Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #289: Andreas Behm-Altis

Transcript

#289: Andreas Behm-Altis · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and Field world Juvenile tuned in to our humble servant
• 0:14
  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Guild
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  Athletics connections. All right, here we go back on
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  the Guilt Athletics Connections podcast.
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  So happy, so proud that you would press play today.
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  Man, I'm I've never taken it for granted.
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  The thousands and thousands of people that listen here and how
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  you keep coming back every week, every episode.
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  I know it's not for me and you can hear my voice.
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  I know it's not here for this voice.
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  I got a little bit of a allergy going on.
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  So I'm going to talk very little today.
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  I'm a let our guest just talk at all because he's done well, I
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  almost said he's done it all, but I know he would correct me
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  if I said that. So I'm excited and grateful that
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  you're here today. So help me welcome today's guest
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  man. This is a good one.
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  We kind of did a pre interview once a few months ago and
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  honestly, we just had a blast. So we had to get it on wax, had
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  to actually record it. Help me welcome the VPA
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  performance from Altus. And we're certainly going to
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  talk about Altus because of what they're in our sports, a lot of
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  good things. Help me welcome the wise, the
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  wonderful Mr. Andreas Bain. Andreas, how are you, Sir?
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  Mike, I'm great. Thanks for having me on.
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  This is definitely long overdue, especially after our pre chat in
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  Atlanta a couple months ago. And yeah, we both were like,
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  man, we should have just brought a mic and press record right
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  here. So we're rehashing a
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  conversation and yeah, looking forward to it.
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  This is gonna be fun. And I know you would have
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  corrected me if I said you've done it all cuz I know your
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  competitive spirit. You'd be like, no bro, there's
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  so much more to go. And that's what I love about
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  your competitive spirit, man. There's always more to go and I
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  definitely haven't done it all, so I'm just working my way
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  through whatever comes next. I love it, I love it.
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  Well, I wanna hop right into it, man, because you know, you
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  mentioned we did meet a few months ago.
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  We were at a coffee shop and really just got to sat down and
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  just kind of be two dudes and just talking, man.
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  Getting to know each others past.
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  We've known each other through different places that we worked
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  and through different workings with Gil and Altus and things
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  like that, but never actually got to know like you like, what
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  is your story? What do you do?
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  How'd you get to where you are? And I just found it fascinating,
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  man. And I'm just really excited to
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  share that journey. So I just want to kind of hop
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  right into it. My, my first question is pretty
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  much kind of my standard first question is where does track and
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  field start for you? Where does that start?
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  Well, really, track and field starts as a bit of a
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  coincidence, to be honest. It definitely starts with a love
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  for sport, but track and field was never really in the plans,
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  if you so will. Grew up in Europe, so Spain and
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  Germany. My dad is German and my mom is
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  American. She's from the Philly area.
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  So I grew up, yeah, Spain and Germany with, you know, parents
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  from two different countries, so pretty international and
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  culturally diverse upbringing. And even from a young age, I
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  always loved sport, but I was more into basketball and
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  American football and tennis and soccer.
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  I grew up playing soccer and tennis.
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  And I knew I always wanted to work in sport, but I thought I
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  wanted to be, like, work in a front office, like be a general
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  manager, basically assemble a team, coaching staff, you know,
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  evaluate talent, all those good things.
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  And so I went to high school in Germany and after high school
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  decided to study sports in the US.
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  OK, so stay in high school for a second then, did you?
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  It's funny that you said American football, by the way,
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  because, you know, we, you know, generalizing, we always think
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  of, you know, other countries as American football doesn't even
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  exist. It's football, it's soccer.
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  And certainly the NFL is changing that with a lot of
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  games going on overseas now. And they want to, I just read
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  something where they want to try to get like 16 games a year
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  outside of the US with their new bargaining agreement.
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  So tennis and soccer and things like that.
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  Did you play sports through high school or were you just more
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  thinking of like that general manager type of, of of
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  participation, if you will? No, I played sports, but it's
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  very different in Europe. It's not as in a high school
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  setting, it's more complete club structure.
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  So there are no high school sports or activities in school
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  in Germany? Like none, like 0.
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  Yeah, pretty much none. I mean, you basically go to
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  school from 8:30 in the morning till, you know, 4:00 to 5:00 in
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  the afternoon. And then you go home and you get
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  to do homework and, and you have to find time to do other
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  activities. So yeah, it's very, very
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  academically focused and. Did you do any club, track or
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  other sports? No, never any track really like.
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  Really. The, the most exposure I had to
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  track was maybe a couple units in PE.
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  And you know what, what I will say drove me the general manager
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  route fairly quickly, was that I, I very early on in my life
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  realized that I was pretty average at everything.
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  I like to think I wasn't completely horrible or useless,
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  but I was decidedly average. And there were a lot of athletes
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  that were so much better than I was.
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  And I could see the writing on the wall pretty early.
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  So if I was going to work in sport, it's certainly wasn't as
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  a professional athlete. Yeah, Yeah.
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  That's great. Did you I love that.
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  I I thought I was going to be good, but I also was average to
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  below average, but I still thought maybe I could, you know,
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  maybe I was a late bloomer. I'm still waiting to bloom.
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  I think is what's happening. What about so you're not
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  playing, you're not doing track anything like that in high
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  school. But like, do you have like, are
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  you like at the front edge of your couch watching the
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  Olympics? Like are you is track anywhere
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  in your head or is it just sports in general?
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  But it's really more sports in general, Like I would, I would
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  definitely follow the Olympics. And so I was aware of track and
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  field, but it was more of a like smaller interest, like what I
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  would do because I grew up in Frankfurt, Germany.
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  We had access to the called AFN, the Armed Forces network.
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  And so while other kids my age maybe we're going out and
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  partying, I would get up in the middle of the night at like 2:00
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  or 3:00 AM because of the time difference to tune into NBA and
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  NFL games. And I would watch those like
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  religiously. And then I would, you know, get
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  USA Today's, which we could also get and pull over the stats and
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  see how people did. Lifelong, lifelong Eagles,
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  Sixers and Phillies fan. So go Philly teams.
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  But yeah, always followed that. And so that really was my
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  interest in sports when it came to to watching.
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  OK, Oh, wow, that's amazing. OK, so, so we got this picture
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  of track, you know, a good number.
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  We're we're learning. There's certainly not one common
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  route to becoming a track coach that we've thrown that out a
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  long time ago. But most of our track coaches, I
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  would say a majority have some kind of kindling of a, of track
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  as a kid, you know, they they watched Cara Lewis in the 100
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  and was like, oh, this is my sport or that or they did
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  multiple sports, but, you know, gravitated towards track.
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  Track is really not in your headspace at this point.
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  But sports isn't Philly sports. I love that is in your
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  forefront. OK, now out of high school,
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  you're going to college and you're thinking about studying
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  and pursuing. Yeah, pursuing sport management,
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  right? If I could, yeah.
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  If I, if I was a kid, if I could have been an athlete, I would
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  have been Allen Iverson as to this day my all time favorite
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  athlete. So I wanted to be AI so bad.
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  Once again, I was very average to mediocre, but that was like
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  my that was like my sports idol growing up.
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  So yeah, I found my way to the University of Tennessee.
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  Never been there before. So how's how does a kid from?
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  I'm always amazed when a kid from California makes it to
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  Tennessee. How does a kid in Germany make
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  it to Tennessee? Well, I wanted to study sport,
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  and it just so happened that the University of Tennessee had won
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  the football national championship the year before.
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  T Martin, Peerless Price. Yes, that entire squad.
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  So me knowing nothing about Tennessee, having never been to
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  the Southern United States, in the dawning of the Internet, I
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  was able to apply because I thought, well, if they won the
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  football national title, they must be pretty good at sports.
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  And so, yeah, I ended up, you know, going overseas, 19 years
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  old, University of Tennessee, studying sport, sport
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  management. You had no you, you could
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  probably, I mean, you're a smart guy, so this is going to be a
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  little oversimplification, but you probably couldn't have
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  picked Knoxville out of a map for Corona.
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  So you had no clue about Southern food, sweet tea accent.
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  Well, you knew about accents, but you, you just had no clue.
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  You just they won the national title and was like, well, they
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  must be good in sports. And that's what I want to do.
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  So let's go there. Correct.
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  Pretty much. Wow, so you go there and you
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  study sports management? Yep, I, I go there and I, I
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  study sport management, which yeah, was a lot of fun.
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  But along the way, with my goal of becoming a general manager in
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  mind, I realized that I needed to be able to identify and
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  evaluate talent. And in my simple logic, I
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  thought, what better way to understand and evaluate talent
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  than being able to understand speed running and jumping, the
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  most basic motor functions that a human displays that basically
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  carry over to most any sport. And so I thought it would be a
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  great idea to volunteer my time with the track and field team
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  because that's where I would be able to at least understand
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  these tenants. So, no pun intended, I
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  volunteered with the Tennessee Lady Vols track team.
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  Do you think it's interesting that, you know, obviously the
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  majority of people listening are track coaches and track related.
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  So when you say that, I'm sure we are all nodding our head.
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  Like, of course, yeah, if you want to evaluate you, of course
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  you would go to track and field, but you're not coming from the
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  track side. But you're also not coming from
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  what I'll call the American side, meaning like, oh, college
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  football, football, like, you know, those are big sports.
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  Like, do you think not have like you had a maybe a more diverse,
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  like you weren't 100% into college football and football
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  like maybe a lot of us in the US growing up are.
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  Do you think that kind of diversification helped you boil
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  it down and see the the fundamentals, which is, I mean,
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  you nailed it with track and field.
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  I mean, I feel like if if, if the same story was being told,
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  but it was a kid out of Miami or Dallas OR Philly and they go to
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  Tennessee because they won the college football and they would
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  have said, yes, I wanted to evaluate talent.
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  So I went and volunteered for the football team or the
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  basketball team. That's what they would have
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  said. Maybe they had gotten down to
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  the baseball team. But you you nailed it by doing
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  track even though you didn't have a track background.
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  I, I can't really recollect where that thought process came
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  from to be honest with you. So it just seemed fairly evident
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  to me that that was track was kind of the connecting point to
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  a lot of different sports. So yeah, I mean, that was kind
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  of the thought of a 19 year old kid.
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  You know, so OK, so you volunteer with the Lady Vols
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  there. How does that conversation go
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  down? Because again, you're not coming
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  from like, oh, I, you know, I worked with the best German
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  track coach. You're I must say, I must say
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  this a little rudely since I know you well enough.
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  I know you won't take offense to this.
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  You're nobody in track and field.
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  So why for sure does the Lady Vols say, sure, you can help
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  out. How does this conversation go
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  down? So I think it was actually
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  facilitated through one of my advisors at the end once I kind
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  of explained what I wanted to do.
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  Buck Jones, who was, you know, amazing at running this, you
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  know, being a part of the sport management department at
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  Tennessee, he was also heavily involved in track and he was
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  also, I believe he announced, long time announcer at volunteer
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  track and field meets. So I think he made an
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  introduction and really the idea of volunteering wasn't to come
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  in and coach. It was basically, you know, I'll
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  carry equipment, I'll video whatever you need to and, you
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  know, with the opportunity to kind of observe and absorb along
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  the way, right. So it wasn't that I was going in
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  there to coach. It was there that I was going
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  into like do grunt work and get the opportunity to observe and
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  learn. And, you know, I must have done
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  an OK job because after semester then they, they hired me as a
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  actual team manager, which was great, which helped out a lot
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  with, you know, school finances and whatnot.
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  So, yeah, so that's kind of how that started.
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  It wasn't even to coach. It was just to, you know, kind
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  of learn and observe. And that's where I really got my
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  first, you know, kind of foray into track and field and kind of
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  seeing that I, I kind of liked it.
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  It was, you know, it's, it's very personal.
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  You know, there's a lot of combination of art and science
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  and movement, intricacy, intricacy.
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  So yeah, I, I, I don't think I expected to like it as much as I
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  did when I initially did it. I think it was more means to an
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  end as opposed to, you know, potentially a, a pathway or a,
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  you know, professional journey. But first of all, great
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  distinction of that you were volunteering not as Hey, I want
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  to become a coach. So can I come volunteer and help
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  do workout? You were like, Hey, I just want
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  to come observe. And so I know I can't do that
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  for for free. So I'll set up whatever you
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  need. You just tell me what to do and
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  I'll I'll do it. But I ain't even trying to
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  become a track coach necessarily so that that that's a good
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  distinction. So where does it?
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  Maybe it doesn't happen in Tennessee during this, you know,
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  called volunteer and then, you know, they hired John as a team
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  manager. Did it ever?
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  I mean, obviously it did, but where does the click happen of
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  like, oh, I want to be sports manager.
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  I want to help, you know, build a team and and evaluate talent
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  to I want to I want to coach this like that's a that's sport,
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  but it's it's different. It's not front office.
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  It's it's in the muck coaching. Where does that click that
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  change happen? Well, this change really happens
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  a couple steps further down the line.
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  OK, to be sure, because I did pursue the idea of potentially
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  working in a front office for more years.
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  And really the click I would say happened, You know, Tennessee
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  was my undergrad. The click really happened at the
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  conclusion of Graduate School for me.
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  Was that a Tennessee? Note So I apparently I like the
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  theme of orange and UT because after the University of
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  Tennessee, I went to the University of Texas for grad
• 15:17
  school. OK, let's stay at Tennessee for
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  a second. That's that's funny.
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  You're just hitting all the UTS, right?
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  Maybe Toledo's after that or something.
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  So you continue on as manager for the lady balls that this,
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  this was back when Tennessee was separated.
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  I believe. In fact, I think they were the
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  longest, the latest to change. They, they had a totally
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  separate men's athletic department and totally separate
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  women's athletic tour, not just, you know, women's staff and the
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  men's staff on track. They actually, I believe, had
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  separate athletic departments for quite a while.
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  Do you get more ingrained from your team manager spot into
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  coaching? Like did you start helping out
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  with workouts or did that whole time at Tennessee is I'm setting
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  stuff up, I'm moving equipment left and right.
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  Well, I think that the there are two points where I did get more
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  involved in coaching at Tennessee.
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  One was more practical and the other was maybe a little bit
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  more on the interest side of things.
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  The first was I did get to help out a little bit with the post
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  grad group that the the lady balls had.
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  So, you know, I would come out, I would my main job was to help
• 16:28
  the team, obviously the university team.
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  But then I was able to come out and help the post grad Group A
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  little bit. And that was sometimes just
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  timing workouts and again, just videoing and observing and
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  almost being just like another point of contact, which was very
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  enjoyable because it was kind of, you know, it was very
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  personable. So from that standpoint, it was
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  great. A little more theoretical was
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  observing the men's team, to be honest, because the men's team
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  was amazing. They won national titles while I
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  was, you know, present. And, you know, I keep in touch
• 17:03
  with some of those guys to this day.
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  Obviously, Vince Anderson was the coach there at that point,
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  and he's obviously one of the most influential people in my
• 17:11
  development period, you know, as we'll come to see here in a
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  little bit. But yeah, I came in, I think the
• 17:17
  same year as Justin Gatlin. So, you know, Justin and I've
• 17:20
  kind of, you know, known each other since we were both, I
• 17:23
  think we were both freshmen. I might be a year off, but I
• 17:25
  think we're both freshmen at the same time at Tennessee.
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  And, you know, yeah. So I think from that standpoint,
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  I also got to see what, you know, true speed really looks
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  like because they had some really fast guys, right?
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  They had Gatlin, they had Sean Lambert, they had Leonard Scott,
• 17:44
  you know, Dwayne Wallace. I remember Lawrence Johnson, the
• 17:46
  pole vaulter was training there and you know, I would talk him
• 17:50
  and Tim Mack were both there at the same time.
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  So also got a really good foundational pole vault
• 17:54
  education because I'd get to observe them as well.
• 17:57
  But I remember one time Lojo came out and he was just doing
• 18:01
  some hurdle hops and he raised, got like, I don't know, 6 to 8
• 18:04
  hurdles. And he raised them all up to 42
• 18:06
  inches. And then he dislodged it to be
• 18:09
  able to raise them even higher and just bounced over them as if
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  it was nothing. I think my jaw hit the floor.
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  I'd never seen anything like that.
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  So total athletic freak show. I.
• 18:22
  Was going to say athletes going to athlete athletes.
• 18:26
  Definitely are going to athlete. So you mentioned Vince and you
• 18:31
  know, I can't listen to Vince without immediately wanting to
• 18:34
  rush out to the track and coach. Like he is just, he's always on
• 18:39
  and so motivational And so like, like I can understand when he's
• 18:44
  speaking, like I understand what he's trying to convey.
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  Like, you know, I don't have to be a genius.
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  Like he speaks very well. He's a good teacher.
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  Essentially is is what I'm trying to get at.
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  Did you? So you got to observe and, and,
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  and help and things like that. And you said he's a big part of
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  your life. Is this the start of like where
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  you like looking at him and, and maybe vice versa, maybe there's
• 19:06
  some symbiotic, symbiotic relationship there of like, oh,
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  what's this guy do for a living? This guy gets paid.
• 19:12
  Like this is a job. Because sometimes we don't think
• 19:15
  when we're coming through the athletic side that coaches are
• 19:18
  actually like a job you can pursue.
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  You know, we're supposed to go become business owners and
• 19:21
  doctors and lawyers and all those kind of things.
• 19:23
  And quite often we hear the story of like, somehow it's
• 19:26
  like, wait a minute, like in this case, like Vince, he's
• 19:29
  like, he's having a lot of fun and oh, wait a minute, he does
• 19:32
  get paid. Like, oh, well, maybe, maybe I
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  could be that. Was this a moment of like, oh, I
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  could be this? Or was this still just another
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  part of the puzzle of a sports management, you know, portfolio
• 19:42
  that you're putting together? Hard to say.
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  I really think at that point it was more possibly a subconscious
• 19:49
  seed was planted. But again, you know, like Vince
• 19:53
  and I, you know, we talked a decent amount.
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  But you know, again, I was since the programs were separate, I
• 19:59
  never had full interaction with him per SE, right?
• 20:03
  Even though, you know, we talked a lot with the guy's team and,
• 20:06
  and everything. But yeah, look, man, this
• 20:08
  listen, you're spot on about Vince when when he talks.
• 20:12
  And I didn't come up with this. Someone else said this.
