Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #277: Adrian Durant-Cornell University

Transcript

#277: Adrian Durant-Cornell University · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and Field world Juvenile tuned in to our humble servant
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  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Guild
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  Athletics connections. All right, welcome back here to
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  the Guild Athletics Connections Podcast.
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  I feel like this one is going to be dense in a great way.
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  So I'm actually going to go to like the quickest intro I've
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  ever done. Help me welcome the head coach
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  of Cornell University, the wise, the wonderful Mr. Adrian Durant.
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  Adrian, how are you? I'm doing great.
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  The wise, the wonderful. Thank you.
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  Thank you for the introduction. You deserve that.
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  You deserve thanks for having me.
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  Happy to be here. This one.
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  So this is going to be a lot of fun.
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  I feel like the the best ones that that we get feedback on are
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  the ones that are tangent filled.
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  Like we tell stories here and we ask about here and things like
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  that. I feel like just from the vibe
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  of our pre interview I feel like this is going to be pretty good
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  man I feel. Good.
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  Don't encourage me to go on a tangent please.
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  Well, OK, Speaking of tangents, we're we're going to, we're
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  going to make sure we get this right off the bat here because I
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  want to publicly chastise you for not doing this anymore and
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  encourage you to do it. So this is not your first
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  podcast. You actually you hosted your own
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  podcast for a while. Tell me more about that.
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  Yes, it was during the pandemic when all of us had a little
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  extra time on our hands and and I thought it'd be, you know, I
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  was going through this point where I I realized just for
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  talking to people, the type of. Environment that we're in as
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  coaches like we're in this just highly like motivational
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  environment where that's what we do and our kids have access to
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  that and it benefits them in a lot of ways but I realized that
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  a lot of people don't have that a lot of people who don't play
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  sports and they don't really get that as a part of their lives.
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  Someone tell me, you know, set your goals, you can accomplish
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  your goals you know, don't give up that's part of the process
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  Failure is part of the process. They don't really get that on a
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  day-to-day basis. And especially, you know, where
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  I'm from, I'm from the Virgin Isles, a small place and, and
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  was how I left there. And, and part of it is you have
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  to know that something's possible, right?
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  So I, I started the podcast so that some of these great Olympic
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  medalists, you know, Lashinda Demas is on there and then
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  Britney Reese and, and Lashawn Merritt and, you know, so they
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  can tell their stories. And because when you hear every
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  anyone who has a medal, anyone who's made to the Olympics,
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  anyone who's you know, NCAA champion or accomplish anything,
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  essentially they all. Is the same steps.
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  You know, and you start seeing the common trends through
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  everyone's the themes through everyone's stories.
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  So I figured if there's a generation of kids who aren't
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  sure what it takes to be successful and when things get
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  hard, if they don't know that that's part of the process.
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  If they don't know that you have to push through that, they don't
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  know that that's how you become great.
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  So all these people, if you listen, I.
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  Have 34 interviews and if you listen to them, all of them go
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  through this whole this this process.
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  And you know, I call it, you know this.
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  Four step process to success is what I I.
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  Like to call it which you know, the first thing is, is declaring
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  or setting your goal. You know, what is the goal I
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  wanted to achieve? A lot of people just skip that.
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  They don't even decide what their goal is.
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  A lot of people were running track.
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  They're like, I, I like to run, I want to run fast.
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  But if you want to accomplish something great, what is your
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  goal? You have to be.
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  Able to say it, say it out loud, be embarrassed, just say it.
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  So I found the first step is just deciding what this goal is.
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  The second step is taking the the steps to actually achieve
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  this goal, actually doing the things that it would take.
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  And the third step would be suffer, suffer, endure, whatever
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  you want to call it. But it's going to be a hard
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  time. And I don't know how long it's
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  going to last, but it's hard. And I can give you, I can cite
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  plenty of examples of this that do plenty of different stories
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  and maybe some of my own soon here, but suffer.
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  And if you. Can just make it through that,
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  then you achieve success. So you'll see that if you listen
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  to. You know anyone who's who hasn't
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  met, I'm sure if you tell their stories, if you listen to their
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  stories. From the outside it.
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  Always seems like everything is perfect and, you know, they're
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  just blessed and lucky. No, they, they went through
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  something. You don't become that without
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  going through something and, and overcoming it.
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  So I wanted to share that message to folks who don't hear
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  it. And, and that was the purpose of
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  the podcast. And since I had time on my hands
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  during the pandemic, yeah. I went ahead.
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  And did that and it was fun. But I got a little busy since
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  school started. I just haven't got back into the
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  swing of it yet. Goodness, you got back busy, you
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  know, in that sense, like they got to get back to seasons and
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  stuff. Yeah.
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  So you did a style that's very much close to my heart.
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  You were a long form interview style, right?
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  So what was your average length with some of these amazing
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  people? In 90 minutes, it's.
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  You know, if you really want them to to be able to just tell
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  their stories and not feel rushed and you know, and, and
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  really get all the details and you know, they tell some of
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  this, the funny parts and the sad parts and just get into it.
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  It takes some time. So I found that, you know 90.
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  Minutes. They can really just get into
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  the their story and elaborate a little more.
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  Unfortunately, you know, I found with the YouTube algorithm you
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  have, you have to do clips, you know, you have to cut things up.
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  And so I started. So I cut everything up at the
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  clips at some point. But I do have the long form
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  interviews, which to me that's the best format.
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  You know, a lot of people liked it.
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  I actually still, so it's still on YouTube, but it's on Spotify
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  and actually every week I see that folks are still actually.
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  Following it and. What's the name of it?
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  The homestretch with Adrian Durant.
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  All right, so you're listening to this podcast right now and
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  you may be on Apple or you may be on the YouTube.
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  We're on there as well. We're also on the Spotify if
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  you're not on the Spotify go. And so same thing you're
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  listening to right now. Search the The Homestretch by
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  Adrian Durant because here's where I one of the things I love
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  about podcasts, I love this about our show here and here
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  with Adrian in the homestretch. Is it it's what they call
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  Evergreen content, meaning you put it out there 10 years from
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  now, it's still there. It's kind of what the internet's
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  all about, right? So these amazing interviews with
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  Lashinda, you mentioned Lashinda, Brittany Lashawn
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  Merritt. Dwight Phillips, Yeah.
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  Yeah, Dwight. Yeah.
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  I mean, come on, These are amazing people.
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  That means that 90 minutes of gold.
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  It was gold back in 2020. Guess what?
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  It's still gold right now in 2024, but it's not being public.
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  You know, it's not published active, but it's still there.
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  So you need to go back and look at the library.
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  It's one of the things I work hard to hear.
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  Adrian, you know, we're on episode 200 and 72180.
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  We've got amazing coaches here. You know, I and I, I, I'm amiss
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  sometimes. And I'm like, oh, you know, Mike
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  Holloway, I think he was number 40 or maybe Brooks Johnson was
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  40. And I'm like, man, there's
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  people today that are coming into the Gill podcast world and
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  they don't know dude, Episode 40, banger, episode 66, amazing.
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  Episode 12, awesome. You know what I'm saying?
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  Like I'm like, please go back. Just look in the library.
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  I know it's a big library, but trust me, there are other
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  amazing men and women back there that you want to listen to.
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  Trust me, there's. Some legends in your catalogue.
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  Legends. And now you're the newest
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  legend. Search.
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  Just get it started. Homestretch with Adrian Durant,
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  because I, I'm 100% agreeing with you on the long format, the
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  90 minutes, there's some amazing 20 minute, 30 minute podcast and
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  those should be listened to as well.
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  But to get the, to peel that onion, if you will, if you want
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  to get past the surface, you bet you got to get past 30 minutes.
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  You want to get a little deeper, you better get past 60 minutes.
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  You want to get deeper, you better get past 90.
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  And so I love that you did that and I love that you went for
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  that style. You know for sure.
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  You know, you started listening to them like I think it was.
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  Lashinda, who was Lashinda who was telling me there was a point
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  where, you know, it got hard and her mom was there just on her
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  making sure she, you know, get up the hill, whatever, whatever.
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  And I started hearing that that was another common thing.
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  Everybody had somebody. I didn't.
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  I I hadn't heard. Of one person who just did it
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  completely alone. Everybody had somebody who
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  supported them through this journey in some way, somebody
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  who believed in them, somebody who, you know, who really just
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  helped them in any way that they could maybe encouragement,
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  whatever it was, everyone had that person.
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  So I like that. Like if, if that's not a known
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  message, then I I like everyone to to see that because you could
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  be that for somebody. I could just I could be that
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  person who believes in your dream and supports you.
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  And when you're discouraged, I encourage you and I motivate you
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  so that you can accomplish something great.
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  And we. We need that because we're we're
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  just human. So no one's a machine.
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  Don't think that these folks are just doing these great things.
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  That's why when they accomplish things, what are they doing?
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  They're thanking everybody, right?
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  They, they, they had a whole system.
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  They had people behind them who? Believe so.
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  You know, I, I just think that's an important message because no
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  one really talks about that. That's right.
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  That's right. And if you know, if we can't
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  hear it or see it, it's hard for the next person to become it.
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  So I know. Yeah, I think it's.
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  How do I know? How does the high schooler, you
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  know, know what it takes to become great?
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  I mean, we everyone figure, you know, the great ones figure it
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  out. But I think more people can.
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  And like there are a lot of people, we see people with tons
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  of potential. You know, I'll correct that a
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  little bit actually. So you said the great ones
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  figured out. I think we see the great ones
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  that figured out. How many great ones do we never
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  see? Because they don't.
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  They didn't know. They didn't know.
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  That's what I'm getting. Exactly like the potential,
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  right? Like we and we see people with
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  potential who you're like, man, why doesn't this person really
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  try? Because they don't really think
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  it's possible. Right.
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  And they don't want to be disappointed.
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  That's right, that's right. I love it.
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  Well, my admonishment, which is really my encouragement, is for
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  you and for you guys and gals that are listening.
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  I am a big believer that more track coaches need to be on more
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  podcasts, by the way. So, you know, there's other
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  podcasts out there and introduce yourself to be on the show,
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  create your own podcast, write books, write articles.
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  We are not surprised when we hear about Nick Saban.
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  Nick Saban writing a book that's like, oh, of course he's a big
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  football coach. We we should know his leadership
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  principles or whatever. I used this example earlier in
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  our prerecord. Where's Curtis Frye's book and
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  that man leadership just exudes out of him.
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  I'd love to know more about his journey and have other
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  generations of future track coaches.
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  Not even track coaches, coaches that that we would learn a
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  basketball coach would be a better leader if they heard
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  Curtis's story, in my opinion. I'm gonna go ahead.
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  I'll jump in there and. Say I do have an interview with
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  Coach Fry. And you should.
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  Check it out. It's, you know, I mean talking
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  about. Burning crosses on the yard.
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  Yeah, I can't imagine, Can't imagine.
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  I wanted to point that out first.
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  I love what you did and you're gonna come back to, and I'm just
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  gonna predict the future you're gonna come back to in some form
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  or fashion. Tyree Price is doing a lot of
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  some of these similar things as well.
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  I just love that and bless that stuff.
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  And I, I don't think there can be enough media around track
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  coaches. So I'm always going to encourage
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  that. So I appreciate you doing that.
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  34 episodes, that's better than 0 because I can't tell you how
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  many people you know, I, I teach people how to create podcasts.
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  How many people come to me saying they want to start a
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  podcast and we go through the whole, you know, it's pretty
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  simple actually, but we go through the whole thing and then
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  they never start because I want it to be perfect.
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  I need the perfect microphone. I need the what?
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  Whatever. All these things.
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  And it's like, yeah, guess what? That's that's zero production.
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  Nothing actually got out. That's like saying I want to be,
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  I wanted a track runner. Never sit in the track.
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  You got to get. Off the track, Yeah.
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  I wanted to feel like I got past that phase.
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  Like, it's like, whatever it is, like, most people don't even
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  start it. So I wanted to start it.
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  It's like, well, most people don't get past 10 episodes.
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  I was like, all right, we I have to at least get, you know, hey,
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  a little catalogue here. You will get better.
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  In fact, right now when you're listening to this, so this is
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  episode 200 and something, whatever, eighty, 7080,
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  something like that. If you go, if you went back and
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  listened to episode #1 you'd be like, oh God, he's terrible.
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  All right. But I, but I'm not afraid of it.
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  And So what I'm doing right now, we're actually because the 1st
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  10 people that were guests on the show had to show some real
• 12:05
  guts. So this is before COVID.
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  So no air quotes. No one was doing a podcast.
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  Actually, I always got a shout out.
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  Joe Frontier throws coach up in Wisconsin.
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  He's the, he's the OGI. Think he's got like 600
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  episodes. He's been doing this before we
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  were born. Yeah.
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  So I I always hesitate. I don't want to get too big of
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  an ego and say, well, I was the first, you know, I was the
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  originator into COVID. We'll say, but I want people,
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  those first ten people took a chance on me.
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  I was like, Hey, I'm I'm going to do a podcast.
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  You know, this 2000 people like what?
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  I don't even really know what a podcast is.
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  What you talking about, Mike? Oh, and by the way, I'm going to
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  interview about you. Oh, you know, it's a little, you
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  know, I don't really like talking about myself.
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  Oh, and by the way, we're going to go an hour and a half like
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  you got to really trust me to do that.
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  So we're rerunning as bonus episodes on Thursday.
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  So our original content comes out on Mondays on Thursdays for
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  10 weeks in a row. We're running episodes
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  123469910. The OG series, we're calling it
• 12:58
  the OG series just to give love back to what they are.
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  I didn't remaster it. Some of the audio is still
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  absolutely atrocious and I'm a little embarrassed, but I'm also
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  like, well, that led me to today in what we're what we're doing
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  now. So, so don't be afraid it, it,
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  it, it's going to look the first time you stepped on a track, it
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  looked bad, I'm assuming, and you got a lot better.
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  Get out there and get it done off my soapbox.
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  OK, Adrian, let's get into you because again, we're going to
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  have a lot of these. I just, I just feel like you're
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  still spoken. This is this is your podcast and
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  I'm just the the guest, I guess here.
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  Where does let's get to your origin story here somewhere
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  Assume it. Well, I do know you're an
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  athlete somewhere. Track had to start and you
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  mentioned you're from the virgin Iowa, which I didn't.
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  I didn't know that. Where does track start for you?
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  So track started for me in second grade on Saint Croix.
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  For those of you who don't know, Saint Croix's one of the US
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  Virgin Islands right next to Puerto Rico.
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  And I was one of those kids who had a ton of energy.
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  You know, I, I was bouncing off the walls all the time.
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  I was raised by my mom on Saint Croix and my grandmother and
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  they didn't know what to do with me.
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  And it was like to the point where?
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  They were just waiting for whatever age kids are allowed to
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  play sports, waiting for me to hit that age.
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  So the youngest possible thing. So I was in like gymnastics and
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  then I was in martial arts and then, you know, at some point I
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  could be in flag football, soccer and 2nd grade was track.
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  And you know, I guess that was the one that just stuck.
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  You know, it was, well, it definitely solved the energy
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  problem. You know, my mom sent me to
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  practice, come home exhausted so I wouldn't drive her nuts.
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  And I was, I was pretty good. You know, I was pretty fast.
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  I wasn't great at the other sports like basketball.
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  I wasn't that good. I was pretty good at soccer.
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  I played soccer for a long time. I played into high school before
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  I made a choice to just go full time track, but you know, track
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  like you just have to run. So it was fun Every when I was
• 15:08
  in school, I wanted to be the fastest and we used to just race
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  and I could brag about that. I, you know, just a little sign.
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  I do think that's important. You know, when I, you know, I'm
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  a men's head coach and when I think about, you know, boys and
• 15:20
  development, I think a lot of times we've missed that.
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  For me, track was something that I gained competence in and then
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  that helped me build confidence. And so I think boys need that
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  like you need something that you can try.
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  And I and I had, I did not have a lot of patience.
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  And so I credit that to my mom. She made sure that I didn't give
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  up instantly because I, I would just try something and I was
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  like, I'm not great at this. So I wouldn't want to stop.
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  And she would say, no, stick with it.
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  And so I would, I would just stick with stuff.
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  This might be a little Side Story.
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  She bought me a Pogo stick once and I had a lot of energy.
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  You know, I couldn't I couldn't really use it at first and then
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  at some point she's like, you know, just practice and I would
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  get to the point where I would just like be counting to 1000.
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  You know, I'll have the jump rope on the Pogo stick and and
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  it was a it was a little rusty. So it would just make this
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  really, you know, this, this this obnoxious out yes, that's
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  that boy. My mom was like like if I had a
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  run, she would tell the story like it was just driving her
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  crazy. She's.
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  Like there's a mistake. I should have figured out
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  something. That was a mistake.
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  It was a mistake, but. The point was I practiced it, I
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  got good at it and I gained confidence.
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  So I think that's important. And that worked for me.
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  And it, you know, once I was able to win my first couple of
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  ribbons at these small track meets.
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  And I was when I was able to leave the island for the first
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  time and visit the British Virgin Islands for small track
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  meets and see their, you know, how their money was different,
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  how their, how they spoke differently, like how the
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  culture was different, the food was different.
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  And it kind of sparked my, what I currently have is this love
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  for travel. And so that was it.
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  You know, it my first, that was it.
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  I was like, wow, I want to do this.
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  And I don't know who put the Olympics in my head, but I
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  started going around saying, you know, I want to be an Olympic
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  in. And you know, I have all these
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  little articles from like the Saint Croix Daily News and Saint
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  Croix Avis where it's like, you know, me with my little ribbons,
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  like Adrian Durant, 12 year old wants to be an Olympian.
• 17:23
  So that became my thing. That became my thing.
• 17:25
  That was the part of my identity.
• 17:27
  And I was I was, you know, I want to be the fastest guy on
• 17:30
  the Virgin Islands. What at that age?
• 17:32
  We, I love learning about like I know how American culture grows
• 17:36
  up with track and field. A couple weeks ago we had Elaine
• 17:40
  Francicon who grew up in Granada and it was interesting to hear
• 17:42
  about what the culture of track and field was in Granada.
• 17:45
  What, what's the in Saint Croix? What's the culture of track and
• 17:49
  field? Is that a big sport There is,
• 17:52
  you know, in Granada, he mentioned like cricket was a big
• 17:54
  deal. Talk to us about what the
• 17:56
  culture when you're growing up in track is.
• 17:57
  Is it cool to be in track, or are you really supposed to be a
• 17:59
  soccer player or something? No, we're, we're pretty
• 18:02
  Americanized in the sense that, you know, being the US Virgin
• 18:05
  Islands. So basketball still is, is king.
• 18:08
  I mean, Tim Duncan is from Saint Croix.
• 18:10
  We've had a lot of yeah, we have a lot of great basketball
• 18:13
  players that come out of our small, our small territory.
• 18:15
  So basketball is king. You know, football isn't really
• 18:20
  a thing. Soccer.
