Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #354: Sol Stephens-Creston Middle School | When Doing Everything Right Still Isn’t Enough

Transcript

#354: Sol Stephens-Creston Middle School | When Doing Everything Right Still Isn’t Enough · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey guys, thanks for being here today.
• 0:02
  Hey, real quick before we get on with the show, which is going to
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  be absolutely amazing. You're going to love this one.
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  Thanks for being here. Want to let you know about this
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  really amazing promo, this amazing sale that we're doing
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  Contact your local, your preferred Gill dealer right now.
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  They've got all the details, but I don't want you to miss this.
• 0:34
  So I had to come in real quick before we started the show and
• 0:37
  let you know about this. So enough of my yammering.
• 0:39
  Let's get on with today's guest. You're listening to the Gill
• 0:44
  Athletics Connections podcast with host Mike Cunningham.
• 0:50
  Track and field world, UNL tuned in to a humble servant, Mike
• 0:55
  Cunningham, to another extraordinary message or Gil
• 0:58
  Athletics. Connections All right, you made
• 1:02
  it back here to the Gil Athletics Connections Podcast.
• 1:05
  So humbled to be your host. Mike Cunningham, National
• 1:07
  Business Development Manager for Gil Athletics and also the
• 1:09
  podcast host. One of my favorite things I get
• 1:12
  to do in my profession here. So thanks for being here.
• 1:15
  If you have, is this your first time?
• 1:17
  Thanks for pressing play. I really do appreciate that.
• 1:20
  You'll see every Monday we'll have long form interviews like
• 1:23
  today and today's guest, which I'm excited to get to.
• 1:26
  And then Tuesdays through Sundays when we have the
• 1:28
  content, we have shorter kind of 10 to 30 minute Gil 1918 project
• 1:32
  podcast that kind of dive into some exes and it's basically the
• 1:35
  Ted talks of track and field podcast.
• 1:37
  So you might want to check that out as well.
• 1:39
  And if this is not your first time being here, man, thank you
• 1:42
  so much. I'm always so humbled when I see
• 1:44
  our numbers and who listens on a daily basis and watches on
• 1:47
  YouTube and even our Twitch TV is starting to to get some
• 1:51
  traction there. So just so humbled, so grateful
• 1:54
  that you would join us as we go around the country uplifting and
• 1:57
  honoring the men and women who choose to be track and field
• 2:00
  coaches. And today is a good one.
• 2:02
  Today is going to be a good lesson in that things happen at
• 2:06
  the time they're supposed to happen, not necessarily when we
• 2:08
  think they are supposed to happen.
• 2:09
  Because this guest was, I'm going to say he was supposed to.
• 2:12
  That's a strong term. But we thought maybe this guest
• 2:15
  would be on the podcast maybe 2:00-ish years ago.
• 2:19
  But we're going to find out today that I think the journey
• 2:22
  is going to be more impactful for you and more impactful for
• 2:25
  him. That is happening today.
• 2:26
  So help me welcome over in Indianapolis, the great state of
• 2:29
  Indiana from Creston Middle School, the athletic director.
• 2:32
  And yes, he's a track coach. So we'll find out more about
• 2:34
  that. Help me welcome the wise, the
• 2:35
  wonderful Saul Stevens. Saul, what's up, my friend?
• 2:38
  Nothing much. Good morning.
• 2:39
  Good morning, brother Cunningham.
• 2:41
  It's an honor and a pleasure. You know, like you just said,
• 2:44
  timing because this was supposed to happen a couple of years ago
• 2:47
  and just here we are, everything's for a reason in the
• 2:50
  season. So we.
• 2:51
  We almost did it at a national championship.
• 2:54
  We almost said, hey man, let's go to the hotel, let's knock it
• 2:55
  out, right? Now, yes, we did.
• 2:57
  Yes, we did. And I was excited, and then some
• 3:01
  things came up because, you know, I ran so well, Coach, I'm
• 3:04
  ready to transfer now. And that's exactly why we
• 3:08
  didn't. It's like, oh, come on, you're
• 3:09
  kidding me. But yeah, it's funny how that
• 3:11
  works. It's a it's amazing with timing
• 3:14
  and things and it's, you know, I don't know, I don't know that I
• 3:18
  buy into or that I want to give credence to the, you know,
• 3:21
  things have changed and such different today and things like
• 3:24
  that. But I'm not naive to think that
• 3:27
  nothing has changed as as well in today's track and field in
• 3:31
  sports world. So but there are still things
• 3:34
  that not amaze me, but surprise me.
• 3:37
  Like really, you did what? You made what decision OK.
• 3:39
  All right, well, this is at all the times that you decided this
• 3:42
  is the time you want to do this, huh?
• 3:44
  Right, right, right. But, and that's that's the thing
• 3:47
  too, at the end of the day, sometimes, sometimes the kids
• 3:50
  are still kids, you know, And the kids still need guidance.
• 3:52
  And as long as you believe the good in them, everything else
• 3:55
  will work itself out. I think see, that's why you and
• 3:58
  I are friends saw because we're a lot of like I literally was
• 4:01
  about to say, I think the commonality and the reason why I
• 4:03
  say I don't think necessarily things have changed today as
• 4:06
  opposed to the early 2000's, the 1990s, nineteen 80s is because
• 4:10
  then today we're still dealing with young people.
• 4:13
  So young people are still naive, inexperienced in the world, make
• 4:18
  mistakes. By the way, we're adults, we
• 4:19
  make mistakes. Young people go.
• 4:21
  So we're we're just as a track and field coach, as a equipment
• 4:25
  manufacturer, we're still just dealing with call it 18 to 25
• 4:28
  year olds that they just have no clue about life.
• 4:30
  And you know, so we have friends that are 4565 that have no clue
• 4:35
  about why they haven't gained up there either.
• 4:37
  So what do you? Expect from. 18 ish year olds
• 4:39
  kids so but that doesn't make it any more fun when they make
• 4:42
  those bad decisions and we're the ones holding the bag at the
• 4:45
  end of the day. That's that doesn't.
• 4:47
  No solace there, that's for sure.
• 4:49
  Yeah, definitely. Right, Mr. Saul, why don't we?
• 4:53
  Cuz I know we're gonna have a lot to talk about here.
• 4:55
  Let's jump in our Wayback Machine and let's get started
• 4:57
  here. You know, assuming you were an
• 4:59
  athlete, and we know what assuming does.
• 5:01
  And we've certainly found out that you don't have to have been
• 5:04
  a track and field athlete to become a really, really good
• 5:06
  track and field coach. But assuming you were a track
• 5:09
  athlete, where in the world does track and field start for you?
• 5:11
  Oh, this is, this is a great question.
• 5:13
  So my, my running started. I can always, I can tell you the
• 5:18
  second grade, I had a fantastic teacher who thought outside the
• 5:23
  box and she's going to hate that I'm bringing it up.
• 5:25
  But when she sees it, she's going to die laughing.
• 5:28
  So she's down in Tampa, FL right now retired.
• 5:30
  So second grade I, I'm what they used to call them old term
• 5:34
  squirrelly. And so because it's now the 80s,
• 5:38
  you can do things differently. Her class was at the end of the
• 5:41
  hall. Her name is Laura Freeze.
• 5:44
  I'm great friends with her children.
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  Her now still my wife knows her, the kids, the family like she is
• 5:50
  a family friend. My my father passed unexpectedly
• 5:54
  in college. She came into town, you know,
• 5:57
  for the service. Like when I say this lady is a a
• 6:01
  heartbeat of mine. This is her.
• 6:04
  So when I say outside the box 1 day it just comes to her.
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  You know what, why don't you just go outside and take a lap?
• 6:12
  So outside was the playground and when I and I went out there
• 6:16
  about 3 years ago with my measuring wheel and I walked
• 6:20
  around the yard because the school hasn't changed.
• 6:23
  Let's just say I thought I was going to be a mid distance
• 6:27
  runner because I would get out, she would open the door and she
• 6:31
  started to just tiny and I'm gassing because you know, you're
• 6:35
  a kid. You just go out and run as hard
• 6:37
  as you can until you can. And about the second time I make
• 6:41
  this 1200 meter run in the second grade, she comes to me
• 6:48
  and she sees I'm still angry. Why don't you take another one?
• 6:53
  Check. So about halfway through it now,
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  I'm walking and I walked it off and I come back and I'm calm
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  now. And she just says, you know,
• 7:01
  son, I think running might be something you might be good at.
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  Now, if she was to do this in today's time, she would be fired
• 7:08
  on the spot because that's how times have changed, you know?
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  But that's the thing. She knew I wasn't going to run
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  out the fence, run off the ground, you know, Then it just
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  turned into, I'll say, a level of competition for me.
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  Now, remember, I'm going to let you go.
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  But I got the clock running, too.
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  Oh, OK. I I got you, Miss Freeze.
• 7:25
  And I would come out And our principal one day, Mr. Hedstrom,
• 7:29
  he sees what's going on. He comes and talks to her.
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  He sees me at lunch. Hey, I'm OK if that's how you
• 7:38
  need to work it out. And you just patch me, walks off
• 7:43
  because that's the good old days, you know, to where it's so
• 7:46
  far out the box, no one would have thought.
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  You know what? Maybe this kid might need a
• 7:52
  recess break. Yeah, so.
• 7:55
  But that's literally my running Started in the second grade.
• 7:58
  This was second grade. 2nd grade she figured out I probably just
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  needed to go run it off. Real quick, did she go on to
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  become like your track coach or anything like that or only your
• 8:09
  second grade teacher? Only just my second grade
• 8:12
  teacher. What?
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  An amazing story about the impact of a teacher slash coach.
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  I know she wasn't necessarily a coach, but of a teacher here
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  because this is second grade. Dude.
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  I can't remember my second grade teacher.
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  And you pick up the phone and call her, right?
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  Now like she became call her right now family, not just a
• 8:30
  family friend. She sounds like family.
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  That is amazing to me. Like like really truly amazing.
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  Holy cow. She, you know, she taught my,
• 8:39
  she taught me, but I know she, she dealt with my sister some
• 8:42
  too. So this was all in elementary
• 8:43
  when we were in Michigan City, because I'm originally from
• 8:46
  Michigan City IN up there on the lake.
• 8:48
  So this, all this cold and snow that we're dealing with.
• 8:51
  This is nothing to me, you know, but, but literally we, we
• 8:55
  talked, we just talked for her birthday a little while ago.
• 8:58
  We we still talk. But and that's the funniest part
• 9:01
  about it where she's told people because she's even wrote, wrote
• 9:04
  a book about it to where she was so far outside the box and she
• 9:08
  had a group of kids. It was called the freeze breezes
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  and there's a number of us that we still engage with each other
• 9:15
  till this day. And it was like an honor like
• 9:17
  she had AT shirt when I tell you this young lady was above her
• 9:23
  time, way ahead of her time. Genius, literally genius, you
• 9:28
  know, and that's what what me and her talk about because she
• 9:31
  used to say, you know, you're a genius too and she used to say
• 9:35
  you're a genius. And I tell people that I'm part
• 9:37
  genius and what makes me a genius and her we know what we
• 9:41
  know. I know what I don't know.
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  And I'm not ashamed to tell you what I don't know.
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  And then if what I don't know, I'll get up and ask for help
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  about it, you know. And so, but, but Miss Freeze
• 9:54
  figured it out. So so I got started there.
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  And then back in Michigan City too, they used to have, there
• 10:00
  was no running, just like most times there was only a a city
• 10:05
  race in the summer and the half mile was for the 5th graders and
• 10:09
  the mile was for the 6th graders.
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  But it wasn't on the track. It was through Gardena Park.
• 10:15
  So it was actually like cross country.
• 10:18
  And so I would only train a week or so up until just running
• 10:22
  around the block because I know the race is coming.
• 10:24
  And I won fifth grade one year. And then I let a kid, and I
• 10:28
  won't say his name, but I remember it.
• 10:30
  I'm looking for him right now still.
• 10:32
  I let him get away from me because they put me as the
• 10:36
  defending champ in the middle of the pack and not in the front.
• 10:41
  Yeah, that was like the defending champ penalty.
• 10:44
  So and I see them and I hear my mother yelling, let's go.
• 10:49
  And when I say the clothes, the clothes, I'm coming.
• 10:52
  If it was a mile and 25 feet, I'd run right by, you know, so,
• 10:59
  so and that's how it, that's how we got started.
• 11:02
  And that's The funny thing about me coming back to the 5th and
• 11:04
  6th grade because I actually moved down to Indianapolis at
• 11:09
  that time and I was doing elementary here.
• 11:13
  My mom had an opportunity, came down here, did a couple of
• 11:16
  years, was in the Spanish emerging program and all those
• 11:20
  things. And then we have to go back
• 11:22
  because that opportunity ended and and it's and and this is how
• 11:26
  it's going to tie back. So remember I said I did
• 11:28
  elementary here in Indianapolis. It's going to come back.
• 11:31
  And then how this story is going to engage is absolutely
• 11:34
  hilarious. So you went back to Michigan
• 11:37
  City? Come back to Michigan City.
• 11:39
  I got out, played a little football, went out to track with
• 11:45
  a great man with especially in football named Jerry Carstein's.
• 11:49
  Jerry Carstein's is a Michigan City legend, Old school leather
• 11:54
  helmet guy. OK.
• 11:57
  And his hand was like this, but it was beat up.
• 12:01
  And this pinky here took like a 90° turn, you know, so he would
• 12:07
  be getting on you. And it's hard not to focus on
• 12:10
  that pinky that's all the way over here.
• 12:13
  And, you know, and but he was a good kind man.
• 12:17
  And from that leather helmet days, he did, he was tough.
• 12:20
  It was discipline. It was discipline.
• 12:22
  So I, you know, got back out there, got back to Michigan
• 12:24
  City. Like I said, play some football,
• 12:26
  ran a little bit and then I actually set out.
• 12:31
  I didn't play, I didn't run, I didn't do anything rest of 8th
• 12:36
  grade year didn't do anything 9th grade year got up to high
• 12:40
  school and I'm in PE class and Bear Falls who's who's my uncle,
• 12:45
  rest his soul, who's a great man play football Illinois State he
• 12:51
  hey man, I want you to come out for basketball.
• 12:53
  I know you've been playing with these guys all summer.
• 12:54
  I want you to come out, play JB comes around, I go out because,
• 12:59
  OK, I'll come on out. And I really, and that's the
• 13:01
  thing. I've never played organized
• 13:03
  ball. You know, I just played with the
• 13:05
  fellows and just minded my business.
• 13:07
  And so I, I go out, make the team, play track coach comes to
• 13:12
  me. Hey, you know, you're, you're in
• 13:14
  good shape. You know, I want you.
• 13:15
  I want you out here. Don't go out.
• 13:20
  I'm I'm chilling. I'm good.
• 13:22
  I just, I was just, as they say, as I said earlier, squirrely.
• 13:26
  I just kind of have always walked to my own beat in my own
• 13:30
  time were. You a fan of any sport at this
• 13:34
  young age? Just 8-9, ten years old?
• 13:36
  Like, are you every NBA game, you're watching every NFL,
• 13:38
  anything like that, or you're just squirrely?
• 13:41
  No, I, I just, I played a lot of video games.
• 13:44
  I will say that I'm a Nintendo, you know, Sega Genesis kid, even
• 13:50
  Atari. I am that old each but I'll I'll
• 13:54
  say this, I've always loved track and field in that.
• 13:58
  Squirrel. Now I got to ask because I'm a
• 14:00
  big video game guy too. What was your NES game?
• 14:02
  Because that was kind of like I had an Atari and Genesis and all
• 14:05
  that stuff, but the NES was like the system.
• 14:07
  I got the I got the Nintendo hooked up to the main TV right
• 14:11
  here. What was your game like?
• 14:13
  What was the game you always? Track and field.
• 14:15
  I beat the mess out of the buttons.
• 14:17
  I still got the original Tecmo. I have an original in a case,
• 14:22
  Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Nice, yeah.
• 14:25
  Yeah. Oh, I got double dribble when I
• 14:28
  say I I got them. That's my advice.
• 14:30
  So you were you were playing Tecmo Bowl, NBA Jam, etcetera,
• 14:35
  but not participating this or not even like watching like oh
• 14:40
  man, the Friday night game or anything like nothing like that.
• 14:43
  Well, and that's, and that's the thing.
• 14:45
  It's like I, I was maybe five, 420 lbs in middle school and I
• 14:53
  was just kind of, I'll just say I'm a late bloomer.
• 14:56
  I'm a very late bloomer. Old fashioned PE time, You know,
• 15:01
  we used to do PE and track and field was a segment and I
• 15:05
  literally got out there and I remember it.
• 15:07
  I jumped like 15, three as an eighth grade boy.
• 15:13
  And there was already boys jumping 18/19/20 feet, things
• 15:17
  like that. And so I just kind of got
• 15:19
  discouraged, like I'm really not that good at this.
• 15:23
  And I'm kind of small. I wear size twelves and I'm only
• 15:26
  5 four now. Hopefully I grow a foot and then
• 15:29
  maybe we'll see. But you know, it didn't, it
• 15:32
  didn't come that way, you know, so, so I, I ended up just really
• 15:37
  watching track whenever track came on.
• 15:41
  I can tell you the night I fell in love with the sport, I'm out
• 15:45
  with the fellas. We used to play ball midnight,
• 15:48
  one in the morning, things like that, because it was safe.
• 15:50
  Then in the neighborhood, all the parents knew who was with
• 15:53
  who, things like that. And I come home one day and it's
• 15:57
  a live feed. August 1991, the greatest long
• 16:02
  jump competition ever between like Paul and Carl Lewis.
• 16:06
  My mother had some popcorn and some Mountain Dew sitting there
• 16:09
  waiting on me because she knew I was going to come in at the
• 16:12
  time. Because, you know, that was
• 16:14
  before VC. Well, VC, Rs and all that stuff.
• 16:18
  But it was the live feed. It started at 2:30 in the
• 16:20
  morning in Michigan City. Wow.
• 16:23
  And I sat there and watched the entire competition.
• 16:26
  What, why that? I mean, like, obviously Mom knew
• 16:29
  it was there was going to be of interest.
