Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #262: Kortney Ross-Oates-Gill Customer Service

Transcript

#262: Kortney Ross-Oates-Gill Customer Service · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:10
  Track and field world Juvenal tuned in to our humble servant
• 0:14
  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message on Gil
• 0:18
  Athletics connections. All right, you're back.
• 0:26
  We're back and I'm going to have a lot of fun with this one
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  because from time to time, if you're a regular listener, you
• 0:31
  know that we have the best, most awesome coaches from around the
• 0:35
  country and really from around the world on a weekly basis
• 0:38
  here. We've just had some Community
• 0:40
  College coaches on, which was amazing.
• 0:41
  We started off the season here, season five with the Baylor 4x4
• 0:46
  podcast series. That's awesome.
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  We had a lot of fun there, and this one's going to be fun too,
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  because from time to time I like to bring you one of our
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  teammates here at Gil Athletics. You know if you're long time
• 0:57
  listener, you remember Jennifer, the All American Division One
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  Thrower in Indiana. That's our customer service
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  manager, one of the top 10 javelin throwers in the country,
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  Tim Glover, he's our sales manager here.
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  We just have a good time, really authentic love on coaches in the
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  sport of track and field. So we like to surround ourselves
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  with coaches and track and field athletes.
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  And today is no different. This is going to be a good
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  story. I think we're going to have a
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  lot of fun. There's going to be a few laughs
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  here and there. Help me welcome our customer
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  service Rep Courtney with Aki. Always loved that.
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  Help me welcome the, the, the Oh my gosh.
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  I can't remember my tagline. Here we go.
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  Help me welcome the wise the wonderful Miss Courtney Ross
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  Oates. Courtney, how are you today?
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  I'm good. How are you doing?
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  You know, it's always odd when I do the introduction because the
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  guest just kind of sits there and it's like, all right, When's
• 1:44
  he going to, Like, when are we going here?
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  But you, you did good. I appreciate that.
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  Yeah. Thank you.
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  Thank you. Thank you.
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  Hey, you know, this is going to be a lot of fun.
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  You know, you and I met a long time ago, actually, and, you
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  know, kind of had workings through like Team Pacer and
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  things like that throughout the years.
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  And now we get to be teammates, which is really a lot of fun.
• 2:01
  I get to see you more. That's always fun.
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  That is true. Yeah, it is fun.
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  So why don't we start with before we get into the sport and
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  how you got connected to the sport and some of the really
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  amazing things that you've done, let's step back and actually
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  talk about the present. Here you are on our customer
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  service team. Why don't you tell people, some
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  people maybe they think they know what customer service for
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  Guild Athletics means. Maybe they know because they've,
• 2:28
  they've talked in and called someone of our amazing people.
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  Why don't you give us just kind of a 30,000 foot level of like
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  what do you do for Guild Athletics?
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  Yeah. So basically what I do is I
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  answer the phone. So if you call in to Gil,
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  there's a team of us here. So the customer service reps, we
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  answer the phone whenever you call in.
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  And so we answer whatever question that you have and we
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  get you to the right person. Then what I do specifically is I
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  work with the pole vault clubs and track specialty dealers,
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  some of them. So yeah, So if you're a pole
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  vault club, then more than likely what you're doing is
• 3:00
  you're emailing me and I am facilitating your order.
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  So basically I'll put your order in, make sure there's any
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  questions. If anything needs to get done
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  with your order, that's what I do.
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  So yeah, I work with all the whole specific people, so the
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  people who know whole flexes usually.
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  Yeah, Asterisk, right, exactly. You know, one of my favorite
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  things I I actually thought for this a long time ago.
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  Now, you know, I've been here getting close to 18 years, which
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  is roughly your age, Courtney. So, you know, I've been around a
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  long time here in Guild Athletics.
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  Thank you for that by the. Way, yeah, thanks.
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  I'm making up for the pre interview.
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  We used to, like most in our industry, have an automated
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  system you would call in and press 1 to get customer service,
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  all that kind of stuff. And I, you know, I don't things
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  that that bother me as a, as a a regular person consumer I don't
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  like doing at work. And so I I, I think one day I'd
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  called in to some other, you know, Best Buy or something like
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  that and got this automated. You know, I was like, oh man,
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  it's just I just want to talk to a human and you know, you're
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  pressing 0 or you're, you know, the human, human, human, you
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  know, you know, whatever. And I remember I was like I came
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  into work and you know, I don't ever call into work.
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  So I didn't actually know. And I started thinking I was
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  like, I wonder what we do. And so I, you know, I got my
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  cell phone and I called us and it went to an automated system.
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  And I was like, oh, guys, I I remember calling a meeting and I
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  was like, raise your hand if you enjoy a computer answering the
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  phone when you call anybody and no one, of course, raise their
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  hand. Right.
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  And and I was like, well, that's what we do to our customers.
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  And so we, it literally got changed within like the week.
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  It was, it was awesome and has been ever since then.
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  You know, a human will actually answer the phone.
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  And so I love, you know, I when when I'm on the road, when I,
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  when I do call in, I love when you answer the phone or one of
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  our other customer service reps answer the phone.
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  It just, there's just something about, you know, the phone picks
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  up and hey, Gil Athletics, how can I help you?
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  And it's like, oh, thank God. I feel like I'm actually going
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  to get help. Yeah, It's not gonna send you to
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  some random thing. You're like you're asking for
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  support and it sends you over to accounting.
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  You're like, what? That's not what you said.
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  Exactly. Exactly.
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  What have you, you know, you've been with us for.
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  It's not a yeah, OK. I'll just say it's not a year
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  and it was moving towards a year, right.
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  What has been like, cool. You know, we get to talk to some
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  pretty cool people now. You know, we're going to learn
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  you're, you know, you're still going in your career as a pole
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  vaulter, so you get to hang out with a lot of cool people too.
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  But has there been like a fun experience?
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  You really got to help a customer in a pinch, or you got
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  to help on a big facility order or maybe you helped, I don't
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  know, making something up here. A 12 year old girl in, well, I
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  almost said Iowa, 12 year old girl in Texas needed a poll or
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  needed advice on a poll. What, whatever.
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  What's kind of, you know, if you think about some of the cool
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  things you've gotten to do, what's kind of been a highlight
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  for you? Yeah, actually.
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  So one specific story comes to mind because So the other, like
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  a few weeks ago, Trey Hardy called in and I, like, answered
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  the phone and I knew his voice immediately because I follow my
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  Instagram. So I follow and I was just like,
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  how can I help you? And I'm, like, sitting there
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  like, my husband's name is Trey, like, just like, 'cause he also,
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  he gave his spikes back. Like when my husband was in high
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  school, he gave them to Trey, my husband.
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  And so there was this whole, like, back story.
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  And I'm just sitting there like, awestruck that the fact that
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  I'm, like, talking to Trey Hardy on the phone, I'm just like, all
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  right, your order will be out in a couple days.
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  And I'm like, I had to message the team immediately afterwards.
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  And I was like, you guys, guess what?
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  And they're all just like, huh, Who'd you talk to?
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  And I'm like, you don't even know.
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  But besides that, the other day, actually at a track meet out
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  here in Arizona, there a kid needed some help because he had,
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  he was going from 14 sixes to fifteens and he didn't know,
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  like the flex jumps he should do.
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  And so I was actually able to go and talk to his coach and they
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  were Pacer Falls, of course. And I was able to go and like,
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  you know, help them be like, OK, here's what you would want to
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  do. This is what I would recommend.
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  And so basically there's been a few situations like that where
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  just helping people with the flex jumps has that.
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  Like actually is very satisfying to me because then I know I'm
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  like helping them because you're not going to a poll that's, you
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  know, significantly stiffer and then you're just going to get
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  stood up and you're like, what the heck is going on?
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  So yeah, I do that actually pretty regularly, but the one in
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  person was pretty cool. And then talking to Trey Hardy,
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  that's pretty cool too. Well, shout out to Trey, you
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  know, and I I remember when you messaged that 'cause I was like,
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  you know, I coached him as a freshman sophomore in college
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  and and he was a good, you know, he's a, you know, he's a
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  full-fledged man. You know, he's a dad and a
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  husband and you know, also married to, you know now former
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  vaulter Chelsea of course and but was, you know, he was a good
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  kid. You know I knew he was an 1819
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  year old and he he was a hard worker learned it from scratch
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  and he was not a multi kid in in high school at all.
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  He was a vaulter and hurdler and and really you know we talked
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  about a month ago about he you know what he's doing in Austin
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  right now and and down in Texas and really proud of him.
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  He's he's just a a cool guy. Just a guy you know you you
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  would not know outside of even now at his age.
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  You know he's got to be he wasn't that much younger than me
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  so he's probably 40 ish. Right now you're 3940 and still
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  looks like dude could go score 8000.
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  I mean it's a little bit. Oh yeah.
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  Little bit insulting, actually, when I compare pictures between
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  him and I of what he's doing. Well, even his wife too.
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  Chelsea. Yeah, she's still in shape.
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  I. I imagine, yeah.
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  I haven't seen pictures of Chelsea, but I imagine I've seen
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  pictures of their beautiful children.
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  Good Lord. And let me tell you what,
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  coaches, if you want to start the recruiting game early, give
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  Trey and Chelsea call. They have a couple of kids and
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  you know, it's not bad genetics to start with there as well.
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  So shout out to Trey, love him to death.
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  Yeah, I love your story there about helping that kid from 14-6
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  to 15. You know, it's easy for us to
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  forget, you know, we're inside these four walls.
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  We're putting in orders every day.
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  We're taking a lot of phone calls.
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  You know, I'm doing a lot of social media stuff every day.
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  And there's other, you know, we're manufacturers.
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  There's a lot of just things that we we have to do that you
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  know you never see from the outside and it's easy for us to
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  forget everything we do effects some young kid out there from
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  that that 9th grader that is learning to throw the shot put
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  for the first time and she's throwing 20 feet that we're
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  we're helping that that's the future 60 footer right there to
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  the kid who's scared to go try pole vaulting because you know
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  I've seen these guys jump 18. I can't do that.
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  You know and and we help a coach work through a pacer one Series
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  A beginning series something like that.
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  It's easy to forget that. And so I love that connection.
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  When you have stories, those are the kind of stories, Courtney
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  honestly, when life's tough, you know, yeah, yeah, you made a
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  mistake and so are dealers, you know, on you or coaches on you
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  or something. You know everything's going
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  wrong or whatever, you know, long hours etcetera.
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  Remember, man, there is a there's a Courtney out there
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  right now that because of you and because of the team is able
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  to do things and and maybe go to college.
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  And even if she doesn't go to college, she's able to enjoy the
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  sport and specifically the event of of pole vaulting.
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  So I really do. I love that story.
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  That's so cool. I I really like it.
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  That's awesome. Actually, I'm going to pause you
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  right there. Because Walker, so my dog named
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  after Brad. Walker, we're gonna find out She
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  has DNA all the way in pole vaulting, by the way, yes.
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  Yes. By the way, he is 12 years old.
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  He's scratching at the door, so. OK, get Walker.
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  So yeah, she's got a dog named Walker named after Brad Walker.
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  There's no stopping her with pole vaulting, that's for sure.
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  Oh. Absolutely not.
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  It's it's a it's a thing. Once you get into it, you're.
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  You're you're in all the way. Look.
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  At Oh, yeah. Kind of walks like Brad too.
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  Yeah, there's Walker. So everyone can see.
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  If I remember right, Walker has his own Instagram account,
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  right? He does.
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  It used to be furry. Brad Walker.
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  I think we changed it now to Walker Boy all.
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  Right, well. He also has his own pole bag.
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  But before we hop into your history, let's let's let's look
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  at the whole picture of pole vaulting.
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  So OK, so Courtney, we're going to find out the many, many years
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  and how you got into pole vaulting and things like that.
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  You work for a pole vaulting company, gal athletics.
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  You have a dog named Walker named after one of America, one
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  of the world's greatest vaulters, Brad Walker.
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  And you're married to a pole vaulter.
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  I mean, were mom and dad pole vault?
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  I mean, is just everything pole vaulting?
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  No, not at all. OK, all right.
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  At least there's some, I don't say normal.
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  See, 'cause, you know, pole vaulting's normal.
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  But yeah, so why don't we talk about husband real quick and and
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  you know, 'cause he's listening, so he's gonna be like, when did
• 12:09
  they talk about me? That's what he's really
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  concerned about. So introduce who your husband is
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  and and then we'll kind of go back and then work forward, if
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  that makes sense. Yeah, no.
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  So my husband is treyouts, or specifically old and treyouts.
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  He goes by his middle name. He is from Georgia, so I grew up
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  in Atlanta, GA outside of Atlanta.
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  Went to College in Birmingham, AL.
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  So he went to Stanford. So S AM not Stanford.
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  He jumped 565 in college. He came in fourth of the 2016
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  older trials. Barely missed the team.
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  That was the year where 570 made the team and so he went straight
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  to it, cleared 560, went straight to 570 and he missed.
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  Unfortunately was close but missed and then now he coaches
• 13:02
  at AZPVA so Arizona Pole Vault Academy.
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  He is my coach now which that's we'll get to that story later
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  but so long story. I've had a lot of coaches but
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  yeah so he's now my coach. He has jumped 582 this year, so
• 13:16
  the Olympic standard 19 one. And so yeah, now he had a great
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  indoor season, came in fourth at US indoors this year, and now
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  we're just preparing for the Olympic trials.
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  He's already qualified, so we've already got our tickets to
• 13:29
  Eugene this summer. Yeah, I mean, that's the basic
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  his pole vault history of Trey's life.
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  Yeah, I I overlooked a lot of things with Trey, especially
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  when you guys got married, 'cause, you know, he went to
• 13:45
  Sanford and I went to Troy. And there is a little now when I
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  say there's a little bit, 'cause, you know, Troy is on top
• 13:53
  of Sanford. But, you know, he was a bulldog
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  and it was like, well, that's nice.
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  You know, he went to Sanford. Definitely was better off going
• 14:00
  to Sanford as a pole vaulter than than any other school in
• 14:03
  the state. He.
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  Oh yeah, the coach out there. Yeah, he does a He does a pretty
• 14:07
  good job. Good guy.
• 14:08
  Why don't we talk about how YouTube met 'cause that seems
• 14:11
  like a softball question. How did two pole vaulters meet
• 14:14
  and then eventually the start a romance and then get married?
• 14:17
  How did you guys meet? I assume at A at a track meet.
• 14:21
  So it's sort of. So my ex, if you would guess,
• 14:25
  was a pole vaulter and he. Broke up.
• 14:29
  Hey, my first ex though was actually a high jumper.
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  OK, got a. Way to branch it up for.
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  Me So I was still friends with him.
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  We had been broken up for a while.
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  I went up to watch him at the 2016 trials because he
• 14:44
  qualified. He actually was the guy who
• 14:47
  slipped off the pole at the trials and got on the Morning
• 14:51
  News. That was my ex.
• 14:54
  But so while we're sitting there, we were watching because
• 14:56
  I didn't qualify. That was actually the last USAS
• 14:59
  that I didn't qualify for. And I was like, I'm going to
• 15:02
  qualify for every single one after this because there's no
• 15:05
  reason why I shouldn't be out there.
• 15:07
  But we were sitting there watching, and so Trey came in
• 15:10
  fourth and I was like, oh man, he's cute.
• 15:12
  And so I didn't say anything to him then because of course, not
• 15:14
  in person. Absolutely not.
• 15:16
  But then a couple months later, I had followed him on Instagram,
• 15:19
  and then I DM D him on Instagram.
• 15:21
  So I sent him a message and I was like, hey, I think you're
• 15:23
  cute is literally what I said. Hold on, that was your message.
• 15:28
  It was plain and simple. Yeah dude, I love that.
• 15:36
  Hey, that's all you got to say sometimes.
• 15:38
  And he. And he replied new phone who
• 15:40
  diss? No, he said.
• 15:42
  I think you're cute too, Beyoncé.
• 15:44
  And if anybody knows what song that comes from, you get a
• 15:47
  billion bonus points. Because even to this day, I'm
• 15:50
  still like, I don't even know where that reference is.
• 15:52
  Yeah, I'm not cool enough at. All it's a froggy, fresh song,
• 15:56
  so someone out there has got to know it because I still don't
• 15:58
  know it. But yeah, so, he said.
• 15:59
  I think you're cute too, Beyoncé.
• 16:01
  Froggy fresh. Yeah, and I obviously didn't
• 16:06
  know what it was, so I just was like, oh ha ha, whatever.
• 16:09
  Then deleted her messages. Wait, wait.
• 16:11
  I'm sorry. Talking to the next day.
• 16:12
  Hold on, hold on, what were you thinking when he responds back.
• 16:16
  I think you're cute too, Beyoncé.
• 16:17
  And you're like, my name's Courtney.
• 16:19
  It's in my Instagram, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 16:21
  yeah. Were you like, am I supposed to
• 16:22
  call this dude Jay-Z or something like?
• 16:25
  I I honestly really don't remember.
• 16:27
  I was like, I think I was so embarrassed that I messaged him
• 16:30
  like that. So then I just deleted our
• 16:31
  messages and then he messaged me the next day.
• 16:34
  And we've been talking ever since.
• 16:37
  We've talked every day since then.
• 16:38
  And that was the end of 2016. Wow.
• 16:42
  And. He was.
• 16:44
  Was he still living in Birmingham?
• 16:47
  Yes. So I am three years older than
• 16:49
  him. Yeah.
• 16:50
  So I was in San Diego at the Illinois Training Center and he
• 16:54
  was in Birmingham. AL had another year of college
• 16:57
  left, right? So yeah, we did this.