• 18:21
  Is I was wondering if football. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:24
  No, no, you know it. It isn't a thing in the Virgin
• 18:26
  Islands. And soccer is is.
• 18:28
  You know, somewhat, but I would say basketball is is the thing
• 18:31
  and track is, I mean, it's it's fairly popular, but I wouldn't
• 18:36
  say it's a huge sport now. We've had some very successful,
• 18:39
  you know. Virgin Islanders on the on the
• 18:42
  elite level and track and field. So like I said, our our little.
• 18:45
  Territory is able to produce some some stars here and there
• 18:48
  in different sports, but it's similar to America.
• 18:51
  So how did you as you're going through assuming there's whether
• 18:55
  you call it high school or not, there's something in high
• 18:56
  school, you know, 14 to 18 year old age period and you're doing
• 19:00
  track and you're getting better. When did the idea or how did the
• 19:05
  idea of whether it's coming to the mainland for college or
• 19:09
  what, what was the thought of like, well, how do I continue
• 19:11
  this on? If I want to be an Olympian, I
• 19:13
  got to continue on. How did that come around?
• 19:16
  So it was towards the end of elementary school, I went to
• 19:19
  Saint Mary's Catholic School on Saint Croix.
• 19:21
  It's kindergarten, 8th grade. And, and so that's where, you
• 19:26
  know, I would get my little, they would have recess and I
• 19:29
  would stand up in front and they would say, you know, Adrian
• 19:31
  Duran, I get my little ribbon. So I was really getting like,
• 19:34
  OK, this is something that I, I want to keep doing because, you
• 19:37
  know, you start getting a little bit popular from it.
• 19:41
  So, and so my mother, she worked at one of the local high schools
• 19:46
  and, and she just got the idea that staying on Saint Croix
• 19:49
  would limit my opportunities, which it would have.
• 19:52
  And so she had spoke to her, her first cousin, my Uncle Jerry,
• 19:56
  and decided I would, you know, ship off to New Jersey and, and
• 20:02
  seek some greater opportunity to see if I could pursue this
• 20:04
  Olympic dream. For high school.
• 20:07
  Yes, so I left Saint Croix after 8th.
• 20:10
  So I left Saint Croix after 8th grade.
• 20:12
  OK, so, so crazy how little parallel.
• 20:16
  I assume this may be a better assumption.
• 20:18
  Do you know Elaine Franzique? Yeah.
• 20:20
  OK, so a little because you know, he he went for not not
• 20:23
  high school. But I mean, I don't like, I
• 20:25
  don't, yeah. I don't know who I'm.
• 20:25
  Talking about, right? Yeah, we've accounted each other
• 20:28
  many times over. The years great dude you need to
• 20:30
  find him he's in South Carolina now by the way you needed to
• 20:33
  great dude. You guys would link up very
• 20:34
  well, but he went from Granada to New Jersey as well not for
• 20:38
  high for college Essex Community College and my question is
• 20:40
  always you know I'm from Alabama and I live in Illinois and it's
• 20:43
  freezing here. How does a kid and this you
• 20:46
  really a kid? This is 8th 9th grade, so
• 20:48
  you're. You know, it was terrible.
• 20:49
  Yeah, how how do you survive? I I barely survive.
• 20:52
  It's terrible, yeah. Yeah, no, it was.
• 20:54
  The transition was rough. I had no idea, you know, And on
• 20:58
  Saint Croix, the coldest it would ever get is 70°.
• 21:01
  It's the coldest. In the heart of winter, so.
• 21:05
  We, you know, it does not get cold and moving in North Jersey
• 21:09
  where you're going to, you're going to get snow.
• 21:11
  It's a huge transition and and a little bit of a culture shock.
• 21:14
  I'm moving in North Jersey, Teaneck High.
• 21:16
  School, you know, it's like. It's, it's, I don't want to say
• 21:21
  it's a very urban area because the school is, is very mixed
• 21:24
  when it comes to demographics, but it's a tough place if you're
• 21:28
  coming from another country and trying to find and trying to
• 21:32
  feel belonging and find a group to be a part of.
• 21:35
  It was, it was, you know, it was very cliquish, just like any
• 21:40
  high school. And I, I didn't really have
• 21:42
  that. I didn't really know anybody
• 21:43
  and, and have anyone to associate with.
• 21:45
  So it was, it was a tough transition for me.
• 21:48
  Didn't have, you know, clothing for the winter and definitely
• 21:51
  didn't have cool. Clothing.
• 21:52
  So I was a little bit of AI don't want to.
• 21:56
  I was not a loner. I would say just in the
• 21:59
  beginning I didn't. Have any friends?
• 22:01
  And it was a tough transition, but.
• 22:03
  And you're a track star, so you can't even, like, prove how cool
• 22:05
  you are on the track in the fall because it's not there.
• 22:08
  This is not well, you know, well, this is where having a
• 22:11
  little bit of an ego comes in. So I, I was this little guy from
• 22:15
  the islands. No one knew me, but I knew, you
• 22:18
  know, I was always a good student.
• 22:19
  So I could be in class, in school, the classes, that was
• 22:23
  kind of easy for me. You know, I guess it was a
• 22:24
  concern coming from the Virgin Islands whether the academics
• 22:27
  would, you know, it, it would, it would transfer over well.
• 22:30
  But I was always a good student in, in the Virgin Islands.
• 22:32
  When I came up to Teaneck High, it was, it was an easy
• 22:35
  transition for me. So I spent a lot of time
• 22:37
  talking, and some of that talking was just talking about
• 22:40
  how fast. I was so I'm faster than
• 22:41
  everybody, you know, And it was like, who is this?
• 22:44
  Who is some point? Folks like who is this guy?
• 22:46
  Because at Teaneck High School, everyone who's there comes from
• 22:51
  Benjamin Franklin Middle School or Thomas Jefferson Middle
• 22:53
  School. So they all these rivals kind of
• 22:55
  come together and that's Teaneck High.
• 22:57
  And if you didn't go to either one, it it's, it's hard to
• 22:59
  establish yourself, but I, you know, I'm the fastest.
• 23:02
  And so I started challenging folks were like, OK, let's shut
• 23:05
  this guy up. Let's let's race him.
• 23:08
  That just goes in my favor. So I started racing people after
• 23:11
  school. And beating them.
• 23:12
  And so I was like, OK, this guy is fast.
• 23:14
  So at least I could have a little bit of clout there where
• 23:17
  I was like, OK, this guy is fast.
• 23:20
  He has some athletic prowess. There's some backup to the talk.
• 23:23
  Yeah, yeah. Something, yeah.
• 23:25
  And then eventually, and that was my freshman year in fall, I
• 23:29
  joined the soccer team. So then I was able to make a
• 23:31
  bunch of friends and. And I was pretty good.
• 23:33
  I scored a bunch of goals for my freshman.
• 23:34
  Year I was pretty good. And then when track season came
• 23:38
  around, indoor track, then I was home and I was, I was able to
• 23:42
  make varsity as a freshman and then it was like.
• 23:44
  Who's this this little freshman on varsity and and?
• 23:48
  So yeah, it was just the. Beginning of me chasing that
• 23:50
  that dream. Jersey what a great.
• 23:54
  I love that you ended up in Jersey for track and field
• 23:56
  because one of my favorite states for track and field when
• 23:59
  I when I was a college coach, that was my recruited state and
• 24:02
  you know it. It should not be as good as it
• 24:04
  is, you know, weather wise. We just have to establish this
• 24:07
  that Jersey is a crazy track state.
• 24:10
  One of the best. I mean, there are always dogs
• 24:13
  coming out of there. I mean, every year there are
• 24:16
  big, big time recruits. I just love that little weird.
• 24:19
  I can't take a left on the street state, man.
• 24:21
  I just love it, man. I love it.
• 24:23
  So how did high school career go?
• 24:24
  You kept getting faster. How did you how was it finding
• 24:28
  your event? Were you always a sprinter?
• 24:29
  Did you try anything else? I was.
• 24:33
  I was. Yeah, I was, I was.
• 24:35
  Well, you talk to my high school coach to this day and she'll
• 24:38
  tell you I was a 800 runner. But there's no way, no how so
• 24:42
  that. But that'll tell you how my high
• 24:43
  school. Experience when when you're, you
• 24:47
  know, like a sprinter but you're coming off of soccer and your
• 24:50
  coach thinks you're an 8 runner, it can make things a little
• 24:52
  tough. But I did all the events and I
• 24:54
  was long jumping. I was running the 50 fives in
• 24:56
  the 60s and at least in my little neck of the woods, New
• 24:59
  Jersey, I was doing well. I was, you know, first team all
• 25:01
  county, Bergen County a million times.
• 25:03
  So that was that was pretty good.
• 25:06
  It wasn't until we would get down to South Jersey where it
• 25:08
  would get my butt kicked because I don't know what's going on
• 25:12
  down there. You know, back in my time it was
• 25:15
  Camden, you know, running three O 9 in Willingboro.
• 25:21
  What? What years is this?
• 25:22
  What year did you graduate high school?
• 25:25
  That's 2002. So this is 98 O2.
• 25:28
  So did you? Wow, that's interesting.
• 25:31
  Did you know, like Chris Stevens, Anthony Acklin, these
• 25:39
  are hurdlers, they would have graduated like O one, yeah, they
• 25:43
  were the top. There's three of them that they
• 25:48
  were #1 two, number three in the nation, all from Jersey 13131.
• 25:52
  I. Signed I wasn't at this the meet
• 25:54
  of champs. So OK, OK, I signed them in the
• 25:57
  Meet of Champs in JUCO in Kansas.
• 25:59
  So I again, I love the jersey. So I went and get as many
• 26:01
  athletes as I could. Wait, so you weren't the Meet of
• 26:03
  Champions? Wait a minute, hold on.
• 26:04
  OK, so yeah, so so let me Yes, so.
• 26:08
  I had, I ran OK and I ran 48 mid and 22 low and, and, and, and,
• 26:15
  you know, in that range. And at the time I had even back
• 26:20
  then, I had wanted to go to South Carolina.
• 26:22
  One of the track mates that I competed in when I was a kid was
• 26:25
  this youth games meet that was held right in Columbia at the
• 26:29
  University of South Carolina. And I guess back then I was
• 26:32
  saying that I wanted to be a Gamecock and then Fast forward.
• 26:36
  Isn't that? Interesting, I had forgotten
• 26:38
  about it. Fast forward in high school, one
• 26:41
  of the first coaches that my high school coach, we had
• 26:44
  multiple coaches. So one of my other high school
• 26:45
  coach introduced me to was Coach Fry.
• 26:48
  And it was like, OK, another encounter.
• 26:50
  And at that point, it was starting to be like, all right,
• 26:52
  something about this place. He was the New Jersey king too,
• 26:54
  by the way. Every kid that was good went
• 26:57
  from Jersey to South Carolina. To 2001 to you know South
• 27:01
  Carolina was hot and so I. You know, he wanted me to run at
• 27:07
  least 47 and I had, you know, I won the Burgundy, the Champs and
• 27:11
  I advanced to groups and everything.
• 27:14
  Then I pulled my groin at the, at Egg Harbor.
• 27:18
  I think it was the state sectionals and one of those
• 27:20
  meats. And so that was the end of my
• 27:22
  season and I hadn't run the time that he wanted me to run to be
• 27:25
  recruited. So at that point I was like, I,
• 27:28
  I had, I didn't run fast enough, you know, for a scholarship and
• 27:33
  I had my mind set that I wanted to go there because I figured
• 27:37
  that was the best place that I could, you know, have the
• 27:41
  opportunity to run fast enough to make it to the Olympics.
• 27:44
  Like I needed to be at a place where I can really get some
• 27:46
  expertise and be around some dogs.
• 27:48
  So I wasn't going to, didn't run fast enough.
• 27:52
  So I was like, well, you know what?
• 27:53
  I'm not going to go to college. I'm just going to train.
• 27:56
  You know, and figure it out. Yeah, I know this is now, mind
• 27:59
  you, I'm like in AP classes, national society, but I'm, I'm
• 28:04
  locked in, man. I'm locked in.
• 28:05
  I'm not worried about all of that.
• 28:07
  I'm like track, you know, and so.
• 28:10
  Are you? Hold on, let's make that picture
• 28:12
  a little bit more. Are you so locked in?
• 28:15
  Like are you the kid? I'm gonna call it the dream kid.
• 28:18
  And what I what I mean by that is, you know, right now, I say
• 28:21
  right now, back when I was in high school, they the same
• 28:23
  complaints from coaches about kids that they don't know their
• 28:26
  track history. They don't know who, you know,
• 28:28
  back then, it's like you guys don't know who Carl and Leroy
• 28:30
  are. Now today they're like, you
• 28:31
  know, you guys don't know who Noah and Aryan and you know,
• 28:34
  these guys were you the guy? Like you're so locked in because
• 28:36
  at 12 years old you're like, I'm, I want to go to the
• 28:38
  Olympics. Are you like, you know, reading
• 28:40
  the track and field news or you? No way.
• 28:42
  There's not a lot of Internet early back then, but are you
• 28:44
  like so you you're you're not that you're just locked in on.
• 28:47
  I'm not. I'm worried about me.
• 28:49
  Yeah, OK. It's it's me and you.
• 28:51
  I'm not. I'm not.
• 28:52
  Yeah. No, I wasn't.
• 28:53
  I wasn't locked you. Didn't know, like in Jersey
• 28:55
  you're like, Oh yeah, here's the top 4400 meter runners.
• 28:58
  I'm going after them. It was just like, I got it.
• 29:00
  It's my time. It doesn't matter what they
• 29:01
  well. I did know the top guys, but I
• 29:04
  was a little bit far from those guys at the time.
• 29:07
  I was just, you know, at the time, like I said, around 40.
• 29:10
  Eight, I'm like, all right, let me get the 47 because it opens
• 29:12
  up my chance to to at least try to walk on or figure something
• 29:15
  out of South Carolina, which I was able to.
• 29:18
  I was, I wasn't going to go to school.
• 29:20
  And my grandfather was like, yeah, OK, you're going to
• 29:23
  college. Like, it's not even a
• 29:25
  discussion. So he had a little money saved
• 29:29
  up and my mom took out a loan and was like, all right, one
• 29:32
  year, you know, one year. Good luck.
• 29:36
  Walked on it, South Carolina. I walked on in South Carolina.
• 29:39
  My PR in the 400 was 4862, hundred was 22 flat and hundred
• 29:44
  was 11. Flat at the time and I walked
• 29:47
  on. Other schools.
• 29:50
  I mean, yeah, so I could have gone.
• 29:52
  You're. I could have.
• 29:53
  Yeah, I know this was. That is not a good idea.
• 29:57
  I wish. I would have known that I could
• 29:59
  have gone to the Ivy League for free.
• 30:00
  Yeah, you had. The grades I was going to
• 30:03
  school, public issues, I had SAT scores, I just and I had no
• 30:07
  income, you know, so I was like, I could have gone to one of
• 30:10
  these schools, but at the time they weren't as good in track.
• 30:12
  They were. They were good, but.
• 30:14
  It's different. Now, Yeah, yeah, right now we're
• 30:16
  the 6th strongest conference, right?
• 30:17
  So it's a little different. I didn't want to.
• 30:20
  I wasn't trying to hear the Ivy League thing or any of the
• 30:23
  schools up north. I was like, no, I want 100° down
• 30:26
  South. I appreciate that you're not
• 30:28
  spouting off the, you know, these kids need to all walk on
• 30:32
  like I did. I appreciate that because that's
• 30:35
  not for everybody. Yeah, exactly.
• 30:36
  I get a little, you know, there there's no bigger track coach
• 30:39
  advocate than myself. So I, you know, I love the, I'm
• 30:41
  always supporting our coaches, but there's sometimes that means
• 30:43
  you have to push back. And I don't like that
• 30:45
  necessarily that, you know, all these kids, they need to go walk
• 30:48
  on. And it's like, bro, that's
• 30:49
  that's not every situation. Yeah, No, I can't.
• 30:52
  Demand that so. No, I wouldn't.
• 30:54
  I wouldn't. You know, that was my dream.
• 30:58
  That's how I thought I could accomplish it.
• 30:59
  And right or wrong, you got to own it.
• 31:01
  So I was willing to accept whatever the consequence, if I
• 31:04
  was going to get sent home after that year, so be it.
• 31:07
  So if you willing to own up to it then.
• 31:10
  Go for it. Before we get into how it worked
• 31:12
  out, So what is your mindset besides the Olympics?
• 31:18
  Professionally, I'm going to go to South Carolina.
• 31:20
  I'm going to study X. I'm going to become a business
• 31:22
  owner. What are you thinking and is
• 31:24
  coaching at all in your brain? As a 18 year old kid, no.
• 31:28
  OK, no way. I was, I was, I was in high
• 31:32
  school. I took computer science classes.
• 31:33
  So this is back in, you know, 2000 when things were first
• 31:37
  going. I was taking C++ classes.
• 31:39
  I took. C++.
• 31:41
  There we go. So, so I was and I was good at
• 31:43
  math, so I went into South Carolina as an engineer.
• 31:46
  I was in computer engineering and I didn't really like it.
• 31:50
  Adrian My first major was computer engineering.
• 31:53
  Look at this, a lot of common here.
• 31:55
  What's going on, man? I'm like, I'm like just the
• 31:57
  little bit older whiter version of you I think is what we're
• 31:59
  good at. Except for you're now at the Ivy
• 32:00
  League and there was no way, yeah, the academics actually is
• 32:03
  way different. But yeah, is that right?
• 32:05
  So on took C plus I was not good at math though, so I I sucked.
• 32:08
  I, I got AC in C++ and I was like, oh, it's not not going to
• 32:12
  get good. All right, keep going.
• 32:13
  Sorry, sorry. So I came in as an engineer.
• 32:14
  I didn't like discreet math. I didn't like.
• 32:17
  Just the high. Level math.
• 32:18
  I was like, all right, this is a little too much math for me.
• 32:21
  And I ended up switching over to pretty much it.
• 32:24
  Yeah, you know, I, but I still have my engineering background.
• 32:27
  Like I can, I can put together APC, you know, I can fix, fix
• 32:31
  PCs and laptops and whatnot, whatnot, which they were the
• 32:34
  point of my life. I have to survive off of that.
• 32:37
  Yeah, yeah. Adrian Adrian's computer repair
• 32:40
  had me afloat for a little bit, so.
• 32:43
  I love that because, you know, I, I think so highly of the
• 32:46
  people who choose to be track coaches and I'm really glad that
• 32:48
  they chose to be track coaches. But I look at people like you
• 32:51
  and, and other coaches and I'm like, oh man, you could have
• 32:53
  been like, you could have been like employee number 100 at
• 32:56
  Apple, like you could have been a doctor.
• 32:58
  That's, that's amazing. That's that's quite amazing.
• 33:01
  Yeah, but I didn't want to. I, I, you know, this.
