, they had expectations, maybe a winner,
• 1:16:58
  but they didn't win. And you've got to navigate that.
• 1:17:01
  You've got to navigate the emotions of 14 to 18 year old
• 1:17:04
  kids. I'm thinking the same thing of a
• 1:17:06
  a Dennis Shaver at LSU. The the the girls win the the
• 1:17:10
  SCC title and the guys don't. He's got to navigate that.
• 1:17:12
  That's two teams that he has to pick up on one and and and
• 1:17:17
  celebrate with the other on the same bus by the way you know
• 1:17:21
  football team loses Okay. They just have to worry about
• 1:17:23
  their own kids. There's no comparison in that
• 1:17:24
  sake is you know Johnny in the next seat you ain't going to
• 1:17:27
  compare because he actually won right.
• 1:17:28
  Baseball. They don't do it.
• 1:17:29
  That's so so so unique. It's the.
• 1:17:33
  I'm just seeing that picture of you know it's dark the meets
• 1:17:35
  over long ride home and it's like crap.
• 1:17:37
  I'm super happy and then I'm super bummed for my other team
• 1:17:41
  and and again like you said you go back to the track to do the
• 1:17:43
  victory lap and you've got they should be happy they got there.
• 1:17:46
  That's not chump change here and they are.
• 1:17:49
  They're down in the dumps. They didn't win and you as the
• 1:17:51
  coach have to navigate that man that's there is no coaching
• 1:17:56
  education. There is no book.
• 1:17:57
  There is no there is no lesson here to help.
• 1:18:00
  You'd be prepared for that, Man, that's quite, quite amazing.
• 1:18:03
  What? What's it like?
• 1:18:04
  You know, I never won a state title.
• 1:18:09
  What's it like? The first one when you.
• 1:18:11
  So the girls were the very first one ever that you're on the
• 1:18:13
  staff for. What's that like?
• 1:18:15
  I mean that's. I mean, there ain't that I saw
• 1:18:19
  someone. Poo poo in the other day about
• 1:18:22
  if an athlete didn't win a Sprint event in California,
• 1:18:26
  Texas or Florida. If you didn't win the state
• 1:18:27
  title in one of those three states, you probably weren't
• 1:18:29
  very good. Anyways.
• 1:18:30
  Who cares? I'm like, wait a minute, to be a
• 1:18:32
  state champion in an individual event.
• 1:18:35
  There's there's one a year. I mean, that's that's amazing,
• 1:18:37
  right? A state championship team.
• 1:18:40
  There's one a year in your division.
• 1:18:42
  I know there's multiple divisions, all that kind, but in
• 1:18:43
  your division, the only ones that we can compare ourselves to
• 1:18:46
  because that's who we compete against.
• 1:18:47
  There's only one a year that wins the state title, and you
• 1:18:50
  did it and your very first one. How did that feel as a coach?
• 1:18:54
  From all you know, you think about all your experiences as an
• 1:18:57
  athlete and a high school athlete and college athlete
• 1:19:00
  winning conference titles as as a college athlete, but you win
• 1:19:03
  the whole enchilada. You are the big dog for that
• 1:19:06
  year. Yeah, it is.
• 1:19:09
  It's better than when I was an athlete.
• 1:19:11
  I think it's. Hold on.
• 1:19:13
  I wanna make sure I heard that you said it's better when you're
• 1:19:15
  an athlete or better than when you're an athlete.
• 1:19:18
  I feel like coaching and being part of that, like it's not to
• 1:19:23
  diminish the experience of all that other stuff, but hopefully
• 1:19:27
  there's not a lot. There's not that recency bias
• 1:19:29
  but it's it's it's better and it's just because it's it's even
• 1:19:35
  less about you in my opinion. I mean don't get me wrong you're
• 1:19:38
  saying well you're the coach or guy but it's just less about
• 1:19:41
  you. I mean these those the people
• 1:19:42
  who competed are the ones that were there and and yes they
• 1:19:45
  bought in as to to your philosophy or to what your staff
• 1:19:49
  is doing and to all these different things.
• 1:19:50
  But it's them and you're getting to see them achieve and you're
• 1:19:55
  getting to see them fight through some of those demons and
• 1:19:59
  and honestly, you know those first championships is.
• 1:20:02
  We asked one of our girls who was new to the sport to do
• 1:20:05
  something that we we shouldn't have.
• 1:20:06
  You know it was like one of those situations where you get
• 1:20:09
  those mid distance to distance runners who's a new distance
• 1:20:11
  runner never, never really been to that.
• 1:20:13
  On that level she comes out and her name is Marty Soul Martinez,
• 1:20:18
  but she the schedule is like medley or mile, medley or mile.
• 1:20:22
  And in Mexico we have the our medley is a 2248.
• 1:20:26
  So she's the 800 meter runner. She's also a mile and it's like,
• 1:20:30
  well, you know, she's not. She's hopefully trying to get
• 1:20:34
  points in the mile, but without her, our medley will have no
• 1:20:37
  points. And so it's like, you know, I
• 1:20:41
  like to, I've learned from me. I know what I want to do with
• 1:20:44
  things, but I always talk to the athletes and make them feel like
• 1:20:48
  they have the input and what we're going on.
• 1:20:50
  So I go to go to her and say this is the situation kind of
• 1:20:56
  have to you know be really hard to do both you know this is
• 1:20:59
  where we're at whatever we choose to do.
• 1:21:01
  You know right now it's looking like the point wise might be
• 1:21:05
  similar and you know what are your thoughts and she just flat
• 1:21:09
  out says we need it. I'll do both and though this is
• 1:21:13
  like a you know we're talking an all out eight and then having to
• 1:21:16
  come back or I'm getting a little confused I don't remember
• 1:21:19
  which one was it for since 8 or I think it was the medley 1st
• 1:21:22
  and then the the mile but it could be backwards but she had
• 1:21:25
  to run and then it was like 20 minutes later back and and and
• 1:21:28
  come back in that event and we're not we're not talking
• 1:21:30
  about 100 we're not talking about long jumping and and and
• 1:21:33
  running a relay at the same time.
• 1:21:34
  You know these are these are crazy events and and so Long
• 1:21:38
  story short she comes out and and she tucks in behind the
• 1:21:41
  favorites and we get a second in the medley and she comes and she
• 1:21:44
  gets in there as well in the in in the next race and she's she's
• 1:21:48
  right in there as well for for the mile and so that kind of
• 1:21:54
  sacrifice and and fittingly you know she was on the the front
• 1:21:57
  page it was you know of the newspaper that she was there and
• 1:22:00
  and and represented the team. But it's kind of those things
• 1:22:03
  that it's like you know this is an athlete had never been to
• 1:22:06
  state you know and never been on that stage and to come through
• 1:22:10
  and it was just like she's just I'm going to do both you know
• 1:22:13
  and and when you're talking about that she doesn't she's not
• 1:22:16
  trying to win both necessarily you know for glory.
