Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #317: Dr. Jim Patchell-Arkansas State University

Transcript

#317: Dr. Jim Patchell-Arkansas State University · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world UNL tuned
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  in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message for Gil Athletics Connections.
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  All right, you're back here on the Gil Athletics Connections
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  podcast. Pumped.
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  Man, this this guy tried to evade me once already for the
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  show. He's kind of a little slippery,
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  but we got him and I'm excited for this.
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  So help me welcome the head coach, director of track and
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  field at Arkansas State University, the wise, the
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  wonderful coach Doc. We got to get into this right
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  off the bat. Doctor coach, doctor Jim
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  Patchell. Jim, how are you, Sir?
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  Doing good. How you doing Mike man?
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  You know, we've noticed that for a long time.
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  And you know, anytime someone asks me that question here on
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  the show, I always tell them, like, I get to do this for a
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  living. So I'm doing good, man.
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  I'm doing really. Really.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  Absolutely. Hey, right off the bat, so, you
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  know, you have been, you've had the title of Doctor Patchell for
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  a long time. Not many coaches have a PhD Dave
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  Smith actually Gill podcast alum, also is a Doctor Smith
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  there as well. What what's your PhD and and why
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  in the world did you go get a PhD?
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  That's that's crazy talk. Well, my PhD is in kinesiology,
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  which it was. Oh, wow.
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  You know, with your PhD, it's a little different than undergrad
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  or even the masters. You kind of get to choose, you
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  know, you're kind of the master of your own destiny there.
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  You get to choose your path. I mean, there's some things that
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  you have to take like, you know, exciting stuff like statistics
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  and regression equations and all that kind of stuff.
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  But you know, the actual meat and potatoes of the, of the PhD,
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  you kind of get to guide yourself a little bit.
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  So kinesiology is kind of an umbrella.
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  There's lots of things under that exercise size, you know,
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  which has, you know, Physiology, anatomy, all that kind of stuff.
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  Sports psychology pedagogy and I really did a mixture of sports
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  science and sports psychology. So my pH DS in kinesiology, but
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  you know, I kind of kind of have a PhD in both of those.
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  If you kind of get that, you know, they can't award that, but
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  but that's and, and really, you know, asking me why I got a PhD,
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  Probably the better question is why are you coaching?
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  Because I never intended to coach.
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  OK, All right. That's what I wonder because
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  I'm. Kind of, yeah.
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  We're going to go so let's let's pause there then OK, let's go
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  back and find out the origin getting up to that and we'll
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  learn that exactly right. That's that's a good that's what
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  I kind of wondered like was where it fit into the coaching.
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  So it sounds like it's a little bit before the coaching.
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  So yeah, All right, so let's take a step back.
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  Let's get our way back machine here, Jim.
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  You know, assuming you were an athlete and yeah, we've had.
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  Was. We had plenty of coaches who
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  weren't. Where does track and field start
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  for you? Well, it started in the 7th
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  grade. Oh, wow, really.
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  And you know, really got interested in it when I was in
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  high school, but I was interested in the 7th grade, you
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  know, just like all 7th graders, you get the, your coach is
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  probably an assistant football coach.
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  And, and I remember this clearly, we got out there and,
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  you know, the first day we all ran a mile around the block and
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  he wanted to see who could run that the best.
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  I wasn't too good at that one. He also, you know, put us on the
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  lawn, just all the events to see where kind of where you fit,
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  which is a good way to approach it.
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  And I think on the third day, of course, this was 40 something
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  years ago, but on the on the third day that he put a couple
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  of hurdles out in the middle of the football field and just had
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  to say, all right, everybody line up, run over.
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  And I happened to do it correctly just right off the
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  bat, you know, had the trail egg out and everything.
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  So that's and and I've, you know, just started enjoying
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  that. So I was that was my main event.
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  It was also a sprinter. And then, you know, I played all
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  sports. I played football and basketball
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  in high school. I played football and track.
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  I did not play basketball. I I was a little too foul happy
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  and basketball a little too much finesse there for me, I guess.
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  But I actually got where. Where you growing up?
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  In heber Heber springs, AR, OH. OK.
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  Is that right? Yeah.
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  Oh, so you're from Arkansas? Because that's going to play
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  into it because I, you know, I know when you moved to back to
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  Arkansas State, so I wasn't sure if that was home or not.
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  OK, good. And you know, in in high school,
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  I really fell in love with track.
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  I got recruited for both football and basketball, not
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  very intensely. For football, I was too small.
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  I'm, you know, I'm 62. I weigh about 190 now, but when
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  I was in high school, I was about 160.
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  And so, you know, pretty skinny and, you know, I was a receiver
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  and playing college football at 62160.
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  Catch a pass across the middle. That might be the end of a lot
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  of things. But, you know, I found that in
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  track, you didn't have to worry about anybody blocking for you.
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  Now, our high school team wasn't that great.
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  And so, you know, and I and I'm very competitive and I would get
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  mad at the other guy, you know, you miss that blocking it, you
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  know, and then track, hey, I didn't have to worry about that.
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  It was me. And that was that was
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  attractive. And so it really fell in love
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  with the sport probably around the 10th grade.
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  You know, we have a little bit of a spoiler that maybe you did
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  not have intentionality of going into coaching, you ended up
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  there. But do you remember, like what
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  your relationship with coach was your coach in high school?
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  And what I mean by that is like, did you I love your
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  competitiveness. You almost seem like I kind of
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  want to ask the question. You talked about, you know, a
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  little foul happy in basketball and you know, guy misses a
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  block. You getting up to?
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  Were you a little bit of a hot head?
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  In high school, Well, not necessarily.
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  You know, I have kind of a calm personality, but if you know
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  many calm people, if they get set off, they really get set
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  off. And of course I've, I've got
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  that under control now. But you know, when you're 1516,
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  you don't really. And, you know, I didn't really
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  tear into my teammates or, you know, I, I respected them all
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  and they respected me. But I would let them know when
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  things weren't right. I love it.
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  I love it. So when you're, you're falling
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  in love with track in high school, are you, you know, kind
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  of knowing, you know, the, the spoiler alert, you become a
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  track coach. Are you like paying attention to
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  what coaches talking about with workouts?
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  Like are you asking like, not questions like, you know,
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  challenging, like why are, why are we doing this?
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  Like, why are we like, you know, what's the why behind this
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  coach? Are you doing any of that as a,
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  as a high schooler at all? Or you just coach says run, I go
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  run. Oh no, no, no.
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  I was a student of the sport early on.
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  Mm Hmm. And and that's just my
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  personality. I I always wanted to know why.
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  That's one of the reasons I got a PhD, Right?
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  Right. And when I was 15, I guess I
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  bought the there's an old book called the Track and Field Omni
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  book. Yeah, Ken Doherty was the he
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  well, he didn't write it all, but he, he compiled it all
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  right. I still use that book today.
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  You. Bought that as a 15 year old.
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  Yeah, and I still have it. Let me, let me show you I'm.
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  The same copy. The same book.
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  Oh get out, this is one of the iconic books of our industry, of
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  our coaching world. Here the Omni book.
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  Here it is. You see the duct tape on the
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  binder? I've had this.
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  Dude, that's an artifact. Yes, I'm kind of an artifact
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  too, but I. Knew you're going to say that
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  Susan said that I was like I know Jim will enough.
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  He's going to say that yeah. So I mean it's.
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  So I read that book when I was 15, and so I I learned how to
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  train. What were you?
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  Studious as a high schooler? Like are you a four point O type
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  of kid? Oh, no, no, no, no.
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  I was, I was, I was studious. And when I was interested in,
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  yeah, you know, English literature and things like that,
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  I didn't see any use for it. You know, I've decent enough
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  grades where you know, obviously I've I've graduated and passed
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  and. But you weren't the the AP
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  student that that's all, no. Because I'm.
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  Just thinking of like a 15, you know, my, my kid is 13.
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  He'll be a freshman next year. And you know, actually, no, this
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  is similar because I was thinking I was like, I was going
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  to say, I can't imagine him buying something like the Omni
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  book as a 1415 year old. But he he's really into fishing.
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  He's on the bass fishing team and all that kind of stuff.
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  And he has these volumes like an omnibook of fishing.
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  So so yeah, when you have something that you're passionate
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  about and you did that as a 15 year old, wow.
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  Yeah, And bought it. Saw an ad in the back of track
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  and field news in my coach's office.
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  I thought that looks interesting.
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  And I got it. I started reading it and I
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  thought, oh, that's so this is how you do it.
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  Yeah. And so.
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  Would you have conversations with a coach like hey coach, I
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  read this and. Oh, yeah.
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  And, and I was very lucky. Coach Harold Wilson was my coach
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  and he's in the Arkansas Hall of Fame for track and field as a
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  coach. And his passion was track and,
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  you know, extremely knowledgeable and would push you
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  and, and he loved the sport, too.
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  And that that helped me as well. Yeah.
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  What what was his when you look back, his style, you know,
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  there's a lot of different styles of coaching.
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  There's one thing to XS and OS and we're you know, we've been
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  exploring this for the past couple of months in the podcast
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  that maybe the XS and OS are the easy part, which which is hard
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  for a guy like me. And I grew up in coaching in the
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  coaching Ed world, right? So I was always doing level 2.
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  I was always doing XS and OS stuff, But we're kind of
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  learning that, you know, all the other stuff, culture,
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  humanality, if you know one-on-one with kids and things
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  like that, that's actually maybe the bigger, more important part
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  of track and field. When you think about coaches
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  style with you and the team. What, what, What were things
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  that you like, attracted you to because you stayed, you ran all
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  four years, you could have easily done other sports.
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  So there was something that you had to have liked about his
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  style. Oh yeah, yeah.
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  And Coach Wilson was my high school, junior high and high
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  school coach. So.
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  Oh, all the way through. Yeah, yeah.
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  And he, you know, just his love for the sport was infectious.
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  And I happen to love it too. And so and he also had a lot of
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  knowledge. Still does.
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  Or obviously he's but he's not coaching anymore.
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  But he was a pretty fiery guy. He had he had a voice, you could
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  hear him. You know, if he if he was at the
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  at the finish line time in your two hundreds and you were 150
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  meters away, oh he could he could ride on your head from
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  that far and so and he would push you, but he would also
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  patch you on the back when it was time for that and so.
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  Seems like you 2 had a like, I feel like there's a good
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  relationship there. There's two guys, you know,
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  mentor coach over an athlete that both really, I mean, you're
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  you're geeking out here. If you're buying the Omni book
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  as a 15, I'm assuming none of your teammates went out and also
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  bought the Omni book. Oh, no, there's always the only
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  one. Yeah, yeah, there's a little bit
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  of that. You know, what do they say, you
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  know, do coaches have favorites? And it's like, yeah, it's the
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  ones who are always on time, you know, are always, you know,
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  leading always behind the Omni book.
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  So, you know, there had to be a little bit of like you two were
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  a little bit of peas in the pod, it sounds like.
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  Yeah, yeah. And he was, you know, he was
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  obviously older than me. I think he was in his early 30s.
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  So he was, you know, not an old coach, but wasn't a really young
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  coach either. Right, Right.
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  And, you know, it was just a fun time.
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  You know, look at, you know, I, I remember getting excited, you
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  know, we had track meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays and going
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  to school and getting excited and, you know, and spring comes
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  and the mockingbirds start singing and, you know, it's
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  track season and, and you have that first meet and, you know,
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  the smell in the air and it was nothing like.
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  It I'd say is there anything better exactly exactly any
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  before we start moving on to college, any fun or funny
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  stories you can remember, whether it's with you or you and
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  coach or any like like I always talk about your experience of
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  starting hurdles is way better than mine.
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  My coach did the same thing, put hurdles out and said go.
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  And yeah, I did not complete those 4 hurdles that he put.
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  I got a little Rd. rash. So any fun or funny stories you
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  can think of in high school? No, other than the fact that one
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  of my teammates hid my shoes at the conference track meet, my
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  spikes as a joke, and then gave them to me right before the the
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  finals in the conference track meet.
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  And Joe too far. Yeah, way too far in it.
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  And we still, I've, I've told him about that.
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  It's been over 40 years and I I hadn't forgot it.
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  Wait. OK, Jim, so you said, you know,
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  you may not have been a hot head, but you know, you let a
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  guy know. If it was you, you had to let
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  that guy know. Oh, absolutely.
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  OK. Now listen, that is not that's,
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  that's not that was not funny at all.
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  I ended up, I didn't win in the race, but but yeah, but.
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  You're stress induced of just finding your shoes.
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  Yeah, there's lines of jokes where it's too far and that that
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  guy went. You know, you know, I have not
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  because of that, but you know, you have the all, you know,
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  human beings, you know, have similar type of dreams.
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  You know, where you're, you just, you're moving in slow
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  motion and you can't move. And you know, one of mine was, I
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  was always dreaming at the starting line and I would tie my
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  shoes. They come united, I'd tie and I
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  just could not get my shoes tied.
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  I I must it probably stems from that.
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  That's awesome. That's a nightmare.
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  What a what? A small nightmare.
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  You know, shoe tie. But I want a nightmare.
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  Yeah, when you're at the starting line.
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  Yeah, I love it. All right, senior year, you're
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  having a good time, you're with coach, things are going really
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  well. You've, you've already worn out
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  your omnibook. I'm sure by your senior year you
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  mentioned you got recruited. Talk to us about the college
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  choice and what I'm really interested as you're as you
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  branched high school to college for us here is what were you
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  thinking about majoring in and what were you thinking about
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  becoming like what you know you're going to become a doctor,
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  a lawyer, You know, what were you thinking at that point as an
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  18 year? Well, yeah, that was the plan
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  all along. I wanted to be a sports
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  scientist, you know, from. Yeah, from reading the Omnibook
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  and. But but not a coach.
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  Well, yeah, I I had that in the back of my mind and I always
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  enjoyed it. I thought I might do it someday,
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  but it was not part of the plan, Right?
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  Right. You know, I'm, I'm not going to
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  say that I never thought about it because I did.
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  But that wasn't like the like, oh, I'm going to become a sports
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  scientist because I'm going to become the best, smartest coach
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  in the world. It was like, oh, I'm going to do
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  sports and sports science and coaching is obviously part of
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  that in some form or fashion. Maybe, And that was probably
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  after my freshman year. See, my first year I went to a
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  smaller school, Harding University, primarily.
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  They recruited me for track and football, but I didn't play
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  football forms because of what we talked about earlier.
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  But I ended up transferring because they did not have a
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  exercise science degree and I transferred to Arkansas State.
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  Oh, I didn't know you were an alum as well.
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  Oh dude. I've got got my masters here
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  too. I have such a big place in my
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  heart for alums who coach at their alma mater.
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  I just think about, you know, I coached for 10 years and I was
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  at 5 different places, a couple at at my alma mater.
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  But I just think about like when you call a recruit and talk to
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  them about how great your school is, like you have such the most
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  authentic card to play. It's like, you know how great I,
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  I went to school here. You know, if you're, if you're
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  working for another institution, which that's great.
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  And that's the majority of us, obviously, you know, there's a
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  lot of good things about your school, But but you didn't
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  choose to go to school there. You chose somewhere else.
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  You. Yeah, chose our constant state.
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  I love that. That's so cool.
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  So hold on. Wait a minute now.
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  So you went to Harding and you transferred because they didn't
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  have exercise science. So why did you go to Harding in
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  the first place? Because they offered me more
• 16:28
  money than Arkansas State did. Now Coach Kochel, Guy Kochel was
• 16:32
  the coach then at Harding. No, at Arkansas State got it.