• 33:04
  So I was, I was in IT because I'll tell you about the.
• 33:07
  First kind of job that I had in IT, but.
• 33:10
  So I graduated in IT. Essentially.
• 33:12
  And when I graduated, you know, I wasn't thinking about working.
• 33:16
  It was just like, I want to. Well, don't.
• 33:18
  Don't track. Don't graduate, Just skip, yeah.
• 33:20
  Yeah. So don't graduate, Yeah?
• 33:23
  So I was so I was computer engineering and switched to IT.
• 33:25
  Pretty much. And so you're betting on
• 33:27
  yourself, you know, that's the only thing you know at this
• 33:29
  point. For crying out loud, you go down
• 33:31
  as a 48 point kid to Curtis Frye and they, I mean, man, they're
• 33:35
  running fast. This is 2002.
• 33:38
  This is National Championship 4 by 4.
• 33:41
  Yeah, how did Portis? Harris, O Tequila Dakote,
• 33:45
  Jonathan Fortenberry and Anka Leg is a freshman.
• 33:48
  Fortenberry, Oh I. Loved.
• 33:49
  Him. Yes, Yes, yes, yes.
• 33:52
  Yeah, Otis Harris. How did it go?
• 33:57
  So, so my freshman year I came in, I had the mindset, I really
• 34:02
  didn't think that folks were better than me.
• 34:04
  Like I always just thought like, look, they had better coaching,
• 34:07
  they were in a better environment.
• 34:09
  I just always. Just chalked it up to
• 34:10
  circumstance. I never thought like, OK, it's
• 34:13
  like folks were really better than me.
• 34:15
  I don't know where I got that mindset.
• 34:17
  But I got a lesson. I was convinced.
• 34:20
  Well, I got a lesson, but that's another piece of it too.
• 34:24
  So I was convinced that if I could just, you know, get in the
• 34:27
  right place that I could be just as good as all of these other
• 34:30
  guys. So I walked on to South.
• 34:31
  Carolina. And I can just remember there
• 34:33
  being there the first day as a walk on.
• 34:36
  I had these big red sweatpants and I was I was a little guy.
• 34:40
  And to me that it's all look like giants, you know, and and
• 34:45
  you know, the women, too, they just won a national
• 34:47
  championship. So you have, you know, Mickey
• 34:49
  and Lisa here, Lashinda, everyone's there.
• 34:51
  You know, it's like, OK, this this is like intense just being
• 34:56
  there. And I'm.
• 34:56
  Trying to just keep my eye my head down, not make eye contact.
• 35:00
  And, and just, you know, just go through the most, do the drills
• 35:03
  and learn as much as I can. And that's pretty much what I
• 35:05
  did. But it got to a point where it
• 35:10
  was trying to figure out where I would be short sprints or long
• 35:12
  sprints. And it just, you know, they
• 35:15
  started figuring, figuring out that I had a little bit of
• 35:17
  strength because when I would train with some of the the short
• 35:19
  sprinters, I could just do a little more than they could.
• 35:23
  So I don't know what made Coach Fry do this, but he.
• 35:27
  Decided that I was going to be the training partner or training
• 35:30
  dummy. I don't know what it was for
• 35:31
  John and Otis, so he decided to just throw me with them right
• 35:37
  now. Can you imagine?
• 35:39
  Can you imagine? I'm running 48 Otis Harris, you
• 35:42
  know he silver medalist in the. Four, Yeah.
• 35:44
  Yeah, John, freshman year anchors it was something like 44
• 35:48
  one. It was something ridiculous to
• 35:49
  pass Gary Kakaya and and and to and to finish.
• 35:55
  After. Before.
• 35:56
  Troy No, I mean, I'm sorry. Daryl.
• 35:59
  Daryl. Williamson Yeah, that anchor
• 36:00
  leg. So, so you know, I'm like, OK,
• 36:05
  so I just did. Tons of grass workouts with
• 36:08
  these guys, three hundreds on the grass, and they would just
• 36:11
  drag me, drag me down the field every day.
• 36:14
  What was what was their attitude towards you?
• 36:17
  Because I'm picturing these two of you.
• 36:18
  They were studs. Here's a different one at first.
• 36:21
  Is that right? At first it was indifference.
• 36:24
  And then, you know, they made fun of me.
• 36:26
  They put me through my my growing pains.
• 36:27
  Coconut Coconut King Pineapple prints all the names, all the
• 36:32
  Caribbean nicknames they could make up, but.
• 36:36
  As the fall progressed, it was like, wait a second, you know,
• 36:40
  because I was training with them and they started realizing like
• 36:43
  he's not like he's, he's dying, but like he's getting closer
• 36:48
  every. Week he doesn't go away.
• 36:49
  Like he's still here. He's not, he's not giving up.
• 36:52
  Like he's he's staying like in this distance with us and so.
• 36:59
  I remember during my freshman year I had went to a track meet
• 37:04
  in to represent the Virgin Islands in El Salvador.
• 37:07
  I think it was Central American Caribbean Games and one of them
• 37:10
  so. That was cool that I.
• 37:12
  Was getting the opportunity to represent the VI and I went out
• 37:14
  there and I got smoked. I ran I ran like 49 one Now
• 37:20
  remember. But here's the thing though.
• 37:22
  Remember this is this is in the. Fall.
• 37:25
  So this is like. November this is like late
• 37:28
  November, early December. It's an outdoor meet and my PR
• 37:32
  coming in is 48 six so it's like OK, yeah, I got smoked, but I'm.
• 37:37
  Already kind of, you know where I left high school at, We're
• 37:41
  still in, we're still in fall training.
• 37:43
  So they made fun of me a little bit, but I didn't give up, kept
• 37:47
  going at it. And I just remember as we got
• 37:49
  towards. The indoor season, we should do
• 37:51
  like little inner squad meets and things like that.
• 37:54
  And but John Fortenberry, they were talking about picking the
• 37:59
  teams and picking the relays and, and yeah, the the short
• 38:03
  sprinters, you know, some of them were like greats like
• 38:05
  Thomas Lewis out of North Carolina and Duan Barrino, you
• 38:09
  know? That's what we got, some pretty
• 38:10
  fast time and John was like, we'll take Adrian, he's faster.
• 38:14
  Than all of you and. They're like, oh come on, get
• 38:16
  out of here. And he's like, he's faster.
• 38:19
  Than all of you and so. Kind of a bit of a position.
• 38:23
  Where? Well, no.
• 38:24
  Well, for me, I, you know, I'm like, I, I, I wasn't, I didn't
• 38:27
  really, at the time, I didn't know how much better I had
• 38:30
  gotten. Like, I just was thinking like,
• 38:32
  you know, yeah. You know, these guys are
• 38:34
  incredible. They're on full scholarship, you
• 38:37
  know. Yeah, I guess I could beat them.
• 38:41
  And so there was another time when there was another sign I
• 38:44
  was doing a 300 workout. For some reason I was with the
• 38:46
  short sprints group. And I'm not going to call any
• 38:49
  names so they don't in case they watch this, they don't.
• 38:52
  And I just I was a freshman. These guys are a full
• 38:54
  scholarship and we're on our 4th 300.
• 38:57
  And we were taking turns leading.
• 38:59
  It was my turn to lead. Now they say to me, don't run
• 39:03
  too fast because we're we're tired.
• 39:06
  I'm a I'm a walk on trying to earn a scholarship.
• 39:08
  So I've gun it bow last Rep. I run like. 30.
• 39:11
  You know, where flats in the fire run like 34 flat.
• 39:14
  And so Kevin Brown, he's like, oh, hold on now this, this, this
• 39:18
  guy have, you know, he has some wheels on him.
• 39:21
  So there were these little indicators that this was.
• 39:23
  Going to happen and then my freshman year going and I pretty
• 39:27
  much PR D every track meet. So I low starting point but I
• 39:30
  just kept PR ING PR and PR and PR to the point where they were
• 39:34
  like OK. It was just expected.
• 39:36
  I got to go to SEC indoors as a as a as a walk on.
• 39:40
  Where I pretty much ran the equivalent of my outdoor PRS in
• 39:44
  there and then his. The big one was our very first
• 39:48
  outdoor home meet. Florida came up, I forgot who
• 39:54
  else was there and I was in a slow heat of 200, but I ran 21
• 39:58
  flat and ended up getting like second to like Kyle Farmer and
• 40:02
  it was like. Oh, hold on.
• 40:04
  So now it's now I had AI had. Just made a huge jump.
• 40:07
  That's a second drop. From.
• 40:08
  When I had run in high school I was like 21 flat bordering on 20
• 40:12
  point something, so all. Right now I'm actually.
• 40:15
  Going to be able to do something and.
• 40:18
  So that was my freshman year. I ended up.
• 40:20
  For some reason, Coach Fry took me to SEC's as a walk on.
• 40:24
  Some folks got hurt, so I ended up having to lead off the four
• 40:27
  by four and we ran three. O 4 became SEC champion Otis
• 40:32
  Harris. Before that race I was nervous.
• 40:34
  He comes up to me and says look man.
• 40:38
  Take the baton, bring it around the track.
• 40:41
  Go to the podium and collect your FM metal.
• 40:45
  I was like. Because I was nervous and he
• 40:47
  came up to me, so I was nervous. He grabbed me and said get the
• 40:52
  baton, go around the track. Go to the podium.
• 40:55
  He's waiting for us at the podium.
• 40:58
  And he's like, that's, that's. And you know what?
• 41:00
  That I mean, you got to love having a teammate with that much
• 41:03
  confidence, right? You're like, all right, well, we
• 41:04
  feel good. It calmed me down.
• 41:08
  I gunned it and I know I gunned it because I don't have the
• 41:11
  footage, but I remembered them saying like South Carolina is
• 41:14
  out. Well, so you know, I just I was
• 41:15
  running scared. I had to come through way too
• 41:17
  fast. The 1st 200 I was rigging going
• 41:20
  through, but I handed off maybe in like you know, I was
• 41:22
  somewhere with Florida. You know, I think that I was
• 41:25
  siku. Clark.
• 41:26
  Leading off. And so we handed.
• 41:28
  Her out maybe in that third, fourth position and you know my
• 41:31
  team mates. Did the rest Wow.
• 41:33
  What? What?
• 41:34
  So is this the O3 season? This was O.
• 41:38
  Three yes, so I I joined four O 2.
• 41:40
  This was O3 my walk on year and and and so it was pretty cool
• 41:45
  after that because you know and and I ended up PR ING in 100.
• 41:49
  I ran 1037 that year and then. So I let off 40. 61 ran 1037 and
• 41:55
  then I end up running a 20.8 in the 200 at the regionals right
• 41:59
  after that. So the coolest thing for me was
• 42:02
  that the summer before leaving high school and I like I said, I
• 42:06
  was injured in high school, but the Virgin Islands wanted
• 42:09
  someone to compete at the. The CAC Juniors and the World
• 42:13
  Juniors. So I went to Barbados, so I was
• 42:16
  training there and that's when I first met Shirani Martina, who
• 42:18
  I've been good friends with for a long time.
• 42:20
  And we were roommates at the AT in Barbados.
• 42:23
  And I ended up going to the World Juniors in Jamaica where I
• 42:27
  met, you know, Daryl Brown and from Trinidad and and a bunch of
• 42:30
  these other folks. So it was an exciting time for
• 42:32
  me because I was kind of meeting and competing against all the
• 42:35
  top Caribbean folks. And yeah, I got smoked
• 42:40
  completely at the World Juniors after high school.
• 42:43
  I mean, it was bad it and I'm not saying I would have run a
• 42:47
  fast time, but part of it was them kids.
• 42:50
  This is lack of preparation. So, you know, I'm used to just a
• 42:54
  regular starting pistol pop, right?
• 42:57
  That for some reason 2003. They had this.
• 42:59
  Speaker system and it was a very different sound and so they have
• 43:03
  days where you can go and practice with the starter and I
• 43:06
  didn't do that so I went straight to the you know I'm so
• 43:09
  there I'm lined up I'm nervous big stadium full of people and
• 43:12
  the gun you know, set and I know.
• 43:14
  I should be responding to anything.
• 43:16
  And. I hear this sound and I don't
• 43:19
  move at all. You.
• 43:20
  Can imagine. So I get smoked, but luckily I
• 43:24
  come back the next year and the next year I'm able to make it to
• 43:28
  the Krypta finals in 100, get fit for six.
• 43:32
  Then I end up making it to the finals in a 200 at Krypta, going
• 43:35
  head to head with Shirandy and and Usain Bolt and Daniel Bailey
• 43:39
  and all these guys. And I pulled out a bronze.
• 43:42
  Going into I went into the final with the second fastest time to
• 43:45
  both and I actually thought I was going to beat him.
• 43:47
  So I may I may have to tell that story.
• 43:49
  Yeah, I. Think it's smoked?
• 43:51
  It's amazing. I'm putting my time frame in
• 43:54
  there. So that was 03 season, 04 and 05
• 43:57
  seasons I was on staff at Mississippi State, which, you
• 44:02
  know, we battled a lot in the four by four.
• 44:04
  We had a, you know, a 301-3024. We, we did a lot of battling
• 44:07
  back and forth then. So you would have been on those
• 44:09
  teams, man. That that's just, it's just kind
• 44:11
  of helping me like, Oh my God. Like I, I knew you air quotes as
• 44:13
  an athlete, like I had to. Well, luckily for me, I didn't
• 44:17
  have to compete against you. Thank God.
• 44:18
  The athletes. Yeah.
• 44:19
  It was just, it was an amazing time.
• 44:22
  You know, I'm gonna sound like the old man here.
• 44:24
  You know, this is before A&M, Missouri, obviously now the SEC
• 44:29
  is just, it's weird to me. It was, it's more pure, I think
• 44:33
  it was the 12 team SEC. It was just, it was a lot of
• 44:36
  fun, amazing athletes, amazing coaches and all that's still the
• 44:40
  same. They're still amazing athletes
• 44:41
  and amazing coaches. But I don't know, just the, the
• 44:43
  12 team format felt like it was more like, oh, like not, not
• 44:47
  that anybody could win the, the conference title, but there was
• 44:50
  more variety. Like South Carolina could win
• 44:52
  the four by four and you know, those kind of things.
• 44:54
  Now with this 16 team, it's kind of like, I don't know, just it's
• 44:58
  like, yeah, you're down to three teams basically that will always
• 45:00
  only win any of all the events at this point.
• 45:01
  So I don't know, just like I sound like the old man there.
• 45:05
  So you're going through your I mean what amazing.
• 45:08
  Like every coach right now is like, gosh, how do I get a walk
• 45:12
  on at 11 point and they run 1037 freshman year like that.
• 45:16
  That's the the Holy Grail of walk on and and coaching
• 45:20
  improvement. How did like so as you come back
• 45:23
  in for a sophomore, junior, senior season, like you, you
• 45:26
  already had some pretty good confidence, it appears, but I
• 45:29
  mean, now you've got like stats behind it to back up.
• 45:33
  I feel like not bad confidence. I just feel like more
• 45:36
  confidence. You you mentioned earlier about
• 45:38
  competence equaling confidence. You got a lot more competence
• 45:41
  now going into it. How did the rest of the, the
• 45:44
  career go? You know, we, we want to hear if
• 45:47
  you ran 1037 freshman year, then you ran 937 your senior year,
• 45:50
  right? I, I wish so no, it didn't go
• 45:54
  that way and I, I learned a lot of valuable lessons from that
• 45:57
  experience as well. You know, freshman year was
• 45:59
  amazing. I was able to get put on a full
• 46:02
  ride came back my sophomore year.
• 46:05
  Thanks. I made it to nationals my
• 46:07
  sophomore year in the 60 and so it was kind of progressing in
• 46:11
  the right direction. I would say outdoor my sophomore
• 46:17
  year is probably when I, well, I did make it to the Olympics in O
• 46:23
  4. Let's get to that.
• 46:24
  I was able to, I was, I was able to represent the US Virgin
• 46:27
  Islands at the O four games in Athens.
• 46:29
  OK, I want to know this then, because I love this that you
• 46:33
  know, like there's like actual physical receipts.
• 46:35
  There's newspaper articles of 12 year old Adrian saying I want to
• 46:38
  go there now in O 4. So talk about the first time
• 46:44
  when you found out you're actually going to the Olympics.
• 46:47
  I mean, that had to be. It's almost been like your life
• 46:49
  goal for crying out loud up to this point.
• 46:51
  It was, but I can't. Even remember the moment,
• 46:54
  really. Yeah.
• 46:58
  Because it was so unceremoniously meaning I assume
• 47:00
  it was probably in a letter, e-mail, phone call.
• 47:03
  Did it not hit you until? You got there.
• 47:05
  I just, I, I think, and this I think I took a lot of things for
• 47:12
  granted because I was so young. I really did.
• 47:16
  I think I thought that this was just how like I remember doing
• 47:20
  the press conferences and I was, I was very excited.
• 47:22
  It was like, I get to do this, but I think I just felt like
• 47:25
  this is just a start and it's going to.
• 47:27
  Be the norm. Interesting.
• 47:29
  You know, I, I, I think I, I took it a little bit for granted
• 47:32
  and I, which I regretted eventually.
• 47:35
  Sure. You know, I, I think I, you
• 47:38
  know, I talked to my kids about that, you know, like having a
• 47:41
  great freshman year based off my experience and then coming in
• 47:43
  the next year, just thinking you're automatically supposed to
• 47:46
  be the man. That's not necessarily the case.
• 47:48
  You have to refocus, you know, create new.
• 47:51
  Goals. I think once I got through
• 47:54
  Athens. I didn't create new goals.
• 47:58
  I hadn't thought about what I really wanted to be.
• 48:01
  I was just going through the motions of being a track and
• 48:03
  field athlete. And and like I told you about
• 48:06
  the keys to success earlier, if you don't identify the goal,
• 48:10
  then you're kind of floating through.
• 48:12
  So I didn't really decide that I wanted to be, you know, I wanted
• 48:19
  to be a world champion. I wanted to run, you know, 98
• 48:22
  and 100. I wanted these things to happen.
• 48:24
  I never really thought about it and decided on it.
• 48:26
  I just thought it would just keep happening and it did it.
• 48:30
  And you know. I.
• 48:31
  Probably should have taken some things more.
• 48:33
  I would have taken some things more seriously had I decided.
• 48:37
  Would have had less injuries. I would have taken better care
• 48:39
  of my body. The injuries are really what
• 48:41
  sidelined. Me.
• 48:42
  Most elite athletes? Sure.
• 48:44
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 48:45
  I'm running sixty to 100, you know, the injuries handy, of
• 48:49
  course. And so I do think it's
• 48:52
  important, you know, even when you're achieving some of your
• 48:55
  goals to to really stop and decide what's next.
• 49:00
  You know what, OK, you're conference champion.
• 49:02
  So what? What is it?
• 49:03
  That or or set the big goal from the beginning.
