Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #209: Dr. Chris Hobbs-Second Baptist School (TX)

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#209: Dr. Chris Hobbs-Second Baptist School (TX) · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field coach, the ones that point
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  people most every season. He's the voice of reason.
• 0:27
  Speaking, the growth gotta prep for you carry the load.
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  Talk to the stove. For those of us, stay on the go
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  pop, the handle, staying in the zone.
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  What you packing for the role is more than one way to go taking
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  those tests. And you told it ain't practice
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  it before it became clear. You can't happen to you.
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  Listen with both ears, can't Mentor, without a mentor, kids
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  of experience, you can reinvent those kids.
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  Every plans got to stand and deliver in the price sacrifice,
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  can you give up Hugh its choice and to fight not to win or lose?
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  It's not a boy, but if I see, y'all can make more movies, not
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  about how to All about why you don't know what you're you know
• 1:02
  who you are inside. Six, many ways to die.
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  She's not absorb. Your faults Finish Line.
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  The work ain't done. So we learn from the experts to.
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  Y'all got to put in the legwork Gil athletic shoes Network.
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  It's all about Connections put together for the profession to
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  every track coach could be blessed.
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  Here we go. We're back for the Gila FedEx
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  connections podcast, I'm so humbled to be your host.
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  Mike Kennedy ham here. National business development
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  manager for Gil Athletics and today this is going to be
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  interest. I'm glad you pressed play on
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  this one because this is going to be a lot of fun.
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  And really I think this is going to be one of the more value
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  given type podcast that we have done here in a while.
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  Help me welcome. He's from Second Baptist school
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  down in Houston, the great state of Texas, he's a first-year
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  Distance. He's not he's not really a track
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  coach everybody, but we're going to find out what in the heck is
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  he doing on a track podcast? Help me, welcome the wise, the
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  wonderful mr. Doctor the mr.
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  Doctor see, who knows what this guy is dr.
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  Chris Hobbs. Chris, how are you sir?
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  Mike, thank you for having me on here.
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  I love podcasts. Hope post because you guys are
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  just speaking so much life and energy into life of your
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  audience's. So thank you for what you do for
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  coaches. I am really grateful that you
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  brought me on. Yeah, this is going to be fun.
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  And I, you know, I didn't do this in our pre-interview, you
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  know, you went to doctor school for in got PhD for a reason.
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  Is it okay to call you Kris or do I need to call you dr.
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  Hobbs dr. Chris, you can call me whatever
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  you want, don't call me an idiot.
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  The, okay? Yeah, will you?
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  Yeah, I always tell people, I ain't trying to lose customers.
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  This thing so you're cool. We will not be calling you that
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  we had Dave Smith head coach of Oklahoma State University on the
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  podcast a few weeks ago and learned that he also had
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  received a PhD. So I was like, I'll have to call
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  you Doctor Dave. Now like that's a, that's a big
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  deal. What is your PhD in?
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  So I've got a doctor of Education in educational
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  leadership, but I wrote my dissertation on the leadership,
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  behaviors of athletic directors, and how it influences, the self
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  belief of their varsity had coaches.
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  And so, I've got a lot of passion for particularly coaches
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  in an educational setting, some and that's why you're here
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  today. So Chris reached out, we follow
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  each other on Twitter. Of course, everything leads back
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  to Twitter for me, if you're not following me on Twitter, you
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  might be one of the only people so let's correct.
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  That head over to Twitter at my Cunningham, all one word and
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  let's get connected over there. So today what we're going to
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  talk over to talk about a lot of things that I think are really
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  instrumental and valuable to coaches and to the development
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  of coaches. So Chris here has an extent, he
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  already heard what his Ph.D and his program was has an extensive
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  background on leadership. He was an athletic directors, I
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  think there's a lot of for a lot of things for us to learn about
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  the priorities of an athletic director and how that relates to
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  a track and cross country. We're going to talk about.
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  This is his first year. He dipped his toes in, he
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  actually coached distance Runners.
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  This year, we're going to learn why it's kind of a really
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  awesome story actually. So we're going to get his take
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  on how that was how that went down this year and then also
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  because he's in will learn, he's got an extensive successful
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  background as a basketball coach.
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  Well, we're going to talk about is, are there any similarities
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  what, you know, as you look at coaches and different sports and
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  different? Disciplines are there
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  similarities differences? And what can we learn about
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  that? So Chris with your background.
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  First of all let's maybe take a 30,000 foot level, give us a
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  little bit more background. What you do today, you talked
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  about what you got your PhD, your doctor of Education was in
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  gives a little bit of a background on Chris and your
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  background that you've experiences that you've had.
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  Yeah yeah so a career-long in education, 23 years in
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  education. I'm a New Jersey native.
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  And so spent a lot of time education outside New York City,
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  sometime in the Washington DC area time in West Palm Beach
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  Florida. And now here in Houston Texas,
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  my parents are Educators so it's really the family business.
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  And then for me for the large portion of the first part of My
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  Career, Education was a huge are I'm sorry, Athletics was a huge
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  part of that. And so spent, I believe it's
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  about 18 years as an athletic director. 17 of those years as a
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  varsity basketball coach and just really had a phenomenal
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  experience, has got to work with phenomenal people.
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  And then it, those were kind of the things where I experimented
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  with, a lot of the leadership Concepts that have led me now,
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  to do what I do now, and that's on the executive director of
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  admissions, marketing, Communications and advancement
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  for a fast-growing school system here at Second Baptist School on
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  the west side of Houston. I thought my coaching days math,
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  like days were behind me and then we'll talk.
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  Talk a little bit later. How I ended up coaching distance
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  this year, but during my time as an ADD, and as a coach, if you
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  do anything long enough, you have some real Mountaintop
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  experiences. You also have a lot more Valley
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  experiences that would be a hunch sent true for me.
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  And so, my Mountaintop experience is quite a few Coach
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  of the Year Awards as a varsity, basketball coach. 2018 coaching,
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  80 magazine named me, one of the top 40 under 40 liters in sport
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  industry in the country. And then 2019 was named the the
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  BSN National High School athletic director of the year or
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  a dissertation during that time I set.
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  I was the lead blogger for three dimensional coach.
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  For those of you that are out there familiar with 3D coach and
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  I currently now, sit on the the, I'm a fellow at the Baylor
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  Center for school leadership. Helping them with some thought
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  leadership on General leadership in schools and yet I keep
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  falling back into coaching roles and it was an absolute blast
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  this year to coach distance runners in Cross Country season.
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  And then here in the track and field season as well, you know,
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  congratulations of, first of all, a lot of great accolades
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  that obviously we earned and deserve 44, 44, 40 under 40, you
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  know, I have worked really hard. I've never gotten 30 under 30
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  44, so I just keep going to the next age bracket.
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  I've got about three more years to maybe make a 50 under 50.
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  And then I'm the good news is the older.
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  I get the bigger. The number gets a next year.
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  Next decade, I've got 60 under 60 of what.
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  Well, I'll get there one day man.
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  I just it's a All passionate. I'm going to get there.
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  One day, you get older. Mike, the, the birth gets wired
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  to Rhino, 2013. I mean, 50 people.
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  That's a lot of people, you get a chance man.
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  And especially after I get past 60, the number of applicants
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  goes down, you know, we have some early out.
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  So, you know, got some, I've gotta the pool gets smaller and
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  the the wards and get bigger. So we're going to get there one
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  day. Maybe it's hundred on our
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  hundred. We'll see, we'll see.
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  I make that same Thread about Masters track and field.
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  I mean, I look at these amazing. Really amazing 89 Year old
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  hundred plus year old men and women who are, you know, doing
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  100 and 400. I'm like, okay, I can do that
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  one day and then I'm like, yeah, I can barely get out of bed.
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  Now, at 46, what am I even thinking about Chris?
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  So maybe what do you think about?
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  What if we start first on the athletic director side and talk
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  about some of the things that you've seen, you weren't
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  coaching track and field, but you oversaw track coaches.
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  And also solve oversaw football and basketball tennis Etc.
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  Maybe talk about theirs. Sometimes some frustration on
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  the track coach level with our athletic directors.
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  And sometimes that frustration is sparked by, you know, we
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  don't get enough budget. They D, never comes to the
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  meats, but they're at every football game.
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  The Ed barely knows my assistant coaches names, but, you know,
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  has all the football coaches over for.
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  Damn making up things there. Let's start there.
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  And that'll I think lead us into your passion and the Avenue that
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  you started going through with actual leadership training,
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  like, As far as your education and and things like that.
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  So, talk to us about an athletic director, may be kind of clear
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  up some misconceptions of what, what what an athletic director
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  does and their priorities, and things like that.
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  Yeah, the ad role. I think, in the last five years,
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  probably accelerated by the pandemic.
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  I think the Haiti role is one of the roles, probably in any
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  industry that has evolved the fastest and change.
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  The fastest, or the last 5 years, we used to not even care,
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  whether or not our events for live broadcast.
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  Now, every single event even on the high school level feels
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  like, that's the real. I broadcast social media used to
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  be a nice little add-on and now you've got to have full-blown
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  social media strategies. Not only just for your athletic
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  department but probably Reverse you program in your and your
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  department and that obviously is even more intensified in the
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  Collegiate level. So they're just be two quick
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  examples of how the role has changed from things that we'd
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  even worry about five years ago. That now, take up an enormous
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  amount of time and the things that 80's were worried about
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  five years ago, they're still worried about and so the job has
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  really become incredibly robust. I think it's one of the most
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  robust leadership opportunities of any position on any school
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  campus and so, and then you You throw in the combustible nature
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  of competitive Athletics on top of it and you're going to have
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  yourself a lot of fun leading. And so that was certainly my
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  experience as an athletic director.
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  I would say I wrote about this for 3D coach about how important
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  it is for athletic directors to get into the stream of their
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  athletic departments. And if you're literally think
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  about jumping into the flow of something and it does require
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  discipline. But you've got to get out there
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  and you've got to be with your people.
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  I would also Remind my Varsity head coaches.
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  Who I felt enormously, responsible to that.
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  Hey, listen, there's one of me. I promise you, I love you.
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  I care about the work you're doing, but there's one of me and
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  I believed at the time, there's 26 of them.
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  And I told them if I don't know about what's going on in your
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  program, it's not because I don't care.
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  It's because you haven't come to me.
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  And so, that was kind of my way of reverse engineering to them,
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  putting it on them. I mean, I want to hear from you.
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  But there's 26, you and wanted of me.
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  So I will here About whoever comes to me and almost put it on
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  my coaches to say. Like, if I don't know about
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  what's going on your program, like, I want you to fix that.
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  I want to know, but I want you to fix that, by coming to me and
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  I would tell coaches like, hey, if you feel like someone's
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  getting more attention than you, I'm 100% sure.
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  It's because they're coming to me more than you are.
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  And so, in some ways, I would invite the chaos.
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  And so that's something to think about, as a track and field
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  coach or coach of any sport where you're a little concerned,
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  that maybe your Administration is not paying attention a lot.
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  I would be regularly Including them on things that are very
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  exciting. And then, when you come to them
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  with your request, or you come to them with your problem that
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  you need resolved, you've greased the wheels by letting
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  them know regularly, all the good things that are going on.
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  And so, and then all the sudden, it feels like your ad knows
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  about everything because you've, you know, he's open the door to
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  feed you information. So that's kind of how it evolved
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  for me. And that's where I got drawn
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  into watching. Very closely some incredible
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  coaches. Has in the realm of distance
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  running in the realm of track and field in the realm of
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  swimming in a row of tennis, we had some incredible coaches that
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  I was responsible to lead and supervise and they were just
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  doing outstanding work. And that's where my eyes were
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  really open to how powerful the opportunity is that what I would
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  call Olympic sport, coaches, or maybe individual sport, coaches,
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  have it the opportunity to impact kids.
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  And it Awesome along the way, my son happen to fall in love with
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  distance running and so all of a sudden now I, you know, it's a
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  loaded. It's a loaded situation for me,
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  where I better be paying attention to because my kids
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  coming home every night, talk about it.
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  And so big shout out to Bill Mitchell, who is the cross
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  country and distance coach at the Kings Academy West Palm
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  Beach Florida? He got a hold of my son about
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  seventh grade, he ran a great program.
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  My kids hit the Kool-Aid and my son.
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  See Joe. Go run on scholarship at Dallas
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  Baptist University for Jacob Phillips next year and it all
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  started when he just decided to show up for summer running.
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  Well with our cross country. And so I've just had a wonderful
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  experience with some wonderful coaches as their ad.
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  So, if you put your track coach hat on help us understand.
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  So in the sense of what the track coaches is looking at and
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  seeing and interacting with the AED help that track coach,
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  understand the a A little bit better.
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  What are? Maybe the top two, three, four.
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  You're right. In fact, I love that you brought
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  up like live broadcast. We had the director of nfhs
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  network, Mark Costa Koski on the podcast, the world dear friend
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  who was a track athlete himself back in Albuquerque.
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  So it was great to have him on the podcast.
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  As we're great partners with the nfhs and you know he talked
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  about the net just Network and how I mean it was amazing how
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  many football games, basketball games were being Being streamed.
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  It was, I mean unbelievable. Like like you think every
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  college game is streamed. Unbelievable.
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  Amount of high school games are streams.
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  He brought that up and social media marketing, that was
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  awesome. But if you had to help a track
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  coach, understand like, I'm frustrated much, my ad doesn't
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  do X Y or Z what are like maybe the top three things and AD is
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  prioritize like what? Like if I don't do anything as
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  an athletic director, these are the three things I'm really
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  going after. So I'm I understand.
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  Want me to know, every track coach kid's name or Trek kid's
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  name and everything. But here the top things that
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  boy, if I don't do we just crumble.
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  Yeah, yeah. So I would, I would put very,
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  very high on the list, communicating, with their
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  coaches and then, the reason they're communicating with their
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  coaches are too. There's many, but here's to
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  number one, to make sure that the coaches are all aligned to
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  the mission athletic department, which ultimately speaks up to
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  the mission of the educational institution.
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  And so, So you're communicating Patrick Lencioni would call them
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  sea, arroz Chief reminding officers and so as coaches are
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  hired to have tunnel vision and the athletic director's job is
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  to help that coach synthesize their Tunnel Vision on their
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  program with the greater reality, the athletic
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  department, the greater good of the educational institution and
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  so athletic directors should really be communicating to
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  coach's first about missional alignment.
