Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #327: Matteo Madrassi-Gill Athletics | From Italy to R&D and Pole Vault Dreams

Transcript

#327: Matteo Madrassi-Gill Athletics | From Italy to R&D and Pole Vault Dreams · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world juvenile
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  tuned in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message or Gil Athletics connections.
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  All right, welcome back here to the GAIL Athletics Connections
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  podcast. So humble to be your host.
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  Mike Cunningham, national business development manager for
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  GAIL Athletics. Of course, because you're on the
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  GAIL Athletics podcast. Of course, I work for GAIL
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  Athletics. These intros just get over and
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  over. I do 300 plus of them.
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  So it's just like the same thing over and over and over again.
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  But each guest is unique and I'm super excited about today's
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  guest. So from time to time, if you're
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  a regular listener, you know, we focus on track and field
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  coaches. We've had coaches from high
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  school, middle school, Division 123, NAIA professional all
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  across the country. And it's just, it's a fun time.
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  It's it's absolutely fascinating.
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  I still have to pinch myself that this is the job that I get
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  to do here at GAL Athletics. But from time to time I'd like
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  to introduce you to the people of Gill Athletics.
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  So I'm just super proud of our teammates from our customer
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  service, sales, engineering, manufacturers, R&D, etcetera.
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  And I just love their authenticity and their passion
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  to serve, to empower coaches with innovative equipment.
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  And today I've got a special, special person.
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  This is someone who, you know, you never know who's going to
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  come into your life, man. And I'm just so glad to be open
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  to great people that are out there.
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  So I want to get into it, introduce you to this young man,
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  and we're going to learn more about him.
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  Help me welcome from right here at Yellow Athletics.
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  He's our R&D intern. For now, help me welcome the
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  wise, the wonderful Mateo Madrasi.
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  Hello. Good morning.
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  Thank you for having me. How did I do with the R?
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  It was perfect. Perfect.
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  That's a that's a tough standard.
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  Perfect. All right, good.
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  Matteo, thank you so much for being here Today would be first
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  and foremost, I appreciate you. I appreciate Greg, our VP Vardy
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  allowing you to come down. You know, you're you're a
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  valuable guy to us very quickly and so you're not doing work
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  while you're down here. So I'm just so grateful to have
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  this opportunity with you today, my man.
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  Thank you. Thank you so much so.
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  Matteo, I love you and I love your story and so wanted to
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  share it with our listeners for a couple of reasons.
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  One, I like to introduce people that are interesting to other
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  people that are interested. And two, I love your background,
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  your authenticity and your passion specifically around pole
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  vaulting. So we're going to talk a little
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  bit pole vaulting today. Is that is that OK with you?
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  Yeah, I like that. I love it.
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  So before we hop in and learn a little bit about your history,
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  let's just do a quick, you know, kind of 30,000 foot level of
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  what you do here at Gill Athletics.
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  So you're an intern in our R&D. What does that mean?
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  Like so, so are you an undergrad or you in grad?
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  Tell us a little bit about that process.
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  I graduated past year in industrial engineer from Calpoli
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  Pomona and then I decided to enroll into a business program.
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  So currently I'm at my last semester of the MBA at Washburn
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  University. And this summer, you know, no
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  classes. So I took the advantage and came
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  here at Gill to join the team of research and development.
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  And I'm learning a lot and I'm trying to contribute to the team
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  by, you know, updating bills of material and reviewing drawing
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  and also getting a little bit my hands dirty in the manufacturing
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  and. Literally, yeah.
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  What what you mentioned undergrad industrial engineering
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  and I think for your grad work, you're doing your MBA.
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  Yeah. What do you at?
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  At this point you're you're 20. 6.
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  Six. Oh my God.
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  Yeah, 99. I love it. 20 You're born in
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  1999, brother, you're so young at this point. 26 What do you
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  want to become? Does that make sense?
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  Like what do you know the dream job, whether it's owning your
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  own company, maybe you're owning your own company, you know,
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  starting a business, going back home right now and you know all
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  grace that this will change tomorrow, next year, Who knows?
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  What do you think you want to become when you grow up?
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  Well, after this experience, after these three months, I want
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  to say that my dream is to join a nice company of sports
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  equipment that is based in champagne.
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  I don't know if you ever heard Italian sports.
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  That will be my dream job. And maybe do some sidelining
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  comedian work. That was pretty funny.
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  That was good to tell you. I love that.
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  OK, well, let's hop back. Let's get in our Wayback Machine
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  and learn a little bit more about you.
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  And then we'll kind of catch up to the internship and how that
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  came about and things like that. And maybe a little bit about
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  future plans maybe if that comes up.
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  But I'm curious, you know, maybe someone's listening right now
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  and they heard me roll that R perfectly in your last name.
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  Maybe they're here in your accent.
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  We know we're in Champaign, IL, but it's kind of sounding like
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  you're not from Champaign, IL. Where, where are you from?
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  Where does Matteo start? I'm from Udina, Italy, Italia.
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  Say it again, Udina. Udin, It's a small town in the
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  northeast of Italy, way up in the booth, and I border with
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  Slovenia and Austria OK in the right corner.
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  Family is from Italy, that's what they're OK.
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  So you're Italian thrown through.
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  Maybe we already caught that a little bit with the accent.
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  So I love that and grew up in Italy all through.
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  Please forgive my ignorance. I went to high school and
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  College in Alabama. I don't know how much you know,
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  You know of all the states. So that means I'm not that
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  smart. I just take it pretty well all
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  the way through high school. We do high school in Italy,
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  yeah. Like Obama and.
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  Do you? OK, well.
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  I did the high school in Italy. Yeah, 18 years old.
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  I was in Italy. My family is still there.
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  So so a traditional like 12th grade type of thing?
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  Yeah, it's a little bit different.
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  In Italy. We have five years of elementary
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  school, three years of middle school and five years of high
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  school. Oh, So what?
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  So it's one extra year. So on average, Americans
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  graduate high school at 18 years old.
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  You're on the average. You're graduating in 19.
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  So yeah. Yeah, so similar to like Canada
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  has that like I think they call it 13th year or something like
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  that. They they do like one extra.
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  Yeah, typical activity. OK, OK.
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  So that's awesome. That's cool.
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  Dumb question, do you eat a lot of pasta?
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  I mean is. Everyday.
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  Is that right? Is that?
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  That's not like a stereotype. Not for breakfast, though.
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  Breakfast. There is a particular pasta you
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  in South Italy. It's like leftover pasta.
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  You put it with, you mix it with eggs and grated bread and you
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  put it in the oven and it came out like a quiche.
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  I don't know it's called, but eventually some Italian eat
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  pasta for breakfast. Yeah.
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  That's that was just my dumb joke that of course you don't,
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  but of course you do. I love that.
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  That's so cool. OK, so tell me about Italy and
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  specifically about growing up in sports.
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  How did you get into track and field?
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  And then, you know, I don't know if we've spoiled this yet or
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  not, but you're a pole vaulter. And how did you So how did you
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  get in track and field and how did you get into pole vaulting?
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  Yeah, so it was 2013, I was 14 years old and till then I've
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  always been a crazy kid that love to climb on trees and jump
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  from building to building, get in trouble in the roof, parkour,
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  running, BMX, skateboarding, downhill bike.
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  So I was always trying to find new ways to getting hurt.
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  And also during physical education in high school, you
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  know, I was always the guy that was rescuing the balls that were
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  getting stuck on the roof. And I caught the attention of my
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  professor, my physical education professor, which was also the
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  coach of the pole vault club near my town.
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  His name is Jean Paolo Carnelli. OK, hold on.
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  So say it again, Jean Paul. Jean, Paolo.
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  Jean Paolo And what was his last name?
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  Carnelli. OK, keep going.
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  I'm not going to try that one, OK?
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  His daughter was a really great female pole vaulter.
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  She jumped 4 meter 30. Yeah, she compete for the
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  Carabinier, which is Galleon police.
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  OK, wow, yeah. What were you?
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  Were you doing any other organized sports?
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  I hear a lot of BMX singing downhill.
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  Were you doing soccer or anything like that?
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  I. Tried.
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  I tried everything as a kid. You know, my parents.
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  Luckily I have to say thank you to them.
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  They never allowed me to stay in the living room at home.
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  They always say no, you're getting out, you're doing
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  something. So they made me try, Yes,
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  basketball and the bit of soccer and the rugby.
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  The rugby thing is the sport that they played for long, but
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  it was on my team. I quite didn't really enjoy team
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  sports. I always like to be, you know,
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  me, the only responsible for my success and the only responsible
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  for my failure. Yeah, we, we, we hear that theme
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  a lot of for our coaches as they're, we talk about what
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  sports they do. And you know, with football, I
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  could be the greatest quarterback in the world, but if
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  I don't have an offensive lineman, like I'm dead or if I
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  don't have a receiver to catch, it doesn't matter, right.
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  But in track, in that 100 meter dash or that football, you know,
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  you, you love your teammates and all, but they don't help you get
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  over that vault and that pole and that crossbar.
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  They don't help you in the blocks.
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  It it is you and only you. So yeah, that's, that's kind of
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  one of the common themes we have of our athletes who go to work,
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  gravitate towards track and field.
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  OK, so the local pull ball club guy sees you and says, OK, this
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  guy's jumping off buildings. That's a check.
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  That's a prerequisite of pull ball team, I think.
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  What did you think the first time you actually went to?
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  Vault and he just told me come try pole vault and it was kind
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  of natural since the beginning. So I just got a pole and tried
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  to get on top of the pit and it was easy.
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  So then we tried to put the bar on and you know soon as that you
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  start pole vaulting the progress is really fast.
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  So that's something that also for me on.
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  I really liked it, yeah. So I started at 14.
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  After three years I was already jumping 5m for for three years.
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  And 2018 I went to the World Championship under 20 in Tandra
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  and I competed against Montalup on this, yeah.
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  Dude, that's so so you've I mean, it progressed pretty fast.
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  Was there, you know, with, with any new thing that we learned
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  that it's not always linear. I was like, you know, started
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  here and I, you know, I usually went up to this path.
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  There's usually dips and valleys.
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  Was there ever a time during this phase, as you're learning
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  this high school phase that you're like, oh man, maybe,
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  maybe I need to go back to rugby?
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  No, that, no. There was a phase when my
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  original coach retired and then a guy that was working out with
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  me, he was a university student, so I was 1415 and he was in his
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  20s. He became a coach and actually
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  that was the moment that I kind of peaked.
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  It really helped me to get into the next level of pole vaulting,
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  so forth. Or 50 for 60, which is 15 feet,
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  and I went into 60 and jumping over 16 feet.
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  And yeah, I qualified for the world championship, won their
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  amazing experience. And that also opened the door to
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  getting scholarships in the American University.
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  We'll talk about that in a second.
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  What was it about those two coaches?
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  I'm fascinated with, you know, I think, I think there's a lot of
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  great coaches out there. It's interesting to me when an
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  athlete goes from one coach to the other and has success very,
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  very few times that we say, oh, that was great.
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  That whatever that coach brought for that athlete was what that
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  athlete needed. And typically we say, oh, that
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  other coach didn't do very well. And I don't believe that's true.
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  I, I think every athlete is different.
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  I think we sometimes forget about that when we have such a
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  group of athletes that works for you, doesn't work for her,
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  doesn't work for him, etcetera. What was it about that second
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  coach that helped? You know, you got a good base
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  with the first coach and then the second coach.
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  Seems like it kind of, you know, no pun intended, rocketed up
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  here a little bit. That's a nice question I'm not
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  sure I know how to answer. I think it was just the overall
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  mood. He created an atmosphere that
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  for me was just perfect. It was me going to high school
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  in the morning, then getting out at 2, going home for lunch, take
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  a little nap. And then at 5 PMI was on the
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  track and we were just pole vaulting, pole vaulting and
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  bench pressing and a bit of strides.
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  I don't like running much, but that's necessary.
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  And after practice, then the stop was at the local bar.
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  And so a glass of red wine. Shut up.
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  We practice. You're 17 years.
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  Old. I know I was younger, actually
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  drinking wine with these university students and I'm sure
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  that was part of my success. What's the legal drinking age
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  over there? I believe it's 16.
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  OK. So you were you were a little
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  bit before that, yeah. As long as you don't look like a
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  baby, they will serve you. Everything I'll tell you you got
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  good, good genes here, brother. You look like a baby.
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  That's a good thing. That's a good thing.
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  Yeah, Yeah. OK, that's awesome.
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  So when we have guest on the show that are from another
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  country always fascinates me because I'm from I'm from
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  America and I, you know, very until I got into coaching was
• 13:20
  very much in the Southeast, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, you
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  know, I, I did Indiana actually right next to Fort Wayne, which
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  will come up here in a little bit for you.