• 49:05
  But I think what you're describing is like it's a
• 49:07
  continual, there is no finish line, right?
• 49:10
  So. You're never done.
• 49:11
  I made this goal. Great.
• 49:13
  Well, what's the next thing? Because if you don't have that
• 49:15
  next thing, I think you're kind of describing it well.
• 49:17
  It's like, well then where's your aim?
• 49:20
  There's a lot of ambiguity. Ambiguity.
• 49:25
  I went to Troy University, so you know, education's a little
• 49:29
  less there. It's much more ambiguous if you
• 49:31
  don't have that target in front of you.
• 49:32
  That's why we have targets, for crying out.
• 49:34
  Loud yes, you're aimless and and it's hard to put 100%, you know
• 49:38
  of your effort when you're aimless.
• 49:42
  So that led to injuries and and so that's why you haven't heard
• 49:46
  of me as this, as this great track and field athlete, but I
• 49:50
  learned enough to know that I know how to achieve a goal.
• 49:54
  And so I was able to at least experience that.
• 49:56
  And, and I had said some, I've achieved some other goals since
• 49:59
  then, you know, just not as a track and field athlete, as a
• 50:03
  coach for sure. Before we move on graduation and
• 50:06
  how we started to get into coaching, you know, I mentioned
• 50:08
  Curtis Fry and I think you know extremely highly of him.
• 50:11
  You mentioned Kevin Brown, another guy that I'm not sure
• 50:14
  gets his due. I I don't know if I don't want
• 50:17
  to surprise and say overshadowed by Curtis Frye maybe, but Kevin
• 50:21
  Brown is amazing, by the way, Love, love him and what he's
• 50:24
  done and and does. What was it like?
• 50:27
  You actually your whole staff, by the way, Deletia Quarles was
• 50:30
  there at that time and you had, you guys had some, I mean just
• 50:34
  leaders. Mike, Sergeant.
• 50:36
  Come on, Mike love. Mike, did you?
• 50:39
  Were you able to get a sense, you know, it's kind of looking
• 50:43
  back now, you know, now that you're in coaching and things
• 50:46
  like that, but were you able to get a sense of like who was
• 50:49
  actually working with you? Like, oh, these guys and gals
• 50:51
  like like this is cream of the crop type people not only
• 50:54
  coaching but like leadership person wise?
• 50:57
  Or was it more just like, yeah, they're the coach.
• 50:58
  They say go, I go. Yeah.
• 51:00
  No, I don't think we ever. We never really thought about
• 51:03
  that. You know, this group of people,
• 51:06
  like the people I was around, there's some motivated folks.
• 51:10
  So if they're there, it's because they believe in the
• 51:12
  system. They believed in Coach Fry.
• 51:14
  You know, they, they saw what they were able to accomplish in
• 51:16
  South Carolina. So it's it's, it didn't take
• 51:21
  much to get them to be locked in like these are these were some
• 51:25
  serious, you know, Lachinda, you know, Otis, these folks were
• 51:29
  very serious about this. I'm not sure.
• 51:32
  I'm not sure they could have. I'm not sure at the time they
• 51:35
  could appreciate, you know, the leadership that they were
• 51:40
  experiencing. But you know, I think if you
• 51:43
  talk to some folks now, you talk to Lashinda and and and Chelsea
• 51:46
  right now off that. They just were taking a picture
• 51:49
  with coach. Fry like this is all daddy blah
• 51:51
  blah blah. So, I mean, you know, they love
• 51:53
  Coach Fry. It it's hard sometimes.
• 51:54
  And by the way, a lot of empathy because we're talking about 18
• 51:56
  to 22 year olds here, by the way.
• 51:58
  I mean, these are kids. It's hard sometimes to see it in
• 52:01
  the moment. It's it's easier as a 30-40
• 52:03
  fifty. You're like, look back like, oh
• 52:04
  man, thank God that person was in my life because of, you know,
• 52:07
  yada, yada, yada, 1920 year old kids.
• 52:09
  Sometimes you're just figuring out like, am I eating ramen for
• 52:11
  dinner tonight or am I going to the cat?
• 52:13
  Like, hey, you think you know everything too?
• 52:14
  Exactly, Yeah, yeah, a lot of sympathy for that.
• 52:17
  I I get that. So as you're moving towards
• 52:19
  graduation, things are happening as some injuries, they're still
• 52:23
  improvement still. You guys are still a great
• 52:25
  squad. Yeah.
• 52:27
  Coaching at all. In your mind, what's what?
• 52:29
  What are we thinking? We're getting ready to graduate.
• 52:31
  What do we think of? No, no, I was at South Carolina.
• 52:35
  So I was thinking what everyone else was doing, like I was just
• 52:38
  going to go pro. Like I.
• 52:39
  Really took it for granted you just.
• 52:40
  Assumed. That well, what a flex.
• 52:42
  Did you guys just hear that like everybody else in South Carolina
• 52:44
  was like, what's the contract? Is we going to DS or Nike?
• 52:47
  That's what that's what I was around.
• 52:49
  You know, that's what was happening at the time.
• 52:52
  You know, Otis went ahead and like, these folks are just, you
• 52:54
  know, and then we had pros around us all the time.
• 52:56
  You know, Alan was there, Terrence Jamel was there.
• 52:59
  So, you know, to me that was the process.
• 53:01
  You graduate and GoPro and so I I ended up when I left S.
• 53:07
  So what ended my collegiate track career?
• 53:11
  I did make it to the 200 semis my junior year, my senior year
• 53:15
  NC it's my senior year. I thought it was a given that I
• 53:18
  was going to be in that final of the 200 and I end up just
• 53:20
  tearing my hamstring and it just ended my season before before
• 53:24
  even pen relays. So that was that was that I was
• 53:28
  I was done. I think it happened at maybe Sea
• 53:30
  Ray Relays. It was a bad one.
• 53:32
  So that pretty much ended my season and at the time, if it
• 53:36
  was now I would have gotten it back.
• 53:38
  But back then it was it was. No getting it back.
• 53:40
  Yeah, that's right. So that was it.
• 53:43
  So it ended. It's kind of anti climatic.
• 53:46
  It was like, all right, this is I'm done.
• 53:49
  But I was able to, you know, academically I was good to go.
• 53:54
  So my last year was pretty easy and I was able to rehab and kind
• 53:57
  of get back into training a little bit.
• 53:58
  And so I ended up moving to Virginia, Norfolk, VA, to train
• 54:03
  with Coach Dwayne and then Lashawn Merritt.
• 54:06
  Yeah. Is that right?
• 54:08
  So you're you're thinking I'm going to, I just keep running.
• 54:11
  I've got this degree, but I'm I'm still in the mix to to make
• 54:15
  some things happen. Yeah, I've been haven't changed
• 54:17
  my course yet. I'm like, well, I'm still doing
• 54:19
  it. You know, I'm I'm still one of
• 54:21
  the top track and field athletes from the Virgin Islands.
• 54:24
  So I still have opportunities to go to all these meets.
• 54:27
  And I went to a lot of meets. I compete in a lot of
• 54:29
  competitions all over the place. And I made it to a round round
• 54:33
  at the 60 at the World Champs in Madrid.
• 54:37
  Or I don't. I don't.
• 54:39
  How? How would that have changed if
• 54:41
  you were AUS citizen knowing that you'd have to go through
• 54:45
  the US trials for for these type of opportunities?
• 54:49
  Probably would have. Well, you could say two things.
• 54:53
  I never would have would have had the opportunity or I would
• 54:57
  have taken things a little more seriously and I would have
• 54:59
  become a better athlete. So yeah, that's a good point.
• 55:01
  Yeah, it's. One it's one of the other.
• 55:03
  Yeah, 'cause I always wonder, you know, we see some athletes
• 55:07
  that change citizenship based on their, you know, their birth
• 55:10
  rights and things like that. And I know there's a lot, you
• 55:13
  know, there seems to be a lot of like it seems a very black or
• 55:17
  white people hate it or they're OK with it.
• 55:19
  I think I'm, I'm kind of OK with it because I'm like, well,
• 55:20
  that's legal through the rules. So what, how you going to get
• 55:23
  mad? You know, it's legal through the
• 55:25
  rules. And I also understand like, you
• 55:27
  know, the US system is just so brutal and unforgiving that like
• 55:32
  maybe it's cooler to have a little easier path and that
• 55:34
  you'll be more successful that way.
• 55:35
  Like I, I don't know, I just wonder like the opposite, like,
• 55:38
  man, if you have that gauntlet in front of you of like, man, I,
• 55:41
  I have to be top three on this one day or I stay at home.
• 55:45
  That's just, it's so brutal. Well, I think you could make the
• 55:48
  case that there's some folks who would not have made it through
• 55:51
  the US qualifying system. They wouldn't have finished top
• 55:55
  three or top four. But for sure.
• 55:57
  They can, but they can be finalists at the big meet,
• 56:00
  right? And sometimes they meddle.
• 56:01
  So it's like, you know, right, it's a different, it's different
• 56:04
  pathway that was available to them because of their heritage.
• 56:07
  Like to me, I would do whatever is the easiest way to get into
• 56:10
  the finals, because once you get to the finals, who knows what
• 56:13
  happened, you know what I'm saying?
• 56:14
  So. I don't know.
• 56:16
  I just, no, it was just interesting.
• 56:18
  It's interesting. So where and how did a
• 56:21
  transition out of professional track and field of being an
• 56:25
  actual athlete? Wait, transition out of.
• 56:30
  Running, I'm going to say unattached because everyone
• 56:33
  knows what that is. That's when you're not making
• 56:34
  any money, but you're still running track.
• 56:36
  Yeah, so or maybe on equipment? Back in the.
• 56:38
  Day. It's also called professional
• 56:40
  track and field, unfortunately. Yeah, it's, oh, I mean, I, you
• 56:44
  know, you get some prize money, so I guess I was a pro.
• 56:46
  But it's, it's just, it's sad. Agreed, agreed agreed.
• 56:52
  So I I ran in Virginia for a couple years, trained out there
• 56:55
  with Lashawn and and like I said there were ups and downs.
• 56:57
  Had some good experiences and learned a lot, but at some point
• 57:02
  it was like, OK, I'm going to need to get a job or something
• 57:06
  here. Like what what am I going to do
• 57:08
  for long lasting income? Like what's my career going to?
• 57:12
  Because it's not going to be running 95 and and getting rich.
• 57:16
  So what am I going to do? And so my first, I don't want to
• 57:22
  say my first serious job at post, you know, track was
• 57:27
  working at Canon and IT and, and tech support because I did my
• 57:32
  internship at the University of Virgin Islands and IT moved back
• 57:35
  there. I did my internship there.
• 57:38
  And so I had the background and I, I worked at Canon and I
• 57:41
  absolutely hated it. I mean, it was like, you know, I
• 57:44
  was sitting there and they were like, yeah, you know, you have a
• 57:46
  degree, so we'll pay you more than everyone.
• 57:47
  You'll get $13.00 an hour instead of, you know, 10.
• 57:50
  And I'm like and and I'm sitting there with people who are like
• 57:55
  60, who've been there for like, you know, 20 years.
• 57:58
  Thank you for calling Cannon Adrian speaking.
• 58:01
  How may I help you? And you know, oh, you have a
• 58:04
  whatever, whatever the model is and and it was mind numbing.
• 58:08
  Oh, I. Was about to say how do.
• 58:09
  You. Yeah, it was mind numbing.
• 58:11
  I started gaining, gaining weight and was just like, Nah, I
• 58:15
  don't, I don't. This is this is.
• 58:17
  I can't do this. This is what I got a degree for,
• 58:19
  to do this, yeah. Yeah.
• 58:21
  So I ran back to track for a little bit.
• 58:24
  You know, I got in shape. There's an opportunity, the
• 58:26
  benefits of a small country to run at some meats.
• 58:30
  And I took it and I ran and I ran, you know, pretty slow times
• 58:33
  and I was running like 10 fives. But it felt good to kind of.
• 58:36
  Be, you know, I was like, this is better than what I was doing.
• 58:41
  So I ran a couple meets, you know, a little circuit in
• 58:43
  Canada, this and that. And after that I went.
• 58:46
  I end up moving back to the Virgin Islands for a bit.
• 58:51
  So I'm not hearing, I'm not hearing like, oh, so I thought
• 58:55
  I'd get into like, I'm not hearing coaching yet at all.
• 58:57
  No, listen, so wait, let's, I mean, I'll be met maybe messing
• 59:02
  up the order a little bit when I shut it down.
• 59:04
  I worked at Cannon, then I did that little series of of racing.
• 59:10
  Then I decided I was going to I was going to keep training and
• 59:14
  then maybe establish myself as a coach.
• 59:16
  So I went to volunteer coach. OK, So I ended up volunteer
• 59:19
  coaching at Illin at University of Illinois for a little bit
• 59:23
  under Wayne Angel. That was my first opportunity.
• 59:26
  That's. Right.
• 59:26
  I forgot you were out here. That's that's where we went.
• 59:29
  Yeah, Yeah. That's right.
• 59:31
  Yeah, I was in. Champaign through the winter
• 59:32
  and. Now you know what I'm going
• 59:34
  through. Yeah, so I was there for a
• 59:36
  little bit as a volunteer, just figured out a housing situation.
• 59:40
  How did you get connected with Wayne?
• 59:42
  So, OK, all right, So my second grade coach and who coached me
• 59:49
  through exactly through elementary school and who a lot
• 59:52
  of people know because he also coached me when I was running,
• 59:56
  you know, in the world champions, all these other
• 59:57
  meets, and he's a very noticeable person.
• 1:00:02
  Talking to a guy, his name is Charles Goffin.
• 1:00:03
  Some folks going to hear that they're going to know exactly
• 1:00:05
  who he is. But he had coached with Wayne
• 1:00:08
  Angel at Pike High School back in Indiana, back in.
• 1:00:12
  Yeah. And so they knew each other.
• 1:00:14
  And so I was able to become a volunteer with Angel through
• 1:00:18
  Charles Goffin, volunteer there for a little bit until he left
• 1:00:22
  Illinois. Now, are when you say volunteer,
• 1:00:25
  are you volunteering like you're actually coaching or are you
• 1:00:28
  like you're, you're pacing people, You know what I'm
• 1:00:31
  saying? No, no, I'm well.
• 1:00:34
  No, I'm I'm doing a. Bit of both.
• 1:00:36
  Like it's my introduction to coaching.
• 1:00:38
  So but you're. Wayne Angel is still He's
• 1:00:40
  running the show. I'm doing what he's telling me,
• 1:00:42
  but I'm still, I'm still kind. Of yeah, sometimes volunteer
• 1:00:46
  coaches are they're, they're pace horses, they come in and
• 1:00:48
  they lead the 400 meter group. That's not volunteer coaching,
• 1:00:50
  that's just that's training. No, yeah, I wasn't.
• 1:00:53
  No, I was training as well, but I would do a lot of training on
• 1:00:56
  my own. Right.
• 1:00:57
  Go coach with the team. So are you now?
• 1:01:00
  Because there is a difference between being an athlete and
• 1:01:02
  being a coach on what the workout means to you.
• 1:01:04
  When you're an athlete, the workout is 3 by 400.
• 1:01:06
  It's okay, this is the pace, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:01:08
  As a a coach, it's I'm watching and monitoring them while
• 1:01:11
  they're going through their paces and their splits and
• 1:01:13
  things like that. Are you now starting to because
• 1:01:15
  maybe you didn't as an athlete it, it's excusable to not maybe
• 1:01:18
  pay attention to the workout as much because it's just you need
• 1:01:20
  to go get the job done. Are you now like, oh, Wayne
• 1:01:23
  prescribed this on Monday and then he did this on Tuesday.
• 1:01:26
  I wonder why, why, why did we actually do that?
• 1:01:29
  Did you start? No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:01:30
  At that point, No, at that point, you know, I was only at
• 1:01:33
  Illinois for maybe six months because he ended up leaving
• 1:01:37
  Illinois right, Right when he left, when he left Illinois,
• 1:01:41
  that was a little bit, even though I wasn't making any
• 1:01:44
  income in men, I, I had to leave.
• 1:01:46
  So that was tough that for me, because I already wasn't making
• 1:01:50
  any money, things were really bad.
• 1:01:51
  So now moving back to Virginia, that was, you know, it was a
• 1:01:57
  rough situation. So I ended up.
• 1:01:59
  It sounds a little turmoil. Yeah.
• 1:02:05
  How now, now you, you, you know, you're a kid who went from Saint
• 1:02:10
  Croix to Jersey. You know that that's turmoil.
• 1:02:13
  But you, you survived and thrived.
• 1:02:15
  How are you? You know, I, I got this job,
• 1:02:18
  that kind of thing that wasn't cool.
• 1:02:19
  So I went back to train. Now, OK, I'm going to go to U of
• 1:02:21
  I and and volunteer coach that maybe this will be OK.
• 1:02:25
  I feel like maybe this will be some stability.
• 1:02:27
  Oh, doubt that's pulled out. How are you handling instability
• 1:02:31
  as an as an adult? I mean, you're, you know, this
• 1:02:34
  is quote UN quote, get real time.
• 1:02:35
  Gotta gotta get a job. It's like stuff, you know, a
• 1:02:38
  career. Yeah, I never really thought
• 1:02:43
  about it. You know how I handled it.
• 1:02:45
  I was just in it. And so when I'm in it, I'm just
• 1:02:47
  trying to figure it out. I don't spend a lot of I I don't
• 1:02:50
  really, you know, I don't believe in, in worrying.
• 1:02:52
  I don't believe in panicking. So none of that said.
• 1:02:58
  Rule #1 And I got this from Charles Goffin, and I should.
• 1:03:00
  Still use this so I still use stuff for my second grade coach.
• 1:03:03
  All that and rule #1 is never panic.
• 1:03:06
  And I use that in all aspects of my life, you know, And I've been
• 1:03:11
  in some interesting situations, I can tell you that.
• 1:03:13
  And just panicking just never serves any purpose.
• 1:03:16
  So if I'm in a tough situation, I don't waste time.
• 1:03:20
  I'm trying to figure it out. So when?
• 1:03:23
  I'm always looking forward is what is kind of the picture I
• 1:03:25
  get the most panicking is looking back like, oh, crap,
• 1:03:28
  this just happened. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:29
  So you're six months in. That's gone.
• 1:03:32
  OK, well where do I need to go next then?
• 1:03:34
  How to figure it out? Yeah.
• 1:03:35
  So I'm OK. First thing, let's get back to
• 1:03:37
  Virginia. And now I'm here.
• 1:03:39
  But I'm. There's nothing for me here.
• 1:03:40
  So I end up moving back to the Virgin Islands.
• 1:03:42
  Wow, so now I'm in the Virgin Islands, all right.
• 1:03:46
  Started from scratch essentially.
• 1:03:48
  And, and, and, you know, and like people think like, oh, you
• 1:03:52
  know what's? College.