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  Helping them get their heads up out of their tunnels.
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  June, which they're hired to do so.
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  It's wrong that coaches have tunnel vision.
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  They D just has a job to help them look up every so again and
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  see the entire landscape. And so for me that was a huge
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  priority to me that looks like, you know, weekly email to the
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  coaches. That looks like regular
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  one-on-one check-ins that looks like, hey, how often.
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  And I present at practice practices were actually easier
• 15:54
  to be present at than the competitions and it's honestly
• 15:58
  it's the time where you get a chance to probably have a
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  healthier interaction with your coach.
• 16:03
  Then during competition day emotions are high.
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  You're busy. There's a lot going on hard to
• 16:08
  have authentic interaction with a coach on competition day and
• 16:13
  so practices are. So for me, those are the
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  priorities communicate to the coaches.
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  And then, you know, the the next priority that I had was, you
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  know, hey, how are we celebrating the pockets of
• 16:27
  excellence in every athletic department, there's pockets of
• 16:29
  excellence and this is a tidbit for track and field coach has
• 16:33
  track and field. Which is make sure that they may
• 16:36
  or may not read it. That's not up to you, but make
• 16:38
  sure that you're constantly feeding your athletic director
• 16:41
  information on the achievement of their kids as it pertains to
• 16:46
  where are there? Let's say their numbers, right?
• 16:48
  Like their distances there times that, you know, their heights,
• 16:52
  where are their numbers ranking in school history, that's a
• 16:55
  really easy way to do say, hey, Jimmy just ran eight best time
• 16:58
  in school. History, between Texas mod
• 17:00
  between mile split, Texas. Mom split here in Texas and
• 17:02
  athletic dotnet. Has 2 platforms.
• 17:04
  You can dig that information up in three clicks, you know?
• 17:07
  And so communicate, that to your ad and it'll stir the pot and
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  raised. His awareness put you on his
• 17:13
  radar, put your kids on his radar.
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  And next thing, you know, he's sitting in a board meeting
• 17:17
  talking about hey, you know, we had three kids finish top eight,
• 17:20
  you know in the 400 last week that's on even you know like and
• 17:24
  so track and field coach has, if you're sending the good
• 17:27
  regularly to your athletic director you will inadvertently
• 17:32
  subconsciously to You're a D's radar to what's going on in your
• 17:36
  program and then when you have that bump in the road, just a
• 17:39
  whole lot easier to navigate it together because you've packed
• 17:42
  so much good, if you will into the checking account making a
• 17:44
  withdrawal on something as a whole lot more reasonable.
• 17:47
  And so, I tried to set that up that if you will, that that,
• 17:51
  that back and forth that reciprocal cycle with my
• 17:53
  coaches, but coaches, you don't need mehdi to think that
• 17:57
  through, for you can go ahead and do it yourself, and kind of
• 17:59
  what some thought leaders would say manage up with.
• 18:03
  You're athletic director, you know, don't talk, don't make it
• 18:06
  be. The only time you talk to him,
• 18:07
  is when you want something or her, that you want something,
• 18:10
  right? You're walking in with a big fat
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  tip five-figure po, you know, and like, don't make that the
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  only time you've talked to him, and so that would be like,
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  high-priority communicate to coaches Mission alignment,
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  institution, alignment department-wide alignment, help
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  coaches, think way down the road.
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  You know, track and field coach has, if you're looking for more
• 18:31
  attention, cross country coaches, maybe even more.
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  So because You coach such a very specific type of athlete.
• 18:36
  If you're looking for more attention from your athletic
• 18:38
  director get to them earlier and earlier and earlier about your
• 18:43
  schedule about your season, need your purchases, your booster
• 18:47
  request, the earlier, you get, you know, early bird gets the
• 18:50
  worm, the earlier, you get that information in.
• 18:53
  The more likely it is that you have the inside track to get in
• 18:56
  what you're hoping to get for your program and so thinking
• 18:59
  down the road and then communicate the good those are
• 19:01
  just be some yeah things that have gone.
• 19:03
  Just now certainly there's some coaches hearing you right now
• 19:07
  and in their specific example, they're like, yeah, I tried that
• 19:12
  and I just never met a lady. Never said, good job or never
• 19:15
  even hit the reply button, it cetera, would you recommend that
• 19:20
  you still do it? Because here's what I'm
• 19:22
  thinking, is a lot of times we create our own story, right?
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  Like, hey, I emailed my 80 the three times.
• 19:27
  We set school records. I never heard back.
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  He just doesn't care. He or she does just doesn't care
• 19:31
  about us when maybe the He is mr.
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  Evans is AD is extremely busy. It was in state conference
• 19:38
  meetings whatever blah blah has a personalized, by the way,
• 19:41
  maybe things aren't going great at home, whatever Health Etc,
• 19:44
  and wanted to. And just didn't get back to you.
• 19:47
  And so we quit that communication because we don't
• 19:50
  hear that feedback that we think we should have.
• 19:52
  Should have had, do you recommend continuing it anyway?
• 19:54
  Or are there other avenues besides just emailing?
• 19:57
  What are some other best practices to communicate with ad
• 20:01
  whether they are communicating back or not?
• 20:03
  Not that we know of. Yeah.
• 20:06
  So Steven pressfield has a book called The War of the art and
• 20:11
  it's really a book written to creatives people that work in
• 20:15
  Creative Industries. So everything from artists to
• 20:18
  authors to content creators to public speakers you know where
• 20:22
  your crafting and creating and so writing emails is a lot like
• 20:26
  that communicating is a lot like that and he's got this concept
• 20:29
  in the book called, never be afraid to speak into the dark.
• 20:33
  And so, you know, I would I would really encourage coaches
• 20:37
  to a degree to keep, just speaking into the dark for a
• 20:40
  couple reasons, there's actually a benefit to you to write
• 20:45
  writing is an intense form of thinking, and when you write or
• 20:49
  type in this context, when you write or type it forces you to
• 20:52
  think intensely about your kids about your program, about the
• 20:57
  calendar, about the vision for things, about what kids really
• 21:01
  are accomplishing. And so I think The rhythm of
• 21:04
  communicating is a way to sharpen your thinking about your
• 21:08
  program. You know, Craig groeschel in the
• 21:10
  bore of the book winning the war in your mind, Jordan Peterson.
• 21:14
  They both have the same concept that how important it is to
• 21:17
  think about what you're thinking about.
• 21:19
  Well, how do you do that? Well, one of the ways you do
• 21:20
  that is you just write you type. And so, I would really encourage
• 21:24
  coaches, there's a lot more benefit than just whether or not
• 21:26
  you're a daddy's, paying attention to those writings.
• 21:28
  There's a lot more benefit to you as you lead your program.
• 21:31
  And then you just never know, if there's About being relentless.
• 21:35
  You know there's a passage in the Book of Matthew in the
• 21:37
  Bible. It says you know ask and ye
• 21:40
  shall find you know knocking you it'll be answered right seek ask
• 21:44
  knock you know you just keep being relentless about it.
• 21:46
  It's amazing. How just at the most unexpected
• 21:49
  time one of those things pays off for you.
• 21:51
  So I think there's a lot of value in being a gracious, not
• 21:54
  obnoxious, you know but being okay, with the fact even when
• 21:58
  you don't get the response, you're looking for that.
• 21:59
  There's a lot of value in putting that information
• 22:03
  together. I regularly, you know, a little
• 22:05
  known fact in the first draft of Matthew.
• 22:07
  It also said wait around and it'll just happen, but they took
• 22:10
  that part out because it's just, that's, that's really good.
• 22:15
  First of all, I'm picking up very quickly.
• 22:17
  Here you are obviously a reader. I knew you were a writer, but
• 22:20
  you're obviously a reader, you're dropping some great
• 22:22
  books, you mentioned, one of my favorite authors, Patrick
• 22:25
  Lencioni earlier, I'm a huge advocate and fan of his.
• 22:29
  And what he does with the table group and the working genius, I
• 22:32
  like that. So if you're listening Hit the
• 22:34
  rewind Button. He's giving some great book
• 22:36
  recommendations here as well but I thought you were up a great
• 22:39
  point about that. You know, it's frustrating
• 22:40
  sometimes because we think of the outcome for us to send an
• 22:43
  email is to receive the reply. We tend to forget or not even be
• 22:48
  aware of that. Some of the benefit we were
• 22:51
  receiving is putting our thoughts and actions down on
• 22:53
  paper us actually writing it down.
• 22:55
  It's another kind of tactile way of thinking if you will not just
• 22:58
  verbally or in our head so that's intro.
• 23:01
  I like that never be afraid of speaking.
• 23:03
  In the dark because it feels like the dark.
• 23:04
  It feels like I'm just hitting sin and it's 80 just hits the
• 23:08
  lead. That's, I assume that's what
• 23:09
  they're doing right? I love that.
• 23:11
  So as you were going along in your athletic director, career
• 23:15
  and super hard, you know, it's being an athletic director of
• 23:20
  almost a of a larger school. So we're like, you know, there's
• 23:22
  some schools that have an athletic director and that's all
• 23:24
  they do there. An athletic director where I
• 23:27
  grew up it was the athletic director was a head football
• 23:29
  coach so they oversaw everything if you will but as you were in
• 23:33
  so you're Athletic director while also coaching basketball.
• 23:35
  And that's a tough. I mean, that's those are two
• 23:37
  tough gigs there. As you were taking a step back
• 23:40
  from the coaching side, you know, you had your coaching hat
• 23:43
  and coaching role, but as you put your ad head on and you
• 23:46
  know, you were working to develop your tennis coach a
• 23:48
  football coach, your track coach Etc, swimming where did when and
• 23:53
  how did the thought of like, you know, what is super important
• 23:56
  here? There's a lot of skill sets for
• 23:58
  these things you know, motivation, budgeting scheduling
• 24:02
  but leadership. Leslie came out as like, you
• 24:04
  know, what? If I don't have leadership
• 24:07
  towards these individuals, everything doesn't nothing
• 24:10
  happens. It just where it doesn't
• 24:11
  definitely doesn't happen at any kind of Excellence.
• 24:13
  How did leadership become like this passion and desire for you
• 24:17
  to help others and yourself? Yeah, I think there's probably a
• 24:21
  huge nature-nurture, you know, effect here.
• 24:25
  So my grandfather was a, was a pastor preacher.
• 24:30
  So it was very normal for me on a Sunday to be sitting in the
• 24:34
  off in the sanctuary and my grandfather's up leading people.
• 24:37
  Speaking directing announcing it was very, it was that was just a
• 24:42
  normal thing ever since I can remember, my father was to this
• 24:46
  day. He's I think 47 or 48 year
• 24:49
  leading Rules and so watching him lead literally every single
• 24:54
  day and watching what joyfully he bounces out of the door to
• 24:59
  work every single day. He really does love what he did.
• 25:02
  What he does. My mother would like him to
• 25:05
  retire some day. I don't think he ever will.
• 25:07
  I think they'll take him out feet first, you know he just he
• 25:09
  just loves it, you know? And so those two examples and
• 25:13
  then I always seem to have been around a really Dynamic strongly
• 25:18
  opinionated, clear. R thinking leaders, you know, I
• 25:22
  think about the pastor of the church.
• 25:23
  I grew up at. I did not grow up at my
• 25:25
  grandfather's past. It might work, my grandfather's
• 25:26
  church. And so think about that
• 25:29
  individual. My college basketball coach had
• 25:31
  a huge impact on my life. He really galvanized and
• 25:34
  crystallized much of what my parents had tried to teach me.
• 25:38
  I was just ignoring them, you know, like every teenager does,
• 25:40
  you know? And then all the sudden, my
• 25:41
  college basketball coach, he understood that sport is always
• 25:46
  about more than sport, you know, it and so John Amici.
• 25:52
  Just released a video that I just tweeted it out yesterday.
• 25:54
  I think John Amici was an All-American player for Penn
• 25:57
  State basketball player. He's actually an Englishman big
• 25:59
  Englishmen, he's now a social scientist researcher.
• 26:03
  He released a great video, you can go my Twitter feed and
• 26:06
  scroll back, a couple posts and see it about how sport is a
• 26:09
  vessel and it's up to the adults to fill the vessel with good or
• 26:13
  bad and who benefits from that filling, or who suffers the
• 26:18
  consequences from that filling. The athletes, you know, and in
• 26:21
  many cases, the young people and so sport is a vessel.
• 26:24
  I've been thinking about that recently.
• 26:25
  And so, anyway, that coming together, my college coach is my
• 26:28
  dad, my grandfather. The men I was around a lot of
• 26:31
  the people. The first administrators I
• 26:33
  worked under were just strong leaders, clear thinkers.
• 26:37
  And so there's been a huge nurturing probably that I just
• 26:40
  kind of assumed subconsciously, that's where you go, that's how
• 26:43
  you try. And and then you know, you throw
• 26:46
  that in with the ingredient of being really About the this
• 26:51
  sport experience in there. I loved it.
• 26:52
  Growing Up, played a lot of sports growing up, play college
• 26:54
  basketball at a small college, for a great coach, a impact on
• 26:57
  my life and just Dove right into all of this as soon as I could
• 27:01
  professionally after graduate from college and jumping into
• 27:03
  schools. And so that's kind of where the
• 27:06
  whole leadership thing comes from the opportunity to lead and
• 27:10
  sport is so unavoidable. You know, you just, you just
• 27:14
  cannot coach without coach well, without leading well and then I
• 27:20
  would say one of the great needs in anyone's life is the ability
• 27:25
  to lead themselves. Well so every single person is a
• 27:28
  leader if for no other reason you're leading yourself and
• 27:31
  usually the best of leaders usually not always, but usually
• 27:34
  the best of leaders started by being really good at leading
• 27:37
  themselves. And so I just feel like sport is
• 27:40
  a petri dish for all of that you know and so clear scoreboard
• 27:45
  gives you clear feedback scoreboard, just feedback
• 27:47
  machines, you know, Track and field, you know, it's just one
• 27:51
  of the greatest examples of that because it's so individualized,
• 27:55
  you're going to get feedback, every time you run, you're going
• 27:58
  to get feedback every time you jump because you're on a look at
• 28:00
  the time. You know, you're going to look
• 28:02
  at the height, you're going to look at the distance and that's
• 28:04
  going to give you feedback as to whether or not you're on fire
• 28:07
  that day. You stink that day.
