Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #244: Clyde Hart-Baylor University (retired)

Transcript

#244: Clyde Hart-Baylor University (retired) · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  We end up in Waco and to this day I still can't figure out
• 0:04
  where we came through Waco. Now my dad lived to be almost
• 0:07
  101 and I asked him firstly every year.
• 0:10
  Dad. You land up that trip, he said.
• 0:13
  Son, I did not do that. Now that's a Baptist minister
• 0:16
  and he's got long, not long to live.
• 0:19
  So I guess he's telling the truth.
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  But it's so ironic. So we arrived and we stopped.
• 0:24
  By the bear pit when we may have the Baylor Bears.
• 0:28
  And I looked across the street with the gymnasium and I said, I
• 0:31
  think I'll go look in in the gym, see what it looks like.
• 0:34
  And I walked across the street immediately entering the gym.
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  This big good looking guy almost looked like Superman walked over
• 0:43
  and introduced himself to. He says I'm Coach Jack.
• 0:45
  Wilson. Who are you?
• 0:57
  Track and Field World Q&L tuned in to our humble servant Mike
• 1:02
  Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Guild
• 1:05
  Athletics Connections. All right.
• 1:21
  Welcome back to the Guild Connections podcast.
• 1:24
  You know, we are in season five, which absolutely boggles me.
• 1:28
  Never knew that we would see a season 5 and we started this
• 1:31
  back in 2020. So we're super excited to
• 1:33
  continue bringing you coaches and uplifting and honoring their
• 1:37
  great journeys in this profession.
• 1:39
  As we kick Offseason 5, we're doing something special.
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  This is kind of the end cap. This is our anchor leg, if you
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  will, of the four by four. We're doing an all Baylor
• 1:47
  January here in 2024. And so you've heard the 1st 3
• 1:51
  guests that we've had this season and their Baylor
• 1:53
  connections. Well, it doesn't make sense to
• 1:55
  talk about Baylor if we don't talk about the Graham Poobah of
• 1:59
  them all. So help me welcome from Baylor
• 2:00
  University, The wise, the wonderful Mr. Clyde Hart Coach.
• 2:03
  How are you, Sir? I'm fine, right?
• 2:06
  I got to figure out how to get something off my screen here.
• 2:08
  All right, no problem. We we all need a personal IT
• 2:12
  department when we do these things.
• 2:15
  So coach, first of all, thank you so much for being here.
• 2:18
  You know, it's, you know, you hold a a special place in a lot
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  of people's hearts, including mine, including some very
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  important people for us right here at Gale Athletic.
• 2:27
  So it really is an honor to be able to sit down and talk with
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  you and kind of learn your journey in this amazing
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  profession. So first, just want to say
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  thanks for being here today. Thank you, Mike.
• 2:35
  Appreciate it. So, coach, you know you've had a
• 2:39
  long, amazing career. And I think a lot of people
• 2:43
  think they know a lot of the story.
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  When you talk about four by 4U and all that kind of stuff,
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  let's get in our way back machines.
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  Where does coaching start for you?
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  Was it as an athlete? Was there a coach that
• 2:56
  influenced you to come out and become a professional coach in
• 2:59
  the ranks? Where does where does it start
• 3:01
  for you? Well, actually, it started kind
• 3:06
  of anywhere but coaching. I got a business degrees on
• 3:09
  Bailer. I kind of in the back of my mind
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  and thought about coaching. But primarily my mother kept
• 3:17
  saying no, you need to get out of the business world.
• 3:20
  That's that's where a career can be.
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  And she didn't have a very high esteem of coaching.
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  She thought coaching was pretty common.
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  My dad, to the contrary, didn't feel that way, but I I didn't
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  have real good experience with coaches, particularly in track
• 3:37
  and field. I had some good coaches in in
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  football. They were good people, but I
• 3:42
  never really had a coach in what we call in Arkansas.
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  We had junior high and I won the state championship in three
• 3:53
  events, which won the state championship for our school just
• 3:58
  by myself. But I didn't have a coach.
• 4:00
  We had a tennis coach that and was a real good tennis player
• 4:04
  and a good guy. He took us to the meets, but he
• 4:06
  knew nothing about track and field.
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  Well, I when I got into high school, it was exactly the same
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  thing, but even to a lesser degree, because I didn't have
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  anybody that went with me on to the meets.
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  I would get on an Arkansas Trailway bus and go up to
• 4:22
  Fayetteville and run and track me or whatever.
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  And the only coach I had about an hour of coaching all through
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  my career in high school and that was my dad, took me over to
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  Conway AR, Hendricks College. I had a physical education
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  professor. I had a department that was
• 4:43
  known to be a real good track coach.
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  And my dad called him and and took me over there and he spent
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  a good, good hour and primarily telling me and showing me how to
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  start properly. I had no starting blocks.
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  He suggested I need to get some starting blocks.
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  I was digging my holes in the ground like a lot of people were
• 5:04
  back. In the early Fort, Gill started
• 5:06
  making them starting box, but anyhow, that's the only time I
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  really had anybody with track and field, but I would go.
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  Up to the school library in in Hot Springs High School in
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  Arkansas and I would get the magazines Scholastic Coach, I
• 5:21
  remember. And there was another one or
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  two. I always had articles on track
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  and field and occasionally when I was a good friend with the
• 5:29
  library and the nice lady and she knew I had an interest and
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  she ordered some books and I would read cover to cover
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  different track books and and that's basically what I would
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  do. And I remember each year
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  scholastic coaching. I'm pretty sure that's the one
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  we'll always have an issue that would summarize the year in
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  track and field in high school had all the States and had all
• 5:54
  the winners and the times and all that in ranked them and I
• 5:57
  couldn't wait to see that. Well Arkansas, our state record
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  this talk about how many yards was 9.9.
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  Well I would look over there and Texas has some kid running 9.5.
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  In California, somebody running and other states were running
• 6:13
  about like we were, but it was it was pretty shocking to me to
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  know what I had to do. But I was forced enough to to
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  win the state in Arkansas and I did run a 9/9 at the University
• 6:28
  of Arkansas, which equaled the state record and an oddity
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  happened. To this day, I don't know.
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  I assume it was legal under NCAA rules today.
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  It wouldn't be that. I got a phone call when I was a
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  senior and I have not even started working out the track
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  yet. I've been playing footballs and
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  basketball and this is my senior year and I had one state the
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  previous year. My uncle who lived in Baton
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  Rouge, LA, Uncle Nelson, who was a graduate of LSU, called my dad
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  and told him to get me on the bus to come to Baton Rouge, that
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  he had me a full scholarship to LSU.
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  Well, of course that was a great thing and unbelievable because I
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  hadn't been contacted by anybody.
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  The University of Arkansas at that time really wasn't doing
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  anything to track and field so. Anyhow, my dad put me on the bus
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  and I remember drove all day and I'm here for lunch.
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  I am a doctor. Pepper and a moon pie, I think.
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  And some peanuts and I get. Into Baton Rouge late.
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  Spend the night there with my uncle and the next morning we
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  get up by and early and go out to.
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  The campus, which just, I was all struck.
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  I mean, it was a beautiful campus, huge.
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  And the great big stadium that seated 100. 1000 which is 3
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  times the size of Hot Springs, so I was just in awe when he
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  takes me into the dressing room and I'm expecting this coach to
• 8:01
  welcome me and well, we finally locate the coach.
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  But there's a lot of activity going on.
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  Well, they're getting ready to have a track meet and all the
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  kids were in the locker room putting on the sun.
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  Well, my uncle finally found coach Al Barrow.
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  He was a tractor. He was nice gentleman, big,
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  tall, nice guy. And my uncle goes over and kind
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  of, actually. Looks in, gets his attention and
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  the guy was very nice, but I could tell his mind was on other
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  things and as a coach I can understand that now.
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  And my uncle introduced me to Coach Morrow, but I could tell
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  them he didn't know me from anything.
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  And my uncle said, this is the young man.
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  That I wanted to bring to you. He was state champion up in
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  Arkansas, blah blah, blah and he's doing 9-9 and that's that's
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  good, that's good. But we've got to track me going
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  on here in about an hour and maybe after the meets over I'll
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  have time to visit with you. Well, I was just chest
• 9:01
  following, you know, much impression that my uncle had
• 9:05
  given my dad was that I had him. Marvin, Scott said.
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  Well, I should have known that. Well, then the mistake happened.
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  My uncle then says. Well, coach.
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  Can he run in and track meet? Well, this is a college track
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  meet and I said Uncle Nelson, this is not a high school
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  meeting and Coach Marvel. Said, Oh yeah, said.
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  You know he can run in the junior varsity.
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  That's freshman and guys at night, quite whatever.
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  And all the time I'm trying to say I have not put on a query
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  track shoes since a year ago and you know, whatever.
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  Well, I I can't just wait. So I guess it was a good
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  opportunity to have a little trial and now that they MCA
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  would never allow that and I don't know what they allowed it
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  then but it happened. So I got a pair of old Gray
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  flannel oversized shorts and AT shirt and a pair of shoes and
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  almost fit and I was ready to go.
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  No, no sweatshirt, nothing. So I go into that stadium and
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  I'm all by the sides. There wasn't that many people
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  there but it's a huge but the track is no longer in that
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  stadium. But it wasn't that time.
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  And so sure enough I line up and there's guys from what I call
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  those directional students in Louisiana.
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  I don't know if these SE all of them two Lane LSU they're all in
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  my heat. I didn't know if I'm Adam.
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  I imagine they're looking on who is this kid in this stuff.
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  Well anyhow to make a happy story.
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  I win the race and when I hit the finish line, the varsity had
• 10:35
  already run. And the varsity guy, I remember
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  he had run a 9/9 100 and when I. Finished.
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  I noticed for tomorrow. I'll hustle out on the track,
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  put his arm around me, started talking to me and and said that
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  I talked about that scholarship. I do have a scholarship, four
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  years, the full scholarship. I'll have the papers.
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  And we'll have them win the meeting.
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  And I said, coach, why did I run?
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  He said, well, you're at a 9.8. Well, that was better than the
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  state but had not run. I apologize.
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  That made me worry about practice all that time and I
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  guess I was so fresh and so excited.
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  But around the M point, of course it could never be a state
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  record because it was not a legal race.
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  But anyhow, so I got a full four year scholarship to LSU.