• 16:32
  I mean, what, why that one? Because I'm not hearing like, Oh
• 16:34
  yeah, you know what? Carl was my hero or Mike was my
• 16:37
  hero. I'm not hearing anything like
• 16:38
  that. I that that that event, I love
• 16:43
  the hurdles like I well, we can, we can talk about the events
• 16:46
  later, but at that time it was I knew what it was then.
• 16:52
  You have to be fast, you have to be athletic and then you have to
• 16:55
  be violent to throw your body that far.
• 17:00
  And that's what fascinated me. Like, hold on, how?
• 17:04
  Interesting. Yeah, so I was, I, I literally,
• 17:07
  it came in and it's 90, like I said, 91.
• 17:10
  I can tell you the day and time I I was sitting there 2:30 in
• 17:14
  the morning watching it on NBC Live.
• 17:16
  That's that's really amazing, you know?
• 17:18
  And and, and that moment just kind of stuck with me.
• 17:21
  See, and that's The funny thing. When I say I kind of just will
• 17:24
  walk my walk, you would assume that I'm going to get right back
• 17:28
  out there and here we go. No, because when I say jumping
• 17:32
  15 feet in PE class was kind of discouraging.
• 17:37
  Very. So Fast forward and back middle
• 17:41
  coming out out of that time, high school basketball JV
• 17:45
  doesn't doesn't come out and Cabin Holmes is my actually high
• 17:48
  school coach. He's an Indiana Hall of Famer.
• 17:51
  He's a great man to this day. Distance runner.
• 17:55
  Hey, Stevens, this is how he sounds.
• 17:56
  You know, Stevens, you know, I don't really know that much
• 17:59
  about that Sprint and jump stuff, but I'm just going to
• 18:01
  make sure you're in shape. If you come out, OK, I'll figure
• 18:04
  the rest of it out, All right? You know, 5, five, £130 on a
• 18:09
  tall day, maybe. But he grabbed me one day
• 18:13
  because, you know, that's the old days.
• 18:15
  I had it coming, but he grabbed me.
• 18:18
  If you don't get out here. OK, Coach got you.
• 18:22
  Yeah. Junior year rolls around.
• 18:24
  I'm thinking about going out for football.
• 18:26
  Chose not to. You know, my uncle, you know,
• 18:29
  was just kind of like, if you do, you do.
• 18:32
  You don't. You don't.
• 18:33
  But, you know, whatever, you know, which is funny because I
• 18:36
  was in time. I wish he would have.
• 18:38
  He played at IU, played middle linebacker at IU, you know, and
• 18:41
  I'm like, I, I should have went back out.
• 18:43
  All the homies wanted me to come out, you know, And it's just
• 18:46
  kind of like I'm good. And then I went out, went back
• 18:51
  out for basketball junior year, didn't make the team.
• 18:55
  Habit hump. Yeah, it's surprising to me,
• 18:57
  too. I didn't make it junior nor
• 18:59
  senior year, which I'm a come to.
• 19:02
  Senior year tryouts. I come out, it's the junior
• 19:06
  year, didn't make the team. Coach Holmes is standing in the
• 19:09
  back looking at all the kids come to the cut list.
• 19:13
  He comes right up to me. I watch the tryouts.
• 19:17
  You should have made the team. You ready to come out for me?
• 19:20
  Now? I need you out.
• 19:23
  All right, coach. All right, I'll come out.
• 19:26
  We're running in the hallways because there's no indoor
• 19:28
  running in the hallways. Running outside, running through
• 19:31
  2 feet of snow, things like that.
• 19:33
  Because it's Michigan City. Hey, you train outside.
• 19:35
  You know, junior year ended up being well after taking so much
• 19:40
  time off. You know, I just missed state.
• 19:43
  I just missed state in the long jump by two inches.
• 19:45
  Like a long jump. Yep, I jumped 22/2 as a junior
• 19:49
  and didn't. I didn't make the finals.
• 19:52
  Wait a minute, though. Hold on, hold on.
• 19:54
  A lot to unpack here real quick because you mentioned Mike
• 19:56
  Powell and Carl Lewis. We just recently had Mike
• 19:58
  Powell's coach during that time, Randy Huntington, on the
• 20:01
  podcast. So if you want to learn more
• 20:03
  about him, go back and listen to episodes 3:50 and 3:51.
• 20:06
  We had to have a big dog, Randy Huntington, for 3:50.
• 20:09
  Which I am going to watch that because I'm going to tell you
• 20:12
  how Mike Powell's name does come into this.
• 20:14
  Yeah, love it. Love it.
• 20:16
  Second, I love when we're recording this.
• 20:18
  We just finished the Wisconsin Track Coaches Association track
• 20:21
  clinic and amazing speakers and a lot of fun there.
• 20:26
  And one of the speakers, Dave Emiot, who's the head coach
• 20:29
  athletic, I guess, I think he's the athletic Turner.
• 20:30
  I don't think he's actually head coach anymore.
• 20:32
  E Kentwood High School in Michigan just wrote an amazing
• 20:35
  book, The Transformational Art of Coaching.
• 20:37
  But he mentioned, and his talk is a keynote about that.
• 20:41
  He goes to the basketball coach right before cuts and says, hey,
• 20:45
  so tell me, tell me who's going to get cut That way he already
• 20:48
  knows in his head, oh, OK, Saul didn't make it all right.
• 20:50
  And so that he can be the first one there he goes.
• 20:52
  He goes, I actually, because he's the athletic driver, he
• 20:54
  goes, I make the basketball coach, let me talk to the kids
• 20:56
  before cuts. He goes, I'm doing it as a rah
• 20:58
  rah for the basketball, blah, blah.
• 21:00
  He goes, but I'm really talking to Saul because I know he ain't
• 21:03
  making the cut. So I'm already starting a
• 21:05
  relationship. I love that your coach, when he
• 21:10
  went up to you said, hey, I watched you.
• 21:12
  You should have made that because that's what you're
• 21:14
  feeling too. You know, you're like, all
• 21:15
  right, You're right, coach. I should have made it.
• 21:17
  This guy believes in me, not the basketball.
• 21:19
  Like, it's ingenious what these track coaches who understand the
• 21:23
  basketball cut relationship to track and field is.
• 21:26
  That's really cool. OK, third thing, wait a minute.
• 21:29
  You did the long jump. You did.
• 21:30
  You did 15 feet. And we're completely
• 21:32
  discouraged. I completely understand that.
• 21:34
  How did you continue to gravitate, gravitate towards the
• 21:37
  long term and not say, hey look man, I tried that, let me try
• 21:40
  the eight or something. I don't know something else.
• 21:41
  It's it here's the funniest part of how it comes together.
• 21:45
  He comes to me OK, I'll come back out first conversation.
• 21:51
  All right, Well, you know, I I'm the I'm a middle school like
• 21:56
  champion, you know, I've run, you know, the half and things
• 21:59
  like that. And he looks right at me, says,
• 22:03
  yeah, but at now about, you know, five 11160, you know, I
• 22:08
  don't know if that's what it is. And I and I, and this is an
• 22:12
  argument. Well, you know what?
• 22:15
  I run the half and the mile. If I'm not running that I'm not
• 22:19
  probably coming out coach. That's what I run.
• 22:22
  And he says, how about this? If you just come out for a
• 22:25
  couple of weeks and I let you, you know, run the 55, you know,
• 22:29
  run some Sprint stuff. And he said because on the
• 22:31
  basket, and this is what he says on the basketball court, you
• 22:35
  have a way to accelerate and create lift.
• 22:40
  He's like you, I saw you dunk that ball like that is what long
• 22:45
  jump is he. And he says, I don't know that
• 22:47
  much about it, but that's what it is.
• 22:50
  And he puts me back on the runway and I'm arguing the whole
• 22:54
  2 weeks I've run the 8th, I've run the half.
• 22:57
  Matter of fact, put me in some practice and he gave me one
• 23:00
  practice. Now kid you not, a a three
• 23:04
  hundreds, 3 minutes rest 42 under light work coach, I'm
• 23:11
  warming up. Here we go.
• 23:14
  So now I'm ready to run this 8. No, that's just good trainings
• 23:18
  for because you got trials and finals in the sprints and oh,
• 23:21
  you're killing me, bro. But in hindsight, we had a 157,
• 23:25
  a kid that was this close to making to the state meet we had
• 23:28
  and some other guys that was right at like 2 O1, you know, So
• 23:31
  like he had a log jam there. People are listening and like,
• 23:35
  this is bizarro world because stereotypically we we hear every
• 23:39
  day on the track. No one wants to be the 815 guy
• 23:41
  or whatnot, but oh, everybody thinks they're a sprinter.
• 23:43
  Everybody thinks they're a long jumper.
• 23:45
  You are the complete not only are you the complete opposite
• 23:49
  coach is the he's not going well.
• 23:50
  You know, I can always deal with another 804 by 8.
• 23:52
  You know, we'll figure this out. He's even like, Nah, man, you're
• 23:56
  you're a long jumper. Get over there.
• 23:58
  This is what a wild story, actually.
• 24:01
  And it's absolutely true. It's it's, it's literally an
• 24:05
  argument. I run the half.
• 24:07
  He talks to my mom. Mom tells him the boy has a
• 24:10
  motor. You know, the boy can run like
• 24:12
  that. That's who he is now.
• 24:14
  And then I grew a little more and now.
• 24:16
  And so like now this size I am, you know, because I'm going to
• 24:20
  come to it. I'm now 6 feet to 10 right?
• 24:24
  Now, wow, OK. I put on a freshman 50 at IU my
• 24:28
  first year and. And this is coming all the way
• 24:32
  back now to Coach Holmes. I think you're not.
• 24:34
  You're not done growing, fella. And guys your size who may end
• 24:38
  up being your size, they won't be running the eight, I'm
• 24:42
  telling you. OK, coach.
• 24:44
  So. So after going back and forth
• 24:46
  and he would still give me some longer running training just
• 24:49
  because I just needed that to work, work out some of those
• 24:52
  issues. One day I come into practice and
• 24:54
  he just sees my face. All right.
• 24:57
  It looks like we got some repeats today.
• 24:58
  Yeah, I see it. Let's go and I just get warmed
• 25:02
  up, go to the lie and just because I just have to work it
• 25:08
  out. And so, Miss State Goodyear, OK,
• 25:12
  you're coming back. And we got to remind people
• 25:15
  you're in Indiana. Yep.
• 25:16
  Freezing when the Arctic. Of Indiana on Lake MI when he
• 25:20
  see the snow back in the day. When he says he missed state, we
• 25:23
  have to remember at Indiana. Very unique there.
• 25:26
  There's A at least one other state that I can think of off
• 25:29
  top of my head. Only one class.
• 25:31
  So it's not like, oh, he missed the three.
• 25:33
  The big school or the small school, the middle, you know,
• 25:35
  No, no, no, there is of all the schools, if you have 100 kids in
• 25:38
  your school or 6000 kids in your schools, which that is about the
• 25:41
  gamut. And in Indiana, you only have
• 25:45
  one long jump competition to qualify for at the state meet.
• 25:49
  So missing state in Indiana is a big deal because there are
• 25:52
  plenty of kids that don't go because there's not six classes
• 25:56
  or even 3 classes like here in Indiana and stuff like that.
• 25:59
  So that's pretty unique. That's a big.
• 26:00
  Deal. And and that's the thing too, in
• 26:02
  my time, I had to go through a guy who was going 24 mid, the
• 26:07
  state record holder as well, and his teammate who went 24.
• 26:11
  The teammates went 24724 six, you know, so you know, nothing
• 26:16
  against 2110, but this was not it.
• 26:19
  Like, you know, if you wasn't jumping over 23 feet, you were
• 26:24
  not advancing into the finals back then.
• 26:27
  Because in that in that time too, in Indiana, the 100m state
• 26:31
  champs were coming out of Gary, coming out of that regional
• 26:34
  meeting, you know, from the region.
• 26:36
  And there's and you go through that history book and you know,
• 26:39
  you see Stesser Allen, Allen said.
• 26:41
  Whoa, holy smoke, what's going on up here?
• 26:44
  You know, so, so coming into senior year, I'm thinking, oh,
• 26:47
  you know what, I think I may go back out and play wide out and I
• 26:50
  don't go. Does not making it to state
• 26:54
  motivate you? Or what would be the opposite of
• 27:00
  that, you know, discourage you? Honestly, that's the issue.
• 27:06
  I, I can, I'll say it was nondescript and a lot of what it
• 27:10
  was, a lot of it still was, well, OK, yeah, I'm better, but
• 27:15
  I'm still not good enough. And it's just like, and and then
• 27:18
  when you've been passed over and passed over and like, and you
• 27:21
  know, there's there's still some things from my younger
• 27:24
  competitive sides of it, it's like, OK, you know what happens?
• 27:28
  You know, until senior year, like I said, I was thinking
• 27:33
  about going back out for football because you're big,
• 27:35
  white, outgrowing. Fast.
• 27:37
  I'm sure the football coach is begging you to get on the team,
• 27:39
  for crying out loud. Let's just say I went out for
• 27:43
  one day and I thought I did something pretty, pretty well
• 27:49
  and he told me I was going to probably still be third, fourth
• 27:52
  string. And I said thanks for your time.
• 27:56
  Where the the track coach is saying, yeah, you should have
• 27:58
  made that team. Like you should see the
• 27:59
  difference in how talk to athletes and kids.
• 28:02
  Yeah. And how you talk.
• 28:05
  So I don't go out. I go back out for basketball
• 28:08
  tryouts, though. Here we go, Coach Holmes sitting
• 28:12
  right at the cut list. Because now there are other
• 28:16
  teachers who are watching tryouts.
• 28:18
  Because I didn't make the team last year and there were some
• 28:21
  other guys who didn't make it as well.
• 28:22
  So they're just kind of like, we want to see if these guys, you
• 28:25
  know, how they play senior year and this is a true story.
• 28:29
  And I can call people my our starting lineup was 6967666.
• 28:37
  OK, here we go. And he put the starting line up
• 28:40
  to basically destroy everybody in the gym.
• 28:44
  And then I came out with a group of four.
• 28:46
  Oh, for tryouts. More trials.
• 28:49
  OK, OK, it's. The most disturbed it's it's you
• 28:52
  can't make a team that way. Yeah, right, right, right.
• 28:55
  Right. It's that big.
• 28:56
  And then throw five guys in, in the tallest guy 61 out there.
• 29:00
  They're on the team, so they're organized.
• 29:02
  They know how to do stuff. You're 5.
• 29:03
  You're playground people, essentially, you know.
• 29:05
  Bingo, here we go. That's it.
• 29:08
  I made the game-winning shot to get those guys off the court,
• 29:11
  Yeah. And they celebrate it and I get
• 29:16
  there and you know what, he hit the whistle.
• 29:18
  That's the kind of showboating we don't want in our program.
• 29:22
  Puts me on the line to run and I run down because I literally
• 29:27
  made a game-winning shot and people celebrate it.
• 29:30
  I can call 5 people right now Mike and they would say this is
• 29:35
  it's a true story. And so with that, I did not make
• 29:39
  senior year. Cabot Holmes is at the cut list
• 29:42
  because I. Almost.
• 29:43
  I almost wonder if you would have made it, how miserable you
• 29:45
  might have been, honestly. And that's the thing, I just
• 29:49
  wanted to make it because that's all the homies, you know, cool,
• 29:52
  coming off the bench. I'm here to defend, rebound.
• 29:54
  I'll put the ball in the basket, but I'm here to defend and
• 29:57
  rebound. Here we go.
• 29:58
  I see Coach Holmes in tryouts. I finished running.
• 30:01
  He gets right up and just leaves the gym.
• 30:05
  He's sitting there at the cut list.
• 30:08
  As soon as I'm walking up he's already doing this.
• 30:11
  In your mind, there's not actually a guarantee you're
• 30:13
  going to do senior year track is kind of what I'm hearing.
• 30:16
  I just kind of. Like you didn't think like, oh,
• 30:19
  OK, I got cut from basketball. All right, well, I'll go to
• 30:20
  track. Like I feel like there's still
• 30:21
  was a little bit of recruitment needed.
• 30:23
  Because I just kind of was just here, so to say.
• 30:26
  And there's a lot of kids that are like me that are just here.
• 30:30
  Sometimes if you haven't been directly pushed into what you
• 30:35
  can see for them will drop by the wayside.
• 30:39
  You know, you've seen it in coaching.
• 30:40
  I've seen it in education. And that's why I I've always
• 30:45
  taken my role seriously because of my own experiences.
• 30:49
  But Coach Holmes sees me, calls me over my come on, come on.
• 30:53
  I don't even go towards the paper.
• 30:55
  I'll be come on. And he looks right at me and he
• 30:58
  says, OK, here's what we're going to do.
• 31:02
  We're going to get to work right now in these hallways outside in
• 31:07
  that snow, we're out. Hey, shovel the lane off the
• 31:10
  track. Let's get to it now.
• 31:12
  My light bulb goes off if me not making senior year when I say
• 31:17
  infuriated me. So we go through indoor, things
• 31:23
  go well. We go through outdoor.
• 31:26
  Come down to a track meet in Indianapolis.
• 31:28
  Mike home is Midwest meet of champions, OK, because I know
• 31:32
  you know that one. And I come down and I tangle
• 31:35
  with he had these set of twins who went maybe 21.48 as well to
• 31:41
  pilot twins. And I tangled in there with them
• 31:43
  and they was like, who is this kid?
• 31:46
  Oh, OK, OK, there's one up north of Michigan City at Elston.
• 31:50
  OK, here we go. All right.
• 31:52
  And so on the bus ride home, coach says to me, you know, you
• 31:56
  just you know, you just swam with like state champion kids,
• 31:59
  right? So with that, I need you to
• 32:03
  start doing your homework, staying out of trouble.
• 32:06
  Just keep it to yourself. Keep it to yourself sometimes.
• 32:10
  And let's see where this goes. Season's going great.
• 32:15
  I pulled my groin. I almost tear my groin.
• 32:17
  A conference meet the week before the state tournament, did
• 32:22
  you not? So when I say and the kid who
• 32:25
  ended up winning the 100 meter in the state finals my senior
• 32:29
  year beat me by that much when we tangled one-on-one the first
• 32:32
  time, I literally take, I don't train.
