Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #265: Greg Skipper-Elite Athlete Inc

Transcript

#265: Greg Skipper-Elite Athlete Inc · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field world Juvenal tuned in to our humble servant
• 0:14
  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message on Gil
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  Athletics connections. All right, let's do it.
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  Here we are in the Guild Athletics Connections podcast.
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  Thanks again for joining us. I think we're going to have a
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  lot of fun. You know, I always like to
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  bring, you know, coaches from around the country and really
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  around the world here every week to explore, uplift and honor
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  what the great journey they've had in this profession.
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  And then if you're a regular listener, you'll know that we
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  also like to bring, I don't want to call them outsiders.
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  They're fringe. They're not coaches, but they
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  have maximal input into our sport.
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  And today is no different. We're going to learn, first of
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  all, an amazing track background.
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  So you're going to enjoy that. But we're going to learn about
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  kind of track, track equipment, track service to coaches in the
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  realm of track and field equipment.
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  So let's get to it. Help me welcome the vice
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  president, which is Hilarious vice president and owner of
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  Skippers Elite Athlete. Help me welcome the wise,
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  wonderful Mr. Greg Skipper. Greg, how are you, my friend?
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  Doing well. How are you?
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  Right now, better than you. And what I mean by that is so
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  right before we hit record here, Greg was talking about his
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  allergies and you know, if you've been to Oregon and maybe
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  specifically Eugene, dude, how do you guys do it?
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  Like I was going to say, you would all build up immunity, but
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  obviously not. Yeah, you know, I've made it
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  through the whole spring just about until this morning and
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  they hit me this morning and it's like, wow, great timing,
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  you know, we got this going on and so if you guys hear me
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  sniffling, it's it's just allergies luckily so.
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  When I got to, I'd never been to Oregon before.
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  I got to Gill and got here and I remember the 1st.
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  And then within the first year or two, you know, we go to
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  Eugene. I'm with you know my now since
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  retired boss and mentor Fred Dixon and we go out there and
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  you know he is just, you know he's doing the eye drops and
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  he's loading up with and he's like are you not?
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  And I I felt nothing And he's telling me about you know the
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  valley to the you know to Eugene and the you know when you drive
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  from Portland down, you see it's the grass capital of the world.
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  So the grass seed and all that. And I was like oh man, that's
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  got to really suck. Fast forward.
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  You know I go there now every year or at least once a year.
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  So you know about the third year I I'd go and I'd be like, man,
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  my, like, I got a little tickle in my throat.
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  I must be getting sick or something.
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  Whatever, whatever. You know, You know I'm old.
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  So I get to year 678 and I'm, you know, my eyes are by year
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  nine. I realize holy crap I've now got
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  allergies from going to to Eugene at least once a year,
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  man. And now it's it's now I'm kind
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  of like him. It sucks, man.
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  I'm. I'm drugging myself up when I
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  go. Holy cow, man.
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  Yeah, yeah, you can't get away from it.
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  And you know, you wash your car and then an hour later it's
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  covered in pollen an inch deep And it's just, I mean it's an
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  uphill battle out here sometimes, but we we're pretty
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  pretty blessed out here in the summers, you know, pretty mild
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  And so you you deal with the allergies and you deal with the
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  rain to get those three months of awesome weather in the
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  summer, so. Yeah, Anybody who tries to sell
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  up wherever they live as the best place on earth, they're
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  just wrong, right? I mean, you know, even like
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  California. It's Oregon, obviously.
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  Yeah, well, well, people love California.
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  All the best weather in the whole world, yada, yada.
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  It's like, yeah, you have earthquakes and fire.
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  Like it's not heaven on earth. Texas.
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  Oh, it's always hot in Texas. Yeah, yeah, it's blazing hot in
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  Texas, you know Florida, it's like man, you got hurricane like
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  nowhere's perfect like maybe Hawaii, actually maybe Hawaii
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  will give them a pass and it's pretty perfect out there, so.
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  It's pretty nice, pretty nice. Although volcanoes, you know,
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  you got to watch out for that. Yeah.
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  So what do you want? Every.
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  Plagues, volcanoes, snow or tornadoes.
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  And hurricanes. Yeah, pick.
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  Pick your poison. Figure out where you're going to
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  live. I love it.
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  Or allergies. There's your other.
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  There you go, yeah. Greg, tell us a little bit.
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  So you know you are owner of Skipper's Elite Athlete.
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  There's a little bit of history there with skippers and Krausers
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  and it's kind of hard to say Krausers without Skipper and
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  Skipper without Krausers because of the the business here.
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  Why don't you give us kind of A to explore here a little bit, a
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  30,000 foot level. Tell us about Skipper's lead
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  athlete. What do you do your service to
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  coaches kind of give us that kind of information?
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  Yeah, Yeah. So like you like you mentioned,
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  we, we took over the company from Krauser's in March of 2020,
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  so right before COVID hit, but actually Mitch Krauser, Ryan
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  Krauser's dad started the business.
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  You know, I'm not exactly sure what year he started it, but he
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  got into the supplement business and then started selling track
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  equipment a little bit later on. And 2020 came around and Ryan
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  was doing a lot of traveling for worlds and different training.
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  And I think Mitch had been gone a lot and put a lot of weight of
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  the business on Lisa. And I think Lisa, you know, I
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  don't want to speak for her, but she was kind of getting tired of
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  doing everything. And so my he and my dad were on
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  a or on a phone call and having a conversation about it.
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  And Long story short, my dad's like, well, would you ever sell
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  it? And he's like, no, no, I would
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  never sell it, never sell it. About 15, they hang up the
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  phone. 15 minutes later he calls back and says, wait, are you
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  serious? Would you buy it?
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  My dad said yeah, so they, I think they struck up a deal
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  right there on the phone and the rest is kind of history as far
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  as us taking it over. But like say we we took over
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  2020 March and we do you know mostly track and field, 90%
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  track and field, but we touch a little bit in volleyball and
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  soccer as well. And we just try to you know
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  provide the best service that we can to our customers.
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  And you know we're we're in track and field as well.
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  My dad's got his track club, Superthrower Track Club, which
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  has grown from 4 kids back in 2014.
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  I believe he started that actually might have been a
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  little earlier in that 2012, 2010, something like that, four
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  kids to now up to 94 kids. So all all the throwing
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  disciplines is what we coach. And so I I feel like we're we
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  provide a service for coaches from coaches.
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  We know kind of the intricate details of what coaches are
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  looking for because we're we're there and we're testing products
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  and we're doing what our customers do every day.
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  So I think that kind of separates us a little bit from
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  from others, but that's kind of our, our story and we're just,
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  you know, chugging along. So stay busy.
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  I love that we're going to get into your history because it's
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  quite fascinating. But I I I'm always when I first
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  started learning the first started with the Krauser's when
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  I got to know Mitch and I and that you know, shame on me.
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  I need to have Mitch on the podcast by the way.
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  Love him. And if you don't know, so
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  obviously, maybe I should say obviously, maybe you've heard of
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  the name Ryan Krauser. Mitch is his father.
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  The Krauser family, uncles, brothers, sisters, huge
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  tradition. When I first met you, Greg, I'd,
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  I'd known the name and known a little bit.
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  But then, you know, with through meeting you and mom and dad and
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  talking about kind of an equally family track heritage, give us
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  kind of like talk, talk us about the skippers, you know, I think
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  it's uncle and brother. You remind me.
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  You guys have an amazing track background in the Skipper
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  family. Tell me more about that.
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  Yeah, so my my dad was kind of the first to start it.
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  He went to the University of Oregon on a football scholarship
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  and then converted football and track but then went full time
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  track I think his junior year throwing the javelin for the
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  University of Oregon. And then his younger brother Art
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  was a javelin thrower at Oregon as well.
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  NCA champion in the javelin, former national high school
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  record holder with the old rule Jav.
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  And then their youngest brother Tommy was a six time NCAA
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  champion in the pole vault for the University of Oregon and you
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  know was a world competitor for for a long time.
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  And then I just kind of followed through the footsteps and I was
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  AI was a hammer thrower. So I kind of broke the mold a
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  little bit. But yeah, I mean, track's been
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  in our family for a long time and my my dad and his brothers
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  just kind of did it for fun. That was like their they they
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  worked construction their whole lives, you know.
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  So from the time they're really little.
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  And so when my grandpa got him a javelin, that was, that was what
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  they did for fun, was go out and throw a javelin that night after
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  they got done working. And that's just, you know.
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  And only in Oregon. Yeah, only in Oregon they'd be.
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  They'd be setting chokers and pulling logs and then after work
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  they'd go and throw javelin. It was just what they did.
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  So. So, So Tommy was your cousin.
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  Is that how that works out? Well, no, it's so it's actually
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  my dad's youngest brother. There's a 20 year difference
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  between my dad and his youngest brother.
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  So Tommy, I was thinking, Tommy was Art's son.
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  That's not they're brothers. Well, Tommy is Art's son, but
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  senior son, so our junior. Thanks for adding to the
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  confusion. Got it, got it.
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  OK, absolutely. So they're bro.
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  So Tommy, your dad and art brothers.
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  Yep. Got it.
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  So, yeah, there is a huge gap there.
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  Although, Tommy, you know, I'm kind of dating myself here.
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  Tommy's because he's older than you, right?
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  Yeah, he's. Let's see.
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  He's eight years older than I am, so he's 3940.
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  I was going to say he's going to be close to 40 now, which again
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  dates me because I remember watching him compete when I was
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  here at Gil. So yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
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  amazing. Oh, that's awesome.
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  I love it. Again, I hope.
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  I hope he doesn't listen to this podcast, but Tommy was the freak
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  of the family for sure. He he was.
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  If he does, listen, because here's what I always thought
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  about Tommy, because we had him on the cover of our catalog one
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  year. He was the Dean Cain of track
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  and field, meaning he had the Superman look, not just the
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  physique, because he was a big time to Catholics.
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  So you know, you got to of course, just the way that the
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  hair, the face, it was like this dude is going to play like on
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  Smallville one day or something. You.
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  Know Superman? For sure.
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  Yeah, yeah. You too.
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  You too. Great.
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  You too. Oh, yeah.
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  Especially the physique as a hammer thrower, you know?
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  Absolutely. Yeah.
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  Yeah. I appreciate that, Mike.
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  That's right. Yeah.
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  Yeah, yeah. I forgot.
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  I was like, oh, crap, I'm being recorded.
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  I got to say, you got to, you know, honor my guests.
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  Yeah, you too. You too, Greg.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  Absolutely. OK, Well, let's use that to kind
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  of lead into your actual story. So you already mentioned you're
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  a Hammer thrower. So how does a kid growing up in
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  Oregon, even in Oregon, we still don't have hammer as a high
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  school event. But you, and you're certainly, I
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  don't want to say, surrounded, but you're around track and
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  Javelin specifically talk to us about high school.
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  What events did you do there and how you got going into to
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  Oregon? Well, I had AI had an
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  interesting combination of events that I did in in high
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  school. I mean, I did the standard shot
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  discus and then I threw the hammer as well.
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  And I got into the hammer. My brother just happened to find
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  one at the local high school and he's like, hey dad, what is
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  this? And you know, he's in 7th or 8th
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  grade and he's like, oh, that's a hammer, give it a whirl, you
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  know. And so then, you know, I'm four
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  years younger than my oldest brother Eric.
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  And so four years before he started, I was getting started
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  and just kind of fell in love with it.
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  And also, you know, I was, I was throwing a little bit of
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  javelin, you know, in elementary school and middle school.
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  And then I realized that my dad knew a lot about the javelin,
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  but he didn't know anything about the hammer at the time.
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  And so I really gravitated, gravitated towards doing
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  something that he couldn't coach me in and I was just kind of a
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  stinker, so. A lot of, a lot of parents are
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  listening right now, shaking their head, going, yeah, that
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  sounds, sounds right. Sounds right, right?
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  So looking back, I probably should have been a javelin
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  thrower. I've got the, you know, the
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  length for it, whatever. But now the hammer was just kind
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  of spoke to me. And, you know, I was, I was
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  competing at the time against Sam Krauser, Ryan Krauser.
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  And so when you looked at the state leaderboards, it was OK,
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  Here's Sam throwing 250 in the javelin, and I'm coming in as a
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  freshman or, and maybe he hadn't thrown 250 at the time, but I
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  was comparing myself to Sam, and I was like, there's, I'm
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  throwing 130 feet right now in the javelin.
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  There's no way I'm going to get there.
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  And so I thought, what's the best opportunity for me to get a
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  scholarship? And that was the hammer.
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  Did you did the did the did the two families grow up together
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  esque, like did y'all like was there friendliness and.
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  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So in in 2001, my my dad's
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  brother Art passed away in a plane crash and through mutual
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  friends and I think Dean had helped Tommy with some discus
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  work when he was doing the decathlon and they got hooked up
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  that way. So my dad and I don't know
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  exactly how the story goes, but he and my dad became Dean, which
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  is Sam's dad became friends. And so then we started training
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  with them a little bit. And so and then Ryan and I
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  became good friends and we're training together in high school
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  a little bit and competing. I mean, we came up through
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  USATF, you know, from the time we were in fifth grade, I think.
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  4th grade, like that's what I was wondering.
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  Like, so when you have like this, I'll call it rivalry, you
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  know, rivalry, whether it's like actual or just I compete against
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  them because they're at a local school or whatever, that
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  there's, that's one type of relationship.
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  And then there's like, oh, we become friends, We're boys
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  because, you know, we have a lot of the same common interests
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  and, you know, roughly the same age.
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  And then there's, you know, brotherhood.
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  You know, like, yeah, they're family.
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  I mean, I have the same last name, but we're, we're family.