• 20:14
  It's like a combination of football coach and preacher.
• 20:17
  Like everything. He says comes from like the
• 20:19
  depths of his soul. It is just captivating, right?
• 20:22
  Like you can't help but pay attention.
• 20:25
  So it's, you know, it's a, it's an amazing talent skill.
• 20:29
  I don't know exactly what to call it, but.
• 20:31
  It's a culture. Yeah, 1010 years ago I heard him
• 20:35
  speak at some clinic. So I've been out of coaching for
• 20:37
  10 years at this point. And I remember after he gets
• 20:39
  done, I go up to him and I was like, you know, I haven't
• 20:41
  coached in 10 years, Vince. I want to go coach someone right
• 20:44
  now. Like, let's go get the blocks
• 20:45
  with somebody. Like it's just he's so I can't
• 20:48
  imagine. I've never seen him work with an
• 20:49
  athlete, but I can only imagine there's more of that passion,
• 20:53
  but him towards coaches, like he is such a great coach of coaches
• 20:57
  in that aspect. So I, I could just imagine being
• 20:59
  a, you know, a 2021 year old and just kind of, you know, you're
• 21:02
  smart guy, you come. I think we when we talked
• 21:05
  previously, you come from a fairly high academic culture for
• 21:08
  your family. Like that was a big part of, you
• 21:11
  know, your parents to you. And so like, you just kind of
• 21:13
  soaking everything in and just like, you know, here's this
• 21:16
  crazy guy, you know, going off at practice.
• 21:19
  And I mean that a good way. And like, oh, wait a minute,
• 21:21
  this is not only am I learning, but it's kind of fun too.
• 21:23
  You know you put some fun in there.
• 21:25
  Yeah, well, you can decide for yourself.
• 21:28
  I'm definitely very well educated.
• 21:29
  I like to think whether I'm smart or not.
• 21:31
  You can. You can determine for yourself.
• 21:33
  Those those might be two separate things.
• 21:35
  But yeah, I mean, look, Vince, but Vince is like that 24/7.
• 21:39
  Like it's not just with coaches on the track, like Vince could
• 21:42
  explain to you how to cut your lawn, how to mow your lawn, and
• 21:46
  he would bring the same passion, enthusiasm and intensity to that
• 21:51
  and just have you riveted. I'm going to start a new
• 21:54
  podcast. It's just Vince and it's going
• 21:58
  to be the topic of the week and it's going to be nothing that's
• 22:00
  track. It's going to be, hey, Vince,
• 22:02
  tell us how to cut grass. I'm just going to let him go for
• 22:05
  30 minutes and then I'm like, hey, how would you?
• 22:08
  How would you sort your your garbage and recycling?
• 22:12
  He would be so intense and and awesome.
• 22:15
  Perfect and people would love it so that's.
• 22:18
  Be great. Thanks for that new show idea.
• 22:20
  I'm going to remember that. All right, so undergrad
• 22:23
  University of Tennessee, what a great time.
• 22:25
  I mean, you know, there's a lot of great times at Tennessee, but
• 22:27
  man, you know, fellow friend Justin Gatlin and those guys,
• 22:30
  man, they're just amazing. They did an amazing job.
• 22:32
  You get that undergrad degree, but you're still not, I'm still
• 22:35
  not hearing like, yeah, Mike, all right, I'm going to become a
• 22:37
  coach. You're still in this sports
• 22:39
  management. And so you again, academics is a
• 22:42
  big important part of your family and family's culture.
• 22:45
  So now you're going to go to grad school.
• 22:46
  How did you get to to Texas? How did you know there's a lot
• 22:50
  of grad schools out there? Well, I went back to Europe for
• 22:54
  a little bit to kind of assess my options.
• 22:56
  Did Texas win the football championship?
• 22:57
  Is that what you're about to tell me and that's why you went?
• 22:59
  No, they did not. OK.
• 23:00
  All right. Just checking.
• 23:01
  Just checking. They did not, but so I went back
• 23:04
  to Europe and I actually also at that point continued with the
• 23:07
  theme of educating myself on movement and basically helped
• 23:11
  out at the Entraff Frankfurt, which is the local kind of big
• 23:14
  club in town at their with their track team.
• 23:18
  And so I basically helped out with the multi eventers.
• 23:20
  So I learned a lot about, you know, kind of structuring
• 23:23
  workouts and, you know, basically conquering different
• 23:28
  types of events in a, you know, condensed time period because
• 23:33
  obviously if you're a multi eventor, you only have so much
• 23:36
  time to spend on any given task. And, you know, so then I was
• 23:44
  evaluating my grad school options and yes, settled,
• 23:49
  settled on the University of Texas because they did have a
• 23:52
  good sport management graduate program.
• 23:55
  Honestly felt like I didn't really learn that much at the
• 23:57
  University of Tennessee from a sport management standpoint.
• 24:02
  So I felt like I needed further education on that.
• 24:06
  And so I looked at different options, like I considered other
• 24:09
  schools. Like I looked at the University
• 24:11
  of Minnesota and then I read that they have in the winter, it
• 24:14
  gets so cold that they have underground tunnels connecting
• 24:17
  the parking lot to the classrooms.
• 24:18
  And I was immediately like, Nope, not happening, too cold,
• 24:24
  forget that. So yeah, settled on the
• 24:27
  University of Texas. Austin seemed like a cool spot.
• 24:30
  Again, Longhorns, they had a powerhouse athletic department.
• 24:34
  So, you know, I was hoping to get involved there as well, but
• 24:37
  obviously had no no promise or, you know, guarantee that that
• 24:42
  would happen. So once again, packed my stuff
• 24:44
  up and moved to a new state. Again, same as Tennessee, never
• 24:48
  set foot in Texas before. Never never, you know, don't
• 24:54
  didn't know anyone in the entire state, right.
• 24:57
  So off we go. New adventure Graduate School.
• 25:01
  How do you, this isn't necessarily track coach related,
• 25:06
  but like that attitude, like I, I share a similar attitude of
• 25:12
  like, I moved to a lot of places by myself for the first time,
• 25:15
  you know, know, anybody those kind of things.
• 25:16
  And it started, I was forced as a kid.
• 25:20
  I, we moved a lot when I was a kid.
• 25:22
  Like we, we, my wife and I counted up one day just kind of
• 25:25
  just quickly going like kindergarten through high
• 25:27
  school. I, I, I was in the same high
• 25:29
  school all four years, but kindergarten through 8th grade,
• 25:31
  I was at 20 different schools. So, you know, if you do the
• 25:33
  math, on average, I was two schools a year and a lot of
• 25:37
  times I was three schools. So I was always the new guy, the
• 25:39
  new kid, right? And so I kind of grew up new and
• 25:41
  yeah, I had to find my way of what's that mean?
• 25:44
  Not everybody has that though. And, and no judgement, by the
• 25:47
  way, on either side. Some people, you know, I've got
• 25:50
  kids that I graduated high school from with that are still
• 25:52
  in the same town and they're doing great.
• 25:54
  They're, you know, they're business owners and and things
• 25:56
  like that. But they just there's no like
• 25:59
  I'll just pick up and move to Chicago.
• 26:00
  I'll pick up and move to Austin. Where does that come from from
• 26:04
  you that that takes a special self-confidence, if you will.
• 26:09
  Where do you think that comes from you?
• 26:12
  Well, I think the example was set by my parents.
• 26:15
  My mom, obviously American, she, she's now lived in Europe for 40
• 26:19
  plus years and she, you know, she went over to Europe to, you
• 26:24
  know, pursue different opportunities.
• 26:26
  I think during college, my dad is a was, he's retired now.
• 26:32
  He was a journalist and so he traveled the world for a
• 26:35
  different political reporting, cultural reporting.
• 26:37
  So I think travel and being flexible and culturally open
• 26:41
  minded was, you know, instilled in me through my parents more
• 26:44
  than anything, right. I also grew up in a, in a, you
• 26:47
  know, in a city in, you know, went to inner city public school
• 26:51
  and, you know, we had, you know, I had friends from all kinds of
• 26:55
  different backgrounds, right? So very multicultural again, So,
• 27:00
  you know, you, you kind of get to understand and navigate
• 27:04
  people, if you so will, and learn to meet them where they're
• 27:07
  at and understand that there are certain differences that you
• 27:10
  need to respect, but also other differences that you can, you
• 27:13
  know, that are advantageous to connecting with someone.
• 27:17
  And then sometimes differences are celebrated.
• 27:19
  You don't have to, doesn't have to be homogeneous, right?
• 27:21
  So I think from that standpoint, and, you know, I've been to the
• 27:24
  States quite a bit as a kid, gone to the, you know,
• 27:28
  Philadelphia area during the summer times with my mother, you
• 27:31
  know, for summer, summer break and all that stuff.
• 27:33
  So I think traveling was pretty natural.
• 27:36
  And again, we, we travel a lot throughout Europe.
• 27:38
  So I think that came pretty naturally to me just by, you
• 27:43
  know, the upbringing and the way my, my parents kind of viewed
• 27:45
  the world. Yeah, I think that's an
• 27:47
  advantage when you can meet other people that are different
• 27:49
  than you and live differently than you and have grown up
• 27:52
  differently than you. I think that's AI don't know.
• 27:55
  For me, my experience would be that that has helped me to be
• 27:58
  better understanding of more things that I don't understand,
• 28:00
  that I have to immediately not understand them and then, you
• 28:03
  know, automatically think that's a bad thing.
• 28:04
  So it was just interesting. You're just, you know, moving
• 28:07
  around and like you said when you when you said I knew no one
• 28:10
  in Texas and it's like, well, you know, it's a big state
• 28:11
  that's hard not to know anybody in Texas for people who are here
• 28:14
  in the US. And it's like, wow, that's
• 28:15
  right, you didn't know anybody. I mean, you're, you're still a
• 28:18
  pup in this game in regards to, you know, network here in the
• 28:22
  US. OK, so you're in Austin.
• 28:24
  You're right. Very cool town, right?
• 28:25
  It was cool back then and it's still it's it's kept its
• 28:28
  coolness. That's a that's a pretty cool
• 28:29
  town. But you're going there for grad
• 28:31
  work. How do you maybe kind of two
• 28:35
  questions. I'm assuming you went and
• 28:36
  started helping out with the track team in some form or
• 28:38
  fashion, but did you ever consider because you're not
• 28:41
  necessarily a track guy at this point?
• 28:42
  I'm, I'm getting, did you think of any, did you think of
• 28:46
  diversifying when you got to Texas?
• 28:48
  Like, oh, maybe now I should go work with the baseball team or
• 28:51
  the football team or tennis or whatever.
• 28:53
  Did you think about that at all? Or how did how did that come
• 28:56
  about it at UT Austin? No, not really because I think
• 28:59
  the general idea was still, I was still trying to understand
• 29:04
  basic movement and it's fundamental level.
• 29:08
  And I will say one thing I didn't quite understand, I
• 29:11
  didn't understand what kinesiology was.
• 29:14
  So in hindsight, as an undergrad, I maybe I should have
• 29:17
  studied kinesiology. I did try to study kinesiology.
• 29:20
  I asked if I could study kinesiology at Texas and they
• 29:24
  said I could, but I would need to knock out so many
• 29:27
  prerequisites that I just simply didn't have that, you know, I
• 29:30
  would have, I would have almost had to do another undergrad
• 29:33
  degree all over. So sport management it was and
• 29:36
  but I had a couple of electives, so I got to take some
• 29:38
  kinesiology classes. But yeah, I was basically after
• 29:41
  understanding movement more than more than anything.
• 29:45
  So what I really did is once I got there, I just started
• 29:49
  emailing the track coaches. I had no idea who any of them
• 29:52
  were, no clue. And so since I worked for the
• 29:56
  Lady Vols, the first person I messaged was Bev Carney.
• 30:02
  And so Bev yeah, wrote me back, said, well, you know, I don't
• 30:04
  know. We, we may, I don't know if we
• 30:06
  need any help, but why don't you just swing by the office and
• 30:08
  we'll, we'll chat. And I ended up chatting with
• 30:11
  then Dana Boone was an assistant there, loves Dana, Dana's
• 30:15
  awesome. So you know, but at that time I
• 30:18
  kind of said, you know, I'd like to come out and help and, you
• 30:21
  know, basically the same thing I did at Tennessee.
• 30:23
  And like, well, we already have a couple team managers.
• 30:25
  So I don't really know if we need the help, but I'll, I'll,
• 30:29
  I'll keep you, you know, I'll keep your, you know, I'll keep
• 30:32
  you in mind should something pop up.
• 30:34
  And I was like, OK, that's, you know, that's fair enough.
• 30:37
  You know, I definitely appreciated them even, you know,
• 30:39
  responding and, and taking the time to talk to me, which was
• 30:42
  great. So, and I think a couple weeks
• 30:45
  passed and yeah, one of the, again, split programs by sheer
• 30:49
  coincidence, right? Also I had no understanding of
• 30:52
  combined versus. Well, I kind of did at that
• 30:54
  point from Tennessee. But you know, again, by just by
• 30:56
  sheer coincidence, a split program.
• 30:58
  And then a couple weeks later some some guy named Dan Path
• 31:02
  emailed me and you know, I was like, oh cool.
• 31:07
  And you have no clue because you didn't have a clue who Vince
• 31:09
  Anderson was either. Oh, I know, I know, you know,
• 31:12
  didn't really. So, you know, when I looked at
• 31:14
  his resume, I was like, he sounds pretty good.
• 31:17
  This kind of sounds like he's pretty good.
• 31:19
  And so he's like, hey, well, I'll be in the office at this
• 31:21
  time. Why don't you just why don't you
• 31:24
  just swing by? And so, you know, I went to the
• 31:26
  back to the Texas track offices and sat down and met Dan.
• 31:30
  And I thought it would be similar to the conversation I
• 31:33
  had with the, you know, Lady Longhorn staff, you know,
• 31:37
  probably be at 5 to 10 minute chat.
• 31:38
  And yeah, let's see. Well, Dan and I ended up talking
• 31:42
  for two hours, right. Hit it off immediately.
• 31:45
  I think me being part German intrigued him because obviously
• 31:49
  he's, he, his roots are German as well.
• 31:51
  So, you know, we talked a lot about Germany and, and German
• 31:54
  history and, and other things of that nature.
• 31:56
  And yeah, at the end of the conversation, he's like, well,
• 31:59
  track practice doesn't start for like another two weeks, but if
• 32:03
  you're really serious, come out on this day at this time and
• 32:08
  yeah, you can just kind of hang out and help us out and watch
• 32:11
  us. And so that's really how it
• 32:14
  started. Right.
• 32:16
  And still not as a track coach, though, right?
• 32:20
  That just. More, it was, yeah.
• 32:23
  And but Dan really gave me, you know, Dan gave me like small
• 32:27
  assignments, right? Like I could help, I would help
• 32:29
  with the general strength, you know, I would, I would kind of,
• 32:32
  you know, help him set up workouts, which again is very
• 32:35
  beneficial. Like even just setting up the
• 32:37
  workout, you kind of have an understanding of what the
• 32:40
  workout entails for the day and what the expectations are.
• 32:43
  So, you know, other different things.
• 32:44
  And then he would just gradually expand my duties.
• 32:46
  And Dan was the field events coach, right?
• 32:49
  So he'd coach all the jumps, all the multis, all the throws, the
• 32:53
  pole vault. And, you know, like, there'd be
• 32:56
  times Dan would like feedback on stuff, and I'd be like, what the
• 33:00
  hell? I don't even think he was
• 33:02
  watching. Like, how did he even see that,
• 33:04
  Right. So I quickly realized the
• 33:07
  intricacy of kind of movement. And Dan had like, a vast library
• 33:12
  of, you know, so he was always in his office just reading and
• 33:16
  reading and reading. And that really intrigued me
• 33:18
  because it was clearly a profession, you know, that
• 33:22
  involved continued study and lifelong learning, which I think
• 33:26
  was also, you know, kind of intriguing to me.
• 33:29
  It wasn't just something that you, you know, got good at and
• 33:32
  then you just did it the rest of your life.
• 33:33
  It was constant self improvement and challenge that went along
• 33:37
  with, you know, becoming a better and better coach.
• 33:40
  So, yeah, I spent the first year of grad school with Dan, just
• 33:44
  following him around. I had a notebook.
• 33:47
  I wrote everything down that he said.
• 33:49
  And oftentimes I'd write it down and be like, I have no idea what
• 33:52
  he just said, but I'll write it down.
• 33:54
  And hopefully like in three, three to four years when I open
• 33:58
  this notebook again, I'll look at it and be like, oh, that's
• 34:01
  what he was talking about. I get it now.
• 34:03
  So. Dude, what's striking is that
• 34:07
  you have no idea. You have two gentlemen in a row
• 34:12
  with events to a Dan here now that you know, a lot of people
• 34:16
  would rightfully so, put on their Mount Rushmore of
• 34:20
  specifically sprints and hurdles.
• 34:22
  But although, you know, you mentioned with Dan coaching a
• 34:24
  lot of things, of course, but would put on their coaching
• 34:27
  Mount Rushmore and you just I don't want to say you just
• 34:31
  happen to be around them and learning from them.
• 34:34
  It's just a striking that like there'd be a lot of people right
• 34:37
  now that would pay money to go follow Dan path around for weeks
• 34:42
  at a time right in your front row seat writing it all down.
• 34:46
  I love that. That's that's interesting
• 34:49
  writing down the things that he says, even the ones you don't
• 34:51
  even understand. You're like, all right, maybe
• 34:52
  one day I'll I'll know what this means.
• 34:54
  That's it. It's you had no, I don't get the
• 34:56
  sense that you have any like like understanding of the unique
• 35:03
  position that you're in. Well, at the time I did not.
• 35:08
  At a later point in time, obviously it became fairly
• 35:12
  clear, but the best way someone ever described it was Boo Boo
• 35:16
  Scheck Snyder. Once I kind of told him my
• 35:17
  background, he was just basically in typical Boo
• 35:20
  fashion, just said, oh, so you just basically never picked up
• 35:23
  any bad habits. And I was like, well, I guess
• 35:26
  that's a way of putting it right.
• 35:29
  So. Yeah, I think you know, and this
• 35:30
  will be a continuing theme throughout.