• 32:36
  I take. I done so much training because
• 32:39
  my head coach was a distance coach.
• 32:42
  They literally taped my right leg up and I showed up the
• 32:46
  sectionals advanced out in the one to two to read and in the
• 32:49
  long jump. And then in my fitness just
• 32:52
  started to wane. Finally get over here to the
• 32:54
  regional meet and basically have one fair jump, you know, jumped
• 32:58
  over 23 feet when the regional make it to the state meet, legs
• 33:02
  still wrapped all the way up because, you know, I, I couldn't
• 33:05
  really run. I couldn't train.
• 33:06
  I was hurt. But I had so much fitness
• 33:09
  leftover, you know, I was able to, you know, just get my foot
• 33:13
  on the board, get to the state meet and there was just nothing
• 33:15
  there. Like, I couldn't generate it
• 33:19
  well enough to, you know, put myself there, you know, but
• 33:22
  still just making it on one leg. It's like, yo, this dude here.
• 33:25
  It's like here, here we are. So.
• 33:29
  And this is still the craziest thing about this story, Mike.
• 33:34
  I go to IU because I was basically drugged down there by
• 33:38
  my family. I didn't go to run.
• 33:41
  I was going to the Marines. Oh yeah, discipline, things like
• 33:45
  that. OK, I'm going to go to the
• 33:47
  Marines. I'm going to medical, I'm going
• 33:49
  to go save. I'm going to help.
• 33:51
  I'm good. My family got wind of this.
• 33:54
  My uncle shows up all 63290 at the time.
• 33:58
  He's sitting there waiting on me.
• 33:59
  Two in the morning. Hey, heard something.
• 34:02
  I heard a crazy story. Yeah.
• 34:05
  You're not going to do all that. We already.
• 34:08
  I applied to 1 college and that one college was Indiana
• 34:12
  University. That's like my family's school,
• 34:14
  so. I'll just say it's at the
• 34:15
  school. And that's because my great
• 34:17
  grandmother, you know, son, I, at least for me, do this once my
• 34:22
  essay was no one really reads these things because it has
• 34:26
  nothing to do with whether or not you're going to graduate
• 34:28
  from college. Send That's my college essay kid
• 34:33
  you not. So about to glow into some like,
• 34:36
  you know, my great grandmother really wants me to go to school.
• 34:38
  No, you just said, hey man, you ain't reading.
• 34:39
  This doesn't affect nothing. Got in kid you not it's a true
• 34:44
  story. My Yep I can call someone who
• 34:47
  watched me write it. I kid you not.
• 34:49
  And he ended up being my roommate first year my one of my
• 34:51
  best. Friends to this guy?
• 34:52
  Alex Brandon, he's over in proviso E running admin things,
• 34:57
  but so we I got basically dropped off to IU get down
• 35:02
  there. Things are just I'm just there.
• 35:05
  You know, I know enough to play school, but still just kind of
• 35:09
  there because it's not what I dreamed of.
• 35:11
  So as an 18 year old senior, you know, thinking about what's
• 35:16
  next, your thought process was OK, I'm going to go become a
• 35:19
  Marine, I'm going to help people, I'm going to do medical,
• 35:23
  you know, another form of helping people love that love
• 35:27
  all that because what I'm always fascinated with, because spoiler
• 35:30
  alert, I know what you become, you become a track coach, right?
• 35:33
  And that's a servant leadership position.
• 35:35
  You don't get into track for you don't get into coaching for many
• 35:39
  reasons. If you don't, if one of those
• 35:41
  reasons has to be I want to help someone else and there's many
• 35:45
  ways of helping, right? I can say, well, I want to
• 35:47
  become an NFL football coach because I want to help, you
• 35:50
  know, men become, you know, pro pro bowlers and Hall of Fame or
• 35:53
  things like that. Or I, you know, I want to be a
• 35:56
  high school or middle school coach because I want to help a
• 35:59
  kid that I didn't get the help. I Marissa Chu says this a lot.
• 36:03
  Be the coach that you needed when you were a kid.
• 36:06
  So a lot of people get into coaching because like, I don't
• 36:08
  want another Saul. Saul should have been doing it
• 36:10
  since freshman year. I'm going to make sure I get
• 36:11
  into coaching to help Saul. You don't.
• 36:15
  I'm not hearing you say, yeah, I want to get into coaching to
• 36:18
  help people. But you are saying that without
• 36:21
  using the word coach and track and field of, oh, medical Marine
• 36:23
  and things like that. Love that.
• 36:26
  But Uncle and I think he's a great grandma, come in and say,
• 36:30
  hey, yeah, that's not going to happen.
• 36:32
  Maybe in the future, maybe, but right now, no, that's not
• 36:34
  happening. You're going to go become a
• 36:36
  Hoosier when you go down to Bloomington.
• 36:40
  What are you thinking then in regards to like, well, OK, I got
• 36:42
  to pick a major or whatever. What were you thinking at that
• 36:46
  point? I wasn't thinking at all.
• 36:48
  OK, just I have to be here. There.
• 36:52
  I had to be there. Yep.
• 36:54
  And OK, I see everybody else going to class.
• 36:57
  I'll go to, I guess. OK.
• 36:59
  Yeah, you know, all right. And and that's the thing.
• 37:02
  Some of those habits showed up. And so I no track you don't.
• 37:07
  Go talk to track. Who would have been the head
• 37:08
  coach? Marshall Goss or Ran?
• 37:10
  No, no, no. Yep.
• 37:11
  Sam Bell, Marshall. Was one of his assistants.
• 37:15
  OK. You don't go to Sam.
• 37:17
  Hey, Coach, you know I was a decent little long jumper and
• 37:20
  none of that. You don't.
• 37:21
  OK? Nope.
• 37:21
  You don't. You don't even know.
• 37:22
  Sam and where the the track office is.
• 37:25
  I'm just and I stayed at Briscoe, which is right across
• 37:28
  the street from Assembly Hall in the track office and all that I
• 37:32
  could I could care less because I didn't want to be there.
• 37:39
  Yes, I my plans. Because you know when you're
• 37:42
  told all your life, when you get out my house, when you get
• 37:45
  grown, you can do whatever you want.
• 37:48
  That's not true. It went all the way out the
• 37:50
  window and then that's me arguing.
• 37:52
  But y'all told me that I here we are.
• 37:57
  If we see fit, we'll let you do. If you choose what we choose
• 38:00
  what you want, we want you to choose.
• 38:02
  You can have your life. Yeah.
• 38:03
  Yeah, I get it. I get it.
• 38:04
  Okay, you know in hindsight, now that I'm old enough, I know why.
• 38:08
  You know my my dad, rest his soul, my dad did 2 tours and not
• 38:12
  and you know and so there was a lot of my flat out my dad didn't
• 38:18
  come back the same as I've been told.
• 38:20
  You know, he was an honor students in Compton, CA Compton
• 38:24
  High School at a full academic ride to UCLA and Nam changed all
• 38:31
  that. But that's the thing, they did
• 38:32
  not tell me that in the process of sending me to IU.
• 38:37
  They told me that afterwards. That was their reasoning, but
• 38:42
  for whatever their reasons were, we're not going to share that
• 38:45
  with Saul Wood. And now again you talk about
• 38:47
  hindsight, 2020 might have been a little bit worth it of like,
• 38:49
  hey, I know it's maybe only air quotes 18, but boy that you
• 38:54
  know, you know, again, I don't it.
• 38:56
  Would have made all the difference in my perspective.
• 38:58
  But it sure feels like maybe they should have treated you a
• 39:00
  little bit more of of the adult side of life there.
• 39:03
  Yeah. OK.
• 39:04
  All right. I understand.
• 39:04
  Absolutely. Correct.
• 39:05
  We make our decisions, though. OK.
• 39:06
  All right. And so here's what's funny
• 39:08
  though. I'm there and I'm playing
• 39:10
  basketball and I'm I'm, I'm at the hyper, the world famous
• 39:13
  hyper. We're and we're just doing it.
• 39:16
  And one day I get a voicemail from Cabot Holmes, my high
• 39:22
  school coach. Lo and behold, some of the guys
• 39:27
  I was playing with was on the track team.
• 39:30
  Hey, the track coach didn't want to meet you.
• 39:35
  So they go back and say man. How did he get word about that?
• 39:39
  OK, so I guess the the kids who I was playing with, I'm I'm I
• 39:44
  get a steal. You can't dunk in hyper.
• 39:46
  That's one of the rules. OK, unless you're on the
• 39:49
  basketball team because those dudes are that big and sometimes
• 39:52
  it just happens. All right, that's just what it
• 39:53
  is. But I get a steal and we're
• 39:55
  playing ball and I poke 1, you know, from almost a free throw
• 39:59
  line in the game. I'm flying kaboom.
• 40:02
  Hey, that's a warning. Next one and you you know,
• 40:04
  you're out of here. So the guys you know who?
• 40:08
  You know, donning them, they're like, yo man, hold on, that
• 40:11
  didn't look right. Like what?
• 40:12
  Like what? Sports.
• 40:13
  No one does that right? Yeah.
• 40:15
  That that doesn't look right. Like what, what is this?
• 40:17
  And I was like, well, you know, I did a little running and, you
• 40:19
  know, because now I'm healthy, you know, as well now I'm
• 40:22
  healthy from my leg and you know, and here we are.
• 40:26
  And so they go back and said, there's a dude who was playing
• 40:30
  ball. And I guess one of the next
• 40:33
  times they all decided to come, I'm there.
• 40:36
  Marshall Golfs, I guess, is over in the side watching.
• 40:40
  Marshall Golfs knows who I am. He knows my high school coach
• 40:44
  from their time. Together, this all makes sense
• 40:46
  now. Here we go.
• 40:48
  He calls Cabot. Hey, man, why don't you tell me?
• 40:50
  And Cabot tells him. Because he was going to the
• 40:52
  service. He wasn't going to college,
• 40:54
  that's why. Cabot surprises you are that
• 40:56
  he's out of. You so if he said but but he
• 40:59
  told him, but he's a strong willed fella.
• 41:01
  Like if you can get him to come, like he's going to do what you
• 41:05
  ask. Like here we go.
• 41:07
  So I get a voicemail. You know, I looked at my
• 41:09
  roommate, my roommate, we look OK.
• 41:13
  So so I I go out, meet with them, ended up coming out during
• 41:18
  towards the end of indoor my freshman year and and it just
• 41:23
  kind of went from there. Like it, it just happened.
• 41:26
  You know, people like, oh man, you must have went to IU to run.
• 41:29
  It's like, no, I went to IU to like play basketball and just
• 41:33
  kind of lose myself, I guess. I don't.
• 41:35
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 41:36
  But but it it it it that's how my journey comes to pass because
• 41:43
  I only competed my freshman and sophomore year.
• 41:48
  OK, I, me and Chewie know each other well in that conversation
• 41:53
  about being the coach that you wish that you had.
• 41:57
  This is where my story starts because Phil Henson had just
• 42:02
  left, you know, that's the great Phil Henson went to do the 96
• 42:07
  Olympics and all that. And let's just say things just
• 42:11
  didn't go well. And I just had some
• 42:12
  disagreements, you know, because I'm going to keep it all the way
• 42:15
  PC, you know? But within time, there was a lot
• 42:21
  of, I'll say, arguing back and forth.
• 42:25
  And in time, what I said was we're not being treated
• 42:30
  correctly, you know, by said staff member.
• 42:35
  Now, hindsight being what it is, I was absolutely correct, you
• 42:39
  know, and me also now knowing as the adult, as the head coach,
• 42:44
  you're supposed to take staff members, you know, you're
• 42:47
  supposed to take the adult side, you know, you're supposed to
• 42:49
  support things like that. That's just what the role in
• 42:51
  leadership is, you know. But now with as time expired
• 42:55
  within it, I was absolutely correct by what I said, you
• 42:58
  know, So, you know, rest has sold me and Sam Bell.
• 43:01
  We had a real good talk about it and we made-up, you know, before
• 43:04
  us passing me and Goss, like I'm good with Goss and, and Sam, you
• 43:10
  know, Coach Bell now. But I'll, I'll say it kind of
• 43:14
  turned me into the black sheep of the IU track and field tree.
• 43:18
  You know, I, I was the first walk on ever to win the
• 43:22
  illustrious Freshman of the Year award, you know, and, and I, and
• 43:26
  I will say humbly, I was trending upwards, like, OK, now
• 43:30
  I'm starting to find my people. You know, it's the upper class
• 43:36
  kids took me under their wing because there's like this guy is
• 43:40
  nuts, but he has something, you know, and, and with that, and I
• 43:45
  still have relationships with those guys to this day too.
• 43:50
  And I just was hoping that it would come back around and it
• 43:54
  came back around because Coach Bell made some changes within
• 43:57
  that staff. And that's when empathy and
• 44:00
  Wayne Pate came IU for that second, for that stretch right
• 44:05
  there and me and still my stubbornness about how angry I
• 44:11
  was by not being listened to and not heard on behalf of us.
• 44:16
  I didn't come back out. They I was offered an
• 44:19
  opportunity to come back out and I stated my piece of my reasons
• 44:22
  why and I and I chose not to come back out, you know, and.
• 44:27
  Do you, you know, we're talking a lot about hindsight and things
• 44:30
  like that. Do you regret that at all?
• 44:33
  Honestly, I, I'll say yes, because never did I ever, you
• 44:39
  know, think that life would have taken me down this career path,
• 44:44
  right? And that's just because now I
• 44:45
  see the differences that it makes.
• 44:48
  Professionally, hold on, that's a good point.
• 44:51
  As you're going through freshman, sophomore year, you're
• 44:53
  on the team, you're jumping, you're finding your people.
• 44:55
  I love that statement because that that's really what I think
• 44:57
  all young people and really maybe humans in general are
• 45:01
  trying to do throughout our whole lifetime is trying to find
• 45:03
  our tribe, right? Some of us find good tribes and
• 45:08
  some of us find bad tribes. So as you're finding your people
• 45:12
  is anytime during that time coach coaching as a profession
• 45:17
  clicks in it all OK, No, so you're still just did you pick a
• 45:20
  major and like, OK, I'm going to go become a doctor and anything
• 45:24
  like that. Are you still just kind of, I
• 45:26
  don't know, I feel like. I'm still just.
• 45:28
  Kind of location, yeah. Yep, I'm still just kind of
• 45:31
  there. I picked up communication
• 45:34
  though. What?
• 45:35
  I had a real bad speech impediment growing up.
• 45:38
  I'm terrible, my great grandmother really at times.
• 45:41
  And my mom would be the only ones who could understand me at
• 45:43
  times. Yeah.
• 45:44
  So I kind of I self-taught, yeah.
• 45:47
  I'll certainly overcome that, my friend.
• 45:48
  Jeez. And with that, I, you helped a
• 45:51
  lot of that too. So I, I didn't, that was the big
• 45:53
  ESPN buzz. So I'm like, OK, I'm going to be
• 45:56
  a sports commentator. You know, that's so, you know, I
• 45:59
  have a minor in communication and journalism and all that
• 46:02
  stuff now. And I'm just kind of like, and
• 46:07
  then I had a experience right when I thought about coming back
• 46:13
  out, getting my grades together, everything, and getting back on
• 46:15
  track. One of my friends from college
• 46:19
  passed away in a car accident. And it kind of took me off a
• 46:24
  spin. And then a year later, my father
• 46:27
  passed. Unexpected.
• 46:28
  Boy head setter head setter head.
• 46:29
  So it Oh yeah. And then great grandmother
• 46:32
  passed that. So it's like right when I think
• 46:37
  things are coming together. So then there's the resentment
• 46:42
  of maybe if I wasn't here in the 1st place because I should have
• 46:46
  been a Marine and my life was supposed to.
• 46:49
  Yes, yes, that's how. And when I say my mom came down
• 46:56
  to IU 2 times once to drop me off and wants to pick me up, you
• 47:01
  know, she didn't come to any of the meats, you know, because she
• 47:04
  had to work and you know, provide, you know.
• 47:06
  But she literally showed up that second time.
• 47:09
  I was like, before you harm yourself or everybody else, it's
• 47:14
  time for you to come home because I took me down a spiral.
• 47:18
  I I'm a visual person, so like a lot of times is someone's
• 47:22
  telling a story like either the movie plays in my head.
• 47:25
  Like I, it's funny when you're talking about you got the, the
• 47:28
  voicemail from your high school coach saying, Hey, the coaches
• 47:31
  want to talk to you. Like I played that video in my
• 47:33
  head of like, I picture a pretty normal dorm room and your
• 47:37
  roommate sitting on the bed and he's like, wait, what?
• 47:39
  Play that again. He's on the bottom bunk.
• 47:41
  And you? Just talked about good friend
• 47:45
  and dad and grandma. It made me think of Mike Tyson's
• 47:51
  Punch Out actually. And I just got this vision of
• 47:54
  like, you know, you're playing, you're like, oh, I'm doing
• 47:55
  pretty good. I'm gonna beat Tyson.
• 47:56
  And then Tyson just hits you and then you get back up like I find
• 47:59
  I'll win the next round. And boy, now dad passes.
• 48:02
  Boom, there's another one from Tyson like, OK, well, I'll win
• 48:04
  third round, get up, Boom, there's and it's just like whole
• 48:07
  like who survives that? No one survives that.
• 48:11
  Do you start feeling inadequate? Do you start feeling
• 48:13
  responsible? Which are all.
• 48:15
  And this goes back a little bit to what we talked about dealing
• 48:17
  with young people. You're a young person.
• 48:19
  Your brain is still developing. Can I see you absolutely taking
• 48:25
  in what now we would call wrong emotions, meaning like, oh,
• 48:28
  blank you blaming yourself. Oh, I should have been a marine
• 48:30
  if I would have done this. That would have and it's like
• 48:32
  none of that none of that is is true at all.
• 48:35
  Saul, young Saul, you know, but again, we don't know this until
• 48:38
  we're thirty 40-50 years old. We can look back and go, okay,
• 48:41
  I, I get it doesn't hurt less that I lost my people, but I, I
• 48:46
  don't need to be beating myself up over that yeah boy, that's
• 48:50
  tough. Anybody that's tough, dude, holy
• 48:52
  cow. And.