• 1:03:53
  But you're an Olympian, so now you're set.
• 1:03:55
  Like no, that was one thing and now I'm on to the next.
• 1:03:58
  Thing and it's like starting over from scratch.
• 1:04:00
  How do I get into college coaching?
• 1:04:02
  You know? Well, I could coach and man, I
• 1:04:04
  missed the whole big section. Maybe it was dark ages.
• 1:04:07
  I did coach high school. Yeah.
• 1:04:10
  I did coach high school. I probably, I feel like I just
• 1:04:13
  blocked that out of my I coached at Lake Lake Taylor High School
• 1:04:17
  in Virginia. Yeah.
• 1:04:18
  OK. And I probably blocked it out
• 1:04:19
  because it was at a time where I was still training and then I
• 1:04:22
  was working at the high school and I was working at home.
• 1:04:24
  Depot in the paint department. So I was doing that whole, you
• 1:04:28
  know, a lot of track folks were working at Home Depot because
• 1:04:30
  they let you leave to go compete.
• 1:04:31
  Right, so I was doing the whole Home Home Depot.
• 1:04:36
  High school coaching and then also still training, you know,
• 1:04:39
  in the mornings I was training, so I did that for a little bit
• 1:04:44
  to get my feet wet. Adrian and it's funny.
• 1:04:47
  I am struck and I'm sorry to interrupt you here knowing what
• 1:04:54
  I know about you today but admittedly is is little I I see.
• 1:04:58
  I just know. Here's what I know of you and
• 1:05:00
  you know for you guys that are listening.
• 1:05:02
  I think I've said this before, I do 0 research before a, a, a
• 1:05:06
  guest sits down here. So what I know from them, from
• 1:05:08
  what I know from them, from work and things like that is, is all
• 1:05:11
  I know. So here is, you know, when
• 1:05:15
  Adrian, when I invited Adrian on, here's what I, my background
• 1:05:19
  of what I know of Adrian, I knew you were a great athlete.
• 1:05:21
  I for some reason thought you went to Florida, not South
• 1:05:22
  Carolina. I knew you were smart.
• 1:05:24
  We've talked to like USTFCA and stuff like that.
• 1:05:26
  It's like, oh, this is a bright individual.
• 1:05:29
  I, my memory serves you've been at Cornell for a good little
• 1:05:31
  while now. So like stability.
• 1:05:34
  Yeah. So stability, intelligence that
• 1:05:37
  that goes into more stability. Like I, I am floored of who you
• 1:05:42
  are, what I know of who you are today based on this story so
• 1:05:45
  far, 'cause I'm your story is instability, not the golden
• 1:05:50
  goose key, you know? Yeah, I ran, I went from 11 to
• 1:05:54
  10 three freshman year and it just kept on, you know what I'm
• 1:05:56
  saying? Like.
• 1:05:56
  I'm. Really amazed by this.
• 1:06:00
  Actually, I was adopted, right? And I, I don't, I don't even
• 1:06:04
  know who my dad was, right. So it's like, so my, it's been
• 1:06:08
  instability, I suppose, but I've had support, I've had a family,
• 1:06:12
  I've had people, but in my corner, which is what's
• 1:06:15
  necessary. So I don't.
• 1:06:18
  Yeah, I guess I'm always striving to find stability, so
• 1:06:21
  when I'm in a unstable or chaotic situation, I'm not
• 1:06:26
  dwelling in that. It's like, OK, let's let's
• 1:06:27
  figure this out. A.
• 1:06:28
  Great skill to not get caught up in that.
• 1:06:30
  That's it's quite amazing. It makes it solves.
• 1:06:33
  It's very helpful to learn that. I would recommend.
• 1:06:36
  All right, keep going. You move back to to the British.
• 1:06:39
  Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands.
• 1:06:41
  Sorry, I moved back. I'm I'm starting from scratch
• 1:06:44
  essentially. So I'm done with I'm so I'm
• 1:06:46
  done. I'm pretty much, I'm not going
• 1:06:49
  to say I'm done with running. I wasn't, I'm still, you know,
• 1:06:51
  in my 20s. So I'm like, all right, but I'm
• 1:06:53
  trying to figure out how I can get back in the coat.
• 1:06:55
  Because I've decided at this. Point I'm going to be a coach.
• 1:06:58
  So why? Because.
• 1:07:00
  So when I left high school, I had the wait.
• 1:07:02
  So I had the opportunity at Illinois and I was like, all
• 1:07:06
  right, well, I don't really like these tech jobs.
• 1:07:10
  Like I don't want to sit behind a desk all day doing this.
• 1:07:13
  It is mind numbing. It's not I, I just don't like it
• 1:07:16
  at all. And then somehow I just started
• 1:07:18
  reminiscing and thinking back to Coach Fry.
• 1:07:21
  And I was like, man, Coach Fry's job seems pretty cool.
• 1:07:26
  I was like, man, Fry comes to practice.
• 1:07:28
  It's chilling out, gives us some workouts.
• 1:07:30
  You have to travel to all these meets, goes to Europe, to the
• 1:07:33
  Olympics, like he's driving this nice Jaguar like I, I kind of I
• 1:07:37
  want. So I started thinking about it
• 1:07:39
  like, man, that. Seems like something more so.
• 1:07:43
  I love that. I hear that a lot when sometimes
• 1:07:46
  people grow up and they know they want to be a coach, whether
• 1:07:48
  they're, you know, a parent was a coach or their coach was so
• 1:07:51
  instrumental, like, man, I wanted to go to college, become
• 1:07:53
  a coach. Most people don't.
• 1:07:55
  And then there's usually, and I love that you just how you just
• 1:07:57
  express that. There's usually like this aha
• 1:07:59
  moment of like, wait, it's been in front of me the whole time.
• 1:08:02
  Chris Frye's not new to you at this point.
• 1:08:04
  You had years with him. It's like, wait a minute.
• 1:08:06
  I never even thought like that could be a career.
• 1:08:09
  That's his career. Maybe.
• 1:08:10
  I mean my career. Yeah.
• 1:08:11
  I love that like epiphany of something that's been in front
• 1:08:14
  of you the whole time. But I'm not going to say because
• 1:08:17
  I know a lot of coaches who they, they started coaching out
• 1:08:20
  of the pure desire to coach me. I was like, I don't want to be
• 1:08:25
  on the lower levels of the like, I want to be, I see where Fry is
• 1:08:28
  head coach. I don't want to have to struggle
• 1:08:31
  forever. But that's what I so the
• 1:08:33
  volunteering at Illinois was a struggle.
• 1:08:35
  I was like, I, I, I, you know, high school coaching and working
• 1:08:38
  at Home Depot. That was, I was living in the
• 1:08:41
  hood. That was a struggle.
• 1:08:42
  And so when I moved back to Saint Croix, it was like, all
• 1:08:45
  right. I want to give it another shot
• 1:08:48
  because I had the Illinois opportunity, but it wasn't long.
• 1:08:50
  How do I get back into college? But first I need some money
• 1:08:54
  because I'm broke. I had to move back to the Virgin
• 1:08:56
  Islands. So I found a gym.
• 1:08:58
  I didn't have any certifications.
• 1:08:59
  I just went into the gym and said, Hey, I'm a, I'm going to,
• 1:09:01
  I'm a local Olympian. Can I have a job?
• 1:09:04
  And it was like, oh, well, you know, we'll give you, we'll, you
• 1:09:07
  know, connect you with a client and you could train that person.
• 1:09:10
  So they gave me, I don't want to say the worst client they can
• 1:09:13
  find because it was a great, he's a great guy.
• 1:09:17
  It was, it would be a difficult client for anyone who said he's
• 1:09:21
  like, he's like, you know, in his 60s, you know, overweight,
• 1:09:25
  you know, having a lot of health issues because of that, you
• 1:09:28
  know, and, and a lot of mental. Health issues as well.
• 1:09:32
  And so that was my first client and they gave them to me and I
• 1:09:35
  put him on a treadmill, jacked the incline up, jacked the speed
• 1:09:38
  up and was like go. He had heart problems too, by
• 1:09:40
  the way. Adrian, I just talked about how
• 1:09:42
  intelligent you are. Listen, listen.
• 1:09:45
  You know what? Let me tell you what happened.
• 1:09:47
  OK, that guy lost like 30 lbs and and was able to come off all
• 1:09:50
  his meds. So his quality of life
• 1:09:53
  skyrocketed because I was, I was pretty hard on him, but I
• 1:09:55
  thought. You were going to tell me you
• 1:09:56
  killed him? Yeah.
• 1:09:57
  No, no, no, no. No, come on now.
• 1:09:58
  So I I just, I treated it like I took it seriously.
• 1:10:02
  So and once he started having results, I started getting more
• 1:10:07
  clients. It got to the point where I
• 1:10:08
  pretty much had all the clients and Preedus was teaching.
• 1:10:11
  All the group fitness classes at the gym and.
• 1:10:14
  Like it was so. Can you imagine I'm in there
• 1:10:16
  like good morning, everybody. Doing that you know doing like
• 1:10:19
  Taibo type class. My wife teaches those classes
• 1:10:21
  and that's exactly what I was like, Oh, you are my wife.
• 1:10:23
  That's hilarious. To me, I was that guy and I was
• 1:10:26
  100% into it. I don't care.
• 1:10:27
  I was making that money. So I had the class.
• 1:10:29
  My classes were full like, so I had all the classes.
• 1:10:33
  Of course I had haters who were trying to report me to P90X
• 1:10:35
  because we use their, some of their stuff.
• 1:10:37
  But it's OK. And it got to the point where
• 1:10:41
  kind of I, I ended up getting an opportunity.
• 1:10:43
  With the local TV station to form a contract with them to
• 1:10:47
  train their employees. So I presented them with a
• 1:10:50
  proposal that I would train your employees for, you know, after
• 1:10:53
  work for an hour, $100 per day, $5 per.
• 1:10:57
  Person so it's up to them to. Show up but I get paid.
• 1:11:00
  Regardless and I so I started that and with that.
• 1:11:03
  And the gym, I was able to save up like, you know, $15,000,
• 1:11:07
  which was a lot, allowed me to be able to go to FAMU to
• 1:11:09
  volunteer. So I moved to FAMU, just found a
• 1:11:13
  random place to stay with somebody for a little bit on a
• 1:11:16
  couch and, you know, got on food stamps and.
• 1:11:21
  Volunteer coach that FAMU. That is amazing to me, like is
• 1:11:24
  you're describing, you know, the classes in a contract with the
• 1:11:28
  local TV and it's like, oh, you're fine.
• 1:11:31
  In my mind. I hear stability.
• 1:11:33
  I'm finding a career, a career player.
• 1:11:34
  You can make it a unbelievable career in this type of fitness.
• 1:11:38
  I don't want to stay in. That corporate fitness and I
• 1:11:41
  love how you said you're like, I I was able to save this money
• 1:11:43
  and I'm like, oh, you know, I'm like getting like, oh, this is
• 1:11:45
  cool. So, so that I can go volunteer,
• 1:11:47
  I'm like, whoa, like record scratch.
• 1:11:48
  Wait, what are you doing? Because I had had my goal
• 1:11:53
  already on what I wanted to do right?
• 1:11:54
  So I saved up the money I had someone take.
• 1:11:57
  Over the business for me, so they were sending me funds every
• 1:12:00
  month that at least cover some of my basic expenses.
• 1:12:02
  That with the food stamps and finding couches to crash on, I
• 1:12:06
  was able to survive my first year at FAMU and coach.
• 1:12:09
  Conference champion in the long jump, All American in the long
• 1:12:12
  jump. I was jumping coach.
• 1:12:13
  What was the connection? How?
• 1:12:14
  Did I have your question, Wayne Angel in my second opportunity.
• 1:12:18
  So when he left Illinois, he went to FAMU.
• 1:12:21
  He needed someone to cover the jumps.
• 1:12:22
  He already had met me and worked with me in some capacity, right?
• 1:12:26
  So it was like, all right, give him a shot.
• 1:12:28
  So I came up there and gave me a shot and I work.
• 1:12:32
  I went to work. I was at 6:00 AM weight room as
• 1:12:34
  volunteer. I was driving a.
• 1:12:35
  Van for 10 hours I was doing all the stuff, you know.
• 1:12:38
  So what are you? OK, so now there's always, you
• 1:12:43
  know, nearly 300 interviews I'm getting good at.
• 1:12:46
  There's always like this somewhere there's a transition
• 1:12:48
  from like I, I coach, I want to be a coach to like, OK, I am a
• 1:12:52
  coach. Like a lot of times in your
• 1:12:54
  story here so far, there's a lot of exit ramps like U of I, you
• 1:12:58
  go to University of Illinois and that goes away.
• 1:13:00
  OK, exit ramp. I'm going to go become a fitness
• 1:13:02
  and start, you know, there's but then there's usually a like here
• 1:13:05
  it is this is the this the career for the next 40 years.
• 1:13:08
  And you know, God willing, this sounds like your Yeah.
• 1:13:11
  And even though you're still volunteering, by the way, but
• 1:13:13
  but this seems like, but this seems like, OK, this is my
• 1:13:16
  identity. I'm a coach now, so.
• 1:13:19
  Well. With that, I want to know.
• 1:13:20
  Then you come from a sprinting background.
• 1:13:23
  You mentioned the success you're having with jumpers.
• 1:13:26
  What are you doing? How are you doing?
• 1:13:28
  Coaching education? Like how are you learning how to
• 1:13:30
  coach jumpers? That's not a natural thing.
• 1:13:31
  Where are we heading that side? Yeah.
• 1:13:33
  OK, great question. So my.
• 1:13:36
  Coach, I do this a lot, so I'm pretty good at them, yeah.
• 1:13:39
  Charles golfing. He was, you know, he, he coached
• 1:13:41
  me in a lot of different ways, but he was, he considered
• 1:13:43
  himself a jumps coach. And so I just, I, I learned a
• 1:13:46
  lot through him over the years. And it was a year that he was
• 1:13:50
  going to attend the I double AF course, like a level four or
• 1:13:53
  five coaching course for the Virginians.
• 1:13:55
  And I went with him because he was training me and I was able
• 1:13:58
  to sit in on the course. Oh, that's so.
• 1:14:00
  Cool. Who was it?
• 1:14:01
  It might have been Victor Lopez. And maybe, maybe.
• 1:14:05
  How was it? Maybe Damn path.
• 1:14:10
  I don't remember who it was, but it was.
• 1:14:12
  You know, a high level. Course where you go through
• 1:14:14
  periodization and everything and, and, and pick up some
• 1:14:16
  things. And so I sat in on that.
• 1:14:18
  So that combined with just, you know, what I picked up from him
• 1:14:22
  over the years, I had just gained a lot of knowledge in the
• 1:14:25
  jumps and I, I long I did long jump.
• 1:14:28
  I also went to some competitions with the Virgin Islands team
• 1:14:30
  with him where coach Nathan Taylor, who was my predecessor
• 1:14:35
  at Cornell, who coached two triple jump national champions,
• 1:14:39
  you know, Muhammad Heilim and Rayon Taylor.
• 1:14:42
  You know, he was part of the Virgin Islands coaching staff
• 1:14:44
  with Charles Dolphin. And so I would sit at the long
• 1:14:47
  jump as a senior member of the Virgin Islands team, as a
• 1:14:49
  captain and just be there with them coaching the long jump.
• 1:14:54
  You're an intellect as this stuff is going on.
• 1:14:58
  It's one thing to be an observer.
• 1:15:00
  Are you, you know, the way I would term it is, are you eating
• 1:15:03
  it up? Like, are you really like, oh,
• 1:15:04
  if I ever coach jumpers, I see what they did there.
• 1:15:07
  Or is this still more observation mode at that point?
• 1:15:10
  No, I'm picking it up. I'm I'm, I'm, I'm learning it
• 1:15:12
  and. And and seeing, you know, yeah,
• 1:15:14
  I'm learning it. And so my opportunity at family
• 1:15:17
  was a jumps position and and Coach Angel, who didn't coach
• 1:15:19
  the jumps, he was like, hey, I mean, he knew the vault, but he
• 1:15:21
  was like. Go ahead.
• 1:15:23
  And he actually was at the point like, man, you're getting them
• 1:15:25
  on the board. Like, you know, I I was doing
• 1:15:27
  doing my thing at. But it was still survival
• 1:15:30
  because I was a volunteer my second year at FAMU, I was able
• 1:15:34
  to finally get a paid in like 300 bucks, you know, so.
• 1:15:38
  It was, it was still in survival mode and that year I had to.
• 1:15:44
  At the time, my my jump scoop was definitely the best in the
• 1:15:46
  MIAC. I mean, I had like the top long
• 1:15:48
  jumper, like the third best long jumper and like, you know, third
• 1:15:51
  best triple jumper. And you know, it was like, it
• 1:15:53
  was, no, the top triple jumper had an all American triple
• 1:15:57
  jumper that year I coached all American jumped like got 16
• 1:16:02
  meters or something like that. So that's my two years at FAMU
• 1:16:06
  conference champions all American.
• 1:16:07
  So I'm, I'm starting out well, but it's like such a struggle.
• 1:16:11
  Like I'm struggling so badly. I'm like, I literally can't go
• 1:16:14
  another year making like $5000. Like the money that I've saved
• 1:16:18
  up is, is, is run out. The money for the Virgin Oz has
• 1:16:21
  stopped coming. Like it's, I can't do this
• 1:16:24
  anymore. And so I was like, OK, I'm I'm
• 1:16:25
  going to have to leave. And I wasn't in a position that
• 1:16:28
  family just wasn't in a position to do anything for me.
• 1:16:32
  And so, and I think you can see some of it is connections too,
• 1:16:35
  because Coach Taylor, he was at Cornell, they had a position
• 1:16:39
  open up, which I applied for. And so I went through the
• 1:16:43
  application process and end up getting a job and I had to work
• 1:16:46
  some odd jobs before I got got that job.
• 1:16:49
  Work in the warehouse and, you know, just do whatever I can to
• 1:16:51
  stay afloat for, you know, a half a year.
• 1:16:55
  But I end up moving from Tallahassee to Virginia, you
• 1:17:00
  know, to Ithaca, NY in December. So Can you imagine?
• 1:17:05
  So what? What year is this that you
• 1:17:07
  joined Cornell? I December 2012.
• 1:17:12
  So this is so you've been and you mentioned 12 years.
• 1:17:14
  So this is wow. Yeah, I was.
• 1:17:17
  Assistant coach. I became head coach in 2015.
• 1:17:20
  So I was assistant coach 2012, 2013, 2014.
• 1:17:23
  Became head in 2015. What Which was?
• 1:17:25
  It was a little quick. One of the yeah, yeah, the the
• 1:17:29
  12 to 15 that would that yeah, to be the head coach.
• 1:17:32
  That's we'll get to that in a second too.