• 1:22:20
  It's just that you know she's doing it for the greater good of
• 1:22:23
  the the the team and and so I I say that story because it just
• 1:22:28
  exemplifies like the feeling of what it means to to win that
• 1:22:32
  state title and you're just you're just kind of emotional in
• 1:22:35
  a sense because you're you're seeing that you know there's a
• 1:22:38
  selflessness and then this kind of coming from behind you know
• 1:22:43
  in terms of that that underdog. So that was it's a very, very
• 1:22:47
  special and there was a similar story on our boys side when our
• 1:22:50
  boys won their first title is there was some teams at the time
• 1:22:54
  that were really strong. I mean our class at the time was
• 1:22:56
  was bigger than kind of I would say what it is now.
• 1:22:58
  But really good teams and some teams that had been powerhouses
• 1:23:04
  and kind of been the figureheads of you know sprinting and and
• 1:23:08
  been at the top there. They had won a few titles of
• 1:23:11
  Silver City as a high school. But you know we had the same
• 1:23:15
  thing where one of our situations is where we had our
• 1:23:17
  four by two. And and this is a decision of
• 1:23:20
  mine to put our fastest runner on the second leg.
• 1:23:22
  So we could stay out of the the mess in that four by two and
• 1:23:26
  give us a shot to to kind of be in the mix.
• 1:23:29
  And then we put someone whose name was Jonathan at the end.
• 1:23:34
  And the way it unfolded, I thought I was hoping we would be
• 1:23:37
  a little bit further ahead going into the anchor leg to give
• 1:23:39
  ourselves a shot. And they ended up having that
• 1:23:42
  their anchor who was a really fast athlete, Allstate athlete,
• 1:23:45
  he got the baton and we handed off to Jonathan who was not.
• 1:23:49
  I don't even think he made the state final.
• 1:23:51
  You know he wasn't that kid but you know he was a smaller and
• 1:23:54
  statured guy and and I'm standing kind of at the finish
• 1:23:57
  line and I'm looking and I see this big kid come around from
• 1:24:00
  their team and it's just kind of like okay.
• 1:24:02
  You know we're we're in the mix. You know we're there you could
• 1:24:05
  kind of see we were there but then all of a sudden you see our
• 1:24:08
  our kid kind of pop out, you know, and we're like, I mean
• 1:24:11
  he's right there and then you see our kid full even and
• 1:24:17
  they're coming down and and honestly you know Jonathan ended
• 1:24:19
  up becoming a great athlete for us later on and he always was.
• 1:24:22
  But you know, I don't know if he really had any business going
• 1:24:25
  toe to toe with that guy and it came down the end and Jonathan
• 1:24:28
  just sold out and dove kind of at the line and and you know,
• 1:24:31
  they won the state title in that relay.
• 1:24:35
  But that was those kids. You know, you can have a program
• 1:24:41
  and whatnot, but you have kids like that and there's so many of
• 1:24:44
  them that could tuck your ear off with those kids.
• 1:24:46
  But that just rise to the occasion and you know they just,
• 1:24:53
  they set a standard that that, well, I guess you set a standard
• 1:24:57
  as a coach. And when they rise to it, it's
• 1:24:59
  like that is more powerful to me than than a coach setting a
• 1:25:02
  standard. Because when other kids see
• 1:25:05
  their peers do that, you know, it's it's very powerful.
• 1:25:08
  I think it's the parent thing, right.
• 1:25:09
  And you can have a parent telling someone over and over
• 1:25:12
  and over. But if they have a mentor who's
• 1:25:13
  not their parent and they say at one time they're like, oh wow,
• 1:25:15
  they're amazing, you're like, dad is like, I've been saying
• 1:25:18
  that for. I see you've been listening in
• 1:25:21
  on my parent conversations lately.
• 1:25:23
  Okay. Great.
• 1:25:24
  Thanks. Yeah, I love that the coach sets
• 1:25:26
  the standards. The athletes have to become the
• 1:25:28
  standard. Yeah, that's perfect.
• 1:25:30
  Hey, I do want to spend some time for time sakes here.
• 1:25:33
  So that's so you ended up winning eight state titles at
• 1:25:36
  Taos. That's amazing.
• 1:25:38
  So how did we get to Los Alamos? Kind of give us the 30,000 foot
• 1:25:43
  level, how wide leave, How do we get to Los Alamos?
• 1:25:45
  And then how did we build up to this past season here in 2023?
• 1:25:49
  So you know over those years having a ton of great athletes
• 1:25:53
  and and as a coach you know you you you pour your heart into a
• 1:25:57
  program especially one that you you build you know with with a
• 1:26:01
  staff and and a community and parents and and everyone that
• 1:26:04
  comes into that into that equation and it's hard to leave.
• 1:26:08
  You're like you know even life if life calls you in different
• 1:26:11
  directions you you don't want to leave because you are you're
• 1:26:15
  invested. But for me those last years I
• 1:26:18
  was in Taos I ended up moving a little bit South and so I was
• 1:26:22
  working kind of out in Santa Fe and I was commuting every day to
• 1:26:27
  Taos and this is an hour and 15 you know one way.
• 1:26:29
  So it's like you know you're you're you're you're working and
• 1:26:33
  then you're having to leave early and and fly out up to
• 1:26:36
  towels and you know you're you're you're coaching and you
• 1:26:39
  know that just became it was it was hard to maintain in those
• 1:26:45
  last years but then it it became to the IT went to the point
• 1:26:47
  where I was. It was almost to the point where
• 1:26:48
  I was saying why I think I'm going to just going to stop
• 1:26:50
  coaching just because for me everything that was the way it
• 1:26:54
  was unfolding with other things and that were taking place as
• 1:26:57
  well. It was just hard for me to to
• 1:26:59
  continue there in towels. And so, you know it it came to a
• 1:27:03
  headway where I had a last group of kids and obviously we had
• 1:27:08
  more that were coaching and athletes that I hated to leave.
• 1:27:10
  But there was this, this these athletes that I had since they
• 1:27:13
  were young, you know, after our foray into, you know in the
• 1:27:17
  summer when they they were already finished with high
• 1:27:20
  school, but they were competing in the summer.
• 1:27:22
  They they went to nationals and after that it was kind of the
• 1:27:26
  natural leading point for me and kind of heard about on about way
• 1:27:32
  there's interest in in in me to go to Los Alamos and that brings
• 1:27:35
  us to Las Amos where you know coming from towels you know we
• 1:27:38
  were the small program that had to build from scratch and and
• 1:27:41
  Los Alamos was has always been a school with a lot of pedigree in
• 1:27:47
  running you know in cross country and and they have great
• 1:27:50
  track records it's been some amazing athletes and and coaches
• 1:27:53
  that have coached in in Los Alamos And so for me I was ready
• 1:27:56
  to to kind of hang up coaching for the the time being.
• 1:28:00
  But the way it worked out is you know for me leaving Taos and
• 1:28:03
  immediately there was an opportunity to coach there and
• 1:28:06
  but it was closer you know and so it cut my commute, you know
• 1:28:10
  less than half and so that's a a huge a huge deal and and so it
• 1:28:16
  was it was I think it was it was time it was a lot of regret to
• 1:28:19
  leave that program in Taos. But you know it was it was great
• 1:28:23
  the time that was there that was shared there for sure.
• 1:28:26
  So how you say you came into a different situation at Los
• 1:28:29
  Alamos. You didn't come from there.