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  Where, where do you think you and Ryan, Sam?
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  Because it was a really special time, not only nationally high
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  school throwing, but Oregon, obviously.
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  Specifically, it was It was pretty crazy during that time.
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  Yeah. So I I think I'm answering your
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  question here. I would, I would consider us
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  family. You know we did a lot of
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  Christmas parties together we, I mean it was we're we're family
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  so that OK. That, that that helps.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  So absolutely. You're picking up the hammer to
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  spite your dad. We get it, 'cause I know Dad's
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  listening, so yeah. And I'm sure, and I'm sure Dad
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  right now is going, yeah. Well, that's the truth.
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  So it's oh, this isn't new news today.
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  Right here, right? How?
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  So Hammer, even in Oregon and by the way we're in Oregon, are we
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  because you're you're we're not growing up in Eugene, if I
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  remember correct. No, we're so we I grew up in
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  Oregon City, which is about 25 minutes or so southeast of
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  Portland. And then Sam and Ryan were in
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  the Gresham Barlow area, which is another 2530 minutes east of
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  Portland as well. So kind of, yeah.
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  And and we're about 2020 minutes apart, 30 minutes apart growing
• 15:03
  up. So, got it, got it.
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  So even in, you know, Trackland, USA, Oregon, here, the state,
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  you know, Hammer coaches aren't just growing on trees because
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  it's not part of the high school event.
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  So how are you learning Hammer during this during the high
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  school time, right, School and club, you know, that kind of
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  period? Yeah.
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  So I actually started with a a gentleman called Todd or named
• 15:22
  Todd Taylor and he really got me going.
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  He was I I forget if he was coaching at Mount Hood Community
• 15:30
  College at the time that I started.
• 15:31
  But he was he had some kids that he was coaching as well in the
• 15:36
  high school ranks. And I I really have a lot to to
• 15:41
  thank Todd for getting me started.
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  And then we kind of went different ways.
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  I went down to Concordia and and met a gentleman, A gentleman
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  named Mike Malakovic, who I trained with for about a year
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  before he moved. And then I started training with
• 15:58
  James Parker who was a hammer thrower at Utah State and
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  through I believe he threw really close to 80 meters, 79
• 16:08
  mid or so. Really great guy.
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  But his coach was Stuart Toger who was the Oregon coach while
• 16:15
  my dad was at Oregon. He coached Lance Steel to the
• 16:18
  American record. Koji Marafushi, he coached.
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  I mean the list is very long. Who he coached and and is still
• 16:27
  considered one of the best coaches to ever do it.
• 16:29
  And I can. I can remember going down to
• 16:32
  Eugene when I was like a kid and meeting Stewart and throwing
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  Hammer with him for the first time.
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  And I think I might have been, oh boy, 7th grade or so when I
• 16:43
  when I first met him and I took one throw and I, my brother and
• 16:47
  I both were chewing gum and he said spit your gum out.
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  You can't throw hammer and chew gum at the same time.
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  And that that is a very short piece of just kind of that's how
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  Stewart was. It was his way or the highway.
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  And so later down the line, get into high school and Stewart
• 17:08
  started coaching me then and helped me a lot through my my
• 17:12
  college career and just with video analysis and and training
• 17:17
  and so yeah. So one you know I always have to
• 17:22
  make sure we shout out our podcast alums here back in
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  season, I think it was season one or season 2.
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  A couple years ago we had Lance deal on the on the podcast and
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  definitely took her came up and definitely his way or the
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  highway was reiterated by Lance I think slept on his couch to be
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  put like there was no other ways like I didn't have any other way
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  I was you know it's so funny with Lance he wasn't even a a
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  air quotes here a hammer thrower when he went out there like he
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  still I love this stat he he went to Montana State he does
• 17:52
  not own the school record in the hammer at Montana State.
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  I remember when I went there for visit and I would like to sort
• 17:58
  of school records and I was like, oh, Lance Steele's going
• 18:00
  to be the, you know, obviously he's going to be the Hammer
• 18:01
  school record holder. It's like he's not.
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  He was the discus for school record.
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  I just love pretty impressive career by him as well.
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  I mean shot discus 100% hammer obviously it was and that's.
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  What I love a guy who was not his best in college, goes on and
• 18:15
  set the American record. I mean, that's a story.
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  I mean, first of all, I think it's a story about Hammer
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  development overall. But anyway, okay.
• 18:22
  So how did how did you get to Oregon and what were you
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  thinking? You know, you're an 18 ish year
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  old kid at this point. When you go into college, what
• 18:32
  were you thinking in regards to a major, what I want to be when
• 18:35
  I grow up? What you know, What were you
• 18:37
  thinking professional wise as well?
• 18:39
  Yeah, So you know, it's funny. I actually owe a lot of my
• 18:42
  recruiting success, like getting recruited by multiple schools to
• 18:47
  Ryan and Mitch Krauser. They helped me a lot because
• 18:50
  Ryan was obviously number one in the country.
• 18:53
  And so he was going on all sorts of recruiting trips.
• 18:55
  And I I believe that they were helping get my name out there
• 18:59
  and saying, hey, you guys should be looking at this guy as well.
• 19:01
  And so I owe a lot to them. Forget my name out there because
• 19:05
  I was just a, you know, 100 and 80 LB kid from Oregon and
• 19:09
  throwing the hammer. I mean, I I was throwing, OK,
• 19:11
  214 or so my junior year and then 2:30 my senior year and
• 19:17
  2:29 if you want to be specific, but.
• 19:20
  As you get as you get older, bro, don't worry, that's going
• 19:22
  to keep getting better. You just start rounding up,
• 19:24
  right? Yeah.
• 19:25
  So I got AI got a call I think from Lance deal because he was a
• 19:31
  coach at Oregon at the time and he said, hey, I just want to let
• 19:34
  you know I'm, I'm going to be recruiting you, but I'm not
• 19:37
  going to be recruiting you very long.
• 19:39
  And I I was like OK sounds good. And Long story short, it was
• 19:45
  because he was retiring from coaching at Oregon.
• 19:47
  And so Robert Weir came in and took over the recruiting process
• 19:51
  for him and he got me to Oregon and you know, we struck a deal
• 19:56
  and got me there and I was pretty set on Oregon.
• 20:00
  OK. I was, I was going to ask now if
• 20:03
  you know anything. And and by the way, Greg, I know
• 20:05
  I'm bringing up Ryan and Krauser's a lot.
• 20:08
  This is about you. But your story is woven into
• 20:11
  your point about you know Ryan taking a trip.
• 20:12
  So I apologize for keep bringing up Ryan.
• 20:14
  No. But if you know anything about
• 20:16
  Ryan's story, here's a family who much like the skippers
• 20:19
  Oregon, Oregon, Oregon, all alum and then Ryan goes to Texas.
• 20:22
  So that's what I was going to ask.
• 20:24
  You know, I think a lot of people assumed Ryan was going to
• 20:26
  go to Oregon. I assume people assumed you were
• 20:29
  going to go to Oregon. Was it a like, yeah, you got to
• 20:31
  really screw this up, Oregon, for me not to come here or?
• 20:34
  Well there was a scholarship percentage that I need I had to
• 20:39
  get sure and it was it took some it took some dealings to to get
• 20:46
  to that number and you know Vinland, Anna at the time, I I
• 20:49
  owe a lot to him to Get Me Out there and I'm really thankful
• 20:53
  that he made it work and I have a lot of a lot of respect and
• 21:00
  gratitude for for Van and and Robert Weir as well And yeah it
• 21:07
  I I was open to anybody really. I almost ended up at Arizona
• 21:11
  with Craig Carter. He was recruiting me really hard
• 21:14
  and I think that would have been a good fit at the time.
• 21:19
  And then also coach Maynard at at UCLA that was that was going
• 21:25
  to be a good fit as well. He was another Stewart Toger
• 21:27
  athlete so I think it would have fit really well.
• 21:30
  And David Dumble at Arizona State that I mean all those guys
• 21:34
  brought me out and I I have a lot to be thankful for and I
• 21:39
  always kind of wonder what my career would have been like had
• 21:42
  I gone somewhere else. But Oregon really was my home
• 21:45
  and I wanted to stay close to my family.
• 21:47
  And so it wasn't a done deal, but it was, you know, they.
• 21:50
  They were in the lead from the start at least.
• 21:53
  Yes. Yeah.
• 21:53
  And you know, they, the other schools just had kind of an
• 21:56
  uphill battle, I think. And I'm not saying that they
• 21:58
  couldn't have gotten there. But Oregon made the deal too
• 22:01
  sweet that I couldn't resist. So yeah, I I would have been out
• 22:05
  of, you know, I have a lot of respect for those guys, 'cause
• 22:07
  they kept at it to recruit you. I had to quit.
• 22:08
  And I mean, look, man, you're going to Oregon.
• 22:10
  What are we talking about, you know?
• 22:11
  Well, that's that's what I mean about Ryan helping Ryan and
• 22:15
  Mitch helping me is I think a lot of people just assumed and
• 22:17
  they they were like, no, he's a free agent.
• 22:20
  So, yeah, good point. Yeah, journey helped your
• 22:23
  journey with that, cuz a lot of people could have said the same
• 22:25
  thing. Like Ryan's going to Oregon,
• 22:27
  what are we doing? Why are we wasting this money?
• 22:29
  And it's like no Ryan. Ryan was open to some other
• 22:31
  things here academically, etc. So.
• 22:33
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 22:35
  So what were you academically? What were you thinking about as
• 22:38
  you're looking at schools and colleges?
• 22:39
  What were you thinking about doing?
• 22:41
  Well you know it was funny. I I was, I wanted to be a few.
• 22:44
  I had a a lot of different options or routes that I wanted
• 22:46
  to take and one of them was a a pilot career.
• 22:49
  So that's why Arizona stood out to me.
• 22:52
  You know as I mentioned art. Art passed away in a a plane
• 22:54
  crash and they they built a an airport.
• 22:58
  My grandparents have an airport out here in Sandy which is about
• 23:02
  40 minutes east of Portland. So I was always really, really
• 23:08
  interested in aviation and then I was also interested in
• 23:11
  physical therapy. And so I was kind of looking at
• 23:14
  all these schools for these different things and I was also
• 23:16
  interested in business. And so, you know, Oregon's got a
• 23:20
  really good Business School. And so that's kind of what what
• 23:23
  won me over and ended up going that route of business and
• 23:26
  economic as my major and yeah, using it every day.
• 23:33
  Yeah, right. Yeah.
• 23:34
  Thank goodness. Yeah, right.
• 23:35
  Yeah. You know if I don't know if it's
• 23:37
  different or slash special because of the hammer but it
• 23:41
  strikes me the the quality of people that were coaching you.
• 23:47
  You know everywhere from you know Lance still recruiting to
• 23:49
  Robert Weir who come on that one of the top coaches around
• 23:53
  everywhere he goes those guys and gals get better.
• 23:56
  Robert Weir is amazing. He talked about, you know, even
• 24:00
  working with Stu Togler, who's just, you know, hashtag legend,
• 24:02
  for crying out loud, like do you look back now when?
• 24:06
  Because now you can't. I don't know.
• 24:08
  If you could have sensed it while you were in it, maybe you
• 24:09
  would would Stew because, you know, everybody reveres him.
• 24:12
  But could you see, you know, the type of people and the not only
• 24:17
  the quality of coaching that they brought to you, but also
• 24:20
  the quality of people, character that they had?
• 24:22
  Could you sense it while you were in the moment going through
• 24:24
  college and high school? Or maybe you can only reflect
• 24:27
  that now as a you know, as a 30 plus year old, you know.
• 24:29
  Yeah, you know, I think in what's I was so spoiled out here
• 24:34
  in the Northwest because you know, we also had Mac Wilkins
• 24:37
  and then Mac is good friends with Wolfgang Schmidt.
• 24:40
  So and then Tom Petranov was out here doing clinics and things
• 24:44
  and so I mean Brian Krauser as well.
• 24:47
  And yeah I mean I I was so spoiled growing up with the the
• 24:53
  coaches and the and the the former athletes that were around
• 24:56
  me that I I think I maybe took it for granted when I was
• 25:02
  younger. But now looking back, yeah, I
• 25:03
  was so spoiled with that and just all the influences that I
• 25:08
  that, you know, I had growing up.
• 25:10
  Yeah, yeah, I was, I was really fortunate.
• 25:13
  But I mean, talking about the legends of the sport, yeah, I
• 25:17
  was. I was around all of them growing
• 25:19
  up. So 'cause I I think about, you
• 25:21
  know, I, my son is 7th grade and you know, he's doing track and
• 25:25
  figuring things out. He's doing more throwing than
• 25:27
  anything else, which, you know, it's awesome.
• 25:28
  I love that. And I was I was like you know
• 25:30
  man if I could get him to someone who knows the hammer
• 25:33
  today like to Start learning just the you know turns and
• 25:36
  things like that and releases it's like oh but I was like but
• 25:39
  who would I go to Like I I this I have two media people like
• 25:42
  Mike Turk at Illinois State and JD here at Illinois like OK
• 25:44
  those guys make sense. But you know they're super busy
• 25:47
  as well by the way with their own athletes and such.
• 25:49
  And then I'm like, OK, the list fells falls off there.
• 25:52
  I don't know of the, you know, certainly my local high school
• 25:54
  coach does not know the hammer. You know, like I just don't have
• 25:57
  options, if you will, for that. And it just struck me as you're
• 26:00
  talking about all these people. You know, the a guy threw at
• 26:03
  Utah State. You know an 80M guy is just
• 26:05
  hanging around in the region. It's like what what how does.
• 26:07
  Yeah, yeah, come from it's it's kind of crazy.