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  I did 5th grade up there. That was like the most wild
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  thing, you know, so different, right.
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  So I'm very uncultured, if you will.
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  So I'm fascinated with people who grew up in other countries.
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  I know what the culture of track and field and sports in general
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  are here in America. What about in Italy?
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  What's the, you know, in America we might say, you know, it's
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  football 1st and maybe basketball and maybe baseball
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  and, you know, go down a few more spots, maybe 10th.
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  Maybe track and field is 10th, right?
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  Maybe where? Where does track and field in
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  Italy kind of ring? Either we have soccer, first
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  cycle soccer and 3rd soccer. So it's a country that revolves
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  around soccer. Every town got his own team,
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  team. I'm from the town of Udina, so
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  we have Udineza, pretty notorious team.
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  And then there's Napoli, Milan, Inter, Juventus, so there's a
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  huge following around. Soccer and other sports are just
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  left behind. I would say right now after 2020
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  in the Olympic, the great Olympic year that the Italy team
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  had, you know, we had the gold of Marcel Jacobs, you know, 100m
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  and Jamarco Tamberi in high jump that kind of pushed the movement
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  of track and field and in the previous seven in the recent
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  years start to get more following.
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  I I, I remember that, that I think both of those happened
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  within like a 10 minute. If that's I was like, holy cow,
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  everything's going looking good for Italy right now.
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  Yeah, yeah. And something else I think
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  happened during that same time, maybe a long jumper qualified
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  for the final something. It was just like this whole
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  like, man, Italy's having a moment right now.
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  That's so cool. So where I, I didn't hear, I
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  heard basketball, rugby. I didn't hear necessarily soccer
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  for you. No soccer I never tried because
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  I'm an anti anti conformist. Oh, OK.
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  Yeah, yeah. So.
• 15:19
  Everybody, every little kid was doing soccer.
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  And I was like, well, you know what?
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  I'm not going to do that. Dude, you were such a fool.
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  Volunteer. Yeah.
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  That was really the only reason why I didn't play it, because
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  everybody was already doing it and for me was.
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  No Good. I love that.
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  That's so cool. OK, Where does like American
• 15:39
  football, you know, those those top 2-3 sports?
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  I said here in America, you know, American football,
• 15:43
  basketball, baseball, where does that in the culture of Italy for
• 15:47
  sports? Basketball is pretty good.
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  Sure there's a following. We have some professional teams.
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  Football, I would say is at 0. Yeah, we don't do football
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  because we have rugby and also in my opinion rugby is just
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  football better. Yeah, yeah, not even like, for
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  some weird reason a lot of people in Italy follow the Miami
• 16:08
  Dolphins or something like that. No, no, weird.
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  Kind of like some Italian player played for some NFL team once
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  and no nothing. Baseball, though, baseball, it
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  has a following. I met a couple of people that
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  were into baseball and of course they were dreaming America.
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  And that's, that's something, OK.
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  So a little bit of that. OK, that's interesting.
• 16:26
  Cool. All right, so you make it to the
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  world. The world champs or the world
• 16:30
  junior champs? World junior champs OK under 20
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  and. Then that was in.
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  Tampa, Finland. Finland.
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  That's right. OK.
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  I remember that one. And of course, you know, all of
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  all of our college coaches go to a lot of those meets for
• 16:42
  recruiting, things like that. Were you thinking of coming to
• 16:45
  the States for college before that, or did that kind of light
• 16:48
  that fire? That's when I kind of started.
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  You know how it works. Is there are some agencies that
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  helps young athletes, successful athletes to get in contact with
• 17:00
  the the American colleges and to gain a scholarship?
• 17:04
  Of course. Because in Europe we don't plan.
• 17:06
  Families don't plan funds to send their kids to university
• 17:10
  because it's free. Oh, hold on.
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  So in Italy, college is free. So like here in the States,
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  there's some of us, My family, by the way, we save money to to
• 17:21
  send our kids to college. That's not a thing in Italy
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  because it's it's free. What a concept.
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  I wonder how we could ever do that here in the States anyway.
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  OK, so you have no funds and you're like, oh, well, I'm going
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  to go to America. And they're like, we have no
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  funds. So you've got to get a
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  scholarship. Got it.
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  OK. And there's a there's agencies
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  that help connect the international students with
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  American College coaches to help bridge that gap if you want.
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  OK, So what does that look like? I know here in the States, it
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  feels air quotes here easy. I can, no matter where I'm at,
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  I'm at in the country, I can drive to several colleges to go
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  see it and meet the coach and all that stuff.
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  I I don't feel like you're doing that in Italy.
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  So what's that process of the? Recruiting process, that was the
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  problem. You get to trust the agency and
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  hopefully they we'll do a good job and send you to the right
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  university. That's not what happened to me.
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  Yeah. Oh, no.
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  OK. What?
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  What happened? What happened is they sent me to
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  the first university that gave me a scholarship.
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  Yeah. OK.
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  The first one. And and where is that we we?
• 18:22
  That was in Indiana, yeah. Indiana Institute of Technology.
• 18:25
  Indiana Tech baby yeah, Norway yeah, I know them well yeah
• 18:29
  their their head coach has been a guest on the podcast.
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  So yeah, I know them well now they they win championships.
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  I mean, it's a. They won NAIA champions, they
• 18:38
  won it when I was there. OK, Did you so you already.
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  Oh, so you won a national title. That's huge.
• 18:45
  That's awesome. That's rare.
• 18:47
  Not you know that we we talk about these championships a lot,
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  but we forget winning is hard and so that's a that's a big
• 18:54
  deal. That's really cool.
• 18:56
  You already kind of looted or spilled the the news that you
• 19:00
  were an industrial engineering major.
• 19:02
  That's what you got your degree in.
• 19:03
  Did you go? Let me ask you this way.
• 19:06
  When you were thinking about college, were you thinking
• 19:08
  engineering? Yeah, I was thinking engineering
• 19:10
  because I did engineering high school in Italy.
• 19:14
  We specialize a bit earlier. So when you get in high school,
• 19:18
  you can choose a technical high school that have an engineering
• 19:22
  background or economical or tourist or culinary.
• 19:27
  You know, there are some certain high school that are focused
• 19:29
  around cooking food. Really what?
• 19:32
  What's the name of the high school you went to?
• 19:33
  I went to ET so Industrial Technical Institute, Arturo
• 19:38
  Malignani in Olina. I don't know how you put that on
• 19:41
  a flag. And what's the mascot?
• 19:44
  We don't have one. No.
• 19:47
  Because there's no sport in high school.
• 19:50
  So all this stuff you're talking about with rugby and the huge
• 19:53
  soccer culture and and of course your football team, which we
• 19:56
  already, you already said that was a club, which I get that
• 19:58
  because there's clubs here. All that stuff is club.
• 20:00
  There's no high school sports. Yeah, schools are only focused
• 20:04
  on academic. And that was also the reason why
• 20:06
  I start looking into America, because eventually if I was
• 20:10
  going to do the university in Italy, that's only academic.
• 20:13
  So it's difficult for an athlete to, you know, pursue his
• 20:17
  education but also keep working towards his Atlantic dream.
• 20:21
  Did that trip you out when you got here to the States?
• 20:23
  So you went to Fort Wayne? So you know, Fort Wayne
• 20:25
  Homestead High School and Northrop.
• 20:28
  I mean, there's a ton of great high schools there.
• 20:30
  Did that trip you out? Like holy crap, what are these
• 20:32
  kids doing at school doing sports that.
• 20:35
  No, that was the reason why I came here.
• 20:36
  So you you already kind of knew from reading or Internet, you
• 20:40
  know, you have the Internet in Italy, right?
• 20:41
  OK, All right. So you go to Indiana Tech, you
• 20:44
  start majoring in engineering because that was always your
• 20:46
  kind of where does that come from?
• 20:48
  Mom and dad engineers? Where does engineering?
• 20:50
  The dad is an engineer, yes, and since I was little, I always
• 20:54
  like to take apart stuff. I'm working with my hands on
• 20:57
  motorcycle and bicycle, so I never question it.
• 21:01
  I knew that was going to be my cat.
• 21:03
  And yeah, I enrolled into Indiana Tech as a mechanical
• 21:07
  engineer. OK, Mechanical.
• 21:08
  Yeah. And me.
• 21:09
  Yeah, I got it. I don't know.
• 21:10
  We talked about this. My first major was computer
• 21:13
  engineering, and I was not smart enough, so I had to hop down and
• 21:16
  go do public relations. I'm not as smart as my.
• 21:19
  Sister, the same degree of you public relation.
• 21:22
  She sounds like a smart young lady.
• 21:24
  OK, Indiana Tech. We were there for a year.
• 21:27
  I was there only for one year because that's when I realized
• 21:31
  about the difference between NEA and C, AA and Vision 1-2 and
• 21:35
  three. Makes sense.
• 21:37
  What is the so Indiana and Fort Wayne specifically, I know the
• 21:42
  weather, super cold during the winter, things like that, but
• 21:44
  what was it back home like? Was the winter in Fort Wayne new
• 21:47
  to you or where you lived in Italy?
• 21:49
  Like, yeah, yeah, I had winter. Back No, it was a new terrible
• 21:52
  experience having to deal with potential frostbites.
• 21:55
  Oh yeah dude, this is freaking cold.
• 21:56
  I know. So that was new.
• 21:59
  Did did that not? Did you not consider that when
• 22:03
  you were? I knew that they had an indoor
• 22:06
  facility, so I was never really bothered by it, right?
• 22:09
  But when I got there, I just wanted to go for a walk outside.
• 22:12
  Realizing that you're going to get your finger becoming black.
• 22:16
  Did you even have a coat when you came over?
• 22:18
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, OK, But that was not
• 22:20
  enough. I knew I had to leave that
• 22:21
  place. Hey, I get it brother.
• 22:24
  Being from Alabama, I don't like the one who's here, so I OK love
• 22:29
  that. So you look into transferring.
• 22:31
  Where do we go? At first I was thinking to find
• 22:36
  a school with a nice coach, but then I said I'm not going to be
• 22:41
  a professional public forever, so let's try to get the right
• 22:44
  location. Yeah.
• 22:45
  And I looked into Calpoli Pomona, which had a great
• 22:48
  engineering program. Yeah, very good.
• 22:50
  And also they have an OK track and field, which became great
• 22:55
  recently. And the head coach, Christopher
• 22:57
  Bradford, he was also my Volvo coach, and he was grateful
• 23:03
  enough to give me a scholarship and make me join the team.
• 23:06
  And we had four beautiful year, more than four actually with
• 23:09
  COVID. Was that a like that's
• 23:12
  interesting that the head coach was the football coach was that
• 23:15
  AI don't say driver, but was that attractive to you?
• 23:17
  Like, oh, the the person who's overseas the whole program on
• 23:21
  their event. At first, yes, and then I
• 23:24
  quickly relight that it has been an issue a little bit because
• 23:28
  you know, head coach a lot of duties to do and of course point
• 23:33
  it's difficult to balance coaching a specific event.
• 23:36
  Great point. That's a really good point.
• 23:38
  I didn't think about that. We, we talk about that a lot
• 23:40
  that, you know, the, you know, the XS and OS, the actual, you
• 23:43
  know, prescribing the workouts, things like that are actually
• 23:46
  probably out this much of the coaching job and everything
• 23:49
  else, paperwork, recruiting. If you're the head coach,
• 23:52
  sometimes you're on committees to hire the basketball coach.
• 23:54
  There's all fundraising, the love night, I mean, the list
• 23:58
  goes on. And so for a very technical
• 24:02
  event like the pole vaulting, I can see where that could maybe
• 24:04
  be an issue, especially for the other side.
• 24:07
  You, your, besides your classes, the rest of your attention is
• 24:11
  pole vaulting. Like you're like, what do you
• 24:12
  mean? You got a meeting up?
• 24:13
  I need you out here, you know, and it's like, man, I can't
• 24:15
  spend 24/7 with you and say, you know, I got other stuff to do
• 24:17
  that that makes sense. A little bit better weather
• 24:20
  though. Yeah, I love the California
• 24:22
  weather. That makes sense.
• 24:23
  I. Don't think I'm into Pomona, but
• 24:26
  once I think that's where I went a long, long time ago.
• 24:29
  How how's the it's got to be beautiful.
• 24:31
  It's California, right? It's got to be beautiful.
• 24:33
  Yeah, beautiful campus you which it was a Polytechnic institute,
• 24:37
  so we have every single major possible imaginable.
• 24:41
  And we had our College of agriculture as well, so huge
• 24:44
  fields and farms, so with animals.
• 24:47
  And it was just a really nice campus here, one of the most
• 24:51
  good looking one. Is that right?
• 24:53
  Yeah. I'm always amazed, you know,
• 24:55
  California, when I grew up watching T VS and stuff, it was
• 24:58
  always, you know, LA so you know, huge buildings downtown.
