Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #251: George Lutkenhaus-Northwest (TX) ISD

Transcript

#251: George Lutkenhaus-Northwest (TX) ISD · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field world Juvenal tuned in to our humble servant
• 0:14
  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message on Gil
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  Athletics connections. All right.
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  Welcome back to the GO Athletics Connections podcast.
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  I'm really happy that you're here.
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  I'm proud to be your host here, but I'm really excited.
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  This is maybe a little different.
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  We're gonna stay track focused, trust me.
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  But as you've already seen, kind of on the title here.
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  Not necessarily a track coach, although we're gonna learn he
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  did do some track and some track coaching.
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  But if you're a regular listener at all of the podcast, you
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  probably have heard me say that I highly encourage track coaches
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  to go into administration in some part of their career.
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  You know, that's where a lot of decisions are being made about
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  our sport, whether it's on the college or high school level or
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  at all levels. And it would certainly be nice
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  to have people who understand track in those positions when
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  those decisions are being made. And so we went out and found a
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  pretty good guy here now and we're going to go through and
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  learn his past here and track and field his history, his
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  journey and but he's actually the he's an AD and a kind of a
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  big time AD. I'm going to have him explain it
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  a little bit more, but he's the AD of Northwest ISD down.
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  It's kind of north of Fort Worth, TX actually.
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  He overseas 3 high schools, so he's the AD of Northwest ISD.
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  So he overseas Northwest High School, Byron Nelson High
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  School, and Eaton High School. That alone sounds like a big
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  job. I've met plenty of ads.
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  One school is a big job, so I can't imagine we're going to
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  learn more. Help me.
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  Welcome from Northwest ISD the Wise, the wonderful Mr. George
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  Lutkenhaus George. How are you Sir?
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  I'm good. Thanks for having me.
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  Sure. Appreciate it.
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  Absolutely. Thank you, man.
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  You know, I, I love bringing different angles of our great
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  sport to people. We don't have a lot of athletic
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  directors. We we, you know, tend to focus
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  on the coaching side here. So I'm excited to learn, you
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  know, what in the world do you do?
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  And, you know, maybe I've got some track coaches going, Yeah,
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  make sure you ask him X&Y and, you know, maybe he'll be a
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  little grilling here. I don't know.
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  We'll learn. We'll learn together.
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  How about that? Sure, absolutely.
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  George, why don't we start with kind of give us a Before we get
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  into your journey, give us a little bit of a background of
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  Northwest ISD, the three schools, maybe the 32nd version,
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  'cause we're going to dig deeper into what your job entails as
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  the athletic director of an ISD. Kind of give us a let.
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  Let's get a little bit of a scope of what you are, who you
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  are, what you do. Well, Northwest ISD, just to
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  give you a little background on it, it's, it's the fastest
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  growing school district in North Texas.
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  We're probably in the state. We're 235 square miles.
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  We have 3 high schools with Northwest, Byron, Nelson, Eaton
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  High School and then we're also opening a fourth in another two
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  years. They're fixing to break ground
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  on it, coming pretty soon. So we're filling up really,
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  really fast around here. So it's it's always busy with
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  construction and and just the sports in general.
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  So it's it's flying by, that's for sure.
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  I've been here now with when I came in coaching it was 1 high
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  school and now we're fixed to be #3.
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  So I've kind of seen a little bit of everything just within
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  the district here in the North Texas area.
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  You. You.
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  I wonder, do you sometimes look back to when you had one?
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  High school was like, you know, I thought I was busy back then.
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  Absolutely. Yeah, it's when when you're
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  coaching, you know, you're so kind of focused on just your
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  kids and in the program itself. And then when you kind of move
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  into this role, it's more of a shotgun blast where you're just
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  kind of a little bit all over the place.
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  But you know, you've got 13 different sports at the high
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  schools and then all the middle school stuff that's going on as
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  well. So it it definitely keeps you
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  busy, that's for sure. But yeah, it's it's a lot of
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  fun, but it it is definitely, it's a challenge from time to
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  time, especially with all the growth.
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  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I can't imagine that is a
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  lot. Well, the goal today is to get
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  into an AD conversation. And I'll tell you, you know, if
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  you haven't listened, I was blessed to be on a podcast
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  called the The AD Pie. I think it was just called The
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  AD Podcast. We ran it on as a bonus episode
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  back in December. Here I was from 2A DS, one from
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  South Carolina, one from Georgia that do a great job with their
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  podcast and they invited me on to talk about you know is a is a
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  track and field program good for a healthy athletic program.
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  So I highly recommend you go back and listen to that.
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  But the goal today is to kind of get into an AD conversation
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  learn more about what does an AD do, how does a track coach fit
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  into that. And you know what don't fall
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  asleep when we college track coaches because we're going to
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  ask about what's that role look like for recruiting etcetera
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  coming on campus should we reach out to the coaches or not,
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  things like that. But first we've got to, we've
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  got to kind of like see if George has any St. cred.
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  Here we are you know a track and field podcast.
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  So we're going to look at his background here.
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  So George, any track background at all or you just kind of, you
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  know, you see for every four years you see the Olympics and
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  so you know track and field. Well a little bit yeah.
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  I, I grew up in North Texas area.
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  I went to high school at Lindsay High School and so you know
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  those one day schools every you play everything and come about
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  junior year you find out that hey, I'm I can do this track
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  thing. So I ended up at the University
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  of North Texas for five years, ran middle distance there, a
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  little cross country. And then I got out and started
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  coaching right away after college, started off in another
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  one a right next to my hometown there in era, Texas was there
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  for a couple years and then my wife also coached.
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  She was in Paul Point and I was in ERA.
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  So we came to Sanger together, which is actually her hometown
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  and so we worked there together for.
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  I was there five years before as a head trip track cross country
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  coach and then came down to Northwest after that and coached
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  there for. I believe it was 9 years as head
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  cross country track coach, had some success with some kids, had
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  a lot of fun and then moved into the AD role.
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  Oh jeez 8-9 years ago now and so I'm I'm the I'm the B team as I
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  always describe my boss, Joel Johnson.
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  He's awesome. He hired me over here.
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  So we have we have several different A DS within a district
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  this size but fortunate to be over here and to work for with a
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  lot of good people. And then we have a lot of really
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  quality track coaches now within the district that do a great job
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  and you'll you'll see a lot of our kids down at the state meet
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  this year. So looking forward to this
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  spring for sure. That's maybe more of a track
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  background than I would have thought.
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  You know, I I get happy when AD tells me, yeah, I ran track in
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  high school like, oh, good, OK. At least you kind of know the
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  sport, you know that, You know, it's different than football,
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  baseball, volleyball, just like they're all, you know,
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  independently different. And and not that.
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  I think you need to participate in a sport to be able to govern
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  it, because that's impossible. You didn't play every sport that
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  you oversee today, but I typically like like, oh, you
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  ran. So you kind of, you kind of get
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  it. You didn't just run in the high
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  school, which that's awesome as it is.
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  And then you didn't just run in college.
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  You actually coached for a while.
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  What did you? You said you played a lot of
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  sports, love that. What gravitated towards?
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  Why did you gravitate towards track and end up doing that in
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  college versus maybe other sports?
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  You know, I I was actually looking at football and
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  basketball at the collegiate level for a little while.
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  But I had a turning point one time basketball game and and
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  bottom line game comes down to somebody else shooting free
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  throws and you played your played lights out and all that
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  and it's very frustrating for that.
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  And so track was kind of a natural fit for me from the
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  standpoint if I'm going to lose, it's going to be my fault.
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  So and there's nothing better than a team atmosphere and all
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  that stuff and the things that you can learn from that.
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  But that was kind of a turning point for me.
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  Like, you know, if if it's going to be somebody's fault, it needs
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  to be my fault because you can't always have the ball in your
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  hands at the end of the game. And it was just a natural fit,
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  you know? And then when you're younger
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  it's it's it's probably not at a popular pick because it's not
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  football or basketball or whatever it may be.
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  But as you get older too, you start to realize you know this
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  this is kind of nice. I can go do this on my own.
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  You know, I don't have to necessarily have somebody
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  overseeing what I'm doing. Running is just kind of one of
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  those things. It's it's it's kind of freeing
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  if you will, but that's that's kind of the the reason I went
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  down that path and then just the I got, I ended up at North Texas
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  with a master's degree of emphasis in Xfis and bio
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  mechanics and so basically track and field and so I just love
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  those two fields with Physiology and the bio mechanics side.
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  So I love coaching all events. It was always fun because it all
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  kind of ties together with what I went to college for and what I
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  really, really enjoyed. What did you think?
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  I'm always interested. You know, I think it's kind of
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  crazy in this world, not just in America, that, you know, we make
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  18 year olds kind of pick the rest of their life going into
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  college. You know, you pick a major and
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  you're supposed to just know what you're you want to be as an
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  18 year old. I didn't know anything.
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  As an 18 year old, as you were going into North Texas, going
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  into college, what did you think?
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  What were you? What was the career?
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  At least as an 18 year old, you thought the career might be as
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  you grew up. Well, I think at that time the
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  the hot thing to do was to get a business degree and I started to
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  go down that path. And then, you know, it's the
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  more you were around. I had a pretty influential guy
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  at North Texas, Ken Garland, who was there for a long time.
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  He's in the Hall of Fame at UNT and he was kind of my guy in
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  college, and so I think we all have.
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  A track guy. Yes, yeah, Coach King Garland.
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  Yeah, he was he. Yes.
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  And so, you know, the more you get to know somebody and I had
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  an influential coach at the high school level and so the you just
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  tend to gravitate towards those guys.
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  And just like, you know, that's kind of what I wanna do with my
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  life. And and the things they say and
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  how they make you feel and whether it's good or bad,
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  whatever, you know, you you see the influence that they have on
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  you. And I think I started really
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  about sophomore year of college, the kind of going that direction
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  that that I want to coach and that that's the path I want to
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  take. So I'd say it was fairly early
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  on in college, but of course, you know, when you first go to
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  college, you know, I'm going to make all this money And then you
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  realize that's not really what I want to do.
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  I want to do something I enjoy. So that's why I ended up going
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  that way. I love you mentioned King
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  Garland and the positive influence they had on you.
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  You know, we all say this religiously.
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  I'm I'm sure I say this every episode now.
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  You know the positive impact coaches make on young people,
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  it's immeasurable. You know, 99.9% are not going to
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  GoPro. Heck, 99% aren't going to the
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  college level if you're a high school coach.
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  However, 100% of the kids that our coaches work with will go on
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  to be moms, dads, business owners, clergy, accountants,
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  sales people, etcetera, teachers, coaches.
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  So that's the true, in my opinion at least, positive
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  impacts. I love when you mentioned it,
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  Ken Garland, you mentioned your high school coach had a positive
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  influence. We love shout outs and what was
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  his or her? He he's no longer with us, but
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  it was Charlie Mirror, probably one of the toughest dudes you'd
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  ever meet. He's from Wenthorst, Texas and
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  and he came in my sophomore year as our AD head football and
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  track coach and he was just one of those guys.
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  You know he he's he loved you but he was going to make you
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  tough and that's what I always appreciated about him.
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  He's kind of the one that kind of pushed me him and and another
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  coach, coach John Metzler who was there and I was a hurdler in
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  middle school. And just because I was tall and
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  so bottom line in freshman year of track practice one of them
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  said oh I need all the tough guys over here And he was
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  talking about the 408 hundred group and I was like I want to
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  go over there and so and that that's just one of those things
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  And I kind of lucked into honestly starting to run some of
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  those events that probably someone else might not have put
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  me in. And so I I naturally gravitated
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  towards the 800. And then that's always kind of
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  been my love. That's probably my favorite
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  event to coach And then you know that 48 up to the mile and you
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  know I love cross country. Don't get me wrong.
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  But there's just something about those events that that really
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  show a lot of toughness show a lot of character.
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  And so when I go to college and that's obviously what I wanted
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  to run, I end up running my first indoor race and Coach
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  Gaughan comes up to me and says, well, you'll be running the mile
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  this year. And I was like, it's not enough
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  foot speed. So that's just how it goes.
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  But it all worked out. But that's just one of those
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  things you kind of gravitate towards, you know, sometimes
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  what you're good at, but also you know that they kind of fit
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  my personality, if that makes sense.
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  Yeah, I was going to. Let's expound on that a little
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  bit because I love that challenge of, hey, I need the
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  tough, tough guys, you know, this is, you know, everything's
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  hard, but I need the tough guys. And you you're like, yeah, OK,
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  well, you know, maybe I'm not tough, I don't know, but I want
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  to try it. What do you think?
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  You know, it's it's one thing in the moment and and what I've
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  realized, you know, at this age and you know, George, we're
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  probably pretty close to the same age.
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  You know, there's times in our lives where we have a decision
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  to make a left road or a right road.
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  And it seems pretty small at that point.
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  However, when we 20 years later, 10 years later, we had
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  perspective, we look back, it's like, man, I'm glad I chose the
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  right side and not the left. I thought I wanted to, you know,
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  when when you look back now, at that moment, you you can kind
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  of, I kind of watched your face. You could kind of like you were
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  kind of playing the movie in your head of like when coach was
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  like, I need the tough guys. You're like, yeah, all right,
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  let's go. What do you think?
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  How has that played out in the rest of your life?
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  Can you think of another time where it's like, man, you know,
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  I I chose the what is it? The road less traveled Many,
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  many times it wasn't you know, your wife, children, coaching,
• 14:00
  career decisions. You know there there's a.
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  Usually when you're doing something at that age, it sticks
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  with you as you move on. Yeah.
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  You know, over the years what you just mentioned there, I
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  think about that quite a bit. You know what if I would have
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  gone this way or done that or made this decision, you know,
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  and and you try not to dwell on anything and and what you you
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  chose. You know, there's a lot of
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  times, especially as a coach and you'll get to understand that,
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  you know sometimes you make a decision that you know, hey I'm
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  not going to make a lot of money going forward.
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  I know I'm going to be working a ton of hours.
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  I'm not going to be home a lot. I was very fortunate when I met
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  my wife that she was going into the same profession.
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  And so we ended up, you know, when we got married and and had
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  the first kid, she was still coaching and then we had the
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  second kid and she was still coaching.
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  She's as bad as things can get for me.
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  It's never as bad as what she went through, you know, carrying
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  kids, raising kids. And you know, I I always
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  remember the story. She was coaching a basketball
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  game and I got done with practice and I'm going to pick
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  up. She was pregnant with baby too.
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  And I go to pick up the first one and he's sleeping underneath
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  the bench at the court so I can pull him by the leg and take him
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  home. And you know we just kind of
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  traded kids off and just kind of made it through.
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  She was still driving buses when she was you know nine months
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  pregnant and she's probably the toughest person.
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  That's what we we always impressed upon our kids and and
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  we talked about the tough kids and stuff and I was like,
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  there's there's nobody tougher than her now.
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  She'll tell you all about it too.
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  But yeah she she was one of those situations.
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  It's hard as a coach to find somebody like that that
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  understands what we do. And so that was that was a big
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  deal for us is is she coached for a long time as well and then
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  when #3 started to come along we're like, OK, this is it's not
• 15:59
  going to work. And then when I changed jobs and
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  and I wasn't at the same school that made it a little more
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  difficult. So she ended up getting out of
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  coaching. So basically, so I can stay in
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  is how it all kind of worked out there.
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  But yeah, you just never know how things are going to turn
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  out. But you think you know until you
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  don't know. What what do they say?
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  You know, going from two kids to three kids, you go from man to
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  man to zone. You know, it's a Yeah, that's.
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  Exactly right. That's exactly.
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  Right. We have.
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  We had two and it was like, look, man, we can't handle two.
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  We certainly can't go to three. You guys and gals that have
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  three plus, God bless you. I don't know how at all you do
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  it at all ever. I can't handle that at all.
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  That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that.
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  So you start out as a business major, 'cause you're going to
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  make a lot of money, 'cause you know, all businesses just make a
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  ton of money, right? Just make you have you know you
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  continue to weigh in on the influence of some high school
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  coaches coach mayor and coach Metzler can Garland becomes a a
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  big influence with you there you switch over to I think you said
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  like a biology type you're like OK I'm going to be kinesiology.
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  Yeah. You know, I'm from Alabama, so
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  those things are kind of the same to me, so.
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  Everybody calls it something different.
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  I've learned that with my own kids.
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  So how did you get into? Because your next step was you
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  started coaching and I assume teaching.
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  How did you. I didn't hear a teacher degree
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  there. How did you get into actual
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  teaching? Well you know I had a
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  kinesiology degree and so with that I had a minor in history
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  like most coaches do. So I taught anywhere from PE to
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  history geography world history, American history.
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  So depending on where I was at I have a teaching certs and
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  composite social studies and PE and so that kind of came along
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  with the college degree. But yeah so a little bit of
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  everything health, it just depends.
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  I've I've kind of taught a little bit of everything.
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  The only thing they don't they don't need me in is math.
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  For sure. Yeah, I get that.
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  Yeah, so now it's it's all, I think I finished up the last
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  several years teaching world geography with freshmen, which I
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  loved as a coach. I know a lot of people avoid
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  freshmen, but I loved freshmen because, you know, one,
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  especially at that time, I was kind of on their level with a
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  lot of things. So we like to have a little fun,
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  but it was easy to recruit too. So when you catch, catch those
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  kids at a big school like that freshman, freshman year, and you
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  know, kids talk and so you win a few over here or there, you
• 18:24
  start winning a lot of them over.