• 35:33
  You know, our chat is that I, I wholeheartedly, you know,
• 35:37
  realize, acknowledge and I'm grateful for that.
• 35:40
  I am a product of mentorship, right?
• 35:44
  And I've all had a lot of people, a lot of coaches pour
• 35:47
  into me to allow me to grow as a coach.
• 35:51
  So grad school's two years. Did you spend all two years with
• 35:54
  Dan? I did not because after the
• 35:58
  first year Dan decided to leave and he took a another job with
• 36:04
  SO and in came one of Dan's former athletes and disciples,
• 36:09
  the Mario Satania. I was then fortunate enough to
• 36:12
  spend the the second year with. And Mario was great because he
• 36:15
  basically ran a similar system to Dan, but he was, he was
• 36:21
  sometimes he was, well, he was, let's put it this way.
• 36:23
  He was more direct and sometimes less cryptic than Dan.
• 36:27
  So he basically helped translate a lot of what I had kind of
• 36:32
  learned with Dan into more digestible, a more digestible
• 36:37
  format for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:39
  And I find that so quick shout out there's because sometimes we
• 36:44
  have first time listeners. We're going to definitely have
• 36:46
  first time listeners here in this episode one we mentioned
• 36:48
  Justin Gatlin. I have to shout out, he's got a
• 36:50
  great podcast. If you love podcasts, you're
• 36:52
  listening to this one. So maybe possibly you do ready
• 36:55
  set go. You can find it on the same for
• 36:57
  sure, same podcast that they're using right now.
• 36:59
  Go check him out. They do a it's a unique, it's
• 37:01
  not what you're listening to now, but I'll tell you the
• 37:04
  insights from Justin in the bearded wonder.
• 37:06
  His Co host is just it's I love it.
• 37:09
  He he does a great job. So he goes to that.
• 37:10
  And then we mentioned three people so far in this journey
• 37:13
  that also have their own Gill connections podcast episode that
• 37:16
  you got to go check out. So Dana Boone, current head
• 37:18
  coach of the University of Central Florida, you got to go
• 37:20
  listen to her. Her story is amazing.
• 37:22
  Dan path. I was so honored to be able to
• 37:24
  sit down and really just a little bit to help.
• 37:29
  Maybe I'm picturing you just back away and just listen.
• 37:31
  I mean his journey and how he got into coaching, so unique and
• 37:34
  so amazing. And then my personal mentor for
• 37:37
  coaching track and field, Bouchek Snyder are still our
• 37:41
  number one most listened to episode out there.
• 37:43
  And so just encourage you to go listen to those gentlemen's and
• 37:46
  those ladies stories out there because it's amazing that
• 37:49
  they're unique and it'll make you better.
• 37:52
  OK, so you, you, you downgrade. And that's an air quote here
• 37:56
  from Dan Demario, who's amazing. Those are your words, not.
• 38:00
  That's what I'm saying, Mario. I did not say those things.
• 38:03
  He'll call, that's all Mike. He could call me right now.
• 38:06
  He knows that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:07
  I say that meaning like, holy cow, that's amazing.
• 38:12
  Again, I love the when you talked about that decipher or
• 38:16
  decode some of the Dan I I find that a lot with when I was
• 38:21
  coaching, when I would listen and learn from Dan, I knew he
• 38:24
  was sitting super smart stuff, but I wasn't smart enough to be
• 38:28
  able to understand it. And that's what I always kind of
• 38:29
  gave a lot of credit towards Boo.
• 38:31
  And this isn't a Boo versus Dan thing.
• 38:33
  I mean, Dan is booze mentor, for crying out loud, is that Boo?
• 38:38
  I, I couldn't I, I have no interest in coaching the pole
• 38:41
  vault. I loved watching it, but just,
• 38:43
  you know, once they left the ground, it was mysticism to me.
• 38:47
  I remember doing level 2 with Boo and you know, he's doing his
• 38:50
  amazing stick figures and he's doing pole vault.
• 38:52
  And I honestly for just a brief second felt like I think I can
• 38:56
  coach this event. Like that's how good of a
• 38:58
  teacher he now. For the OH.
• 39:01
  Without a doubt, right. Without a doubt.
• 39:02
  Yeah. For the luck in lives of a lot
• 39:04
  of kids. I did not go coached.
• 39:06
  So they're they were lucky I didn't do that.
• 39:08
  OK, so you, Dan, and now Mari, I mean, this is again, this is
• 39:12
  amazing this early. I can't even say this early in
• 39:15
  your career, Andreas, because you're not.
• 39:18
  You're not. I still don't hear you saying,
• 39:20
  OK, now I'm going to be a track coach and I'm still not hearing
• 39:24
  that yet. Well, we're getting to the
• 39:26
  inflection point. OK.
• 39:28
  All right. Getting closer to the inflection
• 39:30
  point, so. You're only on here because you
• 39:32
  are a track coach, so eventually you got to become a track coach
• 39:34
  in this story, right? It's going to happen, OK, It
• 39:38
  will, it will eventually happen. But like I said, there are a lot
• 39:40
  of, there are a lot of steps along the way that really
• 39:43
  helped, you know, shape the, you know, the background and the
• 39:47
  context around the, the track coaching part.
• 39:49
  So as part of my Graduate School to finish grad school, I could
• 39:55
  either choose to write a thesis or I could do an internship.
• 40:01
  Thesis was more towards the people who wanted to go on and
• 40:05
  do pH DS Internship was obviously a lot more practically
• 40:08
  oriented. So with no interest in pursuing
• 40:12
  a pH D at that point. Or actually now either I.
• 40:16
  Was wondering. I was like, are you Doctor Bain?
• 40:20
  Stuart McMillan jokingly calls me doctor, but that's more
• 40:22
  because of Doctor Dre. I think then nice.
• 40:25
  Any PhD that I that I have acquired maybe.
• 40:28
  But I, I do feel like I did acquire a, a practical PhD,
• 40:32
  which we'll also get to in a little bit here.
• 40:34
  So Long story short, I kind of decided that I definitely wanted
• 40:39
  to try to pursue coaching at the end of my second year in grad
• 40:42
  school. OK.
• 40:43
  And so with the help of a couple of different people, I managed
• 40:49
  to land a, a graduate internship with Athletes Performance, which
• 40:54
  is now used to be called Athletes Performance, which is
• 40:57
  now Exos out in Phoenix, AZ. So basically, you know, a sports
• 41:01
  performance and combine training hub.
• 41:03
  So I spent, was it 3? This was 2004, so the timelines
• 41:08
  are a little blurry, but I think it was about four months, four
• 41:11
  months out at Exos. And yeah, got to learn about,
• 41:16
  you know, different training, different types of athletes.
• 41:19
  Continuing to learn about what I saw from Dan, namely the
• 41:23
  integration of multiple aspects within training, which was at
• 41:27
  that time not necessarily a given.
• 41:29
  So namely the integration of nutrition, recovery and
• 41:32
  restoration, as well as the training and as well as building
• 41:36
  out systems to kind of replicate and scale these activities for
• 41:39
  different athlete populations. And so a lot of the mentors I
• 41:42
  had there went on to become, you know, NFL or NBA, you know, head
• 41:47
  strength coaches, which was really cool to kind of see their
• 41:50
  development. So shout out to, you know, Mark
• 41:52
  Verstagen, the the founder and owner of Exos and Luke
• 41:55
  Richardson and Daryl Etto and Ken Kroner and all kinds of
• 41:58
  other folks. And I, I certainly left out a
• 42:00
  couple track coach mentors from my Tennessee days.
• 42:03
  So, you know, just shout out to those guys.
• 42:05
  I'm probably not going to be able to name everyone that
• 42:08
  helped and impacted me along the way, but just know that you're
• 42:10
  not forgotten and you are appreciated.
• 42:12
  But yeah, so I spent 4, four months out of Exos and then I
• 42:18
  really that kind of helped me decide that I wanted to coach
• 42:22
  and. On the Exos side was that that
• 42:25
  that's more, you said combine types of that.
• 42:27
  That was more football, maybe basketball, baseball, like like
• 42:31
  a very little actual track people.
• 42:35
  Correct. It was it was no track people.
• 42:36
  It was all, yeah, NFLNBA, Major League Baseball, kind of
• 42:44
  formative, like a couple MMA guys were also there while I was
• 42:47
  there. So yeah, so very, very different
• 42:50
  sports. What brought you back to track
• 42:53
  and what I the reason I asked that is like there's more money
• 42:57
  in football, basketball, MMA today.
• 43:02
  You kind of started having an in that way.
• 43:04
  Did you did you consider going to other sport or when and how
• 43:08
  old did track pull you back in? Well, I did, but I felt like I
• 43:12
  needed, in order to be an effective sports performance
• 43:15
  coach, I needed more hands on coaching experience.
• 43:19
  I'd had a lot of coach observation and understanding
• 43:24
  from a, you know, theoretical standpoint, but it didn't really
• 43:27
  have much practical coaching experience.
• 43:32
  So, and I felt like, you know, I'd spent time around with the
• 43:34
  Lady Vols where really primarily I helped out one gentleman,
• 43:39
  Scott Bennett, who was also the field, who was the meaning of
• 43:41
  the field events coach, but a lot of field events kind of
• 43:44
  experience. But I, I really wanted to be, I
• 43:47
  really wanted to coach speed because I felt like, again, that
• 43:49
  was the common denominator between a lot of sports.
• 43:53
  And so, yeah, after grad, after my graduate internship, went
• 43:58
  back to Europe for a little bit. And then, as you would have it,
• 44:03
  Texas A&M assembled a brand new staff, and that staff included
• 44:09
  none other than Vince Anderson. And, you know, Vince and I
• 44:13
  loosely stayed in touch throughout the years.
• 44:15
  And at one point, you know, I was kind of thinking of becoming
• 44:20
  or learning more from a Sprint, from a pure Sprint coach or in a
• 44:24
  Sprint program in college. And so I talked to a couple
• 44:29
  people and Vince was one of the, Vince was one of the options.
• 44:32
  And then through Dan and a couple other people, they put me
• 44:35
  in touch with Amy Deem and Gary Winkler.
• 44:39
  And after talking to all of them, I, in essence, all of them
• 44:45
  said they would be interested in having me.
• 44:47
  And then one of the worst decisions of my life was I had
• 44:49
  to, I had to tell two of them. No, Amy was decently easy simply
• 44:57
  because Miami kind of disqualified itself for the cost
• 45:01
  of living. It's too expensive.
• 45:03
  As much, as as much as much as I would have loved to be out there
• 45:06
  bowling in Miami, you know, as I knew it would be a volunteer
• 45:09
  assistant ship, you know, that was just too expensive.
• 45:13
  And Vince really. So 2 two things sold me well,
• 45:16
  three things sold me on A&M. Number one, I knew Vince, so if
• 45:21
  I went to A and MI would finally go to a place where I knew
• 45:24
  somebody, I wouldn't just be starting from scratch, you know,
• 45:29
  So and so #2 once Vince Newman was interested, he basically
• 45:35
  treated me like a recruit, like he was recruiting me to come to
• 45:39
  A&M hard. He'd write long emails and
• 45:42
  sometimes he'd write that send me an e-mail when I had
• 45:44
  questions about, you know, like College Station in the area.
• 45:47
  And like, I was like, I got the e-mail.
• 45:49
  I'm like, he must have spent like hours writing this.
• 45:51
  It was, you know, so long and detailed.
• 45:54
  And #3 when I talked to Vince and Coach Henry, obviously the
• 45:59
  A&M head coach, they both said, look, A&M is not really good
• 46:04
  right now, but we're sleeping. We think we're sleeping giant.
• 46:08
  And you could be part and observe the building of a
• 46:12
  program from pretty much scratch where Gary, again, very gracious
• 46:17
  and very well intended, basically said, hey, look, we're
• 46:21
  Big 10 champs. You come in here.
• 46:22
  We just want to keep this thing rolling and continue, you know,
• 46:25
  continue on the path that we're on.
• 46:27
  And really what appealed to me was the building.
• 46:31
  I wanted to see what it was like to kind of build a program.
• 46:34
  So I thought that would be more interesting and and beneficial.
• 46:37
  So yeah, those those things kind of swayed me towards going to
• 46:41
  Texas A&M. What you know, looking back, you
• 46:45
  know, with hindsight's 2020, it it, it's striking that you, you,
• 46:51
  you put it. I like your words.
• 46:52
  They're like, you know, they're recruiting you.
• 46:53
  Vince is recruiting you. Pat's giving you the the real
• 46:56
  deal. He's not sugar coating anything.
• 46:57
  He's also putting time and attention into you.
• 47:00
  And I'm not saying, and I'm not, I'm not saying that you said,
• 47:03
  oh, you know, Pat's calling me daily.
• 47:05
  I'm not saying that at all. But Pat had a especially at this
• 47:09
  time, Pat had a lot of things to do.
• 47:10
  He was building a program from zero.
• 47:13
  Absolutely. He did, and yet he found it
• 47:16
  important enough to at least speak into you of like, hey, you
• 47:18
  know, this, this, this kid, you're still a kid at this
• 47:20
  point. Could be a part of the puzzle as
• 47:23
  well. And I'm sure a lot of that had
• 47:24
  to deal with the Vince's recommendation as well, right?
• 47:27
  Because you know, Vince's word rightfully means in what do you
• 47:31
  think? I mean, cuz you're not a, to
• 47:36
  your point, you're not a seasoned coach.
• 47:37
  You're not a coach really at this point.
• 47:40
  You've got a lot of education. There's a lot of potential.
• 47:42
  But you know, track coaches are famous for saying, you know what
• 47:44
  potential is. It just means you haven't done
• 47:46
  it yet. At that point.
• 47:47
  It's just striking that there's a lot of desire for you at this
• 47:50
  stage, at this stage of your career.
• 47:53
  I'm not trying to be offensive, Andreas, You know, today you
• 47:56
  tell me that, you know, Pat and Amy and everybody's calling me
• 47:59
  back. Well, of course, I mean, you're
• 48:00
  you know, we know that we know what we got here.
• 48:01
  This is, you know, great coach here back then.
• 48:03
  It was still you're still an unknown.
• 48:05
  I I guess is the probably the best way of saying at that
• 48:07
  point, why, why, why did they recruit you?
• 48:12
  What what do you think? You know, again, Hindsight 2020.
• 48:18
  Honestly, I think it probably is maybe an instance where, you
• 48:21
  know, I was fortunate enough to have people see more in me than
• 48:24
  I could see in myself. Like they kind of knew the
• 48:27
  background, they knew the history.
• 48:29
  And maybe it was also because it was slightly unconventional.
• 48:32
  It wasn't just the same old, same old, No offense to anyone,
• 48:36
  but, you know, again, different international background,
• 48:39
  different, you know? Yeah, I don't.
• 48:43
  Yeah. I I don't know.
• 48:44
  You'd really need to. You really need to ask Coach
• 48:46
  Henry at that point. Well, that.
• 48:48
  I don't have an exact answer for you.
• 48:50
  That makes sense, though, what you said there.
• 48:52
  You know, I believe the superpower, one of the many
• 48:55
  superpowers of a track coach is they see something in someone
• 48:58
  else before they can see it in themselves.
• 49:01
  I think maybe, maybe that's a big part of the equation.
• 49:04
  You nailed it where they were like, Oh yeah, this, this, this
• 49:06
  kids not a a great track coach today, but you know what he's
• 49:09
  going to be. And you know, you think about
• 49:11
  again, all the background and things that you mentioned there.
• 49:13
  Maybe that's it. That that makes sense to me
• 49:15
  because I you know, I tend to think of that.
• 49:17
  You know, they see something in someone else before they can see
• 49:19
  them. Self is the the coach to the
• 49:21
  athlete. Like, hey, I know you don't see
• 49:22
  yourself as a great decathlete yet.
• 49:23
  Just stay with me. You're going to be awesome.
• 49:25
  And they score 8000. You know it.
• 49:27
  It also happens coach to coach where it's like, hey, this, I
• 49:30
  know this kids a grad, grad assistant kid.
• 49:32
  You know what they're going to be, they're going to be at the
• 49:35
  top of the mountain one day. They're going to be coming
• 49:36
  towards that mountain. Let's get this, this guy on our
• 49:38
  staff that that makes sense to me, that that makes a lot of.
• 49:41
  Sense yeah, between Vince and then I'm sure you know, Coach
• 49:43
  Henry called Dan because obviously they work together at
• 49:46
  LSU and I'm sure you know Dan, Dan gave it, gave the gave the
• 49:50
  thumbs up. So maybe between all those
• 49:53
  things that just kind of, you know, just kind of worked itself
• 49:56
  out. Yeah, Yeah.
• 49:57
  I think I want to be careful here at this point of your
• 50:02
  story. It could be easily construed of
• 50:04
  like, oh, well, yeah, look who is his reference list?
• 50:07
  Vince and Dan and Mario. But go back.
• 50:12
  Let make sure you listen to his story.
• 50:14
  He didn't have that connection, that reference list.
• 50:18
  Tennessee. He put himself out there and
• 50:20
  said, I'll do whatever you want me to do.
• 50:22
  He didn't know anybody at Texas. It's not like he called Vince
• 50:24
  and said, hey, can you give me a good word in at Texas when I go?
• 50:27
  He put himself out there and said, hey, I'll do whatever you
• 50:30
  need or want. I just want to be able to help
• 50:32
  and learn and things like that. So you're building these
• 50:36
  connections because a lot of times we think in track and
• 50:38
  field, if you don't know someone, you're not going to get
• 50:40
  the job. And certainly there are cases on
• 50:43
  both. And I think we like to publicize
• 50:45
  the ones where it's like, oh, it's this former athlete or, you
• 50:47
  know, those kind of things. But there's certainly like you
• 50:49
  build the resume yourself, you'll you'll get the job.
• 50:53
  So I don't, I just want to be careful that it's not, I don't
• 50:56
  want it to be seen at this point.
• 50:57
  It's like, oh, well, you know, you lucked into the greatest
• 50:59
  references in the world. What you didn't luck into it.
• 51:01
  You, you put yourself out there easily for rejection.
• 51:04
  By the way, you know, if your story was like, I, I called the
• 51:07
  Vols coach and they said no, so I went to Texas, I'd be like,
• 51:10
  oh, that makes sense. They didn't know who you were.
• 51:11
  You know that. So you you built by working, by
• 51:15
  sacrificing, by putting yourself out there.
