Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #313: Chad Blank-Clarinda (IA) High School

Transcript

#313: Chad Blank-Clarinda (IA) High School · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world UNL tuned
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  in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message for Gil Athletics Connections.
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  Yo, you're back right here on the Gil Connections podcast.
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  I'm so pumped. We're recording this on a
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  Friday. I don't know you're listening to
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  this on a Monday, so hopefully you don't have the Monday Blues,
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  but man, we've got the Friday yeas.
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  I'm super excited. We're going to hop right into
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  this. Help me welcome the head coach
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  from Clarinda High School. We're going to learn more about
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  where because you're I know you're already asking where in
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  the world is Clarinda High School?
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  It's in Iowa. We're going to learn more from
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  the head coach there. Help me welcome the wise, the
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  wonderful Mr. Chad Blake. Chad.
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  How are you, Sir? Doing great today Mike, how you
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  doing? Man, like I said, it's Friday,
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  baby. And you know what?
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  This is my job so I'm always doing good got.
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  To be one of the best gigs in the world.
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  Just got to talk track all day, you know?
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  It's hard to complain. It really is.
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  It's got, you know, if I'm complaining, it's about
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  something petty. It's like, oh man, you know, I
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  didn't get my my filet for lunch or something.
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  I don't know. I don't need I got some leftover
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  spaghetti here in a little bit, but so tell us Chad, where is
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  you know, where in the world is Clarinda High School Clarinda,
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  IA. Yeah, Clarinda, we're in the
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  southwest part of the state here.
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  We're about 5-10 miles from Missouri, about 30 miles from
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  Nebraska. So we're pretty tucked down in
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  here, really. There's not a lot of reasons to
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  come to Clarinda unless you want to go to Clarinda.
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  Yeah. So not, not a town you're just
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  going to drive through for whatever reason, you know?
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  First thing we learned is Chad does not work for the visitors
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  Bureau of Clarinda. Yeah, don't tell the mayor.
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  Don't tell the mayor. I assume, you know, it's Iowa.
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  There's a lot of small towns and you know, we know of Des Moines
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  and Ames and Iowa City and things like that.
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  Davenport We don't really know much about Clinton, so pretty
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  small town. Yeah, we're about 5000.
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  So if you want to go do your shopping, you're probably gonna
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  have to drive to Council Bluffs, Omaha area, maybe down to Saint
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  Joe's. So you got to make a hall if you
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  want to kind of do a shopping day.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  We don't have a Walmart here in town.
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  We got to drive about 20 minutes for a Walmart.
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  We go No. So, you know, you gotta, you
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  gotta make some trips every once in a while.
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  How far is Council Bluffs? It's about an hour.
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  Oh yeah, yeah, OK. Council Bluffs.
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  So it's funny, I grew up in a small town in Alabama.
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  I think we had, when I was there, maybe 7-8 thousand
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  people. And it really resonated with me
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  when you said we don't even have a Walmart.
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  Like that's kind of the basis. Like we had just gotten a
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  Walmart when I got to high school there.
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  So I was like, oh, it's a big deal.
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  So it's funny, small town, not antics, but you know, kind of
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  economics. We got a Walmart.
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  We're good. That's how you justify your
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  population, yeah. That's it, that's it, that's it,
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  that's it. Well, man, thanks again for
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  being here today. You know, you got a lot going on
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  in your life, man. So I'm really, really grateful
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  for you being here. And we're just excited to learn
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  more about you and talk some track and maybe we can, you
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  know, we want to uplift and honor what you do as a track and
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  field coach, and we want to bring as much value as possible
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  to those who listen to us. I think we're going to think I'm
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  feeling good about this one. I feel like we're going to
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  extract a lot of good stuff here, man.
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  So Chad, get us started, man. Let's get in our Wayback Machine
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  and find out about you. Where does track and field start
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  for you? Maybe I'm assuming you were a
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  track athlete, but we're learning that not everybody was
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  a track athlete. Whose coaches?
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  Where does it begin? Yeah, well, I'm going way back.
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  I remember going to maybe like some small town youth meets when
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  I was when I was a kid. I remember Hamburg put one on
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  and on a gravel track, which those are still a thing around
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  here. Sometimes we have an all way on
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  track, but I remember run on a gravel track.
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  I ran on a gravel track all the way through high school.
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  Even what was our home track was gravel.
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  So yeah, I ran a few youth meets.
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  I remember not being so bad at it.
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  I guess I was more into other sports when I was younger.
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  And then, you know, middle school, you know, you actually
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  get the school team. You know, I'm like, hey, I'm
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  not, I'm really not too bad at this.
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  So and then in high school, at the start, it kind of became a
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  thing where it's like, OK, I understand how this is going to
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  help me in football, basketball, you know, baseball and all these
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  other things. I can get more explosive.
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  I can get more athletic and then, you know, my sophomore
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  year we got a really good coach. She was actually a pole vaulter
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  and sprinter at Mizzou. So it was really blessed to have
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  her as a coach there through my sophomore and junior year.
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  And that's when I really was like, hey, I think track can be
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  something that I can I can do not just be something I'm doing
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  to stay in shape or get more explosive, but I think I can do
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  this a little bit. So you know, that's for me is
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  really when it started, probably sophomore through that junior
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  year is when it really started to click, you know, and call
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  just started calling and things like that.
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  So yeah, sophomore, junior year, really, really started taking it
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  serious. So you mentioned other sports,
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  you were playing other sports as well.
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  Yeah, yeah, I was A4 sport athlete all the way through
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  football, basketball, track, baseball.
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  Love to do. That all right.
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  Yeah, I was in band as well. I was in a play.
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  I just like to do stuff. I just like to be in things.
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  Well, one, I know that's a little bit of a small town
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  mentality because if you don't, there's no teams, right?
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  But I love that, you know, because we talk about the value
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  of multi sport athletes, right? Not just for the school and for
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  the team, but for the for the athlete, right?
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  Our local high school here where I live in, in Mahomet, IL, just
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  outside of Champaign. They do, it's such a big like
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  culture part for them. They when you walk into the
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  field house, they've got a plaque every year that says,
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  Hey, here are the 2 sport athletes at our school.
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  You know, there's a there's a ton of names and then they have
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  one for three sport athletes and then they have one for four.
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  And you know, there's only like one or two.
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  Like that's a rarity to play four and the band for crying out
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  loud. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely even
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  becoming more rare. And you know, I graduated, I
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  think there was 26 kids in my graduating class, went to a
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  super small high. School we.
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  Had less than 100 so it was like, you know, if you if the
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  athletes aren't going out for everything, we're not going to
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  be very good so you know the the same starting 5 for basketball
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  most of the time those guys were starting in football, they were
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  starting in baseball they were on our 4 but you know it was all
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  those things so you just had to go out for things and you know
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  kind of build a little bit of school pride that way too you
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  know you get really prideful for for what you got and but. 26.
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  26, 26. Dude, I graduated with like, I
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  think like 126 actually, which is not huge by any stretch.
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  I immediately moved to Chicago after that small town in
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  Alabama. And I was talking with one of my
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  fraternity brothers and he went to school at one of the big
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  schools in Chicago. And he gets his yearbook out and
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  he's kind of looking through it. And I was like, it's like, dude,
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  how many kids did you graduate? And I think he said something
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  like 1000 or 1200. You know, I couldn't fathom
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  that, right? You know, a small town, guys.
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  I'm like, so for 26, you knew, I mean, obviously you knew
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  everybody in your you knew everybody in the school, right?
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  100%, yeah. So out of 125 in my senior
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  class, I knew, I think I knew everybody and I knew probably
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  the vast majority of the entire school, maybe some freshmen I
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  didn't know, right. So I asked them.
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  I was like, I was like, so how did you know everybody?
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  Like, you know, 1000 in your class?
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  And then you know the whole school.
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  And he just laughed. He goes, dude know everybody in
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  the school. He goes, I didn't know everybody
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  in my class just like that. I I couldn't fathom.
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  Yeah, fathom that. Now the reverse is I can't
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  fathom 26 either. I mean, right?
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  26 is all. I mean, I, I know everybody.
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  I know everyone's siblings. I know everyone's parents.
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  I know what their parents do for a job like, you know what I
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  mean? You just know everything about
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  everybody. So it it is nuts.
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  Yeah. So tell me more.
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  As you said, the sophomore junior year kind of feels like
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  this important transition of like, yeah, I'm on the track
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  team now. It's like, oh, no, I'm I'm a
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  track athletes. Tell us more about this coach.
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  She came from Missouri. Yeah, yeah, she, yeah, she ran a
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  Mizzou. So we did a lot of more quality
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  based work. You know, we actually split into
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  event groups too, which sounds funny with that small of school,
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  but we actually like, hey, sprinters are doing this, Mids
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  is doing this and you know, a lot of small schools just like,
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  hey, we're all just going to do a workout together.
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  So we kind of split into things and really started to to work on
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  being a sprinter in a bumper and things like that.
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  And it's kind of a late bloomer too.
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  So into that sophomore junior year started to get, you know,
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  just stronger in the weight room too and things like that.
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  And you know, for me, one thing that really started to click is
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  district's my sophomore year, I was 20, so top 24 basically make
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  state top 2 auto and then the next 12 I was that 25th person
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  and it was like point O something I remember.
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  I mean that that hurt. I wanted it.
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  I was in the open one against two of my rivals who were
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  seniors and I wanted to beat them so bad and I almost got
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  them. I remember that I was like my
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  mindset really changed. I was like, this is something I
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  want to do. I don't want this feeling
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  anymore like I want to be a guy. So that I, I vividly remember
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  that and was like going back through, hey, all these reps and
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  practice that maybe I didn't go 100%.
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  Maybe I went back just trying to really change that mindset.
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  And you know, I lean back on that a lot of like a really
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  changing point, not only in track, but other sports tools.
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  Like if I want to be good I got to go do it.
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  You know, I can't think of the word I want to use to describe
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  that. I can only think of the
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  opposite. You know, some athletes have
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  some entitlement. So when they when they miss out
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  by point O one or by one place, it's like, well, this isn't the
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  sport for me, like I'm better at footballer, but you showed the
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  opposite of like that seems like a real like almost trigger point
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  of like, Oh, this ain't happening again.
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  Like whatever I can do to like it.
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  This kind of challenged you. 100% and that's something it's
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  just kind of how I was raised. My dad would like to hear that
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  he was he was hard on me. I remember, you know, coming
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  back from games, even even in middle school, like you know, he
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  would never no excuses. Like your performance is on you
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  and if you want to be good, you got to go do it.
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  And you know, if you lose, you got to look in the mirror, you
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  got to reflect and how you're going to get better.
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  No excuses. And that's really my favorite
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  thing about track is you can't have excuses.
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  It's on you. If you want to be good, you
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  better, you better have some good self reflection skills.
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  So you know, I always took that as a challenge.
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  And I really don't care if I'm playing darts or pool or golf or
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  anything in between. I want to win and it's just kind
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  of how I'm wired. So someone beats me.
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  I want to do whatever I can to beat them.
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  That's. Cool.
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  Do you remember coach's name? That sophomore?
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  Junior. Yeah.
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  Tommy Linhart. Yeah, yeah.
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  Tommy. Tommy yeah.
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  TO my E, yeah. Oh cool.
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  And she's Mizzou. That's awesome.
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  We, we love shout outs for other coaches, so we'll keep that in
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  mind. Now.
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  Just the two years though, for for Coach Tommy.
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  Yes, yes. So into my senior year, she
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  actually had a kid like the week before track started.
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  He wasn't able to coach, which hurt me.
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  You know, you get all the success with the coach.
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  And then we got another coach, Al Doble, who was actually one
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  of our assistant football coaches.
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  Still a great track coach, Much different philosophy on things.
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  Went from more, you know, Sprint based focus to we're going to
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  run really hard, we're going to run a lot.
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  And I think that's and that's fine.
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  You know, everyone has a different philosophies and I
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  think that's the first time in my life that I really started to
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  think about training philosophies and how it's going
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  to affect me because I became more of a 204 hundred guy there
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  into my senior year. My two and four got way faster
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  than junior year. My 100 actually got slightly
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  slower. And I remember just thinking
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  why? And that to me might have really
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  kind of been a a turning point to of that more coach mind says
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  like that's, you know, you're a high school boy.
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  I'm just going to go work hard and do what my coach says now to
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  Hey, if we train this way, I get better at this.
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  If we train this way, I get better at this.
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  I can't remember which guest it was, forgive me, you know, after
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  300 episodes, but one guest that we had on, I distinctly remember
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  had a different coach, I think it was in college, but had a
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  different coach every year. And I was like, oh, right.
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  That's I was like, oh man, that's kind of stink, you know,
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  And you know, because I think we would all say like, you know,
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  what are the questions we talk about with recruiting for
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  college coaches is like, you know, asking the college coach,
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  well, how long are you going to be here?
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  Like I, you know, and which is always a crazy question because
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  you know what they're always going to give you the answer of,
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  yeah, forever, you know, whatever.
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  But so I you know, I told the guest like, oh man, that that
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  stocks man. You know, you look back, you
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  probably would want the other. He goes, you know, maybe he
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  goes, but I got to see four different styles, which made me
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  start understanding like, oh, coaching is not just some kind
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  of science formula that that there is different ways.
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  And that led me to coaching. I wonder, you know, I think if
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  we went back with it said, Oh, I wish coach Tommy would have
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  coached your senior year as well.
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  Like he would have said, yes, I want that.
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  But instead, I wonder if this unlocked this could sounds like
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  an unlocking for you of like, oh, wait a minute, Maybe there's
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  you know, there's something to this coaching gig.
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  Yeah, I think so, for sure. And you know, like it's
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  personality wise and training wise, like everything was, was a
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  lot different. And you know, as as a kid who
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  wants to has high goals and was hoping, you know, the coach he'd
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  had the last two years would coach him a senior year and
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  everything. Like I remember that like
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  playing like a big role psychologically for me.
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  And, you know, but I still trusted, I still trusted Coach
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  Doble. He coached me on other things,
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  you know, and I just had to buy into what he was doing.
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  And I definitely became a different runner throughout that
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  year for sure. Not in a bad way, just just
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  different. And I think that absolutely kind
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  of kind of sparked the the coaching, the coaching side of
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  me really thinking about philosophies and and different
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  things like that. As you are going through senior
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  year track season, so we start turning our eye to what college
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  am I going to go to and what am I going to major in.
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  Before I ask you about that step though, but as a senior, was
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  coaching as a profession at all in your mind at this point?
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  Kind of I wanted to go be a strength conditioning coach.
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  I didn't know if I really wanted to coach track.
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  I just knew I loved sports. I mean, if you see my senior
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  year, my favorite sport, I, I don't know if I would have been
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  able to answer you. I loved them all.
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  Whichever sport was in season, that's the one I like the most.
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  So like, how can I kind of be involved in all this?
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  So I thought, you know, maybe being a college strength
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  conditioning coach, being able to work with different teams,
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  that's kind of what I wanted to go do, but I didn't know
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  coaching track definitely was not something I thought I'd do
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  all right. I was always kind of a track
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  junkie. I love the numbers of it.
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  I was always on, you know, it used to be quick stats down to
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  varsity bound. I'm always looking at that, you
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  know, and who ran what each night.
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  So. Help us get some time frame
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  here. What year did you graduate high
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  school? 2016.
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  Oh dude, Chad Jesus, Oh my God, 2016 I.
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  Get that? Yeah, I get that.
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  Yeah. I mean, I knew you're young.
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  Look at, you know, you're young. But 2016 I started I started
• 14:00
  Gill in 2006. Yeah.
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  So my my 10 year anniversary, I get my plaque and you're
• 14:07
  graduating high school. That's where we're at in life.
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  Yeah, yeah, that's I love that. Thanks for that 2016.
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  Amazing What? OK, perfect.