• 25:02
  And as I grew up as an adult and traveled to California a lot for
• 25:04
  a business and track and stuff like that, I'm amazed at how
• 25:07
  much agriculture is in that state.
• 25:09
  I mean, it's just you see just fields and fields and fields of,
• 25:12
  you know, almonds and everything.
• 25:14
  It's just, it's amazing actually to me, the agricultural side of
• 25:17
  it. So you went in as a mechanical
• 25:19
  engineer, but you spit out as an industrial engineer.
• 25:23
  What's the difference? The difference is mechanical is
• 25:25
  really analytical, how to design parts and trying to understand
• 25:31
  how much force they will withhold before failure.
• 25:34
  Something really, really analytical and you get to be
• 25:37
  really, really smart. And I quickly relies then after
• 25:42
  having to deal with calculus that maybe that was not the
• 25:45
  right fit for me. So I, I was able to talk and
• 25:50
  being advised by the chair of the industrial engineer who can
• 25:54
  explain what is industrial engineer.
• 25:56
  And I quickly realized, yes, yes, that's what I want.
• 25:59
  So industrial engineer, our doctor of efficiencies, we are
• 26:03
  the one who look at whatever system or process from
• 26:07
  pharmaceutical to manufacturing to fast food, whatever.
• 26:11
  And we tried to implement solutions to make it better, so
• 26:15
  faster and cheaper. I assume you got to work on
• 26:19
  different projects and maybe even had a senior project.
• 26:22
  What was like the most fun? Because I don't think I realized
• 26:26
  and maybe it's just not thinking about it.
• 26:29
  Like all the different, you said pharmaceutical restaurant, you
• 26:32
  know, like a lot of different manufacturing, right?
• 26:35
  Was there a project you worked on in college that was like, oh
• 26:37
  man, this is really kind of cool?
• 26:39
  Yeah, we did a time study on the queuing theory on fast food
• 26:43
  restaurant. Queuing so how they process
• 26:47
  orders and so. If you get on a line, how many
• 26:50
  minutes is going to take for you to be processed and what is more
• 26:54
  efficient to adding two lines? One only line, 3 cashiers, one
• 27:01
  cashier does everything based on different cases and scenarios.
• 27:05
  There are certain things that are more efficient than other.
• 27:08
  So as part of this project, we had to go through the in and out
• 27:13
  drive through, take some data on how many cars were flowing
• 27:18
  through, and come up with a solution that will theoretically
• 27:22
  improve their system. Is it get down even to the level
• 27:26
  of like, oh, the hamburger patties if they're over here
• 27:29
  versus the lettuce and the cheese needs to be, you know, 2
• 27:32
  down to bins that yeah. So it gets down into that.
• 27:36
  I have to assume, and you know what it's assuming does that a
• 27:39
  company like In and Out already has a lot of these people.
• 27:43
  Yeah, Did. So were you able to find
• 27:46
  anything? It was a academic level, it was
• 27:48
  only for classroom and our professor was the only guy who
• 27:52
  actually see that project. So we came up with something
• 27:55
  that theoretically could have improved their.
• 27:58
  There are systems, yeah. Are you an In and Out Burger
• 28:01
  fan? I love the in and out.
• 28:02
  Yeah, you. Love it or like it's OK?
• 28:04
  I love it. Yeah.
• 28:05
  I think it's the only fast food that differentiate from the
• 28:07
  other McDonald Wednesday. They all taste the same to me.
• 28:10
  Burger King In and out is the only chain that that's something
• 28:14
  more in obvious. See that people are just like at
• 28:18
  least two in the states. You either love in and out, like
• 28:21
  you have an in and out tattoo type of obsession or you hate
• 28:26
  it. And I'm not, I'm not either of
• 28:28
  those camps. It's it's a fine burger and it's
• 28:30
  OK. The fries are kind of, you know,
• 28:32
  they're all skinny. Yeah, it's an OK burger.
• 28:36
  I won't turn it down if you say, hey, let's go to in and out.
• 28:38
  But I'm not the guy. Like there are people when they
• 28:39
  go to California for a track meet or something like that,
• 28:41
  it's like, oh, we're going in and out first and it's like it's
• 28:44
  a little, it's a little obsessive there.
• 28:45
  It's not that great of AI. Don't think so.
• 28:47
  Yeah, I think it's needed. It's needed.
• 28:49
  So you're the guy who goes to California.
• 28:50
  You're like, we're going. To get together.
• 28:53
  Or is that in and out tattoo? It's gone.
• 28:55
  It's gone. It's gone.
• 28:56
  OK, so Pomona mechanical engineering into industrial
• 29:00
  industrial engineering. Did did starting out as Mechi
• 29:04
  help? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 29:07
  More from the theoretical part. So I had an advantage in
• 29:12
  mathematics and physics that maybe we'll start an industrial
• 29:15
  engineer doesn't have. The Sprint coach there is
• 29:20
  Terrell Smith. Yes, did you Olympic coach?
• 29:23
  Yeah. Did you get to work with him at
• 29:24
  all? Yeah, I love that dude.
• 29:25
  A really nice guy, a really nice coach.
• 29:27
  He is he's the nephew of John Smith.
• 29:30
  Does that name think about John Smith is one of the, I don't
• 29:34
  know, top five easily spring coaches in America coached a lot
• 29:37
  of our professionals used to coach at UCLA for a long time.
• 29:40
  Actually is one of the like top five guests that I would love to
• 29:44
  have on the podcast one day just because of his legacy and what
• 29:48
  he's done. He was the OR is the someone
• 29:51
  checked me on this, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct on this.
• 29:53
  I believe he's still the world record holder for the 440 yard
• 29:56
  dash. You know, that turned into the
• 29:57
  400 meter dash. He was, he is the, you know,
• 30:00
  because we don't run anymore, but still ran a stupidly fast
• 30:03
  time with the 440 yard transfer in yards, not meters.
• 30:06
  So but yeah, I'm pretty sure his nephew.
• 30:09
  I think that's the relationship, but I met him a long time ago
• 30:12
  when they were HSI. Did you know HSI is that name?
• 30:16
  No, yeah, No, I know about Darrell's MITA and I know about
• 30:19
  his successor. Yeah, he helped a friend of
• 30:21
  mine, Alessio Somakal, OK, to run under 49 seconds in a 400
• 30:27
  hurdle and he was denial the number 2 in Italy.
• 30:30
  Yeah, yeah. Good dude.
• 30:32
  Love him to death. Just dear, dear friend.
• 30:34
  Love him to death. That's so cool.
• 30:35
  OK, so you get your degree. No, no, I don't get my degree
• 30:39
  yet. No, no, I start everything and I
• 30:42
  jumped 5 meter 10 on the first competition with a couple of
• 30:45
  Pomona jersey and then the coronavirus hit.
• 30:49
  Oh, fun. OK.
• 30:50
  What? Yeah.
• 30:51
  So what happens to a guy from Italy?
• 30:53
  You know, I know what happens to a guy from Nevada.
• 30:55
  That's a Cal Poly Pomona. He goes home.
• 30:57
  What does a guy from Italy do? I was in California and then
• 31:00
  they say there's this virus, everybody is dying and we're
• 31:03
  closing the borders. So I got scared a little bit too
• 31:07
  sure, and I had to go back to Italy.
• 31:09
  I'm sure Mom is like, let's go, yeah, get back.
• 31:12
  So you go back to Italy? In March 2020.
• 31:16
  Wow. Everybody's experience is a
• 31:18
  little unique. I was at the NCAA Division One
• 31:21
  Championships in New Mexico and literally like, shut it down
• 31:24
  Wednesday or Thursday. Yeah, shut down.
• 31:26
  And so I'm on a plane Friday to come home.
• 31:28
  Yeah, in the world just shut down.
• 31:30
  Yeah. So you go back home to Italy.
• 31:32
  See, that's what I'm saying. I I just went back here to
• 31:34
  champagne. I went, came home.
• 31:35
  You had to go back home. Home.
• 31:37
  Or you hadn't been maybe in quite a while at that point.
• 31:40
  Are you still able to take classes?
• 31:42
  How'd that work out? So classes were online and it
• 31:45
  was Zoom University. Yeah, and I did not want to
• 31:48
  become a Zoom. No, that sucks too.
• 31:51
  So I decided to take a year off of university.
• 31:55
  OK you know I want to get my education in person.
• 31:57
  I wanted to be in a classroom with student that I can spoke to
• 32:01
  so. You finished the spring semester
• 32:03
  through Zoom. Yeah.
• 32:04
  OK, because you. So you didn't quit halfway
• 32:06
  through this. Yeah.
• 32:06
  No, finish that out with like a. In all of the classes for.
• 32:10
  So, All right, so it's summer. You're like me.
• 32:12
  I don't know. I don't want to do Zoom again.
• 32:14
  So what do you take a full year off?
• 32:16
  Yeah, there was the opportunity I could have enrolled and the
• 32:19
  classes and taking classes from home.
• 32:21
  In in Italian college, yeah, yeah.
• 32:24
  Matter of fact, for that semester that was keep going.
• 32:27
  I had to wake up at 3:00 AM to follow the classes.
• 32:31
  Oh, because of Pomona? Yeah.
• 32:32
  Because of the time. 9 hours time even.
• 32:34
  Think about that. Oh yeah, I see.
• 32:36
  Three months. I mean that we are the.
• 32:39
  Yeah, yeah, Even more reason why you didn't want to be a Zoom.
• 32:42
  Yeah, you're looking at the next year going, oh bro, I'm not
• 32:45
  doing that. Makes sense.
• 32:47
  All right, So what do we do during our year off?
• 32:49
  I have a full year off and I start working into my family
• 32:52
  business. OK, we did the high end
• 32:54
  furniture. Cool.
• 32:55
  So I was there. I was handyman that did
• 32:58
  everything. I was helping my dad on the
• 33:00
  administrative side, but also they really needed a lot of help
• 33:05
  in the warehouse. So packaging a lot of chair and
• 33:09
  assembly and a lot of tables and driving the plot to take part
• 33:14
  from one client to a supplier and everything that went on for
• 33:19
  a year till 2021. Vaulting at all?
• 33:23
  I kind of stopped vaulting because they closed down the
• 33:27
  facility so I was only doing calisthenics.
• 33:30
  So was it? You don't really have a frame
• 33:34
  over here, so here we shut down almost everything.
• 33:38
  Same. No more.
• 33:40
  More everything. Yeah, that's why I hate Italy
• 33:43
  now. Sure.
• 33:44
  Because we have a constitution that was supposed to protect the
• 33:49
  the freedom of movement. We, we don't talk American
• 33:51
  politics. We certainly aren't going to
• 33:53
  talk Italian politics. All right.
• 33:54
  So a year working with the family business, no vaulting
• 33:57
  because it's all shut down. What happens after?
• 34:00
  So now we're summer of 2021. Yes.
• 34:03
  OK, what do we do that? Summer finish and full semester
• 34:08
  start and I go back in California.
• 34:10
  Cuz school we opened some things back up yeah okay.
• 34:13
  Right, practice was back. Back in Pomona, yeah.
• 34:16
  Back to actually, I was in Chino Hills for that semester, okay,
• 34:19
  which is just a town closed nearby, but you.
• 34:22
  Still go to Pomona, yeah. Yeah, Hills.
• 34:24
  I was just living with my roommate.
• 34:25
  Got it, Got it. So or are we back to, you know,
• 34:29
  as normal as we could in 2021-2022?
• 34:31
  Are you back to normal? Kind of I'm getting back to
• 34:34
  normal because I'm healing from my shoulder surgery because
• 34:39
  during COVID I was doing calisthenics and I messed up my
• 34:41
  shoulder and I had to get a reconstruction.
• 34:44
  Yeah. What did you do?
• 34:47
  What kind of calisthenics were you doing, brother?
• 34:48
  I was doing front lever, back lever.
• 34:50
  Are you doing pole ball stuff? Yeah, Pole.
• 34:52
  Ball stuff and then when I started doing straight pole
• 34:55
  drills my shoulder was sub dislocating so it was like
• 34:59
  popping it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:02
  And we didn't want to having that affecting my future years.
• 35:06
  So I just say, OK, now it's a good time to get in the surgery
• 35:09
  room and get it fixed it. Actually wasn't the well, COVID
• 35:13
  helped 'cause that because you wouldn't have been necessarily
• 35:15
  doing that, wouldn't have COVID, but then COVID allowed you to
• 35:18
  have time to, to have the search as well.
• 35:21
  That's interesting. OK, so you're back, you're
• 35:24
  recovering. Are you vaulting?
• 35:26
  I'm starting to vault but of course that surgery kind of
• 35:30
  messed up with my head a bit so I had to go through a phase of
• 35:33
  run throughs and really bad season.