• 1:17:33
  But what I love about this, you know, one of the feedbacks, one
• 1:17:38
  of the things values that I believe this podcast gives to
• 1:17:42
  people out there that choose to listen to it is there is no you
• 1:17:46
  talked about paths earlier. There is no when you're talking
• 1:17:49
  about the athletes you talked about you.
• 1:17:50
  There was a pretty I shouldn't do linear because we know what
• 1:17:52
  the actual path is, but there was kind of a set like these
• 1:17:55
  things happen for these athletes becoming elite.
• 1:17:57
  When I kind of first started this podcast interviewing
• 1:18:00
  coaches, I thought I would find similar.
• 1:18:02
  There'd be outliers, of course, but it's similar thing for
• 1:18:05
  coaching. And I'll tell you what, if
• 1:18:08
  there's not, there's not. We we just had a guy last week,
• 1:18:11
  I believe it was last week who didn't do track at all in high
• 1:18:15
  school was a baseball guy and went to a school that he
• 1:18:19
  couldn't make the baseball team. And they were like, hey, you
• 1:18:21
  know, you're a big guy, you want to throw and you know, he's a
• 1:18:22
  baseball guy. And this guy goes on now he's
• 1:18:24
  like one of the top throws coaches around.
• 1:18:26
  And it's like, like you would not have scripted that out.
• 1:18:28
  I no one I could. I mean this, like I said, this
• 1:18:31
  is, you know, we're getting close to 300 here.
• 1:18:33
  I, I've not heard this journey. This is amazing.
• 1:18:35
  Amazing. Journey is chaos.
• 1:18:37
  It didn't seem that bad at the time.
• 1:18:39
  Yeah, well, you're just in the muck.
• 1:18:41
  You're just living it when you're, you know, when you're.
• 1:18:42
  In it and I'm an optimist, so even when I'm at the low points
• 1:18:45
  I'm you're never going to really see me down in the dump.
• 1:18:47
  So I'm never going to be like. Oh, this is.
• 1:18:49
  So bad so you know. So I have this reverence for the
• 1:18:54
  Ivy League for many reasons. I wasn't very smart.
• 1:18:57
  So it's automatically like a whole it's you know, it's the
• 1:18:59
  smart conference, you know, so reverence there.
• 1:19:02
  I, you know, a good friend of mine is the head coach of Troy
• 1:19:05
  in my alma mater, Troy University, and he coached at
• 1:19:07
  Yale and it when he was being interviewed for the Troy job and
• 1:19:11
  everybody told him it's like, hey, you need to talk to Mike,
• 1:19:12
  he's a big Troy guy, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:19:14
  And so Mark calls me. I remember I was in Sacramento
• 1:19:16
  on the track when he called and he and he's like, hey, I'm, I'm
• 1:19:19
  going in for my interview, you know, next week.
• 1:19:22
  I was like, yeah, I'd heard, you know, I was like, I, you know, I
• 1:19:24
  keep my eyes on what's going on, Troy.
• 1:19:25
  And he's like, you know, I was hoping I can ask you some
• 1:19:29
  questions, you know, so he asked me some questions and I said, is
• 1:19:31
  it OK if I ask you a question? And he goes, yeah.
• 1:19:33
  And I said, so you're at Yale, right?
• 1:19:35
  You're in the Ivy League. He's like, yeah.
• 1:19:38
  I was like, all right, man. I was like, well, I got good
• 1:19:40
  news and I got bad news. He's like, OK, what's that?
• 1:19:43
  I go, here's the good news. You don't have to worry about
• 1:19:45
  like 32 or 36. I don't know what the top ACT
• 1:19:47
  is. You ain't got to worry about
• 1:19:48
  that stuff no more like you get anybody as long as they're, you
• 1:19:51
  know, pass, right? I go, that's the good news.
• 1:19:53
  Here's the bad news. Grades will always be an issue
• 1:19:56
  like this ain't the Ivy League brother.
• 1:19:57
  Like I assume you don't even have study hall because they're
• 1:20:00
  just I was like, you will always have study hall.
• 1:20:02
  How did study hall? Now you yourself very, very
• 1:20:06
  intelligent individual. I'm not knocking South
• 1:20:09
  Carolina's education here. When I say you went to South
• 1:20:12
  Carolina, you coached at FAMU, you coached UVI.
• 1:20:15
  You know, I'm probably biased because I'm here.
• 1:20:17
  It's a pretty good academic school, but still it's not
• 1:20:19
  Cornell and Ivy's. How did you?
• 1:20:23
  I mean, it just me, me be my like, you know, I've never
• 1:20:26
  coached the Ivy, so I just don't have any clue.
• 1:20:27
  How did you like, I can't even say adjust like you had to learn
• 1:20:31
  assuming learn a whole new like person to recruit the academics
• 1:20:37
  and athletic. I mean it just seems like it
• 1:20:39
  always seems like the most impossible task to me.
• 1:20:41
  The Ivy League's the kids that you guys get, for crying out
• 1:20:43
  loud. Yeah.
• 1:20:46
  No, I mean, I couldn't really recruit at FAMU, so I had to
• 1:20:52
  learn to recruit at Cornell essentially.
• 1:20:54
  Like, you know, I could assist with things at FAMU and I was a
• 1:20:56
  volunteer, right? That couldn't.
• 1:20:57
  That seems like a. Set things up.
• 1:20:59
  An advantage, actually. Maybe.
• 1:21:03
  You know. The way I learned to do it.
• 1:21:04
  Yeah, right, right, right. Because I learned directly
• 1:21:06
  under, you know, Nathan Taylor, who was the men's head coach,
• 1:21:10
  who had won in the Ivy League championship a bunch of times
• 1:21:13
  for the Northeast Region coach of the year a million times and
• 1:21:16
  also Rich Bowman. So I learned from them.
• 1:21:19
  They had been at Cornell for a significant amount of time.
• 1:21:22
  And, and so it of course, it was difficult, I would say the first
• 1:21:26
  two years, but once I kind of got into stride, now it's just
• 1:21:29
  how I recruit. It's kind of like folks who
• 1:21:31
  asked me like, oh, your roster size, you know, we have 78 men,
• 1:21:34
  you know, and it's like my Sprint group, I have, you know,
• 1:21:38
  20 men, 20 women just in my sprints hurdle group that I
• 1:21:41
  coach, folks are like, oh, so many.
• 1:21:43
  People, how do you think we like this is what I've learned.
• 1:21:45
  So this is like, I don't want to say easy.
• 1:21:47
  To me, but it's what I do, I don't, it doesn't feel like it's
• 1:21:51
  difficult, like coaching one kid that's easy.
• 1:21:54
  Like, you know, when you're like past freedom, those points, one
• 1:21:56
  person or two people, that's simple.
• 1:21:58
  Because I'm, so I'm used to such a, a big group, but the culture
• 1:22:03
  of our team, I guess that, you know, that helps develop the
• 1:22:06
  culture of our team because the kids are very like helpful,
• 1:22:10
  supportive of each other. You know, they're pretty
• 1:22:13
  self-sufficient. They're good at executing.
• 1:22:14
  Like when you tell them what to do, they can bam, bam, bam.
• 1:22:17
  You don't have to make them do it.
• 1:22:18
  They're, they're, they're like, they're pretty disciplined and
• 1:22:22
  focused kids. So there are a lot of positives
• 1:22:25
  when you're getting these Ivy League kids like they, they,
• 1:22:27
  they're used to being a students.
• 1:22:29
  They want to get it right. They want to be perfect.
• 1:22:31
  They don't want, you know, there are also negatives that come
• 1:22:34
  with that when you're used to always winning and being
• 1:22:38
  perfect. Now we're on another level now,
• 1:22:40
  just the big leagues. You know, this is Cornell and
• 1:22:42
  most difficult schools in the world and we're D1 track.
• 1:22:44
  So you know, this everyone's fast, everyone's smart here.
• 1:22:49
  And and how do you separate yourself?
• 1:22:51
  You're going to get your first C probably or your first BI don't
• 1:22:54
  know. How do you deal with that?
• 1:22:56
  You know, you know, how do you deal with expectations?
• 1:22:59
  How do you deal with failure and disappointment?
• 1:23:02
  You know, so I think when you come to the Ivy.
• 1:23:06
  It's it's a. Growing and learning experience
• 1:23:08
  because it is very difficult. Like the school the school is.
• 1:23:11
  Hard, but the kids have a lot of great qualities and I, I'd say
• 1:23:15
  the most difficult part of coaching And I, I figured this
• 1:23:17
  out, I think pretty early on because at the end of the day,
• 1:23:21
  and I'm not an Ivy League kid, but the way they think and do
• 1:23:25
  stuff, I was like that. I could tell I annoyed my coach,
• 1:23:28
  not Coach Frye, but when I was in South Carolina because I
• 1:23:31
  would ask so many questions and I was like, stop thinking so
• 1:23:34
  much. And so that's what you're going
• 1:23:35
  to deal with with, you know, some of my best athletes are
• 1:23:38
  engineers. They want to know.
• 1:23:40
  Details and sometimes you get caught in the details.
• 1:23:43
  So for example, if I'm at FAMU and you know it's not, then I'm
• 1:23:47
  not sitting on SMART. Kids, but it's just.
• 1:23:50
  Go touch the wall all right, coach and Matt Cornell go touch
• 1:23:55
  the wall where in the wall should I touch go touch the wall
• 1:23:58
  what what part of my body should I touch the wall go touch the
• 1:24:00
  wall how much pressure should I apply to the wall Go touch the
• 1:24:03
  wall like it's And you've paralyzed yourself trying to be
• 1:24:07
  perfect and not acting so some so I've had to learn sometimes
• 1:24:12
  it's to just. Like keep it simple, be an
• 1:24:15
  athlete. Like let's not treat it like
• 1:24:17
  school because they that's how they deal with everything.
• 1:24:20
  They deal with everything in this very analytical way, which
• 1:24:22
  helps a lot. But it doesn't help when you're
• 1:24:24
  in the middle of competition and doing something athletic.
• 1:24:28
  Beforehand, sure, after hand, afterwards, sure.
• 1:24:32
  But during it just stops you from being able to act.
• 1:24:35
  I. So I learned that early on.
• 1:24:37
  I think I always looked at the negative side of it and you're
• 1:24:40
  showing kind of there, you know, when you talk about like time
• 1:24:42
  management and. Yeah, amazing.
• 1:24:44
  Yeah. Like those are there are
• 1:24:45
  positives to that side of it the the high level academic kid that
• 1:24:49
  you have to recruit there as well.
• 1:24:52
  Yeah, they have discipline. They, they, they know how to
• 1:24:54
  accomplish things, you know, like if I, I give them rules and
• 1:24:57
  they know they're going to be consequences if you don't, if
• 1:25:00
  you break the rules and they understand that, they respect
• 1:25:03
  that. They know these are excellent
• 1:25:05
  students. These are kids who are 1415
• 1:25:07
  perfect Sats, you know, so, so they, they've been trained up
• 1:25:10
  well, you know. So you spent three seasons and
• 1:25:15
  then you're promoted to the head.
• 1:25:16
  Coach. Yeah.
• 1:25:18
  What's it three? Yes, I think it was.
• 1:25:20
  It was. Yeah.
• 1:25:20
  Three seasons. What?
• 1:25:21
  Three years. My, let's say six seasons.
• 1:25:24
  My Oh yeah, OK, good point I'm. Trying to make it sound like.
• 1:25:27
  More important, Ivy League. That's an Ivy League coach
• 1:25:30
  answer and it like it's six actually.
• 1:25:31
  I'm trying to make it like two years.
• 1:25:34
  Three years. How did that happen?
• 1:25:36
  Yeah. My favorite question to ask
• 1:25:40
  every coach Their first head coaching job.
• 1:25:43
  Well, the easy one is where you're ready.
• 1:25:46
  And you know, most emotionally intelligent coaches, you say no
• 1:25:51
  because you don't know until you're in the chair.
• 1:25:52
  But I'm going to go to my, my next question is what did you so
• 1:25:57
  you, you get the, the, you sit in the big boy chair.
• 1:25:59
  Now you're, you're the head coach.
• 1:26:00
  It's different than being assistant.
• 1:26:02
  Heck, you're still at that point learning what even being
• 1:26:05
  assistant means, you know, being 3-4, you know, a couple of
• 1:26:08
  volunteer seasons in there. What was something again,
• 1:26:12
  you're, I feel like you're, you're going to have a great
• 1:26:14
  answer for this because you're just, you're a thinker, you're
• 1:26:16
  an intellect here. What was something that you
• 1:26:19
  thought was going to be hard? Like, OK, I don't know if I have
• 1:26:23
  much experience in XY and Z, But then when you got in the chair
• 1:26:26
  and you had to go do that, it actually was like, oh, that's
• 1:26:28
  that actually ended up being pretty easy.
• 1:26:30
  Like I, I naturally got to that. What was something you thought
• 1:26:32
  was going to be hard but became easy?
• 1:26:34
  Something that I thought, I don't think there's anything
• 1:26:36
  that I thought that was going to be hard.
• 1:26:38
  It doesn't even happen in that order.
• 1:26:39
  It's always something you think is going to be simple, and it's
• 1:26:42
  much more complicated. That's my follow up question.
• 1:26:44
  You can answer that on too, yeah.
• 1:26:45
  I can't think of anything that I that I just in my mind thought
• 1:26:49
  is it was going to be hard and it was easy.
• 1:26:52
  So the I wouldn't because if it's easy, there's no way I
• 1:26:55
  would think it's going to be. That difficult like it's always
• 1:26:58
  the other way where you're underestimating things and
• 1:27:00
  you're like, well that's going to be simple and it's.
• 1:27:02
  Terrible. What do you have there?
• 1:27:03
  Because that's always the follow up question.
• 1:27:05
  What did you think? Like I'm going to be able to
• 1:27:06
  breeze through this and like crap everything.
• 1:27:08
  Every everything. So first thing when you said I,
• 1:27:12
  I think I was a. Very good assistant.
• 1:27:15
  And that's because I supported my head coach, you know, I
• 1:27:19
  supported them and everywhere. And even when I didn't agree
• 1:27:23
  with them, I wouldn't publicly air out our laundry.
• 1:27:26
  I wouldn't, I wouldn't disrespect my head coach in
• 1:27:29
  front of the athletes. That's right.
• 1:27:31
  I would take my and I, I because I was not afraid to directly
• 1:27:35
  confront my head coach in private, which they always
• 1:27:38
  respected, which a lot of assistants are afraid to do,
• 1:27:41
  which leads to just their relationship just deteriorating.
• 1:27:44
  So you got to be able to come and say, Hey, look, man.
• 1:27:47
  And a lot of folks, folks are afraid to do that.
• 1:27:49
  So I've never had that fear of like, you know, just saying
• 1:27:52
  like, look, this is ABC. But I also support my supporting
• 1:27:57
  my head coach, you know, and I try to keep things.
• 1:28:01
  I was always a young coach, so I went out of my way to try to,
• 1:28:05
  you know, I would I'm always going to get call while all the
• 1:28:07
  coaches will call me unprofessional because I was,
• 1:28:10
  you know, broke and I wouldn't like how I was when I first
• 1:28:13
  started volunteering. It'd be like, Oh, you know,
• 1:28:15
  because I'm wearing whatever case may be.
• 1:28:18
  And I'm like, well, my actions though, like I wouldn't.
• 1:28:24
  No one on families campus had made a first name basis.
• 1:28:28
  And so the AD at the time he said, you know, I really respect
• 1:28:30
  that about you because no one has your first name basis.
• 1:28:33
  So I established little things so that even though I was, you
• 1:28:36
  know, in my 20s, you know, and I looked younger, that I just
• 1:28:40
  could always maintain that I'm a coach and maintain some
• 1:28:43
  authority. So I was practicing that from
• 1:28:44
  the beginning and so. Did you do that?
• 1:28:49
  Was that a big thing for you as an athlete?
• 1:28:51
  Coach Fry coach like making sure like, hey, I, I, I get that
• 1:28:56
  you're the coach. And so I'm going to give you
• 1:28:58
  that respect. Yeah, I respected my coaches,
• 1:29:01
  but I, I, I'm, I'm always, you know, I'm a little opinionated,
• 1:29:05
  opinionated. So I'm going to, if I think
• 1:29:06
  something I'm not afraid to like, let's have a let's talk
• 1:29:09
  about this, you know? So I, I, I thought that was a
• 1:29:14
  good quality. I think as an assistant, you
• 1:29:16
  know, I think that's important. So that's how I was and and
• 1:29:20
  because of that, I think I maintained.
• 1:29:23
  Like respect. So, like, we don't have to be
• 1:29:27
  best friends and we could disagree on a lot of things, but
• 1:29:30
  if I carried myself a certain way, then folks, you know,
• 1:29:33
  they're looking at me like, OK. Despite this, he's.
• 1:29:36
  Qualified for this or he or he done a did a great job with
• 1:29:39
  this. I don't have to agree with this,
• 1:29:40
  but you know how he's preventing himself Professional.
• 1:29:42
  Blah blah blah. So I think a lot of that on how
• 1:29:44
  I carried myself as a an assistant when I got the Cornell
• 1:29:48
  is kind of what allowed folks to feel comfortable making a
• 1:29:53
  younger coach, a newer coach to the league, a head coach at a
• 1:29:56
  program that had a legacy to it. And I had the support of, you
• 1:30:00
  know, the of Rich Bowman, Artie and the other coaches as well.
• 1:30:05
  So I think that just. You know, some of those things
• 1:30:07
  as as an assistant, just I, I'm, I'm a rule person.
• 1:30:10
  You know, I saw, I, I just, I, I just certain things I don't, I
• 1:30:14
  do and I don't do. Like I understood early that the
• 1:30:16
  kids aren't my friends and so I don't even now when they call
• 1:30:21
  coaches by their first name, it's like chalk.
• 1:30:23
  I corrected a kid yesterday talking about one of the
• 1:30:25
  coaches. Hey Coach Durant, I spoke to.
• 1:30:28
  First name blah blah blah and I stopped and I said coach first
• 1:30:31
  name. They said I'm sorry about that
• 1:30:32
  coach like I'm old. I just cuz those little things
• 1:30:36
  snowball and I learned that in my time.
• 1:30:38
  Little things so, so yes, so those things that that's what I
• 1:30:43
  was saying earlier, things that don't seem big can be terrible.
• 1:30:46
  Little things like that. Let's go ahead and let your kids
• 1:30:48
  call your coaches by their first name.
• 1:30:49
  Let that go on for a couple of years.
• 1:30:51
  And then when you try to have some discipline, some authority
• 1:30:53
  and have some rules, well, I have to tell you don't follow
• 1:30:55
  them and you're not able to enforce them like this is things
• 1:30:58
  you have to do. So I learned those things early.
• 1:31:00
  So when I was able to, when I became a head coach.
• 1:31:03
  It wasn't. I didn't have an issue with
• 1:31:05
  that. My relationship, the kids.