• 1:28:30
  There was going to be two athletes only in the gym.
• 1:28:33
  You had a kind of a pedigree there.
• 1:28:35
  How was it different building up to this year's state title?
• 1:28:40
  Well, I've I've been in Los Alamos for four years now and so
• 1:28:44
  we've won three state titles in Los Alamos on the girls side.
• 1:28:47
  Now on our first year, I don't want to say speak for that, but
• 1:28:51
  it was COVID year that was cancelled and I honestly believe
• 1:28:55
  that we would have been very successful that year as well.
• 1:28:59
  But you know it was different. I mean it was kind of in the mix
• 1:29:02
  that there was some great athletes that were that have
• 1:29:05
  been at Los Alamos. In fact Chase Ely who just as
• 1:29:09
  one back-to-back world shot put titles for the women.
• 1:29:13
  She's a, she's a Los Alamos graduate.
• 1:29:15
  So she was, you know Los Alamos has had some some athletes.
• 1:29:20
  But really when you look at the records and how much success has
• 1:29:24
  the Lasalles had, you know, in terms of times and athletes, you
• 1:29:28
  know, there was just a handful of state titles over its history
• 1:29:32
  and actually that the the they had been on a drought for about
• 1:29:35
  10 years. And so it was it's kind of this
• 1:29:39
  limbo period where there's great athletes.
• 1:29:42
  It's not like you said, you're an athlete, you're you're having
• 1:29:45
  two kids in the gym, you know there's a lot more participation
• 1:29:48
  and and you know interest in track and field.
• 1:29:51
  So as a coach it's it's, it's kind of interesting that many
• 1:29:55
  things are the same, but they just you, you work around them
• 1:29:59
  differently. And what I mean by that is you
• 1:30:00
  still have to motivate and you're still trying to build
• 1:30:03
  your program and have them buy into what is necessary to win.
• 1:30:07
  But maybe you don't have to. The numbers of just getting the
• 1:30:12
  initially the kids out there isn't isn't as hard.
• 1:30:15
  Because you have something to sell off the bat, not just a
• 1:30:19
  dream. You have like, hey, we've had
• 1:30:20
  some state titles. Hey, we've had Chase E Lee,
• 1:30:22
  we've had things like that. You could be part of this as
• 1:30:24
  well. Yeah.
• 1:30:26
  I just think also in the community just in terms of
• 1:30:28
  participation in sports and activities is a lot is a lot
• 1:30:32
  higher. You know it's it's easy to say
• 1:30:34
  that it's a more affluent community in a sense and and so
• 1:30:37
  it's kind of there's just a lot of interest in participating in
• 1:30:43
  in sports in general. And so you know whereas we built
• 1:30:46
  it up to tell us where you have this X amount of kids and in Los
• 1:30:50
  Alamos you know even from a middle school level there's a
• 1:30:52
  lot of kids who are are interested in in running and and
• 1:30:55
  there's been some amazing coaches in in Los Alamos that's
• 1:31:01
  not by and that's one thing that I think I know for time sake.
• 1:31:05
  But it always kind of brought me the wrong way when people say oh
• 1:31:07
  we just have the numbers, you know, you know, oh, you just
• 1:31:10
  have this. You know, I've been on both
• 1:31:12
  sides of that spectrum. But people don't really always
• 1:31:14
  want to take into account is that sometimes those numbers are
• 1:31:18
  are due to a lot of commitment and hard work to to get them out
• 1:31:20
  and it and in in this case for Los Alamos it's not that okay
• 1:31:24
  these kids everyone just loves track and field.
• 1:31:26
  Well there's a history of that and and somewhere down the line,
• 1:31:29
  you know Rob and Kathy Hipwood for cross country, you know
• 1:31:32
  they've had so many tiles. I mean they've they've won like
• 1:31:34
  20 some state tiles. I mean it's it's it's crazy but
• 1:31:38
  on the track you know Larry Baca and and Paul Anderson and these
• 1:31:42
  coaches that have coached at Los Alamos.
• 1:31:45
  You know there's a reason why there's interest in and there's
• 1:31:49
  this this excellence that is is there in in getting these kids
• 1:31:54
  out there And so just the program as a whole just as a
• 1:31:57
  starting point had a lot more you know in in line.
• 1:32:01
  So a different situation in many ways.
• 1:32:06
  Yeah, numbers help for sure. Let's not discount that in the
• 1:32:09
  especially in the, well, any sport.
• 1:32:10
  I mean, if you have a 100 football kids out, you're liable
• 1:32:14
  to have 22 better ones than if you have 30 kids out.
• 1:32:16
  So for sure, but to your point, that didn't just happen.
• 1:32:21
  I I could easily take a a team that has 100 kids and make it
• 1:32:24
  20. I can.
• 1:32:25
  I can get rid of 80 kids real quick with my style, right?
• 1:32:29
  So you said it right. You know, you having those
• 1:32:31
  numbers, Well, that was built on hard work.
• 1:32:33
  That didn't just happen. So yeah, we might be good
• 1:32:36
  because of the numbers, but I had to get those numbers.
• 1:32:38
  Oh, and by the way, I still had to coach all those numbers as
• 1:32:40
  well. They don't just come out and
• 1:32:41
  magically end up when it say titles here.
• 1:32:44
  That's a a great point. It's it's it's one of those
• 1:32:46
  things that people don't realize you know when you're when you're
• 1:32:50
  a coach and and especially at house we had some great
• 1:32:54
  assistants and coaches that were working in Taos but it was a
• 1:32:58
  smaller group And so when you're in the beginning you may have a
• 1:33:01
  few athletes and it's great because you have you're starting
• 1:33:04
  to grow but you're not that big. Well once the numbers get big
• 1:33:09
  there's a lot that goes into that.
• 1:33:10
  You're having to manage that all of a sudden now if you wanna go
• 1:33:14
  long jump it's like now we have 5 long jumpers that have
• 1:33:18
  qualified for state but you have 15 boy long jumpers.
• 1:33:22
  Well you know pit time you know like an eyes on and and so
• 1:33:26
  things change and then in Los Alamos it's that's the way it
• 1:33:29
  goes. You know we we we get these kids
• 1:33:31
  out and still a process of going out and talking to coaches and
• 1:33:34
  getting support from other sports coaches to have kids
• 1:33:36
  promote them to come out for track.
• 1:33:38
  But you have these numbers and you know kind of fast forwarding
• 1:33:42
  in that sense is when you build success then there's a lot of
• 1:33:47
  other issues I wouldn't say problems but issues that that
• 1:33:50
  come with that and and that comes into relay spots.
• 1:33:53
  It's very it's Uber competitive it's it's you know
• 1:33:58
  individualizing those those programs for that.
• 1:34:00
  I mean for us I mean the last two years I mean like just
• 1:34:05
  example for the girls 100 I mean we we had eight or nine girls in
• 1:34:09
  100 at state. You know we had five girls in
• 1:34:11
  the state final in in in the 200 this this is last year alone and
• 1:34:16
  so you're we're talking about having a girl who's in the state
• 1:34:20
  final Allstate athlete who's maybe not on your four by two.