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  Well, all during the spring I kept getting letters from Post
• 11:25
  Marvel telling how excited he was me to come the next year.
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  But at the same time, I would occasionally get a letter from
• 11:32
  the football coach Gabriel Tensley and it would say all
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  practice starts so and so blah blah blah blah.
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  Well, I just. Started finally after a while, I
• 11:43
  contacted coach, Lawrence said. I keep getting these letters
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  from football and I don't. Intend to play football.
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  I only weighed about £145.00 and he had you were going both ways
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  in was I did in high school, but I just didn't figure out I was
• 11:59
  ready for that. And he's already ignore that.
• 12:01
  He's just trying to get an extra body out there and that may be
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  true. Well, later in the year that
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  summer I still go to LSU. My dad who was a Baptist
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  minister, he was on a committee to put another Baptist
• 12:16
  encampment. We had Ridgecrest, which is a
• 12:19
  huge Baptist encampment, over in the Carolinas.
• 12:22
  There's nothing in any part of the United States from.
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  The western part. So there was a three minister.
• 12:28
  Committee to pick a site. And he had gone to Louisiana and
• 12:31
  looked at the site. He had gone to Oklahoma, maybe
• 12:35
  one in Arkansas. For now.
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  We were headed to Santa. Fe New Mexico, which ended up
• 12:41
  becoming Glorietta Madison Camden, which is unbelievable.
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  But anyhow, we're on our way. Well, on the way there, driving
• 12:49
  with my mom, my. Dad, he said.
• 12:52
  When we're right on our way to Waco, let's just stop and see
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  what Bader looks like. My dad was a graduate of Wichita
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  Baptist College. He never pushed me towards
• 13:00
  Bader, although we occasionally had Bader athletes come to our
• 13:05
  church and hold revivals. And so I had met him and was
• 13:08
  impressed with him with all American named Jackie Robinson
• 13:11
  played on the 48 Olympic team in basketball, and Jerry Cooley who
• 13:15
  was an all Southwest Conference back.
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  But anyhow, we end up in Waco and to this day I still can't
• 13:22
  figure out where we came through Wakeham.
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  Now my dad lived to be almost 101 and I asked him firstly
• 13:28
  every year. Dad, you laid up that trip, he
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  said, Son, I did not do that. Now that's a Baptist minister
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  and he's got long, not long to live.
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  So I guess he's telling the truth.
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  But it's so ironic. So we arrived.
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  And we stopped by the Bear pit when we may have the Baylor
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  Bears. And I looked across the street
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  with the gymnasium and I said, I think I'll go look in the gym,
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  see what it looks like. I walked across the street
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  immediately entering the gym, this big good looking guy almost
• 13:59
  looked like Superman walked over and introduced himself to.
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  He says, I'm coach Jack Wilson, who are you?
• 14:06
  And I told him, he said you're from Hot Springs.
• 14:09
  And I said something wrong. He said, I said yeah.
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  He said, well, we were going to recruit you, but then.
• 14:15
  We got word you'd always said with LSU and so we were really
• 14:20
  disappointed. But if you're ever not happy,
• 14:23
  you know you you can give me a call and he gave me a card and
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  in those days you didn't have a national letter saying it was
• 14:30
  all by conferences. So I decided no, I'll just walk
• 14:34
  around the roads. I'll walk around the campus and
• 14:36
  met some other people and and it was a totally different
• 14:40
  atmosphere than LSU and that's not a bad thing for just
• 14:45
  different. They were huge.
• 14:46
  Big state school with lots of things.
• 14:48
  Vader was smaller. A lot a lot of friendly kids.
• 14:52
  And and back in those days at least I thought you had some
• 14:57
  royalty if you were a Baptist. I kind of felt like Baptist kids
• 15:01
  ought to go to Baptist schools. Catholic kids ought to be at
• 15:04
  Notre Dame. Well that proved not to be true
• 15:07
  because my senior year Baron, the captain of our football team
• 15:11
  was called, was named Co Makata. He was a Catholic and at LSU, I
• 15:17
  mean at Notre Dame, the guy named Leon Hart, no kidding me,
• 15:22
  was Baptist, said He was captain of Notre Dame.
• 15:24
  So I thought, well, that theory's out the window, but.
• 15:27
  Anyhow, so about halfway to. Santa Fe, I tell my dad, pull
• 15:32
  over, I want to make a phone call and that's when I called
• 15:36
  Coach Wilson, he said. Yeah, I've got a scholarship
• 15:39
  tonight, so I came to bear it just, it just hit me, but that's
• 15:43
  where I needed to be and. 'Cause I spent four years as an
• 15:48
  undergrad and I spent 56 years as a coach here, so.
• 15:51
  I had 60 years of my life. I met my wife there and she
• 15:57
  became a a professor and neither one of us were business majors
• 16:01
  and we we graduated by getting. Back to the original story now,
• 16:05
  if this is getting boring, no. No, this is amazing.
• 16:09
  The only question I do have, though, because I know your
• 16:11
  character. Did you call the LSU coach and
• 16:14
  let him know? Yes, I did.
• 16:15
  Yeah, he had to be devastated. Understood to well I understand
• 16:19
  you being bad this and whatever and it was a quick deal and and
• 16:23
  so I he he said you know I came on too awful strong after you
• 16:26
  ran that time. I said, well, I appreciated it,
• 16:29
  but I want to bring something up because.
• 16:34
  I think it's ironic my dad as I meet his Baptist minister, he
• 16:40
  graduated from a little place called Crossett Arkansas, and
• 16:44
  which was a owned by lumber company International Paper
• 16:50
  Company. The whole town you hear, hear
• 16:53
  about the company town. Well, that was a company town.
• 16:56
  Every building, that town was made out of wood.
• 17:00
  It was all painted Gray called Crossett Gray, with a huge paper
• 17:05
  bill there and everything. And there was one store and it
• 17:09
  had everything in it. The high school was was framed
• 17:13
  high school. Beautiful, had a swimming pool.
• 17:15
  Nowhere else in Arkansas, though it was one of the smallest
• 17:17
  schools, had a swimming pool. They had money.
• 17:20
  But anyhow, Dad graduated, he played basketball, played
• 17:23
  football, and he graduated #1 in his class.
• 17:27
  So they offered him out of high school, a job with International
• 17:31
  Paper Company. But he had to go to Saint Louis,
• 17:35
  to Business School and and take some courses that they needed
• 17:39
  to. To help him, yes.
• 17:42
  But to back up just a hair, that winner his senior year project
• 17:48
  made to the state tournament and basketball the smallest school
• 17:51
  in Arkansas playing Pine Bluff. Which was one of the largest.
• 17:54
  Well, anyhow, a guy ran under and broke his arm, so it knocked
• 17:59
  him out of the game. He was called a shooting guard,
• 18:03
  so his arm is held. Now he's on the train going to
• 18:05
  Saint Louis, but in the meanwhile he had been going to
• 18:09
  to church with my my mom, who was Baptist.
• 18:14
  And he was Presbyterian, so he had to go to the Baptist Church
• 18:17
  and he had been feeling the call to go into the ministry.
• 18:20
  You hear about that, people getting the call and he was
• 18:24
  fighting it and was turning it down.
• 18:26
  It's kind of like me turning down, coaching going.
• 18:28
  Business. He was turning it down to go
• 18:30
  into business. Well, anyhow, his arm is well,
• 18:33
  he's on the train of Saint Louis, It derails and he breaks
• 18:37
  his arm again. But.
• 18:39
  He came back home and said, I'm not going to fight it anymore.
• 18:43
  I'm going to Washington and I'm going to be a preacher.
• 18:44
  I was. About to say That's God telling
• 18:46
  you, That's right. I'll break it twice if I have
• 18:49
  to. So I'm setting up my my part of
• 18:51
  this. So I go to work for Stanley Oil
• 18:54
  Company out of West, TX. Got a great job right out of
• 18:58
  right out of college. My wife got a job there also and
• 19:02
  doing well, but you had to put in six months learning
• 19:07
  everything about the oil business.
• 19:08
  So you would spend a while in the warehouse, you put part time
• 19:12
  in the office, you would go out into the field, you'd be a
• 19:15
  roused about a rough neck. Everything you had in the oil
• 19:19
  business, you're going to learn, you're going to be part of the
• 19:21
  boys. Well, one particular day I was,
• 19:24
  I assigned to go up on top of a pumping unit that was a tall
• 19:27
  one, I mean really huge. And I'm up there and installing
• 19:31
  a, what they call the horse's head on the end of the pumping
• 19:35
  arm of the top. And I'll cut to the chase.
• 19:38
  A guy? A drunk guy below in a truck
• 19:42
  supposed to swing this. Thing up and may catch it, Hook
• 19:45
  it on the end. He missed.
• 19:46
  He clipped some cables and it flipped me up in the.
• 19:50
  Air. And I landed and tore up my
• 19:54
  right arm, dislocated it. Lucky it didn't kill me because
• 19:58
  I landed right between two big wooden braces that they had
• 20:04
  below. But anyhow, so my arms in the
• 20:07
  cast and I'm still working, whatever.
• 20:09
  And in the meanwhile I tell my wife, I said, you know, I think
• 20:15
  I like the coach. She said, what do you think of
• 20:17
  it? And I said, well, you know, I
• 20:20
  hurt this arm. It's given me.
• 20:22
  Some time to to think about things.
• 20:25
  But I've been going over to the high school after work and I've
• 20:28
  been helping the football coach over there with the kids and on
• 20:32
  the track team. And that guy's name is Truman
• 20:35
  Nix. And I said, I really.
• 20:37
  Enjoy doing it and I think if I can.
• 20:39
  Find a a job. I think that that's what I'm
• 20:43
  going to try to do. And so I put out some feelers.
• 20:46
  I had a a brother-in-law that was Superintendent of schools
• 20:49
  down in the Houston area. And he had said, well, I can get
• 20:52
  you into a junior high, but you got to work towards getting a
• 20:56
  teacher certificate and all that.
• 20:58
  And I said, well, I'll do that. Well, in a meanwhile, I get a
• 21:02
  call from my dad and he said, well, listen, the track job in
• 21:08
  Little Rock Central High School is open.
• 21:11
  The coach just left to be the head track coach at the
• 21:13
  University of Charleston and I said Dad.
• 21:17
  You don't understand. I don't have any experience.