• 1:31:07
  Respected me and followed my lead, which is how my first year
• 1:31:11
  as head coach we won the Ivy League championship and we broke
• 1:31:14
  the all time scoring record. And it wasn't just seniors, it
• 1:31:17
  was freshmen on that squad who were scoring too.
• 1:31:18
  Had a freshman conference champion.
• 1:31:19
  So the kids already respected me in that way.
• 1:31:25
  But I learned though, I I went, I would say I I also learned a
• 1:31:28
  lot from there on. So that was one issue I didn't
• 1:31:31
  have, but there are plenty of other issues.
• 1:31:33
  You, you mentioned some coaches that you know, kind of in your
• 1:31:36
  phone of friends for like coaching.
• 1:31:38
  What about, you know, sometimes we get into coaching because we
• 1:31:41
  think, you know, 90% of the job is being on the track and doing
• 1:31:44
  block starts and then the and and it's getting.
• 1:31:47
  Worse. Yeah, it's getting worse, where
• 1:31:49
  it's probably less than 10%. That's the actual job and 90% of
• 1:31:52
  it is paperwork, fundraising. Maybe you're, you know, as a
• 1:31:56
  head coach, maybe you're on hiring committees for other
• 1:31:58
  sports positions, things like that.
• 1:32:00
  How do you have you built a network support system for those
• 1:32:05
  type of, I'll call them phono friends of like, hey, man, I'm
• 1:32:08
  struggling. Maybe you're not struggling now
• 1:32:10
  in the, you know, 10th year, 9th year as the head coach, But you
• 1:32:13
  know, man, I got to put together this budget.
• 1:32:15
  I'm struggling with where to put this.
• 1:32:17
  I, I got to put together this schedule.
• 1:32:18
  Have you built a network around those type of the, you know,
• 1:32:22
  again, 90% of the job as a head coach?
• 1:32:26
  Not for those things essentially, because we do them
• 1:32:28
  differently from everyone else. Like how we do things.
• 1:32:31
  It's very different. You know, recruiting is very
• 1:32:33
  different. Our our whole process, our
• 1:32:36
  budget is different. You know how how so it's so no
• 1:32:39
  one really does things how we we do them so but maybe.
• 1:32:43
  Even maybe even in house, though, like the the tennis
• 1:32:45
  coach, man, I really rely on her.
• 1:32:47
  She helps me with blah blah. Or the Southwest, whatever.
• 1:32:50
  You know, it doesn't have to necessarily be other track
• 1:32:52
  coaches. You have a network even even
• 1:32:54
  internally. I would say I do have a network
• 1:32:58
  of coaches, but I can't say I go to these coaches to talk about
• 1:33:01
  any of those things because we, we, we, we saw those things, you
• 1:33:04
  know, between myself, Mike Henderson, who was our women's
• 1:33:07
  head coach, and the rest of our staff, we just handle that
• 1:33:10
  stuff. The budget stuff would be Mike
• 1:33:12
  and I and, and I've been just 12 years of, of doing it of, of,
• 1:33:17
  of, you know, creating our season schedule, you know, how
• 1:33:20
  many kids were taking each meet, you know, yadda, yadda, yadda.
• 1:33:22
  So that stuff, you just get into the flow of it at some point and
• 1:33:26
  it's not that hard to, to track where you are for the most part.
• 1:33:29
  So, and I, I was good at math. I was good at numbers.
• 1:33:32
  I'm good at spreadsheets. I'm good at, I'm organized.
• 1:33:35
  So that stuff was always simple. I never, I never had an issue
• 1:33:38
  with with the accounting stuff, the math stuff, just the pure
• 1:33:42
  logistical stuff. I think the stuff you have to
• 1:33:47
  learn is like hiring. I'm hiring people who are a good
• 1:33:50
  fit for your program. Let's talk about this because
• 1:33:55
  you know, where I get out with that type of question is, is you
• 1:33:57
  know, there is a lot of coaching education for how to coach a
• 1:34:00
  sprinter, a jumper, whatever you can go to USTFCAI can go to
• 1:34:04
  level one level twos. There's a ton of amazing
• 1:34:07
  coaching education opportunities out there.
• 1:34:10
  However, again, like we just said, you know, let's use the
• 1:34:12
  8020 year old, 20% of it is actually coaching today. 80% is
• 1:34:15
  all these other things. And one of those things that
• 1:34:19
  I've yet to see and have heard from anybody that actually gets
• 1:34:22
  trained and it's very important as a head coach, you're in
• 1:34:26
  charge of a staff that means hiring, retention, etcetera.
• 1:34:30
  And I have yet to see anybody who says, yeah, I, you know, my
• 1:34:33
  AD actually worked with me on here's what I look for an
• 1:34:35
  assistant coach. It's more of like hey, hire who
• 1:34:37
  you want, good luck. Yes, and you learn and you.
• 1:34:42
  Get burned. I've done a bunch of hirings
• 1:34:45
  over the years and I would say my first on my first hire was a
• 1:34:52
  was a friend. And I was sick.
• 1:34:59
  When you hire a friend, you have to, you should put a level
• 1:35:03
  between you, right? So, you know, I would say when
• 1:35:07
  we hired Coach Byron, who's a good friend of mine, he was in
• 1:35:10
  my mom's wedding. He was hired on the women's
• 1:35:13
  side. So technically he was under RT,
• 1:35:15
  so that was his head coach. So even though we work together,
• 1:35:21
  I wasn't, you know, necessarily responsible for him.
• 1:35:25
  And that that helps a lot because I already have a
• 1:35:27
  pre-existing. Relationship with him as a
• 1:35:29
  friend and I could tell you a lot of folks have bright ideas
• 1:35:32
  about man. When I become head coach, I'm
• 1:35:34
  gonna hire all my friends. OK, but what happened?
• 1:35:36
  When that friend isn't recruiting or what happened when
• 1:35:38
  that friend isn't, you know, is it Whatever the case may be, if
• 1:35:43
  if something that you as a head coach need to address.
• 1:35:46
  Will it be awkward or will they be able to keep it professional
• 1:35:49
  and deal with you like a boss? Or are they going to treat you
• 1:35:51
  like a friend in a in a way that puts you where you can't even,
• 1:35:56
  you know, essentially? And why are you doing this to
• 1:35:58
  me? Yeah.
• 1:35:59
  Yes. So I think that's one thing you
• 1:36:01
  learn when you do it. You're like, oh, this is not a
• 1:36:04
  great idea. See, I'm interested in how do we
• 1:36:07
  find ways to accelerate that? Like I, I don't want someone
• 1:36:12
  making that mistake because they don't know because no one ever
• 1:36:14
  even counseled them on, on like what you just said there, that
• 1:36:18
  gold nugget right there. Like rewind 15 seconds and
• 1:36:20
  listen to what he just said again.
• 1:36:22
  If you ever want to be or are a head coach.
• 1:36:24
  Put a degree in separation between.
• 1:36:25
  You for valuable information that most of us have to learn by
• 1:36:30
  making the mistake and hire in our buddy and then getting to
• 1:36:33
  the situation where you know, they say, why are you doing this
• 1:36:36
  to me? It's like, well, you're the one
• 1:36:37
  who's doing or not doing that. I'm really interested in how do
• 1:36:39
  we accelerate? How do we make essentially
• 1:36:42
  today's assistant coaches better head coaches when they get that
• 1:36:46
  opportunity two years, 20 years down the line that that's what
• 1:36:48
  I'm super interested in. Well, I mean, this is stuff
• 1:36:52
  that, you know, you could be doing at the convention, right?
• 1:36:54
  But I, I, there are certain things that are popular at the
• 1:36:57
  convention and certain topics that aren't so popular.
• 1:37:00
  So you can have a, a head coach, you know how to transition into
• 1:37:03
  the head coach role type, you know, seminar, but I'm not sure
• 1:37:07
  that many people would would be interested, but you could, you
• 1:37:10
  could have something like that. You know, I don't know how many
• 1:37:13
  people. I, I think also you have to be
• 1:37:17
  an assistant who's thinking you're going to become a head
• 1:37:19
  coach. If you don't see a path to that,
• 1:37:21
  then you might not even find interest.
• 1:37:23
  I I was. I agreed, but you will always be
• 1:37:27
  hired, so you should probably know.
• 1:37:30
  Like maybe you don't take the job the buddy gives you either.
• 1:37:32
  Like, oh, that's not going to be good for us, Joe.
• 1:37:34
  I'm going to move on, send advice.
• 1:37:36
  If you're picking, if you're if you're going to pick the the
• 1:37:39
  seminar, the symposium that you're going to go to, you know,
• 1:37:42
  that just not might be the top. You might want to go to look.
• 1:37:45
  How do I create a nine nine guy? You know, that might be your
• 1:37:48
  priority. You're like, how can I well, you
• 1:37:50
  not necessarily looking at yeah, I'm going to definitely be a
• 1:37:52
  head coach. So let me.
• 1:37:53
  Hone up on the skills That's just not, and I think they've
• 1:37:56
  already tried some of those. And and the interest wasn't, you
• 1:37:59
  know, wasn't that great. How do we make that interest
• 1:38:02
  great though, because that how to make a nine nine guy?
• 1:38:04
  First of all, stop it. I, I know, but that's that.
• 1:38:07
  I know. Listen.
• 1:38:08
  And I agree with you. I agree with you.
• 1:38:10
  I'm I'm with. You.
• 1:38:10
  I've done a couple symposiums and the first one I gave pure
• 1:38:13
  knowledge, like just how to set up the training plan.
• 1:38:17
  Just I didn't give workouts and Coach Frye was in with that.
• 1:38:21
  He was like, man, I was like level 4.
• 1:38:22
  That was high level stuff and the feedback was good from all
• 1:38:25
  the older coaches. Their coach was like, what's the
• 1:38:28
  workout? Yes.
• 1:38:30
  So last year, do you know what I did a symposium last year.
• 1:38:33
  I gave all my workouts and the PDF of my entire training for
• 1:38:37
  the year and. And everybody, they loved it,
• 1:38:40
  folks. Yeah, they they loved it.
• 1:38:42
  I don't care. I'd give.
• 1:38:43
  Out my whole training that. That's that's not the important
• 1:38:45
  thing. That's that's why they sell
• 1:38:46
  cookbooks and they're still professional chefs.
• 1:38:48
  You can get the you can get the recipe.
• 1:38:51
  You still need a Chef Buddy. So unimportant.
• 1:38:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So who knows?
• 1:38:56
  I like having these important discussions and so something you
• 1:38:58
  brought up I'd like to to talk about a little bit here before
• 1:39:02
  we start wrapping up. Wait, wait, I have wait.
• 1:39:04
  I have one important thing if I'm going to.
• 1:39:06
  Please. Because this was a mistake I
• 1:39:08
  made as a head coach. Yeah, please, please, please.
• 1:39:10
  Absolutely. OK, So I became head coach and
• 1:39:15
  was this a year? This might have been a year
• 1:39:17
  after winning the championship, you know, and I had I, you know,
• 1:39:21
  you're trying to create your own identity as head coach because
• 1:39:24
  right now the kids are used to the previous head coaches team
• 1:39:27
  cheers and his team meetings and his slogans and and I'm and you
• 1:39:32
  can't be that person. You're going to be a, a bad
• 1:39:35
  imitation of that person. So they have to understand who
• 1:39:38
  you are and what your slogans are.
• 1:39:39
  Maybe you don't have slogans. That's not your personality.
• 1:39:41
  That's not me. I'm not a.
• 1:39:43
  You know, Nathan Taylor, boomer, giga rah rah.
• 1:39:45
  You know, I'm more like, hey, let's let's go to business and
• 1:39:48
  let's go do work like that's I'm I'm not you know, that's just
• 1:39:52
  not me. And it's good if you are you get
• 1:39:55
  to have someone like that around is but it's not me.
• 1:39:57
  And, and sometimes I know a lot of kids had they had to come to
• 1:40:03
  terms with. That that that isn't me.
• 1:40:07
  And I had to, I was trying to figure out, you know, how I want
• 1:40:11
  to do team rules, how I want to do all these different things.
• 1:40:14
  And I said, OK, you know what, Captains, I like the current
• 1:40:17
  captains. But I see this become a little
• 1:40:19
  bit of a popularity contest. And I think the captains that
• 1:40:22
  the kids are choosing aren't the best picks for captain.
• 1:40:27
  And I'm the head coach. So you know what?
• 1:40:29
  I'm not. We're not voting for captains.
• 1:40:30
  Anymore, I'm going to pick the captains right when I tell you.
• 1:40:35
  When I tell you the amount of chaos this 'cause I mean, I
• 1:40:38
  thought it was, I was just going to be like, this is what I'm
• 1:40:40
  going to do. I say so.
• 1:40:41
  And it goes, no, I, I divided my team.
• 1:40:45
  I made the seniors completely give up on the team.
• 1:40:48
  I mean, and part of it was, I mean, if you're going to give
• 1:40:50
  up, I don't know how serious you are anyway, but I made it easier
• 1:40:54
  for them to completely abandoned their duties as seniors and
• 1:40:57
  leave all the others to fend for themselves.
• 1:40:59
  Left a lot of upper. The underclassmen to fend for
• 1:41:02
  themselves because the seniors just decided they weren't going
• 1:41:05
  to be leaders, right? We're not captain, so we're not
• 1:41:07
  captain worthy. And I almost destroyed the team.
• 1:41:12
  You know, it was just toxicity. We ended up going from, you
• 1:41:15
  know, second place to 6th place in the league for the first time
• 1:41:18
  ever. I mean, it was.
• 1:41:19
  Like, whoa, this is and it, it really had to come to a point
• 1:41:23
  where I had to 1st I had to apologize, then I have to say,
• 1:41:28
  OK. I've apologized for this, it is
• 1:41:31
  my fault, but I'm trying to fix this problem and then I said OK,
• 1:41:35
  here are my solutions. We don't.
• 1:41:37
  But at some point if you, if we can't get on the same page, it's
• 1:41:41
  only going to at the end of the day, it's either going to be me
• 1:41:43
  or you. So let's try.
• 1:41:45
  So I try to fix it. It was fixed for a second and it
• 1:41:49
  still was a little bit of and I ended up having to remove two
• 1:41:51
  people from the team and when I did we went from 5th place to
• 1:41:55
  3rd place. So I had just created this toxic
• 1:41:59
  environment where folks were just.
• 1:42:01
  Allowed to kind of be cancerous and I and even though I created
• 1:42:05
  it, the only way I could solve it was remove the folks who were
• 1:42:08
  too far gone. So I have to re establish that
• 1:42:11
  no, hey, it is my ship. But I was wrong.
• 1:42:14
  So I'm willing to listen to you. And I realized you have to let
• 1:42:17
  people speak like they have to be heard.
• 1:42:19
  You don't have to agree with them.
• 1:42:20
  You don't have to decide in their favor.
• 1:42:22
  But if you don't give them the ability to voice their opinions,
• 1:42:24
  to cast their vote, to say what they're feeling, it's going to
• 1:42:27
  come back to bite you in a in a terrible way.
• 1:42:29
  And and I had gotten to the point where it was like, look.
• 1:42:32
  I'll cut the whole. Team like it, it had gotten that
• 1:42:34
  negative and folks don't know that, but it had gotten that bad
• 1:42:37
  and it got resolved. But it was a, it was, you know,
• 1:42:40
  a lesson I learned early on as head coach, and it was a hard
• 1:42:43
  lesson to learn. To first of all, I appreciate
• 1:42:48
  your openness and authenticity there that that's amazing and
• 1:42:51
  you just helped 1000 people that heard this literally that you.
• 1:42:53
  Don't want to go through that. To to apologize to someone can
• 1:43:00
  be a hard thing, typically because of ego.
• 1:43:03
  Don't want to admit being wrong, right?
• 1:43:05
  It takes humility to look someone or someone's a team,
• 1:43:10
  especially someone where there's a power dot.
• 1:43:11
  You're the head coach. This ain't to your spouse or to
• 1:43:14
  this is to kids. OK, so bravo to you.
• 1:43:21
  You get a lot of credit for showing that humility, but
• 1:43:25
  that's not necessarily a learned an innate trait.
• 1:43:29
  Sometimes it's a learned. It's modeled.
• 1:43:32
  Does that come from is that do you think about, you know, the
• 1:43:36
  humility of maybe your mom or a coach or a teacher or where
• 1:43:40
  where did somebody had to, I believe had to have modeled that
• 1:43:44
  type of attitude for you to then show in adulthood you?
• 1:43:51
  Know I had not Never. Really.
• 1:43:53
  I haven't thought about that. I just think.
• 1:43:57
  When you're looking for solutions, you know your ego
• 1:44:00
  can't get in the way of the solution.
• 1:44:01
  So I saw very clearly that they had an issue with the decision I
• 1:44:05
  made. The decision I made was wrong.
• 1:44:07
  And even though the way they were acting was not right and
• 1:44:11
  they would still be consequences right, I had to admit that I
• 1:44:15
  made a mistake. Because if I can't admit.
• 1:44:18
  That I made a. Mistake.
• 1:44:19
  Then how could you really trust me?
• 1:44:20
  Like all I could tell these. Kids is I do my best.
• 1:44:22
  I'm going to do my best to make you a conference champion, a
• 1:44:25
  national champion, Olympian, whatever.
• 1:44:27
  You tell me your goal is I, I'm going to do my best to get you
• 1:44:30
  there. But I'm, I'm a human, so if I
• 1:44:32
  make a mistake, you know, I'm not going to try to cover for
• 1:44:35
  it. Like, oh man, I made this
• 1:44:36
  mistake. That's the truth.
• 1:44:37
  So. The example, the example, the
• 1:44:41
  example you set there, though, you know, it's I, I think a lot
• 1:44:43
  of coaches probably stand in front of their team or athletes
• 1:44:46
  on their team and say, Hey, I'm a human like you.
• 1:44:48
  I'm, I'm going to make some mistakes here, let you know,
• 1:44:50
  let's have some grace for each other.
• 1:44:52
  And then when a mistake is actually made, it's much easier
• 1:44:55
  to dig in and just, you know, almost use like the, the title
• 1:44:58
  of coach or head coach as a buffer of like, I didn't really
• 1:45:01
  to make a mistake, just shut up and go do what I said.
• 1:45:03
  So for you to actually show, like to say that and then show
• 1:45:07
  and actually do the example, like what, what a a a teachable,
• 1:45:11
  learnable leadership moment for those kids.
• 1:45:13
  Like those kids now when they go into the professional world,
• 1:45:17
  they'll have that like when I asked them that question,
• 1:45:19
  they'll be like, Hey, you know what, my coach, I tried coaching
• 1:45:22
  in Cornell, made a mistake. And you know what?
• 1:45:24
  Didn't bury it, didn't dig his heels in, actually came to us
• 1:45:27
  and said, hey, I made a mistake. Hey, I'm the leader here.
• 1:45:30
  We're going to move forward this way.
• 1:45:31
  But you know, he didn't have to do that.