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  I love that. I love that you're you know,
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  you're painting this picture. I can see this now.
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  You're just a you're a sports dude, man.
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  Oh, we're in basketball season. Love it.
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  Let's watch the playoffs. Let's make the playoffs.
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  Track season. Cool.
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  What about the Olympic? You know, football.
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  Awesome. I'm AI don't know what would you
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  what would you have been a fan of it in football?
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  What team? So actually I'm.
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  In high school. OK, All right.
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  Cool. Cool.
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  My mom's from Eugene, so that's kind of from Oregon.
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  So yeah, yeah. Kind of like that.
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  Yep. So like them and then pro team,
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  you know, it's weird. In Iowa, you get people who are
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  Vikings fans, Bears fans, Chiefs fans, a lot of Chiefs fans
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  around here. Yeah, have a pro team.
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  I just love watching football. That's what I was wondering cuz
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  we're similar in that we grew up in states where there is no pro
• 15:02
  sports, right? There's no, there's no
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  basketball team in Iowa, right? And there's no baseball team,
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  you league team. That's it, Yeah, but no, no pro.
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  Same thing. Alabama.
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  No. So kind of the same thing.
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  People grew up Falcons fans or Saints fans or but no one, you
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  know, there's nothing. So we really hung on our high
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  school and college sports. That was our our big deal.
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  So yeah, OK, so I love that you're just a sports dude.
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  You're like, well, OK, well, what's multiple sports?
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  Strength and conditioning. Maybe that's what I'll do.
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  I love that. So, OK, so talk to us.
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  Where where did you end up going?
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  What did you major in and what were you thinking for?
• 15:33
  For like what you'd become? Yeah.
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  So I end up going to Briarcliff Small College in Sioux City, me
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  and coach Nate trying and we get we clicked right away through in
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  the recruiting process. So I mean, I committed there
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  probably April my senior year. Now you, you did a lot of
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  sports. Are we talking about when you
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  say committed for track? For track, yeah, for track.
• 15:52
  So I didn't really get a ton of looks and other things, you
• 15:55
  know, being a smaller school and I didn't really go to camps and
• 15:57
  stuff like that. It's kind of tough to get the
• 15:59
  name out there. I actually think track was
• 16:01
  probably my third best sport in high school, but it's just
• 16:03
  easier to get recruited from a small school.
• 16:05
  I mean a. Football, Basketball.
• 16:07
  Track. I think base, I think baseball
• 16:09
  is my best. You you looked more like a
• 16:11
  baseball player. It makes sense, yeah.
• 16:12
  Yeah, baseball, football, track than basketball I think anyway.
• 16:15
  But yeah, you know, recruiting track at times a time, you know,
• 16:19
  you see the time, you can recruit the time.
• 16:21
  Whereas you know I'm playing eight man football or you know
• 16:24
  I'm playing it in this. Were you really playing eight
• 16:26
  man? Eight man football.
• 16:29
  Wow, dogs live, Yeah. Yeah, just say that's where the
• 16:32
  dogs live. Dogs.
• 16:33
  Live, yeah, Got to be an athlete down there in eight man
• 16:36
  football. I got to do it all.
• 16:38
  So what? You know I played eleven man.
• 16:41
  I played normal non dog. I guess I don't know, right?
• 16:43
  What do you what are the three positions you you remove?
• 16:47
  So, OK, it kind of depends which formation you come out and you
• 16:50
  can do, you can do a lot of different things.
• 16:51
  You still kind of have 5 people on the line of scrimmage, but
• 16:55
  you can kind of do a little bit different formations.
• 16:57
  Like you could come out in a conventional live formation and
• 16:59
  just not have any wide receivers out there.
• 17:01
  You could have 5 on the line quarterback, full back tailback.
• 17:03
  OK, so it's not a standard like yeah, we we no more tackles.
• 17:06
  There's no no. No, it just kind of depends.
• 17:09
  You could come out and spread it out and you could have three
• 17:11
  down lineman. You could have your wide
• 17:12
  receivers out. You could have people in the
• 17:14
  slots. Like, so that seems air quotes
• 17:16
  here easy as an offense, meaning, you know, you get to
• 17:19
  dictate what you're going to pull out there.
• 17:21
  How do you adjust on that defensively then?
• 17:24
  Like, you don't know if they're gonna come out with five
• 17:25
  offensive lineman versus 3 versus receivers or no
• 17:28
  receivers. It's nearly impossible, Yeah.
• 17:31
  Most of the eight man scores you're gonna see is the 50 plus
• 17:33
  on each side. Is that right?
• 17:34
  Like, like arena league? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:36
  Yes, exactly. It's an offensive game for sure.
• 17:39
  That's why I like him so much. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:41
  That's cool. That's cool.
• 17:42
  I like that. All right, well, this is not a
• 17:44
  football podcast, so we'll we'll keep moving on.
• 17:46
  So you get a briar Cliff. That's a great school.
• 17:48
  Yeah. Very cool.
• 17:49
  Yeah. How did you transition?
• 17:51
  You know, maybe easier than some other track athletes.
• 17:54
  I'm always interested when freshmen go to college, how you
• 17:56
  handle the fall semester because you've never had typically
• 17:59
  you've not had a fall semester of training, but you you did,
• 18:01
  you were in sports, but now it's all track though.
• 18:04
  So how did you handle that transition?
• 18:06
  For me it was, it was weird doing track year round, to be
• 18:08
  honest. I, I miss doing other stuff.
• 18:10
  So me and a few other guys on the track team who happen to be
• 18:13
  multi sport athletes, like some guys play football, what not, we
• 18:15
  go out and just play catch and you know, I, I played some
• 18:18
  intramurals, don't tell my coach we're supposed to put some
• 18:22
  intramural basketball in there and everything.
• 18:24
  So it, it wasn't a super crazy adjustment since I kind of
• 18:28
  stayed active with other things. I I mean, I kind of always
• 18:31
  wanted to see what I could do if I just focused on one thing.
• 18:34
  So that was, it was fun. I mean, I liked being around a
• 18:37
  bunch of track guys. I thought it was a good time.
• 18:39
  And what did you go in as a major and because you might not
• 18:42
  have come out with that same major?
• 18:43
  Yeah. So I went in as kinesiology with
• 18:45
  like exercise science. That's what I wanted to go do.
• 18:48
  And then not down the road, but that's that's why I went for my
• 18:52
  first two years. I liked it a lot.
• 18:53
  You know, I learned a lot throughout those first two
• 18:55
  years, but those anatomy classes got a little tough.
• 18:57
  So yeah, I bet. OK, we'll get back to academics
• 19:00
  and find out what you finished with.
• 19:02
  Talk to us about your experience as a Briarcliff athlete and your
• 19:05
  relationship with coach or coaches.
• 19:07
  Yeah, yeah. So like I kind of talked about
• 19:09
  earlier, Nate trying and he's he's really why I committed
• 19:12
  there. He's a great guy.
• 19:13
  We still talk to this day. He's the he's the head coach for
• 19:16
  the girls at Bishop Heelan now they're in Sioux City.
• 19:18
  So we still stay in contact, get to see each other like Drake
• 19:21
  Relays and state and stuff like that.
• 19:23
  So yeah, him and I clicked right away.
• 19:25
  You know, he throughout the recruiting process, not only
• 19:27
  talked to me about track, but would always ask like, Hey, you
• 19:30
  got a basketball game last night.
• 19:30
  How'd it go? I had football how you know, how
• 19:32
  things like like that go and that went a long way for me.
• 19:36
  So end up committing there. And the year before I committed
• 19:38
  to Briarcliff. I mean, they were they were
• 19:40
  fast. I mean, they had some some guys
• 19:42
  going, you know, 41 low in the in the four by one or three
• 19:48
  twelve in the 4 by 4. You know, for NAI, it's, it's
• 19:50
  moved. So went there, had a really good
• 19:54
  sign, had a had a good successful first two years.
• 19:57
  Kind of caught the injury bug towards the end of my my college
• 20:00
  career, which is also kind of how I went into kind of that
• 20:02
  coaching coaching realm there. I was able to coach there my my
• 20:05
  last year a little bit so. You know, I've met a lot of
• 20:08
  great people and and wouldn't trade it for the world.
• 20:10
  You know, it was, it was fun. How how was the style you
• 20:13
  mentioned, you know, Coach Tommy and what she brought to the
• 20:15
  table and the, you know, sounded similar as to, you know, almost
• 20:19
  like a 180 for your senior year type of training.
• 20:22
  What? What kind of training from Coach
• 20:24
  Nate there at Briarcliff and how did that come into the play
• 20:28
  there? Yeah, I'd say it it kind of
• 20:30
  resemble a lot of what I did in my senior year of high school.
• 20:33
  There's a lot of speed endurance stuff.
• 20:34
  It's a ton of that stuff, you know, which you know I was used
• 20:37
  to. So, so you didn't like throw up
• 20:40
  the red flag on senior year and be like, all right, I'm going to
• 20:42
  do this because you're the coach.
• 20:43
  But man, I I'm, I'm I like the speed stuff or whatever.
• 20:46
  And then use that in recruiting as far as like, hey, so coach
• 20:49
  Nate, what do you tell me some average weeks that you look like
• 20:51
  you, you were more just like, I trust the coach.
• 20:54
  Right, pretty much, yeah. I mean, I wasn't going to be I'm
• 20:57
  not one to doubt a coach. I never really was.
• 20:58
  I was like, I'm just going to go do it to the best of my ability
• 21:00
  and kind of see what happens. I mean, you know, I I did see a
• 21:03
  lot of success from the training my senior year, same as I did in
• 21:05
  my sophomore and junior year. And you know, coach Nate, he
• 21:09
  tried to recruit me more as a 204 hundred guy.
• 21:10
  So I thought going into the program like that, you know, it
• 21:12
  made sense. I got a lot better, you know, at
• 21:14
  200 and 400. My my top end speed endurance is
• 21:17
  kind of what it was my best now at that point.
• 21:19
  So yeah, I did ask him those questions like, hey, you know,
• 21:22
  what's a week setup look like? And it was a lot of tough
• 21:24
  workouts. You know, something about being
• 21:26
  an 18 year old boy that that pride, that ego comes in.
• 21:28
  It's like, I want to go do those difficult things.
• 21:30
  Like I want to be a part of doing those difficult things,
• 21:32
  you know, So that's kind of another reason why I picked
• 21:35
  picked to go to Briarcliff. Yeah, and pause it real quick
• 21:38
  because I am just, I'm a terrible interviewer and host.
• 21:42
  How did I not ask you? You're in Iowa as a high school
• 21:45
  or go back to high school here for a second.
• 21:47
  You know, one of the great cultures of Iowa is the Drake
• 21:50
  Relays. And I've heard that qualifying
• 21:54
  for the Drake Relays in some instances is a bigger deal than
• 21:57
  qualifying for the state meet, which is also at Drake Stadium,
• 22:00
  by the way. Talk, talk to us.
• 22:01
  How how did you interact? Did you get to go to Drake
• 22:03
  Relays and stuff as a high schooler?
• 22:05
  Yeah. So my my senior year, I was the
• 22:07
  last spot in the hundred. I was 32nd I got in 1112 was the
• 22:12
  cut off that year I was. Fast.
• 22:15
  It was moving. Yeah.
• 22:16
  Thank. I thank God for a little
• 22:18
  tailwind that day I got in. And, you know, for a small one,
• 22:22
  a kid going to Drake is like, I mean, that's that was awesome.
• 22:25
  That was, you know, I'm looking to my left and right.
• 22:27
  I'm seeing Urbandale, Waukee, IA City.
• 22:29
  You know, it was, I remember it was one of my first times in
• 22:33
  high school that I felt out of place.
• 22:35
  I was like, oh boy. Interesting.
• 22:37
  This is the this is the big leagues.
• 22:40
  But no, I was able to make it my senior year and I remember that
• 22:42
  helping me so much that state my senior year, like, hey, I've
• 22:45
  been there, done that, like I've been here.
• 22:46
  I know the way of the land. I was able to relax and run.
• 22:49
  So I did. I did make it in the 100 my
• 22:51
  senior year, which was really cool.
• 22:52
  And now it's super fun coaching and bringing kids up there now
• 22:55
  too. It's super cool.
• 22:56
  And I'm able to use that experience that I had
• 22:59
  understanding what's probably going on in their heads
• 23:01
  mentally, you know, being out of school and going up there and
• 23:04
  hopefully help them out a little bit with that.
• 23:06
  What was that like walking in, you know, you mentioned seeing,
• 23:09
  you know, Urbandale and Iowa City and all these kind of
• 23:11
  schools and then like, you know, like there's people in the
• 23:13
  stands like was were you nervous?
• 23:15
  Were you? Is this another challenge
• 23:17
  accepted or had a no? I, I was super nervous.
• 23:20
  I was ready for the challenge, but I, I remember being nervous.
• 23:23
  I remember trying to put my bib on, like couldn't get my bib.
• 23:26
  And I was like, you know, my warm up stuff was off because
• 23:29
  they walk you down so much before and I'm like, this is
• 23:32
  just a different experience. Yeah.
• 23:35
  And I do actually, I remember, I don't know if he remembers this.
• 23:37
  I was talking to Corby Sander. He was the only other one, a kid
• 23:39
  who made it in the 100. I remember talking to him and we
• 23:41
  kind of knew each other from state track and stuff.
• 23:43
  And we were just kind of like, boy, I'm a little nervous.
• 23:47
  I remember that kind of called my nerves a little bit.
• 23:49
  I was like, OK, it's not just me, you know, But you know, went
• 23:54
  and ran there. It was a fun experience.
• 23:57
  It was really cool. I did not run very well,
• 23:59
  probably because a little too nervous, probably a little too
• 24:02
  hyped up. But yeah, it was fun.
• 24:04
  It's a good time. And it's always amazing to me
• 24:06
  the first time a kid qualifies for the state meat or a big meat
• 24:09
  like Drake or a kid in college qualifies for nationals.
• 24:12
  And it's like, man, you know, all the meats you've raced
• 24:15
  before, you know, conference is a big deal, things like that.
• 24:18
  Those are all extremely important, but those extra,
• 24:21
  those state meat, national meats, Drake relay qualifiers,
• 24:23
  those are it's just different. And how do you prepare for it?
• 24:27
  How does a coach even prepare you for it?
• 24:29
  You kind of just got to go in there and get nerves and either
• 24:31
  fail or succeed and then realize, like, wait a minute,
• 24:33
  these are all still humans. This is still a 400 meter track.
• 24:36
  Like there's still a lot of the same things of every other meet
• 24:39
  I've been too. So yeah, that's really
• 24:41
  interesting. 100% it's almost just trial by fire.
• 24:44
  You just gotta go let sink or swim and learn that.
• 24:46
  That's right. That's right.
• 24:48
  So did you when as your Briarcliff athlete, you guys
• 24:50
  went to Drake as well? Yes, yeah, we went to Drake,
• 24:53
  which was, I was super fun, you know, and a lot of my relays
• 24:56
  were all Iowa preps. So going back to Drake with all
• 24:59
  Iowa high school graduates, that was, it was always special for
• 25:02
  us. It was super fun.
• 25:03
  I remember my freshman year, I think we went 4 by 1, four by
• 25:06
  two and then college Sprint medley, 202 hundred, 408
• 25:10
  hundred, we ran that. I ran a 4x4 there as well, I
• 25:12
  think my sophomore year too. So that was that was a lot of
• 25:15
  fun. It's always fun to go back there
• 25:16
  and and be able to run. You know, it's interesting with
• 25:18
  Drake, my favorite meet in the whole world.
• 25:21
  I, I don't, I've never heard a a negative.