• 21:20
  I don't have a teacher certificate, I don't have a
• 21:22
  teaching subject, so there's no way on this world I could get.
• 21:28
  The job at Little Rock Central, that's the top job in the state
• 21:31
  of Arkansas and one of them in the South.
• 21:33
  And he said, well, if you could get an interview, would you come
• 21:38
  interview? And I said, yeah, that's a
• 21:40
  that's that's a waste of time. I said that's 800 miles from
• 21:43
  where where I am right now. He said, Well, I got you an
• 21:48
  interview. And I said, you're kidding me.
• 21:50
  He said no. And this was like a Wednesday.
• 21:52
  He said it's for Saturday morning at 9:00 in Little Rock.
• 21:59
  And I said, Dad, I get off work at 5:00.
• 22:03
  If I drive all the way through Maxine and I, we can get to
• 22:07
  Little Rock nonstop probably by 8:00.
• 22:10
  And that's what I did. We get old car and we drive.
• 22:14
  Maxine and I, we get a little walking time for me to pull over
• 22:17
  to a service station and. And change shirts and shave and
• 22:21
  and look halfway presentable. And I go in and meet Doctor
• 22:26
  Virgil Blossom. Now that guy turned out to be
• 22:28
  alleged he ended up being Superintendent.
• 22:31
  Well, of course that that was 1957.
• 22:34
  My first year was at Little Rock Central and that was from the
• 22:36
  Little Rock 9 and Integration. And all of that.
• 22:40
  So I got broke in real, real good.
• 22:44
  But anyhow, my my interview. With Doctor Blossom.
• 22:47
  You know, I leveled with him. I said.
• 22:48
  Doctor Ross, I appreciate you. You interviewing me.
• 22:51
  I have on track all my life. I think I could coach it.
• 22:54
  I think I know know what it's. About and I'll learn.
• 22:57
  I will learn all the other events I thought.
• 22:59
  I know about spreading and that, but I think I can do it.
• 23:03
  And he said, well, we've got an extension centre here, the
• 23:06
  Little Rock. Gilbert Arsen has an extension,
• 23:09
  so you can take some courses out there and work towards getting
• 23:12
  that teacher certificate. I'll let you go ahead and do
• 23:15
  practice teaching this summer. We'll get that out of the way.
• 23:18
  I mean, he's going to let me do that.
• 23:19
  And that's supposed to be the last thing you do after we'll
• 23:23
  get the practice and then I'll give you a temporary teacher
• 23:26
  certificate. That'll be good until you can
• 23:29
  get your all your hours in and then take some hours towards
• 23:33
  you. Whatever you want to teach,
• 23:35
  you'll be track coach and also you have to be the athletic
• 23:39
  trainer. Well, now I got to really fight
• 23:42
  this. I said athletic trainer.
• 23:44
  He said, yeah. Well, I spent some time in the
• 23:47
  training room. I knew basically how to take
• 23:50
  vehicles and I knew other stuff and I knew they and I said just
• 23:54
  told myself I can learn that I got all summer to get me some
• 23:57
  medical books. So anyhow, before I know it, he
• 24:00
  just picks up the phone and calls the principal at Central
• 24:03
  High, Jess Matthews, says Jess, it's no use going through Harry
• 24:08
  Potter. That I've had.
• 24:09
  I've just hired your track coach and said I'm going to.
• 24:12
  He and his wife are going to come by there in about an hour.
• 24:15
  And you can show them around. So that's how I got my job at
• 24:19
  Little Rock Central High and. And you're dead tired at this
• 24:21
  time by the way you you've driven all night.
• 24:24
  I've driven all listen. And and that's not the only
• 24:28
  story about almost 4:00 in the morning, 33 or 4:00, we were we
• 24:35
  weren't even Texacana yet. And my wife said, you know, I
• 24:40
  don't think our lights are on. I said they got to be on whether
• 24:45
  it was a full moon. I mean, the moon was almost
• 24:47
  touching the ground. And I said, you know, you may be
• 24:50
  right. I don't know how long the lights
• 24:51
  have been out. We've driven, there's no
• 24:53
  Interstate. We've driven those country
• 24:55
  roads. I stopped the car.
• 24:58
  Sure enough, we had no lights. And it's still 2:00 or 3:00 in
• 25:02
  the morning. And I said, Oh my gosh, now
• 25:04
  we're, we're not going to make it for the interview.
• 25:07
  And I look up and there's a farmhouse up up a hill with a
• 25:10
  porch light on. I said, man, I go knock on that
• 25:13
  guy's door 2 in the morning. He's a lot of shooting, but I
• 25:17
  had no choice and I did. And this guy comes to the door
• 25:20
  and he's got his overalls on and and he's not mad.
• 25:23
  He understands. And he said, well, I'll tell you
• 25:25
  what I'll do. He said.
• 25:27
  I own a Texaco station about 8 miles up the highway, and I'll
• 25:31
  meet you up there and we'll see what's the matter with that car.
• 25:35
  And I said, can you do it at 2:00?
• 25:36
  O'clock in the morning and he said sure, so we do that, we go
• 25:40
  up there. And he raises the hood and he,
• 25:42
  he says you're in love. It's your fan belt.
• 25:45
  No, it's your generator belt on your generator and it's not
• 25:49
  producing the power. And he said, I think I got one.
• 25:53
  He goes in and he finds the right size, which is a miracle,
• 25:56
  puts it on and then the guy won't charge me.
• 26:00
  I mean that was. I mean I said your kid said no,
• 26:04
  you you young couple need to go get that job.
• 26:07
  So we make it and. Got the job and stayed there six
• 26:12
  years and survived that first year with the with the
• 26:16
  one-on-one airborne in there and the next year we were closed the
• 26:19
  whole year. Never had one day of school
• 26:22
  though. We played a full football
• 26:24
  schedule of 12 games without a day of school.
• 26:27
  So the coaches were there and we went from 110 football players
• 26:31
  to 27 on Thanksgiving Day and that's only because they they
• 26:35
  had credits to graduate or they were taking correspondence
• 26:38
  courses. So I learned a lot.
• 26:40
  We were dressing kids out in football.
• 26:42
  That would have been our managers and our student
• 26:45
  trainers that maybe had played in junior high.
• 26:47
  Now they're going to play on Friday night in the biggest
• 26:50
  division in Arkansas and. And you know what is the biggest
• 26:55
  lesson? I probably learned in coaching.
• 26:57
  That you don't always have to depend on the number ones or
• 27:00
  twos or two. There's other kids that have
• 27:02
  been paid as not being able to participate and they maybe
• 27:06
  haven't been given the. Opportunity, but we ended up.
• 27:10
  Tying the team that won the state championship after losing.
• 27:13
  Three to four games in a row by a huge score, we finally got
• 27:17
  those final 27 kids. To understand what we're doing
• 27:21
  and we tied. I think it was Pine Bluff for
• 27:25
  the state. You know, they won the state,
• 27:27
  but we did time. But anyhow, that was a good
• 27:30
  experience. And then a year after, students
• 27:33
  opened up like nothing ever happened and went on and.
• 27:37
  I was able to win the state championship every year up there
• 27:40
  and even after the year we were closed, all my kids left and
• 27:44
  went, went all over everywhere. Some of them came back, some
• 27:47
  didn't. And we were not favored at all
• 27:50
  to win state that year, but we were able to find kids and and
• 27:55
  get them out and train them and we won the state that year.
• 27:59
  So that's that's basically how I got into coaching.
• 28:03
  And then coach Patterson. Who had been my coach at Baylor
• 28:08
  now backing up. Like I said, I never had a coach
• 28:11
  in high school track get to Baylor.
• 28:14
  Coach Wilson, the guy that I'd met track coach.
• 28:17
  He was also a defensive backfield coach on the football
• 28:21
  team and had been an all American.
• 28:23
  One of the greatest guys I've ever known.
• 28:25
  But he was a shot putter job in Thor and he would come over and
• 28:30
  he was a sad job coaching track Here again, I found no one that
• 28:33
  really. Knows other than what maybe
• 28:36
  they've read or hoped to know for three years I didn't really
• 28:42
  improve that much. And then my senior year, Greater
• 28:45
  finally made a commitment to hire a full time track coach and
• 28:48
  they hired Jack Patterson, who had been at the University of
• 28:51
  Houston and developed a tremendous record there as
• 28:55
  developing particularly relay teams and sprinters.
• 28:58
  He had been a great hurdler at Rice and missed making the
• 29:02
  Olympics. Because of the war.
• 29:04
  Well, he shows up my senior year and that just.
• 29:07
  Everything changed we we went from the bottom of the league
• 29:11
  and track and field with 13 kids is all we had on the track team
• 29:14
  player and he got us to finish second at the conference meet
• 29:20
  and we equaled the world record in the formal one relay and we
• 29:24
  won the Triple Crown in a formal 2 relay and I ran a nine 300 win
• 29:31
  aided. Which was the all time best in
• 29:34
  the state of Arkansas and is the Baylor School record in the 100
• 29:38
  yards. But so that probably was in the
• 29:43
  back of my mind, I I. When I was in West TX I had that
• 29:48
  broken arm. Time to think and saw how I
• 29:50
  enjoyed coaching. I remember how Coach Patterson,
• 29:54
  that one guy took a bunch of guys that have been, also runs
• 29:58
  and made us into really good track people.
• 30:00
  But if one person can do that, that's worth doing.
• 30:03
  And I said I I I don't want to sit around 8 hours a day
• 30:07
  shuffling papers. If I can go out and and and do
• 30:11
  something that's going to be lasting, that's what I.
• 30:14
  Want I want a job that I feel like that I've made a difference
• 30:18
  and I think that's what I have and I'm most proud about.
• 30:21
  So that's how I got into coaching on my my broken arm,
• 30:27
  the inspiration of Coach Patterson.
• 30:29
  I just and then getting the break at Little Rock Central.
• 30:31
  I was very lucky. I I really.
• 30:34
  I never applied for a job. I didn't apply for one at Little
• 30:37
  Rock. I was asked to get interviewed
• 30:38
  and I never applied for the one at Baylor when Coach Patterson
• 30:42
  was very. Successful at Baylor.
• 30:44
  Got the offer to go to the University of Texas with
• 30:47
  unleaded money and scholarships. He jumped at the chance.