• 18:26
  So that was a huge deal for me too, to be with those freshmen
• 18:29
  in the classroom because I definitely found a lot of kids
• 18:31
  to help us out in the spring. Yeah, I love that you brought
• 18:33
  that up. You know, one of the things I
• 18:35
  like to do is bust myths. And you know when we talk about
• 18:38
  can a high school coach coach in the college level and there's
• 18:41
  like this, there's this myth of like, oh, you know, high school
• 18:44
  coach can't do X&Y&Z. And one of those is typically
• 18:47
  recruiting. And I tell you what, every,
• 18:49
  every, 100%, every high school coach we've had on the show and
• 18:53
  we've had quite a few from extremely successful to heck, we
• 18:57
  had a coach from Kentucky who ran a home high school meet at
• 19:02
  his school with no track. He was like, you know, I just
• 19:06
  wanted to give my seniors a senior day.
• 19:07
  So we figured out one lap in the parking lot, they allowed him to
• 19:11
  build the sand pit for long jump.
• 19:12
  He did the shop, put in the softball.
• 19:14
  And I was like, what a great, you know, gritty, no excuses.
• 19:18
  And I tell you, every one of those coaches, including him and
• 19:21
  and highly successful coaches we've had here.
• 19:24
  Recruiting is the lifeblood of a high school coach.
• 19:26
  We we tend to think of it for college.
• 19:29
  I have yet to hear a high school coach say, yeah, I just deal
• 19:32
  with whoever shows up. It's like, no, they walk the
• 19:34
  hall, work the hallways is what I always hear work the hallways.
• 19:37
  You're talking about freshman year world geography.
• 19:39
  Like hey man, you know we're pretty good.
• 19:41
  If you want to play a sport, come on out.
• 19:43
  So I love, I love that you just naturally brought that topic up
• 19:46
  because that's a it to me. It's just ludicrous when someone
• 19:49
  talks about, you know a high school coach can't recruit and
• 19:52
  it's like they might have it harder the no home visits.
• 19:55
  No official visits? No.
• 19:59
  Well, I've almost said no special bling uniforms and
• 20:02
  things like that. But some high school are doing
• 20:04
  amazing in those sense. But yeah, so I love that.
• 20:07
  What? What?
• 20:08
  You know, you coached for a while, George.
• 20:10
  We could have had you on the show not too long ago.
• 20:12
  You should have been doing AD since around 2016.
• 20:15
  Heck, we could have been doing this in 2015.
• 20:16
  Talking about your coaching background, How did you what?
• 20:19
  What? How did you evolve as a coach?
• 20:21
  I'm always interested in straight out of straight out of
• 20:24
  college. Coaches, whether the high school
• 20:28
  or college, because you know, yesterday you were on the team
• 20:31
  doing workouts and then the next day you're actually running the
• 20:34
  team. How did you like that first year
• 20:36
  when you're actually you're you're the coach now, your
• 20:38
  coach, Luke, Luke. Now I knew I was going to screw
• 20:40
  that up. Not athlete George, how did you
• 20:44
  transition? How was that transition for you?
• 20:47
  It definitely was a shock, I think coming from the college
• 20:51
  level too, especially at 1A high school because.
• 20:55
  And it was probably the best thing that could ever happen to
• 20:57
  me, honestly, because you spent a couple of years, basically
• 20:59
  you're mowing stuff, you're painting stuff.
• 21:01
  We had a cinder track. You drag the track with your
• 21:04
  pickup truck and a big beam every day before practice and
• 21:07
  great to train on, just not good to fall on.
• 21:09
  But so you spent a lot of time up there.
• 21:12
  There might be nice that you sleep at the field class because
• 21:15
  you got an early morning practice and you didn't get in
• 21:17
  till 1:00 in the morning from some other thing because you're
• 21:20
  coaching everything. We only had four male coaches on
• 21:23
  the staff for the whole for the high school.
• 21:25
  So I think the biggest transition was just the time.
• 21:30
  And you, you gain a lot of respect, you know, 'cause in
• 21:33
  college you think you're busy. As I explained to my own kids,
• 21:36
  I'm just like, yeah, just enjoy the boredom, man.
• 21:39
  Embrace it, right? Now and go back in a heartbeat.
• 21:41
  Yes, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry.
• 21:43
  You're bored today. I don't know what to tell you,
• 21:46
  but yeah, that was that was the biggest transition.
• 21:49
  But it was great because you you learned so much from those other
• 21:54
  coaches on staff. You learn so much because you're
• 21:56
  coaching every sport on demand and just the the time factor.
• 22:01
  And then two, you learn how to simplify things, especially at a
• 22:05
  smaller school. You know where like as you get
• 22:09
  to bigger school and you have a kid year round, the complexity
• 22:12
  of the workouts is is way different than what it was
• 22:16
  before where we're going to run 10, two hundreds or 10400 that
• 22:20
  that's it because they can't do the pace changes and stuff like
• 22:23
  that because you only have them for about two months, right.
• 22:26
  So you got to kind of more bang for your buck because as soon as
• 22:29
  you start changing things up and trying to do all kinds of crazy
• 22:32
  training, they're just going to screw it up because you just,
• 22:35
  they don't know what that means, you know?
• 22:38
  That's a great point, George. You know, I I live my life on
• 22:42
  social media, specifically Twitter.
• 22:44
  So I'm, I've been involved and I oversee a lot of conversations
• 22:48
  from all. I mean, you know, to me it's the
• 22:51
  best thing. I can see the whole world.
• 22:53
  I can see college coaches, SEC all the way down to 1A schools
• 22:57
  in in Texas, heck 1A schools in West Virginia.
• 23:01
  You know smaller states even, right.
• 23:03
  And one of the things it's hard, you know, our our, our box, our
• 23:07
  bubble is really hard to look outside of it.
• 23:09
  And you think, well we're in a track bubble.
• 23:11
  Well, there's actually bubbles with inside that I hear quite
• 23:14
  often a coach and it's typically a coach who you know is doing a
• 23:18
  lot of the air quotes here. Right.
• 23:21
  Things, you know doing coaching education, you know, training
• 23:24
  I'll say year round, you know, maybe training more than the the
• 23:27
  the state statutes are, you know because of their state rules are
• 23:29
  allowed to do things like that, etcetera, etcetera.
• 23:32
  Where it turns sour for me is when they'll start.
• 23:35
  Really, it's judging. I'm I'm going to just put it out
• 23:38
  there of, you know, I can't believe high school coaches that
• 23:41
  don't do X, that don't do Y, that don't do Z.
• 23:44
  And I think we forget you you. That's a great example of what
• 23:47
  you talked about there. Here's a track coach.
• 23:50
  You're coaching a makeup sports. You can fill in the correct one.
• 23:53
  Football. You're going straight into
• 23:54
  baseball. I'm sorry.
• 23:55
  Basketball. You might have been doing
• 23:56
  baseball and track at the same time.
• 23:58
  Oh by the way, you're a teacher so let's not forget, you know
• 24:02
  your eight to to three is, is a, is is structured and of course,
• 24:06
  family, passions, maybe churches etcetera.
• 24:10
  How, how did you. When you think about the sports
• 24:13
  that you did coach, how did you, how could you?
• 24:17
  And you are all forgiven if you say, yeah, I just couldn't.
• 24:20
  Mike, there was just no time. How did you work in coaching
• 24:22
  education? How did you work to become a
• 24:24
  better football coach? Assuming you coach that sport,
• 24:27
  baseball, basketball, whatever other sports you coach, how did
• 24:30
  you? I mean, it's just, it's amazing.
• 24:32
  Eight to three, you're teaching, for crying out loud.
• 24:34
  How are you supposed to fit that in?
• 24:35
  How did you, or if did you at all?
• 24:37
  Well, as far as on the track side of it, it's not as
• 24:41
  complicated, especially comments on the background I had at the
• 24:44
  college level and and you get to know a.
• 24:46
  Lot of advantage. You pick up the phone.
• 24:49
  You know hey I got this kid or I've got this group and and and
• 24:53
  you know for me you could you could call back to college
• 24:56
  coaches or we had a a pretty good group just in the North
• 25:00
  Texas area of you know you go to the same meets all the time and
• 25:03
  a lot of those coaches that have had success that they'll share
• 25:07
  you know and that that's the biggest thing.
• 25:08
  You just can't be afraid to ask and say hey, how would you
• 25:11
  handle this? Even before we got on here, I
• 25:13
  just had a coach that that texted me and said, hey, I got a
• 25:15
  question for you and it went even from our district and you
• 25:19
  know, we just, we communicate, we talk and for the most part
• 25:23
  coaches, especially track cross country coaches, they they're
• 25:26
  not afraid to share what they're doing.
• 25:29
  But we kind of talk about the same thing that you're
• 25:32
  mentioning there all the time, from the weight training world
• 25:34
  to the track and field world, all that stuff.
• 25:37
  There's a lot of people who like to dog on other people with like
• 25:40
  you just said, well I can't believe they don't do this well.
• 25:43
  I'm a big believer there's best but then there's best for your
• 25:47
  situation because I've evolved just from year one to to year
• 25:53
  15. It it depends on the kid.
• 25:56
  You know. It depends on your group.
• 25:58
  It depends on where you are within your program as to what
• 26:00
  you should be doing and how you should be doing it.
• 26:04
  You know and and you you have to kind of change not necessarily
• 26:08
  with the times but with your kids and what what they need
• 26:12
  you. If you know I'm not a big fan of
• 26:14
  just doing the same thing over and over again because that's
• 26:16
  what we do now. You, you, you've got to do
• 26:18
  what's best for that kid in their development and now that
• 26:22
  I'm not coaching and you see that from the kind of the
• 26:25
  outside looking in, but then I have it in my own house too to
• 26:29
  where you're like, OK, this is how things should go along with
• 26:32
  your own training and things like that.
• 26:35
  And so those are the kind you know from an AT perspective
• 26:37
  those are the kind of coaches when you're when you're trying
• 26:39
  to hire somebody that you look for that and said well here's
• 26:42
  what we do. Well, I understand what you're
• 26:45
  saying, but what happens if you know, and so everybody's at a
• 26:49
  different stage of training, a different stage of life, you
• 26:52
  know, your athletic age, whatever that may be, some
• 26:55
  people use that term. But that that's a big thing with
• 26:58
  me is, is every year I think we changed something and it didn't
• 27:02
  matter if it was football, basketball, track.
• 27:06
  You know, you're changing your philosophy and that's what
• 27:09
  somebody I've I've had people ask me all the time, what's your
• 27:12
  philosophy on XY or Z? And I'm like, it depends.
• 27:16
  And that's that's a that's an answer with me.
• 27:18
  A lot of times when somebody will ask me quit, well, it just
• 27:20
  depends. I haven't met the kids.
• 27:21
  What do they do? What are they good at?
• 27:23
  What are, what can't they do? What are we, You know, it's
• 27:26
  everything's just different. And so it changes from
• 27:29
  day-to-day, from a training perspective, coaching
• 27:31
  perspective, from even an AD role, every day is a little
• 27:35
  different. And sometimes you what decisions
• 27:37
  you made a while back might not be the same or correct decision
• 27:41
  that you need to be making today.
• 27:42
  So how did you especially at the 1A because I imagine you
• 27:46
  coaching several different sports you seem like, I mean
• 27:50
  obviously we, you know, we can Fast forward to the future and
• 27:51
  we know, you know you're an AD over extremely large ISD.
• 27:55
  So, you know, success and improvement seems to be maybe
• 27:59
  some core values of yours or at least some skill sets of yours.
• 28:02
  So that that doesn't just start, you know, in 2020 that started
• 28:06
  way back, probably even as a kid.
• 28:07
  Here you are in A1A school. You, you know, you're, you're
• 28:10
  coaching all these different sports, plus you're teaching.
• 28:13
  How did you maybe prioritize the right word?
• 28:17
  How did you prioritize of where you're going to put time into
• 28:20
  improvement? You wanted to become a better
• 28:21
  teacher. You wanted to become a better
• 28:23
  football coach. I I get the track side and that
• 28:25
  and it feels like almost like that is the little bit easier.
• 28:28
  Meaning you're talking about being at a track meeting.
• 28:30
  You know we know track meets unfortunately can be you know,
• 28:33
  all day events. There's a lot of time to talk to
• 28:35
  fellow coaches. I I don't see you running across
• 28:38
  the sideline in football going hey coach.
• 28:39
  So how did you do that You know that there seems to be less
• 28:42
  there's clinics and stuff and maybe that's the answer.
• 28:44
  How did you prioritize how you were going to become a better
• 28:48
  football coach, a better track coach, a better geography
• 28:52
  teacher? How did you prioritize all that
• 28:54
  through the year that you know, runs up pretty fast?
• 28:57
  Yeah. As far as like football, you
• 29:00
  know, you go to every clinic you can get, you can get a hold of
• 29:04
  and I've been very fortunate the the districts that I've been in
• 29:07
  that we basically always prioritized.
• 29:10
  You know, we would go to clinics as a staff and so one of those
• 29:14
  things, you know, we we would go Oil bowl clinic, you know in
• 29:18
  Wichita Falls, which has been around for a long time.
• 29:21
  Different things like that, like our Staffs now that they go to
• 29:25
  tons of different clinics and things like that.
• 29:27
  Summertime was huge, you know, and we're fortunate in Texas
• 29:31
  with the Texas High School Coaches Association and then
• 29:34
  Texas Girls Coaches Association. There's all kinds of things.
• 29:37
  The Cross Country Coaches Association, I was, I was
• 29:40
  involved with a lot of those over the years as well.
• 29:43
  But everything's done in the summertime and so a lot of times
• 29:47
  as a coach and with a wife who was a coach those clinics turn
• 29:52
  into vacation And so you're going we spend a lot of time in
• 29:56
  Austin, San Antonio, things like that And so everything kind of
• 30:01
  double S up. You're working if you will, but
• 30:04
  you're also in the evenings when you get done with that you're
• 30:06
  taking the kids here or there and you just kind of kind of
• 30:09
  double dip if you will and and try to get it all done that way.
• 30:12
  But it's it's definitely difficult you know and I think
• 30:15
  as time goes on it gets a little more difficult because there's
• 30:18
  it's everything gets a little bit more demanding with the way
• 30:20
  things are nowadays. But sometimes you got to say no
• 30:24
  you know when it when it comes to certain things and and you
• 30:26
  just got to say this is this is priority this week and I'm I'm
• 30:31
  kind of a checklist kind of guy and move on.
• 30:34
  Sometimes if you get too many things spinning at the in the
• 30:36
  same direction you just got to slow things down and say OK I'm
• 30:38
  going to do this today and then I'll come back to this tomorrow
• 30:42
  because otherwise you you won't get anything done or it won't be
• 30:44
  done like you want it to be done if you try to do juggling too
• 30:48
  much stuff. But yeah, we definitely growing
• 30:51
  up through it all and and and coaching, you find the time in
• 30:55
  the summers holidays things like that to to go do things to to
• 31:00
  learn a lot. But like I said before it's just
• 31:03
  the North Texas area is just a wealth of knowledge.
• 31:06
  Texas in general and so many coaches they they just pick up
• 31:09
  the phone too, you know and you just sit down and go have dinner
• 31:12
  and talk about philosophy of of training or coaching or
• 31:16
  whatever. It may be that that probably is
• 31:19
  is the biggest way to get a lot of it because clinics are great
• 31:23
  in going to all that stuff because you can learn a lot.
• 31:25
  But sometimes when you get that one-on-one just talking to
• 31:28
  somebody and you do enough of that over the years, you start
• 31:31
  to to to get an appreciation for what others do.
• 31:33
  And it might work for you. It might not.
• 31:36
  But I'm a big believer and sometimes there's a there's a
• 31:39
  lot to be learned from what not to do because you know we all
• 31:43
  growing up over the years you have good coaches that you
• 31:47
  saying I need to do that. But there's also some that you
• 31:50
  can say you know what, that's something of what not to do or
• 31:54
  how did that make me feel as a kid when somebody did that.
• 31:57
  And so I, you know, I I kind of look for those moments in life
• 32:01
  and have for a long time of hey write that down.
• 32:05
  Remember we want to do that again or hey don't do this, you
• 32:09
  know. And so there's there's good and
• 32:11
  bad to it all. But yeah, I'm a big believer in
• 32:14
  just picking up the phone a lot and just just calling people.
• 32:16
  It just ask. It amazes me, coaches and first
• 32:20
  of all high school coaches. I don't care if you coach one
• 32:23
  sport, if you just coach track and field.
• 32:25
  It's amazing to me because again, I know and I have a much
• 32:28
  bigger appreciation In the last couple years my wife started
• 32:31
  doing a lot of substitute teaching and and a lot of long
• 32:34
  term substitute teaching. So you know, she'll substitute
• 32:36
  for, you know, months, you know, take care of a teacher when
• 32:40
  they're on their maternity leave and such and and you know, so
• 32:43
  she's not a full time teacher and but I see what she does and
• 32:45
  it's like, Oh my gosh, that's a ton of stuff.
• 32:47
  And it's like, Oh my God, there's people who do this.
• 32:48
  They're full time like Oh my goodness, you know, So I'm
• 32:51
  amazed that you know even if you coach just one sport as a high
• 32:55
  school coach and teacher, that's amazing Coaches on the high
• 32:58
  school level that do more than one sport because just looking
• 33:01
  at track and field, which you know, obviously I know better
• 33:03
  than the other sports, it can be a 365 day a year.