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  And he recruited me and, you know, some other in state
• 16:41
  schools. I think I got some letters from
• 16:43
  Oklahoma State, and actually Arkansas recruited me.
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  You know, I got a letter, but I believe they did.
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  But, you know, they weren't offering any much scholarship
• 16:57
  money. And so, you know, I went where I
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  got the the biggest offer. Yeah, yeah.
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  Yeah. OK And it was also, you know,
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  just 30 minutes from my house. And you know, Ted Lloyd was the
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  coach then and he was excellent coach and, you know, but they
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  just didn't have the academic program I wanted.
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  Right, right, right, right. So.
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  And so I transferred to Arkansas State, you know, after that, and
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  spent the next four years here, redshirted one year.
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  And so I was on the team for four years at Arkansas State.
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  Yeah, well, how was your experience as a college
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  undergrad, as a college athlete? Oh, it, you know, one of the
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  best times of my life. Just like most people, you know,
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  you, you, you get 3 meals a day, you got a place to sleep.
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  You don't have to have a job and, and you get to do what you
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  love and you're training with your buddies.
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  And you know, there were some things that went on outside the
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  competition that that that was exciting as well, but probably
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  not what we should have been doing.
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  That don't get recorded on podcast, Yeah.
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  But Oh yeah, great experience. And you know, still to this day
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  that, you know, my best friends or, or the guys that were on the
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  team with me here, you know, it's not my high school
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  teammates. I still keep up with some of
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  them, but I keep up with almost all of my college teammates
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  because it's just different. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Did you say a hurdler all the way through?
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  Yeah, I was a hurdler and hurdler, sprinter all the way
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  through. I knew you were cool.
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  So hurdles are my favorite. I just love hurdles and
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  hurdlers. And so I always knew there's
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  something that drew me to you, Jim, and now I know what it is.
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  It's that, brethren of hurdlers. Man Oh yeah, my opinion.
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  Hurdlers are the best athletes. Easily opinion.
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  That's a fact. That's a doctor.
• 18:48
  That's a fact. That's exactly right.
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  It's it's, it's public, been researched and published, and
• 18:52
  that's the way it is. Don't ask for the papers, but it
• 18:55
  has. That's right.
• 18:56
  So talk to us about your undergrad and where coaching is
• 19:01
  fitting because you, because you're, you're going into
• 19:02
  exercise science, you're thinking about being, you want
• 19:05
  to be a sports scientist, which you know, that's one of those.
• 19:07
  When you say that as a, as a, as a student until you get into
• 19:12
  maybe masters and, and doctorate, that that gamut is
• 19:15
  still huge. When you say I want to become a
• 19:17
  sports scientist, there's a billion different jobs you can
• 19:19
  do inside of that term of sports science.
• 19:21
  So did you talk to me about the transformation as you continue
• 19:27
  the evolution maybe is the right term there of your sports
• 19:30
  science as it relates to, you know, you're being an athlete
• 19:33
  the same time we're coaching continue going through that
• 19:35
  undergrad as far as your thought process with that?
• 19:38
  Yeah, You know, when I was an undergrad, the thought of being
• 19:43
  a college coach was probably not there.
• 19:47
  I thought maybe high school, but then, but then I was thinking
• 19:52
  then I'll have to teach classes, maybe that I don't want to
• 19:55
  teach. I don't know.
• 19:56
  I don't want to teach health. And you know, I this is this is
• 19:59
  the stuff I'm interested in. So I had a a great mentor and
• 20:01
  advisor in the exercise science department, Tom Evans, who.
• 20:07
  Was another guy that was really passionate about the field and
• 20:11
  just kind of opened some doors for me and showed me, you know,
• 20:13
  what the possibilities could be. You also, he also told me, hey,
• 20:18
  to do what you want to do, you're going to have to at least
• 20:20
  get a master's and probably a PhD.
• 20:24
  And so I thought, hey, this, I enjoy doing this and, and this,
• 20:30
  you know, I, I, I would love to be the guy that comes up with
• 20:33
  new training methods, you know, do do some research and publish
• 20:39
  it. And, and you know, I, I, I
• 20:42
  always enjoyed that. And so that's that's the path I
• 20:46
  took. So even as an undergrad, because
• 20:48
  I was going to ask your advisor really helped me there.
• 20:51
  I was going to ask, did you have a thought that you were going to
• 20:54
  go to PhD world even as an undergrad?
• 20:56
  So you you had an advisor that was like, yeah, you for sure you
• 20:58
  got to do masters and more than likely so you so that didn't
• 21:02
  scare you off. You weren't.
• 21:03
  Like, Oh, no, no, no, no. Yeah, he, he kind of, he put me
• 21:06
  on the right track a little bit. And of course, you know, when
• 21:11
  you're 1920 years old, you still, you're searching for
• 21:15
  things. But I had, I've always been
• 21:18
  pretty single minded in my pursuit.
• 21:20
  If I set the goal, you know, I'm, I'm almost all in on it.
• 21:26
  And so that's what I wanted to do.
• 21:28
  And so I, I had to that, you know, single mindedness and just
• 21:33
  went after it. Undergrad at Arkansas State, You
• 21:36
  said masters at Arkansas State. Did you compete during that
• 21:39
  Masters because you said you redshirted?
• 21:40
  Yeah, one year and, and and then was a grad assistant and did a
• 21:47
  little coaching. All right.
• 21:49
  By that time, Coach Concho had retired and Jay Flanagan took
• 21:53
  over. And so, so I I stayed to finish
• 21:58
  my masters and, you know, helped out a little bit with the team.
• 22:02
  You know, I didn't do a whole lot of coaching, but I did what
• 22:06
  GAS do you know, stuff that the coaches don't want to do?
• 22:11
  Not much recruiting, but, you know, just, you know, carrying
• 22:15
  kids to official visits and things like that.
• 22:19
  Jay's the name I remember when I was at Troy, Jay was obviously
• 22:22
  that's that's because when you said coach Kochel, I was like, I
• 22:24
  don't remember, but he was pre J, which wouldn't pre pre me
• 22:27
  even being coaching at that point.
• 22:29
  So when you're GAN when so you're coaching, trying to think
• 22:35
  how to ask this. I I don't mean this in any like
• 22:39
  judgement of like your passion for coaching, because obviously
• 22:42
  I mean you're you're still coaching today.
• 22:43
  So their passion is there and was there, but nothing during
• 22:48
  that coaching. Like the bug didn't bite you of
• 22:50
  like, oh, wait a minute, I'm not going to PhD.
• 22:52
  I'm going into full time coaching You you still you
• 22:55
  mentioned about when you're single path minded you you go
• 22:58
  that path. So you're still that mind, still
• 23:00
  is like, yeah, this might be fun and cool and all, but pH DS next
• 23:03
  and that's where I'm going. Yeah, yeah, I was.
• 23:06
  I was pretty much set on that. Yeah.
• 23:08
  So, no, no distractions. I mean, because at that point
• 23:11
  coaching would have been a distraction as far as with the
• 23:14
  goal of a pH D in mind. Well, yeah, you couldn't do both
• 23:16
  to pursue that. Wow, that's.
• 23:18
  Amazing and so linear. After you get your grad, you go
• 23:23
  into PhD program. Well, I I took a year off and
• 23:27
  and did a little bit of corporate fitness stuff which
• 23:30
  was glorified babysitting. Yeah.
• 23:32
  So you, I don't think you would have liked that.
• 23:34
  No, no, no, I yeah, yeah. But you know, I'm.
• 23:37
  I'm going to make a little money, you know, and, you know,
• 23:41
  with the young people, it happens to everybody.
• 23:43
  You graduate. And even though I had a goal,
• 23:46
  it's still a little bit scary, you know it, You know, how am I
• 23:51
  going to get this done? And so, and I was a little bit
• 23:54
  tired of school at that point. And so I, I took a year, yeah,
• 23:59
  before I went to my PhD. Is still during that corporate
• 24:03
  corporate fitness year in Arkansas.
• 24:05
  Yeah, it was. Yeah.
• 24:06
  Worked in Little Rock. Yeah, very cool.
• 24:10
  OK, so how do you I you know, I would have never even done grad
• 24:17
  work. I did not do grad work.
• 24:18
  I I when you said you were a little bit tired after grad
• 24:20
  school, I was a lot of bit tired after undergrad.
• 24:22
  So I was like, so PhD was never in my vocabulary.
• 24:26
  I can't even spell PhD. How do you like for, for those
• 24:31
  there, there's going to be people that listen that might be
• 24:33
  interested in getting a PHD1 day or something.
• 24:35
  So how do you like, like I, I, I have it in my head because I did
• 24:39
  it right. How do I find a college for
• 24:40
  undergrad and even maybe for grad work like that?
• 24:42
  That makes sense to me. Like the things I would look for
• 24:45
  and how I would apply. And you know that I got to do an
• 24:48
  application and maybe I got to do an essay, things like that.
• 24:51
  Is the process the same to find a doctorate program?
• 24:55
  Pretty much, yeah. And you know, I'm, I'm from
• 24:58
  Arkansas, so I got my PhD at the University of Arkansas.
• 25:01
  Oh, nice. You know, both my parents went
• 25:05
  there for a year, my dad played football there for a year.
• 25:09
  And that was the closest PhD program in exercise science or
• 25:14
  kinesiology. And, you know, and they had a
• 25:18
  very good program. So you know, did all the
• 25:21
  prerequisites and took the the GRE and and all the tests to get
• 25:27
  in and. How long is a PhD program?
• 25:33
  It took me 4 years. OK, so it's on average it's,
• 25:37
  it's about four years. But you know, some is a little
• 25:42
  longer, some might be a little shorter, but you know, it's
• 25:46
  usually three years of coursework and teaching.
• 25:51
  You teach it along with it, and then at least a year of your
• 25:56
  dissertation. So that's why I thought it was
• 26:01
  longer, You know, in my head, you know, four years undergrad,
• 26:03
  which, you know, maybe that's five years today, you know, two
• 26:06
  years ish, call it for a grad work and PhD always had my head
• 26:09
  was a kind of a four year. Again, like you said, there's,
• 26:12
  you know, different programs, different things.
• 26:13
  You may be maybe shorter or longer, but kind of four years.
• 26:16
  I was thinking there. So you teach during that first
• 26:19
  three years you're taking, are you taking classes just like
• 26:23
  your grad work in undergrad, Like you?
• 26:25
  You go to a class and there's thirty other dudes and dudettes
• 26:28
  that are working on their pH DS. Yeah, no, it's a little bit
• 26:32
  different. You have a very small cohort.
• 26:34
  You know, we probably had 12 to 15 maybe that also taught in the
• 26:43
  PE exercise science department. You know, we taught, you know,
• 26:47
  anything from golf to motor learning.
• 26:51
  And I didn't teach anything graduate level like bio
• 26:57
  mechanics or Physiology when I was getting my PhD.
• 27:00
  But you know, I was always around it.
• 27:04
  And when you go to that last year, your dissertation, So I've
• 27:08
  heard that, you know, on social media, I see people, you know,
• 27:10
  I, I defended my dissertation and all those kind of things.
• 27:14
  What is that? You know, I'm just a big dummy,
• 27:16
  Jim. I'm from Alabama here.
• 27:17
  What, what is like, what does that mean?
• 27:19
  Like is that just a, a big science project?
• 27:22
  And what does it mean to defend it?
• 27:24
  And how do you get the stamp of approval?
• 27:26
  You're good to get your doctorate now.
• 27:28
  Yeah, well, it's basically a book.
• 27:30
  Oh, yeah, it's a, it's a big research paper.
• 27:34
  You know, if you read a research paper and you know, the Journal
• 27:39
  of Applied Physiology, for example, they're used about 3 to
• 27:42
  4 pages. It's a condensed version, but a
• 27:46
  dissertation is. Mine was 180 something pages.
• 27:51
  Wow. And so, yeah, it takes you about
• 27:53
  a year to to do that. What?
• 27:55
  What was your? You have a subject, right?
• 27:58
  Yeah, you get a subject. What was yours?
• 28:00
  I actually did a sports psychology subject.
• 28:02
  It was a team. Team cohesion The relationship
• 28:06
  between team cohesion and performance in Division One.
• 28:08
  Track and field. Women's track and field.
• 28:10
  Bro dude that's. Awesome.
• 28:12
  Instead of, you know, I, I, I, I narrowed it down to what I would
• 28:19
  thought could be published the best.
• 28:21
  So instead of doing men and women, I just chose women,
• 28:24
  right, right. And you know, did some of the,
• 28:29
  you know, best programs in in the Southeast S United States.
• 28:34
  We had about 12 to 15 schools that participated.
• 28:38
  Oh, wow, so so you you work with your advisor on coming up with
• 28:43
  that dissertation, right. So like maybe the first time you
• 28:45
  go there, you're like, yeah, I want to do sports psychology.
• 28:48
  Like OK, cool, Jim, OK, that's great.
• 28:50
  Narrow it down. I want to do about track and
• 28:52
  field. All right, cool.
• 28:53
  That still has to be more, you know, team.
• 28:55
  Oh yeah, OK, we're getting closer for women's track and
• 28:58
  field. OK, now I give my blessing and
• 29:00
  you can go study that right is. That.
• 29:02
  Oh, absolutely, yeah. You, you start broad with an
• 29:04
  idea and then your advisor and your committee help you narrow
• 29:08
  it down. It's got to be very specific.
• 29:09
  Right, right. And then they help you and I say
• 29:13
  help meeting maybe as a sounding board of like, OK, now we're
• 29:17
  going to do the studies. And so you went out to 12 to 15
• 29:20
  programs there in the southeast to probably a survey or
• 29:23
  something like that? Yeah, yeah, It was a, it was a
• 29:28
  questionnaire type thing and it had, you know, different
• 29:31
  sections on it. It was fairly easy to, to, to
• 29:35
  fill out, but it was, it was accurate.
• 29:36
  You know, you don't want to make it too hard for the participants
• 29:41
  to participate, so you got to and you know, I used the tool
• 29:45
  that had been used. I can't even think of what it's
• 29:49
  called now. But it was, you know, it it, it
• 29:52
  was an established survey tool. I modified it just a little bit
• 29:59
  to be specific to track. What year?
• 30:02
  What year is this? Well, we're probably skipping a
• 30:07
  lot of steps there because coaching comes in even before I
• 30:09
  finish that. Oh.
• 30:10
  OK, Yeah, yeah, yeah. First of all, give me the year
• 30:13
  of the of the year dissertation because I'm just trying to get a
• 30:15
  time frame here. Well I've I've finished all the
• 30:18
  undergrad work and and everything on my dissertation
• 30:23
  but running the data in in 98. OK, 98.
• 30:29
  OK, got it. Oh, so I'm at I'm at Troy
• 30:31
  University. When you're doing this then?
• 30:32
  Yeah, that's what I'm trying to, you know, I always kind of put
• 30:34
  where where my life was. OK.
• 30:36
  All right. I got and then, but I didn't
• 30:38
  finish it until nine years later.
• 30:41
  So I didn't defend until 2007. Wait a minute, Mr. Single.
• 30:45
  My what happened? Coaching is what happened.
• 30:47
  Coaching happened. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:50
  So I got to the University of Arkansas and I was still working
• 30:54
  out a little bit. You know, I was young and I, I
• 30:57
  was out at the track and the guys were just finishing up, you
• 31:03
  know, Arkansas's team. And I'd asked Coach McDonnell, I
• 31:08
  said, hey, do you mind if I after y'all are done, if I just
• 31:10
  come out here and, you know, do a little work?