• 25:24
  What I mean by that is around the topic of like, Oh, it's the
• 25:27
  same like, like, you know, you've heard of kids who, you
• 25:30
  know, grew up in maybe they grew up in Des Moines and they don't
• 25:34
  want to go to Drake because it's, you know, it's the home
• 25:37
  school, hometown school. I want to go somewhere else, you
• 25:40
  know, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
• 25:42
  With Drake Relays. You know, these kids go to Drake
• 25:44
  relays, then you, you know, go to the same place for the state
• 25:46
  meet and then they go to Iowa schools and you still go to
• 25:50
  Drake. Like I never hear anybody going,
• 25:51
  you know what, I didn't want to go to Briarcliff because we went
• 25:53
  to Drake and kind of done that. My whole high school.
• 25:56
  Like everybody's like, I've heard of plenty people saying I
• 25:58
  chose a school in Iowa or I chose a school because they are
• 26:01
  a Drake school. Like they go to the Drake relay.
• 26:03
  It seems like it's just like, I don't know, a black hole is not
• 26:07
  a great cut. That's a negative.
• 26:08
  But it's like this vortex just keep sucking people in.
• 26:10
  And once you're in, it's like, no, I wanna keep going.
• 26:13
  Yeah, 100% yeah. And I thought that was actually
• 26:15
  a huge perk for me going to Briar Cliff, like you said,
• 26:18
  wanted to go to a school that still went to the Drake Relays
• 26:21
  and was able to go be successful at the Drake Relays.
• 26:23
  That was a really big draw. I don't even know if I can put
• 26:25
  my finger on what it is about it, but there's just something
• 26:28
  when you walk in the stadium that's just special.
• 26:30
  And hearing Mike J's voice too. I mean, that's just, it's
• 26:33
  electric every time. So I I could be there every
• 26:36
  weekend and not get tired of it, I don't think.
• 26:38
  It's a real special culture and it's, it's kind of like, I wish
• 26:41
  I, I wish I could verbalize what the recipe is because I'd like
• 26:46
  to recreate it. But man, it is, it's special.
• 26:48
  You're right, it really is special.
• 26:52
  And good friend Blake Bolden, Gil podcast guest.
• 26:55
  The director of the Drake Relays is doing a fantastic job, just
• 26:58
  an amazing job there. So love what he's doing and what
• 27:01
  his team and you know, it takes a lot of people to pull that
• 27:04
  thing off. So they do an amazing job.
• 27:06
  All right, let's get back to Briarcliff.
• 27:07
  I was just thinking, I was like, man, how did I not bring up
• 27:09
  great relax like Briarcliff. So first couple years you're
• 27:14
  studying anatomy and Physiology, Physiology, things like that.
• 27:19
  Running seems like it's going well, but then you kind of
• 27:21
  somewhere around that second or third year an injury bug hit and
• 27:25
  education change what what happened there?
• 27:27
  Yeah, so I started kind of catching an injury bug.
• 27:29
  Felt like if it wasn't one thing, it was the other thing.
• 27:30
  And that was really new to me. I never had to really go through
• 27:33
  that. I'm not really sure what it was.
• 27:36
  Some some hip problems, some calf problems, just not one
• 27:40
  thing is the other kind of power through that?
• 27:42
  The tail end of my sophomore year was able to make national
• 27:45
  still, which was nice. But from there, like I won't
• 27:48
  even lie, I kind of trickle, trickle downwards from there.
• 27:50
  It's tough to hang on, but I then realized also at the end of
• 27:54
  my sophomore year, maybe strength conditioning wasn't
• 27:56
  something I wanted to do. I got pretty coached with my
• 27:58
  close, with my strength conditioning coaches and their
• 28:00
  hours were crazy. I was like, I don't know if I
• 28:02
  want to do that. I wanted to go to grad school,
• 28:05
  you know, things like that. But I knew I wanted to help
• 28:09
  people. I knew I wanted to be involved
• 28:10
  in people. And this is kind of when it
• 28:11
  started. I'd be like, I kind of want to
• 28:12
  coach in high school. So what can I do to get into the
• 28:15
  high school realm? Coach something, coach a few
• 28:18
  things and you know, again, back to that self reflection piece.
• 28:23
  I know I'm not smart enough in any subject to teach a high
• 28:25
  school class. Those high school are going to
• 28:26
  be smarter than me. And so like, I'm not mad at
• 28:28
  talking to people. What can I do?
• 28:31
  So I was like, you know what, I'm going to go try to be a
• 28:33
  school counselor. So started taking psychology
• 28:35
  classes, majored in behavioral psychology those last few years
• 28:39
  and and got my masters. Some people it it sounds like a
• 28:42
  180, but. I was literally about to say,
• 28:45
  dude this is a 180. That's exactly what I was going
• 28:47
  to say. But like, I'm still able to help
• 28:49
  people, I'm able to be around sports, and those are the two
• 28:51
  things that kind of drive me. So it really kind of fits.
• 28:54
  You know, you wouldn't think there's a lot of similarities
• 28:55
  between a strength conditioning coach and a school counselor.
• 28:58
  You probably picture 2 completely different people when
• 29:00
  you think of that. But at the end of the day, I
• 29:02
  think what makes them tick is things that are very similar.
• 29:06
  It's like I want to help people be the best they can be.
• 29:09
  Strength conditioning is just, I want to do it in the weight
• 29:10
  room. I don't know, I just chose maybe
• 29:12
  do it socially and academically, and I still do the sports stuff
• 29:15
  on top of that. So it's kind of best of both
• 29:17
  worlds for me, really. I don't believe we've had a
• 29:20
  school counselor on the podcast before.
• 29:22
  That's really interesting. So what does?
• 29:25
  And we'll come back to Briarcliff the last couple years
• 29:27
  and graduate and all that kind of stuff.
• 29:29
  But like, so tell me, like if you were to tell me, I thought
• 29:31
  you were going to say you ended up actually, I thought you were
• 29:34
  going to say you were a PE teacher.
• 29:35
  You ended up because you got a lot of.
• 29:37
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there's that joke
• 29:40
  about, you know, the PE teacher talks to the kids and says, you
• 29:42
  know, who's the smartest teacher in school?
• 29:44
  And they're like, oh, you know, Mr. Blank, the math teacher, you
• 29:47
  know, Miss Simmons, the the science teacher.
• 29:49
  And he's like, note me because I get to play kickball all day and
• 29:52
  I make the same amount of money that they do.
• 29:55
  Our PE teacher says it every. Time.
• 29:58
  I'm pretty sure I'd tell that every day too if I was a PE
• 30:00
  teacher. But what?
• 30:01
  So tell me what? Tell us what a school counselor
• 30:04
  does. Yeah, so I mean, honestly, the,
• 30:07
  the biggest piece of my job is just talking to students, you
• 30:11
  know, helping students who maybe aren't, aren't showing up to
• 30:13
  school or struggling with grades and things like that.
• 30:16
  And you know, another big perk of my job is I'm able to talk
• 30:19
  with our our athletes a lot too. And I'm able to kind of help
• 30:22
  them through recruiting processes and things like that.
• 30:24
  So, you know, I think it helps me with with track stuff too.
• 30:28
  I mean, I get to pull kids in and just kind of see where
• 30:30
  they're at mentally, physically, kind of how you doing that way
• 30:33
  it kind of doesn't cut into practice time too much.
• 30:35
  So I said that's a big piece of my job was just kind of working
• 30:38
  with more at risk. But then I also get to just kind
• 30:40
  of talk with kids all day pretty much.
• 30:42
  So it it works out pretty well, yeah.
• 30:44
  Well, you hit the nail on the head.
• 30:46
  You know what, you know, almost to 100%, every person who
• 30:50
  becomes a track coach says, you know, I wanted to help people
• 30:53
  that I didn't know. You know, some people early on
• 30:55
  don't know that they want to be a track coach, but they're just
• 30:57
  like, you know, I just wanted to help people and they gravitate
• 31:00
  towards coaching and school counseling and teaching and
• 31:03
  things like that. That's really cool.
• 31:05
  All right, we'll get back into that.
• 31:06
  So let's jump back again to Briarcliff injury.
• 31:09
  But and you know, injuries are it's really interesting the way
• 31:12
  you're describing that, you know, just kind of one thing or
• 31:14
  another and you never had it before.
• 31:16
  You know, when I look at athletes, you know, at the
• 31:18
  highest level, you know, the guys and gals that are winning
• 31:21
  gold medals at the Olympics and things like that, I literally
• 31:24
  like, just look at them like, you know how lucky you got, like
• 31:27
  injury could have derailed you. And plenty of people have been
• 31:29
  derailed because of injury and done and tried everything in the
• 31:33
  world to prevent them, recover from them.
• 31:35
  It's like, you know, look at Usain Bolt.
• 31:37
  I'm like, wow, you escaped getting hurt.
• 31:40
  Yeah, that's how you were. That's one of the big pieces of
• 31:42
  the puzzle that helped you go on to set world records and gold
• 31:44
  medals and stuff. So it can be definitely
• 31:48
  frustrating. And it sounds like it got so
• 31:50
  frustrating for you that eventually it kind of took you
• 31:53
  off the track as an athlete. Yeah, yeah, I did.
• 31:56
  And it was it was weird. I I was kind of hurt all
• 31:58
  sophomore year, but still kind of had that mindset of where
• 32:01
  like use power through it, you know, it'll go away type of
• 32:04
  thing. You know, that's kind of how it
• 32:05
  kind of how it was in high school.
• 32:07
  So I just kind of kept that same thing and then it lingered for
• 32:10
  over a year and then finally started athletic trainers and
• 32:13
  stuff and try to run through it my junior year and just just
• 32:16
  couldn't, couldn't get it done. So it did kind of help me
• 32:20
  transition into that coaching role though, where I was able
• 32:22
  to, you know, my senior year, they honor my scholarship and
• 32:25
  everything is like, hey, we could have you on kind of help
• 32:28
  out coaching. And I was able to, you know, you
• 32:31
  know, kick the brains of some college coaches, which was
• 32:33
  great. Coach Jordan Mullen, I'm not
• 32:35
  sure if you know him, he's the head coach at Ankeny now doing a
• 32:37
  lot of lot of really good things there.
• 32:39
  Ran up. He was a hurdler at Iowa.
• 32:41
  He was the sprint's coach of Briarcliff there my senior year.
• 32:43
  So it kind of helped me form that relationship with him and I
• 32:46
  learned a lot of things from him.
• 32:47
  So it worked out just fine. Obviously it's frustrating that
• 32:50
  I wasn't able to run, but it ended up working out pretty well
• 32:52
  I think. How did that work out?
• 32:55
  And what I mean by that is, you know, I think it should be a
• 32:58
  rule that if you're going to be Aga, you cannot GA at the same
• 33:03
  place you undergrad. I just I find it impossible
• 33:06
  that, you know, Chad, the quarter Miller on Friday is, you
• 33:11
  know, down with the boys. We're playing Xbox, whatever,
• 33:14
  blah, blah, blah. And then Monday I'm Aga, I'm
• 33:16
  coach blank because there has to be a separation.
• 33:19
  You know, I just there's no way that that happens properly in in
• 33:23
  the works. Here you are as an undergrad.
• 33:26
  How did you, you know, one day you're you're Chad, the teammate
• 33:30
  who's struggling with injuries. But boy, he look at that's our
• 33:32
  leader. He look, he's still working out
• 33:33
  and doing hard. And the next day it's like I,
• 33:35
  well, I'm coach blank today, guy.
• 33:37
  I'm not going to line up with you.
• 33:39
  I'm going to time your repeats or whatnot.
• 33:41
  Right. The way I would describe it, it
• 33:44
  was more of kind of like a older brother type relationship rather
• 33:47
  than like a coach relationship. It's like, hey, we can mess
• 33:50
  around, we're still friends. But bottom line, when like we
• 33:53
  got to work, we got to work. And that's kind of how it was
• 33:55
  anyway before that. I mean, that's kind of how we
• 33:57
  were as a team. So the transition wasn't too
• 33:59
  bad. And then, you know, also having
• 34:01
  the other coaches around too it, it kind of helped out, helped
• 34:04
  out a lot. But we had a really good group
• 34:07
  that year. Unfortunately, COVID cut that
• 34:09
  year short, but we had a really, really good crew.
• 34:12
  Actually had a future Olympian on that crew, Ben Jeffries, who
• 34:15
  who was on the Great Britain Olympic team for the open four.
• 34:18
  Wow, yeah, so we we had a squad that year.
• 34:21
  It was really exciting to kind of help help with that a little
• 34:24
  bit. But yeah, the transition wasn't
• 34:27
  wasn't too bad as much like, hey guys, this is kind of what I'm
• 34:29
  going to be doing now. And they're like, all right,
• 34:31
  that's fine. So.
• 34:33
  What, what about the transition for you?
• 34:36
  You know, we've explored this many times on the podcast where,
• 34:38
  you know, as an athlete, it's a very selfish pursuit.
• 34:41
  That's not a negative thing. But you know, you're, you're,
• 34:43
  you're listening to coach. What does coach tell me, You
• 34:45
  know, how to eat, how to train, how to rest and OK, how do I put
• 34:49
  that in my body so that I can run faster or jump farther?
• 34:51
  That's a, it's very selfish. Like I'm listening.
• 34:53
  How does it improve me? Coaching is literally the
• 34:56
  opposite. It's all this information I'm
• 34:58
  taking in on how to improve myself as a coach and things
• 35:01
  like that. What workouts and now it's going
• 35:03
  through me to my athletes. So it's a very outward how did
• 35:06
  how did the coaches help? How did you, you know, mentally
• 35:09
  go from OK, I want to be the best quarter miler I can to OK,
• 35:13
  now I got to help my teammates and and I know you kind of
• 35:16
  already had that because you explained like, you know, that's
• 35:17
  kind of my role as an athlete, But now it's it's completely on
• 35:20
  that side. There is no running a Rep with
• 35:21
  me. There is no kind of know me to
• 35:23
  be your anchor at the meet this weekend.
• 35:25
  I can only tell you what to do and help you while you're doing
• 35:28
  it. Right.
• 35:29
  It was, it was an adjustment for me mentally to be honest,
• 35:32
  because I wanted my teammates to do the best, but to be honest, I
• 35:35
  wanted to beat them every time, you know, and that's kind of the
• 35:37
  track mind says like, Hey, I want you guys to be awesome
• 35:40
  because at the end of the day, we're A-Team.
• 35:42
  But I want, I want to beat you, you know, so just that
• 35:45
  competitive mind and then transitioning that into the
• 35:47
  coaching size, like I've got to put that part of my mind.
• 35:50
  It's got to be gone. I cannot bring that into
• 35:52
  practice. Like they are like you want them
• 35:55
  to be as good as they possibly can.
• 35:56
  Like if they beat your PRS, celebrate that, you know, things
• 35:59
  like that. So that, that was the biggest
• 36:02
  adjustment for me, I think is trying to turn that side of my
• 36:04
  brain off a little like, hey, they're having success.
• 36:08
  I need to be, I need to be happy for them.
• 36:10
  Not that I wouldn't have been when I was an athlete either,
• 36:12
  but you know. It's it's different.
• 36:14
  It's different 100%. Yeah, it's different.
• 36:16
  So that was a big adjustment for me, but it was nice to be able
• 36:19
  to go through that then that way, you know now and I'm
• 36:22
  coaching. That's just kind of just how it
• 36:24
  is. Did you ever, did it ever bite
• 36:28
  you in the butt? Did you ever remember a time
• 36:30
  where you're, you know, you're trying to be Coach Blank, you're
• 36:32
  trying to transition there and you know, one of the, one of the
• 36:36
  guys smarted off to you because, you know, we're boys and it's
• 36:38
  like, no, Dang it, we're trying to nail anything.
• 36:41
  You can remember where there's like, Oh yeah, there's some
• 36:42
  things I, I conflict I had to get over.
• 36:45
  Oh, nothing that really rose up too much.