• 33:07
  Not only endeavor in regards to coaching, but coaching
• 33:10
  education. Like you can continually look to
• 33:11
  get better for 365 days. But you're also coaching
• 33:15
  football or basketball, I have to imagine.
• 33:18
  I bet you I could make football a 365 day a year.
• 33:21
  Oh, absolutely. Coaching education front and
• 33:23
  basketball and baseball etcetera.
• 33:24
  So it just quite amazing to me. So George, you're you're going
• 33:29
  through your coaching from first year from 1A moving up to bigger
• 33:34
  schools and can I assume you start coaching?
• 33:38
  I hate to use the word only, but you you divest away from other
• 33:40
  sports and start becoming only a track and field and cross
• 33:43
  country coach. Or do you keep other sports?
• 33:46
  Right. I went when I went from era to
• 33:49
  Sanger which was a 3A at the time for a now in Texas.
• 33:54
  You know how it goes that you get more coaches in a school of
• 33:56
  that size and so they and it kind of whittles it down a
• 33:59
  little bit because things become more full time and you get full
• 34:02
  time kids. And so yeah I went from there
• 34:06
  and I coached basketball continued on there for a couple
• 34:08
  years there and as the head cross country and the head track
• 34:12
  coach on the girls side. And so I kind of transitioned to
• 34:15
  from coaching boys to coaching girls and had the boys in cross
• 34:19
  country and then coach basketball for a while and then
• 34:22
  it just became full time cross country track.
• 34:24
  And then, yeah, the bigger the school, the more it tends to
• 34:27
  kind of you, you go down to the singular sports because a lot of
• 34:31
  those kids you'll have, that'll be in your athletic period full
• 34:35
  time. And so there's not as many multi
• 34:39
  sport kids. I mean you're always searching
• 34:40
  for those kids, but at the same time you're kind of running your
• 34:44
  program year round all summer. I mean you know how it is with
• 34:48
  cross country and track if you're not doing something year
• 34:51
  round unless you're in another sport you're you're getting
• 34:56
  behind if you're just sitting around doing nothing.
• 34:58
  So it's it's just kind of, it's just kind of where things are
• 35:00
  now especially you know get into the bigger schools and and
• 35:03
  you're still searching for those multi sport kids and trying to
• 35:05
  make things workout. But you know, you know if you go
• 35:08
  up against the competition I tell my own kids all the time
• 35:10
  and say well that kids training 12 months out of the year and
• 35:12
  you're training three, eventually you're going to race.
• 35:16
  Yeah. And so that's just kind of how
• 35:19
  it goes with certain things you know but you you you find it
• 35:22
  depending on the sports, you know a lot of things crossover
• 35:25
  and work together a little bit better than others do.
• 35:28
  But you know, you always encourage them to do as much as
• 35:30
  you can, as long as you can. And that's how it was with my
• 35:32
  own. And some of them did a little
• 35:34
  longer than others, you know, But especially in middle school,
• 35:37
  you know, all of mine were 4-5 sport kids and just find what
• 35:40
  you like and go from there and then let's go be good at it, so.
• 35:45
  So as you went through your coaching career and we'll get to
• 35:48
  the administration side here in just a second, but as you went
• 35:51
  through your coaching career, how did you develop and change
• 35:54
  as a coach and how did that influence of your college
• 35:58
  coaching, high school coaches affect that and drive it?
• 36:03
  You know, it it they all of my guys were pretty influential.
• 36:07
  I mean, they were the reason that I got into it, 'cause, you
• 36:09
  know, I think we all at some point have that guy.
• 36:12
  I want to be like that guy. And so that that's what got me
• 36:16
  into it. I think I changed over time as a
• 36:21
  coach. When you're young, you know
• 36:24
  everything is just I I don't know how to explain it.
• 36:29
  Everything is everything, Yeah, I mean.
• 36:31
  It's it's everything super. Important and.
• 36:33
  You know, it's it's very black and white and I think not only
• 36:37
  as you get older do you get grayer, but you're kind of how
• 36:41
  you look at life gets a little grayer too and say, OK, that if
• 36:43
  I need to lighten up on that, you know.
• 36:46
  And so especially now, things have changed a little bit where
• 36:49
  you got to kind of loosen up just a little bit and you know,
• 36:52
  you can't be as hardcore sometimes as you used to because
• 36:55
  especially when you're young, that's yeah, like you said,
• 36:57
  everything is. Everything.
• 37:00
  It's not. It's important, don't get me
• 37:02
  wrong. But at the same time, sometimes
• 37:04
  you're like, all right, we'll be fine.
• 37:06
  We're we're going to be just fine.
• 37:07
  I I I get to work these kids out 12 months out of the year.
• 37:10
  And so if if this doesn't happen today, it's going to be OK.
• 37:14
  It's not life or death. But.
• 37:15
  When you're when you're 2223 years old, it's like, Oh my
• 37:18
  goodness. But season's over because we had
• 37:21
  bad weather today, you know? And so it's one of those things
• 37:25
  now you just definitely you relax and kind of roll with the
• 37:27
  punches a lot more than you used to.
• 37:29
  Did you keep and or start a tradition every year of with the
• 37:34
  new kids going, hey, I I need the tough kids and then do them
• 37:37
  in the four, eight or. Yeah, we we talked about it a
• 37:39
  lot. Yeah, I had several kids, one in
• 37:43
  particular. He was a very good two mile and
• 37:46
  he went off and he was NCAA qualifier in cross country and
• 37:51
  but he was stud, I mean absolute stud and he would get mad at me
• 37:54
  not because he wasn't tough but he didn't have quite the foot
• 37:57
  speed that some others might have.
• 37:58
  But he wanted to run that eight like you wouldn't believe.
• 38:01
  And so I said, well, we throw him a bone every so often.
• 38:05
  But yeah, just with all those things that we kind of built and
• 38:08
  especially with our girls program, we wanted every kid.
• 38:12
  And after a few years, we got it there to where there was a fight
• 38:15
  to be on that 4x4. Yeah.
• 38:17
  And I mean, because you can do so much with those kids because,
• 38:20
  one, they're tough. But two, they've got speed,
• 38:22
  they've got decent endurance. And then when you're at a
• 38:25
  smaller school at that time, you know, well, what was it?
• 38:30
  Can't even remember anymore. It's been so long.
• 38:32
  But a lot of the small schools were still running 2 miles like
• 38:35
  they do in Texas where the 5A6AS run 5K for the girls.
• 38:40
  Well, all my 4 by 4 girls were my best cross country runners
• 38:43
  and so the distance girls had to wait till track rolled around so
• 38:46
  that they could kind of shine a little bit because you could
• 38:49
  take those 4 by 4 girls and just because they could tough out a
• 38:53
  A2 mile, you know. Now when you went that extra
• 38:55
  1.1, some things changed. You know when.
• 38:59
  When, Yes. And so we, I was on the
• 39:03
  committee when a lot of those rules came along and and the
• 39:06
  change was made and you know being a distance guy everybody's
• 39:08
  like well, I can't believe that you, you know, you don't want
• 39:12
  this change. And I said, well I said it
• 39:14
  depends on the year. You know, again, you got to kind
• 39:17
  of roll. With it one year.
• 39:19
  I'm on A1 to 5K because of those the kids I got and another year
• 39:22
  left. Let's keep it at the two mile
• 39:24
  because I got a good mile relay. This year.
• 39:26
  They're going to come out and they're going to really, really
• 39:28
  compete hard for you and before you really start hitting into
• 39:31
  the heavy track training I. Love it.
• 39:33
  I love it. All right.
• 39:34
  So let's start transitioning And you know the kind of obvious
• 39:38
  question is, is when did that start entering your mind in
• 39:42
  regards to go into the administration?
• 39:44
  Was it a a very acute one year you got the opportunity, so you
• 39:48
  just took it or was there years of like you know, maybe I should
• 39:51
  look to that type of job? I I think you said it best right
• 39:54
  there it was it was quick and and it was one of those things
• 39:58
  that are athletic director at the time Susan Elsa she ended up
• 40:02
  going and taking over the UIL and and for the state of Texas.
• 40:06
  Oh wow. And so you know she was she was
• 40:08
  an influence and and and she did a lot of good things for this
• 40:11
  district. When it started to really grow,
• 40:13
  especially kind of she made some changes and you know, from more
• 40:19
  of a rural district into a suburban type district.
• 40:24
  And so my current boss, Coach Johnson, he took over her role
• 40:28
  and I'd worked with him previously at Northwest High
• 40:32
  School and it it just seemed kind of like a natural fit.
• 40:35
  And so when the opportunity came along is and that's one of those
• 40:38
  things that I think when I got into this, it was never really a
• 40:42
  goal. It's never really something I
• 40:44
  sought out. I think it was just one of those
• 40:47
  things that just kind of happened and I had been the
• 40:50
  assistant campus coordinator at at at the high school and so we
• 40:55
  have kind of I wouldn't call them a DS on the campus but they
• 40:58
  kind of the campus AD. So you got your head football
• 41:00
  coach who's the athletic coordinator of the campus and
• 41:02
  then I was the assistant campus coordinator.
• 41:04
  So you ran all the events and stuff like that and got all the
• 41:07
  workers and and so it was just kind of a natural transition
• 41:10
  from the campus side into the district side of things which
• 41:14
  even when I first came over here was a lot smaller.
• 41:17
  You know we we've we've opened so much stuff between middle
• 41:21
  schools and high schools since then that the role has continued
• 41:24
  to evolve from more of a like I said a rule type setting to
• 41:29
  where we were pulling kids from all over the place and now
• 41:32
  they're kind of split up and you know you got 36A high schools
• 41:36
  for the 4th on the way, but it's definitely changed and in the
• 41:40
  the flexibility of the job definitely changes from year to
• 41:43
  year two as as to what you're doing and how you're doing it.
• 41:47
  Just like every assistant coach doesn't necessarily need to be a
• 41:52
  head coach one day, not every coach needs to be an
• 41:56
  administrator one day. And when I say need, I'm talking
• 41:59
  about skill sets here. Not necessarily motivation or
• 42:01
  desire, but just a it's a different skill set.
• 42:05
  What do you think Coach Johnson saw in you that he thought you'd
• 42:11
  make a good AD And then kind of the add on question to that is
• 42:15
  what are the skills as an AD that you put in, I'm going to
• 42:18
  call it on a daily basis. It's it's different from
• 42:20
  coaching, but maybe not, I don't know.
• 42:24
  Great question. Probably need him to answer that
• 42:27
  one. You know, he put together kind
• 42:32
  of a group that that kind of encompassed all the sports, you
• 42:36
  know to where everybody kind of had a, I wouldn't say a
• 42:39
  specialty, but people that kind of knew a little bit of
• 42:42
  everything and then kind of had a specific role.
• 42:47
  And so we all kind of split up the sports and things like that
• 42:50
  to some degree and we all have our own little roles, but we all
• 42:53
  work together at the same time. But I I want to say probably it
• 42:56
  had a lot to do with the cross country track side of things.
• 43:00
  So that you had somebody within that role that showed attention
• 43:03
  to those things. Or like the individual sports,
• 43:07
  Olympic type sports, which was, you know what?
• 43:09
  I've got a son who's a swimmer And so you you try to find
• 43:13
  people who understand those different sides of everything
• 43:17
  that we've got going on in the district and that probably had a
• 43:20
  lot to do with it. And then too he probably saw
• 43:24
  that. I didn't mind.
• 43:25
  I didn't mind working. And that's, that's one of those
• 43:28
  things you put in a lot of hours as a coach and then when you
• 43:30
  move into this role, it's different.
• 43:34
  But it's still, I mean, you've got something every night, 3-4
• 43:36
  nights a week, it's it's it's still a lot of hours.
• 43:39
  And so you have to find a person that that's OK with that and
• 43:42
  whose family may be OK with that, that they're gone, you
• 43:45
  know? And I've got kids of my own and
• 43:46
  sometimes I can be at their stuff and sometimes you can't
• 43:49
  because you're watching other kids.
• 43:51
  And so that's one of those things that once you find
• 43:54
  somebody like that, that's, you know, they're not going to be
• 43:57
  gone all the time. And sometimes you got to be OK
• 43:59
  with not being at your own kids stuff.
• 44:01
  That's that's a big part of it. And I think that's a big part
• 44:04
  too that that comes up with with kids or it when you have your
• 44:12
  own kids that you know a lot of people and coaches.
• 44:16
  I've seen a lot of young coaches over the years that they're in
• 44:18
  three or four years and and you know they start missing stuff
• 44:21
  which you don't want to do. However, sometimes it's just
• 44:24
  part of the role. Right.
• 44:27
  When you went into the administration side, did did
• 44:31
  coaching cease at that point or was there any kind of?
• 44:34
  Yes, yeah, You know, it's like I said, with the district this
• 44:37
  size, we've got how many kids? Now it's over 30,000 and so
• 44:42
  we're constantly opening new schools and you know we open
• 44:45
  basically an elementary every year in a middle school every
• 44:48
  two to three and a high school now will be every four to five
• 44:52
  with the way things are going. So yeah it's it would be very
• 44:55
  difficult to try to coach and do that at the same time.
• 44:58
  And so you know we we do our best to hire quality coaches and
• 45:02
  and that are on those campuses and and then we kind of have
• 45:06
  that hierarchy you know where there's our office and then
• 45:09
  those the campus guys to the campus administration.
• 45:13
  And so there's a lot of stuff that a lot of times we don't get
• 45:16
  to see a lot of those assistant coaches and stuff.
• 45:18
  But you know and shoot what do we have?
• 45:21
  We're, we're close to 250 coaches across the district and
• 45:26
  that's you know it's not going to get any smaller anytime soon.
• 45:28
  So you know you you try to hire good people and and find good
• 45:32
  people out there and that are going to do right by kids and
• 45:35
  and right now you know that's coming up.
• 45:37
  That's kind of the big role coming up this spring is you
• 45:40
  know there's natural movement with the coaching world and so
• 45:44
  that that'll be a big thing come this spring trying to find new
• 45:48
  bodies and then when you open a new high school, hiring a whole
• 45:50
  staff there too. Oh yeah, right.
• 45:52
  Lot goes into it and so we just opened a new middle school last
• 45:55
  year and we'll have another one here pretty quick again.
• 45:58
  So it it that's a full time job in itself and then getting out
• 46:02
  to everything else and getting hoping making sure everybody has
• 46:05
  everything that they need to be successful.
• 46:08
  You know you want to make sure you take care of coaches the
• 46:09
  best you can. That's kind of we talk about it
• 46:12
  a lot in this office as you know we're we're a service industry.
• 46:14
  It's our job to make sure those coaches are taken care of so
• 46:17
  they can take care of the kids and then you get out and you
• 46:21
  know, we watch a lot of games, a lot of everything, so.
• 46:26
  I coached for 10 years, a couple of years on the high school
• 46:29
  level and the rest on the college level.
• 46:31
  And when I got out, I remember I always describe it as around
• 46:36
  2:00 to 3:00, I'd get the the itches like, oh, I'm supposed to
• 46:39
  go outside and play in the sand. You know, I'm supposed to help
• 46:41
  long jumpers and stuff like that.
• 46:43
  Did you have that at all when you first, like, you know, the
• 46:46
  first track season rolls around and you're not going to
• 46:48
  practice? Absolutely.
• 46:50
  You know I'm I'm not a big crier but when I when I told my kids
• 46:55
  that that I was making the move it was tough.
• 46:57
  It was really tough. You know the one thing that did
• 47:01
  help me with the transition though was my own kids cuz I got
• 47:04
  to kind of live through them a little bit and and you know you
• 47:08
  you try not to coach and I'm I'm the first one I'll I'll sit in
• 47:11
  the stands when my kids are competing I'm up there with my
• 47:13
  wife and stuff and you let the coaches do their jobs and but it
• 47:17
  that was that helped being able to just kind of go watch them
• 47:21
  and be involved with them but yeah they kind of came along at
• 47:26
  the same time. I've actually never, you know,
• 47:28
  we talk all the time about, you know, coaches that coach their
• 47:31
  kids and that was never really a goal of mine.
• 47:35
  And I know some people look at it the other way.
• 47:37
  My wife actually did all the coaching like through Youth
• 47:40
  League and stuff. They got to play their one sport
• 47:42
  a year growing up and but my wife was always coaching
• 47:45
  basketball. She coached the youth track and
• 47:47
  all that stuff when they did that and I was kind of the we
• 47:50
  kind of flipped roles on that. So like I'll bring the snacks,
• 47:53
  you know, I'll, I'll bring it make sure they have everything
• 47:56
  they need. And it's it's still in a lot of
• 47:57
  ways that way. And so yeah my own kids helped
• 48:01
  with that transition a little bit because they kind of kept
• 48:03
  you busy. But yeah, you you miss coaching
• 48:06
  that. I don't know if there's any AD
• 48:08
  out there that would say that you don't miss being around the
• 48:11
  kids full time because a lot of the stuff we deal with now is
• 48:14
  just kind of negative. It's kind of like being a
• 48:16
  principal. My wife's a principal and God
• 48:20
  bless them, that's it's it's one of those those jobs that there's
• 48:26
  some positives that go along with it, but a lot of times once
• 48:28
  it gets to you, it's not positive anymore.
• 48:31
  So you've gotta learn to deal with that kind of stuff and then
• 48:34
  really enjoy when there is some success that's going on out
• 48:37
  there. And make sure you don't overlook
• 48:39
  that, cuz sometimes that can be easy to do.