• 31:12
  And he said, oh, that's fine. We started talking and he
• 31:15
  remembered who I was. They they recruited me a little
• 31:17
  bit, but. John was sharp, so I.
• 31:20
  Absolutely. He would remember you, yeah.
• 31:22
  And then, you know, we started talking, said, oh, you went to
• 31:28
  Arkansas? Yeah, you went to.
• 31:29
  And then I said, hey, you know, just casually really didn't mean
• 31:35
  it. Hey, you know, if you guys need
• 31:38
  any help, just let me know. So the next day Booth calls me
• 31:43
  and he said, hey, I got, I need some help.
• 31:48
  Can you come out? And, and I have, I've got a
• 31:51
  group of pole vaulters and the Catholics that I just don't have
• 31:56
  time to work with. And I said, well, coach I, I was
• 32:01
  a hurdler, not a co-author. And he goes, but you went to
• 32:04
  Arkansas State. So you you have to know
• 32:06
  something about it. Right.
• 32:08
  Yeah. I said, well, yeah, I do, you
• 32:10
  know, and. You had to learn by osmosis.
• 32:13
  Come. On And so I said, well coach, I
• 32:18
  can come out. You know, I taught class until
• 32:20
  about 3:00. I said I can come out on I don't
• 32:23
  know what days it was, maybe Monday, Wednesdays or Tuesday,
• 32:26
  Thursdays or something like that, and I can work with him
• 32:28
  for an hour, hour and a half. And that started in about 1995.
• 32:34
  And then the next year it was maybe 3 or 4 days a week and
• 32:43
  they started paying me a little bit.
• 32:44
  And then the next year was every day and all of a sudden that
• 32:49
  group got good. I had an SEC champion and in the
• 32:52
  vault and you know, you know, guys that scored into decathlon.
• 32:58
  And so that's that's how I got pulled back into coaching.
• 33:03
  Did you know? I assume, and you know, we all
• 33:07
  know what? Assuming he does that you knew
• 33:09
  who John McDonnell was. Living legend, right?
• 33:13
  But did you know who Dick Booth was?
• 33:17
  And you know what I mean when I say that you know, Dick Booth?
• 33:19
  Come on. One of the top coaches in our
• 33:21
  field all time. When Dick called you, I mean, I
• 33:25
  guess you would have known he was on staff anyway.
• 33:27
  I guess. Yeah.
• 33:27
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:28
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:28
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 33:30
  Yeah. That's funny.
• 33:32
  And you had no trepidation, like, because when you said, you
• 33:36
  know, vault and multis and I was like, wait a minute, Jim, I
• 33:38
  hadn't heard that from you anywhere.
• 33:40
  It was hurdles and sprints. But you had no trepidation of
• 33:43
  like, OK, well, you know, I, I, I know mechanics.
• 33:47
  Exactly. And, and just use, you know
• 33:50
  what, what I learned in my PhD program and applied it to that
• 33:53
  and no. No concern of like, dude, this
• 33:58
  is Arkansas. This ain't Little Rock High
• 34:01
  School. Like, you know there's a a
• 34:04
  standard, right? And well, yeah, I mean, I, I was
• 34:07
  also 25 years old. And when you're 25, you think
• 34:10
  you can do anything. And so I, I just, I, I didn't
• 34:13
  think about, you know, there was no, obviously there was the kids
• 34:18
  I was coaching was not the core group of that team.
• 34:23
  And you know, it was, but you know, when we started getting
• 34:29
  good, there was a little bit of pressure that went with it, but
• 34:32
  it was good pressure. You know, right, right, right.
• 34:34
  Did you Did you get the opportunity to learn from a guy
• 34:37
  like Dick as well? Oh, absolutely.
• 34:39
  You know, I I would make it a point at least three or four
• 34:43
  because my office was not maybe 100 meters away from the track
• 34:48
  office. Oh, OK.
• 34:48
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 34:49
  And so I would make it a point at least two or three times a
• 34:52
  week to go sit down in that office and just ask questions or
• 34:56
  just listen to them talk. How was that?
• 34:58
  I can't, you know, there's a certain people.
• 35:00
  I always tell people that, you know, there's many, many, many
• 35:03
  great coaches on all levels. D1D2D3 high school.
• 35:07
  I mean, like really good coaches, but there's about, you
• 35:11
  know, 5 coaches that just transcend, you know, Boo Scheck
• 35:15
  Snater, Dan Path. Dick Booth is one of those five
• 35:19
  to me in in my realm of, you know, Sprint jumps and hurdles
• 35:21
  that I'm like, oh, you know, if Dick tells me that the best way
• 35:25
  to make a triple jumper is to have them eat lead, I'd be like,
• 35:28
  oh, I like boys, we got to eat lead.
• 35:29
  That's what Dick says, you know, I mean, what an experience to be
• 35:33
  able to have one of the, I mean, again, just legendary jumps
• 35:38
  multi, you know, that kind of field event coach as you just
• 35:41
  get to soak it all up. Oh, absolutely.
• 35:44
  And, and, you know, fortunately I was smart enough to know that,
• 35:50
  hey, I need to pay attention. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:53
  And yeah, learned how to run a track and field program from
• 35:57
  those guys. Yeah.
• 35:58
  Oh, yeah. And by the way, John is still
• 35:59
  there, right? He's still the head coach.
• 36:01
  You're learning. Yeah, You know, big coaching
• 36:04
  education fan and I, I've come to the kind of summation that,
• 36:08
  you know, coaching education is, is formal and informal does not
• 36:12
  make one more important than the other.
• 36:14
  Formal being, you know, our our USATF level ones and twos,
• 36:17
  UFTFCAS now Altis and and those guys right and then informal.
• 36:22
  So Omnibook would kind of be in that form of you what's a book,
• 36:25
  right? Informal would be sitting down
• 36:28
  and talking with Dick Booth, you know, calling mentors and you
• 36:31
  know, experts in our field and and asking questions.
• 36:33
  Man, you got one of the best informal coaching education
• 36:37
  backgrounds from the get go. Oh yeah, it couldn't have been
• 36:41
  any better. Man, Yeah, but, but but what?
• 36:45
  So how do you justify to yourself?
• 36:49
  You're, you know, you you you admitted to us yourself, you
• 36:52
  know, focus. When I get something, I go.
• 36:54
  You put off that. I mean, you did all the work,
• 36:58
  assuming you tell again, I don't know anything about PhDs.
• 37:00
  It sounded like you did all the work for the PhD and then you
• 37:03
  pause that for for nine years. How do you how do you how did
• 37:07
  you justify of like, man, why don't I just like Dick?
• 37:09
  This has been a lot of fun these last couple years.
• 37:11
  But man, I got to I got to run the last lap over here.
• 37:14
  I got to get this this defense done.
• 37:16
  Well, that's kind of what I did in, in the fall of, oh, I think
• 37:21
  it was late 90s somewhere, 9899 somewhere there.
• 37:28
  I, I went, I told him, I said, I've got to finish this
• 37:30
  dissertation. I, I, I appreciate, you know, I,
• 37:33
  I can't come out anymore. And then that late November, I
• 37:40
  was wrapping it up all but I had the 1st 4 chapters done.
• 37:46
  And of course, you know, back in those times when I when I was
• 37:49
  there coaching with those guys, we won seven national
• 37:51
  championships. Yeah.
• 37:52
  It was an unbelievable time, yeah.
• 37:54
  Yeah. And obviously if anybody was
• 37:58
  looking for a coach, they'd call John, say hey.
• 38:02
  And. And so John got a call from Ron
• 38:06
  Basil, who was at Tulane University, and he was getting
• 38:10
  ready to retire in about two to three years.
• 38:14
  And he had come from Army down there and took that program and
• 38:18
  really built it up. And he said, and he called John.
• 38:20
  He said, hey, listen. Well, actually, no, he called
• 38:24
  Lance harder and then he called John and said, I'm looking for a
• 38:30
  guy that can come down to be my assistant for a couple of years
• 38:33
  and maybe take over the program. That somebody that that is that
• 38:36
  caliber that can do that. I don't I don't want to have to
• 38:39
  teach somebody. I don't, you know, I want
• 38:41
  somebody who's a little bit younger and has, you know, some
• 38:45
  fire and, and can come in and recruit and, and help me with
• 38:49
  this program and they might have a shot to take over when I
• 38:52
  retire. And so he gave me my number and
• 38:54
  he called me and that's what that's when the pause happened.
• 38:59
  And so I took a job at 2 lanes, first full time coaching job
• 39:05
  didn't make much money, but I from coaching at Arkside, I got
• 39:09
  the bug again. So I don't know if I was, I'd
• 39:14
  still planned on, you know, finishing it, but but I took a
• 39:20
  little detour there. Is that I'm going to say, is it
• 39:23
  common, but maybe the right term is, is that not unheard of to,
• 39:28
  to do these kind of pauses as you're doing your PhD?
• 39:32
  Do you know, most people go undergrad and you know, they do
• 39:34
  all four or five years. And certainly we know people
• 39:36
  who've I looked, I got out of college undergrad and came back.
• 39:40
  But that's the rarity. And PhD is that more common?
• 39:45
  Because you know, we're talking about adults now, we're talking
• 39:46
  about 25 to maybe 30 year old people that.
• 39:49
  Yeah, yeah, it's actually pretty common.
• 39:51
  Yeah, to once you finish all your coursework and you have
• 39:55
  your proposal of your dissertation done, you can then
• 40:01
  technically graduates called Abd all but dissertation.
• 40:05
  Is that a real term or is that like a fun term?
• 40:07
  No, no, that's a real. Term that's a real term that's.
• 40:09
  Cool. Yeah.
• 40:10
  And so, you know, now you can't be a full professor with that,
• 40:14
  but you can you can get a job and do all the stuff that you
• 40:17
  want to do while you're finishing that dissertation.
• 40:20
  Got it. OK.
• 40:21
  And And so Abd yeah, I've never heard that.
• 40:25
  Yeah. It it that that's.
• 40:27
  I'm going to start. I'm going to start telling
• 40:28
  people I'm Abd. It's like I'm a dissertation.
• 40:31
  Yeah. But yeah, that was.
• 40:35
  That's common. That's not like what you were
• 40:37
  doing Wasn't like like your visor wasn't like yo dude, no
• 40:40
  one does this. No, yeah, they were like they it
• 40:44
  was fairly common. Now, it's not common to wait as
• 40:46
  long as I did to finish that last little piece of it.
• 40:50
  But yeah, usually people do that and and you know, get a job at a
• 40:57
  university and then within a year they finish up and defend
• 41:00
  and then they're on the tenure track and can be assistant
• 41:03
  professor and then full professor.
• 41:05
  Got it. OK, so you go to Tulane and
• 41:06
  don't let me miss where you defend because I want to, I, I
• 41:09
  want to know what that actually means when I see that on social
• 41:12
  media and stuff like that, Right.
• 41:13
  But you go to Tulane now, this is the first time you're I'm
• 41:16
  called away from home. And since of like, you're out of
• 41:18
  your home state that I'm here in.
• 41:20
  Oh, yeah, Yeah. How how was that?
• 41:21
  I mean, you boy. And you go to Tulane, for crying
• 41:23
  out loud. Well, there's a little culture
• 41:25
  difference. Yeah, I left the University of
• 41:30
  Arkansas in December and packed up my stuff in EU Haul and drove
• 41:37
  straight through to New Orleans and it was 28 to 30° when I
• 41:43
  left. Had all my summer clothes were
• 41:47
  packed and I pulled into New Orleans and it's 85 or it's 80
• 41:51
  and humid and so I'm moving into my my apartment and I don't and
• 41:56
  I've got winter clothes and so I oh that I still remember that
• 42:00
  that was a that was a hot day. Look at this smart guy.
• 42:06
  But yeah, it was a definitely a little bit of a culture shock,
• 42:09
  but I was still young enough and I wasn't married at the time.
• 42:12
  So I was young enough to enjoy it.
• 42:14
  And and so, you know, that was a got pulled back into full time
• 42:24
  or back into the sport and my first full time coaching gig
• 42:28
  right there, Tulane. And I'm struck by, you know, at
• 42:32
  Arkansas, you have a Coach McDonald and a Coach Booth, and
• 42:36
  now you have Coach Basil. I mean, another guy that, you
• 42:40
  know, I must say maybe doesn't get his due in the sense of
• 42:42
  like, here we are in 2025, but you know, when he was coaching,
• 42:46
  people very much knew who Ron Basil was and what.
• 42:48
  He's done and. Things like that I'm struck by.
• 42:50
  Here's another really great mentor coach for you.
• 42:54
  Yeah, yeah, this is I was very lucky in the the guys who helped
• 42:58
  me along the way. And you know, Ron was legendary
• 43:02
  coach at Army for a number of years before that.
• 43:04
  He was at Adelphi University in Philadelphia and his four by
• 43:09
  four team back in the 70s had the world record.
• 43:12
  But no way is that. Right, Yeah, they did.
• 43:14
  Yeah, I'm now I'm almost sure that was maybe it was the indoor
• 43:20
  war record It it was something. But yeah, I think it was three O
• 43:23
  3 or something like that. At a Delphi.
• 43:27
  At a Delphi in Philadelphia. That's before you went to Army.
• 43:29
  Dude. Holy.
• 43:31
  So what did, what is a guy like Ron?
• 43:33
  And, and this is, this was kind of sold as a very much a like,
• 43:37
  hey, come here and in two, 3-4 years, I'm going to be leaving.
• 43:42
  I'm I'm trying to grow my successor, if you will.
• 43:44
  So there's a very intentionality to that.
• 43:47
  So how was that? What did Ron pour into you that
• 43:51
  you probably used today as a long time head coach?
• 43:53
  Oh, yeah. He was, you know, obviously a
• 43:55
  different guy, but very along the same lines of philosophy as
• 43:59
  as John and and Dick Booth. And you know, he was, he was
• 44:04
  from Queens, NY, so a little bit different personality and a
• 44:10
  little bit different approach, but you know, the fundamentals
• 44:13
  and the basics were were pretty close.
• 44:15
  Yeah, yeah. When when he says, hey, you
• 44:21
  know, when Ron calls up John and says, hey, I'm looking for
• 44:23
  someone, you know, that might be my predecessor or my successor
• 44:27
  when I leave, that doesn't sound like XS and OS, like, hey, I
• 44:31
  want a guy coming here that I can teach how to coach this,
• 44:33
  this, this, this. That sounds more the overarching
• 44:35
  kind of what we talked about earlier about maybe the XS and
• 44:39
  OS are the easy part that seems more programmatic is that is
• 44:42
  that was that the case? Probably, yeah, he he wanted
• 44:49
  somebody who obviously that that he could guide a little bit that
• 44:57
  was open to that and somebody who, you know, had a little bit
• 45:01
  of toughness and, you know, he was an old school guy.
• 45:03
  Of course, you know, John and Booth were as well.
• 45:08
  And you know, I always had that kind of attitude.
• 45:12
  You know, there were some coaches that that couldn't work
• 45:15
  for Ron because he was pretty tough.
• 45:17
  But I didn't have a problem with it.
• 45:18
  I loved it. So what did you first of all,
• 45:22
  how long were you there with Ron?
• 45:26
  2 1/2, I think it's 2 1/2. Three years and then he retired.
• 45:29
  What were some of the top things you learned?