• 48:53
  And that, that maturity level in age, it's like, wow, it, it, it.
• 48:58
  And that's the thing, you know, it kind of forces you to grow up
• 49:01
  to be who you are. That's it's absolutely, yeah.
• 49:05
  You know, and and that's the whole thing about to answer it,
• 49:09
  why there is some piece of the regret to it, but it's still
• 49:12
  all's what was best, because some of those guys I was
• 49:15
  tangling with, they all ended up being national qualifiers, all
• 49:19
  Americans, because I still I actually still talk to a couple
• 49:22
  of them to this day, you know, so it's like the ability was
• 49:25
  there because I was beating them from time to time and things
• 49:28
  like that. So there's always the the not
• 49:31
  knowing. That's.
• 49:33
  The. Who were your boys on the team?
• 49:35
  I was actually in around 90 when Marshall took over.
• 49:39
  I became fairly air quotes here close to the Indiana program
• 49:42
  because Marshall was kind of like my dad.
• 49:44
  And I'd go and do summer camps and Danielle Carruthers and
• 49:50
  yeah, Greg, Greg Yadel, right after that, you know, things
• 49:52
  like that. Who are some of the guys?
• 49:54
  I'm right before them, which like Brian Johnson, Eric
• 49:57
  Matthews, who played for the Packers, you know, Jermaine
• 50:00
  Cheney, those guys was there and Terry was still there training.
• 50:03
  Yeah, yeah, glad. With Dee Dee, you know Dee Dee,
• 50:07
  you know so. But one of one of my real good
• 50:09
  friends to this day still Tom Chorney.
• 50:12
  Yeah. Is that right?
• 50:13
  You know, yeah, So Chorney's in that group.
• 50:16
  I and I still talk to a chunk of them.
• 50:19
  Nicole Hartfield, I have a cousin who was on the team who
• 50:23
  was a long hurdler, Tracy, like it's it's still, I still speak
• 50:27
  with those guys. That was the best thing about
• 50:29
  this whole the trip. I went to Miami for the national
• 50:32
  championship and that was. The Oh, did you really get?
• 50:35
  It guys. Oh yeah, I have to go.
• 50:37
  You. Didn't go to the game to go.
• 50:38
  You didn't go to the game though, no.
• 50:39
  I can't afford the game. That's.
• 50:40
  What I'm saying I was like, I didn't know.
• 50:41
  You get bread like that, bro. That's the first.
• 50:42
  That's exactly what I was thinking.
• 50:43
  I was like, oh, you rich. So I didn't know.
• 50:45
  That no, I got kids. I got kids, but me and the wife,
• 50:47
  we went down, you know, it's like birthday trip to for myself
• 50:51
  and we went and just went and did everything.
• 50:54
  And there's people who I haven't seen in 25 something years that
• 50:57
  was all down there and the moment and my wife sees one of
• 51:02
  them and he walks right up to her.
• 51:04
  How did you get this man? Do you know this man?
• 51:07
  This dude is not. Do you know this man?
• 51:09
  And then he says, but he might be one of the fastest, the most
• 51:12
  like the genetics, like holy smokes, like it's crazy.
• 51:16
  But do you know this man? And I'm just looking cool, man.
• 51:19
  It's like you're killing me, bro.
• 51:21
  That's the first thing you gonna say.
• 51:22
  That's a cool experience though bro, that's cool.
• 51:24
  I love that for you. That's cool.
• 51:26
  But but yeah, those those were my IU people.
• 51:28
  I love that great time. I, I, you know, again, Marshall
• 51:31
  very close to me, got to know Wayne and very well.
• 51:34
  You know, I respect love Ed's been on the podcast, love Wayne.
• 51:38
  So proud of him for being able to retire.
• 51:40
  And you know, he's gone through a lot with his family and in the
• 51:43
  profession. So just love those people to
• 51:46
  death. Honestly, I was, I was a Hoosier
• 51:48
  fan, even though I'm from the South because of those people.
• 51:50
  Honestly, I just love those people.
• 51:53
  OK, so junior, senior year of college, man, you are.
• 51:57
  You're getting the Mike Tyson body punch left and right.
• 52:00
  You can't get up before the next punch hits you.
• 52:02
  A player in the face. Yeah.
• 52:04
  Basically, and I tell people and even my kids, I'm like, if you
• 52:08
  guys only really knew, which is funny because I'll tell them I'm
• 52:12
  eventually going to catch up with you because you just don't
• 52:14
  know coach like I know coach. So trying to, I'll say pull the
• 52:18
  malarkey, cut those corners, things like that, I'll be
• 52:21
  sitting right there waiting on, hey, I knew this day was coming.
• 52:24
  I created that. You don't know me, you know,
• 52:27
  just because I'm all at the church now at 9:00 AM.
• 52:30
  Let this stuff fool you now, OK? You know, And so and but.
• 52:34
  But, yeah, that that's coming back to it.
• 52:36
  That's what some of the regret is.
• 52:38
  It's because I ultimately never knew how fast or how far I get
• 52:45
  that, you know. And So what do you do?
• 52:47
  You graduate? What do we do next?
• 52:50
  So here we go. I get picked up.
• 52:52
  I got back, brought back to Michigan City.
• 52:56
  I'm just sitting, sitting in the sitting in my room.
• 53:00
  It's a phone call from the AD at the high school.
• 53:02
  Hold on, Saul, I'm sorry again. Pictures, right?
• 53:05
  You might, because I know you will.
• 53:06
  Enough. I feel like I can say this and
• 53:08
  not offend you because again, spoiler, I know what the future
• 53:12
  becomes. You're a very successful man,
• 53:15
  father and husband and just coach and they you know, you've
• 53:19
  created like you're extremely successful up to this point here
• 53:23
  at least, and I'm talking about being done with college.
• 53:26
  That's AI mean most of us now I shouldn't say most of us some of
• 53:30
  us have our crap together at that point, or at least some
• 53:34
  semblance. I feel like at this point you
• 53:37
  are a ship without a rudder. You know rudder helps you move
• 53:41
  left and right and gives you direction.
• 53:43
  You are just bouncing along in the seas here.
• 53:46
  I cannot if if if I was listening to the story with no,
• 53:50
  like people right now listening have no idea what you have done.
• 53:53
  And and we'll talk about that here soon, of course, but they
• 53:56
  had to be they have to be thinking like how did this guy
• 53:58
  become anything like you are just like like I I you know, and
• 54:03
  I'm not going to go there, but this is amazing to me, like
• 54:06
  you're spot on become successful.
• 54:08
  This is amazing to me. You have every excuse not to be
• 54:11
  successful. That's for.
• 54:12
  Sure, you are spot on with that. It's it's I, I tell people it is
• 54:16
  this is God's work. Like it is an absolute miracle
• 54:20
  that I'm alive right now as we speak.
• 54:24
  I interrupted. You that darkness like people if
• 54:28
  especially if you've never experienced it and and there
• 54:31
  aren't too many people who experience what I experienced,
• 54:34
  especially on the backside because I'm trying not to cry.
• 54:45
  The backside of my college life was horrible.
• 54:52
  And that is the best word that I can give it.
• 54:55
  When I say the darkness, if you've never been out in the
• 55:01
  middle of 10,000 people and still felt alone, you have no
• 55:06
  idea what I'm talking about. Like it's, it's, it's literally,
• 55:17
  it's, it's indescribable. I'll put it that way.
• 55:20
  It's literally indescribable. And that brings me back to
• 55:24
  Michigan City. After being picked up, I get a
• 55:26
  phone call. Hey, come on out.
• 55:29
  Bear Falls. Now here we go.
• 55:30
  Bear Falls. My JV coach, my uncle, he's now
• 55:34
  working, working his way up to be the AD, but he's also under a
• 55:38
  guy named Jeff Freitag, who was going to be the the AD who was
• 55:43
  one of my teachers in in high school, You know, so I'm back in
• 55:47
  my small town, some of the same people that are there, they know
• 55:50
  that I'm there and literally tag calls me in.
• 55:54
  It's like, I just want to talk to you.
• 55:57
  I, I, they know all the things that has happened and literally
• 56:02
  said, we think you should come out and start coaching.
• 56:06
  We think you would be a great asset to teach the kids right
• 56:10
  from wrong, even though we know you're wild, you know, like we
• 56:13
  know you're from high school. You know what?
• 56:16
  What did you? Think when they said that
• 56:17
  because you've had a lot of good coaches in front of you at this
• 56:21
  point, so you know, like what coach is and you know, a little
• 56:24
  bit on the pedestal. You know what, you've been up to
• 56:26
  this point, good and bad and everything in between.
• 56:30
  When they said, hey, we think you should come out and coach,
• 56:33
  what was the immediate reaction of that?
• 56:37
  Yeah, right. Like you guys are crazy.
• 56:39
  Here I plan. Right, right, right.
• 56:41
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With the jokes.
• 56:43
  What do you really want me to do?
• 56:44
  Right. Right.
• 56:45
  But no, but they, they were, they were dead serious.
• 56:49
  And and they, they and they said, you know, I, I always had
• 56:54
  a way to get my point across, whether it was good or bad.
• 56:59
  But they was like, but you will figure that out with time,
• 57:02
  right? Right, right.
• 57:03
  And and OK, I'll figure that out with time.
• 57:05
  OK, I got you. And so I and I, so I said, OK,
• 57:10
  so they put me on the basketball staff and I was helping out with
• 57:13
  falls and my uncle was there as well.
• 57:15
  So it was Benny Edwards, Bear Falls, Donnie Thomas.
• 57:18
  Those are The Three Musketeers in Michigan City of men of
• 57:21
  color, you know, And so I'm under them.
• 57:25
  And when I say they were all three different guys, they were
• 57:31
  three different distinct personalities that I learned
• 57:34
  things under my my uncle. So Donnie Thomas, like I said,
• 57:38
  so he's the middle linebacker at IU, played in the league a
• 57:42
  little bit as well. Comes back to teach, had some
• 57:45
  great girls basketball runs throughout the state tournament.
• 57:50
  Couldn't get a ring, but he had some great runs out for some
• 57:53
  years. Where else in the red, the Lady
• 57:56
  Red Devils was a team that you had to go through if you was
• 57:59
  going to try and get to the state game.
• 58:01
  He taught me the kindness from being a girls coach that's
• 58:05
  needed at times because, you know, there is a different way
• 58:08
  that we talked to each gender. So Bear, Bear, Bear was a
• 58:13
  hustler. He's the ferocious 1, you know,
• 58:16
  hey, no, we need to do some fundraising.
• 58:18
  Let's make these shirts. Let's make this let's, you know,
• 58:20
  no, no, no. Like he was the businessman and
• 58:23
  that's what I learned under him. And Benny.
• 58:26
  Benny taught me how to just kind of sit and watch and just be
• 58:30
  calm. So when I say they were three
• 58:33
  totally personalities, but when you put them all together, here
• 58:38
  we go. And so I get through there and
• 58:42
  then they said, and we're going to now put you on the track
• 58:44
  staff. So this is me still coming off
• 58:49
  of being suicidal. Just I just dark.
• 58:55
  And then they put me around those boys and the light came
• 59:00
  on. Finally I get out the track
• 59:03
  season and Ken by Ken by was a head coach who who brought me in
• 59:08
  and he says, you know, I don't know you, but I've heard these
• 59:11
  stories about you and and he literally just said, just be
• 59:15
  kind. It'll come to you.
• 59:18
  And I started to he let me. He literally just kind of gave
• 59:22
  me some free reign with him. A great man who ended up working
• 59:26
  with me as well. Ray Bloomer, Larry Williams rest
• 59:29
  his soul as well. And then they just kind of let
• 59:34
  me, I, I knew what workouts started to look like.
• 59:38
  So then I started to just more so worry about if they were
• 59:42
  eating, if they were sleeping, if they were coming to school
• 59:44
  and doing their work. Because I I knew then if those
• 59:48
  things wasn't in order, I'm never going to get the maximum
• 59:50
  out of you. It's simple.
• 59:53
  It's it's simple, you know, because I just remember not
• 59:56
  eating enough, not sleeping enough, not here.
• 59:59
  Here we go. Oh, I'm just going to try and do
• 1:00:02
  the exact opposite of what I was doing and it might be able to
• 1:00:06
  turn out better. And lo and behold, here I go.
• 1:00:09
  We're at the state meet. You know, a kid gets a, you
• 1:00:12
  know, Javon Lee gets my first medal his junior year.
• 1:00:16
  And I'm like, oh, OK. Well, OK, here, here we go.
• 1:00:20
  So now let's do this work and let's keep working.
• 1:00:23
  And, and then the second year Coach Williams passed and it
• 1:00:28
  kind of left me in charge of all the like, sprints, jumps and
• 1:00:32
  hurdles. And I'm like, oh, this is a lot
• 1:00:35
  of responsibility. But I just kept hearing it'll
• 1:00:39
  come to you. You just have to be patient.
• 1:00:41
  You can't get it all at once. Things go well, had a kid we
• 1:00:45
  went up to Fort Wayne, kid goes 1060 in 100.
• 1:00:49
  The hurdler, he went 1390 over in at A at Lockport at that big
• 1:00:54
  meet in Lockport in May over the highs, you know, and things are
• 1:00:57
  coming together and it's just kind of like, OK, I think I
• 1:01:01
  might be able to do this because I was still kind of on the fence
• 1:01:08
  waiting on the other shoe to drop, right?
• 1:01:12
  Because when they pulled me out of school at the end of that
• 1:01:15
  last year, I still had because I had to change my major because
• 1:01:20
  of my grades had dropped. I I had to take two more classes
• 1:01:25
  and then I was finished. So I finished up my degree at in
• 1:01:30
  two classes in IUN and Gary a couple of years after I went
• 1:01:34
  home. So now I have my degree and now
• 1:01:37
  this bug has hit me because now I'm in my small town.
• 1:01:41
  I'm making a difference in people, which is something that
• 1:01:45
  I've always wanted to do, which is why I wanted to go medical,
• 1:01:48
  which is why I wanted to go to. The green, right, right.
• 1:01:50
  That's what you know, it was kind of striking.
• 1:01:52
  So when you know, at first, when you're talking about those
• 1:01:55
  coaches and I love kind of the three headed look of almost 3
• 1:01:59
  hearted actually, you know, one, let's go fundraise, one, be
• 1:02:02
  kind, one, have patience and be quiet.
• 1:02:04
  You know, I love that almost like the three oracles of of
• 1:02:07
  coaching for you. And at first I wanted to say
• 1:02:09
  like, like, oh, you know, it's amazing what we can do when
• 1:02:12
  someone believes in us. But I'm not necessarily hearing
• 1:02:17
  through your life so far in this journey, people not believe in
• 1:02:20
  you. You know, the track coach
• 1:02:21
  believed in you understand the basketball coach maybe did
• 1:02:23
  believe in you. Maybe they had different motives
• 1:02:26
  of what they were really trying to do anyway.
• 1:02:27
  But you know, the track coach, your, your, your mom, certainly
• 1:02:31
  you know, your second grade teacher.
• 1:02:32
  You've you've had a lot of people believe in you.
• 1:02:34
  But now I'm wondering though, it's almost like a reverse, like
• 1:02:39
  what can help someone now that you're the coach and you're
• 1:02:42
  helping others, which that certainly has been like, you
• 1:02:45
  know, in you and just, you know, continuing rising and rising
• 1:02:49
  until now you are in a position of coaching that we're like, OK,
• 1:02:52
  now I can let that out. I wonder if that was the real.
• 1:02:55
  I'm gonna use the word therapy here of of like, oh, I get to
• 1:02:59
  pour into other people now. I wonder if that's the real
• 1:03:01
  unlock here with. You it is it is it's, it's,
• 1:03:06
  that's legitimately how it kind of came together.
• 1:03:09
  It's like, you know, they called me in the office and gave me
• 1:03:12
  some words of wisdom. I'll leave it at that.
• 1:03:14
  I'll tell you what they were when we get off.
• 1:03:18
  But the biggest things were it's kind of like that.
• 1:03:23
  The difference that I saw that I was making is what?
• 1:03:28
  Turn the lights on and turn everything around.
• 1:03:30
  Yeah, it's apparent. It was it was that powerful, you
• 1:03:35
  know, and I tell people, yeah, the state meet and all that
• 1:03:38
  stuff was fine, I said. But the joy I would see them
• 1:03:42
  have walking across the stage at graduation and then it's like,
• 1:03:46
  OK, knowing that you you small you, you slightly contributed
• 1:03:50
  with that you're. Part of the puzzle?
• 1:03:51
  That's right. And, and it's like, OK, I can't
• 1:03:55
  take this lightly. So because so a couple of years
• 1:04:00
  go by and now this is maybe your, your three or so can buy
• 1:04:03
  the size to retire. Tag calls me Fry.
• 1:04:06
  Tag calls me into the office and says, I'm going to do something
• 1:04:11
  different. You know, by our union, the
• 1:04:13
  teachers are supposed to be head coaches.
• 1:04:15
  I'm going to make you the head coach.
• 1:04:18
  The other teachers who have expressed interest want to just
• 1:04:21
  join your staff. Me.
• 1:04:26
  He just said, yeah, you. I know out of all the people,
• 1:04:31
  out of all the darkness, out of here, we are, you know, he said.
• 1:04:35
  Some people want to follow your light.
• 1:04:38
  And that stuck with me forever. And because Ray Bloomer is a
• 1:04:44
  great man Mark Chavez, my buddy Eric Huberts is just some guys
• 1:04:48
  who just, you know, ragtag group of guys.
• 1:04:50
  Hey, man, we going to get this together.
• 1:04:52
  We're going to learn all these events and do all this stuff
• 1:04:54
  together. And and it worked out pretty
• 1:04:57
  well. What also helped was the girls
• 1:05:00
  coach and legendary guy named Tim Bumber.