• 28:09
  You're okay that day and Lord knows that we have more and more
• 28:13
  intense ways of gathering feedback because the technology.
• 28:16
  Now, you know, I mean the runners can track.
• 28:20
  Pack everything, you know, because of the watches on their
• 28:23
  wrists, you know, and like all the Technologies, just
• 28:25
  unbelievable and so that's fast feedback, you know, you better
• 28:30
  figure out how to respond to that pretty quickly and
• 28:32
  objectively if you're going to be effective and that's a lot of
• 28:35
  what leadership is just responding well to feedback.
• 28:37
  So that's probably big long answer to why the leadership
• 28:40
  kind of Forefront of everything for me before I continue with
• 28:44
  that questioning though, we almost called the podcast the
• 28:47
  gills. Shout-out podcast you obviously
• 28:49
  have a A, a really deep affection for your college
• 28:53
  basketball coach. What school do you go to, and
• 28:54
  what was their name? Yeah, so I played at Baptist
• 28:58
  Bible colleges small little divisions, 3 School in Scranton
• 29:01
  Pennsylvania, if you have ever watched the office or I'm gonna
• 29:04
  give the office credit favorite show.
• 29:06
  It's like living world. Yeah.
• 29:08
  And that really is what Scranton's like, and I played
• 29:11
  college basketball there. It's now called Clarks Summit.
• 29:13
  University has changed its name, since Mike, shall was my college
• 29:17
  basketball coach, and he is still there to this day.
• 29:20
  No longer coaches, men's basketball.
• 29:22
  But he works on the administrative level, for the
• 29:24
  University and And he was in town in Houston.
• 29:28
  Three months ago, we had dinner, he regularly will text me.
• 29:32
  Hey Chris, I've been praying for you, man.
• 29:34
  I mean like I played for this guy 20 years ago and he still
• 29:37
  tells me. He's thinking about me and
• 29:38
  praying for me. You know, this is the type of
• 29:40
  guy who was to play for. When I was 18 to 22 years of
• 29:43
  age, and he has created an enormous tree.
• 29:46
  If you will of men that are out there impacting the world, and
• 29:52
  they all give him an incredible amount of credit.
• 29:55
  Who they became my boss, dr. Don Davis played for Mike, shall
• 30:00
  our athletic director here at Second Baptist played for Mike.
• 30:03
  Shall both my brothers who are leaders in other parts of the
• 30:05
  country played for Mike show Doctor, John Young, who's the
• 30:08
  Ada at the largest private, private school.
• 30:11
  Athletic department in Ohio played for Mike show the list
• 30:14
  just goes on and on, and on the ignore the incredible amount of
• 30:16
  people that give him credit for impact on their lives.
• 30:18
  And so coaches your someone's Mike show, give?
• 30:22
  Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say to you guys and
• 30:25
  gals. That are listening right now
• 30:26
  because I know sometimes it's hard when you're in the muck
• 30:30
  when you're trying to get this duel, me going to try to host
• 30:33
  this meet. You trying to get your kids in
• 30:34
  this Invitational. Get through regionals conference
• 30:37
  state college. Coaches are recruiting you got
• 30:40
  all this mail coming in. Oh and by the way, you're
• 30:42
  probably a teacher so you're teaching and you have a life,
• 30:46
  you know, a family, things like that.
• 30:47
  I know it can be hard to take that step back and think what
• 30:51
  you're doing is impacting people.
• 30:53
  But listen to that story. I mean, this is a First of all,
• 30:56
  what a shout-out to coach Mike. I mean, producer of leaders is
• 30:59
  what he really is a coach of in the people in the effect that he
• 31:03
  has the affection. You see, I don't know if you, if
• 31:05
  you're watching on YouTube Chris's face when he said, coach
• 31:08
  came down to Houston and they got to go out, like, what you do
• 31:13
  mean something even to the kid or the kids, that never say a
• 31:19
  word. You think are not listening to
• 31:21
  you, the positive impact that you make on these young people.
• 31:24
  Both high school and And college coaches.
• 31:27
  It is literally immeasurable. You cannot measure what you are
• 31:30
  doing for these young people out there.
• 31:32
  They look up to you. They're not always going to say
• 31:35
  it. Remember, when you were 17 and
• 31:36
  20, you didn't always say it to your coaching teachers.
• 31:39
  Either you wish, you could go back, you get you letting you
• 31:42
  cherish the time you get to do it now as an adult, but these
• 31:44
  kids, crave your leadership and your positivity in your
• 31:48
  mentorship. So, I just when you were telling
• 31:51
  that story Chris, I'm just like, I mean, I'm moves because it's
• 31:54
  like that because then I start thinking about My uncle, I'm
• 31:56
  like, oh man, you know, I have not talked to Coach Mitten in
• 31:59
  ages and that guy did everything for me and Coach gossip is like
• 32:02
  my father and it's like, man, you know, those people did have
• 32:05
  such an amazing impact one more question before we get back to
• 32:09
  leadership as an athletic director towards coaches.
• 32:11
  You mentioned Twitter, I cannot believe I didn't have you.
• 32:14
  Give us your Twitter account because you gotta go follow
• 32:16
  Chris on Twitter because that's where all life happens as far as
• 32:19
  I'm concerned is on Twitter. Chris, where can we follow you
• 32:21
  at on Twitter? Yeah, I love connecting with
• 32:25
  people out there at Dr. Underscore Chris Hobbs.
• 32:28
  So at Doctor underscore Chris Hobbs, just love Twitter for me
• 32:33
  is an outflow of what I'm learning.
• 32:35
  I'm not really trying. I heard someone say, you know,
• 32:38
  if you're trying to build an audience it'll be obvious.
• 32:41
  I'm not trying to build an audience.
• 32:43
  I'm just trying to share some stuff that I'm learning that.
• 32:45
  I'm thinking. Once I between stuff, like, hey
• 32:47
  I've been thinking on this to recently, you know, it's really
• 32:51
  an outflow of my learning and then I get to do it in a In a
• 32:54
  public forum like that, where I get to connect with a bunch of
• 32:56
  other people too. So yeah.
• 32:57
  I loved it. That's a great point.
• 33:00
  We could talk about Twitter forever but to piggyback on what
• 33:02
  you just said there, you know, when I first started hitting
• 33:05
  toward her hard I you know, and I cringe now when I look back at
• 33:08
  them, you know, I'd be like, oh, almost at 100 followers who's
• 33:11
  going to be number one hundred? And, you know, as I got close to
• 33:13
  1,000 like, oh, you know, ten more and I was kind of stuff.
• 33:16
  And then I was like, you know what, I'm just going to stop
• 33:18
  worrying about that, and I'm just going to give value.
• 33:20
  And so, I just went full blow. Hard into just giving value to
• 33:26
  those who do choose to follow me.
• 33:28
  And literally I blinked and I have 10,000 followers.
• 33:30
  I mean it was kind of like, like I did as I was getting close to
• 33:33
  10,000. I did like a 22 left.
• 33:34
  Like, I mean, more of just like I was actually a little bit at
• 33:36
  all. Like there are 10,000 ish people
• 33:41
  who value, what value I give them.
• 33:43
  Like I mean it literally is kind of like you could follow anybody
• 33:46
  and you could easily not follow me by the way but you choose to.
• 33:50
  And so it's like it just is really humbling as Got up to
• 33:53
  that kind of magical number of 10, but anyway.
• 33:56
  Okay, so back to leadership. So, can you remember, as, you
• 33:59
  know, obviously you have a huge back ground of a family and
• 34:04
  coaches that poured into you that have affected you and made
• 34:07
  you a part of who you are today, as you became that leader, as
• 34:12
  the athletic director, for your different school.
• 34:14
  So you're different coaches was there a hesitate to say a book?
• 34:18
  Because there probably was with you?
• 34:20
  What we were seeing and learning that you're a reader but it was
• 34:22
  her a book A TED Talk a conference.
• 34:27
  You went to that, gave you a nugget of like, oh okay, I need
• 34:31
  to bring this to my coaches or I need to start, I haven't been
• 34:34
  doing this and you know the chamonix I need to start doing
• 34:38
  this anything like that. You can think of that really you
• 34:40
  know put a boost into your leadership towards your coaches
• 34:44
  and your athletic department. Yeah, I would probably say that
• 34:48
  happened. Very, very regularly.
• 34:51
  I heard Billy Donovan. Speak at a clinic, you know,
• 34:53
  Billy Donovan, won back-to-back national championships, Coach,
• 34:55
  men's basketball Florida. You now coaches, the Bulls and
• 34:59
  Donovan right before you opened up, his session with everyone
• 35:03
  said, hey, don't adopt what I do at Florida.
• 35:07
  He said just adapt one, simple thing that I'm about to share.
• 35:11
  I don't even know what to talk about for the next 60 minutes,
• 35:13
  but I totally remember that. He was telling us is that it his
• 35:18
  entire program isn't going to fit at your school because every
• 35:21
  program is so unique to itself. But it's the tiny little
• 35:25
  details. John Piper shared on social
• 35:28
  media. Other day, the reason you have
• 35:29
  to read books is not because books change lives, but it's
• 35:31
  because sentence has changed lives and sentences are hidden
• 35:34
  in books, you know? And so it's like, it's like this
• 35:37
  little stuff. So I would say, like, all the
• 35:40
  time, you know, there was things.
• 35:42
  I'll give some resources that probably have a few more.
• 35:45
  Sentences than just one in them that are worth the read.
• 35:48
  So the Messiah method which is written about Messiah
• 35:52
  University, men's and women's soccer programs that are, you
• 35:56
  know, arguably that most dominant college sport Dynasty
• 36:00
  and last 20 years men's soccer has won 11 national
• 36:02
  championships since 2000 women soccer's, 19 since 2000, they've
• 36:06
  played in a collective like 30 National Championship Games.
• 36:10
  Since the year 2000, I happen to be the ad for the soccer coach.
• 36:15
  That the Messiah dynasty was begun on.
• 36:18
  He had 10 of his players, play and win a National Championship
• 36:22
  at Messiah, and he had all Americans on, all three of their
• 36:25
  first. National championship teams, his
• 36:27
  name is, his name is Bill bills and Coach bills.
• 36:32
  A huge impact on my life. He let me run his athletic
• 36:35
  department. He was the ad.
• 36:36
  They brought me in to relieve him of being the ad.
• 36:38
  So you just coach and teach at the Twilight of his career and
• 36:42
  no matter I always knew somehow it was never my There's always
• 36:46
  bills out like to Mark, he was just let me run, you know.
• 36:49
  But that being said, the Messiah method is a business professors,
• 36:53
  look at the culture and the leadership that has created this
• 36:59
  monstrous Dynasty on both men's and women's side, that is a
• 37:02
  tremendous book for anyone to the looking for a framework of
• 37:06
  excellent. Athletics programmatically, the
• 37:10
  Messiah methods group coaching science, I would recommend
• 37:13
  inside out coaching by Joe. Kojo ermine tremendous book for
• 37:18
  how to really, really coach in a way that impacts young people's
• 37:22
  lives. I think some people want a silo,
• 37:25
  the things of like hey I can win games, where I can impact lie,
• 37:29
  it's really really hard to make them go together.
• 37:32
  I would say it's possible not to make them go together was
• 37:36
  talking to dr. Jim Timmer.
• 37:37
  Who's the athletic director at Calvin University.
• 37:40
  A really, really well run high-powered E3 program up in
• 37:44
  Michigan. Jim aside, and I shared with Jim
• 37:47
  might concern of, like, hey, what would you do with a coach?
• 37:50
  That's doing everything right porn into kids, recruiting like
• 37:55
  learning growing growth mindset, like they're everything and
• 37:58
  they're just not winning games. And Doctor Timber says me.
• 38:02
  He said, Chris, if they're not winning games, they're probably
• 38:05
  not doing any of those things, right?
• 38:07
  Like if you really believe in your process, it will produce,
• 38:11
  you know, if your process is right?
• 38:13
  And so, inside out, Coaching helps you kind of understand
• 38:17
  that Messiah method kind of helps?
• 38:18
  You understand how those things integrate together and really
• 38:22
  should be reciprocal to each other.
• 38:24
  The Excellence and the impact another one that's really,
• 38:27
  really granular, but I think coaches would eat it up.
• 38:30
  Is the little book of talent by Daniel Coyle.
• 38:34
  Daniel, Coyle is a New York Times bestselling author, wrote
• 38:36
  the Talent Code and then wrote the culture code, great books,
• 38:39
  super fun books to read. He wrote a little side project
• 38:42
  called the Talent Code or know the little book of talent.
• 38:45
  Um, and that is like 49 tips on how to help people develop skill
• 38:51
  from his research on high-performing, people across
• 38:55
  every Walk of Life. Musicians, artists athletes,
• 39:00
  public speakers like the best of the best.
• 39:03
  How did they get this way? And he wrote a little side book
• 39:05
  called the little book of talent.
• 39:07
  You could pick that book every day, read it for 30 seconds, and
• 39:10
  you would couldn't wait to go to practice and try and use what
• 39:13
  you just read in that little book.
• 39:14
  So, those three books Would be books.
• 39:16
  I recommend a lot of people. Have you ever been that kind of
• 39:18
  hope? I feel like you have when I say
• 39:21
  this book but I kind of hope you didn't because I feel like I owe
• 39:23
  you a book recommendation. Have you ever read lead for
• 39:26
  God's sake? I have yeah.
• 39:29
  Okay cool for just a second. I thought you had those like oh
• 39:31
  man you got to read that one. Yeah.
• 39:33
  And of course embarrassingly the author's name is missing from my
• 39:38
  brain more embarrassingly because he's been a guest on the
• 39:41
  podcast. Yeah, he was at least one of the
• 39:44
  oh jeez, he's like episode like 4449.
• 39:46
  He's it seems like forever ago. Don Todd hunger.
• 39:51
  That's exactly who it is. Yes, he was.
• 39:53
  The keynote speaker at the u.s. tfcc as the United Starting
• 39:58
  field and cross country coaches association.
• 40:01
  He's keynote there. He was friends with Brian
• 40:02
  Fetzer. Another Gil podcast Alum who's
• 40:04
  now an athletic director and Cincinnati and he introduced me
• 40:08
  to him. And right now I've met Brian.
• 40:11
  Unless you're Brian. I talk all the time.
• 40:13
  No. Is that right?
