Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #331: Erin Tucker-Eastern Washington University | From Brooklyn Streets to Big Sky Dreams

Transcript

#331: Erin Tucker-Eastern Washington University | From Brooklyn Streets to Big Sky Dreams · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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You're listening to the Guild Athletics Connections podcast
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with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world juvenile
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tuned in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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extraordinary message or Guild athletics connections.
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All right, you're back here on the Gil authentic connections
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podcast. So humbled again, you hear me
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say it every week. I am humbled that you press play
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today on this podcast and just grateful for that and super
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excited for this week's guest. We've had some bangers here
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every week, man, we just keep stacking them up and you know,
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the the party continues. I'm super excited.
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This guy's a friend Pierre. I've seen I've known him since
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he was an athlete. It's just it's amazing.
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I I can't wait to share you with you his journey.
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Help me welcome the head coach from Eastern Washington
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University, the wise, wonderful Mr. Aaron Tucker.
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Tuck, how are you, Sir? I'm good man, I'm good.
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Appreciate the nice introduction.
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I couldn't have done it better myself.
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Oh, you humble me, you humble me.
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Hey, what's going on, man? How's life in what?
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What city is Eastern Washington in?
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We're in Cheney. We're in Cheney, WA, so we're
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about 20 minutes from Spokane. And it's Cheney, not Cheney.
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I don't know. I know it's spelled Ian, but I,
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I think in my head I always said Cheney.
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Like, we had a vice president who spelled his name the same
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way this town is, and everybody called him Dick Cheney.
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When I had my interview, I literally was correcting them in
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my interview on the Zoom. And I was like, yeah, you guys
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call it Cheney, but it's Cheney. Yeah, it's it's Cheney is how
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they pronounce it. But in my mind, in your mind and
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everybody else mind, if someone says Cheney, we just let them
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go. But people that are from this
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area really get offended when you say it the wrong way.
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OK, I'll I'll remember that if when I'm there because I've been
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down there. So how far are you from Spokane?
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20 minutes. Oh, yeah.
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OK. So I did Spokane a few trips
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when I was working on their facility in Spokane.
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Yeah, yeah, that's a boy. That's a beautiful area down
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there. A little tough to get to as far
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as if you're not from, if you're not around there, easy for you
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to get there. It's harder for me to get there.
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But that's a beautiful place, the whole area.
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I really enjoyed my visits there.
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Yeah, and, and the podium is 15 minutes from the airport.
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So is that right? Yeah.
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Yeah. We, we, we definitely have an
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International Airport. I actually flew out of my
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airport last summer on my my honeymoon to the Maldives.
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So we flew from here to Seattle, Seattle to Singapore, Singapore
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to Malay. So, you know, it's, it's an
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International Airport, man. And I get all my recruits in and
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out. I have no issues.
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I don't have to go to Seattle or anywhere.
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And we, we service most of Idaho on the North Panhandle and we
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service a lot of Montana as well.
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Yeah, of course you're right there on the border, right,
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Yeah, quarter lanes right there I think yeah flowing the further
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business meetings before Yeah, beautiful area.
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I really do love it and we'll get there eventually.
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But when you earned the position of the head coach there, I was
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happy for you because it's like, oh, you know, went to a nice
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university, nice area, like, OK, you, you can do some things
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there. I was really, really happy for
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you and. Yeah.
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We appreciate that. Excited to learn more about
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that? Let's get in our Wayback Machine
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here. Let's learn a little bit more
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about you, Tuck, You know, somewhere and normally I say
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assuming you're an athlete. There's no assumption here.
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I know you so well, I know you're an athlete, but talk to
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us about where does track and field start for you?
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Crazy. So my older sister, God bless
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her soul, she passed away from from cancer a few years ago,
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three years older than me. So she started running track at
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Bishop Lachlan High School in Brooklyn.
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And I remember the first day she came over practice and I was
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like, so how was it? What are you going to do what
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you know? And I'm just excited because
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she's in sports and I had done any sports up until that point.
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So this was her 9th grade year and she was like, yeah.
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And I was like, so you fasten everybody team.
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She's like, it's a little bit different.
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You know, it's it's not like fast.
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But Jill, it's it's kind of all relative.
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And I'm I'm a long distance run. I said, what is that?
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And she was like, I'm a long distance running and I was like,
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do you run fast? She was like when I have to and
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I was like, so I don't even understand what long distance
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means. She was like, well you probably
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will be a sprinter. And I said, oh, who I had.
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No idea, they didn't even have an idea you.
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Just knew fast though, long distance runners were sprinters.
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You know, I was like, so do you get to jump?
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And she, she was like, I didn't say I was a jumper and I was
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like, do you throw anything? She was like, I didn't say I was
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a thrower. I'm a long distance runner and
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you would probably be a sprinter.
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And so for the so that was a Monday and I'm just coast her up
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all week, all week. You want to race, Let's race,
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let's race, let's race. And so she was a let's just race
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around the block, one city block in Brooklyn circle block.
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And so the front of our house was a shorter distance.
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Obviously you turn left and then I was a longer distance and then
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shorter distance on the backside and the long distance come home.
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So we start the race. Boom, I'm out of here.
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I'm laughing. I'm like hit the corner, look
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back at her while I look back. She's she's, you know, just
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running at her pace. I'm out of there.
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I get to the middle of the block and I'm just laughing, you know,
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I'm laughing too much. And I'm just like, I can, I can
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chill, I can relax, you know, legs starting to get a little
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heavy and I don't understand what's going on.
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And I'm like, you know, she's still far away.
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So we get a turn left, going to the other side of the block and
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I see her turn the corner and I seen her start picking it up.
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And so I start picking it up, you know, and so I get to the
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other corner and she's, she's like, hey, how are you feeling?
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And I was like, leave me alone, you know, just yelling at her.
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And she did that on purpose. That was the first time she
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talked or laughed the entire time.
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I'm wasting energy, wasting energy.
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She comes up next to me and then she was like, you ready to go?
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And I was like, what are you talking about?
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And I I don't have forms. I'm just doing my what I feel.
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But I was just what? And she was like, you ready to
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go? And then I was like, where we
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going? And then she was like, I'm out
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of here. And she just walked away from
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me. Like somebody would be on the
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highway and a motorcycle guy looks at you and just walks away
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and you couldn't do anything. Hit the corner, turn left.
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She's sitting there and she drinking some water.
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She was like how you felt? And I was like, let's race
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again. And I was like, I was laughing
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too much. I was laughing too much.
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She was like, no, you just didn't know how to pace
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yourself. And I was like, so why you
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didn't tell me? She was like, no, you're a
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sprinter. You said you fascinated me.
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Why do I have to tell you what to do?
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You want to go listen to me anyway.
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And so that was my first time racing, racing in track terms,
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because I would race my friends on their bikes, on their
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skateboards. No one in the neighborhood could
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beat me. That's the first time I lost a
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race in my life. Oh, OK.
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From from as far as I can remember, that was the first
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race I lost in my life. I was in 7th grade and I was
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like, hold up, that's not a real race.
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That doesn't count. What, what do you you know,
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because you have so much experience now, what do you
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guesstimate that that circle was?
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Was that a 400 meters thinking I'm?
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Thinking the shorter parts might have been about 75, the longer
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parts could have been as it could have been a cool 200.
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This is New York City. Block.
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Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm trying to think.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, man, so it was it was more
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than a 400. I'm.
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Gonna say that's funny. I'm a roll on that one.
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And you had no real idea about track and field.
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You knew there were sprinters, you knew there was something to
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jump, and you knew there was something to throw.
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But you didn't know like hurdles, you didn't know triples
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like you didn't know like nothing.
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So there's no track. You're not watching track on T,
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You know it's a I'm. Watching track on TV, but I'm
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watching people run fast. I'm watching, you know, Carl
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Lewis and those guys run fast. And I'll be honest with you from
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for the distance runners and and, and lovers of distance
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races that are listening to this, I'm going to apologize for
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young Aaron. But whenever the distance stuff
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came on, I went to the bathroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I'll be honest. And sometimes you miss a hurdle
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race or two. So I didn't even recognize the
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hurdles, You know, 400 hurdles. I've discovered 400 hurdles.
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When I was in college when we were talking about the great
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Edwin Moses and it was like, man, he's been undefeated.
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I was like, what do you mean undefeated?
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It was like, man, he hasn't lost a race.
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And I think at that point it could have been 10 years or it
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could have been 8 or 9, but I don't really remember.
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I was like, what do you mean undefeated?
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A pro, Nobody beats him. Like what?
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You know, my, my. So Fast forward to 9th grade, I
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run at Manhattan College and my very first race is the 300.
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And it was a waterfall start because I was in like heat 500.
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You know, it was, I think it might have been the Bishop
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Lachlan games. And they did it in Manhattan
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College on a rubber track at that time, Basketball court in
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the middle, you know, And so you running around and, you know,
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and so I finished the race. I won my heat, come over to the
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team. I was like, yeah, you know,
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they, they can't see me, you know, you know, and I'm, I'm,
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I'm kind of tired. I'm kind of dead, but I'm, I'm
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not as tired as I was when I finished the race.
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And so these guys was like, man, you wall, you hit a wall.
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And I was like, what you mean I ran past and I touched the wall,
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but I didn't hit the wall. What are you talking about?
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That was like, man, you got out of there because the guy bumped
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me and I took a step off the track and I just put my head
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back, no technique. And I just, I spun the block and
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I was out of there just as hard as I could, wasn't looking back.
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Learned my lesson from my sister two years prior.
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And I was just running balls. And then the last 50 meters or
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the last straightaway, I just felt like I couldn't move, you
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know, And I was like, I don't understand what's happening
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right now. I felt like this only on one
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other time. And when I raised my sister and
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I was at the end of it and I was like, but this is shorter, you
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know? And so when they talked about
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hitting the wall and I was like hitting, it was like, yeah, man,
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the monkey jumped me. I was like, oh, so that's what I
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felt at the end. That's what y'all calling that
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the wall or the monkey? I was like, oh, and the entire
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time I thought because I didn't know about heat, I was like, I'm
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still undefeated so it don't matter.
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And it was like, what you mean I'm still undefeated?
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I was like, man, I've never, I counted this, my sister's lost,
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but I never lost. It's in my life.
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And it was like, you need to go look at the results after you
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cool down. And I was like, for what?
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I won, I won my, I won my race. It was like you won your heat.
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And I was like, what you talking?
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About the heat, yeah. What's the heat?
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It's not hot outside. Like what are you talking about?
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You know all these different. Words you're So what I love
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about this first of all, that you're so green because that's
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that's hard for me to even imagine that with you.
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Second of all that is great perspective to our young kids
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that come into our sport and we know it all.
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We know what heats are and hitting the wall and these kids,
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some of them, no, nothing. 0, no clue.
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You're at, you're at stage -1 not even 0 on what you know
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about track heats and all that kind of stuff.
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Dude, that's hilarious. Yeah.
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Great. Nothing.
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What is coach? You know, it's one thing for
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your boys and all that stuff to, you know, be getting on you.
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I love that aspect. What a great part of our sport.
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What about coach? What is he or she saying to you
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about the 300 and how you did and what you could have done
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better or anything like that at this point?
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So. Coach Cornfield, the great
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Dennis Cornfield, Mundale High School, and he actually still
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balances the New Balance meets at the Armory.
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He's announcing at the Armory as well.
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A lot of the high school meets there.
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So Cornfield's my guy. And so I go up to him and his
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wife Sue, she's amazing assistant coach, but she wasn't
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a coach, but she's the mother of the team.
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So you know how it goes. And so, you know, I go up to him
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and and I was like, you know, so coach, what can I do different?
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And he was like, well, first of all, you could have got
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disqualified because you stepped off the track.
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And I was like, he pushed me. He was like, I didn't ask you
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that. Another thing that we don't
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think about that a kid would be like, no, he pushed me, so I got
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back on. Yeah.
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Yeah, you know, you know, and so in my mind, and I thought about
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it, when he talked to me, I was like, I took a step and I
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probably took 3 or maybe 4 steps, you know, But I got to
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the front and I took off. And he was like, we just got to
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work on managing our energy. And I was like, OK.
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And he was like, you know, he was like, you just went, you
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went too hard too fast and you got to build into it.
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And I was like, OK, you know. And so I ran the 4x4 later that
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day and I built into it all right, because I left everything
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for the last turn and straight away and passed a bunch of
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people and, you know, we were out of it.
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And then and then I was like, so is that like that?
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He was like, we, we just got to work.
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He was like, we got to we got to work on doing things different.
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Can we get in the middle there? Right, right.
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He was like, I'll talk to you about, about some different
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things. And Sue was like, well, Dennis,
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you know, he's, he's all right. This is his first time, you
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know, and, and it was, it was, it was cool.
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It was, it was I learned a lot. I I learned that you're not
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supposed to Sprint the entire thing.
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And I also learned you're not supposed to jog and then try to
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Sprint the end. So I was just trying to figure
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out my happy medium so. A lot of times, and I love that
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in our first practice or first meet where the the monkey jumps
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that are jumps on her back or what not.
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Sometimes that's a big and you had to have seen this, I'm sure
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a big decision point for kids of like, you know what, maybe this
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isn't for me. And then you often do something
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else right. You obviously stuck with it.
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What was it about track and, you know, some of the pain that
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you're going through in high school in regards to, you know,
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going out too fast and dying, all that kind of stuff.
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What was it about track that kept you coming back?
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And did you play any other sports?
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So I played football and I and, and OK.
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So 9th grade football season ended in at Turtle Hook Junior
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High. It was 7th, 8th and 9th.
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You know, high school was 10/11/12.
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So we were at the high school at the middle, at the junior high,
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9th grade, but we would cut through the woods or take the
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bus over or to my drive, but we will get through over to the
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high school for practice. My 9th grade group, it was five
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of us, maybe six of us. We had two guys from Lawrence
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Rd. Junior High and then two guys
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from Turtle Hook. And I'm talking about back then
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in the 90s, you know, those schools did not like each other.
13:02
The women weren't fighting as much, but the guys were fighting
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because of you're at a different school.
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You talk to my girlfriend. It was, you know, we, we had
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great camaraderie within the school, but it was like
13:17
Lawrenceburg versus Turtle Hook. And still to this day, you hear
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people on my guys on Facebook cracking jokes on each other.
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And you know, it's gotten a little bit better, you know, and
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then even even the elementary schools, they had the elementary
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schools that fed into both of the junior highs.
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You had those groups. I was like, you're talking about
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something that you did when you was in 6th.
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Grade right? Right.
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Well, what is happening? I'm from Brooklyn, so I moved
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out there the year prior, you know, and so I've missed track,
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I missed football. So anyway, football season ends,
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go out for basketball. They let all the guys that were
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on the 9th grade team try out and it was about three more of
13:53
us that would were trying out after the first week of tryouts
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because football season was still going.
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All right, now, never played organized basketball, but I know
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I can ball. I know I can I I know I can ball
14:05
right. So I felt pretty good about the
14:07
tryouts and when the list came out, the very final cut, I just
14:11
had the one day I had the no, I had Friday and Saturday and then
14:14
they the list came out on Sunday.
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We went out there to check it out and I didn't make the team
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and I was like, I know in gym class and even before after
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school, I was like this at least, and I said I was like at
14:26
least five of y'all that that can't hold me.
14:29
I don't even know how I didn't make the team, you know, and I
14:32
was like, so you going to be thinking about me when you on
14:33
the bench because you're not going to play.
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You know, I'm just I'm bitter. I'm bitter.
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I'm a knife talking trash. I'm from Brooklyn, You Long
14:39
Island kids can't can't beat me. The coach was like, hey, hey,
14:44
Tuck, come here. And I was like, what's up,
14:45
coach? He was like, you know, you had a
14:47
lot of aggression, you know, in your face defense.
14:51
I could probably use, you know, I don't think you understand the
14:55
sport. So maybe take this year to learn
14:56
basketball. You know, when when you know,
14:59
and and he wasn't really coaching.
15:00
He was just watching us play pick up.
15:02
He was like, if a guy steps up to you to set a screen, I had no
15:05
idea what the screen was. A guy sets the screen for you
15:07
and rolls off it. He would expect the ball, but
15:09
not for you to run around and beat him to the basket.
15:12
And I was like, I got buckets though.
15:14
And he was like, yeah, but you weren't playing within the
15:17
realms of the game. And I would say back then, 9th
15:20
grade, Aaron was Russell Westbrook, you know, and I don't
15:25
think Russell, Russell Westbrook back then would have gotten the
15:28
ability to be who he is. You know, he was the most
15:31
athletic guy on the court. He could shoot sometimes he'll
15:34
get to the cup, play great defense when he wanted to.
15:37
But I think I was more in your face.
15:39
But he was just like, no, that's not what we need.
15:40
And we need some guys to understand the system and
15:42
understand what's going on. He was like, but when we were
15:45
doing the skill stuff after practice, I mean, not the
15:47
skills, but the conditioning, you were just, you were talking
15:50
to people and motivating people and it didn't seem like he was
15:52
running. Were you not tired?
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I was like, coach, this stuff didn't make me tired.
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Like, no, he was like, just you should go out for track.
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I was like, man, I don't want to go out for track.
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And then told my dad about it. He was like, well, you know,
16:03
Michael Jordan got cut from his 9th grade basketball team.
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I was like, OK. What a story.
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I love that. I was like, OK, that's going to
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be me. But you know, once I got to
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track, started running, enjoying it.
16:14
I'm a competitive person. I recognized and realized that I
16:18
probably wasn't the best looking guy on the track team, but the
16:21
faster you got, the more the girls wanted to talk to you.
16:24
As a 9th grader, that was a huge influence.
16:27
So being competitive and then wanting to be around this Co Ed
16:30
sport. You know, my high school coach
16:32
literally used to tell us to recruit guys on a football team
16:35
and what he would do is he would have the guys come to that meet
16:38
at Manhattan College. Just take the bus with us and
16:41
just watch. Don't even race just watch just
16:43
to see if you want to do it. Monday you would have half the
16:47
football team want to be on the track team because they didn't
16:49
see that many women place in their life.
16:52
And so it would filter out. You know, once you throw a bad
16:55
practice or you hit the wall and then you will filter out.
16:58
But we would still get some good guys that would stay on the team
17:01
just because they became competitive because we would
17:03
talk trash to him and you know, they were like Tuck can't beat
17:06
me and I was like, well he can, but he not going to beat me as
17:08
bad as he used to be able to. You know, I, I almost called the
17:11
podcast the myth Busters podcast and one of the myths is, you
17:15
know, high school coaches can't coach college because they don't
17:17
recruit, blah, blah. And then I hear stories like
17:19
that and like, man, our high school coaches are recruiting
17:21
their tails off every single day in that high school is like, you
17:25
may not be able to do that in college with that example, but
17:27
that that coach, he knew what he needed to do.
17:30
Like, all right, I need 5678 football guys.
17:32
Well, let me just come like, who would first of all, who would do
17:35
that? I love the kind of that audacity
17:36
of like, hey, just just come on the bus with us.
17:38
All good. You're not even to me.
17:40
Just come, just take a note and see what you like.
17:42
What a smart dude man. Absolutely.
17:44
Absolutely. I love that.
17:47
So played football and track all through high school.
17:50
Yeah, yeah. So play football.
17:52
I'm proud of myself as being the fastest guy in Nassau County.
17:55
My last year in in football, just in football, we we were
17:57
running team. I was a wide receiver DB.
18:00
So, you know, I'm out there making tackles and setting
18:02
blocks, you know, a couple rate reverses here and there.
18:05
What I know about football now, because I think video games
18:08
help, you know, that's why these kids, these playbooks are so
18:12
much more massive than they were when I was in school.
18:14
We were viewer option, team dive, dive, pitch hold, you
18:18
know, reverses here and there. We had, you know, our, our, our
18:21
route tree was probably 5 or 6 routes.
18:24
And it wasn't until like maybe my second or third year in
18:28
college, I was like, I really messed that one up.
18:30
I messed that up that, that, that stuff was not hard.
18:33
I really messed that up. How was I not better?
18:38
You know, cuz, and I'm saying all of this because don't tell
18:41
mouse, but I was playing flag football while while I was at
18:45
Florida in the fall. You know what?
18:47
My return. Better than basketball?
18:49
I don't know. Better than basketball?
18:51
Yeah, but still. And, and I was killing these
18:55
guys and I was just like, I don't know how I wasn't better
18:58
in football because I just didn't understand what was going
19:02
on play wise to for coaches to even dial anything up, you know,
19:05
hand the ball, short route quarterback couldn't give me the
19:08
ball at times. You know, it was so, you know, I
19:11
I did it. It was, it was great to to be
19:13
out there with my buddies and you know, we recruited a lot of
19:15
those guys on the track team as well.
19:16
Yeah, love that. What so you ran track off for
19:19
years and we'll and you know, you kind of let the the next
19:23
chapter here spill out a little bit.
19:25
You said Mal, so obviously we know you went to the University
19:27
of Florida, but how did you how did you get from stay stay in
19:30
high school with me here. How did you get from, you know,
19:33
the, the, the the extremes of running A304300400 meter race,
19:38
you know, going all out and dying and then, you know, going
19:40
to the 4 by 4 and jogging until the last 50?
19:42
How did you get from that? Aaron Tucker to good enough to
19:45
be recruited to Florida. Talk me through high school a
19:47
little bit there. So 10th grade was was on with a
19:52
with a group of guys that pretty good 4x4 of these older guys.
19:56
So I was like the baby in the pack my my college roommate.
20:01
Went to Yendale and he was the baby of the pack for the four by
20:03
one guys. And so, you know, we we had that
20:06
going on and, you know, we had a couple other guys that were kind
20:08
of alternates that was in my my class.
20:10
And so our 10th grade class was still fairly small.
20:13
We had a couple more guys come on, you know, but we were
20:16
starting you can start to see the future we were building.
20:18
We had a bunch of 9th graders coming up underneath US. 11th
20:21
grade. It's kind of we had a young man
20:24
on our team, Marvin Ford. He was like all world long
20:27
jumper, national champion, you know, 20 point four by two
20:31
indoor split. And so running on relays with
20:33
him. You know, we had a guy, Greg
20:36
Davis, who actually went to Upenn.
20:37
He broke the New York State record in 55.
20:39
So you have those two guys at my ankle leg Kamal Dorsonville.
20:42
He went to University of Maryland Eastern Shore and so I
20:45
was basically the the third wheel with those 3 seniors.
20:50
And so we won the national championship indoor in a four by
20:52
two 4x4. I will say that I got the baton
20:56
in the back of the four by four and handed off in front and we
20:59
kept the lead four by two. I got the stick in, in, in, in
21:03
first and I was running for my life to not get caught.
21:07
Same thing pin relays, you know, we, we made the championship
21:11
American a four by one and a four by four.
21:13
I dropped the stick in a four by one.
21:16
We ran 44 or 4 TC Williams ran 40 point 5I split 14 seconds.
21:21
I dropped it, picked it up on one scoop and we we were the
21:24
second top two teams. So we who knows if we would have
21:26
won or not 4 by 4 Championship America.