• 48:42
  How OK to talk about your kids a little bit cuz absolutely.
• 48:47
  You and wife mom here have done an amazing job.
• 48:51
  So this this was another reason why we wanted George on the
• 48:54
  podcast. You know obviously his track
• 48:56
  background, I mean it's amazing he he he belongs on the podcast
• 48:59
  just on his track and coaching background alone right.
• 49:03
  But you have a son who runs at Tulsa, a great friend of mine's
• 49:08
  head coach there, Steve Goalie. Known him for a long time.
• 49:10
  Love him to death. Tulsa is one of my favorite
• 49:13
  schools because it's in my favorite trivia question.
• 49:16
  The college mascots that don't end in South, as you know of a
• 49:20
  dad of a Golden Hurricane. That Tulsa is is one of those.
• 49:25
  Now I know you're all thinking this right now.
• 49:26
  Well what are the other schools Start thinking about the mascots
• 49:28
  you know everybody's the Trojans and the.
• 49:32
  Oh my gosh, what was the what's UNT.
• 49:34
  Oh my gosh. The mean Green.
• 49:35
  Oh my gosh. That's one of them.
• 49:36
  Mean Green. There's one of them.
• 49:37
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 49:38
  Longhorns. Raiders find we just gave you
• 49:41
  two Tulsa Golden Hurricane. The North Texas Mean Green, And
• 49:44
  there's several, several others out there as well that mascots
• 49:47
  do not end in South. So you've got a son that runs
• 49:50
  collegially Bravo right there. And again, that's not easy.
• 49:54
  You have another son, I think, right, that swims for which, you
• 49:58
  know, kind of ironic swims at Adam State, which is another
• 50:00
  amazing track school, by the way.
• 50:02
  Well. And that's, you know, I'm, I'm
• 50:04
  not going to lie that's how we found it because you know,
• 50:07
  knowing the running schools and and and Doctor V Hill that was
• 50:10
  up there and now Damon Martin you know just some some legends
• 50:15
  up there. And then I had a a coach in
• 50:17
  college that he trained up there for a long a long time.
• 50:19
  So I heard all kinds of stories about Adam State and so that was
• 50:22
  just one of those things that we kind of found it based on,
• 50:25
  believe it or not the tracking across countryside of it.
• 50:28
  And so he's been up there. He's a junior now.
• 50:30
  He just finished his conference meet in the Armac this week or
• 50:34
  this last week. So yeah, he's fixing to be done.
• 50:37
  And then you got the one at Tulsa and one more.
• 50:40
  Is the Armac, you know in Division Two that conference is,
• 50:44
  you know, I don't know if I've ever heard it explained like
• 50:47
  this was this would give you kind of the example.
• 50:49
  It's the SEC of Division Two conference.
• 50:51
  I mean, it's just a killer conference.
• 50:53
  Is it like that for swimming too?
• 50:55
  Yeah, there's a couple schools, Colorado Mesa and Colorado
• 50:58
  School of Mines that are just, they're unbelievable, absolutely
• 51:01
  unbelievable. And so they they they can
• 51:03
  compete with just about anybody. And then you know, you're
• 51:05
  getting that benefit of just the altitude side of it.
• 51:08
  And then when they do happen to come down to sea level which is
• 51:12
  rare because they stay up there kind of in that that little
• 51:14
  area. But yeah it's it's a very
• 51:17
  competitive conference and so it's it's been a lot of fun.
• 51:20
  He's got to see a lot of lot of things that normally a kid from
• 51:23
  Texas probably wouldn't and so he's got to do a little
• 51:27
  traveling. So that's been good.
• 51:28
  He It's a great example of you know what sports can do.
• 51:32
  You know and and you know you, you use the sports kind of as a
• 51:36
  as a as a vehicle to get your degree and things like that and
• 51:40
  to get to see things that you normally wouldn't get to see as
• 51:43
  just a regular student. Yeah.
• 51:45
  Yeah, So he's had a good experience.
• 51:46
  He really has. It's funny.
• 51:48
  You mentioned the altitude. That's a natural thing for me to
• 51:51
  think of in running. Did not think about that as
• 51:53
  swimming, but of course. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:54
  Never. Yeah.
• 51:55
  Yeah. You know, I'm from Alabama.
• 51:56
  So, like altitude, they're in the water.
• 51:58
  And, you know, that'd be my thinking.
• 51:59
  Like there's. Not much breathing going on in
• 52:01
  some of those events, that's for sure.
• 52:03
  And then you have a third sun. Not too shabby himself.
• 52:10
  Holy cow. So, and I meant to look up.
• 52:14
  Is Tulsa the oldest? Is he a middle distance?
• 52:18
  Is he kind of four 8:00-ish? Yes he was a four eight guy in
• 52:21
  high school and it's kind of that natural transition you know
• 52:25
  he'll he'll slowly work up in events and so he was an 800 guy
• 52:29
  mainly in in high school here in the 8 the four and the four
• 52:32
  before and he went 150 point O four at Nike nationals last year
• 52:38
  he finished third at Nike nationals and so he's he's
• 52:42
  pretty solid. So he's the middle son.
• 52:45
  He's the middle one. So the older one's a swimmer.
• 52:47
  Is the swimmer in? I don't know what the equivalent
• 52:49
  would be. Is the swimmer in the equivalent
• 52:52
  middle distance type distance for swimming?
• 52:54
  That's exactly right. Yeah.
• 52:56
  So basically, you know, everything's like 25%.
• 52:59
  So you know the 100 in swimming is equivalent to the 800.
• 53:03
  And so he's a freestyle. He goes from 50 to up to 500,
• 53:07
  which would be kind of like the mile.
• 53:09
  So yeah, he's he's in the exact same type of.
• 53:11
  Events that the. Other ones are in track and
• 53:13
  field so can't get away from genetics.
• 53:15
  Yeah, that's what I was. That's what I was.
• 53:17
  Yeah, I was wondering, yeah. And then your youngest, Also a
• 53:20
  408 hundred kitties in his freshman year in high school
• 53:24
  this year. Yeah he he came on pretty late
• 53:28
  in in 7th grade. You know he was he did 5 sports
• 53:31
  all through middle school and so you know we we try not to to to
• 53:35
  push him into one thing too soon but he's he started earlier than
• 53:39
  the other ones. He just was kind of that
• 53:41
  natural. He was the the sports freak in
• 53:43
  the family and so he got to play youth football that we didn't.
• 53:47
  The other two did not just because he had so much interest
• 53:51
  in it. And then, so when he got to
• 53:52
  middle school, you know, he stayed busy.
• 53:54
  He played quarterback, he played basketball, he wrestled.
• 53:57
  He, you know, ran cross country and track.
• 53:59
  And he we saw with him, he went undefeated in middle school from
• 54:03
  cross country to every event in track from the 400 up to the
• 54:07
  mile and a half. And so he got invited up to
• 54:11
  Brooks to the PR meet in Seattle.
• 54:14
  He had gone 157 as his eighth grade year and so he gets
• 54:19
  invited up there. He goes and wins that meet and
• 54:21
  breaks the meet record goes 154. Then we drive down to Nike and
• 54:24
  then both of them run there. Drew Ann Cooper and so Cooper
• 54:29
  runs and wins the wins the quarter up there and 48.
• 54:31
  Seven breaks the meet record and then runs 153.
• 54:35
  Five breaks the meet record and then Drew goes and finishes 3rd.
• 54:39
  That's where he ran 150 point O 4 or so.
• 54:43
  There's some, there's some jockeying there.
• 54:45
  With those two especially of anything you can do, I can do
• 54:48
  better time. Yeah, we saw that from the
• 54:50
  middle school to the high school, from his drew senior
• 54:52
  year in high school to Coop says Coop would do something crazy on
• 54:55
  a Wednesday, Thursday night. And then Drew's like, wow, I
• 54:59
  better step it up here. So.
• 55:01
  There's a there's immense competition amongst your team.
• 55:05
  This is amongst your family. It's got to be even more intense
• 55:08
  who you know, we we didn't ask your P Rs, 'cause I don't care
• 55:11
  about P Rs in the meeting. Like you know, your value to me
• 55:13
  is not. They're better than me, OK?
• 55:14
  I'm gonna ask who has the family PR in the half in the.
• 55:17
  Mile, Right. Yeah, I'm #3 at this point.
• 55:21
  So yeah, Dad's dad Slow did. Did did swimmer run track at all
• 55:25
  or was he? He did, you know, funny story
• 55:27
  with him. So he started out as a runner in
• 55:30
  middle school as well and he went from 5-6 to six, one in
• 55:34
  about 6 months and he had stress and he wasn't even running that
• 55:38
  much. He was just running with what
• 55:39
  was going on at the school. But I mean he was, he was a
• 55:42
  little little skinny and just so he just he seemed like he was
• 55:47
  breaking something all the time. Just so we called the his
• 55:50
  freshman year, end of his freshman year in high school.
• 55:53
  I talked to the swim coach at Northwest High School and said
• 55:56
  hey, do you have a spot? Because we, you know, we don't
• 55:59
  push the kids to to do this, that or the other.
• 56:01
  We just say you have to do something and then when you do
• 56:05
  it you're going to go all out. So we called the swim coach and
• 56:08
  and I said, hey, do you have any spot?
• 56:10
  I said he's got to do something. He can't play an instrument.
• 56:14
  He's not any good at golf. And so you know he's he's just
• 56:18
  constantly dealing with all these different little injuries
• 56:21
  and stuff. So she goes, well, does he have
• 56:24
  any background in swimming? I said, well, he tears up
• 56:26
  Hawaiian Falls all the time wave pool.
• 56:28
  And so we got him into the pool and it was the videos are just
• 56:34
  night and day and this shows you that dad doesn't really know
• 56:37
  what he's doing anyway. But within a year or two, I mean
• 56:41
  he's, he's misqualified for the state meet his senior year, you
• 56:45
  know, and a lot of the swimmers, they've been doing it since, you
• 56:47
  know, kindergarten first. Grade, right.
• 56:48
  That's I wanted to do like, you know, swimming in a couple other
• 56:52
  sports are very youth oriented all the way through.
• 56:55
  That's why I was wondering. Yeah, he's.
• 56:57
  He picked it up late, yeah, he picked it up late.
• 56:59
  And so it all worked out for the best.
• 57:01
  That's just kind of how things go.
• 57:03
  But yeah, he he's ran sub 5 minutes in the mile as a
• 57:06
  freshman. So he there was some ability
• 57:09
  there and then you know, he just just couldn't quite stay
• 57:11
  healthy. So it all it all works out the
• 57:13
  way it should. That makes me think of, you
• 57:15
  know, I truly believe each one of us is put on earth for one
• 57:19
  thing specifically to do. Like amazingly now the vast
• 57:22
  majority of us never find that one thing.
• 57:24
  Doesn't mean we don't do things at a very high level, but it's
• 57:27
  hard to find that were like Michael Phelps was put on this
• 57:30
  earth to swim and thank goodness for all of us, for entertainment
• 57:33
  wise, he found it and then was able to, you know, achieve that.
• 57:37
  Michael Jordan, I think was, you know, here to play basketball
• 57:39
  and thank God he found basketball so that we could be
• 57:42
  entertained the way we were, Right.
• 57:44
  And you know not necessarily that the oldest son is meant to
• 57:47
  be a swimmer but obviously had I shouldn't say obviously it it
• 57:52
  seems had a preclude I don't know the right word.
• 57:56
  This is the Alabama guy trying to use big words here had the
• 58:00
  could be better at swimming than possibly track and think you
• 58:04
  know what seemed like it was a bad thing like oh man, the
• 58:06
  growth spurt and he's getting hurt.
• 58:07
  You know hey we're a track family you know.
• 58:09
  I know he wants to do it because that's you know dad and mom did
• 58:11
  blah blah blah. And it's like, you know, well
• 58:13
  let's try swimming because that'll be a little less on the
• 58:15
  joints and all that kind of stuff.
• 58:16
  And he he finds success like, I mean that's that's awesome.
• 58:19
  I mean how many people you might have been a great swimmer but
• 58:22
  you didn't have that opportunity or you know, it's just really
• 58:25
  amazing how again, there's that left and right.
• 58:27
  You know, he had a choice of like, oh, I'll just stick it out
• 58:29
  with track or okay, I'll, I'll try swimming.
• 58:31
  When he got into swim, probably struggled.
• 58:33
  You know he's swimming. A bunch of guys have done it
• 58:35
  forever. And he's, you know, trying to
• 58:37
  figure out where's the snorkel. That's what I'd be looking for,
• 58:39
  but decided to stick with it and now gets to do it on the
• 58:42
  collegiate level and like you said, has amazing experiences
• 58:45
  traveling around, meeting a bunch of different people, going
• 58:47
  to different places and being part of a team that's, I don't
• 58:51
  know, Those are the kind of things I just really enjoy about
• 58:54
  life. I mean, to me, absolutely love
• 58:56
  that kind of that story. I love that.
• 58:59
  OK, George, let's talk about some ad stuff.
• 59:02
  That's what we That's really the only reason I had you here.
• 59:04
  All this other stuff is just bonus stuff.
• 59:06
  But I'm curious. It's easy for We're track coach
• 59:14
  based podcast, so we're gonna say track coaches, but coaches
• 59:17
  in general. But track coaches to complain
• 59:19
  about our administration, complain about our ads.
• 59:22
  And maybe the reverse is true. I don't interview enough ads to
• 59:25
  know that. Maybe ads complain about coaches
• 59:27
  and stuff like that. So I've got kind of just a list
• 59:29
  in my head of questions. There's no real order here, so
• 59:33
  we may go out of order. I'll just fire away and you kind
• 59:36
  of just give us your experience at least, you know, I'll, I'll
• 59:39
  give you some reprieve that you don't necessarily speak for
• 59:41
  every AD in the world, but at least in your experience, which
• 59:45
  is vast and I love that your experience includes a a great
• 59:49
  bit of track and field. We'll just get kind of your take
• 59:51
  and thoughts on on those kind of things.
• 59:53
  OK, Why don't we start with when we start with hiring.
• 59:58
  You know, you mentioned opening new schools.
• 1:00:01
  You know there is turnover in anything, but you know, in
• 1:00:03
  coaching of course as well. What do you look for?
• 1:00:07
  Let's say, you know we've got a a group in the audience of
• 1:00:10
  assistant high school coaches that want to be a head high
• 1:00:13
  school coach one day. What do you look for when it's
• 1:00:16
  time to hire head high school coaches?
• 1:00:18
  What skill sets are you looking for?
• 1:00:20
  Is it all about how good you can coach?
• 1:00:22
  We'll put to the side maybe that you know, you need them to be an
• 1:00:25
  English teacher because you have an English position.
• 1:00:26
  You know, those are kind of, I don't call them happenstance,
• 1:00:29
  but we can't really prepare for that.
• 1:00:30
  But what are you looking for in a, a young man, young woman who
• 1:00:34
  wants to be a head coach one day?
• 1:00:36
  What skill sets temperaments are you, as an athletic director,
• 1:00:39
  looking for? Great question.
• 1:00:42
  And I go back to earlier on when I said it depends.
• 1:00:46
  And so a lot of times you're searching for one one to me the
• 1:00:50
  number one thing is you got to be a hard worker and you you
• 1:00:54
  can't have success if you're the first one out the door.
• 1:00:58
  If you're the last one in and first one out, you're you're
• 1:01:00
  going to struggle on this and you won't make it very long.
• 1:01:03
  So that's kind of the biggest thing that I look for.
• 1:01:07
  But outside of that, it's like I said, it depends.
• 1:01:09
  It depends on the program. It depends on the school.
• 1:01:12
  You know, especially if you're opening a new school, you
• 1:01:14
  definitely want to find somebody who's good at with a culture,
• 1:01:17
  building that culture. And and I'm not saying a rah,
• 1:01:20
  rah guy, 'cause you don't have to have that, but you want
• 1:01:24
  somebody that can come in and start from zero.
• 1:01:28
  And sometimes you got to have some experience whether you've
• 1:01:31
  done that before or you know, you're just a young guy that can
• 1:01:35
  or girl that can just grow with the kids.
• 1:01:38
  So I think that has a lot to do with it.
• 1:01:40
  It just depends on the job. It depends on like our district
• 1:01:43
  being so big. You know, it's it's different
• 1:01:46
  from one side of the district to the other.
• 1:01:48
  You know, you, you go South, you're really close to Fort
• 1:01:50
  Worth, you go north, it's more small town.
• 1:01:54
  You know, we've got 13 communities I believe it is, it
• 1:01:56
  might be more than that now that feed this whole district.
• 1:01:59
  And so you want to find somebody that's kind of a fit for that
• 1:02:02
  area to the best of your ability.
• 1:02:05
  But definitely it all starts with hard work because if if
• 1:02:07
  you're afraid of that, it it's not going to, it's not going to
• 1:02:11
  work anyway. So if you can find that that
• 1:02:15
  that solves a lot of your issues right there.
• 1:02:17
  If you can find somebody who wants to be around kids and and
• 1:02:20
  wants to be successful and doesn't mind putting in the time
• 1:02:24
  because that's that's what bottom line it takes a lot of
• 1:02:27
  time. So how do you, how how do I as
• 1:02:30
  an assistant coach prove that? And what I mean by that, if you
• 1:02:35
  were to have said, you know, my #1 requirement for head coach is
• 1:02:38
  that they know how to coach. Awesome.