• 40:15
  Oh that's awesome. Yes, I've been friends with the
• 40:18
  feds for a long time. Love him.
• 40:22
  He's doing you know he is it was a phenomenal college coach but I
• 40:27
  think this is it. This is kind of actually an
• 40:29
  interesting lesson for people as well.
• 40:31
  You know, he could, he was head coach at Virginia, he was at
• 40:33
  Mississippi State, Harvard Cal Berkeley ball stayed.
• 40:37
  I mean, he's had a lot of great place and didn't amazing.
• 40:38
  It was a phenomenal, phenomenal phenomenal college.
• 40:40
  Coach, now, he's pivoted to this High School athletic director,
• 40:45
  Cincinnati Christian Hills. I believe I've taught my head
• 40:48
  Academy, and as I believe you still coaching truck there, I
• 40:52
  would hope he's doing something for the track team there as
• 40:55
  well, but he's athletic director and I'll tell you what he's
• 40:57
  found. His Calling like, you know, he
• 41:01
  was again, not taking away his college.
• 41:03
  Could he did for not many many all Americans.
• 41:05
  National chances, cetera. He's really digging in and
• 41:09
  affecting Society through affecting young, people in a
• 41:13
  whole different light and prospering he is doing an
• 41:15
  excellent, excellent job there. I love that you left that sir,
• 41:18
  but yet leave for God's sake. If you haven't read that
• 41:21
  listeners, I would suggest that one.
• 41:22
  He's a basketball guy. So it's a basketball story.
• 41:24
  That's why I was like, you have to read this mr.
• 41:27
  Basketball. And has been on the podcast as
• 41:29
  well and suggest you go back and listen to that episode.
• 41:31
  He's a phenomenal, great leadership and great intention,
• 41:35
  intentionality with leadership, okay, back to leadership here
• 41:41
  with an athletic director role, but I am curious about your
• 41:43
  basketball coaching. That's where the majority of
• 41:46
  your coaching sport was was in basketball, correct?
• 41:50
  So you did a lot of basketball coaching and we're going to get
• 41:52
  into the track coaching that you did here this past year.
• 41:56
  But you've also overseen Tennis coaches, swim coaches, wrestling
• 42:00
  coaches at cetera, you know, and track.
• 42:03
  We like to think that we are extremely unique and we are
• 42:07
  definitely a lot of uniqueness is in our sport as it relates to
• 42:09
  coaching in the different events and you know, body types.
• 42:13
  And you know there's there's a place for everybody of all
• 42:17
  tallness shortness body times etcetera in track and field.
• 42:20
  If we like to think that we're hype early unique, but as you
• 42:22
  personally have coached basketball and you've seen
• 42:24
  successful football, baseball softball coaches are there Are
• 42:28
  there like a universal set of like commonalities amongst
• 42:33
  coaching? Like you know, if you can do
• 42:35
  this, that translates to football track tennis
• 42:39
  tiddlywinks for crying out loud. There's some Universal
• 42:41
  commonalities amongst coaches successful coaches Yeah, that's
• 42:47
  a great question, Mike. And I just stepped in it now,
• 42:50
  man, because I've actually researched this from a social
• 42:52
  science standpoint. And so, okay, for now.
• 42:56
  Now, before you say that, let's all remember I went to high
• 42:59
  school and college in Alabama. So let's let's move.
• 43:03
  You know, saying let's I got to be able to understand this now
• 43:05
  dress. All right?
• 43:06
  3p so far, I'm with you. Here's three p's of coaching,
• 43:11
  Excellence, according to research.
• 43:13
  Number one is obsessive preparation.
• 43:16
  Obsessive, the best coaches that I ever supervised.
• 43:19
  When I'm at operating at my best as a coach, I am obsessively
• 43:23
  prepared. And so, that's everything from
• 43:26
  calendaring POS on time. You're recruiting schedule,
• 43:32
  thinking down the road and what needs to be done and then doing
• 43:35
  it well in advance. And so obsessive, preparation is
• 43:38
  a characteristic of excellent coaching.
• 43:40
  The next one. This one's big positive
• 43:43
  responses to negative circumstances In an education.
• 43:46
  This is the this is the research of coaches in educational
• 43:49
  settings, right? And so, this isn't professional
• 43:51
  coaches though, I think there's some application, but this would
• 43:54
  be research of coaches in educational settings, where
• 43:56
  you're molding young people, whether they're 22 or their 12.
• 44:00
  You're molding young people, positive response to negative
• 44:03
  circumstances is enormous. It's an enormous influence on
• 44:07
  kids, its enormous model for them to watch and to see.
• 44:13
  And so when That long jumper, that triple jumper.
• 44:18
  They scratch, you know, three times in a row and it feels like
• 44:22
  the wheels are coming off their wagon and they are just
• 44:26
  despairing of life, no matter how poorly they did, or how they
• 44:31
  disregarded, your coaching in that moment, you've got to
• 44:35
  respond peasant positively. There's negative circumstances
• 44:37
  for the sake of that young person.
• 44:39
  And so that's the second positive response to negative
• 44:42
  circumstances, and it is brutally hard.
• 44:45
  Because you will, it will expose you, it'll expose you and how
• 44:50
  mentally tough, you are, you know, toughness isn't about
• 44:52
  like, hey I can slam my fingers in my car door and not Grimace
• 44:55
  right. Like that's not toughness, you
• 44:56
  know, toughness is being able to stay focused and that's where
• 45:00
  positive response - circumstances.
• 45:03
  You find out how focused people are, you know, basketball
• 45:06
  context coach loses his mind because the officiating isn't
• 45:09
  what he thinks it should be. That coach in that moment is not
• 45:11
  mentally tough. They have lost their focus, you
• 45:14
  know. And so You got to stay focused.
• 45:17
  So positive response. No surgeons third, and final p.
• 45:20
  And this would be really in the high school context.
• 45:24
  Parent Communicator. You've got to be a tremendous
• 45:27
  Communicator to the parents of your athletes.
• 45:31
  There's, there's some coaching Theory out there.
• 45:34
  I think it comes from the right place.
• 45:36
  I think it is misguided though that will know they're
• 45:38
  teenagers. I'm going to tell them and they
• 45:40
  tell their parents. Absolutely not.
• 45:42
  That's just, that's unbelievable in school settings.
• 45:45
  Seems we have a legal liability called in loco, parentis where
• 45:48
  we're in place of the parent when we their children are in
• 45:52
  our care, how in the world? Can we take the place of the
• 45:55
  parent if we never communicate with the parents?
• 45:58
  And so it is not our job to raise kids, that is something
• 46:03
  that God's word ain't parents to do but it is our job to partner
• 46:06
  with parents to educate kids. And there is very few things
• 46:10
  that are as educationally intense as the athletic
• 46:12
  experience. And so I could go on For a long
• 46:16
  time, how critical it is that coaches and a high school
• 46:18
  context, communicate to the parents of the student-athletes.
• 46:22
  You do that, and you're prepared and you're responding positively
• 46:26
  negative circumstances. I could say, probably 1,000
• 46:30
  percent confidence, that the greatest coaches that I have
• 46:33
  over seen as an ADA greatest coaches, I've learned from, and
• 46:36
  when I'm operating at a high level, all three of those things
• 46:39
  are very true about the coaching.
• 46:42
  So those are the three p's right there brother.
• 46:44
  All right, I love that. At and I don't want to be
• 46:47
  dismissive of preparation, I think that's spot-on that that
• 46:51
  seems very good. As for someone who is on the end
• 46:54
  of when people are not prepared as far as purchasing equipment
• 46:56
  and like, hey, I need to pull up it tomorrow's like we needed to
• 46:59
  prepare a little bit longer than that.
• 47:02
  And I don't want to be dismissive of parent
• 47:04
  communication. I love that.
• 47:05
  I love the thought that, you know, you gave the example of
• 47:08
  sometimes. We think that moms going to
• 47:09
  speak to the teenager and they'll speak to the parent.
• 47:11
  I feel like that's said by someone who has never had a
• 47:14
  teenager, so Put those to the side for a second, they're all
• 47:17
  part of the three pieces are extremely important, but I
• 47:19
  really want to dig in because when you said positive responses
• 47:24
  to negative circumstances like I thus my Spidey Sense tingling.
• 47:29
  I feel like maybe other listeners are like, oh wait a
• 47:32
  minute, and you gave a great example of the basketball coach
• 47:36
  Wright, think of the stereotypical Basco coat that
• 47:38
  just goes 8 crap, when I was called, doesn't go their way.
• 47:41
  And I love how you said that, that coach is not mentally tough
• 47:44
  in that, in that in. Since not the coaches in this
• 47:46
  era, mentally tough. But in that in that circumstance
• 47:49
  they're not and so that made me think, first of all, a couple
• 47:52
  things, one of self-awareness, of as a former coach myself of
• 47:56
  like, oh yeah, there were times where I lost it, you know, I was
• 48:00
  upset for may be valid Reasons by the way, you know, the with
• 48:04
  their kid, did the wrong thing Etc.
• 48:06
  But that also makes me think of, you know, I take everything back
• 48:09
  to social media and Twitter, you know, I see a lot of debates.
• 48:12
  A lot of times when they show up.
• 48:15
  Typically its football. Someone pick on football here, a
• 48:17
  little bit when a football coach goes off on a kid, you know, the
• 48:21
  grabbing the face mask and, you know, all this kind of stuff and
• 48:24
  they're invariably becomes the debate of is that appropriate?
• 48:29
  I don't think so. And oh, well, that my coach did
• 48:32
  that and boy, that whipped me into shape, or I did that with
• 48:36
  the kid. And that was really set that kid
• 48:38
  off to becoming the next president of the United States
• 48:41
  or whatever. What do you and maybe it isn't.
• 48:46
  Football context here. But I've seen in track by the
• 48:48
  way, no facemask grabbing. Thank God.
• 48:49
  But I've seen coaches, I mean light into two kids and I say
• 48:54
  kids. This is college kids all the way
• 48:56
  down to the high school side. So how do we want?
• 49:00
  Why does that happen? Why do we snap by the way again,
• 49:04
  hands I'm not pointing. Fingers are important thumbs
• 49:05
  that I've done this. Why do we do that?
• 49:09
  Some will, some would say well it's passion.
• 49:11
  I care about the kid if I don't show my emotions to that.
• 49:15
  Kid, they won't change. I guess is what we might say.
• 49:21
  So why does that happen? And maybe more importantly, do
• 49:25
  you know, do in your studies of this?
• 49:28
  Did you ever come up with a research, any coping mechanisms
• 49:31
  of like, you know, the stereotypical count to 10 before
• 49:34
  you say? Or is there any way we can maybe
• 49:36
  recognize that that's coming and may be headed off from the past
• 49:39
  and not allow it to actually come out externally?
• 49:43
  That's a great. I think for me and I would agree
• 49:46
  with you to Mike. This is not finger-pointing.
• 49:47
  This is thumb pointing I love that.
• 49:50
  I've had a long journey with simply being what I would call
• 49:55
  emotionally Reckless and I was talking to one of my former
• 50:00
  Players whose a coach in the Tampa, Bay area now, and when I
• 50:05
  coached him, I was a knucklehead.
• 50:08
  I was way too wound, way too tight.
• 50:11
  He was a knucklehead. He was wound way too tight and
• 50:15
  we had some real clashes, his Junior and Senior year today,
• 50:18
  he's one of my, one of my dearest friends, we talk all the
• 50:21
  time and we were talking, we were reflecting on that, you
• 50:24
  know, and we were both point and thumbs, you know?
• 50:27
  And I just really kind of synthesize this term of, you
• 50:30
  know, he was laughing about some of the very intense things that
• 50:35
  I did and he cuz he did, he has this perspective and posture on
• 50:39
  it that like, hey, like, that was tough love.
• 50:42
  Hey, like we That stuff. Hey and I look at it, he's
• 50:46
  obviously much younger than me. I look at it.
• 50:47
  At 44 years of age, I got a 20 19, 18, 17 year old.
• 50:51
  I've been working with teenagers for 23 years.
• 50:54
  I look at it as just emotionally Reckless mostly because I was
• 50:59
  embarrassed right? Like think about it, your kid
• 51:02
  didn't perform to the level that you thought you would train them
• 51:05
  to. And now it's obvious to an
• 51:07
  entire Arena, an entire bleachers and entire gymnasium,
• 51:11
  full of people and you're embarrassed And and so I think
• 51:14
  if coaches really take a moment and think on it, it's one of two
• 51:17
  reasons that they act like that primarily, they're embarrassed
• 51:20
  that their kid is not performing to the degree.
• 51:22
  You thought you would prepare them to perform and now you're
• 51:25
  coaching is coming under the microscope in front of everyone.
• 51:29
  It's embarrassed or number two. It's just flat two competitive.
• 51:32
  I want to win. And I've lost track of my
• 51:36
  emotions and now I'm emotionally Reckless.
• 51:39
  And so I found Mike that as my career evolved.
• 51:43
  I learned as I matured as I grow as people spoke truth in my
• 51:45
  life, but I think a lot of the coaches that don't evolve in
• 51:49
  this, in how to handle this stuff, they don't have enough
• 51:52
  people throughout the year speaking truth into their life,
• 51:54
  giving them real feedback. And so I had those people
• 51:58
  speaking that truth into my life and as I evolved and matured, I
• 52:03
  really found myself strongly Desiring that the kids
• 52:07
  experience success, so that they could feel that feeling they
• 52:11
  could have that Rush. Right?
• 52:13
  And it was amazing. How much more resilient I was
• 52:18
  when really like, it wasn't. I like I wasn't embarrassed
• 52:21
  anymore. I like I understood that like,
• 52:22
  hey kids, like these are teenagers.
• 52:25
  They're going to get out there and do the craziest things
• 52:27
  sometimes and you know you just never guessed that.
• 52:29
  That's how they would do it, you know?
• 52:31
  And so as I'm insured in that area, as I matured in
• 52:33
  understanding, like as bad as I want to win, I want I want the
• 52:37
  kid to feel winning even more than I want to win, you know.
• 52:41
  And all of a sudden I became a lot more.
• 52:43
  Wasn't perfect, but I was a lot more steady.
• 52:45
  How do you, how do you avoid it or how do you reduce the risk?
• 52:48
  That it happens. You've got to give people
• 52:51
  permission to speak, truth in your life.