• 26:11
  It really is. I mean, Yeah 80M guy James
• 26:13
  Parker hanging out in in the Portland area going to
• 26:16
  chiropractic school and it just happened that that he was able
• 26:19
  to coach me and a little bit there.
• 26:22
  And then he he really opened the door.
• 26:24
  I think for me to get coached by Stewart because he brought
• 26:28
  Stewart up and said hey, I I need.
• 26:30
  I don't know if he said hey, I need help or just what's your
• 26:33
  opinion on on a couple things with me but, and I feel bad, I
• 26:38
  should have brought this up a little earlier too.
• 26:40
  I owe a lot to Eric Whitsitt as well and Eric is one of my good
• 26:44
  friends now through my professional life and I owe a
• 26:49
  lot to him, 'cause he really, I mean after Robert left Oregon
• 26:54
  after my freshman year and I redshirted my freshman year,
• 26:57
  Eric took me all the way through college.
• 26:59
  So Eric, Eric was a a big supporter and a big help and
• 27:05
  yeah he's he's a good buddy now so.
• 27:08
  Also a Gill podcast alum. So Eric was of Oregon, was of
• 27:12
  Illinois State as well, and now at University of Tennessee.
• 27:15
  And you know, we have a guy, you know, a teammate here who would
• 27:18
  also say similar things about Eric.
• 27:20
  You know, Tim Glover, who was a javelin thrower for Eric back in
• 27:24
  the day at Illinois State. So yeah, Eric's touched a lot of
• 27:26
  people and I'm not sure he gets the do that he that I think he
• 27:32
  deserves. Sometimes he's kind of, and he's
• 27:34
  not a low key guy, so that's not it.
• 27:37
  I love you. I know you're listening.
• 27:39
  But yeah, I think some people overlook the accomplishments the
• 27:42
  improvements his athletes have made 'cause that's the thing
• 27:44
  that always astounds me about his athletes is, you know where
• 27:48
  they come from, you know, making up numbers, a 30 foot shop
• 27:51
  putter, they will end as a 45 ship.
• 27:53
  I mean they will always get better under him.
• 27:55
  And then obviously it's taken many, many people such as
• 27:57
  yourself to all American status and, you know, big time
• 27:59
  conference scoring. So tell us about your time in
• 28:03
  Oregon, how that, how'd that go? You know now it's one thing
• 28:05
  throwing hammer. I'm going to call it
• 28:08
  recreationally. And what I mean by that, it's
• 28:09
  not the high school event that that's what I mean by that.
• 28:11
  And now it's like, OK, it's your primary event and probably maybe
• 28:14
  you did some other events. Talk, talk to us about your
• 28:16
  college career. Yeah, so freshman year came in,
• 28:20
  actually ended up getting injured out for the indoor
• 28:22
  season and took a medical red shirt.
• 28:25
  And then let's see came out my red shirt freshman year and
• 28:31
  through I think 67 meters or so and got second at PAC Twelves
• 28:37
  and then went on to the the the NCAA meet and again through 67
• 28:44
  meters or so which you know back then was was pretty good.
• 28:48
  Now looking at 67 meters it's not going to get you anywhere as
• 28:52
  far as conference goes or NCAA level.
• 28:55
  I mean things have just come up so much but and which I love
• 28:58
  because you know, it helps the sport and helps the event.
• 29:01
  You threw 67 and got second your freshman year.
• 29:03
  Did you look because you know when we're recording this
• 29:05
  conferences just happened. Did you look where would 67 put
• 29:08
  you in PAC 12? Did you?
• 29:10
  Know what? I didn't.
• 29:10
  I didn't. I don't think I would have even
• 29:12
  made finals. Is that right?
• 29:15
  Yeah, I I, I haven't even, I haven't looked to be honest with
• 29:18
  you. I didn't look at the PAC 12, the
• 29:19
  full list of the conference. Keep going.
• 29:21
  I'm gonna look it up. I'd never do this.
• 29:23
  Yeah, check it out. Look.
• 29:24
  It up while we while we go, you keep going.
• 29:26
  Let's see, after that went on the next year to throw 69 meters
• 29:35
  and again second at PAC 12. Those Dang USC Trojans every
• 29:40
  year pretty much had somebody to to kick my butt.
• 29:43
  And there's you want to talk about the the the great Hammer
• 29:47
  throw or Hammer coaches of the the country, Dan Lang.
• 29:51
  And he's one of the best. Love him.
• 29:53
  Yeah, yeah. And actually, really, I really
• 29:57
  wish I would have taken him up on his offer to move down to LA
• 30:00
  after after college and throw for him a little bit and but
• 30:05
  let's see after. Don't Don't feel too bad for
• 30:07
  yourself. 6764 was 7th place. OK, hey, at least I made finals.
• 30:13
  Yeah, 6068 Mason struck from Oregon was six at 68 1/2 and
• 30:18
  then former. Super Thrower.
• 30:20
  Nice and strong. Oh, is that right?
• 30:21
  Oh yeah. One of our kids.
• 30:22
  Super through. And I was like, what is that?
• 30:23
  Oh yeah, the the track club. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to
• 30:25
  get into that. Oh, that's cool.
• 30:28
  And then 67 1/2 and then 66 high.
• 30:31
  So yeah, you've been comfortably in 7th to get second place.
• 30:35
  You got second place is fresh off now to get second place.
• 30:39
  Of course our friends at USC their second at 74 1/2.
• 30:46
  Nice. That's amazing.
• 30:47
  All right, keep going. Keep going.
• 30:49
  So let's see. Yeah, through 69 my my sophomore
• 30:53
  year was, let's back up freshman year I was 4th at 4th at NCS at
• 30:59
  67 meters or so, which again probably wouldn't make finals.
• 31:02
  No way. Right.
• 31:03
  And then sophomore year, fourth again at NCS at 6869 and then
• 31:11
  finally made my first indoor nationals.
• 31:13
  My junior year. I think I threw 73 or so and
• 31:18
  that that was an interesting, interesting meet.
• 31:20
  We ended up winning the team title that year.
• 31:23
  But I was in, I think I was in 9th place or or 10th place maybe
• 31:27
  going into the third round. I had just wait, it was at
• 31:29
  Arkansas. And so if you've ever thrown at
• 31:33
  Arkansas in their indoor facility, the wall is kind of
• 31:38
  misleading as to where the middle of the sector is.
• 31:42
  And so when you're throwing the weight, you kind of get
• 31:46
  discombobulated a little bit. And so I'd thrown one off the
• 31:49
  wall and then I had thrown just kind of taking a a safety throw.
• 31:57
  And I remember Coach Johnson and Robert Johnson coming over and
• 31:59
  saying you better get it together because we need your
• 32:01
  points. And I was like yeah, check,
• 32:04
  check, Raj, I got it. I'm I'm on it.
• 32:06
  And so ended up making finals by like 4 inches or something like
• 32:09
  that. Got into 8th place and kind of
• 32:14
  got the nerves out a little bit you know just making it to
• 32:16
  finals and then ended up placing 5th that year indoors.
• 32:21
  Had another had a PRI think that meet and went outdoors and threw
• 32:28
  over 70 outdoors for the first time and went I think 7070 mid
• 32:36
  70 low at nationals for another personal best and and got third
• 32:41
  that year And then yeah I went back back to indoor nationals
• 32:46
  the following year for a fourth place and then last hoorah there
• 32:52
  in 2016 we got another third place at at nationals.
• 32:56
  But you know all that all that to be said or all that to say I
• 33:01
  I still feel that today my most cherished accomplishment of my
• 33:06
  track and field career was winning four team titles with
• 33:10
  with the devs. I mean to do that with the
• 33:12
  teammates. Exactly where it's going to go
• 33:14
  next. So you know, I, I, I had the, I
• 33:18
  know Vin very well and I had a great conversation with him at
• 33:23
  Penn Relays this year. And we talked about philosophy
• 33:27
  as a, you know, as a head coach, a director and you know it and
• 33:29
  even as you know, a head coach, director, hiring coaches, hiring
• 33:33
  assistant coaches and he really impressed upon me.
• 33:36
  He's like Mike. He goes because we were watching
• 33:38
  the hammer or discus. We were watching either men's
• 33:42
  hammer or men's. Discus he He likes to watch
• 33:44
  things go far. He So.
• 33:47
  He. Is really about track and field
• 33:49
  team not distance. He in in fact he he made the
• 33:54
  comment he goes when I interview a coach for whatever discipline
• 33:58
  throws jumps it doesn't matter he goes I'll I'll ask and talk
• 34:01
  about the other events and if they just have no care for the
• 34:05
  other events or like hey, you know just let me coach throws
• 34:07
  then you know I'll give you the greatest throws squad in the
• 34:09
  world. But I don't care about jumper
• 34:10
  sprinters whatever he he won't hire him.
• 34:13
  He is about team. So I was curious, that's exactly
• 34:15
  where it's going to go next. Is it at least during your time
• 34:18
  frame, what was the culture like?
• 34:21
  You guys won a lot of titles during that time, PAC Twelves
• 34:24
  and NCAA's. What was the culture of the team
• 34:27
  of, like, how you guys attack, 'cause I think a lot of people
• 34:30
  would love to win the state meet as a high school coach or their
• 34:33
  conference meet or, you know, the same thing on the college
• 34:35
  side. What was the like?
• 34:38
  Like it was interesting that Robert Johnson, who I I love, I
• 34:41
  I I I love and miss Robert Johnson a lot in the coaching
• 34:44
  world. You know, he's the head coach.
• 34:47
  He comes over to you, the thrower and says hey, you need
• 34:49
  to get it together because we need your points.
• 34:51
  Like to me that's a colder thing of like he could have just
• 34:53
  dismissed. He could have, he could have
• 34:54
  went to Eric and said, hey Eric, get your guy in, in check
• 34:57
  because we're going to need this and go back over to jumps, you
• 34:59
  know what I'm saying? But he talked to us about the
• 35:02
  cult, the teen culture that was built and building during your
• 35:05
  time then. Well, Robert had a fantastic
• 35:10
  slogan that we use the whole time.
• 35:12
  I was or the whole time he was the head coach.
• 35:14
  And it was we get all the boats going in the same direction and
• 35:19
  headed to the same place, which is a team title.
• 35:21
  And to do that we had to invest in each other and empower each
• 35:26
  other to all be better and to be our best every single day at
• 35:30
  practice and to hold each other to a higher standard.
• 35:36
  But I think what really resignated with me and you know
• 35:41
  thinking back and reflecting on it, Robert would always talk in
• 35:47
  our our team meetings that hey let's just say for for example
• 35:52
  I, I threw 65 meters or something.
• 35:54
  Well to have Mack Fleet come up to me, you know Mack Fleet was
• 36:00
  an NCA champion in the in the 1500.
• 36:02
  And to him for him to come up to me and say hey really good job
• 36:05
  today, it's like no, I threw like crap today, right.
• 36:09
  So it was investing the time to know what every single person's
• 36:14
  good days were and what their bad days were and then to
• 36:19
  support them during the meets and during practices and and
• 36:23
  just buying into the whole the whole system and the whole
• 36:27
  process of of everybody getting better, what was huge so.
• 36:32
  So how did the? Because leadership matters.
• 36:35
  So it has to start with the coaches, but it very quickly
• 36:38
  needs to go down to, I'm gonna call it, the seniors, your
• 36:41
  captain, your guys and gals who've been there for a few
• 36:43
  years. And then that needs to trickle
• 36:44
  down to your freshmen who will become your juniors and seniors
• 36:47
  and stuff. How did they cultivate that?
• 36:50
  Cuz that there's there's probably many ways, but there's
• 36:53
  two ways in in my mind of how you do this to go win a
• 36:56
  championship, whether it's conference or nationals.
• 36:58
  One is, hey Skipper and Eric and you throwers stay there, go
• 37:04
  become the best you can be and then when you get to nationals,
• 37:07
  go score points and we're going to take those points and we're
• 37:09
  going to add them over here to Curtis.
• 37:11
  He's got a sprints and hurdles group and he's going to get us
• 37:13
  this many points and then our distant you know and then we add
• 37:15
  those groups together and we all celebrate because we want that's
• 37:19
  one way. The other way is what you're
• 37:21
  describing there is Mack fleet who's the 1500 meter you know
• 37:24
  national champion cause easily dismissed the rest of the group
• 37:27
  like look man I'd love to come support you but you know I I'm
• 37:29
  trying to do my thing over here too and that'll help me because
• 37:31
  I'll get 10 points. And the other way is you know
• 37:33
  Mack cares about and listens and knows what you're doing in your
• 37:38
  events and vice versa. You know what You know I can't
• 37:41
  remember other people's names. I don't think you were there
• 37:42
  when Eric Mitchell was there. What Eric's doing in the
• 37:44
  hurdles. Oh yeah.
• 37:45
  Oh you were OK. I love.
• 37:46
  It no. No, I wasn't.
• 37:47
  I wasn't Eric Mitchum at Lincoln High School after college.
• 37:51
  Love there to death. Yeah love him.
• 37:55
  So. So you're mentioning kind of
• 37:57
  that the the latter part there where like we're a team that you
• 38:00
  happen to do throws, you happen to do jumps, you happen to do
• 38:02
  distance. So how did the coaches cultivate
• 38:05
  that and and therefore disseminated down to the
• 38:07
  athletes? Yeah.
• 38:09
  So I think like like I was saying it, it's more of like
• 38:11
  getting the athletes to buy into your system and getting like you
• 38:16
  say it's, it's getting the captains and and your your
• 38:19
  leadership athletes, you know, the the athletes, maybe they're
• 38:23
  not a captain, maybe they're just in a leadership role for
• 38:26
  the event group or whatever it may be.