• 30:51
  I don't blame him, but. John Bridges, who was the
• 30:54
  athletic director of football coach at Whaler, called me and
• 30:59
  told me Coach Pat was leaving and he wanted to interview me up
• 31:03
  at the track championships in Federal.
• 31:06
  They were having a conference meet at University of Arkansas
• 31:10
  and I met him up there along with my wife and he offered me
• 31:13
  the job and I was maybe 50-6 years after that.
• 31:19
  Coach, that's amazing because you know, as you were telling
• 31:21
  the story, which was phenomenal by the way, did you ever go back
• 31:24
  to the guy who answered the door at 2:00 and.
• 31:28
  No, and I wished I could find it.
• 31:29
  Yeah, right. Well, that, you know, we lived
• 31:32
  in a day and I always tell people, everybody thinks they
• 31:35
  lived in the best of times. You know the 50s and the 60s,
• 31:39
  it's 40s that that they were good people.
• 31:42
  That that guy, he didn't hesitate.
• 31:44
  He recognized that. That I probably didn't have the
• 31:47
  money to spare. I I don't know how much a fan
• 31:50
  bail it probably did. It may have been a used one all
• 31:52
  I know but for him to get up never complain.
• 31:56
  No old pick up down there and he took care of us and we we didn't
• 31:59
  lose 30 minutes and if we lost much more we'd have been in
• 32:03
  trouble. You.
• 32:04
  Know we're we're on episode 250 something.
• 32:07
  So 200 and plus coaches. And everybody's origin story and
• 32:11
  how they got into coaching is so unique.
• 32:13
  As you were telling your story, you know, there was no central
• 32:17
  figure of like, oh man, you know, coach so and so really
• 32:20
  believed in me. Your coach changed my life.
• 32:21
  And then coach Patterson arrives because I was waiting.
• 32:24
  I was like, there's got to be someone that, you know, showed
• 32:28
  you that coach track can be not just running fast.
• 32:31
  It can be transformational with with teams and for people's
• 32:34
  lives. So I was waiting for the Coach
• 32:37
  Patterson punchline there and I was so happy to hear.
• 32:39
  What he did that last year for Baylor with the team, I mean,
• 32:43
  that's quite an amazing turn around.
• 32:45
  Yes, well, he he made a difference, there was no doubt
• 32:48
  about it. Do you think his difference was?
• 32:52
  What? What, What percentage of that
• 32:54
  difference do you attribute to the training principle of I
• 32:57
  actually had a coach, you know, sprinters and hurdlers and such,
• 33:01
  versus the way he coached as. I'm not sure how to put this his
• 33:07
  belief in you. You know that that's beyond X's
• 33:09
  and O's. How much was X's and O's and how
• 33:11
  much was organization and belief in the in the team and the kids?
• 33:15
  Well, I think Coach Patterson, the difference was I'm sure he
• 33:20
  he was more knowledgeable in the coaching area.
• 33:24
  He had more experience than Coach Wilson, but the biggest
• 33:26
  thing is. We felt like we finally had
• 33:28
  somebody that cared about us and that.
• 33:34
  His his interest was solely the track team and I think that
• 33:38
  that's that that's the main thing that that that we were.
• 33:41
  But he was just a real gentleman and we had caught of course
• 33:45
  coming here with a reputation from the University of Houston
• 33:49
  which we knew that that that they had been great.
• 33:52
  So we felt like it, man. He's going to make us do it.
• 33:56
  And he did. So you get to Baylor and now you
• 34:01
  spend 56 years at Baylor, right 56?
• 34:05
  Yes. That alone is phenomenal.
• 34:08
  I I remember a few years ago, a few of us and some coaches were
• 34:12
  sitting around talking about coaches who had been at their
• 34:14
  program for a length of time. You know, people like Curtis Fry
• 34:18
  came up, you came up mouse. Now you know the the longevity
• 34:23
  he's had at Florida. But we got to about 10 and we're
• 34:26
  out of ideas because, you know, there's not so many.
• 34:29
  Coaches that have been there for five going on 6 decades take us
• 34:34
  through kind of give us the 30,000 foot level over those 56
• 34:37
  years. We know some of the history,
• 34:39
  right? We know the Michael Johnson's,
• 34:40
  Jeremy Warner's and things like that.
• 34:42
  But where was Baylor when you got there and how did you
• 34:46
  transform it to what we know as Baylor 400 meter U?
• 34:51
  Yeah, well, track and field has evolved so differently when I
• 34:55
  when I came to bear. Coach Patterson had elevated the
• 34:59
  track pool. I came into a a good track pool.
• 35:04
  They had won conference championships and track and
• 35:07
  field. But the University of Texas
• 35:09
  obviously was down and that's the reason they stole coach
• 35:12
  Patterson from Baylor, because he was successful at Baylor.
• 35:15
  And they figured when we get him with our resources and source,
• 35:19
  that became my biggest opponent was my former coach, because not
• 35:23
  only was he's a great coach, but now he's got the state
• 35:26
  championship. All held on his track and he's
• 35:29
  got the big stadium, he got the money and did a great job.
• 35:32
  But the the the thing that changed is scholarships when I
• 35:38
  came to. Baylor.
• 35:41
  I had 20 scholarships, only had the men's phone.
• 35:44
  The other schools in the conference pretty much were the
• 35:47
  same, except for Texas. Texas A&M and Rice.
• 35:52
  They had unlimited Texas, and I asked how many scholarships they
• 35:57
  have. Whatever they want, I think A&M
• 36:00
  had. Around 30, Rice had a foundation
• 36:03
  with a bunch of money and they were doing some outside.
• 36:05
  Scholarships. So those three teams were the
• 36:08
  ones I had to beat each year because my scholarship just, you
• 36:13
  know, you know, 20 events to put out on the track.
• 36:16
  It's very difficult now. Over the years, those
• 36:20
  scholarships with the NCA cut back.
• 36:23
  The adding women into track and field.
• 36:27
  Right now, you know men have little over 12 scholarships and
• 36:32
  at a private school where you know it's costing 60,000 plus to
• 36:36
  go to Baylor and it's costing less than 30.
• 36:39
  Thousand goes to the state schools.
• 36:41
  It's it's very. Difficult to compete in
• 36:44
  Melbourne, so I had to decide somewhere along the way.
• 36:48
  So we we were very competitive. I got for championships, I
• 36:53
  wanted to conference championships team wise, but I
• 36:56
  could say early that I was going to have to aim more for the
• 37:00
  national because you don't have to have the numbers to be more
• 37:03
  competitive nationally. So many years, in fact a lot of
• 37:07
  years. We didn't win the conference,
• 37:09
  but we would go to the national meet and we would finish as.
• 37:12
  A top team from our conference that happened firstly every year
• 37:16
  for a long time we finished in the top 4.
• 37:20
  With the NCA team Wise seven times and three of those were as
• 37:25
  high as third place. One of them really should have
• 37:29
  been national runner up team Wise because TCU was
• 37:33
  disqualified because of, well, some things they did wrong and
• 37:39
  they they lost all all the two of their points.
• 37:42
  Which point Wise moved us up in second place?
• 37:45
  But the NCA never ever elevates, which means you're punishing 2
• 37:50
  teams instead of 1, which makes no no sense.
• 37:54
  So we we had second high score that year of 2001 I believe we
• 38:00
  still got the 3rd place trophy. So we were doing well team wise
• 38:04
  because I was concentrating where I could get the points and
• 38:08
  that's why you know if the NCAA would do.
• 38:14
  What most high schools do? We double the relay points.
• 38:18
  We probably would have won, I don't know how many team
• 38:22
  national championships because we won, oh, I think 23 national
• 38:26
  championships in the formal 4 relay and got the same number of
• 38:29
  points as the shot putter got. Our team had two shot putters.
• 38:34
  They had scored our 4/4 relay and there was years that we
• 38:38
  scored well, I remember. One year and we finished third
• 38:41
  at at. Duke When Michael Johnson was a
• 38:48
  senior, we won the formal 4 relay and we were third in the
• 38:51
  formal one relay. Barely missed winning it.
• 38:54
  It was tight and yet you know we got a team over here with three
• 38:59
  pro vaulters or three state they outscore.
• 39:02
  All of what we did. So I tell you a funny story.
• 39:08
  I do have a book that one of these days I think is going.
• 39:10
  To get out, it's it's all written.
• 39:13
  It just needs to be proved, and the guy helping me with it is
• 39:17
  writing it. He's a sports writer here in
• 39:19
  Waco, the best in the state of Texas.
• 39:21
  Rice, Cherry. So we got the rough draft that
• 39:24
  he's just hard to to get free time to finish it up.
• 39:27
  But one of the things I mentioned in that when in the
• 39:30
  Southwest Conference we always scored.
• 39:34
  The relays exactly the way that we scored the like the NCAA same
• 39:39
  same points. We won the four before relay
• 39:42
  with four people. We got the same as the guy
• 39:44
  winning shop or the disk as whatever.
• 39:46
  Well, and so there were years we were winning both of them, but
• 39:50
  we were not gaining that work. So one year they decided they're
• 39:54
  going to double the relays, the points we're lo and behold, we
• 39:59
  go up to the meet in the SMU. They don't have a 7 lanes on
• 40:03
  their track. In order to get 8 lanes because
• 40:06
  there's 8 screws. Running where they want to run
• 40:08
  prelims and the relays, they shorten up their lanes from 42
• 40:13
  inch lanes to 36 inch lanes. Well, a guy from I think it was
• 40:19
  maybe even SMU in the lane outside our second runner, his
• 40:24
  rear end was all the way over into our lane when our guy took
• 40:27
  the turn and turned around. They collided and we failed and
• 40:31
  got zero points. Now they're doubling them.
• 40:34
  That's going to be 20 points. We lose it.
• 40:37
  We lose a meet by I think, two or three points.
• 40:42
  We win the four by one relay now.
• 40:45
  I mean, we lost the four by one relay to 0 points and a four by
• 40:49
  4. Rice has got the top by 4 by 4
• 40:52
  relay team in the nation that year.
• 40:53
  We finished second to them and Rice wins the conquer
• 40:56
  championship next year. Guess what?
• 40:59
  They decided to go. Back to scoring it the same way
• 41:02
  we win both free legs and lose again about six points.