• 35:38
  Put my coach through a lot of stress.
• 35:39
  Sorry sorry coach if you're at the end though.
• 35:43
  I made everything click and I jumped my PR 5 meter 2017 feet.
• 35:49
  The national championship in Michigan, I believe.
• 35:52
  Grand Valley University. Grand Valley, how interesting to
• 35:55
  me. I love just how life works.
• 35:57
  So I was at that meet so I saw you.
• 35:59
  Malt 7. Place.
• 36:02
  Wow, that's so interesting. I think about that sometimes.
• 36:05
  So examples like that, you know, I saw one of our former team
• 36:09
  mates now working for Flow Track, Carly Livingston, she
• 36:12
  jumped for Grand Valley. I saw her jump as an undergrad
• 36:14
  just by, you know, chance at internationals.
• 36:17
  I have a video. I haven't shown it.
• 36:19
  I need to put it on our internal teams, our internal
• 36:23
  communication. I have a video of, you know,
• 36:25
  Clayton and important and, you know, Jennifer.
• 36:28
  Yeah, there is a video of Clayton throwing in high school
• 36:33
  and Jennifer is the judge. Oh, nice.
• 36:36
  And I was like, you know, it makes me think a lot when I'm at
• 36:38
  these track meets when I see a, you know, a young man or young
• 36:42
  woman or even a coach, I'm like that that guy or gal might work
• 36:46
  with me one day. My guy might be a teammate of
• 36:48
  mine one day, no matter how young or how old, you know, I'll
• 36:50
  see a freshman at college be like, dude, I'm already, you
• 36:52
  know, I'm almost 50. I'll never see that kid could be
• 36:54
  here in three years. You know, it's just that's
• 36:57
  that's interesting how the universe works.
• 36:59
  And OK, so 20, that's the 2021 season.
• 37:03
  You come back to jump your PR, bro.
• 37:04
  But bravo, that's a big deal. That's a big deal.
• 37:07
  Big deal. You know, I love PRS.
• 37:10
  I'm a huge celebrator, PRS because you never know when it's
• 37:13
  your last one until years later. Yeah, right.
• 37:15
  You just never know. And it's like, man, I've jumped
• 37:18
  520 and 70. I'm done.
• 37:19
  You know, it's like, man, you should have celebrated that as
• 37:22
  much as possible. So I love that you even after
• 37:24
  surgery came back, not only surgery, but the whole, you
• 37:27
  know, back and forth from Italy, COVID, I mean, all that crap,
• 37:30
  dude, that that's that's a big deal.
• 37:32
  Was 2021 your last? Did you did you graduate your
• 37:35
  undergrad 2021? No.
• 37:37
  So at that time I was a sophomore.
• 37:39
  It was a OK, it was a sophomore. You missed a year.
• 37:42
  That's right. Yeah.
• 37:43
  And it was May of 2022, May of 2022, Michigan Division Two
• 37:49
  National. OK, I'm a sophomore then.
• 37:52
  You know, during summer I go back to Italy and I do my
• 37:55
  Italian season there. Summer eating a lot of pasta,
• 37:57
  drinking wine, spending time with my family.
• 38:00
  In fact, how? How?
• 38:00
  Different is your life in America versus what you just
• 38:04
  described when you go back to Italy?
• 38:05
  Like, are you eating pasta, drinking wine when you're in
• 38:07
  America? No, a little bit less, because
• 38:10
  at home I have my mom who's cooking for me, and I have my
• 38:13
  dad that was paying for the good wine here in the USI got to live
• 38:17
  the college student life. Great point.
• 38:21
  Great point. OK, All right, Keep going, Keep
• 38:22
  going. So then summer ends when we come
• 38:25
  back as a junior and again I made my coach go through a lot
• 38:31
  of stresses and changing and we had an OK season.
• 38:35
  We win conference again and then we go to national championship
• 38:40
  in Colorado. Yeah, Pueblo.
• 38:42
  Yeah, Pueblo, Co. And I get my 4th place.
• 38:45
  Yeah, you know, jumping, I believe 536.
• 38:49
  It was also a school record. Yeah, as I say, it doesn't start
• 38:52
  with a four. I know enough about full
• 38:54
  vaulting and I know you don't start with a four.
• 38:56
  That was did you like, I like that facility.
• 38:59
  Colorado Beautiful. Yeah, that's like the bowl
• 39:01
  aspect of it. They put the pit in the middle
• 39:04
  of the field with a raised runway.
• 39:06
  I think that's kind of cool, you know, kind of highlight the
• 39:08
  events of keeping it over to the side.
• 39:10
  I I I enjoy when we go to Pudlow.
• 39:11
  It's pretty cool. Yeah, the Thunderbolt Stadium.
• 39:14
  That's right. The Thunder Wolves.
• 39:15
  Thunderbolt Wolf. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which
• 39:18
  that's cool too. That's.
• 39:19
  Thunderbolt is the bar that is closed.
• 39:21
  That's it. In your body I.
• 39:23
  I knew when I said I was like, there's something with that
• 39:25
  though. OK.
• 39:26
  So 4th place you have another year?
• 39:29
  Yeah, I have another year and the year after I'm a senior
• 39:33
  again, even more shenanigans for my coach because at that time I
• 39:39
  also, then I went back in summer and they jumped my PR off 545,
• 39:45
  which is almost 18 feet. And it's something that is
• 39:48
  getting you close to the possibility of joining the
• 39:52
  Olympic list. So the goal was, OK, let's go
• 39:56
  back to California. It's my senior year, my last
• 39:59
  year of college track and field. Let's try to jump over 19 feet
• 40:03
  and let's try to get his Olympic Grand King.
• 40:07
  And then there's the Olympic 2024.
• 40:11
  That was the goal. Yeah.
• 40:13
  Didn't quite go. Yeah, yeah, You got to have
• 40:15
  goals, but they don't mean you're going to hit them.
• 40:17
  That's right. That's right.
• 40:18
  So you end up finishing undergrad Pomona.
• 40:21
  Yep. And so what's next in that step
• 40:23
  of trying to make the Olympic list for Italy?
• 40:26
  So, last national competition in Emporia, KS.
• 40:30
  That's right. And there we get third place, I
• 40:33
  believe. Yeah, with a jump of 525.
• 40:36
  Wow. I was not happy.
• 40:38
  Sure. Yeah.
• 40:39
  But I was done, graduated, did my senior project really great.
• 40:44
  What was your senior project? Senior.
• 40:46
  Project it was on basically correcting the defect of
• 40:50
  Omnicedal which is a factory that does of rubber rubber
• 40:54
  stuff. They were having a problem of
• 40:55
  over curing of some orange rubber part and me and my team
• 40:59
  of industrial engineering went there.
• 41:01
  We tried to find the root cause of this problem.
• 41:04
  We did some time studies, their analysis and create a report on
• 41:08
  what's happening and we basically fixed the problem that
• 41:11
  was worth at the over $100,000 for a company.
• 41:16
  That's so cool. It's safe to see not just only
• 41:19
  your work, your academic work, but that it actually like
• 41:21
  something positive comes out, like there's a change made that.
• 41:24
  Helps people. Yeah, somebody was really happy
• 41:27
  about that. They also they were the one that
• 41:30
  wanted to offer me a job, but I received my first offer from a
• 41:34
  company that does supplement. So they want to hire me as an
• 41:38
  industrial engineer to do quality control over there.
• 41:42
  But you didn't go. No, I refuse the offer.
• 41:47
  I refuse the offer. And I say, well, I got all my
• 41:49
  life to work, right? Right now I'm 25 years old.
• 41:52
  I'm the peak of my physique. Yep, Yep, Yep.
• 41:55
  I jumped almost 18 feet with an OK coach.
• 41:58
  Right, right, right. Let's try to find an Olympic
• 42:00
  coach and let's try to do one year professionally where I can
• 42:04
  actually jump what I'm what I'm bored of.
• 42:07
  Yeah, I I like that. You know, I struggle sometimes.
• 42:10
  Excuse me, with young people who are, you know, just subtly, you
• 42:14
  know, you're, you weren't jumping 196IN college or
• 42:17
  anything like that, because on one hand I'm like, you know, the
• 42:20
  odds of you making it. I mean, no one makes an
• 42:22
  Olympics. You know what I mean when I say
• 42:24
  that, you know, you know, when we have Olympians on the
• 42:28
  podcast, I'm just like, dude, you're in a fraternity of like
• 42:31
  one person, like nobody. I'm amazed when we have people
• 42:34
  who are on the podcast. We've made two or three.
• 42:36
  We've had four. I mean, that's just, you know,
• 42:40
  you, you're a Unicorn walking around here.
• 42:42
  So when the, you know, when I talk to a young person and
• 42:45
  they're like, and then, you know, they're, they're just not
• 42:47
  there, but they're not far off. It's not like, you know, you're
• 42:49
  a 14 foot pole vaulter. You know, you've got an actual
• 42:51
  like it could happen. I struggle sometimes.
• 42:54
  I'm like, man, it's just not going to happen.
• 42:56
  Go, go, go find what your career is going to be.
• 42:58
  You know, that doesn't mean, you know, go and you're going to
• 43:01
  work at Omni Steel for the rest of your life.
• 43:02
  Maybe you go there and you learn something for a year too, and
• 43:04
  you go somewhere else and maybe start your own business,
• 43:05
  whatever. And I'm also on the other hand,
• 43:08
  going, yeah, but dude, this stuff to your point on 25, this
• 43:11
  is your only shot. You don't get to come back at 30
• 43:14
  and say, you know what, maybe I'll try to make that team now
• 43:17
  that you, you definitely, I don't say definitely.
• 43:19
  You know, your odds definitely went down, right?
• 43:22
  And so if you're able to financially, mentally able to
• 43:27
  give it a shot, then, yeah, I think you just got to got to
• 43:29
  bless you and have a shot. A good friend of mine was a 1312
• 43:33
  hurdler, Dexter Fox, still a great friend.
• 43:36
  I just got married this past weekend.
• 43:38
  His family. I love, love this guy.
• 43:39
  He does. And I can't remember the years,
• 43:41
  but maybe it was the 2000, 8 Olympic trials, maybe the
• 43:46
  finals. Looks like he's going to make
• 43:47
  the team, hits a hurdle, doesn't make it right.
• 43:48
  And he and I are talking to hit a little girl.
• 43:51
  And he's like, yeah, I'm trying to decide to, you know, do I
• 43:53
  just hang it up? Do I try again?
• 43:55
  And I was like, you know, the problem is with track and field.
• 43:57
  And definitely track and field in America is you're not making
• 44:00
  a one year decision. You're really making a four year
• 44:02
  decision. You got to go through the next
• 44:04
  Olympic. You got to make the Olympic team
• 44:05
  to, you know, do anything. And and so I'm, you know, I'm
• 44:07
  thinking, you know, Dexter with a great guy, I love him to
• 44:10
  death. And I'm just like, man, you
• 44:11
  know, you got a daughter. I think it's time to go to work.
• 44:14
  But then I'm also like, yeah, but man, he's going to give his
• 44:16
  daughter experiences that she might not ever have, right?
• 44:21
  He's going to be able to talk to her about all these different
• 44:23
  places that he's competing at. Like she's going to be able to
• 44:26
  have a much more worldly view, which is going to help her than
• 44:30
  if he just goes to work, you know?
• 44:31
  And so, yeah, it's a. Catholic life is the best life
• 44:35
  possible. Yeah, but yeah, poor life
• 44:38
  sometimes too. But but, but also that's not the
• 44:40
  be all end all of life either. Isn't money either.
• 44:42
  So I I get it. I get it.
• 44:44
  You're also talking to a guy who had no shot at anything.
• 44:47
  I didn't make my junior high team, so definitely making the
• 44:50
  Olympic team. OK.
• 44:51
  So you go for it. You decide.
• 44:53
  I love your mentality of like, hey, man, I'm 25.
• 44:56
  Maybe you had some thoughts of like, hey, man, this just all
• 44:58
  goes bust. I mean, I got a mom and dad
• 44:59
  back. Like I can still like I got
• 45:00
  support. I'm smart enough.
• 45:02
  I got a degree. I can I can get a job.
• 45:04
  Yeah, like that was the idea I got.
• 45:06
  Yeah, I was. I already got the company that
• 45:08
  can sponsor me because, you know, I'm international.
• 45:11
  I got that problem too. And I was under the impression,
• 45:14
  OK, let me just try one more year.
• 45:17
  I got to enroll into a university program, but then,
• 45:20
  you know, I'm not really planning on finishing it.
• 45:23
  Like all that ways. Go back and try to find a work.
• 45:27
  Little that I know that if you graduate and you know when you
• 45:32
  graduate and you're an international student, you can
• 45:35
  achieve OPT, which is a way for. OPT.