• 17:01
  For a while. That's amazing.
• 17:02
  All right, well, I'm sure we'll catch up more on that.
• 17:07
  I do. I I need to call or maybe I'll
• 17:10
  DM him. I got to be like, hey, what were
• 17:12
  you what what were you thinking? When you get this DM from
• 17:15
  Courtney Ross and it says I think you're that's it.
• 17:18
  I think you're cute. Not.
• 17:19
  Hey, how are you? Hey, saw you at the meet.
• 17:22
  I think you're cute. Like I I like, you know, there
• 17:25
  there's, you know guys don't get told that a lot.
• 17:28
  I don't get told that a lot. And I've been hating for 16
• 17:31
  years. My wife don't tell me that.
• 17:33
  So there's a little bit of like, Oh my God like, oh you.
• 17:35
  You know we can't say that out loud of course.
• 17:37
  But you know, it's like, oh, you know that's pretty cool.
• 17:39
  I love that. Awesome.
• 17:41
  Oh, you. Should ask them and then give us
• 17:42
  an update. I I, you know me, I I can't
• 17:46
  remember if he's on Twitter or not.
• 17:47
  You know, I'll, I'll hit him on Twitter, 'cause that's where I I
• 17:49
  live. So we'll we'll figure it out.
• 17:51
  OK, let's get in our way back machines.
• 17:53
  We've been talking about pole vaulting and you know again you
• 17:57
  are pole vaulting through and through.
• 17:59
  I I feel like if I cut you vaulting poles just come out of
• 18:02
  you. No, no blood.
• 18:04
  And I do have the Alpheus tattoo on my.
• 18:06
  I wondered. I wondered.
• 18:09
  There had to. Be the Olympic motto.
• 18:10
  It's pole vault. It's pole vault.
• 18:13
  Pole vaulters like tattoos go hand in hand.
• 18:16
  So I was like, there's got to be.
• 18:17
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's hop in our way back
• 18:20
  machine. Let's talk about where does
• 18:24
  track and field start for you. Does it?
• 18:27
  Does the sport of pole vaulting start immediately kind of give
• 18:30
  us let's let's go back and figure out track and field for
• 18:32
  you. Yeah.
• 18:34
  So basically I thought I would be a distance runner because,
• 18:37
  you know, being young, your parents are on your upper 5 KS.
• 18:40
  Like we did the family 5K thing. So when I was young, I would do
• 18:45
  really well because there's like five of us in the whole thing.
• 18:48
  So I would win my age division. It's like 8 years old.
• 18:51
  So I thought I would be a distance runner because I was
• 18:54
  doing so well. And then I got to our 8th grade
• 18:58
  Olympics. I signed up for the one mile and
• 19:01
  the two mile and my dad's like, I don't know why you did this,
• 19:04
  but like, hey, that's your choice.
• 19:06
  Do it. And I ended up, I ran the mile
• 19:09
  and I got in line because, you know, there's a lot of us, you
• 19:12
  have to, like, get in the chute, like when you finish.
• 19:14
  I threw up and I was like, I'm never running this ever again.
• 19:18
  And then I actually went to my first track meet and it was in
• 19:22
  8th grade. I ran like the 200 and the 800
• 19:26
  because I was still like, convinced that I was gonna be a
• 19:28
  distance runner. And the only reason why I won
• 19:31
  the 800 was 'cause there was two of us in it, and I followed her
• 19:34
  the whole time until the last hundred, and then I passed her.
• 19:37
  Don't ask me where my time was, 'cause it was probably somewhere
• 19:39
  around 3 minutes. That's not slower.
• 19:42
  Than that I'm not worried. About That's my PR, so we're
• 19:44
  good. We're good.
• 19:46
  So then basically my dad was like, he kind of was like, OK,
• 19:49
  now, do you understand that I think you should be a sprinter?
• 19:52
  And so I got into sprints. I joined club track, so I was
• 19:55
  doing club track as you know, a little.
• 19:58
  Where is this? Where?
• 19:58
  Where are we growing up at? San Diego.
• 20:01
  San Diego. OK.
• 20:01
  All right. Yep.
• 20:02
  Yeah. So I was doing club track, and
• 20:05
  actually my distance career was probably a lot earlier than
• 20:07
  eighth grade. It was like elementary school.
• 20:09
  So I did. It was the 5th grade Olympics,
• 20:12
  not the 8th grade Olympics. OK, Wow.
• 20:14
  Yeah. Because at that point, I kind of
• 20:15
  knew I wasn't going to do distance.
• 20:17
  And and I'd imagine San Diego has a pretty vibrant track scene
• 20:21
  even through age group and stuff like that, I would assume.
• 20:25
  Oh yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 20:26
  There's club track everywhere. You have, you know, your
• 20:28
  Alexander Lightning Express. Like, you know, you've got all
• 20:30
  your like the mom with the cowbell.
• 20:33
  We've got all those track meets. But yeah, so this was elementary
• 20:37
  school was when this was. And so, yeah, so I'm doing club
• 20:40
  track and I would do the 100 or the 200 long jump.
• 20:45
  And actually there were several meets where I had to run with
• 20:47
  the boys because that was too fast for the girls.
• 20:50
  So they would put me in with the boys heats.
• 20:52
  And so I was like, OK, cool. Yeah.
• 20:53
  I'm like, OK. I'm fast, like, great.
• 20:55
  And there was one track meet where we were sitting waiting
• 20:57
  for like the finals of the 200 and we're watching pole ball.
• 21:01
  And my dad was like, oh, you should try this.
• 21:04
  And I'm like, heck, no. Because the girls are like, you
• 21:06
  know, like bending a pole and they're going over like 10 feet.
• 21:09
  And I'm just like, absolutely not.
• 21:11
  I am not doing that. Ever.
• 21:12
  Like, no way. That's funny.
• 21:14
  Well, the next weekend I was at PO ball practice and then I
• 21:18
  stuck around. Wait, wait, wait, So what?
• 21:20
  So So what changed? Cause 'cause I can 100%
• 21:24
  understand I'm not doing that. I'm not going in the air, my
• 21:27
  feet are not leaving the ground and a week later you're at
• 21:29
  practice. My dad made me do it.
• 21:32
  That was what changed. Is that right, Dad?
• 21:34
  Was like, yeah, give it a shot. Yeah, we're going.
• 21:37
  Yep. Yeah.
• 21:37
  So my dad made me do. At least this is the way I
• 21:39
  remember the story. He asked my dad.
• 21:40
  He'd probably say something different, but this is the way I
• 21:43
  remember it. And I stuck around because so it
• 21:46
  was in the backyard of somebody's house.
• 21:50
  And which actually was Anthony Kern.
• 21:53
  His brother was my first pole vault coach.
• 21:55
  Is that right? So the UCLA, Yeah, the former
• 21:58
  UCLA coach was his brother was my first pole vault coach.
• 22:01
  But it was in the backyard of this, this family's house.
• 22:06
  The sun was really cute, so I stuck around and they had
• 22:09
  snacks. They had popcorn snacks.
• 22:11
  I was like, OK, fine, I'll keep showing up.
• 22:13
  Do you remember? So I love that you can remember
• 22:17
  the first time you saw the event and your reaction of no way I'm
• 22:21
  doing that. Do you remember?
• 22:24
  OK, so you know, a whole week later you're at track at pole
• 22:28
  vault practice. I assume at some point, and
• 22:32
  maybe in that first practice, they're like, all right, we we
• 22:34
  need to get her the feel of getting off the ground, like to
• 22:36
  excite her, to keep her in the sport.
• 22:37
  Do you remember the first time your feet left the ground or
• 22:40
  anything like that? Do you remember like the feeling
• 22:42
  or you know you you can be excused.
• 22:44
  You've vaulted many, many times since then, so maybe that's a
• 22:47
  distant memory. Yeah, you know, honestly, I
• 22:50
  don't really remember the feeling.
• 22:52
  I remember what it looks like though.
• 22:53
  I like specifically can remember like there was just at one
• 22:57
  point. I have this picture in my head
• 22:59
  of where I'm standing on the runway and I can see what
• 23:01
  they're the pit looked like and I could see like the backyard
• 23:05
  and the popcorn bowl because apparently I was very, very into
• 23:08
  that popcorn bowl. I can remember that and I can
• 23:11
  remember the pit, but that is about it and I can remember
• 23:14
  where it was because it was in Temecula, CA.
• 23:17
  We drove up there and that's all I can remember.
• 23:22
  I and I remember holding the pole.
• 23:24
  Do do you this, this, this small tangent, but I promise it, it
• 23:29
  actually correlates here. Do you do you listen to podcast
• 23:31
  at all besides the one that I host?
• 23:34
  Do you listen to other podcast? Crime junkies, but otherwise no
• 23:39
  there. There's a a one of my favorite
• 23:42
  authors. He's actually a track guy.
• 23:43
  He's a big, big track fan. He's been on the Another Track
• 23:46
  podcast. There's an author named Malcolm
• 23:48
  Gladwell. Does that name ring a bell at
• 23:51
  all? He's his big books have been the
• 23:54
  tipping point. Blink, David, Glad.
• 23:58
  Yeah, great. I love he's just a great
• 23:59
  storyteller. Well, he has a podcast called
• 24:01
  Revisionist History where he talks about forgotten and
• 24:04
  misremembered thing or misinterpreted things, etcetera.
• 24:07
  Well, he had an amazing two-part series probably about 2-3 years
• 24:11
  ago now about memories and how we think memories are like,
• 24:15
  recorded on this. I'm a date myself via VCR tape
• 24:19
  in our head, and we can just recall them whenever when
• 24:22
  actually the way life works, memories change.
• 24:25
  And so I I love that. You're kind of cognizant of
• 24:28
  that, 'cause you're like, hey, this is how I remember it.
• 24:30
  It could have been different or, you know, obviously, like, I bet
• 24:34
  you. I shouldn't say I bet you it
• 24:36
  wouldn't surprise me that in that set up that picture you
• 24:38
  just gave of on the runway and the popcorn bowl, that the
• 24:41
  popcorn bowl actually wasn't there.
• 24:42
  But you remember popcorn. You know, it's like, Oh yeah, we
• 24:46
  had that in the backroom and you're like, oh, but my memory,
• 24:48
  it's right there because I really like the popcorn, you
• 24:51
  know what I'm saying? It's just just interesting to me
• 24:53
  how memories work. And his podcast was phenomenal
• 24:56
  on on how podcast or how memories work and and really
• 24:59
  don't work. So it just kind of made me think
• 25:01
  about that. And you're cognizant of that,
• 25:02
  which is interesting. Yeah, they had popcorn in
• 25:05
  practice. That's this Good popcorn, I
• 25:07
  guess. I love it.
• 25:08
  I love it. This is such a weird question.
• 25:11
  Do you still love popcorn today? I mean, I don't eat it as much.
• 25:16
  It's it's not like an obsession. OK, that's also.
• 25:18
  Like popcorn? That's also wonder if it was
• 25:20
  like became like this thing's like, oh.
• 25:22
  Yeah. She has popcorn.
• 25:23
  OK, Google, Just checking. I'll scratch that off the
• 25:26
  company Christmas gift list. All right, so do Did you stick
• 25:32
  not Did you stick with it? Because spoiler alert, we know
• 25:35
  you still vault. But did you like, was there an
• 25:37
  instant hook or was it like, yeah, maybe I'll go back to
• 25:40
  distance or sprinting or long jumping?
• 25:43
  Well, ever since I threw up distance running, I knew I was
• 25:46
  not going to do that anymore. So that was a hard no on the
• 25:51
  distance. And I mean, I think I just, it
• 25:54
  was kind of one of those things where my dad just kept taking me
• 25:56
  and I just kept going because I was like, well, might as well.
• 26:00
  And I liked working out. And so yeah, I just kind of just
• 26:04
  stuck with it. I mean that's like, it doesn't.
• 26:06
  I guess I never had like an aversion to it because I don't
• 26:09
  remember being like, I don't want to go.
• 26:11
  The only ever time I would say I didn't want to go was if my dad
• 26:14
  couldn't go with me, like up to the point where I could drive
• 26:17
  because I didn't want to be by myself.
• 26:20
  Especially at first, like when I would go to like new practices
• 26:23
  or like go to a new coach or a new situation where I didn't
• 26:26
  know anyone, I would make my dad go with me.
• 26:29
  Little bit of shyness or introverted. 100%, Yep.
• 26:34
  Oh yeah. I actually have this thing where
• 26:36
  I sweat a lot in social situations, so hyperhidrosis.
• 26:40
  So I sweat through my armpits a lot in social situations.
• 26:43
  Which now the whole world's going to know.
• 26:44
  Yeah, I'm supporting. You know, we're recording this,
• 26:46
  right? OK, cool.
• 26:47
  All right, good, good. All right.
• 26:48
  But the reason why I say it is because I actually was sponsored
• 26:50
  by a medical company for my sweating.
• 26:54
  So I'm like, hey, it got me, it got me somewhere, yeah.
• 26:57
  Turn every negative into a positive.
• 26:59
  I love that. Exactly.
• 27:01
  Wow, that's really interesting. DD you know, you've you've
• 27:04
  become an amazing vaulter. Were you naturally like within
• 27:10
  the first, I'll call it a month? Was it like, where people are
• 27:13
  like, oh, wait a minute, yeah, she's found her gift.
• 27:16
  Or, you know, like a lot of athletes did you struggle to
• 27:19
  start with? No, I was pretty naturally good,
• 27:22
  mostly because I was fast and I could hold high, so I've.
• 27:25
  I wasn't always. So I'm 6 feet tall.
• 27:27
  I wasn't always awkwardly tall, though.
• 27:29
  So like, you know how a lot of girls, when they're tall,
• 27:31
  they're tall? By fifth grade, I kind of was
• 27:35
  the same height as everybody and then just kept growing.
• 27:37
  So I grew 2 inches in college. And so, yeah, so I was.
• 27:42
  I was never awkwardly tall, but I was fast so I could hold
• 27:48
  really high. And I was just purely just like
• 27:51
  straight up athletic because I did soccer growing up.
• 27:53
  I did not do gymnastics. I was gonna.
• 27:55
  Ask still. Have not done a giant, Will not
• 27:58
  do a giant. I can hold a handstand for about
• 28:01
  5 seconds. But yeah, so I was just athletic
• 28:05
  and so I actually it was very easy.
• 28:07
  So when you first start PO ball thing, if you're athletic and
• 28:09
  you can run fast, you generally can go pretty high pretty
• 28:14
  quickly. And I've noticed that.
• 28:16
  So I actually had, I have one kid who were working on his
• 28:19
  speed. He's not very fast 'cause I
• 28:21
  coached at high school out here in Arizona and he has been
• 28:25
  working at it for the last like two months and has cleared 5
• 28:28
  feet. Then I have another kid who he
• 28:31
  literally showed up two days ago and he's already cleared 8 feet,
• 28:35
  just solely because he's faster, he's slightly taller and he does
• 28:39
  high jump, so he has a little bit of hops.
• 28:42
  So literally, just because he can hold higher on the pole and
• 28:44
  it's faster, he's jumped higher. And so that was me.
• 28:47
  I was just able to hold high and run really fast.
• 28:50
  And thankfully, I had pretty good coaching through high
• 28:52
  school, too. So great segue because I was
• 28:54
  going to ask about high school. So you go into high school and
• 28:57
  you know today you you mentioned track clubs, there's a
• 29:01
  tremendous and I'm sure we'll we'll touch on this little bit
• 29:03
  later on. You already mentioned you kind
• 29:05
  of work with a lot of them here. For us like Gil, there's a lot
• 29:07
  of pole vault clubs. I mean, like the whole club is
• 29:10
  nothing but pole vaulting and sometimes that can cause
• 29:14
  conflict on a high school side and a lot of times it's positive
• 29:17
  too. Were you high school only in
• 29:20
  high school? Was there a PO ball club back?
• 29:21
  Then again, San Diego, I feel like has everything in regards
• 29:24
  to outdoor and outdoor sports before everybody.
• 29:26
  So I I would kind of maybe think there would be back then.
• 29:29
  Oh yeah, yeah. So there was, which actually, so
• 29:32
  I was there was a house for sale near where my parents live that
• 29:35
  had a pole pit in their backyard and it was like 5 minutes away.
• 29:38
  And I was like, where was this when I was growing up?
• 29:41
  Who, who is this? I still don't know who it is,
• 29:44
  but I was like, how do you have a pole vault pit literally 5
• 29:46
  minutes away from where I grew up and I had to drive 40 minutes
• 29:48
  to practice every day to go pole vault.
• 29:51
  But yeah, so I had a club coach. So I started out with the UCLA
• 29:54
  coach's brother and then I moved to it was at Queamacca College,
• 30:00
  Wolfpack Track Club, Lyle Barton.
• 30:03
  I moved to him, which they are still around.
• 30:06
  I don't know if it's called Wolfpack Track Club anymore.
• 30:08
  That might just be Queamacca's mascot.
• 30:10
  I just remember it was at Queamacca College.
• 30:13
  I was with him for a little while.
• 30:14
  My dad actually coached me for a little bit because Lyle couldn't
• 30:18
  be at many of my track meets, live freshman and sophomore
• 30:21
  year. So my dad was my coach for a
• 30:22
  little bit there. And then I moved to Mike Laboux,
• 30:29
  who he used to be the multis coach at San Diego State.
• 30:32
  Ended up he moved up to Encinitas Carlsbad so northern
• 30:37
  San Diego and so that's why I had to drive was because he was
• 30:40
  up in north San Diego and I was kind of like mid San Diego and
• 30:43
  if people don't know San Diego was huge it's it's pretty big
• 30:48
  And so I was with Mike Labeoux through my junior, sophomore
• 30:54
  summer junior and senior year and so he was a really good
• 30:59
  coach because he was also a personal trainer too.