• 38:29
  It's getting those individuals to buy in and then they go out
• 38:33
  and sell it to everybody else if they're not bought in because
• 38:40
  your peers have more respect for you than they have maybe for the
• 38:43
  coaching staff. And so if you can't get the
• 38:47
  leadership to buy in, you've got nothing.
• 38:50
  And I I really feel that, you know we had a a Navy SEAL, we
• 38:56
  had multiple Navy Seals come in and do like motivational
• 38:58
  speaking and and like team building activities and things
• 39:01
  like that. And one of the the things that
• 39:04
  he said was and I'm going to get this wrong, but it is
• 39:07
  essentially it was an individual working by themselves is going
• 39:12
  to achieve less than an individual working for their
• 39:16
  team or their teammates. So, you know, so if I went out
• 39:20
  and I was just throwing hammer by myself and I was in my own
• 39:23
  world, I might have only thrown 65 meters, but I knew that I had
• 39:28
  Mack Fleet, Trevor Dunbar, you know, you the list can go on for
• 39:33
  miles. But Sam Krauser, I knew all
• 39:36
  these guys were putting in the work, and if I wasn't going to
• 39:39
  put in the work, I was letting them down.
• 39:40
  Not just myself, but them too. I, I I've used and we've had
• 39:44
  this on the podcast for the example in track and field of we
• 39:48
  usually typically use like a quarter mile or what a, you
• 39:51
  know, I don't say often times but it's not uncommon to have a
• 39:54
  quarter mile that will split super fast on the four by four
• 39:57
  and won't even come close to that in the open.
• 39:58
  And it's like frustrating, like, why don't you just run the same
• 40:00
  way? And it's like, Oh yeah, when
• 40:02
  they're in the open, they're running for themselves.
• 40:04
  When they're in a relay they're running for the name like Oh my
• 40:07
  God I got I got to get this baton to the next person or I
• 40:09
  got to you know. So you'll see that like it's not
• 40:12
  uncommon to have faster like way faster splits than you do in
• 40:15
  your open. What you're what I hear you
• 40:17
  describe it is OK take that philosophy and how do I put Greg
• 40:21
  Skipper the hammer throw on the same air quotes here Relay team
• 40:26
  is what we're talking about with Mack fleet the Miller like in
• 40:28
  that that's a like that's that's hard right.
• 40:30
  It's easier with a four by four teams like hey boys and Gals, we
• 40:33
  got one thing to do here to run a mile and you know in four
• 40:36
  segments here we're trying to mesh throwing with distance,
• 40:40
  with jumps, with sprints, etcetera like that.
• 40:42
  That's the real how do you figure that part out, you know?
• 40:46
  Yeah, we were. We were.
• 40:47
  I mean, we were different event groups, but we were one, one
• 40:50
  team. It was, you know, I I knew Mac,
• 40:53
  and I don't remember Mac's P Rs at this time, but I remember
• 40:56
  Mac. You know, when he'd have an off
• 40:58
  day or he'd run really well, it was, you know, hey, nice job or
• 41:02
  hey, what the heck was that? What are you doing?
• 41:04
  You know, are you guys in a heavy training cycle right now?
• 41:06
  What's going on? Like, why?
• 41:07
  Why did you run so poorly? Or and I'm just using that as an
• 41:10
  example, I don't think I ever told Mac he was running poorly,
• 41:12
  but. Max's listening right now, going
• 41:15
  whoa, whoa, whoa, bro. Yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 41:17
  I was no, I love Mac and miss that guy.
• 41:20
  But. You know, our audience is track
• 41:22
  coaches. How important, how much did it
• 41:26
  mean when Robert and he was the head coach?
• 41:29
  So maybe you can give us an example of Eric doing this, Eric
• 41:33
  the throws coach doing this to a sprinter or Curtis the Sprint
• 41:35
  coach doing this to the throwers, etcetera.
• 41:37
  How meaningful was it for the jumps coach in, in this example,
• 41:41
  Robert to come to the throwers and know what you're doing, what
• 41:44
  place you're in is important. How important was that?
• 41:47
  As for team, I don't want to call camaraderie team moving
• 41:53
  forward. You know, go.
• 41:55
  Yes, I think it was. I think it was extremely
• 41:57
  important and it was something that I I didn't really notice as
• 42:01
  much when I was there. But looking back on it I think
• 42:04
  it was extremely valuable. We had we often times had for
• 42:10
  instance like in our team meetings of the week we'd go
• 42:14
  over who set P Rs school records or who made the the school all
• 42:18
  time list. And it would always like I would
• 42:21
  I would read for the the distance runners right.
• 42:25
  So I would be congratulating them on on their great job and
• 42:29
  then a distance runner would come up and congratulate the
• 42:32
  throwers on their PRS and their school records.
• 42:35
  And so that way you had everybody coming together and
• 42:39
  you, you meshed the event groups and really set a precedence for
• 42:45
  buying into the system and and buying into that team
• 42:49
  perspective. If you're that deserves a rewind
• 42:52
  like whatever app you're on maybe rewind that.
• 42:55
  That's interesting because you know in my head we all, you know
• 42:59
  for me at least, I'm a visionary guy.
• 43:00
  So every time you're talking I'm kind of playing the movie when
• 43:03
  you're telling a story. So I'm visioning you know in a
• 43:05
  in a auditorium type, you know and you know Robert gets up
• 43:09
  there and hey our jumpers this week did XY and Z and Eric gets
• 43:13
  up there and says, you know, Greg did this blah blah.
• 43:15
  And you're saying that you first of all you went to athletes,
• 43:19
  Greg's going to come up and talk about here's the PRS and the top
• 43:22
  ten list etcetera that are that's, I mean that's again.
• 43:26
  Well, and I I really feel that that's what meshes the team more
• 43:30
  so than the coaches. The coaches, I mean, everybody's
• 43:34
  whatever the coaches are, are the coaches.
• 43:36
  And I agree with the athletes. I agree with you.
• 43:38
  I agree with you. I don't want to say, but I'm
• 43:40
  going to put the asterisk on that.
• 43:41
  That is what I mean by that asterisk is that is what I'm
• 43:44
  asking. Like, like what examples?
• 43:46
  Because that has to come from a coach.
• 43:47
  A coach had to direct that. You know, if if a coach would
• 43:50
  have said, hey, who wants to talk about the distance runners?
• 43:52
  A distance guy, you know, everybody was like, hey Mac, you
• 43:54
  get up there and talk about it. You know, no one just
• 43:56
  inherently, intuitively would have said, hey, why don't we
• 43:59
  have Greg do it, Greg. Well, he's a thrower.
• 44:00
  What do you mean he's going to talk about the distance runners.
• 44:02
  So the coaches had to direct that.
• 44:04
  I agree that it's more powerful that the athletes did it versus
• 44:08
  the coaches. But the coach had to direct
• 44:09
  that. I like that's real cool.
• 44:12
  Like that's real like tactical. Like someone's listening right
• 44:14
  now saying, man, I'm just, I I, I I do the things, Mike.
• 44:18
  I'm the. I'm the head coach, distance
• 44:19
  coach. But I go and watch the jumpers
• 44:21
  and I go and I watch the throwers and it's still, you
• 44:24
  know, we're not we're not there. First of all bravo for doing
• 44:26
  that because not every coach is doing that.
• 44:28
  That's great. Here's another way.
• 44:29
  Now maybe instead of you as the head coach giving out all the
• 44:32
  accolades at the end of the meet, maybe, maybe you start
• 44:35
  with your assistant coaches and doing this, I'm going to call it
• 44:37
  the mix up. Maybe your jumps coach gets up
• 44:39
  there and says, hey, I want to congratulate the this person on
• 44:41
  the on the throw squad and this person on the distance.
• 44:44
  And then because you, you know on the high school and even on
• 44:47
  the college level, we're trying to build up leaders.
• 44:49
  How to now get your your young and your your athletes to do
• 44:52
  that? That's, I've never heard that.
• 44:55
  I'm sure it's not only Oregon, maybe, I don't know.
• 44:58
  But I love that. Like, that's a real cool culture
• 45:00
  building, leadership building activity there.
• 45:03
  Yeah, yeah, it was good. I mean, and I mean who are you
• 45:07
  going to listen to more as a, you know, just say as a 1819
• 45:11
  year old kid, are you going to listen to the coach that you
• 45:14
  listen to all day long and they're just jabbing around, you
• 45:17
  know, talking about whatever? Or are you going to listen to
• 45:20
  the guy that you look up to and you want to be like who's just
• 45:23
  set the school record or who's just made the top ten list?
• 45:26
  What did you think the first time, the first meeting, whether
• 45:31
  the first meeting you you tell us which story you want to tell
• 45:34
  the first time that you like, hey Greg, you're going to get
• 45:36
  up. Here's the list.
• 45:37
  You're going to get up and tell the team about distance.
• 45:39
  Or maybe you're the memory for you is the first time you got
• 45:42
  there and they're like, hey, we're going to go over the
• 45:43
  distance accolades and one of your thrower teammates and
• 45:46
  you're like what what's what's Joey doing, man?
• 45:48
  What's he going to do? You know, because that's.
• 45:49
  Different It was Sam. Yeah, yeah.
• 45:51
  What? What did you think when that
• 45:52
  first happened? I was like well I remember when
• 45:56
  I when I first read you know the the the stats for the week it
• 46:02
  was I think I forgot how to read.
• 46:04
  You know because you're you're in front of all your peers and
• 46:06
  it's like well don't screw this up.
• 46:09
  And so it was pretty nerve wracking at 1st and I had, I had
• 46:14
  about zero public speaking experience at the time so that
• 46:18
  was pretty nerve wracking. But I remember watching, you
• 46:20
  know, everybody else to do it and thinking I was listening
• 46:24
  intently and I cared about what they were saying and I valued
• 46:30
  what they were saying as well. So yeah, like I said it's it's
• 46:35
  just a good way for everybody to buy in and and get on the same
• 46:39
  page, so. I I imagine you personally
• 46:42
  learned a lot more about the were using the, the throws you
• 46:46
  would be a thrower and talking about distance example here that
• 46:48
  you learned more about distance as well.
• 46:50
  It's like, yeah, Mac ran 3:45 for the 15.
• 46:53
  It's like, well that was top ten.
• 46:54
  Holy, that's pretty fat I got. Yeah, I've never thought about
• 46:56
  that. You know, like you.
• 46:57
  For a distance school, yeah. I was like, wow.
• 46:59
  In the distance. I mean, OK, wow, nice.
• 47:03
  That's awesome. So you've done several times
• 47:08
  something that some of us, most of us go through and we never
• 47:12
  do, and you've won a team title. That's a big deal.
• 47:16
  Talk to us about that first one. When whether you you guys knew
• 47:20
  it before the 5000 was over or maybe it came down to the 4x4.
• 47:24
  Talk to us about, like, when you finally realized, holy crap,
• 47:27
  we're going to win this thing. What was that like?
• 47:30
  Because for someone who contributed to that, yeah, so.
• 47:34
  It it's funny, I'm, I'm going to back up just a step.
• 47:37
  I think it was 2000, 2012, we were sitting in a team team
• 47:41
  meeting and I bring up Mac a lot because I feel like Mac was a
• 47:43
  big influence on the team and a really good leader and and they
• 47:48
  they put up on the whiteboard a date.
• 47:52
  It was like 1980 something or whatever.
• 47:55
  And they're like does anybody know what this is?
• 47:57
  And we're all like, no. And they said, this is the last
• 48:01
  time we won an outdoor championship and everybody
• 48:04
  looked at each other like, no, that's not right.
• 48:06
  Oregon wins everything We had this we had this thing or this,
• 48:11
  this ego and this expectation that we just win.
• 48:14
  No, it's not true. And so we I think I I vividly
• 48:21
  remember Mack and I taking this new approach to getting
• 48:27
  everybody bought in and and just like what we were talking about
• 48:30
  you know getting all the boats lined up and getting them headed
• 48:32
  to the same direction. And so for all this work to lead
• 48:38
  up to I I believe it was 2014 when we won outdoor nationals
• 48:43
  that year I and I remember Darrell Hill from Penn State
• 48:49
  coming over and saying Gee whiz is your guys this whole team
• 48:52
  here. I mean we had we had people in
• 48:55
  every single event and if they even if they didn't make prelim
• 49:00
  or sorry even if they didn't make finals, they were in
• 49:03
  prelims and they were showing the duck uniform in some
• 49:06
  capacity. And I think that just helped us
• 49:10
  feel confident that we were going to win this meet no matter
• 49:13
  what. And we, we ended up, you know,
• 49:15
  we had King Chezarek, Edward Chezarek.
• 49:19
  He helped a lot. A little bit, Yeah, a little.
• 49:22
  Bit obviously, I think. He won.
• 49:23
  What did he win, The three or the the five and the 10 or
• 49:26
  something? He He ran.
• 49:27
  He won whatever. He.
• 49:28
  Wanted to win? Yeah, exactly.
• 49:31
  So we ended up setting, you know, the NCA record for most
• 49:35
  points scored that year or for most points scored ever at the
• 49:39
  NCA Championship that year. And it was really special.
• 49:42
  I I don't remember when it really set in that.
• 49:45
  I think actually it was when Mac won the 1500, we were like oh
• 49:49
  we're going to win this. There's no way that anybody else
• 49:51
  is going to beat us this this this go around.
• 49:54
  So that was really cool. That was really special and and
• 49:57
  to do it at Hayward from the hometown crowd and to do it in
• 50:02
  old Hayward, our our old Hayward, we're we're not even
• 50:05
  going to get into that. So.