• 36:48
  Yeah. But you know, as a Sprint squad,
• 36:51
  and you know this from coaching, there's there's a lot of egos on
• 36:54
  a Sprint squad and there is and there's nothing that rose up too
• 36:59
  much. But there definitely was maybe a
• 37:01
  little bit of, I don't want to call it maybe animosity, but
• 37:03
  there was there was some stuff there that some of the kids
• 37:06
  maybe didn't like being told by me.
• 37:09
  I was I was their teammate a few weeks ago.
• 37:11
  Now I'm trying to tell them what to do.
• 37:13
  But that's when, you know, Coach Mullen would kind of come in.
• 37:15
  He could he read that really well.
• 37:17
  He understood that too. So, but that was that was that
• 37:21
  was kind of a difficult transition going into that.
• 37:23
  You know, we, we, we all respected each other at the end
• 37:26
  of the day. But there is some underlying,
• 37:28
  you know, sprinters like to compete, sprinters have an ego
• 37:31
  and sprinters want to be the best.
• 37:32
  So it's tough to juggle that sometimes. 100% we focus on the
• 37:35
  coaching side of this, that equation, but an equation has
• 37:38
  two sides. So absolutely that, you know,
• 37:40
  there's an athlete side of like, what are you talking about,
• 37:43
  dude? You know, we were just arguing
• 37:44
  over what Madden team to play and now you're telling me to run
• 37:47
  another quarter. Yeah, you, who are you?
• 37:50
  Give me coach, give me that. Give me my real coach, right?
• 37:53
  You know what, you might have heard that or felt that at
• 37:55
  times. So I and I, and I have a lot of
• 37:57
  empathy for that. Again, 100%.
• 37:58
  It's hard to go from, you know, again, your homeboy to your
• 38:01
  coach. That's why I think it should be,
• 38:03
  you know, I had to say illegal. But the GA should not be able to
• 38:07
  do that. And I, I think if you're going
• 38:08
  to do it as an undergrad, boy, there better be some major
• 38:12
  protections for for all because they could go South.
• 38:15
  Really. Oh yeah. 100 percent, 100%.
• 38:17
  Do you tell us talk to us about the feeling, though, when you
• 38:23
  know it's one thing to run APR. That's again a very personal
• 38:26
  selfish thing of like, man, I ran the fastest I've ever run
• 38:29
  and now be happier for other people that they run PRS.
• 38:32
  How did do you remember kind of that feeling of like, oh, man, I
• 38:36
  I think I'm like, how about this is probably gonna be a better
• 38:38
  way to ask it. Do you remember a time during
• 38:41
  this period that you kind of thought like, I am Coach Blank?
• 38:45
  I'm not Chad, the former teammate, Like I'm Coach Blank.
• 38:49
  I really helped someone. Yeah.
• 38:51
  So I actually that's a good question.
• 38:53
  I do remember that it was indoor, indoor conference meet.
• 38:57
  We finally were able to stack up a 4 by 4.
• 38:59
  And that's something I was striving for to be on kind of
• 39:01
  even that senior year. So for them to actually stack it
• 39:04
  up, it was kind of mixed emotions for me.
• 39:05
  That was one of those times I'm kind of referring.
• 39:07
  I'm supposed to be on that. Exactly like I had to suppress
• 39:10
  that. And I remember the kid, one of
• 39:12
  the kids that was on there, he was, he is a nervous Nelly.
• 39:16
  He was probably our our 4th best guy on there.
• 39:18
  He was a nervous Nelly. And I remember just bringing him
• 39:20
  over and kind of talking him through it.
• 39:21
  And he ran a, he ran a great leg.
• 39:23
  They qualified for nationals that day and everything.
• 39:25
  I kind of remember that being kind of like a turning point is
• 39:28
  like, OK, I can't do this. I have their respect.
• 39:30
  Like if I just kind of shut off that selfish side of my brain
• 39:34
  and just help like things are going to go really well.
• 39:36
  So I, I remember that and remember the team being super
• 39:40
  excited, hugging after a great time.
• 39:42
  And that's kind of when it, when it clicked for me is like, all
• 39:44
  right, I think I can do this. I I think I'll be all right.
• 39:47
  You know, what strikes me about that?
• 39:50
  First of all, it was a good question, right?
• 39:51
  Because it's it's kind of the the first seed that's planted or
• 39:54
  the first growth that comes from the seed of coaching.
• 39:57
  But what's interesting to me, the real thing to point out to
• 40:01
  that is you. We've been having more and more
• 40:03
  discussions on the podcast about and through Twitter as well
• 40:07
  about, you know, coaching the XS and OS might actually be the
• 40:10
  easy part and, you know, air quotes there.
• 40:12
  But the easy part and it's all the other stuff, the coaching.
• 40:15
  The people, the personalities, egos, all this other
• 40:19
  amalgamation of stuff, leadership, character,
• 40:23
  character, your character, your athletes, characters, etcetera.
• 40:26
  And so when I asked you that question, you didn't answer.
• 40:30
  Oh yeah. You know, I remember coach, let
• 40:32
  me create the workout for one. And boy, they nailed it.
• 40:35
  Like, Oh yeah, see, I can, I know how to help the quarter
• 40:38
  mileage get back. You didn't mention an X's and
• 40:40
  O's example. It was 01 of the kids was
• 40:43
  nervous and I got to kind of just put my arms around them,
• 40:46
  walk off and and talk, talk them off the ledge, if you will.
• 40:50
  And then they, and then that, that helped the kid.
• 40:52
  They ran well. And your response to that was
• 40:55
  like, oh, wait a minute. Maybe like you, you kind of
• 40:58
  recognize it. It's easier for us to say like,
• 41:01
  oh, you're a Sprint guru, so you know how to train quarter milers
• 41:04
  in 100m. And in reality, it's like, Oh
• 41:06
  yeah, you're a coach because you know how to help people.
• 41:10
  Right. Yeah.
• 41:11
  And that's a huge piece of it. I mean, especially, I mean,
• 41:14
  coaching high schoolers, you never know what's going on,
• 41:17
  what's going on at home, what's going on mentally when they show
• 41:19
  up to practice, like you're trying to get them locked in
• 41:22
  for, hey, this is what we're doing right now.
• 41:23
  If you do it at 100%, things are going to go just fine.
• 41:27
  I love that example. I, I think it just keeps
• 41:30
  emboldening this thought process.
• 41:31
  We keep exploring on Twitter and, and the social media in the
• 41:35
  podcast about, you know, the XS and OS might be the easy part.
• 41:38
  It's all the other stuff. And so that that's kind of been
• 41:40
  my mission, passion, encouragement for like track
• 41:43
  clinics when you go there, it used to be not that long ago, 90
• 41:46
  to 95% of the topics would be how to jump farther, how to
• 41:50
  throw farther, how to run faster, all this kind of stuff.
• 41:52
  It's getting maybe around 802075257030 where we're getting
• 41:58
  more culture, team building, mental side, you know, those
• 42:02
  kind of things, which I think is like I said, I think we're
• 42:04
  learning that that might be the the bigger part and the harder
• 42:08
  part. How do you, how do you, how do
• 42:09
  you what, what class do you take that says, hey, how to identify
• 42:13
  that this kids nervous what to say and how to say it away from
• 42:18
  the gang? You know, I don't know that
• 42:20
  there's a class for that. So it's an amalgamation of a lot
• 42:23
  of a lot of things, including empathy there.
• 42:25
  So OK, cool. I love that.
• 42:27
  Thank you for sharing that story.
• 42:28
  That was, I love that that was, that was really good.
• 42:30
  It's a great example for our coaches to hear that it wasn't
• 42:33
  you didn't, you didn't tell them to fall back on your block
• 42:36
  starts that you worked on. You didn't talk about, you know,
• 42:38
  the lactic threshold workout we did is like, oh man, you know,
• 42:41
  let's let's talk about you're, you're prepared, you know, it's
• 42:43
  all the other stuff. That's awesome.
• 42:44
  So you go through this senior year like an undergraduate
• 42:48
  assistant coach kind of position.
• 42:51
  You end up graduating with not sports like what did you end up
• 42:55
  counseling? What was your actual degree?
• 42:57
  I had a, what was it psychology degree.
• 43:01
  OK. Yeah.
• 43:02
  And you know, normally I believe if you're going to become a
• 43:06
  psychologist or psychiatrist, like it's a sure you get your
• 43:08
  undergrad in psychology, but you have to go to grad school.
• 43:11
  Is this same for a school? Did you have to go to grad?
• 43:13
  School, same thing. Yep, Yep.
• 43:14
  I actually did it online through Buena Vista.
• 43:16
  Got my master school counseling. So yeah, I got up in 2022 and
• 43:20
  while I was doing that I was coaching, coaching here.
• 43:22
  So worked out pretty well. Cool.
• 43:25
  And so when you say here, Clarinda?
• 43:27
  Yes, Yep, in Clarinda. Yeah, this is.
• 43:30
  It's my first gig. Yeah.
• 43:31
  So, so you you graduate your undergrad, you go back home,
• 43:35
  you're helping a coach and taking your online master's
• 43:38
  class. And then so I mean, we know
• 43:40
  you're Clinton now. So you graduated and did you get
• 43:42
  a counselor job like right off the bat?
• 43:44
  So I I worked for while I was getting my master's, I was head
• 43:48
  boys coach then just boys. We went Co a little later on but
• 43:52
  then I was working for the AEA as a was a school based
• 43:56
  interventionist, so as basically being a school counselor in
• 43:59
  Clarinda but through the AEA. And then what?
• 44:02
  What's? I'm sorry, what's?
• 44:04
  AEA area education agency. So it's just like an Iowa thing
• 44:07
  where they have different area education agencies where like,
• 44:10
  OK, I work for the AEA, but they like place people in schools
• 44:13
  like, hey, this school might need this support.
• 44:16
  So if you go to that school, yeah.
• 44:19
  And then it kind of worked out nice where one of our counselors
• 44:22
  was kind of stepping into into another position right when I
• 44:25
  got my master's. And then I just kind of filled
• 44:28
  that role. Worked out really well, kind of
• 44:31
  crazy. So yeah, they've been doing
• 44:32
  that, been doing that since. Yeah, that doesn't happen.
• 44:35
  I mean, wow, no. For me to.
• 44:39
  Especially. Coach and all that.
• 44:41
  It's crazy. And especially small town, small
• 44:43
  school. I mean, there's just, you know,
• 44:44
  less people, less turnover, you know, Wow, dude, you you lucky
• 44:49
  that's I'm learning. Just lucky, dude.
• 44:50
  I got, I got, I got. Really.
• 44:52
  Lucky with this rule, I mean, I the head track job, being able
• 44:55
  to get that right out of college was awesome and then right when
• 44:58
  my masters is done, being able to get exactly what I want to go
• 45:01
  into it was crazy. It was it was nuts how it
• 45:03
  worked, but dude, I'm blessed yeah, blessed with that.
• 45:07
  Count your blessings. Absolutely so.
• 45:09
  So you've been the head coach there.
• 45:10
  Now you said that was in 22. So this is your third year.
• 45:13
  Well, I I got the head coach. Job right after undergrad so
• 45:17
  this is Year 5 for me. With boys this is year 3 as the
• 45:21
  Co Ed boys and girls said got it.
• 45:23
  So how have? You evolved in those five years.
• 45:28
  You know, it kind of started six years, right, in your senior
• 45:31
  year of college. But how, you know, when you look
• 45:33
  back in, you know, you can't do the, you know, well, I've had so
• 45:36
  many years of, you know, you've had 5-6 years.
• 45:38
  You're a pup. You're, you're, you know, if we
• 45:40
  use a race analogy, you're barely in the blocks of this
• 45:43
  race, right? But you have evolved hopefully.
• 45:46
  Let me say it this way. I hope you've evolved.
• 45:48
  You're not the same coach today as you were five years ago.
• 45:51
  What do you when you kind of look in the mirror, what do you
• 45:53
  see how you've changed in a positive light over these five
• 45:56
  years? Yeah, I I hate to kind of use
• 45:58
  something. We already talked about, but I
• 46:00
  think I've I've evolved more and I'm trying to cultivate more
• 46:03
  leadership in being a good person over anything else and
• 46:07
  work ethic and different things like that.
• 46:08
  I think my first few years I was so dove into, OK, our sprinters
• 46:12
  have to be doing XY and Z. This is the program.
• 46:14
  Like they just need to do this. Our minutes to be doing this
• 46:16
  distance needs to be doing this right now.
• 46:18
  It's more of OK, this is how we need to act.
• 46:22
  This is how we need to treat each other.
• 46:23
  This is the work ethic we need. I need these people to be
• 46:26
  leaders. And hey, this is how a leader
• 46:28
  acts all the time. And this is what leaders do.
• 46:31
  Trying to cultivate that a lot more so.
• 46:33
  And I think this is common. You're you're, I hate to tell
• 46:35
  you that you're average, meaning you're common like this is.
• 46:38
  And it's a good thing. You said when you first started,
• 46:42
  you were more and more, you know, our spinners got to do
• 46:43
  this and you know, so XS and OS and then you said, and then I
• 46:47
  kind of realized like, oh, you know, there the the other side
• 46:50
  of it, we got to come up with a good name.
• 46:52
  So we have XS and OS for like the, you know, the work outside.
• 46:54
  I need something more than just culture for the rest.
• 46:57
  I got to come up with something there, but you realize that.
• 47:00
  So how did you realize that? And then maybe you as
• 47:03
  importantly, what did you do? Meaning did you go to a clinic
• 47:10
  topic that was about culture? Did you, you know, fall back to
• 47:13
  your undergrads, a class or a teacher like, you know, you
• 47:16
  recognized it, which that's that's the Super hard part.
• 47:19
  But then how did you, what did you do to OK, now let's evolve
• 47:22
  that way. I think what really clicked for
• 47:23
  me. Is our performance at big meets
• 47:26
  was not very good and I kind of rolled back to OK why let's talk
• 47:32
  about why and I thought it kind of came down to our mindset and
• 47:37
  we didn't we we didn't have enough leaders on the team to
• 47:39
  really take people under their wing in the moment maybe got too
• 47:43
  big I'm a firm believer like hold on right there that's good
• 47:45
  I love this we're. Going to keep double clicking in
• 47:47
  here because this is this is gold.
• 47:48
  This is the this is what people listen to the podcast for right
• 47:51
  here. This is excellent.
• 47:51
  OK, I love that you you had to find what what's the problem?
• 47:56
  Oh, we're not performing as well at the big meets now.
• 48:00
  You, you still can have a decision tree there.
• 48:02
  It's like, OK, well, that's because I'm not training them
• 48:04
  hard enough That that that that I could hear someone saying
• 48:07
  that, right. And you took the other path.
• 48:09
  I love that. What?
• 48:15
  You weren't doing it before? So that means you either didn't
• 48:18
  see the importance of it or didn't have the knowledge or
• 48:20
  didn't have the awareness of it, right?
• 48:22
  So talk to us about what did that mean?
• 48:24
  So what did you change, right. It kind of came back.
• 48:28
  You know, my mindset as an athlete was I'm always going to
• 48:31
  perform at the best I can. I'm going to go compete.
• 48:34
  It kind of started clicking the more I got to know some of the
• 48:37
  kids. That's not always their mindset.
• 48:40
  They get around some people and they're like, oh, they're just
• 48:42
  better than me. I'm just going to kind of go
• 48:44
  through the motions. I'm going to lose anyway type of
• 48:45
  mindset or, you know, different things like that.
• 48:48
  And I was like, OK, we've got to we've got to break that.
• 48:50
  We've got to break that because we can't be a great team in
• 48:53
  April and be average in May. Like we've got to, you know,
• 48:56
  everyone remembers May, like you look like years, like, Hey, how
• 48:59
  do we do a conference, district, state, you know, so those are
• 49:02
  the meets we're always striving for.
• 49:04
  OK, how can we do that? Because we can't PR and break
• 49:07
  school records the last week of April.