• 45:38
  OPT Professional Practice training, which allows
• 45:42
  international to be hired and working in the United States
• 45:45
  without the need of sponsorship for one year and three a year if
• 45:50
  you are a stand major. If you're a STEM, yeah, yeah,
• 45:53
  yeah. Science.
• 45:54
  Science. Engineering.
• 45:56
  Physics. Mathematics.
• 45:57
  Mathematics there, yeah. So where's that lead you?
• 46:02
  Sorry. Where does that lead you?
• 46:04
  Oh well, apparently if you enroll into a grad program, you
• 46:09
  cannot just stop anger in your pity game.
• 46:12
  You get to finish. And I didn't know that all.
• 46:15
  So you wait. So your player was like, I'm
• 46:18
  going to go, I'm just going to do it for the year, finish out
• 46:20
  of my underground. And they were like, no, that's
• 46:23
  not how that works, no. Well, in my mind, I was going
• 46:26
  there and jumping 19 feet and then you qualify for the Tokyo
• 46:31
  Indoor Championship and then there's you can get ready for
• 46:35
  2028 LA and then maybe I was going back in Italy and get
• 46:39
  hired by the military and field department.
• 46:43
  And that's not really quite what I've done.
• 46:46
  Well, I told you I went to Kansas.
• 46:48
  Yeah. On the rake acting.
• 46:50
  Yeah. Great friend of ours absolutely
• 46:52
  only. Coach Coach Scott Hoffman and
• 46:55
  older 19 footballer. I had some great feedback from
• 46:59
  older athletes and I know Washburn at a beautiful
• 47:03
  facility. Yeah, let's talk about indoor
• 47:04
  facility. Yeah, that's.
• 47:06
  A So I say I packed my truck and I start driving towards the
• 47:09
  Midwest. Did you have So I mean, you went
• 47:12
  to Fort Wayne, which you know, Fort Wayne's a, it's a big city.
• 47:15
  It's not a Chicago or anything, but it's not a a Washburn Kansas
• 47:20
  either. Did you have any like
• 47:22
  understanding of Washburn, Kansas and just, you know, small
• 47:26
  and. I know it was gonna be flat and
• 47:28
  I know there was not gonna be nothing, but that was gonna be
• 47:31
  playing my advantage because I was there only to focus on
• 47:34
  track. Sure.
• 47:35
  There was not gonna be a good point.
• 47:37
  Beaches were to swim. Yeah.
• 47:38
  Yeah. Or parties or nothing.
• 47:40
  And I go there, just do track and field.
• 47:42
  Yeah, good point. So wake up, lift, eat, train.
• 47:45
  Yeah. Eat.
• 47:46
  Sleep. Yeah, and that's what you do in
• 47:48
  Washburn. Yeah, it started and it was
• 47:50
  going bright. It's a It's an amazing college.
• 47:54
  Washburn the. Oh man, Not the professors.
• 47:57
  What is their mascot? The.
• 47:59
  Ecobot. Ecobot, it has this really cool.
• 48:02
  I mean, what you're thinking about with an Ecobot, the hat
• 48:05
  guy, you know, and I actually so camera Bath podcast from them.
• 48:11
  I asked him like, So what, you know, this is unique.
• 48:13
  And it was like, I think it, if I remember correctly, I'm sure
• 48:15
  I'm messing it all up. A guy named Ichabod like
• 48:18
  basically like the school was about to go under, you know,
• 48:23
  bankrupt. He came in and like saved it.
• 48:25
  He was like a local businessman and stuff like that saved it
• 48:27
  and. Yeah, the rest of the story, 19
• 48:30
  days, a rich guy who was in the university.
• 48:33
  Yeah, something like that, yeah. So it's amazing to me, you know,
• 48:35
  it's a beautiful guy. I love the campus, obviously
• 48:38
  love the indoor facility tremendously.
• 48:40
  They did an amazing job there. And I, you know, I did a year in
• 48:44
  Kansas as well. So we're, you know, if the state
• 48:46
  of Kansas is here, you're kind of up in here.
• 48:48
  I'm in the bottom SE, so right by the Oklahoma border and the
• 48:55
  Missouri border and did a year there.
• 48:59
  And I'm used to small town, you know, I grew up in a town less
• 49:01
  than 10,000 in Alabama, man, Kansas winters are, are
• 49:07
  different. And when you talk about small
• 49:10
  towns, these are small towns. How did you did you stick to
• 49:15
  your plan of like all right man, eat, sleep vault study when I
• 49:19
  have to. Yeah, I did.
• 49:20
  And it was going all well till I think it was the first days of
• 49:25
  November. I went on a bike ride, you know,
• 49:27
  to move a little bit in my legs, and I passed by a BMX truck and
• 49:33
  I was like, cool, I used to the. Young Matteo was like, wait a
• 49:37
  minute. I know how to do this.
• 49:39
  Hey little kid, can I borrow your bike real quick?
• 49:41
  And I'll do 1 loop everything fine.
• 49:44
  And then my mind, I just got back to those years and I say,
• 49:48
  well, I'm doing one more lap. Let me actually try to jump.
• 49:52
  No, I'll build a rump and I pump the kicker and I go in the air
• 49:57
  and all of a sudden I'm like and now what do I do and my body
• 50:00
  start flipping and they laying down with my shoulder and I
• 50:05
  basically ruined all my ligaments and AC dislocation of
• 50:10
  third degree. It's famous in the track
• 50:14
  coaching world to talk about basketball here in the States.
• 50:17
  I'm like, oh man, you know how many kids have turned their
• 50:20
  ankles playing pick up basketball?
• 50:23
  You did it by playing pick up BMX with bike riding.
• 50:27
  Dude, are you serious? Unfortunately, yeah, same.
• 50:32
  Shoulder. Same shoulder, the white one the
• 50:34
  most important. Did you know as soon as you I
• 50:36
  did like? Oh yeah, I knew it was.
• 50:40
  I knew it was over. It was the worst possible team
• 50:43
  flu happen, probably worse than that, only breaking my spine and
• 50:47
  being paralyzed. That was going to be pretty bad,
• 50:50
  but. Well, you're not saying you have
• 50:52
  broken your spine. No, no.
• 50:53
  OK, that that was the worst possible.
• 50:56
  Thing yeah, got it, got it, got it the.
• 50:57
  Second worst thing could have happened is me damaging the
• 51:00
  right shoulder and the ligament. I wish I had broken a bone
• 51:04
  because you break your collarbone 30 days the tissue
• 51:08
  repair itself right? The ligament is not that easy.
• 51:11
  How do you call Coach Anika and say, hey coach, yeah, I hurt
• 51:16
  myself by the way, it was BMX ING.
• 51:19
  Yeah, well, I left some detail outside of the question, of
• 51:22
  course. All right, well, let's see what
• 51:24
  that is and. Well, they just told me, well,
• 51:28
  go to the trainers and see what's going on.
• 51:31
  And you know, I'm not really a big fan of athletic trainer.
• 51:35
  Yeah, that's. A common that that isn't.
• 51:38
  You are not alone in that in. And after this experience I even
• 51:42
  had more reason to dislike that. Basically their only concern was
• 51:47
  to make sure they understand how hey you got hurt outside of
• 51:50
  practice time. Insurance, it's on you.
• 51:52
  We're not gonna help you. We're not gonna pay nothing for
• 51:55
  you. You're there by yourself.
• 51:57
  Oh, man, yeah, yeah, sadly common.
• 52:02
  Yeah, yeah, I get and maybe I assume even more common for an
• 52:07
  international student because of insurance and things like that.
• 52:10
  I don't have much experience there.
• 52:12
  OK, well, that's devastating. That's terrible.
• 52:15
  But I remember seeing you vault at outdoor national.
• 52:18
  So yeah, how do we go from I, I, I literally have this picture of
• 52:21
  you laying on this dirt BMX to Yeah, now you're on the runway
• 52:27
  and had. To it was pretty painful and it
• 52:30
  was over. It was over.
• 52:32
  But I'm really hard headed. I rarely take a note as an
• 52:36
  answer. OK, so I just start opening my
• 52:40
  laptop and, you know, we're in 2025, there's artificial
• 52:43
  intelligence, and I became my own doctor, my own
• 52:46
  physiotherapist. And after three months, I was
• 52:50
  back in the runway, jumpy again. Yeah, I'm not slowed down,
• 52:54
  clearly slowed down by this, but wow.
• 52:58
  Yeah. Try to get the bull again.
• 52:59
  Learning the basic. How?
• 53:01
  Do you? I'm always amazed that athletes
• 53:03
  have come back from a very serious injury, like like like
• 53:07
  Achilles when someone pops in Achilles and the first time they
• 53:09
  get in the blocks for you, if this is your second time around
• 53:14
  with a bum shoulder, can you think about that first time
• 53:17
  you're on the runway to take up, even if it's a pop up, just
• 53:20
  something with a pole. Did you have like apprehension,
• 53:24
  some fear? Like how do you know?
• 53:27
  Yeah. How do you know it's it's ready
• 53:29
  to go and how? And maybe you know, I can't go
• 53:31
  100%, but but OK. Where can I go?
• 53:33
  Can I go 90? Can I go 95?
• 53:34
  Can I go 99? Where is how do you checking
• 53:38
  that part out as an athlete? Again, I became my own
• 53:40
  physiotherapist and trainer. So I came up with a protocol and
• 53:44
  tried to start really slow. So doing some pop up, seeing how
• 53:49
  the shoulder react and at the end I give it enough time for
• 53:54
  the ligaments to join back together and I would say after
• 53:58
  four months I was 90% back to normal.
• 54:02
  Wow. Dude, you didn't jump indoor
• 54:05
  nationals. Indoor, no, actually I did a
• 54:08
  couple of competition. I wasn't attached just for fun
• 54:13
  and like clear. I would say 48470 something like
• 54:16
  that. It it it's because I mentioned
• 54:20
  indoor. Is indoor track a thing in
• 54:22
  Italy? Yeah, OK.
• 54:23
  We have a huge indoor facility in Ankle now OK, where John Mark
• 54:26
  Cutenberry trains. OK, so that wasn't a shock
• 54:29
  because sometimes, you know, people don't have any indoor
• 54:31
  experience and they come to say it's like, holy crap, it's a
• 54:33
  whole season. In California, we didn't have
• 54:35
  the indoor. Yeah, that's a good.
• 54:36
  Point it was Sunday. Yeah, it was everything outdoor.
• 54:39
  But you this comes with a question, but did you try to
• 54:42
  compete and qualify for indoor nationals or was it like, no, we
• 54:45
  just don't, no. Because the the track and field
• 54:48
  men's team didn't have indoor. Yep, Yep.
• 54:52
  Season. Yep, that makes sense.
• 54:53
  Yep. But me and a couple of friends,
• 54:56
  I always ask them, hey, you wanna compete?
• 54:59
  Let's go to Colorado, Right, Right.
• 55:02
  Right. Yep.
• 55:02
  Then one other time I went to New Mexico, I was unattached
• 55:06
  with my teammates. Yep.
• 55:07
  Yeah, that makes sense. When I coached at Mississippi
• 55:09
  State, we didn't have men's indoor as well.
• 55:10
  And so you kind of cobbled together a little bit of a
• 55:13
  season, but you're focused on the outdoor.
• 55:14
  Yeah, that makes sense. OK, So you don't get really, but
• 55:18
  you don't really do indoor because the injury and all that
• 55:21
  kind of stuff. But you made it to Nash.
• 55:24
  I mean this, this story ends at least somewhat positive that you
• 55:27
  came back and vaulted the Nationals.
• 55:29
  And I mean, that's just amazing. Yeah, back in Colorado,
• 55:34
  thunderstorm Thunder. Thunder something Thunderwolves
• 55:37
  Thunderbolt. Thunderwolves Stadium.
• 55:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Went in there and competed on my
• 55:42
  officially last NCAA edition, and unfortunately I got 9th
• 55:46
  place. Yeah.
• 55:47
  So I didn't get the old American title for the first time.
• 55:50
  I was pretty bummed about it. Sure, sure, sure.
• 55:52
  And that was it. Yeah.
• 55:55
  But that day I also shake hands with Greg and I believe Lauren.
• 56:00
  The worker plan. That's right.
• 56:02
  And I think you were there. Yep.
• 56:03
  Yep, Yep. So before we get to that,
• 56:06
  because that's exactly where this starts transitioning.
• 56:09
  And I know it's hard, Mateo, as a 2526 year old at that moment,
• 56:14
  and you'll have better perspective of it when you're 45
• 56:16
  and 55. But I am that age.
• 56:18
  And so I can tell you, dude, I know 9th grade, 9th grade, 9th
• 56:22
  play soccer. I, I get it, you're a
• 56:24
  competitor. So anything that is not first
• 56:26
  place and, and you're a pole vaulter.