• 1:34:25
  What does that do for for parents what does that do for,
• 1:34:28
  for that you're you're really having to navigate a whole lot
• 1:34:32
  of things when it when it comes into that we you have to have a
• 1:34:38
  program and a trust that's built in order to withstand those kind
• 1:34:42
  of rigors and and those kind of stresses and some people say
• 1:34:45
  those are great problems. They have.
• 1:34:47
  They are but it's they're still problems they're they're
• 1:34:51
  challenges And that didn't come just because we have numbers.
• 1:34:56
  I mean like I said the year before we got there, there was
• 1:34:59
  at the state final there was no girls in the the one and the two
• 1:35:03
  you know finals. And so you're going from
• 1:35:05
  building that, you know from a base and really the success at
• 1:35:09
  the top end of of. I feel like track and field, a
• 1:35:12
  lot of coaches do many things right.
• 1:35:14
  But it's the coaches who are turning those little screws at
• 1:35:17
  the end that you're able to have that that really good.
• 1:35:20
  Whether it's technically mental preparation and and kind of
• 1:35:24
  building that confidence, whether it's putting things
• 1:35:27
  together right, whatever it may be.
• 1:35:28
  But the coaches that are the most successful in my opinion
• 1:35:31
  are the ones that are able to to turn those screws and get the
• 1:35:34
  most out of their kids and to put them in the best positions
• 1:35:39
  to succeed or or maybe you, you know, the the foresight and
• 1:35:42
  saying, you know, I have I see that 8th grader coming up and
• 1:35:45
  she's the fastest kid. Well, we already have a couple
• 1:35:48
  of fast kids. Maybe we can turn her into a
• 1:35:50
  hurdler. You know maybe we, you know
• 1:35:52
  we're pushing these kids into these different areas and so you
• 1:35:55
  have a a well balanced team. You know last year I think the
• 1:35:59
  evidence of that of the staff and the program was we we want
• 1:36:03
  every event on the track you know at state so last year and.
• 1:36:08
  Every event, every single running event from sprints to
• 1:36:12
  distance to relays, everyone and then a few field events as well.
• 1:36:15
  So like it's not just oh you have a, you know, a Sprint
• 1:36:19
  program or oh your distance kids are good.
• 1:36:21
  It's it's a hard work of our staff to try and build from
• 1:36:26
  early preseason to to have this well-rounded team because that's
• 1:36:33
  what's going to to make things. You know you may have a
• 1:36:36
  successful team is when when you're able to, you know, have a
• 1:36:39
  little bit everywhere you know and really lean on different
• 1:36:42
  strengths and weaknesses. But you have to be active in in
• 1:36:45
  what you're thinking about there.
• 1:36:46
  Is this the best team you've had?
• 1:36:51
  Yeah. I mean it's funny, I think the
• 1:36:53
  girls these last couple years, you know, I think last year
• 1:36:58
  maybe in the four, it's it's grown.
• 1:37:00
  I mean like I going into the season I'm saying you know this
• 1:37:03
  could be the best team that Las Amos has ever had and then you
• 1:37:05
  say it again the next year. But it's the truth.
• 1:37:07
  You know, you you, you were bringing back a lot of girls
• 1:37:09
  next year some some talented athletes you know, athletes who
• 1:37:14
  like even in the long jump we have the the last well, I guess
• 1:37:20
  the ones graduated this year. But in the last three years, the
• 1:37:23
  long jump alone, we've had three state champion every year.
• 1:37:26
  But they've been different girls and we had one girl who didn't
• 1:37:29
  even long jump this year and and she would have been in the mix.
• 1:37:31
  So like there's a lot coming back but you're always looking
• 1:37:35
  at that. But when I look at best teams
• 1:37:37
  that I've ever coached you know these it's it's hard to compare
• 1:37:41
  right apples and oranges. But you know in Taos we had some
• 1:37:45
  some some dominant years, a couple of years that there was a
• 1:37:48
  wide margin and and but I think where I really wanted to go in
• 1:37:53
  my later years in Taos and also in Los Alamos is that we're in
• 1:37:57
  the the second biggest class and so there's a class that's
• 1:37:59
  bigger. I don't really get caught up in
• 1:38:02
  being like the best team in New Mexico or the best team in for a
• 1:38:05
  I talked about being the premier but the team in New Mexico.
• 1:38:08
  But that's more of just being you know from a professionalism
• 1:38:12
  and from trying to to build a program that doesn't necessarily
• 1:38:16
  mean X&O's is the best but to to try and be the most successful
• 1:38:19
  that we can be. But it's kind of superseded that
• 1:38:22
  to where I want these athletes to think about what's next or or
• 1:38:27
  what's what's high on that. Like Okay 4A is fine but what
• 1:38:30
  about 5A? You know.
• 1:38:31
  And and I think that's over the last couple years where we've
• 1:38:34
  gone, we've tried to schedule and been fortunate enough to
• 1:38:36
  schedule our track meets where we're competing against all
• 1:38:39
  classes. And last year we went to
• 1:38:41
  Chandler and and we went and want to meet in Texas and El
• 1:38:44
  Paso and. And so just trying to go to
• 1:38:48
  different places because the truth is, is there is a
• 1:38:50
  complacency that takes place with with your athletes once
• 1:38:53
  they start having success. And it's not to diminish New
• 1:38:57
  Mexico but we say okay that was great.
• 1:38:59
  You want districts or state. But if you want to go to college
• 1:39:04
  and you want to compete, well, guess what.
• 1:39:06
  There's a lot of beasts up north.
• 1:39:07
  There's great athletes in New Mexico.
• 1:39:10
  Absolutely. But there's also great athletes
• 1:39:12
  in Colorado and there is in Texas.
• 1:39:14
  And you know, when we still go to North Carolina and in
• 1:39:16
  California and in Oregon, you know, so you have all these
• 1:39:19
  athletes that are that are there and and you start wanting them
• 1:39:22
  to start thinking outside the box, not only because it gives
• 1:39:25
  them opportunities for college, but it also helps them to not be
• 1:39:29
  be complacent. That's a great point.
• 1:39:31
  You know, winning is hard. I think especially in track and
• 1:39:34
  field, we forget that sometimes because we have, you know on the
• 1:39:37
  college level, 20 something events.
• 1:39:38
  So there's always a, you know, but you know, a football game,
• 1:39:41
  there's only one winners. We don't really have that in
• 1:39:43
  track necessarily until you. It's like a conference title and
• 1:39:46
  stuff like that. So sometimes we forget winning
• 1:39:48
  is super, super hard. Winning twice is harder.
• 1:39:52
  Winning three times is harder, not only because you have a
• 1:39:56
  different mix of athletes. But to your point there, like
• 1:40:00
  you know, after three or four times, when were you dealing
• 1:40:01
  with 14 on your level here 1418 year old kids, even on the
• 1:40:04
  college level, 18 to 22 year old kids, they're still kids winning
• 1:40:08
  345 times in a row. I could easily see I put myself
• 1:40:11
  in my 17 year old self. I'm like, Oh well then I just,
• 1:40:13
  we're going to win next year. I mean it's what we've done for
• 1:40:15
  the past 2-3 four years. What?