• 1:05:03
  Illinois product originally was in Michigan City for years,
• 1:05:06
  coached some state champions and some great distance training
• 1:05:09
  things. He worked with us as well and he
• 1:05:13
  would sit and talk with me. Hey, you might want to soften up
• 1:05:16
  on this. You might want to toughen up on
• 1:05:18
  this and things like that within some mentorship of it.
• 1:05:21
  And and so I was 27 at the time, but I was the first person to
• 1:05:26
  ever be a head coach and not be a licensed teacher.
• 1:05:30
  And it was all just because of the previous work that I've done
• 1:05:34
  was so above par to trying to make a difference of what
• 1:05:38
  education and teaching is supposed to be.
• 1:05:41
  You know, at the time I was working at the alternative
• 1:05:44
  school, you know, as the in school suspension supervisor.
• 1:05:48
  You know, I did some time as a paraprofessional.
• 1:05:51
  They call them I as now you know, but I had a kid who what I
• 1:05:56
  had an autistic kid that I took the PE everyday.
• 1:05:58
  I got off of my normal shift with the emotionally,
• 1:06:02
  behaviorally challenged kids and they would let me leave for that
• 1:06:06
  hour to take him to PE and I would take him into the swimming
• 1:06:09
  and do things like that. So now it's finally occurring to
• 1:06:13
  me. I think I need to try and go get
• 1:06:15
  this teacher's license to see what I can do about furthering
• 1:06:20
  the future. And that is how I ended up in
• 1:06:23
  Indianapolis because I needed to put myself in a in a city where
• 1:06:28
  there was schools to where they would see my work ethic because
• 1:06:32
  it wasn't my GPA, but my GPA at the time still.
• 1:06:36
  Above a 2. But one of them two point lows
• 1:06:40
  to where somebody would see it and give me an opportunity, you
• 1:06:44
  know, and that's how I ended up down in Indianapolis.
• 1:06:47
  And this is how this story gets really funny, Mike.
• 1:06:50
  Pause right there as you're going through IU and everything
• 1:06:54
  we just talked about and you, you finish up with IU and go
• 1:06:57
  back home. Any point did you think about
• 1:06:59
  going back to the Marine? Because that's still an option.
• 1:07:02
  You know you're aged out at this point.
• 1:07:04
  No, I wasn't aged out. I've went through officer
• 1:07:09
  candidate school. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:07:11
  Yes I did. And at the end of the day I
• 1:07:15
  ended up a runner up for a medical program at Fort Knox and
• 1:07:20
  what I said was when a medical position opens up, give me a
• 1:07:24
  call back. I'm not joining the military for
• 1:07:27
  nothing else but what I want to do.
• 1:07:30
  Right. Never heard back from him.
• 1:07:33
  I kept tabs I've reached out I've reached out two different
• 1:07:35
  times. Hey, I'm just checking to see
• 1:07:37
  where things are. We still don't have anything,
• 1:07:40
  but we have this over here. No, that's not what I want.
• 1:07:43
  Not full of military. No, I want exactly what I want.
• 1:07:46
  I'm coming in as an officer all I I know what this is now
• 1:07:50
  because I've done my digging and and honestly, I think, you know,
• 1:07:54
  the Lord said that's just not where I'm supposed to go because
• 1:07:57
  he didn't open that door. That's right.
• 1:08:00
  And so I get down here to Indianapolis, I, I, I, I talked
• 1:08:05
  with Mike home in one year at, at the state track clinic.
• 1:08:08
  And I just told him, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm looking at trying
• 1:08:11
  to get into his program into a school and I'm looking at coming
• 1:08:14
  down here. And he was like, well, you know,
• 1:08:16
  my spots are full, you know, but I appreciate you talking to me.
• 1:08:23
  Great man. Ken Browner, who just retired
• 1:08:25
  from Carmel High School in Indiana maybe two years ago, he
• 1:08:30
  sees this engagement and he just comes over and introduces
• 1:08:33
  himself, Hey, I saw you talking with, I saw you talking with
• 1:08:35
  Holman. Are you thinking of wanting to
• 1:08:38
  come down here? Dude.
• 1:08:42
  We talked for the rest of that year and I end up down there in
• 1:08:47
  August at Lawrence N with him and he was like, and he just
• 1:08:51
  says Ken Browner when I say I owe that man, I'll never be able
• 1:08:58
  to repay him back. You know, he's he's godfather.
• 1:09:01
  They're God parents for my daughter.
• 1:09:02
  Oh dude. He's so when I say Ken Browner,
• 1:09:06
  if anybody called him for anything, he would answer the
• 1:09:08
  phone and if it's something especially about track, he would
• 1:09:11
  answer the phone and really be in.
• 1:09:13
  So he's at Lawrence N Holman was at Lawrence Central, right?
• 1:09:17
  The. Rival schools.
• 1:09:19
  What a great example, like when I talk about networking, you
• 1:09:24
  know, a lot of times people, you know, they go to convention or
• 1:09:27
  they'll go to their state track clinic and that they're going to
• 1:09:29
  network And what they're really what they, what they mean by
• 1:09:31
  networking is, is I'm going to go meet Holman and you know, all
• 1:09:35
  these people and maybe they'll help me get a job or be on my
• 1:09:38
  resume, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:09:39
  And in reality, proper networking is how do you create
• 1:09:44
  bonding and rapport with others and show how like maybe I can
• 1:09:47
  give you value like Robert didn't had to, didn't have to
• 1:09:50
  come over and talk to you. Nope, Nope.
• 1:09:53
  And that's the thing. Like 0 like no no shot.
• 1:09:55
  Did he have to that's. Amazing.
• 1:09:57
  That's why Ken Browner to me that I there are no his he is a
• 1:10:03
  great big. Yeah.
• 1:10:06
  Yeah, because he brings me down. And as you know, your Midwest
• 1:10:10
  guy, that Lawrence N program, it's it's no walk in the park,
• 1:10:13
  OK, to get on that record board, you know, there's no walk in the
• 1:10:17
  park. And he brought me down and he
• 1:10:20
  literally says, I want the best people for what the best events
• 1:10:23
  are, to make the best program so we can eventually get state
• 1:10:26
  championships. I am humble enough to let
• 1:10:29
  someone else do what they're here to do.
• 1:10:34
  And, and I, I, I never forget that statement.
• 1:10:37
  And that's the thing. He, he literally said, some
• 1:10:41
  people have told me I would be a fool to bring a head coach in
• 1:10:44
  here because I was a head coach before him technically.
• 1:10:48
  But if you know me, you're the boss.
• 1:10:52
  Let's go. OK, so he brings me in.
• 1:10:56
  We go through that first year and we had immediate success.
• 1:10:59
  Our second year. We ended up being state runner
• 1:11:01
  UPS to Ben Davis. But the funniest part is we get
• 1:11:04
  to a meet and Mike Holman sees me come in with Ken Browner.
• 1:11:11
  Browner comes to me. I go say all the words, but he
• 1:11:14
  says home and sees that I got you laugh.
• 1:11:18
  And I said to him, and I'm only here to seek and destroy.
• 1:11:21
  Now it's just business. It's never a person.
• 1:11:25
  Here we go. And he had that group.
• 1:11:28
  He had was kind Butler, you know, or, you know, IU track
• 1:11:32
  star slash, you know, world indoor world record holder, you
• 1:11:36
  know, like so there was some talent in that group as well.
• 1:11:39
  And, and we got on him and and Kenny, Kenny just let me be
• 1:11:43
  myself. You know, we had we had some ups
• 1:11:48
  and downs at Lane and a lot of it is, and this is going to be
• 1:11:52
  the first time that I say this out loud.
• 1:11:56
  I was trying to I got in trouble because kids from other sports
• 1:12:02
  wanted to come out and hang out with the young cat and hang out.
• 1:12:06
  And because when I say we're in the weight room, we're lifting,
• 1:12:09
  we're in spandex shorts lifting like because it was only the
• 1:12:12
  boys in there. I mean, you know, we're turning
• 1:12:14
  it into. Yeah, it's a thing.
• 1:12:17
  There were guys who were on other teams who wanted to come
• 1:12:21
  out and be like, hey, you know, if that's what it is, you know,
• 1:12:25
  hey, let's go. Because their friends were
• 1:12:28
  coming out and their friends were, you know, track people.
• 1:12:31
  So it's just the whole association thing.
• 1:12:34
  And some of the other coaches didn't like that.
• 1:12:37
  So I said, OK, I, I know how to fix this.
• 1:12:41
  And I went over to Warren Central and started coaching the
• 1:12:43
  girls with James Taylor because I, I'm never going to go
• 1:12:49
  anywhere where I'm not wanted. And I'm definitely never going
• 1:12:51
  to stay anywhere where I'm felt like I'm not, you know, and, and
• 1:12:55
  that's what it is. It's, it's I, I ended up, and
• 1:12:58
  that's the funniest part about this story, Mike.
• 1:13:01
  I went down to Ln and they knew I coached basketball, but the
• 1:13:06
  football coach got to me first and we made a deal.
• 1:13:10
  If I came out and coached the receivers, by the way, had an
• 1:13:13
  Allstate receiver because I know the route tree.
• 1:13:15
  Remember I said I played a little bit.
• 1:13:17
  I know it. My uncle coached it like I, I
• 1:13:19
  know it. It's just he told me that if I
• 1:13:23
  came out and helped the football program, I would get all the
• 1:13:26
  receivers and corners my my group that I coach could come
• 1:13:30
  out and run track. Ask me what he did.
• 1:13:34
  Win track season came along, I don't know what happened.
• 1:13:37
  You know, we need everybody to be a critical part of the
• 1:13:40
  program and moving forward in there.
• 1:13:42
  You know, we're just one step away.
• 1:13:44
  The football coach is thinking they're all going to get the
• 1:13:47
  full ride in football and all that stuff.
• 1:13:49
  He he knew exactly what he did. And what I said was this, I
• 1:13:53
  appreciate your time, but you're not a man of your word.
• 1:13:56
  I don't work with men who are not men of their word.
• 1:13:59
  And I said that to him directly in his face.
• 1:14:02
  And and that was the end of my football time.
• 1:14:04
  So football rolls around. I'm still working in the
• 1:14:06
  building. I'm still there and there and
• 1:14:08
  I'm going to the games because those are still my boys.
• 1:14:11
  I said, come on, I'm here to cheer you up, but parents are
• 1:14:13
  why aren't you out there? Just a disagreement in
• 1:14:16
  principle, that's all disagreement in principle.
• 1:14:19
  I'm good because now I've tapped back into.
• 1:14:23
  I know that feeling from my younger days.
• 1:14:27
  I know that feeling. I know that feeling so.
• 1:14:31
  But I've matured enough to just say I'm just not going to be
• 1:14:34
  anywhere where it feels like I'm not.
• 1:14:36
  One, remove yourself from the situation.
• 1:14:38
  So I've removed myself from the situation and that was the best
• 1:14:42
  thing that happened to. That's a sign of maturity,
• 1:14:44
  right? Exactly.
• 1:14:46
  Because I went over with another great man, James Taylor, who
• 1:14:50
  coached the Warren Central girls.
• 1:14:51
  They had won a couple state titles.
• 1:14:53
  You know, I got the coaching girls, Warren Central 10/11/12
• 1:14:58
  in that ballpark. Logan Hayes was the star of that
• 1:15:03
  group. You know, she was, she was my
• 1:15:05
  quarter girl who went 53, like 53 mid, almost something like
• 1:15:11
  that as a senior. Is that where it was before you?
• 1:15:14
  One of my favorite people. She ended up going to IU
• 1:15:16
  actually. Lorianne Price.
• 1:15:18
  She was a herd. Lorianne is right before that
• 1:15:20
  group. Yeah, I thought so because.
• 1:15:22
  Lauren is right before that. Recruiter when I was at Ball
• 1:15:24
  State and that would have been O2 O 3, but it's just one of the
• 1:15:29
  like my favorite people in the whole world that you know, met
• 1:15:31
  her as a 17 year old girl and she's become just a awesome
• 1:15:34
  woman. Man, I just love Lola.
• 1:15:35
  She is fantastic. She's like the academic league
• 1:15:38
  down there at IU on campus. Still.
• 1:15:41
  Yeah, I saw her in Miami too. She's like, what are you doing
• 1:15:43
  here? I was like, I was like, I'm mad
• 1:15:45
  you didn't give me tickets. I thought I was people, you know
• 1:15:48
  so. And she was just like, Oh no,
• 1:15:50
  tickets was like blood. You can better off getting blood
• 1:15:52
  for me so so but yeah. Yeah, Warren Central, great
• 1:15:56
  program. Yep, so went went from Ln We
• 1:15:58
  like I said, we had some great success.
• 1:16:00
  You know, had a junior Olympian, you know, junior all American at
• 1:16:04
  the USATF juniors, you know, the national championship kid pounds
• 1:16:08
  in the shot who ended up going to Indiana State.
• 1:16:11
  He was in that group. And then but getting over to
• 1:16:14
  Warren, it was the first time I was now officially on the clock
• 1:16:18
  to coach girls. And that's when I said, you
• 1:16:22
  know, I think I may want to try and get into college.
• 1:16:25
  What made you think that? Just in the sense of as I'm
• 1:16:31
  getting higher in age groups, my communication is better because
• 1:16:40
  they're at that point in life to where they would really
• 1:16:43
  understand some of the things that I'm saying from the lessons
• 1:16:46
  that I've learned or how good or how hard life may be and how you
• 1:16:51
  just have to persevere through some things.
• 1:16:54
  It's even though it may sometimes it may seem like it's
• 1:16:58
  a train at the end of the tunnel, but it's actually still
• 1:17:00
  the sun. But but you wouldn't get your.
• 1:17:03
  Well, there's a teacher's certificate or whatever.
• 1:17:05
  Like you're a teacher now. Yep, Yep.
• 1:17:08
  I so I ended up my whole play to come to Indianapolis, ended up
• 1:17:12
  working out and that's really after my time at Warren.
• 1:17:17
  That's how I ended up in the coaching in college.
• 1:17:21
  The athletic director at Marion, which is where I ended up at for
• 1:17:26
  my teaching certificate program, is Steve Downing.
• 1:17:30
  Indiana University basketball alone.
• 1:17:33
  Steve Downing was at school with my uncle Donnie Thomas.
• 1:17:37
  He he calls me in because I talked to him because he had
• 1:17:41
  just got the job. I talked to him and I told him
• 1:17:43
  what I was doing and what I wanted to do.
• 1:17:45
  And he called me in and I met with met with a young lady in
• 1:17:49
  the education program. She looks at my transcripts.
• 1:17:52
  Mike goes just like this. Hold on.
• 1:17:58
  No, no, no, hold on, hold on. And this is exactly what she
• 1:18:03
  does. And this is the time frame she
• 1:18:05
  goes, What happened right here? Because these grades don't match
• 1:18:12
  these grades. She was good.
• 1:18:15
  And I just sat back in the chair and I looked at her and I said,
• 1:18:18
  you're the first person who's ever asked me that Mary O'Brien
• 1:18:25
  know her name. And so she says, I, I see your
• 1:18:29
  resume. I see how much you've been in
• 1:18:30
  education. I see that you've been working.
• 1:18:33
  You've actually done work first, I'm going to give you a chance
• 1:18:36
  and and they let me in their education program.
• 1:18:39
  Straight A's, straight A's, straight A's that's.
• 1:18:42
  Someone who instead of just looking at the bottom line and
• 1:18:45
  just rejecting, actually took the time and let the numbers
• 1:18:48
  speak to her and say, wait a minute, there's something
• 1:18:50
  happened right here. Let me let me find out what
• 1:18:52
  happened here. Yeah, that.
• 1:18:54
  That was bravo to her buddy. Holy cow.
• 1:18:57
  I cried in that office, Yo. I cried so bad it made her cry,
• 1:19:02
  you know, and and I just literally told her I don't at
• 1:19:05
  this point in time. Now it's been, I've been chasing
• 1:19:09
  this now a decade. I have my degree.
• 1:19:11
  Yeah. But no one was letting me into a
• 1:19:15
  school because now it is a little easier to be a teacher
• 1:19:18
  because of the shortage. But back then, that wasn't the
• 1:19:20
  case, you know? So she.
• 1:19:22
  So she let me in. And Mike Coleman sees me walking
• 1:19:28
  on campus. Here we go.
• 1:19:29
  That very same Mike Coleman at Marriott.
• 1:19:31
  He sees me on campus. Hey, you know, it comes to me,
• 1:19:36
  You know, I, I, I got a spot open on staff, you know.
• 1:19:38
  Would you be interested? And I and he goes in because he
• 1:19:41
  went to Lawrence Central over to Marion.
• 1:19:43
  That's right. And me being me, I said, oh, oh,
• 1:19:47
  now you're ready for me to join us now.
• 1:19:48
  So. No, you didn't.
• 1:19:50
  But I said it jokingly. OK, I hope so.
• 1:19:53
  And he caught it because, you know, Mike Holman, Mike.
• 1:19:55
  Holman is, you know. I do a great Mike Holman
• 1:19:58
  impression. He's a great man though.
• 1:20:01
  Even better coach. Like that guy there.
• 1:20:03
  Like, yes, he's. Tired, but that.
• 1:20:06
  Guy, because I learned something under him too.
• 1:20:09
  That was structure. Yeah, sure.
• 1:20:12
  Oh, for sure, for sure. And.
• 1:20:13
  So, and so I, I get out there with them, you know, and, and,
• 1:20:17
  and that's when my college time started.
• 1:20:19
  So my high school boys, boys, a chunk of boys that step to go
• 1:20:26
  coach the girls. Now I got my language, how to
• 1:20:29
  talk to the boys, how you talk to the girls, even how you coach
• 1:20:33
  the boys, how you coach the girls and even how you move
• 1:20:37
  within the events and their movements at that age out here
• 1:20:41
  we are at Marion and he let me let me coach the jumpers, let me
• 1:20:45
  coach the hurdlers. Ended up with a national
• 1:20:47
  championship kid, you know, in that time, in those first couple
• 1:20:50
  of years as well, in the highs and door and out.
• 1:20:54
  And that structure is what helped everything come together.
• 1:20:58
  And I'm like, yeah, I like this college thing.
• 1:21:01
  This this, this college thing is yeah, this is this is my age
• 1:21:05
  group. What was?