• 31:01
  So I really got into lifting weights so I knew how to power
• 31:04
  clean. I knew how to We didn't snatch,
• 31:06
  really. We did like a lot of kettlebell
• 31:07
  sanctions. But I knew how to lift before I
• 31:09
  even went to college, and that was what helped me get
• 31:12
  consistent in high school too. So I jumped 11/1 my freshman
• 31:15
  year, straight polling my sophomore year, they made me
• 31:19
  bend a poll. I jumped 12, four once and then
• 31:22
  couldn't get close again 'cause I just wasn't consistent.
• 31:26
  And then I started lifting weights and became consistent
• 31:29
  and jumped 13-4 my junior year and then I jumped 13-6 my senior
• 31:33
  year. And this was 06 to 10 time
• 31:36
  period roughly? Yep, yeah, I graduated in 2010.
• 31:40
  You know it's such a an an amazing event and for the
• 31:42
  women's side, girl side in high school, women's side collegially
• 31:46
  and above, it's still it's it's this is kind of amazing.
• 31:48
  It's still a young sport as far as mass participation, you know
• 31:53
  it's it really, I mean boggles me today.
• 31:56
  You know, it's 2024. We see, you know, amazing
• 32:00
  heights. You know, Jen is coaching this,
• 32:03
  this super stud up in New York right now.
• 32:05
  And you know, there's programs all around that always do a good
• 32:08
  job. Oregon, etcetera, they always do
• 32:10
  a good job. But 24 years ago, we just got
• 32:15
  it. I think 2000, right, was the
• 32:16
  first time in the Olympics. So just 24 years ago, that's
• 32:19
  that's yesterday by the way and we finally allowed women to to
• 32:24
  jump in the Olympics for the pole vault and it still just
• 32:27
  boggles me. So you're still seeing really a
• 32:31
  lot of movement, a lot of you know more not only more higher
• 32:33
  heights obviously as we continue to set records and things like
• 32:36
  that. But we see the the 100th best
• 32:38
  girl vaulter is way tremendously better than what you know the
• 32:42
  10th best vaulter was back in the beginning.
• 32:45
  So it's really. Amazing how it.
• 32:46
  Continues to evolve. Yeah, when I jumped 13-6, I was
• 32:49
  #2 in the nation. Like I was a high recruit out of
• 32:53
  high school. And nowadays you jump 13-6 and
• 32:58
  you're probably, I mean, you're probably still up there.
• 33:00
  Definitely. But there's at least, you know,
• 33:03
  like 10 other girls. Maybe.
• 33:05
  Like there's a lot more girls who are jumping 13-6 in high
• 33:08
  school than back in the day. That's amazing.
• 33:11
  I. Remember just dating myself?
• 33:12
  Exactly, Yeah. But when, you know I was
• 33:15
  coaching Troy, you know the school, it's a little bit better
• 33:19
  than Sanford and I I left there in 2000 and I remember we were
• 33:23
  kind of introducing the pole vault at that time.
• 33:26
  And I remember if you jumped 9 feet, 10 feet, you know we were
• 33:28
  Troy, we weren't at a Power 5 or anything.
• 33:31
  But when you if you jump not heck, we probably couldn't even
• 33:33
  recruit A10 footer to be real honest with you because there
• 33:35
  just wasn't that many you know and it was you jumped nine.
• 33:40
  It was like holy cow like we got something to work with here.
• 33:43
  They know how to jump 9. You know, it's it's amazing.
• 33:47
  It's amazing. OK.
• 33:48
  So how how did you handle, how did you navigate high school
• 33:55
  club coaching Michael Laboe. I I I've met him before.
• 33:59
  Michael Labo. Thank you.
• 34:01
  In high school, high school responsibility you were
• 34:04
  sprinting and jumping for the high school team.
• 34:06
  So you had you had to have a coach there.
• 34:07
  How did you navigate those waters with that kind of
• 34:10
  different, those different coaches and different, you know,
• 34:13
  they have different motivations for you?
• 34:15
  Yeah, well, it was tough. I had to set out a couple of
• 34:18
  meets because I would go to Nationals and I would miss some
• 34:21
  dual meets, and so then they would make me sit out other dual
• 34:23
  meets as punishment, which was fine with me because I didn't
• 34:26
  pull a lot of dual meets anyway. So I was like, hey, OK fine.
• 34:30
  But it was tough. There was a lot of pushback from
• 34:33
  the athletic department at my high school because they didn't
• 34:36
  like that I was training with somebody else.
• 34:39
  But it was like, well, do you want me to be good or do you
• 34:42
  want to hold me back? Was kind of like, so we
• 34:44
  basically we made it work where I would not pull it in my high
• 34:50
  school. So I did not pull vault at my
• 34:52
  school at all like my junior and senior years.
• 34:55
  I did my freshman and sophomore years just because I didn't
• 34:57
  really know yet. I didn't have Mike to go to.
• 35:00
  And so I would show up every day to practice.
• 35:02
  I would Sprint with the team 'cause I was a sprinter in high
• 35:04
  school or in the hundred 200 and the four by one and Hunter
• 35:08
  hurdles and I long jumped, so I had other events to do.
• 35:11
  So there were other things to do.
• 35:12
  So that was where I got my running workouts in, was at
• 35:14
  school, but thankfully my senior year I only had two classes, so
• 35:19
  we did the four by 4:00 and 4:00.
• 35:21
  So we had four classes at the beginning of the year and four
• 35:23
  classes at the end of the year. So two were before lunch, two
• 35:25
  were after lunch and so I only had the first two my senior
• 35:28
  year. So then I would right after
• 35:31
  lunch or at lunch I would leave, go train with Nick.
• 35:34
  Nick is now ish. I'll go train with Mike and then
• 35:38
  I would come back and go to high school practice afterwards.
• 35:41
  So I would drive all the way up to him, go pole vault, lift,
• 35:45
  come back and then Sprint with the team.
• 35:48
  So we made it work. You know, I have a lot of
• 35:50
  empathy for both sides. You know, we talked about this
• 35:53
  club and high school competition and we've had, you know, some
• 35:56
  club coaches on here, high school coaches on here.
• 35:59
  And you know, that's usually a topic I talk about.
• 36:01
  It's just, you know, how do you navigate that?
• 36:02
  And you know, I I really like. I don't have a strong opinion on
• 36:07
  one way or the other because I can see both sides.
• 36:09
  You know, as a high school coach, I'm a former high school
• 36:11
  coach. I'm like, man, you're on a team
• 36:13
  like Courtney, I know you need to go such and such to go get
• 36:17
  pole vaulting, but I need your leadership here.
• 36:19
  I need the other kids to see what you do.
• 36:22
  So I get that. And then other than hand, I also
• 36:24
  know especially with a an event like pole vaulting, it's like oh
• 36:27
  man, I can't coach you or I can't coach you as well as a a
• 36:31
  Mike LeBeau. So I want you to go develop and
• 36:34
  become better so you can come back and score more.
• 36:36
  It's tough. It is tough because, I mean,
• 36:39
  we're dealing with it now here in Arizona.
• 36:41
  There are a few kids who are good and the high schools
• 36:45
  actually are very, for the most part, are good to deal with
• 36:49
  because. So it's like when you have a
• 36:51
  really good athlete, as long as they're respectful, they show up
• 36:54
  to school, practice, they're there, then it's kind of like OK
• 36:59
  like as long as you're a part of the team and you're a team
• 37:01
  player, we're good. Who coaches you at a meet Like
• 37:04
  if so a lot of times with a VPVA so I don't coach at a VPVAI.
• 37:09
  I'll fill in every now and then if they need me to, but I don't
• 37:12
  coach there. So I coach at high school.
• 37:14
  So then I'll see a ZPVA kids at these meets because the Trey,
• 37:19
  Nate and Garrett, they do not coach at meets.
• 37:22
  They only coach at AZPVA or if they're out of me and they say,
• 37:27
  OK, we are, we're going to coach these kids, They're doing the
• 37:29
  unattached meet, then they'll they'll coach them at that time.
• 37:32
  But if it's a high school meet and like Trey comes with me to
• 37:34
  the high school meet, Trey's not coaching any ASPVA kids.
• 37:38
  It's the kids can come up to me and they'll ask me like, oh hey,
• 37:41
  can you help me? And I'll be like, OK, well you
• 37:43
  need to go talk to your coach. So if they have a coach, it's
• 37:45
  not stepping on their toes because it's like at this meet
• 37:47
  your coach is coaching you if they want help.
• 37:51
  And like, I know a lot of the coaches now too.
• 37:54
  I'll like offer them help if they want it or we'll just talk
• 37:57
  about it otherwise. I mean, it's kind of like
• 38:00
  sometimes they'll be walking back and you're like, you might
• 38:02
  want to hold a little lower, but like, I should approach about
• 38:04
  it. But yeah, we try not to step on
• 38:08
  toes for sure. You keep saying AZPVA for for us
• 38:12
  that don't know that define that real quick just so we know what
• 38:15
  we're talking about. Yeah, Arizona Pool Ball Academy.
• 38:18
  OK, perfect. And that's.
• 38:19
  Nick. That's Dean Starkey.
• 38:20
  Dean Dean Starkey. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:22
  Nick is Risen performance. OK, so I get those two mixed up.
• 38:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
• 38:26
  I I've actually been out there with with Dean.
• 38:28
  It's really cool. I really like the place.
• 38:30
  It's a nice It's gotten even nicer now.
• 38:32
  Oh, really? Yeah, it was pretty cool.
• 38:34
  So, all right. OK, yeah, that is, it's hard.
• 38:38
  And you know, the the two things that I kind of keep hearing when
• 38:42
  I talk to, you know, athletes and coaches like yourself and
• 38:45
  other club coaches and high school coaches, There's kind of
• 38:48
  two, and I'm sure I'm missing like a third and a fourth, But
• 38:50
  two real keys. One is man, your communication
• 38:53
  has to be on point. When is the athlete going to be
• 38:56
  at high school? When are they going to be at the
• 38:58
  club? What meets are they going to
• 39:00
  compete at? What is it really?
• 39:02
  What are the really important ones for club and which are the
• 39:04
  really important ones for high school?
• 39:06
  Things like that communication with the athlete and the high
• 39:08
  school coach of like hey, I am on the team.
• 39:10
  I want to, I want to be that leader for my high school to,
• 39:13
  you know, it's communication has to be on point.
• 39:15
  And the second one is, oh, you got to, as the adults, you got
• 39:20
  to drop your egos. This can't be about, well, I
• 39:23
  know more than they AM and they know more.
• 39:25
  They're, you know, they don't know as much as me and I'm the
• 39:27
  high school coach. So, you know, by the way, the
• 39:29
  other side, I'm the club coach. So, you know, in my way or the
• 39:32
  highway, those are the two things that I keep hearing over
• 39:35
  and over. For those who have done it
• 39:36
  successfully, is communication greatly intensified and ego
• 39:42
  greatly diminished? Well, yeah.
• 39:44
  And especially when you have a kid who's top in the nation,
• 39:47
  it's like you want them wearing your high school uniform.
• 39:50
  So it's like the AD, the best situation for them is to work
• 39:53
  with the kid. So yeah, we have a kid who is
• 39:57
  number 4 or top four in the nation right now who jumps at
• 40:01
  AZPVA. And I mean, he has to deal with
• 40:05
  his high school coach, which for the most part is a good
• 40:07
  relationship. But then there are some meets
• 40:09
  like Arcadia. He's going to Arcadia this
• 40:11
  weekend, which is an elite high school meet.
• 40:15
  But his school wasn't going. And so it was one of those
• 40:17
  situations where it was like, well, if you want me to
• 40:18
  represent you on the national scale.
• 40:20
  Well then like you're going to allow me to go and represent the
• 40:25
  school. And so it usually ends up being
• 40:28
  where it's like, OK, well if you want to go to that, then you've
• 40:29
  got to pay your way. Like the school's not going to
• 40:31
  pay for you to go there, which I mean shoot in high school I I
• 40:35
  really didn't have any support for my my school.
• 40:38
  Like even the state meet my dad just drove me up there.
• 40:41
  My school did not pay for because also California is
• 40:44
  really big. So it was a six hour drive to
• 40:45
  our state meet, Phoenix. It's like down the street,
• 40:48
  actually, it's like 15 minutes from my house is where the state
• 40:50
  meet is. But yeah, so it's it's really
• 40:54
  kind of like you gotta just if you want your school to be on
• 40:57
  the national scale and you have a good athlete, just allow them
• 41:01
  those opportunities 'cause they are different than the normal
• 41:03
  population. Is there a A conversation to be
• 41:07
  had You keep and I and I know why you keep saying this because
• 41:11
  it's the world you really live in here, Courtney.
• 41:14
  You keep saying, you know if you want an elite athlete and elite
• 41:17
  athlete wearing your your high school jersey, if you got a kid
• 41:20
  who's got a shot at going to college, you know those kind of
• 41:21
  things. But to me, I I don't think a
• 41:26
  rule should be different if you jump 8 feet in the pole vault or
• 41:29
  18 feet in the pole vault. As long as you follow the rules.
• 41:33
  That's what I'm saying, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:35
  Like if you want your 8 footers to become potentially 18 footers
• 41:39
  or whatnot, you know, then however the communication is
• 41:42
  going to work and what practices they can miss and not miss and
• 41:45
  what meets. I think that has to be a
• 41:46
  conversation. I'm sure you were just saying,
• 41:49
  'cause that's the world you live in.
• 41:50
  You know you live in the. Elite, Yeah.
• 41:51
  So yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 41:53
  As long as they follow the rules.
• 41:55
  For. Because you have to stay legal,
• 41:58
  because if you even if that elite kid breaks the rules, well
• 42:01
  then they now are ineligible to compete.
• 42:04
  So yeah, so they have to stay within the rules.
• 42:05
  But it's also like allowing them the opportunity to go and
• 42:08
  compete against other elites, which that's right.
• 42:11
  I don't. I don't know the specifics of
• 42:13
  the rules, but I know that they can do that because I did it.
• 42:17
  Let's get back on your track here.
• 42:19
  So you're long jumping, sprinting, hurdling.
• 42:23
  You're, you know, 13 feet as a junior and a little bit better
• 42:27
  as a senior. So your your athleticism is on
• 42:30
  point. Like, you know, I don't care.
• 42:32
  What if you're jumping 13, You're pretty freaking athletic.
• 42:35
  Are are your lung jumps and hurdles and stuff?
• 42:37
  Are you pretty good there too? Or is it like, yeah, yeah, I
• 42:39
  stink there, but man, get me on the runway and I'm really good.
• 42:43
  Well, I do still still hold the school records for my high
• 42:45
  school knows. So I think my I jumped like 18
• 42:49
  too. Maybe 17618.
• 42:53
  Two in long jump. That was only one.
• 42:55
  I did not practice it. I just showed up and did it and
• 42:58
  I also landed face first. I didn't actually land on my
• 43:00
  butt. And then my 100 times I ran 1189
• 43:06
  in high school I qualified for State and I did not make the
• 43:09
  same finals running at 1189. That was where I ran.
• 43:11
  It was at state. Jennifer and Danny ran an 11 one
• 43:14
  that year. Oh you Yeah, that's one of those
• 43:17
  were you know, that sucks for your birthday.
• 43:19
  Oh, you're the same time as Ginni Brandini.
• 43:21
  That sucks 'cause she's winning, so.
• 43:24
  Yeah, and in California there's only one state champion, so
• 43:27
  there's one state meet. There isn't cause in Arizona,
• 43:30
  here we have like 5 different state championships.
• 43:34
  So it's like there's five different state champions and
• 43:36
  you're like, well, and then they go, they do like all champions
• 43:39
  meet or whatever it is. I don't know what it's called,
• 43:42
  but where then you do like everybody competes against each
• 43:45
  other, but that's like an after the fact thing.
• 43:47
  California was just one or one. You know, you set me up so good.
• 43:51
  So depending on when you're listening to this in April and
• 43:55
  May of 2024, we actually did. We interviewed 1 high school
• 43:59
  coach from every state to talk about the state meet.
• 44:02
  And so in Arizona when you were explaining, I was like, Oh yeah,
• 44:05
  I know that I talked to Coach Arben, he he gave me the whole
• 44:07
  rundown. And then California JT Ayres, he
• 44:09
  came on the show and give us the whole.
• 44:11
  The California one actually kind of confused me.
• 44:14
  You think it'd be a little bit more simplistic because there's
• 44:16
  one state meet. But when he was talking about
• 44:17
  the different, remember if we called them districts or
• 44:20
  whatnot, But it was just like, Oh yeah, I'm a little confused
• 44:23
  here. And I think he even was like,
• 44:25
  yeah, sometimes I do too because I just focus on my area so I can
• 44:27
  help my kids move on. I don't know what the other
• 44:30
  areas are doing. I just focus on mine.
• 44:31
  But but it's fascinating. We went through all 51,
• 44:35
  Washington DC went through all 51 state meets, how they qualify
• 44:38
  the different events they do. It was quite fascinating.
• 44:41
  Which states do and don't do. Pole vault by the way.
• 44:43
  There's there's unfortunately more than one.
• 44:46
  What the other sports states do Multis for their state.
• 44:49
  It's fascinating. Super, super fascinating.
• 44:52
  So if you haven't listened to that series, go back there about
• 44:54
  20 minutes each. We did one every day in the
• 44:57
  months of April and May and it was, it's fantastic.