• 51:16
  So I love this building up of your reference list, if if you
• 51:19
  will. So that's really good.
• 51:21
  All right, so you're in almost at Corpus Christi, you're in
• 51:25
  College Station, TX, A&M. That's a whole different world
• 51:27
  too, man. You know, I love this uniqueness
• 51:30
  of Knoxville, Austin and College Station coming all the way back
• 51:34
  from from home overseas there. I think a lot of people forget
• 51:38
  because, you know, we have recency bias.
• 51:41
  A&M was not very good, like not very good at all in retrospect
• 51:46
  to their conference and stuff. How was that experience?
• 51:51
  Sorry, let me ask you a different way.
• 51:54
  Are you now a track coach? Is this now the path, or is
• 51:58
  there still openness as you start this A&M journey?
• 52:01
  I'm I'm definitely trending towards track coach, but my goal
• 52:03
  is to be able to coach speed and sprints right so.
• 52:07
  I love that you're trending. With the, with the, with the
• 52:10
  potential to like, I think the idea at that point was to be a
• 52:14
  track coach, but also to have the skill set to be more than a
• 52:17
  track coach, meaning that I could also coach other, you
• 52:22
  know, other sports. Yeah, at least in the speed
• 52:25
  development realm. So I think that was that's
• 52:28
  probably the correct way to phrase it.
• 52:29
  Got it. Love it.
• 52:30
  OK, interestingly enough, when you go to A and MI think this is
• 52:33
  roughly when you and I, we don't really meet each other.
• 52:36
  We just see each other at track meets a lot.
• 52:38
  I think if I remember this time frame right, because I knew I
• 52:40
  knew of you, but I just didn't know who you were.
• 52:42
  I just didn't you know, I just didn't know and I wasn't smart
• 52:44
  enough to meet other people at that point.
• 52:46
  So. All right, so A&M, are you on
• 52:51
  staff? Are you volunteer?
• 52:52
  What's your official role? So no, I, I am, I am a volunteer
• 52:58
  assistant and I, this is where I say I get my track pH or my pH,
• 53:02
  my official PhD love it. I spent eight years at A&M as a
• 53:08
  volunteer assistant. So basically an 8 year long,
• 53:13
  wow. I'll tell you this, I, I worked
• 53:16
  in the mornings, I did personal training in the morning.
• 53:20
  I had no car, so I would bike everywhere.
• 53:23
  I didn't have my first car till I was 31.
• 53:28
  And once we got good enough at A&M, then I I basically worked
• 53:32
  in the morning. I coached a professional group
• 53:37
  on the track in the weight room and then I coached AI coached,
• 53:42
  helped coach university, the university groups, track and
• 53:45
  weight room. So I was just stacking training
• 53:48
  sessions like 4 years, right? So this is really a hands on
• 53:53
  full immersive apprenticeship. I also was in charge of the
• 53:58
  video review. So I would compile all the meat
• 54:02
  and practice footage on Dartfish and I would spend hours watching
• 54:05
  video and analyzing in order to be able to, you know,
• 54:09
  disseminate information or just at least pull up a video so a
• 54:13
  coach, one of the coaches can show an athlete and talk to them
• 54:16
  about it. I was also kind of the
• 54:18
  unofficial liaison to the to the training room and weight room.
• 54:21
  So also had a lot of interface, again, kind of integrating these
• 54:24
  different areas like I learned from Dan and and ex exos.
• 54:29
  Yeah. And on my spare time, I pretty
• 54:31
  much read any sports science texts or research paper that
• 54:35
  could get my hands on. So again, the education at that
• 54:38
  point was, you know, ongoing and nonstop.
• 54:44
  Now I like and dislike a lot of what you just said there in
• 54:48
  regards to 8 years of doing this right.
• 54:50
  So I like the, I like self sacrifice.
• 54:53
  I love, you know, quote UN quote, putting in the work
• 54:59
  today, getting the payment tomorrow.
• 55:00
  You know, there's patients involved there.
• 55:03
  What I dislike about this Andreas, I I I don't like
• 55:08
  volunteer coaches, the meaning. I think you should all be paid
• 55:11
  and I think the coaches who are getting paid to get paid more
• 55:13
  that that's where I really come from with that.
• 55:14
  It's like, bro, you, you were doing a lot of work.
• 55:17
  You could have gotten you should have been getting paid and
• 55:19
  that's not a slighted A&M. But you know, we had our own.
• 55:22
  I say we they had their own staffing and think so that's not
• 55:25
  a slight on them. It's just it's my own personal
• 55:27
  like, man, I really wish you would have been getting paid for
• 55:29
  all that work. Did you during that eight-year?
• 55:32
  That's a long time and you certainly build up your cache of
• 55:37
  who you are and and what you know and how you do things.
• 55:41
  You you certainly start to become air quotes here known
• 55:44
  like, oh, that's coach Bain like it.
• 55:46
  It starts becoming part of your identity, if you will, that
• 55:49
  you're outside people and around the coaching world.
• 55:52
  Did you ever year 2 year 4 year six.
• 55:58
  There had to be a lot of coaching jobs where be like, all
• 56:00
  right, man, I can why don't I go work for so and so I can get
• 56:02
  paid. It's over in so so but you
• 56:05
  stayed at A&M. Why did did you ever have that
• 56:11
  consideration? I have to assume you did.
• 56:12
  And why did you stay? Well, I think there are a couple
• 56:17
  of considerations there and that, you know, College Station
• 56:22
  was very affordable to live in at the time.
• 56:24
  Sure. Like I was basically splitting
• 56:26
  an apartment. I was paying $250 in rent a
• 56:28
  month. Oh dude, yeah.
• 56:30
  I know unheard of, right? That's like virtually so.
• 56:38
  But these, you know, I will say that I was fortunate enough that
• 56:41
  at some point throughout my tenure there, there were
• 56:43
  opportunities where, you know, head coaches would come up to be
• 56:46
  be like, hey, if you're interested in this job on our
• 56:49
  staff, you don't even have to interview you.
• 56:53
  You can have, it's yours if you want it, right?
• 56:55
  So eternally grateful for those opportunities.
• 56:58
  But I really felt like I hadn't exhausted my learning at that
• 57:02
  point cuz every year I felt like I learned more and more and more
• 57:07
  throughout my time there. And the only reason I really
• 57:09
  left at that point after eight years was I felt like there was
• 57:14
  nothing left to learn. I felt, I don't know if board is
• 57:18
  the right way, but I felt, you know, I felt like it was, it was
• 57:21
  time, but it was from a learning standpoint.
• 57:24
  And obviously the way I was getting paid for quite a few
• 57:27
  years was simply I was able to run my own professional training
• 57:31
  group there, right? So I had access to the
• 57:32
  facilities, to the weight room, you know, to, to other resources
• 57:36
  that otherwise wouldn't be available to an outsider, right.
• 57:40
  So that's kind of how I between personal training and running a,
• 57:44
  you know, running a, you know, professional training group,
• 57:48
  that's kind of how I made money after the first, I want to say
• 57:51
  the first two to three years, which were more, you know, just
• 57:55
  pure volunteer assisting, right? So, and then lastly, you know,
• 57:59
  as Coach Henry said, A&M was a sleeping giant.
• 58:02
  It just kept getting better and better and better.
• 58:05
  And I was like, man, I can't hop off the train now.
• 58:07
  We're like this close to, you know, actually having a
• 58:10
  breakthrough and doing some amazing things, right?
• 58:13
  And obviously, you know, I was fortunate enough to to witness
• 58:18
  the building of a program and multiple national titles, which,
• 58:21
  you know, I'm proud to say I I'd like to think I had a small part
• 58:23
  in as well with my presence. And, you know, yeah.
• 58:28
  So I think all of that kind of together made the eight years go
• 58:32
  by really, really fast without even, you know, it wasn't like I
• 58:36
  was sitting there like, Oh my God, I I hate this.
• 58:38
  I I can't wait till I get an opportunity to, you know, dip
• 58:42
  out. I was, you know, it was actually
• 58:43
  a really hard decision for me to leave, even though I knew it
• 58:45
  was, you know, professionally. It was time at that point.
• 58:50
  Let's double click into that because you know, again, I keep
• 58:54
  thinking, I keep seeing this word patience with you, Andreas.
• 59:01
  It's kind of a misnomer, but it's kind of true.
• 59:03
  I don't know what that actually means, how I just said that, but
• 59:06
  we, we talk a lot about coaches and how they move from
• 59:10
  institution to institution. Institution.
• 59:12
  They're, they're all, they're certainly, you know, we
• 59:13
  certainly are searching for something.
• 59:16
  By the way, I point nothing, no fingers at all, all thumbs.
• 59:19
  I, I coached for 10 years. It was at 5 different
• 59:21
  institutions. I, I, my whole goal was to get
• 59:23
  to the SEC. So every step that I thought
• 59:26
  that would put me far further down the line, that's what I
• 59:29
  did. And I always wonder because,
• 59:33
  because I know for me, I knew I was searching for something.
• 59:36
  I I thought I saw something in the SEC when I got there, it was
• 59:39
  not there, but I was searching for something.
• 59:42
  So when I see coaches that move to a lot of different places,
• 59:45
  I'm like, oh, you're searching for something.
• 59:46
  It may not be career wise, it may be personal wise, etcetera.
• 59:50
  You seem to be on the other side of that where you're like
• 59:53
  patience, patience. I have more to learn.
• 59:55
  I have more to learn. Like it seems like a like the
• 59:58
  track version of some kind of Karate Kid movie, man.
• 1:00:00
  Like it's like, no, I got to stay here.
• 1:00:01
  I got to keep learning. You know, I need, I need a 7th
• 1:00:04
  year with Mr. Miyagi. I need an eighth year with Mr.
• 1:00:06
  Miyagi. And then you get to a point
• 1:00:08
  where it's like, OK, little birdie's got to be kicked out of
• 1:00:11
  the nest and go fly their own wings here.
• 1:00:13
  Where does that patience come from that I don't know that
• 1:00:16
  that's an innate trait. It could be partly innate, but I
• 1:00:19
  typically think of these kind of things as they're learned.
• 1:00:22
  Like you saw it in somebody else where there was a family member
• 1:00:26
  a. A teacher, a clergy, it could be
• 1:00:29
  a million things. Where does that?
• 1:00:31
  I mean immense amount of patients.
• 1:00:33
  I don't know that I've heard this amount of patients in
• 1:00:35
  anybody else's journey up to this point.
• 1:00:37
  Where does that patients come from for you?
• 1:00:41
  Yeah, I'm really not sure. I think kind of hard to say.
• 1:00:43
  I'm a pretty relaxed and chill person.
• 1:00:45
  So but I think what certainly helped the patients was they
• 1:00:49
  also felt very well taken care of at A&M.
• 1:00:52
  Like I sincerely enjoyed my time there.
• 1:00:55
  I, the staff took amazing care of me.
• 1:00:57
  You know, I learned from all the staff members at A&M, right from
• 1:01:00
  Coach Henry to Coach Vanadigan to obviously Vince was my
• 1:01:04
  primary mentor to coach Waters to coach the LA Garza to, you
• 1:01:07
  know, fancy who was there. You know, I generally felt like
• 1:01:12
  I was part of something and it was part it was, I was part of
• 1:01:15
  something that was bigger than myself and able to contribute to
• 1:01:18
  something, right. So I think from that standpoint
• 1:01:20
  and you know, most of the athletes, they were awesome, you
• 1:01:24
  know, you know, from a talent standpoint, from personality
• 1:01:27
  standpoint. So I really feel like from being
• 1:01:30
  taken care of in terms of, you know, having a having a role,
• 1:01:36
  you know, we, we got into the later years and we we've been in
• 1:01:38
  staff meetings sometimes and coach and we'd be like, all
• 1:01:40
  right, Andreas, I want you to go out and recruit this person.
• 1:01:42
  And I'd be like coach, like remember, I'm a volunteer
• 1:01:45
  assistant. I can't go out and recruit.
• 1:01:47
  And he's like, oh, Oh yeah, that's right.
• 1:01:48
  You know, like you almost forget that I was a volunteer assistant
• 1:01:51
  at that point, right. So but yeah, I felt really well
• 1:01:56
  integrated and taken care of from the staff.
• 1:01:58
  Like when I got there, Coach Henry initially said, well, you
• 1:02:02
  know, I can't make any, I can't make any promises on traveling
• 1:02:05
  you as a volunteer to any meats, right.
• 1:02:08
  And then, you know, after a couple months, like just fall
• 1:02:12
  after fall training, there was no question I would he, you
• 1:02:15
  know, he took me to every single track meet, you know, I ever
• 1:02:19
  could have at A&M. So, you know, traveled me around
• 1:02:21
  the country. I got to see places I never
• 1:02:23
  would have seen otherwise. So again, I think a lot of
• 1:02:26
  growth and maturation happened not just as a coach, but as a
• 1:02:29
  person as well. But, yeah, I think a lot of that
• 1:02:33
  had to do with, you know, the staff, the continued growth of
• 1:02:37
  the program, the, you know, the professional athletes that we
• 1:02:42
  were fortunate enough to have be able to attract 2A and M due to
• 1:02:46
  our success on the collegiate side.
• 1:02:49
  And yeah, I think all that kind of culminated in, you know,
• 1:02:54
  allowing me to be, you know, to be patient.
• 1:02:56
  I think the continued, you know, support of my parents, who were,
• 1:03:01
  you know, very understanding of what I was trying to do, you
• 1:03:05
  know, and their encouragement was a big part of it as well.
• 1:03:08
  And again, you know, financially it was doable in College
• 1:03:12
  Station. It wasn't like I was, you know,
• 1:03:14
  I was living, you know, a high rolling lifestyle.
• 1:03:17
  But you know, it was, it was, it was very manageable.
• 1:03:22
  Patience allows us to grow to, you know, to, to, to build that
• 1:03:27
  oak tree. It takes years for that acorn to
• 1:03:30
  grow, right. Can you tell us through that
• 1:03:33
  eight years? Because it is, it is pretty
• 1:03:35
  interesting. You didn't go through eight
• 1:03:36
  years of where they were good the whole time, nor were they
• 1:03:40
  bad the whole time. You, you literally went from, I
• 1:03:42
  don't want to overstate it and say that, you know, rubble, but
• 1:03:45
  again, A&M was not very good back then up to, you know, eight
• 1:03:49
  years later. And I think you were there
• 1:03:51
  during the time where didn't A&M when both men and women's indoor
• 1:03:55
  and outdoor or maybe it's the outdoor men and women's for two
• 1:03:58
  or three years in a row or something like like some really
• 1:04:00
  just like. 333 years in a row, yeah, I was there for.
• 1:04:03
  I was there for all that. Great.
• 1:04:05
  I mean, that's just ridiculous. Yeah.
• 1:04:07
  That's another reason I couldn't leave, right?
• 1:04:08
  We won one. I was like, OK, well see if we
• 1:04:11
  can do it again. Then they second time I was
• 1:04:13
  like, well, oh shoot, we could go for something historic and I
• 1:04:16
  can't leave now. So, you know, like again, it was
• 1:04:18
  just a natural progression and evolution of the program and the
• 1:04:22
  situation around me that allowed me to be, you know, patient to
• 1:04:26
  reconnect it to your original question.
• 1:04:30
  So, So what was that like going from, I won't call it zero
• 1:04:34
  because it was A and M I'm going to call it 1.
• 1:04:36
  Going from 1:00 to 10:00. You got to observe you're,
• 1:04:40
  you're an observer, I think. So you got to observe as well as
• 1:04:44
  be an active part of this. What what was the difference?
• 1:04:49
  And it could usually one thing is not the one thing.
• 1:04:52
  So there may be a couple things. Why?
• 1:04:55
  Why was A and MA sleeping giant? Was it the coaches?
• 1:04:58
  Was that what they were missing the whole time?
• 1:04:59
  Did did A&M decide to pour in $1,000,000 into the track
• 1:05:03
  program? Was that the defining moment?
• 1:05:05
  Was it, I don't know, the Jamaican national coach moved to
• 1:05:09
  College Station and so all the Jamaicans went there.
• 1:05:10
  I know that's not it, but what you know, how did they go?
• 1:05:13
  How did y'all go from 1:00, the 10 on the one on the zero to 10
• 1:05:18
  scale? How did that happen over that
• 1:05:19
  eight years? What were some of the key parts
• 1:05:22
  that maybe other coaches can learn from and try to inject
• 1:05:24
  into their programs today? Yes, I think for sure you're
• 1:05:28
  looking back on it, a combination of factors.
• 1:05:32
  You know, Coach Henry, I think when he took the job, you know,
• 1:05:35
  had a commitment of certain resources that would be put into
• 1:05:39
  the program from a, you know, recruiting budget standpoint to
• 1:05:43
  a facility standpoint, which I think had pretty much been
• 1:05:47
  neglected before then, although I'm not certain.
• 1:05:49
  I can't speak for the previous, you know, previous staff.
• 1:05:53
  Then secondly, for sure, the coaches that, you know, were
• 1:05:57
  assembled there. And what I really want to
• 1:05:59
  emphasize was it wasn't just the, it wasn't just the
• 1:06:03
  individual skill set of each coach.
• 1:06:08
  I want to highlight really that the interaction between coaches
• 1:06:13
  and the way the staff operated as a unit was really astounding.
• 1:06:18
  And I've never seen that, you know, I've never seen that
• 1:06:21
  anywhere else quite to that extent.
• 1:06:22
  Yeah, we don't talk about that a lot.
• 1:06:24
  We talked about the individual coaches in there, Vin crews.
• 1:06:26
  We don't talk about what's that cohesion look like They were.
• 1:06:29
  All high-powered, but there was a lot of cohesion amongst the
• 1:06:33
  coaches and you could just see that they they generally enjoyed
• 1:06:35
  working with each other. You can see that in the, the
• 1:06:38
  banter and the, you know, the track staff and you know, they
• 1:06:40
  were all high-powered in their own right, but it wasn't like an
• 1:06:44
  individually high-powered set up.
• 1:06:46
  It was, there was a lot of cohesion that I think went into,
• 1:06:50
  you know, kind of turning that program around.
• 1:06:52
  And one quick side note, just for anyone listening, I wasn't
• 1:06:56
  there the original year that staff formed.