21:30
I think we end up getting 4th or 5th.
21:32
Our ankle leg was a little sick that morning after you know,
21:36
you, you run the relay in the morning in the afternoon and he
21:39
was really sick afterwards. And we got lucky because Bill
21:43
Cosby was at 20 meters from the finish line waving people in and
21:48
he was coming on the kid from Saint Jago, and he stopped at
21:52
the wrong line, Bill Cosby where he was.
21:55
And my guy ran through it out, leaving him.
21:57
And he was the whole time, like, we don't know.
21:59
We don't know the line. He was at the line to come.
22:02
And, you know, it was just like, hey, you got to know where the
22:05
finish line, you know, so we won our heat, made it to the final.
22:09
And, you know, so that junior year kind of put put me on the
22:12
map. And, you know, with those guys
22:13
recruiting and, you know, I give Marvin Ford a lot of credit.
22:17
He he did a great job of letting Ralph Spry, great Ralph Spry,
22:22
you know, many years at Auburn. He recruited me and he recruited
22:24
Marvin and he told him about me and my my buddy Kristen
22:27
Lightborn, who was a hurdler our senior in high school.
22:30
He he won the national championship indoor in the 55
22:33
and he broke the national record in route and 50.
22:36
He had that record for a long time because nobody was running
22:39
55 and they weren't, they weren't keeping that time.
22:42
He committed to Florida really early.
22:45
I was like, I got to blaze my own trailer.
22:46
I don't want to go where everybody else is going.
22:47
I don't want to be the third wheel again.
22:49
I want to do my own thing and. Hold on right there, because
22:53
because we know you go to Florida and you know, I'm from
22:54
Alabama and I was born in Florida.
22:56
So I'm a big, you know, SEC Homer fan.
23:00
So I grew up, you know, fan of the SEC and things like that
23:02
where you're growing up. Are you a fan of a college
23:06
through high school? Like, are you a St.
23:08
John's guy or? St.
23:09
John's in Syracuse. Is that right?
23:11
OK, in Syracuse, why I'm singing those two.
23:12
I said Philly. OK, so are you, as you start
23:15
going in here, you know, we talk about Blaze, you know, trail.
23:17
Are you thinking of those kind of colleges or?
23:19
No, Syracuse had a football camp that all the guys will go to
23:23
every summer, So and they will come back with drills and stuff.
23:25
So everybody was Syracuse football.
23:27
But that's still I want to blaze my own trailer.
23:29
I don't want to go to Syracuse. I don't want to go to St.
23:31
John's. Their track team wasn't great.
23:33
Seton Hall, you know, a great Moon.
23:35
You know that was a great place. Coach Moon never called, never
23:39
recruited. So, you know, no, no offense.
23:42
That's even even more surprising because of the 400.
23:44
And that was, you know, a little bit of his bread and butter
23:46
there. Yeah.
23:46
Yeah, pin relays, the hall, you know what I mean?
23:49
That's just something. But I'll, I'll be honest, in
23:51
high school, I I finished up at 21, two and 48 flat.
23:54
So, you know, I ran 54 and the 400 hurdles my junior year, but
23:59
my senior, I focused on the two and the four.
24:00
I actually started running the 400 hurdles because I couldn't
24:02
beat the seniors. So I was like, let me run the
24:05
400 hurdle so I could qualify for state, so I could qualify
24:08
for the Empire State Games. I did things like that just so I
24:11
could be part of it. And but it's my own thing.
24:13
And then my senior year I was like, man, no, but these, these
24:15
guys can't beat me in a 2 and a four, you know.
24:17
And so that's what I focused on because my high school coach is
24:20
going to make us run relay. So I knew I was running 4 by 1
24:22
4x4 indoor, 24 by two 4x4. And then I would run the 300
24:26
indoor at the state meeting, You know, I qualified for state.
24:30
It's funny, 10th grade, I qualified for state in the 300
24:33
indoor and I had a cast on. I ran with a cast on my arm, you
24:37
know, and it was, it was absolutely ridiculous.
24:41
No, I. You literally ran into the wall
24:44
finally. No, just.
24:46
No, in high school guys tend to joke around.
24:52
Screwing around is what I'm hearing.
24:53
Boxing. Flat boxing I I went to slap one
24:59
of my friends and he walked into my fist and I still have a
25:02
broken knuckle from that walk in yeah he staggered I grabbed my
25:08
hand we continue playing basketball of.
25:11
Course. I get holes and it was in
25:14
October. No, let me think it was
25:16
November, December because we shouldn't have been outside
25:19
playing because it was cold. And once I got home and thawed
25:21
out, I was like, Mom, I don't know what's wrong with my hand,
25:23
but I can't see my knuckle and it hurts.
25:25
And she was like, you've been in the house for two hours, what's
25:27
it hurting? She was like, I don't know, it
25:28
just, it just hurts. Went to the doctor and got a
25:32
cast put on. So.
25:34
So you're running a ton of relays.
25:36
You're focusing on the two and the four and and did you
25:39
normally? I don't ask or talk about
25:42
people's PRS because it doesn't matter to me, right?
25:43
I don't care if you're a 58 second quarter mile, an hour, 44
25:45
second. That doesn't mean anything to me
25:47
at all. But I think I heard you say your
25:50
PRS were like 48 and 20. 21/2 and 48 flat.
25:54
So nothing even, you know, I don't want to say necessarily
25:58
life is different today in 2025, but it's pretty crazy out there.
26:02
But even back then, that's not. Blazing my relay splits were 47
26:08
low indoor, I probably split 20 point, you know, so it was
26:12
primarily Coach Cornfield is a master of recruiting you or
26:16
recruiting a school to come get you.
26:19
Like I said, Marvin was great with Florida and getting Ralph
26:22
to turn to understand and you know, ultimately I was going to
26:25
go to Ohio State. Is that right?
26:28
I was going to go to I committed to Ohio State on my visit.
26:31
Coach Russ Rogers right back. Then coach Rush Rogers and Jack
26:34
Warner, Jack Warner was the, the one that did most of the calls.
26:36
That's right. And they, they came to my house,
26:40
visited with my mom. They were, I'm trying to think
26:43
they were the only school that had an in home visit with me.
26:48
I, I, I loved Iowa. Pat McGee was great because I
26:50
wanted to do the 400 hurdles under him.
26:53
Georgetown Gagliano wanted me to to kind of run the four, six and
26:57
eight. And I was like, I don't know, I
26:58
don't know about that. But he did tell me if I came, he
27:01
would let me try out for football in according to a
27:04
couple other guys that were in my same recruiting class, they
27:07
said it was a lie. He wouldn't let anybody play
27:09
football. And I was like, oh, man, I've
27:10
dodged a bullet on that one, You know what I mean?
27:12
So, you know, that was my my group.
27:14
I wanted Texas. Texas didn't want me.
27:16
I wanted Auburn. Willie Smith went to my high
27:19
school, Auburn. You know, the great Harvey
27:21
glance. I wasn't, I wasn't on his level
27:23
yet, You know, and even Curtis Frye, he was at North Carolina.
27:27
It was a couple of young ladies and couple guys in New York that
27:30
went there. And he was like, yeah, you could
27:31
come to Raleigh Community College for a year and prove
27:33
yourself. I know be fast.
27:34
I don't have money for you, you know, and and I can Fast forward
27:37
this story to when I got to Florida.
27:39
Well, years later, I think I when I won conference, he was
27:42
like, you know, Tuck, I know I should have signed you and I was
27:45
like, well, you didn't. He was a big New York, New
27:49
Jersey guy. Like as far as recruiting, he
27:51
got all the good ones out of there.
27:52
He did a great job. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:53
So you know, I committed to Ohio State.
27:57
I told them after I committed that I have a visit set up to go
28:01
to Florida and I don't have to go if you don't want me to go.
28:04
And this was the week after pen relays my senior year.
28:07
And they was like, no, go ahead and go on vacation.
28:09
It'd be great. You know, the papers would be
28:10
home when you get there, you know, and when they came to
28:14
visit me and my mom, obviously now as a coach, I didn't know
28:17
they didn't bring the scholarship papers because
28:19
you're not supposed to sign in front of the coaches.
28:21
And I just thought they didn't want me.
28:23
I thought they, you know, I'm, I'm an idiotic senior in high
28:27
school. I don't.
28:27
Know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:29
I go to Florida wide. My mind is open to the
28:32
possibilities. I get off the plane first
28:34
weekend in May in Orlando. Ralph picks me up and we drive
28:37
to Gainesville and it's 85°. I don't have shorts.
28:41
I was like, wow, this is nice. I love the heat.
28:46
Get the campus. You know, semester's almost
28:49
ending is I think it might have been finals week and not a lot
28:52
of people on campus, but you know, it was hot and I don't
28:56
remember anything about the visit other than the fact that
29:00
I, I did a workout when everybody finished up and then
29:04
he came and got me and took me to dinner.
29:06
But you know, so I came back from Florida and I told my mom
29:11
Florida off me 85%. Ohio State offered me a full.
29:13
I told my mom I was like, I, I think I want to go to Ohio
29:15
State. And she was just like, what do
29:16
you mean? You think?
29:17
I mean if I want to go to Florida, she like, what do you
29:18
mean you think I want to go to Florida?
29:20
I was like, I don't know, Mom, I like the she's like, you don't
29:23
even want to go to Florida because of the heat in the
29:25
girls. In my mind, yes.
29:29
Yes, ma'am, I can't. Tell mom.
29:31
I was like, no, but Marv is there, Chris is going.
29:34
I was like. Mr. Blaze, your own path.
29:37
All my guys are there. The path has been strown.
29:40
Mom, I can. Go there, right?
29:44
And she was like, you want to turn on the full scholarship to
29:46
hang out with your friends and look at girls and in sun dresses
29:48
and in bikinis. I was just like, no, mom, mom.
29:52
Mom was the best Florida recruiter it sounds like.
29:55
Right, I was like, but the the academics, she was like the
29:58
academics and I and, and she was upset with me for about a week,
30:05
maybe a week and a half, not really talking to me, just
30:07
hiding by and, you know, answer questions.
30:10
And so I was slowly shopping away every every day I would
30:13
come and sit next to her and be like, what you doing?
30:15
Nothing watching TV, what you think I'm doing?
30:17
You know, she didn't want to talk to me about it.
30:18
And then finally she was like, well, you got to do what you got
30:20
to do. And I was like, I want to, I
30:22
know I was just going to be fine.
30:23
My, she was like sitting. So my mom and my dad split my
30:26
meals. So I had everything, but I had
30:28
breakfast was the only meal. Everything was paid for.
30:31
I had breakfast And so lunch and dinner typically not going to
30:34
really eat lunch every day, make sandwiches in your room.
30:36
And so my dad paid for dinner in the fall.
30:38
She paid for dinner in the spring, you know, so she she was
30:41
like, I'm going to make your dad pay now because I don't trust
30:43
he'll pay it just just to kind of throw it out there.
30:48
You know, my dad and me, we were joking about this the other day
30:50
because my 16 year old son just moved in with me two weeks ago.
30:53
And I told my dad out, you know what, that he was moving in.
30:56
I was like, you know, I would have came to live with you, but
30:57
you know, just and my dad was addicted to crack and drank for
31:01
30 years of my life. And so I was like, man, if he
31:04
wasn't a crackhead, I would have lived with you in Virginia.
31:06
And he was just like, I know he was like, I know, you know, just
31:09
just nonchalant, joking around about it.
31:12
And he was like, yeah, me and your mom talked about that many
31:14
times. And what would have been like
31:15
but I just couldn't get my stuff together.
31:17
So yeah. It is what it is.
31:19
First of all, lots to unpack there.
31:20
My first, my first question actually is about that.
31:22
Dad's good now, yeah? Yeah, Yeah, he's great.
31:25
He's great. Oh, that's, he retired.
31:26
He he retired from UGA. He worked at the law school
31:30
physical plant. You know he retired a few years
31:32
ago and you know, he, he's great.
31:34
Clean. Healthy.
31:36
Yeah, man. He's he's bro.
31:38
Yeah, he's, he lives in Georgia, still in Watkinsville in that
31:41
area. He's yeah, yeah, yeah, dude, I,
31:43
I love that because, you know, we we all need forgiveness.
31:46
We all need second, third, fourth, fifth chances.
31:48
And there's a guy I, I love that they had some self-awareness
31:51
about like, yeah, man, you can't live with me as a high school,
31:54
you know, which is I'm not in a good place.
31:55
I love that self-awareness and and it turned out great.
31:58
I mean, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
31:59
I love that. That's cool.
32:00
That's that's awesome. I love hearing that.
32:02
We talked, we talked a lot through high school, especially
32:05
when, you know, when I started running faster, I was always
32:07
calling him, letting know what's going on And and you know, and I
32:10
think more so my personality is always reach out.
32:14
And so some people are just like, well, I didn't hear.
32:16
I didn't hear from so. And so, you know, I could have
32:18
easily been like, well, my dad don't call me.
32:19
I was like, no, I got a phone. I can call him too.
32:21
Yeah. And so anytime somebody in my
32:23
life was like, I heard from you while I was like, I know that's
32:26
crazy that you got a phone too, you know, because we get we get
32:32
caught up, we get caught up. And so I've always man, I
32:35
haven't talked to someone so in a while and I get on the phone.
32:37
What you doing you know? That that you didn't as a, I'm
32:39
going to call it a 16 year old and as a high schooler, you
32:42
didn't allow that to be an excuse.
32:43
Kind of tells us a little bit about some maturity levels that
32:46
you were at in high school, like a little bit higher because most
32:48
high school, you know, I'm dealing, I'm dealing with one.
32:50
I'm sorry, my son is a teenager, which, you know, teenager.
32:53
You know I'm dealing with one, right?
32:54
I know exactly what you're. Doing and it's easy, you know,
32:58
if I weren't there, if I lived somewhere, it's like easily seem
32:59
like, well, you don't call me. I can easily see him saying that
33:01
and and and and wouldn't be mad at me like yeah, you're probably
33:04
right. I'm the adult here, or.
33:05
Whatever, I'm the adult, I get that so.
33:06
So that you were like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna OK, He don't
33:09
call me. Cool.
33:09
I'm gonna call him and check in. I love that.
33:11
Just again, it kind of gives us a little peek as far as the
33:13
maturity of where you're at as a as a teenager.
33:16
OK, another thing to unpack there.
33:18
This came up here recently on social media.
33:21
I probably forgot to warn you, you know, I'm a little bit of a,
33:23
and you know this, I mean, I'm a little bit of a fine guy.
33:25
So we, you know, we're going to try to keep in chronological
33:27
order, but there's going to be things you talk about that I'm
33:29
like, oh man, people need to hear more about this.
33:31
You talked about being a lot of a relay guy and you know,
33:35
there's two states, 1 is very famous, but there's actually 2
33:37
states in high school that double the relay point.
33:40
So this is the most famous one, but we forget that actually
33:43
right north of them, Oklahoma also double s their relay
33:46
points. And there's always a huge
33:48
discussion about that because that means, obviously, if you're
33:51
a high school coach, you're trying to win a state title, you
33:53
better have relays. I'm pretty sure.
33:55
I just can't imagine a world where if you don't win a relay,
33:58
you don't win a state meet. I'm just it's 20 points, for
34:00
crying out loud. Right, Right.
34:01
And so, you know, there's been a lot of discussion back and forth
34:03
of like, well, it's not, it's not good.
34:05
It's not good for kids. They don't get recruited.
34:07
They, you know, they stay on the relays all, all season.
34:09
And they have the four by 1/4 by two and four by four.
34:11
I believe down there. You can't get recruiting your
34:14
relay teams. Coaches don't recruit off of
34:15
relay teams, yadda, yadda, all this kind of stuff.
34:17
And my pushback is, well, first of all, I think track is a team
34:20
environment. So I kind of like that the
34:22
relays double. That's kind of neat.
34:23
I think maybe we should do that everywhere.
34:24
But but also I kind of pushed back on the you can't get
34:29
recruited if you're only a relay kid, no matter how fast you
34:33
necessarily are. And I and I just think I think
34:35
that comes a lot to the power 4 or bust that you want or bust
34:39
maybe mentality. It's like I told this, this one
34:42
coach, he's great dude. I love him to death.
34:44
We we got into it on social, but we're very good friends.
34:46
So I hope that people didn't take it the wrong way, but I
34:49
told them I was like, you know, I have not thousands.
34:53
I have hundreds of NAIA, D3D2 and D1 coaches, by the way, and
34:58
JUCO coaches every day on Twitter asking for kids.
35:01
I was like, so something tells me they would talk to those
35:04
kids. I was like, so maybe it's the
35:06
coach or the kid doesn't want to talk to them and says, I don't
35:09
get recruited when Florida's not calling you.
35:11
Sorry, maybe you're just not ready for Florida today.
35:13
You know, that's just what it is.
35:14
What were your thoughts being primarily a relay runner?
35:18
I thought it was amazing, like especially when I went into
35:21
Florida, I was the first thing was who's on a four by one,
35:25
Who's on a 4 by 4? I actually asked about a four by
35:27
two days. We don't.
35:28
Really do. You know, that's somebody was
35:30
like, that's like NASCAR and I was like, okay, 4 by 2 doesn't
35:35
know how to pass sticks, you know.
35:36
So I think it's great what Texas, Oklahoma does.
35:39
I wish more states would do that.
35:42
One of the things, just a quick Fast forward to my time at
35:45
Kentucky when James Thomas head coach Oklahoma, when we were
35:48
together, he his first year, he was like, man, you need to look
35:51
at the guys at Texas that are third and 4th in their district
35:55
meet or the regionally, whichever 1 is the one.
35:58
He was like, because they're probably going to state on a
36:00
relay, but just because they didn't make a mistake, people
36:02
don't know about them. And I was like, Oh my God, I've
36:05
been coaching for how many years?
36:06
And I never thought about that. You know what I'm saying?
36:08
Like, whoa. And so I literally started doing
36:12
that because when I got to Illinois to coach, I was calling
36:15
the top ten kids in the country and I was like, I don't care.
36:17
The top ten kids in the country and the best in my state.
36:19
I didn't care about anybody else, you know?
36:21
And it was like, but you're not getting all those guys.
36:23
You're not getting half of those guys, You're not getting a third
36:25
of those guys. And then you're just sitting
36:26
there looking like, OK, So what do I have?
36:29
You know, my first few years recruiting, I was striking out
36:32
left and right. I was, I was in final fives.
36:35
I was in living rooms, I was in households.
36:36
But yeah, that that's something that if I knew that beforehand,
36:39
I probably had some Texas guys in Illinois, it would be.
36:42
I think that's a great point. A lot of times and and it's
36:45
usually extroverted type people that maybe lend themselves to
36:47
being a little bit better recruiters.
36:50
Plenty of introverts can be and, and are really good recruiters
36:53
as well. But I think people tend to think
36:55
like, oh, I can recruit, I'm I'm friendly, I can talk to anybody.
36:59
And it's like, yeah, that's this much of maybe, maybe this much.
37:02
But to your point about like, oh, well, you know, I'm at
37:04
Illinois or wherever, I'm only going to call the top ten kids.
37:07
It's like that is not being a good recruiter because you are
37:11
not going to get all or any or one of those top kids and you
37:14
still ain't going to survive. So learning how to recruit your
37:18
institution also, by the way, changes what level, etcetera,
37:22
etcetera. That changes how you recruit
37:23
too. You got to learn that.
37:24
And that's a that's a learning process really is.
37:27
Oh, yeah. OK, you go to Florida now.
37:30
I've heard you say Ralph's name 100 times.
37:32
Love Ralph. One of my very good friends,
37:34
love him to death. I need to get my son.
37:37
We were talking before about my son.
37:38
Best fish. I need to get him and Ralph
37:39
hooked up because, you know, Ralph fishing, bro.
37:41
Oh my God. That might be the guy that the
37:43
the the adult in my life that I know fishes more than anybody in
37:46
in the world. And but I'm not hearing you
37:49
really say much about mouse. And to me and a lot of people
37:53
Mouse when you say Florida, you automatically think of mouse.
37:55
How, where where's mouse? Now you get to college.
37:58
Where's Mouse in your your life and your culture as far as
38:02
athletics in? And I know him well enough off
38:04
athletics as well off the track. So Mouse was Buholtz High School
38:08
head coach. And you know we.
38:10
Oh, wait, wait, wait. When you went to Florida, he
38:13
used to Florida. Oh well that makes sense why
38:14
you're not saying fresh. Mouse.
38:15
Yeah. So he was still at Buholtz.
38:18
Come out, they will come out and practice at the track every so
38:21
often because they had a cement track, you know, so they will
38:24
come out and do exchanges. And they were faster than us.
38:26
Therefore they had a faster 4 by 1 than we had.
38:28
I wasn't an 18 four by one. They were still better than us,
38:30
you know, not that I was supposed to be on it or not, you
38:33
know. And so they were, they were,
38:34
they were really good. And you know, so didn't have
38:37
much interaction other than what's up and you know, how you
38:39
doing mouse? And you know, some of the guys
38:42
we knew and some of the gals we knew on the team, we would talk
38:44
to them as well. So, end of my freshman year.
38:50
Oh, man, I can't believe I can't remember my head coach's name.
38:54
My first year in college. Coach.
38:56
Yeah, was it? Not Jimmy Carnes, because that's
39:01
before. It wasn't Jimmy.
39:02
It was right after Coach Walker left he coached.
39:05
It. Oh, that's right, Walker.
39:06
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
39:08
I can see his face too. That's the sad part about.
39:10
It Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see his face, I can see
39:12
his Mercedes-Benz he drove up in every day too.
39:15
So anyway, he was. Yeah, Coach.
39:17
Yeah. And then he, you know, he was,
39:19
you know, told the. Not Doug Brown.
39:22
The dude was right before Doug. No, Before Doug.
39:24
OK, hang on. Right, Doug.
39:25
Yeah. Yeah.
39:25
Sorry. Sorry.
39:26
Go. Again, so it's it's going to
39:28
come to me in a minute. And I know my fellow Gators,
39:31
especially one of my my my favorite alum, Steve Adeley.
39:35
He recruited him out of Miami and Steve would Webb.
39:38
I knew I would get it. I just had to.
39:39
I had to speak it into existence.
39:41
Coach Bill John Webb. OK, Yeah.
39:43
Yeah, yeah. So he was, you know, he moved
39:46
on. And obviously Ralph went with
39:49
him. And, you know, Doug came in, you
39:52
know, pulling his pants up. You know, Doug's my guy.
39:54
You know he came in from Tennessee.
39:56
And you? Know Jeremy Foley got him out of
39:58
Tennessee and then that's when he went to school and he ran and
40:01
so it was it was. A big high.
40:02
That's right. That's right.
40:04
You know, we, I don't know if many people know this, but he
40:10
wanted Darryl Anderson, right? And we, the group, we were going
40:18
in individually and as groups and was like, we got somebody
40:21
here in town that's the best Sprint coach that you could
40:23
probably have. We got somebody here in town
40:26
that you got to give a serious look to check him out.