• 1:45:33
  He could have just told us to shut up and go run.
• 1:45:34
  And we're the athletes. We got to go do that.
• 1:45:36
  I just think that example is powerful of saying it, but
• 1:45:41
  caveat doing it. That's the hard part.
• 1:45:44
  It's easy to say the hard part. I I love that.
• 1:45:46
  What a great example of leadership there.
• 1:45:48
  Will, will kids will be surprised.
• 1:45:50
  I mean, coaches may be surprised at how much being open with the
• 1:45:53
  kids can save you a headache. Like, you know, look, I'm, I'm
• 1:45:56
  still young, I'm a younger head coach.
• 1:45:58
  I still, I'm, you know, I'm not married, I'm not settled down.
• 1:46:02
  So I still like to travel and do things in my up time and and.
• 1:46:06
  Kids aren't really used to coaches having a life and so.
• 1:46:09
  I remember I used. To get a lot of heat about that.
• 1:46:11
  But I'm not whatever texting or calling while I'm.
• 1:46:14
  On vacation and I had to sit and talk to them like, hey, look, am
• 1:46:17
  I allowed to have friends and family and like time off?
• 1:46:20
  And they're like, you are, I'm like, they're like, you're
• 1:46:22
  right. Like they're not, you know,
• 1:46:25
  they're not monsters. So you just got to talk to
• 1:46:28
  people, communicate and they, I find that they're very
• 1:46:30
  understanding. You need to talk about that to
• 1:46:34
  more coaches, by the way, that we get too wrapped up into coach
• 1:46:39
  being our number one title and in reality.
• 1:46:41
  Of a life. Yeah, in reality, and again,
• 1:46:44
  there's no bigger fan of track coaches than me, That title of
• 1:46:47
  coach is maybe your 4th or 5th most important title.
• 1:46:50
  You're a son, a brother, maybe a spouse.
• 1:46:53
  You know, there's other things. I I love that.
• 1:46:56
  Hey, we're getting close to time, but I, I've still got a
• 1:46:58
  couple things to pick your brain.
• 1:46:59
  Are you feeling good on time or? Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 1:47:02
  I'm really interested in this because I, I, I have feels like
• 1:47:05
  a similar belief system. You talked about the role of
• 1:47:08
  confrontation earlier and you seem to not have a problem with
• 1:47:13
  confrontation. I, I agree with that.
• 1:47:16
  I, I actually feel like when someone doesn't, and we're not
• 1:47:18
  talking mean spirited confrontation here.
• 1:47:19
  We're talking about if there's a, if I think there's an issue,
• 1:47:22
  I will speak it to you and let's work it out and then we'll move
• 1:47:24
  on. And I think a lot of people
• 1:47:27
  don't do that because they feel like that's mean.
• 1:47:31
  So it's nicer if I just ignore it and, you know, push down my
• 1:47:34
  feelings or don't ever tell you that, hey, this bothers me,
• 1:47:36
  etcetera. How do you, you, you, you did
• 1:47:39
  that as an assistant coach. Now you're the head coach.
• 1:47:42
  How do you foster that? How do you empower your
• 1:47:45
  assistant coaches that, hey, if you, if you, if there's an
• 1:47:47
  issue, whether it is a real or unreal issue, bring it to me.
• 1:47:51
  Let's hash it out and then we can move forward.
• 1:47:53
  Don't just keep it in your corner over in the throws or the
• 1:47:56
  jobs or whatever. How?
• 1:47:57
  How do you lead this now with your staff?
• 1:48:01
  Well, and I would say this right about confrontation.
• 1:48:04
  I, you know, I do not like confrontation, but I hate
• 1:48:09
  stress. And so I try to mitigate stress.
• 1:48:14
  I try to find solutions to problems quickly.
• 1:48:17
  That's why I say never, don't. I don't panic.
• 1:48:18
  I don't waste time on that solution.
• 1:48:21
  Problem solved, no stress. I can relax, right?
• 1:48:23
  So I like to get there. Sometimes to solve the problem,
• 1:48:29
  you just have to. It takes conflict, you know you.
• 1:48:32
  Just have to do it so I do it out of necessity.
• 1:48:36
  So I would much rather just deal with that issue then have it get
• 1:48:39
  kicked down the line and I'm worrying about it a month later.
• 1:48:42
  You know, I keep a lot of, I keep a lot of stuff like I know
• 1:48:45
  everything is going on with my program, right?
• 1:48:46
  It's in my head. I'm always kind of like right
• 1:48:48
  there thinking about this that recruiting, budgeting,
• 1:48:51
  fundraising, alumni and get all this stuff is going on and it's
• 1:48:55
  good if I have everything kind of under control.
• 1:48:57
  So if there's something that's like, you know, coming to the
• 1:49:01
  boiling point, I don't even let it get to that point.
• 1:49:04
  And so I like to think that I have, you know, with my staff, I
• 1:49:08
  try to this, this, I'm always open for communication.
• 1:49:11
  You know, they can talk to me anytime there's an issue, But I,
• 1:49:15
  I can't say that I've had my staff come to me with many
• 1:49:21
  issues because I think I'm, I'm with them the whole time.
• 1:49:24
  So if there are issues like I there, I'm already knowing that
• 1:49:27
  this issue from the, because we communicate all the time, you
• 1:49:31
  know, it's, I think it's very similar to our team culture.
• 1:49:33
  Our staff culture is something that we fostered and created and
• 1:49:36
  it's intentional. We don't have drama on our
• 1:49:39
  staff. We don't have gossip, dirty
• 1:49:41
  laundry. You don't hear about this coach
• 1:49:43
  hating this coach. We don't do that like, and we've
• 1:49:46
  we've built that just like with our team.
• 1:49:47
  Our team is known for being very loud and supportive and a very
• 1:49:50
  welcoming team culture. We've been complimented on that
• 1:49:53
  from other coaches who see us in action and that's something that
• 1:49:56
  we've created. So.
• 1:49:58
  You know, I, I think if you create the environment that, you
• 1:50:01
  know, people aren't holding on to things and they're OK with
• 1:50:04
  bringing stuff to you and they're OK with, hey, I, I need
• 1:50:07
  to take a vacation, you know, and they're not afraid to do
• 1:50:09
  that. Then people, if they're not
• 1:50:11
  afraid to do it, they're going to be much more open to sharing.
• 1:50:13
  So you don't end up with those things being those, you know,
• 1:50:16
  things festering and toxicity in the, in the background.
• 1:50:19
  I. Like that.
• 1:50:20
  All right, Last two questions. I'm curious about your thought
• 1:50:24
  process. Again, I just, you know, you're
• 1:50:27
  so intelligent, Adrian, So I'd just love to know your opinions
• 1:50:29
  on these things. What effect do you believe?
• 1:50:34
  And this is completely your opinion because we have no idea
• 1:50:38
  what actually is going to look like the whole division 145
• 1:50:44
  roster cap. And I know, well, I shouldn't
• 1:50:46
  say I know, I, I assume maybe there's some, I don't want to
• 1:50:50
  call it separation or difference in the Ivy League.
• 1:50:51
  I, I don't know. But you tell me what?
• 1:50:53
  What's your thoughts and ideas of what's going on right now in
• 1:50:56
  track and field specifically? So I'm on the track and field
• 1:51:01
  executive committee, so I'm in the conversations about this.
• 1:51:04
  I knew I had the right guy. Yeah, hey, I'm the Ivy Rep and
• 1:51:08
  but I'm not going to reveal, you know, anything but I.
• 1:51:11
  Think. I don't think there's much to
• 1:51:14
  reveal. I think no one really knows
• 1:51:16
  what's going to happen. I think right now the Ivy League
• 1:51:18
  isn't, isn't a place where the Ivy League is going to opt out.
• 1:51:22
  You know, folks, institutions and conferences will have the
• 1:51:25
  option for my understanding to opt out or opt in.
• 1:51:29
  And there's a lot of, you know, hypotheticals on, on, on the
• 1:51:32
  results. Some folks think that, you know,
• 1:51:34
  if they, a lot of schools are going to opt in and focus on
• 1:51:37
  specific sports which are going to kill other sports.
• 1:51:40
  I think most people think it's going to really harm men's track
• 1:51:43
  because they're going to be looking for spots for baseball
• 1:51:46
  and and yadda, yadda, yadda. So I could, I could see that as
• 1:51:51
  a problem. But honestly, being in the Ivy
• 1:51:52
  League, we're a little insulated from some of that stuff because
• 1:51:54
  although we are a very good, you know, track and field
• 1:51:57
  conference, we kind of also do our own thing.
• 1:52:00
  So right now my guess is the Ivy League's like, no, we're opting
• 1:52:02
  out. And you know, if that means we
• 1:52:04
  can't go to national championship, then because we
• 1:52:07
  focus on conference and I that that like conference.
• 1:52:11
  So everything else is secondary to our, our team spirit
• 1:52:14
  conference alumni. That's our thing in the, in the
• 1:52:17
  Ivy. So, you know, the the dual meet
• 1:52:20
  try meat stuff like I think we're OK with that stuff.
• 1:52:23
  So what some people guess is that it's going to kill a lot of
• 1:52:26
  programs and those recruits can't all go to the Power 5, so.
• 1:52:31
  Y'all might see the Ivy League jumping up to #2 if you if this
• 1:52:34
  is the way things go. And not only that, but I'm going
• 1:52:36
  to keep 78 men on my roster opted out so.
• 1:52:40
  Yeah, that I love that because I I'm not a chicken little.
• 1:52:45
  The sky has fallen. You know, you go on social media
• 1:52:48
  where where I live on social media, but you go on social
• 1:52:50
  media and it's you know, this is going to devastate the Olympics,
• 1:52:53
  right? Because you know, college track
• 1:52:54
  and field Division One is a big Olympic feeder as well, right,
• 1:52:56
  For all countries, not just US. You're a product of that
• 1:53:00
  actually, but but it is going to change for for sure something's
• 1:53:04
  going to change in track and field.
• 1:53:06
  What I'm wondering, because I've heard this as well, You know,
• 1:53:08
  there's opt in, opt out and, and you know, I'm, I'm holding you
• 1:53:13
  to nothing here. These are your opinions.
• 1:53:15
  These are your opinions. What and you maybe kind of
• 1:53:19
  alluded to it, when a conference opts out, does that mean there
• 1:53:23
  is a opt in national championship and an opt out
• 1:53:27
  national championship? Unanswered questions.
• 1:53:31
  OK, that's fair. That's good.
• 1:53:33
  To be to be determined. Yeah, OK.
• 1:53:35
  I, I appreciate that because I didn't know the answer and I was
• 1:53:38
  like, I don't want the answer being out there and I don't know
• 1:53:40
  the answer. I kind of need to know the I.
• 1:53:41
  Don't think anyone knows to answer.
• 1:53:42
  That question I. Don't think anyone knows to
• 1:53:44
  answer. That question, yeah, it's fair.
• 1:53:47
  I appreciate that. So last question is Adrian, as
• 1:53:50
  you look forward, you know, we're months away at this point
• 1:53:53
  from the 2025 season. And of course you know, you're,
• 1:53:56
  you're a, you're a plow ahead kind of guy.
• 1:53:57
  So you're already imagine in your head thinking of 262728
• 1:54:01
  etcetera. What's got you excited about
• 1:54:03
  your program, about Cornell track and field?
• 1:54:06
  So it's bittersweet. This is our final time hosting
• 1:54:10
  the indoor Haps in Barton Hall. You know, they we got voted out
• 1:54:14
  of the rotation and we put up a fight.
• 1:54:16
  But all the other coaches want to go to bank tracks.
• 1:54:18
  They don't want flashbacks anymore, even though we try to
• 1:54:21
  prove that the conversion it was the conversion is great.
• 1:54:24
  Yeah, it's. Very generous, but they don't
• 1:54:27
  want it. They want to go to bank track.
• 1:54:28
  So we got voted out with Dartmouth.
• 1:54:32
  And so it's, it's, you know, everyone's sad about it because
• 1:54:35
  Barton was the home of Hepps and it's just so many amazing
• 1:54:38
  conference championships that was held in this, in this
• 1:54:40
  building, this former airplane hangar.
• 1:54:42
  You know, it gets loud and it's just, it's, it's an energized
• 1:54:46
  place. And so we're going to make it a
• 1:54:48
  huge alumni event. We've invited all generation of
• 1:54:51
  alumni to come back. Our men's team got second in the
• 1:54:54
  Ivy League indoor last year and we were the number one team in
• 1:54:57
  the Northeast. So we're going for the win, so
• 1:54:59
  we could win it, but all of our alumni home and it just ends up
• 1:55:03
  being we we want it to be the most memorable Barton heps ever.
• 1:55:07
  So I'm pretty excited about that.
• 1:55:09
  And that's what I'm focusing all my energy on right now, you
• 1:55:12
  know? That's exciting, hopefully.
• 1:55:13
  We can pull it off, yeah. Yeah, make stick it to him for
• 1:55:17
  voting you out then it's like, fine, you know what, you're
• 1:55:19
  going to vote us. That's how I feel about They'll
• 1:55:21
  be going to destroy it on that last one then.
• 1:55:23
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 1:55:24
  Make them call all the way up because they hate coming in.
• 1:55:26
  Because all the way up here, yeah.
• 1:55:29
  I love it. I love it.
• 1:55:30
  Well, Adrian, man, I, you know, I had a feeling I my, my intros
• 1:55:35
  are normally too long and I was like, not we need to get into
• 1:55:38
  this, my man, Very fascinating. I love your journey and I love
• 1:55:44
  how different it is. Again, that's just I love
• 1:55:47
  sharing coaches journeys that don't look like whatever
• 1:55:50
  stereotypical path you think there is.
• 1:55:52
  I love it, man. I love, I just love it all, man.
• 1:55:56
  I love your thought process. I love your energy.
• 1:56:01
  This is fascinating to me. So I'm just really, really
• 1:56:03
  grateful for your time. It's most of valuable thing you
• 1:56:06
  can give me is, is your time and you're busy this week with move
• 1:56:08
  in and all that stuff. And I know how that goes man.
• 1:56:11
  I'm glad never to do that again. So just grateful for your
• 1:56:14
  openness, your authenticity, your journey matters.
• 1:56:17
  Your journey is important and I think it's going to help a lot
• 1:56:20
  of people that choose to listen today.
• 1:56:23
  I appreciate you having me on and giving me the opportunity to
• 1:56:25
  tell my story. As soon as I hit stop, you're
• 1:56:28
  going to go call your next. Get your season 2, your episode
• 1:56:32
  35 guest, and you're going to get back up on the podcast.
• 1:56:36
  I just believe it all right? Hey, I was going to try to get
• 1:56:38
  coach. Burrell on there, get some more.
• 1:56:40
  Coaches yeah, Leroy is awesome, absolutely.
• 1:56:42
  Because here's why. You know, I just love this
• 1:56:45
  podcast and stuff. Here's why I also encourage it
• 1:56:47
  because you know, for me, my goal is a little bit like
• 1:56:51
  Pokémon. I want to catch them all.
• 1:56:52
  I want to get every coach on this podcast, right.
• 1:56:54
  However, I only get 52 a year. I get one a week.
• 1:56:58
  So if I if so really about my Pokémon catch them all is I need
• 1:57:02
  Adrian on my team. He's going to go catch these
• 1:57:04
  hundred plus coaches and Tyree is going to go get these.
• 1:57:08
  You know what I'm saying? I, I, I want all of these
• 1:57:11
  coaches, all of you coaches to have your journey on wax so that
• 1:57:15
  twenty, 30-40 years from now, when that new coach begins to
• 1:57:19
  join Cornell track and field and says, man, how, how am I going
• 1:57:22
  to do this? How am I going to lead Cornell
• 1:57:24
  track and field? And they Google or whatever
• 1:57:26
  we're using in 30-40 years and they see this YouTube video,
• 1:57:29
  this Apple podcast of Adrian Grant, head coach of Cornell
• 1:57:32
  goes, oh, wait a minute, I've heard of this guy.
• 1:57:34
  So we have a lane ones named after this old coach that we
• 1:57:37
  used to have here and listens to your journey and goes, wow, look
• 1:57:40
  what Adrian went through. Look how he solved that.
• 1:57:42
  And that makes in this example, Cornell track and feel better,
• 1:57:44
  which makes our sport and our profession better.
• 1:57:46
  So I just want to get all of these coaches from the coaches
• 1:57:49
  who this is their first year up to, you know, we had Clyde hard
• 1:57:52
  earlier this year. You know, I think he's been
• 1:57:53
  doing it for 100 years. Those are important.
• 1:57:56
  And so I'm just honored that you allow me to capture your journey
• 1:57:59
  here on our podcast. And again, just just super
• 1:58:01
  grateful for you, man, and, and what you do.
• 1:58:03
  And I'm excited for 2025. I I'm I'm going to be ideally
• 1:58:08
  watching that that the heps meet for sure to see.
• 1:58:10
  How? Well, Adrian, thank you again so
• 1:58:14
  much for being here today. Thank you guys for pressing
• 1:58:16
  play. You know, I don't take this
• 1:58:18
  responsibility lightly. I absolutely love sharing
• 1:58:21
  journeys and learning. You know, I'm, I'm trying to
• 1:58:23
  twist it a little bit more. Still keep the journey part, but
• 1:58:26
  get into their headspace, what these coaches are dealing with
• 1:58:29
  every day from A Division One Ivy League to a high school to
• 1:58:32
  Division Three and AIA, etcetera.
• 1:58:34
  We're all in a journey that's in this great sport and in this
• 1:58:37
  great profession. So we need to learn from each
• 1:58:39
  other and I think this was awesome.
• 1:58:41
  Think we learned a lot. So thanks for being here.
• 1:58:42
  Join us next week. We'll do it all over again.
• 1:58:44
  See you guys. If it goes super appreciate the
• 1:58:46
  coach, the ones that pour people most every season needs a voice
• 1:58:50
  of reason speaking the growth. Got a prep for you.
• 1:58:53
  Carry the load, ask off to the soul.
• 1:58:55
  For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in
• 1:58:58
  this what you're packing for the road.
• 1:59:00
  There's more than one way to go taking those SAS pan you're told
• 1:59:03
  it ain't practice if your purpose ain't clear, it can't
• 1:59:06
  happen until you listen with both is you can't mentor without
• 1:59:09
  a mentor of experience. You can reinvent those years
• 1:59:12
  every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
• 1:59:15
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
• 1:59:19
  win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device y'all
• 1:59:21
  can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
• 1:59:24
  about why. You don't know till you know who
• 1:59:26
  you are inside 6,000,000. Choose none so we all cross the
• 1:59:30
  finish line. The work ain't done so we learn
• 1:59:33
  from the experts. But y'all got to put in the leg
• 1:59:35
  work. Kill athletics.
• 1:59:36
  Who's the network? It's all about connections put
• 1:59:39
  together for the profession to where every track coach could be
• 1:59:41
  blessed.