• 1:40:18
  Why wouldn't we? Look, we got Johnny back, we're
• 1:40:20
  good. And it's like, Oh yeah, yeah,
• 1:40:22
  no, no. First of all, everything
• 1:40:23
  changes. Other people have different
• 1:40:25
  teams going on and maybe there's a new coach or whatever.
• 1:40:28
  You got to still be at your your premiere, your excellence to
• 1:40:32
  what you're doing out there to win, especially in track and
• 1:40:33
  field where it's the, you know, Manoyamato, there's only, it's
• 1:40:36
  only you. There is no handing off to a
• 1:40:38
  running back. It's you're either going to win
• 1:40:39
  the 100 or you're not or you're going to win the long jump or
• 1:40:41
  not and that's going to be 10 points or not.
• 1:40:43
  And you know you've got to pull the whole team together for
• 1:40:45
  that. What you know somewhere out
• 1:40:49
  there right now is they're listening is a is a coach of a
• 1:40:53
  program not necessarily back to your towel stays where you know
• 1:40:59
  you've got 2345 kids and you got to build the program but maybe
• 1:41:02
  they're they're in the middle they're getting kids to state
• 1:41:05
  they're they're doing fine. You know that that's that's a
• 1:41:07
  big deal. That's a good maybe they've had
• 1:41:08
  to stay champion and maybe they're winning a conference
• 1:41:11
  maybe, but they're trying to get to that next level like how you
• 1:41:14
  said it to the next level of whether it's winning conference
• 1:41:17
  more consistently or it's getting more kids to state and
• 1:41:20
  becoming a trophy team top three.
• 1:41:22
  What advice would you give for that high school coach that's
• 1:41:25
  listening now on getting over? I don't want to call it the hump
• 1:41:28
  because that's very successful where where I'm kind of putting
• 1:41:30
  this this coach at, but to take it to the next level to win a
• 1:41:34
  state title. Well, I think it's about
• 1:41:37
  learning the, well, two things is that you as a coach need to
• 1:41:43
  continue to grow. That's the the first thing and I
• 1:41:46
  think that's for me, that's a huge thing that I'm always
• 1:41:52
  studying and trying to to learn from my mistakes or to learn
• 1:41:56
  from others. People's mistakes and other
• 1:41:58
  people's strengths and their successes or my successes as a
• 1:42:03
  coach or our more importantly our our coaching staff.
• 1:42:07
  But you as a coach have to continue like.
• 1:42:11
  So back to what we're saying about carrying weight.
• 1:42:12
  I use that all the time. And I don't know if it's the the
• 1:42:14
  proper way to say it, but that's the way I think about it.
• 1:42:17
  Because if you as a coach aren't prepared to carry weight, and I
• 1:42:20
  don't mean like, you know, you're stressing and all this
• 1:42:23
  stuff, but I mean, you know, excitement.
• 1:42:25
  And if you're not, if you're not wanting to go and educate
• 1:42:29
  yourself to best practices in the long jump or the high jump.
• 1:42:33
  If if you're relegating yourself to saying I want to have a great
• 1:42:37
  relay. But you're not putting the
• 1:42:39
  effort into making that, you know, setting those kids up for
• 1:42:43
  success. Meaning you need to know the ins
• 1:42:45
  and outs. You need to be extremely
• 1:42:48
  knowledgeable about your craft. And that's a hard thing to say
• 1:42:51
  because we're talking about coaches, even at the collegiate
• 1:42:54
  level who maybe don't get paid a ton of money, or high school
• 1:42:56
  coaches who are doing things on the side and they they already
• 1:42:59
  give so much of themselves. And you're saying you need to
• 1:43:02
  give a little, not necessarily more, but you have to be able to
• 1:43:06
  really invest in that? And that's a hard thing to say
• 1:43:08
  because some coaches truly are invested and maybe the results
• 1:43:12
  aren't there. But first I would say is making
• 1:43:16
  sure that you are understanding your crap.
• 1:43:19
  You're knowledgeable and you're motivated and you're passionate
• 1:43:22
  and you're organized in terms of how you're delivering this
• 1:43:24
  information. You know, one of the things
• 1:43:26
  before I move on to the second thing I was going to say was,
• 1:43:29
  you know, as a coach it's not even I was you know talking
• 1:43:31
  about like regurgitating information and and I think
• 1:43:35
  that's where some coaches we get.
• 1:43:37
  Get caught up, even myself, where, you know, I go to Mike's
• 1:43:40
  podcast and I learn about a certain topic, right?
• 1:43:42
  Or I go to a clinic and I learn all these information and then I
• 1:43:45
  go home and I just start like little Johnny, as you said, and
• 1:43:49
  we're like, you need to do this, this, this, this, this, and you
• 1:43:51
  just give him all this information.
• 1:43:53
  You have to understand and learn kids and how they learn and and
• 1:43:56
  how they process that information and where they're
• 1:43:58
  at. Are you trying to tell them?
• 1:44:00
  A situation for Grant Holloway looking at a Grant Holloway
• 1:44:03
  workout. When you're when your athlete is
• 1:44:05
  having a hard time, you know not 5 stepping hurdles, you know
• 1:44:09
  they're still stuttering before everyone you know.
• 1:44:12
  And so you have to understand that and and be really aware of
• 1:44:16
  who you are and where your program is.
• 1:44:18
  But you have to push that envelope in terms of your
• 1:44:21
  knowledge base. You need to kind of hopefully
• 1:44:23
  try and hold and get your assistance and hold them
• 1:44:26
  knowledgeable. Sometimes your assistants
• 1:44:28
  aren't. Ex athletes, sometimes they're
• 1:44:31
  moms, they're parents and they do an amazing job and learning
• 1:44:35
  how to guide them and learning how to educate them and learning
• 1:44:40
  how to play off their strengths so that they can in fact putting
• 1:44:45
  them in the right position so they can feed into your kids and
• 1:44:48
  then. That's from a coaching
• 1:44:50
  standpoint. But from a a a student's
• 1:44:52
  perspective, you know or an athlete's perspective is you're
• 1:44:54
  trying to develop a a mindset that it's not only about winning
• 1:45:00
  and and losing. And that sounds kind of ironic
• 1:45:03
  coming from a program that's being very successful, but it's
• 1:45:05
  something that going into this next season, it's something that
• 1:45:08
  I have to really struggle with because what?
• 1:45:12
  How do you motivate an athlete who's a three time state
• 1:45:16
  champion in their event? How do you motivate an athlete
• 1:45:19
  who maybe kind of feel like they're plateauing out?
• 1:45:21
  You know, they've they've kind of stagnated and they've already
• 1:45:24
  won everything kind of in New Mexico, and they know they're
• 1:45:27
  going to come back and they're going to have a successful
• 1:45:28
  season, even if they don't really work as hard?
• 1:45:30
  How do you get them not only to just be good, but how do you get
• 1:45:33
  them to grow? And I feel it's the same way as
• 1:45:36
  a you do the same thing as an athlete who you're wanting who's
• 1:45:39
  just starting and it's learning, teaching them.
• 1:45:43
  To try and approach things always as we're getting.
• 1:45:45
  We're we're working to get better.
• 1:45:48
  You know we're we're trying to get better.