40:29
He's he's worked here before with the women's 4 by 8 back in
40:32
the day. He helps with Dennis the times,
40:34
you know, And I was like, man, look at the sprinters at Buhost.
40:38
We went in and we fought for that dude for two weeks.
40:41
Wow. All we know about and nothing
40:43
against coach Anderson. We just knew he was at Kentucky
40:45
and I didn't, I didn't know him, you know, and and they had some
40:48
really good sprinters, you know, and, and selfishly we were
40:52
thinking if Mouse comes, Bobby Williams, Terry Sam's, you know,
40:57
all these super fast kids in town or probably going to come
41:00
to Florida too, you know, and sure, Daryl, you know, Daryl was
41:04
was doing great at Kentucky. He was Tim Harden, passion
41:10
Richardson. All of those guys, those. 4 by
41:12
fours. And so that was.
41:13
AI, I'm having a hard time and it could be, you know, I, you
41:17
know, Tuck, you know me for long enough.
41:18
I'm 20 years out of the game, the coaching game.
41:19
So things have changed since I was in the SEC and stuff.
41:23
But I have a hard time believing that today's world, a Florida,
41:28
Florida State, doesn't matter what school, big big name school
41:31
would fight so hard for a high school coach, no matter how good
41:35
they are. And you know, obviously Mouse
41:36
had the credentials. There's there's such and maybe
41:39
it's just my perception because of social media and the other
41:41
thing. But you know, that's all I do is
41:42
talk to coaches. I'm I'm just gathering from
41:44
coaches that there's such a wide perception of talent between
41:47
high school and college coaches. It's not as wide as you guys
41:49
think, by the way, but that is a perception.
41:52
But you guys fought. Now maybe it's a little bit, I'm
41:56
going to call it easier. Maybe that's not the right word
41:58
because you have a little bit of proof in the pudding.
42:00
You're like, dude, he's on my track everyday.
42:01
Like it'd be different if he'd been the head coach maybe of
42:05
I'll call it Willingboro up in Jersey and you'd be like, well,
42:07
you know, I saw him when I was in high school.
42:08
But and yeah, they're fast and all, but you know, this floor is
42:11
different. SEC here.
42:12
You had the proof like duties right there.
42:14
Look, we see him every day. This guy's freaking awesome.
42:15
That just strikes me about how much you fought for a high
42:18
school coach to be. And he helped some of the guys
42:21
in the summers and like if they somebody was doing blocks and
42:24
someone, you know, they didn't look right.
42:28
And he was then they just kept talking.
42:29
I was like mouse, mouse, man. We could get mouse and I was
42:31
like mouse, you know, and and I was like, well, you know, he
42:34
they are fast and I really didn't care either way.
42:39
No one between Mouse or Darrell in my mind had any foreign
42:43
hurdlers that they can call home, right.
42:46
So I was, that's what I was thinking because my freshman
42:48
year I came in indoor 24 and then Rob was like let's try you
42:52
in the form of hurdles. You did that in high school.
42:53
And I end up getting 5th in the SEC as a freshman, you know, and
42:56
I was like, well, I guess I'm a form of hurdler now.
42:58
I was training with Torrance Zellner.
42:59
He was a school record holder at the time.
43:01
And what I didn't know is he was the volunteer coach for us and
43:06
he was coaching me, but he was being coached by Tom Jones.
43:10
So my freshman year, if we really want to say who coached
43:14
me in the form of hurdles, it was Tom Jones because it was
43:17
proxy through Torrance. Ellner, you know, and I worked
43:20
out with them in the summer when the coaching staff were gone, I
43:24
literally would show up and train with Torrance and Tom
43:26
would tell us what to do. So a month before training for
43:30
junior through junior nationals or yes, USA juniors, it was me
43:34
and Torrance because it was the same weekend back.
43:36
You know how they did that before he would be seniors, and
43:38
I did. Juniors, Yeah.
43:40
It's amazing to me looking now in 2025, because we know how
43:44
history played out, that your choices were DA and mouse.
43:48
It's like, holy cow. I mean, those were two.
43:51
Those are two Hall of Famers right there.
43:53
And that's how I felt. I was like, we're gonna be fine.
43:55
I was like, coach me in hurdles, you know?
43:57
Right, any way who was better than the other?
44:00
So it didn't matter. But I did know that it's on a
44:02
short sprints and somebody that's right here, you know, it
44:05
doesn't have to do anything. And everybody knows he he knows
44:08
the school. He'll love the school.
44:09
He'll you know, so we were we were going in and and I'm sure
44:14
Doug listened and I'm I'm happy he did listen.
44:17
You know, he he might have you know, who knows?
44:19
DA might have said no, he might have just said no, you know so.
44:23
So first of all, if you're listening, if you go back, you
44:26
know, one of the hardest things about this podcast now is we are
44:29
staring season 6. So year seven in the face here
44:32
in a few months. And 2026 is, you know, we have
44:35
300 plus episodes, right? And of course you're listening
44:37
today because you're subscribed, you know, a year ago.
44:40
And so you don't even know about the 1st 102 hundred 300 amazing
44:43
men and women. Well, guest, I think it was 30.
44:46
He's an OG. He's one of my original.
44:47
I think it's 3033. Right around there is Mouse
44:50
Holloway. So if you want to hear directly
44:52
from the mouse's mouth, is that how you said that the horse's
44:55
mouth from Mouse himself? Go back, look at the same app or
44:58
YouTube that you're listening or watching right now.
45:01
Just type his name in. It'll pop up and it's amazing.
45:03
It's an amazing story. And I'm humbled and blessed
45:05
that, you know, before we became very established here in this
45:08
podcast, Mouse believed in me and, and, and was on the show.
45:11
And so I'm very grateful for that.
45:13
So I love hearing like different sides to it, right?
45:15
They're just kind of cool to hear the athlete side of it.
45:18
OK, well, spoiler alert, they chose Mouse.
45:20
Yeah, you can't go wrong. We now know you couldn't go
45:23
wrong with that. But he so did he start coaching
45:28
you directly or he started? Coaching He he took over in the.
45:31
Fall, OK. And, and as I, I joke with him
45:34
all the time, I was like, you didn't like me.
45:36
You know, I wasn't, I wasn't one of your, your premier guys, you
45:38
know, and I had to, I had to earn his trust.
45:40
I had to earn his belief. You were fifth in secs and
45:43
you're like, I'm not one of your guys dude.
45:45
You're 5th in secs as a freshman.
45:47
Yeah, but I, I wasn't running as fast as some of the other guys,
45:50
you know what I mean? So, you know, it, it, I had to,
45:52
I had to earn that, you know, I had to, I had to prove to him,
45:55
you know, and, and, and I'm sure there were times when he came
45:58
out with the high school, he would see us working out.
46:00
And I'm the loudest guy out there always.
46:02
And so he, he, you know, they're probably part of him was just
46:04
like, well, how good are you really?
46:06
You know, you talk a lot, you know what I mean?
46:07
Like, and so he, he knew what buttons to push, you know, to,
46:12
to get me going and in me like, because I'm, I'm the I have a
46:16
middle child syndrome. You know, my oldest sister, you
46:18
know, she had her friends did her thing three years apart, my
46:20
younger brother five years apart.
46:22
So I'm just kind of in the middle of doing my own thing.
46:24
And I never really leaned on anybody.
46:26
And so if you can motivate me and tell me I can't or I won't,
46:29
well, here we go. I got to show you, you know what
46:32
I mean. And so he knew how how to push
46:33
the buttons. And I believe that indoor did we
46:41
we didn't host that one. I think it might have been LSU.
46:44
No, that was my freshman year. Oh, Kentucky.
46:46
So indoor first year Mouse running a 4x4 where it happened
46:52
to be in the same heat with Kentucky and LSU, their top two
46:54
in the SEC, maybe the country, I don't remember, but they're
46:57
going at it. I'm third leg, you know, up and
47:00
down season didn't do anything in open 400I hand the stick off
47:05
and whatever position I got it in.
47:08
I didn't really feel like I ran great.
47:09
I wasn't tired after the race was over with mouse was just
47:12
like, so how'd you feel? And I was like, I feel great.
47:14
He was like, you know, you know, you think how'd you think you
47:18
run? And I was like, I'm sorry, man,
47:20
I don't I don't think I split anything crazy like I was he was
47:25
like, So what was you thinking about?
47:26
And I was like, you want me to tell you the truth or you want
47:28
me to lie? He was like, just what were you
47:32
thinking about? I was like, well, and it was a
47:34
couple guys with. I was like, well, I really
47:37
wanted to watch LSU and Kentucky going at it, so I was trying to
47:40
stay close so I could watch the race.
47:42
And he was like, so you turned your brain off finally.
47:45
I was like, oh, what does that mean?
47:47
He was like, could you split 46 something?
47:49
I was like, no, what? You know, like.
47:51
Interesting. Yeah.
47:54
I didn't feel like I was running at all.
47:56
And I'm just trying to watch these guys.
47:58
I'm trying to get close, you know, like you hear, oh, they're
48:01
in in, in high school, they're fighting and you run outside.
48:03
You don't want to see the fight, you know, and I'm run into the
48:06
run into the fight and you know, it was crazy.
48:11
Were you? So I love how he said you
48:13
finally shut your brain off. You stopped thinking about all
48:14
the other stuff and you just ran and how fast that ended up
48:17
being. When you start thinking about
48:20
before that, when you'd race where there's the hurdles,
48:23
relays, etcetera, where you like always a thinker like you're
48:27
always like, I'm in this position or I see the guy there.
48:29
OK, maybe I'm splitting here. I was bouncy, right?
48:32
So that's what he was like, why are you bouncing so much?
48:34
And so I was always, he's like, stop worrying about getting your
48:36
knees up and just running. He would always tell me that.
48:38
So I was always. Your brain was always like, OK,
48:40
where am I at now? What am I doing here?
48:42
Running mechanics, Running mechanics.
48:43
You just got to, you just got to run, you know, that's what he
48:46
always say. I'm like, how was it?
48:47
You just got to run Tuck, you just got to run.
48:49
I don't understand. You just got to run.
48:50
You know, He was always getting frustrated with me.
48:53
You know, in mouse, we, we and I don't know if he talked about
48:56
this before, but we had to do some behavior modifications with
49:00
Coach Holloway. With him.
49:03
With him. He came in, he came in 38 hot.
49:07
We had to we had to slow him down.
49:09
I. Was like, you know?
49:10
I'm like, my mother's a correctional officer.
49:12
My dad's, you know, he was a cop.
49:15
I'm from a military family. I was like, you know, you can
49:18
mother F and you can cuss and you can do all that stuff to me,
49:21
a couple other guys. But some people that don't have
49:23
their fathers in their life don't really, they don't really
49:27
deal with another man cussing at them.
49:28
They're going to have to get over.
49:30
And was like, no, they're not. And so it was me, Damon Carroll,
49:35
I think Robert Covington, you know, it was a couple other
49:38
people. I'm wondering, I wonder if Jimmy
49:40
came in with us. But we would always, I know me
49:42
and Damon for sure, we would always kind of go in before
49:45
practice and just kind of talk to him and be like Mouse.
49:47
Listen, listen, you know we cool, but you know what I mean.
49:55
And so it was he he he'll tell you like if you ever talk to me
49:58
like, yeah, talking them in the behavior modification.
50:01
They they save my my job. I think that's a great example
50:05
of a coach who has understanding that he doesn't have it all
50:11
understood today and so can listen to his athletes, whether
50:14
it's, hey, hey, here's how you're being perceived out
50:16
there. I know you you think this is the
50:18
right way. But let me tell you, some of
50:19
these guys and gals, it ain't happening.
50:21
And and and you know, there's a coach has a choice in that kind
50:24
of conversation, right, Shut up, 18 year old or whatever.
50:28
Or like, you know what, maybe I should listen to them and maybe
50:30
pay attention to myself and maybe I'll I'll learn something.
50:32
And you know, we know mouse well enough.
50:34
That's the kind of guy he is. He's.
50:36
Going to Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
50:37
If you if you yell at somebody, you say something about
50:39
somebody, say something to them and you see how they react to
50:42
it, then you know, you got to be aware of how they react to what
50:45
you tell them because it might sound great coming out.
50:49
Right, yeah, love that. All right, you know, there's no
50:53
bigger fan, but maybe you than Mouse.
50:54
So love these stories. But this is the Aaron Tucker
50:57
show. Mouse has Mouse has had his
50:59
episode. Todd, let's let's move on.
51:01
Love you Mouse, because I know you're listening.
51:04
Take a quick step back. What did you when you went to
51:07
Florida as a, you know, 1718 year old kid, what were you
51:10
thinking of? Like what did you decide to
51:12
first major in? And what were you thinking like,
51:14
oh, I'm going to become A, and you already mentioned, you know,
51:16
cop and correctional officers or maybe it's criminal justice or
51:19
something. What were you thinking about as
51:21
an 18 year old that you were going to become when you grew
51:23
up? I was going to go to law school.
51:25
Yeah. Oh yeah.
51:27
And after my first semester in college, and this is for all of
51:31
my athletes that want to listen to this, I passed 9 out of 15
51:35
hours with a 1.8. No.
51:37
And yeah, I was. I was hanging on by the edge of
51:41
the Cliff and. That surprises me about.
51:44
That is, yeah, because Super Nintendo was probably, you know,
51:50
Madden 93 in Street Fighter. I probably got A's in both of
51:55
those classes. You know, apparently I came in
52:00
with the So Florida had this SAT line.
52:04
If you were above it, no, study hall, you blow it.
52:06
Study hall. I work my way out of that and
52:09
have study hall every ball. The other freshman has study
52:11
hall, and I'm smarter than y'all.
52:12
I don't have to go to study hall.
52:15
I was in 10 hours of study hall that next spring.
52:17
Wow, Did that was, did that serve as a wake up call to you
52:21
or it was like, I just need to work just a little bit more.
52:23
I got to make sure I stay eligible or was that kind of
52:25
like a holy crap, man, I, I got kind of an opportunity here.
52:28
Oh yeah, I need to buckle down. Yeah, I was.
52:30
I was on the way out. The next I had to take a class
52:34
over, I had to take an incomplete.
52:35
So I had 1515, no, 17 credits on the books, and I had an
52:41
incomplete was three hours. So I had 20, 20 credits in the
52:46
spring of my first track season. I'm revolting.
52:48
No, heck no. Doctor Carradine, he was over
52:51
academics and he brought me in maybe second week of school was
52:53
like, yeah, so let's talk about what's going on.
52:55
I was like, yeah, you know, they got me taking credit, 20
52:57
credits. And he was like, so you only
52:58
passed 9 in the fall, you know, So what are we talking about?
53:01
He I was like, man, that's crazy, you know, and I got 17
53:04
and then I got to take the incomplete and I was like, well,
53:06
you could just take the F in it. You don't have to take the
53:08
incomplete, just take the F. You know, that's that's par for
53:10
the course. That's what you've already been
53:11
doing. And I was like, this dude is
53:15
just like, he's like, but it he's like, I look at it like
53:18
this, Tuck, you're probably going to go back to New York
53:20
after this semester. Anyway, so I was going to ask
53:21
that, was there any fear of like, they're going to ship me
53:24
back home? Yeah.
53:24
Like you, you'll be back, so don't worry about it.
53:27
Just you know what you, you could do it or not, I really
53:30
don't care. I'm telling you what you should
53:32
do. And I think you should, you
53:35
know, just, you know, shut it. Go do your stuff, go study, go
53:38
to study hall and you'll be fine, you know.
53:41
And then he was like anything else.
53:42
And I was like, no, no, I think, I think I'm good.
53:46
I was crying on the inside and he said, I don't care what you
53:49
do. Like literally like, I don't
53:50
care what you do. It's not going to affect me.
53:53
I'm still going to sleep. Like it's not going to affect
53:55
me. And I was just like, what's the
53:57
point of me coming here and talking to him?
53:59
You know, this, this black man is supposed to be on my side.
54:01
And he just told me he don't care what I do.
54:03
And he when I I talked to him about that conversation later
54:06
on, he was like, it weren't, didn't it?
54:10
He was like. He.
54:12
Was like what he was like, yeah, you know, me and I was talking,
54:14
we knew what I had no worries that you were going to do what
54:18
you needed to do, you know, And then I took classes in summer
54:22
school. I I think that semester I had
54:24
like AI got like a 28. I failed that class that I
54:27
incomplete again. It was economics failed it
54:30
again, but I failed it. I failed better.
54:32
This time. And then I took two classes.
54:35
I'm school guy A's and you know, I was off and running, you know,
54:38
plasma fraternity in the fall and that that GPA was the and
54:42
then the next spring that GPAI think I had a 2O.
54:46
So that was my second lowest ever distinct semester because I
54:50
registered her track. I mean, if this new fraternity,
54:53
I'm just, you know, I'm I'm going doing my work, but I'm not
54:56
going to class like I should. And my fraternity missed getting
55:01
the highest GPA amongst fraternities by like point O
55:06
something or maybe .1. And I'm like I have a two point
55:08
O. I'm like, I hope the Bros don't
55:13
know that that was the. Reason.
55:14
Yeah. That was you?
55:15
Yeah. And after that I had never.
55:17
I've never had less than 3/5. Wow, oh wow.
55:20
Including grad school. It was like, you know what this
55:22
is, this is ridiculous. I'm.
55:24
I'm too competitive to. And I used to compete with my
55:27
cousins and uncles. I have uncles my age that in
55:29
grades all through high school. How many age you got?
55:31
How many bees you got? And I was like, this is this is
55:33
not me. I'm tripping.
55:35
You know, this is not me. Yeah.
55:37
That's interesting. You know, I, I would have wished
55:40
you had better grades all the way through, but that adversity
55:44
not only, you know, helped you grow up, but I have to imagine
55:47
now as a coach, there's a little bit of a, you know, when you're
55:49
sitting there talking to one of your own athletes that are
55:51
struggling, it's like, look, man, I've been there.
55:53
Like literally have been there. Here's what you got to do, man.
55:56
You got to get this, you know, here's where I could have gone,
55:59
but thank goodness I got on the right track.
56:00
So it just gives you. I try to, I try to, yeah, I try
56:04
to be proactive with all of them and give them these, these
56:07
little Nuggets early and over my 26 years and, you know, going
56:13
into year 26 now, so the last 25 years I've tried to give them
56:16
Nuggets. And I can promise you there's a
56:19
few and I'm just not saying like one or two every year.
56:21
There's a few every year that is just like, man, I should have
56:24
listened to you. That was like, I'm like, you
56:26
know what, listen, listen, listen.
56:27
I'm not really a great coach. I'm not really a great father.
56:31
I'm not really a great friend. I can offer decent advice.
56:36
I feel like Ioffer good advice. I feel like I listen very well.
56:39
I don't have to be great in these things, but I feel like
56:41
I'm good enough that I've been there and I've seen things that
56:44
if you guys listen, you'll be fine.
56:47
And one of the things that I, my, my high school coach and
56:49
even mouse to say, you know, I, I think I'm a better coach when
56:52
you listen, you know, and if you listen and it doesn't work out,
56:58
that's on me. I can go back and I can fix
57:01
what's going on, training or race plan, whatever the case may
57:04
be, classroom, you know, whatever it is, you know, I'm
57:07
an, I'm an amateur academic advisor.
57:09
I'm an amateur psychologist. I'm an amateur of every hat that
57:12
touches our team. I can give you a little bit and
57:15
then send you to the pro, right? I love that.
57:17
That's the new at the track, but you know well, I'm still giving
57:21
you advice. I love the authenticity it gives
57:23
you. Again, I you know, if I weren't
57:25
able to write the history, I'd write it differently.
57:26
I was like, oh, what's that four O all the way through and all
57:28
those kinds of things. But through adversity comes
57:30
progress. And I think, like I said, just
57:33
the authenticity of it. When you're talking to one of
57:34
your athletes, it's you know, if you're a four O all the way
57:36
through and it's like, hey, man, you got to get your grades on.
57:38
I know you got to do this. You got to do study health and
57:39
they're like, whatever, Doug, you, you are a smart guy.
57:41
You 4oD everything. It's like, yeah, that's that's
57:43
actually not me. So I love that, right.
57:46
What did you end up getting your degree in and it and at any
57:49
point during undergrad was coaching, did it ever switch?
57:54
Like, oh, I want to be a coach. Yeah, so I moved after that
57:58
first year to history. Oh, I can see that.
58:02
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it doesn't make sense
58:05
to continue to argue about history and not know it.
58:09
I've always been intrigued. I was literally the, you know,
58:13
I'm an athlete. I'm a jock right first, but I'm
58:16
also a nerd. I had good grades in high school
58:18
and I'm, I'm, I begged my mother, you know, when you have
58:24
the, the book sales, I begged my mom that we needed encyclopedias
58:29
for me to, for me to do research.
58:31
I didn't have any research to do.
58:33
I just wanted them so I can just do my own research.
58:36
And then, you know, they would give you updated version and she
58:39
would always, you know, say stuff like, whoa, so you're
58:41
going to, you know, So what we going to do with these books
58:43
when we update them? And I'm just like, I think they
58:45
give us like little manuals, a little pamphlets or something,
58:47
you know? So she was against it.
58:49
But I think in the back her mind, I was like, this kid wants
58:51
academic books. And I'm trying to and I'm trying
58:53
not to give it to. Him.
58:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a hush.
58:56
I like how smart she was of like the updates.
58:58
So she's like as soon as you get them, they're out of date.
59:00
So what do we do there? I like she was already thinking.
59:02
Right, for sure, for sure. She was saving money, right?
59:05
You know, but we, we still did it.
59:07
And so I've always had that research kind of mind, right?
59:10
So. I thought to myself, all right,
59:12
so I'm measuring political science.
59:14
I want to go to law school. And I was like, that's not going
59:16
to work. I barely, I barely got a good
59:18
grade in English class. Like, so I'm thinking like, OK,
59:21
so I took some AP classes and I did get AP credit and history
59:25
and I was like, well, I'm already there.
59:26
I did, I did. I did.
59:29
Yeah. AP English, I got a 2 and then
59:31
history, I got a three. And then chemistry and physics,
59:35
I got ones that's we're not going to.
59:37
Talk about those. That's a really good example.
59:39
I mean, you took AP classes, no matter what you ended up getting
59:42
on your test, you know, it says about your education level
59:46
these, I don't know if it necessarily said anything about
59:48
your intelligence, but it says about your education level.
59:50
So for you to then go to it just tells you a lot Like, hey, no
59:52
matter what a kid has coming out of high school, there's no
59:56
guarantees in college. I mean, because you really
59:58
dipped getting into college. I had a 375 coming out of high
1:00:00
school, man I was. I was one of the, I was one of
1:00:03
the smart ones. Yeah, that's just.
1:00:04
Interesting, so from high school to college I was the only
1:00:07
athlete in most of my classes that that you understand what
1:00:12
I'm saying right? A handful of college classes.
1:00:16
You know, math I struggled with with pre calc, struggle with
1:00:20
college algebra. And so then I took like a math
1:00:22
120 or something fundamental concepts, you know, and I had,
1:00:27
that was the first class I took in college.