• 45:01
  It, it really was. I'm, I'm so pleased I was able
• 45:03
  to to host that and and bring that to everybody.
• 45:05
  So OK, so you are qualifying for say you're running 11.
• 45:09
  Did you say 1189? Yeah.
• 45:12
  Wow, that's fast. OK, so that is and you mentioned
• 45:16
  you were you know the top two in the country for the pole vault.
• 45:19
  So you're getting recruited. So what is what?
• 45:23
  What are you, how did the recruiting process go and what
• 45:25
  are you at that time thinking academically and therefore
• 45:29
  because to me it's just crazy that we make 18 year olds pick
• 45:31
  their majors and therefore their quote UN quote professional
• 45:33
  lives at 18. That's just crazy to me.
• 45:35
  But what were you thinking as an 18 year old college wise study?
• 45:40
  I'm going to become a doctor, a business owner, etcetera.
• 45:42
  What were you thinking? I was just going to pull vault.
• 45:45
  That was it. That was I was going to do
• 45:47
  track. That was why I was going to go
• 45:49
  to college. Like I didn't really care about
• 45:51
  school. I did what I did what I needed
• 45:53
  to do to pass on my classes, which was I had like a three,
• 45:56
  five in high school. I basically just, I did my
• 45:59
  homework, did my test. You know, that was it.
• 46:01
  I didn't really study, but it was because I was good at track.
• 46:06
  So I was just like, I mean, I'll get in somewhere, or at least I
• 46:11
  was. The hope was to just get in
• 46:14
  somewhere for track because that was why I was going to go to
• 46:15
  college. And so for me, I feel like my
• 46:18
  recruiting process was probably different than it is now.
• 46:22
  Or maybe it's still the same because we had homeroom.
• 46:24
  And every day in homeroom I would just get letters from
• 46:27
  colleges so they would send them to my school.
• 46:29
  And every day I would just be handed letters from my homeroom
• 46:32
  teacher. And it was just like random
• 46:34
  schools I like and I would fill them all out just because and I
• 46:38
  would send them back. So I filled out the Air Force
• 46:40
  Academy One. Yeah.
• 46:42
  Yeah, I got the letter back where it said basic training and
• 46:45
  I was like absolutely not going there.
• 46:49
  No, thank you. Oh, yes.
• 46:51
  I filled every single one of them out.
• 46:52
  I got all the pamphlets and then I pretty much stuck to West
• 46:57
  Coast schools. So at the time, the PAC 12.
• 47:01
  So I stuck to the PAC 12. I did not really, you know, go
• 47:05
  much further outside of that because I knew I wanted to at
• 47:07
  least stay pretty close to my parents.
• 47:09
  I wanted to get away because I hang out with my parents way too
• 47:12
  much. So I needed to at least get away
• 47:14
  from them. But I didn't want to be too far
• 47:16
  to where I would like make traveling home tough.
• 47:18
  So yeah, I went on official visits to Oregon, Washington,
• 47:24
  Cal, Berkeley, UCLA and USC. Wow, dude, what was the state of
• 47:30
  recruiting as a as a student athlete, research wise?
• 47:35
  Meaning, you know, those schools, you can easily have an
• 47:39
  instant attraction to them because, you know, we'll, we'll
• 47:42
  say football, but you know, just the athletics and wow, Oregon's
• 47:44
  cool because you know, Nike and all that stuff and USC, Oh my
• 47:46
  goodness, you know, come on, UCLA.
• 47:48
  You know, all those schools, Washington, all, all, You know,
• 47:51
  as far as just like being a student, why wouldn't you want
• 47:53
  to go to any one of those schools?
• 47:54
  Those schools were all all awesome, But did were you able,
• 47:58
  was it readily available to you? And did you even think about it?
• 48:01
  Research. Like who's the pole vault coach?
• 48:04
  Who am I going to be working with?
• 48:06
  Or was it more of just like the track team in general?
• 48:09
  So for me at the time, it was the track team in general and
• 48:13
  which I do actually regret. And so nowadays I will tell
• 48:16
  kids, who is the pole vault coach, Are they a good fit for
• 48:20
  you? Because I wanted to win a team
• 48:23
  championship. I didn't necessarily even really
• 48:25
  think about the fact that I wanted to win an individual
• 48:28
  championship because I just figured, oh, well, if my team is
• 48:30
  good and I want to win a team championship, well then like
• 48:33
  it's probably a good pole vault program too.
• 48:35
  So I like, I'll probably be, you know in a good situation to
• 48:38
  where I'll jump on and I'll help them get points.
• 48:42
  Not the case. It doesn't really work like
• 48:44
  that. I I was going to say, well, you
• 48:45
  learned this quickly. That's not true, but OK.
• 48:48
  Yeah, it can. Be true, but it's not
• 48:50
  necessarily true, right? Yeah.
• 48:52
  No. So that was not the case.
• 48:54
  So I I mean, I chose to go to Oregon, so I went to University
• 48:58
  of Oregon. I actually had verbally
• 49:01
  committed to UCLA, was going to go to UCLA.
• 49:04
  And so I had a deal where if I got a full ride to college, my
• 49:08
  parents would give me a car. And so it was just it was their
• 49:11
  car that they had. And so I was like, well, I need
• 49:15
  to get that full ride because I want a car.
• 49:17
  And so I had, I got a full ride to UCLA, got into UCLA.
• 49:21
  And so actually that was that's what's funny is so talking about
• 49:24
  college, a lot of the kids who, you know really focused on
• 49:28
  school at my high school, they got rejected from UCLA.
• 49:32
  But my my essay for UCLA was women's track and field.
• 49:37
  And then I got into UCLA and they didn't.
• 49:41
  I was like, that kind of made me feel cool.
• 49:44
  It's funny you said that, 'cause I just learned recently, like
• 49:46
  within three months, 90 days, I always thought, you know, I'm
• 49:50
  not a West Coast guy at all. So, you know, kind of like W
• 49:53
  coasters that have some misconceptions about the South,
• 49:56
  the South and and schools. I from the South had
• 49:58
  misconceptions about the West. I thought US so UCLAUSC.
• 50:03
  I thought USC being the private school oh that's the big
• 50:07
  academic hard to get into expensive etcetera.
• 50:11
  And UCLA was the state meet everybody could get into kind of
• 50:16
  thing. And I found I, I, I it was Tim
• 50:18
  Glover actually our our sales manager Javelin throw it here
• 50:22
  was like Oh no bro, UCLA like that.
• 50:24
  The academics that are. Like that.
• 50:26
  Like they're top 10 academic in the country.
• 50:28
  I had no, no clue I had this. I mean, it's beautiful campus
• 50:32
  and you know, the the, the clue in in gold is really pretty, you
• 50:36
  know, so but I was always like, oh, that's the like they have
• 50:39
  100,000 students, 'cause everybody goes there, you know,
• 50:41
  it's like, oh. No.
• 50:42
  Oh no. Yeah, so you get in a full ride.
• 50:44
  Y'all your academic people were like, God Dang it, that's where
• 50:46
  I wanted to go. Yeah, I had.
• 50:47
  No. Clue.
• 50:48
  Exactly. That's so, yeah.
• 50:50
  And then so Oregon called me, 'cause I was, like, really sad
• 50:53
  that I had to turn down Oregon because Oregon's beautiful, even
• 50:56
  at the time. It's not as beautiful as it was
• 50:58
  now. But even at the time it was like
• 51:00
  we still had, it was brand new facilities for the time,
• 51:05
  different now and Oh yeah, it's way different now.
• 51:08
  It's like, but yeah, it's crazy Taj Mahal.
• 51:11
  But I had to call him and tell him like, yo, I look like
• 51:14
  because they only, I think they had given me like 70% of the
• 51:17
  time. I just can't do that and.
• 51:21
  I haven't heard you mention you know you're in San Diego, San
• 51:23
  Diego State at home. That's a heck of a vault
• 51:25
  program. Oh no, that's too close to home.
• 51:27
  OK. That's what I wondered.
• 51:28
  OK, All right. That's fair.
• 51:29
  That's fair. That's fair.
• 51:30
  Yeah, no, 'cause I, like I said, I hang out with my parents too
• 51:32
  much. So if I went to San Diego State,
• 51:34
  I probably would have lived at home.
• 51:35
  I would have gone or I would have gone home every weekend.
• 51:38
  I was like, couldn't do that one.
• 51:40
  Yeah, makes sense. So I knew I at least needed to
• 51:42
  be like LA or further. So at least two hours.
• 51:44
  So it was like a drive. But yeah, So then one day Oregon
• 51:48
  calls me back up and they're like, hey, we have a full ride
• 51:51
  available for you. Do you want to come here?
• 51:53
  And I was like, yes, I do. Called the UCLA coach back up
• 51:59
  and was like, I'm not coming there anymore.
• 52:01
  OK, thank you. Bye.
• 52:03
  And I was crying on the phone when I had to tell Oregon that I
• 52:06
  couldn't go there. When I had to tell UCLAI wasn't
• 52:09
  going there, I was like, OK, talk to you later.
• 52:11
  Bye. Like, no.
• 52:13
  Cheers. Do you know the back story of
• 52:15
  why you got that full ride? Someone else, they offered it to
• 52:20
  somebody else and then they. Left.
• 52:22
  Here's what I mean. I'm good friends because I
• 52:25
  recruited him out of high school with Justin Gatlin and Jay was
• 52:29
  being recruited by Tennessee. And I'm sure much like we talked
• 52:33
  about our memory, you know, this is stories coming from Jay and
• 52:35
  from, you know, Vince and other people, they were offering Jay a
• 52:39
  50% scholarship. And Ricky Harris, who you know,
• 52:43
  I don't know if you know that name was a Studley Studley 400
• 52:46
  hurdler backed out of Tennessee and went to Florida.
• 52:51
  And so Vince went to Bill Webb and said, please let me give
• 52:55
  this kid Justin Gatlin a full ride.
• 52:58
  And so that's how they because he was getting a full ride from
• 53:00
  LSU and Florida. You know all the other places
• 53:03
  and that's how Tennessee got to move up to full and that's why
• 53:05
  Tennessee, you know that's where he really wanted to go.
• 53:07
  That's where he goes to school and you know history.
• 53:09
  You know he becomes first freshman in 100 and 200, all
• 53:11
  that other kind of stuff. But I always wonder when you,
• 53:13
  you know someone calls back and says hey I'm a full.
• 53:14
  It's like oh, some kid you know because the level you're at,
• 53:17
  it's it's some studly kid. Like I don't know if we know
• 53:19
  that person's name And if you don't say, oh that that kid
• 53:22
  chose to go to UCLA and now that opened up or you know, it's just
• 53:26
  funny how the the the world works on decisions, you know?
• 53:30
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 53:31
  Oh, yeah. Money becomes available or goes
• 53:33
  away. But yeah, someone, he was like,
• 53:35
  we had someone not commit and so we have this money available for
• 53:40
  you. So yeah, so I got to go to
• 53:42
  Oregon. Well, when you're from San
• 53:45
  Diego, maybe think about the weather before you go to
• 53:49
  somewhere cold, because it was, it's like 45 and rainy pretty
• 53:53
  much every day while you're at school.
• 53:55
  The only time it's really nice in Oregon is when you're not in
• 53:57
  school. Never thought.
• 53:58
  About that. And I don't have allergies.
• 54:01
  So that, like that broadens my availability to be in Eugene.
• 54:05
  Because if you have allergies, Eugene's pretty tough place to
• 54:08
  be. Eugene gave me and I don't.
• 54:11
  Yeah, it's tough. It is, Yeah, because Trey has
• 54:14
  allergies. And so when we're there for the
• 54:16
  trials, we have to so we sleep. So we we actually stay.
• 54:20
  So basically what ended up happening was I left Oregon and
• 54:25
  the coach. So I was at Oregon for three
• 54:26
  years. I got injured every year.
• 54:28
  I left the coach that I left and went to jump with Mark
• 54:33
  Vanderbilt. He is actually now the coach at
• 54:36
  Oregon again, so he's at Oregon now.
• 54:38
  He used to be the coach before I got there.
• 54:40
  He left was a firefighter. I went to jump with his club
• 54:45
  while he was the firefighter and then so we stay at his house
• 54:49
  when we go there for the trials and we sleep in an Airstream.
• 54:52
  So back to the allergy thing. We sleep in an Airstream, but we
• 54:55
  have to keep the window shut because otherwise then the
• 54:58
  pollen comes in and Trey can't breathe.
• 55:01
  No, it it's. Me, I'm fine.
• 55:02
  I don't notice it. You know, it's it's funny, but I
• 55:05
  never went through coaching to Oregon and then I got to Gil.
• 55:09
  Now I go there, you know, every year, sometimes 2-3 times for
• 55:12
  different events. And I remember the first time I
• 55:14
  went with Fred Dixon, my now retired former boss.
• 55:18
  And he would, you know, we talk about, you know, the way the
• 55:21
  Valley is and the grass seed capital of the world is just
• 55:23
  north. And it just, and I was like, oh,
• 55:25
  that poor guy. And he would, you know, all the
• 55:27
  Claritin in his eye. I mean, I felt so bad for him,
• 55:30
  but I was, but I was fine. I didn't have allergies.
• 55:31
  I'm like, oh, that sucks, man. Let's, let's keep going, you
• 55:33
  know, And then, you know, the, you know, three years later, you
• 55:36
  know, three or four visits after that, I'm like, oh, man, you
• 55:38
  know, my eyes are kind of itchy, you know, Then the next year
• 55:41
  it's like, oh man, my throat. I now stink and have out.
• 55:43
  I sort of got. I'd never had allergies until I
• 55:45
  started going to Oregon. Oregon.
• 55:48
  She gave me allergies. I have it all the.
• 55:49
  Time over here, by the way. As you age too, so you get
• 55:53
  older, things change. So like one of my aunts, she
• 55:55
  wasn't allergic to peanut butter and so she loved peanut butter.
• 55:59
  Allergic to peanut butter now? Oh, and nothing happened.
• 56:01
  Nothing triggered it. She just.
• 56:03
  Oh man, not older. I hope that I love peanut
• 56:05
  butter. I hope that doesn't happen to
• 56:07
  me. Oh man.
• 56:08
  So it does happen. It happens.
• 56:10
  Yeah, I wonder if there's a dietary supplements.
• 56:13
  It doesn't happen. I don't know what I do with
• 56:15
  milk. And like the yeah, the lactose
• 56:17
  intolerant, you can take the the pill.
• 56:20
  Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 56:21
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 56:21
  Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.
• 56:23
  OK. And.
• 56:23
  Then back to San Diego State. I knew this would get them a lot
• 56:26
  of tangents. I knew this would go on a lot of
• 56:27
  tangents. OK, so Oregon's not working out.
• 56:30
  You're getting injured a lot. Are they winning team titles,
• 56:32
  though? Because that's what you went for
• 56:33
  and they are happy. OK.
• 56:34
  So you're kind of happy with that?
• 56:37
  I wasn't included. I didn't get the rings, but I
• 56:40
  got the PAC 12 earnings, the PAC 10, PAC 12.
• 56:42
  At the time I got those rings because I always did well at PAC
• 56:45
  12, but I didn't ever made it to nationals.
• 56:48
  The farthest I ever made it was to Regionals.
• 56:50
  This may be a good question because I'm I I never had the
• 56:54
  opportunity to do this. If ten kids, ten women on your
• 57:00
  Oregon team here as an example, go to nationals and they win
• 57:03
  nationals, you you didn't qualify.
• 57:05
  So you're, you know, you're with the other 40.
• 57:07
  You know most people don't qualify, right?
• 57:09
  Do they not buy rings for the other 40?
• 57:11
  Someone is laughing at me right now.
• 57:12
  I just know it. I I I didn't know.
• 57:15
  Do they not? It's only the people who go to
• 57:16
  Nationals. That's the team.
• 57:18
  Oh, I don't know. I always said Oregon when I was
• 57:20
  there, that was how it was done. I was just if you were there at
• 57:23
  the meet, even if you didn't score points when you're at the
• 57:24
  meet, but if you made it, you got the ring.
• 57:27
  I. Don't know if I like that if.
• 57:28
  You were on the team and you're just at home.
• 57:30
  No, because you weren't a part of.
• 57:31
  That I know we're I'm going to use football as an example and I
• 57:34
  know football's different for you know many reasons and
• 57:36
  financial etcetera. But if I'm on.
• 57:38
  Team sport. Though if if I, but if I'm, I'm
• 57:41
  going to maybe go the same way. If I'm a walk on and my team
• 57:45
  goes the national championship. But I'm not on the travel squad,
• 57:47
  so I didn't go, so I didn't contribute anyway.
• 57:50
  I didn't contribute at the game because you definitely still
• 57:52
  contributed at practice and you know, you know do they get her?
• 57:55
  I think they get a ring. I really.
• 57:57
  Do I might just be up to school policy or like how how that head
• 58:00
  coach? Yeah.
• 58:01
  But so that one makes more sense to me, why they would get it?
• 58:04
  Because it's like everybody is help, everyone is helping the
• 58:06
  team get to this point. It's a team thing, but track is
• 58:10
  very individual. No, but you did help Courtney
• 58:12
  there. Are.
• 58:13
  You you influenced the distance runner friend that you cheered
• 58:18
  on or gave emotional advice to. You know, I'm assuming you
• 58:21
  didn't give distance advice. Maybe it was a Coach Johnson
• 58:23
  thing. Yeah, I don't know.
• 58:24
  That's interesting. OK.
• 58:26
  I was there the year Melissa Gurgle won NCAAS, though.
• 58:30
  At Drake. Oh my God, that memory is seared
• 58:34
  and I love that meet. I was there.