• 49:08
  Now all of a sudden we're slow the next three weeks.
• 49:10
  Like what really happened to me? I was like, it has to be
• 49:13
  something mentality wise. So we've got a we've got a kind
• 49:16
  of change. We we need leaders.
• 49:18
  We need to change this mindset. We found a lot more success
• 49:22
  since then, not just in May, but just overall too.
• 49:25
  So, and it's honestly made my job a lot easier as a head
• 49:28
  coach. I rarely have to yell at kids
• 49:29
  anymore. I rarely have to hold them
• 49:31
  accountable because it's very athlete LED.
• 49:33
  Like they know the expectations. If they see their teammates
• 49:36
  aren't doing that, they're going to hold them accountable.
• 49:38
  You know, this is a track coach. When you got 80 kids out of me,
• 49:41
  you can't keep an eye on all of them.
• 49:42
  You need you need leaders within the team.
• 49:45
  And I feel like that's been a really, really big piece for us
• 49:47
  here these last few years. So what are some?
• 49:49
  Give us some like? Tactical, what did you do?
• 49:53
  Did you start naming captains? Did you start holding?
• 49:55
  Did you start doing ropes courses to you know, please tell
• 49:59
  me you didn't do that. But you know, what are some
• 50:01
  like, OK, what did you change to actually build this Leisure
• 50:04
  Great example you gave us there about, you know, you got 80 kids
• 50:09
  and I don't care how many coaches you have.
• 50:11
  Some of us are blessed to have a lot of coaches.
• 50:12
  Most of us are blessed to not have a lot of coaches.
• 50:16
  There's a lot of time where they're on their own.
• 50:18
  And so are they being productive parts of the team or are they
• 50:21
  being their individual selves? That's not productive for the
• 50:24
  team because they don't have coached watching over them.
• 50:26
  So what are some things that you did that you changed when that
• 50:29
  awareness came? Yeah, so it it.
• 50:32
  Actually kind of goes back, I saw this Mike Tomlin quote like
• 50:34
  3 years ago that don't, don't run from coaching, you're coach
• 50:38
  for a reason. And he gave an example.
• 50:40
  He was like some coaches say, well this kid just can't do
• 50:43
  this. Well, this kid just can't do
• 50:44
  this. He's like that's, that's running
• 50:46
  away from coaching. So I was like, OK, in my head I
• 50:49
  have said many times, well this kid just isn't a leader.
• 50:51
  Well this kid just can't do this.
• 50:53
  And I was like, man, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta be better.
• 50:57
  So instead of saying that, I realized maybe these kids just
• 51:00
  don't know how to be a leader. They don't know how to do this.
• 51:04
  So it's again, advantage for me being a school counselor.
• 51:08
  I can pull these kids in and we can go through situations.
• 51:10
  We can talk about this stuff. It's like, hey, saw this
• 51:13
  yesterday at practice. I think we should do XYZ instead
• 51:16
  of that. Like I think you would get a
• 51:17
  better response, you know, because sometimes kids would try
• 51:21
  to be leaders and it wouldn't be well received And the kids are
• 51:23
  like, well, I'm not going to be a leader.
• 51:24
  Then if that's how it's received, It's like, well, did
• 51:26
  you go about it the way you should have, right, instead of
• 51:28
  just giving up? That's work to be better at
• 51:30
  this. So just kind of teaching them
• 51:33
  like, what is leadership? What is what is that?
• 51:35
  What is that like, you know, and, and kind of going from
• 51:37
  there. Last week we had.
• 51:40
  Colin Hunter from Byron Center up in Michigan and we talked a
• 51:47
  lot about how young kids are easily dismissed by adults and
• 51:54
  what you just said there about like, oh, they're not a leader.
• 51:56
  Oh, they're not that. I think that happens to young
• 52:00
  kids from air quotes, every adult out there.
• 52:04
  I think sometimes their parents are telling them that.
• 52:06
  I think sometimes they're teachers, sometimes they're
• 52:09
  youth, their minister, you know, I, I think we, it's easy for us
• 52:14
  to dismiss young people because they're young people.
• 52:17
  And so you had, I love, I mean, first of all, bravo to you for
• 52:23
  having that awareness. Like, oh, wait a minute, I got
• 52:25
  to stop doing that. You know, I am, you're working
• 52:28
  with a very precious age group, 14 to 18.
• 52:31
  Even our 18 to 22 year old college coaches don't think, I
• 52:34
  mean, they're, I know they look like grown men and women.
• 52:36
  They're still kids. What do they say?
• 52:38
  The brain isn't fully formed into like 25 on average.
• 52:40
  So yeah, they're still pups. Remember, the easiest way to do
• 52:45
  this is remember when you were 21, you, you had it all
• 52:48
  together. No, no.
• 52:50
  So you're dealing with this 14 to 18 year old age group where,
• 52:53
  you know, a lot of people are, you know, all they want to do
• 52:56
  is, you know, play video games. All they want to do is scroll on
• 52:58
  their phones. Oh, they don't.
• 52:59
  We don't have the same leadership.
• 53:00
  When I was a kid, you know, all this kind of stuff.
• 53:02
  And you had that same mentality in parts, right?
• 53:04
  And then you were able to like, wait a minute, hold on.
• 53:07
  I loved it. I, I wrote down that quote.
• 53:09
  Don't run away from coaching. It's easy to say that and just
• 53:12
  dismiss it. But OK, if if you recognize
• 53:14
  that, well, you coach, go be that.
• 53:18
  My favorite quote is from Bouchexnater, another Gale
• 53:20
  Podcast alum who said you coach beat a coach, meaning.
• 53:24
  Yeah, I, I think it was, I think it was almost the exact same
• 53:26
  quotes there of like, all right, well, that person's not a very
• 53:29
  good leader. What are you going to do about
• 53:31
  it? Oh, that person's not a very
• 53:32
  good sprinter. I mean, like, you can easily see
• 53:35
  that, right? If I were to say the kids not a
• 53:36
  very good sprinter, it's like, oh, well, I'm a coach, I'll go
• 53:37
  make them faster. OK.
• 53:39
  Well, you're a leader. You're a coach, You're a
• 53:40
  teacher. You're a an adult.
• 53:42
  You're an adult. They're bottom line right there.
• 53:44
  You're an adult for this kid. They're not very good leaders.
• 53:46
  What are you going to do about it?
• 53:48
  Right. And you decided, well, I'm going
• 53:50
  to do something about it, right, 100% and.
• 53:53
  I'm almost disappointed in myself for, for running from
• 53:55
  coaching for, for a while and sell those things, you know,
• 53:58
  Wait, OK, I, I again appreciate that.
• 54:00
  Honesty, and I'm sorry to butt in here, I appreciate that, but
• 54:05
  it's almost the exact same thing we were just talking about, but
• 54:07
  in a different level for you, unless you died not being able
• 54:13
  to understand. Oh, these are kids and I should
• 54:15
  be teaching them. You got to learn it at some
• 54:17
  point too. And so whether you learn it as
• 54:19
  a, you know, maybe some kids learn at 18 years old, if like,
• 54:22
  wow, I can be a leader for other people.
• 54:23
  If I see someone struggling, well, what am I going to do
• 54:25
  about it? I'm helping.
• 54:26
  Some of us don't learn until 2030.
• 54:27
  Forty, 50-60 years old. So thank God you learned this as
• 54:30
  a 25 ish year old person, you know, not a 45.
• 54:33
  Like you're ahead of the game. So that's so.
• 54:35
  So give yourself some grace, I guess is what I'm saying there.
• 54:37
  I appreciate that. Yeah.
• 54:39
  Yeah. Well, I appreciate that.
• 54:40
  For sure. And like I said, you know,
• 54:41
  we've, we've seen a lot more success since kind of trying to
• 54:44
  take this mindset. And I don't think we're, no
• 54:47
  offense to the team we have right now, we're not as skilled,
• 54:49
  we're not the most skilled team we've had, but we've shown the
• 54:51
  most improvement and we've broke 3 school records already this
• 54:54
  year. And you know, I just feel like
• 54:55
  it goes a long way. It goes a lot longer than a lot
• 54:57
  of people think. So are you?
• 54:59
  Are you doing anything? Kind of cool and you may not
• 55:02
  even think it's cool or unique, you know, because you do it
• 55:03
  everyday. So it may be just like that's
• 55:05
  just what we do, but help us. Somebody's listening right now
• 55:07
  going wait, Chad, wait, I'm in this, I'm in this right now.
• 55:11
  This is where I'm at. Do you pick captains a unique
• 55:16
  way? And when I say unique, you may
• 55:17
  not think it's unique. So talk to us about what are you
• 55:19
  doing to be the coach and help these guys and gals with
• 55:23
  leadership and ownership of their team?
• 55:26
  Yeah, so the first thing I talked.
• 55:28
  To him about is you got to lead by example before anything else.
• 55:31
  You no one will listen to a hypocrite.
• 55:32
  You can't be doing XYZ and, and try to tell people to, to do it
• 55:37
  a different way. And we, we don't, we don't pick
• 55:40
  captains. I'm a big believer the kids are
• 55:42
  going to just gravitationally go towards those leaders.
• 55:45
  You will know who the the captains are without having to
• 55:47
  have to see on their chest. I'm, I'm a firm believer of
• 55:49
  that. So the biggest?
• 55:52
  Thing lead by. Example and get to know your
• 55:54
  teammates like we're also not going to listen to if you don't
• 55:56
  have that relationship built with them.
• 55:58
  So I think if you do those two things, you lead by example,
• 56:01
  you're doing the right things, you're working hard, you're
• 56:02
  being nice to people, you're getting to know people.
• 56:05
  I think I think things kind of take care of themselves.
• 56:07
  And you know, also we talk a lot about mindset.
• 56:10
  It's like a bad, a bad mindset's contagious.
• 56:13
  So is a good mindset. So you're attacking these
• 56:15
  difficult things everyone else is going to, But if the fastest
• 56:18
  person on our team is has an awful mindset, we're in trouble
• 56:22
  because that's going to trickle down to everybody.
• 56:25
  So having that mindset, being respectful, working hard, doing
• 56:28
  those little things, getting to know your teammates, little
• 56:31
  things go a long way. Any books or?
• 56:33
  Articles or podcasts that you like?
• 56:35
  Do you have a book club or anything like that or?
• 56:37
  No? No, I thought about a book.
• 56:39
  Club there's a few books and they're kind of cliche books.
• 56:41
  Chop Wood, Carry Water is a good one.
• 56:44
  The subtle art of not giving up. That's a really.
• 56:47
  Good one too, because I feel. Like kids try to kind of put on
• 56:49
  a facade that they don't really care what people think, but they
• 56:52
  they care what. People think so.
• 56:55
  A few of those things and you know, worrying about what other
• 56:58
  people think about you all the time.
• 56:59
  Do the right thing and things are gonna be okay.
• 57:01
  Can you imagine? Maybe you had this in your life.
• 57:03
  I know I certainly had where I thought that right?
• 57:07
  I didn't want to look foolish in front of people or I wanted to
• 57:10
  fit into some crowd. And so I acted how I thought
• 57:12
  they wanted me to act. And I don't really remember.
• 57:15
  It was, I'm old now, so it was a couple decades ago.
• 57:18
  But I remember where I was just like, you know what, I don't
• 57:21
  care anyway. It was almost like, it almost
• 57:23
  sounds negative. I almost like it just stopped
• 57:25
  caring. That's like, I just don't care
• 57:26
  anymore. If you don't like me for who I
• 57:29
  am, I don't give a right. Exactly.
• 57:33
  And it's like, well, someone's got to like, like, you know,
• 57:36
  there's 8 billion or whatever people on the plane.
• 57:38
  Like someone's got to like me, right?
• 57:40
  And I remember as I started kind of like understanding that that
• 57:44
  new feeling of like just being myself of like how freeing it
• 57:47
  was like, oh, I don't have to act like this.
• 57:50
  I don't have to the fake this over here.
• 57:53
  And I know, you know, again, you're dealing with 14 to 18
• 57:55
  year old kids, right, bro? I mean, you talk about clicks
• 57:58
  and what's cool and not cool and all this kind of stuff.
• 58:01
  So I think it's even harder for them.
• 58:03
  But man, if they could just see who they are, look in the mirror
• 58:07
  and like, OK, that's who I really am.
• 58:09
  Life gets so much better. It gets way.
• 58:13
  Better and you can just start focusing on you and doing what
• 58:16
  is right instead of what other people want all the time.
• 58:19
  Like a little bit more stress free.
• 58:21
  Yeah, for sure. I think it's big.
• 58:23
  I think it's really big. I love it.
• 58:24
  Well. Chad, I love when I have my high
• 58:27
  school coaches here because I love I just have like all these
• 58:31
  like curious as the as an old man through social media, like I
• 58:35
  see all these, you know, arguments and discussions
• 58:38
  happening. And so I'm always like, you
• 58:40
  know, it's great to have these. And that's what I'm a big
• 58:42
  believer. I'm a huge advocate of social
• 58:45
  media. I think it is AI think it can be
• 58:47
  a positive thing. And I don't think the things
• 58:49
  that we blame it on are strictly social media.
• 58:51
  I think their life. So, you know, and then you can
• 58:54
  either run from it or you can be the light in that.
• 58:56
  So I was like with our high school coaches, you know, your
• 58:59
  boots on the ground, man, you're in the as a counselor.
• 59:02
  Jeez, you are literally in the mix of what 14 to 18 year old
• 59:05
  kids are doing. So I've got just like AI don't
• 59:08
  know. I've got a litany of questions.
• 59:09
  I just kind of want to pepper you.
• 59:10
  But before I do that, anything else that we should have talked
• 59:13
  about here, you know, up to 2025 there at at Clarinda, anything
• 59:18
  that you're doing unique or you want to make sure?
• 59:20
  Yeah, I mean, I wanted to share this story.
• 59:21
  I just want to make sure we we don't miss anything there.
• 59:24
  No, man, I think we've done a pretty.
• 59:26
  Decent job covering, covering a good a good amount of it.
• 59:28
  I don't know, I'm not too unique.
• 59:30
  I guess I just kind of yeah, you, you know, that isn't,
• 59:33
  isn't. Isn't that the reality though?
• 59:34
  I, I mean, I know and this isn't a 2025 thing.
• 59:37
  This was the same in 1985 and 1995 and things like that.
• 59:41
  But you know, we all, and I hate to blame media, but you know,
• 59:45
  the things that we consume tell us that we want, you know, we're
• 59:47
  special and you're unique and all that.
• 59:49
  And it's like, you know, at the end of the day, we're all quite
• 59:52
  average. And I'm sorry, yeah, there's
• 59:55
  things that you can be unique in.
• 59:56
  But overall we're, you know, we're dudes and dudettes that
• 59:59
  are trying to live a life. And hopefully, you know, the
• 1:00:02
  majority of us are, you know, realize that the positivity is,
• 1:00:04
  is being with a group and, you know, being good to people and
• 1:00:07
  not shutting people away for various stupid reasons and
• 1:00:11
  things like that. So.
• 1:00:13
  So it's kind of weird to say like, hey, you know, sorry.
• 1:00:14
  The good news is you are average.
• 1:00:16
  You know, if you if you weren't, it's like what's wrong with you
• 1:00:18
  actually, you know, if you're not average.
• 1:00:20
  So for sure, I think it's I think it's a positive thing to
• 1:00:23
  say there, Chad. OK, man.
• 1:00:25
  So you are in. Is the senior class at Clarinda
• 1:00:29
  still around 26 or has it grown? So I didn't graduate from
• 1:00:32
  Clarind. I graduate from a small town
• 1:00:34
  West of here. Oh, I had Clarinda in my head.
• 1:00:36
  Oh, that's all right, Yeah. But Clarinda's about 80, about
• 1:00:39
  80 kids. OK, Yeah, OK.