• 41:06
  So if you flop the years around, we win 2.4 championships, so
• 41:10
  that that just tells you fate. Makes a big difference in what
• 41:14
  you're doing. Timing is is important in in
• 41:16
  most everything you do. How did you become, how did you
• 41:22
  transform Baylor into 400 meter U give give us a history lesson.
• 41:26
  I did it start did it for a guy like me.
• 41:28
  I think of Michael Johnson as the guy that starts it and
• 41:30
  there's many many history of Dion Minor, Mike Ford so many
• 41:33
  now at this point. How did it actually start going
• 41:36
  into that direction? Well, I always felt even country
• 41:42
  high school, that 400 meters, it was kind of like your
• 41:49
  quarterback in football. He needed 400 runners because
• 41:54
  most people can move up and down most 400.
• 41:57
  If you've got a kid who's just strictly can only run the 400,
• 42:01
  he's not going to be a very good 400.
• 42:03
  Runner, He's got to have the ability to drop down and run the
• 42:06
  200 or move up and run the 800. He's either got he's got to have
• 42:10
  strengths in one of the area, speed or endurance.
• 42:13
  If he just got a little bit of both, he's he's not going to be
• 42:17
  there. So I've always felt like if you
• 42:19
  could love 1/4 mileage, then you got some depth on your team.
• 42:23
  And the majority of my relay teams that won national
• 42:27
  championships maybe only had one quarter mile, two at the most.
• 42:32
  Now there was some love for years that I may have more than
• 42:35
  that, but but early on, I would have 1/2 mile, I would have a
• 42:39
  quarter mile, I'd have an intermediate hurdler, maybe
• 42:42
  another half mile or 200 mile on there.
• 42:45
  So they're all were developed is quarter mileage basic in their
• 42:49
  training, but by tweaking a couple days a week and let them
• 42:53
  go to the area, especially if you're a 200 runner, they would
• 42:57
  spend some that time doing more speed work.
• 43:00
  If you're a half mile, they must get up and run some things with
• 43:03
  the half mileage. But they were basically had the
• 43:06
  ability. To swing up and down and that's
• 43:09
  why I can pull them and put them on my relay and we never lost a
• 43:12
  beat if we usually put a half Miller or 200 Miller because
• 43:15
  they they were strong and they can.
• 43:17
  They can do it. The half Miller had the speed
• 43:19
  so. I'm going to ask you a question
• 43:23
  that might, at face value if you're just hearing the
• 43:27
  question, might seem disrespectful, but there there's
• 43:30
  an end to the means here. Coach.
• 43:33
  You coach for a long time and have had unparalleled success.
• 43:38
  Today in we're in the year of 2024 there's there's more than
• 43:42
  one way to skin a cat right. And so there's all these
• 43:44
  different ways of coaching a sprinter and I don't necessarily
• 43:48
  disagree that there is maybe more than one way.
• 43:50
  What I don't like necessarily is when coaches attack another
• 43:53
  person's style the way they do, it does your I'm going to call
• 43:59
  it a philosophy the way you coached.
• 44:01
  Quarter milers, when you're talking about the drop down to
• 44:03
  the two and the pickups to the 8 hundreds that that whole group.
• 44:06
  So it really was 100 through maybe even mile in this, in this
• 44:10
  respect, does what you did back then, does it still work?
• 44:14
  Would it still work today? Well, absolutely.
• 44:19
  There's no doubt. In fact, if I ought to work
• 44:22
  better today, then, you know, if you go back all the way to get
• 44:31
  the year right, it was the Montreal Olympics.
• 44:36
  I guess that would have been 72 or 76.
• 44:39
  Yeah, I was thinking 76 in my head.
• 44:41
  Yeah, there was a guy named one. Torino won the 800, came back
• 44:49
  and won the 400. Well, everybody said what a
• 44:54
  freaky steal. How, how could he do that?
• 44:57
  He, he he doubled up and he was able to win the 800 and win the
• 45:01
  402 and they just thought, well, that's that's just a freaky
• 45:05
  stain. Well, that should have been a
• 45:06
  tip off right there to tell us, hey, maybe we're not doing some
• 45:11
  things now here's the key forever.
• 45:14
  All those books I was reading in the library at Hot Springs.
• 45:17
  And books. I was reading it.
• 45:18
  Roblox Central Old trainings and I I I read, I read everything
• 45:23
  out there. I looked at all the distance
• 45:26
  coaches. I knew what they did and I knew
• 45:29
  what Charuj I knew all the great people, how they trained and and
• 45:35
  all of them had different theories and all of them had
• 45:38
  success to their degree. But you go over to the 400 and
• 45:42
  it just seemed like it was all the same.
• 45:44
  Thing and that if you have better people you're probably
• 45:48
  going to win because we're doing the same thing as those people,
• 45:51
  but we're lesser people. I mean you know it only figures
• 45:54
  if you got better than I got and we're doing the same thing
• 45:57
  you're probably going to beat me.
• 45:58
  That's why why the West Bone was put in in football and the
• 46:02
  single wing got by the wing side.
• 46:04
  People figure out, hey I got to do something different.
• 46:06
  Well we had a chart in error coaching book and even to today
• 46:13
  you can find it and in that chart.
• 46:16
  In fact, my training program, we used to call it percentage
• 46:18
  training because I knew that that science is where coaches do
• 46:23
  not pay enough attention. Science and the laws of physics
• 46:27
  are so important in coaching that it's astounding that how
• 46:31
  they're ignored. But one of the scientific things
• 46:34
  is how is the energy supplied for different events?
• 46:39
  Well. They had created this chart and
• 46:42
  had the 102 hundred for every event was listed running events
• 46:46
  and it's put the percentage that was going to be required by the
• 46:51
  energy resources. You have two two major things.
• 46:54
  You have an aerobic, you have anaerobic.
• 46:58
  Aerobic is where there's available oxygen there for you
• 47:02
  to breathe in. You can breathe it and it's
• 47:03
  there. Anaerobic is where you run out
• 47:06
  of oxygen. You've run too fast, you can't
• 47:08
  take enough in. So you got to rely on the sugars
• 47:11
  and the glucose and the body. Well, on the 400, every books
• 47:16
  had it the same percent. 90% was going to be anaerobic and only
• 47:22
  10% was going to be aerobic. So that gave the impression
• 47:25
  that, you know, doing some volume work, doing some slower,
• 47:31
  running, building up your oxygen uptake was not important.
• 47:35
  There's only 10% of the waste requires that.
• 47:37
  That just do speed. Work because 90% of it requires
• 47:41
  that. And that's what people did.
• 47:43
  I did and and the 800 told you it was 6633% and the vile was
• 47:49
  5050. So you you if you are smart, you
• 47:52
  adjusted your training program to suit that.
• 47:56
  Well, I did that forever. So the the distances that we run
• 48:01
  today never changed. It's just how we want them
• 48:04
  changed because. Surely by accident, and probably
• 48:08
  some of the greatest inventions in history came about by
• 48:11
  accident. Some of the some of the products
• 48:13
  we have was a byproduct or something created for this.
• 48:16
  But turns out that the byproduct turned out to be better. 1990 I
• 48:22
  met with Michael Johnson. Michael Johnson was the biggest
• 48:27
  kept secret in America. He could run 19 seconds in the
• 48:31
  200. He was running 43 seconds in the
• 48:34
  400. But by the end of the year,
• 48:37
  invariably, he got hurt. He got hurt at the conference
• 48:41
  meet or he got hurt at the NCA meet.
• 48:43
  Never could make it to the national level to get the
• 48:47
  recognition he deserved. So we we had a meeting.
• 48:50
  And I said, Mike, we got we got to do something because I want
• 48:54
  you to get to the to the NCAS and win that and go on and and
• 49:00
  get a career out of this site. I said you're you're the best
• 49:04
  204 hundred women ever lived, and yet we can't get it out on
• 49:08
  the track. And he agreed, and it was not
• 49:11
  always the same thing. One was a broken bone, one was a
• 49:14
  quad, one was a hamstring well. I said no, let's try something.
• 49:19
  Our fall training, we emphasize running slower, building up our
• 49:26
  our our strength endurance. So we're out of the grass and
• 49:29
  we're just doing some things slower that we're not doing
• 49:32
  anything that's probably going to get you hurt.
• 49:35
  We don't. Run that fast.
• 49:36
  And we're taking it easier to reduce.
• 49:38
  It's conditioning. It's what we call basic
• 49:40
  training, he said. Yes, Sir.
• 49:42
  I said what we're going to do when the other kids go into the
• 49:46
  second phase, which is going faster, running, you know,
• 49:51
  running fast, one 50s, fast two hundreds, we're not going to do
• 49:54
  that. We're going to stay in a slower
• 49:56
  mode. You're going to get, you're
• 49:58
  going to get more volume work, you're going to take shorter
• 50:01
  rest. I'm going to just keep you
• 50:03
  healthy and you may have to sacrifice some early meets, but
• 50:06
  by April when the weather's better and it's closer.
• 50:09
  To the deal. We will start getting you ready
• 50:12
  and maybe this slower approach will will help.
• 50:16
  Well man, he got into such great shape it's unbelievable.
• 50:19
  He he ran the fastest 400 in history that year.
• 50:24
  He ran 43 seconds. In a medium Waco in in March, if
• 50:28
  I'm not mistaken. I know it was the fastest one
• 50:30
  that early in the year and he ran a fast 200 well when April
• 50:36
  came. Around.
• 50:36
  I said, Mike, let's have a meeting and I said, you know we
• 50:39
  were going to switch over and you're going to start doing a
• 50:42
  little faster stuff. You're going to take, you know,
• 50:45
  some, some. We're just going to cut down the
• 50:47
  amount of distance you're running and we're going to not
• 50:50
  do as much and take longer rest. I said, I don't know if we need
• 50:54
  to do that. I said you're PRPR and doing
• 50:57
  what we're doing. He said yes or you're right.
• 50:59
  He said let's stay with us for a while.
• 51:01
  Well, make a Long story short, changed our training pool so.
• 51:06
  About that time, what's ironic, there was a research that came
• 51:12
  out of Australia and they had finally, as smart as our
• 51:16
  scientists are, we could always put a kid on treadmill and
• 51:20
  figure out how his oxygen uptake, how how he could, how
• 51:26
  much aerobic capacity that he had developed.
• 51:31
  You can test that, put a mask on and do all these things, but
• 51:35
  it's very difficult to do an aerobic because you got to catch
• 51:38
  a kid out in. Action, you got to draw blood.