• 58:37
  We kept getting interrupted with lightning.
• 58:39
  If I remember correctly, it was her and Tina Sutedge.
• 58:43
  Is that how you pronounce her last name?
• 58:44
  Battling down, there's a third one.
• 58:46
  I can't remember who she was, but I remember Tina was supposed
• 58:48
  to win it. I feel like it was Katarina.
• 58:51
  Maybe. No.
• 58:51
  No, it was it was it was Katarina.
• 58:53
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 58:54
  Stephen. Stephanie D Yeah, yeah.
• 58:57
  Melissa was not supposed to win and battle it out in the
• 59:02
  darkness the, you know, the lights were on the stadium but
• 59:04
  it was it's black dark night. Oh, I I I still remember in the
• 59:09
  hallway watching the the the actual jump and being so happy
• 59:13
  for Harry inside. Oh my God.
• 59:14
  Or not Harry being so happy. Jenny.
• 59:17
  Jenny, that's it. Yeah.
• 59:17
  Yeah. It was just amazing.
• 59:19
  I just, I don't know why that is one of the, you know, I don't
• 59:21
  have many core memories. That is a core.
• 59:23
  Oh 'cause it was a crazy meet. Yeah, Crazy.
• 59:25
  Crazy. Crazy.
• 59:26
  Crazy. OK, 4:40 or 4:45 to win that.
• 59:29
  Yeah, no clue. I don't remember all that stuff.
• 59:32
  I'm sure Melissa would tell like, oh, it's 441 or whatever.
• 59:34
  Yeah, something that nowadays probably wouldn't even make it,
• 59:36
  but it's still. That's how much women's pole
• 59:39
  ball has. Evolved.
• 59:39
  That's true. That's true.
• 59:41
  OK, so you now transfer back home.
• 59:43
  You go to San Diego State. Yes.
• 59:46
  Why now go closer to Mom and Dad?
• 59:49
  'Cause that was kind of the excuse I used when I was leaving
• 59:52
  the team was I need to go home. And I mean, it was back to the
• 59:56
  sun. I've been friends with Coach
• 59:58
  Fox, Rich Fox for years. So in high school I grew up
• 1:00:03
  going to their Friday Night Light Meets.
• 1:00:04
  Like, I was just always around Coach Fox, and so he basically
• 1:00:09
  just took me on to the team. I no longer had a pole ride
• 1:00:12
  anymore. I got books when I went to San
• 1:00:16
  Diego State, but at that point I basically was just trying to not
• 1:00:19
  throw away my pole ball career because I had gotten really
• 1:00:22
  depressed. I hated pole ball.
• 1:00:24
  Didn't want to take off. Hey, this is Yeah, let's.
• 1:00:28
  Let's use this as a lesson. That's interesting, Courtney.
• 1:00:32
  And we certainly have some athletes that listen.
• 1:00:34
  But you know, the bulk of the audience is coaches, and I think
• 1:00:37
  this is important for coaches too.
• 1:00:39
  How did you handle? You know, I would say ego is not
• 1:00:43
  bad. Bad.
• 1:00:44
  Ego is bad. How did you handle your your
• 1:00:49
  ego, yourself, worth, etcetera? You know, you're the celebrated
• 1:00:53
  vaulter coming out of high school.
• 1:00:55
  You get the the, the, the ride that you wanted for the car and
• 1:00:59
  you get the school you wanted. You know, things are I have to
• 1:01:03
  imagine summer going into your freshman year of college man.
• 1:01:09
  Courtney is Courtney's world is pretty nice.
• 1:01:12
  I'm. I'm going to Oh yeah, going away
• 1:01:14
  to school. I'm joining the Oregon team.
• 1:01:16
  Blah, blah, blah. And maybe the first injury
• 1:01:18
  you're like, oh that sucks, but OK, no big deal.
• 1:01:21
  Everybody gets hurt. And then the second, third,
• 1:01:22
  whatever, you know, injury and now you transfer back home,
• 1:01:26
  which could be a positive. But you know, generally it's not
• 1:01:29
  like, you know, going back home. You go from full ride to books,
• 1:01:35
  you go from Oregon to San Diego State.
• 1:01:37
  And I'm not poo poo in San Diego State 'cause it is gorgeous.
• 1:01:40
  Great ball school, but. It's.
• 1:01:41
  Not Oregon in the in the in the overall scope.
• 1:01:44
  I'm not talking about Dragon Pole Ball, just overall.
• 1:01:46
  Yeah, how did you handle like that's AI Don't want to say
• 1:01:51
  demotion 'cause you're still a Scotian.
• 1:01:53
  I mean that's no it is but that's it's.
• 1:01:55
  Different how? How did you handle that?
• 1:01:57
  There's a lot of sadness, depression that could come on
• 1:02:00
  board with that. Yeah, So, I mean, I needed to
• 1:02:05
  leave Oregon. It was not a good situation for
• 1:02:07
  me. Like, even my roommate.
• 1:02:09
  So my roommate actually is the NCAA champion of the 800, So
• 1:02:12
  even that like, that was stuff. Thankfully, we did other events,
• 1:02:14
  so it's fine. But it was like, she's off
• 1:02:17
  traveling for these meats, like, you know, doing really well and
• 1:02:19
  I'm at home, you know, just sitting there like, well.
• 1:02:22
  But she could tell that I was not happy.
• 1:02:24
  Like she would watch me at practice and I was crying every
• 1:02:26
  day, didn't want to be there. And so basically I knew that I
• 1:02:32
  needed to leave. So I was OK with leaving because
• 1:02:37
  it was not the environment for me.
• 1:02:41
  It was a pretty bad environment for me.
• 1:02:44
  Pole vaulting there, I mean also from 72 and sunny to 45 and
• 1:02:48
  rainy every day, that's that's pretty tough.
• 1:02:51
  And so when I got to San Diego State, he actually helped me
• 1:02:55
  with the mental side of it. So he allowed me to kind of
• 1:03:00
  build back up. And so did Mark Vanderbilt.
• 1:03:02
  He helped me build back up because I wasn't allowed to step
• 1:03:04
  on the runway until I knew I was going to take off.
• 1:03:06
  So I would have to do pole runs until I knew I could visualize
• 1:03:10
  and like, see myself taking off. And then I was allowed on the
• 1:03:12
  runway. And that actually helped a lot.
• 1:03:15
  So if anybody has run through issues, make them do pole runs
• 1:03:18
  until they actively see themselves taking off.
• 1:03:21
  And then yeah, but so Fox he we had and he still does to this
• 1:03:26
  day. They have a therapist who comes
• 1:03:31
  out and talks with the team. He actually is like at every
• 1:03:33
  meet for the pole authors. So yeah, there's they actually
• 1:03:37
  like and this started when I was on the team.
• 1:03:39
  He had this guy come out and work with us.
• 1:03:41
  And then there was also Beverly Kearney.
• 1:03:44
  So Beth Kearney, she the Sprint coach, was really good friends
• 1:03:49
  with her. I don't really know the
• 1:03:50
  relationship, but she was just always at practice.
• 1:03:52
  Bev Kearney from Texas. I think so.
• 1:03:56
  Yeah, she's the former women's. Legendary track coach.
• 1:03:58
  Legendary. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:00
  She would be at our practices. And she actually helped me a lot
• 1:04:03
  because she would sit down with me and like, talked about, talk
• 1:04:07
  about pole ball with me. She would like, talk through,
• 1:04:09
  like, my fears, not through everything.
• 1:04:10
  So she was actually a great therapist like and herself, and
• 1:04:14
  so they basically kind of got me mentally able to pole vault
• 1:04:17
  again. Not, not Bev Kearney.
• 1:04:19
  It was. She I think she's out of
• 1:04:21
  Kentucky. I actually have no idea, but it
• 1:04:24
  was a legendary track. Coach Legendary.
• 1:04:26
  I think what I'm embarrassed, I can't think of her name.
• 1:04:28
  She's a coach at Tennessee. Cal Poly, Texas.
• 1:04:33
  Michelle No. I worked with her a lot.
• 1:04:36
  I. Don't know who you're trying to.
• 1:04:37
  Get to at USATFI worked with her a lot.
• 1:04:39
  She does a lot in coach's education.
• 1:04:41
  The the one of the USTFCC A-Team awards is named after her.
• 1:04:44
  Oh my gosh. Beth Kearney.
• 1:04:48
  She was in San Diego at the time.
• 1:04:49
  Beth Kearney was the head coach. University of Texas women had a
• 1:04:52
  horrific car accident and was in a it's, you know, still alive in
• 1:04:55
  a wheelchair. At the time she was walking, but
• 1:04:59
  she reused Kane. I remember that 'cause we would
• 1:05:03
  walk laps on the track. Maybe it maybe it was Bev then.
• 1:05:05
  OK, wow, that's awesome. OK.
• 1:05:07
  Definitely Bev Kearney. I I did not know Bev Kearney in
• 1:05:10
  West Coast. That's where.
• 1:05:11
  That's where it's tripping me. Yeah.
• 1:05:13
  Wow. She was there, OK?
• 1:05:14
  The Sprint coach, Michelle Michelle, don't know her last
• 1:05:16
  name. Freeman back then, I think.
• 1:05:19
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now.
• 1:05:20
  Our now our women's relay coach for USA.
• 1:05:23
  Yeah, they were like. Yeah.
• 1:05:24
  Yep. Yep.
• 1:05:25
  Good. That makes sense.
• 1:05:26
  That makes sense. Yep.
• 1:05:27
  Yeah, yeah. But yeah, So she helped me a
• 1:05:29
  lot. So basically they allowed me to
• 1:05:31
  kind of work through, you know, the mental side of POVO because
• 1:05:35
  there is a time like POVO is actually not very mental.
• 1:05:39
  It's not supposed to be, but a lot of people make it mental
• 1:05:45
  because it is scary. But it's kind of like POVO goes
• 1:05:48
  better if you think less. And I've realized that now
• 1:05:51
  because now I'm the most confident I've ever been.
• 1:05:54
  But at the time, yeah, Fox would let me start on.
• 1:05:57
  So I in, in college, I was probably on like a 14170, like
• 1:06:02
  that would be my biggest poll in college or like a 14, six, 170.
• 1:06:07
  But he would let me start on like a 12140 and he would just
• 1:06:12
  be like, all right, take off. And I would literally, I would
• 1:06:15
  start on that poll. And then when I was comfortable,
• 1:06:17
  I would go up and he like, we'd skip polls once I was
• 1:06:19
  comfortable. So he basically got me to a
• 1:06:21
  point where I would like be able to jump on the polls that I
• 1:06:23
  needed to be on and then I PR Ed on my last meet ever in college
• 1:06:27
  and I jumped 13/7. You know, kudos to you for not
• 1:06:32
  giving up. By the way, did did it ever
• 1:06:35
  cross your mind? Yeah.
• 1:06:39
  Oh yeah. Especially at Oregon I it was, I
• 1:06:43
  didn't want to be doing track anymore.
• 1:06:45
  But it was something where I was like so committed at that point
• 1:06:47
  where I was like, well, I can't, like I can't quit now And then I
• 1:06:50
  mean I wasn't going to poll after college.
• 1:06:53
  I because you know I'm 13-7. Like you're not making an
• 1:06:57
  Olympic team. You're not making USAS, you're
• 1:06:59
  not like at this point that's like that's just not good.
• 1:07:02
  It's not good enough to, you know be professional.
• 1:07:05
  And so I was like, OK, well I guess my career is over now at
• 1:07:09
  this point and so but Chris Mack was at the training center and
• 1:07:13
  he they would come up. So the training center actually
• 1:07:15
  was like under construction when I was a senior in high in
• 1:07:19
  college. And so they would, that group
• 1:07:21
  would come up and train at San Diego State like a couple times
• 1:07:23
  a week. And so he would always talk to
• 1:07:25
  us. So Chris Mack actually had
• 1:07:26
  recruited me to Stanford and then Cincinnati when I was a
• 1:07:29
  senior in high school. So I knew Chris Mack from
• 1:07:32
  earlier. And so he would always ask me,
• 1:07:34
  he's like, oh, when are you going to come jump with me out
• 1:07:35
  of the center? And I was like, oh, well,
• 1:07:37
  probably not going to pole ball, but like, yeah, maybe.
• 1:07:41
  And so Fox is at the time he was a head recruiter for SDPD, so
• 1:07:45
  the San Diego Police Department. And so I basically kind of I
• 1:07:49
  got, I got accepted, I went through, I did took the test.
• 1:07:53
  I applied to be a police officer.
• 1:07:55
  I took the test. I passed the test.
• 1:07:57
  I did the physical. I passed the physical exam where
• 1:08:00
  it's like a you have to do this like running course within like
• 1:08:03
  3 1/2 minutes I think. Did you just crush everybody?
• 1:08:07
  No, because I squatted heavy the day before so.
• 1:08:10
  You get to give. Yourself a handicap for it.
• 1:08:13
  So I get it. I get it.
• 1:08:14
  You didn't want to hurt their feelings.
• 1:08:15
  I get it. I get it.
• 1:08:16
  Because it's this test where you have to run up, like you have to
• 1:08:19
  touch every single stair up, like five flights of stairs, and
• 1:08:22
  then on the way down you can skip steps, but then you have to
• 1:08:24
  go jump over a six foot wall. You have to carry a bot like
• 1:08:26
  drag a body, which it's a dummy of course, and then you have to
• 1:08:30
  like Sprint around like certain things.
• 1:08:31
  You have to do all of that within, you know, 3 1/2 minutes.
• 1:08:35
  And I mean, I I probably completed it in like 245, I
• 1:08:38
  don't know. But still, I was not setting any
• 1:08:41
  records. I was just happy to pass.
• 1:08:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because remember, I'm not a
• 1:08:45
  distance runner. Right.
• 1:08:46
  Yeah, it's clear, right. We got that.
• 1:08:48
  So you were going to be a cop? I was going to be a cop and then
• 1:08:52
  the next Academy started six months later.
• 1:08:54
  And so then I was like, well, OK, I might as well just like, I
• 1:08:58
  don't really know what I'm doing.
• 1:08:59
  So K Mac was like, well, why don't you do like you have six
• 1:09:01
  months like come and jump with me for six months.
• 1:09:03
  So I was like, OK, like, why not?
• 1:09:05
  Like, I'm not doing anything else.
• 1:09:07
  And within that first six months I jumped 14.
• 1:09:12
  And then I was kind of like, OK, well, and which actually
• 1:09:15
  thinking back about it, I don't think Fox ever called me to
• 1:09:19
  like, come to the Academy. I don't remember ever getting
• 1:09:21
  called being like, hey, are you coming back for the Academy?
• 1:09:24
  Like, I swear I don't remember that.
• 1:09:27
  I think Fox just realized that I was still pull ball thing and
• 1:09:29
  then just was like, yeah, she's not doing this anymore because
• 1:09:32
  then in that first year I jumped 14-6 with K Mac.
• 1:09:35
  Wow. So appeared by a foot in that
• 1:09:37
  first year that I was jumping with him.
• 1:09:39
  What? What?
• 1:09:40
  You know we don't get an X's and O's but what changed was it a
• 1:09:44
  continuation of the the change in environment going, you know
• 1:09:47
  your last year and then going into the the the train center.
• 1:09:51
  Was there something magic and Chris by the way great coach.
• 1:09:53
  So it could be but also as Fox, right.
• 1:09:56
  I mean that guy is also an amazing coach.
• 1:09:57
  So I I don't know that it necessarily like you know better
• 1:10:00
  coaching style from Mack to to it's just different.
• 1:10:03
  Yeah. Different.
• 1:10:04
  So Fox only coaches pole ball. That's it.
• 1:10:07
  He doesn't coach like any anything else.
• 1:10:09
  So, like, the Sprint's running. Like, that's Coach Burrell.
• 1:10:14
  But it was K Mac one. He focused on how I ran, so I
• 1:10:20
  improved my running format. She got a lot faster With K Mac.
• 1:10:24
  My confidence was already pretty high, but it was because I was
• 1:10:26
  now pole vaulting for myself and I wasn't pole vaulting to score
• 1:10:29
  points for somebody else. It was now pole vaulting because
• 1:10:32
  I want to still be doing this. It wasn't like I have to do it.
• 1:10:37
  So it's kind of like, well, if you're going to do it, you might
• 1:10:38
  as well be good at it. It's interesting because your
• 1:10:40
  initial motivation was score points for the team and now it's
• 1:10:45
  like, yeah, that was that's not, that didn't work.
• 1:10:47
  You're built different. Yeah.
• 1:10:49
  Yeah. Interesting.
• 1:10:50
  So what, what happens when you jump 14, six versus when you
• 1:10:53
  jump 13-6 as far as like opportunities and expectations
• 1:10:56
  and? Well, not much, no.
• 1:10:59
  I mean. I really thought there'd be like
• 1:11:01
  some world difference. No, no. 14 takes is just kind of
• 1:11:05
  like, OK, cool, High 5. Like you jumped high.
• 1:11:09
  Nothing really changed. I mean, I got into meats.
• 1:11:11
  So like, I got into like Drake realized like stuff like that.
• 1:11:13
  Like I got into like meats because yeah, you jump 13-6 and
• 1:11:16
  they're kind of like we're not really going to like, you know,
• 1:11:18
  put you into Mount SAC, like the elite section of Mount SAC.
• 1:11:20
  Like. So I mean that was a change
• 1:11:23
  because I got into meats and then actually, so then the next
• 1:11:28
  year I jumped 15 feet and once I jumped 15 feet, that's when
• 1:11:31
  things changed. That was when I got an agent,
• 1:11:34
  Yeah. So it was like for females, it's
• 1:11:36
  typically that 15 foot barrier. That's when like you guys start
• 1:11:40
  traveling now and get your travel paid for.