• 52:53
  You need truck. What I call trusted antagonists
• 52:55
  in your life. These are the people that you
• 52:58
  trust and they will speak antagonistic things into you.
• 53:01
  They will hold you accountable. They will say things that make
• 53:04
  you squirm, but because you trust them, you can just barely
• 53:08
  tolerate it, you know, you don't trust them, you know?
• 53:11
  It's going to be hard, but You know?
• 53:14
  And so I would coaches if you're out there and you're reflecting
• 53:17
  right now, you're thinking, man, I am still a hot mess in this
• 53:20
  area of responding positive and negative circumstances.
• 53:24
  I would I would ask you to reflect on who have you given
• 53:26
  permission to speak truth into your life?
• 53:29
  Who have you pulled aside? It's an assistant coach.
• 53:31
  Maybe I love these. I'm going to I'm going to try
• 53:35
  not be offensive here but you got these old folks every so
• 53:40
  often. It love to just hang around your
• 53:42
  program. Right?
• 53:43
  They've been in your community forever, they love it.
• 53:46
  They're always around. Let me tell you something.
• 53:49
  You pull some of those, those old dudes aside some of those
• 53:51
  old gal's aside and you ask them, what they're seeing, you
• 53:55
  will find in mense wisdom in what they're seeing, you know,
• 54:00
  you ask them. Hey, what do you think I could
• 54:03
  do better. If you were me.
• 54:04
  What would you do? You know, it's unbelievable.
• 54:07
  You know, they'll probably really crassly tell you.
• 54:09
  I'd stop Beyond at the kids so much you know, and like all the
• 54:12
  like that's important. Ruth that you need to hear.
• 54:14
  So if you're looking to reduce the risk of responding negative
• 54:18
  2 negative circumstances, it's really going to come through
• 54:22
  trusted antagonist, speaking, truth of your life long before
• 54:25
  those moments show up and in that moment, you'll pick out of
• 54:28
  the corner of your eye. And, you know, they're watching
• 54:30
  you, you know that assistant coaches watching you to see how
• 54:32
  you're going to respond because they know that something just
• 54:34
  hit your hot button. You know.
• 54:36
  I can be important accountability in the moment.
• 54:39
  Yeah I love that was a great advice about you know, these
• 54:42
  emeritus Which is that are hanging around or and they don't
• 54:45
  have to be coaches, you know, they can be former teachers,
• 54:47
  parents grandparents, you know, that's interesting, icky to
• 54:50
  that. I want to add on just a little
• 54:52
  bit and you can challenge me as appropriate is when you do ask
• 54:56
  that. First of all that's super hard
• 54:57
  like you talk about humble, misses being able to go ask
• 55:00
  someone hey, so what did you think when you are watching like
• 55:04
  I want to be better, so where can I be better?
• 55:07
  What do you notice? That's hard, first of all, in a
• 55:11
  lot of people if they don't have Of the trust in.
• 55:13
  You are going to give you the cursory answers.
• 55:15
  Oh yeah, no, no, you're great. Oh yeah, no, no.
• 55:17
  It's, you know, maybe was one thing, but being able to have
• 55:22
  the posture of listening and then after they maybe tell you
• 55:25
  that hard truth Thanking them like oh man, first of all,
• 55:31
  appreciate that you trust that I would respond correctly enough
• 55:35
  that you would tell me that you would allow yourself to be ready
• 55:38
  for me to blow up on you if I respond to this incorrectly.
• 55:41
  So first of all, thank you for trusting in me.
• 55:43
  And thank you for like, wanting me to be better.
• 55:45
  And then going out, and either making a change or not.
• 55:49
  Because not every all advices, you know, the right advice.
• 55:51
  But, you know, being able to have that that stature of
• 55:54
  listening and thankfulness and gratefulness to the person, Not
• 55:58
  just giving you the cursory like, oh, yeah, you're great,
• 55:59
  you're doing awesome. Whatever is important add-on
• 56:03
  with that that our people are just going to never give you,
• 56:06
  you know, speak truth to power. The never going to give you the
• 56:08
  truth on it, and that means you're never going to get
• 56:10
  better. So why in the world did you even
• 56:12
  ask? You know, at that point.
• 56:13
  So I love that the other aspect that was thinking about their
• 56:17
  Chris as you were talking about that, you're talking about, he
• 56:20
  said teenagers and their Knuckleheads are going to do,
• 56:22
  you know what they do, because they're teenagers.
• 56:24
  And I find sometimes in conversations with coach, Has
• 56:28
  that we forget that we were teenagers at one point and we
• 56:32
  probably definitely did at least one thing during high school or
• 56:37
  college that we look back and we were like yeah coach probably
• 56:41
  wouldn't have liked that. They would have known about it.
• 56:43
  Done it right. I think about, I have a good
• 56:46
  friend, who's a track World person, Justin Gatlin.
• 56:50
  And he and I both have children that are.
• 56:53
  I have a sixth grader. He is a 7th grader.
• 56:55
  And I was at an event with him and his wife and his It was
• 56:58
  asking me questions about, you know, because we have similar to
• 57:00
  Children's. I came into your your boy did
• 57:03
  this, you know? Yeah.
• 57:04
  Well Alana's like, yeah. Like he does.
• 57:06
  And, you know, I can't believe you know why and not to die.
• 57:09
  And Justin comes up, this was odd for me because I've known
• 57:12
  Justin since he was like 17, 16 years old.
• 57:14
  So he still even though we're not that far apart in age, he's
• 57:18
  still a kid to me. Even though all the accolades,
• 57:20
  you know, gold medalist world record, all this kinda stuff.
• 57:21
  He's still a kid to me and he comes up and we bring them into
• 57:25
  the conversation and he goes, yeah, you know, Sometimes we
• 57:28
  forget that, we were probably that exact same way at their
• 57:31
  age, and it was one of those were like all dang, he's right?
• 57:37
  And it's like, but you're a kid. How are you giving this advice?
• 57:39
  Only know, you're a dad, you're a father now, like this blows my
• 57:42
  mind, but it was one of those like, oh, sometimes even though
• 57:46
  we're working with 14 15, 16 years old, 20 21, 22 year olds
• 57:49
  in college, we have to have Grace that, you know, they're
• 57:52
  going to make mistakes. They're going to do things that
• 57:54
  we don't agree with. Again, we probably did
• 57:57
  something. Very similar, we were, and we're
• 57:58
  not Angels ourselves and look where we got to.
• 58:01
  So it's not the end of the world because they make this terrible.
• 58:04
  No good decision. So having some Grace and
• 58:07
  continue to exemplify the leadership and given them.
• 58:11
  The example of what, the right decisions.
• 58:13
  Look like is extremely important.
• 58:14
  And so, to your point about positive, responsive responses
• 58:18
  to negative circumstances, if you're showing negative
• 58:20
  responses to negative circumstances.
• 58:22
  Well, you're not being that that representation to them.
• 58:25
  They're actually, you are being a representation to, Them
• 58:27
  they're saying, oh, wait a minute, I look up to coach, look
• 58:30
  what look what he or she does. That must mean that's the way to
• 58:35
  like I can do that then because that's what I want to be one
• 58:37
  day. I want to be like that person,
• 58:38
  so you're being an example, one way or the other.
• 58:43
  I think to your point is let's let's be more positive examples
• 58:47
  than negative ones to these young people.
• 58:49
  I love it. So Chris jump, jump into this
• 58:53
  year. You have been an extremely
• 58:55
  successful basketball coach, Ad of the Year, 40 under 40, which
• 59:00
  I'm totally not jealous about at all.
• 59:02
  And then this year, you find yourself, you've been around a
• 59:06
  lot of track coaches and distance coaches, but now you
• 59:09
  find yourself. Well, how do you find yourself?
• 59:11
  What are you doing? Coaching track and field
• 59:14
  distance Runners, this past year.
• 59:16
  Tell us about that. Yeah, so we moved to Houston
• 59:19
  Texas, 20 months ago and had a coaching change taking place in
• 59:24
  our athletic department coming into this school year.
• 59:27
  So between my first and second year and the through just
• 59:33
  circumstances that are incredibly inconvenient and no
• 59:37
  one's fault, right? Like sometimes life is just like
• 59:39
  that, right? It just goes sideways, we're ten
• 59:42
  days out from my son. Starting his senior
• 59:44
  cross-country season, and my son is very passionate distance
• 59:47
  Runner. As I said, and we've got no
• 59:49
  coach here at Second Baptist school.
• 59:53
  And like I said, I've got a robust background in sport my
• 59:57
  role. Here at second, my primary role
• 59:59
  had no longer anything to do with sport.
• 1:00:02
  I was a broader leadership across the face of the school
• 1:00:04
  but we're ten days out from cross country season and the
• 1:00:08
  program needed a rebuild. That's why we were going through
• 1:00:11
  a hiring process and it just it just fell apart at the last
• 1:00:14
  second for no one's fault. And my wife looks at me were
• 1:00:17
  driving back from Lake Travis, we're on vacation at Lake Travis
• 1:00:21
  here in Texas, driving back to Houston and she looks at me and
• 1:00:24
  she says, you're the new Cross Country.
• 1:00:26
  Coach go tell. The ad and so had it endured
• 1:00:30
  your mind at all. No, they've really hadn't.
• 1:00:34
  You know, I'm thinking kind of like institutional
• 1:00:36
  organizational leadership. How are we going to organize the
• 1:00:39
  pieces? However, you know nothing about
• 1:00:42
  personally jumping in and she said it and, you know, it really
• 1:00:48
  under the circumstances was the only solution.
• 1:00:52
  And so I said, I knew enough to be dangerous.
• 1:00:55
  I certainly know how to develop culture and get parents pulled
• 1:00:59
  in and get stuff organized and get kids.
• 1:01:02
  Excited I know. Mind-numbing Lee persistent and
• 1:01:06
  consistent. And so, you know, that that
• 1:01:08
  bodes well for practice every day and practice planning.
• 1:01:11
  And and so the void for me. So, I dive in next thing, you
• 1:01:15
  know, we're sending out an email to the entire School Community.
• 1:01:17
  You know, that I have accepted the role was head cross-country
• 1:01:20
  coach. I thought my coaching in my
• 1:01:22
  athletic directing days were way behind me.
• 1:01:24
  And here we are back again, and man, what an amazing year and I
• 1:01:30
  just knew what best practice for the Most part will look like in
• 1:01:34
  distance running and we just drove in.
• 1:01:36
  I got to give a couple shout outs here.
• 1:01:38
  So I'm Greg. Copeland Greg who had an
• 1:01:41
  incredible run as the across country and distance and track
• 1:01:44
  and field coach at Valor Christian up in Colorado.
• 1:01:47
  Greg was like my virtual assistant coach because I
• 1:01:51
  didn't, I really didn't have a great handle on the science of
• 1:01:54
  this, the programming of it. You know, I gobbled up, Jay
• 1:01:57
  Johnson stuff. I gobbled up, dr.
• 1:01:59
  Jack Daniels stuff as fast as I could.
• 1:02:02
  I've got a match. Green sport coaching which
• 1:02:04
  includes a lot of work and like biomechanics.
• 1:02:06
  And so, like, I could understand what they're saying.
• 1:02:08
  I just couldn't really understand it.
• 1:02:09
  Well enough to program it and to like, teach it to others.
• 1:02:13
  You know, like that, that's the ultimate understand level of
• 1:02:15
  understanding. And so Greg was a huge Lifesaver
• 1:02:19
  for me, my talk to Greg, probably three times a week and
• 1:02:23
  he really, really helped me make sure that scientifically I was I
• 1:02:26
  was, I was accurate. I was good and helping these
• 1:02:29
  kids move for. And I had this wide spectrum of
• 1:02:32
  I got my son who's in year seven or eight of his distance running
• 1:02:36
  career. And at that time he's being
• 1:02:38
  recruited by probably 12 13 different schools to go
• 1:02:41
  collegiately run and I've got kids coming on to the program.
• 1:02:45
  I've never done this before ever in their lives.
• 1:02:47
  They're just trying it out for the first time and so how in the
• 1:02:50
  world do you create an atmosphere where you can help
• 1:02:55
  such a wide spectrum of performers, achieve and enjoy
• 1:02:59
  it. And that was the great
• 1:03:00
  leadership challenge that I will.
• 1:03:02
  We embraced, Greg was great. Huge, shout-out to Greg.
• 1:03:06
  Wonderful, wonderful man. That loves kids.
• 1:03:09
  Does it for the right reasons and he's a, heck of a distance
• 1:03:12
  running coach. And then Bill Mitchell, who,
• 1:03:14
  I've already referenced, I talked to Bill all the time as
• 1:03:17
  well, was my son's former coach before we moved from Florida to
• 1:03:20
  Texas. And so Bill and Greg really
• 1:03:22
  propped me up on the science side of things and then the, the
• 1:03:26
  daily energy and all that I can run.
• 1:03:28
  So anyway, that's how I end up doing it.
• 1:03:30
  We did almost 40 weeks of training between Tween cross
• 1:03:33
  country season, a winter running program, and then track and
• 1:03:37
  field season, and it ended up being a huge blessing.
• 1:03:40
  I loved it. I learned so much.
• 1:03:43
  Love these kids, my son who had a monster senior year after a
• 1:03:49
  really challenging junior year. He had a monster senior year.
• 1:03:53
  I got to know our school at a deeper level because of the wide
• 1:03:56
  array of kids that particularly track and field roles in you
• 1:04:00
  draw in your explosive athlete. You draw in your First time kid
• 1:04:03
  trying it you draw on your kid that thinks they can just jump.
• 1:04:06
  You draw on your your strong Burly kids at throw things you
• 1:04:09
  draw in you know you're just my son is a distance Runner so I
• 1:04:12
  can say this is the weird distance Runners you know like
• 1:04:15
  you draw on all these kids and you get to know these kids and
• 1:04:17
  all these families. And so for a guy in his second
• 1:04:19
  year, leading kind of at a global level, it was a great way
• 1:04:23
  to Deep dive on our community. So we just wrapped it up.
• 1:04:26
  What a blast it was I would never have chosen to do it but
• 1:04:30
  man, am I glad that I did it? It was great.
• 1:04:32
  It was a blast. Just so someone from the outside
• 1:04:35
  yet and coached cross-country and track and field.