• 50:09
  Yeah, so I mean. You know, it's always fun.
• 50:12
  You know what we do all the NCAA championships and you know I've
• 50:17
  gotten to see a lot of you know after the four by fours and they
• 50:19
  do the trophy presentations and you know the the winning team
• 50:22
  gets the caps and they hand the the trophy And you know I love
• 50:27
  that because you know I I again I'm very track coach focused
• 50:30
  over athletes and stuff. So I'm always focused on the
• 50:34
  coaches and you know, you can just see this like it's it's
• 50:38
  kind of like this from the outside looking in this
• 50:40
  amalgamation of emotions that, you know, one, there's obviously
• 50:43
  very, you know, positive cheering like we want, you know,
• 50:45
  winning is is is fun, There's fun that that's an emotion.
• 50:48
  I see a lot in these coaches faces.
• 50:50
  There's some relief, you know, 'cause it's such a long season
• 50:53
  and you know, you're dealing with so many athletes and travel
• 50:57
  and recruiting and so there's a little bit of relief like, oh,
• 51:00
  it's over and thank goodness we ended up on top.
• 51:03
  You know, a lot of gracefulness. It's it's really special and
• 51:07
  meaningful. When I see those celebrations
• 51:09
  it's it's really, it's something else.
• 51:12
  I always wonder with the athletes, go ahead, yeah, track
• 51:14
  is track is interesting. Though, because you win the NCA
• 51:17
  title. OK, well what's next?
• 51:19
  You've got Olympic trials or you've got US championships?
• 51:23
  So it's like OK back to the drawing board, How do we peak
• 51:25
  again in two weeks, you know and how do how do we get healthy or
• 51:30
  how do we, how do we get back to to this form that we had today
• 51:34
  or you know earlier in the week. Did you keep throwing for two
• 51:37
  weeks? Did you keep throwing after you
• 51:39
  graduated, after your eligibility?
• 51:41
  Yeah. How'd that go?
• 51:45
  I threw. At the Olympic trials in 2016,
• 51:48
  had the worst meat of my life. I was.
• 51:51
  I had the best meat of my life at NCA Champs.
• 51:54
  And then what are however many weeks later, my body was shot.
• 51:58
  Yeah. Why do you think that?
• 52:00
  You know, I think it was just. I really.
• 52:04
  Don't know the. Exact reason why I think I was
• 52:07
  just worn down and and the. Battery was just empty.
• 52:12
  Yeah, but I think to what we just.
• 52:14
  Talked about team effects that as well.
• 52:17
  Because you see this, I try not to use hyperbole but I am going
• 52:20
  to use quite often here where you'll see someone who was a
• 52:24
  what's called a stud in college and then they go into the trials
• 52:28
  and and whether it's the in the scenario we're talking about
• 52:30
  here where you know two weeks later, 3 weeks later whatever or
• 52:33
  we're even talking about years later.
• 52:35
  I think it's whether you're on a relay or not.
• 52:38
  So you weren't on a relay but you were still throwing for the
• 52:41
  University of Oregon. Your team, Mack was counting on
• 52:44
  you. King was counting on everybody
• 52:45
  was counting on you for points, just like you were counting on
• 52:47
  them for points when you go to the trials, even though you're
• 52:50
  you're at Hayward, so you have that home like a very familiar
• 52:54
  heck, you might have still even been wearing your Oregon
• 52:56
  uniform, for crying out loud. But I was, yeah, you.
• 53:00
  Knew. This wasn't for Oregon.
• 53:03
  No points were going to happen. No quote, UN quote, no accolades
• 53:06
  for this was whether you qualify for Team USA or you know any
• 53:11
  other team, they might have been also picking from there or not.
• 53:13
  And I think, and I understand, I get it.
• 53:17
  I think there is an emotional, I don't want to call it a let
• 53:20
  down. There's just a difference of who
• 53:22
  am I, who am I competing for? In the case of nationals at
• 53:27
  college nationals, I'm competing for Oregon.
• 53:29
  Some people compete for their family etcetera.
• 53:32
  I think when you're all alone with you know, this is 2-3 weeks
• 53:36
  later, but again 2-3 years, two or three years later, you're all
• 53:39
  alone, man, that's tough. You're you're want it for
• 53:43
  yourself. That's not fun, you know, At the
• 53:45
  end of the day, that's not fun, you know?
• 53:47
  Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean it.
• 53:49
  It was fun. It was definitely fun competing
• 53:51
  at the trials and it was an experience like I never had.
• 53:54
  You know, that was the first time that that that they threw
• 53:57
  the hammer on the infield. It was during one of the off
• 53:59
  days and man to to get the slow clap going from the very first
• 54:08
  throw. Didn't ask for it or anything
• 54:11
  and to have that hometown crowd just losing their mind and and
• 54:16
  the energy that was in the stadium, it was awesome.
• 54:18
  I mean that was fun. I just.
• 54:21
  I don't know I don't know what happened.
• 54:22
  I had the I had some of the best practices of my life leading up
• 54:26
  to the the trials. And I think I, I mean, for me
• 54:31
  personally, I think I'd thrown a a personal best with the one of
• 54:34
  the training weights that week and I felt ready to go and then
• 54:38
  that morning it was just like, it's not it.
• 54:42
  So. It's tough, yeah, but a really
• 54:46
  good experience. Like say awesome.
• 54:48
  To throw on the infield and and get to say I did that and and to
• 54:54
  get to say I threw it at the trials as well as as a pretty,
• 54:58
  pretty thing. Good thing to be proud of, I I
• 55:00
  suppose. Yeah, there's a good number of
• 55:02
  people that are. Listening right now, they're
• 55:03
  like, Yep, I never got to compete at the trial.
• 55:06
  So it's a it's definitely a a heck of a a fraternity to be in.
• 55:09
  That's that's for sure. So what did you do after college
• 55:14
  and before we we went to Skipper's Elite athlete, what'd
• 55:19
  you do in? Yeah, so I.
• 55:22
  My mom's brother's in commercial real estate.
• 55:24
  He's a he was a broker in in the Bellevue, Seattle area.
• 55:29
  So I went up and did an internship with him and and was
• 55:32
  I really liked it, really enjoyed it and ended up moving
• 55:36
  up there for a couple years and doing commercial real estate
• 55:39
  under him for a few months before he went on to become a
• 55:44
  developer in Seattle and the whole Northwest region
• 55:49
  essentially. So worked for him for a couple
• 55:52
  years and then went and moved back to Portland and tried my
• 55:57
  hand at commercial real estate in Portland and I thought it
• 56:00
  would be an easy transition and it wasn't.
• 56:04
  I I felt like I was going to have a lot of connections in the
• 56:07
  Portland area and it just didn't work out that my connections had
• 56:11
  a lot of commercial real estate. So then the opportunity came up
• 56:17
  to purchase the business and I helped my parents with the with
• 56:21
  the purchase and kind of running things during COVID and then we
• 56:27
  brought my. Mom on and in. 2022, I believe
• 56:31
  she's been with us for on working for a lead athlete for
• 56:34
  about two years now and she's crushing it and I'm really proud
• 56:38
  of her for all the work she's doing and she's pretty much
• 56:41
  running the show now, so you know still.
• 56:44
  Taking orders from Mom. I get it.
• 56:46
  Oh, yeah. Yeah, she it was.
• 56:48
  Weird. You know, when she first came,
• 56:49
  she didn't, she had never done anything like what we're doing,
• 56:52
  you know, with elite athlete. And so it was me teaching her a
• 56:56
  new skill. And I mean it.
• 56:59
  We have a lot of fun. It's been awesome working with
• 57:01
  my mom. And so, yeah, she kicks butt.
• 57:04
  You, you know, a lot of times we'll have.
• 57:06
  Head coaches on the podcast here and I know you know with our
• 57:10
  audience that there is a good percentage that want to be head
• 57:12
  coaches one day. So you know, we talked about
• 57:15
  what's it like, what was some of the, you know, what was
• 57:17
  something that you thought was going to be easy but was
• 57:18
  actually hard. What was something that you
• 57:20
  thought was going to be hard? It was going to be easy.
• 57:22
  I'm fairly certain that there is a segment of our audience that
• 57:27
  may want to own a business one day, whether it's track related
• 57:30
  or not. You know certainly there are
• 57:32
  listeners who have their own training business, you know,
• 57:35
  private coaching and things like that.
• 57:37
  And that's a business you may not sell a, you don't
• 57:39
  necessarily sell a physical tangible product, but you sell a
• 57:42
  service and that's a that's a product.
• 57:45
  Tell us what knowing that you also did this right as COVID
• 57:50
  started. So when I say what was some of
• 57:53
  the hardest things you had to get over, we'll just take the
• 57:55
  number one thing to the side. We know COVID, you know
• 57:59
  essentially all your customer base just stopped.
• 58:02
  You know no one was buying track once the track season was over.
• 58:06
  Beyond that the the obvious what other what were some challenges
• 58:10
  that you guys had to overcome and have overcome by the way I I
• 58:13
  got to you know give props to Greg and and the whole team
• 58:17
  there. I love mom and dad to death have
• 58:19
  done a phenomenal job. Mitch did a really good job as
• 58:22
  well and Greg and team have just come and just exploded it, man.
• 58:28
  They do an absolute great job serving our coaches around the
• 58:31
  country, never have coaches calling and complaining about no
• 58:35
  follow up, things like that. It's always like I I I kind of
• 58:38
  consider Craig. I don't think he knows this kind
• 58:40
  of the bulldog like I when somebody calls and you know, we
• 58:44
  we refer him over to Greg for service and things like that,
• 58:47
  like it's done. Greg's going to get the person
• 58:49
  taken care. I mean, they're just amazing at
• 58:51
  service. So I just want to give that
• 58:53
  props to you. Well, I appreciate that.
• 58:54
  I appreciate. That I know.
• 58:55
  You strive for that as well, so you know.
• 58:57
  You're you're getting that done. So what was, you know some of
• 59:01
  the challenges because certainly there are challenges owning your
• 59:03
  own business, that's a, that's a that's a beast, yes.
• 59:06
  Yeah. Well, and then to.
• 59:08
  To jump into something that we'd we'd never done and especially
• 59:10
  myself, you know I I came from commercial real estate which is
• 59:13
  totally different you know business side.
• 59:17
  I think one of the biggest challenges and and something
• 59:19
  we're still learning is inventory.
• 59:21
  I mean just keeping inventory, keeping things in stock, making
• 59:25
  sure you buy enough before the season starts and before the
• 59:28
  busy season really starts. And I mean we doubled, we
• 59:32
  doubled our inventory this year and it wasn't enough and we've
• 59:36
  done that every year just about and you know maybe that's a
• 59:39
  testament to what we're doing over there and you know just the
• 59:43
  relationships that we've been building.
• 59:44
  But it's it's crazy I, you know, we get our inventory in and it's
• 59:49
  like there's no way I'm going to be able to sell all of this.
• 59:52
  And then sure enough, a month later it's, you know, we're out
• 59:55
  of XY and Z and and I know Gil has.
• 1:00:01
  Similar challenges as well, you know.
• 1:00:04
  Yeah, you're speaking my, speaking my.
• 1:00:05
  Language here. I, I always call it the dreaded
• 1:00:07
  F word forecasting. Yeah, there there'll be
• 1:00:09
  absolutely zero reason why one year this one discus double s
• 1:00:14
  its sales versus every, you know, 10 year.
• 1:00:16
  We we take things on averages. You know, it's just data.
• 1:00:19
  And we'll look at the past 10 years.
• 1:00:20
  It's like man this thing's only sold 500 units every year and
• 1:00:23
  for the some reason this one's 1000 and there's zero data like
• 1:00:29
  why why why this one year this one day it makes no sense and
• 1:00:32
  then no sense and I get coaches you know you coaches you you
• 1:00:36
  you're worried about your athlete and and performance and
• 1:00:38
  so when you call and we are sold out of it I understand you get
• 1:00:41
  upset. I, I get it and trust me I wish
• 1:00:42
  we had it. And then you know Greg you can
• 1:00:45
  talk about this we'll we'll get sometimes where someone's like,
• 1:00:47
  well why don't you just have 1000 in stock at all time well
• 1:00:51
  because. That cost a lot of money.
• 1:00:53
  That's exactly right. Yeah.
• 1:00:55
  Yeah, unless you want those discuses to cost a lot more, you
• 1:00:58
  just can't hold it all. You just can't.
• 1:01:00
  Can't. I can't.
• 1:01:01
  I can't do it. And it's you.
• 1:01:03
  Know I've got a a limited budget to to purchase our inventory and
• 1:01:09
  I usually exceed that budget anyways and just try to push it
• 1:01:14
  and then hope hope for the best, which maybe isn't.
• 1:01:19
  Good business practice. But I don't push it a lot.
• 1:01:22
  I don't think they taught that at.
• 1:01:24
  Business School at Oregon? No, they did not.
• 1:01:27
  No. They did not.
• 1:01:27
  That was more of a reserve approach I would say.
• 1:01:31
  But you have to. I mean, you have to push what
• 1:01:34
  you're doing, and push you can't if you.
• 1:01:39
  Settle for what you did. Last year you're never going to
• 1:01:41
  grow and so that's my take on it and it's it's been working out.
• 1:01:48
  But again I I think that the biggest, the biggest key to our
• 1:01:52
  success has been the relationships that we've built
• 1:01:56
  with the coaches and being able to service them the way that we
• 1:02:00
  do and just also maintaining expectations to you know it's
• 1:02:07
  it's clear communication across the board making sure that if
• 1:02:11
  something is back ordered or if something's going to be a little
• 1:02:14
  later than it than expected, just making sure to communicate
• 1:02:17
  that to to your customers. And I think that goes a long way
• 1:02:21
  with them versus you know it's the day before it's supposed to
• 1:02:24
  get there. Hey, is this going to be here
• 1:02:25
  tomorrow? Oh no, it's back ordered another
• 1:02:27
  two weeks you know and so that's a that's a big key to to making
• 1:02:31
  sure that everybody's happy. So you you serve so many.