• 51:42
  You got to test. It for their people, either
• 51:45
  cause of experience. I don't want to take the time to
• 51:47
  do that. Just never.
• 51:49
  Never did it. Well, the Australians did it.
• 51:51
  They put test groups out. They went through all this and
• 51:54
  lo and behold, that chart was changed.
• 51:59
  And they published it and I looked at it and I said, Oh my
• 52:01
  gosh, look down at the 400. Instead of being 90 aerobic, 10%
• 52:07
  I mean 90 anaerobic and 10% aerobic, it was 6040.
• 52:12
  Well, that's a big difference. It was 60 anaerobic, but it's
• 52:16
  gone up to 40% aerobic capacity, which meant you had to build up
• 52:21
  the the you only can do that but take it either long runs, which
• 52:26
  I didn't want to do that often, or you just do repetition more
• 52:29
  for sure. The rest and I looked at
• 52:31
  Michael's training and the best I could figure he was right.
• 52:34
  Almost 6040 is what he was training on, so we were already
• 52:38
  doing what the research. Proved was correct.
• 52:43
  Well, I tell somebody, I said, and that was obvious.
• 52:46
  So he's the guy that set the world record.
• 52:47
  Why wouldn't it be be correct? But lo and behold, about, I
• 52:52
  don't know, 6-7 years ago I was in.
• 52:57
  A meeting in Las Vegas with Ralph Mann, who's our bio
• 53:02
  mechanics guy for the US track and field and our our medical
• 53:07
  doctor. I thank the name just and I
• 53:11
  apologize for that always each session.
• 53:15
  It was for sprinters and hermers.
• 53:17
  They were doing a little research project and presented
• 53:19
  as a paper. That particular one, he decided
• 53:22
  he was going to research a 400 energy supply and rolling ball
• 53:27
  on his paper, said 5941. And I I sat back and he said,
• 53:35
  and by the way, Client Hard is the only one doing this training
• 53:39
  and that's what their research has proved exactly.
• 53:41
  What the Australian did was off just by I think one percentage
• 53:44
  point or something. But since then there's been
• 53:47
  several other same things and it's all been within one or two
• 53:50
  points of the 6040 deal. So basically we just hadn't been
• 53:56
  giving our kids 400 runners today are trained more, the ones
• 54:02
  they successful. Now that's not to say there's
• 54:05
  going to be a guy that in a super building will get out and
• 54:08
  run a real fast time, but you won't hear from him again.
• 54:12
  There's a reason for that. He's run.
• 54:14
  He's run out of strength at the end of the year.
• 54:18
  Was an ironic at the last Olympics that we did not place a
• 54:23
  guy in the 400. We had people running 44 seconds
• 54:31
  at the NCA championship and yet he's eliminated out with the 46,
• 54:37
  almost 46 seconds, 45-6 in the first round.
• 54:40
  Well. It's just like the weight room.
• 54:43
  If you lift weights and you get APR and then you get injured and
• 54:47
  you lay off for a month and go back in there, you're not going
• 54:49
  to be able to lift what you can lift because you have lost
• 54:53
  strength. Well, same thing on runners.
• 54:56
  If you build up that strength and you.
• 54:58
  Play off. So some of these guys would go
• 54:59
  out and they get in great shape. Then they start competing and
• 55:02
  they back off to stay fresh. Well, you got to reload.
• 55:06
  If you don't reload, you're going to lose it.
• 55:08
  And we learn that in a hurry. And Michael, we never run more
• 55:13
  than three and four at the match weeks without laying off, coming
• 55:18
  home, training for a week or two and getting.
• 55:21
  Strong and go back and running the mobile.
• 55:23
  So I don't believe in in picking.
• 55:26
  I think you just got to keep reloading.
• 55:30
  Let's move to a different topic here.
• 55:33
  You know, we we talked about you being at Baylor for 50-6 years
• 55:36
  and being highly successful. And I think about two of my
• 55:41
  You've got a lot of great coaches on your staff.
• 55:43
  Two of my more favorite, Danny Brabham and.
• 55:45
  Todd Harbor, I think of loyalty with them as well.
• 55:48
  With with was with you for a long time.
• 55:50
  Todd becomes the head coach after you retired in 56 years.
• 55:55
  What kept you at Baylor? I have to assume you had other
• 55:59
  opportunities, other universities, maybe other
• 56:02
  thoughts of going back to Arkansas.
• 56:04
  I don't know what kept you there for 50-6 years.
• 56:07
  This little, it's a small school in a small town.
• 56:11
  It's beautiful. I've been to Waco.
• 56:13
  But it it's a hard place. You'd mentioned you know, the
• 56:16
  cost of, you know, for recruiting for the school,
• 56:18
  things like that. What kept you there all that
• 56:20
  time? Well, I always, I love Baylor.
• 56:26
  I believe in Baylor's mission as a Christian education
• 56:30
  institution. I I I feel very strongly about
• 56:33
  that and I think that Baylor has his place.
• 56:36
  It's it's developed a lot of young people, not only track
• 56:40
  people, but just young people. It's a good school, good place,
• 56:44
  good place to work. Only one time in my whole 56
• 56:47
  years did I interview for another job.
• 56:50
  I was called by coach Vera Bryant.
• 56:55
  He had decided to upgrade his track program at Alabama, and
• 57:00
  the only reason he had decided to upgrade it was that he had
• 57:04
  lost the best heard of a football player in the state of
• 57:07
  Alabama, the Richmond Flowers. We ended up playing for the
• 57:14
  Cowboys as well as as University of Tennessee.
• 57:18
  But Daddy had been governor of Alabama and this kid signed with
• 57:22
  Tennessee because they had a track for them and were allowed
• 57:25
  to play football as well. And that made Bear Bryant.
• 57:29
  He said I'll never lose another one, so he was going to do
• 57:32
  whatever he's going to do to to not let that happen again.
• 57:35
  So he decided he was going to do all these things to build a
• 57:38
  track program and use stadium to go get a cup.
• 57:42
  Anyhow, I was asked to come to interview and I actually took
• 57:47
  the job and the main reason I did was that we had a terrible.
• 57:52
  Situation at Bayer. We had a football.
• 57:54
  Coach that he and I didn't see eye to eye and I never not got
• 57:59
  along with any football coach. But the reasons I won't get into
• 58:03
  is when working and he wasn't winning any football games and
• 58:07
  it it, it just wasn't a very happy environment.
• 58:11
  And so I told my wife, I'm going to go check this out and I, you
• 58:16
  know, told coach Bryant that I would, I had to still go home
• 58:19
  and talk to my wife, but I felt like that I would be in Alabama
• 58:24
  replied Back home on the plane. I got to thinking, man, I don't
• 58:28
  know Alabama. They'll give me the money to to
• 58:32
  go all over everywhere and recruit and it's going to take
• 58:36
  that to get the talent in there. Won't just find it in Alabama.
• 58:39
  You're going to have to be going all over the nation.
• 58:41
  You're going to have to be going overseas and you're going to be
• 58:44
  getting kids, foreign athletes, Waco.
• 58:48
  I can go within 100 miles and win a national championship and
• 58:51
  literally several, several of my relay teams that won national
• 58:55
  championships. I had kids that were not.
• 58:58
  None of them moved more than 100 miles from Waco and some of them
• 59:01
  might be that far. So I thought about that.
• 59:04
  But the big turning point came home and I told my wife, she
• 59:09
  said, well, I might want to tell you this, your son Scott, when I
• 59:13
  told him that you might be going to be going to Alabama, he
• 59:17
  simply said, well, when he get to come home for Christmas.
• 59:21
  And that kind of shook me up that he he had no idea that I,
• 59:27
  you know, that that I was going to do that.
• 59:30
  And I said, now you tell him I will, I won't miss Christmas, so
• 59:33
  I'm not going to take the job. And I did my call and explained
• 59:37
  that. And my wife and I wished I could
• 59:42
  tell you exactly what she said, because she's a nice.
• 59:44
  Lady, but she said, you'll ask that blank, be blank and play
• 59:48
  your football. And I did.
• 59:50
  He was fired the next year and well, that was the only chance I
• 59:54
  took and never even considered anything else.
• 59:59
  That's a great lesson in priorities.
• 1:00:01
  It might have been more money might have been more prestige.
• 1:00:04
  I don't know. I'm I'm an SEC Homer so and
• 1:00:06
  Alabama was different than that it is now and the SEC is
• 1:00:09
  different as well. But the priority of families and
• 1:00:11
  also you mentioned faith and believing in the Baylor mission
• 1:00:15
  as well. Those priorities were higher
• 1:00:18
  than the bigger paycheck and the more money to go fly around and
• 1:00:20
  recruit everywhere, etcetera, and.
• 1:00:22
  And my wife was a Baylor, a Baylor man, and she'd been a a
• 1:00:27
  Golden Girl Twiler, and she was a professor in the School of
• 1:00:29
  Business. And I just wouldn't.
• 1:00:32
  Like me to pull up and do that and she would have done it and
• 1:00:34
  and and never looked back and she was like that I was leaving.
• 1:00:38
  For the wrong reasons. And I just needed to do more.
• 1:00:44
  Well, Coach, I've got three people that I'd like to get your
• 1:00:47
  opinions on. It's the three people that.
• 1:00:50
  So this whole month here in January, we're doing a Baylor
• 1:00:52
  month. So I've got 3 Baylor alums and
• 1:00:55
  as I mentioned, I'm putting you on the anchor leg here.
• 1:00:57
  So you're you're you're wrapping up our Baylor series, if you
• 1:01:00
  will. And so we've heard from them.
• 1:01:03
  So I'd like to hear your opinions, your thoughts, your
• 1:01:06
  time with them as their coach. So let's start with we, we
• 1:01:09
  kicked it off with our lead leg here, our current head coach at
• 1:01:13
  Baylor University, Mr. Mike Ford.
• 1:01:15
  What do you remember recruiting, coaching and and mentoring Mike
• 1:01:19
  Ford? Well, Mike Ford, we, we.
• 1:01:24
  I used to tell people he was. One of my.