• 1:11:42
  For football, OK, Now I think it might be a little bit higher
• 1:11:45
  than 15 feet just because like a lot of people seem to be doing
• 1:11:48
  that now, probably. Naturally.
• 1:11:49
  For instance, right. You jump 470 now.
• 1:11:52
  So yeah, so that was, I jumped 15 feet, Jeff Hartwig calls me.
• 1:11:56
  And he was like, hey, we, you know, want to work with you.
• 1:12:00
  And I, like, was like, yeah, let me, let me talk to my parents
• 1:12:03
  about this. And I'm like, Oh my God.
• 1:12:07
  I like, had to make him think that I was thinking about it, of
• 1:12:09
  course. But she probably knew exactly
• 1:12:10
  what I was doing. I was.
• 1:12:11
  Playing the game. Yeah, he's heard that and.
• 1:12:13
  Then I called him, Oh yeah, I called him back probably 20
• 1:12:15
  minutes later. He was like, Oh yeah, I would
• 1:12:16
  definitely love to work with you.
• 1:12:18
  We've we've talked about our choices and.
• 1:12:21
  Yeah. So, yeah.
• 1:12:24
  So I signed with Doyle. Yeah.
• 1:12:27
  Who. So Doyle management is.
• 1:12:29
  That's who Jeff works with. So was actually Jeff was a the
• 1:12:33
  pacer guy for a long time. It's kind of still is.
• 1:12:37
  But yeah, so yeah, so I work with Jeff.
• 1:12:39
  He helps me out a lot. Even to this day he still helps
• 1:12:42
  me. But yeah, so he would get me
• 1:12:46
  into meets, I would travel to Europe and yeah, I got to go
• 1:12:50
  compete in Europe at some of the craziest meets Europe.
• 1:12:53
  Europe has some crazy pole vault St. meets.
• 1:12:56
  So let's talk about some experiences, because you know
• 1:12:58
  what's amazing to me? Athletes of your caliber.
• 1:13:00
  You have just some experiences that you know the normal.
• 1:13:04
  You know, I'm coached at a high level and I'm at a pretty high
• 1:13:06
  level as far as, you know, meets and stuff like that.
• 1:13:08
  And I still will never have the kind of experiences.
• 1:13:10
  So my my first question on experiences is you know pole
• 1:13:14
  vaulting is really big into numbers barriers right the the
• 1:13:19
  14 foot, the 15 foot. And I don't, I've forgotten all
• 1:13:22
  my metrics since I haven't coached in forever.
• 1:13:24
  But you know the the first, you know 450 jump or something I
• 1:13:27
  yeah, I'm probably making it more but I know like for the
• 1:13:30
  guys 5 meters in high school that's a big number to hit 6
• 1:13:33
  meters obviously on the professional side For for for
• 1:13:36
  guys, do you remember the 1st 15 foot barrier like you know
• 1:13:41
  especially someone who has battled in that 13-6 range for a
• 1:13:44
  long time and then you started breaking some big 6 inch
• 1:13:47
  barriers. Do you remember 15 Foot for the
• 1:13:49
  first time and what that felt like?
• 1:13:51
  Oh yeah, that's all 'cause I actually done 463 the first
• 1:13:55
  time, so that's 15 two my PR and I beat Genser at the meet.
• 1:14:00
  She know I did. OK but hey in the in the in the
• 1:14:07
  column win column that was. The win man still.
• 1:14:10
  And that it was like, whoa, like it felt really cool to jump 15
• 1:14:16
  feet. And it kind of it was this thing
• 1:14:17
  where it was like, OK, I hit this number, doors just open
• 1:14:21
  because it was that number that like, allowed things to start
• 1:14:24
  happening. Because before it was like, I
• 1:14:26
  jumped 450 and it was kind of like, you just still don't
• 1:14:29
  really have the marks because, like, I would be asking Jeff,
• 1:14:31
  like, oh, Jeff, can I get into these meets?
• 1:14:33
  And he's like, oh, well, we have like, now these people,
• 1:14:35
  whatever. And I was like, oh, can I go to
• 1:14:37
  Europe? And then I was like, you jump 15
• 1:14:39
  feet And then instantly it's like, all right, do you want to
• 1:14:41
  go to Europe this summer? Because now they have that mark
• 1:14:44
  that they can take to meet promoters.
• 1:14:46
  And then they're like, hey, I have this girl, She's jumping
• 1:14:49
  this. And it's not just like every
• 1:14:51
  other European girl out there because, I mean, they have, they
• 1:14:55
  have people who are significantly cheaper because
• 1:14:57
  they're from their country. And they're like, Oh yeah, we'll
• 1:14:59
  just have them come to our meet. But if you jump 15 feet and
• 1:15:02
  they're like, they can sell that, you know?
• 1:15:04
  So. So yeah.
• 1:15:06
  Speaking of going to year, you know it's it's one thing to go
• 1:15:09
  in. I'm not, this is not in order.
• 1:15:11
  If you go to your state meet, that's a big deal.
• 1:15:14
  It really is when you look at all the kids in your state,
• 1:15:17
  whatever state you're from, California here, all the kids
• 1:15:20
  that participated in track and field this many a very, very
• 1:15:23
  small percentage actually made to the state meet that that's a
• 1:15:25
  big deal. When you go to college, if you
• 1:15:28
  make it to nationals, that's a big deal.
• 1:15:30
  You think about all the people that do your event and do track
• 1:15:34
  a very, very small people go there.
• 1:15:35
  The number of people that actually go beyond that is a a a
• 1:15:41
  very, very small fraternity. That's why I always make a big
• 1:15:43
  deal of like if you make it in the Olympics, like that is, I
• 1:15:45
  mean, you're talking about a. That is small.
• 1:15:47
  Smaller than a pin head of people that go.
• 1:15:49
  That's why we had Jeff on the podcast a couple seasons ago and
• 1:15:53
  it's like Jeff, you know, it's one thing to make one Olympics
• 1:15:55
  team. You made two again.
• 1:15:57
  Your fraternity is like you and like one other dude, basically,
• 1:15:59
  you know, it's just really small, so.
• 1:16:01
  Yep. Do you remember?
• 1:16:03
  You know, you grew up. I almost want to paint this
• 1:16:06
  picture of like, you know, you grew up in, you know, middle of
• 1:16:08
  nowhere, but you grew up in San Diego.
• 1:16:10
  That's, that's a big town. But you grew up in San Diego,
• 1:16:13
  maybe as you were in your senior year and you're getting courted
• 1:16:16
  by all these different schools, maybe you started thinking about
• 1:16:18
  like, oh maybe I could be a professional and go to Europe.
• 1:16:21
  I don't even know if you would know that as an 18 year old girl
• 1:16:23
  when you got into college though.
• 1:16:25
  And, you know, things started regressing with the excuse me,
• 1:16:29
  with the injuries and stuff. Maybe that dream felt like a
• 1:16:32
  dream. Like, there's no, this is not my
• 1:16:35
  lie. I'm never going to be able to
• 1:16:36
  make it. So post collegiately, you start
• 1:16:39
  jumping and jumping high and now it becomes available.
• 1:16:41
  Do you remember that first time of, like, whether it was Jeff or
• 1:16:44
  someone calling you saying, hey, we're going to fly you to Latvia
• 1:16:47
  or wherever, like the first, like, oh, you're going overseas.
• 1:16:50
  Like, do you have a passport? We're going overseas.
• 1:16:52
  Do you remember that? I mean, I like just literally
• 1:16:59
  jumping the 15 feet. Like I remember that where it
• 1:17:02
  was just like I get to travel because my biggest thing was I
• 1:17:06
  wanted to travel the world. So because like when I graduated
• 1:17:08
  college, while I was waiting for the, you know, the Academy and I
• 1:17:11
  was still talking, came back by train there, my cousin and I
• 1:17:14
  went back back across Europe for two months.
• 1:17:17
  And. And so doing it for, you know,
• 1:17:21
  personal travel is like fun. It's like, hey, OK, like you got
• 1:17:26
  to go do things and you can, you know, experience things.
• 1:17:28
  But then it's like, well, now you got to go travel for pole
• 1:17:31
  vault. Like you have to, you know,
• 1:17:33
  carry your entire bag like to Europe with you, which is a
• 1:17:35
  hassle, by the way. But yeah, it was just kind of
• 1:17:39
  like one of those things where I just remember being like, I get
• 1:17:43
  to travel the world to pole vault.
• 1:17:45
  Like pole vault has opened so many.
• 1:17:48
  So it's allowed me to go to so many places because I mean, OK,
• 1:17:50
  when we traveled for that two months, we went to a lot of
• 1:17:53
  countries, but then pole vault allowed me to go to a lot more
• 1:17:57
  countries, paid for. They're also very frugal.
• 1:18:02
  Yeah, it's a it's a big key. Yeah.
• 1:18:03
  Yeah, yeah. Am I laying out money or you
• 1:18:05
  laying me money? Yeah, exactly.
• 1:18:06
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 1:18:07
  So it was like, as long as I could break even on the trip,
• 1:18:10
  yeah, that was pretty much all I cared about, was just if I can
• 1:18:13
  break even and, like, make enough money with, you know,
• 1:18:15
  travel fees, appearance, prize money, then I was like, I'm all
• 1:18:20
  in on this. And I don't remember really the
• 1:18:23
  feeling. I just remember being like, I
• 1:18:25
  get to travel the world now. Like, that was, like, cool.
• 1:18:28
  So you have done this for many, many years now.
• 1:18:32
  You've gone to a lot of different places, a lot of cool
• 1:18:34
  places. You mentioned, you know there's
• 1:18:35
  some crazy pole vault meets. And in Europe what's been your
• 1:18:40
  not, you know the the. The simple question is, what's
• 1:18:42
  been your favorite, such as I've already.
• 1:18:44
  Got an answer. I want to know the opposite,
• 1:18:46
  actually. I'll I'll let you tell your
• 1:18:48
  favorite story, too. Oh, I got the worst one too.
• 1:18:50
  Yeah, kind of Worst. Odd.
• 1:18:52
  Like, oh man, I was jumping against the chimpanzee or
• 1:18:54
  something. I don't know.
• 1:18:56
  It's it's overseas. I have no clue what they do over
• 1:18:58
  there. Give.
• 1:18:58
  Give me, give me both, and you can go in whatever order you'd
• 1:19:01
  like. OK.
• 1:19:02
  So the best one was Yakram, OK, That's in Germany.
• 1:19:05
  And so it's in Germany. The town is actually named
• 1:19:08
  Yakram. OK.
• 1:19:09
  But it is also like the, like I guess maybe just because we're
• 1:19:13
  Americans and it's a small town in Germany, we just call the
• 1:19:15
  meat Yakram. I mean like I said is the name
• 1:19:19
  of it, but that one is a beer festival.
• 1:19:22
  It is one of the coolest meats they get the entire town.
• 1:19:25
  It's like a town of maybe like 2000 people, 4000 people show up
• 1:19:30
  for this meet. Like maybe not that many, but
• 1:19:33
  everybody's coming out for this meet.
• 1:19:35
  It is, and it's been going on for years.
• 1:19:38
  Is it a track meet or a pole vault meet?
• 1:19:39
  Because that's. Just pole vault.
• 1:19:41
  Yeah, OK. Yeah.
• 1:19:42
  So it's actually the facility is like for a soccer team, but then
• 1:19:46
  they have like 4 lanes of track specifically for pole vault
• 1:19:51
  because this guy, he just was trying to come up with a
• 1:19:54
  fundraiser and he was like let's do pole vault.
• 1:19:57
  And so they just started this thing and it became this pole
• 1:20:00
  vault St. Vault that they have.
• 1:20:02
  And it is. They.
• 1:20:03
  Yeah, like I said, it's a beer fest like you.
• 1:20:06
  The whole crowd's out there drinking beer like they're still
• 1:20:08
  out there. If it starts raining, they're
• 1:20:10
  still there. The crowd sticks around and they
• 1:20:13
  get into it. They are clapping.
• 1:20:15
  It is. It's, it's a pretty cool
• 1:20:17
  environment and if you ever travel and you want to see a
• 1:20:20
  pole vault meet, that's the one I would highly recommend because
• 1:20:24
  it's a crazy environment. That's cool.
• 1:20:27
  The worst one, I didn't actually jump at it.
• 1:20:31
  So technically I don't know if I can really say this is my
• 1:20:33
  answer, but I was supposed to. My polls just didn't show up.
• 1:20:36
  But it was this meet in Belgium, and it was a small meet, like
• 1:20:39
  there weren't really that many people around and it was a whole
• 1:20:41
  track meet, but the front buns of the pole vault pit came out
• 1:20:46
  not even past the box, so it was 1.
• 1:20:49
  Of those where it. Was like you looked at it and
• 1:20:52
  you're like, I don't want to jump there, So thankfully I
• 1:20:56
  ended up not having to jump there.
• 1:21:00
  Yeah, you know, I don't know how you vaulters do it.
• 1:21:03
  You know, I'm surrounded by pole vaulting.
• 1:21:05
  You know, with we always say if it weren't for the event of pole
• 1:21:09
  vaulting, you know, Gill would be a lot smaller, right?
• 1:21:10
  Cuz you know, poles and pits and vault boxes and training aids.
• 1:21:13
  And I mean there's just so much for this event.
• 1:21:16
  It's it's really quite unique. But the most unique thing to me,
• 1:21:21
  you know is the outsider. I'm not a pole vaulter at all.
• 1:21:23
  I I when when we recruited that 9 foot girl down at Troy, me and
• 1:21:29
  one of my other our other assistants, Chris Baptista,
• 1:21:32
  who's also been on the podcast, we we, you know, we kind of
• 1:21:35
  played around with it and what, you know, telling her to do
• 1:21:37
  this, do that, we had no clue what we're doing.
• 1:21:39
  We dismissed her for the day and me and him were like, you know,
• 1:21:41
  we were best friends. We still are.
• 1:21:42
  And we're like, come on man, let's try it.
• 1:21:45
  And I still remember. Yeah, I didn't probably ran 6
• 1:21:47
  feet. You know I did not run.
• 1:21:48
  You know, I wasn't taking a full approach here but I remember
• 1:21:50
  putting the pole in the box and my feet got I'm gonna say 2
• 1:21:55
  inches. My feet barely left the ground
• 1:21:57
  and I was like, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, never get.
• 1:21:59
  I've never done it since then. No, no way and no how.
• 1:22:02
  So I don't know how you guys do any of this stuff.
• 1:22:05
  The thing that boggles me the most is it's a hassle to travel
• 1:22:10
  with a shot put. It's a hassle to travel with
• 1:22:12
  javelins. It really is.
• 1:22:13
  Ask Tim your vaulting poles. No one wants to take them.
• 1:22:19
  No plane wants to take them. If you do find a plane that
• 1:22:22
  takes them, there's still the hassle of the bus ride, the car
• 1:22:24
  ride, the Uber ride, etcetera. I mean, it's so difficult.
• 1:22:31
  Oh yeah, Trey's actually been having to deal with this a lot
• 1:22:34
  more since he jumped 582. He is traveling to Europe now.
• 1:22:38
  His. So it's funny because you'd
• 1:22:40
  think, you know, jumping 582, you're like kind of sponsored,
• 1:22:45
  you know, going to be able to travel the world, like forget
• 1:22:47
  and get paid like and make money.
• 1:22:49
  No, there are a lot of guys having 582.
• 1:22:53
  He is still unsponsored. He still has to pay for his
• 1:22:58
  polls, but he gets to travel. So he does have the opportunity
• 1:23:05
  to, since he is willing to just go to Europe and figure it out,
• 1:23:10
  meets and a lot of times actually if you jump 14 feet you
• 1:23:14
  can just show up in Europe. Like I went and travelled with
• 1:23:16
  Trey to Europe. He wasn't jumping in Europe.
• 1:23:19
  I had finished my season. I was done, just went to go hang
• 1:23:23
  out with him. I jumped in two meets just
• 1:23:25
  because I was there and they paid me because they were just
• 1:23:28
  like, well, we don't have any girls.
• 1:23:29
  Like we just if you're here will you jump?
• 1:23:31
  And I was like, OK, so a lot of times actually, if you are
• 1:23:34
  willing to just show up, you probably talk to them first, but
• 1:23:38
  be like, hey, I'm coming out, they'll let you in their meat
• 1:23:41
  because there's a lot of small St. vaults in Europe.
• 1:23:44
  But anyway, that's besides the point.
• 1:23:45
  So Trey's going over there. He's going to Europe.
• 1:23:47
  He'll probably go to Europe this outdoor season again.
• 1:23:50
  And so he's had to deal with it. And there are a lot of airlines
• 1:23:53
  who they do not take poles anymore.
• 1:23:54
  So like, even Southwest got a little more expensive.
• 1:23:57
  Now thankfully, we're out of Phoenix.
• 1:23:59
  So we can cargo our poles because you can only cargo if
• 1:24:02
  they have a cargo facility. So you can't cargo your poles
• 1:24:06
  like. So when we travel to Des Moines,
• 1:24:08
  IA, you can't cargo your poles there because Des Moines does
• 1:24:11
  not have a cargo facility. Yeah.
• 1:24:14
  Yeah. So you can only go cargo to
• 1:24:17
  cargo. You can't just like, you know,
• 1:24:18
  send the wherever, but then like traveling over to Europe.
• 1:24:22
  Now United doesn't take polls. Delta doesn't take polls.
• 1:24:26
  American supposedly does, but they'll give you a hard time.