• 1:06:58
  I got there year 2. So I missed year 1 and was then
• 1:07:02
  year 2 going forward just for for context.
• 1:07:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Appreciate that.
• 1:07:07
  And it could have been a year ahead if you would have just
• 1:07:09
  gotten there in Year 1. Correct.
• 1:07:12
  Right, exactly. OK, So that's amazing and I love
• 1:07:16
  that. That's an interesting topic
• 1:07:17
  about the cohesion of the coaching staff, because I
• 1:07:19
  started thinking about, you know, some of the important
• 1:07:21
  parts of it beyond, you know, you hit the nail and head right,
• 1:07:24
  support from your administration, not not only
• 1:07:27
  support financially, obviously with your budgets and things
• 1:07:31
  like that, but also like just supportive, like we want you to
• 1:07:33
  be good. Like I hate to say, putting that
• 1:07:35
  pressure on you, but actually, you know, holding you
• 1:07:37
  accountable to being good. Of course, facilities, they're
• 1:07:41
  always going to be important, but that importance of that
• 1:07:44
  staff cohesion. We don't we touch on it a little
• 1:07:48
  bit when we talked to head coaches and we talked about
• 1:07:51
  hiring and firing staff. You know, that's part of the job
• 1:07:53
  that we don't get trained on. By the way, you kind of just
• 1:07:56
  here you are the head coach now go figure it out of putting your
• 1:07:59
  putting your staff together, what direction your program is
• 1:08:03
  going to go into and then the type of people that you put in
• 1:08:05
  those positions. And you know, recruiting is an
• 1:08:08
  important aspect. I could only see positives to
• 1:08:10
  that, right? Like if the if the distance
• 1:08:12
  coach understands and supports throws coach, when that throws
• 1:08:16
  recruit is on campus, will the the distance coaches talking up
• 1:08:19
  that throws recruit because they know that's important.
• 1:08:22
  Like we need this kid. So yeah, you're coach, yeah,
• 1:08:25
  whatever, blah, blah, blah. Instead of just being like,
• 1:08:27
  yeah, yeah, I'm sure you guys, yes, our throws are great.
• 1:08:30
  I'm over here on the cross country course.
• 1:08:32
  There's that cohesion. That's really that's an
• 1:08:34
  interesting topic. Yeah, a lot of the coaches were
• 1:08:37
  interested and understood other event groups outside their own,
• 1:08:40
  so they're able to recruit other areas.
• 1:08:42
  Particularly I'd say, you know, particularly coach Dan Waters,
• 1:08:46
  like he just, he understood all events in track and field,
• 1:08:49
  right. So he could go out and recruit
• 1:08:51
  anybody on the road. And he also had an interest in
• 1:08:54
  other event groups doing well because he saw the, you know,
• 1:08:57
  all the coaches did. But he, you know, I think it's
• 1:08:59
  particularly unique for a distance coach because sometimes
• 1:09:01
  the distance coach is separate from the all the speed power
• 1:09:04
  events. But he was really invested and
• 1:09:07
  integrated into everything that, you know, all the other event
• 1:09:11
  groups were doing and again, could recruit and talk to, you
• 1:09:14
  know, talk to any event group that we had.
• 1:09:18
  But yeah, I think that cohesion and you know, obviously for sure
• 1:09:22
  the the systematic upgrade of talent that happened over the
• 1:09:28
  first couple of years was instrumental in, you know,
• 1:09:31
  turning that program around. Yeah, that's a great point.
• 1:09:34
  That's that's something new that we haven't talked about.
• 1:09:36
  I love that. I'll, I'll tell you a crazy
• 1:09:38
  story which I've never heard, which I've never seen before
• 1:09:44
  about kind of how track was valued and how Coach Henry was
• 1:09:47
  valued at A&M. So midway through, so when we
• 1:09:51
  got there, A&M was a Nike school.
• 1:09:54
  And midway through the midway through my time there, at some
• 1:09:59
  point, I can't remember the year A&M switched to being an Adidas
• 1:10:02
  school and Coach Henry's like, Nope, we're not switching, We're
• 1:10:06
  staying Nike. And we're all like, what excuse
• 1:10:09
  you? Like no one's going to let the
• 1:10:11
  track program stay Nike. No, wait a minute.
• 1:10:14
  That's just. Not how this works, right?
• 1:10:16
  This is not happening. And he's like, OK, so he went to
• 1:10:19
  the administration and like couple weeks later he's like,
• 1:10:22
  yeah, we're staying Nike. And so somehow he worked out
• 1:10:26
  that the track program was the only track program in the the
• 1:10:29
  only athletic, you know, team than the entire university that
• 1:10:37
  was going to remain Nike sponsored and everyone else was
• 1:10:39
  Adidas. Like how how we got Nike and
• 1:10:42
  Adidas to agree to this? Yeah, no idea.
• 1:10:45
  Yeah, great point. That's like the craziest power
• 1:10:47
  play ever, right? So I can't think of another
• 1:10:50
  example like that like that is I can't either.
• 1:10:54
  That's a great point about Nike and Adidas had to agree to that
• 1:10:56
  because because I would've never gotten past administration.
• 1:10:58
  It's like, oh, administration is not going to allow this to
• 1:11:00
  happen full stop right there. But yeah, you had to have two
• 1:11:04
  large entities also agreed. Holy cow.
• 1:11:08
  Correct. Wow, Oh, Pat, he's he's got a
• 1:11:13
  few tricks up his sleeve. That's amazing.
• 1:11:16
  But I think to your point, that shows the respect administration
• 1:11:21
  had towards a Pat Henry as well. And and should be for for a lot
• 1:11:25
  of our track coaches. Correct.
• 1:11:26
  And A&M was starved for winner, right?
• 1:11:28
  They hadn't won anything in like, forever.
• 1:11:32
  I think track is the first sport that, you know, really actually
• 1:11:36
  brought a national championship to campus.
• 1:11:38
  And I made made entire Aggie Nation believe that they could
• 1:11:40
  be winners because usually they were treated as like, you know,
• 1:11:43
  Texas's stepchild, Right? Right.
• 1:11:46
  Right. Wow.
• 1:11:47
  All right. You spent eight years there.
• 1:11:50
  You have just had a phenomenal, you know, we talk about like a
• 1:11:54
  base, right? When you talk about training,
• 1:11:55
  you talk about having to have this big base, like for our
• 1:11:57
  distance runners and stuff. You've got such an amazing base
• 1:12:00
  for coaching. Where do you where do you go
• 1:12:02
  next? I mean, I feel like you could
• 1:12:04
  have any job in the country, whatever university you wanted
• 1:12:07
  to go to. Yeah.
• 1:12:08
  Well, I mean, obviously what helped me beyond A&M was, you
• 1:12:12
  know, the professional group that I coached there.
• 1:12:13
  I had several successful professional athletes, you know,
• 1:12:17
  Muna, Lee, Aries, Merit to name, to name a couple, obviously
• 1:12:20
  culminating in an Olympic title in world record.
• 1:12:22
  Both have become, both have become coaches, by the way, and
• 1:12:26
  I think that's a feather in the coaches cap by the way.
• 1:12:29
  I love that. That's very cool.
• 1:12:30
  Mike, I'm old enough now to have a coaching tree.
• 1:12:33
  Yeah, actually kind of scary. Like as someone who's maybe
• 1:12:37
  chronologically 45, but emotionally 12, that's kind of,
• 1:12:41
  you know, that's kind of a scary thought.
• 1:12:42
  I definitely have a coaching tree.
• 1:12:44
  That's so cool. Quite a few athletes at this
• 1:12:46
  point. Actually, yeah.
• 1:12:47
  Is that right? It's.
• 1:12:49
  Kind of cool. Yeah, I love that.
• 1:12:51
  Yeah, I saw Muna, you know, she'd been coaching for a while,
• 1:12:53
  but now coaches with my buddy Kurt over at UAB.
• 1:12:55
  And I was like, man, it's so cool.
• 1:12:57
  I just it's cool, you know, for the outsider, you know, seeing
• 1:13:01
  these great athletes that go on any athlete, but you know,
• 1:13:03
  obviously, you know, the caliber of a Reese and in MUNA speaks
• 1:13:06
  for itself, but it's like wow, it's like they love this.
• 1:13:09
  It's one thing to love the sport so much.
• 1:13:10
  You know, you give your life to it as an athlete and you know
• 1:13:13
  there's accolades and monetary rewards for that, But then to
• 1:13:19
  say, you know what, I I want to give back more.
• 1:13:22
  I want to keep doing this, So I'm now going to coach like that
• 1:13:25
  just that's that's cool. It's just really, really cool,
• 1:13:28
  man. I love that I.
• 1:13:29
  Really do. It's great to see you just hope
• 1:13:30
  no athlete does it because they don't know what else to do with
• 1:13:34
  themselves. Just tell them like that you
• 1:13:36
  should explore other avenues outside of track.
• 1:13:39
  Just be sure this is what you want to do because it definitely
• 1:13:41
  is. You know definitely is a grind.
• 1:13:44
  You know you'll be up at night caring and worrying about other
• 1:13:48
  people more than you want to, so you just make sure you're you're
• 1:13:51
  in it, not just because you don't know what else to do with
• 1:13:53
  yourself. That's, that's a really good
• 1:13:56
  point. That's really good.
• 1:13:58
  OK, so keep going. Where?
• 1:14:00
  Where do we go next then? Well, I am at A&M and you know,
• 1:14:05
  after Aries has a phenomenal year in 2012, we're at A&M for
• 1:14:10
  one more year and John Godina calls me up.
• 1:14:12
  He's starting a professional training center in Phoenix, AZ,
• 1:14:17
  at that point called World Athletic Center.
• 1:14:20
  In hindsight, probably not the best nickname naming nicknamed
• 1:14:23
  Whack. Yeah.
• 1:14:25
  You know, Well, but yeah. So he's recruiting me to come
• 1:14:30
  out and be one of the founding coaches of this new venture.
• 1:14:35
  And he basically just recruits me for like an entire year
• 1:14:39
  wanting me to, you know, kind of go out there.
• 1:14:41
  And I, I really kind of like that idea.
• 1:14:42
  It was kind of, I like the NCA setting, but I felt like I
• 1:14:47
  wanted to operate independent of the NCAA sitting.
• 1:14:49
  There are a lot of restrictions, you know, particularly like
• 1:14:53
  training restrictions. I mean, you know, 8 hours, 8
• 1:14:55
  hours in the fall is pretty ridiculous to be honest.
• 1:14:59
  So, you know, it's just one, one example.
• 1:15:03
  But yeah, I was ready to. And again, I thought I saw it as
• 1:15:05
  an Ave. to potentially branch out into other sports other than
• 1:15:10
  simply track and field. So, you know, obviously I
• 1:15:14
  already knew Phoenix. I'd been out there for my
• 1:15:16
  graduate internship. We were actually going to use
• 1:15:18
  Exos as our home base. So it was kind of a bit of a
• 1:15:21
  homecoming. So again, I would know people,
• 1:15:23
  which was great. And yeah, Aries, Aries decided
• 1:15:29
  to come with. And so we, we decided to, you
• 1:15:31
  know, hit the road and move out to Arizona.
• 1:15:33
  Did. You know John.
• 1:15:36
  We'd met before. I didn't know John super well,
• 1:15:38
  right? But you know, we talked for
• 1:15:40
  multiple. We talked a lot because it
• 1:15:43
  wasn't so much that I was skeptical.
• 1:15:45
  I was very interested. But I told him if I come out
• 1:15:47
  there, I want to finish out. It was midway through the track
• 1:15:50
  season. I said I want to finish.
• 1:15:51
  I want to finish out the season at A and MI don't want to just
• 1:15:53
  leave middle of the year. Like I want to finish out this
• 1:15:57
  season with them, right? And so I knew Aries was going
• 1:16:00
  to. He was eager to move.
• 1:16:02
  They were both probably ready at that point.
• 1:16:04
  Maybe also just to be in a bigger city and College Station.
• 1:16:08
  And so, yeah, so we moved to Arizona to be part of the World
• 1:16:11
  Athletic Center. Now.
• 1:16:13
  Altus since rebranding in 2015. So 2 two things.
• 1:16:20
  One, John Gadina also has his own episode, so if you're
• 1:16:22
  listening you might go check on him. 2 John and I have become
• 1:16:27
  very good friends through the world.
• 1:16:29
  World Throw Center, World Athletic Center Altus.
• 1:16:34
  And I remember, I can still remember, like I said, we're
• 1:16:37
  we're we became good friends. So we're having conversations
• 1:16:41
  that, you know, are between him and I at these points.
• 1:16:44
  And I remember him saying, hey, Mike.
• 1:16:46
  So it's not official yet. I think he probably said he has
• 1:16:49
  to get through the track season. He goes.
• 1:16:51
  But do you know Aries Merritt's coach?
• 1:16:53
  And you know, one of the things that I still to this day don't
• 1:16:59
  like about our sport is we hardly know who coaches the pros
• 1:17:04
  like the college. It's easy, right?
• 1:17:05
  I can go Google, you know, LSUS coaching staff.
• 1:17:08
  So I know who you know, who's coaching all those kids that are
• 1:17:11
  there. But once they GoPro, we never
• 1:17:14
  hardly ever know. That's what I kind of love about
• 1:17:15
  this Sprint series on Netflix, like they're showing Dennis
• 1:17:18
  Mitchell and lots, lots Lance Brahman.
• 1:17:21
  And you know, it's like, oh, like, see, there's an actual
• 1:17:24
  coach. We we know who coaches the
• 1:17:25
  patriots every year. We know who's the Miami Dolphins
• 1:17:28
  coach every year, but we never know the pros.
• 1:17:30
  So he he's like, hey, do you know Aries merits coach?
• 1:17:32
  And I was like, oh man, no one knows who the pros coaches are.
• 1:17:35
  And he's like, yeah, this guys name is Andreas Bain.
• 1:17:37
  And I was like, oh wait, yeah, I do know him.
• 1:17:39
  That's like, I didn't know he coach.
• 1:17:40
  I was like, he's he's coaching A&M.
• 1:17:42
  He's like, yeah, yeah, he's gonna be our first, you know,
• 1:17:44
  big time. Coach Reese is moving out, blah,
• 1:17:47
  blah. And what what struck me what
• 1:17:50
  what I like seeing this side of it.
• 1:17:52
  So if you want to know John's side of it and go listen to John
• 1:17:55
  and his side. He did a great job of
• 1:17:57
  explaining, you know, his role and everything for you.
• 1:18:02
  You know, I was with John throughout the steps that that
• 1:18:06
  he took. And it's just, you know, I, I
• 1:18:08
  sit on the sideline and just like, because of how risky it
• 1:18:11
  is, like, I mean, what he was trying to put together and, and
• 1:18:16
  it continues today doesn't exist.
• 1:18:19
  It just doesn't, you know, and you guys were on the ground
• 1:18:23
  floor. Why, why take such a big risk
• 1:18:27
  for you? And what I mean by that is you,
• 1:18:29
  you could have had any job you wanted out there.
• 1:18:32
  I, I believe so. I, I, you know, I just believe
• 1:18:35
  that from your, your, now your resume is really full.
• 1:18:37
  Like we know who Coach Bain is now at this point, after eight
• 1:18:40
  years of A&M and all the other things you've done and the
• 1:18:41
  people that you've networked with, this seems really risky
• 1:18:45
  that that whole thing could have folded at any day.
• 1:18:48
  I know the background of everything.
• 1:18:50
  It could have folded any day. And yet you went there and you
• 1:18:53
  and then, you know, I know you're going to bring in other
• 1:18:55
  characters into the story here. You guys, I mean, just busted
• 1:18:59
  your tails and made it work and it made it successful.
• 1:19:02
  And now it has such a huge impact in our sport, not just
• 1:19:04
  coaching, but the coaching education.
• 1:19:05
  So I mean, we're going to I'm going to have you tell that
• 1:19:07
  whole story. But why so risky?
• 1:19:10
  Why take such a risk at this point in your career?
• 1:19:15
  Well, First off, I mean, all credit to John for being the
• 1:19:18
  visionary of, you know, even attempting, you know, what you
• 1:19:22
  said is kind of the unthinkable, right?
• 1:19:24
  So he had the vision and the the drive and the, you know, the
• 1:19:29
  stones to, to even attempt this and, and, and put this thing
• 1:19:33
  together. So everyone always be grateful
• 1:19:36
  to John for for that, for his vision in this endeavor, right?
• 1:19:43
  But I really feel like, again, there were a couple, a couple, a
• 1:19:46
  couple things that steered me in that direction #1 I knew that
• 1:19:51
  other coaches were coming on board and I knew it was going to
• 1:19:54
  be damn path and I knew it was also going to be Stewart
• 1:19:58
  McMillan. And I also was fully aware that
• 1:20:01
  this could crumble within like 2 years of it's existence, right?
• 1:20:07
  But I felt like. If we pulled it off, it could be
• 1:20:10
  something amazing and unique, and I knew that even if it
• 1:20:13
  crumbled after two years, if I spent time around Dan and Stu,
• 1:20:18
  that I would be a much better coach for that and it would be
• 1:20:21
  worth the risk. And B, our whole goal was to try
• 1:20:25
  to build something that was in our vision, not controlled by
• 1:20:30
  anybody else, that we could build something for track and
• 1:20:34
  field, for athletes and for coaches that was kind of its own
• 1:20:40
  independent acting entity and that we enjoyed working within,
• 1:20:46
  right? It wasn't controlled by USATF,
• 1:20:48
  it wasn't controlled by World Athletics, you know, it wasn't
• 1:20:51
  controlled by the NCA. It was kind of its independent
• 1:20:54
  own thing that we really could put forth the, you know, the
• 1:21:00
  vision and the guidelines and how we wanted to operate it.
• 1:21:04
  So I think that was very appealing to me in terms of
• 1:21:07
  just, you know, following a, you know, an already kind of
• 1:21:11
  established entity that had, you know, certainly benefits to it,
• 1:21:15
  but also potential restrictions. So give us your side of Altus
• 1:21:24
  because you were there on the you know, I'll say the first
• 1:21:27
  floor, you know, ground floor. You know, John did a couple of
• 1:21:29
  year. Like I said, it was a world
• 1:21:30
  throws center at 1st and things like that.