1:00:28
I had a lot of athletes in there.
1:00:31
You're like, oh, OK. And so I guess the statue of
1:00:35
limitation is over with. I don't see any police around me
1:00:37
but I was the in class tutor during the exams if you know
1:00:40
what I mean. Yep.
1:00:41
Gotcha, gotcha. Yep, Yep.
1:00:43
Change one. Just change.
1:00:44
One make it wrong. Yeah, change one.
1:00:49
That's right. So.
1:00:50
So did you end up getting a history degree?
1:00:52
Got a history degree, minor in education.
1:00:55
I red shirted. Like I said, I red shirted
1:00:57
indoor of my registered outdoor of my sophomore year and then I
1:01:03
red shirted indoor of my I think I followed.
1:01:10
No, I didn't register an indoor at all.
1:01:11
I ran all through indoor, but then I had my last year, I just
1:01:13
had I didn't have an indoor and I had an outdoor.
1:01:15
So for that fifth year, I was done with my school.
1:01:18
I was graduated done. So I'm fifth year.
1:01:20
What am I going to do? So I took post back and
1:01:23
education and I took them. I had a minor education took a
1:01:26
lot of education classes, you know, just not prerequisites.
1:01:32
What's the electives? Took a lot of electives for
1:01:34
education because I just love it.
1:01:36
I loved it and at some point I was named team captain, I think
1:01:42
at the end of my junior year. So that was the first time we
1:01:47
went to national. So that would have been junior
1:01:49
year indoor, maybe senior year outdoor.
1:01:54
Am I thinking this correctly? So sophomore, nothing.
1:01:58
And then so no, it was junior year, sophomore, junior year
1:02:04
indoor, sophomore year outdoor. And so at our awards banquet,
1:02:08
Coach Brown is giving out the captain's awards and one of the
1:02:12
recipients, he's talking, he's like, you know, this person
1:02:14
didn't even realize that we one of my team captains all year
1:02:17
long, things that we asked him to do, he got it done right
1:02:20
away, had the team lined up what they needed to do.
1:02:22
You know, we he a captain is an extension of the staff and he
1:02:26
was that extension. He would hold the guys
1:02:29
accountable, grab them if he needed to.
1:02:31
And you know, you know, we just thought that this person, you
1:02:35
know, is, is worthy of this award, even though we never
1:02:37
named him captain and he's going to be a great coach one day.
1:02:41
I was like. I'm looking around.
1:02:42
You had no clue. You had no clue.
1:02:44
Because I'm going to be an Olympian, Olympic gold medalist.
1:02:47
Right, right. You know, I'm make this thing
1:02:49
go. And so then it was Aaron, come
1:02:51
on up here and I'll just like this dude tried me, he said.
1:02:54
I'm going to be a great coach one day.
1:02:57
Wow. Oh, you took it as like a almost
1:02:59
like a slam, like, you know, he's.
1:03:00
Not He's not good enough. Athletically, so you better go
1:03:03
teach. Man.
1:03:05
And so, you know, we talked afterwards.
1:03:07
I was like, man, code, I'm going to be a kid.
1:03:08
He's like, yeah, no, after you're done running, after
1:03:10
you're after, you know, and and so I just started to really kind
1:03:17
of think about it and, you know, figure out what made sense.
1:03:20
And I was already in that path of education when I was in
1:03:26
Graduate School. I, I told people all the time
1:03:27
that Graduate School helped me become a better coach.
1:03:30
Because when you're a teacher, you are literally a coach of
1:03:33
that classroom. All coaches are teachers in that
1:03:36
field. That's right.
1:03:37
And so it just goes hand in hand and just, you know, different
1:03:41
methods of coaching and reaching out to people and, and, and how
1:03:45
people learn, understanding how people learn and going extra
1:03:48
because everybody is not the same.
1:03:49
Everybody is not going to learn. That's right.
1:03:51
You know, just. So, you know, that's, that's
1:03:53
been helpful. That's that was really helpful.
1:03:55
And yeah, yeah. I love how you said that all
1:03:58
teachers are coaches of the classroom because I say it the
1:04:00
other way and you said it's hand in hand.
1:04:02
So you'd agree with this. If you're a coach, you're a
1:04:04
teacher as well. That's what you're doing out on
1:04:06
the track or the field. Absolutely, I love it.
1:04:08
So did you when you went to grad school, were you still competing
1:04:13
or did you become a graduate assistant coach?
1:04:16
That was my first year of coaching.
1:04:17
I was a volunteer at 2000. So you but you kept running,
1:04:20
Yeah. So that fall of 99, obviously I
1:04:27
finished up before the fall of 99.
1:04:31
I was student teaching, I had night class and I was training.
1:04:39
Something had to give, yeah. So that sounds like a lot, yeah.
1:04:42
I was, and I'm talking about me. I'm, I'm 100 miles an hour In
1:04:46
everything I do, something's got to give.
1:04:48
Obviously my fraternity understood what I had to do.
1:04:51
And so I wasn't, you know, looked at to do a lot, you know.
1:04:55
And by the way, I meant to ask you 10 minutes ago when you
1:04:58
noticed that, because I know you're very proud of your
1:04:59
fraternity. Please name your fraternities
1:05:01
for people that are listening because I know you're very very
1:05:03
proud. Oh yeah, Omega S 5 Patrina.
1:05:05
Incorporate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, You know, so.
1:05:07
We were, we were, you know, they, they understood what I was
1:05:10
doing and it was fine. So didn't have to worry about
1:05:12
that. And that's lifelong.
1:05:13
So it's not like I need right, right.
1:05:15
You know, and so I sat down with mouse one day and I was like, it
1:05:19
was right before Thursday workout, you know, specific
1:05:22
endurance workout. Think I was going over 5
1:05:25
hurdles, 32nd reps going over 5 hurdles again, full speed
1:05:29
spikes. Let's let's go get it.
1:05:31
And so right before I went out, finished student teaching and I
1:05:36
was like, man, I want I need to talk to you about one of your
1:05:38
athletes. And he was like who?
1:05:40
And I was like, I need you to I need you to entertain me and
1:05:44
kind of bear with me. But I want to talk about when
1:05:46
your athletes, Aaron Tucker and he was just like.
1:05:49
He's like Tuck has lost his mind.
1:05:51
All right, let's just go with it.
1:05:52
OK, let's see where this is going.
1:05:53
I was like, so how fast do you think he's going to run this
1:05:55
year? He was like, oh, good question.
1:05:58
I know more about. I was like, no, we can't wait
1:06:00
for the workout. You got to tell me what you see
1:06:02
now based on where he is. You've had him for five years.
1:06:05
What are you thinking? He was like, I was like, you
1:06:08
think he could break 49? He was like 48 high 49 low
1:06:12
because I was 49 eight the year prior.
1:06:15
Well, two years prior and I think I was 50.3, which didn't
1:06:18
make it to nationals 50.3 and you know, because it was
1:06:23
descending order list. So he was like, you know, he's
1:06:26
definitely training better than the 49 eight guy.
1:06:28
And I was like, yeah, and I was like, you know, and we think we
1:06:32
want to take to make AUS team and, you know, get paid.
1:06:34
He was like. Yeah, it's a different jump.
1:06:36
He was like, so we're talking about maybe 47 highs 484840 or
1:06:43
better. And I was like, you think Aaron
1:06:44
took to do that? He was like, I want to say yes,
1:06:48
because I know how he is. And I was like, but forget about
1:06:51
how he is and you how much you love him as a person.
1:06:54
Do you think he has the physical chops to do that?
1:06:56
And he was like, no, probably not.
1:07:01
And I was like, all right, so now knowing that there's so many
1:07:03
guys that are taking drugs in our sport and he's losing money
1:07:08
revenue spots to these guys, how do you think he's going to react
1:07:10
if he continues running, misses these teams and these guys are
1:07:14
doing drugs? He's like.
1:07:16
Oh yeah. He's probably going to hit some
1:07:18
people. Yeah.
1:07:19
Firestorm. Yeah, Yeah.
1:07:20
Yeah, he was like, he's, I think he, I was thinking the same
1:07:23
thing. And I was like, so all right, so
1:07:25
this is what's going to happen. Today's workout, this is going
1:07:28
to be my last track workout. I'm I'm going to do this better
1:07:33
than I've ever done before. I'm a go get my spikes to the
1:07:35
equipment room and, and you can follow if you want, but I'm
1:07:38
going to tell them never give them back to me.
1:07:41
And I'm, I'm, I'm going to kill this workout and I'm done.
1:07:43
And, and, and I'm, I'm 1000% at practice working with you, going
1:07:48
to class afterwards, going to student teach in the mornings.
1:07:52
I'm I'm a lock in and the coaching has got to take over.
1:07:55
He was like, you sure you won't do that?
1:07:57
And I was like, Yep. And I was like, look, no matter
1:07:59
what I do after this workout, whether it was good or it was
1:08:01
bad, do not let me run anymore. And he was like it, surely I
1:08:06
said mouse promise. He was like, all right.
1:08:09
And so this split 400, I ran, I ran like he maybe he remembers,
1:08:13
I feel like it was either 4813 or 4831, one of the two.
1:08:19
And that was, I don't think I ever broke 49 in a split run
1:08:23
before, you know, And he was just like, wow.
1:08:28
And I was like, what, what, what, what, what he was like.
1:08:31
Now, if I tell you what you just told me, you know, And I was
1:08:34
like, you know, I was really happy, excited because I felt
1:08:36
like I went out on my own terms. I went out how I wanted to go
1:08:39
out. I was still healthy.
1:08:40
I didn't want to be like a lot of guys who have an injury or
1:08:44
they disgruntled or I love track.
1:08:47
I love track. And I wanted to go out on my own
1:08:49
terms. And then I never regret it.
1:08:51
That's a great point. I, it's amazing.
1:08:53
You know, some of the coaches we've had on here have been, you
1:08:55
know, Olympians and gold medalists and stuff.
1:08:57
And it's always that's an interesting aspect to me is when
1:09:01
these may be two different questions when you know to hang
1:09:04
it up and when you actually do hang it up and then and then how
1:09:08
you do it. You know, I talk a lot about,
1:09:10
you know, with the whether it's coaching or any, you know,
1:09:13
private sector, like here, you know, retiring is tough that
1:09:15
there's no college class in retiring.
1:09:17
You don't you don't know how to do it.
1:09:19
And when you do it, it's this is what stopping being an athlete
1:09:22
is. It's kind of like you're
1:09:23
retiring. You know, on Friday you do a
1:09:25
workout and then on Monday you wake up and you don't have to do
1:09:29
a workout. So what do you do?
1:09:30
It's kind of like, you know what one of my mentors here who
1:09:33
retired in 20/17/2018, he was A19761980 Decathleen Olympic
1:09:39
with the Jenner and Fred, Fred Dixon love, love him to death.
1:09:42
And as we, you know, I worked hand in hand with him and as he
1:09:44
was getting closer to his retirement and I was like, so
1:09:47
Fred, you're going to, you're going to call and talk to a
1:09:49
customer on Friday and then on Monday you're just not, they're
1:09:52
going to call me. It's like, what do you do?
1:09:54
Like I'm, I'm like, I'm generally concerned.
1:09:56
What are you doing? And he was saying things like,
1:09:58
yeah, what do you do? And, and as we got closer, he
1:10:00
had grandkids. And so that became the filler of
1:10:02
the void. It's like, oh, you know what?
1:10:03
I'm going to be a grandpa because I, I wasn't able to do a
1:10:06
lot of good things as a dad because of work and athletics
1:10:09
and stuff. So, so luckily there was
1:10:11
something there, but I, I worry about with athletes that don't,
1:10:14
and most athletes that I've talked to don't have plans of
1:10:18
what to do after because it feels like you're Superman.
1:10:20
Like I'm always going to be this fast or jump this far.
1:10:23
I'm always going to be able to make a team.
1:10:24
I'm always going to scratch a living If I can't, you know,
1:10:26
make good money and at least scratch a living.
1:10:28
This is better than a corporate job.
1:10:29
And it's like, yeah, but eventually this stops.
1:10:32
Whether it's 253035, God bless you, make it a 40.
1:10:35
That's crazy. No one does.
1:10:37
You still got a lot of life to live.
1:10:38
You you got to have a job. So that that's I do like the
1:10:41
story about going out on your own terms.
1:10:43
What what what struck me the way you the way you did it.
1:10:47
Tuck some athletes and I can't think of any one example.
1:10:52
Kobe Bryant. They have to have a different
1:10:55
personality on the court versus off the court, You know, whether
1:10:59
it's a track or things like that.
1:11:00
So, you know, on the court, he was black Mamba, right?
1:11:02
That that was his, you know, that he was Kobe Bryant.
1:11:05
He was Black Mamba. It struck me how you did that.
1:11:08
You, you had to do something very similar to have that
1:11:11
conversation with mouse. You had to go, hey, I want to
1:11:13
talk about your athlete, Tuck and Tuck, like you had to become
1:11:15
someone different. Like like an outside third
1:11:18
party, almost like Tuckers feelings don't matter right
1:11:20
here. He's not.
1:11:21
He's not here. Let's just have a talk between
1:11:23
me and you, Mouse. That just struck me the way you,
1:11:26
you like you psychologically had to have that conversation.
1:11:29
If if Aaron Tucker would have had that conversation, emotions
1:11:32
would have been in it. As soon as you hear 4813 or
1:11:34
4831, it's like what, baby? I'm jumping the car in a little
1:11:38
bit here, boys, you know, So I, that just struck me that kind of
1:11:41
same mentality. You had to do it in that
1:11:43
conversation, not as a, not as a workout or anything, but as that
1:11:46
conversation. You had to create a third parts
1:11:48
persona per SE. That was just interesting.
1:11:51
And I was thinking about it for like 2 weeks.
1:11:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah. How you going to address it?
1:11:56
And yeah, yeah, yeah. I just know I, I was nervous and
1:12:00
I just, and I was exhausted. That's really what it was.
1:12:03
That's what it boiled down to. And I, and I didn't want to feel
1:12:05
like I was quitting, right. And so I, I was like, I'm going
1:12:09
to retire after this workout and, and I'm going to move on
1:12:12
the. Kryptonite of all athletes, the
1:12:15
word quit because we think of it in only it's negative
1:12:18
connotations of like, oh, you quit on the player, you quit on
1:12:20
the team or you quit on yourself.
1:12:22
And in reality, we all have to quit everything at some point.
1:12:24
We all die present girls, that's a quit whether you choose it or
1:12:28
not, right? But eventually you have to.
1:12:31
We had Dwayne Ross on the podcast long time ago as well,
1:12:34
another great. He's now the head coach at
1:12:35
University of Tennessee and he talked about he after his last
1:12:38
race, he knew it was, it was going to be his last race.
1:12:40
He took his shoes off, put it at the finish line.
1:12:41
This was his quitting. He he quit.
1:12:43
He had to quit. It just that was just some or
1:12:45
maybe he was the one that threw his shoes away.
1:12:47
Actually, I think I think Dwayne actually is the one who
1:12:49
physically went to the garbage and threw his shoes away.
1:12:50
He was like, I'm tired. So we only talk about the
1:12:53
negative. In reality, to have any growth,
1:12:55
you have to have cut, which is a quit.
1:12:57
You have to. And so eventually there is now
1:12:59
or 10 years you had to do it. And again, on your own terms, I
1:13:03
think is a really important aspect of that.
1:13:06
Yeah, you got to. You got to close the door for
1:13:08
another one to open. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:13:10
Yeah, and I think a lot of times the identity of being an athlete
1:13:14
in all sports, that's the hardest door to close.
1:13:19
How do I know this? Obviously without if I could
1:13:21
take a step back and not be a coach and athlete, why do I know
1:13:24
this? CrossFit competitions,
1:13:26
marathons, right? Yeah.
1:13:29
People just cannot let it go, right?
1:13:32
Golf, for those that were not golfers, they're out there
1:13:35
because they have to compete at something.
1:13:36
I'll give you a very close second from experience, be on
1:13:40
this side of life now with track coaches, and probably it's all
1:13:42
coaches. Being a coach is very, very
1:13:45
close to #2 to that, to be an athlete, the identity side.
1:13:49
Not that I necessarily think there's coaches out there like,
1:13:51
man, you should have retired. Yeah, a great example might be
1:13:54
because it's in the public. I can talk about this Bill
1:13:56
Belichick. It's like, dude, why didn't you
1:13:57
just retire? You had a great life.
1:13:59
Like, what are you doing going back to college, going to you're
1:14:01
going to he's going to taint his legacy.
1:14:03
They're not they're not good and they're not going to be very
1:14:05
good this year. Watch.
1:14:06
They're going to go 11 and one after this weekend where they
1:14:09
just got. Tracked.
1:14:09
They needed, they needed you. They needed you to save well.
1:14:12
Yeah, well, I'm sure a lot of people are saying it because all
1:14:15
the memes right now are just amazing.
1:14:17
By the way, on social media especially.
1:14:20
Somebody should give TCU Twitter guy the berets.
1:14:25
Oh, have you seen the the memes? Oh my God, hilarious.
1:14:29
UNC says, you know, can't wait for our show on Hulu, you know,
1:14:32
behind the scenes. And TCU says, hey, when's
1:14:34
episode 1? Crazy, So funny.
1:14:40
So funny. Anyway, crazy.
1:14:42
But to your very point, you made a great point there.
1:14:45
Want to make sure everybody hears that is the identity side
1:14:48
of it in reality, because you know, I, I deal with coaches all
1:14:51
the time. I get to so blessed to work with
1:14:53
them. And they and some of us think
1:14:54
that coaching is their number one identity.
1:14:56
And I'm like, dude, first of all, there's no bigger fan of a
1:14:58
track coach than this guy. And I think maybe at best it's
1:15:00
your fourth most important identity because probably a
1:15:03
spouse, you're a son or a daughter, you're a brother or
1:15:06
sister, you're a father or a mother.
1:15:07
I mean, there's just so many other titles.
1:15:10
Those are way more important than coaching like.
1:15:12
Absolutely. Yeah, it's hard.
1:15:14
It's hard. I get it.
1:15:15
I get it. OK.
1:15:15
And I and I have AI have a stop guide.
1:15:17
I have AI have a date in mind for my retirement.
1:15:20
Yeah, Is that right? You're a thinker, man.
1:15:22
That's why. That's why the GPA surprised me.
1:15:24
I'm like, I know you as a thinker, right?
1:15:26
You're proving it by that alone. But you 188 for the first one
1:15:29
for crying out loud, right? If, if, if I can make it there,
1:15:33
if I can make. And when I say, if it's all
1:15:34
about, you know, where we're going in athletics and AD and if
1:15:37
I'm still conscious and aware and I'm, I tell people all the
1:15:40
time, I lift 120. So I'm going to definitely make
1:15:43
it there. I'm just, that's just what I,
1:15:44
that's my goal, right? I got to go, I got to get it.
1:15:46
So I was an assistant coach for 23 years.
1:15:47
I want to be a head coach for 23 years.
1:15:49
And after that, you know, you know, we, we, you know, I have a
1:15:53
retirement plan with the wife, what we're going to do in
1:15:55
retirement. So I've actually had to change
1:15:58
it because it was house before I got married.
1:16:01
It was house in Seattle area, house in the keys.
1:16:05
We get RV and you know, in the summers we're coming up, going
1:16:08
to track meets and spend summers there and then we come back down
1:16:11
for the winter. College football in the middle.
1:16:13
And you? Know and so I told her I was
1:16:15
like so recently I was like maybe I could do that until I'm
1:16:18
about 75 and then we can move to she wants to she she's been
1:16:22
talking about living in Costa Rica forever and I was like well
1:16:24
then we can probably do your Costa Rica and I was like so if
1:16:27
I and I was like but as soon as I get tired of driving you know
1:16:31
that might be it might be two years in and I'm going alright
1:16:33
babe let's sell the houses sell the RV and let's get something
1:16:36
nice you know and. Yeah.
1:16:38
So have you, have you been to Costa Rica?
1:16:40
I have. Yeah.
1:16:41
So my my sister in law's from Costa Rica and so we've gone
1:16:44
down a couple of times. You know, she's got a family
1:16:46
down there. That's a place we've talked
1:16:47
about retiring to actually. Yeah, yeah.
1:16:49
That might be neighbors, man. Yeah, dude, I'd love it that.
1:16:50
'D be so fun. That'd be funny.
1:16:52
Actually, that'd be hilarious. It would be.
1:16:53
I would love that I'm. Trying to get as many people as
1:16:55
I can. There's probably something bad
1:16:59
like this analogy. We'll get some kind of that
1:17:01
combine or, you know, we'll just get a couple of houses in a row,
1:17:03
bunch of retired coaches and stuff, right?
1:17:04
That'd be great. That'd be fine.
1:17:06
Anyway. OK, so let's keep rolling going
1:17:08
through here. You decide I'm going to I'm
1:17:11
going to go out of my terms as an athlete.
1:17:14
I love that that helps with keeping at Bay, not stopping it
1:17:19
completely, I'm imagine, but helps keep at Bay a little bit
1:17:22
of the whole regret syndrome that you can do it on your
1:17:24
terms. You get into coaching.
1:17:26
So talk to us about how you started getting into coaching
1:17:29
you the very next day, started helping Mouse out.
1:17:31
Yeah, yeah. Volunteer coaching with Mouse
1:17:34
and you know, we had some knuckleheads that I could I can
1:17:37
get through to you know, so that was helpful in that 2000 season.
1:17:41
We actually got second hand nationals that year.
1:17:43
So that was good for me as someone looking for a job, you
1:17:47
know, and I actually had my interview, I guess the statue of
1:17:52
limitations over. I, I interviewed from my job at
1:17:55
the indoor national championship before the job even posted.
1:17:58
It was, you know, Gary Winneke axed Doug Brown, if he knew of
1:18:02
any young coaches because he was retiring in three years and
1:18:08
didn't want to bring someone to move a whole family.
1:18:11
He would prefer someone that didn't have a family.
1:18:13
So it could be a, a lighter pill for them to swallow once he
1:18:16
retired, you know, and so that it, I made a great impression.
1:18:20
We, we talked for AI think we set aside an hour and a half and
1:18:24
we talked about coaching athletics for about 45 minutes
1:18:28
and we watched the Big 10 tournament in this hotel room.
1:18:30
He had a suite and we watched the Big 10 tournament for the
1:18:32
rest of the time we had together.
1:18:33
And it was awesome. And I was like, I feel like I
1:18:36
got the job, but I don't know, Like, he stopped asking me
1:18:38
questions. And, you know, it was like, it's
1:18:40
two, one or two things happened. You gave him all the answers or
1:18:42
he just knew you were an idiot. Yes.
1:18:43
Yeah. It was it was on the extremes
1:18:46
either had. It or nothing in between were.
1:18:47
Definitely not it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:18:49
So you talk about Gary when he who I never actually got to meet
1:18:52
and that sad. So you went from Gainesville to
1:18:56
right here where I am. You came to Champaign, IL?