• 45:31
  Like what did Ron teach you that maybe you again you maybe used
• 45:34
  today still? Well, very similar to to how
• 45:39
  John ran his program in Arkansas, but he had a little
• 45:43
  bit different style of recruiting.
• 45:48
  He was on the road a lot more than probably John was at that
• 45:51
  point because because John didn't have to be.
• 45:54
  Right. He has and, you know, took me
• 45:58
  with him and kind of showed me how, how you go into the
• 46:01
  family's living room. Back then, you know, home visits
• 46:04
  were way more important than they are now.
• 46:06
  Oh, is that right? Oh yeah, yeah.
• 46:10
  You know, with the the advent of social media and all that and
• 46:14
  just the change in the culture, we still do some home visit, but
• 46:18
  it's not the same as it was 25 years ago.
• 46:20
  Is that right? Yeah.
• 46:21
  So, you know, and Jim, you know what I've been out for, you
• 46:24
  know, almost 20 years now. And so I, you know, I, I, I
• 46:27
  still know and love recruiting, that aspect of recruiting, but
• 46:31
  I'm not in the blocking tackling like, you know, I was in the day
• 46:33
  where we couldn't text kids and now you guys can text them all
• 46:36
  the time. I'm, I'm old school in that
• 46:37
  sense. So because of the culture, like
• 46:40
  with social media stuff, home visits, because that, that was
• 46:42
  the thing like you home visited the kids you really wanted and
• 46:45
  that was a big deal. Like I'm coming to your place.
• 46:48
  Like that was a, that was an event like and now it not as
• 46:51
  important. No.
• 46:52
  Well, I think in some situations it can be and we don't do a ton
• 47:00
  of them. Interesting.
• 47:01
  Yeah. You know, one or two a year
• 47:03
  maybe. That's it, yeah.
• 47:04
  Oh wow. And it's just we've, we've found
• 47:07
  over the past, I don't know, 15 years or so kind of it's just
• 47:13
  not. Yeah, yeah.
• 47:15
  You know, years ago, people would, They wanted you to come
• 47:18
  to their house. Yeah, Yeah.
• 47:19
  And now it's just not as important.
• 47:21
  Yeah, I, I wonder maybe some things that are playing it and
• 47:24
  you're talking about culture. So these are kind of the aspects
• 47:26
  of that. You know, we used to only be
• 47:27
  able to talk to them once a week and now because of text and
• 47:30
  social media, it's almost like you're always talking with a
• 47:33
  recruit. Yeah, yeah.
• 47:34
  And so you and that one, yeah. Go ahead.
• 47:36
  I'm sorry. Yeah, all, all the stuff that
• 47:38
  you would cover in a home visit, Yeah, is you cover tons more
• 47:43
  than that even before they get on.
• 47:44
  Camera right? And I even wonder if COVID had
• 47:47
  something to do with that a little bit as far as like, you
• 47:49
  know, we don't people don't come into our house.
• 47:51
  So, you know, you don't go other place where we were quarantined
• 47:53
  and all that. I wonder if there's some a
• 47:54
  little bit of like that. Well, we just don't people just
• 47:56
  don't come visit. I don't want people to come
• 47:57
  visit. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, you know
• 48:02
  that obviously you can't generalize with that, but it's
• 48:05
  right. It's just not as as common as it
• 48:08
  used to. Be.
• 48:08
  Yeah, that's interesting. OK, thanks for letting me skip
• 48:12
  ahead there. So Ron's kind of blocking and
• 48:15
  tackling. He's showing you like, hey, when
• 48:16
  I go into a house, here's the things that I'm trying to convey
• 48:19
  and maybe things I'm trying to learn.
• 48:20
  You're, you're, you're, you're packing all that in.
• 48:22
  You're learning all that. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 48:24
  You know his his big lesson was if if you get the mom, you got
• 48:28
  the kid. That's a very old school thing
• 48:31
  to say I love. It and and he knew how to do it
• 48:34
  and and and I would, you know, sit there and listen and and
• 48:41
  great experience. Learned a lot from that guy.
• 48:43
  That's cool, I love that. So he retires.
• 48:47
  Yeah, and things didn't go as planned because, OK.
• 48:51
  That's what I was wondering. Yeah, when he retired, the AD
• 48:57
  that was there moved on, new AD came in and, you know, brought
• 49:03
  his own people. And so I hired somebody he felt
• 49:08
  would do a better job than me, which which happens.
• 49:11
  And, and so, you know, after that, you know, I stayed there
• 49:18
  for a year as an assistant just to kind of help the new coach
• 49:21
  and, and you know. What pause right there because
• 49:25
  that's interesting topic to get into.
• 49:27
  First of all, I know exactly what you're talking about in
• 49:29
  regards to like when I first met James Henry, long time coach at
• 49:32
  University of Michigan, the first question I asked him
• 49:36
  because I knew he'd been there 30 years and I was like, James,
• 49:38
  how many ADS have you gone through?
• 49:40
  And he's like, Oh yeah, I think I'm on like my 9th or 10th.
• 49:42
  And I was like, that alone says a lot about you because every AD
• 49:46
  comes in, especially at a University of Michigan, but even
• 49:48
  at a Tulane and everywhere else, thinking they have their people.
• 49:51
  Like I, I got my track coach, I got my basketball coach,
• 49:54
  etcetera. So when you talk about the new
• 49:57
  AD and it's like, Oh yeah, not many.
• 49:58
  I don't want to say not many coaches survive that, but
• 50:01
  there's a DS that come in and they have their own thought
• 50:05
  process and people, but they. Yeah.
• 50:07
  And you know, that's, that's just the way it is.
• 50:10
  Yeah, that shouldn't be the way it is, though.
• 50:12
  Yeah, I get it. I get it.
• 50:13
  So you said you stayed on as an assistant.
• 50:16
  Now that's an interesting topic. You know, we, we had this with
• 50:21
  some of the Florida State gang throughout the, you know, the
• 50:23
  years that we've done the podcast, it's kind of crazy
• 50:25
  where we've talked about, you know, coaches who assistant
• 50:29
  coaches who apply for the head job when it's open and one of
• 50:31
  them doesn't get it. And, you know, it seems like,
• 50:34
  you know, I think if you took a poll, 99 people out of 100 would
• 50:37
  say, Oh yeah. Well, you don't keep that person
• 50:39
  who also wanted the job. You know, there's, it's just
• 50:41
  like a, it's just like a thing like we, we don't even question
• 50:45
  it. How was was there any?
• 50:48
  I'll say awkwardness because I assume you also went for that
• 50:51
  head job even. Though I did, yeah.
• 50:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:55
  Awkwardness, jealousy, egos involved there.
• 50:58
  Well, obviously I wasn't happy about it, but sure.
• 51:01
  But I knew I had a job to do and also I was dating my wife at the
• 51:07
  time. And that's probably a big reason
• 51:10
  why I stayed for another year because she wasn't quite, you
• 51:14
  know, we had hadn't quite made plans to get married yet.
• 51:19
  And I knew it was going in that direction.
• 51:22
  And I was 32 at the time and she was 31.
• 51:29
  And so we kind of knew what we wanted, but she was teaching and
• 51:32
  wanted to finish out the year. She was a teacher.
• 51:34
  And so I agreed to stay and. And but yeah, it was not going
• 51:40
  to be any longer than that. Yeah, because.
• 51:43
  Do you guys get along that year though, or I mean, because even
• 51:47
  you seem to like OK, I got a job to do, I'm going to do it.
• 51:51
  I'm here for my future wife. But he could he or she actually
• 51:55
  don't know who it is, and we don't.
• 51:56
  Necessarily. She she could have been the
• 51:58
  other way of like, oh, man, you know, I don't trust you, Jim.
• 52:03
  No, it it never got to that point.
• 52:05
  Good. It it a little bit towards the
• 52:07
  end, but because she knew I was leaving and and that was always
• 52:12
  the understanding. Oh.
• 52:13
  OK, OK, OK, OK. Yeah, yeah.
• 52:15
  So this was, there was nothing devious about it or anything,
• 52:19
  but you know, we both knew that this was a transition period.
• 52:23
  Got it. And I had a reason to stay and
• 52:26
  she had a reason to keep me. Right.
• 52:28
  Yeah. After that first year, neither
• 52:30
  one of us had a reason. Yeah.
• 52:31
  OK, That makes sense. That that makes sense.
• 52:33
  That makes a lot of sense. So what do you do and where are
• 52:37
  we? Are we getting close to getting
• 52:39
  back to defending the dissertation yet or what?
• 52:41
  No, no, no, we're still about five years away from the Holy
• 52:44
  Cow. Too.
• 52:46
  So what do you do? You you do your year, you got
• 52:48
  your future wife. Where do we go?
• 52:50
  Yeah. And then, you know, I, I
• 52:53
  started, you know, kind of exploring looking for jobs, and
• 52:58
  I got a phone call from Jim Sprecher.
• 53:00
  Do you know Jim? Dude, like my my brother, I love
• 53:03
  Jim. Yeah, and.
• 53:05
  He had gotten a job at Campbell University in North Carolina.
• 53:10
  Is that? Right, Yeah.
• 53:12
  And took the job this was in. Oh, what year was that?
• 53:15
  Yeah, 2000, 2002 maybe. 'Cause I I worked with Jim OO2
• 53:23
  and O3, we were at Ball State together.
• 53:25
  I was an assistant for Sue on the women's side.
• 53:27
  Jim was the head coach on the men's side.
• 53:29
  But maybe O3 'cause they dropped the men's program, yeah.
• 53:32
  That's I think that's when he. Forgets so O3.
• 53:35
  I thought he went to UNCW though.
• 53:37
  Well, that we're, we're getting to that.
• 53:39
  Of course I'm OK, OK. He coached Jim's about, I think
• 53:44
  he's about five years older than me, something something like
• 53:46
  that. We actually talked this weekend.
• 53:48
  He came and saw the conference meet.
• 53:50
  Dude, he's amazing. I love that dude.
• 53:51
  Oh, he is what one of the best step.
• 53:55
  And he he said, hey, listen, I just took this Campbell job and
• 54:06
  I haven't moved there yet, but another job has come open that I
• 54:09
  really want at UCW, so I'm not going to take it.
• 54:13
  I think you'd be good for it. I said I'll I'll pursue it.
• 54:18
  How did you? How did?
• 54:19
  You 2 know each other. He coached at Louisiana Tech.
• 54:23
  He was in our our conference when I was competing in Arkansas
• 54:29
  State. And so I I knew, you know,
• 54:32
  wasn't extremely close with him, but a assistant basketball
• 54:38
  coach, I forget his name, Tulane was really close with Jim and he
• 54:45
  knew I was there. And Jeff, who was the assistant
• 54:49
  basketball coach, knew that I was looking for a job.
• 54:52
  And so they so he I think he called Jeff first.
• 54:55
  He said, hey, you know, back then they called me Jimmy.
• 54:58
  He said that. And I may be getting some of
• 55:01
  these details wrong. This is only 20 years ago.
• 55:04
  This is the general idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:06
  And he said, you know, hey, I'm, I really feel bad about this.
• 55:12
  You know, Jim's a class guy. He goes and I'd like to leave
• 55:16
  them with somebody. And I know Jimmy's there.
• 55:19
  He probably do a good job. That is Sprack for sure.
• 55:21
  I can hear this, yes. Would would he be interested?
• 55:24
  And so then Jeff came to me and I talked to Jim.
• 55:26
  He talked to the AD at Campbell and and I.
• 55:29
  That was my first head coaching job.
• 55:31
  That's what I was thinking because I was like, you know,
• 55:33
  Sprack is not one to like, like you had to have made an
• 55:36
  impression on him. Like he he cares.
• 55:38
  Sprec cares. So when he was in Sprec's a Gill
• 55:43
  podcast alum. So if you're interested in Jim
• 55:44
  Sprecher story, look in your same EPI here.
• 55:46
  You'll hear his journey. It's amazing.
• 55:48
  He I could see him and I bet we talked about this on his
• 55:51
  episode. I would say feel bad about like,
• 55:54
  oh, I'm taking this Campbell job.
• 55:55
  Oh, but UNC where he had worked at before Ball State.
• 55:58
  So this was kind of a homecoming, if you will, back to
• 56:00
  UNCW, even though he's a Ball State alum, he, he wouldn't just
• 56:06
  like he's not the kind of guy that would just leave Campbell
• 56:08
  in a lurch like he would want to like, oh, I need to at least
• 56:10
  recommend someone that I would trust.
• 56:12
  Like, we'll do as good a job as me.
• 56:14
  So you you made an impression on him that you were the guy he
• 56:16
  wanted to recommend to take that job.
• 56:19
  Yeah, maybe so. Yeah, not maybe so has to be so
• 56:22
  it will Literally, literally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:25
  That's so cool. I did not know you and Sprint
• 56:27
  came down to Sunbelt this past weekend too.
• 56:29
  Yeah. Oh, man, I'm so happy for him.
• 56:31
  You know, he did an amazing job and is doing an amazing job at
• 56:34
  Lynchburg and now he's going to go to USC Aiken, I think it is
• 56:37
  Spartanburg and, you know, be closer to family and stuff.
• 56:40
  I'm just tickle pick out, you know, his, you know, I knew his
• 56:44
  kids when they were, you know, boy, I just sound old right
• 56:46
  there, Jim. You know, I knew his kids when
• 56:47
  they were five years old. I mean, just I love the
• 56:50
  spreckers, man. They're just great people.
• 56:52
  That's really cool. So that's how you get to
• 56:54
  Campbell and that's when I first meet you is when you're at
• 56:58
  Campbell. And because I always have a
• 57:00
  memory of Campbell when I was at Troy, when we were in the, I
• 57:04
  think we were in the TAC, the Trans Athletic, Trans American
• 57:07
  Athletic Association or something on the, you know, I
• 57:09
  don't know if that conference is still around.
• 57:11
  Campbell was in our conference. It was the.
• 57:14
  IT was the. Atlantic Sun Atlantic Sun
• 57:16
  Conference. Oh yeah, so this is before.
• 57:18
  So this is the late 90s, OK When I was at Troy.
• 57:20
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 57:20
  Because then it turns into the Atlantic Center or we all move
• 57:22
  to the Atlantic Center or something.
• 57:23
  Right. Right.
• 57:24
  Yeah. That was the transfer.
• 57:25
  But I always remembered Campbell.
• 57:27
  They didn't have a full squad, but they had a women's hammer
• 57:31
  thrower that won our conference every year.
• 57:34
  And that's always fine. Oh, the Camels, they got a
• 57:36
  hammer. Give up 10 points.
• 57:37
  We ain't winning that thing. Just move on.
• 57:39
  So that's how I remember Bowie's Creek baby.
• 57:41
  Oh yeah. Yeah.
• 57:42
  Nowhere. OK.
• 57:44
  That's what I was about to get to.
• 57:45
  So again, you know, Arkansas undergrad and and grad work and
• 57:50
  started PhD work and then, OK, we're going to go out of state
• 57:53
  of Arkansas and we're going to go to New Orleans.
• 57:55
  That's a, you know, boy, I will say a little bit of a culture
• 57:57
  shock. There's a unique culture at New
• 57:59
  Orleans, but it's a big town. And now you go to Bowie's Creek,
• 58:05
  North Carolina. How did you?
• 58:07
  And maybe with wife in tow at this point.
• 58:08
  Or yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 58:09
  How did That's a transformation buddy.
• 58:12
  Yeah, and my wife's from New Orleans and grew up in Slidell.
• 58:16
  Oh yeah. And graduated from Mandeville.