• 1:45:51
  As soon as we stop trying to get better, like I don't really care
• 1:45:54
  what better is for you for for you better might be being able
• 1:45:57
  to make the varsity squad, you know go to a meet for you it
• 1:46:00
  might be obtaining APR this season.
• 1:46:02
  You know, maybe the last two seasons you're running a mile or
• 1:46:05
  two mile and you know, you've kind of haven't really committed
• 1:46:08
  well this year. That's that's really focus on
• 1:46:10
  your fitness, you know, are you eating like?
• 1:46:13
  Pounds of candy you know let's just you know we're not going to
• 1:46:16
  get too much into that we're we don't have a dietitian on staff
• 1:46:18
  but we're just trying to get them to see like what are the
• 1:46:20
  little things that you can do studying and sleeping more and
• 1:46:24
  hydrating more and and you know just kind of buying in at
• 1:46:27
  practice doing these types of things and as a as a coach that
• 1:46:32
  is would be talking to a a newer coach that's just getting
• 1:46:37
  started is is don't sweat the small beginnings like don't
• 1:46:40
  don't whether that is the two or three kids.
• 1:46:43
  Or like you said where maybe a, A, a program that is trying to
• 1:46:46
  get over the hump. I know that a lot of people when
• 1:46:48
  we talk about team building, they kind of dismiss it.
• 1:46:51
  Even at clinics they'll say, oh, you know, culture and these
• 1:46:54
  things. And maybe some coaches will
• 1:46:55
  okay, we got 4th. I want to get third.
• 1:46:58
  How do I get third? You know, you know, stop all
• 1:47:01
  this pseudoscience, You know, how do we get third?
• 1:47:05
  What do we do? What's the, what's this training
• 1:47:07
  regimen? And I don't want it to sound
• 1:47:09
  like a cop out, but the truth is, is.
• 1:47:12
  Is you really have to look inwards first and find your
• 1:47:15
  weaknesses as a coach and an athlete first.
• 1:47:18
  Like, you know if you're a project manager and and you're
• 1:47:21
  looking at these things, you're looking at what is the glaring
• 1:47:25
  weaknesses, what are, what are the things that we need to do,
• 1:47:28
  you know, in order to not repeat the same mistakes.
• 1:47:32
  And so, you know, some coaches will say, well, I keep a diary.
• 1:47:35
  I, I, I, I have all my workouts. Well, first of all if you're a
• 1:47:38
  coach and you don't have everything written out your
• 1:47:40
  whole season and it's periodized, like that's
• 1:47:42
  something that you should start. That way you have direction and
• 1:47:45
  you have guidance. But more so it's you know where
• 1:47:48
  you're falling, you're you're, you're, you know where you're
• 1:47:51
  there's things that are falling through the the the the cracks.
• 1:47:54
  And so like for you Mike, you're coaching and you say, man, every
• 1:47:57
  year at State we just show up and we're flat.
• 1:48:00
  Well, if you start looking at it and you say, Oh well, you know
• 1:48:02
  what? That workout that I've been
• 1:48:04
  doing, you know there's that or or you just having being able to
• 1:48:08
  look at that. But if you're not really looking
• 1:48:11
  at what you're doing and you just say Johnny didn't care.
• 1:48:15
  Johnny was more excited about his girlfriend at the time.
• 1:48:18
  You know, he you know or or or or Betty.
• 1:48:20
  You know Betty just she's she's not a big meat athlete and you
• 1:48:24
  start doing these things. These could be true.
• 1:48:27
  These could, these things could be.
• 1:48:28
  There's all these things, the focus and whatnot.
• 1:48:30
  But if you're not putting your athletes to the best of your
• 1:48:34
  ability in in good positions in those positions to succeed and
• 1:48:37
  looking inwards first, then you're doing everybody a
• 1:48:41
  disservice. You know if I'm sending kids
• 1:48:44
  over to my high jump coach and they're not they're not doing
• 1:48:49
  well. You know oh we want every event
• 1:48:50
  on the track but high jump we didn't even have a you know you
• 1:48:53
  shop if if we're not as a head coach of of your program are you
• 1:48:58
  setting forth. Boundaries and is your preseason
• 1:49:01
  looking? Are the are the kids equipped to
• 1:49:03
  go and and participate in these events are they physically fit
• 1:49:08
  to go and participate in these are are you are you sending some
• 1:49:12
  of your best athletes over there?
• 1:49:13
  You know are are you hoarding if you're the Sprint coach and
• 1:49:16
  you're the head coach, but you're a Sprint coach, are you
• 1:49:18
  taking all these all the the best athletes And then your your
• 1:49:21
  middistance coach gets everyone who's can't really run distance
• 1:49:24
  and is not too fast. You know, I I would just say
• 1:49:28
  roundabout leaves just that. As a coach you have to really
• 1:49:31
  try and and look at yourself and really take inventory of
• 1:49:37
  everything that you're doing and constantly revisit it.
• 1:49:41
  And you know sometimes it's going to, it's going to reaffirm
• 1:49:45
  what you're doing and sometimes you're going to say maybe maybe
• 1:49:50
  we should try something different.
• 1:49:51
  But maybe there's something that I need to do a little different.
• 1:49:54
  You know, lots of great Nuggets there.
• 1:49:57
  The ones that stood out to me when I go to clinics and they're
• 1:50:00
  invariably is 9 talks on, you know what we did with our state
• 1:50:04
  championship long jumper last year.
• 1:50:06
  How do we run our Sprint program?
• 1:50:07
  How we run our distance program. And then invariably there's one
• 1:50:10
  or two that talks about well here's how we built the culture
• 1:50:13
  of Los Alamos track or what you know, insert school name there.
• 1:50:17
  There's a lot more people in those other nine than there are
• 1:50:19
  in that one. How many people are going, not
• 1:50:21
  as many coaches are going to that the culture talk or the
• 1:50:24
  team management talks than they are the individual, how to coach
• 1:50:28
  long jumpers. I think I thought that was
• 1:50:29
  really good that you pointed out there.
• 1:50:33
  Okay, Ernest, I'm going to ask a question I know you don't want
• 1:50:36
  to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway.
• 1:50:38
  So you win the state title, you win every stink and run an event
• 1:50:41
  at the state meet. That's crazy.
• 1:50:43
  It's ludicrous, by the way. That's like video game stuff,
• 1:50:45
  man. That's just nuts.
• 1:50:48
  You get either a call or or a letter from USTFCCCCA telling
• 1:50:52
  you that you're the national coach of the year.
• 1:50:54
  Tell us about that. Did you think it was a prank
• 1:50:55
  call? Like, yeah, right.
• 1:50:57
  Joe, is this you? My buddy?
• 1:50:58
  Whatever. What did that feel like when you
• 1:51:00
  were notified? Yeah, I mean I want to say that
• 1:51:05
  when I first gone that after track, sometimes it's you know
• 1:51:08
  especially this year there was a lot going on in my personal life
• 1:51:10
  and so there was, there was so much commotion and and after
• 1:51:13
  following through through summer track it was kind of like I need
• 1:51:16
  to. We need to have that healthy
• 1:51:18
  break. There was a lot of things that
• 1:51:19
  need to get taken care of and so we ended up finding out about
• 1:51:26
  it. I don't know.