• 1:01:25
  Foreign athletes because he was from from New York but that's
• 1:01:29
  not as far as we were getting kids from and Mike was a good
• 1:01:35
  Sprint hurdler, I mean sprinter quarter mile and really good
• 1:01:39
  long jumper. But I kind of decided that long
• 1:01:43
  jumper is is a vent that you can get lots of injuries and we
• 1:01:46
  didn't have that kind of VIP and I didn't really know how how
• 1:01:51
  much, Michael. To help us in the long jump,
• 1:01:53
  because I had a really good crew of long jumpers, so I determined
• 1:01:57
  Mike would run four to two and Michael Ford was by far the most
• 1:02:03
  consistent lead off runner on a 4 by 4 relays if I'm not
• 1:02:08
  mistaken. I know he was on at least four
• 1:02:11
  or five that won national championships indoors and
• 1:02:14
  outlets. But Michael?
• 1:02:15
  I never had to worry about about getting a good lead off Labour
• 1:02:19
  because he was. He he could run faster on the
• 1:02:21
  relay than he could open for some reason.
• 1:02:24
  I don't know whether there was more relaxing with the guitar
• 1:02:27
  and he was a good open for him, don't get me wrong, but he was
• 1:02:30
  an outstanding lead off run. What?
• 1:02:33
  What does it mean to you? You know, after you retired?
• 1:02:35
  Baylor great Miller, Todd Harbour becomes the head coach
• 1:02:38
  and then once Todd retires, now great quarter Miller, Mike Ford
• 1:02:42
  alumni becomes head coach. What's it mean to you that you
• 1:02:46
  know Todd and now Mike Ford, guys that you worked with and
• 1:02:49
  are, are Bears just like you continue to run the program as
• 1:02:53
  we move into the future? Well, of course Todd was an
• 1:02:58
  outstanding one of the best part one of the guest list conference
• 1:03:02
  of old conference Southwest conference ever had.
• 1:03:06
  He could run. I mean anybody in 800, you can
• 1:03:09
  beat them in the mile and and a lot of people don't realize that
• 1:03:14
  he's still the cold holder of the American record of the NCAA
• 1:03:19
  record. He ran under 4 ministry and 350
• 1:03:22
  point .3. I believe he, he, he and Jim
• 1:03:28
  Ryan had the same identical time.
• 1:03:29
  I didn't know that. For the collegiate where for a
• 1:03:33
  long time. So let's talk about, let's go to
• 1:03:38
  the second leg here and other, you know it's hard to say
• 1:03:40
  another great Baylor 400 meter runner because they're the list
• 1:03:44
  is long here. Someone that that's become a
• 1:03:46
  friend of mine through the end of his professional career and
• 1:03:49
  now into his own coaching career.
• 1:03:51
  Talk to us about Jeremy Warner. Well, Jeremy was probably what
• 1:03:59
  people don't really, well, I'm saying they made, but I'll just
• 1:04:02
  remember Michael Johnson. Was voted the quarter mile of
• 1:04:07
  the decade of the 90s. Jeremy Warner was voted the
• 1:04:11
  quarter mile of the next decade of the 2000.
• 1:04:14
  So for two decades back-to-back when you have the at the quarter
• 1:04:17
  mile of voting is the best. During those decades, Jeremy
• 1:04:23
  ended up with the I think he's got the third fastest 400.
• 1:04:28
  You got the Wade Van Kirk. Yeah, Michael, I can't thank the
• 1:04:36
  guy. We only did the one time set the
• 1:04:38
  world record and Michael's second and Jeremy is the third
• 1:04:44
  on the on the quarter list. But as far as the number of
• 1:04:47
  times you run 40 threes, I think it's Michael and then Jeremy on
• 1:04:53
  the all time list, Jeremy was a was different than Michael.
• 1:04:57
  People want to compare. They're totally different.
• 1:04:59
  Two people. Jeremy had more success in high
• 1:05:03
  school than Michael in the 200. He was a woman top, if not the
• 1:05:08
  top high school 200 winner and towards the top in the 400.
• 1:05:13
  Michael was the second best in Texas in the 200, so they were
• 1:05:21
  just different. Both of them had the same
• 1:05:23
  quality of being hard workers dedicated.
• 1:05:28
  It just came in with a. Little bit.
• 1:05:30
  Different credentials, different running style.
• 1:05:35
  Jeremy was just taller, relaxed, beautiful runner.
• 1:05:42
  Michael had the different running style that worst thing
• 1:05:48
  can happen. I remember Whitestones High
• 1:05:53
  Jumper TV analysis analyst. Making a comment once Michael
• 1:05:59
  Johnson learns to write running style, he's going to be great.
• 1:06:04
  And I thought and here's a guy talking to him.
• 1:06:07
  I ran into Dwight later after that and I and I said, Dwight, I
• 1:06:11
  want you to do something. Do me a favor before.
• 1:06:14
  You make that comment again, will you do?
• 1:06:15
  Something I want you to Google up.
• 1:06:18
  You'll find it and watch Jesse Owen run.
• 1:06:22
  And then you make that comment about Jesse Owens because you're
• 1:06:25
  talking Michael Johnson. You can cover with your hands
• 1:06:28
  the upper body of of of Michael Johnson and and Jesse Owens, and
• 1:06:33
  the bottom is identical. It's identical.
• 1:06:36
  It looks like a Road runner. The legs are turning over so
• 1:06:39
  quick there, but their upright is exactly the same.
• 1:06:43
  He said, well, I hadn't thought about that.
• 1:06:44
  I said, well, you need to because Michael just ran
• 1:06:46
  different. He wasn't running long.
• 1:06:49
  Yes, this drive was slightly shorter.
• 1:06:51
  Than than most of the people but he's traveling a lot quicker
• 1:06:54
  than those people so it's a give and take situation.
• 1:06:58
  So anyhow that's and then later I went to a conference in
• 1:07:05
  Finland and I did my lecture and I'm sitting back in a Russian
• 1:07:10
  was talking and they had to be an interpreter because someone I
• 1:07:14
  couldn't understand it. And one of the things he said
• 1:07:19
  that they had done research. And this was already on for
• 1:07:22
  Michael became really well, he wasn't the world record holder
• 1:07:26
  and he was just kind of emerging onto the same.
• 1:07:28
  But people were taking notice and the Russians certainly had
• 1:07:32
  taken notice. And they said they had analyzed
• 1:07:35
  that the running style of different runners and they had
• 1:07:39
  come to the conclusion that the perfect running style was more
• 1:07:43
  erect, but there was slightly shorter stride.
• 1:07:47
  I didn't know something and I looked at the guy, said.
• 1:07:49
  That's Michael, Johnson said. He knows that, too, but he's not
• 1:07:52
  going to use his name. But he said that all their
• 1:07:55
  studies on force, on the track and what was the most efficient
• 1:07:59
  was to run more. So he's hitting Jesse.
• 1:08:01
  Owens and Michael Johnson, which is.
• 1:08:03
  Two pretty good guys to hang out with.
• 1:08:05
  Not bad, Not bad. All right, this next guy, more
• 1:08:10
  known as a pole vaulter as a Baylor Bear, but I actually know
• 1:08:13
  the inside track. He actually was a 300 hurdler
• 1:08:16
  coming down to your ways. And he's obviously very near and
• 1:08:18
  dear to my heart and our hearts here at Gale Athletics.
• 1:08:21
  Mr. David Hodge. David Hodge, I got to tell you
• 1:08:24
  about David. Please.
• 1:08:26
  Please do. David shows up.
• 1:08:29
  Redheaded skinny kid. I I call him 1414 because he.
• 1:08:35
  So the pro vault he came in with 14 foot pro vault.
• 1:08:38
  I'm not mistaken 14 seconds in the harvest or maybe 14 plus
• 1:08:43
  something. But that was his two events.
• 1:08:45
  He was a walk on and the. 1st. Day.
• 1:08:49
  I'm not mistaken. He sprained his ankle going over
• 1:08:52
  a hurdle or trying to go over a hurdle.
• 1:08:54
  And I tell David I don't want to discourage him.
• 1:08:58
  I don't want him quitting. He's a walk on kid, get
• 1:09:01
  treatment. And David, I want you to go over
• 1:09:04
  to the Pro Vault pit. Area with the vouchers and catch
• 1:09:08
  your vaulting pole because we don't want that pole to get
• 1:09:11
  damaged, those fiberglass poles, he said.
• 1:09:14
  OK, he goes over and that's his job, the vaulters vault.
• 1:09:19
  David catches the pole well after several weeks I thought,
• 1:09:23
  you know, David's ankle, all will be well, but now he can
• 1:09:25
  start working some of these hurdles because I thought maybe
• 1:09:28
  that might be his best event. Well, I can't get him away from
• 1:09:31
  there now. Because he's already planting
• 1:09:34
  the pole and he's doing some things.
• 1:09:35
  I said just stay over there. Well, of course the rest is
• 1:09:39
  history. I think he's PR, was 18-5, maybe
• 1:09:45
  placed in the top three at the NCA meet in the vault, but I kid
• 1:09:52
  him. The ambition of most track guys
• 1:09:56
  was to win a watch at A at a track meet, get a watch.
• 1:10:01
  David had never want to watch pole Boston, though.
• 1:10:03
  He was watching 18 foot when 18 foot was unbelievable but never
• 1:10:07
  got to watch. Well, the week before the Drake
• 1:10:11
  Relays, I'm planning to run a shovel hurdle relay.
• 1:10:15
  I got three really good legs, but my fourth guy, I can't even
• 1:10:21
  remember if I had a four guy that was hurt, but I don't have
• 1:10:23
  one and the other three guys, says Coach.
• 1:10:26
  We sure want to run that and I said.
• 1:10:27
  Yeah, we got to have a fourth leg then I'm thinking.
• 1:10:30
  David Hodge and the hurdles in high school.
• 1:10:33
  So I called David over and I said, David, the shuttle hurdles
• 1:10:38
  are the day before the pole vault.
• 1:10:40
  I'm not mistaken. He wasn't going to interfere
• 1:10:42
  with his vaulting. And so I want you to come over
• 1:10:47
  and see if you can get over a college hurdle.
• 1:10:51
  And he could. He could.
• 1:10:53
  He could jump it and get. Over and he got better on.
• 1:10:56
  Tuesday he was doing a little better than he did on Monday.
• 1:11:00
  Wednesday he. Was actually getting over I
• 1:11:03
  think 3 hurdles. Maybe 5 and not hitting, but
• 1:11:06
  maybe two or three of them at a time.