1:18:58
Drove up, drove a U-Haul with my, with my dog Bolo in the
1:19:02
front seat man. And we, we got there, you know,
1:19:05
and stayed at a hotel for a few days, got him a little place.
1:19:08
It was, it was good. The the crazy thing about my
1:19:10
first year in Illinois was I, my best sprinter going in the door
1:19:15
was a guy I raced in the 400 hurdles 2 years prior.
1:19:18
When Illinois came down. He beat me in the race, but he
1:19:22
hooked hurdle 8:00 and 9:00 and I was yelling and and fussing at
1:19:25
the finish line and I was like Eric, get over here, you know
1:19:28
what, what is wrong with y'all? So he hooked her.
1:19:29
He's like you tell me, I'll handle it.
1:19:31
You need to stop making a scene. And I was just like, whatever.
1:19:35
Who? Who was that?
1:19:36
Sherman Armstrong. I wondered.
1:19:38
Yeah, Sherman. I saw him.
1:19:39
I coached high school in Chicago in 98992000.
1:19:44
And I remember Sherman. Yeah, yeah.
1:19:45
From a little town. A little like Argenta or
1:19:48
something like that. Real small school fund,
1:19:50
remember? Chicago, Yeah, I coached, among
1:19:53
others. We had a coach Willie Williams
1:19:55
left for. Great group.
1:19:56
Yeah, Willie. You know, and, and, and it was,
1:19:58
it was awesome. I could always call and lean on
1:20:00
him when I felt like I couldn't get through to somebody.
1:20:03
And Winnicky gave me the reins to do what I needed to do.
1:20:06
Every now and again, he'll pull me in and ask me a question.
1:20:08
What I realize now, and I try to tell my assistant coaches.
1:20:11
And even when I was an assistant coach, I would tell my
1:20:12
colleagues. When your boss says to you, you
1:20:16
ever thought about it this way or if I was you I would, that
1:20:20
means do it. Do.
1:20:22
Yeah, just do it. Don't even, don't even your
1:20:24
opinion doesn't matter if they if they, they One time they ask
1:20:27
you, they might want to know and it might be kind of a
1:20:30
conversation. The second time they ask you,
1:20:32
you probably are still in that mode of effing up.
1:20:35
The third time they ask you, you're probably going to get
1:20:37
fired. That's like your trouble.
1:20:39
Yeah, yeah, right. It's already passed.
1:20:40
Up time comes like just do it. So this was in the era when
1:20:44
Illinois was a split program. So you're on the men's side.
1:20:48
You come from a sprints and hurdles background.
1:20:50
Were you coaching anything else besides sprints and hurdles?
1:20:54
Nope. Coach Doyle had the jumpers and
1:20:57
the throwers. OK.
1:20:58
So you didn't have to learn any new events necessarily.
1:21:01
Typically when we first get into coaching, we coach how we were
1:21:05
coached because that's all we know right now.
1:21:08
You had a kind of a, you know, Mouse was still early.
1:21:11
He has evolved since he has evolved as well, but had
1:21:15
obviously a lot of good concepts even back then.
1:21:17
You guys were very successful, obviously.
1:21:19
So did you have trying to kind of how I would ask this, like
1:21:23
did you have a lot of confidence coming into coaching because
1:21:26
you're like, oh man, I was coached by Mouse like I.
1:21:28
I had a lot. Of guys should really listen to
1:21:29
me. I had all the workouts and were
1:21:32
things that I did in high school and I'm I'm a young guy, I'm 23
1:21:35
years old. So more is better in my mind now
1:21:37
as as an older guy, more is not better, but I was more is
1:21:39
better. You know, Sherman didn't have
1:21:41
the year he he was going to have, but I did have a guy named
1:21:43
Bubbleton. They really break the Big 10
1:21:45
record in the 60, the big the 60 hadn't been run that much up
1:21:49
into that point. So I think we were in year 3 or
1:21:51
4. He broke the Big 10 record, won
1:21:53
a conference. You can tell me anything.
1:21:55
You know, the the following year I had a young man run 2080
1:21:58
indoor and break that brunt break that school record.
1:22:01
You couldn't tell me. I got people at nationals is a
1:22:04
my first two years coaching and then my third year, my first
1:22:07
true recruiting class. You know, they're you know,
1:22:10
juniors and I had some good hurdlers.
1:22:12
I've spent a lot of time year 2 signing hurdlers, which once I
1:22:15
left, they all Andre English, Adrian man, not Asian man,
1:22:20
Adrian Walker, Abe Jones, a all, they all just became amazing
1:22:26
college athletes. And I got not that I wanted any
1:22:29
credit. I was like, man, we was at your
1:22:31
freshman year just trying to learn, you know, And so that you
1:22:34
know, we, we, we also signed Trammell Smith, 800m runner
1:22:37
beforehand. I think we got Zach Glavish
1:22:39
late, you know? So Zach, that's right.
1:22:43
Yeah, we we got a good group. You know I had Jason Van Swall.
1:22:47
Yeah, I remember. That by fall, coach Winnieke had
1:22:49
me Jason Van Swall, John. What was John's last name?
1:22:55
Start with AK. He ended up that fall, no.
1:22:59
The following fall when we hosted Cross, he got second to
1:23:02
this crazy freshman sensation from Michigan.
1:23:07
One Big 10 and he got. 2nd in web and.
1:23:12
But he was criminac. Well, not Criminac or Cronforce,
1:23:15
John Cronforce. So he sprained his ankle.
1:23:18
We had another guy that Coach Winky was like train these guys,
1:23:22
I don't want to deal with them. They can't finish workouts.
1:23:24
They're not running across. And I was just like this man
1:23:26
just gave me a 148 half Miller and told me to coach him in the
1:23:30
fall. I got a 49 low guy.
1:23:33
I got some. I was like, boy, you, you may be
1:23:38
in coaching long or you might be done after this year, you know?
1:23:42
So I had a lot, I had some talent and I ruined all of them.
1:23:46
Now I'm gonna stop. Yeah, I do that.
1:23:48
You know, but it was, I just remember one day Jake coaching
1:23:52
Jason, we were doing the circuit.
1:23:54
He told me earlier that he wasn't feeling well.
1:23:56
And I'm like, you know, you might not feel well at
1:23:57
conference. Get through it.
1:23:59
Nice. It's just that's so coach speak.
1:24:02
Yeah, if you're not feeling well, go home.
1:24:04
Come back tomorrow to figure it out, you know, And what I do now
1:24:07
is when they're not feeling well, you go home, coach,
1:24:10
nothing to work out tomorrow. No, you missed today.
1:24:11
Don't worry about it. And so I kind of played off
1:24:13
like, no, don't worry about this is everybody killed it
1:24:15
yesterday. Oh my God, you missed it.
1:24:17
You know what I mean? Like I don't I'm not going to
1:24:20
force you to do something you don't want to do, right.
1:24:21
You can tell me afterwards, coach.
1:24:23
I just wasn't feeling well, but I got through it.
1:24:24
I'm like, man, that's, that's that's what you need.
1:24:26
You know, that's, that's pretty good.
1:24:27
Appreciate it. You know, and you ran better
1:24:28
than you thought. So anyway, Jason was on the back
1:24:33
and they said if he when he ran the 8:00, if he didn't get to
1:24:35
the front, he would give up. So I had that in the back of my
1:24:38
mind. So he's in the back and he just
1:24:40
starts like he's, he's literally doing this.
1:24:42
And I was like, so I run across the field and then as I get
1:24:45
there, he just turns over and he just starts throwing up.
1:24:47
And I was like, you better not stop you.
1:24:51
And, and again, we're talking about statue of limitations.
1:24:54
I can talk about this now. I was like, if you stop, I will.
1:24:58
You stop. And he wiped his mouth and he
1:25:03
started running. He caught up to the half the
1:25:05
packet, 201 fifty to go. He was in the middle.
1:25:08
And then the last 100m, he passed everyone and crossed the
1:25:11
finish line. Turn around.
1:25:12
We had some drills to do. Fast forward to nationals when
1:25:16
Eugene in the hotel eating breakfast, nice old white lady
1:25:20
comes sitting next to me and say, can I sit next to you,
1:25:22
Coach Tucker? I was like, yeah.
1:25:23
She was like, hey, I was like, hey, how are you?
1:25:26
She was like, whatever. Can't remember her first name.
1:25:30
Vance. Well, I'm Jason's grandmother.
1:25:31
I knew it. Hey, how are you?
1:25:34
And she was like, yeah, you know, he really, really loved
1:25:37
working with you in the fall. And he was really sad after
1:25:39
Cross ended and he had to go back.
1:25:41
He loves coach. He loves coach.
1:25:43
But he just felt like you could always motivate him and, and
1:25:46
what he really loved. And Jason was about 6-4.
1:25:48
He's like what he really loved was every race he ran this year,
1:25:52
you'll go up to him, put your hands on the shoulder and you
1:25:54
would tell, look him in the eyes and say, not today, boss.
1:25:58
And that was when I quitting, you know?
1:26:01
And so I would do that for every race because I had a
1:26:03
relationship with him and working with him in the fall.
1:26:07
And he told me that time in the fall and I was like, I'm so
1:26:12
sorry. She was like.
1:26:13
Yeah, you're like, oh, you weren't supposed to know that
1:26:14
story. She.
1:26:15
Was like, that's what he needed, he said.
1:26:16
And she, she told me, she said that day is when he knew that
1:26:20
you were going to be an amazing coach for him and he would
1:26:23
respect you. And he was still to this day
1:26:27
afraid of you and but he appreciates you.
1:26:30
Wow. You know, and I was like, I
1:26:31
don't think I would have actually put my hands on him.
1:26:34
She was like, but it doesn't matter.
1:26:35
He thought you would. Right, right, right.
1:26:38
Do that nowadays, you know. Yeah, definitely not working.
1:26:41
Different story, different ending, right?
1:26:42
Definitely not working so. How many seasons at U of I
1:26:46
University of Illinois? I was there three years.
1:26:49
OK, so three years you are, I mean, you know, somebody who is
1:26:54
intelligent that wants to get into coaching.
1:26:58
Coming out of a guy like Mouse's camp is feels like, you know,
1:27:03
you're already, you know, one leg into the four by one.
1:27:05
Like you're you're you've got kind of a head start.
1:27:07
If you're smart and you understand, like, OK, I see what
1:27:09
mouse is doing. I I can make it my own style and
1:27:11
move on. And right out the gate you you
1:27:13
got some great kids. They're setting records.
1:27:16
First of all, how much did you have to adjust?
1:27:19
You know you guys and Gainesville practice outside the
1:27:22
majority of time. You did have the O'Connell
1:27:24
Center, So what it's called. We yeah, we only did that the
1:27:27
day before the meets. Yeah, so, but here in U of I you
1:27:30
had an indoor a 200m flat and you had to use it certain parts
1:27:34
of the year. Did you have to adjust much and
1:27:36
and if you did, did you have did you call anybody or did you call
1:27:38
Matt? I don't know why you maybe I.
1:27:39
Did call him for some of it. I was.
1:27:41
I was deathly afraid of training on Mondo.
1:27:44
All the stories you hear about Mondo and so.
1:27:47
Interesting. I did have a guy that had
1:27:49
bilateral femur stress fractures.
1:27:54
He was a hurdler. So like Tuck, what are you
1:27:56
doing? I was doing too much, number
1:27:58
one. And then I found out after the
1:28:00
fact that he was a bartender and he was on his feet from from
1:28:03
7:00 to 11:00 every night. And so that that's when I became
1:28:08
connected with my athletes about what are you doing when you
1:28:10
leave the track? I got you for about an hour and
1:28:12
a half, two hours. What you do away from me is
1:28:14
going to help you or is going to break you, you know.
1:28:17
But I did have, I did have to back off with what we were doing
1:28:21
because of the pounding. It was too much pounding.
1:28:23
I did as much as I could on the grass.
1:28:25
So after year one, learned a lesson.
1:28:27
Year 2, we pretty much stayed on the grass as much as we could,
1:28:31
went out to a couple of different trails to do some
1:28:32
runs. We had some hills out the
1:28:36
Arboretum before it became the Arboretum.
1:28:37
It was just grass area. And you know, I can't the I
1:28:43
think it's on my third year. Whoever we brought in the
1:28:46
women's head coach, she left Illinois.
1:28:50
It wasn't Bernie, it was after Bernie, Karen, Karen, Karen when
1:28:54
she before she went to Florida State, she got them to build the
1:28:56
cross country courts out there. But you know, so I tried to just
1:28:59
unload them as much as I could. And from that point it was like
1:29:02
more is not always better. I got to do things different,
1:29:05
you know, and then one of the things, I think it was my second
1:29:07
or my third year Florida. I mean, the Illinois mouse calls
1:29:10
me and says, I just want to apologize to you guys and I'm
1:29:12
just calling everybody. I was like, about what He was
1:29:13
like, man, I was, he was like, you guys were we're different
1:29:16
animals. And I said, we need a man.
1:29:18
I train you guys like class that I beat you out of hell.
1:29:20
And, you know, now I'm seeing that that doesn't work for
1:29:22
everybody. And I just want to apologize.
1:29:24
And I'm looking at these workouts like what?
1:29:25
No, OK, it might have been my second year.
1:29:28
I was like, OK, I gotta I gotta adjust.
1:29:30
And we literally drifted apart, drifted apart in terms of our
1:29:34
training styles and things. You were telling me things.
1:29:37
I don't know. Trust it out.
1:29:38
Tell me how it works. I would tell him things.
1:29:40
He'd be like, oh, I don't know about that Tuck.
1:29:41
And so we were going. And then when I got to Kentucky,
1:29:44
we kind of came back together a little bit in terms of some
1:29:47
training, but then kind of branched out again.
1:29:50
When I got back to Florida, I was like, whoa, what are we
1:29:51
doing? And he was like, yeah, this is
1:29:53
totally different now, you know, and.
1:29:56
OK, so so three years Illinois, Kentucky after that?
1:30:00
Eight years at Kentucky. What?
1:30:01
Why leave Illinois and why go to Kentucky?
1:30:04
Coach winning, he retired. Right.
1:30:08
Three years, he said. Three years.
1:30:09
Yeah. OK, Yeah.
1:30:10
Coach Webb was looking for a Sprint coach.
1:30:12
We had passion Richardson coaching the women and we didn't
1:30:14
really have men so it was 4 coaches on staff there.
1:30:17
So he brought me on to be the 5th and he I took over the men.
1:30:19
Five walk ONS, first day of practice.
1:30:21
Wow. Two walk ONS.
1:30:24
And so to do what we did the next seven years, I will always
1:30:28
hold my hat on. Kentucky made me who I.
1:30:30
Am yeah, coach. Coach Webber gave me the the
1:30:32
ability to and there were some conversations.
1:30:35
If I was you, I would, you know, and so when you hear that from
1:30:38
the second head coach, I'm just like, I might want to listen to
1:30:41
him. Hey.
1:30:41
So coach, what do you think about this?
1:30:44
I thought about what you said last week and, you know, does
1:30:46
this look. Oh, yeah, I like the way that
1:30:48
looks. It looks a lot better.
1:30:49
I was worried about those kids, you know, And so he gave me the
1:30:53
freedom to do, you know, my Venezuelan guys, My my first
1:30:58
recruiting class, I signed three of the top sprinters from
1:31:01
Illinois. First call.
1:31:03
I asked all of them who else are recruiting you?
1:31:06
They all said Illinois and I'm, this is not a knock on Wayne.
1:31:08
They all said Illinois. And I was like, look at the
1:31:10
questionnaire and look at the letter and see whose name is on
1:31:12
it. And they always like, Oh my God,
1:31:15
it's you, you know, And so brought those guys in and had
1:31:20
some Venezuelans. I had some guys in New York and,
1:31:23
you know, some Texas kids, you know, and, and we, we, we, I had
1:31:27
a good, a good time. And I think that that put me in
1:31:29
a position where, you know, I feel like I felt like I arrived,
1:31:32
right. How did you so something that I
1:31:36
struggled with, you know, I went from Ball State to Mississippi
1:31:39
State and my whole coaching career, because I'm from the
1:31:41
South, was to get to the SEC. That was, you know, I still
1:31:44
remember Steve Dudley during kind of my recruiting year when
1:31:47
he, you know, was recruiting me and I didn't know he was
1:31:49
recruiting me to come on staff and he goes, you know, what do
1:31:51
you want to do in this profession?
1:31:52
I was like, man, I want to be you.
1:31:53
I want to be sprints, jumps and hurdles in the SEC.
1:31:55
You want to be the best. You got to beat the best.
1:31:57
And there is nobody better than the SEC, right?
1:31:59
And then I got to Mississippi State and I thought, you know,
1:32:01
coming from, you know, JUCO in Kansas, Troy and Alabama, Ball
1:32:05
State, you always had to you have this a little bit, you
1:32:08
know, I don't think you'll take offense to this is reality.
1:32:11
You call some people and you got to explain Eastern Washington
1:32:13
where it is, all that kind of stuff.
1:32:15
That's what I had to do. Ball State, OK.
1:32:16
And I was like, OK, fine, look, got the job.
1:32:17
Mississippi State, everybody I call, they're going to know who
1:32:19
I am because of because of Saturday, because of the
1:32:21
football. That was true that that actually
1:32:23
did hold true. I did have to a lot of parents
1:32:26
get over a movie. I still haven't seen Mississippi
1:32:29
Burning. Yeah.
1:32:30
So a lot of a lot of parents were like, I'm not sending my
1:32:32
kid to Mississippi. And I was like this this place
1:32:33
is great. And I'm like, I got to watch
1:32:34
that movie. Never did anyway, But I would
1:32:37
call. I remember my first, I don't
1:32:39
know if it was the first kid I called, but it's my first huge
1:32:41
recruit. I don't know if you remember not
1:32:43
LZ Coleman up in Newburg. Oh yeah.
1:32:46
Set the foreign meter, indoor national record.
1:32:47
You remember calling LZ, you have good rapport and all that
1:32:49
kind of stuff. And I, he's going to come on a
1:32:51
visit. And I said, you know, it was
1:32:52
back then, we only had five crazy rules today, But I said,
1:32:55
so who, who are the other four? Like who else are you going to
1:32:58
visit? And he was like, oh, you know,
1:32:59
going to USCTCUDA. Was it, you know, TCU, Baylor
1:33:06
quarter mile. Are you in Florida?
1:33:09
And I remember because, you know, I thought, oh, recruiting
1:33:12
is going to be easier because Missouri State and all that kind
1:33:15
of stuff. And I remember, I mean, hit me,
1:33:16
Susie told me his other other 4 the, you know, so the total 5.
1:33:20
I was like, oh, wait, this didn't get easier.
1:33:23
This this got a lot harder actually, because he just said
1:33:26
Gainesville, FL Mouse was a mentor, is a mentor of mine.
1:33:29
You know, when I was a high school coach, he used to talk to
1:33:31
me all the time. Love him to death before that.
1:33:33
And I was like, oh, I got to beat Mouse.
1:33:36
And oh, wait, I got to beat LA. I'm in Starkville.
1:33:38
I got to beat Los Angeles. Wait, I got to be quarter mile
1:33:41
or you. Yeah.
1:33:43
Oh, my God, this did not get easier.
1:33:45
Yeah, they may know who the school, at least the conference,
1:33:47
but they don't. Oh my God, I'm.
1:33:49
I gotta go beat these guys. Yeah, by the way, I only tell
1:33:52
that story because I signed them.
1:33:54
I actually did win this one if I didn't.
1:33:56
Sign them I would. Funny story about Elsie is I'm
1:33:58
from New York. Yeah, Right, Right, right,
1:34:00
right. Yeah, of course.
1:34:00
You I. Call as I call as coaches and
1:34:03
they just like, no, Kentucky ain't doing anything for.
1:34:05
Us, Yeah, yeah. So that that was going to be my
1:34:07
question then. Now, so I, I had, I got real
1:34:11
quickly the the maybe my first realization of imposter center,
1:34:14
like, oh, maybe I'm not supposed to be on this level now.
1:34:17
You ran for a Florida. So there's a little bit of like,
1:34:20
yeah, this is my level. I ran here, you know, maybe some
1:34:23
inherent self-confidence there under where I had a lack of, but
1:34:26
I wondered, OK, you get to Kentucky, you get to that CC and
1:34:29
you know, Kentucky then was not what Kentucky is now in regards
1:34:34
to, you know, versus the Floridas and Arkansas's and
1:34:37
LSU's, etcetera. How did you, I mean, you signed
1:34:41
some good kids off the bat. You, you changed the, the men's
1:34:43
sprints program very drastically in those seven, eight seasons
1:34:46
you had there, did you have any imposter syndrome?
1:34:50
Did you have any like, you know, we're Kentucky.
1:34:52
We're not supposed to get, I'm going to use LZ as an example.
1:34:54
We're not supposed to get an LZ. But you know, the, the, the 47
1:34:57
high guy that you can get that guy.
1:34:59
No, you went straight for number.
1:35:02
Man I I, man I I was on the phone with Ted again, Junior and
1:35:05
his father and as well. As good friend of mine.
1:35:08
Xavier Carter and and you know, I'm talking with Joker Phillips.
1:35:13
Joker was like, you know, you know Xavier and you know he's
1:35:16
number one with her Chief. You know Teddy again, you know,
1:35:19
and and Ted's father. Dude.
1:35:21
So wait, Joker, did he, did he try to recruit Ted for football?
1:35:24
Oh, yeah. All right.
1:35:25
Let me tell you this little story.
1:35:26
So Ted Ginn, junior. So I at that point, was the
1:35:30
national junior high hurdle coach for USATF.
1:35:32
So I got to bring the three top high hurdlers out to Chula
1:35:35
Vista. Johan Culbreth, you might know
1:35:38
that. Name's a foreign meeting.
1:35:39
Foreign meeting, hurdle guy. His dad was a big Puerto Rico, I
1:35:43
think was an Olympian foreign meeting.
1:35:45
Hurdle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:35:46
Yeah, yeah. So Johan brought the three, the
1:35:50
best 300 was out of high school down there.
1:35:52
And so Ted was one of our guys. We we got to bring Ted out.
1:35:54
I got to know Ted and his family all kind of stuff still to this
1:35:57
day. And we had, you know, the top
1:35:58
three guys every year. I mean, it was amazing.
1:36:00
Still the number one, the most athletic kid I've ever seen.
1:36:03
It was just stupid how athletic he was.
1:36:05
So, so I, you know, I feel like I got kind of an in, you know, I
1:36:07
know him. I get to know his dad.
1:36:09
I do a home visit, all this kind of stuff.
1:36:10
I go, but I know he's a football player.
1:36:12
Like it's going to be football and maybe track, but it's going
1:36:14
to be football. So I go to our DB at Mississippi
1:36:16
State, AD BS coach, secondary coach, and I was like, hey, man,
1:36:18
I got this guy. I, I, I, I feel like, I mean,
1:36:20
we're not going to get him, but I mean I got an in like I know
1:36:22
the fan, you know, this kind of stuff.
1:36:24
And he tells me I wouldn't, I'm glad I don't remember his name
1:36:27
because he's probably still coaching somewhere.