• 1:02:35
  Coaches and programs out there can you think of and I'm going
• 1:02:39
  to give a an example so that you can come put me in the spot here
• 1:02:42
  so you can think of you know pick the right ones You got lots
• 1:02:44
  of these stories a real fun memory that you that you served
• 1:02:49
  a coach and served a program for.
• 1:02:50
  For me I'll give my stories to because you can start thinking
• 1:02:53
  about the ones you want to tell here Greg you you know there's
• 1:02:56
  two one is it was really special you know I I joke half joked not
• 1:03:00
  joked about we're we're not going to talk about old Hayward
• 1:03:02
  versus newer Hayward but you know I was a a big I shouldn't
• 1:03:06
  say it was a big part I was a part of the process with new
• 1:03:08
  Hayward field. I was intimately involved in in
• 1:03:11
  that side for you know the equipment from our side and you
• 1:03:14
  know it was special because we built we, you know me, I was out
• 1:03:17
  there, they did. We were welding and grinding
• 1:03:19
  and. Had my shovel.
• 1:03:21
  And a man of mini hats 100. Percent.
• 1:03:23
  Yeah. Zero hats.
• 1:03:26
  It was awesome to be a part of the process that built the
• 1:03:29
  number one stadium in the world. You know, again, not having the
• 1:03:33
  argument of whether old versus new was better, etcetera,
• 1:03:35
  etcetera. I'm just saying it's, well, I
• 1:03:37
  agree it's #1 stadium in the world for.
• 1:03:38
  Again, paddles, maybe I'm biased Well, and maybe I am too.
• 1:03:42
  That's a good. Point.
• 1:03:43
  But it was really special to be involved all the way down to,
• 1:03:46
  you know, I lived my life on Twitter.
• 1:03:48
  I had a tweet the other day of a coach who had a picture of his
• 1:03:53
  athlete and she had just qualified for state or set the
• 1:03:56
  school record. I can't reach one with the
• 1:03:58
  discus. And was it was our discus and
• 1:04:00
  was just like, hey, thank you, Gil.
• 1:04:01
  Like it was, you know, we got her this new discus and we think
• 1:04:04
  that's what helped her to, you know, set the school record.
• 1:04:06
  And it was like, oh, and it was, you know, I think it might even
• 1:04:08
  be in middle school to be honest with you.
• 1:04:10
  And it was like, Oh my gosh, like sometimes you have to take
• 1:04:12
  a step back and remember, holy crap, we're helping 13 year olds
• 1:04:17
  do things that they never thought they could.
• 1:04:19
  We're helping a high school senior pick up the hammer for
• 1:04:23
  the first time. And they end up becoming an NCAA
• 1:04:26
  All American because of the work that we do with hammer, hammer
• 1:04:29
  throws, hammer kit, whatever, etcetera like that.
• 1:04:30
  And also at the same time, because very coach focused is,
• 1:04:33
  oh, we're helping coaches. This is the most important part.
• 1:04:36
  We're helping coaches affect young people, right?
• 1:04:39
  Like, I coached for 10 years before I came here.
• 1:04:42
  And when I first came here, I struggled a little bit with my
• 1:04:44
  identity, right? Because I wasn't, I wasn't
• 1:04:46
  helping athletes. I was helping coaches.
• 1:04:48
  And then one day, I don't remember the conversation, but I
• 1:04:51
  had a conversation with a coach about some equipment.
• 1:04:54
  And I hung up and I was like, we must have talked about, like how
• 1:04:57
  many kids she had on her team. And it was like 100 and
• 1:05:00
  something. And I was like, oh man, I might
• 1:05:02
  actually affect athletes more now than I did as a coach,
• 1:05:07
  indirectly. But now I if I work with 100
• 1:05:10
  coaches and they have, you know, an average 50 kids per team.
• 1:05:13
  Oh, I just helped. What's that Math 5000.
• 1:05:17
  I'm from Alabama, not Oregon. So, you know, excuse my math
• 1:05:20
  skills there. But yeah, that's 5000 athletes
• 1:05:23
  and and I talked to way more than 50, you know, 100 coaches
• 1:05:26
  or whatnot. So, you know, for me, that's
• 1:05:28
  fun. Like, I love seeing those
• 1:05:30
  stories. I love seeing those smiles.
• 1:05:32
  I love seeing when a kid, you know, sets a record or goes to a
• 1:05:35
  meet that, you know, they never thought they'd go to.
• 1:05:37
  That's cool to me. What?
• 1:05:38
  You know, you've been in this now for several years and and
• 1:05:41
  I'm going to call it more localized in the Northwest,
• 1:05:43
  although you do sell all the way through the whole country, but
• 1:05:48
  very much in your area with the relationships you're talking
• 1:05:50
  about, can you think of any, like, just fun, Like, oh man,
• 1:05:52
  you know what, When, when it's hard to come into the office
• 1:05:54
  some days, you know what I think about this.
• 1:05:57
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:05:58
  Well, a couple couple. Examples come to mind.
• 1:06:00
  I I know just yesterday actually that came into the office and I
• 1:06:03
  got an e-mail from a coach that said hey, you're the javelin you
• 1:06:06
  sent me, just got my kid to state and it should qualify him
• 1:06:09
  for nationals. So we really appreciate it.
• 1:06:11
  He's loving it and that's that is a good reminder of why we do
• 1:06:16
  it. Another, another good example,
• 1:06:20
  we did Kennewick High School did a big hurdle order for them and
• 1:06:26
  you know, we we, I think they were on a pretty good budget.
• 1:06:32
  And it was, hey, we we've got some old hurdles that we need to
• 1:06:35
  replace. And so we just crunched the
• 1:06:38
  numbers and and made it work for them.
• 1:06:39
  And now you know they've got a beautiful set of hurdles and I
• 1:06:43
  think the kids are loving it and the boosters are loving it and
• 1:06:47
  you know it just kind of brings up the whole the whole program
• 1:06:51
  you know and and even if well I just think that that if the
• 1:06:55
  equipment looks good too you're going to attract more kids to
• 1:06:58
  the program and it helps grow the sport helps influence more
• 1:07:03
  athletes and and get them maybe on a on a good path for life
• 1:07:08
  too. You know maybe track and field
• 1:07:11
  can help them grow as a person and and mature and go down a
• 1:07:16
  different path and maybe what they were headed down before.
• 1:07:18
  So yeah, I agree. I think it's.
• 1:07:20
  I think it's. Part of the puzzle I certainly
• 1:07:22
  you know, even though I am biased as a manufacturer, I
• 1:07:25
  think the track equipment is the best part of the whole thing.
• 1:07:28
  But it's a part of the puzzle. Absolutely.
• 1:07:30
  It's a. Part I'm biased.
• 1:07:32
  But I am realistic that it's uniforms.
• 1:07:34
  It's the coaching and coaching staff.
• 1:07:36
  It's the I love this culture of personal records.
• 1:07:41
  So everything from PR chains to there's one guy, there's one
• 1:07:46
  program does APR baton for everybody who sets APR and
• 1:07:50
  things like that. Some schools I think this is so
• 1:07:53
  cool. I I think I'd have been better
• 1:07:54
  at track if my coaches would have done this.
• 1:07:56
  They'll they'll take an actual record like an LP.
• 1:08:00
  You're too young for that. So this is a disk.
• 1:08:02
  This is Greg that they used to put.
• 1:08:04
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:08:04
  I think I've seen one of those on in a movie.
• 1:08:06
  Once. Yeah.
• 1:08:06
  Not ACD. Right, right, right.
• 1:08:07
  Yeah, Yeah. Go watch some.
• 1:08:08
  Old movies. And they'll write, you know, the
• 1:08:09
  record that the kid just broke. And then, you know, they get a
• 1:08:12
  baseball bat and they smashed. You know, they break the record,
• 1:08:14
  right? Like, oh, that's cool.
• 1:08:17
  That is. Super cool.
• 1:08:18
  I I I think it's cute up in. Colorado another podcast along
• 1:08:21
  Quint pack he I I think he said. So he was doing that.
• 1:08:25
  But you know he's he's pretty artistic.
• 1:08:27
  He's really a great photographer and stuff.
• 1:08:29
  He was making the records too nice.
• 1:08:30
  The kids didn't want to. He's like, he's like, I think I
• 1:08:34
  outsmarted myself, man. He's like the kids don't want to
• 1:08:36
  break it. I was like, yeah, man, you got
• 1:08:37
  to like, just put the number and let's move on.
• 1:08:39
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:08:41
  But I I love. That's awesome.
• 1:08:43
  I I think the equipment, to your point, is part of the puzzle.
• 1:08:47
  That includes a lot of other things, coaching, coaching,
• 1:08:49
  staff, culture, uniforms, etcetera.
• 1:08:52
  Absolutely, absolutely there. And that totally made me forget
• 1:08:55
  I had a really good next question too.
• 1:08:57
  You know, as the host, it's my job to like really just keep
• 1:08:59
  this rolling and then I just, I forget these sometimes.
• 1:09:04
  No, no, I had a grade. This is.
• 1:09:06
  See, I knew this was a good one and.
• 1:09:08
  No editing, so you guys see. All the words and all of what
• 1:09:11
  what we do here earlier you said something that I thought was
• 1:09:13
  really cool like I love like you know, you know the guests we
• 1:09:17
  have here are amazing. Greg, you're no different where
• 1:09:19
  you'll you'll just hit this real hot quote.
• 1:09:21
  You don't even know you're maybe saying it but you you said it
• 1:09:23
  earlier. We provide a service to coaches
• 1:09:26
  from coaches. You know, when I think about our
• 1:09:30
  team here, you know your support staff here at Gill, I think
• 1:09:34
  about, you know, I already mentioned Tim Glover in 84, I
• 1:09:37
  think is his PR, javelin thrower, Carly Povalter, Robbie
• 1:09:40
  Miller, Dean at the Cat. Like, you know, I think of like
• 1:09:43
  these guys and guys all coached and we're athletes and things
• 1:09:46
  like that. And so I love that, that DNA.
• 1:09:50
  How do you keep yourself into that?
• 1:09:52
  So like right now, like for me, like I was a coach for 10 years,
• 1:09:54
  but man, I I haven't coached in 20 years.
• 1:09:57
  But I keep myself grounded by really keeping my finger on the
• 1:10:01
  pulse of coaches and I use social media and in person to do
• 1:10:04
  that. Right.
• 1:10:04
  So I'm, you know, every day I'm reading what are coaches posting
• 1:10:07
  about? What are they concerned about?
• 1:10:08
  What are they happy about? You know, that's how I keep
• 1:10:11
  what? What's a coach?
• 1:10:12
  You know, what are they still going through today in 2024?
• 1:10:15
  Because it's different than what, 2014 and 2004 when I was
• 1:10:17
  in the game, right? And then in person, I'm always
• 1:10:20
  going up to coaches, Hey, how you doing?
• 1:10:21
  What's going on? Like, I don't.
• 1:10:22
  I don't. I don't care how good your
• 1:10:24
  athletes are, honestly. Like, I love when they PR, but I
• 1:10:27
  don't care that you coach in high school, 45 second quarter
• 1:10:30
  Millers or 54 second. I I don't care.
• 1:10:32
  I care that you care about them and that you're giving them good
• 1:10:35
  experiences. In our sport.
• 1:10:37
  You are doing the superpower track club.
• 1:10:41
  This is keeping you in the mix of coaching and athletes.
• 1:10:44
  Tell us more. You said your dad's done this
• 1:10:46
  for a while. Tell me more about your
• 1:10:47
  involvement and what's going on with that.
• 1:10:49
  Yeah, so Super thrower track. Club.
• 1:10:51
  It's super Thrower, you know, I I rode superpower although.
• 1:10:55
  Superpower is kind of cool. You might want to change.
• 1:10:57
  I don't know. We should.
• 1:10:58
  We'll we'll look into. Changing the name after this,
• 1:11:01
  for sure. No my dad.
• 1:11:04
  My dad got into it. He was coaching me in high
• 1:11:06
  school in the shot in the discus as well as Mitch and Dean
• 1:11:12
  Krauser both had their their kids, you know that they were
• 1:11:16
  coaching and then the three dads came together.
• 1:11:18
  So Dean, Mitch and my dad Scott came together and created a
• 1:11:23
  Super Thor Track club and I think Dean was actually the the
• 1:11:26
  official founder of Super Thor track Club and just started out
• 1:11:33
  with this, I don't know maybe 10:15 kids back when I was in
• 1:11:38
  middle school and that's what we went through.
• 1:11:39
  USATF under is the Super throw track club and then when I got
• 1:11:43
  into high school we all the three dads kind of went separate
• 1:11:48
  ways as far as like the the coaching went right.
• 1:11:51
  You know we'd still go out and train with them a little bit
• 1:11:54
  here and there but it was a little bit more separated.
• 1:11:57
  It wasn't under a a club essentially and so I think.
• 1:12:04
  What was it back? My junior year of high school,
• 1:12:09
  we got a new freshman kid in that was kind of a stud and he
• 1:12:12
  was wanting to throw shot put. And the dad his dad kept asking,
• 1:12:15
  hey, will you Scott, will you coach my kid?
• 1:12:18
  And my dad's like, no, no, no, I don't.
• 1:12:20
  I I'm, I'm coaching Greg and that's all I've got time for.