• 1:02:39
  OK, I can prove that. I can show how many kids made it
• 1:02:41
  to regional, state. I can show, you know, freshmen
• 1:02:44
  come in at 5 minute miles and they left at 4 minute Millers,
• 1:02:46
  those kind of things. You know, I love the the
• 1:02:50
  buzzword, the buzzwords of the hard worker hustler, you know,
• 1:02:54
  chippy, you know, those kind of words, those are great.
• 1:02:56
  How do you identify that? Is that something?
• 1:03:00
  Are you always watching assistant coaches because maybe
• 1:03:03
  one day they're gonna be your head coaches?
• 1:03:04
  Or how do I prove that to you Mr. AD?
• 1:03:07
  Well, the biggest thing is we hire all the head coaches from
• 1:03:12
  our office and then if we have a assistant coach, everything runs
• 1:03:17
  through that head coach. And so you don't necessarily
• 1:03:20
  have to impress me, but you've got to impress your head coach.
• 1:03:23
  And then that head coach would come as a recommendation.
• 1:03:26
  Say we have a new school, open it up and they're going to come
• 1:03:28
  to me and say, hey, George, this guy, this is the one.
• 1:03:32
  And. And so you see those assistant
• 1:03:34
  coaches on the bench and things like that, but you're not in
• 1:03:36
  the, you're not in the coach's office with them on a daily
• 1:03:39
  basis. And that's where you learn about
• 1:03:41
  a person. You know, it's kind of like the
• 1:03:42
  locker room. You learn about kids and things
• 1:03:44
  like that and the kids learn about each other.
• 1:03:46
  But it's the same way with coaches.
• 1:03:48
  And so you have to rely on those head coaches.
• 1:03:51
  And then we we give a lot of latitude if if, if you hire the
• 1:03:54
  correct head coach, we let them go find their assistants because
• 1:03:58
  they're the ones you have to work with.
• 1:04:00
  Now we might, you know, weigh in on some things because you know,
• 1:04:03
  it's it's a coaching fraternity. You know, everybody knows
• 1:04:06
  somebody and so you you help them out with that kind of
• 1:04:09
  stuff. But when you hire a head coach,
• 1:04:11
  you have to kind of rely on them and give them.
• 1:04:14
  You don't want to micromanage them, let them.
• 1:04:16
  You got to hire a staff and we can help you with that.
• 1:04:18
  You let us know what you need from us, but they've got to find
• 1:04:22
  somebody that they can work with because they spend a lot of time
• 1:04:24
  with them. So if we're just throwing people
• 1:04:27
  at them, you might not have a very successful group because
• 1:04:30
  just because you would work well with them doesn't mean that head
• 1:04:33
  coach would. So basically we we rely on those
• 1:04:37
  head coaches to answer your question on those assistants.
• 1:04:40
  And so you know, we we when something opens up, we will
• 1:04:44
  e-mail those head coaches or or talk to him and say hey what do
• 1:04:47
  you have or what do you think or is anybody ready on your staff
• 1:04:52
  that we could bring in and and talk to.
• 1:04:54
  Love that? Well that begins a follow up
• 1:04:56
  question. How do you what is your role as
• 1:04:59
  the athletic director to help a coach out with all the other
• 1:05:05
  stuff? So it's one thing to be good or
• 1:05:09
  capable enough coaching the actual, I'll call the XS and OS
• 1:05:12
  of what happens during track practice and at a meet.
• 1:05:15
  But there's other things coaches have to do.
• 1:05:17
  There's budgeting. They have to give you a budget
• 1:05:19
  request, maybe, and and I don't necessarily know you, you
• 1:05:23
  correct me and maybe add stuff that I'm going to miss.
• 1:05:25
  Scheduling buses, maybe they have to.
• 1:05:28
  You know, a first time head coach has to write up what the
• 1:05:30
  team rules and conduct and expectations are.
• 1:05:33
  How do you what's your role as an athletic director to help new
• 1:05:36
  coaches out with that aspect? We do a lot of that.
• 1:05:40
  We've got a lot of stuff online to help with the coaches and
• 1:05:44
  checklist and things like that that we go through with them.
• 1:05:47
  Me personally, just from from this office, I'm kind of, I'm
• 1:05:52
  kind of the travel agent. Believe it or not.
• 1:05:56
  So we've got I handle all hotels, charter buses, things
• 1:06:01
  like that, so that the head coaches don't have to worry
• 1:06:03
  about that. So bottom line, they send me,
• 1:06:05
  hey coach, I need this, this and this.
• 1:06:07
  Got it. And I get it done.
• 1:06:09
  And when it's done, I send it to him.
• 1:06:10
  So that's one thing we can help take off their plate.
• 1:06:13
  We have another guy in our office, Coach Curran, that he
• 1:06:16
  helps with all the buses to just the the yellow dogs, all that
• 1:06:18
  kind of stuff and helping them with their certifications.
• 1:06:22
  I handle booster clubs. We got 39 of those across the
• 1:06:25
  district. So I do all the booster club
• 1:06:28
  trainings, go through all the rules and things like that and
• 1:06:31
  bank statements and all that fun stuff that people don't realize
• 1:06:34
  that we do right? And we don't necessarily wanna
• 1:06:37
  talk about it either, 'cause there's not that much fun
• 1:06:38
  sometimes it's not real glamorous.
• 1:06:42
  And so, yeah, there's a lot of things that we do that people
• 1:06:46
  don't see, but if we don't do them, people will see.
• 1:06:51
  Yeah, that's a. Good way of putting it, Yeah.
• 1:06:54
  So it's a lot of behind the scenes type stuff.
• 1:06:57
  And so this is one of those jobs that if you want a lot of Pats
• 1:07:02
  on the back, you're not gonna get those.
• 1:07:04
  And that's OK. You have to be OK.
• 1:07:05
  It's kind of like being a head coach, you know, where everybody
• 1:07:09
  loves the backup quarterback, everybody loves the, you know,
• 1:07:12
  the assistant coach or the first assistant.
• 1:07:15
  But once you kind of move into another role, don't count on
• 1:07:18
  always getting a lot of love, 'cause you just get a lot of the
• 1:07:22
  problems. But that's just how it goes.
• 1:07:25
  That's just part of it. And you know that going into it.
• 1:07:28
  But it's OK, you know, it's it's not that big a deal, so.
• 1:07:31
  Did you? You just said you know that
• 1:07:34
  going into it, you know you have experience.
• 1:07:36
  It wasn't that long ago. You you you've definitely had
• 1:07:38
  some years in the athletic director, but it wasn't 30 years
• 1:07:40
  ago when you moved into AD, Did you know and expect that or is
• 1:07:45
  that was that an adjustment for you?
• 1:07:46
  Yeah, it somewhat, it was an adjustment, but for the most
• 1:07:49
  part we had a a gentleman here, Coach Prescott that he has since
• 1:07:53
  he retired four or five years ago.
• 1:07:55
  He was just kind of that Yoda, you know, that everybody went to
• 1:07:59
  and you could sit down and he would just shoot you straight
• 1:08:02
  and like hey, what is this role going to be?
• 1:08:05
  And he he could kind of talk you through that.
• 1:08:08
  The good thing that we do here is, is we kind of grow our own
• 1:08:12
  administrators and kind of, like I mentioned before, those head
• 1:08:17
  football coaches that are the campus coordinators and then you
• 1:08:19
  have those assistant campus coordinators.
• 1:08:22
  So very rarely do we go outside of the district because we've
• 1:08:27
  got the next ones on one of those campuses somewhere, much
• 1:08:31
  like you were talking about how do you know an assistant coach
• 1:08:33
  is ready to be a head coach, right.
• 1:08:35
  There's kind of that pipeline there and you always wanna go
• 1:08:38
  within your own people first, one, because not because it's
• 1:08:41
  easy, but two, they already have done the job to some degree,
• 1:08:45
  just maybe on a smaller scale. And so as they work up, you
• 1:08:49
  know, it's it just changes just, well, you did it at one school,
• 1:08:52
  basically the same role. Now you're doing it for the
• 1:08:55
  whole district. And so that's kind of how we
• 1:08:58
  approach things here. And it doesn't mean it's right,
• 1:09:02
  but it sure seems to work for us.
• 1:09:04
  So no, that makes lots of sense. They already know a little bit
• 1:09:06
  about the culture and expectations and even simple
• 1:09:10
  things that you think are it's not in the training manual, but
• 1:09:14
  where to go for this, who to talk to for that.
• 1:09:16
  They they already know those things exactly.
• 1:09:18
  They come in and day one operating at say 50% where a
• 1:09:21
  newbie from the outside comes in operating at 1% and that that
• 1:09:24
  one to 50 is a is a big haul. Yeah, I get that.
• 1:09:27
  What? What role?
• 1:09:28
  And it may not be an official role, George.
• 1:09:31
  It may not be like, hey, this is part of my job description.
• 1:09:33
  It may just be as a former track coach and athlete, etcetera,
• 1:09:37
  what role do you have in encouraging your coaches in
• 1:09:40
  regards to the coach and education side?
• 1:09:43
  We send our coaches. We have it set up basically.
• 1:09:47
  So we will pay from a district side for our head coaches to go
• 1:09:52
  to clinics and then they, the head coaches in turn have the
• 1:09:56
  ability to budgetary out of their own budgets to pay for
• 1:10:01
  assistant coaches to go as well. So our guys don't lack for
• 1:10:05
  getting to go to you know, clinics and things like that.
• 1:10:08
  And and like I said before in the north text there, there's
• 1:10:11
  tons of stuff just right here in the state of Texas.
• 1:10:14
  You know, we take staff to coaching school with THSCA and
• 1:10:18
  they do all the cross country track clinics, you know,
• 1:10:21
  volleyball, basketball, basically.
• 1:10:23
  We encourage and then we pay for their memberships from a
• 1:10:26
  district level so that they will get involved so that they can,
• 1:10:31
  you know, nominate their kids for those Allstate honors being
• 1:10:33
  a part of those associations. So basically we try to take care
• 1:10:38
  of those head coaches the best we can and then those head
• 1:10:40
  coaches kind of in turn to take care of those assistant coaches
• 1:10:43
  who are interested and want to move on as well.
• 1:10:46
  Yeah, I got a shout out. We've mentioned a couple of
• 1:10:48
  organizations, a couple that I've worked with hand in hand.
• 1:10:51
  You mentioned there in the summer, the THSCA, the Texas
• 1:10:54
  High School Coaches Association. They actually invited me back
• 1:10:57
  last year and for some reason invited me back to be the MC for
• 1:11:01
  the track coaches portion. So, you know, I just enjoy
• 1:11:04
  serving other coaches and be able to help facilitate the room
• 1:11:07
  with amazing, I mean like really amazing speakers.
• 1:11:10
  I mean, the coaches that they have that come up or just
• 1:11:12
  awesome. I couldn't talk to a Texas guy,
• 1:11:15
  Texas track guy, without talking about the TFCA, the Texas Track
• 1:11:18
  and Field Coaches Association. Stu Canter.
• 1:11:20
  Yeah, yeah, love it. Yeah, loved him.
• 1:11:22
  Exactly. And then there's many.
• 1:11:25
  Texas AD convention is a great convention.
• 1:11:27
  You mentioned the Texas girls coaches.
• 1:11:29
  It really is. You know, I know it's a a big
• 1:11:31
  state so maybe the the, the stands, the reason that there'd
• 1:11:34
  be a lot of organizations. But while that may be true, my
• 1:11:38
  experience has been the people in those organizations are also
• 1:11:41
  top notch people. It's not just organization for
• 1:11:43
  organization's sake. So just want to make sure we
• 1:11:46
  mentioned. Yeah, we're we're very spoiled
• 1:11:48
  in Texas and you know I have friends outside the state and
• 1:11:52
  the things that we get to do in Texas and just the competition
• 1:11:57
  and that's just not just the kids but even within the
• 1:12:00
  coaching ranks and all that stuff and all the it's top notch
• 1:12:04
  here. We are very spoiled compared to
• 1:12:08
  a lot of others, a lot of opportunities here
• 1:12:11
  professionally, you know, and then coaching wise and just the
• 1:12:15
  the athletes that are in the state of Texas are, It's just
• 1:12:17
  amazing. All right.
• 1:12:18
  Let's keep on our AD Q&A, our our fire.
• 1:12:22
  Any questions here In fact, you know, I didn't mean to say it
• 1:12:25
  that way, but that's was my next question be insensitive of
• 1:12:28
  course, personal reasons etcetera.
• 1:12:30
  I'm going to ask it in a little bit different way than I was
• 1:12:34
  originally thinking. What would cause you to fire a
• 1:12:39
  coach? What, what?
• 1:12:40
  What are what? Some things that you know as a
• 1:12:41
  high school coach, you need to be aware of that, Hey, this is
• 1:12:44
  just, you just don't do it that this is going to get you on on
• 1:12:48
  the list of you. Just you're not going to be
• 1:12:49
  coaching in my district anymore? We we always talk about things
• 1:12:54
  that that that basically are newsworthy and that's that's
• 1:12:57
  what we want to stay off the news.
• 1:12:59
  That's step one. So you know, I don't want to go
• 1:13:02
  into detail on any of that stuff, but you know that's
• 1:13:05
  that's that's step one on that. I'm a big believer, you know,
• 1:13:09
  and we all have kind of our own philosophies even in this office
• 1:13:12
  on things like that. But I'm a big believer that that
• 1:13:15
  you can be competitive with whatever it is you have.
• 1:13:18
  And I'm not saying that you can win everything.
• 1:13:20
  I'm not saying you're going to win the state title because we
• 1:13:23
  all have different levels of talent even within the district
• 1:13:26
  this size. But you can be competitive.
• 1:13:28
  You know, you can be in every game or you can be in every
• 1:13:31
  meeting and you can compete hard.
• 1:13:32
  That goes back to kids that want to go hard, coaches that want to
• 1:13:36
  go hard and work hard. If I see that, and I'm saying,
• 1:13:40
  man, we're not very good here, but man, do they go hard.
• 1:13:44
  You know if you're a basketball coach and you play great defense
• 1:13:48
  and you can't shoot save your life, but you're working on it,
• 1:13:50
  you can keep the game, the score low just because the effort on
• 1:13:54
  the other end of the floor is there.
• 1:13:56
  So there's little things like that to me that that's huge and
• 1:14:00
  and because I know you're not going to win a district title
• 1:14:02
  every year, you're not going to most of us, how many of us will
• 1:14:05
  ever win a state title, right. You know you can do it for a
• 1:14:08
  long time and you just might not have the horses from year to
• 1:14:10
  year. And so like I said previously
• 1:14:13
  before we got on here, you know good kids make good coaches.
• 1:14:17
  And so I just think that I don't care what you have talent wise,
• 1:14:23
  you can still be competitive because if you can get the kids
• 1:14:26
  on the same page and kind of going all that same direction
• 1:14:29
  and they're willing to run through a wall for you, you're
• 1:14:32
  going to be OK you know and and you're going to you're going to
• 1:14:35
  teach lessons along the way. You're going to develop
• 1:14:37
  character along the way, you know, just that that hard work
• 1:14:40
  mentality. We're going to get after it
• 1:14:42
  every year and you do the best we can with what we got.
• 1:14:45
  You know, kind of as an aside to that, someone on Twitter within
• 1:14:49
  the past year made kind of a controversial statement in
• 1:14:52
  regards to a little bit what you're to talk about there.
• 1:14:53
  And I actually kind of agreed it kind of goes against the sport
• 1:14:57
  credo of winning and must win and you know if you ain't first,
• 1:15:00
  you last and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:15:02
  The the comment was I believe he or she Akimer who was said
• 1:15:07
  something to the effect of I'm not sure a coach should be fired
• 1:15:11
  because they're not winning and I think they were referring
• 1:15:13
  specifically to high school in in.
• 1:15:15
  What made me think about it was exactly the other intangibles
• 1:15:18
  that you're talking about of like you know are you trying,
• 1:15:19
  are you trying hard, are you teaching.
• 1:15:21
  Are you leading the individuals. And you know you go back to one
• 1:15:24
  of my original statements at 99.9% ain't going on to the next
• 1:15:28
  level. So we're talking about high
• 1:15:31
  school here and I'll say there's no recruiting meaning you don't
• 1:15:33
  get to go find the kid from Washington to come to your team
• 1:15:36
  in New York like we do in the college level.
• 1:15:38
  You have what you have and it kind of, you know, my my first
• 1:15:42
  instinct of course was like, no, no, you got to win.
• 1:15:43
  You know, you're a coach. You're supposed to win.
• 1:15:45
  And then I was like, you know what?
• 1:15:47
  Winning's hard. And I don't mean then we
• 1:15:50
  shouldn't try for hard things. I'm just saying there's only one
• 1:15:52
  district team winner. There's only one district 100m
• 1:15:54
  champ. There's only one state team
• 1:15:56
  title winner in your class. There's only one miles to we.
• 1:16:00
  I think we tend to undervalue how hard winning is And so to
• 1:16:06
  take a coach who doesn't win hasn't won and say well you're
• 1:16:11
  not a success, you need to be fired, man.
• 1:16:13
  There's only one person and and God bless.