• 1:00:42
  I had because. I we started by asking where
• 1:00:44
  Clarinda was. So I just in my head, yeah,
• 1:00:45
  sorry about that. Yeah, no, all good, but you're
• 1:00:47
  in the. Neighborhood, though, yeah.
• 1:00:49
  Close 30 miles. East of where I grew up.
• 1:00:51
  OK, because I. Was going to ask because, see, I
• 1:00:54
  thought you went back to Clarinda as you graduated there
• 1:00:58
  when the Briarcliff came back. And so I was gonna ask, like, do
• 1:01:01
  you work with some of the teachers that taught you, but
• 1:01:02
  you were in a totally different school.
• 1:01:04
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01:05
  All right. I'm caught up now, Jen.
• 1:01:07
  All good, all good. Talk to me.
• 1:01:09
  About. 1418 year old kids, you were in the muck of it and all
• 1:01:13
  we hear. It's easy for us to hear through
• 1:01:17
  social media and the news and all that stuff about just how
• 1:01:20
  lazy this group is, how for athletes, how D1 or bust, no
• 1:01:25
  matter how good or not good they are, you know, probably most of
• 1:01:28
  them are average, right? You know, we hear all this, you
• 1:01:30
  know, they, they don't talk to each other.
• 1:01:32
  There's, you know, they're only, you know, Instagramming and
• 1:01:35
  TikTok in and all this stuff. What's your experience when
• 1:01:38
  you're working with this, this age group?
• 1:01:40
  Yeah, I I try not to. Fall into the trap of just
• 1:01:44
  generations just like this you know we we're the ones that are
• 1:01:48
  kind of teaching them so if anything it kind of falls back
• 1:01:51
  on on us if 200% when someone. My age complaints about young
• 1:01:55
  people I'm like, but you're their dad, but you're their mom
• 1:01:57
  like who are they They get it from then you're the parent.
• 1:02:00
  Don't run away from parenting. How about that?
• 1:02:02
  Exactly that. There we go.
• 1:02:03
  Let's put that on a. Shirt Yeah, that would be very
• 1:02:06
  helpful, but no, I mean, this group they're very social media
• 1:02:10
  driven. That's that's kind of I mean
• 1:02:12
  that's how it's probably going to continue to go, you know, and
• 1:02:15
  I can even see it from the time I graduated to now.
• 1:02:17
  It's a it's a lot bigger piece even from from 2016 from when I
• 1:02:21
  was. Did you have a cell phone in
• 1:02:22
  high school? Yeah, I got my.
• 1:02:23
  I think I got my first. Smartphone my sophomore year of
• 1:02:26
  high school, that's when it kind of started to become a thing.
• 1:02:28
  So yeah, so. But now everyone does, man,
• 1:02:31
  everyone. But.
• 1:02:32
  But did you have a lot of social media?
• 1:02:33
  With that smartphone, not really.
• 1:02:35
  I think I have Facebook. I think that was it.
• 1:02:36
  I was gonna say they went much right.
• 1:02:37
  Yeah. I'm not, you know, I'm not
• 1:02:39
  posting anything crazy. On Facebook, my grandma's on
• 1:02:41
  there, you know, I can't, I can't, I can't do anything too
• 1:02:44
  nuts, you know? But yeah, this generation, I
• 1:02:48
  mean, I don't fall into the lazy thing at all.
• 1:02:51
  I think they work really hard. I think they work just as hard
• 1:02:53
  as the kids were when I was in high school.
• 1:02:56
  Do you think they're a little bit more loose than kids were
• 1:03:00
  when I was in high school? There's like a a lot less, they
• 1:03:03
  don't get as embarrassed as I think kids used to.
• 1:03:06
  And I think that maybe as you do to social media and all, like
• 1:03:09
  the tick dances and things like that.
• 1:03:11
  I feel like if I did that in high school, I think my friends
• 1:03:13
  would have maybe just beat the crap out of me, to be honest.
• 1:03:15
  But now it's like a cool thing, so whatever.
• 1:03:18
  But yeah, but yeah, they, they, I think they're fairly the same
• 1:03:25
  as that used to be even 10 years ago when I was in high school,
• 1:03:27
  to be honest. They have access to.
• 1:03:29
  So much more just like we do as adults have access to so much
• 1:03:32
  more information. Meaning that it's so easy right
• 1:03:35
  now to go on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, etc, and research
• 1:03:39
  quarter mile or training or 100m training.
• 1:03:42
  Do you see, do you get challenged more?
• 1:03:45
  And maybe it's not necessarily challenge, but even just
• 1:03:47
  questions of like, hey, how come we're doing this?
• 1:03:50
  Or hey, I saw this. Heck, they can go see what their
• 1:03:54
  rivals are doing. Someone from Des Moines
• 1:03:56
  Roosevelt is posting, here's what we did today.
• 1:03:58
  It's like, why aren't we doing this today?
• 1:04:00
  For sure and. I actually tell the kids I like
• 1:04:02
  that, come talk to me. It's like there's a right and
• 1:04:04
  wrong way to do it. You know, if you if you have a
• 1:04:06
  question, maybe not in front of the whole team, go well, why the
• 1:04:08
  heck we doing this? Coach Blank, come, come talk to
• 1:04:11
  me one-on-one. I actually like that because for
• 1:04:13
  me that means they care. That means they're curious about
• 1:04:17
  it and I'm not going to get my feelings hurt if they're
• 1:04:19
  questioning things because as a coach, I should always have a
• 1:04:21
  reason of why I'm doing things anyway.
• 1:04:23
  So I should be able to answer the question.
• 1:04:25
  So it honestly just cultivates a lot of really good track
• 1:04:28
  conversation back and forth between me and the athletes.
• 1:04:31
  And I'm, I love that we have a lot of kids that really like
• 1:04:34
  track, which is really cool. But no, they, they see a lot of
• 1:04:38
  that stuff though. A lot of that stuff like fly by
• 1:04:41
  hand off or hey, they did this work out or I saw Harvard's
• 1:04:45
  coach did this. He posts on Twitter all the
• 1:04:47
  time. And I'm like, no, hey, we're
• 1:04:49
  seeing the same stuff, fellas. We're seeing all the same
• 1:04:52
  things. They're like, hey, I saw this on
• 1:04:53
  Instagram last week. Did you get it from there?
• 1:04:55
  I'm like, do I say yes? But the answer is normally yes
• 1:05:00
  it is. I love that Mark and Kayla.
• 1:05:04
  At Harvard do an amazing job. First of all, they're they're
• 1:05:06
  great educators both again, Gil podcast.
• 1:05:08
  They were they were some Ogs. They were like #4 and 5 or #3
• 1:05:11
  and five or something like that. Great human beings.
• 1:05:14
  You got to go listen to their, their journey.
• 1:05:15
  It's quite amazing. But they are they're great
• 1:05:18
  educators and great value givers.
• 1:05:19
  And so, yeah, their their tweets and Instagram are just chock
• 1:05:23
  full of value, man, and they they do an amazing job.
• 1:05:26
  That's funny that I don't know, I guess I look it through my
• 1:05:29
  lens. So I know like, you know, Chad's
• 1:05:31
  looking at that and Collins looking at that, but I don't, I
• 1:05:34
  don't think about like, Oh yeah, Joey is, you know, the kid is
• 1:05:36
  looking at that and Tina, the kid is looking at that.
• 1:05:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't ever because I didn't really think
• 1:05:40
  about it that way too. That could yeah, that's
• 1:05:42
  interesting. What recruiting wise how and you
• 1:05:48
  know, you're in a small school. I'm not going to necessarily
• 1:05:50
  want to think one way or the other that maybe don't have kids
• 1:05:52
  that are being recruited, but certainly there's so many
• 1:05:55
  opportunities out there maybe have.
• 1:05:56
  How do you see the connection between college coaches and you
• 1:05:59
  as the high school coach in the recruiting process?
• 1:06:02
  Yeah. So that's been really.
• 1:06:04
  Fun for me to even learn more about here in my younger
• 1:06:08
  coaching career for me as an athlete, it was pretty cut and
• 1:06:11
  dry. Like a lot of you know, D twos
• 1:06:13
  or Nai is reaching out, you know, and I've been very
• 1:06:16
  thankful and blessed to have some really high quality
• 1:06:18
  athletes come through and had a 6-8 high jumper, 23 foot long
• 1:06:22
  jumper or like, yeah, we've had some we've had some studs come
• 1:06:26
  through 17 foot girls long jumper.
• 1:06:28
  We set a girl medal at Drake Relays last week in the
• 1:06:30
  hundreds. So we've been we've had some,
• 1:06:32
  you know, really good run here. So we've had, we had some really
• 1:06:36
  cool recruiting processes, like we got a letter from USF a few
• 1:06:39
  years ago for our 6-8 high jumper and like, you know, stuff
• 1:06:42
  like that. So it's been what I was trying
• 1:06:46
  to tell kids is you got to go to what fits you D1.
• 1:06:50
  Maybe that's what fits you D2. Maybe that's what D3 and AI.
• 1:06:53
  It doesn't matter. You go, you make a priority list
• 1:06:55
  of what is important to you and you make sure that that college
• 1:06:58
  fits XY and Z. If you think that it's D1, OK,
• 1:07:02
  great. I would recommend that.
• 1:07:04
  That's not one of your priorities.
• 1:07:05
  Maybe it's it's financial, our our team fit or what is the
• 1:07:10
  program like? Or do they have good athletic
• 1:07:12
  trainers? Or what's their food like?
• 1:07:14
  Or more important than all those, do they have the major I
• 1:07:17
  want? Is it going to be the right
• 1:07:18
  price point that I want? Things like that?
• 1:07:20
  So kids are starting to buy into that quite a bit, which is
• 1:07:24
  exciting. We've had several people go to
• 1:07:28
  Northwest Missouri State. It's about 45 minutes away from
• 1:07:31
  us, so that's an easy one for us.
• 1:07:33
  I saw you actually had Fort Lewis's old track coach on a few
• 1:07:36
  weeks ago. We sent a kid there last year,
• 1:07:38
  Treyton Scott Bader. So that was super fun.
• 1:07:40
  And then just had a kid go to Morningside.
• 1:07:43
  Another another kid going to you and I.
• 1:07:45
  So it's exciting. So you mentioned I I was looking
• 1:07:49
  up because I want. To make sure I had the right
• 1:07:50
  name for this. I, I thought this was
• 1:07:52
  fascinating. You know, we, we talked about,
• 1:07:54
  you know, we're starting the Gill 1918 projects.
• 1:07:57
  So Tuesday through Sunday, 10 to 30 minute, you know, kind of Ted
• 1:08:00
  talks of track and field, you know, by coaches, 4 coaches and
• 1:08:05
  a couple a week ago, Brian Hallett had an episode this the
• 1:08:09
  decision matrix for the recruiting process.
• 1:08:12
  It made me think about exactly what you just said there about,
• 1:08:15
  you know, write out your priorities.
• 1:08:16
  And so I would encourage any high school coach and parents,
• 1:08:21
  kids, etcetera, go listen to Brian Hallett's decision maker.
• 1:08:25
  He did a great job. He was talking about an Excel
• 1:08:27
  sheet. So he's trying to explain it an
• 1:08:29
  Excel sheet in in audio. He did an amazing job.
• 1:08:31
  But he, you know, really implemented some like private
• 1:08:35
  sector like weighting averages to it as well.
• 1:08:39
  That I thought was just like, I mean, I was like, bravo O'Brien,
• 1:08:43
  like this will help a lot of kids.
• 1:08:44
  So I would encourage you to take a look at that and share it with
• 1:08:47
  your parents. And I just thought Brian did a
• 1:08:50
  fantastic job. Another thing you said there, it
• 1:08:53
  is interesting. You know, I, I, I, I want to,
• 1:08:59
  and I am on the anti D1 or bust, right?
• 1:09:03
  Because I think, you know, you need to go to the right school
• 1:09:05
  for you. And, and it's not all, but I
• 1:09:07
  don't think it's as simplistic as as we, we like to make it in
• 1:09:10
  regards to like, hey, you run 48 seconds in the quarter, Jamal,
• 1:09:16
  but you know, D1, you're going to get eaten up or powerful,
• 1:09:19
  you're going to eaten up. You need to go look at D2.
• 1:09:21
  You can have a great D2 experience and be all American.
• 1:09:23
  And that's right. That's correct.
• 1:09:25
  And then we had Shelton Irvin from Atascocito High School on
• 1:09:31
  the podcast a few months ago. The Tascocito set the national
• 1:09:36
  record in the four by one last year. 38 something.
• 1:09:40
  It started with 38. That's all you need to know,
• 1:09:42
  right? It's unbelievable.
• 1:09:44
  I can't. It's crazy.
• 1:09:46
  Just dumb. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:47
  He did a great. Job, the kids, it's amazing and
• 1:09:50
  his journey was that he went to I think it was universe.
• 1:09:54
  I wasn't Houston. I can't remember.
• 1:09:56
  He went to a school. I thought it was University of
• 1:09:58
  Houston, but maybe he's not tracking, but then transferred
• 1:10:01
  to Texas. He he he he was OK at his first
• 1:10:05
  school and that's why he wasn't Houston.
• 1:10:06
  I'm I'm getting this all mixed up.
• 1:10:08
  Go listen to it and you'll know the real story.
• 1:10:09
  But anyway, he transfers to Texas where he's not like, like
• 1:10:12
  he air quotes should not have been an athlete.
• 1:10:15
  He was good, but he wasn't, you know, he wasn't 1 of 48 or
• 1:10:18
  something like that. But then he talks about through
• 1:10:22
  the journey of what being at a University of Texas for track
• 1:10:25
  and field, what they did for him today.
• 1:10:27
  Now as a track coach, like the people that were there, some of
• 1:10:30
  his teammates, his coaches, other coaches, you know, pro
• 1:10:33
  coaches that were there to train their athletes and things like
• 1:10:35
  that. And it really made me pause
• 1:10:38
  about like, you know what, again, 99% of kids are not going
• 1:10:43
  to GoPro. So maybe so so that could be the
• 1:10:49
  argument of like, well, then go to a briar Cliff and have a
• 1:10:51
  great experience and go to national, you know, experience
• 1:10:53
  nationals and NEA nationals. That's a big deal, bro.
• 1:10:56
  I don't care if it's D Warner, NEA or JUCO, that's a big deal.
• 1:10:58
  You made it to the top meet of your area.
• 1:11:01
  That's huge, huge. What a great experience in the
• 1:11:03
  pomp and circumstances that happened, the gifts and all that
• 1:11:06
  kind of stuff. So, so cool, but then can't it
• 1:11:09
  also be like, hey, maybe you should go to LSU, Texas, Troy
• 1:11:14
  University, you know, the big universities that are out there
• 1:11:17
  because of everything else that, you know, if you're not going to
• 1:11:20
  go pro, maybe you're the 10th best quarter, quarter mile or
• 1:11:23
  half mile or and but, but all the people that are around you
• 1:11:26
  make you a better 30 year old and 40 year old and 50 year old
• 1:11:29
  one day. You know, it really just kind of
• 1:11:31
  I don't think there's a cut and dry answer, but it really like
• 1:11:34
  made me pause and like, Oh, he I had a better experience not
• 1:11:39
  being a stud at Texas, but he's a better coach today and a
• 1:11:44
  better like he had all these like, you know, I hate to say
• 1:11:47
  connections, but like he easily could pick up the phone and call
• 1:11:49
  people for help for coaching. And it was like, it's because he
• 1:11:51
  went to Texas. It was really it changed me a
• 1:11:54
  little bit in regards to the like man, go to go to prior
• 1:11:56
  Cliff, go to Dre, go to Davenport.
• 1:11:59
  You know, you don't have to go to I where I will stay.