• 58:21
  And, and so she's, yeah. Was she a track?
• 58:24
  Person. No, no.
• 58:25
  OK, because those are all really good track places too.
• 58:27
  They are. Yeah, yeah.
• 58:30
  And yeah, it was a little bit culture shock for her, but her
• 58:35
  parents were from Arkansas, so it really wasn't that big of a
• 58:38
  shock. But yeah, I enjoyed it because I
• 58:42
  grew up in a small town in Arkansas and Louise Creek was
• 58:47
  way more my speed than New Orleans.
• 58:50
  And we weren't, we weren't too far from Raleigh or Fayetteville
• 58:55
  or so, you know, I, I really enjoyed my time there.
• 58:58
  It was, you know, a chance to build the.
• 59:00
  Program, OK, well you you are like T balling it up here for
• 59:04
  me. That was exactly going to be my
• 59:05
  Segway. I don't remember Campbell having
• 59:07
  much of a full team at that point.
• 59:11
  It's a couple years removed, you know, from when I was at Troy,
• 59:14
  so forgive me if maybe they started building a team.
• 59:16
  But I do remember when I first met you at Campbell, the
• 59:20
  Campbell was a team. How did you?
• 59:22
  So how tell tell us how you built that.
• 59:24
  Well, that was what, you know, the athletic director, Stan
• 59:28
  Williamson got to give him credit, is he?
• 59:31
  He wanted to have a team and not just a small group of
• 59:33
  individuals. They're pretty good in cross
• 59:35
  country. Kim Ken Fernett was a cross
• 59:37
  country coach, and I'm still good friends with him.
• 59:40
  He coaches at Memphis now. That's right.
• 59:42
  Yeah. And.
• 59:46
  So. You know, they wanted to, you
• 59:49
  know, have a full track team and that's obviously what I wanted
• 59:54
  too. And so we didn't have very many
• 59:57
  resources, not a full allotment of scholarships, but you know,
• 1:00:02
  we wound up, you know, never won a conference championship there
• 1:00:06
  because we just didn't have the resources for that.
• 1:00:10
  We were building. They've they're fully funded
• 1:00:13
  now. But I like to think that I kind
• 1:00:16
  of helped set up that foundation.
• 1:00:17
  Absolutely. And.
• 1:00:21
  You know, really had a great time there.
• 1:00:23
  You know that the most fun that I've that I have in coaching is
• 1:00:26
  building. I had a great time building
• 1:00:29
  there and and you know, the great time building here at
• 1:00:34
  Arkansas State. So that's that's that's fun for
• 1:00:37
  me. How many how many years were you
• 1:00:39
  at Campbell? Eight years.
• 1:00:41
  Eight years, OK, So there there's coaches listening right
• 1:00:45
  now that are in a very similar situation or they may not know
• 1:00:49
  what they will be in a very similar, similar situation as
• 1:00:51
  when you first get to Campbell, you know, individuals, not a
• 1:00:55
  team, you know, not a full allotment of scholarships.
• 1:00:59
  So what were what were some of the things that you remember
• 1:01:02
  doing that helped you be more attractive to more recruits?
• 1:01:05
  How did you recruit kids that you know, I'm sure you had your
• 1:01:10
  share of kids that were getting 50% at at schools and you could
• 1:01:13
  only give them 15 and they they chose you to.
• 1:01:15
  How did you, you know, with all those hurdles, pun intended, in
• 1:01:20
  in your way, How did you overcome that?
• 1:01:22
  You didn't allow that to stop you.
• 1:01:23
  You built out a fully teen that was really good.
• 1:01:26
  Yeah, we, you know, you had to recruit kids who were good
• 1:01:32
  academically so that they could supplement their scholarship
• 1:01:36
  with academic money, right, Campbell, You know, private
• 1:01:40
  Christian School, pretty small school, but Division One.
• 1:01:45
  And, you know, that's how we approached it.
• 1:01:47
  We looked at, you know, obviously performances, but the
• 1:01:50
  very next, and I still do this very next thing is, is look at
• 1:01:54
  their GPA in their grades. And we had a good relationship
• 1:01:58
  with financial aid admissions and and you know, you got to be
• 1:02:02
  creative and, and find money other places.
• 1:02:07
  Did you have, did you have facilities?
• 1:02:09
  I don't remember. There was a Well, here's a story
• 1:02:14
  I'll tell you about my interview slash recruiting visit to
• 1:02:19
  Bowie's Creek. OK.
• 1:02:20
  So I I think I was already going to be offered the job, but I
• 1:02:24
  wanted to see it. Right.
• 1:02:25
  Sure. And so they, you know, went
• 1:02:27
  there with the assistant AD showed me all around campus and,
• 1:02:31
  and at lunchtime I said, OK, well, can we see the track?
• 1:02:34
  Well, we'll see that later. And then, you know, we went all,
• 1:02:38
  you know, around the area a little bit more and, well, can I
• 1:02:41
  see the track? You know, finally they had to
• 1:02:43
  have me see the track. And oh, I'm telling you, if you
• 1:02:47
  call it a track, it was. It was built by a local farmer
• 1:02:56
  and the home stretch, the track, it was that the old black rubber
• 1:03:00
  tire type of stuff, you know, like a high school track.
• 1:03:02
  That's what I had in high school.
• 1:03:03
  Yep, Yep. And and the one side had six
• 1:03:07
  lanes on the home stretch, but the circle was only four.
• 1:03:12
  And so on the home stretch it went slightly downhill nice.
• 1:03:16
  And then it was baked around the curve on the backstretch, was
• 1:03:21
  slightly uphill and banked on that curve.
• 1:03:25
  It's a great training track. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:03:27
  Yeah. You'd get some overspeed and
• 1:03:29
  resistance training all in one day right there on the same
• 1:03:31
  track. And so I thought, I thought to
• 1:03:37
  myself, oh, what have I got myself into?
• 1:03:40
  Yeah, Yeah. But, you know, I like the people
• 1:03:43
  and I like the area and I like the vision of what they wanted
• 1:03:47
  to do with the the track and field program.
• 1:03:49
  And, you know, there were plans in place and I got, you know,
• 1:03:54
  that's one of the question, hey, can I, if I raise the money, can
• 1:03:56
  we? Absolutely, Yeah.
• 1:03:59
  So, you know, we so I took the job and after about two years,
• 1:04:06
  we at least had a track where we could train.
• 1:04:09
  Then Campbell adds football and guess, guess where they put the
• 1:04:13
  football stadium. Right on top of your perfect
• 1:04:16
  training circle. Right, right on top of the, the,
• 1:04:21
  the the old track. And so we went a good two years
• 1:04:25
  without a track. Oh, man.
• 1:04:27
  So you talk about hurdles in front of you.
• 1:04:28
  First of all, you don't have a facility.
• 1:04:31
  You have a good training track. We like you're not hosting meats
• 1:04:33
  and things like that. And now they take that even that
• 1:04:35
  away from you. Absolute.
• 1:04:37
  Yeah, that was a, you know, that just put it in high gear of the
• 1:04:42
  fact that we needed to raise some money and get a track bill.
• 1:04:46
  Now that's interesting, Jim, hold on.
• 1:04:47
  That's interesting how you just said that because a lot of
• 1:04:52
  people would have said that would just put it in high gear
• 1:04:54
  that I needed to leave. But like, that's what a lot of
• 1:04:56
  coaches would say. And I'm not judging that
• 1:04:58
  negatively either. But that's just that that gives
• 1:05:00
  me a little insight into your psyche that instead of running
• 1:05:03
  from a challenge, you were you were like, oh, OK, well, that
• 1:05:05
  just means I got to work harder to get to get a track then that.
• 1:05:09
  That's interesting. Just that that that little
• 1:05:11
  thought process of. Your and it it took us two years
• 1:05:14
  and here's what we did in the meantime.
• 1:05:18
  We had a little bit of flat space outside of the track
• 1:05:24
  office in the field by the cross country course, and so we dug a
• 1:05:30
  long jump pit by hand with shovels.
• 1:05:33
  We, we paved 2 runways with, you know, asphalt and got them
• 1:05:40
  level. I, I mean I didn't pay.
• 1:05:42
  We hired somebody to do that. And they were about 60 meters
• 1:05:46
  long, both of them. And so one of them was a Sprint
• 1:05:49
  track and the other one was a on one end we dug the long jump pit
• 1:05:54
  and we did that by hand and put sand in it.
• 1:05:58
  And the other end was a poval pit.
• 1:06:01
  And so for two years we trained on that.
• 1:06:05
  Holy cow. And with roll out runway bought
• 1:06:07
  from you and we you know, actually during that time I had
• 1:06:17
  to that was from the region was 4 regions, yeah, when we had the
• 1:06:22
  old four region thing, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:24
  Which I still prefer today, by the way.
• 1:06:26
  OK, great, 'cause I was going to ask you, by the way.
• 1:06:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell your story and then I want
• 1:06:29
  to. I want.
• 1:06:30
  To OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, during that
• 1:06:32
  time, oh, that was that was probably it was, you know, I'm
• 1:06:39
  telling this story and the coaches say, oh, you had you did
• 1:06:41
  all that. Well, yeah, we had a great time
• 1:06:43
  doing it, though, and we had good kids.
• 1:06:46
  So the the benefit of is that is you had kids there that wanted
• 1:06:51
  to be there and wanted to work. They didn't.
• 1:06:53
  They didn't come for the shiny things.
• 1:06:55
  Right. And I had a, you know, the East
• 1:06:59
  region Sam Tilley one that in the long jump jumped 7 meters,
• 1:07:04
  90 something training on that. He was a 22 foot long jumper out
• 1:07:08
  of high school from Florida. Very good, very good student and
• 1:07:11
  training on that runway. And when I when I'd have kids on
• 1:07:17
  recruiting visits, I'd say, hey, did you ever see Rocky 4?
• 1:07:21
  Yeah, the chickens and. Yeah, and they say yeah, I said.
• 1:07:24
  You remember when the the Russian guy had all the high
• 1:07:26
  tech stuff and he was training and Rocky was in the basement in
• 1:07:30
  Philadelphia? I said, well, this is the
• 1:07:33
  basement in Philadelphia, baby. And this is if you want to get
• 1:07:36
  good like that, this is where you want to be.
• 1:07:37
  Yeah. And that worked with the right
• 1:07:40
  kit, right? And so, yeah, we had hurdlers
• 1:07:44
  make the national championships, long jumpers make nationals and.
• 1:07:49
  That that story. Tilly, did you say his his name
• 1:07:51
  was Sam Tilly, you know, Sam Tilly.
• 1:07:53
  So what I love about that because, you know, kind of bring
• 1:07:55
  it to where we are today with recruiting and with the the
• 1:07:59
  house versus NCAA. You know, I get a little
• 1:08:03
  defensive when people are talking about that because of
• 1:08:07
  the roster limits that may or may not.
• 1:08:10
  It's like I feel like it's all back up in the air now, by the
• 1:08:11
  way. But when when we were originally
• 1:08:13
  talking about, you know, 45 roster limit and 35 for the SEC.
• 1:08:18
  And you know what, I'm big on social media, right?
• 1:08:20
  So I'm on Twitter, you know, I was telling people on Twitter
• 1:08:23
  24/7. So I'm always hearing
• 1:08:24
  communication what people are talking about.
• 1:08:26
  And people are talking about that because of these limits,
• 1:08:29
  kids aren't going to be able to get developed anymore.
• 1:08:32
  And I get defensive about that because I think of you at
• 1:08:34
  Campbell signing a 22 foot kid who would not even today be a
• 1:08:38
  power for kid, right? And you developed them into
• 1:08:42
  nearly an 8M jumper. And the reason I get offensive
• 1:08:44
  is like, OK, maybe that 22 fit kid can't walk on to LSU or
• 1:08:47
  Florida or whatever that kids maybe dream school was.
• 1:08:50
  But there's still other schools with great coaches, whether it's
• 1:08:54
  Division One, you know, mid major, what are we called non
• 1:08:57
  power 4 division two, Division 3 JUCO.
• 1:08:59
  And there are other great coaches like you, Jim, that are
• 1:09:02
  in those schools that can still take 22 footers and make them 8
• 1:09:05
  meters. But that that's where I just get
• 1:09:06
  so defensive about like guys. And I love the power for our
• 1:09:09
  coaches. I'm not, this is not a knock on
• 1:09:10
  how good or good not good they are, but there are many other
• 1:09:13
  great coaches in other areas, other levels.
• 1:09:17
  Oh, absolutely, yeah. If you know you can't let
• 1:09:20
  yourself be limited by by those obstacles, you got to overcome
• 1:09:25
  them. Yeah, it's just, it's amazing
• 1:09:27
  when I hear that like development goes out the door
• 1:09:29
  and I'm like, gosh. Now, I'm not saying I would that
• 1:09:33
  I like, you know, I did like it at the time.
• 1:09:36
  Yeah, Yeah, I'm not I'm not saying you don't, you know, you
• 1:09:39
  need to have a university that puts money in your program,
• 1:09:43
  takes it seriously. That's right.
• 1:09:45
  Facilities and and that's all great.
• 1:09:47
  But I'm just, you know, we found ourselves in that situation and
• 1:09:51
  we made the best of it. That's so cool.
• 1:09:53
  I love that. I love those stories because
• 1:09:55
  they happen at Campbell's, they happen at Lindenwood
• 1:09:58
  universities and they they do happen at University of Florida
• 1:10:01
  as well. There's kids that have gone to
• 1:10:02
  school at quote UN quote, big name schools that were 22
• 1:10:05
  footers and they become 8 meters away.
• 1:10:06
  It can happen on all level. It happens every day on every
• 1:10:09
  level. Well.
• 1:10:09
  When I was at the, you know, University of Arkansas, they did
• 1:10:11
  not have the facilities they have now, right?
• 1:10:14
  That's right. And our indoor track was
• 1:10:17
  terrible. It was around the the tennis
• 1:10:20
  courts, is that right? Yeah.
• 1:10:23
  It was a flat 200 meter track and there's no no heat, no.
• 1:10:26
  Air conditioned about Arkansas, Arkansas State, Arkansas.
• 1:10:29
  Is. That right, because I remember
• 1:10:30
  the the the 200m flat you had at Arkansas State.
• 1:10:33
  I didn't know Arkansas had that too.
• 1:10:34
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it, it was worse
• 1:10:37
  than the one here at Arkansas State.
• 1:10:39
  Oh, really? And we'd have to have practice
• 1:10:41
  and tennis balls were flying everywhere.
• 1:10:44
  And. And so, you know, it's.
• 1:10:47
  And with that, John McDonald won up.
• 1:10:51
  Yeah. And he'd won 30 national
• 1:10:52
  championships, I think 25 something.
• 1:10:54
  Like that, that track was worse than Arkansas State's track.
• 1:10:57
  Oh, yeah. Because I didn't want to offend
• 1:10:58
  you and say I hated going to Arkansas State.
• 1:11:01
  Oh, we were when we were Troy, we used to go.
• 1:11:02
  I'm like, oh man, guys, this thing is just just like, we
• 1:11:05
  didn't like going to Gainesville either.
• 1:11:06
  Remember, they used to do their. I don't know if that thing was
• 1:11:08
  even 200. And it was a similar setup.
• 1:11:10
  Yeah, Oh my gosh, that was another one.
• 1:11:12
  It's like, man, if we go just run the straights, don't run any
• 1:11:15
  twos and fours and all that stuff.
• 1:11:17
  Man. You brought up something, you
• 1:11:20
  reminded me of the, the four regional system.