• 1:16:15
  I know specifically in the state of Texas I know plenty of like
• 1:16:18
  awesome coaches like coach you out of a you know coach you left
• 1:16:23
  and right and haven't won a A-Team title because again
• 1:16:26
  there's only one there's only one in that class every stinking
• 1:16:29
  year. So just made me kind of think
• 1:16:31
  about that in regards to, I I like that your first answer
• 1:16:34
  wasn't, well, yeah, how many times have they won districts or
• 1:16:36
  regionals? Are they pulling in titles?
• 1:16:37
  Are they you know or how many kids are they sending to
• 1:16:40
  college. And it's like and you might have
• 1:16:42
  a genetics rule. You might have a bunch of kids
• 1:16:44
  who just don't have the genetics.
• 1:16:46
  But coaches worked them up and and to your point, they've kept
• 1:16:48
  it close or they're respectable. The coaches doing the things to
• 1:16:52
  make themselves better, to make the team better, like, OK,
• 1:16:55
  you're improving yourself to make the team better.
• 1:16:56
  Those seem to be values that you values that you you crave there.
• 1:17:04
  Yeah, I'm, I'm a big believer and I guess the best way I can
• 1:17:07
  explain it is if if you give me a 730 Miller out of middle
• 1:17:12
  school and the guy next door got a 6 minute Miller out of middle
• 1:17:16
  school, where do we start? Where do we finish?
• 1:17:20
  And so, you know, you can only do so much.
• 1:17:24
  But yeah, of course, you know, there's there's the XS and OS of
• 1:17:26
  a lot of everything. And then that's what everybody
• 1:17:29
  likes to debate. Well, we should run this
• 1:17:32
  offense. We should run this defense.
• 1:17:33
  OK, well, yeah, that looks cool. And I know you saw that on TV.
• 1:17:37
  However, you know, I don't have that guy, right, middle
• 1:17:41
  linebacker that runs for four and weighs, you know, £250 or I
• 1:17:46
  didn't get, you know, like my youngest son.
• 1:17:48
  I mean, he's he he he's a step ahead.
• 1:17:51
  You know, you come out of middle school and you're running 153.
• 1:17:55
  Well, the other kid I got right behind him, let's say he ran
• 1:17:58
  2:30. Well, success is taking that 230
• 1:18:03
  guy and getting everything that you can out of him, right?
• 1:18:06
  You know, it's it's one of those things successes.
• 1:18:09
  It it's hard to define sometimes.
• 1:18:10
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:18:11
  But I'm a big believer. Where Where'd you start?
• 1:18:13
  Where'd you finish? And we can't forget, especially
• 1:18:16
  here on the high school site, we're working with 14 to 18 year
• 1:18:19
  old kids. Their body, their bodies aren't
• 1:18:21
  growing. Your your oldest son is the a
• 1:18:23
  great example. Someone could say, oh coach did
• 1:18:26
  didn't do a good job and you know that kid had to go to
• 1:18:28
  swimming. He's like, no, no, that was the
• 1:18:29
  human body. That was just his body at that
• 1:18:30
  point. But no fault of coach.
• 1:18:33
  You know as long as they weren't doing crazy things running 100
• 1:18:35
  miles. But it was just like we forget
• 1:18:37
  we're dealing with kids that are still not just maturing.
• 1:18:40
  I mean come on 1418I imagine you were a little bit different as
• 1:18:43
  an 18 year old than you were 14. I know I certainly was.
• 1:18:46
  Yeah. It's amazing.
• 1:18:48
  OK, let's keep it going. Hey, how do you.
• 1:18:50
  This may be more of a personal question because I feel like
• 1:18:53
  it's coming up with my children. So, you know, I coached for 10
• 1:18:56
  years at a fairly high level. I coached in the SEC and had a,
• 1:18:59
  you know, SEC champion to many all Americans and things like
• 1:19:01
  that. And I wonder can I be the dad in
• 1:19:05
  the stands that just shuts up as long as things are safe and let
• 1:19:10
  coach coach my kid or kids in track and field and my kids in
• 1:19:14
  junior high doing it now thank God he's doing the throws which
• 1:19:18
  I know very little about so I can't say anything but how do
• 1:19:22
  you you know you you ran the competitively you coached really
• 1:19:26
  competitively you still are involved in a sport at a high
• 1:19:29
  level you know with your both sons there.
• 1:19:31
  How do you sit in the stands, whether at practice or meet and
• 1:19:36
  just all right. I I heard you earlier say, you
• 1:19:39
  know, not to micromanage, but they're still a little bit like,
• 1:19:42
  why are they doing that? Oh, I would have done this.
• 1:19:44
  I need to talk to them. How do you do it or do you not
• 1:19:47
  do a very good job? I don't know, you know.
• 1:19:48
  I think some days are better than others and you can you can
• 1:19:51
  ask my kids, they'll probably tell you that.
• 1:19:54
  You know for the most part we're very fortunate here We we we
• 1:19:57
  were able to hire some really quality people here.
• 1:19:59
  Burke Benning is the cross country and middle distance
• 1:20:03
  coach here at at Northwest High School.
• 1:20:06
  And you know he was. He was at Texas Tech.
• 1:20:08
  He was at George Mason. So I mean we kind of we got very
• 1:20:10
  fortunate to be able to get him at the high school level.
• 1:20:13
  And then Brady Reeves is the head boys track coach.
• 1:20:16
  He was a collegiate runner. He ran at McMurray here and or
• 1:20:19
  there in Abilene. So we've got guys that know what
• 1:20:22
  they're doing and so that that makes it kind of nice, you know.
• 1:20:26
  Now that doesn't mean that when we get home we don't, we don't
• 1:20:29
  discuss a few things, you know, but it's it's it's not about
• 1:20:32
  what coach is doing. It's about what they're doing
• 1:20:34
  and you know for a long time it when the kids were little, you
• 1:20:38
  know and they're playing upwards basketball with mom and all that
• 1:20:40
  stuff. We we only have one rule in our
• 1:20:42
  house and that was always if you don't go hard, I'm going to let
• 1:20:46
  you know I don't care how many points you score.
• 1:20:49
  I don't care what you do here or there.
• 1:20:51
  If you're not flying around doing everything you can do.
• 1:20:54
  Or for one little second, I think that you kind of quit on
• 1:20:57
  something. Dad's going to let you know and
• 1:20:59
  mom might get to you first and then dad didn't have to say
• 1:21:01
  anything, but then they definitely didn't want that.
• 1:21:04
  But that was it. That's basically our rule.
• 1:21:07
  And I think, you know, their coaches will tell you that too.
• 1:21:10
  From middle school basketball to football.
• 1:21:13
  I mean those guys, they flew all over the place just cuz that's
• 1:21:16
  that's how they were taught to play the game.
• 1:21:19
  You know there's there's no loaf and there's no relaxing And so
• 1:21:24
  you know when when junior high kids are out there kind of
• 1:21:26
  cruising the 400 minor, just getting it from from the gun and
• 1:21:29
  so if you die, you die, you know and then next week you'll die a
• 1:21:32
  little later down the track. And so that's kind of just our
• 1:21:35
  philosophy parent wise and just get after it and that's kind of
• 1:21:39
  how I was as a coach. You know it's we always say all
• 1:21:42
  out all the way that's in it and it doesn't matter 408 hundred
• 1:21:46
  let's just go all out all the way.
• 1:21:47
  We'll see what happens and we'll start talking strategy as as the
• 1:21:50
  year goes on. But let's knock that out first,
• 1:21:53
  that the effort's gonna be there cuz that's the only thing you
• 1:21:56
  can control. Tell them that all the time.
• 1:21:58
  You can't control what everybody else is gonna do, but you can
• 1:22:01
  control how hard you go and that's it.
• 1:22:04
  That's really all you can really control.
• 1:22:06
  Yeah. Now I'm curious.
• 1:22:07
  You said if mom gets to him first, dad doesn't have to.
• 1:22:10
  Does dad really? Not just cuz mom got there
• 1:22:12
  first. Mom, if mom gets there first,
• 1:22:14
  I'm I'm. I'm usually the one that like,
• 1:22:16
  hey, let's, let's had them on the back.
• 1:22:17
  You gotta love them. All right.
• 1:22:19
  Mom. Mom, let's just be honest.
• 1:22:21
  Mom likes to win. And so I mean we all do but
• 1:22:26
  she's kind of she's kind of special when it comes to that
• 1:22:28
  that that's the expectation with mom.
• 1:22:31
  She now she doesn't care how you get there.
• 1:22:33
  She don't want to talk XS and OS.
• 1:22:34
  She don't want to talk training. She just knows when they from
• 1:22:37
  the gun from the gun to the finish line.
• 1:22:39
  She knows what she wants to see, so.
• 1:22:41
  I love it. I love it.
• 1:22:42
  All right, let's turn our attention to some other, you
• 1:22:45
  know, pretty hot topic hot button topics here.
• 1:22:48
  How do you, how do you see it going today?
• 1:22:53
  How do you wish it might change? Is it even an issue?
• 1:22:56
  Talking about clubs, talking about outside coaches And now we
• 1:23:00
  recently had from Texas down the Houston area a a a club summer
• 1:23:06
  coach and you know very refreshed.
• 1:23:09
  I shouldn't say refreshing. I I think the bad apples get the
• 1:23:12
  bigger press. You're going to correct me here
• 1:23:14
  George where I'm wrong here. So when we talk about you know
• 1:23:18
  the the club coaches and I'm talking about track specifically
• 1:23:20
  but you you may stretch it out to.
• 1:23:22
  I know volleyball club's a big deal.
• 1:23:24
  Softball baseball etcetera. Basketball.
• 1:23:28
  Some summer coaches, private coaches want to rule the whole
• 1:23:33
  time, like even when it's high school season, the kids should
• 1:23:35
  be coming to me to coach. Some high school coaches don't
• 1:23:39
  want their kids to go to outside coaches at all, ever, whether
• 1:23:42
  it's in season or out season. Give us from the AD perspective,
• 1:23:46
  how are you seeing private club coaches going well, not going
• 1:23:50
  well? We need to make changes.
• 1:23:52
  Talk to us kind of in that that environment of club coaching.
• 1:23:57
  And that's another one of those. It depends because every sport
• 1:24:00
  is a little different. And then even within the sport a
• 1:24:05
  lot of the clubs are different. You know, you're starting to see
• 1:24:07
  a lot of contracts that clubs are trying to get kids to sign
• 1:24:11
  saying I won't participate for my school during this time.
• 1:24:15
  And so at at one point everything went a little easier
• 1:24:20
  because basically the clubs worked around the the high
• 1:24:23
  school season, right. And now you're starting to see a
• 1:24:25
  lot of the club seasons kind of intruding on the high school
• 1:24:29
  season. So those kids are they're,
• 1:24:31
  they're kind of getting hammered and burning that candle at both
• 1:24:33
  ends, if you will, because they're going to club practice,
• 1:24:35
  they're going to high school practice.
• 1:24:38
  And I I think, and that's probably the hardest thing a a
• 1:24:41
  head coach has to do, especially in certain sports with soccer
• 1:24:44
  volleyball, of trying to make sure you're not getting that kid
• 1:24:50
  hurt. And you know, because you have
• 1:24:52
  an offseason program, when your season's over, you want that kid
• 1:24:54
  a part of two. But they may be gone for three
• 1:24:57
  or four days to Denver for a tournament or whatever it may be
• 1:25:01
  it it makes it difficult and I think that's where coaching to
• 1:25:04
  me has changed the most over the last 10-15 years is.
• 1:25:10
  There was always kind of a club scene even before that, but it's
• 1:25:13
  just it's such a big money maker now with a lot of things that
• 1:25:19
  you know it's it's gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
• 1:25:21
  So as a as a head coach you kind of have to evolve in how you do
• 1:25:25
  things. You have to foster a
• 1:25:27
  relationship a lot of times with those club coaches and and you
• 1:25:31
  know a lot of them work well with a lot of our head coaches
• 1:25:34
  and stuff. But you know there's always that
• 1:25:36
  outlier one way or the other that that it makes it difficult.
• 1:25:40
  And then that's where the parents have to come into and
• 1:25:43
  say, you know, I I tell people all the time and say well you're
• 1:25:47
  you're playing at a public school but you're paying them.
• 1:25:50
  So shouldn't you have a little say in what's going on there too
• 1:25:53
  because you know they're taking your money.
• 1:25:56
  So it's one of those things that it it's it's a balance.
• 1:26:00
  It really is. And and we don't have too many
• 1:26:03
  issues but from time to time, especially with the younger kids
• 1:26:08
  and from a track perspective, you know middle school track
• 1:26:11
  meets, it's it's club volleyball season going on right now.
• 1:26:14
  So you might miss some kids. You're there and it's the
• 1:26:17
  question is, OK, well, am I going to, am I going to be real
• 1:26:20
  black and white and say, well, if you miss practice, you're not
• 1:26:22
  going to the meet? Or am I going to do what I gotta
• 1:26:24
  do to try to get that kid out there so that they can compete
• 1:26:28
  and help out the school and you never know what's gonna happen
• 1:26:31
  with them? Kinda like we talked about with
• 1:26:32
  the oldest, you just if you keep them in the game and keep them
• 1:26:36
  with you long enough, you never know what's gonna happen.
• 1:26:38
  So it is definitely difficult and there's no real good answers
• 1:26:42
  on that one. There's just, you know, you got
• 1:26:46
  to kind of play nice in the sandbox sometimes and you don't
• 1:26:50
  like to do that because everybody wants those kids full
• 1:26:52
  time. You know, that's just just how
• 1:26:54
  coaches are. But you know for some sports
• 1:26:57
  too, that that club thing is a big part of growing their own
• 1:27:01
  program too, so that those kids get to play after the the UIL
• 1:27:05
  season is over. So it's a balance.
• 1:27:08
  For sure, is all of this helping to increase or decrease multi
• 1:27:13
  sport athletes? Oh, decrease for sure.
• 1:27:16
  Yeah. Yeah, 'cause, you know, let's,
• 1:27:18
  let's say you go through a fall season in your sport and then
• 1:27:21
  your club is in the spring. A lot of times that's going to
• 1:27:23
  keep you from maybe running track or whatever it may be.
• 1:27:28
  And so it it it's it's definitely difficult with that.
• 1:27:32
  And I think the bigger school you go to, the more you see
• 1:27:35
  that, you know, I I go back to the smaller schools, you know,
• 1:27:38
  those club opportunities aren't there as much.
• 1:27:42
  It's still there, but it's it's not quite as much as it is at a
• 1:27:45
  big school and I think a lot of times a lot of kids think I have
• 1:27:49
  to do this if I want to do this. So and some of the some of that
• 1:27:55
  you know it's it's you just can't get around it and so you
• 1:27:57
  just got to do the best you can to work work with everybody
• 1:27:59
  that's all involved for the best of the kid.
• 1:28:02
  Putting clubs to the side maybe? How?
• 1:28:06
  What's your role as an AD to help encourage your coaches to
• 1:28:12
  encourage multi sport athletes? Yeah, we we make a big push for
• 1:28:18
  that and sometimes you have to step in from time to time, you
• 1:28:22
  know and I'll be the first one to admit when I was coaching a
• 1:28:26
  lot of times you'd be like whoa, wait a minute.
• 1:28:27
  You're going to do what? You're going to miss what And so
• 1:28:31
  that. That's definitely different
• 1:28:33
  sometimes you got to you got to help people understand put your
• 1:28:35
  pride aside a little bit. You know, it's in best interest
• 1:28:38
  of the kid and very rarely does that come up that we have to to
• 1:28:44
  deal with that. You know we've kind of got a
• 1:28:45
  little policy here just basically that you know if if
• 1:28:48
  two things come up at the same time while the kids doing the
• 1:28:50
  same sport they choose, you know that's that's up to them.
• 1:28:55
  And you know this, the coaches sit down talk about it, house
• 1:28:58
  practice is going to go things like that.
• 1:29:00
  You know the UIL has a set up here in Texas fairly well.
• 1:29:04
  So that if you're a team sport, you know basically you're going
• 1:29:07
  to be in that that athletic period during the offseason
• 1:29:10
  because the individual sports, track, cross country, whatever,
• 1:29:14
  you can go before and after school.
• 1:29:16
  Well, you can't do that in a team sport.
• 1:29:18
  You know, you got some, there's some rules there, strength and
• 1:29:20
  conditioning skills stuff. But bottom line is if if you're
• 1:29:23
  a team sport guy, you're going to be in that team sport
• 1:29:26
  athletic period. So you go there every day
• 1:29:28
  because you can go to those other guys after school at any
• 1:29:31
  time with the team. Sports can't.
• 1:29:33
  All right. That makes sense.
• 1:29:34
  So that's good. Yeah, I I just heard recently of
• 1:29:38
  a a volleyball coach that won't allow the girls to play
• 1:29:45
  basketball. And my immediate reaction was
• 1:29:48
  like, well, that's just crazy. I just, you know, in this high
• 1:29:51
  school not clubbed. I was just like, that's just
• 1:29:53
  crazy. But then my, like, right on the
• 1:29:55
  heels of that, you know, just the initial like, that's just
• 1:29:57
  crazy was where's the AD in this?
• 1:30:01
  Like really AD you're going to allow that.
• 1:30:05
  This doesn't seem. I don't care how big the school
• 1:30:08
  is I I've yet to see an athletic program that doesn't benefit
• 1:30:12
  from multi sport athletes from athletes I I saw gosh I wish I
• 1:30:16
  remember the high school I visited a a year or so ago they
• 1:30:20
  they're so big into multi sport athletes.