• 1:21:33
  But certainly when you and Stu and Dan came along that that was
• 1:21:39
  that was like the the the the the world throw center with John
• 1:21:43
  was kind of in these are my words.
• 1:21:44
  And I don't think John would get mad at me for saying this way
• 1:21:46
  that that was like the prequel, like that was the before.
• 1:21:49
  And then it really started because now now you started
• 1:21:51
  doing other events. You know, he was very focused
• 1:21:53
  obvious for obvious reasons on throws.
• 1:21:55
  Now you started bringing in the sprints and you know, things
• 1:21:57
  like that and pole vault became a big deal, stuff like that.
• 1:22:00
  So kind of give us, give us like the history of, you know, you,
• 1:22:05
  you started at world throws, give us your history.
• 1:22:07
  So you started at the World Athletic Center and you're
• 1:22:09
  responsible for XY and Z and then kind of take us through the
• 1:22:12
  line. And, and, and what I really want
• 1:22:15
  to focus on where it gets that point is the coaching education
• 1:22:19
  side, the fireside chats, the things like that, that, you
• 1:22:21
  know, have really, you know, it wasn't too long ago that I'd ask
• 1:22:25
  someone, you know, what do you do for coaching education?
• 1:22:27
  Do you do USATF? Well, first of all, not too long
• 1:22:30
  ago it was like that was it? That was your only real choice
• 1:22:32
  USATF. And then USTFCCA came in with a
• 1:22:34
  great coaching education Academy.
• 1:22:37
  And now when I ask people, So what coaching education do you
• 1:22:39
  do? Do you do USATFUSTFCA ALT it
• 1:22:41
  like it's, it's just a natural like there's a great coaching
• 1:22:44
  education program that you do anything through them.
• 1:22:46
  So give us kind of your, your from your eyes that that history
• 1:22:51
  of how it's now become today what it is today with Altus.
• 1:22:55
  Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, you know, with
• 1:22:58
  the names that you named, obviously Kevin Tyler came in a
• 1:23:00
  couple years later and I was also been, you know, formative
• 1:23:03
  in, you know, molding and shaping, you know, what Altus is
• 1:23:07
  today. But we always knew and wanted
• 1:23:11
  Altus to have a dual role. It was always meant as a Center
• 1:23:14
  for track and field. And that means it was should be
• 1:23:16
  a Center for athletes as well as a Center for coaches.
• 1:23:21
  Coaches often are so undervalued or not really acknowledged, you
• 1:23:27
  know, especially particularly as you already mentioned,
• 1:23:30
  especially in this sport. So we really wanted to make sure
• 1:23:33
  that we had this dual function as a home and resource for
• 1:23:38
  athletes and coaches. And we also viewed it as kind of
• 1:23:43
  our mission and duty to continue to educate the next generation
• 1:23:48
  of coaches because that's how we all learned.
• 1:23:52
  We learned because other coaches were willing to share with us
• 1:23:56
  and, you know, put out resources that allowed us to grow and
• 1:24:00
  continue to perfect our craft. So we viewed that as a fun as
• 1:24:03
  part of our fundamental mission. So, you know, from that
• 1:24:07
  standpoint, even today, you know, we we have multiple tiers
• 1:24:11
  to help coaches become better at their craft.
• 1:24:14
  Yes, we have online courses, we have in person coaching
• 1:24:18
  programs. You mentioned the fireside chat,
• 1:24:20
  we call them poolside chats 'cause they started out in
• 1:24:23
  Arizona where we would just sit around the pool and talk shop.
• 1:24:26
  So we have these in person programs that we host multiple
• 1:24:29
  times a year. We have, you know, we have
• 1:24:32
  sports performance online courses, we have track and field
• 1:24:36
  courses. We even now have gone so far as
• 1:24:38
  to offer a full-fledged master's degree program, strength and
• 1:24:42
  conditioning. So that's getting rolled out
• 1:24:45
  this, you know, this season for the first time.
• 1:24:49
  So that gives, you know, practitioners from any sport the
• 1:24:53
  opportunity to get a legit master's degree through through
• 1:24:57
  Altus and partners. So yeah, we off we offer a lot
• 1:25:01
  of free resources as well. And we offer, you know,
• 1:25:04
  internships for young and developing coaches who just want
• 1:25:07
  to come and like I did at A&M, be part of a get dropped into a
• 1:25:13
  training environment and be part of something and kind of absorb
• 1:25:16
  knowledge that way. So, you know, it was very
• 1:25:19
  important to us to have all these educational branches from
• 1:25:23
  a philosophical standpoint to give back to coaches.
• 1:25:27
  But also from a business standpoint, we understood that
• 1:25:30
  in order to sustain what we're doing, no independent center
• 1:25:35
  without sponsorships is able to sustain themselves solely on
• 1:25:41
  athlete fees, right? So we knew that we needed to
• 1:25:44
  have different, you know, revenue streams to be able to
• 1:25:49
  operate and stay afloat. And, you know, there have been
• 1:25:51
  multiple times where things have gotten really, really tight, you
• 1:25:55
  know, particularly during COVID and, and other times where, you
• 1:25:58
  know, we, you know, we've had to make some hard choices as kind
• 1:26:03
  of the founding, you know, founding coaches and, and art
• 1:26:06
  owners. And but you know, you, you hear
• 1:26:09
  again and again that two to three years in a lot of smaller
• 1:26:12
  independent businesses never get past that point.
• 1:26:15
  And we're here now over a decade in with what we think is, you
• 1:26:20
  know, a fortunate to have a wide reaching network and wide, you
• 1:26:27
  know, recognition throughout the world with what we're doing.
• 1:26:30
  And yeah, so we hopefully we can make it another 10 years at
• 1:26:34
  least. I love, you know, on the
• 1:26:37
  business side of it, it makes a lot of sense the courses and,
• 1:26:40
  and you know, again, having a master's when I saw that, like
• 1:26:43
  that's just, this is not putting down these other organizations
• 1:26:47
  because I value their coaching education, but USATF ain't got a
• 1:26:50
  master's. USTFC ain't got A and maybe
• 1:26:53
  that's not their role to have that.
• 1:26:53
  I just thought that was so unique and really an example of
• 1:26:57
  the, hey, we are going to be educators of coaches in sport.
• 1:27:01
  I, I just thought that was like, because that can't be easy.
• 1:27:05
  It's, it's hard enough to create you, these courses that you guys
• 1:27:08
  create and these guys, these guidebooks that you have that a
• 1:27:11
  lot of them are for free, which again, I love the mixture that
• 1:27:14
  you have on the business side versus the solely philanthropic
• 1:27:20
  side of, of, of coaching coaches.
• 1:27:22
  So I, I just love that. But then to do a master's, I
• 1:27:25
  mean, there just had to be so much behind the scenes work and
• 1:27:28
  frustration and hair pulling out to pass the things that you need
• 1:27:31
  to have to have a, a master's, a master's, a master's degree.
• 1:27:36
  Yeah. Well, a lot of the things, a lot
• 1:27:38
  of the resources that we've created are also around things
• 1:27:42
  that we wish we had had when we were coming up in this industry,
• 1:27:46
  right in within the coaching profession.
• 1:27:48
  So and also identifying potential gaps and talking to
• 1:27:52
  other people like what does the sports performance, what does
• 1:27:56
  the coaching industry lack right now where we can step in and
• 1:28:00
  help fill a void to, you know, upscale everything.
• 1:28:03
  And again, we view it as our job to educate coaches because we
• 1:28:09
  want to leave the sport in a better place.
• 1:28:12
  And we feel like the best way to do that is to be hands on and,
• 1:28:16
  you know, contribute to coaches education.
• 1:28:18
  And now we fully acknowledge they're also there.
• 1:28:21
  We are not the only resource out there.
• 1:28:23
  They're phenomenal other resources for coaches to grow.
• 1:28:26
  But like almost any coach, you really should diversify your
• 1:28:31
  knowledge portfolio if you so will.
• 1:28:33
  Yeah, like that learn from a variety of sources and we do
• 1:28:36
  feel like that we are a very reliable source of information,
• 1:28:42
  cutting edge knowledge for, you know, coaches to, you know,
• 1:28:46
  upscale themselves. Yeah, I love that.
• 1:28:48
  So tell us about your progression through Altus today.
• 1:28:53
  Last I saw your title as VP of Performance, which I love, that
• 1:28:57
  should be every like instead of coach, we should all be VP of
• 1:28:59
  Performances. I like when you like.
• 1:29:02
  What does a coach do? Bam, in the corporate world, VP
• 1:29:05
  of Performance. I love that title.
• 1:29:07
  You didn't start out as the VP of Performance, meaning you came
• 1:29:10
  in as a coach. Talk to us of your progression
• 1:29:12
  and how you got deeper into into the roles there at Altus to
• 1:29:17
  culminate today as the VP of Performance.
• 1:29:20
  Yeah. Well, like all of my colleagues
• 1:29:23
  at Altus, I've worn a lot of different and continue to wear a
• 1:29:26
  lot of different hats within the business.
• 1:29:28
  So obviously my passion and the you know, thing that drives
• 1:29:33
  everything is still the coaching.
• 1:29:35
  You know, I'm still at the core a sprints and hurdles coach and
• 1:29:39
  get excited every day to go out to the track and, you know,
• 1:29:43
  coach, but to, you know, work to make all this work.
• 1:29:48
  We've worn a lot of different hats.
• 1:29:50
  So I've been, for example, initially I was in charge of, I
• 1:29:55
  was the recruiting director and I was also the education
• 1:29:58
  director, which I still do a lot of to this day, you know,
• 1:30:02
  helping put on in in a person programs, namely the AC PS
• 1:30:08
  Again, the coaching programs or coaches visit for, for, you
• 1:30:11
  know, close to a week to observe and listen to different
• 1:30:14
  presentations and hang out with us, you know, as well as
• 1:30:18
  coordinating then different online education programs.
• 1:30:20
  You know, I've been in charge of helping with the, you know,
• 1:30:24
  sports science. I've been in charge of helping
• 1:30:26
  with the video. You know, all these different
• 1:30:30
  titles kind of culminated because I still wear all these
• 1:30:32
  hats. There was no real one title that
• 1:30:35
  encompassed it. So kind of VP of performance,
• 1:30:38
  though my role is clearly not strictly just in performance is
• 1:30:42
  kind of cool enough and vague enough to allow me to, you know,
• 1:30:48
  jump around into a myriad of different roles basically where
• 1:30:52
  you know, where I'm needed most to fill gaps and continue to,
• 1:30:56
  you know, be of value to to Altus.
• 1:31:00
  I love that. Do you?
• 1:31:02
  I'm curious, I'm a huge advocate of coaching education.
• 1:31:05
  That's why I really wanted to, you know, dive into the coaching
• 1:31:08
  education side of Altus. And again, partly because you
• 1:31:11
  also do a lot of unique things with your coaching education.
• 1:31:15
  Do you, you know, COVID moved a lot of our programs.
• 1:31:20
  So like with USCTF, that's I grew up in the USCTF area.
• 1:31:23
  So at level 1 and multiple level twos, I was already here at Gill
• 1:31:26
  when US TIFF CCCA Academy started.
• 1:31:28
  But I certainly would have done all through those things and
• 1:31:32
  those are amazing. I found the most value in like a
• 1:31:37
  level 2. Certainly the class work was
• 1:31:40
  amazing. You know, actually learning
• 1:31:42
  from, you know, Boo and Dennis Shaver was my sprint's coach.
• 1:31:46
  Gary Winkler was one of my Sprint coaches.
• 1:31:49
  But there was the, you know, it's infamous that we would talk
• 1:31:52
  about the being in someone's room until two or three in the
• 1:31:55
  morning. Like I, I have a distinct memory
• 1:31:57
  of being in, I don't even know whose room it was, but Cava
• 1:32:00
  Tolbert was in there and Todd Lane and Ron Grigg and JJ Hunter
• 1:32:09
  and we just talked, tracked, talked, not just track, like as
• 1:32:13
  a fan, like, oh, you know, how fast Carl just ran or whatever
• 1:32:16
  you got to, but coaching like, oh, what do you do?
• 1:32:19
  How do you do that? Hey, you had that athlete.
• 1:32:22
  What were, you know, what, how did you structure the fall with
• 1:32:25
  her and things like that? And those, that part of it was
• 1:32:28
  extremely valuable as well. Through COVID, we moved a lot of
• 1:32:33
  our coaching education to online, to Zoom basically.
• 1:32:37
  I know you guys had to pivot to that as as well.
• 1:32:40
  I'm assuming you guys had to pivot to that.
• 1:32:41
  We. Were actually ahead of the
• 1:32:43
  curve, We were. We were already on that.
• 1:32:45
  OK, good. Cuz that's where my question.
• 1:32:46
  Is COVID. COVID came along and everyone
• 1:32:49
  basically caught up to it. By necessity, Yeah.
• 1:32:51
  Cuz that's what I'm wondering is.
• 1:32:52
  Thanks COVID. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:32:55
  Our, our, our business advantage just went away.
• 1:32:57
  A competitive advantage, right? Do you see coaching education
• 1:33:03
  going more to one way or the other?
• 1:33:06
  Like should it all go And you know, things aren't black and
• 1:33:09
  white. So I'm asking this in a black
• 1:33:10
  and white way though, is should coaching education go to more
• 1:33:14
  online exclusively because you can reach a wider like we can we
• 1:33:18
  can coach more coaches that way or should it go back to the in
• 1:33:22
  person because there are some intangibles of the in person
• 1:33:27
  that you cannot recreate on the on the Zoom.
• 1:33:31
  Well, I think you kind of answered your, your, your
• 1:33:34
  question. You answered the question
• 1:33:37
  yourself. I mean, those are certainly not
• 1:33:38
  mutually exclusive. And I think it also depends on
• 1:33:41
  where you are individually in your coaching journey as to what
• 1:33:45
  may be most applicable to you during a given time, right.
• 1:33:50
  I see value in both. I think there is great value in
• 1:33:54
  learning online and getting fundamentals and concepts and
• 1:33:58
  theoretical knowledge online and then potentially coming and
• 1:34:02
  seeing how that is delivered practically in person and being
• 1:34:06
  able to have those informal chats.
• 1:34:09
  Again, some of the things that are most impactful that coaches
• 1:34:11
  tell us when they come to visit us is, man, this is the chat I
• 1:34:14
  had with, you know, the coaches at during practice while the
• 1:34:20
  athletes were warming up and they were just explaining some
• 1:34:22
  concept of what they were seeing.
• 1:34:24
  That was the most invaluable part of the experience.
• 1:34:26
  Or the poolside chats were like, again, we sit down and we just
• 1:34:29
  talk trading whatever we want to talk about.
• 1:34:31
  I think both the online and in person have a, you know, have
• 1:34:35
  great value. Maybe there's a sequential way
• 1:34:38
  to look at it as part of our master's program.
• 1:34:41
  It's a combination of you do the online work, but then you also
• 1:34:44
  have like small residences periodically where you're coming
• 1:34:47
  to visit us in person to top up the theoretical knowledge with
• 1:34:52
  practical experience and observing other people coach.
• 1:34:56
  Like I feel there's so much value in observing people coach.
• 1:34:59
  Anytime I go somewhere, I just enjoy watching other coaches
• 1:35:02
  coach, not just to see their methods, but to see how they
• 1:35:05
  talk to their athletes, how they present themselves at training,
• 1:35:09
  you know, how they structure and flow from element and to element
• 1:35:13
  in the training session. You know, all those things are
• 1:35:15
  things you can't theoretically, you can kind of get an idea
• 1:35:19
  about it, but there's no substitute for seeing it in
• 1:35:21
  person, right? So I feel like both of those,
• 1:35:26
  you know, elements are important and maybe maybe it's important
• 1:35:28
  to get some baseline theoretical knowledge online to be able to
• 1:35:32
  have some meaningful conversations in person once the
• 1:35:36
  coach is ready to have an in person, you know, experience.
• 1:35:41
  We didn't practice this, but you are literally leading to my next
• 1:35:44
  question. In football and basketball and
• 1:35:48
  maybe some other sports, there is this culture of like Staffs
• 1:35:52
  or individual coaches. Like during their offseason,
• 1:35:55
  we'll go visit other Staffs or other coaches.
• 1:35:58
  You know, maybe, you know, in the Air Raid for American
• 1:36:01
  football was becoming bigger and bigger.
• 1:36:03
  You know, people would go visit how mummy kind of I think that
• 1:36:06
  he's considered the father of the Air Raid of the spread
• 1:36:09
  offense. And so people would go visit
• 1:36:11
  and, you know, in the how probably would have to play
• 1:36:13
  against these guys in some form or fashion throughout the next
• 1:36:15
  decade, would still sit down, be like, yeah, here's here's the
• 1:36:18
  philosophy of of my offense. What would you do in this
• 1:36:21
  situation, coach? Yeah, we probably line up here.
• 1:36:23
  XY and ZI know it happens in track and field, but I it it
• 1:36:28
  doesn't feel like it's common. It feels like it's still like a
• 1:36:31
  rare special thing where a coach will come and visit another
• 1:36:35
  coach to do exactly what you're talking about, observing,
• 1:36:37
  coaching. A, you kind of already talked
• 1:36:43
  about point A was how important is that?
• 1:36:46
  But B, why do you think that's not?
• 1:36:48
  You guys are pioneered in the coaching education side.
• 1:36:50
  Like I know that's part of the ACP and things like that, that
• 1:36:53
  they go, they actually participate and watch and
• 1:36:55
  practices. Why isn't that A a part of our
• 1:36:57
  culture And the track coaching side, we have some of the
• 1:37:00
  brightest and most curious people in the world, in my
• 1:37:02
  opinion, but that part doesn't seem is it the coaches want to
• 1:37:07
  keep the the knowledge to themselves, which you and I both
• 1:37:10
  know is ridiculous, or is it just it's not in our culture to
• 1:37:14
  to go do that part of coaching education?
• 1:37:18
  Yeah. Well, it's interesting.
• 1:37:19
  I actually kind of perceive that a little differently coming from
• 1:37:22
  a European perspective. I actually find that the US, in
• 1:37:26
  terms of sharing coaching knowledge is fairly progressive
• 1:37:31
  and actually find that one of the advantages as to why the US
• 1:37:35
  is a powerhouse in track and field.
• 1:37:38
  Europe is way more secretive than the US.