• 56:28
  So not only do you need to have first place, you have the PR,
• 56:30
  that's just the, the pole vaulter competitive mentality,
• 56:34
  you know, getting 9th place. And I know you're going to shake
• 56:37
  your head no and all that stuff. I get it.
• 56:39
  That was a victory because 99.9% of people would have never made
• 56:43
  it onto that runway after that accident.
• 56:46
  You know what I'm saying? So it just kudos to you for
• 56:49
  getting back up. If you would have told me, if
• 56:52
  your story would have been like, man, I did this BMX thing would
• 56:54
  have done me hurt myself and that was the end of my pole
• 56:57
  vault and career. I'd be like, oh, well, that
• 56:58
  makes sense. That's what most people would
• 57:00
  have done. But you didn't let that stop.
• 57:02
  You kept going, bro, that's never give up.
• 57:05
  That's huge. That's huge.
• 57:06
  That's the that's the kind of stuff that kind of lessons that
• 57:09
  as you get older and maybe you have a family, one of your own
• 57:12
  one day that you know, you get to, you know, your son or
• 57:14
  daughter is going to be in a situation, hopefully not that
• 57:16
  serious, but in a situation where they want to quit and, and
• 57:19
  no one would blame them for quitting.
• 57:21
  And you're just going to be like, Hey, let me just tell you,
• 57:24
  you make your own decision, but let me tell you a story.
• 57:26
  When I was in college and what happened and they're like, holy
• 57:29
  crap, my dad did that. Well, well, maybe I can, you
• 57:33
  know what I'm saying? Like it's a it's a real life
• 57:35
  experience, not telling someone else's story.
• 57:37
  It's your story. So kudos to you, brother.
• 57:39
  That's a a big deal. I just want to make sure I'm
• 57:43
  old. I get to I'm living this with a,
• 57:46
  you know, today, literally when we're recording this, my son
• 57:48
  starts freshman year of high school and my daughter starts
• 57:50
  middle school. So I'm living these kind of
• 57:52
  experiences at first day of school.
• 57:53
  Yeah, Yeah. They love school.
• 57:56
  So that's the easiest thing in the world.
• 57:57
  I love it. They were up early.
• 57:59
  I'm a very lucky dad and because I have a very great wife and mom
• 58:03
  there. So Congrats.
• 58:04
  Thank you. OK, so before we're at D2
• 58:09
  nationals though, we have, well we have internship programs, but
• 58:14
  typically our R&D team has had interns every year.
• 58:18
  It seems like in sales we have just kind of started in the
• 58:21
  sales and marketing world getting into an internship
• 58:23
  program. So I've Dallas started
• 58:25
  advertising for internships and all that kind of stuff, But you
• 58:27
  hit me up out of the blue. Actually, Rick called me out of
• 58:30
  the blue and you hit me up out of the blue.
• 58:32
  And LinkedIn was like, hey, internship.
• 58:34
  And I was like, my head was sales.
• 58:36
  And Mark, I was like, yeah, you're an engineer, bro, you
• 58:39
  don't want to do this. And I was like, well, let me
• 58:41
  introduce you to, you know, first of all, I was excited
• 58:44
  engineering major, that's pretty smart to your pole vaulter and
• 58:48
  pole vaults are very, as you continue to learn through your
• 58:50
  internship program here. It's a very important event for
• 58:52
  us for not only, you know, financially as far as the things
• 58:56
  that we manufacture, but you know, the big guy, the CEO was a
• 58:59
  pretty good vaulter himself too. So there's emotional importance.
• 59:04
  Did he tell you that? He jumped over.
• 59:08
  He was 4th or 5th, let's say 5th, but he was probably 4th at
• 59:13
  the Olympic trials one year. So he was, you know, for pole
• 59:17
  vaulting, bro, that's probably exactly what the short.
• 59:22
  He wasn't making the team, but yeah, jumped in Europe.
• 59:24
  I mean, he was a great, but he's been on the podcast as well.
• 59:26
  Amazing, amazing story that he has as well.
• 59:29
  So you reach out. I introduce you to Greg because
• 59:31
  I'm like, bro, I can't, you know, I can't hire you.
• 59:33
  I'd love to hire you, but that's going to be a great decision.
• 59:35
  You guys have conversations and you join us as an R&D internship
• 59:40
  for R&D here, dude. Yeah, that's the greatest thing
• 59:43
  that has happened this year. And you know, when I was in my
• 59:47
  home with a broken shoulder and I was fighting through the idea
• 59:51
  of giving up and I was like, OK, well, we're not giving up.
• 59:53
  We're still trying to to do this.
• 59:55
  But of course, this is not gonna happen.
• 59:58
  I'm not gonna jump 19 feet this season with a broken shoulder.
• 1:00:02
  So I might not leave my mark in this port as a pole vaulter.
• 1:00:06
  As an athlete, but maybe I will be able to leave a market as an
• 1:00:09
  engineer. Where do I start?
• 1:00:11
  And so I was talking to Rick and Rick mentioned you and we got in
• 1:00:15
  contact and I talked to Greg, the VP of engineering, and he
• 1:00:22
  told me, yeah, we got an interim position open.
• 1:00:25
  You know, maybe we'll get bored here.
• 1:00:28
  But also we don't have any portable project.
• 1:00:31
  You will only have to review build material and working on
• 1:00:36
  simple drawing. So you're gonna get bored.
• 1:00:38
  Are you sure you want it? And I was like, yeah, yeah,
• 1:00:40
  yeah, yeah. Don't worry.
• 1:00:41
  Get me, Get me. I want to come right now.
• 1:00:42
  Sign me up. This is a testament to you.
• 1:00:44
  First of all, pause. Put it in that I found it
• 1:00:47
  interesting how you just said something.
• 1:00:49
  I think it's important for us to highlight you said when I was
• 1:00:52
  fighting through quitting or not that that's that's real right
• 1:00:56
  there, Matteo. We sometimes try to oversimplify
• 1:00:59
  things and like I either quit or I don't quit and it's black or
• 1:01:02
  white. And it was just it was a
• 1:01:02
  decision. I just made a decision.
• 1:01:04
  I'm not going to quit. You're right.
• 1:01:05
  That was a process for you and it's for everybody else.
• 1:01:08
  But whether they're dealing with, should I take this job?
• 1:01:11
  Should I stay into coaching? Should I get out of coaching?
• 1:01:15
  Should I marry this man or woman?
• 1:01:17
  Those are, those are not, it's very rarely that it's just like
• 1:01:20
  this automatic, a light switch, yes or no, It's a it's a slider.
• 1:01:25
  It's a fader. And sometimes like, Oh yeah,
• 1:01:27
  yeah, I should keep vaulting. Oh, you know what?
• 1:01:29
  Maybe, you know, maybe I'm not. Maybe it's time to move on the
• 1:01:31
  road. Well, you know what, at least do
• 1:01:32
  that. I think that was just really eye
• 1:01:36
  opening the way you said that as I was fighting through whether I
• 1:01:39
  was quitting or not. So I, I just wanted to highlight
• 1:01:41
  this. I think it's important for
• 1:01:42
  people to hear that that's that's they're not, people are
• 1:01:45
  going through that today and they're not weird or odd or
• 1:01:49
  ostracized because they think everybody else has their stuff
• 1:01:51
  together. Like, Oh no, Mateo, he knew he
• 1:01:54
  was going to quit. Like, no, that's not necessarily
• 1:01:56
  true. That was it was a process.
• 1:01:57
  So I just thought that was important.
• 1:02:00
  Back to your story of getting your internship here.
• 1:02:03
  And Greg, that's a testament to you.
• 1:02:04
  So Grant came down to me. I don't think we've talked about
• 1:02:08
  this. So Grant came down to me and he
• 1:02:09
  was like, hey, Mike. So this kid Mateo sent me his
• 1:02:13
  stuff. He's a smart kid.
• 1:02:16
  I just don't like kind of the same things he told you.
• 1:02:18
  He's like, I boy, I just don't he's going to be bored.
• 1:02:22
  I'm not sure where the internship program for him.
• 1:02:24
  This kid needs to be at some you know, quote UN quote big, you
• 1:02:27
  know, company, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:02:29
  And I said, hey, it's like, that's cool.
• 1:02:31
  You know, I trust him. He's a he's a super smart guy,
• 1:02:34
  plus it's his area. So am I to tell him he's wrong?
• 1:02:38
  Right. And so I just said, Hey, I was
• 1:02:40
  like, that's cool. Just tell him that and let him
• 1:02:41
  make that decision. You know, if, if, if you would
• 1:02:44
  have come here and gotten bored after Greg told you all that,
• 1:02:47
  well, I can only blame you on the table.
• 1:02:49
  We told you, we told you where we're at today, you know, this
• 1:02:52
  summer. So that was your, your, your
• 1:02:55
  expectations were wrong, right. But I love how Greg, he cares so
• 1:02:59
  much. He, he, he puts it out there 1st
• 1:03:01
  instead of just saying, Oh yeah, I can be an intern intern.
• 1:03:03
  And then you get here and you're like, yeah, we're not even doing
• 1:03:05
  anything necessarily this summer for football.
• 1:03:07
  You know, I was like, God Dang, I really thought I was going to.
• 1:03:09
  And it's like, well, we should probably should have told you
• 1:03:11
  that. So I love that.
• 1:03:13
  It makes me very proud to be a teammate of Greg's and how
• 1:03:15
  upfront he was with you. And I'm proud of you just taking
• 1:03:20
  all the information and going, yeah, yeah, that's cool.
• 1:03:22
  I'll figure it out. Like, let let me get the foot in
• 1:03:24
  the door, so to speak, and figure things out.
• 1:03:26
  So what was it like? It's it's always interesting for
• 1:03:29
  people who, yeah, I coached for 10 years and I was a Gill guy.
• 1:03:33
  I bought 90% of my stuff from Gill, but until they brought me
• 1:03:37
  here for my interview and I actually got to see some
• 1:03:39
  processes in the building and all that, I was just floored.
• 1:03:42
  It was like, does this reference mean anything to you?
• 1:03:45
  I called it the Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory of track and
• 1:03:49
  field, Right? Yeah, right.
• 1:03:52
  It's just like, you know, machines are just worrying and
• 1:03:55
  spotting out thing and then boom, there's a freaking pole
• 1:03:57
  ball pit or, you know, pole or whatever.
• 1:03:59
  What was it like when you came here for the first day?
• 1:04:02
  Because you did your you Zoom interviewed I assume, right?
• 1:04:05
  No, we only did the phone call. Phone.
• 1:04:07
  Yeah, same. Same thing.
• 1:04:08
  Never saw nothing, never saw nobody.
• 1:04:10
  I met you and some other member at National in Colorado.
• 1:04:15
  But then I came to Champaign and a beautiful city, way better
• 1:04:19
  than Topeka. Cancers A.
• 1:04:21
  Little bit bigger college towns. Sure, Sure.
• 1:04:23
  Sure. Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  And then on June cycle, I drove here and this facility and I was
• 1:04:28
  just shocked by how beautiful it was.
• 1:04:31
  You know, there's a track right outside and we have a soccer
• 1:04:34
  goal and a big football. I don't know how it's called.
• 1:04:38
  Football goal, yeah, football goal and the mortal rugby goal,
• 1:04:42
  right? Similar the rugby goal have.
• 1:04:45
  Them. No, no, no.
• 1:04:46
  Sorry, Sir. There are, yeah.
• 1:04:48
  Yeah, super tall, yes. And maybe maybe squeezed in more
• 1:04:52
  if I remember correctly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:55
  What was the most so we, even though you've never been here
• 1:04:59
  and maybe didn't understand the manufacturing process of sports
• 1:05:03
  equipment because you know, obviously we're talking about
• 1:05:05
  Gil here and we're track and field.
• 1:05:06
  Everybody knows that. But what you just mentioned
• 1:05:08
  there, we also make soccer goals and football goals and our
• 1:05:12
  Porter brothers and sisters, they make basketball.
• 1:05:14
  So we're sports manufacturing. What did you what was the most
• 1:05:18
  surprising? What did you like?
• 1:05:19
  Holy crap, I didn't know. I didn't know that the people
• 1:05:23
  people call me so nice. Wow.
• 1:05:25
  Yeah, I really like the office since I walk in here, everybody
• 1:05:29
  just positive attitude and you know, you can feel that that
• 1:05:34
  thing. You can feel there's people who
• 1:05:35
  are passionate about their job, that job not just showing up to
• 1:05:39
  a nine to five. I think this company has that
• 1:05:43
  difference. You know, here we do things that
• 1:05:45
  are cool. Yeah.
• 1:05:46
  You know, sports are cool things and fun thing.
• 1:05:49
  So I'm sure that even the accountant get a passion for for
• 1:05:53
  what we're doing and I break that.