• 1:24:30
  But Icelandic air, they do and thin air, so my other high
• 1:24:36
  school coach, so I was coached by Michael Abou and Mike
• 1:24:38
  Johnson. So if anybody remembers Mike
• 1:24:41
  Johnson, he would basically yell down the runway, his steps, he
• 1:24:44
  would count out loud and he took off double legs.
• 1:24:47
  So he was like significant double, like Superman.
• 1:24:49
  Like he was also one of my high school coaches, 'cause he was
• 1:24:53
  training with Mike at the time, so he would help me out whenever
• 1:24:56
  Mike couldn't be there. He lives in Iceland.
• 1:24:59
  So now when you fly Iceland, Iceland air, you have to go
• 1:25:02
  through Iceland. So if there's ever a reason why
• 1:25:05
  Trey needs to have a layover, like just the the layover is too
• 1:25:09
  quick and so he has to stay there for like a little bit
• 1:25:12
  extra, he goes and he'll stay with Mark Johnson in Iceland.
• 1:25:16
  So if anybody, if any, pole vaulters go to Iceland, Mark
• 1:25:19
  Johnson, you. Know that's one of the things.
• 1:25:23
  It's it's own culture, the vaulting the community.
• 1:25:27
  The network is extreme. I I think it's extremely unique.
• 1:25:30
  I I think there's some of it in the in the throws community.
• 1:25:33
  Some, you know, I I learned from Tim, you know, the Jav
• 1:25:37
  community, 'cause you're talking about very small niche
• 1:25:39
  communities. You know, not everybody does it,
• 1:25:41
  especially at that level. When you start talking about you
• 1:25:43
  know 80 Meters Plus and things like that, the vault community
• 1:25:47
  is very like like you had no problem.
• 1:25:50
  You know you're on a national podcast here saying hey be ever
• 1:25:53
  in Iceland. Mark Johnson and I'm I would be
• 1:25:56
  willing to bet you would. Love it.
• 1:25:58
  Yeah, that's what I'm saying, Mark.
• 1:25:59
  You know, I would be like, Courtney, why would you tell
• 1:26:01
  everybody to call me? And kind of like how, you know,
• 1:26:02
  I guarantee you Mark Johnson's like, yeah, cool, man.
• 1:26:04
  If you ever in town, man, you're a vaulter.
• 1:26:05
  Sure. Come on, come on in.
• 1:26:07
  We'll we'll, you know, take care of you.
• 1:26:08
  Yep. It's so unique.
• 1:26:10
  It's really. He'll at least give you a ride.
• 1:26:12
  What? What?
• 1:26:12
  Why? You know, you've done other
• 1:26:14
  events and you've been around other high level event athletes.
• 1:26:17
  What makes that community, that culture of vaulting, so unique,
• 1:26:21
  so, so different? I think because it is so tough
• 1:26:26
  and we all have our own challenges that it's not
• 1:26:29
  necessarily like, yeah, we want to feed each other.
• 1:26:31
  Of course, like I want to be the best female, but it's like we're
• 1:26:35
  all trying to do the exact same thing.
• 1:26:36
  So we we know how difficult it is to travel with a 15 foot bag.
• 1:26:40
  So if Emily Grove is coming down to jump in and meet in Tucson,
• 1:26:44
  I'm going to go pick her up from the airport because it's going
• 1:26:47
  to be she can't get an Uber like she would have to rent a car.
• 1:26:50
  So it would just be so difficult for her and expensive.
• 1:26:54
  So it's like, hey, well, I mean, yeah, I'm competing against
• 1:26:57
  Emily to win this meet, but yet she's also one of my closest
• 1:27:00
  friends and I'm going to help her out to get there because I
• 1:27:03
  know how difficult it is. And so yeah, the public think
• 1:27:06
  community, everybody just really wants to help everybody else out
• 1:27:10
  because we have, we all have our own things that we're working
• 1:27:13
  through. And like, yeah, you want to be
• 1:27:16
  the best, but you also want to have the best there to prove
• 1:27:19
  that you are the best. You want to, you don't want to
• 1:27:20
  like, oh, I can't pick you up because I'm getting against you.
• 1:27:23
  So figure it out. Yeah.
• 1:27:25
  It's really like, I want to help you out because we're all in the
• 1:27:27
  same situation, too. Like we're all like, trying to
• 1:27:30
  just make it work in pole vault. Yeah, you know, again, not me,
• 1:27:34
  the vaulter, but I've, you know, when I came into Gill was a
• 1:27:37
  really kind of sweet spot in pole vaulting for America for
• 1:27:41
  men. Derrick Miles, Toby Stevenson,
• 1:27:44
  Jeff Hartwig. And we all jumped on our poles.
• 1:27:48
  And so I got to kind of, you know, be around them and, you
• 1:27:50
  know, like, I still remember, you know, being a Drake with
• 1:27:53
  Toby and him jumping and me explaining the new crossbar.
• 1:27:55
  You know, just got to kind of see that culture a little bit.
• 1:27:57
  It was always like, man, these guys like they're killers.
• 1:28:00
  I mean, don't don't get it twisted.
• 1:28:02
  They wanted to win. They wanted to beat the other
• 1:28:04
  people. They wanted to, but it felt like
• 1:28:06
  they more wanted to beat the bar they wanted to beat. 6.
• 1:28:10
  Meters, 610, whatever, you know, that always felt like the bigger
• 1:28:14
  enemy, not the next person on the runway.
• 1:28:17
  And so it was just always a unique culture and really cool
• 1:28:21
  to, you know, kind of be on the fringe of and you know, be the
• 1:28:23
  outsider watching and just seeing how they interact with
• 1:28:25
  each other and stuff. It was really, it's really
• 1:28:27
  interesting. Yeah, and I mean, all of us poll
• 1:28:29
  vaulters are generally pretty weird.
• 1:28:31
  Like, there's got to be something like if you're stuck
• 1:28:33
  in it this long and like, you're being an elite at this, like
• 1:28:36
  there's probably something a little weird with you.
• 1:28:39
  But it's like we're all kind of like similar in that aspect
• 1:28:44
  where we all have something that's like different with us
• 1:28:48
  yet and we also hang out a lot too.
• 1:28:50
  So it's like you go to meets, you're seeing the same people
• 1:28:53
  over and over again at the AT meets.
• 1:28:55
  And so it's like you're spending a lot of time with these people.
• 1:28:58
  And so then you do, you get to know them and you get to become
• 1:29:01
  friends with them just solely because you're spending a lot of
• 1:29:04
  time with them. Like you're standing in the
• 1:29:06
  line. Like warming up.
• 1:29:07
  You're standing talking to each other.
• 1:29:08
  Right, right, right. That's interesting because
• 1:29:10
  that's different than like the sprints.
• 1:29:12
  You know that you're on your own little lane, but here you are.
• 1:29:14
  You guys are like Sunday school. You're all in line.
• 1:29:17
  And what else are you going to do besides talk?
• 1:29:18
  Hey, where are you opening up at?
• 1:29:19
  Hey, where do you know who's your coach?
• 1:29:21
  How's that go? You know?
• 1:29:22
  Yeah, yeah, that's I I never thought about that line aspect
• 1:29:24
  that's that's kind of unique. Yeah, well then like, it's like
• 1:29:28
  people will come to me and they're like, oh, like they have
• 1:29:30
  a run through issue and they're like, Oh well, how'd you get
• 1:29:33
  through it? Because like, I had a
• 1:29:34
  significant run through problem in college and then now I'm more
• 1:29:38
  confident than I've ever been. And so they're like ask me for
• 1:29:41
  advice on that. And so it's like it's or like
• 1:29:43
  I'll come and I'll ask like someone for advice on like how
• 1:29:48
  did you get over this or what did you do in this situation?
• 1:29:51
  Like how did you get your hips upside down like.
• 1:29:54
  And so, yeah, it's literally just like sharing knowledge with
• 1:29:57
  each other, too, because it's like, that's the only way you
• 1:30:00
  really can learn, is like, how'd you do it?
• 1:30:01
  Like, was there something like a keyword that you used that
• 1:30:05
  helped? So it's like something slightly
• 1:30:06
  different than what you're hearing now.
• 1:30:08
  It's like, did you word it differently and did that work
• 1:30:11
  for you? So yeah, 'cause there's if you
• 1:30:14
  have, if kids have run through issues, come to me because I
• 1:30:16
  have a lot of tips and tricks. The expert at the run through I
• 1:30:19
  love it. I love it.
• 1:30:20
  Yes, and I love trying to get kids to stop running through.
• 1:30:23
  Yeah, that used to be. I still remember when Trey was
• 1:30:26
  with Mississippi State. You know I didn't coach the
• 1:30:28
  vaulters because I, you know, I just can't.
• 1:30:30
  And I remember I had my back towards the pole vault pit and
• 1:30:33
  I'm working with the spurniture probably the long jumpers and it
• 1:30:36
  was just run through after run through after run through and I,
• 1:30:38
  you know, I knew nothing. I still don't know anything.
• 1:30:40
  But I remember just turning and yelling and the vault coaches
• 1:30:44
  there. So I don't know why.
• 1:30:45
  You know this is bad. This is bad coaching because I,
• 1:30:48
  you know I'm stepping over the pole vault coach and I just
• 1:30:50
  turned. I was like get in the.
• 1:30:54
  I was like, just take. Him.
• 1:30:55
  Yes, yes. It was terrible.
• 1:30:58
  I should not have done that, but I was very frustrated.
• 1:31:00
  With just hey. Run through it to run through it
• 1:31:02
  to run through. And it's like you can't make a
• 1:31:03
  bar doing that, so. I know.
• 1:31:05
  Which actually, why I'm more confident than ever is because
• 1:31:09
  since Trey's my coach, I want him to actually enjoy being out
• 1:31:12
  there. So I'm like, well, you're
• 1:31:15
  sitting here using your time to be out here to coach me, so I'm
• 1:31:18
  going to give you something to watch.
• 1:31:20
  So if I run through, nobody wants to see that, right?
• 1:31:23
  Right. Like, that's just a waste of
• 1:31:24
  time. So yeah, So it's like I am
• 1:31:26
  respecting his time and taking off.
• 1:31:29
  So we got a few minutes to go here Courtney kind of catch us
• 1:31:31
  up to speed. You're talked about doing some
• 1:31:33
  coaching, you're still competing.
• 1:31:34
  So talk to us about how you know you're in a different transition
• 1:31:38
  of life. First of all, you're married.
• 1:31:40
  That's a whole different trend. You know pre pre interview here
• 1:31:43
  we talked about, you know, my marriage and your you know that
• 1:31:45
  that that changes and that changes life.
• 1:31:48
  You're still competing. You're still working to compete
• 1:31:50
  at the highest level. That alone, that's a full time
• 1:31:52
  job. You're working full time with
• 1:31:55
  us. You're coaching kind of how did,
• 1:31:57
  how did all that morph and how do you make all that work?
• 1:32:00
  That's a lot of lot of things to juggle there.
• 1:32:03
  Yeah, thankfully all the jobs I've had while still pole
• 1:32:07
  vaulting have worked very well with my schedule, so training
• 1:32:10
  and traveling. So Jen and Steve gave me the
• 1:32:14
  opportunity to work at Gil and they're working with my
• 1:32:17
  schedule. So I start early and get off
• 1:32:19
  early on some days so that way I can go down and train.
• 1:32:24
  And then the high school is I only show up on certain days
• 1:32:28
  when I coach at the high school. So I'm very, I'm down there.
• 1:32:32
  Not that often, but it still works because actually a lot of
• 1:32:35
  the kids, they go to AZPVA, so they jump at AZPVA and then I
• 1:32:39
  coach them at the track meets. But thankfully, yeah, like Jen
• 1:32:44
  and Steve were willing to give me the chance and see like can
• 1:32:49
  we make it work with working remote and with traveling to
• 1:32:52
  track meet. So like this weekend I'm going
• 1:32:54
  and jumping out at UCSD. So in San Diego we're going out
• 1:32:59
  there and I will be working on the road and in the morning.
• 1:33:03
  So before I jump, I'll work in the morning and then I am taking
• 1:33:06
  the day off after after lunch because I got to go jump.
• 1:33:09
  So I'm a little busy but can't work through that one.
• 1:33:13
  But yeah, they're like, if I see you, if I ever see you on the
• 1:33:16
  runway, hello, I'll, I'll be like, hey, look, Courtney, we
• 1:33:20
  got to make some decisions here. I'm not sure who we're
• 1:33:22
  prioritizing. I actually did it at Chandler
• 1:33:26
  Rotary, so one of the big meets here.
• 1:33:28
  There were 45 kids in the competition and so I worked
• 1:33:32
  while I was at the track meet because it would take so long
• 1:33:35
  that I was like sitting there on my computer.
• 1:33:37
  So if you follow me on Instagram, there was a picture
• 1:33:39
  of me just on I'm like on my computer, like sitting under my
• 1:33:42
  shade, like while the kids are going, Yeah, basically just my
• 1:33:46
  bosses doing our stuff. They help.
• 1:33:48
  Working for Gil, dude, that's that's actually kind of cool,
• 1:33:51
  man. Like that's really.
• 1:33:53
  Well then I'm at the meets and there's people, they're asking
• 1:33:55
  me questions about Pacer and I'm like, well.
• 1:33:58
  Yeah. Actually.
• 1:34:00
  Your experience is something that I noticed.
• 1:34:01
  You know, being here for so long, you're never really off if
• 1:34:05
  you're around track. You know?
• 1:34:06
  When I'm at church, no one asked me track questions.
• 1:34:08
  But you know when I go to a meet with her, I'm working.
• 1:34:11
  I'm, I'm always working. There's just there is no off,
• 1:34:14
  you know. And so when you're there, it's
• 1:34:15
  like, oh, I I got questions, you know.
• 1:34:17
  So it's just always. Oh yeah, I mean it.
• 1:34:18
  Goes, yeah. Yeah, and Polo, obviously
• 1:34:21
  something that I enjoy. So it's like when I'm at a track
• 1:34:23
  meet and a coach comes up to me and I'm off the clock, I'm still
• 1:34:26
  going to talk to him about. What are you going to do?
• 1:34:28
  Say no. Right, right, right, right.
• 1:34:29
  Exactly like Garrett did ask. He tried to ask me a flex
• 1:34:34
  question when I it was like 8:00 PM and he was asking me like
• 1:34:36
  flex questions and I was like, I'll look at this in the
• 1:34:39
  morning. Yeah, 'cause I was like.
• 1:34:41
  For that one, I have to get on my computer and, you know, look,
• 1:34:44
  but yeah, I was like, Garrett, we'll talk about this tomorrow.
• 1:34:48
  So I do set some boundaries. So you said Trey's coaching you
• 1:34:52
  now? Yes.
• 1:34:54
  How? How's that dynamic?
• 1:34:56
  You know, you go home, you go home together, 'cause that's
• 1:35:01
  your husband. How do you separate Trey, my
• 1:35:05
  husband, Trey, my best friend, Trey, my coach.
• 1:35:08
  How? Do you?
• 1:35:10
  Well, to Trey, I'm actually not his best friend.
• 1:35:12
  OK, Sir, Trey only has one best friend, and it is his best
• 1:35:15
  friend from high school. You're never supposed to assume.
• 1:35:18
  Look what I did. He's my best friend but still he
• 1:35:24
  he was like, I only have one best friend so I'm his good
• 1:35:27
  friend by the way I might have, I might be like getting close to
• 1:35:32
  you know, best friend territory, but.
• 1:35:35
  Maybe that's your fifth year anniversary gift.
• 1:35:36
  You'll be the best friend or? Maybe I get his best friend.
• 1:35:40
  Don't give me like the best friend like bracelets.
• 1:35:44
  I'll get promoted. But actually, so it worked out
• 1:35:47
  because so like I said, my ex was a pole vaulter.
• 1:35:50
  We lived and trained together and that was how I knew that is
• 1:35:53
  not what you want to do. Like, do not do that.
• 1:35:56
  And so when we moved to Arizona because.
• 1:35:58
  So basically Trey had graduated to college.
• 1:36:01
  I was at the center, but everybody left the center.
• 1:36:03
  And so then it was just me at the center with K Mac.
• 1:36:07
  And so then Trey was deciding. We were deciding, OK, where are
• 1:36:11
  we going to go? What do you want to do after
• 1:36:12
  college? He couldn't stay out at Sanford
• 1:36:14
  with Tiffin just because he needed to move on.
• 1:36:18
  It was time. Tiffin's a great coach.
• 1:36:20
  He would have done well with him.
• 1:36:21
  But he's a college coach with a family.
• 1:36:23
  Yeah, it's hard and and he's the head coach too.
• 1:36:26
  So he's not just the pole ball coach he is in charge of a lot.
• 1:36:30
  So I knew if he came to the training center because Trey got
• 1:36:33
  in, he was able to live at the center fully funded.
• 1:36:37
  But if he came out there, we would have lived together, we
• 1:36:40
  would have trained together. We wouldn't have been roommate
• 1:36:42
  because you you don't live together together, but we would
• 1:36:45
  have been on site. And I just knew I was like, that
• 1:36:49
  would be too much time together. So like even I had a job when I
• 1:36:52
  was out there. I worked at Dick's Sporting
• 1:36:53
  Goods. It was just too much.
• 1:36:56
  That's not enough like separation.
• 1:36:58
  So when we moved to Arizona, that was where I trained with
• 1:37:00
  Nick up at Risen Performance and Trey trained down here at AZPVA
• 1:37:05
  with Dean. And so we were separate.