• 1:37:41
  Like they are shocked that anyone would talk to another
• 1:37:44
  coach. And I've found no matter who it
• 1:37:48
  may be here in the States, if I'm curious about something, if
• 1:37:50
  I had a question, I could ask Lance Brahman, I could call
• 1:37:53
  Boogie Johnson, and they'd gladly talk to me and share
• 1:37:56
  information. It is about you having to reach
• 1:37:59
  out. But I've never really had a
• 1:38:02
  coach turn me down if I've asked to come visit or, you know,
• 1:38:07
  share, share information. So I actually think the US is
• 1:38:09
  fairly progressive. That doesn't mean that there
• 1:38:12
  couldn't be more of that. You know, obviously one of our
• 1:38:15
  underlying tenants here with Altus is that we don't have
• 1:38:18
  secrets we want to share. We also view the sharing as part
• 1:38:22
  of kind of auditing ourselves, right?
• 1:38:25
  Sometimes someone may ask a question that we never thought
• 1:38:27
  of or check us on something and we have to re evaluate whether
• 1:38:30
  we're right or wrong about that. Again, that's kind of putting
• 1:38:33
  yourself out there, which is sometimes scary to do, but it
• 1:38:36
  also helps evolve you as a coach.
• 1:38:41
  So yeah, I've, I've really never had that problem.
• 1:38:44
  Like I'll give an example in 2008 when I went to the Olympics
• 1:38:48
  for the first time in Beijing, I went to the Beijing or the
• 1:38:52
  Olympic holding camp in Dalian brand new.
• 1:38:55
  I was, I know I was the youngest coach there by far.
• 1:39:00
  I was in my mid 20s there with Muna Lee.
• 1:39:02
  And I really didn't know anyone that well.
• 1:39:05
  And you know, I could have just gone about my day and
• 1:39:08
  everything. And the coaches who really took
• 1:39:11
  me under their wing were Brooks Johnson, John Smith, Mike
• 1:39:15
  Holloway, you know, they helped me out tremendously.
• 1:39:17
  My first ever holding camp, you know, I'd go into the dining
• 1:39:20
  area and I didn't really know anyone.
• 1:39:22
  Young Buck, come, come sit over here with us.
• 1:39:24
  So I just hang out with them. They, you know, for, for some
• 1:39:28
  reason took interest in me and really kind of, you know, shared
• 1:39:32
  of themselves freely and showed me the ropes.
• 1:39:34
  So, you know, I have, you know, I think like in the US,
• 1:39:37
  certainly it could be better. But I feel like compared to a
• 1:39:41
  lot of other places there, it's fairly open.
• 1:39:44
  But I do agree with your assessment that in other sports
• 1:39:48
  there's a lot more sharing collaboration that goes on.
• 1:39:51
  Yeah. Because I've seen, you know,
• 1:39:52
  basketball coaches will share different types of concepts.
• 1:39:55
  Offensive and defensive coordinators will get together
• 1:39:58
  and share, you know, their schemes throughout different
• 1:40:01
  times of the year with their direct competitors.
• 1:40:05
  So, but yeah, like I said, I've, I've really had, you know, ever
• 1:40:09
  issues. I've never had an issue sharing
• 1:40:11
  something with someone else and rarely have I ever had an issue
• 1:40:13
  with me asking a question and someone not being a fellow
• 1:40:17
  coach, not wanting to give me an answer.
• 1:40:20
  Yeah, I, I, I agree with you 100%, but I don't see it
• 1:40:25
  happening enough. You know, part of, I think we
• 1:40:29
  just touched on this a bit on our pre interview, You know,
• 1:40:32
  part of the reason we started this podcast five years ago, by
• 1:40:35
  the way, right before COVID even hit, which is still amazing,
• 1:40:38
  that if I, I, I didn't, I didn't have confidence in myself that
• 1:40:42
  five years from then, I would still be doing this, that people
• 1:40:44
  would still be one to listen to this.
• 1:40:45
  But you know, a little bit of what we of a goal we wanted to
• 1:40:49
  do was to show that one, it doesn't matter the Insignia on
• 1:40:54
  your polo that that doesn't make you a good coach.
• 1:40:57
  You being a good coach is what makes you a good coach, Meaning
• 1:41:00
  that mouse doesn't know what he knows because he's at Florida.
• 1:41:03
  He knows what he knows because of the work he's put into the
• 1:41:06
  craft of coaching and a coach at, you know, Neosho County
• 1:41:10
  community. I used to coach JUCO in Kansas
• 1:41:11
  at Neosho County, that a coach at Neosho, just because they're
• 1:41:14
  only at Neosho, doesn't know anything.
• 1:41:17
  You know, that's just, that's not true.
• 1:41:19
  Now, when I was there, that coach didn't know anything.
• 1:41:22
  But I just don't see it happening a lot.
• 1:41:26
  We, we go to a lot of clinics, right?
• 1:41:27
  We go to the USTFCCA convention in December and you know,
• 1:41:30
  someone speaking, people will be in there listening.
• 1:41:33
  I, I, I see more people thinking they can't approach coaches then
• 1:41:41
  the opposite, like, oh, yeah, hey, there's Mouse.
• 1:41:42
  I'm going to go ask him. Hey, what, what you know, tell
• 1:41:45
  me a little bit of how, you know, you struggled moving Grant
• 1:41:47
  from A7 to or eight step to seven step or whatever, you
• 1:41:50
  know, whatever. Coaching.
• 1:41:50
  I don't pretend to know coaching anymore.
• 1:41:52
  It's been so long, but I still see it happening very often.
• 1:41:54
  But when it does happen, I agree with you.
• 1:41:56
  I rarely hear of a of a track coach that would turn someone
• 1:42:01
  down. I'm still very enamored by Mouse
• 1:42:04
  specifically when I was a no nothing high school coach.
• 1:42:07
  You know, my first year coaching and I saw this guy went from
• 1:42:10
  Gainesville High school to University of Florida.
• 1:42:12
  And this is back in the old AOL days and I somehow had his AOL.
• 1:42:15
  I don't know how you knew AOL names back then, but I had
• 1:42:17
  mouses. And so I just messaged him out
• 1:42:19
  of the blows in Chicago and he's in Gainesville.
• 1:42:21
  I messaged him and was like, Hey, I also went to coach
• 1:42:23
  college one day. How did you do it?
• 1:42:25
  And he talks to me like a normal person.
• 1:42:28
  I mean, here's the University of Florida coach and he's talking
• 1:42:31
  to this guy. He doesn't even know who it is
• 1:42:33
  in Chicago. Like like I'm a peer of his.
• 1:42:36
  And that really like that set an example for me of like, oh, wait
• 1:42:40
  a minute, that guy has time to talk to anybody.
• 1:42:42
  Well, then I who am I to not help?
• 1:42:45
  As you know, someone has a question for me.
• 1:42:46
  So I agree with you. I don't see people turning that
• 1:42:49
  down. I just don't see what I think is
• 1:42:51
  enough people stepping out and asking, you know, those, those
• 1:42:55
  coaches out there, you know, having those type of of
• 1:42:58
  conversations. Yeah, sure.
• 1:43:00
  And it's sometimes it's, it's, you know, it's, it can be
• 1:43:02
  intimidating and tricky. It's definitely putting yourself
• 1:43:05
  out there a little bit and admitting that maybe you don't
• 1:43:08
  know everything or that you need help with something.
• 1:43:11
  You know, it's funny to me too, because I'd heard from several
• 1:43:14
  people like, oh, you know, over the course of the years.
• 1:43:16
  Oh, Mouse is Mouse is kind of to himself and he doesn't really
• 1:43:20
  talk that much. And it's like Mouse has never
• 1:43:22
  been anything but great with me. I was like, what are you talking
• 1:43:25
  about? Like, that's not the person that
• 1:43:28
  that I, you know, even initially got to know.
• 1:43:31
  Probably back in 2008 or even a little before then, I was like,
• 1:43:34
  I, I don't know where you get that impression from, you know,
• 1:43:38
  other than maybe, maybe he's initially a little quiet and.
• 1:43:41
  It's the story we tell. Ourselves though, right?
• 1:43:43
  Yeah, it's the story we tell. Ourselves, it's a it's the story
• 1:43:45
  you tell yourself. I mean, the thing I have to work
• 1:43:48
  on and check myself is sometimes I think that as a coach, you
• 1:43:54
  also shouldn't just learn from older and experienced coaches,
• 1:43:57
  but there's some young and super talented and creative coaches
• 1:44:00
  out there. You almost got to leave your ego
• 1:44:02
  at the door to ask someone who's younger than you to, to see
• 1:44:05
  what's up and ask them for, for some help and advice, right?
• 1:44:07
  But there's a there's a wealth of creativity, you know, coming
• 1:44:11
  up behind us as well that I think could be, you know, that,
• 1:44:16
  you know, merits acknowledgement and also, you know, discussions
• 1:44:21
  around what what they're doing so.
• 1:44:23
  Yeah, that's a real. That's a.
• 1:44:25
  Really wisdom in front of me or wisdom, you know, wisdom in One
• 1:44:29
  Direction for the older coaches and then, you know, maybe some
• 1:44:32
  creativity on the on the front end and some tech know how for
• 1:44:35
  the the new school. Yeah, I I love that, you know,
• 1:44:38
  we we try to work hard on not just going out and trying to
• 1:44:42
  capture, you know, the guys that are at their tail end of their
• 1:44:46
  careers. Mouse, I hope you could for a
• 1:44:47
  long time, but you know, you're going to retire one day here,
• 1:44:50
  Mouse. And you deserve to retire, by
• 1:44:52
  the way, but also that first year coach, because again, their
• 1:44:54
  experiences are so like for their stories, their journey.
• 1:44:57
  It's like, man, I know you've only been coaching for a year
• 1:44:59
  and maybe you think you don't deserve the I've had this.
• 1:45:02
  I'm not saying this good statistically, I've had this
• 1:45:04
  spoken to me when I've invited someone on the show before.
• 1:45:07
  I haven't done anything to deserve it, Mike.
• 1:45:09
  And like you coach track period, you deserve it right then.
• 1:45:12
  That's why we started the podcast for kind of loud.
• 1:45:14
  But your experiences as a first year, second year, fifth year
• 1:45:17
  coach, there's importance there. There's people that will learn
• 1:45:19
  from that. So I think that's a really good
• 1:45:22
  point. I've never thought about that of
• 1:45:23
  like, you know, asking newer coach, you know, not just the
• 1:45:26
  guys long in the tooth of hey, how are you tackling these
• 1:45:29
  things? Because we get in our box.
• 1:45:31
  Well, these guys maybe are not in their boxes much because
• 1:45:34
  they've only been in it for a year to and come from different
• 1:45:37
  and varied backgrounds. You know, maybe they came from a
• 1:45:39
  a business background. So they think about coaching
• 1:45:42
  hurdlers just a little different because of whatever, you know, 7
• 1:45:44
  steps, three steps, whatever, you know, those kind of things.
• 1:45:46
  So. 100% I mean, yeah, it's, it's, you know, I always believe
• 1:45:51
  you can learn from from everybody and, you know,
• 1:45:53
  everyone, everyone has a way of certain way of doing things.
• 1:45:56
  And yeah, I mean, but you're right.
• 1:45:59
  The perspective for new coaches is so different because, you
• 1:46:02
  know, as we kind of chronicled, I had mentors and certain ways
• 1:46:06
  of learning about doing things. And this is all, you know, this
• 1:46:09
  is all kind of still the, the fledgling, you know, time of the
• 1:46:14
  Internet where now you have so much information, you're flooded
• 1:46:18
  with information. So as opposed to having to scour
• 1:46:21
  for information, which I kind of had to do, and now you have all
• 1:46:24
  this at your fingertips and it's hard to discern what is really
• 1:46:29
  useful, valid and good information versus all the other
• 1:46:33
  noise that's out there, right? So I think as coaches, it's also
• 1:46:37
  our job to help the younger coaches potentially sift through
• 1:46:41
  some of the, you know, almost unlimited access to information
• 1:46:45
  that they have and point out, you know, good sources you.
• 1:46:51
  Know it's funny when you're saying that, cause you know,
• 1:46:54
  Andreas, you're, you're younger than I am.
• 1:46:56
  So when I hear you saying, you know, I hadn't have a, you know,
• 1:47:00
  I was at the fledgling of Internet, we, you know, we
• 1:47:01
  didn't have it like it is today. I can go on YouTube and find
• 1:47:04
  1000 different things just on the seven or eights up to the
• 1:47:07
  first hurdle, for example, I go find 1000 videos just on that.
• 1:47:10
  It's funny that you say that because I'm like, oh, what are
• 1:47:12
  you talking about? I was in the fledgling of the
• 1:47:14
  Internet like you, you're younger than I am.
• 1:47:15
  You've had the Internet. It's not what it is today, of
• 1:47:18
  course, but that just made me think it's like, you know, today
• 1:47:20
  is 2024 and we know what the Internet today is.
• 1:47:24
  I'll be interested when I'm doing an interview in 2034 and
• 1:47:26
  we're like, you know, when I was starting coaching in 2020 and
• 1:47:30
  2024, you know, the Internet wasn't like it was today.
• 1:47:33
  We didn't have whatever we're going to have in 2034.
• 1:47:35
  We don't have VR where I can actually go and be at mouse's
• 1:47:38
  practice. You know, it's just funny how
• 1:47:41
  the evolution of it's going to be.
• 1:47:42
  You mean you had to type in your questions and chat GTP back in
• 1:47:45
  2024? Oh, wait a minute.
• 1:47:47
  That's hey, that's cutting edge still right now, 2024.
• 1:47:50
  You talk about ChatGPT. I guarantee you 99% of the
• 1:47:53
  people listening right now have not played around with GPT.
• 1:47:56
  And that is, and I haven't done it in the coaching side, but
• 1:47:58
  I've done it in the business side.
• 1:47:59
  I can I can't imagine how faster my coaching progression would
• 1:48:05
  have probably happened if I'd have had something like GPT.
• 1:48:07
  I mean, it's it's unbelievable. Are you using it commonly or?
• 1:48:12
  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely use it for for
• 1:48:15
  different, different research and projects.
• 1:48:18
  And again, it's all it's all with a grain of salt because you
• 1:48:20
  kind of have to understand where they're getting sources from,
• 1:48:23
  but just. Like, just like any Google
• 1:48:25
  search, by the way, just just for sure point that out.
• 1:48:27
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:48:29
  So they don't definitely use that to, you know, and to kind
• 1:48:33
  of condense different thoughts and other things of that nature.
• 1:48:36
  So yeah, it's definitely very interesting and valuable and
• 1:48:39
  yeah, yeah, new, new frontier, that's for sure.
• 1:48:42
  I'll tell you it's a spoiler alert.
• 1:48:44
  So when you read the show notes for our podcast that's written
• 1:48:49
  by ChatGPT that I create by getting the the transcript from
• 1:48:56
  YouTube. So we put the video on YouTube,
• 1:48:58
  it automatically creates a transcript of this.
• 1:49:01
  I paste and copy that in GPT and say, Hey, write me a podcast
• 1:49:04
  episode description based on this transcript because I'm not
• 1:49:08
  a good writer. And you can go back.
• 1:49:11
  You you could probably go back to our earlier episodes and read
• 1:49:13
  the show notes and you'll probably easily see when did
• 1:49:15
  Mike stop writing and when did ChatGPT?
• 1:49:17
  And it's like, Oh yeah, Mike, you had no clue.
• 1:49:19
  I was trying to remember off, you know, trying to remember our
• 1:49:22
  conversation and write show notes.
• 1:49:24
  This thing takes the transcript and puts it into a digestible,
• 1:49:27
  you know, episode description. There's so many things you can
• 1:49:29
  do with GPT. It's it's what Google was back
• 1:49:33
  in the day when it first started, when we still didn't
• 1:49:34
  know. What do you mean?
• 1:49:35
  Before Google was a verb. Somehow GPT is gonna become a
• 1:49:39
  verb. Did you GPT it?
• 1:49:40
  That's what we're gonna start saying.
• 1:49:41
  It's gonna be amazing. One more observation and then a
• 1:49:45
  question, Andreas, when we're talking about coaching
• 1:49:47
  education, I found it and it was valuable for me.
• 1:49:50
  And so I, I recommend it to a lot of other coaches.
• 1:49:53
  You know, you can know a lot of things and you can apply a lot
• 1:49:57
  of things, knowledge that you've learned, you know, with your
• 1:49:59
  athletes and such. I think there is a different
• 1:50:02
  level of understanding or maybe mastery might be the right word
• 1:50:07
  when you teach what you know, you know, I taught level 1 for,
• 1:50:11
  you know, 30 different episode classes there.
• 1:50:15
  And I've done some, you know, clinics and things like that and
• 1:50:17
  I, I realized I, I learned it better by, I have to make sure
• 1:50:22
  that person understands what I'm saying and that person
• 1:50:23
  understands it. Do you find that like as you
• 1:50:25
  started teaching more because you, you got taught a lot, some
• 1:50:28
  of it, you know, informal meaning that practice and things
• 1:50:31
  like that, but you've done some formal education with it too.
• 1:50:34
  And now you're teaching. Did you find was there an
• 1:50:36
  accelerant for you and the coaching when you started doing
• 1:50:39
  more teaching? Yeah, 100%.
• 1:50:43
  I mean, even though I don't know if accelerant is the right word,
• 1:50:47
  I think it, I think it maybe deepens understanding what you
• 1:50:51
  already, you know, what you already have.
• 1:50:53
  It provides layers and levels and different ways of explaining
• 1:50:57
  the same thing over and over depending on the the person.
• 1:51:00
  And it's not just, you know, it's not just solely One
• 1:51:04
  Direction where I am just explaining a lot of the, I think
• 1:51:08
  the growth comes from the questions that I get back.
• 1:51:11
  Because often, you know, participants or coaches will ask
• 1:51:15
  questions that maybe I hadn't even considered before or
• 1:51:19
  they're challenging a concept that I then need to go back and
• 1:51:22
  re evaluate and dig deeper on around, dig deeper into for
• 1:51:26
  myself for better understanding and then further explanation.
• 1:51:29
  So I think those are kind of the, you know, the benefits of,
• 1:51:35
  you know, teaching. It's also, you know, it's also
• 1:51:37
  different explaining it to like one person versus explaining it
• 1:51:40
  in a room. So it gives you different skills
• 1:51:44
  in terms of, you know, presentation style, explaining
• 1:51:47
  the same thing. Yeah, depth is the right word.