• 1:11:22
  I remember that when I was at Mississippi State, which, you
• 1:11:25
  know, it's had its own issues. They had, you know, tweak some
• 1:11:27
  things as far as like, you know, participate in the final of the
• 1:11:30
  event. My, I think it was my first year
• 1:11:33
  at Mississippi State, we qualified 4 guys to the 200m
• 1:11:37
  final in that at Indiana. And they're, so that means
• 1:11:40
  they're all qualified for nationals and stuff like that.
• 1:11:42
  So we just didn't run them because we didn't give out a
• 1:11:44
  team. They gave a team title, which
• 1:11:45
  actually was cool, but we were obviously way focused on
• 1:11:49
  nationals. And, you know, you have a final
• 1:11:51
  that goes off on 200 with like, you know, 3 kids and that
• 1:11:55
  doesn't look good. So then to the Blaze, like, all
• 1:11:56
  right, we got to change, you know, the what do you call it?
• 1:12:00
  The fair, what do you call it? Fair participation rule.
• 1:12:05
  Yeah, participation rule. Yeah, yeah, sorry.
• 1:12:08
  But now, so you, you were in that four regional system.
• 1:12:11
  You've also been under the descending order list system.
• 1:12:14
  And now we're at this two, you know, we're, we're the
• 1:12:18
  incidentally track and field equipment specialist.
• 1:12:20
  So I got to put my incidentally hat on and say it correctly.
• 1:12:23
  We don't have a 2 regional system.
• 1:12:24
  We have a two first round of national system.
• 1:12:29
  What do you like better? What, what are some advantages,
• 1:12:31
  disadvantages? What do you What do you like?
• 1:12:33
  Oh, you know, it's, it's fine now, but I would prefer to go
• 1:12:39
  back to the four and then have a team champion.
• 1:12:43
  Yeah, I kind of like that aspect of it.
• 1:12:45
  Not necessarily that eBay would actually go for the team
• 1:12:48
  champion there because you're focused on nationals, but it's
• 1:12:50
  more regional. It it, you know, it's a little
• 1:12:53
  bit smaller. Meet.
• 1:12:54
  Yeah. Yes.
• 1:12:56
  And you know, one of my pet peeves in coaching now I love, I
• 1:13:03
  love coaching. I love track and field, but I do
• 1:13:06
  not like big qualifying meats, you know, regular city like
• 1:13:11
  where you have to have, where you have 3035 teams there in the
• 1:13:14
  men's discus takes 8 hours to complete.
• 1:13:17
  And I'd like to see us go back to regional meats and, you know,
• 1:13:23
  institute maybe a, a dual, you know, have everybody have a dual
• 1:13:27
  meet, you know, have some quad meets like we used to do it.
• 1:13:31
  And of course I don't want to sound like an old guy, well,
• 1:13:33
  back in my day, but. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:35
  And I want the 200 hurdles back, yeah.
• 1:13:40
  But you know how many regions are there at the NCAA basketball
• 1:13:45
  tournament, right? Yeah.
• 1:13:47
  How many regions are there? How many regions are there in
• 1:13:52
  baseball? Yeah.
• 1:13:53
  How many regions are there? In golf, yeah, I'm with you
• 1:13:57
  100%. My biggest pet peeves, I mean,
• 1:14:00
  almost to the T What you just said there, Jim, is the 100m,
• 1:14:04
  that the last two heats of the 100m go off at the first round
• 1:14:08
  and we just say, OK, see you again in two weeks.
• 1:14:11
  Like, there's no winner. We have a meet that there's no
• 1:14:14
  winner. They're the top 12 hammer
• 1:14:15
  throwers. All right, well, we're done.
• 1:14:17
  Stop. No one wins.
• 1:14:18
  We'll see you in two weeks in Oregon.
• 1:14:20
  And I don't like that. There are four flights of the
• 1:14:22
  hammer and the long and it's like, man, this meet goes
• 1:14:26
  forever, guys. Like if we're trying to do
• 1:14:29
  what's best for the sport beyond what's best for today's team,
• 1:14:34
  how do we get people in the stands?
• 1:14:35
  How do we get on TV? How do we grow our sport in that
• 1:14:38
  way? To me that these 48 per events
• 1:14:43
  meets are not with no winners by the way, no score, not at all
• 1:14:46
  anything. Not the way to do it in my
• 1:14:48
  opinion. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:50
  You know, I'm not totally opposed to it, but I preferred
• 1:14:55
  the the four region thing that you'd.
• 1:14:57
  Have to that was a good meet. It was and it was, you know, you
• 1:15:00
  didn't have to travel all the way across the country.
• 1:15:02
  Oh yeah, great point. Yeah.
• 1:15:04
  And you would compete against schools that you probably
• 1:15:06
  competed against the regular season.
• 1:15:08
  Everybody knew each other and right it, it was just a way
• 1:15:12
  better atmosphere. Yeah.
• 1:15:13
  I agree. I agree.
• 1:15:14
  Yeah, I'm not a fan. And then when they were, you
• 1:15:17
  know, there's been talks of adding a regional or, you know,
• 1:15:20
  two first rounds to indoor track.
• 1:15:23
  First of all, I don't know how you could even host that meet.
• 1:15:26
  Like I'm not sure what facilities are even available to
• 1:15:28
  only host 2 meets of every, you know, call it every coaching or
• 1:15:32
  every program in the country. But two, I just don't know where
• 1:15:35
  you would even like like, do you move indoor season earlier?
• 1:15:38
  It's already in December. Like, you know, when I was
• 1:15:40
  coaching in going to Arkansas State for meets, you know,
• 1:15:43
  December meets were like rare, like no one went to a December
• 1:15:45
  meet. Now everybody starts in
• 1:15:46
  December. So do you move that earlier or
• 1:15:48
  do you move outdoor lock? Like the outdoor season is
• 1:15:51
  already so compressed you can't just slide it in like you you
• 1:15:54
  lose even more of outdoor. Yeah, indoor season, yeah, we're
• 1:15:57
  kind of getting it off. I know that's that's kind of my
• 1:16:00
  jam. My kind of jam is we just, we
• 1:16:01
  just go everywhere. But yeah, indoor season is so
• 1:16:05
  short. Yeah.
• 1:16:07
  And, you know, the amount of indoor tracks that are really
• 1:16:11
  quality, Yeah, is, you know, not nearly the amount of outdoor.
• 1:16:16
  Better today than it was yesterday, but that that
• 1:16:18
  inventory is still slim. Yeah, yeah, but you know, a
• 1:16:22
  regional is just not how are you going to take time off between
• 1:16:25
  indoor and outdoor and get ready for outdoor.
• 1:16:29
  I'm not a I wouldn't be in favor of a regional or indoor.
• 1:16:32
  Same. Same.
• 1:16:33
  All right, Jim, let's we'll bring it back.
• 1:16:35
  I am good bringing things back. Don't worry.
• 1:16:37
  All right, that's that's my job to do this.
• 1:16:38
  Bring it back. So, Campbell for eight years now
• 1:16:41
  we get our disserta, we defend our dissertation it while we're
• 1:16:45
  in Campbell. Yep, that's OK.
• 1:16:47
  So what I'm gonna say what finally LED you to like, all
• 1:16:51
  right, let's just get this thing done.
• 1:16:52
  What? What led to that?
• 1:16:53
  And then so tell me, what does that mean?
• 1:16:54
  Defending my dissertation. Well, the probably the primary
• 1:16:58
  reason I did it was Doctor William Freeman who was the
• 1:17:03
  chair of the department at Campbell, who was an assistant
• 1:17:06
  coach under Bill Bowerman at Oregon.
• 1:17:09
  Oh wow. And was there when, you know,
• 1:17:12
  early 70s when Prefontaine was running?
• 1:17:14
  No. Way that's cool.
• 1:17:16
  And he was a huge, obviously a huge track.
• 1:17:19
  Fan, did you know that when you took the job at Campbell?
• 1:17:20
  No. I did not.
• 1:17:21
  Wow, yeah, I did that. But that was a bonus.
• 1:17:26
  And so he asked me to teach and I, I did teach.
• 1:17:33
  I taught at Arkansas, taught not very much at Tulane, but some.
• 1:17:38
  But I taught a little more at Campbell.
• 1:17:40
  I taught Graduate School in Physiology and that kind of
• 1:17:43
  thing. And, and because of him and his
• 1:17:47
  approach to it, and he was, you know, a huge track guy.
• 1:17:51
  And so and he said, hey, you need to finish that
• 1:17:55
  dissertation. And I said, Yep, I do.
• 1:17:59
  And so I contacted my old advisor and she said I was
• 1:18:04
  wondering when you were going to call.
• 1:18:07
  Is there a a a expiry date like? Not, not really, no.
• 1:18:11
  It's up to, it's up to your committee and you know, they
• 1:18:16
  really like my proposal in the 1st 4 chapters and, and you
• 1:18:21
  know, she told me she goes, I, when I left, she goes.
• 1:18:24
  I think that's a mistake. But you got to do what you have
• 1:18:26
  to do and. I'm sorry to keep interrupting,
• 1:18:28
  I just know nothing about this. I'm just so curious when you
• 1:18:30
  said your committee who, who are the like, did you pick those
• 1:18:32
  people? Your advisor?
• 1:18:33
  Who? Who I picked them.
• 1:18:34
  Yeah, my, my advisor was Kathy Lurg.
• 1:18:37
  And and she was a sports psychologist.
• 1:18:40
  And, you know, obviously I was one of her better students and
• 1:18:44
  she wanted to see me get it. And so when I called back and
• 1:18:48
  said, all right, the prodigal son.
• 1:18:51
  I've been waiting for your phone call.
• 1:18:53
  Yeah, and that's exactly what she said.
• 1:18:55
  And so I had the majority of the work was already done.
• 1:19:00
  I had to update it some but it was I was asked.
• 1:19:03
  About that, you didn't have to re survey.
• 1:19:04
  No, no, no, no. I that's when I did the survey.
• 1:19:09
  I had not collected the data yet.
• 1:19:11
  Oh, so you? Did all the front leg work?
• 1:19:13
  Yeah. And then before the actual OK.
• 1:19:16
  And I collected the data when I was at Campbell, which was
• 1:19:20
  fortunate because by that time I had many friends in the coaching
• 1:19:24
  profession who would give this survey to their teams.
• 1:19:28
  And I had a much better study. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:19:31
  I don't recommend doing this. This is but it it worked out.
• 1:19:36
  And so I finally, in 2007 is when I became full PhD.
• 1:19:40
  Wow. OK, so you'd skipped right over.
• 1:19:43
  So what does it mean to defend? In my head, I have this because
• 1:19:49
  because I know there's a committee, I know there's
• 1:19:50
  people. So I literally have this like
• 1:19:51
  picture of like there's these 456 super smart people like up
• 1:19:55
  on a ledge and like you are like looking up at them and you're
• 1:19:59
  like reading your book. I don't know what defend means.
• 1:20:01
  Like are you reading your book or what?
• 1:20:02
  What are you doing? Oh no, it's open to the public
• 1:20:05
  and you're in an auditorium. Oh.
• 1:20:07
  And mom was a, it was an auditorium.
• 1:20:10
  It was a, it was a large classroom.
• 1:20:12
  Do people actually go? Yeah, I had a few in there,
• 1:20:15
  Yeah. Like other PhD candidates.
• 1:20:20
  Just the community or PhD candidates or anybody that was
• 1:20:24
  interested in listening to that subject.
• 1:20:26
  So we're right here at University of Illinois.
• 1:20:28
  I could go watch somebody defend their dissertation anytime.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah. How do I find?
• 1:20:33
  I want to go. I want to go.
• 1:20:34
  I want to go participate. I want to go hear this.
• 1:20:37
  Well, you just contacted the exercise science department
• 1:20:40
  there and say, hey, is anybody defending?
• 1:20:42
  I'm going to do that, dude. I totally want to see this
• 1:20:44
  process played out. Oh, that's so cool.
• 1:20:46
  I had no clue. OK, sorry.
• 1:20:47
  So what does it mean? What does it mean to actually
• 1:20:49
  defend? You're in this auditor
• 1:20:50
  classroom. Well, have you ever seen the Ted
• 1:20:53
  Talk? Of of course.
• 1:20:54
  Yes, absolutely. That's basically what it is.
• 1:20:56
  But you have to do a Ted Talk. I mean, it takes a hour or two,
• 1:21:01
  whatever it takes, you have your results and you have to go
• 1:21:05
  through it. This is why, why is it
• 1:21:06
  significant? Why do we need to know about
• 1:21:08
  this stuff? And.
• 1:21:09
  So you present your dissertation.
• 1:21:12
  Yeah, it's a mini seminar. Yeah.
• 1:21:14
  Do they during that hour or two or whatever that that time frame
• 1:21:18
  is, are they asking you questions or is that at the end
• 1:21:20
  or is that not at all? Oh, no, They can ask questions
• 1:21:23
  there. There are.
• 1:21:24
  Yeah. There are times allotted where
• 1:21:26
  you can stop and any questions about this and anybody in the
• 1:21:29
  crowd can ask. Oh, shut up.
• 1:21:31
  Are you serious? Yeah, I didn't actually.
• 1:21:33
  I didn't have a crowd. Now, I mean, there were a few.
• 1:21:37
  It's mainly my committee and there were a few other, you
• 1:21:39
  know, graduate students in there, But that that was about
• 1:21:41
  it. You might have just not did a
• 1:21:45
  service to someone that I'm going to go out because I will.
• 1:21:46
  I'll be the guy Like hold on. I got a question I did not know.
• 1:21:50
  We can ask questions. Oh, this changed my life, Jim.
• 1:21:52
  I'm going to. I'm definitely doing this, OK?
• 1:21:54
  Yeah. And of course, you know, they
• 1:21:56
  may do it a little bit differently there, but for the
• 1:21:58
  most part it's it's, it's that. And I, I enjoyed it and you
• 1:22:03
  know, it's a little bit of pressure, but I was older at
• 1:22:06
  this time and I was A, and been a coach and I'd run things and I
• 1:22:09
  was. Right, right, right.
• 1:22:10
  Right, You know, I was 37 years old, so I wasn't a kid.
• 1:22:15
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:22:16
  So I I knew how how to handle myself and.
• 1:22:18
  So when people say, you know, I defended my dissertation, so you
• 1:22:21
  do your presentation. I love your example of Ted
• 1:22:24
  talks, by the way, because we just started a new series here
• 1:22:27
  in the podcast that I'm literally calling the Ted talks
• 1:22:30
  of track and field podcast. I love for people who don't know
• 1:22:33
  Ted talks, you've got to go Google that.
• 1:22:34
  And there's so many great talks of unbelievably smart, smart
• 1:22:38
  people that it, it'll, it'll positively affect you when you
• 1:22:43
  get done with your presentation. Do they like, I'm trying to
• 1:22:47
  figure out like, what does it mean to like defend?
• 1:22:49
  Like, do they, is it automatic? Like OK, good, your PhD.
• 1:22:52
  Now there's like a vote or what's, well, yeah, kind of no
• 1:22:56
  way. It's it's like a academic
• 1:22:58
  American Idol now the crowd, the crowd doesn't vote.
• 1:23:04
  It's, it's your committee. And so and so they, they, you
• 1:23:11
  know, after it's over, they'll go meet and you have to sit
• 1:23:14
  outside the office while they meet for whatever long it is.
• 1:23:17
  Then my department chair comes out, says congratulations,
• 1:23:21
  Doctor Patchett. No way.