• 1:12:01
  Go there if you if that's the right place for you, but you
• 1:12:04
  don't think that you're not as worthy or having as good or you
• 1:12:08
  have less of a chance of having a great experience because you
• 1:12:11
  didn't go to Iowa or Iowa State. That's not true for sure.
• 1:12:14
  Yeah, that's a really good point.
• 1:12:15
  I've actually. Never really heard that side of
• 1:12:17
  it to be completely honest with you.
• 1:12:18
  Dude, go go listen. I'll have to watch it.
• 1:12:21
  It was this. This is May.
• 1:12:22
  Right. So yeah, it was this year,
• 1:12:25
  because it was after the Texas Track and Field Coach
• 1:12:26
  Association, after January, so it was somewhere around February
• 1:12:28
  or March. But Shelton Irvine, the
• 1:12:29
  Tascocita, Yeah, it really it changed me, bud.
• 1:12:35
  It really did. I I again more of kind of going
• 1:12:38
  from a cut and dry like, yeah, you don't have to go.
• 1:12:40
  Do you want this? Do you want to bust mentality
• 1:12:42
  will bust you up right. And then and again, do you want
• 1:12:45
  to bust is not the right thing. But his journey, it was like,
• 1:12:48
  wow, he is a better person because he did go walk on at
• 1:12:53
  Texas, you know, like and didn't have the same experience.
• 1:12:57
  He didn't he wasn't a conference champion or anything like that.
• 1:12:59
  But boy, all the other stuff, right?
• 1:13:03
  It made him better, it was. Interesting stuff, you.
• 1:13:04
  Don't think about too in a recruiting.
• 1:13:05
  Process. So that's, yeah, that's not at
• 1:13:08
  all I think you know. Your job is a tough job here is
• 1:13:12
  the expectation of, of the financial part of it, though, I
• 1:13:16
  think, right. So, so when you're, you're
• 1:13:18
  working with a kid and they're like, man, Coach Blank, I grew
• 1:13:21
  up a, a Hawkeye, man. I want to go to, you know, I
• 1:13:23
  want to be a foreigner hurdler at Iowa.
• 1:13:25
  And it's like, dude, you run 58 and that's cool.
• 1:13:27
  That's great that I'm not belittling you.
• 1:13:29
  But you know those kids. He's, you know, Joey's got kids,
• 1:13:32
  you know, 49 and 50s and maybe 51 is like his eighth kid.
• 1:13:36
  And it's like, but so that's fine if you want to go and walk
• 1:13:40
  on, if Joey would let you know in this example.
• 1:13:42
  But the if the expectation is, yeah, I want to go to the
• 1:13:44
  University of Iowa to be a point of hurdler and I think I should
• 1:13:48
  get a full ride. Now.
• 1:13:49
  That's where your conversations with the parents and the kids
• 1:13:52
  and and those are difficult, right?
• 1:13:53
  Because you're, you're, you're what they hear you say is you're
• 1:13:56
  not good enough for a full ride, right?
• 1:14:00
  You're good. Enough, you're a good enough
• 1:14:02
  person, but it's a business. It's the time wise, right?
• 1:14:05
  It's like, you know, maybe you can get money at this other
• 1:14:08
  place. You know, maybe there is a place
• 1:14:09
  for you. That's a difficult place to be
• 1:14:12
  as a as a high school coach and and a counselor, right?
• 1:14:15
  100% you hate to be. The one to kind of crush their
• 1:14:18
  dreams. But at the end of the day, you
• 1:14:19
  got to have some realistic expectations, you know, And you
• 1:14:23
  know, if you're kind of, if you can't get there, the track, I
• 1:14:27
  think it becomes a little bit easier because it's very black
• 1:14:29
  and white. I think other sports will become
• 1:14:31
  a little bit harder. I don't know bro, first of all I
• 1:14:34
  would agree. With you, because I think
• 1:14:37
  recruiting for track is easier than football.
• 1:14:39
  We talked about this a little earlier, right?
• 1:14:40
  You you could have been a stud at your school, like you could
• 1:14:42
  have rushed for, you know, 2000 yards a season.
• 1:14:45
  But it's like, OK, well, he's playing no offense.
• 1:14:47
  I know eight man's where the dogs are at and everything, but
• 1:14:49
  but it's like he's playing eight man and, you know, he's going up
• 1:14:51
  against defensive lineman that were, you know, 5/10 1:10.
• 1:14:55
  You know, he's not going to go to big 10 for, you know, you
• 1:14:58
  have to evaluate so much more where it's like, you know,
• 1:15:01
  you're in little middle of nowhere Iowa and you're running
• 1:15:03
  1040. It's like, well, that's still
• 1:15:05
  100 meters there, say 100 meters when he gets to big 10 or
• 1:15:09
  whatever, you know, So yeah, it's like so so so I want to
• 1:15:13
  agree with you that it's easier to have those expectations to
• 1:15:16
  track. But yet every day I'm reading on
• 1:15:19
  Twitter how coaches are being, you know, and contacted by high
• 1:15:24
  school kids at 58 second quarter Miller, and saying, yeah, yeah,
• 1:15:26
  I'd love your school, love a full ride.
• 1:15:28
  And it's like, what do you mean, bro?
• 1:15:29
  Like, did you even look at the right results?
• 1:15:31
  Because you're right, it is easy.
• 1:15:32
  It's right there. I can look at every result.
• 1:15:34
  Tifers has changed the game, if you will.
• 1:15:37
  Internet has changed the game. And yet we still have these
• 1:15:40
  mismatched expectations, right? Yeah, 100%.
• 1:15:43
  And I think, you know, with having conversations with any of
• 1:15:47
  our track kids, it's like, well, OK, to go D1, it's going to take
• 1:15:49
  XYZ, D2 and take XYZ. And then so far, it's been
• 1:15:54
  fairly easy to have those conversations.
• 1:15:56
  Just trying to, you know, have realistic expectations.
• 1:15:59
  But, you know, maybe that day where the kid thinks they're
• 1:16:02
  better than they are might be a little bit more difficult for
• 1:16:04
  sure. Yeah.
• 1:16:06
  Yeah. I mean.
• 1:16:07
  Like that 6-8 high jumper. That's a great example.
• 1:16:09
  Yeah, right. I mean, that's really good.
• 1:16:11
  Again, not taken away. Is he still in high school or
• 1:16:14
  did he go on? He graduated.
• 1:16:15
  Yeah, he graduated. Is he still in college or did he
• 1:16:17
  graduate college yet? He is working, I think he's.
• 1:16:20
  Just working. Didn't didn't go college.
• 1:16:21
  Yeah. Oh, OK.
• 1:16:22
  I just want to be respectful. I don't.
• 1:16:23
  Want to? No, you're good.
• 1:16:24
  I want to call out some kid. Who's just like 7-8 right now?
• 1:16:26
  I'm like, oh God, I'm sorry, man.
• 1:16:27
  Yeah, I was wrong. You're all right, you know, 6-8.
• 1:16:30
  6-8's really good. No, every, every high school
• 1:16:32
  coach in the country would take a 6-8 high jumper.
• 1:16:35
  The vast majority of colleges would absolutely take 6-8.
• 1:16:38
  But I don't know that the power 4 is taking 6-8 or if they are
• 1:16:42
  that they're doing much more than a books or 15%, you know,
• 1:16:46
  depending on a lot of factors, right, what other events are
• 1:16:48
  doing, etcetera, etcetera. And so you know that, but that
• 1:16:52
  kid gets a he gets a letter from South Florida.
• 1:16:53
  Absolutely they should be, you know, that that kid made pop 7
• 1:16:56
  and they're like, OK, we can maybe start talking, right?
• 1:16:59
  But it would be hard to maybe it's hard having some
• 1:17:02
  discussions of like, hey, man, I know you maybe want to go to
• 1:17:05
  South Florida, but they're offering you 10%.
• 1:17:06
  But hey, look, man, Briarcliff is offering you 75 or what,
• 1:17:11
  whatever. You know, it's like, man, you
• 1:17:13
  know, that's where you get caught up on what's the chest
• 1:17:16
  and it's like what's right for your major location finance.
• 1:17:20
  To me, that is still the biggest thing.
• 1:17:21
  Like when coaches complain about kids asking for full rides, I'm
• 1:17:24
  like, bro, I got no problem with them doing that.
• 1:17:27
  Now you I also have no problem you educating them, but college
• 1:17:32
  student debt, if a kid can go to get a full ride, take it.
• 1:17:37
  Go somewhere where there's a full ride again, major and
• 1:17:40
  location and everything. You know, those are table
• 1:17:42
  stakes, if you will, but financial, I mean, that's a
• 1:17:44
  huge. Thing and the kids are starting
• 1:17:46
  to get a lot more educated on that too.
• 1:17:47
  I mean, I remember when I was going through the process, it
• 1:17:49
  was something, I don't know, you didn't really think about all
• 1:17:52
  that much. Obviously you've got your offer
• 1:17:54
  back and you didn't really, you know, you compared and
• 1:17:56
  contrasted. But I feel like there's a big
• 1:17:58
  push now, like, hey, college is like there's, I think college is
• 1:18:01
  a scam. A lot of kids are saying that
• 1:18:02
  and stuff like that. Well, you know, it's up to your
• 1:18:05
  discretion, I suppose. But isn't it hard to like, just
• 1:18:07
  be like, yeah, you're. Right or you're wrong, right and
• 1:18:09
  it's like that's yeah, yeah, depending on how you yeah,
• 1:18:12
  depending on how you do it, yeah.
• 1:18:15
  But if you have. The option to go pay $40,000 or
• 1:18:17
  $10,000, probably going to pick the $10,000 one.
• 1:18:21
  You know, that's what I do anyway.
• 1:18:24
  But but you know, again, it's hard.
• 1:18:25
  You were talking. About 1718 year old kids who
• 1:18:27
  don't really like what's $40,000 to them meaning like they don't
• 1:18:30
  really know, they don't make any money.
• 1:18:32
  They don't know what a salary is and what, you know, expected
• 1:18:35
  salary. Most of them don't, you know,
• 1:18:36
  they barely know how much their pop tarts for breakfast cost.
• 1:18:39
  So what's a big deal of 40,000 a year?
• 1:18:42
  I'll just get a job that's 100 as soon as I get out of college.
• 1:18:44
  It's like good luck. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:18:47
  Like they don't have a great. Concept of how much money that
• 1:18:50
  really is or when they're like, yeah, you'll get $40,000 at 5%
• 1:18:54
  interest rate when you're when you're graduating.
• 1:18:55
  Oh yeah, don't even talk about interest rate.
• 1:18:57
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's 5%?
• 1:18:58
  That's nothing. You know, so are you having
• 1:19:01
  these as a? Counselor, I mean I know our
• 1:19:02
  coaches on a daily basis and our teachers are having these are
• 1:19:05
  you more having these? Are you having these
• 1:19:07
  conversations more because you're a counselor?
• 1:19:08
  Is that kind of what a lot of for your seniors that you see
• 1:19:11
  and even junior absolutely and again another.
• 1:19:13
  Advantage of me being a counselor and a coach is I have
• 1:19:16
  it's time to have these conversations with kids, which
• 1:19:18
  is, which is really, really nice and help them out any way I can.
• 1:19:22
  And you know, I'm, I'm still learning to a lot about it.
• 1:19:25
  But again, I'm just trying to make sure that they find
• 1:19:28
  colleges that fit them. You know, think, hey, just 5%
• 1:19:31
  sounds like not much, but over X amount of years, that's a lot of
• 1:19:35
  money. All right, so let's think about
• 1:19:36
  this. How do you keep your ego out of?
• 1:19:38
  It, you know, ego's not bad, bad eco is bad.
• 1:19:42
  And what I mean by that is it's cooler.
• 1:19:46
  Some people could consider it cooler that I send kids to Iowa
• 1:19:49
  and Iowa State versus Iowa Western, Briarcliff, etcetera.
• 1:19:53
  How do you keep your ego of like, hey man, maybe Iron
• 1:19:55
  Western is the exact spot that Jamal should be going to, you
• 1:19:59
  know, Right, right. And I think.
• 1:20:01
  You know, that's something again, as a younger coach, I
• 1:20:04
  think I may be struggled with a little bit is like, I kind of I
• 1:20:07
  want to be that guy. Like, yeah, well, I sent this
• 1:20:09
  kid here. I sent this kid here, you know,
• 1:20:11
  and overtime like, well, if I want a coach can be successful,
• 1:20:14
  I've got to throw my own ego out of the way a lot of the time,
• 1:20:17
  you know, and it's about the kids.
• 1:20:18
  It's not about me. It's about them and their
• 1:20:21
  journey and what they want to do and things like that.
• 1:20:23
  So it is definitely admittedly something I struggled with early
• 1:20:27
  on. It's like, you know, I had that
• 1:20:28
  6A high jumper and a 23 foot long jumper.
• 1:20:30
  I'm like, you guys need to go here, here, you know it ended.
• 1:20:34
  Up not being something they wanted.
• 1:20:35
  To do at all so and that, that's their choice and that's fine.
• 1:20:38
  I'm OK with that. But yeah, obviously I think I'd
• 1:20:42
  be a fool to say it's not super cool to send someone D1.
• 1:20:45
  But at the end of the day, you understand it's about kid, you
• 1:20:48
  know, and what's going to fit them academically, financially,
• 1:20:51
  team wise, campus feel, you know, anything like that.
• 1:20:56
  Put the kit first. You know, you got to got to kind
• 1:20:58
  of remind yourself of that sometimes, so I wish.
• 1:21:00
  You know, a lot of times coaches in their BIOS or in a tweet or
• 1:21:03
  something, they'll say, you know, You know, over my 10
• 1:21:05
  years, it's, you know, Clarinda Clarita, sorry, Clarinda, or
• 1:21:12
  whatever school I've sent, you know, 20 kids to D1.
• 1:21:16
  I'd rather they say maybe how many kids they sent to college,
• 1:21:19
  right? Like because.
• 1:21:20
  When when I see. That I go wait a minute.
• 1:21:22
  I bet you I can find a tweet from that coach that also says
• 1:21:25
  something anti D1 or bust. And it's like, but you you're
• 1:21:29
  you're you're piling into it. You're yeah, yeah, yeah, you're
• 1:21:32
  promoting it. You're saying how many kids you
• 1:21:33
  sent to D1? That means you, you, you, you,
• 1:21:35
  you lessen D2D3. You know, it's like, yeah, so
• 1:21:39
  I'd rather want to say, you know, I sent X amount of kids to
• 1:21:41
  college or, you know, it's actually more impressive
• 1:21:43
  because, you know, as great a coach as you you are today,
• 1:21:46
  Chad, and as you're going to be in the next 5-10 twenty years,
• 1:21:51
  genetics is still the ceiling of whatever your kids are going to
• 1:21:53
  be. And you don't get to pick the
• 1:21:54
  kids that are coming to your program, right.
• 1:21:55
  So I'm more impressed if, you know, Chad, one day you put out
• 1:21:58
  a tweet that says, hey, in my 10th year, you know, we have had
• 1:22:02
  over 100 kids every year. I'm like, wow, like that's like
• 1:22:06
  that that means people want to be a part of your program.
• 1:22:08
  That tells me you're doing a good job.
• 1:22:10
  Like some guy or gal who's a jerk.
• 1:22:13
  Kids are not attracted to that. So it's like, yeah, you know,
• 1:22:16
  we, we have 50 and then we went down to 30 and you know, it's
• 1:22:19
  like, well, man, if you had 100 plus or whatever number, like
• 1:22:21
  consistently you're doing something dude.
• 1:22:24
  Like that's that's cool because, you know, maybe you just don't
• 1:22:26
  have the talented the kids to go to college.
• 1:22:28
  That's not your fault. You're coaching well as you're
• 1:22:30
  coaching well, you know. Right For sure.
• 1:22:32
  Yeah. And that.
• 1:22:33
  Honestly is where you bring that up.