• 1:30:23
  So you know how you you you have this there at your different
• 1:30:25
  schools. You know you have your banners
• 1:30:27
  that have you know district champs in the years or you know
• 1:30:31
  basketball tourney and things like that.
• 1:30:33
  They had banners for they're multi sport athletes So they had
• 1:30:37
  two sport athletes and they listed all their two sport
• 1:30:40
  athletes, 3 sport athletes and you know there wasn't very many
• 1:30:42
  and then four sport athletes which there was like 2 which and
• 1:30:45
  it was like holy first of all it was amazed that someone could do
• 1:30:47
  four sports but I was like wow I really love that message to the
• 1:30:52
  athletic to the school that hey you know we we incur if you want
• 1:30:56
  to play more than one we're here to support that And I felt like
• 1:31:00
  they probably had more multi sport athletes because of that
• 1:31:03
  because you know you improve what you measure and it's like
• 1:31:05
  well here they are measuring it putting your names out you know
• 1:31:07
  for all to see. I I just thought that was
• 1:31:09
  amazing that that to me is putting action behind words.
• 1:31:11
  It's one thing to say we want multi sport athletes like OK
• 1:31:14
  well we're going to exalt you then for being that multi sport
• 1:31:17
  athlete. Love that.
• 1:31:19
  Let's turn our attention to recruiting and we've already,
• 1:31:23
  you know, addressed the high school coaches say job to
• 1:31:27
  recruit the hallways. I'm not sure you're gonna have a
• 1:31:30
  very successful track program. At least it will be easier to
• 1:31:33
  have a more successful track program if you are always
• 1:31:35
  working the hallways. But I'm curious about your take
• 1:31:39
  on the role, both sides, the college track coach and your
• 1:31:43
  high school track coach. What role should the high school
• 1:31:47
  track coach play in the recruiting process for their
• 1:31:51
  athletes? Let's start there because then
• 1:31:52
  we'll go to what you would hope our expectations are for the
• 1:31:55
  college coach. What role?
• 1:31:57
  I've seen both sides. I've seen the the high school
• 1:31:59
  coach say, hey, this is college, so you and your parents need to
• 1:32:03
  figure that part out. And then I've seen very
• 1:32:07
  intimately involved you know calling colleges etcetera,
• 1:32:11
  sitting down and advising kid on hey this is probably not your
• 1:32:14
  level but this maybe is etcetera etcetera.
• 1:32:17
  What? What's?
• 1:32:17
  What's your thoughts, your takes on the involvement of the high
• 1:32:20
  school coach in regards to the college recruiting process?
• 1:32:23
  Well, I'll, I'll give you a little background on what I used
• 1:32:25
  to do. And so we we signed around what
• 1:32:29
  was it 27 kids in in my time as as a head track coach and how we
• 1:32:35
  handled it basically was I'm going to help you and you know
• 1:32:41
  you kind of go through those and you see those kids that you know
• 1:32:45
  can go to the next level or you see those multi sport kids that
• 1:32:49
  you know they haven't developed as much because they've been
• 1:32:52
  busy with other stuff. However, we know they have the
• 1:32:55
  ability to go to this level. So we did a lot of individual
• 1:32:58
  meetings with kids and we would talk about it and I'd work them
• 1:33:01
  through the NCAA clearing house or eligibility center now and
• 1:33:06
  kind of we sat down and we worked that together with all
• 1:33:09
  those groups. We kind of meet before, after
• 1:33:10
  school in a classroom and then my homework to them was always
• 1:33:17
  OK. I want you to look at this
• 1:33:18
  conference, this conference, this conference and tell me
• 1:33:21
  where your P Rs would fall at their conference.
• 1:33:24
  Championships. And so you know, the kids who
• 1:33:27
  are really into it and really want to do it, they're going to
• 1:33:29
  do that, you know. And so a lot of them would come
• 1:33:32
  back and say, well coach, I would have been 8th in this
• 1:33:34
  conference, OK, OK. So that means you got a chance
• 1:33:36
  to get a scholarship at a place like that.
• 1:33:39
  Or coach, I'm like you know because a lot of kids don't
• 1:33:41
  understand like you being an SEC coach.
• 1:33:44
  You know I'm A5 flat guy. I'm not going to go run in the
• 1:33:47
  SEC you know And so they see that real quick and we used to
• 1:33:53
  post a lot of coaches will put their college recruiting
• 1:33:56
  standards up and we would post those on our in our locker
• 1:34:00
  rooms. Here's kind of what it takes to
• 1:34:02
  run at these schools and we can go anywhere from NAIA Division
• 1:34:04
  Three all the way to, you know, big time Division One
• 1:34:08
  conferences just so they had an understanding of what it takes
• 1:34:12
  to be at that level. And so then from there, when
• 1:34:17
  they started to figure out, you know, this is kind of where I
• 1:34:19
  would fit, that's when you start emailing and you kind of help
• 1:34:23
  them put emails together And then you would just have the
• 1:34:26
  kids send the emails. And then most coaches, you know,
• 1:34:28
  or most programs have the online forms and I'd send them, I'd
• 1:34:34
  give them two or three a day. I'd shoot them an e-mail.
• 1:34:36
  Here's a link. Fill this out.
• 1:34:37
  Here's a link. Fill this out.
• 1:34:39
  And so I saw that to me that was the fun part of of part of my
• 1:34:43
  job was trying to help those kids do that.
• 1:34:46
  I did the same thing. You know, I I told my wife all
• 1:34:48
  the time. I said I'm going to do the same
• 1:34:50
  thing for my boys that I did for these other kids, you know, and
• 1:34:54
  and help them find a home that fits them.
• 1:34:58
  And so that's kind of how I handled it.
• 1:35:00
  But I again, I enjoyed that role of it.
• 1:35:02
  I think that's where, you know, I always talked about wanting to
• 1:35:05
  be a college track coach. I thought that piece of it would
• 1:35:08
  be fun. And now I know you probably tell
• 1:35:10
  me better, but after a while you're like, Oh my gosh,
• 1:35:13
  recruiting is the devil, you know.
• 1:35:15
  But from a high school perspective, that's kind of how
• 1:35:17
  I handled it. And you know, track is one of
• 1:35:21
  those things especially or cross country.
• 1:35:23
  I always tell kids cross country gets you notice, track gets you
• 1:35:26
  paid because you know cross country courses, they're all can
• 1:35:30
  be a little different, sure. But you get noticed if you're at
• 1:35:33
  that state meet and you can make that top 10 or whatever it may
• 1:35:36
  be and then you really what what's your track time, what's
• 1:35:40
  your mile time, what's your quarter time, all that kind of
• 1:35:42
  stuff that's that's what really people look at.
• 1:35:45
  And so I I think our coaches here at Northwest ISD have a
• 1:35:50
  have a pretty good handle on it. They signed quite a few kids.
• 1:35:52
  I know across the district we average around 85 to 90 kids
• 1:35:57
  every year from the three high schools and that's that's all
• 1:36:01
  the way from an NAI all the way to Division One.
• 1:36:04
  And so we do four signing ceremonies a year from November,
• 1:36:08
  December to February and then a late one as well.
• 1:36:12
  So, and we handle all that stuff from our office.
• 1:36:15
  But yeah, we we've got some coaches that really have a
• 1:36:18
  pretty good handle on it and then a lot of them have been
• 1:36:22
  with us for so long. They get you know the NCAA
• 1:36:25
  eligibility center all that kind of stuff and and the NCAA you
• 1:36:29
  know when when I first started it, I remember when it was the
• 1:36:33
  clearing house it was a front and back form and I think $25
• 1:36:36
  check and you mailed it in. Now it's it's a little more than
• 1:36:40
  that but you know the Internet is has made things a lot easier.
• 1:36:43
  It's not hard to figure it out and then to me it's not anyway.
• 1:36:47
  But I've been doing it for a while.
• 1:36:48
  You know it's it's a Google search away of step one.
• 1:36:51
  You know you go and you can find that information pretty quickly
• 1:36:55
  but and then with track two you can either do XY and Z or you
• 1:36:58
  can't from, you know those those times don't lie.
• 1:37:02
  Everybody's tracks 400 meters. That's right.
• 1:37:04
  You know, the jumps, the throws, you can kind of go look at those
• 1:37:08
  conference meets and say, OK, these are the kind of cats that
• 1:37:10
  that these people are looking for.
• 1:37:12
  And that definitely helps it to me, track recruiting in a lot of
• 1:37:16
  ways is a lot easier than some of the more subjective sports.
• 1:37:19
  Yeah, you know, and so a lot of kids get, might might not be
• 1:37:23
  great football players, but they measure well, you know, at a lot
• 1:37:26
  of those camps and stuff they go to.
• 1:37:28
  So it's it's to me it's a little easier.
• 1:37:31
  How do you advise? You know another thing that I'll
• 1:37:35
  say on this podcast, almost every episode is ego is not bad,
• 1:37:38
  Bad ego is bad. And so where I'm going with this
• 1:37:42
  is how do you advise coaches? You know, it's kind of like
• 1:37:45
  parents. It's it's much easier to sit
• 1:37:49
  around with our parent group and say, yeah, my son went to
• 1:37:52
  Harvard instead of saying, yeah, my son went to Parkland
• 1:37:55
  Community College. Nothing is wrong.
• 1:37:57
  I'm not saying one is better than the other.
• 1:37:59
  Although it was a, you know, it's Harvard, so maybe OK, but
• 1:38:02
  you know it's ego to be able to tell, you know, my neighbor, my
• 1:38:06
  kid went to D1 or whatever. When in reality, you know,
• 1:38:10
  there's a lot of other institutions that might have
• 1:38:12
  been better for my kid, whether it was a junior college and
• 1:38:14
  started in any high school, etcetera.
• 1:38:16
  How do you advise with coaches, you know that there's a
• 1:38:20
  complaint amongst I even hate calling them smaller schools,
• 1:38:25
  lesser known schools. And the only reason they're
• 1:38:27
  lesser known by the way, is because maybe they don't play
• 1:38:29
  Saturday on ESPN. OK, I'm talking about NEI
• 1:38:32
  schools, junior college schools, etcetera, that they get the
• 1:38:36
  feeling that coaches, when they get letters in and they get a
• 1:38:40
  letter from Alabama or the great Troy University.
• 1:38:43
  That's right. That's my alma mater or the
• 1:38:45
  Great North Texas. They'll give those to the to the
• 1:38:48
  kids. But when Neosho County Community
• 1:38:51
  College or Lindenwood University College University comes in,
• 1:38:56
  they don't, which is a, you know, agree or disagree, I don't
• 1:39:00
  care. That's a disservice.
• 1:39:02
  How do you advise the coaches that hey, it's not your job to
• 1:39:06
  feed your own ego of where your kids signed with nor is it your
• 1:39:09
  job to maybe what's the word I'm looking for here to sieve
• 1:39:18
  through what you should or should not look at but what's
• 1:39:21
  best for the kid. And that involves not only the
• 1:39:24
  things that you gave examples of of like, hey, yeah, I know you
• 1:39:26
  want to go to SEC, but you run 5 minutes.
• 1:39:30
  You know, I just maybe we could find someone for you to walk on
• 1:39:34
  and that might be the right answer.
• 1:39:35
  There's nothing wrong with that either.
• 1:39:37
  But what's your goals? Or you wanna be on conference
• 1:39:40
  championship team. You wanna contribute Okay.
• 1:39:41
  Well, maybe Let's go look at the Armac.
• 1:39:44
  That's actually terrible for five flat as well.
• 1:39:46
  But let's go look at this conference or this school, this
• 1:39:48
  division, this level, etc. But also your job, possibly as a
• 1:39:53
  coach and AD, is to look at, well, what's the right place for
• 1:39:56
  major, What's the right place, place, location.
• 1:40:00
  Are you someone who needs to maybe stay a little bit closer
• 1:40:01
  to home or do you know, are you fine going across the country
• 1:40:05
  level? Of course.
• 1:40:06
  An AIA JUCO D3D1D2, things like that.
• 1:40:09
  How do you advise coaches on dropping the bad ego?
• 1:40:13
  And literally we all say this. We do it for the kids, doing
• 1:40:16
  what's right for the kid, for that individual kid, yeah.
• 1:40:20
  You know, individual, you said it right there.
• 1:40:24
  Like with my own, we we make lists and I did with all the
• 1:40:28
  kids, What's your number one thing?
• 1:40:30
  What are you looking for? Is it your degree?
• 1:40:33
  Is it the team? Is it the coach?
• 1:40:36
  And I always advise kids you know that if you let's say you
• 1:40:41
  don't run there, would you still go to school there because that
• 1:40:44
  that's a big deal, you know and so you have to find that fit
• 1:40:49
  from the competition level and so that that's super important.
• 1:40:53
  But like with my my middle son, he had his list, you know the
• 1:40:57
  coach was super important for him because he wanted to run
• 1:40:59
  fast. Bottom line, you know he had, he
• 1:41:01
  had been kind of a multi sport guy and he only really ran for
• 1:41:05
  one year and when that was all he did, everything else, he was
• 1:41:08
  doing other things as well. And so the coach was a big deal
• 1:41:12
  and then the team for him was a big deal because he never really
• 1:41:15
  had a team to train with. Every practice.
• 1:41:18
  He was basically flying solo because they just didn't have
• 1:41:21
  other guys that did what he did or could do what he did.
• 1:41:25
  And so you know that he wanted the idea of to being able to
• 1:41:29
  train with a quality group of guys.
• 1:41:31
  He wanted a quality coach and then you know, I'm not going to
• 1:41:36
  say education was third, but we also know in our family that
• 1:41:40
  piece of paper. I can get that anywhere, you
• 1:41:42
  know, especially depending on what your degree is going to be.
• 1:41:46
  And at that time I think he, of course, just like everybody in
• 1:41:48
  the family, he was going to go be a coach.
• 1:41:51
  So you know, a lot of people don't go to Tulsa University at
• 1:41:56
  a private school to become an educator.
• 1:41:59
  So his big draw there was the team and the coach and somewhat
• 1:42:04
  close to home, you know, because our other one was he's, he's way
• 1:42:07
  up out of in the middle of nowhere up there 10 hours away
• 1:42:10
  from us. Then he saw how kind of a strain
• 1:42:13
  that was. And so he's like, well, I'd like
• 1:42:14
  to be around a little closer, but it was the team and the
• 1:42:17
  coach that that drew him there. But everybody's going to be a
• 1:42:20
  little different on that. You know, we've had kids.
• 1:42:23
  That degree was #1, you know, I've got a girl that that ran
• 1:42:27
  four years ago. She's up at Boston University
• 1:42:29
  becoming a neurosurgeon. And so you know, you've got to
• 1:42:33
  kind of balance that. You got to find.
• 1:42:35
  And I think that's kind of what you're talking about is, is, is
• 1:42:38
  having those conversations with the parents and and with the
• 1:42:42
  kid. Where do you fit athletically?
• 1:42:45
  And then what are your priorities going forward, you
• 1:42:48
  know, and again, if you go to school there and let's say you,
• 1:42:51
  you get injured or you're just not on the team anymore, are you
• 1:42:53
  going to stay there? Because if you stay there, then
• 1:42:56
  I think then that's the right place for you.
• 1:42:58
  If you can say I would go to college there even if I wasn't
• 1:43:02
  competing. I think that's an important
• 1:43:04
  thing to think about when you're making that decision.
• 1:43:07
  But everybody's gonna be a little bit different and
• 1:43:09
  everybody has different motives. You just have to find that right
• 1:43:12
  fit for each person, competitive level and then the academic side
• 1:43:16
  of it as well. Everybody's going to be a little
• 1:43:20
  different on. That one and earlier you said
• 1:43:21
  about when we're talking about club coaches, you talked about
• 1:43:24
  well, the parents need to be involved as well.
• 1:43:26
  And I think because because you know we, we asked these coaches
• 1:43:29
  to do all those things that you just mentioned in for the
• 1:43:32
  individual, well, every individual is different.
• 1:43:35
  I mean what fits this one kid, they may be very similar in a
• 1:43:39
  lot of aspects whether it's grades and events and PRS,
• 1:43:44
  homesickness etcetera. They can be very similar, but
• 1:43:48
  two very different schools are are correct.
• 1:43:49
  And I love your example of your oldest being at Adam State.
• 1:43:54
  I have to imagine, and this is no slam on Adam State because I
• 1:43:56
  think a lot of Adam State you have to explain when, you know,
• 1:44:00
  say, oh, where's your son go goes Adam State oh, where's
• 1:44:02
  that. That's probably a natural
• 1:44:03
  reaction, you know, oh, it's, you know, it's a great school up
• 1:44:05
  in Colorado, blah, blah, blah. You know, your middle son's
• 1:44:08
  maybe a little bit easier. Yeah.
• 1:44:09
  It goes university Tulsa. OK Well, I know where Tulsa.
• 1:44:12
  OK is. What, You know what kind of
• 1:44:15
  school is that? You know those kind of things.
• 1:44:17
  But you didn't succumb to like, hey man, you could walk on an
• 1:44:20
  Alabama, you know, it'd be a lot.
• 1:44:23
  I'd be a lot cooler amongst my parent group if I told them My
• 1:44:25
  kids Alabama. So I love that that exam of like
• 1:44:27
  Adam's is the right place for him.
• 1:44:29
  Tulsa is the right place for him and Lord knows.
• 1:44:32
  Well in in some you know we we, we even asked how important are
• 1:44:35
  those Saturday football games. Do you want to be at what you
• 1:44:39
  see and then and you know how it is football kind of drives
• 1:44:43
  admissions and you have a really good team.