• 1:05:55
  I felt that and that just motivated me more.
• 1:06:01
  But I love you, bro. You you know, I was fishing for
• 1:06:04
  like, oh, like I didn't know we made football goals When I got
• 1:06:07
  here, I was in the football, so I just didn't think about it.
• 1:06:10
  So when I got here I was like, holy crap, we made football
• 1:06:12
  goals. How do we bend Then?
• 1:06:13
  You know, they showed me the big Bender and I'm like, man, that
• 1:06:15
  brilliant. I had no clue I was fishing for
• 1:06:17
  like some kind of like technology or you know, how we
• 1:06:21
  cut our pits or whatever. And you're like the people and,
• 1:06:23
  and I love you for that because you know how much I love our
• 1:06:26
  people here. So that's that's really cool.
• 1:06:27
  That's really cool. What has been in knowing that,
• 1:06:31
  you know, for a lot of obvious reasons, intellectual property,
• 1:06:34
  etcetera. We want to be very general here.
• 1:06:37
  What's been something fun for you to have been involved in SO?
• 1:06:41
  Far well, seeing all the process of pothole manufacturing, I
• 1:06:47
  really did. You like, run straight to the
• 1:06:49
  pole vault manufacturer? Yeah, that's what I did.
• 1:06:52
  I get to shake hand with the artisan.
• 1:06:54
  Yeah, that is our poll. Really great people, really
• 1:06:58
  passionate. Did you?
• 1:06:59
  No, sorry. You know me well enough now.
• 1:07:01
  I interrupted 1000 times. Did you know how vaulting poles
• 1:07:04
  were made before you got here? Kind of, yeah, I had an overall
• 1:07:06
  picture so, but here I. So you knew, like, you know, it
• 1:07:10
  starts as a she think it's role and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:07:12
  I'm so dumb and I didn't coach Paul Vaulters.
• 1:07:15
  I thought like we just bought like, you know, 20 foot 40 foot
• 1:07:18
  links and we just like, oh, you mean they put her pop.
• 1:07:20
  Oh, you know, 16 OK pop. Yeah, I had no what what they
• 1:07:23
  showed me again during my interview process, like the
• 1:07:26
  actual I was like, first of all, it's if if you've never seen how
• 1:07:30
  a pole vault pole is made, even if you don't coach pole vault,
• 1:07:33
  go to YouTube and maybe you're on YouTube right now watching
• 1:07:35
  the Gil connections podcast. But if you search in the YouTube
• 1:07:39
  thing, how it's made, vaulting poles that show how it's made
• 1:07:43
  came to our factory back in I think it was 2008, I think it
• 1:07:46
  was for the Olympics Olympic year that year.
• 1:07:48
  And they did they how do you go capture the process of how to
• 1:07:53
  make a Baltic pole? It's, it's really cool.
• 1:07:55
  And again, it's for me, you know, my brain, I can't wrap my
• 1:07:58
  head around it's just voodoo magic.
• 1:08:00
  Like it starts off this flat fiberglass and then boom, it's a
• 1:08:02
  pole that's strong enough to freaking vault 20 feet.
• 1:08:05
  It's just it's. Crazy.
• 1:08:08
  Some steps in the middle. Yeah, a lot of stuff, but it's
• 1:08:11
  so cool and, and I love how you said the artisans that it's a,
• 1:08:15
  it's a craft. It is not the I, I, I'm not
• 1:08:18
  definitely not belittling welding or anything like that,
• 1:08:21
  but it's a, it's a, it's a craft of getting those flex numbers
• 1:08:24
  just right and things like that. It's it, it's a, it's a highly
• 1:08:27
  specialized manufacturing. That's for sure.
• 1:08:30
  That's for sure. What has been your experience?
• 1:08:34
  A great college town here in Champaign.
• 1:08:35
  You know the great University of Illinois, which is of course our
• 1:08:38
  roots for Harry Gill, the former truck coach back in 1918 there
• 1:08:42
  Illinois to who created Gale Athletics.
• 1:08:44
  What's been your experience here in Champaign?
• 1:08:46
  I really love the college town. You know, Topeka, there was
• 1:08:51
  nobody around, not even on campus.
• 1:08:54
  And here, just walking around, seeing young people, you know,
• 1:08:58
  walking around with the books and huge campus.
• 1:09:02
  And, you know, I live in campus town, so I quite really don't
• 1:09:06
  understand where does the campus start and where are the normal
• 1:09:09
  houses? Yeah, right.
• 1:09:10
  Because it's all mixed together and just give you a great vibe.
• 1:09:14
  I'm sure that even people that are here for work and are able
• 1:09:17
  to bring to this environment of learning education.
• 1:09:21
  Yeah. Can benefit from it.
• 1:09:22
  Yeah. And that's what happened to me.
• 1:09:24
  Yeah, I outside of my high school time, basically my whole
• 1:09:29
  life has been a college town, right.
• 1:09:31
  So on Detroit University, it's a little college town.
• 1:09:33
  Ball State University, Chicago, which that's not a college town,
• 1:09:37
  a little Chanute, KS, you know, very, very little college town
• 1:09:42
  because it's a JUCO, Mississippi State, Starkville, etcetera.
• 1:09:45
  So I love college town. I love Champaign.
• 1:09:48
  To me, it's like we have the best of everything you need.
• 1:09:51
  You know, you can watch a movie, go to do people go to malls
• 1:09:54
  anymore? Go anyway.
• 1:09:54
  You get all the shops that you need.
• 1:09:56
  Of course, there's sporting events all the time, right,
• 1:09:59
  because of the university. And it's close enough that if
• 1:10:02
  you need to or want to Chicago's two hours N Indies, basically
• 1:10:07
  two hours E tech Louisville's four, 4 1/2 hours that's close
• 1:10:11
  St. Louis, etcetera.
• 1:10:13
  It's I just love and since I don't live there, I have to
• 1:10:15
  worry about the Saint Louis traffic and Chicago, whatever,
• 1:10:18
  blah, blah, blah. I love this town and my wife
• 1:10:21
  went to school here. So you know, pretty much here
• 1:10:24
  so. In Chicago, I visited it yeah,
• 1:10:26
  city and also Saint Louis. I went it was a weeks ago with a
• 1:10:30
  sales. We need to talk about that real
• 1:10:32
  quick. Was that your first time in
• 1:10:33
  Chicago? It.
• 1:10:34
  Was my second, yeah. What do you think about Chicago?
• 1:10:37
  Beautiful, beautiful city. Like the river, really
• 1:10:41
  expensive. You know it's March to get an
• 1:10:44
  Uber instead of renting those bikes.
• 1:10:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I. Tried to move around with the
• 1:10:47
  bikes when I was there with my dad, but we were getting charged
• 1:10:51
  10 bucks per ride. Yeah.
• 1:10:54
  And those things add up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:56
  We don't quite realize but at the end of a weekend trade you
• 1:10:58
  will spend over 80 bucks on bikes You.
• 1:11:01
  Could have bought a bike, yeah. You could have bought 1.
• 1:11:04
  Yeah, great. I've lived there for three
• 1:11:07
  years. Yeah, year of college and two
• 1:11:08
  years of coaching high school track and it's cool.
• 1:11:11
  And the winters are probably, if I think champagne winners are
• 1:11:14
  bad. Chicago.
• 1:11:16
  There's a reason why it's called the Windy City, brother.
• 1:11:18
  But the summers, man, holy cow. There's always a festival with
• 1:11:21
  Blues fast, jazz fast. The Taste of Chicago.
• 1:11:24
  Yeah, so a lot of music. It was the first time in the
• 1:11:26
  summer because I've been in Chicago in the winter and I was
• 1:11:29
  like, yeah, OK, beautiful skyscraper, but this is too
• 1:11:32
  close enough to live here. Yes, in the summer, all around
• 1:11:35
  their vibe. Beautiful.
• 1:11:36
  The whole other vibe. That's right.
• 1:11:37
  It's almost like 2 cities. That's a great point.
• 1:11:39
  Yeah, yeah. The way I say Chicago now, it's
• 1:11:41
  a great place to visit. I do not want to live there, but
• 1:11:44
  my, my family, my wife and two kids went up last week to visit
• 1:11:49
  their great grandma still lives up there and things like that.
• 1:11:51
  And my son, he calls me up. He's like, Dad, he goes, we
• 1:11:56
  didn't go 8 miles in the car and it took us an hour and a half
• 1:12:01
  because of traffic. And I was like, yeah, welcome to
• 1:12:03
  the big city, buddy. Like there's millions of people.
• 1:12:05
  He's like, I can't do this. He goes, can I come back home
• 1:12:07
  early? And so we came back with the
• 1:12:09
  other. He was just like, dude, I'm used
• 1:12:12
  to, you know, we live in, you know, the West suburb, if you
• 1:12:14
  will, Champaign Bahama. He's used to, you know, it's 15
• 1:12:17
  minutes to anywhere, no traffic. So great place to visit and I'm
• 1:12:22
  sure people love to live there. I'm glad I don't live there
• 1:12:24
  anymore. Recently part of.
• 1:12:26
  So again, I love this, you know, kind of mix, if you will.
• 1:12:30
  So you're officially an R&D intern working on those
• 1:12:34
  materials, things like that. But we are a track and field
• 1:12:38
  company. So you and some of the team got
• 1:12:40
  to go to Saint Louis to the one of our partners there, PV Saint
• 1:12:43
  Louis Football, Saint Louis held a meet there.
• 1:12:46
  How was that? Yeah, there was this competition
• 1:12:48
  coming up and, you know, I started to vote again for fun.
• 1:12:53
  Thanks to Brian. Yeah, work, work.
• 1:12:55
  Also a Guild podcast along Brian Corel.
• 1:12:57
  Absolutely, PV junkies. PV Junkies, Beautiful facility
• 1:13:02
  and they told me about this competition in Saint Louis and
• 1:13:06
  Max, our new hire for the sales team, he was going there and
• 1:13:11
  they asked me if I wanted to come.
• 1:13:14
  And then he told me a matter of fact, we are going there the day
• 1:13:17
  before because we get to visit some clients and also we get to
• 1:13:22
  swing by Washington University to check damage that Ronaldo has
• 1:13:27
  done. You're an engineer, so you can
• 1:13:29
  come there and pick it out and that's what we did.
• 1:13:33
  So we ended business 1st and then the day after we were at
• 1:13:36
  the facility of the club to represent the pacer poles and to
• 1:13:41
  have some fun and jumps. Yeah.
• 1:13:44
  You got to go to Washu powerhouse Division 3 school
• 1:13:48
  Lane Lore is the pole vault coach there does an amazing job
• 1:13:51
  is at U of I University of Illinois alum Pole vaulter was a
• 1:13:54
  really good vaulter himself as well.
• 1:13:56
  And you got to meet one of my senior dear friends.
• 1:13:59
  You've got to hang out with Ray Ray a little bit, Ray.
• 1:14:01
  Yes, yes, amazing guy. I've known Ray.
• 1:14:04
  Ray's the kind of guy, the kind of friend.
• 1:14:06
  I don't remember How I Met him. It's been decade like since I
• 1:14:09
  coached. I've known Ray and just one of
• 1:14:11
  my dearest friends. I was a little jealous actually,
• 1:14:13
  when I saw the photos, like, hey, I've got to hang out.
• 1:14:15
  Ray. Ray.
• 1:14:17
  You got that unique energy. Yes, he all energy brother.
• 1:14:21
  He there is no off switch with him.
• 1:14:22
  Yeah, I feel like he is one of those on off light switches that
• 1:14:27
  when he wakes up, it's on and on all the time until he goes to
• 1:14:30
  bed. And I feel like he probably just
• 1:14:32
  crashes hard forever. Many hours of sleep and it gets
• 1:14:34
  right back up and he's the Energizer Bunny man.
• 1:14:36
  He just keeps going. Love Ray Ray to death.
• 1:14:39
  One of my dear, dear friends in this industry.
• 1:14:41
  So you get to that and you jumped at the next day at the
• 1:14:45
  actual event. Was it at the arch or no?
• 1:14:49
  No, it was in the parking lot of their facility.
• 1:14:52
  OK. That'd be cool to do with the
• 1:14:53
  heart, you know. Yeah, with a lot of permits,
• 1:14:57
  that's probably impossible to do.
• 1:14:59
  How was that experience you had involved it in maybe a little
• 1:15:01
  bit, at least a month or two, Yes, like competition wise.
• 1:15:04
  Yeah. Yeah, Exactly how was the
• 1:15:05
  shoulder? Was competition, shoulder was
• 1:15:07
  fine. And, you know, right now I'm
• 1:15:08
  back 100%, yeah. Fine, no.
• 1:15:11
  No problem whatsoever. No even mental like Nope, dude,
• 1:15:16
  we're back. We're back, baby.