• 1:21:06
  You know, because what was? The biggest thing you had to
• 1:21:09
  learn in that first year or two, because coaching high school is
• 1:21:12
  different than coaching college. And I'm not saying either 1 is
• 1:21:14
  better, by the way. I'm not saying either one is
• 1:21:16
  easier either, by the way, but it is different.
• 1:21:20
  You are dealing with a different segment of life, right?
• 1:21:22
  1418 versus 18 to 22. You're dealing with 1418.
• 1:21:26
  You typically is going home to mom or dad, 18 to 22 year olds
• 1:21:29
  who are typically not going home to mom or dad, things like that.
• 1:21:33
  What was some of the IT, it always amazes me when when I
• 1:21:38
  used to teach USCTF level ones, the number one question I'd get
• 1:21:42
  because I, I started coaching high school in my career and
• 1:21:44
  then went on to college. So the number one question I
• 1:21:46
  would get from high school coaches at level ones is, hey,
• 1:21:49
  so you did it. How do I do it?
• 1:21:51
  And it's like, man, maybe you don't come to be real honest
• 1:21:54
  with you. Yeah.
• 1:21:55
  I get, I got, I I've gotten that a lot too, yeah.
• 1:21:58
  So I'm curious, what were some of the things?
• 1:22:02
  So, so we have in our mind what we think college coaching is,
• 1:22:05
  but you don't know until you do it.
• 1:22:06
  Just like you didn't know. You had in your mind kind of
• 1:22:09
  what you thought a head coach of a high school did.
• 1:22:11
  And then you got the jobs like, oh, OK, well, you know,
• 1:22:12
  obviously there were some things I knew, but there's another
• 1:22:14
  thing. I didn't know how to do this and
• 1:22:15
  I have to deal with that XYZ. It's the same with going from
• 1:22:18
  high school to college. You think you know it and then
• 1:22:21
  you get to go, oh crap, I didn't realize I had to do that or oh
• 1:22:23
  man, I thought I'd be able to do.
• 1:22:24
  I thought when I was trying to get to go to college, to coach
• 1:22:26
  college when I was a coach in high school, I remember
• 1:22:28
  thinking, man, college, you get to pick who's on your team.
• 1:22:34
  Like, oh, what a gift. And it's like, yeah, exactly.
• 1:22:36
  You know, how naive that it's like, Oh yeah, you think you do.
• 1:22:39
  You got some some say to that. But overall you ain't getting
• 1:22:43
  the people you want or, you know, there wouldn't be enough
• 1:22:45
  kids basically. And so, so So what what were
• 1:22:49
  some of the things as you got there?
• 1:22:50
  And you what a great first mentor in your college coaching
• 1:22:53
  with Mike Coleman for sure, dear friend of mine.
• 1:22:55
  What were some of the things that you're like, oh man, I
• 1:22:58
  thought I was going to be able to do X and really I can't or oh
• 1:23:00
  oh man, didn't realize I was going to be able to do this.
• 1:23:03
  That's cool. What were some of the surprises
• 1:23:06
  initially? That's that is a great question.
• 1:23:09
  The biggest surprise, the biggest adjustment.
• 1:23:14
  Coaching their freedom. What do you mean?
• 1:23:17
  The time when they're not in class and not in practice.
• 1:23:20
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is the biggest lesson that
• 1:23:24
  I've learned is coaching their freedom.
• 1:23:28
  Now, my prior life messages have helped some of them stay keep
• 1:23:35
  clear, you know, but coaching their freedom because I'm grown.
• 1:23:40
  I'm on my own, you know, I'm oh, boy, Hey, don't do that.
• 1:23:45
  Don't date her. Don't date him.
• 1:23:46
  Keep your hands on yourself. Don't no go to class.
• 1:23:49
  It's do, don't. The professor's going to know if
• 1:23:52
  you started it last night. You know, all those things that
• 1:23:55
  I've learned from my own walk. I I'm I'm good at relaying those
• 1:24:01
  because I then always will say, well, but at the end of the day,
• 1:24:04
  you're going to do what you want to do anyway.
• 1:24:06
  I'm just trying to tell you from someone who's already banged
• 1:24:08
  their head up against that wall that looks wood, that it's
• 1:24:11
  concrete behind some of those plates.
• 1:24:14
  Don't find out that. Far like that.
• 1:24:16
  There's concrete behind some of those and I'm telling you, so
• 1:24:20
  coaching their freedom is the biggest thing.
• 1:24:23
  And, and the second thing which I started to get out of high
• 1:24:28
  school and especially with dealing with the girls that I
• 1:24:31
  really started to understand and visualize more.
• 1:24:36
  If the athlete doesn't believe in what you're trying to
• 1:24:38
  communicate, you're never going to get the maximum out of them.
• 1:24:44
  I, I literally with at the end of years, one by one would say
• 1:24:49
  thank you, thank you, tell them thank you, thank you for
• 1:24:52
  believing in what I wanted us to try to accomplish.
• 1:24:57
  And and it's us because yes, I'm trying to put these things to
• 1:25:00
  paper, but if you don't believe in it, I'm wasting my time at
• 1:25:05
  the end of the day, you know, So visualizing that cohesion that
• 1:25:11
  is absolutely needed for success and coaching that freedom, those
• 1:25:17
  are, I would say those are the two biggest things that I
• 1:25:20
  learned in college because that freedom, especially when they 20
• 1:25:24
  and 364 days old. Yeah, yeah, right.
• 1:25:30
  Right. Bad stuff that's.
• 1:25:33
  Good. How much did Holman influence
• 1:25:35
  you on that? Holman.
• 1:25:37
  Holman, I would, I would say that time with Holman was great
• 1:25:43
  because and I'll tell you, you can't, everybody can't work for
• 1:25:46
  Mike Coleman. I'll tell you that right now.
• 1:25:49
  He is not for everybody and he will tell you that probably
• 1:25:52
  because he requires so much structure and so much
• 1:25:56
  expectation, just like everybody.
• 1:25:59
  He couldn't coach everybody because his expectations at
• 1:26:02
  times, if he thought that you had it, he's going to coach you
• 1:26:05
  like you had it. And then some of that times
• 1:26:07
  where it's it's just too demanding.
• 1:26:09
  No, and just trying to get you to live out your ability, that's
• 1:26:12
  all. Yeah, I think Coleman has a lot
• 1:26:14
  of self-awareness for that, honestly.
• 1:26:15
  Yes, he does. He'll he'll tell you about it.
• 1:26:17
  He will talk to you about it. And we've had those talks where
• 1:26:22
  him and especially Browner, Browner would say, you know,
• 1:26:28
  when I've walked in the room before, I've gotten there,
• 1:26:30
  sometimes it's not an arrogance. It's not a confidence.
• 1:26:36
  Like it's just me. You, you have to know me to
• 1:26:40
  where if you knew how and why and how I've gotten here.
• 1:26:45
  Everybody's opinion sometimes is irrelevant.
• 1:26:48
  I'm just here to do what I'm going to do.
• 1:26:50
  And as long as my wife and kids and now and my mom are proud of
• 1:26:54
  me because they know I'm doing things the right way, that's all
• 1:26:57
  that matters at the end of the day.
• 1:26:58
  That's why there are times where you see me at convention and it
• 1:27:01
  looks like I'm just out of control because I'm literally
• 1:27:04
  that happy to be there, you know, Because if you didn't
• 1:27:08
  know, you have no idea. So it's like, oh man, who in my
• 1:27:13
  wildest dreams would I ever thought of, you know?
• 1:27:17
  So being with Homan that that structure, he used to make me
• 1:27:21
  turn in workouts weekly. Yeah, yeah, I bet he did.
• 1:27:25
  I could see that. And and with that, though, what
• 1:27:28
  it allowed me to do is I can never slack because then on the
• 1:27:32
  backside of it, he eventually got me into the emerging elite
• 1:27:35
  clinic, which then eventually led me into my so I have my
• 1:27:39
  level 2, my Level 3 jumps. I got my level 2 distance and
• 1:27:44
  Jeremy Fisher, I'm still upset with you about this Level 3
• 1:27:47
  distance score, that jump score, but I'm going to come back to
• 1:27:50
  it. But that level 2 distance
• 1:27:54
  because he said round yourself out and an opportunity is going
• 1:27:58
  to come to you. And the level 2 distance, they
• 1:28:03
  put me on the spot in that cohort because the question was
• 1:28:07
  who in here knows the definition of speed and a workout?
• 1:28:11
  It's a room full of distance coaches, you know, 10-4 hundreds
• 1:28:15
  at Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. And so he's in the room because
• 1:28:21
  it's at Marion and he says that guy up there knows what it is.
• 1:28:25
  And I, I just put my head down, you know, and they stand up, I
• 1:28:31
  stand up, introduce myself. And I said 20s, thirties, 40s
• 1:28:37
  flies maximum velocity. And I that's what speed is.
• 1:28:40
  And I said in distance runners need to be able to do that.
• 1:28:44
  And I say that because we have guys who are running 151 fifty,
• 1:28:47
  1152 and the eight, you know, that's that's how we've gotten
• 1:28:51
  them there, you know, and I just sat down and who told you that?
• 1:28:59
  I said the guy who's sitting down there who called me out in
• 1:29:02
  front of everybody, you know, so here we are.
• 1:29:06
  So that level 2 distance helped me tie together to jump.
• 1:29:09
  That's interesting. Everything else, which is just
• 1:29:12
  crazy of how it tied together because these, after those, I
• 1:29:16
  think 4 years with Homan, that's when I get a call, you know,
• 1:29:19
  come take over Anderson's program.
• 1:29:22
  Oh yeah. And, and I literally, I, you
• 1:29:24
  know, accepted the job, had Simone, my daughter, and two
• 1:29:28
  days later, as they're still in the hospital, I went up for our
• 1:29:31
  first cross country meet. Holy.
• 1:29:33
  Cow, just like that dude. And I'm.
• 1:29:36
  Hey, hey, the new coach. He's here.
• 1:29:37
  Hold on. Didn't he just have a kid?
• 1:29:39
  Yeah, Hey, I'm in charge of the distance too.
• 1:29:42
  Till I find the distance coach, you know, here we are, you know,
• 1:29:45
  so, so it's just funny how that ties together from Cabot Homes
• 1:29:50
  to Kenny by from Ken Browder to James Taylor to Mike Holman.
• 1:29:57
  Like those are Hall of Fame people that I've been under
• 1:30:02
  Indiana Hall of Fame. But still, getting into
• 1:30:05
  anybody's Hall of Fame is hard to do.
• 1:30:07
  Percent that's. Exactly right, you know, and
• 1:30:08
  I've just taken lessons from all of them to try to put together
• 1:30:14
  what my piece is. Right.
• 1:30:15
  Were you the head coach at Anderson?
• 1:30:17
  Yes, Sir. So five years.
• 1:30:19
  What? Love the Raven.
• 1:30:21
  The Ravens right, if I remember correctly.
• 1:30:23
  Yep, the Ravens. What you know, I'm always
• 1:30:25
  interested in the first time you become a head coach, and you're
• 1:30:27
  still relatively young as a coach at this point.
• 1:30:30
  When you become the head coach here, What was something that
• 1:30:36
  when you when you OK, you interviewed, you got the job,
• 1:30:38
  OK, I'm going to be the head coach.
• 1:30:39
  That's great. And again, it's almost a little
• 1:30:41
  bit like one of those things where it's like, I think I know
• 1:30:42
  what the job is. I got a pretty good idea.
• 1:30:44
  But then you get there, it's like, holy crap, didn't realize
• 1:30:46
  I had to do X or wow, I didn't realize I get to do why over
• 1:30:50
  here. What was something that as you
• 1:30:51
  were preparing, you're you're a preparer.
• 1:30:53
  So I could see yourself as, as you're working up to when
• 1:30:55
  you're, you know, call it your first day at Anderson, you're
• 1:30:57
  thinking about the things that you have to do and maybe asking
• 1:31:00
  Mike some questions. Hey, Mike, when do you, how did
• 1:31:02
  you deal with a budget or whatever, blah, blah, blah,
• 1:31:04
  blah, these kind of things. What did you think when you
• 1:31:08
  became the head coach? What did you think was going to
• 1:31:10
  be easy, but actually ended up being a little harder than you
• 1:31:13
  thought? It it's funny that you say that
• 1:31:16
  because as you say, I got my bookshelf behind me, but on that
• 1:31:19
  bookshelf and and stuff around I still have this.
• 1:31:23
  Oh, is that your plan book you put together?
• 1:31:25
  Yep. Nice SO.
• 1:31:27
  One of one of my mentors and Rolando Green years ago within a
• 1:31:32
  friendship from when he was at Purdue and I was at Mary and he
• 1:31:36
  took me under his wing. Great dude and and share some
• 1:31:39
  things with me about visualizing a plan to where whenever someone
• 1:31:44
  calls you, you're actually prepared.
• 1:31:46
  Yeah and you know from him that's a big deal because boy
• 1:31:49
  was he prepared you long time assistant at Arkansas love
• 1:31:53
  Lonnie's been on the podcast as well.
• 1:31:54
  So go check out his episode already did gets to Purdue,
• 1:31:58
  which was not doing well, was not very healthy.
• 1:32:01
  And I remember meeting him and his staff at Drake the second
• 1:32:05
  year. I think it was in their year 2
• 1:32:07
  and was like, guys, most of the time we say, you know, give them
• 1:32:11
  to their year three, maybe year 4, you know, they can have a
• 1:32:14
  turn around. Those guys did it like that.
• 1:32:18
  I mean, Lonnie put together a great staff, great leadership.
• 1:32:22
  So for him to say, hey, be prepared, obviously when he was
• 1:32:25
  at Arkansas, he was preparing for that position at Purdue and
• 1:32:28
  then Kentucky, etcetera. So that's really cool that
• 1:32:31
  that's who you kind of had a mentor for that aspect that's
• 1:32:34
  really good. Yeah, it and it just it I'll say
• 1:32:37
  it just kind of happened organically.
• 1:32:39
  What, what it was we we went to a meet.
• 1:32:42
  You know, he had seen me at and at Marion before and then and
• 1:32:46
  then when I got the job at Anderson, he invited me up to a
• 1:32:49
  meet like he invited a Division Three team.
• 1:32:52
  To. Purdue and I went and talked to
• 1:32:55
  the team about it. Look, we're doing this because
• 1:32:58
  we were asking that you guys don't understand the
• 1:33:00
  significance of this. So, and we went and the kids
• 1:33:04
  perform well and, and he, he calls me in, calls me over and
• 1:33:10
  he just says, I, I see what you're trying to accomplish.
• 1:33:17
  Stay on your path with what you're trying to accomplish.
• 1:33:20
  You know, it's it, it still goes back to making sure we're
• 1:33:25
  prepared the structure. So the things, the the patients,
• 1:33:28
  the structure, the timing, you know, those things that I've
• 1:33:32
  learned and heard from others, you know, it's now starting to,
• 1:33:36
  you know, come into play. And and we had some success at
• 1:33:40
  Anderson as some all Americans. So you know, some school records
• 1:33:43
  and all those things and even some improvement side, which now
• 1:33:47
  me, this is my first time I'm legitimately writing out the
• 1:33:50
  training for the distance stuff. You know, until I years later, I
• 1:33:55
  was finally able to find someone to come in and stick with us.
• 1:33:58
  And now he's doing great things named Presley Martin at Marion
• 1:34:01
  now with that mid distance and distance group that keeps
• 1:34:05
  turning things out. So because I was able to bring
• 1:34:08
  him in young Felicia Johnson as well, you know, with with her
• 1:34:13
  starting of coaching, you know, as well.
• 1:34:16
  So it's like we're starting to put some things together.
• 1:34:20
  Things things are going well. And then and then that's when
• 1:34:22
  you know, Kentucky called Kentucky Wesley.
• 1:34:28
  But to answer that first role, to answer your question,
• 1:34:32
  fundraising, Vision 3 fundraising, enrollment,
• 1:34:36
  fundraising team or people on the team fundraising.
• 1:34:40
  Oh, I thought I was here to coach track.
• 1:34:43
  Oh, OK. Yeah, I know I'm supposed to
• 1:34:45
  recruit because, you know, we did it at Marion.
• 1:34:47
  But coming from NAIA and their scholarships back to D3 where
• 1:34:52
  there isn't any, that's a different level of a workload,
• 1:34:56
  you know, So, and that's the thing, bringing in 20/22/24
• 1:35:02
  people in a year and things by myself and stuff like that, you
• 1:35:05
  know, made the job hard, but it also made the job fun because in
• 1:35:09
  order to get those 24 kids, I probably had talked to like 500
• 1:35:13
  or so up right? You know, and that would be year
• 1:35:16
  after year after year after year, you know, and to where the
• 1:35:21
  benefit of it all is. Now the coaches from the region
• 1:35:25
  know who I am. So out of the respect because of
• 1:35:29
  the positive results. Hey, Coach Stevens call for you.
• 1:35:32
  You know, just just hear him out.
• 1:35:34
  You know, just hear him out because if he thinks that you
• 1:35:36
  might be able to just hear him out because we've seen what some
• 1:35:40
  of the positive results have been.
• 1:35:43
  I think I love how you answered that because I think some, some
• 1:35:47
  of us that have that, that are good coaches.
• 1:35:50
  This is not a knock on coaches, but you know, we're successful.
• 1:35:53
  Some of us think no matter what the level is, whether it's high
• 1:35:58
  school, big, big high school, small high school, NAIA,
• 1:36:01
  Division Three, junior college, D2D1 doesn't matter.
• 1:36:04
  If you put me in there, I'm going to be successful.
• 1:36:06
  And it's like, that's not necessarily true.
• 1:36:09
  Not because of your still not not necessarily because of you,
• 1:36:13
  but because each situ heck, just inside of Division One, let's
• 1:36:16
  just use, you know the quote UN quote most popular inside of
• 1:36:19
  Division One. It radically different what it
• 1:36:21
  looks like in Oregon, Arkansas, Texas A&M, etcetera looks
• 1:36:25
  differently at mile monitor Troy University South Alabama.