• 1:12:23
  Blah, blah, blah, blah. Beau Brousseau was his name.
• 1:12:26
  He ended up going to the University of Washington to
• 1:12:28
  throw javelin and shot put and his dad.
• 1:12:32
  Is a body and. Fender guy.
• 1:12:34
  And so this is, you know, within a week's time, my dad says no,
• 1:12:38
  no, no. And then my dad wrecks the car
• 1:12:42
  and says, hey, can you fix my car?
• 1:12:44
  I'll, I'll take it out on trade and I'll coach your kid for the
• 1:12:48
  rest of his high school career. And the guy's like, yeah,
• 1:12:50
  absolutely, 100%. It was just a little Fender
• 1:12:53
  Bender or something. I don't remember exactly what it
• 1:12:54
  was, but so it started with Beau and I, and then it turned into
• 1:13:01
  another couple kids at at Oregon City High School that my dad
• 1:13:04
  started coaching. And like I said, Bo got a
• 1:13:07
  scholarship to the University of Washington and then another girl
• 1:13:12
  got a scholarship to Sacramento State and then it just blew up
• 1:13:17
  from there. We got a girl from Lake Ridge
• 1:13:19
  and then we got a another few kids.
• 1:13:21
  Just word of mouth. I mean my dad's never advertised
• 1:13:24
  period, never advertised. It's just been just been word of
• 1:13:26
  mouth. And then we've got this these
• 1:13:29
  T-shirts, super throw track club T-shirts.
• 1:13:31
  That's the only advertising we've ever done for it.
• 1:13:34
  And so, you know, Fast forward to the the present day.
• 1:13:38
  We are up to 90 odd kids. We've got myself coaching, my
• 1:13:45
  dad still coaching. Then we've got Mike Heeb, who
• 1:13:49
  was a 70 meter javelin thrower and Grayson Fleming as well, who
• 1:13:55
  through at the University of Arizona.
• 1:13:56
  He was a hammer thrower for a while.
• 1:14:00
  Yeah, and he's a CSCS certified strength and conditioning coach.
• 1:14:06
  So he's been writing all of our strength and conditioning
• 1:14:09
  programs for the kids and doing a lot of lot of really good work
• 1:14:13
  on the social media, just making sure that the kids get the
• 1:14:16
  recognitions, the recognition that they deserve.
• 1:14:19
  And so, you know, we're out at Clackamas Community College a
• 1:14:26
  few days a week and just coaching our hearts out.
• 1:14:29
  And it's been awesome. Nearly 100 kids in.
• 1:14:32
  Just the throwing discipline. So shot, discus, jab, and and
• 1:14:35
  hammer. Yeah, just just the four.
• 1:14:38
  Events. Wow, do do.
• 1:14:42
  You are, are you? I assume most kids are coming as
• 1:14:46
  shot putter and discus throwers because that's the, you know
• 1:14:48
  what we do in middle school and high school all around the
• 1:14:51
  country. Are you introducing everybody to
• 1:14:54
  the jab and or hammer? Like do they all like you got to
• 1:14:56
  take a turn that may they may not all throw it of course.
• 1:14:59
  But do you introduce those one or two of those events?
• 1:15:03
  Yeah, we definitely. We don't really introduce the
• 1:15:08
  javelin to a lot of kids if they are interested in it,
• 1:15:13
  absolutely. But Hammer 100% at least give it
• 1:15:18
  a try because it's a really good opportunity to get a scholarship
• 1:15:23
  as as far as that goes. And yeah, I mean it's worth a
• 1:15:29
  shot. You know, most kids have never
• 1:15:31
  even heard of it at at that time when they first come to us
• 1:15:33
  because Oregon doesn't throw the hammer at the high school level,
• 1:15:37
  right. So we've really been trying to
• 1:15:40
  build the, build the event and get the word out there that this
• 1:15:44
  is a good opportunity for kids and just another discipline for
• 1:15:48
  them to to try and to potentially be very successful
• 1:15:52
  at the. Hammer is my favorite event.
• 1:15:56
  Not because you're on the podcast.
• 1:15:57
  No, it really, it really is I, you know, throughout my whole
• 1:16:00
  coaching career, I always went to practice early because the
• 1:16:03
  Hammer throwers always practice early just to to watch.
• 1:16:06
  I loved it and what I loved about.
• 1:16:07
  I remember this. I was at Ball State.
• 1:16:10
  I was the women's assistant coach, and Lane Schweer, one of
• 1:16:12
  my best friends in the whole wide world, was our throws
• 1:16:15
  coach. And we had this long jumper
• 1:16:18
  Holly, and she was a walk and she'd come.
• 1:16:21
  She'd walked on right before I got there.
• 1:16:23
  And we're in the Mack. Mack's a tough conference for
• 1:16:26
  all events, throws for sure, and she just wasn't getting it done
• 1:16:30
  where we needed to be for for the long jump in the conference.
• 1:16:34
  And I don't know what I think Lane was my roommate, So we were
• 1:16:39
  talking just how do we, you know, how do we get her
• 1:16:41
  involved? You know, she was a great kid.
• 1:16:42
  Like we wanted her on the team. But it's like, you know, long
• 1:16:43
  just not going to do it. And he's like, you know, he
• 1:16:46
  goes, let me try the hammer. And, you know, I was still very,
• 1:16:48
  very new still even, you know, to this day.
• 1:16:50
  But back then the knew the hammer and I was like, really, I
• 1:16:54
  was like, you know, she's done. No throwing.
• 1:16:56
  He's like, yeah, you don't really, it's a little bit
• 1:16:58
  different. So it's not like you got to come
• 1:16:59
  with some kind of shot put background or whatnot.
• 1:17:01
  And so I would go and watch and you know, so he because I was
• 1:17:04
  like I'm going to be real interested in how he takes
• 1:17:06
  someone from zero to to competent.
• 1:17:09
  Right. And you know just started
• 1:17:10
  teaching her. I think he taught the the turns
• 1:17:13
  1st and then you know added something in the hand just kept
• 1:17:15
  going. Well, that was her sophomore
• 1:17:17
  year. She ended up scoring.
• 1:17:18
  I think she got 7th or 8th in the conference her senior year.
• 1:17:21
  Yeah. Right.
• 1:17:22
  And and that really just showed me like like to me the hammer's
• 1:17:25
  different. First of all I remember being
• 1:17:30
  struck. We talked about Dan and USC
• 1:17:32
  earlier. I remember one of my first
• 1:17:34
  national meets. I saw this girl in walking to
• 1:17:37
  the hammer and I was like, oh, she's she's lost.
• 1:17:39
  The high jump is over here. I mean, she was like 06 foot
• 1:17:42
  one, probably weighed a buck. I mean, you know, just she
• 1:17:46
  looked like a high jumper. And I think she won that year,
• 1:17:50
  the hammer. And again, it just showed.
• 1:17:52
  Me like oh wow all. Body I've seen.
• 1:17:54
  Super tall. Super.
• 1:17:56
  Short super big, super small Have success because it seems
• 1:17:59
  like an event. This leads me to my question.
• 1:18:02
  It seems like an event that if you can, I think you do have to
• 1:18:05
  have coordination that might be the one like real requirement.
• 1:18:07
  But it doesn't seem to take like super strength like the shot put
• 1:18:10
  kind of does. It doesn't seem to take super
• 1:18:15
  like I don't know that I've ever seen a hammer.
• 1:18:16
  I'm sorry, a discus thrower that doesn't have a wingspan of a
• 1:18:20
  jet. You know, it seems like you
• 1:18:22
  really need to have the levers for discus, but I've seen all
• 1:18:26
  mixes do it successfully in the hammer is the hammer lend itself
• 1:18:31
  to someone who I don't want to say a grinder, but someone who
• 1:18:35
  can just come in and work and and learn and do over and over
• 1:18:38
  and over and you can become, you know, there's still got to be
• 1:18:40
  God-given talent. So you may not become an
• 1:18:42
  Olympian just because of that, but like you don't have to have
• 1:18:44
  like necessarily like super talent before you can go in and
• 1:18:50
  do well in this event. Is that?
• 1:18:51
  Am I off base here or you tell me no, no, I agree.
• 1:18:53
  I think. The hammer's interesting, I
• 1:18:55
  think. You can have, You have to have
• 1:18:57
  something though. You know what I mean?
• 1:18:59
  You have to if you don't have the levers, you have to have the
• 1:19:01
  speed. If you don't have the speed, you
• 1:19:03
  have to have the strength and it, you know, you have to have
• 1:19:06
  some piece of the puzzle there. But everybody, everybody has
• 1:19:09
  their own throw and I guess that's you know the same for all
• 1:19:12
  the throwing events. But the hammer specifically, you
• 1:19:16
  look at everybody's technique and it's always different.
• 1:19:19
  Granted they may do you know some of the basics the same, but
• 1:19:23
  everybody adds their own spice to it, right?
• 1:19:25
  And so to answer your question, no, IA 100% agree you you could
• 1:19:31
  take a kid that is not the. Quickest through the ring in.
• 1:19:37
  The in the discus or the shot and but he can throw the hammer
• 1:19:41
  far because he has good rhythm and and good coordination and
• 1:19:45
  maybe just a good feel for the hammer and that's a good pussy
• 1:19:48
  this. Is where the hammer thrower
• 1:19:50
  actually comes in, Puts good things in.
• 1:19:51
  You talk about rhythm coordination too.
• 1:19:53
  It's like, OK, yeah, I may have someone who's super strong,
• 1:19:55
  super tall, but if they have no rhythm, it's not going to happen
• 1:19:58
  in the Hammer. Sorry.
• 1:19:59
  You know, you do have to have this.
• 1:20:00
  You don't have to be excellent. You correct me where I'm going
• 1:20:04
  to speak here. You don't have to be excellent
• 1:20:06
  at any or all of them, but you have to be proficient.
• 1:20:09
  It's a little bit, you know, when I said that, that kind of
• 1:20:11
  makes me think of. We recently had Steve Rainbolt
• 1:20:14
  from Wichita State on the podcast and he was a very good 7
• 1:20:17
  something 7274 high jumper that want to do decathlon because he
• 1:20:21
  watched him. He was like man, 48 and the 400.
• 1:20:25
  That's not. That's not crazy.
• 1:20:27
  Like, like in the open 445. That's crazy.
• 1:20:30
  He's like, I don't have to be great at an event, I can just be
• 1:20:32
  good and really good. The hammer seems to be one of
• 1:20:35
  those events. Like when we talk about
• 1:20:36
  characteristics, I don't have to be great, whether it's tallness,
• 1:20:38
  lever speed, coordination, but I got to be pretty good.
• 1:20:42
  And if I can be pretty good at all of them, I could be a really
• 1:20:45
  good hammer thrower. What?
• 1:20:47
  What was? What was your strength in the
• 1:20:49
  hammer? Oh boy, I don't.
• 1:20:52
  Know like like how? How tall are How tall are you?
• 1:20:55
  Because I know you get. I'm six, I'm 64, but I have a.
• 1:20:58
  69 wingspan. Let's say I knew you had a good
• 1:20:59
  wingspan. I remember that.
• 1:21:01
  Yeah. So.
• 1:21:01
  So you got some tallness there. There's that where you.
• 1:21:03
  Yeah. More fast in the ring, were you?
• 1:21:05
  More I was. I was faster and and more.
• 1:21:07
  Explosive. I mean I could I I could dunk a
• 1:21:10
  basketball you know tomahawk dunk.
• 1:21:13
  In high school I was super explosive and I actually high
• 1:21:15
  jumped in high school as well. So I I was, AI mean, I had no
• 1:21:18
  technique, but I almost made state in the high jump my senior
• 1:21:22
  year while throwing the hammer. 2:30.
• 1:21:25
  So 229. Sorry.
• 1:21:28
  So yeah, I I I I think you just have to be to be good at
• 1:21:34
  anything. You just have to be a good
• 1:21:36
  athlete. Period.
• 1:21:37
  Right. I maybe.
• 1:21:42
  I guess it depends on what your definition of good is right.
• 1:21:46
  Everybody's, everybody's level of success is different, right.
• 1:21:49
  So to reach your your potential, you have to put the work in and
• 1:21:53
  you have to just. Be good at.
• 1:21:59
  The things that that your event requires, yeah, it's the hammer.
• 1:22:02
  Just feels like that grinder. Mentality like you just got to
• 1:22:05
  put in the work every day. You can always improve, you know
• 1:22:07
  the the turns. You can always improve on your
• 1:22:09
  turns and whether it's the speed or you're going from you know
• 1:22:12
  maybe you're learning as a 2 Turner and go to three to four
• 1:22:15
  things like that. It's just it's just a
• 1:22:17
  fascinating event to me. Not only just the event itself,
• 1:22:20
  you know, things going far, but it's just fascinating, the
• 1:22:23
  training aspect of it, that you this is something I feel like,
• 1:22:27
  like I talk about my son like I'm like, I don't know, he's
• 1:22:29
  going to be a very good child putter.
• 1:22:30
  I feel like if he learned started today, he could end up
• 1:22:32
  being a pretty good hammer throw.
• 1:22:33
  I don't know why. It could just be naivety on my
• 1:22:35
  part, but it's just a fascinating event.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah. And to to your point, I I feel.
• 1:22:39
  Like the the hammer is one of those events.
• 1:22:42
  That is, it is a grind in training because at least the
• 1:22:46
  way that we trained, there weren't a lot of drills
• 1:22:49
  involved. Maybe it, maybe some drills, but
• 1:22:51
  you're doing the exact same movement for all of your drills,
• 1:22:54
  all of your specific strength. And it just gets to be kind of a
• 1:23:00
  monotonous a little bit. And it's a grind for sure
• 1:23:04
  because you're you're doing that movement a lot and you're with
• 1:23:07
  Eric, so you flipped a lot of. Tires.