• 1:15:17
  I love it. That's so cool.
• 1:15:19
  Well, I'm glad you got that experience.
• 1:15:20
  I'm glad you get to hang out with Max.
• 1:15:21
  You know, Max is a new guy just like you.
• 1:15:23
  And since, you know, he's our new pole vault specialist here,
• 1:15:27
  he was a vaulter at Illinois State.
• 1:15:29
  Super excited about him and pumped that he's on the team and
• 1:15:32
  I'm going to make a prediction he'll be a Future Kill Podcast
• 1:15:35
  alum. I like for guys to get like
• 1:15:37
  almost a year under their belt and then they can share their
• 1:15:40
  experiences working here. You my friend.
• 1:15:42
  I only got 2 more days with internship is officially over
• 1:15:46
  two days after this recording. Can you let us sit on any little
• 1:15:50
  secrets? Hence tips?
• 1:15:52
  Not tips, but secret sense on what the future might.
• 1:15:54
  Hold for you. Nice question everybody answer.
• 1:15:58
  I don't know, Hopefully I will stay away from BMX.
• 1:16:01
  Yeah, parts. I got it.
• 1:16:04
  Not here's I'm gonna make you a deal if I hear about you even
• 1:16:09
  thinking about being. I'm calling Mom because I know
• 1:16:11
  Mom was such a straight dude. Cut that out.
• 1:16:14
  I usually have to tell people to stay away from, you know,
• 1:16:17
  basketball or whatever. I got to tell a guy to stay away
• 1:16:19
  from BMX ING, for crying out loud.
• 1:16:22
  Yeah, you better. Say I will try.
• 1:16:25
  I'm going back to Kansas to finish my three classes.
• 1:16:29
  You have. Your.
• 1:16:31
  MBA. That's a big deal.
• 1:16:32
  Yeah. Cool.
• 1:16:33
  I had to finish it. Now I got to finish it.
• 1:16:38
  There's a guy who like I'd love to have an MBA and I believe
• 1:16:42
  I've learned MBA through my time here at Gill, but that is a
• 1:16:47
  count. I don't get a degree for that.
• 1:16:48
  What's, excuse me, what's been like the, I don't think most
• 1:16:53
  important, but like what's been the biggest thing like aha
• 1:16:55
  moment that you've learned through an MPA?
• 1:16:56
  Exactly. It's mostly it's common sense
• 1:16:59
  that that knowledge that if you work in a company, you can
• 1:17:04
  achieve it without needing to pay $1000 to institutions.
• 1:17:09
  And I really like one of the classes that I actually enjoyed
• 1:17:12
  was one about the sorry moment. You know, how do you say
• 1:17:26
  something that is good or bad and differentiate ethics?
• 1:17:30
  It was a class about the business ethics.
• 1:17:32
  Yeah, Yeah. And I got to understand better a
• 1:17:35
  little bit, how does this ethics correlate to business?
• 1:17:39
  Because I was under the impression that there's no
• 1:17:42
  ethics in business. You know, capitalist rule
• 1:17:44
  everything. Some that is true in some
• 1:17:47
  businesses that there is no ethics.
• 1:17:50
  But with some minor skill set, you can actually enjoy thinking,
• 1:17:56
  and those things matter, yeah. That's so cool.
• 1:17:59
  I, I remember probably about, yeah, I've been here 19 years
• 1:18:02
  now. I think it was around years, I
• 1:18:04
  don't know, maybe 5 or 6. They all, you know, I, I it's so
• 1:18:09
  weird. My first few years here feel
• 1:18:10
  like a whole different life because I do so many different
• 1:18:12
  things and I know so much more about what we do and things like
• 1:18:14
  that. But I remember going into my
• 1:18:15
  boss, Steve, and I was like, Hey, Steve is like, so you kind
• 1:18:19
  of know like what I want to do here, this is long term for me,
• 1:18:21
  etcetera, etcetera. Do you think cuz all of our, you
• 1:18:25
  know, you've met a lot of our guys.
• 1:18:26
  They all have MBAs here and they're so smart, all these
• 1:18:28
  people here. And so I said, do you, you know,
• 1:18:31
  is that something like, should I be looking to get an MBA to do
• 1:18:34
  the things that I wanted to hear?
• 1:18:36
  And he's like, you know what, Mike, honestly, cuz you're
• 1:18:38
  learning on the job NBA good side because I don't think you
• 1:18:41
  do. I was so relieved.
• 1:18:43
  That's like, Oh my God, I don't want to go back to school.
• 1:18:47
  Like like awesome. So you're going back to school,
• 1:18:50
  finishing up your NBA. You won't be an official.
• 1:18:51
  Yeah, NBA or is that what you call them?
• 1:18:53
  I have. An MBA in our Zoom, very cool.
• 1:18:56
  Let's go. And the most important, I will
• 1:18:58
  again gain OPT. So I will be able to hire the I
• 1:19:04
  will be able to be hired by any company here in the US up to
• 1:19:08
  three years without any sponsorship or whatever
• 1:19:12
  Schengen's that the international are being put
• 1:19:14
  through, you know, during this time.
• 1:19:17
  But hopefully we gain that and hopefully maybe in the future
• 1:19:22
  I'll be able to get in contact again with some sport
• 1:19:24
  manufacturing and campaign. That's the goal.
• 1:19:28
  Yeah, You know, it's cool. We're not the only sports
• 1:19:30
  manufacturers, you know, some helmet manufacturing and things
• 1:19:33
  like that. There's, well, I shouldn't be
• 1:19:34
  telling you that. I want you to go other places.
• 1:19:37
  Well, but tell you I can say for many, many reasons and I can say
• 1:19:41
  personally for me and I know I speak for many people here in
• 1:19:45
  the company, man, you have been amazing during the censorship
• 1:19:49
  program. And it feels like it for me
• 1:19:51
  personally feels like it flew by for two reasons.
• 1:19:53
  One, I was on the road for a lot of it, right?
• 1:19:55
  But two, you just fit in so naturally.
• 1:19:58
  Like, it wasn't like, oh, Matteo's the new person.
• 1:20:00
  Oh, he's an intern. So, you know, don't get too
• 1:20:02
  attached. He's gonna be gone.
• 1:20:03
  Or you know what not? It was like, bro, it feels like
• 1:20:05
  you've been here for a while, and it feels like you could just
• 1:20:07
  fit in for quite a while, too. So I'm just so thankful for all
• 1:20:11
  of us, you know, from David Hodge down to Max, who just
• 1:20:14
  started. We're just so grateful for your
• 1:20:17
  time. Attention.
• 1:20:19
  Your creativity, your ideas that you've brought, and I've talked
• 1:20:21
  to Greg a lot about you and what you've done.
• 1:20:24
  Your curiosity is off the charts.
• 1:20:26
  That's a superpower in my in my opinion, it's curiosity.
• 1:20:29
  I'm just so grateful and just so thankful for your time that you
• 1:20:31
  have put in so far here at Gilman.
• 1:20:33
  I'm just very thankful for you. Thank you.
• 1:20:35
  Thank you so much. And yeah, everything you say
• 1:20:37
  that I agree. I really liked liked it here.
• 1:20:41
  This time flew by. I got here 2 days ago and you
• 1:20:46
  know when I was moving around the company and seeing things
• 1:20:49
  and seeing all the cool things in the manufacturing area, I had
• 1:20:52
  to tell to my Co worker and you guys will have to kick me out of
• 1:20:55
  here and you know because I'm not waiting so you guys will
• 1:20:59
  have to forcefully remove me from the company.
• 1:21:01
  I love that bro your passion is. I mean, that's no matter what
• 1:21:05
  your formal educations that you end up getting, you know, and
• 1:21:08
  I'm talking to you in general. So you got very high level
• 1:21:10
  education, but you know, having passions and pursuing those and
• 1:21:15
  not letting things get in the way.
• 1:21:16
  Like there's going to be things that get in the way, hurdles, if
• 1:21:19
  you will, And you get the choice of do you duck out of the
• 1:21:22
  hurdles or do you figure out how to get over them?
• 1:21:24
  Sometimes you have to crash through those hurdles by the
• 1:21:26
  way, too. Sometimes it's not always
• 1:21:28
  pretty. You get, yeah, that's right.
• 1:21:30
  You fall, you get back up. That's exactly right.
• 1:21:31
  So I just love your passions and I certainly am rooting for there
• 1:21:36
  to be a continuation here formally after your internship
• 1:21:39
  program. But no matter what, bro, I just
• 1:21:41
  want you to know all of us, I guarantee you, you know, I hate
• 1:21:45
  speaking for people, but you know, Greg and Dave and Steve's
• 1:21:48
  and Jeff's etcetera, you know, our leaders here, whether it's
• 1:21:51
  here or somewhere else, man, we just bless you to be successful
• 1:21:55
  to, you know, honor your parents.
• 1:21:56
  You know, I got, I'm so blessed that I got to meet your dad that
• 1:22:00
  one day. That was amazing.
• 1:22:01
  I hope to meet mom one day as well, but just want to bless you
• 1:22:05
  to, you know, honor them, honor your sport.
• 1:22:07
  You know, you're you're a vaulter through I cut you
• 1:22:10
  vaulting bowls. Fiberglass just comes out of
• 1:22:12
  you, you know, so you're going to make a big impact no matter
• 1:22:16
  what you do. And we just bless you for
• 1:22:18
  whatever that looks like and support you in in every manner
• 1:22:21
  that we can. Thank you so much, Mike, and
• 1:22:23
  thank you and thank you, Latania Sports Drew, for this and good
• 1:22:27
  luck for everything. I love it.
• 1:22:28
  A little powerful. Let's go.
• 1:22:30
  Love you, dude. Hey guys, gals, thank you so
• 1:22:32
  much for being here this week. You know, it's always
• 1:22:35
  interesting to me to bring you teammates and you know, we
• 1:22:38
  mentioned several of those teammates.
• 1:22:39
  Jennifer Vanderlaas, who's now our VP of employee relations,
• 1:22:42
  you know, all American thrower in Indiana, Bryan Carell, we
• 1:22:45
  mentioned, you know, he's in our field service was in our sales
• 1:22:48
  team. He's Mr. Pole walk out of
• 1:22:50
  freaking pacer tattoo. You don't get any more, you
• 1:22:54
  know, in depth in that and you know, he's been here 25 years, I
• 1:22:59
  think and there aren't PB junkies love him as a teammate
• 1:23:02
  and Tim Glover, our sales manager, big time javelin
• 1:23:05
  thrower, 80 something meter PR. I just love our teammates, our
• 1:23:09
  passion and that's the type of people that we want to attract
• 1:23:13
  here at Gil Athletics and Porter Athletics.
• 1:23:15
  We want people that are here to serve you and they know what
• 1:23:19
  you're going through, right? Who knows more about pole
• 1:23:21
  vaulters and coming back from injury and traveling to
• 1:23:24
  different schools and, and all the things that go on.
• 1:23:26
  Who knows better than Mateo? And, and that's part of what he
• 1:23:29
  adds to our culture and helps us to learn and become better.
• 1:23:32
  So I love, love. These are some of my favorite
• 1:23:34
  episodes of sharing with you our teammates here.
• 1:23:36
  So I'm so blessed and honored that you would be here to listen
• 1:23:39
  to Mateo's story. And the cool thing is, my
• 1:23:42
  friend, the story's not over. It continues to be written and
• 1:23:45
  I'm excited to be on the sidelines and supporting and see
• 1:23:48
  where that story goes, man. So guys and gals, thank you so
• 1:23:51
  much for being here this week. Join us next week.
• 1:23:52
  We're doing it all over again if.
• 1:23:57
  It goes to appreciate the coach, the ones that pour people most.
• 1:24:01
  Every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth you
• 1:24:04
  got to prep before you carry the load.
• 1:24:06
  Ice coffee to the soul. For those of us staying to go
• 1:24:09
  proper handoff, to stay in the zone which you packing for the
• 1:24:12
  road. There's more than one way to go.
• 1:24:14
  Taking notes that's paying your toe.
• 1:24:16
  It ain't practice if your purpose ain't clear.
• 1:24:17
  It can't happen until you listen.
• 1:24:19
  With both is you can't mentor without a mentor of experience
• 1:24:23
  you can we invent those years every plan's got to stand and
• 1:24:26
  deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
• 1:24:30
  It's a choice and a fight not a win or lose.
• 1:24:32
  It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
• 1:24:34
  It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
• 1:24:38
  you know who you are inside 6,000,000 waste of time choose
• 1:24:42
  none. So y'all cross finish line the
• 1:24:43
  work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got to put
• 1:24:47
  in the leg work. Your athletics is the network.
• 1:24:49
  It's all about connections put together for the profession to
• 1:24:53
  where every track coach could be.