• 1:22:34
  That's a goal for us to try to get to 100 boys and girls
• 1:22:36
  together. We're we're at 85 this year, so
• 1:22:38
  we're growing. Just want to get that number.
• 1:22:40
  Just want to keep growing. How?
• 1:22:41
  How big's the school student? Wise, yeah, about 80 per class
• 1:22:44
  so. Buzz that quick math.
• 1:22:47
  So 320 ish three. Yeah, 3:20-ish. 9:00 to 12:00.
• 1:22:50
  You're a counselor, not a math teacher.
• 1:22:51
  That's cool. Yeah, right.
• 1:22:52
  And so you have 80, so 36, so roughly 30 ish.
• 1:22:56
  Almost 30% of your student body is on your track team.
• 1:22:59
  Yeah, yeah, which is awesome. See.
• 1:23:01
  OK, that's the equation. I wish people would put out on
• 1:23:05
  tweets and stuff like that, like, hey, 30% of our student
• 1:23:08
  body are on the team. You know, 25% are like, that's
• 1:23:11
  the, I mean, kids are attracted to success.
• 1:23:14
  They're attracted to fun, happy things, you know, positive
• 1:23:18
  things. They really are.
• 1:23:19
  And so if, if you're a big percentage, you know, twenty,
• 1:23:22
  2530% of the school, if you're doing something right, they have
• 1:23:26
  other choices, right? Yeah, for sure.
• 1:23:29
  Yeah. For sure.
• 1:23:30
  Well, we're thankful we don't have soccer in the spring, which
• 1:23:33
  is really big, but you have tennis and golf though that you
• 1:23:37
  know that stuff. But yeah, I I know everybody's.
• 1:23:39
  Mind goes to sports of course they have other choices there
• 1:23:41
  but you know what they have other choices get a job play
• 1:23:45
  video games be the chess club you know walk their dog they
• 1:23:51
  they have a lot of go hang out with their friends go make
• 1:23:54
  TikTok videos they have a lot of choices for sure yeah it ain't
• 1:23:58
  about. Just the sports buddy A.
• 1:23:59
  Lot of choice. Go be a super academic, you know
• 1:24:02
  I'm going to study my math more instead of go to track practice.
• 1:24:05
  You know what I'm saying? They got a lot of choices buddy,
• 1:24:07
  and they choose to be a part of your program.
• 1:24:11
  That to me is the bravo part of it, man, I appreciate it.
• 1:24:14
  I love that. Last question.
• 1:24:16
  Here kind of about recruiting as you've had, you know, coaches
• 1:24:19
  reach out and things like that. There's this, you know, I'm
• 1:24:22
  always trying to help bring people together.
• 1:24:24
  There was a reason why we call it the Gil Connections podcast,
• 1:24:27
  right when we try to connect people.
• 1:24:29
  So there's an argument kind of two sides to a coin.
• 1:24:32
  Should the college coach contact the high school coach to talk
• 1:24:35
  about the kids or should they just go straight to the kid and
• 1:24:39
  the parents and things like that?
• 1:24:40
  I see both because I was the non contactor, but I see both sides
• 1:24:43
  now in today's world, what's your, you know, kind of thought
• 1:24:46
  and opinion on that side of it? Yeah, that's a good question.
• 1:24:49
  I. Feel like we've had a little bit
• 1:24:50
  more success when the coach kind of contacts me and then I kind
• 1:24:53
  of sit down with the kid and we talked about the cause a little
• 1:24:55
  bit. A lot of times I see when the,
• 1:24:57
  when the coach contacts the kid right away, whether it's like on
• 1:25:00
  Instagram or Twitter or whatnot, the kid will just like, yeah,
• 1:25:02
  this coach reached out. I'm not really interested.
• 1:25:03
  I guess I'm like, well, why? Why not?
• 1:25:06
  So for me, I feel like we've had more success when they contact
• 1:25:10
  me. I mean, I guess that's up to
• 1:25:12
  them and their personal kind of recruiting, you know, strategy
• 1:25:16
  kind of what they want to do. I actually think the, the best
• 1:25:19
  way I've seen it is coaches being at like the state meet and
• 1:25:22
  stuff like that. Our one of our distance kid just
• 1:25:25
  committed to Washburn and the Washburn coach gave, it was 30
• 1:25:29
  seconds after he finished the state cross country race.
• 1:25:31
  Hey, hey, we'd love to have you down.
• 1:25:33
  Gave him his card and it loved it.
• 1:25:34
  Went on a visit, committed 2 weeks later.
• 1:25:36
  So wow, that was that. Was really cool, he thought.
• 1:25:40
  That was the best. He thought he was walking for a
• 1:25:42
  while, so I thought that was cool too.
• 1:25:44
  So I think in person still is great.
• 1:25:47
  I know college coaches are super, super busy, but man, when
• 1:25:51
  you can get a kid in person, like at a meet, like they're
• 1:25:54
  like, it shows you care different things like that.
• 1:25:56
  I think that's probably the best way.
• 1:25:57
  But you know, I think either way is is fine, but we've had some
• 1:26:02
  good success with coaches reaching out to me and then me
• 1:26:05
  talking to the kid a little bit, get them in contact and stuff
• 1:26:07
  like that. So I love that you mentioned
• 1:26:09
  Washburn. The head coach, not he's not the
• 1:26:11
  distance coach, but Cameron Babb also go podcast along.
• 1:26:14
  I just always here's my thing when I point out who the podcast
• 1:26:19
  alums are. You know, we're at episode 300
• 1:26:21
  and 1314 where we are around here in this point here with
• 1:26:25
  with you, Chad. Well, that means we've had 303
• 1:26:28
  hundred other coaches. I I had someone tweet me the
• 1:26:30
  other day, hey, how come you haven't had Mouse Holloway on
• 1:26:33
  the show? And I was like, bro, he was
• 1:26:34
  guest #30 like he's an OG, he's been here before all these guys
• 1:26:38
  and gals, right? It's like, you know, so I'm just
• 1:26:40
  really, we have such amazing coaches in our library now.
• 1:26:44
  Boo schecks later Dan path via Thomas, Diljeet Taylor.
• 1:26:49
  I mean, just amazing, amazing coaches.
• 1:26:52
  So I'm always just kind of wanting people to like whatever
• 1:26:55
  app you're on right now or if you're on YouTube, just go back
• 1:26:58
  to like just scroll. You know, it's easy to scroll
• 1:27:00
  these things and go look at some of the amazing people.
• 1:27:02
  I just don't want them to get lost in the shuffle.
• 1:27:04
  So you mentioned Washburn and Cameron Babb was he's an
• 1:27:07
  amazing, amazing coach and he was a lot of fun.
• 1:27:09
  All right, Chad, start wrapping us up here today.
• 1:27:11
  Man, you know, you are you're so young.
• 1:27:13
  I love this, but I know you are you still going to have an eye
• 1:27:17
  towards the future You're not just looking at today as you
• 1:27:20
  look forward to 20/5/2020 six, 2728.
• 1:27:23
  What's got you excited there at Clarinda High School?
• 1:27:27
  Yeah, we got, you know. This is my fifth year here.
• 1:27:30
  I feel like we got a lot of good things rolling.
• 1:27:32
  Culturally, we're in a good spot.
• 1:27:33
  Kids know what to expect. And now it's starting the fun
• 1:27:36
  part of, you know, seeing these kids as freshmen all the way
• 1:27:39
  through seniors and seeing the development and stuff like that,
• 1:27:41
  that's super fun. So I got a lot of really good
• 1:27:44
  young groups coming through and, and we're excited to see, see
• 1:27:47
  what we can do with those, with those groups.
• 1:27:50
  We just said we had a kid in 800.
• 1:27:52
  He opened up the season at a 218.
• 1:27:53
  He went 206 last night. So we're we're really excited
• 1:27:57
  about little things like that. We got a really good senior
• 1:27:59
  class graduating and, you know, talking to these younger guys
• 1:28:01
  like, hey, they're gonna graduate at some point.
• 1:28:03
  Someone's gonna have to take their spot, you know.
• 1:28:04
  So we're excited to just keep building.
• 1:28:06
  You know, we always want to just continue to build and build and
• 1:28:09
  build and see what we can do from there.
• 1:28:11
  That's so cool. Yeah.
• 1:28:12
  That's great, man. I love it.
• 1:28:13
  You're doing a a great job there.
• 1:28:15
  You know, I just you know, I was AII coached high school for two
• 1:28:18
  years in college for 8:00. So I you know, my mind is more
• 1:28:21
  always thinking about our colleges and they get the more
• 1:28:23
  pub right, You know, as far as like social media and things
• 1:28:26
  like that. But I tell you, I am just
• 1:28:29
  fascinated with our high school coaches, man.
• 1:28:32
  It's again, 99% of your kids aren't going to go on to
• 1:28:35
  college, right? But 100% of they're not going to
• 1:28:38
  go on to compete track in college, but 100% of them are
• 1:28:41
  going to go on become moms and dads and business owners and
• 1:28:44
  teachers and coaches and counselors and all that.
• 1:28:47
  And, and your impact, your positive impact on these young
• 1:28:50
  kids is it's immeasurable. You know, most of them aren't
• 1:28:52
  probably going to tell you thank you.
• 1:28:54
  And maybe, you know, certainly some are going to tell you today
• 1:28:56
  as an 18 year old and some are going to come back as you get
• 1:28:59
  older, Chad, as 30 year old parents and you know,
• 1:29:02
  professionals and they're going to come back and be like, man,
• 1:29:04
  you know, coach, I remember when you set me straight, when I
• 1:29:08
  thought I knew it all and you, you, you gave me that tough talk
• 1:29:11
  or whatever, You know, you, you encouraged me to, you know,
• 1:29:14
  that's how I ran two O 6 is because of your encouragement.
• 1:29:17
  And it's a big deal to these kids.
• 1:29:20
  It's hard for them. They don't have the kind of
• 1:29:22
  brain capacity to understand, to say thank you today, but you're
• 1:29:25
  making a huge impact on them, which then they go out and make
• 1:29:29
  a huge impact to society. So, you know, I, I think what
• 1:29:31
  our coaches, our track coaches and our specifically here, our
• 1:29:34
  high school coaches are doing. It's just it's not rewarded
• 1:29:37
  enough. And that's why we started this
• 1:29:39
  podcast to kind of shed some light, whether your your fifth
• 1:29:41
  year in coaching or your 50th year and everything in between.
• 1:29:44
  It's it's extremely valuable and it's rewarding.
• 1:29:49
  Yeah. Well, I appreciate the kind.
• 1:29:50
  Words, Mike. I mean, that's, that's why we do
• 1:29:52
  it. So it's, it's fun to do.
• 1:29:53
  I'm blessed with the great staff, great family, great kids
• 1:29:57
  to work with, great administration, everything like
• 1:29:59
  that. So it makes my job pretty easy.
• 1:30:01
  I mean, I don't have a lot of barriers that I got to go
• 1:30:03
  through to, to help these kids out.
• 1:30:04
  So it's been great. It's been a great five years and
• 1:30:07
  looking forward to what we can keep doing so well.
• 1:30:09
  I can't wait to be on the side. Here watching, you know, again
• 1:30:12
  to see, excuse me, where you're at here at five years.
• 1:30:15
  So again, to, you know, use that track analogy as you get down
• 1:30:17
  through the race, as you get, you know, through the halfway
• 1:30:19
  point, you're not even you don't even think about halfway.
• 1:30:22
  You're not even close. It's just going to be cool to
• 1:30:23
  continue to see you develop. You're going to you're the kind
• 1:30:25
  of coach, the kind of person who's going to continue to
• 1:30:27
  develop, continue to prove you're going to continue to
• 1:30:29
  become a better counselor. You're going to continue to
• 1:30:31
  become a better a track coach, a better person, partner, friend
• 1:30:36
  to a teammate for your other teachers and stuff.
• 1:30:39
  They're just going to continue to to improve and and help other
• 1:30:42
  people. Man, I can see it.
• 1:30:43
  I'm just I'm I'm happy to be on the side and watching them, man.
• 1:30:46
  It's going to be a fun ride. I appreciate it.
• 1:30:48
  Thank you, Tom. Well, man, thank you for your
• 1:30:49
  time, man, you. Know it's track season like I,
• 1:30:52
  I'm still always in awe of the people who during track season
• 1:30:54
  who agree to do this and give me their time and effort and
• 1:30:57
  authenticity. And so I'm just grateful for
• 1:31:00
  that. It's one of the most expensive
• 1:31:01
  things you can give me, especially in light of today, my
• 1:31:02
  friend, thinking about you and your family today, but just
• 1:31:06
  again, grateful for you for being here and and sharing your
• 1:31:09
  journey with us. I appreciate it, Mike.
• 1:31:11
  You know any excuse I. Have to talk about track for a
• 1:31:12
  little while. I'm going to take it so so
• 1:31:15
  thanks again. I appreciate you having me on.
• 1:31:16
  It was a really good time. So so thanks.
• 1:31:18
  I love it guys and gals. Thank you for being.
• 1:31:20
  Here again today, you know, it's amazing.
• 1:31:22
  We keep rolling, we're adding to it, right?
• 1:31:23
  We're adding the Daily Guild 1918 project to it as well.
• 1:31:26
  And again, I encourage you to go back that recruiting, all of the
• 1:31:29
  ones, but some of the amazing topics so far at the beginning
• 1:31:31
  of the Guild 1918 project. But that recruiting one may just
• 1:31:35
  be in my brain of like, oh man, it really like I was thinking to
• 1:31:37
  myself as a high school coach or a parent of a high schooler or
• 1:31:41
  even the athlete, I'm like, oh, this would help you with all
• 1:31:43
  these choices I have in front of me.
• 1:31:45
  Help me narrow down maybe the top three or four.
• 1:31:47
  I could just provide clarity. So just encourage you to go
• 1:31:50
  listen to that one and all the other ones as well and be back
• 1:31:53
  next week, next Monday. So tomorrow will Tuesday through
• 1:31:56
  Sunday, hopefully if we have the content, we're going to have
• 1:31:58
  Guild 1918 projects for you. If you want to have your own
• 1:32:01
  project Guild 1918 Project podcast, reach out to me.
• 1:32:04
  This is by coaches for coaches. You're doing this.
• 1:32:05
  As soon as I hit stop, I'm going to challenge Chad here to create
• 1:32:08
  his own one as well. That's what happens now on the
• 1:32:10
  Monday podcast. Everybody gets challenged to do
• 1:32:12
  1, but reach out to me. It's super, super simple.
• 1:32:15
  Trust me, anybody can do it. And you, your voice does matter.
• 1:32:18
  So join us next week, join us tomorrow, and we're going to
• 1:32:21
  continue rolling and bringing you massive, massive amounts of
• 1:32:23
  value. Thanks everybody.
• 1:32:24
  Have a great day. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:32:31
  coach the ones that point people most every season needs a voice
• 1:32:35
  of reason speaking the growth you got to prep before you carry
• 1:32:38
  the load. Ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:32:40
  For those of us stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
• 1:32:43
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:32:45
  There's more than one way to go. Take notes that's paying you're
• 1:32:48
  told it ain't practice if your purpose Saint Clair.
• 1:32:50
  It can't happen until you listen with both ears.
• 1:32:53
  You can't mentor without a mentor.
• 1:32:54
  Years of experience you can reinvent those years.
• 1:32:57
  Every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
• 1:33:00
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and the fight not
• 1:33:04
  a win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:33:06
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to it's all
• 1:33:09
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
• 1:33:12
  6,000,000. Waste of time, choose none so
• 1:33:15
  y'all cross the finish line. The work ain't done so we learn
• 1:33:17
  from the experts but y'all got to put in the leg work guilt.
• 1:33:20
  Athletics is the network. It's all about connections put
• 1:33:23
  together for the profession to where every track coach could be
• 1:33:26
  blessing.