• 1:37:09
  So we would go to practice, we would be separated, I would go
• 1:37:11
  to work. So actually I would like barely
• 1:37:13
  see him. And I mean for a while it worked
• 1:37:16
  out. For three years, it worked out
• 1:37:17
  great because I would leave in the morning, I would leave at
• 1:37:21
  6:00 AM, go to work, go to practice, and then I would get
• 1:37:24
  home at like 7:00 PM. But Trey would leave for work.
• 1:37:28
  So because he was coaching on time, so he would leave, you
• 1:37:31
  know, like at 2:00 in the afternoon, but then he'd be down
• 1:37:34
  there until 9:00 at night and I would be asleep because I had to
• 1:37:37
  wake up at 6:00 AM. So it did get to the point where
• 1:37:41
  it was like we were, we actually were not seeing each other at
• 1:37:43
  all. It was kind of like, well, I
• 1:37:45
  kind of want to hang out with him.
• 1:37:47
  And so then, yeah, now and even now, like, even though he is my
• 1:37:51
  coach and I coach Olympic weightlifting down at A/C, PDA.
• 1:37:54
  So I'm down there a lot, all the time.
• 1:37:58
  We don't really like he coaches me, but then he goes off and
• 1:38:01
  he's like working on something at the facility or he'll go down
• 1:38:04
  there early, which actually he did.
• 1:38:05
  He just left to go down there to work on something because
• 1:38:09
  they're installing turf right now.
• 1:38:11
  So we actually are separated. And we have figured out that we
• 1:38:14
  do not drive together to practice.
• 1:38:16
  We drive separately. Then we get to listen to our own
• 1:38:19
  music in the car. We got to listen because, like,
• 1:38:21
  I want to listen to my book. I listen to a lot of audio
• 1:38:23
  books. Oh, OK.
• 1:38:24
  I got to listen to my book. So.
• 1:38:26
  Listen to his music. You know, one of the skills of a
• 1:38:30
  comedian or ATV show host or a podcast host is called The Call
• 1:38:34
  Back. It's it's been able to bring, so
• 1:38:38
  you got to listen to your own stuff.
• 1:38:40
  Is he still listening to Froggy Fresh?
• 1:38:42
  Is that what he's listening to on the way?
• 1:38:46
  I do probably, honestly. Because, you know, I'm Googling
• 1:38:49
  it as soon as we're done here, I I got to figure out what this
• 1:38:52
  Froggy Fresh thing is. Yeah, I I'm a huge rap fan.
• 1:38:55
  I'm assuming Froggy Fresh is a rap.
• 1:38:57
  He's kind of like I I'm assuming he's a lot like weird Al is, I
• 1:39:02
  think. I love to Weird Al.
• 1:39:04
  I know I heard the. Song, but I don't.
• 1:39:06
  I it's been a couple years since I've listened to that song, so I
• 1:39:10
  don't even know. So you're listening.
• 1:39:11
  You know he listens to Yelawolf a lot.
• 1:39:13
  Yeah, what is that? I.
• 1:39:14
  Don't know. He also listens to a lot of
• 1:39:16
  podcasts. Yelawolf is a rapper from
• 1:39:20
  something, I think. Wow.
• 1:39:20
  See, I'm so uncool. I don't know.
• 1:39:22
  I still my number one rapper is still Vanilla Ice, so I'm way
• 1:39:25
  uncool. You know, I you might know that
• 1:39:29
  you're cool. And maybe he knows this 'cause
• 1:39:31
  he's cool by proxy with you. I was flying from Dallas back up
• 1:39:36
  here to Bloomington, IL and I I got upgraded first class.
• 1:39:40
  And people kept coming in and asking for this guy that was
• 1:39:43
  sitting right across from me, the aisle for a picture.
• 1:39:46
  And I was like, oh, this guy must be somebody, you know.
• 1:39:48
  And then we get to Bloomington and, you know, again, people are
• 1:39:51
  coming up and, you know, I just have no shame.
• 1:39:54
  So I just walked up to him. I was like, all right, man,
• 1:39:57
  you're obviously somebody because everybody's taking
• 1:39:59
  pictures with you. Who are you?
• 1:40:01
  And he's like, I'm a rapper and I'm a huge rap fan.
• 1:40:03
  So I was like, oh, cool, you know?
• 1:40:05
  And then I was like, oh, what? You know.
• 1:40:07
  What's your name? You know, he's like young gravy,
• 1:40:09
  which I had a hard time not laughing at his face.
• 1:40:13
  I love young gravy. I had a hard time because young
• 1:40:16
  Gravy, it's kind of a weird name, but I was like, oh cool
• 1:40:19
  man. I was like, So what kind of rap
• 1:40:20
  do you do? And he's like, and I think, you
• 1:40:22
  know, at this point I have to remember generationally, you
• 1:40:25
  know, I'm, I'm closer to 50 than he is to 20, probably, probably
• 1:40:29
  20. And I think he's now like, oh,
• 1:40:33
  all right, old man. You're probably not going to
• 1:40:35
  like my rap, you know. So he's like, you know, fun rap.
• 1:40:39
  And I was like, oh, cool, cool, man.
• 1:40:40
  I was like, you know, honestly. Yeah.
• 1:40:42
  Yeah. No, no, I yeah.
• 1:40:44
  So I, you know, I had to show off a little bit, Courtney.
• 1:40:47
  And, you know, a friend of mine is Vanilla Ice.
• 1:40:49
  Rob is a, is a friend of mine. And so I was like, well, this is
• 1:40:51
  my homeboy. He's like, you're too young.
• 1:40:53
  I show him a picture again. I'm now realizing I'm that old
• 1:40:56
  guy showing the young guy, you know, it's like, Oh my God, you
• 1:40:59
  know, I'm sure it's, you know, he had his homeboy.
• 1:41:00
  Next time he's probably laughing at me and he's like, oh man,
• 1:41:03
  that's Vanilla Ice and I was like, well, bonus points for you
• 1:41:06
  knowing who that was man. Hey, a lot of people know who've
• 1:41:08
  been alive I. Know but you know he's a little
• 1:41:11
  past his prime in 2024 here although he's still tours and
• 1:41:15
  he's amazing anyway. So I get my Twitter out and I'm
• 1:41:18
  like oh what's your Twitter You know I'll follow you and
• 1:41:19
  whatever. And I started listening to his
• 1:41:21
  music. I got home and you know said hey
• 1:41:22
  Alexa play and it's kind of cool man.
• 1:41:25
  I'm I'm kind of a I'm kind of a younger.
• 1:41:28
  He, he, he doesn't know this. He made one more fan that day
• 1:41:32
  because he talked to me and didn't just, you know, blow me
• 1:41:34
  off because he's paying. Yeah, whatever.
• 1:41:35
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and he's extremely tall
• 1:41:38
  too. I don't know if he stood up next
• 1:41:39
  to you. No, very tall, tall, tall, tall,
• 1:41:42
  tall. And he had just, he had just
• 1:41:43
  gotten hurt. So his hand was wrapped up and I
• 1:41:45
  saw the footage of the concert where he tripped over There was
• 1:41:48
  like plywood in front of a concert stage and he tripped
• 1:41:51
  over and busted. I don't know how we got on the
• 1:41:53
  story, by the way, but really, maybe I just wanted to make sure
• 1:41:56
  everybody. Listening to wrap.
• 1:41:58
  That I'm friends with young gravy.
• 1:41:59
  That's really the moral of the the story here.
• 1:42:01
  All right, so you drive separately.
• 1:42:02
  OK? We have just a few minutes
• 1:42:03
  because we have a hard stop time here because both of us have.
• 1:42:07
  We have to eat lunch. That's what we do.
• 1:42:09
  Wrap us up. Courtney, what does the future
• 1:42:13
  look like? You're still vaulting.
• 1:42:15
  You're coaching. You're working with us.
• 1:42:17
  Thank God. I love that you're a teammate of
• 1:42:18
  ours. What's the hopes, goals and
• 1:42:20
  dreams for to the next stage of life?
• 1:42:23
  We talked about this before recording, but we go through
• 1:42:24
  stages. We change What?
• 1:42:26
  What's on your mind today? What the future might look like.
• 1:42:31
  Well, kids eventually still terrified of that fact.
• 1:42:35
  I still feel like it's a teenage pregnancy even though I am 31.
• 1:42:39
  It still feels it feels wrong. But it is getting to that point
• 1:42:43
  where it's like OK, we do want to have kids.
• 1:42:45
  So within the next couple years, but honestly I'll probably just,
• 1:42:49
  I'll be POVO thing for as long as I can because it's fun.
• 1:42:53
  Like it's I don't want to do CrossFit, so I might as well
• 1:42:57
  just pole vault to stay in shape at what level I guess we'll see.
• 1:43:04
  I I mean obviously would hope to jump as high as I can for as
• 1:43:07
  long as I can. But this might be my last year
• 1:43:12
  you know trying to be on the elite level qualifying for US as
• 1:43:16
  which knock on wood hopefully I qualify for US as the trials.
• 1:43:21
  But I mean I guess we'll just see otherwise I will be involved
• 1:43:24
  in pole vault. Hence also why I wanted to work
• 1:43:26
  for Gil was because I wanted to stay in pole vault for as long
• 1:43:28
  as I could and stay connected to it.
• 1:43:31
  So that was originally that's why I got you guys to hire me.
• 1:43:37
  So I'll be in pole vault for probably forever.
• 1:43:40
  Yeah, you know, we talked about the culture of pole vaulting and
• 1:43:43
  you've certainly made this event your culture.
• 1:43:46
  You know, we talked about everything, you know, your
• 1:43:48
  freaking dogs named after a pole vaulter, you know, I don't know
• 1:43:50
  how much deeper you go than that, you know.
• 1:43:54
  So I and what's cool about this, and I think it's unique to track
• 1:43:59
  and maybe some other sports, but definitely to track and even
• 1:44:02
  pole vaulting is, you know, it can be a lifelong thing, right?
• 1:44:05
  There's there's, you know, we always need coaches and good
• 1:44:07
  coaches. We always need great people here
• 1:44:09
  at Gill. Even athletically, you know,
• 1:44:12
  whether you do it as something that that's my hobby, that's
• 1:44:15
  what I do or you want to keep competing.
• 1:44:16
  There's competitions all the way through.
• 1:44:18
  You know, I've worked with 100 year old pole vaulters before,
• 1:44:20
  so you know that's that's there. So I really bless that and
• 1:44:23
  really bless, you know, just you and Trey, you know you're you're
• 1:44:26
  at a really interesting time of your life.
• 1:44:29
  You're going to look back you know 2025 years from now like
• 1:44:31
  man, how did we do it? What were we thinking?
• 1:44:33
  What were we doing this and that?
• 1:44:34
  Why didn't we do that, etcetera. You know, you're both, you know,
• 1:44:40
  from the outside and the times you realize you're you're doing
• 1:44:42
  what you love and you're doing and you're doing it with with
• 1:44:45
  someone you love. I mean, I I'm not sure that that
• 1:44:48
  just feels like an extra like boost to the whole genre of pole
• 1:44:52
  vault. It's like, oh, I do what I love.
• 1:44:53
  Oh, guess what I'm, you know, it's my, he's my best friend.
• 1:44:56
  He's not. I'm not his best friend, but
• 1:44:57
  we're doing it together. You know, I'm doing it with the
• 1:44:59
  person I love, you know. So that just seems really like
• 1:45:01
  really cool. And I think you'll look back and
• 1:45:03
  realize how special this time frame it was is for you guys and
• 1:45:08
  you'll continue to make that special.
• 1:45:09
  So just blessing to you guys, Blessings as you work to, you
• 1:45:13
  know, grow a family. If you want two kids, I got two.
• 1:45:15
  I'll gladly give you mine. We'll just jumpstart you out.
• 1:45:18
  And I'm terrified. I'm terrified of them now.
• 1:45:22
  So you can have them. They don't listen so I don't
• 1:45:26
  have to say I'm sorry or anything like that.
• 1:45:28
  They ain't listening to my show. But, you know, just, you know,
• 1:45:31
  excited for you, Courtney, you know, as you continue what a
• 1:45:35
  career. I mean how many people are
• 1:45:37
  vaulting at such a high level at this age?
• 1:45:40
  I mean really it's it's a it's a few you you narrow it down every
• 1:45:43
  year. So to be able to do that, you
• 1:45:45
  know be lucky with injuries now, I mean especially after coming
• 1:45:48
  through a lot of injuries mentally, financially, socially,
• 1:45:53
  you know your family support and friend support and and now you
• 1:45:56
  know husband support things like that, it's really amazing.
• 1:45:59
  And so, you know, we have you on the show here because we just
• 1:46:03
  want to say thanks. I mean, even if you weren't
• 1:46:06
  working officially for us, you know, full time, you know,
• 1:46:08
  you've always been a great supporter of ours all the way
• 1:46:10
  from high school all the way through today.
• 1:46:13
  You know, we always enjoy supporting you and serving you.
• 1:46:15
  And you know, listening to you and hearing your feedback and
• 1:46:18
  just just talking with you at meats and seeing you at meats
• 1:46:20
  and things like that. But it is a little extra
• 1:46:23
  special. Would you, you know, officially
• 1:46:25
  be on the team? You know, it's it's I truly,
• 1:46:28
  truly love and enjoy my teammates And so you know, when
• 1:46:31
  we do get a chance to work together and talk and things
• 1:46:34
  like that, it's it's cool. You make us better.
• 1:46:37
  And that's what I kind of want to leave tonight with today with
• 1:46:40
  just saying thank you, you make us better, you make our sport
• 1:46:43
  better and we're just absolutely tickled pink to to have you on
• 1:46:47
  the team and call you teammate. We're really grateful.
• 1:46:49
  Well, yeah, I mean, I'm just happy to be here and I'm
• 1:46:52
  thankful for you for, you know, doing this and putting, getting
• 1:46:55
  coaches and athletes out there and telling our story and kind
• 1:46:59
  of why we're involved with track and field.
• 1:47:02
  And also side note, I will follow Trey around watching him
• 1:47:05
  pole vault around the world. That's my goal.
• 1:47:08
  Oh man. That is, yeah, I'm more excited
• 1:47:10
  to watch him pole vault than me pole vault.
• 1:47:12
  That's great. Oh, it's not Trey Hardy, right,
• 1:47:13
  'cause he's he's not. Vaulting.
• 1:47:14
  Yes, Trey. OK.
• 1:47:15
  I just wanna make sure. Just just wanna make sure.
• 1:47:17
  Just wanna make sure. All right.
• 1:47:19
  Courtney, thank you so much. You know I know you're super
• 1:47:22
  busy. So anytime, you know I can get
• 1:47:24
  someone to carve out two hours for me that's it's it's pretty
• 1:47:27
  humbling. Again, I'm very grateful for
• 1:47:28
  that and I'm grateful for you guys being here again.
• 1:47:30
  You know, this is a lot of fun for me.
• 1:47:32
  You know, I I truly enjoy the coaches.
• 1:47:34
  You know, if you follow me on Twitter and through the podcast,
• 1:47:36
  you know, no one's a bigger supporter of track and field
• 1:47:39
  coaches than I am. But tell you what, having
• 1:47:41
  teammates on on the show, it's pretty special because we are in
• 1:47:45
  it day in and day out serving you guys and gals out there and
• 1:47:48
  there's highs and lows. Thank goodness it is a job in a
• 1:47:52
  profession, in an industry where there are many, many more highs
• 1:47:55
  than there are lows. But we're going to continue
• 1:47:57
  continue to to just put our nose to the grind and keep working
• 1:47:59
  for you guys so you can make athletes like Courtney one day
• 1:48:01
  because I know you will. So thanks for being here.
• 1:48:03
  Join us next week. We'll do it all over again and
• 1:48:05
  again not sure when this you're listening to this episode but
• 1:48:08
  really want to employ you. Go back to the April and May
• 1:48:11
  section of the podcast in 2024. This state meet series is pretty
• 1:48:15
  special. We're we're really exploring and
• 1:48:17
  learning about every state and how they qualify for the outdoor
• 1:48:21
  state meet, what events they do, what special events they do and
• 1:48:24
  we're going to put the rest The age-old question is it state or
• 1:48:27
  states? Do you qualify?
• 1:48:28
  For what? What?
• 1:48:28
  What did you say? Courtney, we got to get you on
• 1:48:30
  record when you qualify for State, State, No S state.
• 1:48:34
  No S. There you go, I think.
• 1:48:36
  It's S when there's multiple, so Arizona.
• 1:48:39
  There's a lot of opinions. Let me tell you that We're
• 1:48:42
  keeping track of them in the State Meet series.
• 1:48:44
  Thanks everybody. Appreciate you guys being here.
• 1:48:46
  We'll do it all over again. See ya.
• 1:48:51
  If it goes to appreciate the coach, the ones that point
• 1:48:53
  people most every season needs a voice of reason speaking.
• 1:48:57
  The growth you got to prep for. You carry the load, ice, coffee
• 1:49:00
  to the soul. For those of us to stay on the
• 1:49:02
  go, proper handoff to stay in the zone with you packing for
• 1:49:05
  the road. There's more than one way to go.
• 1:49:07
  Take notes. That's paying you told.
• 1:49:09
  It ain't practice. If your purpose ain't clear, it
• 1:49:11
  can't happen to you. Listen with both.
• 1:49:13
  Is can't mentor without a mentor.
• 1:49:15
  Years of experience you can reinvent those years.
• 1:49:18
  Every plan's got a standard live up to and the price sacrifice
• 1:49:22
  can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
• 1:49:24
  win or lose. It's not a ploy but device Y'all
• 1:49:27
  can make more moves. It's not about how to it's all
• 1:49:30
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside 6.
• 1:49:33
  When you waste time choose none. So we all course finish line.
• 1:49:42
  The work ain't going.