• 1:51:26
  I think initially I think I found out and I felt like it was
• 1:51:29
  like the state coach of the year.
• 1:51:32
  And so it was kind of like, that's great, you know, But back
• 1:51:35
  to what I said before is I have a lot of amazing athletes and
• 1:51:40
  coaches and parents and like people that have.
• 1:51:45
  We've worked together over the years and so these coach are the
• 1:51:47
  year awards. I mean you don't you don't have
• 1:51:50
  the success without these without this this team and you
• 1:51:54
  don't have the success without these amazing in our in in this
• 1:51:57
  case these amazing girls who have dedicated so much time and
• 1:52:01
  effort into doing that. And so when I first hear that, I
• 1:52:04
  think it's great, but I just feel like it's more, it's more
• 1:52:07
  for you know just in the program as a whole, you know it's it's
• 1:52:10
  it's a sign that. We're in a healthy position and
• 1:52:15
  it's I can't say that it was like you know I I I feel that
• 1:52:21
  not to diminish the award and then I started realizing the
• 1:52:25
  boys coach, coach Steven Montoya who's who's great and that's
• 1:52:28
  something that would be cool to talk about at some point but
• 1:52:30
  it's you know coach, coach Montoya and I we actually have
• 1:52:32
  some differences in in training philosophies but in many
• 1:52:36
  different ways like in how we we go about things.
• 1:52:40
  You know he's just an awesome coach as well on the boys side
• 1:52:44
  and and they've won three in a row so there's just something
• 1:52:48
  good going on the boys had had it while and but you know he's
• 1:52:52
  the one who who also sent me the the kind of the link and he's
• 1:52:57
  always very gracious and in kind of publishing those types of
• 1:53:02
  things and so finding out that it I I just feel.
• 1:53:07
  Like, I like to shy away from not really having my face there
• 1:53:11
  And in a sense, obviously sometimes doing these podcasts
• 1:53:15
  or stuff. And that's in the newspaper
• 1:53:18
  because I'd rather the focus be somewhere else.
• 1:53:22
  I guess Stephen Toy and I are good Twitter buddies.
• 1:53:25
  So. Oh, yeah, I know him really
• 1:53:27
  well. That's that's that's one of my
• 1:53:28
  guys there. I love him.
• 1:53:30
  Hey, I told you you didn't want to answer that question.
• 1:53:32
  That's why I was like, I'm going to ask it anybody.
• 1:53:33
  But I know you don't want to answer, so I'm going to let you
• 1:53:35
  answer it in a much better way, a much more fitting to you,
• 1:53:38
  Ernest Martinez way. So we almost called this podcast
• 1:53:41
  instead of the Gill Athletics Connections podcast.
• 1:53:43
  We almost called it the Gill Athletics Shoutout podcast.
• 1:53:46
  So let us know who give us some shout outs of your staff people
• 1:53:50
  that were instrumental whether it's boosters, president,
• 1:53:53
  principal tell us who because you're right.
• 1:53:55
  I much prefer like especially in the college conference side when
• 1:53:59
  they give out a coaching staff of the year award versus a coach
• 1:54:03
  of the year because it you're not coaching every single event.
• 1:54:05
  I'm sorry, I don't care how great you are.
• 1:54:07
  Even you Mr. DE Kathleen, you were not coaching every event.
• 1:54:10
  It takes the entire staff and especially in high school, it
• 1:54:12
  takes principals and teachers and boosters, parents, this
• 1:54:17
  whole amalgamation to make this state title.
• 1:54:19
  So give us some shoutouts on and I know you're going to miss
• 1:54:21
  people. We can go ahead and do the
• 1:54:22
  apology. I know if I forget you it's not
• 1:54:24
  because you know I I'm putting them on the spot here.
• 1:54:26
  Do not he's, you know him better than I do.
• 1:54:29
  He ain't shading anybody because he forgets it.
• 1:54:31
  I'm putting them on the spot here.
• 1:54:32
  Give us some shoutouts from this amazing year, Coach.
• 1:54:34
  Yeah, I mean this last year and and kind of been there coach
• 1:54:37
  Stephen and Montoya and his wife Lindsay or distance coaches and
• 1:54:41
  so you know them taking that. That distance program with the
• 1:54:45
  help of Blake Wood his wife Rebecca who is kind of does
• 1:54:48
  those little behind the scenes things with stats.
• 1:54:51
  Awesome love. Then Blake else takes wonderful
• 1:54:53
  pictures for our team. Just just awesome there.
• 1:54:56
  With that we have assistant coach who helps me out with with
• 1:55:00
  two of them to help me out with with sprints and hurdles is
• 1:55:03
  Amber Coffee Mary Ann Novak Coach Cotter.
• 1:55:07
  He's our horizontal, obviously some more horizontal jumps.
• 1:55:10
  Charles Cotter and. Christy Kelly, she, she works
• 1:55:15
  PT. So, I mean come on.
• 1:55:17
  And we have someone who works in the hospital works with that.
• 1:55:20
  She's, she works high jump with our athletes.
• 1:55:22
  I mean that's an invaluable resource.
• 1:55:24
  You know, you have someone on staff that can can really just
• 1:55:27
  kick butt in that sense from the throws perspective.
• 1:55:30
  We have coach Robbie Harris who did kind of helps out with our
• 1:55:35
  javelin. And then coach Scott who
• 1:55:37
  actually Bob Scott who was a long time throws coaching and at
• 1:55:42
  Los Alamos kept him on staff. He actually retired this year.
• 1:55:45
  This is this last season so we're going to miss him.
• 1:55:48
  But a a man that that coached with him Patrick, Pat, Luceau.
• 1:55:54
  He's going to be kind of taking over and and and doing that but
• 1:55:57
  I mean there's so many other coaches in there you know that
• 1:55:59
  that help out our middle school coaches and and also you know we
• 1:56:03
  have. People like our our booster club
• 1:56:05
  you know this year you know Pam Lee and and was a role and and
• 1:56:11
  her Pam's husband Richard and and Amber Coffey we mentioned as
• 1:56:15
  a coach she's on on booster and and Amy Yost who is additionally
• 1:56:19
  on our booster. But like as you can tell in Los
• 1:56:22
  Alamos, there's just a lot of of people that are just, you know,
• 1:56:26
  around that that program that are.
• 1:56:28
  That are so helpful in terms of of spreading out that that
• 1:56:33
  workload in our administration just getting the just the things
• 1:56:36
  that we want to so and the things that we need sometimes we
• 1:56:38
  don't want them the things that that we need yeah I I can't
• 1:56:42
  speak enough about some of those those people that even there's a
• 1:56:46
  a man that's it's on the boys team so he doesn't really even
• 1:56:48
  coach on the girls side but his name is Daniel Dunning he's an
• 1:56:52
  awesome guy and. You know, I think not to to
• 1:56:56
  regress, but like, it's the people that you can spit track
• 1:56:59
  with and that you can bounce ideas with.
• 1:57:02
  And I had those people in Taos as well, you know, Nando and
• 1:57:04
  Coach Mitchell and Belladio and those guys.