• 1:44:45
  You know if you're at the University of Texas or wherever
• 1:44:47
  it may be and they have a great year those admissions are going
• 1:44:49
  to go up and for some there's some kids that the right fit for
• 1:44:53
  them is I might never make a conference team.
• 1:44:56
  However, I get to go to football games on Saturday, you know.
• 1:45:00
  And we need to stop demonizing that.
• 1:45:02
  By the way, I agree. We all have our own reasons for
• 1:45:06
  going to whatever school we go to.
• 1:45:09
  One of those could be to your example right there.
• 1:45:11
  You know what? I, you know, I'm not I'm not
• 1:45:13
  going to go pro. But you know what?
• 1:45:16
  I I do like college football or I like the the, the, the
• 1:45:19
  pageantry of it. So I want yeah, so I want to go
• 1:45:21
  somewhere where it's quote UN quote, big games or whatever,
• 1:45:24
  those kind of things. Another reason might be, hey,
• 1:45:26
  you know what? I have zero money.
• 1:45:28
  My family has zero money. I don't care where it is.
• 1:45:30
  I have to have a full ride. We, I see this too many times
• 1:45:34
  where we demonize that, where you're just chasing the money,
• 1:45:36
  you don't really love the sport. It's like, OK, maybe that's true
• 1:45:40
  because they need, they need it. Who are you to judge on this?
• 1:45:44
  And as far as going, you know, that kid could have come to my
• 1:45:47
  school and, you know, been all conference.
• 1:45:50
  Instead, they went to this other school just because they have a
• 1:45:52
  big football team, they're not going pro 20 years from now.
• 1:45:56
  They'll be able to talk about, you know, it's on a great team,
• 1:45:58
  met a lot of great people and man, let me tell you, when our
• 1:46:01
  football team beat so and so and it was all, you know, whatever,
• 1:46:04
  we got to stop demonizing. That's good experience too.
• 1:46:06
  Choices. Absolutely, Absolutely.
• 1:46:10
  Use Ford as your vehicle to get what you want and.
• 1:46:14
  Absolutely. That's exactly right.
• 1:46:16
  Use the sport. That's exactly right.
• 1:46:17
  You don't owe that sport anything.
• 1:46:19
  You don't owe its dedication. You don't owe it your passion
• 1:46:21
  100%. That's exactly right.
• 1:46:24
  Okay, we got a few more minutes. I want to get a couple more
• 1:46:26
  questions in. I do want to talk about the
• 1:46:28
  reverse side there, the college recruiting side.
• 1:46:31
  Big debate is, should a college coach call the high school coach
• 1:46:35
  to to ask about Sally or Sam? Should they just talk to the
• 1:46:38
  parents and the kid because that's who they're going to be
• 1:46:40
  working with after. What's your thoughts as an AD?
• 1:46:43
  You sit in that kind of role of college recruiters for your kids
• 1:46:46
  in the role of your high school coach.
• 1:46:48
  I I think, I think you said it there that I, I am always a
• 1:46:53
  little leery if a college coach doesn't talk to the high school
• 1:46:56
  coach and I say that because who's with them more?
• 1:47:02
  Yeah, you know who sees the attitude on a daily basis.
• 1:47:05
  Who sees the work ethic on a daily basis And especially if
• 1:47:09
  you're in an established program that turns out kids year after
• 1:47:13
  year that go on to the collegiate level.
• 1:47:17
  I I think that is a red flag to me if if you don't contact that
• 1:47:22
  high school coach and I've had it both ways over the years and
• 1:47:26
  and again it doesn't mean I'm wrong or doesn't mean I'm right.
• 1:47:29
  But I know as a head coach I appreciated that a little bit
• 1:47:33
  just to just to even just to touch base hey I'm talking to
• 1:47:36
  whoever and then you know you can talk to the kids because in
• 1:47:40
  some coaches are more involved than others in the recruiting
• 1:47:42
  process. I was fairly involved with ours,
• 1:47:45
  but there were some that didn't reach out and that's OK too.
• 1:47:48
  I mean that's just, that's maybe their philosophy, but
• 1:47:51
  definitely, you know, as a as a college coach, you definitely
• 1:47:54
  got to talk to those parents, you know, and you got to make
• 1:47:57
  sure that that they're comfortable with that fit.
• 1:48:01
  But it's one of those things that to me, college recruiting
• 1:48:04
  has changed over the years. Like when it was me, you got
• 1:48:06
  letters and oh man, those letters were awesome, right?
• 1:48:09
  You know, they had the school Insignia on them.
• 1:48:12
  There's not a lot of that going on anymore now.
• 1:48:14
  Is that right? Oh it's more social media now.
• 1:48:18
  More Instagram. You get followed by a coach on
• 1:48:21
  Instagram and then they start messaging you that way.
• 1:48:24
  I there was very few letters that that that mine got.
• 1:48:28
  It was all Instagram Twitter maybe an occasional e-mail
• 1:48:32
  things like that you know and and I always thought it was cool
• 1:48:36
  and and that's probably because I'm old school when that coach
• 1:48:39
  would come on to campus and they'd have their polo on
• 1:48:42
  whatever school boy you want to talk about getting the kids
• 1:48:45
  talking and that was that was some cool stuff coaches would do
• 1:48:49
  that and I I know their time is super valuable and recruiting is
• 1:48:53
  you know used to be recruiting budgets especially for track or
• 1:48:57
  something they're probably kind of non existent so they
• 1:48:59
  recruited a lot of the local kids things like that so it was
• 1:49:01
  a little easier but now a lot of it's it's it's more social media
• 1:49:05
  driven that I have seen. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:49:08
  So it's, and I get it. It's a little easier that way.
• 1:49:10
  But man, it's still is cool when they get those, those letters
• 1:49:13
  from the coaches. Kids love that stuff.
• 1:49:15
  It's. Kids love getting mail.
• 1:49:17
  I was, I was not a recruited athlete at all, but still got
• 1:49:22
  recruited for college, you know, to go to college.
• 1:49:24
  And I remember having a garbage bag, you know, finally paring
• 1:49:27
  down South there. And it was a garbage bag full of
• 1:49:29
  stuff. So I always thought, you know, I
• 1:49:30
  was like, Oh my God, you know, these highly recruited kids
• 1:49:32
  like, Oh my God, like they got garbage bags full of just
• 1:49:35
  letters on letters and letters. It's interesting what you just
• 1:49:38
  sit there at the end that, you know, they they like receiving
• 1:49:41
  letters. I wonder if it's a little bit
• 1:49:42
  like there's still this, like, romanticism.
• 1:49:45
  You know, George, if I e-mail you after this interview and I
• 1:49:47
  say, hey, George, you did a great job, you know, appreciate
• 1:49:49
  you, blah, blah, blah, that that means something to you.
• 1:49:51
  It's like, oh, thanks for saying thanks, Mike, If I were to send
• 1:49:53
  you a handwritten note and George just did not disappoint
• 1:49:56
  you, I'm not going to do this. I'm sorry.
• 1:49:57
  But if I did, you'd be like, Oh my God, first of all, you
• 1:50:00
  wouldn't be able to read it because my handwriting is
• 1:50:01
  terrible. That's why I really don't do
• 1:50:03
  personal notes because I can't even read my own handwriting.
• 1:50:06
  But you'd be like, Oh my God, wow.
• 1:50:07
  Mike took the time. And for me, it's a little bit
• 1:50:10
  like, yeah, I don't care about the medium.
• 1:50:12
  Like, I care that you said thanks, you know, like, you know
• 1:50:15
  what is it? The what do we say around
• 1:50:18
  Christmas? It's the thought that counts.
• 1:50:19
  It's the thought that counts. Like, it's like you wanted to
• 1:50:21
  say thanks. I don't care if you texted me,
• 1:50:23
  emailed me, smoke signaled me letter that doesn't the vehicle
• 1:50:26
  doesn't matter to me personally. But I wonder if if if it's now,
• 1:50:30
  even for kids, 18 year old kids, if it's flipped, it's like, oh,
• 1:50:33
  I never get a letter. My parents, only time they get
• 1:50:35
  something to mail is it's a bill.
• 1:50:37
  Now I get a letter from a coach and it's special.
• 1:50:40
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:50:41
  I wonder if there's a little bit like, I wonder if some
• 1:50:43
  recruiters are like, hey man, you know I do do letters because
• 1:50:46
  it sets me apart. That's, you know, you're always
• 1:50:47
  trying to set apart. OK, last two questions.
• 1:50:53
  What advice would you give? There's a high school coach.
• 1:50:56
  I shouldn't even say high school coach.
• 1:50:57
  There's a track, coach track specifically that wants to
• 1:51:02
  transition into administration. It might be next year, might be
• 1:51:06
  five years, and maybe, you know, want to work towards that.
• 1:51:09
  What advice would you give them to be as prepared as possible
• 1:51:12
  for an opportunity that might come next year or five years
• 1:51:16
  from now? The biggest, the biggest thing
• 1:51:18
  that I see is is get involved on your campus, that campus
• 1:51:21
  administration side. If you're not a in a leadership
• 1:51:26
  role or attempting to be in a leadership role or helping at
• 1:51:30
  that level, it's it's kind of hard to say, OK, well, I haven't
• 1:51:34
  done this at a small scale, but I want to do it on a big scale.
• 1:51:38
  And so that's kind of how we push a lot of our guys like we
• 1:51:41
  mentioned before those those campus coordinator roles, things
• 1:51:45
  like that and you know get into something in that role or even
• 1:51:50
  from a track side, you know if if you can, I'm a big believer
• 1:51:53
  if you can run off a quality track meet or a cross country
• 1:51:56
  meet, I mean you obviously you're an organized individual
• 1:52:00
  because that's not an easy thing to do.
• 1:52:02
  And so you know the, the campus rolls, everything that you can
• 1:52:06
  do on that scale is huge. I'm showing because if like I
• 1:52:11
  said before, if you can't do it on a small scale, it's going to
• 1:52:14
  be hard to justify you doing it on a very large scale.
• 1:52:17
  So to me that's the biggest thing get involved in those
• 1:52:20
  roles be seen as that guy on campus that OK, I can do that or
• 1:52:25
  if your principal comes to, Yep, I can do that.
• 1:52:28
  And so you have to be somebody that that people see you as
• 1:52:31
  accountable and that they can count on you to get stuff done
• 1:52:34
  or maybe you know be that guy that nobody has to tell you to
• 1:52:37
  do anything. You just do it So that that
• 1:52:40
  that's huge. And so my last question, you
• 1:52:44
  know after you're in a career, now you're as an athletic
• 1:52:48
  director, you've had a career as a teacher and track coach.
• 1:52:53
  Do you regret it? Are you glad you made the
• 1:52:55
  change? Or would you rather be now on
• 1:52:57
  your 25th year of coaching track and field?
• 1:53:01
  Depends on the day that you asked that.
• 1:53:04
  I'm gonna count how many times you said depends it.
• 1:53:06
  Depends. That's.
• 1:53:07
  I'm telling you, that's that's my that's my day in a nutshell.
• 1:53:10
  There's, well, it's a Gray area, but no.
• 1:53:16
  Wow. Would I change it?
• 1:53:18
  I don't think so. You know, I get around.
• 1:53:23
  I got I think I've got to have the best of both worlds.
• 1:53:26
  You know, I I love being around kids.
• 1:53:28
  I love being around other coaches and now in this role you
• 1:53:32
  like to think that you're serving those people.
• 1:53:36
  Now I know a lot of times the coaches don't see it that way,
• 1:53:38
  but that's always the intent. But I think it's been good for
• 1:53:43
  me just as an individual to be able to see those things from
• 1:53:47
  the seat that I'm in now to to where I was.
• 1:53:51
  Are there days you miss the kids?
• 1:53:52
  Absolutely. You know you there's there's
• 1:53:55
  times you go to to events and stuff like that and you just sit
• 1:53:58
  there and you just smile just watching the kids because it's
• 1:53:59
  fun. And you know and then there's
• 1:54:03
  other days it's it's not a lot of fun but that's that's life in
• 1:54:06
  general. I mean honestly so it it's been
• 1:54:09
  good. You know I I don't think I'd
• 1:54:11
  change anything because you know it's it's one of those things I
• 1:54:15
  I don't like to look back too far especially cuz it doesn't
• 1:54:20
  really do you a lot of good. Now if you wanna look back to
• 1:54:22
  reflect on next time if this comes up, you have to do that.
• 1:54:26
  But I don't look back and say kinda like you were talking
• 1:54:28
  earlier about the taking this path or this path.
• 1:54:32
  This is the path I'm on. You know what I mean?
• 1:54:34
  And you just kinda take the the curves in the road as they come
• 1:54:37
  along. Now at this point, cuz you can't
• 1:54:39
  go back and do it again anyway. So it's been good.
• 1:54:43
  I've been very fortunate, been very blessed.
• 1:54:45
  It's been a good ride so far. Well, George, you hit the nail
• 1:54:50
  on the head there in my opinion, about serving others.
• 1:54:53
  And, you know, I had a similar experience as I went out of
• 1:54:56
  coaching and into this role. And I was like, man, I don't
• 1:54:59
  affect kids anymore. You know, I used to have 30 to
• 1:55:01
  100 kids. Whatever.
• 1:55:02
  And then one day it hit me at, you know, as I'm serving coaches
• 1:55:05
  around the country, it's like, oh wait a minute.
• 1:55:07
  I actually might be affecting more kids positively by serving
• 1:55:11
  the coaches who serve them. And I think that's what an
• 1:55:14
  athletic director does, an athletic director that's doing
• 1:55:17
  it well. They are supporting their
• 1:55:19
  coaches so they can go out and do the things that we talked
• 1:55:22
  about in the positive manner, the positive impact that they
• 1:55:24
  make on on kids. So, you know there is no bigger
• 1:55:27
  fan, no bigger cheerleader of track coaches than than this guy
• 1:55:30
  right here. But I'm super glad that you're
• 1:55:32
  affecting a lot more kids and affecting our sport.
• 1:55:35
  We've got a voice and decisions that are being made in the
• 1:55:38
  athletic world and you're in your athletic departments with
• 1:55:41
  someone who understands the sport, understands the
• 1:55:45
  expectation and stress and pressures of a track coach
• 1:55:49
  specifically. So man, just so grateful for the
• 1:55:51
  role that you sit in and excited for the growth that you're going
• 1:55:55
  through. Because you're it kind of
• 1:55:56
  boggled me when you talked about opening a new high school.
• 1:55:59
  And I knew that'd be a big endeavor.
• 1:56:00
  But then I was like, Oh my God, that's right.
• 1:56:01
  You've never done it at a high school.
• 1:56:02
  So how do you like day one? How do you envision day 100 in
• 1:56:06
  the end of the year? Like, Oh my God, that's that's
• 1:56:08
  that's crazy stuff, man. It's quite amazing.
• 1:56:09
  But George, man, I'm so thankful.
• 1:56:12
  Honestly, you know, thankful for your time.
• 1:56:13
  That's one of the most valuable things that you can give me.
• 1:56:15
  I know you're busy. So for you to carve out this
• 1:56:18
  amount of time for us, just as, you know, it means it means the
• 1:56:20
  world to me. And I really do appreciate your
• 1:56:22
  perspective on things. You know, we we're at 250 plus
• 1:56:26
  episodes here and amazing coaches you know you should be
• 1:56:29
  listening to everyone if you haven't out there.
• 1:56:32
  This is a very unique perspective that we need to know
• 1:56:35
  effects our sport. And it's I'm, I'm really proud
• 1:56:39
  to be able to present your story and how you're affecting our
• 1:56:41
  sport. So man, thank you so much for
• 1:56:43
  your time and enjoyed. It it was awesome.
• 1:56:45
  Thank you very much. Always enjoy talking track.
• 1:56:48
  Yeah, exactly, exactly. Hey, everybody, thanks for being
• 1:56:50
  here this week. Join us next week, we'll
• 1:56:52
  probably have a coach, not an ad, But you never know because
• 1:56:56
  we're gonna continue to try to bring a full scale, full circle
• 1:57:00
  around our sport. And that includes
• 1:57:01
  administrators. That includes officials, et
• 1:57:05
  cetera. In our great sport, that's what
• 1:57:07
  makes this great sport so awesome is the Taylor Packer.
• 1:57:10
  So George Man, thank you again for being here, you guys next
• 1:57:12
  week and we'll do it all over. Have a good week.
• 1:57:17
  If it goes to appreciate the coach the ones appoint people
• 1:57:20
  most every season needs a voice of reason speaking.
• 1:57:23
  The growth you got to prep before you carry the load.
• 1:57:26
  It's called to the soul. For those of us stand to go
• 1:57:29
  proper handoff to stay in the zone which you're packing for
• 1:57:31
  the road. There's more than one way to go.
• 1:57:34
  Take notes. That's paying.
• 1:57:35
  You're told it ain't practice. If your purpose ain't clear, it
• 1:57:38
  can't happen to you. Listen what both is.
• 1:57:40
  Can't mentor without a mentor. Years of experience You can
• 1:57:43
  reinvent those years. Every plan's got a standard you
• 1:57:46
  live up to enterprise sacrifice. Can you give up you it's choice
• 1:57:50
  and to fight not a win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:57:53
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to it's all
• 1:57:56
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
• 1:57:59
  6,000,000 waste time choose none.
• 1:58:02
  So we all course finish line the work and done so.