• 1:51:50
  Not accelerant. Yeah, depth.
• 1:51:52
  That's why I said maybe mastery. So so depth of the subject.
• 1:51:55
  Mastery. Yeah, mastery is probably a
• 1:51:57
  better, a better, you know, word for that.
• 1:52:00
  Yeah, I love that. All right, Andreas, let's wrap
• 1:52:02
  it up today. Tell us So what is Andre you're
• 1:52:05
  doing today? What I mean you're so here's
• 1:52:07
  what's amazing to you. You've had really, I mean, just
• 1:52:12
  a storybook experiences. I mean the the way you got into
• 1:52:15
  coaching. I mean that is so unique.
• 1:52:16
  I love that the athletes you've been, you know, blessed to work
• 1:52:19
  with the coaches that have poured into you and that you're
• 1:52:21
  now pouring into other coaches and yet you're so young.
• 1:52:26
  And what so cool about that? You know, if we use a track
• 1:52:29
  analogy, if we're kind of think of your career as like a 400
• 1:52:32
  meter dash, it's easy to think sometimes because we're in the
• 1:52:35
  muck of it. Maybe for a guy your age and
• 1:52:37
  stage, you know, maybe you would if I'd say, hey, where do you
• 1:52:39
  think you are in your career as a 400 meter?
• 1:52:41
  You like, you know, maybe I'm at the 300m mark.
• 1:52:43
  You know, the finish line is still a ways away and it's going
• 1:52:45
  to be painful to get there. But in reality, Andreas, you
• 1:52:49
  might be at the 100m mark of the 400.
• 1:52:52
  I mean, the amount of years you've coached, you will do that
• 1:52:55
  again, like you will double the amount of years you've coached.
• 1:52:58
  But but based on your age and based on health and you know,
• 1:53:01
  advances that we're doing in in medicine and things like that.
• 1:53:03
  So you, like I said, maybe at the hundred 150 meter mark,
• 1:53:06
  which is so cool for a guy like me, I get to sit on the
• 1:53:09
  sidelines and watch. I get to see another 200, two
• 1:53:12
  150 meters, 300 meters of the race that pour out of your
• 1:53:14
  career. It's going to be what you're
• 1:53:16
  doing today. It's amazing.
• 1:53:19
  I'm going to be blown away at what you're doing in 20-30 and
• 1:53:22
  2040. It's so cool to be able to see
• 1:53:24
  that. So talk to us today.
• 1:53:27
  What what is call it an average day in your life look like as
• 1:53:32
  this, You know, I'm gonna say private coach meeting outside of
• 1:53:35
  collegiate coaching. I think there's a lot of people
• 1:53:36
  have a lot of interest in that. What's a what's an average day
• 1:53:39
  for you as we wrap up today? Oh, well, I, I appreciate those
• 1:53:43
  words, Mike. I'm, look, man, I'm, I'm just,
• 1:53:45
  and hopefully I make it all the way around the track.
• 1:53:47
  I'm only at the 100. I, I, I hopefully I can make it
• 1:53:50
  all the way around the Oval. So yeah, for sure.
• 1:53:54
  Well, I mean, if you ask right now, like right now, right now,
• 1:53:59
  I'm in the, we're in the process of moving.
• 1:54:01
  So we're moving from Atlanta, which has been our awesome home
• 1:54:05
  for the last three years. We're back to Phoenix, AZ for
• 1:54:09
  this upcoming season and beyond. We just think weather wise,
• 1:54:14
  location wise, with the LA 2028 Olympics coming up on the West
• 1:54:19
  Coast, I think a strategically good spot to be located again,
• 1:54:22
  as you know, Phoenix's stone's throw away from LA.
• 1:54:27
  So yeah, we're in the process of kind of relocating and re
• 1:54:30
  establishing ourselves in Phoenix.
• 1:54:32
  So, you know, if someone's looking for a training group on
• 1:54:35
  the West Coast, be sure to hit us up.
• 1:54:38
  But yeah, I'd say if I gave you a generic day outside of what is
• 1:54:42
  happening right now, right, Really they're the morning time
• 1:54:48
  is for coaching and then afternoons and evenings is for
• 1:54:52
  more business operations. So basically things that I, I,
• 1:54:58
  I'm in charge of again, you know, I do a lot of kind of, I
• 1:55:02
  do a lot of the video intake, video editing, you know, some of
• 1:55:07
  these sports science stuff, whether it's, you know, like
• 1:55:10
  running different equipment. I do intern coordination.
• 1:55:16
  So I'm basically in charge of, we have intern intern coaches.
• 1:55:19
  So I'm in charge of coordinating them and also making sure that
• 1:55:22
  they are being educated properly and getting good value out of
• 1:55:25
  their time spent with us. You know, I work on producing
• 1:55:30
  different educational courses and then I also work on hosting
• 1:55:34
  different educational courses and, you know, organizing all of
• 1:55:37
  that. So all those organizational
• 1:55:40
  things take up part of my day as well.
• 1:55:42
  And naturally also basically writing training programs via re
• 1:55:47
  evaluating training footage that we took that day and making sure
• 1:55:51
  that we are ready to go for the next training session the
• 1:55:54
  following day. So that could be a, you know, in
• 1:55:57
  a nutshell kind of a day. Like I said, we myself and
• 1:56:00
  everyone at Altus, we wear all kinds of different hats.
• 1:56:03
  I think that makes us fairly unique and, and versatile in
• 1:56:06
  that regard. I like to think I have acquired
• 1:56:09
  and built some skills, I don't want to say beyond coaching, but
• 1:56:13
  I think that are maybe different and maybe complement coaching in
• 1:56:18
  slightly different and unique ways.
• 1:56:20
  So yeah, that's it. But we we have to work to
• 1:56:25
  maintain what we have going on. And part of our work is part of
• 1:56:29
  our work allows us then to go coach, which is what we love to
• 1:56:32
  do. But both those things go hand in
• 1:56:35
  hand all. Right.
• 1:56:37
  So there's some elite athlete they're either graduating or
• 1:56:43
  they're looking for a coach or there's coaches who are
• 1:56:46
  interested in these poolside chats or this masters.
• 1:56:50
  Where does someone go? What's the best route to contact
• 1:56:53
  Altus and and who is, is it you? Is it Stu?
• 1:56:56
  Is it, you know, info@altus.edu? Where does someone go if they
• 1:57:00
  want to know find out more about Altus and what they can provide
• 1:57:03
  for them. Yeah, really, pretty much any of
• 1:57:06
  those, though, I would say, you know, start with the start with,
• 1:57:10
  you know, our website, www.altus.world.
• 1:57:14
  Again, a lot of coaching courses there, free resources, you know,
• 1:57:19
  available on that website, whether that's online stuff in
• 1:57:23
  person. And by the way, we also love
• 1:57:26
  having coaches informally visit us.
• 1:57:28
  If you're ever in the Phoenix area and just want to drop by
• 1:57:30
  for a training session, we get a hold of us.
• 1:57:33
  We, we love having visitors. You know, that happens almost
• 1:57:38
  weekly, right? We'll have someone stop by from
• 1:57:40
  some sport that that wants to kind of hang out or a therapist
• 1:57:45
  wants to come and hang out and check out what we've got going
• 1:57:47
  on. So please, we love having we
• 1:57:49
  love having drop in visitors welcome anytime.
• 1:57:53
  Otherwise, just get a hold of us on social media.
• 1:57:55
  We'll always answer. Like I said, we're, we're here
• 1:57:58
  to connect and collaborate. We have no secrets, you know,
• 1:58:03
  anyone is invited. So to check out what we have
• 1:58:05
  going on and yeah. I, I love, first of all, I love
• 1:58:09
  that unofficial tagline. We have no secrets.
• 1:58:11
  I mean that there's like deep meaning.
• 1:58:12
  I, I just kind of like that the like the unofficial logo there
• 1:58:15
  slogan there. I love that too.
• 1:58:17
  I started thinking, you know, obviously, you know, our
• 1:58:21
  audience is built of track coaches and my, my whole bin, my
• 1:58:24
  whole life. My passion is for track coaches,
• 1:58:26
  but track coaches, no other coaches, right?
• 1:58:28
  Football, basketball, tennis, golf, it is what you provide
• 1:58:33
  because I think about on the track coach side.
• 1:58:34
  So if you were to ask me, is what Altus provides valuable to
• 1:58:37
  track coaches Easy 100% answer. Check.
• 1:58:40
  Yes, absolutely. I know we've seen football and
• 1:58:46
  like maybe baseball and I think basketball, you mentioned MMA.
• 1:58:49
  It is. Is there something at Altus
• 1:58:51
  educationally wise for all coaches?
• 1:58:56
  Like if a if a track coach is best friends with a tennis
• 1:59:00
  coach, would it be appropriate for that track coach go, hey,
• 1:59:03
  you know, to learn more about, you know, some things that might
• 1:59:05
  help your tennis players become better athletes and therefore
• 1:59:07
  better tennis players, check out Altus dot world.
• 1:59:09
  Or is it more focused towards the the football, track,
• 1:59:12
  basketball world? It is really for any coach we've
• 1:59:16
  had, we've had, as an example, we've had coaches from pretty
• 1:59:19
  much any sport that I can think of visit, including such sports
• 1:59:23
  they've never heard of before called like hurling, which is an
• 1:59:27
  Irish sport, which has been described to me as a combination
• 1:59:30
  of lacrosse and murder. So yeah, I'll never forget that,
• 1:59:35
  right. But like, we've had swim
• 1:59:37
  coaches, tennis coaches, distance coaches, NFL coaches,
• 1:59:41
  NBA coaches, therapists, sports psychologists, anyone in the
• 1:59:46
  sporting realm has come to visit us.
• 1:59:49
  And we also have, again, offering, you know, valuable
• 1:59:52
  information for them on our website through different
• 1:59:56
  courses and resources, right? We have a Need for Speed course,
• 2:00:00
  which is all about speed within team sports and change of
• 2:00:03
  direction. We have the Altus Foundation
• 2:00:06
  course, which is basically a, as the name says, an underpinning
• 2:00:11
  course for anyone who's interested in anything regards
• 2:00:14
  to coaching and sports performance.
• 2:00:16
  We have a performance therapy course.
• 2:00:19
  Which is for a design for sports medical practitioners.
• 2:00:23
  So again, we operate in this integrated realm where we don't
• 2:00:26
  see these things as separate and siloed, but we see these as
• 2:00:29
  quintessential parts of how we operate as a professional
• 2:00:33
  entity, right? And so it's only natural that we
• 2:00:36
  are able to kind of disseminate information and talk about these
• 2:00:39
  and share ideas and resources around them as to how we go
• 2:00:44
  about integrating all this. And then hopefully, you know,
• 2:00:48
  being able to provide some good information to practitioners
• 2:00:52
  from all over. Like we've had, I said coaches
• 2:00:55
  from all kinds of sports visit us.
• 2:00:57
  We've had coaches from all over the planet visit us, right?
• 2:01:01
  So Australia, Korea, Japan, China, India, you know, we've
• 2:01:05
  had interns from all over the world.
• 2:01:07
  So if you're ever interested in an internship, you know, we've
• 2:01:09
  had interns from India, we've had interns from, again, like
• 2:01:15
  South Korea. We've had interns from Japan,
• 2:01:17
  Switzerland, all over Europe. Yeah.
• 2:01:20
  So like, again, we, we view ourselves as kind of the United
• 2:01:23
  Nations of track. We're part of a global
• 2:01:26
  community. And you know, like I said, we,
• 2:01:28
  we invite anyone to, you know, partake.
• 2:01:31
  Man, the keyword for me from today's conversation is
• 2:01:34
  integration. You know, we talked about
• 2:01:36
  integration of athletic training, education, obviously
• 2:01:40
  athleticism, coaching. I love that.
• 2:01:41
  We talked about the integration of your coaching staff that you
• 2:01:44
  expressed there at Texas A&M that that's a real cool theme
• 2:01:47
  from from today. I'm going to recommend prod if
• 2:01:56
  you're listening. So if you're listening, 99%
• 2:01:59
  chance that you're a track coach.
• 2:02:01
  If you haven't checked out Altus for that, for the coaching
• 2:02:04
  education side, I highly recommend you go look that up if
• 2:02:07
  you have, so you already know the value that they bring.
• 2:02:10
  I'm going to challenge you, you, you know, I know I focus on
• 2:02:14
  track coaches. That's what's, you know, made my
• 2:02:16
  life where I am today. That's, you know, that's where
• 2:02:18
  I'm the height man for his track coaches.
• 2:02:20
  But it behooves us to have better coaches in all of our
• 2:02:23
  sports. You know, my, my, my kid is
• 2:02:26
  probably not going to do track. They're going to, he's going to
• 2:02:28
  do some other sport. Well, I hope that coach knows
• 2:02:31
  what the heck they're doing, not only as far as the X's and O's
• 2:02:35
  on how to coach, but how to the whole realm of coaching.
• 2:02:39
  We talked about sports psychology, things like that,
• 2:02:40
  the whole realm of holistic coaching.
• 2:02:42
  So better coaches make us have a better society.
• 2:02:45
  So I'm gonna prod you recommend that if you already know the
• 2:02:49
  value of Altis, if you don't go to it, check it out.
• 2:02:51
  If you do, I'm going to recommend find another coach,
• 2:02:55
  whether it's a track coach or, you know, you guys are all
• 2:02:58
  friends with other people in your athletic staff, football
• 2:03:00
  coaches, baseball, volleyball and murder or whatever sport
• 2:03:04
  that was, I don't know, but go curling.
• 2:03:08
  No, that's Canadian. Hurling.
• 2:03:09
  Hurling. Well, that's not.
• 2:03:10
  Yeah, I think I did that in college a few times.
• 2:03:13
  But I'm gonna just challenge you.
• 2:03:15
  That's the word I'm looking for to spread the word, to have them
• 2:03:19
  at least go check it out, that there's no harm in at least
• 2:03:21
  going to alter that world and seeing what they have to offer
• 2:03:23
  that there's a ton of free stuff, which is amazing to me.
• 2:03:27
  But have them check it out because, again, better coaches
• 2:03:29
  will make a better world, a better society.
• 2:03:32
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 2:03:32
  I would just encourage everyone to check it out.
• 2:03:34
  Like I said, free resources. We have a free newsletter.
• 2:03:37
  We have a free YouTube channel. You know, we put up the
• 2:03:40
  newsletter on social media. So yeah.
• 2:03:43
  Go sign up all. That stuff is free and then if
• 2:03:46
  you like it, come back and take something else.
• 2:03:48
  But that's, you know, start with the free stuff.
• 2:03:50
  Go sign up for the newsletter at its basis.
• 2:03:53
  If you're listening, you're not go all just that world sign up.
• 2:03:57
  There's three a week and they are I mean the gold.
• 2:04:02
  I mean, I'm not in in coaching anymore.
• 2:04:04
  I don't coach anymore and I get the newsletter and it is, I tell
• 2:04:07
  you, chef's kiss, man, you guys, I know Stu does a lot of that
• 2:04:10
  stuff too. Of that writing, you guys, man,
• 2:04:13
  valuable. So much valuable in a free
• 2:04:16
  freaking newsletter. So at the very, very least, go
• 2:04:18
  sign up for that. Andreas, my man, thank you so
• 2:04:20
  much. One of the most valuable things
• 2:04:22
  that you can give me is your time, and I'm really grateful
• 2:04:25
  for you, man. Your journey is important.
• 2:04:28
  I think there is a ton, I think a ton of people listening will
• 2:04:31
  see the uniqueness of that and see how that can fit into
• 2:04:34
  theirs. Patience was another keyword I
• 2:04:36
  got from, from your journey, you know, integration and patience.
• 2:04:39
  I think, you know, we could all use more of, of those two
• 2:04:43
  tenants in our life. And so I'm so glad that you were
• 2:04:45
  able to up to this point, exemplify them and be able to
• 2:04:51
  learn from it as well. So I'm just so grateful for you
• 2:04:53
  today sharing your story with us.
• 2:04:55
  Mike, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me
• 2:04:58
  on last shout out to all my mentors that helped, you know,
• 2:05:02
  guide me along the journey. Shout out to all the athletes
• 2:05:05
  that, you know, I have a coaching partnership with that
• 2:05:08
  you know, also obviously I learned a lot from as well while
• 2:05:12
  coaching them. So, yeah, appreciate everyone.
• 2:05:14
  And yeah, especially you for, you know, sitting down, having
• 2:05:17
  this conversation, and hopefully some of you listening find some
• 2:05:21
  of these insights valuable. All right, appreciate you, man.
• 2:05:24
  Thank you guys for being here this week.
• 2:05:26
  Again, so grateful for you to press and play today.
• 2:05:29
  Share this with others that would receive value.
• 2:05:31
  This may be one that explodes past track and field because
• 2:05:33
  again, I know we talk track a lot, but there's this is
• 2:05:36
  holistic coaching of athleticism here.
• 2:05:38
  So a lot of value for our other sports coaches out there as
• 2:05:41
  well. So thanks again for being here.
• 2:05:42
  Join us next week. We'll do it all over again and
• 2:05:44
  have some fun. Thanks guys.
• 2:05:48
  The goals to appreciate the coach, the ones that pour people
• 2:05:51
  most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
• 2:05:54
  you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
• 2:05:58
  For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
• 2:06:01
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 2:06:03
  There's more than one way to go. Taking notes that's paying
• 2:06:06
  you're told it ain't practicing your purpose Saint Clair.
• 2:06:08
  It can't happen until you listen with both is can't mentor
• 2:06:12
  without a mentor of experience. You can reinvent those years.
• 2:06:15
  Every plan's got to stand and deliver to the price sacrifice.
• 2:06:19
  Can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
• 2:06:22
  win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 2:06:24
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
• 2:06:27
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
• 2:06:30
  6,000,000 Waste of time, choose none.
• 2:06:32
  So we y'all cross finish line. The work ain't done so we learn
• 2:06:35
  from the experts but y'all got to put in the leg work guilt.
• 2:06:39
  Athletics use the network. It's all about connections put
• 2:06:42
  together for the profession to where every track coach could be
• 2:06:44
  blessing.