• 1:11:08
  And I said OK David, we're going for it, you're going to run on
• 1:11:12
  the shuttle hurdle relay. And he said seriously, I said
• 1:11:16
  seriously David and he was excited that he really was.
• 1:11:19
  He may tell a different story now.
• 1:11:21
  But I thought he was excited about it.
• 1:11:24
  We'll make a Long story short. We win the shuttle hurdle relay
• 1:11:27
  and he gets a great relay watch. And that's the only watch the
• 1:11:30
  kid ever got it better university.
• 1:11:32
  So I always tell people, you know, because of the hurdles,
• 1:11:35
  not pole vaulty. That's right, the high hurdles.
• 1:11:40
  I love that. And his cheapest David is he's
• 1:11:43
  probably still wearing that watch.
• 1:11:45
  He's not wearing that watch. But you are correct.
• 1:11:47
  I always look at his watch and I'm like, man, you know, you can
• 1:11:50
  get a little bit nice. I mean, you know, you don't have
• 1:11:52
  to go Rolex here, David, I get that.
• 1:11:53
  But you could have a little bit nicer.
• 1:11:55
  Seriously about David, we we appreciate David not only as as
• 1:11:59
  a former athlete bailer, but as alumni he's he's helped us
• 1:12:05
  tremendously with our track program.
• 1:12:09
  If he hadn't helped us with the new track facility, it could not
• 1:12:12
  would have happened. With the Guild equipment and
• 1:12:16
  everything that we've got going, David was so instrumental in his
• 1:12:20
  whole family and his son Ryan now is still running and his
• 1:12:25
  future wife as a tractor also. Better has been.
• 1:12:28
  Good. And we love David and and
• 1:12:31
  appreciate him so much. He is Baylor through and
• 1:12:34
  through. Five kids that also go to
• 1:12:37
  Baylor. The youngest meets his wife at
• 1:12:40
  Baylor. It's he met his wife at Baylor.
• 1:12:42
  It is quite amazing. The Baylor love there for sure.
• 1:12:45
  Well thank you for those opinions on those 3 great Baylor
• 1:12:49
  gentlemen. It's what's interesting to me.
• 1:12:51
  You know I say this a lot with track coaches that you know, 99%
• 1:12:56
  of the young people that you coach are not going to go on to
• 1:12:59
  be professional in track and field.
• 1:13:00
  Now you you may buck that trend a little bit but still the vast
• 1:13:03
  majority of athletes that you coach did not GoPro.
• 1:13:06
  That's a very small slice that goes pro.
• 1:13:09
  But every kid you coach goes on to be a mother, a father, a
• 1:13:14
  business owner, a clergyman, etc.
• 1:13:17
  And so what's unique about those 3 individuals to me is, you
• 1:13:20
  know, two of them did go on to have a long professional career,
• 1:13:22
  Michael and and Jeremy. Michael now is a business owner
• 1:13:26
  and analyst. Jeremy is now coaching himself
• 1:13:29
  in high school doing a great job and David as a business owner
• 1:13:32
  here at Gale FedEx. To me, it's just a great
• 1:13:34
  representation of the positive impact that you make as a track
• 1:13:38
  coach that these three gentlemen go on to have pretty varied
• 1:13:42
  experiences, but wildly successful in each one of those
• 1:13:45
  experience. It really shows what the impact
• 1:13:48
  the coach has on young people. Yes, and Jeremy's got a
• 1:13:52
  daughter. That's a pressure on the track
• 1:13:54
  team. That's right.
• 1:13:55
  Oh, that's right. I forgot she went to the.
• 1:13:56
  She's at Baylor too. That's right.
• 1:13:59
  Well, Coach, you know, it's not lost on me the responsibility
• 1:14:04
  that I have as the host of this podcast here.
• 1:14:07
  I mentioned you know we're 250 plus coaches and you know from
• 1:14:11
  first year coaches. Heck, we had a an athlete on the
• 1:14:13
  show who wasn't even a coach yet all the way to guys and gals
• 1:14:17
  like you that have been coaching for a long time.
• 1:14:20
  And you know, one of the responsibilities I take
• 1:14:23
  specifically for a coach in your position is representing a lot
• 1:14:28
  of people that have either not had the opportunity to tell you
• 1:14:32
  this, maybe have been too hesitant to come tell you in
• 1:14:36
  person. But I represent thousands and
• 1:14:39
  thousands of coaches and athletes to say thank you.
• 1:14:43
  You know the positive impact you make on a on a kid, on a young
• 1:14:47
  kid, an 18 to 22 year old at Baylor and Hechta, 14 and 18
• 1:14:51
  year olds that you had at Little Rock Central as well.
• 1:14:55
  It's immeasurable, it really is. Your legacy is being carried out
• 1:14:59
  by the Jeremy who's coaching out.
• 1:15:01
  Heck, it's carried out by David and the impact that he makes on
• 1:15:04
  us here at Gill as well. So I just want to say thank you
• 1:15:07
  from thousands and thousands of people for the positive impact
• 1:15:11
  that you have made and what's awesome is that you continue to
• 1:15:14
  make today. Right.
• 1:15:17
  Can you see the book? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:15:19
  Yeah. Is that is that the book?
• 1:15:21
  That's a book and it's designed for the high schools, OK?
• 1:15:25
  Anybody can use it because it tells a whole training program
• 1:15:29
  and then at each chapter that's that's talking about our
• 1:15:33
  program. It tells how you can use this
• 1:15:37
  and convert it down to the high school level, what changes need
• 1:15:40
  to be made. It's really very few changes.
• 1:15:43
  It's just adjustment of sometimes hold it up just a
• 1:15:45
  little bit more. But hold it up just a little bit
• 1:15:48
  more. So it's called breaking down the
• 1:15:51
  wall. I can find this at Amazon if I
• 1:15:53
  Google. It.
• 1:15:54
  Yeah, perfect. All right, breaking down the
• 1:15:56
  wall. We got to go find them.
• 1:15:57
  And I got into this by accident. Derek.
• 1:16:04
  Lininger, Dr. He was a. Former high school track coach
• 1:16:09
  in Indiana and now he's a has his doctorate and he's a school
• 1:16:13
  principal. He came up this idea, he'd been
• 1:16:17
  using our training program and he was upset because there were
• 1:16:20
  so many what he and I referred to as false prophets preaching
• 1:16:24
  that you don't have to do the the.
• 1:16:26
  Work you can just do. Sprinting that, that.
• 1:16:30
  Our training, our training method is too hard.
• 1:16:33
  It causes kids to quit track and field because they're not
• 1:16:35
  willing to to do that kind of work, etcetera, which is a bunch
• 1:16:39
  of baloney. The females do the same thing.
• 1:16:42
  But anyhow, so he came to Waco and spent a week just going to
• 1:16:45
  interview me. When I ended up, we became
• 1:16:47
  co-authors of it and he did a lot of research on things that
• 1:16:52
  I've never done and it verifies So what our program means.
• 1:16:56
  So we're happy. So if you're listening, why have
• 1:17:01
  you? Why are you still listening?
• 1:17:02
  You should be going to Amazon right now, breaking down the
• 1:17:05
  wall. You've got to go check this book
• 1:17:07
  out. That's there's years and years
• 1:17:09
  of mistakes. There's years and years of
• 1:17:12
  success all broken down before you're out there and breaking
• 1:17:15
  down the wall. I'm not saying it's just because
• 1:17:18
  I'm involved with it, but it's the best training book on the
• 1:17:20
  400 that I by far I've ever did because it covers the reasons
• 1:17:24
  why you do it and how you do it, all the drills and all the
• 1:17:27
  stuff. If you don't like it, won't do
• 1:17:29
  it. But I think you will.
• 1:17:31
  Well, the the good coaches I know are continually working on
• 1:17:34
  their coaching education. This sounds like a great
• 1:17:36
  opportunity to continue that coaching education.
• 1:17:40
  Coach Hartmann, thank you so much.
• 1:17:43
  You know, as a former coach myself, you know I've always
• 1:17:45
  held you at high esteem and you know, being working with David
• 1:17:48
  and being friends with David, you know, I know the impact
• 1:17:51
  you've made on him, which the impact you made on us.
• 1:17:53
  So I'm just so grateful for your time today to be able to learn
• 1:17:55
  your journey and be able to share it with our listeners.
• 1:17:58
  Like you. You didn't.
• 1:17:59
  You didn't meet your buddy Danny Brabble.
• 1:18:03
  I did. I said Danny and Todd are the
• 1:18:04
  two. You know what I think about?
• 1:18:06
  Yeah. What I think about loyalty and
• 1:18:08
  just, you know, consistency, man.
• 1:18:10
  Love those guys. Absolutely.
• 1:18:12
  Danny's doing well. He hasn't aged today, plays golf
• 1:18:15
  and I'll see him occasionally, but he was a great athlete and I
• 1:18:19
  know y'all were good friends and absolutely.
• 1:18:22
  Appreciate you so much and you you say hello to David and
• 1:18:26
  family for me. I will man.
• 1:18:28
  Thank you so much Coach. Appreciate you again for being
• 1:18:30
  here today. Thank you, Mike.
• 1:18:32
  Yes, Sir. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:18:43
  coach, the ones appoint people most every season needs a voice
• 1:18:47
  of reason speaking. The growth you got to back
• 1:18:49
  before you carry the load. It's called to the soul.
• 1:18:52
  For those of us to stand, to go proper handoff.
• 1:18:54
  To stay in the zone with you packing for the road.
• 1:18:57
  There's more than one way to go. Take notes.
• 1:18:59
  That's damn you're told. It ain't practice.
• 1:19:01
  If your purpose ain't clear, it can't happen to you.
• 1:19:04
  Listen what both is. Can't mentor without a mentor.
• 1:19:07
  Years of experience you can reinvent those years.
• 1:19:10
  Every plan's got a standard. Live up to and the price
• 1:19:13
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and to fight not a
• 1:19:16
  win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:19:18
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to It's all
• 1:19:21
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside 6.
• 1:19:25
  When you waste time choose none until your course finish line.
• 1:19:28
  The work ain't done. So we learn from the experts.
• 1:19:31
  We all got to put in the leg. Work kill.
• 1:19:33
  Athletics network. It's all about connections put
• 1:19:36
  together for the profession. To every track coach could be
• 1:19:39
  blessed.