1:36:29
He tells me he's like a little bit on the short side.
1:36:32
I like my DBS to be 6 foot. And I think Ted was like 5 might
1:36:35
have been 58, but 5-10 probably. And I was like, yeah, yeah.
1:36:39
But he's the number one player in the nation.
1:36:41
And, and by the way, we weren't very good.
1:36:43
So it's not like like he had a bunch of by the way, I don't
1:36:45
think a single DB he had was over 6 feet.
1:36:47
But he he would not recruit him. I don't know if it was, you
1:36:51
know, probably like who's this track guy?
1:36:53
That's how it has been. But still.
1:36:56
But yeah, national player, this isn't you know, this isn't my
1:36:59
dumb opinion. Yeah, it it blew me away of
1:37:02
like, oh, you it don't matter who I bring to you.
1:37:05
Then like I literally was like, OK, get that thought process
1:37:07
that football is going to help you.
1:37:08
And vice versa. If they will take the national
1:37:10
player of the year, who the hell else you going to bring that
1:37:12
they're going to recruit, You know what I'm saying?
1:37:15
So but but Joker was smart. He he was like, yeah, this guy's
1:37:17
good. I'll, I'll.
1:37:18
He was like, man, he was like, Tuck, if you, if you, if you
1:37:20
talk to him, you know, let's, let's set up a call and we can
1:37:22
get on together, you know? So, yeah, We, we, we never got
1:37:25
past. Yeah, yeah.
1:37:26
Connecting the two. Yeah, you know, I think it.
1:37:29
Was it was Ohio State the whole time?
1:37:30
By the way, yeah. I think like the the three, I
1:37:34
think three in a row players of the year all came from Glenville
1:37:37
and all three went to Ohio State.
1:37:39
I mean, it was just right. I love Ted Ginn senior the the
1:37:43
he's such an amazing person. But yeah, there was a definitely
1:37:45
a pipeline going on it. Bothered me that he never ran
1:37:48
track at Ohio State. Dude, I used to do, I would
1:37:52
never recommend this. I'm actually, this is kind of,
1:37:54
this will tell you how good of a coach I was.
1:37:56
And what I mean by that is not that good at the end of camp.
1:37:59
So we, you know, four days or something like that, Chula
1:38:01
Vista, they already had their whole season.
1:38:03
They're tired. You've done camps, What are you
1:38:06
doing on the 4th day? Right.
1:38:07
Well, I really liked kind of as a, as a predictor, I read this
1:38:11
from Wilbur Ross, you know, Wilbur Ross, the great hurdle
1:38:14
Bible and all that, you know, setting up the first 3 hurdles
1:38:17
and the last three hurdles of the 1:10.
1:38:20
Not cheating the first 3, but legit in the last three because
1:38:23
you know, you're going to run, you're going to steal.
1:38:25
And every kid, and I'm telling you, we, the other athletic kid
1:38:28
I had was from New Jersey. He ran 400 hurdles at Baylor.
1:38:31
Who would that have been that? That doesn't really narrow it
1:38:33
down. Kind of a short kid, but it was
1:38:35
a super stuff like #1 recruiting Dwight Ruff.
1:38:39
It was Dwight, so we had Dwight. I recruited him as well at
1:38:43
Illinois. Dwight was so athletic.
1:38:46
Oh yeah. We were making up drills to see
1:38:49
how quickly he would adapt to him and he and on the second or
1:38:52
third try, you think like he's been doing that forever.
1:38:54
He one of the most athletic kids in the in the world.
1:38:56
And he did this drill, this three and three and three
1:38:59
workout. No one Ted Ginn is Blaze.
1:39:03
I mean, you know, he's super fast.
1:39:05
He's blazing him at, you know, after the third hurdle running
1:39:07
through 4567 gets to 8-9 and ten.
1:39:10
And I can't remember his splits, but they were something just
1:39:12
absolutely dumb. And I remember walking over to
1:39:15
my boss. It was Mike Coleman.
1:39:16
He he he was the performance chair for these kids for USATF.
1:39:20
And I went over, I go, hey, man, I I think it was my third year.
1:39:23
I had Justin Gatlin. So we had the top of the kids,
1:39:25
right. And I didn't say that Jay Jay
1:39:28
was he had done his freshman year.
1:39:29
So everybody knew how good he was.
1:39:30
But but I go over to my guy and I go, hey, I don't know who you
1:39:33
need to talk to, but we should really be watching this kid,
1:39:36
this kid, he'll he'll set the world record like this.
1:39:38
This is unbelievable. I've never no one's seen this
1:39:40
stuff. And then he goes on and has a,
1:39:42
you know, a fairly good. He probably would tell you not,
1:39:44
you know, not a football career in the NFL that he would have
1:39:47
wanted and still made 100 bazillion dollars more than he
1:39:50
would ever even be in the world record of the hurdler,
1:39:52
Unfortunately, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.
1:39:55
OK, sorry. I'm you're getting me on stories
1:39:58
of like kids. I just have so much fun.
1:39:59
I love that you had connections with them too.
1:40:01
Man, that just that's so fun. That's so fun.
1:40:04
Seven years of Kentucky. What?
1:40:06
88 Sorry. 8 How did you, when you stay with me at the 8th
1:40:11
year, you're getting ready, let's say you're getting ready
1:40:12
to leave but not left yet. When you look at how you
1:40:16
developed and how you developed a team over those eight years
1:40:18
and you think about Tucker at U of I and Tucker Florida, how did
1:40:21
you evolve positively as a coach during that time?
1:40:25
I started coaching women in year. 20 OK, that was a
1:40:29
difference started. Coaching women that made me a
1:40:31
better coach? How so?
1:40:33
It was no more of intimidation, yelling rah rah.
1:40:37
It was. It wasn't even kumbaya.
1:40:40
It was listen now, pay attention, body language.
1:40:45
Pull someone to the side. I always had, you know, I was a
1:40:50
People know me when I'm at a meet, you know, I'm yelling at
1:40:53
meats. Good or bad, Yes we do.
1:40:55
Good or bad, right? And so, and clearly it was one
1:40:59
particular thing that I would say, well, people know, but I'm
1:41:02
still, you know, yelling cues at meats.
1:41:04
And so one of the things that I had to change leaving Illinois
1:41:08
because I I saw some tension between me and the guys at times
1:41:11
was when I did swear, I told myself when I start coaching
1:41:15
women, if I swear, it has to be in a calm voice.
1:41:21
You know, I can come over here like, Hey, you're better than
1:41:23
that. What the was that?
1:41:25
Come on, you know, like, like you, you know, that, that that
1:41:28
sugar honey I see was terrible. You know, stuff like that.
1:41:32
If I'm yelling, keep the curses inside, you know, every now and
1:41:37
again, it will be a slip across the track.
1:41:40
What the was that? You know what I mean?
1:41:42
But for the most part, it was, And still to this day, you know,
1:41:46
if I'm giving a cue, I'm yelling.
1:41:48
Did you, did you have to learn that from someone or did did
1:41:51
that come naturally? It was, I was told.
1:41:55
Like, did Doug pull you to side? Like I'm thinking of a Doug
1:41:57
Weber, you know? No, no.
1:41:59
I was just, you know, hey, Weber, Hey, you got the women
1:42:03
coming. You can't, you can't treat them
1:42:04
like you cheat the guys. The women literally told me when
1:42:07
I met with them before the summer.
1:42:08
When I was taking over, it was like, the only thing that we
1:42:11
want from you is to cheat us like you cheat the guys.
1:42:12
And I was like, well, sometimes I yell and curse.
1:42:14
Yeah, be careful what you ask for, Yeah.
1:42:15
Yeah, but they said, you better yell and curse at us, too.
1:42:18
And I was like, well, I probably won't.
1:42:20
And then one of them was like, well, we won't cry, but we still
1:42:23
accept it. And I was like, I don't want
1:42:24
nobody that practice crying because of me.
1:42:26
And then she and then one of the girls like, well, your boys made
1:42:28
a locker room crying already. It's funny now, but that had
1:42:34
that had to make you cringe a little bit, right?
1:42:35
Like, oh, wait a minute, what am I doing?
1:42:37
Because you're, you're, you're growing up, like you said, you
1:42:40
know, you're 23 when you get to U of I right?
1:42:42
So you're 3033 and you know, near the end of Kentucky,
1:42:45
there's maturity that happens during that time.
1:42:47
You had to be a little bit like, all right, hold on, what am I
1:42:49
doing? If this is what?
1:42:51
For sure, Yeah, for sure. Because I I left.
1:42:53
So my oldest son was born when I was at Kentucky.
1:42:56
I was 30. 30 and that changes you dramatic having a child is
1:42:59
one of the even more than marriage bro it's.
1:43:01
Holding this kid in my arms, not till in this day people think
1:43:05
this is a recruiting pitch, I said.
1:43:06
I became. First of all coaching women made
1:43:09
me better coat and having a child made me the best coach I
1:43:13
could possibly be. Because at this point, I need to
1:43:16
look at all of my athletes the same way I would want someone to
1:43:19
look at my child, you know, And so paying it forward And so it
1:43:23
literally the cursing part of it kind of changed.
1:43:25
I was like, I don't curse around my kids.
1:43:27
I don't why am I cursing around other people's kids?
1:43:29
You know, for some that can take it, some people were born in
1:43:32
that environment like I was. And so for them, But for the
1:43:34
most part, it isn't anything. You know, I don't curse when I
1:43:38
coach what most of them, you know, I challenge them.
1:43:41
And sometimes those are uncomfortable conversations, but
1:43:44
I I try to keep this tone when I'm having those challenging
1:43:46
conversations and let them know, you know.
1:43:49
But yeah, it was having that son, literally that spring mouse
1:43:53
wanted me to come back. You're not going to believe this
1:43:55
since you've been in Champaign, You you maybe understand.
1:43:58
Did you ever go? No.
1:43:59
We were in the old factory. Even if you ever.
1:44:01
Yeah. Yeah.
1:44:02
So there's a window here in the recording studio.
1:44:05
And I and I have no idea why this would occur.
1:44:07
This is not. This is something so odd.
1:44:08
That's why I'm telling you this. 5 or 6.
1:44:11
Do they look high school or so? My blinds are kind of close.
1:44:14
I can't see them really well. I swear they just race walked up
1:44:17
to our front door. That is not a that is not a
1:44:20
normal Gill occurrence. You know, I see pole ball poles
1:44:23
walk by all the time with people you've never seen like a gaggle
1:44:26
of race. That is, I got to find out what
1:44:28
that is after we get off that is.
1:44:30
That's a little odd for me. So Attack of race walkers is
1:44:32
like my worst nightmare by the way.
1:44:36
Funny story about Gill. Remember the stretching Gill
1:44:39
bags? I was at Illinois.
1:44:42
What do we call it? Sling bag or something?
1:44:45
Yeah. When when Iowa lost their bags,
1:44:48
Coach Doyle, I think Capos and whoever else was dealing there,
1:44:53
they went and found these bags. Those Iowa boys in Champaign
1:44:58
threw really far. And then we had a scandal
1:45:02
because because everybody was like, oh, let me get the Guild
1:45:04
bag, get the Guild bag, get the Guild bag.
1:45:05
And so I was. I was on the ground floor for
1:45:07
that. Every throws coach I've been, I
1:45:09
was at Ball State. And so everybody, if you don't
1:45:11
have that bag, you don't do anything.
1:45:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a reason why it's not
1:45:14
legal anymore. Yeah, yeah.
1:45:16
We used to joke with Gary Winkler, you know, the women's
1:45:18
head coach at UNI, you know, because he would, you know,
1:45:20
Saturday morning, get ready to go for a meet or Friday
1:45:22
afternoon, get ready to travel to meet and forget like, oh, I
1:45:24
didn't have spikes or, oh, I don't have batons.
1:45:26
And so he'd come over and I was like, you know, actually it was
1:45:29
me. It was before me.
1:45:29
But they'd be like, Gary, do you know how lucky you are?
1:45:32
Like you have the Walmart of, of track and field equipment in
1:45:34
your backyard so you can come do that.
1:45:35
Nobody else gets to to do. They're just out of luck.
1:45:38
You know, it's just so funny. All right, in the sense, in the
1:45:41
essence of time, let's just do a little bit, just a little bit of
1:45:44
fast forwarding. So you leave Kentucky to go to
1:45:46
Florida? Yep.
1:45:49
Real quick. How long were you at Florida?
1:45:51
Four years. OK, what is it like?
1:45:54
This is always fascinates me too.
1:45:56
You knew Mouse very much like your coach.
1:45:59
That's a relationship, a very mentor.
1:46:03
Mentor. Well, first as a coach maybe and
1:46:05
then maybe more as a mentor. You talked about I love we got
1:46:09
to find a way to explore this a little bit more with you and
1:46:12
Mouse one day. I love this like, Oh yeah, I
1:46:14
coached like him. I agree with this.
1:46:15
Oh, we kind of grew apart in our styles and then we came back and
1:46:18
then we could like there's that's an interesting dynamic of
1:46:21
coaching that I think a lot of people need to hear and know and
1:46:24
understand. So I love that we won't be able
1:46:26
to get in that till today. But now you come back as his
1:46:30
assistant coach. That's that's not a like you
1:46:32
were you were inching closer and closer to a very own level, even
1:46:35
though he was a head coaching or assistant coach.
1:46:36
Now you are his assistant, though that automatically puts
1:46:39
you back down. How did you adjust to that
1:46:41
dynamic of like, man, this was my coach.
1:46:43
This is my now I he's my boss. That's a that's a little
1:46:46
different. How did you adjust to that?
1:46:48
It was, you know, we, we because we always talked and we had a
1:46:51
good relationship. I saw him as like Big Brother
1:46:54
uncle. And so, you know, I definitely
1:46:55
respected him. You know, Nick Peterson used to
1:46:58
always laugh and like, I don't understand this dynamic between
1:47:02
us because we were still kind of joshing with each other.
1:47:06
But then if it was like he he could give you that look and
1:47:08
it's like, all right, I'm back being being assistant.
1:47:11
What? What do you need?
1:47:11
That's funny because we remember we saw that look on TV when he
1:47:14
won nationals and Grant was, you know, being Grant.
1:47:18
All Mouse did was just look and Grant goes, I mean, it was.
1:47:21
That's funny that you describe that because that we saw and
1:47:23
it's like, oh, that's a real thing.
1:47:25
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, that's kind of how
1:47:27
we would it. It was light switch up said the
1:47:29
wrong thing, you know, and and but we will, we will be fine,
1:47:32
you know, because I can take whatever, whatever anybody
1:47:35
throws at me. I'm not going to, you know.
1:47:37
And then we we had sometimes when we were talking about some
1:47:39
things in hurdles where we didn't agree and, you know, and.
1:47:42
Again, how do you work that out? Yeah.
1:47:45
If I was you, I would. You're so smart.
1:47:51
You know, you can, you can debate like again, the 1st
1:47:54
conversation it is you're going back and forth debating and then
1:47:57
alright, I trust you. But if he comes back to it, you
1:48:01
just need to forget about what you thought you were doing.
1:48:04
And alright, So what do you think?
1:48:05
You know, and, and initially, because we obviously grown
1:48:09
apart, came back, we had to, you know, he was seeing the
1:48:11
workouts. I was, you know, okaying him
1:48:13
through the workouts. And then he was like, Tuck, stop
1:48:14
sending me the workouts. I know you, you got it.
1:48:16
And I was like, alright, cool. We had a, a, a shared drive and
1:48:20
you can look at anybody's workouts whenever you wanted to.
1:48:22
So we had that ability to, to do that.
1:48:25
And so, you know, we worked hand in hand with the 400 hurdlers.
1:48:29
They pretty much a quarter mile or so.
1:48:30
They did whatever the quarter miles did and I would adjust.
1:48:33
Their workouts I'm not this is the way I I should be filming
1:48:36
this now they're the gaggle is going that way and maybe because
1:48:40
of the slits of the. What do they call the blinds?
1:48:43
Blinds, maybe they're not actually race walk because they
1:48:45
kind of look like they're going a little fast now.
1:48:47
Maybe it just looks like they are.
1:48:48
That's the weirdest thing in the world to me though, because
1:48:51
we're at a place, there is no high school, there's no school
1:48:53
around here. I don't know where these kids
1:48:55
would come from, but they killing clowns.
1:48:56
From outer space. That's weird bro.
1:49:00
That's what it is. It's killer race walkers from
1:49:03
from Mohammed or something. Yeah.
1:49:04
Oh man, it's so weird. I'm sorry.
1:49:06
That's just odd. Yeah.
1:49:08
That had to feel good when he said stop sending me the
1:49:10
workouts, right? Because there's a little bit of
1:49:12
like, OK, like, not that maybe I could be wrong.
1:49:17
He doesn't feel like a micromanager to me, but he's a
1:49:20
guy who knows a lot of things. But that had to feel like a
1:49:22
little bit of a release, like, oh, there's trust.
1:49:23
Like, OK, he trusts me. And that was the the main reason
1:49:27
he brought me in. He wanted me in 2 years prior
1:49:29
and my son was just born and I didn't want to leave him.
1:49:31
So once he was 2 miles was like, you know, Tuck, you ready to
1:49:34
come back? And I was like, well, yeah,
1:49:36
sure. You know what I mean.
1:49:37
And so, but we we talked and he was like, I want you to coach
1:49:40
the hurdles. I don't, I have small group of
1:49:43
hurdlers. You can grow.
1:49:45
It got a lot of sprinters. You know, I don't have the
1:49:47
bandwidth. I feel like I'm being torn in
1:49:49
two different directions. I need somebody I trust that can
1:49:52
do the job. And one of the things that we
1:49:54
ended up finding out was whenever he would finish with
1:49:56
Sprint practice across the track, he would come over, pull
1:49:59
a chair up and sit down and my hurdles would start trying so
1:50:01
hard. They will start messing up.
1:50:03
He's like, they look the same as they did.
1:50:05
I wanted to come and watch practice and now and you know,
1:50:07
and then I'm like, you can't come to hurdle practice.
1:50:09
Just stay on the other side of the track, watch it, take notes.
1:50:12
But when you come over, they want to.
1:50:14
And anytime he gave them a cue, hey, bring your arm in a little
1:50:18
bit. You know, we've been working on
1:50:19
Tulsi. Y'all working on why don't you
1:50:21
listen to your coach, dude, work in your arm and they don't work
1:50:23
on anything else, but they're armed for the rest of practice.
1:50:26
And I can't, I can't come to practice them.
1:50:28
I just can't. I've ruined everybody.
1:50:30
Yeah, that's interesting. CEO who was a four time pole
1:50:34
vault all American at Baylor, very smart.
1:50:37
I mean, you know, took Gil literally from bankruptcy to
1:50:40
where we are today, same thing. He has to be very careful what
1:50:44
meetings he goes to because he changes the dynamic.
1:50:47
Yeah, it's just natural. When a mouse or David Hodge is
1:50:51
there, it's like, oh, the big the big dog's here.
1:50:53
No foul, you talk, but that's. The big dog.
1:50:55
I got to do it right. I got to do it right.
1:50:56
I'm glad he had the I guess maybe the lack of ego.
1:51:00
He could have been like, hey, I'm the I'm the head honcho
1:51:02
right here. I can be at any practice I want
1:51:04
anytime you guys need to do your job.
1:51:06
And instead he had the lack of you go like, OK, I affect things
1:51:09
here not in a positive way. OK, let me back off and I'll see
1:51:12
you at the meter when you know, whatever.
1:51:14
Yeah, that's interesting. Did you find your because I'm
1:51:18
asking this because I feel like I would do this right.
1:51:20
Did you find yourself? Did you so the same thing you
1:51:24
just described with the athletes when Mouse would come, did you
1:51:26
find yourself coaching wise like did you like when Mouse came to
1:51:30
sit down? Did you, I'm gonna say tighten
1:51:32
up in your coaching if you know what I'm.
1:51:34
Saying no when he would, when he would come over, I would, I
1:51:36
would welcome in, welcome him into the group and like say,
1:51:40
hey, I'm looking at this. Can you see if you see this?
1:51:43
OK, so you look very collaborative, like there was no
1:51:45
like no like, oh man, I may say something.
1:51:47
Mouse is going to think it's wrong.
1:51:48
Or it was more like, oh, cool, I got another set of eyes.
1:51:51
We're very copacetic in what we're thinking about and looking
1:51:53
at here with the athletes. And one of the things he
1:51:57
recognizes that he had gotten away from some elementary hurdle
1:52:01
drills that I continue to do. And he and, and you know, he was
1:52:04
like Tuck, I really love man, I forgot we used to do those.
1:52:07
I I love the fact that you're doing that with them again, you
1:52:09
know what I mean to things like that.
1:52:10
So we, we, we definitely he he was definitely helpful for me
1:52:14
when he coming over. And so I'm coaching hurdlers,
1:52:16
but he would tell me some things, hey, I need you to do
1:52:19
this with Eddie or, you know, he this, this, this with the girls
1:52:22
and, you know, whatever the case may be.
1:52:23
And he was good. He was good.
1:52:26
I appreciated. It I love that.
1:52:27
All right, real quick little housekeeping.
1:52:29
We're at the end of our time Are you good for a few more or do
1:52:32
you Yeah, I'm. Yeah, OK yeah.
1:52:34
All right. So four years at Florida, you're
1:52:36
saying? Four years in Florida.
1:52:39
Before we go to where you go next, which we know where that
1:52:41
is. I guess maybe at this point,
1:52:44
have you done any coaches education?
1:52:48
And when I talk about coaching education, I, I think of it kind
1:52:51
of two ways. Both are extremely important.
1:52:52
I'm not sure one is actually more important.
1:52:54
The other there's informal, informal, informal would be I
1:52:57
call mouse up or we sit down after practice and we talk that
1:53:00
that's a coaching education 100% formal is more of like the USATF
1:53:04
level ones, level twos, UFTFCCAS, Altus, etcetera.
1:53:08
At this point, kind of at the point of the last year of
1:53:12
Florida, have you done any of those?
1:53:14
Funny, me and Mouse were in AUSA level 1, USATF level 1 coaching
1:53:19
certification class together. I was in college.
1:53:23
I can't see mouse sitting in level one, I'm sorry.
1:53:26
And the teacher was Tom Jones. So Mouse, an assistant coach,
1:53:29
his head coach was the and so we, me and him were competitive
1:53:32
on who's going to get the better grade, of course, project, of
1:53:35
course, you know, And so that was great, but that was it.
1:53:38
And then, you know, symposiums at coaches conventions and I'll
1:53:41
pull someone on the side. I'll talk to Vince, you know,
1:53:44
I'll, you know, talk to John Smith, you know, I'll pull him
1:53:47
to the side and, and, and just ask questions.
1:53:49
You know, I was that kind of person.