• 1:23:10
  Oh yeah, Yeah. We flipped a lot of tires.
• 1:23:12
  Pulled a lot of cars. Yeah.
• 1:23:13
  I actually love. I love those strongman circuits,
• 1:23:16
  man. Yeah, that's awesome.
• 1:23:17
  Yeah, I could see that. For for any event, but for the
• 1:23:20
  throwers of, you know, again, the monotony of just lift
• 1:23:22
  weights, go through something heavy, lift weights.
• 1:23:25
  There's something that's like, oh, let's go flip something,
• 1:23:27
  pull something, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:28
  I could see the hammers, you know, the physical hammers and
• 1:23:31
  things like that. I can see where that would just
• 1:23:32
  helps training because I mean, God bless, you're out there
• 1:23:34
  every day, by the way. You're out there every day.
• 1:23:37
  And if you're not doing the indoor weight, which is
• 1:23:39
  different than the hammer by the way, you're starting in Labor
• 1:23:42
  Day, you're not even throwing to Friggin April for crying out
• 1:23:44
  loud. So just keeping the motivation
• 1:23:46
  of like, I wanna do my event, I'm gonna compete.
• 1:23:48
  And yeah, all right, last two questions.
• 1:23:52
  Here Greg. One is what has got you excited.
• 1:23:56
  You know you're entering year four year, five year for the
• 1:23:59
  business. You've grown every year.
• 1:24:01
  You know you're a great representative Gil Athletics as
• 1:24:03
  a dealer. We're so, so grateful for you
• 1:24:05
  and the team and you know when you talk about serving customers
• 1:24:08
  and serving coaches, you know that's that's why we have you as
• 1:24:11
  a part of our team as a dealer for the equipment.
• 1:24:13
  You know we we we very much care about that coach and we think
• 1:24:17
  having dealers boots on the ground is what's going to help.
• 1:24:19
  God, God bless you. If you're in Oregon and you need
• 1:24:21
  me to come to service something I'm on the road good all the
• 1:24:25
  time you're going to be waiting for a year before I can get to
• 1:24:26
  you. Greg can get there you know
• 1:24:28
  tomorrow today if he if he needed to what's got you excited
• 1:24:32
  as you're looking you know healthy things grow you love to
• 1:24:35
  grow as well and done a great job What's got you excited We're
• 1:24:38
  we're done with this track season pretty much what's got
• 1:24:40
  you excited as you look forward to year 25.
• 1:24:43
  Yeah year 252627 in the future what's got you excited there at
• 1:24:47
  the elite athlete. I I'm excited.
• 1:24:50
  For the new coaches coming in as well, you know I think every
• 1:24:55
  year there's new coaches always coming in.
• 1:24:57
  But it's like I feel like my generation is now starting to
• 1:25:01
  move up the ranks from assistant coaches to head coaches to a DS
• 1:25:05
  and that's got me really excited, you know and and
• 1:25:08
  building those new relationships with them and maybe they're not
• 1:25:12
  new relationships maybe it's it's a new relationship where
• 1:25:15
  they're in their new role. And so I'm excited for that and
• 1:25:18
  excited to to keep growing the business and to to to reach as
• 1:25:23
  many coaches and and athletes as we can and and to to best serve
• 1:25:27
  them. So I'm really, really looking
• 1:25:28
  forward to the the coming years. Yeah, as equipment manufacturers
• 1:25:31
  and equipment. Providers, we've got to remember
• 1:25:33
  there are new coaches coming in every single year.
• 1:25:37
  That's so cool. Like, I mean that's really cool.
• 1:25:39
  Someone is coming from, whether they're in track or not, an
• 1:25:42
  athlete or not, they're coming in to learn how to get positive
• 1:25:45
  impact on young people. And that's really cool.
• 1:25:48
  I mean, and by the way, thank God, because I couldn't do what
• 1:25:51
  I do without them. So it's so, so grateful when
• 1:25:54
  people choose. I'd be out on the street
• 1:25:55
  without. Coaches, bro, I'd I'd be right
• 1:25:57
  next to you like that's. My boy Greg, we ain't got
• 1:25:59
  nothing to do. Yeah.
• 1:26:01
  All right. Greg, lastly, someone's.
• 1:26:03
  Listening and and by the way I know we're talking a lot of
• 1:26:06
  throws with Greg and obviously has a deep history and his
• 1:26:09
  family has a deep history with that you know full service gill
• 1:26:13
  dealer here pits, pulls, hurdles obviously the implements
• 1:26:17
  etcetera, construction equipment.
• 1:26:19
  So you've done several cages of course right as a thrower sand
• 1:26:23
  pit forms etcetera. So don't hear just throws
• 1:26:27
  obviously has a lot of throws passion, but you know obviously
• 1:26:30
  service is the your complete program there where can someone
• 1:26:34
  maybe get a hold of you if they want to talk to you about you
• 1:26:36
  know maybe maybe looking for some Gill equipment from you and
• 1:26:39
  your team. Yeah, definitely.
• 1:26:41
  So we've got a website. It's www.eliteathleteinc.com or
• 1:26:47
  give us a call, 503-492-3889. And like I said, it's just my
• 1:26:52
  mom and I. So you'll either get me or
• 1:26:54
  you'll get my mom, Brenda, and we'll take care of you.
• 1:26:57
  And like, like Mike said, we we're full service.
• 1:27:01
  So everything from spikes in the shoes all the way up to the
• 1:27:04
  poles you're jumping on and the pits you're landing on.
• 1:27:06
  So I love it. So yeah.
• 1:27:08
  Literally, you know, to me, the answer is always Google it.
• 1:27:11
  And I don't mean that in a facetious way.
• 1:27:12
  Like literally Google elite athlete track equipment and
• 1:27:15
  you'll find them and no automated system.
• 1:27:17
  You're going to get him or mom, tell him, tell him you heard him
• 1:27:20
  from the podcast. I think that'd be kind of cool
• 1:27:22
  just for him to see, you know, his time that he gives us here
• 1:27:24
  today is bearing fruit for him. So, Greg, thank you so much,
• 1:27:27
  man. You know, I'm always humbled,
• 1:27:31
  you know, when we get a coach on here because you know, it's not
• 1:27:33
  an easy podcast to do. It's a, you know, called a 2
• 1:27:35
  hour commitment to do the podcast.
• 1:27:37
  And so whether it's offseason or in season, I'm always amazed
• 1:27:40
  that they find time. It's no different than you.
• 1:27:42
  You're in the middle of your season and you're servicing a
• 1:27:44
  lot of of the different coaches and programs that are out there
• 1:27:49
  and just so grateful for that. So, so grateful for your time.
• 1:27:52
  We actually had this scheduled for like a month earlier and he
• 1:27:54
  was like look man, I'd love to but I am busy and.
• 1:27:58
  You know what? As the manufacturer and he's,
• 1:28:00
  he's our dealer. I love hearing that, by the way.
• 1:28:03
  Like that. I think he knew that it'd be
• 1:28:04
  like, OK, that's cool. That was a test.
• 1:28:06
  Good job. You're out there, you're getting
• 1:28:07
  it. So yeah, I got all the time in
• 1:28:09
  the. World.
• 1:28:10
  Yeah, exactly. That's that's what I'm.
• 1:28:11
  Like, that's scary, bro. Yeah, we need to talk.
• 1:28:14
  We need to talk. We need to talk.
• 1:28:16
  So Greg May really am grateful for you and mom.
• 1:28:18
  The whole team love that You guys continue to pour and give
• 1:28:22
  positive impacts into our young people with the throws club, the
• 1:28:25
  Super throwers track club, love that it's all through.
• 1:28:28
  I love, you know track and field is is awesome.
• 1:28:31
  I love full track clubs and track teams, but you know there
• 1:28:34
  are some cool niches out there now.
• 1:28:36
  We typically see it with pole vault clubs.
• 1:28:38
  I do love that there's a, you know, a throws club that people
• 1:28:41
  can go. And to me the reason I love it
• 1:28:43
  is because I love that they're getting a taste of the hammer
• 1:28:46
  and in the Java if they want like that's cool.
• 1:28:49
  We, you know, for American development and collegiate
• 1:28:52
  development, we got to get more high schoolers.
• 1:28:54
  We got to get more 1418 and younger into the hammer early.
• 1:28:58
  We can't just be waiting and depending on 18 year olds to go
• 1:29:02
  to school and then learn to do the hammer.
• 1:29:04
  You're way, way, way behind the rest of the country.
• 1:29:07
  So anything that we can do to get young people in this great
• 1:29:09
  event, man, I just love that. So I love that you and your dad
• 1:29:12
  are still doing that and affecting young people
• 1:29:14
  positively that way. And you know from all of us at
• 1:29:16
  Gil, we're so grateful. You know we are a dealer based
• 1:29:19
  trek equipment manufacturer and so having you and your team out
• 1:29:22
  there to serve those coaches on a daily basis, man literally
• 1:29:26
  couldn't do it with without you. And just so grateful for what
• 1:29:29
  you do for us here at Gil Athletics and grateful for our
• 1:29:32
  friendship that we've made over the past few years.
• 1:29:34
  Man, really, really proud of you.
• 1:29:35
  I was there on the ground floor with you guys when the whole
• 1:29:38
  transition and you know just seeing what you've done
• 1:29:41
  personally, what you, how you've grown into you know business and
• 1:29:44
  business ownership man, just amazingly proud of you and
• 1:29:48
  excited for the future because it's we're just beginning.
• 1:29:51
  I I have a true feeling that you're just just beginning man.
• 1:29:53
  So grateful for you, and grateful for your time.
• 1:29:56
  Oh man, thank you so much for having.
• 1:29:57
  Me and hey, like I said, I'd be out on the street if it wasn't
• 1:30:00
  for Gil, so we appreciate you guys as well.
• 1:30:03
  No Oregon grad is ever on the. Street Buddy, let me tell you
• 1:30:06
  that network is huge. You would have a job.
• 1:30:08
  So thank you guys for being here.
• 1:30:10
  I hope you enjoyed this podcast. We're halfway done, right?
• 1:30:12
  This we published this on in July.
• 1:30:14
  So we are halfway through season five.
• 1:30:16
  We're cooking all the way through.
• 1:30:18
  Always want to give kind of a a plug for two things.
• 1:30:21
  One, go back and look at the backlog, the library if you
• 1:30:25
  will. This is season 5 S episode 260
• 1:30:27
  something. That means there are 260
• 1:30:29
  something. Other amazing people like Greg
• 1:30:31
  that have been on the show from Mouse Holloway to Dave Smith,
• 1:30:34
  Petros Kipriani, Diljit Taylor, Karen Dennis.
• 1:30:38
  One of my favorites. Just an amazing library of high
• 1:30:42
  school college club professional coaches.
• 1:30:44
  Go back and check that out. And then the other thing that we
• 1:30:46
  did this track season that gained a lot of traction and
• 1:30:50
  right so in the months of April and May, we interviewed 1 high
• 1:30:54
  school coach from every state including Washington DC to talk
• 1:30:58
  about how they qualify for the state meet.
• 1:31:01
  So when he was talking about Oregon not having the hammer, we
• 1:31:04
  knew this because we had the guys from Sam Barlow come to the
• 1:31:07
  show and talk to us about how they qualify for the state meet,
• 1:31:10
  what events they do, what's unique, what is maybe odd
• 1:31:14
  compared to other States. And it's been a real education
• 1:31:17
  for other high schools for other coaches and other states to
• 1:31:20
  learn of how to maybe adjust their state qualifying process.
• 1:31:24
  Tell me, trust me, it's wildly different what we do in Montana
• 1:31:27
  than what we do in Florida than what we do in California,
• 1:31:29
  Hawaii, etcetera. And it's been a great series.
• 1:31:32
  So go back and check out April and May, one a day every state,
• 1:31:35
  Alabama, all the way through Wyoming and even DC So thank you
• 1:31:38
  for your time. Join us next week.
• 1:31:39
  We'll do it all over again. We're going to keep pushing
• 1:31:41
  through. We're going to finish Season 5.
• 1:31:43
  And guess what comes next season six.
• 1:31:45
  Thanks, everybody. Have a good day if it goes to
• 1:31:52
  appreciate the coach. The ones that point people most
• 1:31:55
  every season needs a voice of reason speaking.
• 1:31:57
  The growth you got to prep for, you carry the load.
• 1:32:00
  It's called to the soul. For those of us to stand to go
• 1:32:03
  proper handoff. To stay in the zone which you
• 1:32:05
  packing for the road. There's more than one way to go.
• 1:32:08
  Take notes. That's paying.
• 1:32:09
  You're told it ain't practice. If your purpose ain't clear, it
• 1:32:12
  can't happen to you. Listen what both is.
• 1:32:14
  Can't mentor without a mentor of experience you can reinvent
• 1:32:18
  those years. Every plans got to stand and
• 1:32:20
  deliver to enterprise sacrifice. Can you give up you.
• 1:32:24
  It's a choice and a fight. Not a win or lose.
• 1:32:26
  It's not a ploy boy device Y'all can make more moves.
• 1:32:29
  It's not about how to It's all about why.
• 1:32:31
  You don't know till you know who you are.
• 1:32:33
  Beside 6. When you waste time choose none.
• 1:32:36
  So we all course finish line. The work ain't done.
• 1:32:38
  So we learn from the experts. We all got to put in the leg
• 1:32:41
  work kill athletics is network. It's all about connections put
• 1:32:45
  together for the professional and to every track Coach could
• 1:32:48
  be blessed.