• 1:04:38
  But again, extensive background in basketball and other sports
• 1:04:42
  leadership. What was the like, I'm just
• 1:04:44
  curious from, you know, most of us that are listening and your
• 1:04:48
  humble host here, grew up in track and field.
• 1:04:50
  We done it for decades. Now, depending on how old we are
• 1:04:54
  decades for this guy. What was I'm interested for
• 1:04:57
  someone who's in sport, but now, like, for a year, you've been
• 1:05:00
  you were in track and field. What was the uh, The oddest
• 1:05:03
  thing whether it's about our sport, whether it's about like
• 1:05:06
  yeah this event, this high jump is whether it's an event,
• 1:05:08
  whether it's like how we get our officials, whether it's how the
• 1:05:11
  meats were, what was just like when you look back these past 40
• 1:05:14
  weeks, what was it? Just like and I'm just not sure
• 1:05:18
  why we do this and track and field.
• 1:05:21
  I don't know if this was odd. It was unbelievable.
• 1:05:24
  It was very surprising to me, would be like that wind?
• 1:05:29
  Is it like a real Factor 1 x, right?
• 1:05:32
  Like I had no idea. So my son who's a study or my
• 1:05:36
  son's a learner like, I am. So he reads a lot, you know, and
• 1:05:39
  he's a you know, probably read. I'd say at least a dozen books
• 1:05:43
  on distance running. You know, everything about
• 1:05:45
  Steve, Prefontaine everything about the dynasty you know
• 1:05:49
  University of Rado. He's read about Phil Knight
• 1:05:53
  Bill, Bowman, you know, you know, he's read all these guys
• 1:05:56
  and so he knows a lot about it and I, he thought I was the
• 1:05:59
  biggest idiot in the world. When he found out that I didn't
• 1:06:02
  know that wind accounts for, you know, rating of these times and
• 1:06:07
  how accurate and how acceptable some of these times are so that
• 1:06:09
  really I was like man. They really have thought of
• 1:06:12
  everything in this track of field world and then the other
• 1:06:17
  thing is just the the where the thing Again it wasn't like odd.
• 1:06:22
  It was just man, what a learning experience, the wear and tear on
• 1:06:27
  the body that these athletes endure, you know, wasn't it?
• 1:06:31
  Because as a basketball coach, you know, you mostly think about
• 1:06:33
  wear and tear like diving on the floor, Jim Burns and torn ACLs
• 1:06:38
  and taking a charge and banging your head on the floor, you
• 1:06:40
  know, that's what you think about wear and tear, you know.
• 1:06:43
  And like I learned so much about the, the micro level, the micro
• 1:06:48
  damage that these young people. People endure and have to
• 1:06:52
  appropriately recover from if they're going to perform at
• 1:06:54
  their best. That was super fascinating to
• 1:06:57
  me. And because again, I'm new like
• 1:07:00
  I'm just, you know, I'm just really, really open when you're
• 1:07:03
  new, you're open, you know, you don't come in with any
• 1:07:05
  preconceived notions or like postures on anything and so that
• 1:07:11
  was fascinating. And so those are probably the
• 1:07:14
  two things, the wind and then like the word tear on the body
• 1:07:17
  and how careful you have to be, that was just awesome stuff for
• 1:07:20
  It's great Insight because we have a lot of conversations
• 1:07:23
  around track and field about how do we get more people in the
• 1:07:26
  stands, you know, in the high school level, it's the number
• 1:07:28
  one, most participated Sport, and the college level.
• 1:07:30
  It's number one, most participated sport, when you had
• 1:07:32
  men and women and boys and girls together.
• 1:07:34
  So we know walking out in society, we give a pretty good
• 1:07:38
  high probability. You're going to meet someone who
• 1:07:40
  ran track at some point in their life.
• 1:07:42
  Well, why aren't they at track meets, right?
• 1:07:45
  And then we also flip the conversation and we'll talk
• 1:07:49
  about Oh, so it was over 2 meters, a second for the win so
• 1:07:54
  it doesn't count. I remember it's the glad you
• 1:07:57
  mentioned that we were at. I think the Olympic trials are
• 1:08:00
  u.s. trouser, one of the US championships and we had one of
• 1:08:04
  our Engineers therefore, just in case, you know, any equipment
• 1:08:07
  went down or whatnot, not a truck guy, by any means lived
• 1:08:10
  and worked on a truck company but doesn't mean every one of us
• 1:08:12
  are traffic, right? And the 100-meter quarters are
• 1:08:17
  ya, quarter-finals. Go off.
• 1:08:20
  The wind was like it 4.0 is a pretty high.
• 1:08:22
  It was in Eugene, Hayward Field and so everything is you know,
• 1:08:26
  when dated right? But as announcers and even as
• 1:08:29
  coaches will say, oh it was illegal.
• 1:08:32
  We don't say just it was when dated it's like it's illegal and
• 1:08:35
  so you know the first round went off and was like oh you know but
• 1:08:38
  at legal illegal win the next round OE legal went there
• 1:08:41
  already legal one everyone and my dear guy comes out and goes
• 1:08:44
  oh man really sucks for those hundred meter guys.
• 1:08:47
  That's like that's like okay. What did I'm it?
• 1:08:49
  Like what Happened to him, you know?
• 1:08:51
  And I was like, what do you mean?
• 1:08:52
  He's like, well, the announcer kept saying it was illegal so
• 1:08:55
  they got to go run it again or something, right?
• 1:08:56
  Or they're all disqualified or something and I was like, my
• 1:09:00
  instant reaction was like dope. You work for a track of, you
• 1:09:02
  should know what this means, but then as I kind of put myself in
• 1:09:05
  another person's shoes at who doesn't know track.
• 1:09:07
  It's like, yeah, wait a minute. Why do we say eagle Eagle that
• 1:09:11
  the average person here is illegal?
• 1:09:13
  Because yeah, exactly. The average person was illegal.
• 1:09:16
  That means you did something wrong.
• 1:09:18
  So you're kicked out or you're arrested whatever.
• 1:09:20
  It is wind-aided so can't count for record but you still go on
• 1:09:23
  to the next round based on how you but he was really
• 1:09:25
  interesting. Like yeah, this is why we can't
• 1:09:28
  get people in the stands that we someone person goes to a meeting
• 1:09:31
  goes, oh well, they had a bunch of illegal things.
• 1:09:33
  Well, I don't want to watch a sport that, you know, does all
• 1:09:35
  that kind of stuff, you know. It's so so wacky.
• 1:09:38
  We're in our own bubbles. I love hearing perspective from
• 1:09:41
  kind of call it outside. The bubble that in you got into
• 1:09:44
  the bubble real real deep this year with you, I don't know,
• 1:09:47
  maybe track and field has it right?
• 1:09:49
  Mike Maybe like the next time. A kicker kicks, a field goal in
• 1:09:52
  the Wind Blows it away. You know we should know.
• 1:09:53
  No the wind you know, let's do it again.
• 1:09:56
  The wind blew it away. Yeah.
• 1:09:57
  Well we have our own idiosyncrasies but counter to
• 1:10:03
  our source Port. We were very exacting, right?
• 1:10:05
  We talked about when we measure down to the CM, we time down to
• 1:10:09
  the thousandth of the second but then we also pull a tape to
• 1:10:14
  measure and and another person is pulling on the other end, by
• 1:10:17
  the way. Then we do win readings but we
• 1:10:22
  don't remember that. Wind isn't in like one big a lie
• 1:10:26
  all the way down so the wind can be different on one half of the
• 1:10:29
  track versus the other, you know, four lanes versus either
• 1:10:32
  four lanes and also the timing of it could be weighed.
• 1:10:34
  Yeah, we have our own. We like to think that we are so
• 1:10:38
  specific and oh, we measure pole, vault, and we'll take this
• 1:10:41
  device and it's, you know, it's 18 feet up.
• 1:10:43
  We'll take this device and try to touch the top of the
• 1:10:45
  crossbar. We're trying to look up, you
• 1:10:47
  know, 18 feet down. Oh yeah, that touched it's like
• 1:10:50
  No, there's no way you know that that is exact but we say, oh no,
• 1:10:56
  that jump was five point eight. One mean that's incorrect
• 1:10:59
  electively. Nicholas electively, meticulous,
• 1:11:02
  selectively, meticulous, yes yes, yes, I love it.
• 1:11:05
  I love it. What, what was the most awesome
• 1:11:08
  thing that you saw this this year in track and field?
• 1:11:11
  Whether it was a race or an interaction between a coach and
• 1:11:14
  athlete or coach, or athlete to athlete?
• 1:11:17
  Who was, you know, if you think back you like oh man you know
• 1:11:19
  what kind of mood me a B, this was cool this year that I saw
• 1:11:23
  Yeah, the look on a kid's face, you know, when they do something
• 1:11:28
  unexpected, you know they they PR, they win unexpectedly, you
• 1:11:33
  know, it just all came together like every every molecule of
• 1:11:37
  there being was firing in the right direction and they just
• 1:11:41
  they did something spectacular. That's just so fun.
• 1:11:45
  Almost always you can correlate it with Relentless training, you
• 1:11:50
  know, and so in that moment coach it's really important.
• 1:11:53
  Don't celebrate their talent. That undermines their growth
• 1:11:56
  mindset. Don't celebrate their skill.
• 1:11:59
  Don't don't celebrate those things because you're going to
• 1:12:02
  communicate to them inadvertently, that they were
• 1:12:05
  not ultimately in control of what happened.
• 1:12:07
  It's the way they got beta more. It was the way the sun was that
• 1:12:11
  day, or whatever. It might be, you really want to
• 1:12:13
  celebrate their work that led to a dr.
• 1:12:15
  Carol dweck talks a ton about this, in her, in her book,
• 1:12:19
  growth mindset, as does dr. Angela Duckworth in grit and
• 1:12:25
  both those books. If greater the field, training,
• 1:12:28
  young people, both, those books are really, really valuable and
• 1:12:31
  they've got a lot of sport and educational context to them.
• 1:12:34
  But they both say when your children were this case, your
• 1:12:37
  athletes accomplish something you, make sure you highlight and
• 1:12:41
  celebrate something. They were in control of, you
• 1:12:44
  know, and that will send the message to them that they need
• 1:12:47
  to keep doing those things and they'll get a chance to
• 1:12:50
  experience more of these feelings.
• 1:12:52
  And And it'll make a more resilient when it doesn't go the
• 1:12:55
  way that they planned. And so, that was the fun thing
• 1:12:58
  is to see these kids do something their eyes just light
• 1:13:01
  up. Like I can't believe I just did
• 1:13:02
  that. Well you just did it because you
• 1:13:04
  know you've trained relentlessly for the last six weeks and you
• 1:13:07
  this is inevitably the result of your work ethic and a your
• 1:13:10
  consistency. And so those were really really,
• 1:13:13
  really fun moments. We had again like we were
• 1:13:16
  rebuilding the thing and so like I said, I had my son on one end
• 1:13:19
  of the spectrum and I had all these brand-new Young It's on
• 1:13:23
  the other end of spectrum, every single one of our cross country
• 1:13:26
  Runners, which was only nine. So don't like think I'm running
• 1:13:28
  this monster cross-country program are literally building
• 1:13:30
  it from scratch. Every one of our cross country
• 1:13:33
  Runners, my son all the way to our youngest kid PR in the
• 1:13:36
  district championships in the fall.
• 1:13:38
  And that was that was super fun. You know, like they're just all
• 1:13:41
  looking at each other. Like the I can't believe we just
• 1:13:44
  did that together. You know?
• 1:13:45
  And they had been relentlessly consistent.
• 1:13:47
  We talked about the consistency is a superpower so that was a
• 1:13:51
  fun thing. That's cool.
• 1:13:53
  Help me work something out because something you just said,
• 1:13:55
  they're struck a chord with me and something that I'm kind of
• 1:13:58
  Relentless and passionate about, you talked about when the kid
• 1:14:03
  does something good to focus on that, you know, it was because
• 1:14:06
  of the work they did something that was in their control right.
• 1:14:10
  And what that made me think of is on the athletic side only
• 1:14:14
  athlete side, very maybe. I don't this is track and field
• 1:14:18
  or other so let's stick with track here, you'll hear it a lot
• 1:14:21
  of times like oh well You know, I got lucky because the wind,
• 1:14:26
  the famous wind or well. Yeah, I was just in the right
• 1:14:29
  race and they pulled me to the pi, like it becomes like it to
• 1:14:33
  me, it's this. And I don't know if this is a
• 1:14:35
  real term or not, but it becomes fake humbleness, which is, I
• 1:14:38
  think is very dangerous, and there's humbleness.
• 1:14:40
  That's, that's a superpower that's hot.
• 1:14:42
  That's we all need those at humbleness in the work that we
• 1:14:46
  do. Fake humbleness is not, you
• 1:14:48
  know, some ability god-given ability or your ability that you
• 1:14:53
  Done through training and hard work, you dismiss it by saying,
• 1:14:56
  oh, I got lucky at cetera. Here's where I hear this in the
• 1:14:58
  coaching world, this is really interesting, both ends of the
• 1:15:02
  spectrum here. I will hear coaches rightfully.
• 1:15:06
  So talk about, hey, if you want to be a good coach in regards to
• 1:15:09
  the X's and O's not the leadership here, you know, you
• 1:15:12
  need to go to clinics. You need to talk to other
• 1:15:13
  coaches that are smarter than you.
• 1:15:14
  You need. You need to work on your craft
• 1:15:16
  become the best coach that you can become because that or you
• 1:15:19
  can't help kids, but thumbs up that It seems right, I know,
• 1:15:24
  that's right. And then I promise you that
• 1:15:28
  coach will turn around and someone will give them a
• 1:15:31
  compliment. Hey, congrats on the conference
• 1:15:32
  Champs, congrats on the state leader, whatever, and they will
• 1:15:36
  say have, it's a very famous saying, in the track world, I'm
• 1:15:39
  just the bus driver. That's good.
• 1:15:44
  Meaning, it ain't what I did. They're the ones doing it all.
• 1:15:48
  I just drove him to the track meet and they did it.
• 1:15:51
  It's me. That is fake humbleness.
• 1:15:53
  You are dismissing the preparation that you put in, for
• 1:15:56
  the athletes. The work that you have done it
• 1:15:59
  cetera. Yeah, I don't know where the
• 1:16:03
  question is here for. This is why, but why do we do
• 1:16:06
  that? Why is it, is it a fear of the
• 1:16:09
  too far to the other side of arrogance?