1:53:50
So yeah, I wasn't sure I could see you extracting a lot of
1:53:55
value in those what we call, you know, side hallway
1:53:59
conversations. But because of your educational
1:54:03
background, I could see you kind of low key being like a a cert
1:54:07
guy. You know, there's some guy, I I
1:54:08
was that guy. You know, they want to get all
1:54:10
the certifications. You know, they're just that's
1:54:12
who they how they're built. And again, I was, I was that
1:54:14
guy. But but you weren't that.
1:54:15
You weren't the guy who's going. You're not doing all the One O
1:54:18
ones, 2O ones at USTFCCA and all that kind of stuff.
1:54:20
Well, Tom Jones told us and we I don't know, it was a class at at
1:54:26
UF. And so I don't know how many
1:54:27
people actually wanted to coach, you know, but he could have been
1:54:30
talking to me and Mouse and he was like, look, you know, this
1:54:33
is this is education is to help you.
1:54:36
And he said, you don't want to be that guy that's only XS and
1:54:40
OS or only a dad, a person. You got to feel what you're
1:54:43
doing. You got to understand the
1:54:44
athlete, you know, And I took that as well.
1:54:47
I don't need any more education. I'm good.
1:54:50
I'll get the feel, baby. You know, and so, but yeah, and
1:54:54
that's where my first few years in Illinois, I was, I was a
1:54:56
maniac. I didn't.
1:54:58
I probably should have done some, some actually put on some
1:55:00
clinics And with the clinics, you know, during that time and I
1:55:03
remember Winkler had a clinic and we we had a retreat at a
1:55:07
cabin. Jerry Clayton came in.
1:55:10
Yeah, I've heard about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:55:13
The head coach Phil ending from Minnesota was there.
1:55:16
We brought in. Oh, man, I'm welcome to what?
1:55:21
What is the guy's name? He writes a lot of books.
1:55:25
I'm failing right now. You gotta give.
1:55:28
I know, I know. I'm I'm talking to myself out
1:55:30
loud. I'm not talking.
1:55:34
I can't, I can't remember. It was two other guys, 11 young
1:55:38
man was from, I want to say Poland had a lot of Eastern
1:55:43
European philosophy and training and I got a lot from them.
1:55:46
And that's kind of where I said I kind of went apart and, and
1:55:49
came back, you know, so that, that, that was awesome because
1:55:52
it was 2 days. Those guys all stayed the
1:55:55
cabins. I went home and came back.
1:55:56
I'm a young guy. I'm not hanging out with you,
1:55:57
old guy. I'm going to go back downtown,
1:56:01
downtown champagne and hang out with people my age and then meet
1:56:03
you in the morning. That's.
1:56:04
Right, that's right. Did you get did you get to talk
1:56:06
with Winkler a lot? I did.
1:56:08
I did. I will pop into his office and
1:56:10
ask him. He was really helpful in my in
1:56:12
my hurdle spaces. Yeah.
1:56:14
You know, and I was like, yeah, I know you had a coach men, but
1:56:17
how would I? How would I, the workout you did
1:56:19
yesterday, how would I do that with the men?
1:56:20
Oh, take a seat. Yeah, Super smart.
1:56:23
What? Super smart.
1:56:24
Again, that epitome of a teacher who's a coach, you know, that's
1:56:27
that's he's a great teacher. He's.
1:56:28
Telling me these measurements to recreate the workout that I that
1:56:33
I saw the women, you know, we had the two Sweden women,
1:56:36
Perdita Felice and they went and asked championship breaking you
1:56:38
know records and you know sweeping big 10 hurdle me and
1:56:43
he's writing it down and maybe he had it memorized because I
1:56:46
have stuff memorized and he's just like, well if it's we're
1:56:49
going to go 785 this probably for a guy, let's probably go
1:56:53
850, you know just. No, he's he was still with this
1:56:58
one you. Don't need a, you don't need a
1:57:00
calculator. Brain, he's a little bit of a
1:57:01
calculator. Brain.
1:57:02
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
1:57:04
OK, before we I forgot to ask this question before we get to
1:57:08
where we go to next here. Did you ever call your high
1:57:12
school coach who said you were going to be a a coach one day
1:57:14
and tell him, well, I guess you nailed it.
1:57:16
Any. Any.
1:57:17
No. Well, that was Doug that said
1:57:19
that there'll be a I'm good you're.
1:57:21
Going Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
1:57:22
That's right. I'm sorry.
1:57:23
So. High school story for that one
1:57:26
was my high school coach used to always say how many coaches do
1:57:29
we have here? And it was him and we had a
1:57:33
throws coach and I would always say 3 joking around.
1:57:37
Right. I was like, you were not coach
1:57:38
mode at all back then. Joking around because I because
1:57:42
I'm, you know, captain and they going to listen to me, but
1:57:44
joking around. And I remember when I started
1:57:46
coaching Illinois and he was like, jokes on you, buddy.
1:57:48
Yeah, you. That's awesome.
1:57:51
I love that. I love that.
1:57:52
You know, we we can't see the future when we're in it, but
1:57:56
when we look back, it's like, holy crap, I was calling myself
1:57:58
the coach in high school and I wasn't going to be no coach.
1:58:01
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
1:58:01
Nope. Nope.
1:58:02
Nope. All right, Four Seasons back in
1:58:04
Florida, Pretty cool going back to your alma mater as a coach.
1:58:07
Oh, yeah, it's you couldn't tell me nothing, man, It was it was
1:58:10
amazing being back there. You know, we were winning and,
1:58:13
you know, athletes are running well and, you know, feel like I
1:58:16
was taking a lot off of Mouse's plate.
1:58:18
So he can, you know, be the best version of himself he can be,
1:58:21
you know, which was which was awesome.
1:58:22
And you know how that when when that when he's a great version
1:58:25
of himself. They they do well, you know, and
1:58:27
yeah, so that was awesome. And but during the time, you
1:58:32
know, you're leading your own thing for 11 years and then now
1:58:35
you're back being a subordinate for four.
1:58:39
That's a harsh word to say, but. Back to being I get that.
1:58:42
I think people get what you said.
1:58:43
Yeah, it makes sense. I.
1:58:44
Missed coaching the sprints. Sure, I could talk to the guys,
1:58:47
I could motivate them, but I just missed coaching the
1:58:51
sprints, you know, And when we had some workouts, if I was
1:58:54
available, I could time things. But it's just not the same.
1:58:57
It wasn't, it's not, it's nothing about me writing the
1:58:59
workouts. It's just not.
1:59:00
It's just more so maybe talking to them before they did the
1:59:02
workouts. I might, I might, I probably
1:59:04
could have channeled it a different way.
1:59:06
But you know, I also saw my path like, how am I going to become a
1:59:10
head coach here only because Mouse would always tell me like,
1:59:16
man, so and so just told me good job that you did with Eddie or
1:59:19
good job you did with Nadu or, you know, somebody else.
1:59:21
And it's just like, you know, tucked at that.
1:59:24
I didn't I don't I don't coach them, you know, and I was like,
1:59:27
man, so people in the country don't think I'm coaching these
1:59:30
people, right? You know, and, you know, and one
1:59:34
of those similar conversations, like, you know, Mouse, do you
1:59:36
think I could become a head coach here from from here to
1:59:39
become a head coach, you know, and and he was like, yeah, you.
1:59:43
But, you know, it's yeah, it may maybe maybe not.
1:59:49
It's just, you know, he just wasn't confident in that.
1:59:52
And I was like, man. And so around that time, Florida
1:59:54
Relays, you know, John Gondak was at Penn State.
1:59:59
He got hired that fall. I called him congratulations
2:00:01
because we worked together. Kentucky, you know, is that
2:00:04
right? I didn't.
2:00:04
Know that we worked together. Kentucky my first two years, I'm
2:00:07
like anything you need, I got you recruits, whatever it is I
2:00:11
got you, you know, let's you know, I want you to be
2:00:13
successful you my God and so you Fast forward to Florida relays,
2:00:16
you know I'm talking to him. You know, just about, you know,
2:00:19
a couple different things. And I can kind of tell he wanted
2:00:22
to like, I don't know if he was, I don't want to say happy or not
2:00:27
happy with his his coach, but I could just tell it was something
2:00:30
there and I didn't want to investigate it because I'm happy
2:00:33
where I'm at, you know, And it wasn't until we were leaving for
2:00:38
I think regionals, Mouse was like, Gondak just called me and
2:00:41
he wants to talk to you about a position.
2:00:43
And I was like, really. And he was, I was like Penn
2:00:45
State. And he was like, yeah.
2:00:46
And he was like, you know, you got to listen, probably
2:00:50
associate head coach. And I was like, OK, so you know,
2:00:53
I called him. I was like, what's up?
2:00:54
You know, what's going on? And you know, and we set up to,
2:00:57
to talk at nationals, outdoor nationals.
2:00:59
And then, you know, we, we, we made it happen.
2:01:03
Yeah, I didn't know you were I I don't think I knew John was at
2:01:06
Kentucky. I haven't gotten to know him
2:01:08
over the past few years and really enjoy him.
2:01:10
You know, he's a very, you know him.
2:01:12
You know better than I do. He's a very quiet guy.
2:01:14
You know, he has this circle and that's what he does, you know?
2:01:17
Yeah. But I've always had great.
2:01:19
He's been very open and honest with me.
2:01:21
I've really enjoyed him. How did you, you know, that was
2:01:25
Big 10? That's not.
2:01:27
Back to the Big 10. Back to the Big 10, but it's
2:01:29
still it's not SEC. What did you gain of being the
2:01:33
associate head coach there? What, you know, you kind of
2:01:37
alluded to this, but you're really talking about being that,
2:01:39
you know, you want to be a head coach, maybe be a head coach at
2:01:41
Florida. So I need to get head coaching
2:01:43
experience. You didn't go become the head
2:01:45
coach at Penn State, you became the associate head coach.
2:01:47
How did how did John help with your continued development
2:01:50
towards a goal of becoming the head coach?
2:01:53
So he, he let me, he let me be me.
2:01:55
And he knew that socially that wasn't his strengths.
2:02:03
And so he leaned on me, you know, to, you know, kind of
2:02:07
bring the team together. So I was kind of, I felt like I
2:02:09
was a glue. Maybe the athletes didn't think
2:02:10
that way, but I could bounce around from a different event
2:02:13
groups practice while my kids are warming up.
2:02:16
My sprinters used to hate it. Why are you always over there
2:02:18
with the jumpers? Why are you always over there
2:02:19
with the throwers? I was like, because I'm going to
2:02:20
be with you for the next hour. Can you let me just say hello?
2:02:23
You know, and you know, I hear, you know, Lucas, tell a throw or
2:02:27
something and be like, you know, and then they'll come back.
2:02:29
And I'm like, So what did he mean when he said that?
2:02:31
And, and I, I, I know why he said it, but I'm just asking
2:02:35
them like I'm ignorant so I can get them as teachers.
2:02:38
If you're teaching something, you have to know the info.
2:02:41
That's why you know, when last presentations you're going to
2:02:44
prepare to present in front of a group, you don't want to look
2:02:47
like a fool. And so just letting them talk to
2:02:50
me and then look at Lucas and, you know, give him a wink or
2:02:52
same thing with, with Fritz or someone.
2:02:54
And, you know, even with the, with the middle distance runners
2:02:56
as they're doing workouts and they're cooling down, I'm like,
2:02:58
so tell me about the workout today.
2:02:59
How was it and how'd you do compared to last year?
2:03:02
You know, what are you looking forward to in the next few
2:03:03
weeks? And, you know, and, and wouldn't
2:03:06
even really report back to coaches because it wasn't spying
2:03:10
or anything. And we're just trying to get to
2:03:11
understand, you know, that you're getting some good
2:03:14
coaching and you know, you understand what's going on, so.
2:03:18
This next meeting, dynamic part of it, yeah. 100 percent, 100%.
2:03:22
I would kind of give a lot of the rah rah at our team
2:03:25
meetings, you know, and I was in a lot of it.
2:03:29
Athletes are like man coach, I really like when you talk and
2:03:31
talk to us, man, it's just get us hyped up and you know how
2:03:34
long it take you to write it and I'm just like, that was
2:03:35
passionate I. Didn't write that right.
2:03:37
Yeah, yeah, you. Know which is which is crazy
2:03:39
because now as the head coach, I feel like I don't get that.
2:03:42
You know, is that right? Yeah, because I'm, I'm the bad
2:03:44
guy, right? Like do this, do this.
2:03:48
You know, and so. I like, I think it's important
2:03:51
to point out, you know, just as we talked about development as
2:03:53
coaches and things like that, you know, it's, it should be
2:03:57
celebrated, if you will, John's self-awareness of like, OK,
2:04:02
that's not me, that's not my strength.
2:04:04
He has other big strengths. That's not it.
2:04:07
Well, I better, you know, real leaders, whether it's CEOs, head
2:04:11
coaches, athletic directors, understand what their strengths
2:04:14
are, very much understand what their weaknesses are and then go
2:04:17
and surround themselves with people who are really strong on
2:04:19
their weaknesses. And so I just think it's
2:04:21
important because sometimes we like to get caught up too much
2:04:24
and like, well, I want everybody to be like me.
2:04:25
I want everybody to be a tuck. I want everybody to be the raw,
2:04:27
raw guy. And it's like, well, you're,
2:04:28
you're going to suffer some aspects because there's going to
2:04:31
be some holes in the in the ship there.
2:04:33
So I, I think that's, that's like I said, almost to be
2:04:36
celebrated from John and then realize that's a good lesson
2:04:38
there. Did you you know, one of the
2:04:40
things I think we do very poorly in in all track and field,
2:04:45
mainly here in college as a, as a career of a college track
2:04:48
coach is preparing our assistant coaches to become head coaches.
2:04:52
And what I mean by that is, you know, every head coach, new head
2:04:54
coach I talked to, you know, they're surprised at what it,
2:04:57
what it takes to do a budget. They're surprised at what it
2:05:00
takes to, you know, travel instead of schedule.
2:05:02
They're surprised that they're going to be on committees at
2:05:05
their new universities because they're head coach to hire their
2:05:07
next basketball coach. They're surprised that it goes
2:05:09
beyond the, it goes way beyond what they think about the hour
2:05:13
and a half, two hours that you're in the sand pit or in the
2:05:16
ring, etcetera. Did you, did he share any of
2:05:20
that? Like were you able to start
2:05:21
doing equipment or travel or anything of those aspects?
2:05:25
So we had equipment managers, we had director vibes that they
2:05:27
traveled. So you know, I would talk, but
2:05:29
you know me, I'm going to go and find the answers.
2:05:32
I don't wait. You know, I'm not going to wait.
2:05:34
My dad call, I'm going to call my dad.
2:05:35
So I will go in and talk to him about different things.
2:05:38
You know, if they're head coaches meetings, he would have
2:05:40
me go to those Any. Staff, yeah, OK.
2:05:43
That's, that's a big one. OK.
2:05:45
Yeah, those are big. And I will run a staff meeting.
2:05:47
If he wasn't there, you know, he'd give me the notes.
2:05:49
So he definitely gave me a lot of things.
2:05:52
And then just watching him and even after meetings or whatever,
2:05:56
I can go back and talk to him like, you know, hey, what was
2:05:58
your thoughts when you did this and that?
2:05:59
And you know, one of the things that I really do appreciate, you
2:06:02
know, we had regular scheduled team meetings, regular scheduled
2:06:05
staff meetings like I do now. And I would always see him
2:06:08
rehearsing because he again, it's not socially for front
2:06:11
forward, right, for a front facing.
2:06:13
And so, you know, I was seeing rehearsing.
2:06:16
And So what that taught me, not necessarily rehearsing, but I
2:06:19
can, as we see right now, we're over, right?
2:06:21
I can go and I'm, I'm going to go over, right?
2:06:25
And, and things that I do if I don't have it.
2:06:26
So when I have team meetings, I have a sheet of paper that just
2:06:30
has bullet points for me to get back to the point.
2:06:33
I have 30 minutes to have them team meetings, 30 minutes.
2:06:36
And I tell my athletes, when I get to 30, if I'm still going to
2:06:39
raise your hand, start raising your hands because that would
2:06:41
make me speed it up and get us out of there, you know, and, but
2:06:44
I, if I don't have this sheet, oh, wait, we'll be there for an
2:06:47
hour and a half. You.
2:06:49
Know staff meetings. We we try to go an hour pretty
2:06:52
much every week in the fall and then in the spring we'll
2:06:54
probably go hour and a half, sometimes 2 because we're
2:06:57
talking about entries. So why?
2:06:58
So let's catch up because you're talking about what you're doing
2:07:00
today. So let's catch up here a bit.
2:07:02
So, so how many, how many years at Penn State?
2:07:04
Seven years at Penn State, Seven years.
2:07:06
That right. Wow.
2:07:07
And Penn State to Eastern Washington.
2:07:09
Penn State to Eastern Washington, Yeah.
2:07:12
It was a little bit of a surprise when it was announced.
2:07:16
Not necessarily that. First of all, no surprise that
2:07:20
you you know, you're a head coach.
2:07:21
No, I don't. I think everybody saw that path.
2:07:24
Maybe a surprise is just wait, like, you know, you've done as W
2:07:28
as you've gone has been Champaign IL, you got really far
2:07:32
West. Why Eastern Washington?
2:07:34
So 2 two reasons. So we got to talk about the
2:07:36
first first one as I had to convince myself when I even
2:07:41
applied, right? Convinced myself you were born
2:07:44
in the Northeast, you were born in New York, you took your happy
2:07:47
butt all the way down to Florida and that's huge, you know, and
2:07:51
then you left and went to the Midwest, right, Kind of played
2:07:55
around there for a little while. Kentucky in that area, but not
2:07:59
really Midwest went back S went back to Midwest and then you
2:08:02
came back to the East. Where have you not been in this
2:08:05
United States of America, right? All right, so never thought I'd
2:08:09
live in the Pacific Northwest until I retired.
2:08:11
So let me go there now, you know, and and in the last part
2:08:15
of where I would like to be at some point in my career as a
2:08:17
Southwest. And then someone can say, you
2:08:20
know, most New Yorkers never leave a 20 square block, right?
2:08:24
And so I would have hit all four corners, United States in the
2:08:26
Midwest. You can't tell me nothing in
2:08:28
retirement. You know what I mean?
2:08:29
You can't can't tell me anything.
2:08:31
And so the second reason was clearly we're in FCS football,
2:08:35
smaller division going, our budgets aren't the same as Power
2:08:38
5, Power Four. I would say I was in final two
2:08:43
searches, Final 2 head coach searches the last two years with
2:08:47
more schools and I want to talk. About, yeah, yeah, OK.
2:08:50
Literally to the point where some of my fraternity brothers
2:08:54
that are headhunters, like we should do mock interviews with
2:08:56
you because maybe you're, we're missing something.
2:08:58
Maybe you're messing up. Can you interview?
2:09:00
Well, you know, that's always, oh, you can't get a job.
2:09:02
You're not interviewing well. I'm always transparent with my
2:09:04
friends and family about that stuff.
2:09:06
Did a couple of my buddies and I was like, no, you're great.
2:09:09
Shit. You want a job with me, You
2:09:12
know? It's like, no, I can't go, you
2:09:15
know? You're so.
2:09:16
It wasn't that, yeah. And I felt like because I I
2:09:20
thought I was an associate head coach, I could, you know, I
2:09:24
could apply and put myself there, which is what was what I
2:09:27
did. But I was man, I was final twos
2:09:31
with people that had head coach experience that were getting
2:09:34
those jobs interim, you know, and then, you know, you get
2:09:37
someone that's hot, that comes from a program that just won,
2:09:40
then it's it's hard, right. So one of the things that I had
2:09:44
to figure out was in my last year came down to four schools
2:09:48
or 4 schools. I can kind of talk about two
2:09:51
power 5, two group of five or two power four, group of five,
2:09:54
the two top schools. My last question, and I tell my
2:09:57
athletes all the time when you're interviewing, you're
2:10:00
interviewing them as much as they're interviewing.
2:10:01
You. Amen.
2:10:02
Amen. You have to find a way to take
2:10:04
the power back. What do you do?
2:10:06
And I'm not going to tell you the schools, but you take the
2:10:08
power back. Your last question, do you have
2:10:10
any questions any more? Any more questions for us?
2:10:11
And that's when you hit them in a jugular, right?
2:10:14
So the two big schools, I asked them, so you got my plan, my
2:10:19
enthusiasm, You had me on campus.
2:10:21
You like what you're hearing. Do you think my lack of head
2:10:23
coach experience is going to stop me from doing the job that
2:10:26
you will want me to do? Both of those schools like,
2:10:28
well, that's something we have thought about that told me I'm
2:10:30
not getting a job, right. The two smaller schools, Eastern
2:10:35
being one of them, asked that same question.
2:10:37
Changed the end are you afraid that because I was at the power
2:10:40
four Oh yeah after after 2-3 years of success that I would
2:10:44
leave and you know so one school was highly offended.
2:10:49
Some key stakeholders were in the in the Zoom and they were
2:10:51
like, he's already thinking about leaving.
2:10:53
You know, I had a mole that told me this.
2:10:55
So that's how I knew exactly what they said.
2:10:58
When I said that to the great Lynn Hickey, we were face to
2:11:01
face. She leaned over.
2:11:02
She said if you are fighting for Big Sky championships and you're
2:11:05
a top 25 team in one year or two and the big power for school
2:11:08
comes calling, I'm going to help you pack your basket.
2:11:10
That's what we need to do. That's where you need to go.
2:11:12
And you would have done everything we need you to do
2:11:14
here at Eastern. What a freaking leader.
2:11:17
I was like, do you want me to sign in blood or do?
2:11:20
You. Like I'm.
2:11:24
Dude, that is someone who believes there's an adage and
2:11:29
it's some of the athletics, but definitely private sector of,
2:11:32
you know, about training, like making them better at their job.
2:11:35
And it's like, well, what if you train them and they leave?
2:11:36
And it's like, well, what if you don't?
2:11:37
They stay. And and that, that that is
2:11:40
exactly what she was thinking. It's like, dude, I hope, you
2:11:44
know, paraphrasing here. She was almost like, I hope you
2:11:46
get headhunted for big schools because that means you're doing
2:11:48
the job here, for crying out loud.
2:11:50
Right. That's someone and also someone
2:11:53
who's that that other situation sounds like me.
2:11:55
There's some intimidate and they were intimidated.
2:11:58
This is someone who is not intimidated.
2:12:00
Oh, wow, love her. You said Lynn Hickey.
2:12:02
Is that what you said? Lynn Hickey, she was at UTSA
2:12:05
before and, and she retired and you know, after my first year
2:12:11
she retired and she's back in Texas.
2:12:13
Saw her when I went down for the first round meet.
2:12:15
We had dinner together and she is she is working to make
2:12:20
equestrian NCAA event. Really.
2:12:23
If you look up whatever their organization is, she just became
2:12:27
the president. She's been working.
2:12:28
She started it at I think either UTSA or texting them.
2:12:31
I can't remember which school she started equestrian there,
2:12:33
but she is. She's still blazing trails even
2:12:37
in at this point, man. She is.
2:12:39
She's amazing. I love that.
2:12:40
I love. Oklahoma AIAW basketball legend.
2:12:44
Yeah. Yeah, that's cool.