• 1:57:06
  All those awesome people that that we coached up Rahm Patiya
• 1:57:12
  and Coach T, but these these coaches that when you're riding
• 1:57:16
  the bus home and you're just. You know you know it's just that
• 1:57:20
  that feeling that you're you're talking about track and field
• 1:57:23
  you're excited about track and field and that really breeds
• 1:57:25
  success. So without them I I really want
• 1:57:28
  to shout out you know family you know loved ones girlfriend you
• 1:57:32
  know that that just completely support you you know as a as a
• 1:57:37
  track coach like this especially you know when you're super
• 1:57:40
  involved you know feel sorry for her she it's kind of like you're
• 1:57:43
  always gone you know especially during that that year and and
• 1:57:47
  you know. It's selfish in that way because
• 1:57:50
  you're you're you're pouring out and you're giving of yourself
• 1:57:53
  but you're also you know you're absent in in many of those ways
• 1:57:57
  that that you're you're working all week and then your weekends
• 1:58:01
  are gone And so you know for people to support you and to
• 1:58:06
  support those things that you love it's it's amazing to have
• 1:58:09
  people in your life that that are able to to do that and like
• 1:58:12
  my my parents and. They're the ones who always
• 1:58:15
  wanna post things about me or post all that you guys want or
• 1:58:19
  this stuff and I'm just like okay.
• 1:58:21
  That's fine. But they're proud of you and
• 1:58:24
  it's very even though I don't like being in that, it's awesome
• 1:58:29
  to know that you have that support group and those people
• 1:58:32
  that are there. Yeah, the lesson there is it the
• 1:58:35
  proverbial it takes a village, any coach out there, regardless
• 1:58:39
  of how whatever you're considering successes, whether
• 1:58:42
  you're winning a state title or you're having one kid go to
• 1:58:44
  state or you're winning conference are you're putting
• 1:58:46
  all conference athletes out there.
• 1:58:47
  Whatever you're doing, you're doing, you're being a success
• 1:58:50
  because you're making the positive impact on young people.
• 1:58:52
  And we need that more than ever today in 2023.
• 1:58:55
  So please know that what you do as a high school track and field
• 1:58:59
  coach is it's it's invaluable. It's immeasurable what you do
• 1:59:02
  out there and I think to your point there, Ernest, about that,
• 1:59:04
  that community, you're not alone.
• 1:59:07
  You know, that's kind of the, the weird part of these these
• 1:59:09
  awards is again, it's very singular.
• 1:59:11
  Ernest Martinez won the National Girls High School Coach of the
• 1:59:14
  Year award. However, Ernest Martinez did not
• 1:59:17
  do this on his own. He had literally 100 people
• 1:59:21
  working together from your athletes and parents and
• 1:59:24
  teachers and assistant coaches to help culminate in the season.
• 1:59:29
  The the, the point I want to stress here is that in the same
• 1:59:33
  vein of of any coaches listening and you know Ernest, so speaking
• 1:59:36
  directly to you, when you feel the weight of all that you
• 1:59:39
  talked about carrying the weight, when you feel that
• 1:59:40
  stress and that pressure, that it's all on me.
• 1:59:43
  If I don't get this done, if this doesn't have it, if I don't
• 1:59:45
  make this happen etcetera. Well that's not true.
• 1:59:48
  We have to make sure for our own mental health, for our
• 1:59:50
  longevity. Ernest, I want you know you're
• 1:59:52
  you're in year tenish, fifteenish somewhere in that.
• 1:59:58
  Probably. I think it's now it's 13.
• 2:00:01
  Yeah. So you're you're in that 13, I
• 2:00:02
  want you to be coaching 20 years from now, 30 years from now, 40
• 2:00:06
  years from now, God willing with health and and everything else,
• 2:00:09
  right. But to do that, you've got to be
• 2:00:12
  able to understand the long term and be able to know that you
• 2:00:14
  have people to to bounce off of to, to to help, to envision
• 2:00:20
  etcetera. So I just love that you know
• 2:00:24
  that lesson that you gave there about like it wasn't me.
• 2:00:26
  You were part of it. You're absolutely piece of that
• 2:00:30
  puzzle. But it is a puzzle.
• 2:00:31
  There are lots of lots of other people that have to be involved
• 2:00:34
  to create success for these young people.
• 2:00:35
  So earnest man I'm so grateful for you.
• 2:00:38
  I'm so grateful that you won this award to get on the
• 2:00:41
  podcast. I mean to be able to get to know
• 2:00:42
  you and your story to know that you went to all Roberts.
• 2:00:45
  I mean come on with the dials man.
• 2:00:46
  It's just so amazing. If you're listening in a couple
• 2:00:50
  of weeks we'll be at the USTFCCCA convention.
• 2:00:53
  We'll Earnest will be there to receive his award, which I just
• 2:00:56
  know. You can't wait to get on stage
• 2:00:57
  in front of all those people. Yeah, I know exactly.
• 2:01:01
  But to come by, we're excited. We're actually going to do a
• 2:01:04
  live podcast there again. We did it last year in 2022.
• 2:01:07
  We're going to do it in 2023, December 11th at 5:30 PM Denver
• 2:01:11
  time. So Ernest, if you're there,
• 2:01:13
  that's a Monday. If you're there that Monday, I
• 2:01:15
  want you to pop by. We just kind of rotate everybody
• 2:01:18
  in for 5 minutes. Just it's real quick, much
• 2:01:19
  easier than this gauntlet you've been through today.
• 2:01:23
  So but check us out. I'll have the link down below as
• 2:01:26
  well for the URL. If you can't make it to Denver,
• 2:01:28
  we'll be live on YouTube. Check us out over there.
• 2:01:30
  But Ernest, man, thank you. You know, I know how busy
• 2:01:34
  anybody is in any time frame. So for you to take the time to
• 2:01:38
  be able to sit down with us for, wow, 2 hour, that went by fast
• 2:01:41
  for me. I'm not sure about you.
• 2:01:42
  But two hours and you know, kind of pour your life out, man.
• 2:01:46
  It's it's super valuable and super humbled that you would
• 2:01:49
  join us. And I'm just so grateful for not
• 2:01:51
  only this year but all the years that you've done and the young
• 2:01:54
  people that you've impacted positively, man, that again,
• 2:01:56
  that's it's a bigger goal than just winning a state title.
• 2:01:59
  It's the people that you help push out to society that all
• 2:02:02
  become moms and dads and business owners, owners and
• 2:02:04
  teachers and behavioral scientists.
• 2:02:07
  They all become something contributable, positively
• 2:02:09
  contribute to society because of the impact that you make on
• 2:02:12
  them. And so I'm so grateful for you,
• 2:02:14
  and just so thankful for what you do.
• 2:02:17
  Awesome. Thank you for having me out here
• 2:02:18
  and appreciate it. Awesome man.
• 2:02:20
  Thank you guys for being here, listening.
• 2:02:21
  Check us out next week. So we're going to have, we did
• 2:02:24
  the girls coach of the year. So it's only fair, right?
• 2:02:26
  We're going to have the boys coach of the year next week.
• 2:02:27
  Check us out, come back and we'll do it all over again and
• 2:02:29
  have some fun and then we'll see you in Denver.
• 2:02:31
  All right. Have a good day everybody.
• 2:04:03
  Stop.