• 1:36:29
  You know, you are not necessarily going to be able to
• 1:36:33
  use your strengths at every institution and every
• 1:36:37
  institution has its issues, by the way, even Oregon, Arkansas
• 1:36:40
  A&M, etcetera. They've got their own hurdles to
• 1:36:42
  overcome, if you will. But so I love that D3.
• 1:36:46
  You're like, oh man, I thought, I thought my title was head
• 1:36:49
  track and field coach, but in reality, maybe it was.
• 1:36:52
  I'm part of the admissions process here almost.
• 1:36:56
  I know in some places, I don't know necessarily at Anderson,
• 1:36:58
  but I know some places the coaching track and field is
• 1:37:00
  really in the other duties as a side.
• 1:37:01
  That may be your title, but that's your other duties as a
• 1:37:03
  side. The reality is I need to people
• 1:37:05
  on on the on the track team, guys and girls, which means 20
• 1:37:09
  to 25 every single year. So, so I love how you answered
• 1:37:12
  that because you're right now it doesn't mean you know, Saul
• 1:37:15
  can't do that, right? It's just like, oh, wait a
• 1:37:18
  minute. I wasn't necessarily prepared
• 1:37:20
  that that was going to be, you know, this much of my 100% of
• 1:37:22
  attention. I thought coaching was going to
• 1:37:24
  be a big part. It's like, well, the reality is
• 1:37:27
  you need 20 to 40 kids every year.
• 1:37:29
  Yeah. And.
• 1:37:30
  That's that's what I learned that that.
• 1:37:32
  Part is that's great insight. That's great insight.
• 1:37:34
  But let me ask the other side of that question then, because you
• 1:37:38
  are, you know, very intelligent young man, You are well
• 1:37:41
  prepared. You have that the, the, the,
• 1:37:43
  the, the thing that Lonnie taught you.
• 1:37:44
  I love that. What was something that you
• 1:37:46
  thought was going to be hard because again, you have some
• 1:37:50
  self-awareness? It's really, that might actually
• 1:37:52
  be the theme of your story is your increase in self-awareness
• 1:37:55
  as you've gone along. I kind of look back now, I'm
• 1:37:58
  like you had a little bit of lack of some self-awareness back
• 1:38:00
  in the day and you're continually through a lot
• 1:38:03
  through mentors and obviously life experiences.
• 1:38:05
  Your self-awareness is gaining. So you have some self-awareness
• 1:38:09
  of like, oh, I have some weaknesses too.
• 1:38:10
  You know, not just all big macho and bubble.
• 1:38:12
  I can do anything. It's like, oh, actually I can't
• 1:38:14
  do everything. There are some things I'm not
• 1:38:16
  that great at. So there had to be something
• 1:38:17
  that you thought was going to maybe be a little challenging.
• 1:38:21
  Again, there's so many aspects to being a head coach, equipment
• 1:38:25
  recruiting, budgeting, hiring and evaluation of staff, you
• 1:38:30
  know, practice structure. There's so much, there's 1000
• 1:38:34
  academics. There's a million, million
• 1:38:35
  things they have to do. What was something that you
• 1:38:37
  thought was going to be like, oh, I might struggle.
• 1:38:40
  I'm going to have to make sure I reach out to a mentor, really
• 1:38:43
  work with my oversight or my AD to help me out with XY and Z.
• 1:38:46
  And then you got there and you're like, wait a minute, this
• 1:38:48
  actually isn't all that hard. I'm actually maybe a little
• 1:38:50
  gifted in this area. Anything, anything like that you
• 1:38:52
  can think of? Yeah, I, I coached the young
• 1:38:54
  lady who ended up winning the 10K at the outdoor meet one year
• 1:38:59
  in Anderson. And that was absolutely mind
• 1:39:02
  blowing to people because they say, hold on, his boy won the
• 1:39:05
  100. Yeah, what is, what is this guy
• 1:39:06
  doing Right, right, right. Right.
• 1:39:08
  Well, what is this? You know, we thought he was a
• 1:39:10
  junk guy. You know, he was supposed to be
• 1:39:11
  a junk guy. And then I would just say no,
• 1:39:13
  math and science is universal because that's what tracking
• 1:39:16
  field is. Well, that sounds like Holman
• 1:39:18
  right there. If you let me sit down long
• 1:39:21
  enough, I'm going to figure this out because yes, you still need
• 1:39:24
  the Willies and the Willeminas and the Joes and the Josephinas,
• 1:39:28
  you know, those, those do make the difference.
• 1:39:30
  But but that's that was the thing, coaching the distance
• 1:39:35
  side, especially dealing with cross moving all the way up to
• 1:39:39
  the men's side, you know, with that 5 miles basically like
• 1:39:43
  that, that is what I thought would be the hardest and it
• 1:39:47
  turned out that it was. Got some skill set there.
• 1:39:50
  Yeah, but we would always, we have our long time, you know,
• 1:39:53
  just following the books and some of the things that I
• 1:39:55
  learned and then like I said, calling and asking people to get
• 1:40:00
  help because if I don't know it, I need to know because.
• 1:40:04
  That child, that athletes, I'll say survival is dependent on me
• 1:40:08
  doing my job to take my job seriously.
• 1:40:12
  And that's where we still had boys and girls running PRS and
• 1:40:16
  cross and then they was coming out still running them on the
• 1:40:19
  track as well. And a lot of that was like Tom
• 1:40:24
  Chorney, like I said, as I mentioned earlier, you know, I
• 1:40:27
  would send him things. Hey, man, how does this look?
• 1:40:29
  You know, still going back to the things from Marion that home
• 1:40:33
  and that put together. OK, let me see how this ties
• 1:40:36
  because everything that you read in the book you can't do to some
• 1:40:41
  of these kids because they don't have the genetic chain that the
• 1:40:44
  book was written. That's right.
• 1:40:46
  That's right. And and that is probably my
• 1:40:49
  strongest gift of coaching. Yeah, I know how to read it to.
• 1:40:53
  Yeah, kid A supposed to run 10 flat in the 100.
• 1:40:57
  But if you've never coached a kid like that, yeah, you can't
• 1:41:00
  make Johnny who you're just trying to take from 11 flat to
• 1:41:03
  maybe 10-5. Those are some of it is the
• 1:41:06
  same. That math is totally different
• 1:41:10
  from the expectation. I just finished up that
• 1:41:12
  Wisconsin track clinic and good friend Lance Brahman, Noah Lyles
• 1:41:15
  and Tyson Gay and a million other great, amazing people was
• 1:41:19
  speaking there and he did 33 topics.
• 1:41:21
  And I've known Lance for a long time.
• 1:41:22
  He beat my tail when I was coaching against him and JUCO.
• 1:41:25
  He beat my tail when I was coaching against some SEC.
• 1:41:26
  So I've known Lance forever. Proud to call him friend now.
• 1:41:31
  And you know, he, he was, you know, you can only talk about
• 1:41:35
  what he has experience in right? And his lately his, you know,
• 1:41:38
  last probably decade or so, whatever experiences working
• 1:41:41
  with a no on a Tyson and maybe Veronica and stuff like that.
• 1:41:47
  And so he he was talking a lot about Noah's training and stuff
• 1:41:51
  like that in context of what he was doing.
• 1:41:53
  And at first I was like, man, Lance is missing the ball here.
• 1:41:57
  Like he's talking to a bunch of Wisconsin high school coaches
• 1:42:00
  who get March, April, May and March isn't guaranteed because
• 1:42:03
  it's still freaking freezing. And so they've got three months.
• 1:42:06
  And I was just like, man, like, I'm not sure.
• 1:42:08
  I guess, you know, I'm very in tune with coaching help coaches
• 1:42:12
  helping coaches. So I like, I, I want to help
• 1:42:14
  people when they do their topics at, at clinics and what topics
• 1:42:17
  to pick and how you teach it and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:42:19
  And I'm like, I think he's missing the boat.
• 1:42:21
  I was wrong. Because what he was doing and he
• 1:42:23
  made it very clear, very clear. If you were paying attention, he
• 1:42:27
  made it very clear because he was on my like week 1 and here's
• 1:42:29
  week 22 and I'm like, brother, they don't get 22 weeks.
• 1:42:32
  But he, he was, he kept saying he goes, Hey, here's what I do.
• 1:42:36
  And he goes. And by the way, I know you're
• 1:42:38
  not coaching that he was doing a lot of like 10M segments like
• 1:42:41
  point A twos and a threes and he goes, I know this is a different
• 1:42:44
  workhorse. You're not doing that.
• 1:42:46
  However, if you look at the basics that we are doing and
• 1:42:49
  apply that, like he actually was doing probably one of the better
• 1:42:52
  jobs that I've seen instead of just saying, Hey, here are the
• 1:42:54
  workouts, go do them. Which air quotes here everybody
• 1:42:58
  wants. You don't want, you actually
• 1:42:59
  don't want that and or need that.
• 1:43:00
  But that's what they think they're they want.
• 1:43:03
  He was actually talking about principles of how to coach
• 1:43:06
  sprinters and so he did a much better job in in that respect.
• 1:43:12
  I say all that to say, some of the best coaches and guests that
• 1:43:16
  we've had here, Brooks Johnson, Cliff Rove, Alto, probably
• 1:43:20
  others I'm thinking have have all talked about that you are
• 1:43:23
  not a sprint's coach if you're doing it right.
• 1:43:25
  You're not a sprint's coach, you're not a jumps coach, you're
• 1:43:27
  not a distance coach, You're a track and field coach, that all
• 1:43:30
  the events are essentially the same.
• 1:43:31
  Our goal is to move the center of mass from one place to the
• 1:43:34
  other. Some of them we're doing at the
• 1:43:35
  end of a runway and we have to jump.
• 1:43:37
  Others we're doing inside of a circle.
• 1:43:39
  So maybe we're, we're going rotational or we're running
• 1:43:42
  10,000 meters or running 100 meters.
• 1:43:44
  We're we're moving the center of mass.
• 1:43:46
  And so I love your example of, I mean, I had the 100m guy and the
• 1:43:49
  10K gal. I mean, that's a, that's a
• 1:43:51
  pretty, I don't know, you get much farther on the spectrum of
• 1:43:53
  difference. That's as far as you can get I.
• 1:43:55
  Think so, right. And yet you're like, oh, yeah,
• 1:43:57
  no, no, I know principles. I've done you know again Holman
• 1:44:00
  with the coaching education, you know pushing you on those kind
• 1:44:03
  of things like that, that it seems very important in
• 1:44:06
  development of a coach, if not it spreads coach or a jumps
• 1:44:10
  coach etcetera. Because if you're around it long
• 1:44:12
  enough and and that's where I actually I got it from Brooks,
• 1:44:15
  rest his soul, great man, good man.
• 1:44:18
  He came and spoke at the University of Indianapolis some
• 1:44:21
  years ago and and he asked what did I coach?
• 1:44:25
  And I said, well, I'm coaching, you know, the hurdlers and the
• 1:44:28
  jumpers with Homan right now. And he says, OK, So what are you
• 1:44:31
  going to coach after that? And I and my response was, well,
• 1:44:35
  whatever he asked me because my job is to assist.
• 1:44:39
  And he's like, oh, that's a good answer.
• 1:44:43
  And then he just goes in for about 20 minutes and I'm just
• 1:44:47
  the whole time. Yeah, you are.
• 1:44:50
  See, you are smart, Saul. OK.
• 1:44:52
  OK, check. Because because then he tells a
• 1:44:55
  great story. Oh yeah, You know, because he
• 1:44:57
  said, well, where did you run at?
• 1:44:59
  I said, well, I ran that IU under Sam Bell and he said he
• 1:45:03
  was like Sam, I once kicked his butt with a girl.
• 1:45:06
  And because, you know, I'm a Sprint guy.
• 1:45:08
  And he starts telling that story and and and I just was like, OK,
• 1:45:13
  OK, got it. And and that's what he said.
• 1:45:16
  It's about taking object A faster than everybody else, then
• 1:45:20
  all the other objects to a point at the finish.
• 1:45:23
  And and that's what he what track is.
• 1:45:26
  He changed my life and and it was past coaching.
• 1:45:29
  I actually was not a fan of Brooks when I was a coach.
• 1:45:32
  We won't get into that. But post that when I had him on
• 1:45:35
  the the podcast early, he was a big believer.
• 1:45:39
  He was an early believer in me and what we're doing the podcast
• 1:45:41
  and joined us. He might have been episode 40 or
• 1:45:44
  something. We're in 350 something now.
• 1:45:46
  So I'm so grateful for Brooks and his trust.
• 1:45:49
  But I was nervous for for a couple reasons.
• 1:45:50
  I mean, some maybe I won't say that about loud reasons, but
• 1:45:53
  other reasons being like, holy crap, it's Brooks Johnson.
• 1:45:55
  He's as good as a coach as I was.
• 1:45:57
  He was still 100 times better than I was, right?
• 1:45:59
  So but he changed my mind about just mindset like he talked
• 1:46:03
  about you have to believe as a coach that the world record can
• 1:46:08
  be broken. And I was like really as like,
• 1:46:12
  you know, obviously some world records can be broken and maybe
• 1:46:15
  most sure at some point, whether it's next year or 20 years from
• 1:46:17
  now, but like there's just some records.
• 1:46:19
  I'm just, I just don't know, like the men's high jump is one
• 1:46:22
  of those that come to mind where I'm like, no one's been when I
• 1:46:26
  say no one's been close. I think Bashir got to 710, yeah.
• 1:46:28
  Bashir. Yeah, it's like, so that's still
• 1:46:30
  2 inches off though, brother. You know, It's like 2, you know?
• 1:46:33
  And in that and in that event, 2 inches is a world.
• 1:46:36
  A mile, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I brought up that I was
• 1:46:38
  like, even the men's high jump rooks and he's like, he goes
• 1:46:41
  absolutely. The men's high jump, someone
• 1:46:43
  will genetically be there and have the right coach and the
• 1:46:46
  right, you know, because it's a bar event, right?
• 1:46:48
  So you gotta have some luck in there and things like that.
• 1:46:50
  Every event has to have some luck in it, but it really made
• 1:46:52
  my he goes. But if you don't believe it can
• 1:46:54
  be beaten, then what the hell are you doing?
• 1:46:56
  And he probably didn't say held, as you might imagine.
• 1:46:58
  Oh, he did, Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:46:59
  You clean that up very well and. Thank you.
• 1:47:01
  And I was like, holy crap, he's right.
• 1:47:04
  He's like, I mean, I'm like, wait, if I don't believe in it,
• 1:47:07
  then what am I doing? I mean, it really changed my
• 1:47:10
  mindset about not only just coaching, but even when I talk
• 1:47:12
  to our sales team here, when I talk to my own kids, it's like,
• 1:47:15
  yeah, if you don't have that belief, doesn't mean, doesn't
• 1:47:17
  mean if you believe it, it's going to happen, but it
• 1:47:19
  certainly decreases the odds of it's going to happen if I don't
• 1:47:22
  believe it. Correct.
• 1:47:24
  So it just he was amazing. I would, you know, recommend
• 1:47:27
  anybody listening if you haven't listened to Brooks Johnson
• 1:47:28
  episode, it was his history. We do the same thing that we're
• 1:47:32
  doing here with Saul that we did with Brooks, how he got into,
• 1:47:35
  how he got into track and field, how he got into coaching, his
• 1:47:37
  history. He coached Al Gore in high
• 1:47:39
  school, who no one else has been able to say that.
• 1:47:42
  Yeah, that's hilarious. But what the time he went
• 1:47:44
  through in in America and what he has been able to do and you
• 1:47:47
  know, Sanford and Florida and many other places, it was
• 1:47:51
  nothing short of of amazing his career in life.
• 1:47:53
  And I'm so like, when I look back, you know, and, you know,
• 1:47:56
  when he passed, I was like, man, thank you God that I got the
• 1:47:59
  opportunity to sit down with him for, you know, an hour, hour and
• 1:48:02
  a half and learn his journey because, boy, it was worth it.
• 1:48:05
  And it shaped me anyway. OK, sorry.
• 1:48:07
  That's my diversion. So I love that you got a chance
• 1:48:09
  to, you know, interface with him.
• 1:48:11
  OK, You're there. To Anderson, you already
• 1:48:14
  alluded. So let's just, you know, RIP off
• 1:48:16
  the Band-Aid and let's start talking Kentucky Wesleyan calls.
• 1:48:20
  First of all, this is one of your first times like you're in
• 1:48:22
  Indiana. I'm going to say born and bred.
• 1:48:24
  You know, you're an Indiana guy. You go to Kentucky.
• 1:48:28
  What were you thinking of going to Kentucky for?
• 1:48:31
  So, you know, their Division 2 there in the GMAC, which is a
• 1:48:34
  power conference in division two, especially for football,
• 1:48:38
  football and track is it's a monster meet.
• 1:48:40
  If you go look those results, Trevor Bassett came out of there
• 1:48:44
  as a name that people know now. And so it was I, it was an
• 1:48:50
  opportunity coming down from D3 to D2.
• 1:48:54
  You know, now I'm getting my hands on some scholarship work.
• 1:48:57
  I and I knew it would still be the recruiting, the enrollment
• 1:49:00
  and all those things you know be from because I just know it's a
• 1:49:04
  lower level and I know that's what the expectations.
• 1:49:06
  Smaller. School, but you know, no
• 1:49:09
  facilities. You know, little 20 yard turf
• 1:49:12
  side piece of a gym. You know which I said that's
• 1:49:15
  enough. I'm from Michigan City, I can
• 1:49:17
  make this work. I don't have anything.
• 1:49:18
  There, that's a lot so. So anything with a roof, I'm
• 1:49:22
  going to make this work. Here we go.
• 1:49:25
  And so I, I, I knew I wanted to continue to work my way.
• 1:49:29
  I'll say up levels, OK, and more so to a place to where the wife
• 1:49:34
  would be secure. You know, it's three hours from
• 1:49:37
  Indianapolis, you know, but also it still has to be a fit and
• 1:49:41
  opportunity. So, you know, we and, and she
• 1:49:45
  was there when I got the call and decided to accept it.
• 1:49:48
  You know, we, we decided to go down to Kentucky Wesleyan
• 1:49:51
  College and that was in 2021. The Mustangs, not the racers.