2:12:47
Even when I talk to her, I'm like, hey, the great Lynn
2:12:49
Higgins. She's like, Oh no, no, I.
2:12:52
Love that. That's really cool.
2:12:54
So spoiler alert, obviously you took the Eastern Washington job.
2:12:57
Yep. So my favorite question I asked
2:12:59
this, it's really two questions. I asked this of every coach when
2:13:02
they become a head coach and once you get some time into it,
2:13:06
what was something and you had a lot of great experience.
2:13:08
Associate coach of Penn State, a great leaders and John and and
2:13:12
Mouse and even Coach Webber. I think I don't think Don
2:13:15
sometimes gets his due because you get a little overshadowed
2:13:18
with amazing Edrick and Lonnie there being now there.
2:13:21
But I I knew Don he recruited one of our high school kids when
2:13:24
I coached in Chicago. So I've known Don for a while.
2:13:26
He doesn't get his due and still doing great for our sport.
2:13:28
By the way, is the kind of events manager and facility
2:13:31
manager down there, what was something that you thought was
2:13:36
going to be easy because of all this preparation you've had?
2:13:39
And then you actually got in the chair and was like, oh, OK, a
2:13:43
little bit tougher than I thought.
2:13:44
And I'm talking about, remember we talked about all those hats
2:13:46
your way. I'm talking about all those
2:13:47
hats. Academics, scheduling,
2:13:49
budgeting, recruiting, coaching. There's so many things.
2:13:53
What was something you thought like, oh, yeah, I'm, yeah, I've
2:13:56
been doing this, all those schools no problem.
2:13:58
But then you got to the actual chair.
2:13:59
I was like a little tougher than I thought.
2:14:03
It's crazy that you say that because I was thinking and, and
2:14:06
I kind of alluded to this when I was at Penn State, even Florida,
2:14:09
you know, you kind of like that blue guy moving around.
2:14:12
Everybody loves you, or at least you think they do, you know, oh,
2:14:15
what's up, coach? And you know, and you motivated
2:14:17
me really well. And I feel like sure, there are
2:14:21
some athletes and, and it could just be the level, it could be
2:14:26
their classification. As they get older, they might
2:14:29
understand it a little bit more, you know, And I always thought
2:14:33
that I would, I would walk in and everybody would love me.
2:14:38
And you're and you're a lovable guy.
2:14:39
Let's be. I am, yeah.
2:14:41
And so I had to continue reminding the athletes that
2:14:44
change is hard in Year 1. Change is hard.
2:14:48
You know, we we had some, you know, 50 year, six year COVID
2:14:51
people that, you know, probably had their thoughts on what they
2:14:55
wanted to see as they left. And then of course, it wasn't
2:14:58
the same, you know, But you know, this this fall is the 1st
2:15:04
fall of no one that was coached by the previous station, which
2:15:10
was a great staff. But if we just have different
2:15:12
voices, Yeah, right. You know, and recruit.
2:15:15
So this is the last year of their recruits, their incoming
2:15:18
recruits. So they're they're seniors, you
2:15:21
know, but they never were coached by them.
2:15:23
This is the only voice they've ever heard.
2:15:25
And they all get it now. So one of the things that when I
2:15:29
say get it and team culture and you have to build it as hard, it
2:15:32
takes time. After my first during my first
2:15:35
year, I just took a lot of notes on a lot of questions, general
2:15:37
questions. People had concerns, tick notes,
2:15:41
tick notes. So in my summer of my second
2:15:43
before my second year, I created a track and field syllabus.
2:15:47
A lot of schools will come up with a document that says
2:15:49
important dates and they may put dates you can leave.
2:15:52
I was like, you know what the first date on here is physicals
2:15:56
for cross on August 1st. The last date on here is June
2:15:59
15th, June 14th, whatever that date is, is graduation for the
2:16:02
quarter. Every date, homecoming meeting,
2:16:05
this, this, this and this is all through here is on the Google
2:16:08
doc called and I told them if you ask me a question that's on
2:16:13
extract syllabus, I will just send you the link.
2:16:16
If the question is not on it, I'm going to answer it and then
2:16:19
I'm going to go back and see where it is question or where
2:16:22
this should be. What date should be on this
2:16:24
document where I knew that the culture was shifting in year 2,
2:16:30
middle of the fall, one of my fifth year seniors asked the
2:16:33
question about something that was on a syllabus and one of my
2:16:39
freshmen sent the link back in the GroupMe I was I got freshmen
2:16:45
answering my question. 5th. Year senior I was like, I'm.
2:16:49
Yes. Wait, I was like, Aaron, you
2:16:51
made it. You don't have to do anything
2:16:52
else. You can.
2:16:52
Retire. Yeah.
2:16:53
That's when they say, you know, you know, you got a positive
2:16:56
culture when the coach doesn't have to say it.
2:16:57
The the team says they're, they're the ones who drive the
2:16:59
culture. That's a great example, Yeah.
2:17:02
And some people, by the way, culture is the hardest thing to
2:17:04
build positively, the easiest thing to damage negatively.
2:17:08
Very easy. It sometimes takes a lot longer
2:17:10
that this is in year 2. You've got movement.
2:17:13
Movement. It's like getting in shape.
2:17:15
You know, you get in shape four weeks.
2:17:17
To get in shape takes one week, two days.
2:17:19
Yeah, that's true. I love that.
2:17:22
All right, so I said what was easy.
2:17:23
You found hard likability, you thought because again, you're an
2:17:26
extrovert, you have a lot of charisma.
2:17:29
You're the kind of guy you walk into a room if there's 100.
2:17:31
People, you know what's up to everybody.
2:17:33
Yeah, they're gonna know 99 of the 100 are gonna know you by
2:17:36
the night's over. Yeah, and you found out like,
2:17:38
oh, that's not always true when you're the head head guy.
2:17:41
All right, the second question is, is the reverse?
2:17:44
So what did you think? You know, you've got some,
2:17:46
you're very smart guy. You have some self-awareness.
2:17:48
What did you think? Like, OK, you know what?
2:17:51
That's all these stops I've been to.
2:17:53
I'll use an example that's pretty typical.
2:17:55
I've never done a budget that's going to be a little bit harder.
2:17:58
But then when you got there, you're like, oh, there's no
2:18:00
mysticism around this. So what did you think might be a
2:18:02
little challenging for you? And then you found out like, oh,
2:18:05
wait a minute, I'm either a natural or you know what I said
2:18:07
to call one guy taught me everything or my AD taught me.
2:18:10
What was something you thought was going to be hard actually
2:18:12
ended up being a little bit easier for you than you thought.
2:18:15
I thought what we would do scholarship wise, because we're
2:18:17
not fully funded, I thought that was going to be really
2:18:19
difficult. It took me literally my whole
2:18:23
first year to to kind of come to grips with it.
2:18:26
And looking back on who I was my first year, I was like, man, you
2:18:31
lost a whole year trying to figure out your how you wanted
2:18:36
to maneuver these scholarships. And so now even when I talk to
2:18:39
my wife or talk to friends, you know, it's just like you're
2:18:42
speaking to us in a language we don't even understand, you know,
2:18:45
because I didn't understand it then.
2:18:47
And it, and, you know, it was extremely hard to conceptualize,
2:18:52
but it wasn't hard at all. When I looked back and I was
2:18:54
like, what were you doing? And I was thinking to myself, I
2:18:56
was doing everything I was doing budgeting, I was doing
2:19:00
traveling, you know, repairing workouts and preparing track
2:19:03
meets and calling coaches and if they could come to our meets and
2:19:06
wearing different hats. And so I was doing a lot and I
2:19:08
just couldn't get my brain around, how do I make this
2:19:11
scholarship situation successful?
2:19:14
And right now, going into Year 4, I don't want to knock on
2:19:19
wood, I don't want to jinx myself, but what we were able to
2:19:22
do the last three years with these scholarships, as limited
2:19:25
as we are, this is probably the best team that I've connected
2:19:29
with. And I don't want to, I don't
2:19:33
want to like put out a statement that will have alumni offended
2:19:37
or former athletes offended. But this could potentially go
2:19:40
down as one of the best teams that ever in Eastern history.
2:19:43
So we, we've, we've done some really now they got to do the
2:19:47
work. So on paper.
2:19:48
We look really good, but they got to do the work.
2:19:51
We. Look really good with less.
2:19:53
That's the thing with LESS. Yeah, history's a funny thing
2:19:57
when you talk about you kind of give yourself a little bit of a,
2:20:00
a caveat of like, hey, you know, not to defend any alumni, things
2:20:02
like that, You know, the best team in EWU history today.
2:20:10
It's different than what the teams looked like in the 60s,
2:20:11
seven, eighties, 90s, early 2000s.
2:20:13
It may be the best team because of the you're, you're facing a
2:20:16
whole different headwind today in 2025 than we did in 2015, for
2:20:20
crying out loud. So, but but we also, you know,
2:20:23
we're, we're all history busts in the sense of like, well, our
2:20:26
team is the best. Like how dare you?
2:20:28
You know, you guys didn't even win.
2:20:29
It's like, yeah, but man, we got second versus, you know, a team
2:20:32
that spends 40 million in NIL or whatever.
2:20:34
You know, there's again, something different.
2:20:36
OK, Tuck, you've been so generous with your time.
2:20:38
I've got two last questions and I'll let you go home.
2:20:41
Well, it's only 330 your time. I have practice at 4:00.
2:20:45
All right, cool. Great question.
2:20:46
Of course. Yeah, last two questions. 1 is
2:20:49
very specific to you. Where in the world did I'm not
2:20:53
gonna actually, no one's in the office.
2:20:54
I should yell it out. Where did this move come from?
2:20:58
You know you're you are famous. No matter we all know where you
2:21:00
are in a track and field stadium because Tuck is going to yell
2:21:03
out move. Where did that come from?
2:21:06
When's the first time you did it?
2:21:07
Did someone slap you? And if they didn't, they maybe
2:21:10
should have. But it's become your signature,
2:21:12
my friend. So I do love it where they come
2:21:13
from new. York, The Armory indoor meets.
2:21:18
I don't know what club coach, what high school coach was doing
2:21:21
it. And it wasn't like I do it.
2:21:23
It was just like, you know, it was probably to let them know
2:21:28
they need to do something to move.
2:21:29
And I obviously do that as well. Where I brought it to coaching
2:21:33
was when I was volunteering at Florida.
2:21:36
Once I hung the spikes up, I used to say boom all the time.
2:21:40
I also say boom. I would say boom.
2:21:41
We, you know, Rick Flayer, woo, all that stuff.
2:21:44
He's loud, obnoxious noises at random points.
2:21:48
So our high jumper was, was competing for a national
2:21:51
championship and we were, it was at Duke.
2:21:54
We got second that year as a team.
2:21:56
And we were, I was on one side of the horseshoe that they used
2:21:58
to have. One side of it had some
2:22:00
teammates on the other side while the high jump was going.
2:22:02
And we were just calling response, boom, boom, boom, back
2:22:06
and forth. And then I think during the 4x4,
2:22:11
I might have started to do it as well, like, you know, when when
2:22:15
they weren't doing what they needed to do and random times in
2:22:18
the year I would do it. And so it it kind of started
2:22:21
from there. I got to Illinois and I started
2:22:23
finding myself doing it at practice.
2:22:25
If I'm at the finish line and they're at the 200, how are they
2:22:28
going to hear me? Can't pick it up.
2:22:31
They don't hear that and they can hear it.
2:22:35
And then someone told me at Drake Relays, it was like, yeah,
2:22:39
we were at the back then the throws area wasn't right behind
2:22:42
the scoreboard. It was someplace else.
2:22:44
I don't know where it. Was I never went to.
2:22:47
I'm a horrible coach. I never went to the old throws
2:22:48
area, similar pen relays. Like I literally got to Year 5
2:22:54
at pen relays and I was like, Lucas, I'm gonna come out there
2:22:57
and see you guys throw. Because I've never.
2:22:58
Been I've never been over there. He was like, really?
2:23:00
I was like, yeah, I'm a horrible coach.
2:23:02
I'm coming over tomorrow morning just to see what's going on.
2:23:04
He was like, well, great, awesome.
2:23:05
He was like, I've never seen anybody over here anyway.
2:23:07
Yeah, bring snacks because it's a far hall.
2:23:09
It was a hall, man. I was over.
2:23:11
I was like, what am I? What, what is happening over
2:23:13
here? Why the problem guys?
2:23:14
The problem is you guys are in New York.
2:23:16
Yeah. So the problem is it's not
2:23:17
getting over there. It's like you have to go back.
2:23:19
I mean, it's a double brother. Yeah, yeah.
2:23:21
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah.
2:23:22
You know, that's that's where it came from.
2:23:23
Man, I love that you, you were a guy.
2:23:26
You know, when I had Mouse on the show, I promise.
2:23:28
I said, well, I can't leave this without asking.
2:23:30
How did Mouse, you know the nickname come through and when
2:23:32
you talk, When we reached out, I was like, there's no way.
2:23:36
I'm not asking where the signature move, if you will,
2:23:40
came from. And I, I do love the uniqueness
2:23:42
of it. I'm not going to say other
2:23:44
people are copying it because other people now do it because
2:23:48
you, you copied it from somewhere else to, you know.
2:23:50
For sure. No one's original anymore, guys.
2:23:52
It's all in the past, but I I do love it when I know that I don't
2:23:57
know, you're at a meet and I'll hear it.
2:23:58
I'm like, oh, Tuck's here because it's like I've heard it
2:24:02
so many Times Now. It's a distinct, it's like your
2:24:04
tone, like I know your move versus someone else yelling out
2:24:07
movements like, oh, Tuck's here. That's cool.
2:24:09
You know, just I'd love that. It's cool.
2:24:10
All right, last question, my friend.
2:24:12
You get to define future however you want.
2:24:15
One year, five years, 10 years down the road, down the road.
2:24:18
What's got you excited? As you look, you know, we're
2:24:20
staring. Excuse me, We're staring 2026.
2:24:23
It's right there in front of us. You already mentioned this.
2:24:25
Pretty good team on paper. They got to execute.
2:24:27
What's got you excited about Eastern Washington University
2:24:30
track and field? I'm just going to double down on
2:24:32
what I said. This team is amazing and they're
2:24:35
not on campus yet. Again, it's on paper.
2:24:37
But what I'm seeing, what I like when I talk to the returners
2:24:42
about who's coming in some conversations I've had with the
2:24:45
returners in the summer, you know, we, we, we look really
2:24:48
good. I'm really excited.
2:24:50
The incoming group, my staff is excited about their their
2:24:54
recruits coming in. Oh man, this is, is, is I'm, I'm
2:24:59
looking forward to it Again, I don't want to jinx myself and
2:25:02
talk too much about it. On paper it looks amazing.
2:25:05
And what I'm seeing so far, we'll start practice the last
2:25:08
Monday in September and then I get to see if, if they've been
2:25:12
working out over the summer. You know, you give them I'm,
2:25:16
I'm, I'm not on them. I give, I give them stuff.
2:25:18
I may check in, see some people, how's it going?
2:25:21
But I, I try not, I'm trying to let them do what they going to
2:25:23
do rather than make them feel I don't want to guilt them into
2:25:26
doing something. And, and when things aren't
2:25:29
going the way they are going, you know, a lot of times I have
2:25:33
a hole mentality. And so if if they're taking off
2:25:37
reps in practice or not showing up or not giving, you know, I
2:25:41
always tell people, especially if it comes up in the January,
2:25:45
early February, I always say, you know, there there's a place,
2:25:49
I think Walmart, maybe Target, you can, you can rent a DeLorean
2:25:54
and you can go back in time to October.
2:25:59
No, I don't think you understand, you know, and they
2:26:02
hate me, hate me because it's like, Coach, how can I fix this?
2:26:06
Now? You can't, you have the
2:26:09
opportunity to fix it. And then I say, so right now
2:26:11
we're stuck. Now what we can do going
2:26:13
forward, how can we fix this going forward?
2:26:15
But it's not going to happen next week on practice, not going
2:26:19
to happen in the next meet. You got to understand and trust
2:26:21
me that we got four weeks before conference.
2:26:24
We have time to fix this, but you have to give me everything
2:26:28
you got on the days that I require you to give me
2:26:30
everything you got. If it's a recovery day, I want
2:26:33
you to give me the best recovery you can give me, you know, and
2:26:36
so I like this group. And again, we'll find out that
2:26:39
first week. I know, I know a lot first week
2:26:42
of practice. I, I find a lot about what's
2:26:44
going on. Oh, really?
2:26:47
That was the warm up. That's always the case.
2:26:50
Yeah, brother, Man, I'm really proud of you, man.
2:26:54
I'm really happy for, you know, when you got the job, you know,
2:26:55
I reached out, you know, your leadership from the and you're
2:27:00
the kind of guy this actually sounds weird, but this, this is
2:27:02
there's a handful of people like this.
2:27:04
It's actually a compliment. You're one of the guys that's
2:27:06
like, I don't remember how we met.
2:27:09
Like I just like I've always known talking.
2:27:10
I don't know, you know, I just, I always have.
2:27:14
And you know, your enthusiasm, your love for the sport, you,
2:27:18
you are a track guy. It's funny how you started not
2:27:20
even knowing sprints, jumps, hurdles, things like that, your
2:27:24
enthusiasm for the sport and you've always been a leader at
2:27:27
every place that you've been to and you continue.
2:27:29
I love your story because it shows like a, a growth in your
2:27:32
leadership from being very concerned about myself and what
2:27:34
I have to do to the group, to my team, and then to OK, my, what I
2:27:38
coach and then now to the whole team.
2:27:40
I'm going to go to, I'm going to go to the throes events, things
2:27:42
like that. And now obviously as the, the
2:27:44
head guy, the head coach there at EW as well.
2:27:47
So it's just cool to see that growth.
2:27:49
I'm just so excited. I mean, I like when coaches are
2:27:51
excited, you know, that it's a, again, it is a job at the end of
2:27:54
the day, it's just be supporting your wife and your kids and your
2:27:57
passions and your future retirements and things like
2:27:59
that. But we certainly should enjoy
2:28:02
work. And you're the kind of guy that
2:28:03
it feels like you have always enjoyed.
2:28:05
I know there's been ups and downs and there always is in any
2:28:08
profession, but every time I see you, you always have a smile.
2:28:10
You always you remind me a little bit of a younger version
2:28:14
of Lonnie Green. You know, Lonnie I you know,
2:28:18
also Gil podcast along guys, if you want to hear his story.
2:28:20
Amazing. But Lonnie, every time I'd see
2:28:22
him in Arkansas, whatever, it's like, you know, how you doing?
2:28:24
I'm blessed, Mike, I'm always blessed.
2:28:26
You are the like physical embodiment of that.
2:28:28
Every time I see you, it's like, oh man, that dude's blessed.
2:28:30
Like he's just he's having a good time.
2:28:31
Even though, you know, he's mad right now because the four by
2:28:33
one did whatever, blah, blah, But he he would rather have that
2:28:36
frustration than any other frustration in the world right
2:28:38
now. You just enjoy being a coach and
2:28:39
it is so true before you could see it in, you know, the
2:28:43
superpower of a coach as they see things in other people
2:28:45
before they can see it themselves.
2:28:47
You had coaches see Coach Tucker in you way before you could even
2:28:52
imagine that that's what you were going to be as you set
2:28:55
yourself off to be a lawyer to start out with.
2:28:57
I think that's right. You'd have been a great lawyer
2:28:58
by the way, that that would have been a lot of fun too.
2:29:00
But probably, probably. But I'm very good.
2:29:02
I have. A lot of money right now.
2:29:03
Yeah, yeah. Well, you'd have more, that's
2:29:05
for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
2:29:06
for sure. But I'm blessed and we're all
2:29:07
blessed that you chose the track coaching world, man.
2:29:10
So I'm super excited for you. Can't wait.
2:29:12
I know it's going to come to fruition.
2:29:13
It's going to come to exactly even better than you think it's
2:29:16
going to be, man. So Tuck, man, thank you.
2:29:18
You know the most appreciate it. The most important thing, most
2:29:21
valuable thing you can give me is your time, man.
2:29:23
I'm just so grateful. You know, we've been going for 2
2:29:26
1/2 probably is what the final's going to be here.
2:29:28
We can go another 2 1/2. We we, I rushed into some
2:29:31
things. I'm like, well, we got to get
2:29:32
going here. But I'm just, your journey
2:29:35
fascinates me and I'm super excited and humbled that you'd
2:29:38
allow us to to share it with our listeners, man.
2:29:40
So thanks again for being here. Today, I appreciate you.
2:29:42
I see you. I see all athletes.
2:29:44
I see everybody. And that's one thing that a lot
2:29:46
of coaches sometimes miss, you know?
2:29:48
And I try to make sure that before every practice, I fist
2:29:50
points to athletes and eye to eye.
2:29:52
How's your day? Just got to see him.
2:29:54
So I see you too. And I appreciate you.
2:29:55
Yeah. I love you, brother.
2:29:56
Appreciate that, guys. Thank you for being here, man.
2:29:59
Again, I told you I was excited about this story.
2:30:01
I Yeah, there's parts I forgot as we got into it.
2:30:03
I thought I knew his journey pretty well for being, you know,
2:30:06
friend with him for for quite a while now.
2:30:08
But fascinating again, I love the growth.
2:30:10
I hope his story helped you. Hope some motivation, some
2:30:13
embolden it there and that, you know, there's a lot of things
2:30:16
you can do no matter where you are today.
2:30:18
There's there's you are where you're supposed to be today, but
2:30:20
there's there's greater and better things for you.
2:30:22
And I can't wait. You know, Tucker, he said he's
2:30:25
going to live to 120. So he's going to coach for even
2:30:27
longer. He said 23 years as head coaches
2:30:30
on year 3. So we got at least 20 more
2:30:31
years. So I can't wait to do check
2:30:33
insurance every five, 10-15 years and continue to grow
2:30:36
because he's not even at halftime and he's still got a
2:30:38
lot to go forward. And I'm excited to see that and
2:30:40
bring that to you guys as well. So thanks again for being here
2:30:42
this week. Join us next week.
2:30:43
We'll do it all over again. Thanks guys.
2:30:48
If it goes to appreciate the coach the ones that point people
2:30:51
most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
2:30:54
you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
2:30:58
For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
2:31:01
zone which you packing for the road.
2:31:03
There's more than one way to go taking those S Pam you told it
2:31:06
ain't practice If your purpose ain't clear, it can't happen
2:31:09
until you listen with both is you can't mentor without a
2:31:12
mentor of years of experience. You can reinvent those years
2:31:16
Every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
2:31:18
sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and the fight not
2:31:22
a win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
2:31:24
Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
2:31:27
about why. You don't know till you know who
2:31:29
you are inside 6,000,000 Waste of time, choose none.
2:31:33
So y'all cross finish line, The work ain't done so we learn from
2:31:36
the experts but y'all got to put in the network.
2:31:38
Your athletics is the network. It's all about connections put
2:31:42
together for the profession to where every track coach could be
2:31:44
blessing.