• 1:23:24
  How long did you have to wait? Oh, good. 30 minutes.
• 1:23:28
  Oh. OK, OK, but not.
• 1:23:29
  Oh, not yeah. Not days, no.
• 1:23:31
  Or hours or even. Yeah, OK, OK.
• 1:23:34
  What would cause you to like, what would cause that advisor to
• 1:23:37
  come out and go, hey, we got to tweak some things?
• 1:23:41
  Yeah, unless you just totally bomb your presentation, it's
• 1:23:47
  pretty much a done deal. Yeah, because you've done so
• 1:23:49
  much work with advisor up to that.
• 1:23:51
  Yeah. And they, the advisor's not
• 1:23:52
  going to let, not going to let you do it if they don't think,
• 1:23:54
  right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:55
  Is your presentation skill actually a part of the
• 1:23:58
  evaluation? A little bit, yeah.
• 1:24:01
  Right. But it can't because, you know,
• 1:24:02
  some people are just, that's not their thing.
• 1:24:03
  They're not going to get in front of people.
• 1:24:05
  But they have great data. They've done great research.
• 1:24:09
  Yeah. But if you're going to be a PhD,
• 1:24:11
  you've got to develop that skill.
• 1:24:13
  You have to talk. You have to talk in front of
• 1:24:15
  people because you're going to be teaching class.
• 1:24:16
  Oh, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, now you. Know if you're doing a PhD in
• 1:24:21
  nuclear physics or something like that where you're just
• 1:24:24
  going to be in the lab, that might be a little different.
• 1:24:25
  But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:28
  That you That's a skill that you have to develop.
• 1:24:31
  But part of that PhD is not just your research and what you're
• 1:24:34
  doing. It's like, Oh yeah, well, you're
• 1:24:35
  going to be a teacher or professor, so you you need to be
• 1:24:38
  able to teach this stuff, which means there are some
• 1:24:40
  presentations. And, and being a tenured
• 1:24:42
  professor requires you to do presentations all over the
• 1:24:45
  country. Is that right?
• 1:24:46
  In in conferences and meetings and and you know, so you have to
• 1:24:53
  have that skill. That is.
• 1:24:55
  But it's not the determining factor, no.
• 1:24:58
  But but it's a part of, yeah. It's a part of it.
• 1:25:01
  You know, Jim, I, you know, I told you in our pre interview,
• 1:25:04
  the main reason, the big reason we started this podcast was up
• 1:25:06
  to lift and honor coaches and what you do.
• 1:25:08
  And, and I hope, I hope you believe we are doing this.
• 1:25:10
  And it's just been fascinating. The other reason I started this
• 1:25:13
  though was I was like, man, I'm just so curious about stuff.
• 1:25:15
  I'm going to learn about things and people that I've never I've
• 1:25:19
  I've always just heard the PhD, you know, for a guy like me,
• 1:25:22
  it's obvious academics, not not very high.
• 1:25:24
  I'm I'm not that great of a student and was not a great
• 1:25:26
  institute, but I'm always curious and so never PhD to me
• 1:25:30
  was just like this mythical. Like I said, it's a social media
• 1:25:34
  post. I defended my dissertation like,
• 1:25:35
  wow, that's great. I have no clue what that means.
• 1:25:37
  I got, you know, I have my own fake thoughts of what that is.
• 1:25:41
  So to actually hear that, man, I'm so thank you so much for
• 1:25:43
  like putting up with all my questions that that really helps
• 1:25:46
  me like, like I understand PhD as far as like the, the process
• 1:25:49
  and everything so much better now that that opened my world.
• 1:25:53
  I appreciate that so much. But yeah, you should go go.
• 1:25:55
  I have 100% going to do this. Absolutely.
• 1:25:59
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:25:59
  Yeah. 100 percent, 100%. I'm just so curious just to be
• 1:26:01
  able to say I was in a dissertation and like it was,
• 1:26:04
  you know, it may be the most boring thing in the world.
• 1:26:05
  I don't know, maybe because the topic may not be what I want,
• 1:26:07
  but it'll be cool to just see it and and know it, you know, just
• 1:26:11
  again, to have that satisfaction of the calm me, that curiosity.
• 1:26:14
  That's so cool. Thank you.
• 1:26:15
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:26:17
  OK, So you do that at Campbell while you're at Campbell, but
• 1:26:21
  that is through Arkansas where you get your PhD.
• 1:26:25
  Do you make your kids call you doctor, coach now at that point?
• 1:26:28
  No, no, I've never done that. I would, by the way, if I ever
• 1:26:34
  get a PhD, you guys are all calling me Doctor Mike.
• 1:26:36
  There's. No, now on the on the website
• 1:26:39
  when I first got the job here at Arkansas State, they just put my
• 1:26:42
  name up there. And of course, I did say, now
• 1:26:46
  wait a second, it's got to be doctor in front of that.
• 1:26:48
  I write my notes down of who I I wrote down, Doctor.
• 1:26:52
  Yeah, of course. But I don't, I don't, you know,
• 1:26:55
  I earned that title, so I want it on there.
• 1:26:58
  That's right. That's right.
• 1:26:58
  But I don't make people call me that.
• 1:27:00
  No, I'm I'm Coach Patchell and that's the way it is.
• 1:27:03
  I'm so petty. I would.
• 1:27:06
  Here's the safe thing. This guy ain't never getting a
• 1:27:08
  PhD, Trust me, Trust me. OK?
• 1:27:10
  I think you said eight years at Campbell.
• 1:27:12
  I'm going to ask you now that I know you're an alum of Arkansas
• 1:27:15
  State. This is going to be a very dumb
• 1:27:17
  question probably, but so why leave Campbell and go to
• 1:27:20
  Arkansas State? Well, I never thought that I'd
• 1:27:23
  get the opportunity to do that. And you know, if you've probably
• 1:27:27
  seen a common thread through my coaching career, I've never
• 1:27:31
  actually applied for a job. Right, right, right.
• 1:27:34
  That's right. That's right.
• 1:27:35
  And I didn't apply for this one. Yeah, I got a LAN Bedeau.
• 1:27:40
  It was before me here. Got the job at Lafayette, LA.
• 1:27:46
  Lafayette. Doing a great job.
• 1:27:48
  And, and, you know, left here and a friend of mine who was on
• 1:27:52
  the team with me, Dave Robley, was, he was a thrower.
• 1:27:58
  He still lives in town. And he called me up and he
• 1:28:01
  basically said, hey, the job's open, you're applying.
• 1:28:05
  I said, oh, I am. He goes, Yep, I'm on my way up.
• 1:28:08
  See the AD right now and, and you know, so he, he brought me
• 1:28:16
  in and so I, you know, I, I applied AD called me the next
• 1:28:21
  day and we worked out of the time.
• 1:28:22
  He didn't have to twist your arm.
• 1:28:24
  No, no, I you know, I I grew up two hours away from here.
• 1:28:27
  Of course, you know, my parents are still alive.
• 1:28:30
  They're still around and always wanted to come back.
• 1:28:34
  Never thought I'd get the opportunity, but we did.
• 1:28:37
  Yeah. So that's that's kind of how how
• 1:28:40
  I got back to Arkansas State. What's it like, I'm going to say
• 1:28:44
  coming home in the sense of like, you know, most of our jobs
• 1:28:48
  through our coaching careers are at places we've never been and
• 1:28:51
  certainly we've never lived. Maybe we've been there for a
• 1:28:53
  track meet, but we never lived in that place until we got the
• 1:28:55
  job there. Here's a place that, you know,
• 1:28:57
  it's very comfortable to you And, and while you've got a,
• 1:29:01
  some space here since you've been gone, but you know, 99% of
• 1:29:05
  those buildings, you know exactly which building.
• 1:29:07
  Oh, I took classes in that building over there and I lived
• 1:29:09
  in that dorm. Like it's a very much a
• 1:29:11
  homecoming in that sense. How, how, how was that like
• 1:29:15
  coming back home? And and and would you have known
• 1:29:17
  many of the administration or had they turned over maybe?
• 1:29:20
  Oh, yeah, Yeah. I didn't know any of them.
• 1:29:21
  Yeah. No, no, It was, you know, it had
• 1:29:26
  been, you know, nearly 30 years since I graduated.
• 1:29:32
  Well, no 25 years. Roughly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:35
  Yeah. So, yeah, there was not any of
• 1:29:37
  the same people here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:41
  But yeah, it's and you know, obviously something that I
• 1:29:45
  wanted to do. Never thought I'd get the
• 1:29:47
  opportunity, but I did took advantage of it.
• 1:29:50
  Yeah. It's been been a great ride so
• 1:29:52
  far. So what's it like?
• 1:29:54
  You had great admiration for Jay Flanagan.
• 1:29:58
  Yeah. So this is this is a different
• 1:30:01
  situation than when you went to Campbell.
• 1:30:02
  You know, Campbell, I'm going to say no team.
• 1:30:05
  You know a lot of several individuals, but you built
• 1:30:08
  A-Team there. So that's a different that's a
• 1:30:11
  different skill set for a coach. You come to Arkansas State, had
• 1:30:15
  a team, a good team. I remember the teams that you've
• 1:30:18
  always been solid at Arkansas State, whether you've been
• 1:30:20
  really good, you know, winning conference championships.
• 1:30:22
  There's not very many real low points in Arkansas State that I
• 1:30:25
  can remember. There's always a good squad at
• 1:30:27
  Arkansas State. So now you come in, you've got a
• 1:30:29
  team. You just had a coach that you
• 1:30:31
  knew well. Like it's not like there was
• 1:30:33
  like, oh man, that guy didn't. There's a million things I got
• 1:30:35
  to do because that guy didn't do them.
• 1:30:36
  He ran a well team. What what are you you come into
• 1:30:39
  this seat? What what are the things that
• 1:30:41
  you got to get done at at this position?
• 1:30:44
  Because it's different than the position you took at Campbell,
• 1:30:46
  right? Yeah, You know, even though
• 1:30:49
  Arkansas State was pretty solid and track when I took over, it
• 1:30:53
  was not the same as when I was on the team.
• 1:30:55
  Oh, OK, Not even close. You know, back in those days we
• 1:31:01
  were a top 15 team in Division One year in, year out, right?
• 1:31:04
  You know, through the 70s and 80s we had gold medalist, silver
• 1:31:08
  medalist, bronze medalist. We had Earl had the world record
• 1:31:12
  and vault at one point. You know, Al Joyner won the gold
• 1:31:15
  medal. We had people from all over the
• 1:31:16
  world coming and training here. I don't.
• 1:31:18
  Think I knew Al Joyner went to Arkansas State, is that right?
• 1:31:20
  Yeah. Wow.
• 1:31:21
  I knew Earl, of course. And then mini vaulters and
• 1:31:23
  stuff. Yeah, wow, Yeah, he did.
• 1:31:26
  And, and so, you know, my goal was to get to improve.
• 1:31:31
  Obviously anywhere you go, you want to improve the program.
• 1:31:33
  So that was my my goal. I want to get it back where it
• 1:31:35
  used to be. And, you know, there hadn't been
• 1:31:39
  many conference championships won in the early 2000s.
• 1:31:45
  And I think they won a couple in 2005 and 6.
• 1:31:47
  That's about it. Always in the top three, you
• 1:31:49
  know, not a bad program, but not where we were.
• 1:31:53
  And so that was my primary goal. And so we had to step up
• 1:31:57
  recruiting. We had to, you know, I had to
• 1:32:00
  get a coaching staff here that would do that kind of stuff.
• 1:32:04
  And it was really the first time I had a full staff.
• 1:32:06
  I mean, I still don't have a full staff, but we haven't
• 1:32:09
  enough. And so we had to make a lot of
• 1:32:13
  changes, had to change the culture.
• 1:32:16
  You know, they were kids on the team that probably were not D1
• 1:32:19
  athletes. And we had to, you know, make
• 1:32:21
  some changes. And it took us a couple years to
• 1:32:24
  start winning. And we won our first one in 2013
• 1:32:27
  with me as a head coach, and since then we've won 29 of them.
• 1:32:33
  Yeah, You know, I could probably not put this on record.
• 1:32:37
  You know, my alma, everybody knows my alma mater is Troy
• 1:32:39
  University, which is in the same conference as Arkansas State.
• 1:32:41
  So when he says he's won all those conference finals, it's
• 1:32:44
  just a dagger to my heart because that means my squad did
• 1:32:46
  not win those conference titles. I'm tired of your team beating
• 1:32:48
  up on my team, man. What?
• 1:32:51
  You mentioned something that I'm curious about as well.
• 1:32:55
  You know, one of the things I wish we did better in the
• 1:32:57
  coaching profession is development of our assistant
• 1:33:00
  coaches to become future head coaches.
• 1:33:02
  The the majority of our assistant coaches that go on to
• 1:33:06
  become first time head coaches have no experience doing almost
• 1:33:10
  anything that the head coach does.
• 1:33:11
  They know how to coach, they know how to recruit, but they
• 1:33:15
  typically have not done anything in regards to scheduling,
• 1:33:19
  budgeting, academic, yeah, academics, things like that
• 1:33:25
  even. And I don't know that where this
• 1:33:30
  is ever taught. And this is kind of where I'm
• 1:33:31
  going with a question with my question even hiring staff and
• 1:33:36
  evaluating staff and if need be firing staff, that's not a
• 1:33:41
  there's no USTCA course that says, hey, here's you know,
• 1:33:45
  here's how you should be hiring people.
• 1:33:46
  How did how have you learned? You've hired plenty of people
• 1:33:49
  over the time. What was that process for you
• 1:33:52
  learning like what what actually hiring me?
• 1:33:55
  I think people on the cursory think that hiring is just like
• 1:33:58
  you find the person that's your buddy or you find someone that
• 1:34:00
  you think could be your buddy and that that that's the person
• 1:34:03
  you hire. There's many other things that
• 1:34:04
  you should be evaluating and how you evaluate those things.
• 1:34:07
  How have you improved upon yourself of someone who's to
• 1:34:11
  hire people? Well, hiring your buddies, the
• 1:34:14
  worst thing you can do if you want to have a championship
• 1:34:17
  program. Now, that doesn't mean that that
• 1:34:22
  could. That's not an option.
• 1:34:24
  But you know, you, you're the boss.
• 1:34:27
  And I have a good relationship with my coaches.
• 1:34:30
  Two of the guys here have been with me the whole time.
• 1:34:33
  Long time, yeah. And that's one of the reasons
• 1:34:35
  that we've been so good is we have some continuity that, you
• 1:34:40
  know, when I'm looking to hire a coach, I want someone who I
• 1:34:43
  think could be a head coach someday.
• 1:34:46
  And every, everyone on that staff could be, you know, my 2
• 1:34:49
  top assistants right now could be head coaches that had the
• 1:34:52
  opportunity to be I agree, but enjoy what we're doing here.
• 1:34:56
  And they like they like working at Arkansas State and working
• 1:34:59
  with me. And so, you know, those are the
• 1:35:04
  qualities I look for. Do you have the ability to be a
• 1:35:07
  leader? Because you're going, you're
• 1:35:09
  going to be the head coach of your event group.
• 1:35:12
  Now, ultimately, I'm the head coach.
• 1:35:13
  I make the final decision, but I don't micromanage.
• 1:35:16
  I want you to be able to coach your group.
• 1:35:19
  You're the head coach of the throws group or you're the head
• 1:35:21
  coach of the jumps group. And you know, I put out a, you
• 1:35:26
  know, framework of this is how the body reacts to training.