• 1:16:12
  You know, someone gives you a compliment you like only?
• 1:16:13
  That's right. I did do this training and blah,
• 1:16:16
  blah, blah. That's not good either.
• 1:16:18
  I'm not saying that that's the way to go, but why why is it so
• 1:16:21
  hard? Maybe here's the question.
• 1:16:22
  Chris, why is it so hard when we receive a compliment as a coach
• 1:16:26
  specifically, for us to say, thank you.
• 1:16:30
  Hmm, that's good, that's good. I think probably most coaches,
• 1:16:36
  you know, like, really the entire sport world gets a bad
• 1:16:39
  rap because, you know, you see the one parent fight at the, a,
• 1:16:42
  your tournament on you, on Twitter, you know.
• 1:16:45
  And you forget that, that is, that's an anomaly that is not
• 1:16:48
  happening at every single tournament in most instances,
• 1:16:51
  there's wonderful coat. You see the coach going on a
• 1:16:53
  tirade, on a kid, throwing a baton across the infield, acting
• 1:16:56
  like a fool. And that's that's that's a
• 1:16:59
  reality of living in today. In Egypt, we will see that
• 1:17:02
  because the social media but that isn't a largely coaching is
• 1:17:08
  an altruistic Endeavor. You are in it for the good of
• 1:17:12
  others, you might love the sport, you might love the
• 1:17:14
  competition, you might love a coach that had an impact in your
• 1:17:17
  life that made you fall in love with it.
• 1:17:19
  Those things will be true, but the outflow of those things
• 1:17:22
  speaking into you is that you would like to do the same thing
• 1:17:25
  for a young person. You would like to give them an
• 1:17:28
  experience that you yourself had.
• 1:17:30
  In some cases, you yourself didn't have and you always wish
• 1:17:32
  you did. I'm going to turn around, make
• 1:17:34
  sure the kids get it as much as you can control it.
• 1:17:36
  And so I think it's altruistic in nature and so I do think
• 1:17:39
  there is a posture of deflection as a result.
• 1:17:43
  You know, you deflect that I do think that it's important for
• 1:17:49
  the kids to see a leader deflecting the credit sharing
• 1:17:53
  the spotlight, I do think that's important.
• 1:17:56
  I also think here's here's probably the actual answer to
• 1:17:59
  that. How do we manage?
• 1:18:00
  That the people that are hiring coaches in my opinion, it should
• 1:18:04
  be very, very good at celebrating coaches, because
• 1:18:08
  these high-powered coaches on all levels.
• 1:18:12
  Dynamic leaders, their super passionate their sacrificial,
• 1:18:16
  they could do everything except celebrate themselves, they can't
• 1:18:20
  celebrate themselves, you just, you just gave a great example.
• 1:18:22
  How awkward it would be? If a Coach literally accepted
• 1:18:25
  the credit on an interview and said, yeah, I have worked really
• 1:18:27
  hard and I really know my crap. You know, like it.
• 1:18:30
  It just wouldn't ever fly that way.
• 1:18:31
  It's the one thing they can't do is celebrate themselves.
• 1:18:33
  And so, you know, if you're, if you're an administrator at a
• 1:18:37
  school, if you're an athletic director, if you're in a
• 1:18:40
  position to hire and place coaches, I would strongly
• 1:18:43
  encourage you have a strategy in your mind for how you're going
• 1:18:45
  to celebrate those coaches. Because it's the one thing that
• 1:18:48
  they can't really do for themselves.
• 1:18:50
  Everything else they do for themselves.
• 1:18:51
  That's why you hired them, they can't do that.
• 1:18:53
  And so I think that's ultimately the answer to being okay with
• 1:18:56
  the fact that they're going to deflect.
• 1:18:57
  The praise to the kids. In that moment, I tell you.
• 1:19:00
  It has changed has with no hyperbole, you know, this is
• 1:19:05
  episode number 209. So I've had 209, including you
• 1:19:09
  now, Chris coaches, actually it's more because I've had
• 1:19:12
  coaching staffs on here. So you know, we're probably 300
• 1:19:15
  coaches that I've been able to speak to on very in-depth.
• 1:19:19
  You know, I said this before is not an easy podcast to listen to
• 1:19:22
  this ain't your 20-minute podcast 30 Minute Podcast.
• 1:19:24
  These are I mean, minimum we are typically an hour on the hour
• 1:19:27
  and 20 Mark already right here with you.
• 1:19:30
  You Chris. So these are hard to listen to
• 1:19:32
  harder to listen to the. You got to be intentional to
• 1:19:34
  listen to an hour or two hours for coaches, and it is changed
• 1:19:40
  my life over these 200 to 300 coaches to where, you know, we
• 1:19:43
  started this podcast, uplift and Honor track coaches and what
• 1:19:46
  they do for young people in this society and what those kids end
• 1:19:49
  up becoming positive members of our society?
• 1:19:52
  And, you know, I end every episode, the same way
• 1:19:55
  purposefully of being able to thank the coach like hey, you
• 1:19:58
  know, I represent, you know, hundreds, Kids that didn't say,
• 1:20:01
  it's you hundreds of parents that didn't say it to you.
• 1:20:02
  Because, you know, for me personally, and for all of us
• 1:20:05
  here at Gilles Lennox, you know, this doesn't exist without
• 1:20:08
  coaches, you know, just, they just doesn't, you know, that
• 1:20:10
  none of this happens without, without the coaches are out
• 1:20:13
  there. And it is a unbelievable joy to
• 1:20:16
  show gratefulness and to show thankfulness and to speak it
• 1:20:22
  outwardly, you know, one of the great honors last year.
• 1:20:26
  Yeah, last year, so 2022, we kicked off.
• 1:20:30
  Off that season with boo schexnayder, great coach at LSU
• 1:20:34
  and during my coaching career, boo was my mentor.
• 1:20:37
  He poured into me. And I mean, he was just, you
• 1:20:40
  know, I am who I am because of Boo and his education and so
• 1:20:44
  kind of like when you talked about Billy bills, what would
• 1:20:48
  Great Name by the way? Thank you.
• 1:20:49
  That's an easy name to remember. I appreciate that very much, you
• 1:20:52
  know, to be able to speak back to, you know, your coaches, your
• 1:20:55
  coach from up in Pennsylvania. It's a great responsibility.
• 1:21:00
  To be able to tell them like, hey, I probably would probably
• 1:21:03
  have never said this or I've said it in cursory and you
• 1:21:05
  deflected it, but now I get to do in a very public stage here
• 1:21:08
  on the podcast. Would you know, lots and lots of
• 1:21:11
  listeners and Watchers and say thank you.
• 1:21:14
  You made my life better you or one of the pieces of the puzzle
• 1:21:17
  that have made me. Who I am today and that is where
• 1:21:21
  I want it to your point about. If you're going to hire coaches,
• 1:21:24
  be good at celebrating coaches. I think there is some self-worth
• 1:21:28
  of us as a track coach. Gene body of celebrating each
• 1:21:32
  other. Now, I have seen and this is
• 1:21:34
  different from what I coached young back in my day, when I
• 1:21:37
  coach before social media, we were more adversarial.
• 1:21:40
  And now with social media, it's much easier and maybe we weren't
• 1:21:44
  adversarial and to your point about we just get to see things.
• 1:21:47
  Now because of social media, all the stuff probably did happen to
• 1:21:49
  your point that, you know, people thought in track meets a
• 1:21:52
  hundred years ago. We just see it now because they
• 1:21:54
  didn't have Twitter 100 years ago to film it, right?
• 1:21:58
  So maybe we weren't like this but on Twitter, Is this amazing
• 1:22:02
  social media on tracking code? Track?
• 1:22:03
  Coaches is amazing. Uplifting of each other.
• 1:22:06
  I'll see coaches that are in the same conference and you're doing
• 1:22:08
  a great job with that athlete. They probably recruited that
• 1:22:10
  athlete and lost them. So to me, it's always like, wow,
• 1:22:13
  like you're probably, you know, internally, you're probably like
• 1:22:15
  me that athlete should be my school doing these things, you
• 1:22:17
  know. But it's like you you publicly
• 1:22:20
  set you know, say you're doing a great job with so and so hey
• 1:22:24
  congrats on winning the title. You know, you beat us and we
• 1:22:26
  will get you next year. It's at that's amazing.
• 1:22:29
  Uplifting Each other. Like that is the abundance
• 1:22:33
  mindset, right? Like it's you know, gratitude
• 1:22:36
  and thankfulness is not a piece of pie.
• 1:22:38
  So if you get a bigger piece that mean someone gets a smaller
• 1:22:39
  piece. It's this amorphous.
• 1:22:41
  There is no end to it. So gratefulness is is Grizz.
• 1:22:44
  Amplified. There's there's more to others
• 1:22:47
  more force. It does not does not take
• 1:22:48
  anything away from you, if someone else gets thanked and
• 1:22:51
  shown gratitude. So let us be the Catalyst to
• 1:22:55
  show that gratitude and thankfulness.
• 1:22:57
  And and I think that might help the Call it that fake humbleness
• 1:23:01
  of just like, I just ride, the bus, like know you are
• 1:23:04
  important. What you do as a coach is
• 1:23:06
  important. Yes, the athletes are important
• 1:23:09
  and what they did in the, yes, they're the ones who ran the
• 1:23:11
  race. Yes, and yes, I've heard people
• 1:23:13
  like, well, if my Administration didn't allow me to do XYZ know,
• 1:23:16
  this would be possible. That's correct.
• 1:23:17
  That's also correct. But I'm talking about you right
• 1:23:20
  now is the coach what you are doing and do is important.
• 1:23:25
  And I want to say, thanks for that and all I want you to say
• 1:23:27
  is thank you back. No, no, driving the bus.
• 1:23:29
  Just say thank Q. It's all I ever asked for it.
• 1:23:32
  I love it. Chris, man, I'm a step off.
• 1:23:34
  My soapbox s. Sorry, I just get so passionate
• 1:23:38
  about what men and women who are track, coaches, what they do
• 1:23:42
  because we just Lucy. I'm gonna get back on my
• 1:23:44
  soapbox. I'm gonna stop Chris as we wrap
• 1:23:46
  up today, though. First of all.
• 1:23:49
  Thank you, man. You are awesome.
• 1:23:51
  I love your background is very, very unique.
• 1:23:54
  It's very uplifting, you know, leadership it's, you know, it's
• 1:23:57
  not physics. It's not chemistry, it's not.
• 1:24:00
  F. But man it's important and it's
• 1:24:02
  harder to write the equation of leadership.
• 1:24:04
  It's hard to put words and visualization to it and I'm so
• 1:24:08
  grateful that you chose this as like a calling for yourself and
• 1:24:12
  what you do which makes it harder to have an interview like
• 1:24:15
  this sometimes, you know, to be able to talk like this.
• 1:24:18
  So I want to make sure that I'm giving as much value as possible
• 1:24:20
  to our listeners. What's something that I didn't
• 1:24:23
  ask you that I should have, or what something that I miss.
• 1:24:25
  What's something else? If there is anything that you're
• 1:24:28
  like a man, make sure we talk to Lou.
• 1:24:30
  Listeners about this. Yeah, so obviously you know Mike
• 1:24:35
  does a great job on this podcast and so Mike you share with me
• 1:24:38
  some notes in advance to give me a chance to think through some
• 1:24:40
  things. And so here are some things
• 1:24:43
  lessons that either were reaffirmed in running a track
• 1:24:50
  and field cross-country program or they were new lessons that I
• 1:24:54
  learned this year that are unique to this.
• 1:24:59
  This one For sport of distance running that I've been coaching.
• 1:25:03
  So, first one is consistently consistency.
• 1:25:07
  Consistency is a superpower and you might say, well, Chris, what
• 1:25:10
  should I system about? You should be consistent,
• 1:25:11
  everything. You kids need to rely on you.
• 1:25:15
  Mental. Health is a real thing.
• 1:25:17
  Nowadays, emotional health is a real thing.
• 1:25:19
  Nowadays, our kids are over connected over and formed their
• 1:25:24
  stressed and that there's nothing changing that that that
• 1:25:28
  is the reality of living as As a teenager in these modern times,
• 1:25:32
  they need consistency in their life.
• 1:25:34
  And so they need a coach that shows up consistently with a
• 1:25:37
  positive emotional posture every day.
• 1:25:39
  They need a coach that shows up on time everyday start practice
• 1:25:42
  on time every single day. They need, they need a coach at
• 1:25:46
  ends practice on time. I heard a great coaching tidbit
• 1:25:49
  once. When you start on time, you show
• 1:25:51
  your athletes. That what you were about to do
• 1:25:53
  is important and when you end on time, you show your athletes
• 1:25:56
  that they're important. And so consistency in Way, be
• 1:26:00
  relentlessly consistent about everything.
• 1:26:04
  A second thing is be clear. Again, I came into doing this
• 1:26:08
  with no preconceived notions. I was role as a blank slate.
• 1:26:11
  One of the things that came to the Forefront of my study on
• 1:26:14
  this. You know, I'm obsessive reader
• 1:26:16
  and learner is how important it is.
• 1:26:19
  That athletes know why they're doing what they're doing, give
• 1:26:22
  them Clarity to the workout. Give them Clarity to the
• 1:26:26
  strategy for the upcoming race. Give them Clarity on.
• 1:26:29
  Hey, here's Is why it didn't go the way we thought it was going
• 1:26:31
  to go. Where here's why it did go.
• 1:26:33
  The way we get, give them Clarity around, all things and
• 1:26:37
  that correlates to the next C communication.
• 1:26:39
  Be a great communicator. Don't let kids hang out there.
• 1:26:43
  Wondering what's going on? Don't let parents hang out
• 1:26:45
  there. Wonder, what's going on?
• 1:26:47
  And it's hard to do for coaches because you get so down in the
• 1:26:49
  weeds thinking, about all the little details, you got to get
• 1:26:53
  your head up and you got to think about, hey, how are my
• 1:26:55
  people experiencing my program and when you start thinking
• 1:26:59
  those thoughts, The sudden communication becomes really,
• 1:27:01
  really important because you understand your thinking about
• 1:27:04
  how they're experiencing it. Well how do I make sure they
• 1:27:06
  experience it the way I want them to experience and I
• 1:27:09
  communicate to him about it. And so consistency, Clarity,
• 1:27:13
  communication and then Coach, you are the culture.
• 1:27:17
  I was listening to that actual leadership podcast driving into
• 1:27:20
  school today and one of the hosts talk to how important it
• 1:27:24
  is that leaders live the values. You are the living breathing
• 1:27:30
  Culture. And so if you don't like your
• 1:27:33
  culture, I would start really reflecting on what are your
• 1:27:37
  behaviors. Like Mike wisely said, this is
• 1:27:40
  not finger-pointing. This is thumb pointing, you
• 1:27:42
  know, coach you got, you got to live your culture.
• 1:27:45
  If you want a culture of resilient athletes, you yourself
• 1:27:49
  have to be resilient. If you want a culture of
• 1:27:51
  disciplined athletes, you yourself have to be dissing.
• 1:27:54
  You want a culture of unselfish athletes joyful athletes.
• 1:27:58
  Then you yourself have to be Fish and joyful and so coach
• 1:28:03
  never underestimate that you are the lived culture.
• 1:28:06
  It's not about you. I don't think there's an almost
• 1:28:09
  any coach listening to this podcast right now that thinks
• 1:28:11
  it's about them but coach it does start with you.
• 1:28:14
  So it's not about you but it does start with you and that is
• 1:28:18
  so true about the culture of any program.
• 1:28:21
  And so those are just some things you know, when I reached
• 1:28:23
  out to you, Michael and Twitter, I told you.
• 1:28:25
  I'd love to jump on and just share what I learned unexpected.
• 1:28:30
  Lee, coaching and unexpectedly, coaching a sport that I had
• 1:28:34
  never coached before. What did I learn so much?
• 1:28:37
  I really did. I learned so much and those are
• 1:28:39
  some things that really crystallized.
• 1:28:41
  Here's the last C4 and I'm done the Northern Arizona University
• 1:28:45
  has a mental coach mental conditioning coach for their
• 1:28:49
  obviously world-renowned distance running program and a
• 1:28:52
  you is, you know, like the Alabama football of distance
• 1:28:55
  running down the college ring. And so they have a mental
• 1:28:59
  conditioning coach her. Famous escapes me go, look her
• 1:29:01
  up. I'm sorry.
• 1:29:02
  I can't remember her name but I was listening to her on a
• 1:29:04
  podcast and she talked about how when she gets Runners.
• 1:29:08
  I want you think about the type of athletes at Northern Arizona
• 1:29:10
  gets his freshman, right? You're talking they get the best
• 1:29:13
  distance runners in the country as 18 year olds.
• 1:29:16
  The number one thing she has to teach them is not to
• 1:29:18
  catastrophize their work out or their race and it's a word she
• 1:29:23
  made up she admits I made up the word but how quickly a young
• 1:29:26
  person's mind, goings goes to hey I don't belong here.
• 1:29:30
  Here, I don't deserve this. I didn't work hard enough.
• 1:29:32
  I'm not talented enough. I'm not, I'm not this.
• 1:29:35
  I'm not that they begin to catastrophize.
• 1:29:38
  I should quit. I should never do this again,
• 1:29:39
  right? Like they catastrophize and I
• 1:29:41
  think track and field is a unique sport that pushes kids
• 1:29:44
  into that mental framework. More intensely than others
• 1:29:48
  because you're out there on your own in most instances is you
• 1:29:50
  don't have a teammate and every time you compete, you are going
• 1:29:54
  to spill your guts, right? There's no such thing as
• 1:29:59
  competing in track and field. Not spilling your guts.
• 1:30:01
  It's the nature of the sport. My son has been doing this
• 1:30:04
  forever. I've never seen him finish a
• 1:30:06
  race and he looked normal every race.
• 1:30:08
  He finishes, he looks like he's about to fall apart, right?
• 1:30:10
  Like that's just the nature of what he does.
• 1:30:13
  And so, to catastrophize things is so easy.
• 1:30:18
  And yet she goes on to say, in this podcast, 99% of the time.
• 1:30:24
  You're catastrophizing. And it's a total lie.
• 1:30:27
  You do belong there. You did work hard enough.
• 1:30:30
  You are ready for this. It's going to be okay.
• 1:30:32
  You shouldn't quit. Keep going, right?
• 1:30:35
  And so she's got a train how if that's true for 18 year olds
• 1:30:38
  that are the best of the best being recorded in Northern
• 1:30:40
  Arizona, University? How much more true is it for
• 1:30:43
  every single other kid that's being coached in the world of
• 1:30:46
  track and field, don't train your kids, not to catastrophize
• 1:30:51
  anything because we live in a day and age in which the
• 1:30:54
  information they consume, it's so dramatic right goat greatest
• 1:30:59
  of all time. They call everything goat,
• 1:31:01
  right? Like everything fiction is
• 1:31:03
  Extreme and it's true for me to write like I'm not pointing
• 1:31:06
  fingers at kids. Like, I'm, I'm in this culture
• 1:31:08
  to, you know, and so, don't catastrophize anything.
• 1:31:12
  So, those would be the Seas of the, the learning that I've done
• 1:31:16
  this year that have been really just a wonderful experience for
• 1:31:20
  me. I love it.
• 1:31:22
  Last question for you, head out for the day.
• 1:31:24
  So Chris you given us a lot of great books today and maybe it's
• 1:31:28
  because I am a Eder. So I always try to like have a
• 1:31:31
  book recommendation in there. What is, what is the goat?
• 1:31:35
  What is the one book? If you?
• 1:31:36
  Do you give it as probably five, six, seven, eight books, and
• 1:31:38
  maybe one that you mentioned and maybe it's one that you haven't
• 1:31:41
  mentioned. If we were going to go out right
• 1:31:43
  now, we're going to we're going to hit pause on this podcast
• 1:31:45
  because we're at the end and we're going to run to our
• 1:31:47
  library or to Amazon and we're going to get one book that you
• 1:31:50
  would recommend for track and field coach has, what would that
• 1:31:53
  be? Oprah track and field coach has
• 1:31:56
  okay. Alright.
• 1:31:57
  Specifically for track and field coach is that doesn't meet.
• 1:31:59
  That doesn't mean it has to be about track and field.
• 1:32:01
  You know, we mentioned a good friend of mine.
• 1:32:03
  Jay Johnson, you know, he was in the book Running With a
• 1:32:05
  buffalo's. You mentioned that book earlier
• 1:32:07
  JJ's another great Twitter, follower by the Twitter follow,
• 1:32:10
  by the way, specifically 800 meter now.
• 1:32:13
  But Jays just great I coached in the same conference of as him
• 1:32:16
  way back in the day and was just enamored by him and he's an
• 1:32:19
  amazing human being, so it doesn't have to necessarily be
• 1:32:21
  about track but you know, when your audience here at today is
• 1:32:25
  Track and field coach has, what is it can be a leadership of
• 1:32:27
  what is just one where it's impossible to ask our people to
• 1:32:30
  go out and go get five books from the library right now.
• 1:32:32
  So they're going to go out and get one.
• 1:32:34
  What's it going to be Chris? Yeah.
• 1:32:37
  Coaching leadership. I would say go read the motive
• 1:32:41
  by Patrick Lencioni, really? I should have read it, 20 years
• 1:32:45
  ago, I literally just read it in the last year and have all the
• 1:32:48
  books. I've read.
• 1:32:49
  I never came across it for some reason, and I finally did this
• 1:32:51
  year and its really Turns Upside Down the intense responsibility.
• 1:32:59
  It is to lead. It's not.
• 1:33:01
  It's really isn't a privilege. It is an intense responsibility.
• 1:33:04
  You are going to sacrifice the most You were going to take the
• 1:33:07
  biggest beatings, more than anyone else on your team, you
• 1:33:11
  are going to have to work longer than everyone else.
• 1:33:13
  You know, leadership is not a privilege.
• 1:33:16
  Leadership is an enormous responsibility and the privilege
• 1:33:19
  is what your people get to go out and do.
• 1:33:22
  And so in this context, we can go out to do get to do.
• 1:33:25
  That's the privilege was setting them up to go out and do that.
• 1:33:29
  But man you got a bear an enormous responsibility.
• 1:33:31
  So the motive is a, like a modern-day Parable on a young
• 1:33:36
  leader, Coming to this learning of this is this is not a
• 1:33:40
  privilege, this is an enormous responsibility and so that's
• 1:33:43
  probably one that I really almost bemoaned reading it.
• 1:33:48
  So late in my educational career so far the motive by Patrick
• 1:33:51
  Lencioni which I still glad that you picked a Lencioni because
• 1:33:54
  again, huge fan, Patrick Lencioni.
• 1:33:58
  And what he does at the table group and what the things that
• 1:34:01
  we're going through here that I'm leading with our company is
• 1:34:04
  the working genius, the by Patrick Lencioni.
• 1:34:06
  And we've done ideal team player, five, dysfunctions of
• 1:34:09
  Team. He is and his team is
• 1:34:11
  phenomenal. So I love that, that was your
• 1:34:13
  example. You know, when we started today
• 1:34:15
  a little bit, over an hour and a half ago, I told you, I was
• 1:34:18
  like, there's going to be chock-full of value today and
• 1:34:21
  Christie's a baseball analogy. You hit the Home Run.
• 1:34:24
  I mean, just so much value for those who choose to listen today
• 1:34:28
  with the podcast, and there's so much more to explore.
• 1:34:31
  I want to know, do you, do you have a podcast yourself?
• 1:34:37
  I do I'm a little embarrassed because it's like an
• 1:34:40
  eight-minute leadership. Thought comes out every Sunday
• 1:34:42
  morning it's called bite down and don't let go.
• 1:34:46
  Okay so crazy wild story that comes from my coaching days but
• 1:34:50
  that's the name of the podcast. That's also the name of my blog
• 1:34:53
  and it's seven to eight minutes long and it's designed to really
• 1:34:57
  hopefully put some lightning in the veins of people in regards
• 1:35:00
  leading their own lives and then you know, the down Downstream of
• 1:35:04
  that is leading other people. Yeah.
• 1:35:06
  That's I was going to encourage you if you didn't because you
• 1:35:09
  know don't be embarrassed at 78 minutes so your 78 minutes helps
• 1:35:12
  balance, the average between my two hours.
• 1:35:14
  So this is perfect. I need more 78 minutes out there
• 1:35:17
  to make the average down. I was just going to encourage
• 1:35:19
  you if you didn't because you know what?
• 1:35:21
  You speak and how you speak in your experiences.
• 1:35:24
  It's really important and it's cross cross sports, right?
• 1:35:28
  So, I mean, there's some great football, you know, I'm thinking
• 1:35:30
  of Coach Kurt Hines out in San Diego, man, another great
• 1:35:33
  Twitter follower, I love him to death.
• 1:35:35
  He's so So positive and his faith just exudes him.
• 1:35:38
  I love him to death or great baseball.
• 1:35:40
  People are great track people. But you know, at the end of the
• 1:35:43
  day, a lot of us are not just tracked.
• 1:35:46
  People we're getting where teachers were parents where you
• 1:35:49
  know, we coach our kids little league baseball teams Etc.
• 1:35:52
  So you know, leadership is universal.
• 1:35:55
  It's not sport-specific, it's not industry-specific.
• 1:35:59
  So you know what you do and how you lead.
• 1:36:01
  Chris is extremely important. So I was going to encourage you.
• 1:36:04
  If you I was going to talk you into it.
• 1:36:06
  Didn't have your own podcast to create.
• 1:36:07
  Once I glad you do bite down and don't let go.
• 1:36:10
  So whatever podcast app you're using right now to listen to
• 1:36:12
  this one soon as you're done, just go on your little search
• 1:36:14
  bar and type B down and don't let go and subscribe to Chris
• 1:36:19
  podcast. Obviously, if you made this far
• 1:36:22
  an hour and a half listening to Chris, you obviously received
• 1:36:25
  value, go get more value, every Sunday on the by down and don't
• 1:36:29
  let go podcast Chris man. Thank you so much.
• 1:36:32
  I'm just so grateful. This is 100 times better than I
• 1:36:35
  even Even would have dreamed that this conversation could
• 1:36:38
  have been, you know, a big passion of mine is to give value
• 1:36:41
  to track and field coaches that are out there.
• 1:36:44
  And again, we hit it out of the park.
• 1:36:45
  I think there's a lot of stuff for people to think about like
• 1:36:49
  these aren't just, you know, is that these weren't just orders
• 1:36:52
  like, oh just do the X y&z and you'll be a leader.
• 1:36:54
  These were like, hey, you got to maybe fundamentally change.
• 1:36:57
  How you think about things and how you act towards things?
• 1:37:00
  Hit me upside, the head of the three p's positive.
• 1:37:04
  Can you read my own handwriting? Responses to negative
• 1:37:07
  circumstances. That's a big like, oh, like if
• 1:37:11
  that don't hit you hard, that may need to hit you hard.
• 1:37:14
  Like literally, if that didn't hit you, it may need that.
• 1:37:17
  You may need that to hit you more than the someone else.
• 1:37:20
  So Chris, just so thankful for you man.
• 1:37:22
  Thanks for popping on and such short notice to get this done.
• 1:37:25
  And then just this would be a podcast of people need to listen
• 1:37:29
  to twice and three times and four times may be the beginning
• 1:37:32
  of your season. Every year, this is one that you
• 1:37:34
  kind of pop on and And listen, and remind yourself of the
• 1:37:37
  leadership. And the responsibilities that
• 1:37:40
  you have towards these young people out there because it's,
• 1:37:42
  there's no one else doing it to you.
• 1:37:43
  You're the one that's responsible for doing it and we
• 1:37:46
  need you and they need you every single day.
• 1:37:49
  So Chris, man, thank you so much.
• 1:37:50
  I'm so grateful for you. Mike, let me point the finger at
• 1:37:54
  you and say, thank you for what you're doing to encourage
• 1:37:57
  coaches coaches. It's always about More Than Just
• 1:38:01
  Sports to thank you for filling this important role in, really
• 1:38:06
  the life of our society. So thank you coaches.
• 1:38:08
  Mike, thanks for having me on. Yeah, it's a real honor, man.
• 1:38:10
  Appreciate you. Thanks for coming and listening
• 1:38:12
  again, hop on next week. We're gonna do it all over
• 1:38:15
  again. And this will be a tough act to
• 1:38:16
  follow here, but we'll give her a try.
• 1:38:18
  Thanks a lot. Have a great week, everybody.