• 1:35:31
  This is how we're going to do things within that framework.
• 1:35:33
  I'm not going to micromanage it. You have to be able to lead also
• 1:35:38
  you have to be able to communicate well and be able to
• 1:35:41
  recruit. And you know, of course, you
• 1:35:46
  know, it's a given. You have to have a certain
• 1:35:47
  knowledge base. You know you're not.
• 1:35:50
  So how do you suss out these things?
• 1:35:52
  You know, like I, I get what you say when you say, you know, they
• 1:35:56
  need to be a leader, but absolutely they need to be able
• 1:35:59
  to communicate. And by the way, communication is
• 1:36:02
  the hardest thing in the world, at least in the corporate world.
• 1:36:04
  Maybe it's better in the coaching world from when I was
• 1:36:05
  there, but you know, get to the point where this is my advice to
• 1:36:09
  all our people is get to the point where people complain that
• 1:36:11
  you're over communicating. Then we're finally
• 1:36:13
  communicating. Like we just communicate,
• 1:36:15
  communicate. So how do you from the so
• 1:36:18
  there's people right now that want to work at Arkansas State
• 1:36:20
  one day. So they're thinking about, well,
• 1:36:21
  how do I do my resume and all, you know, networking and all
• 1:36:24
  these kind of things. How are you sussing out?
• 1:36:27
  And maybe it starts with the resume.
• 1:36:29
  Maybe it starts with that person had contacted me before there
• 1:36:32
  was even a job of how are you sussing out these?
• 1:36:35
  This guy is a good communicator. This gal is a good leader.
• 1:36:38
  How are you sussing that out during the the process?
• 1:36:41
  Well, I, you know, I've been, if you're a young coach, it's a
• 1:36:44
  little bit different, but you know, I've been, this is my 31st
• 1:36:48
  year. And so I've been in this
• 1:36:51
  business a long time. So I have a lot of contacts and
• 1:36:53
  I know a lot of people and, you know, I take recommendations
• 1:36:56
  before I look at resumes. If those fall through, then I'll
• 1:37:00
  fall back on resumes and then do interviews.
• 1:37:02
  And, you know, we have positions where, you know, our staff gets
• 1:37:09
  paid OK, but the lower you go on the rung there, you don't get
• 1:37:13
  paid as much. And so you can't hire a really
• 1:37:15
  experienced coach for some positions and they have to be
• 1:37:19
  willing to learn and and take instruction.
• 1:37:22
  And so if I'm hiring a younger coach, they are under me for a
• 1:37:27
  year before I turn and, and I monitor what they do.
• 1:37:30
  And then if I teach them how I want things done and I turn them
• 1:37:33
  loose. But that's generally how, how,
• 1:37:36
  how we find them. But I haven't had to do that a
• 1:37:38
  whole lot. I haven't had much turnover.
• 1:37:40
  We've we've got a pretty good group of guys here that that we
• 1:37:44
  all get along and enjoy each other.
• 1:37:46
  And we've got a good squad there.
• 1:37:48
  I agree. I I like we do, Matt and Matt
• 1:37:51
  and all those guys. Yeah.
• 1:37:52
  Yeah. What you just said there, that
• 1:37:56
  young coach that you are going to have to really mentor for a
• 1:38:00
  year, Like basically what I hear you saying is I'm going to have
• 1:38:02
  to show him the Jim Patchel way, the Arkansas State way.
• 1:38:06
  This is what we expect from our coaches.
• 1:38:07
  This is how we do etcetera. That's the kind of thing that I
• 1:38:11
  don't think is being communicated effectively.
• 1:38:13
  Again, that there's that word communication to our assistant
• 1:38:16
  coaches of like, hey, this is going to be something you are
• 1:38:19
  going to have to be concerned about when you're the head
• 1:38:20
  coach. Yeah.
• 1:38:22
  That's yeah. And so then these guys and gals
• 1:38:24
  become first time head coaches and it's just there's deer in
• 1:38:28
  the headlights. It's like, Oh my God, I didn't
• 1:38:29
  realize I'm at the I'm not, I'm not to hire a kid, literally a
• 1:38:33
  kid who just graduated. They're going to be my jumps
• 1:38:35
  coach and I want things done a certain way.
• 1:38:36
  Well, I can't They, they've never been a coach.
• 1:38:39
  I can't just throw them out there and say coach and expect
• 1:38:41
  it to do. I've got a mentor like, Oh my
• 1:38:43
  God, I didn't realize that that's going to take extra time
• 1:38:45
  for me, which means I got to be better at time management
• 1:38:47
  because I've also got budget meetings and I've got, you know,
• 1:38:50
  all this other stuff. These are the things that we're
• 1:38:52
  not, I don't think we're. I don't believe we're doing a
• 1:38:55
  good job with our assistant coaches.
• 1:38:57
  Yeah. That that's something that
• 1:38:58
  probably needs to improve and that's something that make a
• 1:39:01
  priority. And I don't, I don't have to do
• 1:39:03
  that now on a daily basis because these guys have been
• 1:39:07
  with me for a while. But you know, 10 years ago I
• 1:39:10
  did. Yeah, this is how we do it.
• 1:39:13
  And it's the job I clearly communicate.
• 1:39:17
  It is your job as assistant coach to reflect me and my
• 1:39:22
  philosophy. Now, I'm not going to
• 1:39:24
  micromanage how you train your event group, but the philosophy
• 1:39:28
  of how we do things around here is that tone is set by the head
• 1:39:31
  coach and you know, you can't, you can't compromise on that.
• 1:39:38
  Now we, you know, we have arguments.
• 1:39:41
  Sometimes we have disagreements, but we but we always, and if I'm
• 1:39:46
  doing something wrong, which I do pretty regular, I'm not
• 1:39:51
  perfect. Nobody is.
• 1:39:53
  I want them to be able to come in and say, hey coach, I think
• 1:39:55
  this is a better way of doing it.
• 1:39:58
  And if I think it's a good idea, we'll do it that way.
• 1:40:00
  If I don't, I'll say, well, I don't think that's a good idea.
• 1:40:03
  And here is why. You know, I'm not a my way or
• 1:40:06
  the highway guy. But the final decision, I always
• 1:40:10
  tell them, you know, I've got 5 assistants.
• 1:40:12
  I said each of you have a vote. That's five votes, but I have 6.
• 1:40:20
  So so. That's how that's how it works.
• 1:40:26
  Yeah. We, you know, it's we're at the
• 1:40:29
  point now in our program where we work together.
• 1:40:31
  You know, I'm the head coach and, and I do set the tone and
• 1:40:35
  there are things that I do that assistant coaches don't have to
• 1:40:40
  do. You know, dealing with
• 1:40:43
  administration, fundraising, all the stuff that, you know, that
• 1:40:49
  is not really the reason I got into coaching, but it's part of
• 1:40:53
  it and I do the best I can at it.
• 1:40:55
  I want my assistant coaches to coach and recruit.
• 1:40:57
  Yeah, yeah. As much as possible.
• 1:41:01
  You know, we're a lot better off today.
• 1:41:04
  You know 10 years ago when you would go to track clinics,
• 1:41:08
  USTFCA convention, things like that, you know, 90% of the
• 1:41:11
  presentations would be about the XS and OS.
• 1:41:14
  You know how to how to coach the shop putters better pole vault,
• 1:41:17
  etcetera. We're probably my estimate would
• 1:41:20
  be we're probably 70-30, maybe 7525 where we're much better
• 1:41:23
  off. Now we are doing some things for
• 1:41:25
  the the professional development of our coaches.
• 1:41:28
  I think what you did and I'm so grateful you you described what
• 1:41:32
  you do there. I think that kind of lesson,
• 1:41:35
  what you call it, the Arkansas State way or the Jim Patchel way
• 1:41:39
  of like, hey, these are the things I have to do and this is
• 1:41:42
  how I do them. I think, I think an assistant
• 1:41:44
  coach hearing what you just said there, I think there's somebody
• 1:41:46
  listening right now that hears that and goes, OK, I, I need to
• 1:41:49
  do some things differently. Like if I want to become a head
• 1:41:52
  coach one day, then I'd better Start learning what that guy
• 1:41:54
  just said. I got to figure that out.
• 1:41:55
  I don't have, I get the luxury of not having to do that right
• 1:41:58
  now because I'm an assistant coach.
• 1:41:59
  But if I really want to become a head coach, that luxury is gone.
• 1:42:02
  Now I get to do these other things and I'd much rather them
• 1:42:05
  be starting on, on stage 4 as the first year head coach, not
• 1:42:11
  stage 0 and, you know, take some four years to get to stage 4.
• 1:42:13
  I, I think that kind of conversation would help boost
• 1:42:16
  the, the coaching profession tremendously, which means our
• 1:42:19
  kids have better experiences because that's really the other
• 1:42:21
  day. They're the ones that take the
• 1:42:22
  brunt or the positive of all the things that you do or don't do
• 1:42:25
  is those. And so I think raising that
• 1:42:27
  profession, the, the level of the coaching profession helps
• 1:42:29
  our athletes have better experiences in their, in their
• 1:42:32
  college and high school. This is high school too, by the
• 1:42:34
  way, but their overall track and field experience.
• 1:42:37
  Yeah. And that's one of the jobs of a
• 1:42:39
  head coach. If you're not doing that as a
• 1:42:40
  head coach, if you're not mentoring your assistants up
• 1:42:44
  until the point where they may not need quite as much anymore
• 1:42:47
  and you're not, you're not doing your job either.
• 1:42:49
  Yeah, I think so. I think.
• 1:42:50
  You're right. And you know, that's, that's
• 1:42:53
  just, that's part of it. I think you're right.
• 1:42:55
  I love it. All right, Jim, wrap us up here,
• 1:42:57
  man. You know, if you have done an
• 1:42:59
  amazing job of different programs you've been to, you're
• 1:43:01
  kind of a yeah, it's been, I don't know, I don't want to
• 1:43:05
  overstate it, but I just don't want to understand either.
• 1:43:06
  Visionary in the sense of like, you're a leader and you're
• 1:43:09
  always thinking. You're not just thinking about
• 1:43:10
  what's tomorrow and what this weekend's meet is.
• 1:43:12
  You're thinking about next year and four years from now and
• 1:43:14
  eight years from now. When you look at the future of
• 1:43:17
  Arkansas State track and field, what's got you excited, man?
• 1:43:20
  Well, you know, the next step for our program, you know, we we
• 1:43:25
  didn't have quite as good a year this year because obviously we
• 1:43:28
  hit that cycle where majority of our team is freshman and
• 1:43:31
  sophomore. You know, you kind of have to be
• 1:43:34
  patient through that and know that you know, we'll be back
• 1:43:37
  where we need to be. We're still one of the best
• 1:43:39
  programs in the conference and and you know, we want.
• 1:43:42
  Dagger. He just gave me the Troy alum
• 1:43:44
  again. That's another dagger.
• 1:43:47
  But yeah, I, I, I want to, we've been in and out of the top 20,
• 1:43:52
  top 25 a couple of times. But you know, before I retire, I
• 1:43:55
  want Arkansas State to be consistently there.
• 1:43:58
  And that's the next step for us. And, and you know, that's how we
• 1:44:02
  want to recruit and coach and, and plan our years and have
• 1:44:06
  that, you know, that's the fun thing about sports is you is you
• 1:44:10
  always have a goal out there. Once you reach it, you can go to
• 1:44:14
  the next one. And so that that's kind of what
• 1:44:17
  what we're doing now. I want us to be consistent top
• 1:44:20
  25 team. We haven't been, we've been in
• 1:44:21
  and out of it and recruit accordingly.
• 1:44:24
  We've we've done a good job of that over the last few years and
• 1:44:28
  I think we'll get there. Well, dude, if anybody can do
• 1:44:32
  it, you and your squad can. You know, again, I know a lot of
• 1:44:34
  your assistant coaches and they are, I mean, just of the highest
• 1:44:37
  people I just think of. Absolutely.
• 1:44:39
  Great time. Great.
• 1:44:40
  About you guys. I always think of Matt and Matt.
• 1:44:41
  I'm like, man, what? Just dude, if I was gonna be a
• 1:44:43
  head coach and I wanted two people, I take Matt and Matt in
• 1:44:45
  a heartbeat. Yeah.
• 1:44:47
  Every day, all day, baby. So and that starts with your
• 1:44:49
  leadership. So if anybody can do that,
• 1:44:51
  certainly you and your crew can do that, man.
• 1:44:53
  So I appreciate you sharing that with us, Jim.
• 1:44:56
  Thank you so much man. I enjoyed it, yeah, it's been
• 1:44:59
  great. I'm always just humbled when
• 1:45:03
  coaches during track season agree to sit down with us here
• 1:45:05
  on the podcast. You're busy, you are post
• 1:45:08
  conference. So I know it gets a little
• 1:45:10
  easier that way, but they're still recruiting, they're still
• 1:45:12
  first rounds, they're still nationals and everything else in
• 1:45:15
  between that, by the way, your own personal life, you have all
• 1:45:17
  that as well. So I'm just so grateful for you
• 1:45:20
  sitting down with us being so open and authentic.
• 1:45:21
  And again, thanks for letting me just pepper you with all these
• 1:45:25
  weird questions with the PhD. I'm sure you did not think that
• 1:45:27
  was going to come up at all in regards to how depth.
• 1:45:29
  I just was so, so interested. So I'm just really grateful for
• 1:45:32
  you today, my friend. Yeah.
• 1:45:33
  Hey, enjoyed it. Been great talking to you Mike.
• 1:45:36
  I appreciate you and you guys thank you again for pressing
• 1:45:38
  play. I'm always so humbled of all the
• 1:45:40
  people that listen to these stories.
• 1:45:42
  And it's really the men and women that come here as guests.
• 1:45:44
  You know, their journeys are so unique, right?
• 1:45:45
  Like at 300. And so I don't know what episode
• 1:45:48
  were 300 and something. I didn't see this.
• 1:45:49
  We didn't have a, you know, Dave Smith did a PhD, so we learned
• 1:45:52
  some about the PhD there, but we didn't see this nine years later
• 1:45:56
  and 30 years in the coaching and taking over his alma mater.
• 1:45:58
  I mean, that's just super amazing.
• 1:46:00
  And I know your journey is unique and this journey will
• 1:46:02
  help you have success with that. So thanks again for being here.
• 1:46:05
  Join us next week. Do it all over here.
• 1:46:07
  See you guys. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:46:11
  coach the ones that pour people most every season needs a voice
• 1:46:15
  of reason speaking the growth you got a prep for you carry the
• 1:46:18
  load ice coffee to the soul. For those of us staying the go
• 1:46:22
  proper handoff to stay in the zone which you packing for the
• 1:46:24
  road. There's more than one way to go.
• 1:46:27
  Take notes that's paying you told it ain't practice If you
• 1:46:29
  practice Saint Clair, it can't happen until you listen with
• 1:46:32
  both is you can't mentor without a mentor here of experience.
• 1:46:36
  You can reinvent those years Every plan's got to stand and
• 1:46:39
  deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
• 1:46:42
  It's a choice and a fight, not a win or lose.
• 1:46:45
  It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
• 1:46:48
  It's not about how to it's all about why.
• 1:46:50
  You don't know till you know who you are inside 6 when you waste
• 1:46:53
  of time, choose none. So y'all cross finish line.
• 1:46:56
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got
• 1:46:59
  to put in the leg work. Guil athletics use the network.
• 1:47:02
  It's all about connections put together for the profession to
• 1:47:05
  where every track coach could be blessing.