• 1:49:58
  No, the Panthers. Panthers.
• 1:50:00
  OK, All right. OK.
• 1:50:02
  And so with that, let's RIP this Band-Aid off.
• 1:50:08
  I took my plan from my edits, from what I learned at Anderson
• 1:50:14
  to apply it to what this was. Get to beat the streets, meet
• 1:50:19
  the coaches in the state, meet the streets, meet the coaches in
• 1:50:21
  the state. I still know people in the
• 1:50:23
  region because I've been at Anderson now.
• 1:50:25
  But I'm going to these meets. I'm here, I'm there.
• 1:50:27
  And when I say what, as I say, do the legwork.
• 1:50:31
  Legwork was done when I got there.
• 1:50:33
  I had 2021. At the end of those two years,
• 1:50:37
  we were up to 45. Coming into that third year, I
• 1:50:41
  was, we was on pace. I'd already had when they made
• 1:50:45
  the decision to cut the program. I'd already had 55 kids on
• 1:50:50
  campus. Yeah.
• 1:50:51
  Wow. And we had already had some
• 1:50:52
  verbals and some deposits. I had a senior day that day for
• 1:50:57
  homecoming where I'll say our top 30 was invited.
• 1:51:00
  And at the end of that I had some deposits.
• 1:51:04
  So I was literally inherited 21, had 45.
• 1:51:08
  I was probably going to be up to 70 right by the end of Year 3.
• 1:51:13
  And that's when they decided to cut the program unexpectedly.
• 1:51:18
  No, no, no heads up, no, no, even like because you have
• 1:51:23
  hindsight, no even inkling like, oh, you know what?
• 1:51:25
  He did say this at one of our all staff meetings.
• 1:51:27
  And now I'm like, wait a minute. Nothing, nothing.
• 1:51:30
  Absolutely nothing. Me, the athletic director and
• 1:51:34
  the head of HR, we're sitting in a room and he just said it so
• 1:51:39
  nonchalantly. And I, I, I, I literally said
• 1:51:46
  it. Hold on.
• 1:51:46
  What did you say? Because you're like, no way.
• 1:51:48
  You just said that, you know, And I looked at the head of HR
• 1:51:52
  and she just puts her head down. She's a great lady.
• 1:51:55
  She just puts her head down, you know, and I just kind of, you
• 1:51:59
  know, took a deep breath and said, so I'm getting fired and
• 1:52:07
  our program killed because I'm doing too good of a job.
• 1:52:13
  Bingo. This is when I've come to find
• 1:52:15
  out not every school wants to win.
• 1:52:17
  You said there's levels within track and field, there's levels
• 1:52:20
  between D1D twos. There are levels within all of
• 1:52:23
  it. I literally within my blueprint
• 1:52:26
  of my plan was accomplishing everything that I said that I
• 1:52:31
  was going to do in order to make the job successful.
• 1:52:34
  How are you killing a program whose team There's a girl.
• 1:52:37
  My girls led the nation in GPA the year before.
• 1:52:41
  You know, that's not by accident.
• 1:52:43
  You don't just end up with a whole bunch of smart girls, even
• 1:52:46
  though they all still ran PRS and everything is going OK.
• 1:52:51
  So I, I, I, I, I literally did say in that meeting, wow, you
• 1:52:58
  guys lied to me. Because if you knew that this is
• 1:53:04
  where it's trending, because now that I know what this other side
• 1:53:07
  is, no one makes a decision on a Thursday to kill a program in
• 1:53:13
  college. Those conversations have already
• 1:53:16
  been had. For sure.
• 1:53:18
  They've been had and that's what we both now know, being both
• 1:53:20
  people who've worked in college. And then even in our case, I've
• 1:53:23
  been in admissions and all those things with trying to recruit
• 1:53:26
  kids in, you know, that decision has not just been made.
• 1:53:31
  So I legitimately think that I was hired and they just wasn't
• 1:53:34
  expecting. I was, they were probably
• 1:53:37
  expecting me to keep it status quo, maybe 30 kids and da, da,
• 1:53:41
  da, da, da. But in hindsight, because I can
• 1:53:43
  come back and reflect in my interview, I said, well, I'm
• 1:53:48
  expecting to grow the program and named a couple other things
• 1:53:52
  that I said. And honestly, I still expect to
• 1:53:54
  end up at the national meet because I've been at the state
• 1:53:57
  meet or the national meet. Everywhere I've been, this track
• 1:53:59
  and field is track and field. I'm going to find some kids who
• 1:54:02
  have that talent who's going to believe in what we're trying to
• 1:54:04
  do and we're going to get there. And I said that in my interview.
• 1:54:08
  Cunningham and some of the coaches laughed in the
• 1:54:12
  interview. Knowing what I know now, I
• 1:54:15
  should have looked at that and said, hey, everybody, I
• 1:54:18
  appreciate your time. Now there was one who didn't the
• 1:54:24
  girls basketball coach who I'm good friends with this day
• 1:54:27
  because they're Yep, we're here to compete.
• 1:54:29
  And it's because I, it sounded so outlandish because Kentucky
• 1:54:34
  wasn't hadn't had no success like that.
• 1:54:37
  So it sounded absurd that here's this guy that's coming in here
• 1:54:42
  saying I expect to be at the national meet.
• 1:54:46
  Lo and behold, that first year we're at the indoor national
• 1:54:49
  meet with, with a kid in the high jump.
• 1:54:52
  And it was so absurd to where now even some of the other
• 1:54:56
  people, they were swinging through the office, you know,
• 1:54:58
  congratulating me. And then and the girls
• 1:55:00
  basketball coach, you know, he comes in and says, you know, you
• 1:55:04
  told me in that interview, this is what you were going to do.
• 1:55:06
  He was like, that's inspiring because you said you had a goal,
• 1:55:11
  you had a plan and this is going to take place.
• 1:55:14
  This is going to not when, if, well, kind of maybe.
• 1:55:17
  No, no, no, no, because if you, if you talk to me enough, you'll
• 1:55:20
  hear me say things like when, when I, when are you?
• 1:55:24
  When because I, I want absolute within my conversation.
• 1:55:28
  I, I don't want there to be no misunderstanding that I'm
• 1:55:31
  doubting what I want you or me to accomplish within that.
• 1:55:36
  And so kid makes it to the national meet.
• 1:55:39
  Like I said, recruiting is going well.
• 1:55:41
  And I mean things are going well because even the kids that was
• 1:55:45
  on that recruiting train with, they had some talent for our
• 1:55:50
  level. So they cut the program,
• 1:55:54
  defunded it. We know where most of the money
• 1:55:57
  went to. What sport pause there real
• 1:56:00
  quick. First of all, let me do a quick
• 1:56:02
  time check in. We're at the our schedule time.
• 1:56:04
  Are you good to keep going? Yeah, I'm good.
• 1:56:06
  I got some more. We got some time.
• 1:56:08
  Second of all, so you know, I think you bring up an amazing
• 1:56:13
  issue amongst, I don't know if it's global or not, but
• 1:56:16
  certainly in America in all facets, whether it's hiring for
• 1:56:20
  academia, hiring for the private sector, et cetera.
• 1:56:23
  We go into interviews, both parties interviewer and the
• 1:56:25
  interview we go in almost like it's a play like as the
• 1:56:31
  interview. We you go in going okay, and I'm
• 1:56:34
  saying you in general, not necessarily you saw you enjoy
• 1:56:37
  you go in going okay. What do they wanna hear from me?
• 1:56:40
  They're gonna ask questions. What are they looking for that I
• 1:56:43
  can portray so that they'll hire me 'cause you want the job.
• 1:56:46
  That's why you applied for the job and the interviewer is
• 1:56:51
  looking to, you know, how do I portray that we're the greatest
• 1:56:55
  place in the world? Because they're recruiting as
• 1:56:56
  well. Not only they interviewing you,
• 1:56:58
  but they're recruiting as well. And again, private sector and
• 1:57:00
  academia and instead of just both parties being for real, we
• 1:57:07
  end up having bad hires. And what I mean by bad hires is
• 1:57:09
  not necessarily that the person is a bad hire, but the fit isn't
• 1:57:12
  there. And then they end up getting
• 1:57:13
  upset. And then the the hire gets upset
• 1:57:15
  and, and you know, it's ultimately the hire has to lead
• 1:57:18
  in my opinion. But you know, the hire starts
• 1:57:21
  like, well, we just can't find good candidates.
• 1:57:22
  And it's like, well, are you being real during the interview?
• 1:57:25
  Because what I would rather have had when you went in for your
• 1:57:28
  interview there and you said, hey, here's the plan.
• 1:57:31
  We're, you know, this many national qualifiers in year 1,
• 1:57:34
  this many recruits, football, these kind of thing, we're going
• 1:57:35
  to win. We're going to go to conference,
• 1:57:37
  we're going to, you know, go for high-ranking at instead of A's,
• 1:57:39
  etcetera, etcetera. I wish they would have had the
• 1:57:43
  guts to say, hey, Saul, just want to be real with you.
• 1:57:48
  I'm not sure we can budget for 70 people to be real Frank.
• 1:57:51
  Now we want you at 50 because we need that for the, for the
• 1:57:54
  enrollment of the school. And by the way, we're not even
• 1:57:58
  sure on 50 because we're not sure how many buses that would
• 1:58:01
  actually mean at that point and coaches that you're, you know,
• 1:58:04
  to do this properly because, you know, we want 50, but I don't
• 1:58:07
  want you. We, we don't need 20
• 1:58:09
  transferring out of school or flunking out of school every
• 1:58:11
  year. That's just not efficient
• 1:58:12
  because you recruiting cost money.
• 1:58:14
  And so we don't want to pay for every year to be 30 kids because
• 1:58:17
  we're losing 20 every, you know, all these things that if you
• 1:58:19
  would have been like, oh, I get, OK, I understand the job now.
• 1:58:24
  And now you get to decide, OK, I can fit into that narrative.
• 1:58:28
  I can do that. That sounds like what I I'd
• 1:58:30
  actually, that might be a good career for me.
• 1:58:32
  Or you get to decide, Oh yeah, that's not I actually, you know,
• 1:58:35
  my, my goal one day is to win a Division One national
• 1:58:37
  championship. And that's not going to get me
• 1:58:39
  it there by doing this. So I'm going to choose not to
• 1:58:41
  accept the job and go find something else or, you know, but
• 1:58:44
  etcetera, etcetera. But instead you say, Hey, I want
• 1:58:47
  to do this, this, this national nationals.
• 1:58:48
  And in the the AD probably goes, Oh, that's that's great to hear.
• 1:58:52
  That ain't happening. That's why the coaches, this is
• 1:58:54
  my conjecture, are laughing because they're like, first of
• 1:58:57
  all, they're like, yeah, first of all, that ain't happened
• 1:58:59
  here, buddy. And I don't know why you think
• 1:59:00
  you going to be the guy that's going to change that.
• 1:59:02
  Second of all, we're not going to support that, Sir.
• 1:59:05
  I I'm the head football coach or whatever, you know, get a
• 1:59:07
  conjecture in here and I barely get the resource.
• 1:59:10
  And we're football boss and I barely get the resources.
• 1:59:12
  You ain't getting the resources as the track coach, you know
• 1:59:15
  what I'm saying? That's why they were, you know,
• 1:59:16
  again, conjecture that they're laughing.
• 1:59:18
  It's like, yeah, young buck, what are you thinking?
• 1:59:20
  You ain't getting that here. You think this is Arkansas,
• 1:59:22
  Kentucky, you're crazy. You know, if people would have
• 1:59:25
  just been real, it may have avoided some not so great things
• 1:59:30
  that happened both sides. By the way.
• 1:59:32
  Again, you know the I don't think any.
• 1:59:35
  I dealt with the program being dropped at Ball State.
• 1:59:38
  Bubba Cunningham, the AD of the UNC University North Carolina
• 1:59:42
  now was my AD there. And I truly don't like there
• 1:59:44
  were some lot of hurt feelings, rightfully so.
• 1:59:46
  And I remember when I left to go from there to Mississippi State,
• 1:59:49
  I've met him in his office and I was like, and I can disagree
• 1:59:51
  with that, by the way, but I don't think you were like, ha,
• 1:59:54
  ha, like this evil anti track devils, like I'm going to cut
• 1:59:56
  men, you know, And I don't think that was that Kentucky Wesleyan
• 2:00:00
  either, that there was maliciousness of that.
• 2:00:03
  Again, they may have made decisions that I don't you don't
• 2:00:05
  agree with, but but it's like, man, I wish they would have just
• 2:00:07
  been upfront in the get go. I honestly wish here's, you know
• 2:00:11
  again to ask you of this all be. The hard slash impossible.
• 2:00:16
  I wish what you said this already too when they chuckled
• 2:00:20
  when you said that. I wish you would have had the
• 2:00:22
  gumption to say, hey, I'm sorry, time out for a second.
• 2:00:24
  What you guys chuckled. That's interesting to me.
• 2:00:27
  Why, why is why did that elicit A chuckle from you guys?
• 2:00:31
  Let them either lie to you and be like, no, we just, you know,
• 2:00:34
  we we, we, we love your, you're going to be great here because
• 2:00:38
  you've got gumption in, in, you know, or they could have told
• 2:00:40
  the truth and like, hey, man, I I hear you.
• 2:00:43
  I just don't know that that's going to happen here because of
• 2:00:47
  AB and C. Yeah, that'd been hard to say in
• 2:00:49
  front of their boss, by the way. So I don't think.
• 2:00:51
  Right, right. And that's, that's the thing too
• 2:00:53
  about it, you know, to say that in front of their boss, that
• 2:00:56
  makes it complex. But that's the thing, there are
• 2:00:58
  some there are some programs of the basketball programs, boys
• 2:01:01
  and girls have been pretty good. You know, that's right.
• 2:01:04
  You know the the team that that you know every the team that
• 2:01:08
  gets a lot of a DS fire is on like a 20 game losing streak
• 2:01:12
  right now. You know, things like that.
• 2:01:14
  But I'll, I'll, I'll digress pass all that.
• 2:01:17
  What you're saying is that's what I wish.
• 2:01:20
  So here we go. The best thing and the worst
• 2:01:23
  thing that ever happened to me was going to Kentucky Wesleyan.
• 2:01:26
  And it was the best thing that ever happened because I've went
• 2:01:29
  to a higher level at another level and had success and made
• 2:01:33
  good people, some who I still have relationships with to to
• 2:01:37
  this day. It's actually bonded me.
• 2:01:40
  And some of those kids, you know, it's because some of them
• 2:01:42
  now have went to other schools and have graduated, you know,
• 2:01:45
  they've gotten married, you know, things like that.
• 2:01:47
  And I still, and they still keep in touch with me.
• 2:01:50
  And it was the worst slash best because of everything that it
• 2:01:56
  showed me about intent. Tell me more.
• 2:02:02
  Yeah, that's interesting. Their dishonesty about how?
• 2:02:05
  They did what they did. This.
• 2:02:07
  Is what I've learned the? Timing of It was after all the
• 2:02:11
  scholarship money came in. The timing of it was after all
• 2:02:15
  the state and government money came in.
• 2:02:18
  They waited long enough in the semester to make sure all the
• 2:02:22
  money came in which. Then would handcuff.
• 2:02:24
  The kids to have to be trapped, to stay there, to pay their
• 2:02:28
  bills. It was absolutely strategic of
• 2:02:31
  the time for sure. I.
• 2:02:33
  Don't think anybody disagree. And so and we're in the middle,
• 2:02:36
  we're doing track training. Like I said, it's it's.
• 2:02:38
  Literally, it's the weekend before conference.
• 2:02:41
  Of the cross country meet and we're training for track as well
• 2:02:45
  and things are going great like I got a 4x4, I brought in four
• 2:02:48
  young girls Cunningham and we're about to go 340 something and I
• 2:02:51
  I got them here we go. And the numbers were trending
• 2:02:55
  that way. And so all those things, their
• 2:02:58
  timing, their intent. Because now that I know you
• 2:03:02
  don't just wake up on a Thursday and say I'm cutting a program.
• 2:03:04
  No, that conversation was had somewhere way beforehand and I
• 2:03:09
  was never notified. So here's a guy who pulled his
• 2:03:12
  wife and kids, yeah, out of their home 100%.
• 2:03:16
  Because that's where I wish ADA year because you say it was made
• 2:03:19
  well. In advance.
• 2:03:20
  Probably years in advance. Maybe not the decision years in
• 2:03:23
  advance, but like, oh, hey guys, we might need to drop track and
• 2:03:27
  then, you know, we continue down that road.
• 2:03:29
  I wish it at one point they would have called you and said,
• 2:03:32
  Hey, I just need to give you a heads up Saul, It's not news
• 2:03:35
  you're going to want to hear, but we are contemplating drop in
• 2:03:39
  the program. Might be a year, might be 5
• 2:03:40
  years from now. I don't I don't know that if
• 2:03:42
  that's the truth. Just something, just say
• 2:03:44
  something you a heads up you do with what you want to with It's
• 2:03:47
  all but I you know, I'm your. Boss and I feel.
• 2:03:50
  That you know responsibility to make sure you're going to be OK.
• 2:03:54
  What a difference your experience from that institution
• 2:03:58
  is at that point. And now when it actually
• 2:04:00
  happens, you're like, yeah, can't say.
• 2:04:01
  I didn't see it happen. They did give me the warning.
• 2:04:03
  I didn't know it's going to be that quick or whatever.
• 2:04:05
  But again, we just can't be real with each other.
• 2:04:08
  We have to play the facade. I have to make sure I do it
• 2:04:10
  after the date, so the the student, the government money
• 2:04:12
  comes in and blah, blah, blah. Which I get that side of it too,
• 2:04:15
  by the way. If I'm in their shoes, I'm like,
• 2:04:16
  yeah, I can't lose the federal money.
• 2:04:18
  It's probably an institution that's not exactly flush with
• 2:04:20
  cash. Like I get where they're coming
• 2:04:22
  from, but man, I just feel like life could be better.
• 2:04:25
  I feel like that administrators life could have been better if
• 2:04:28
  we'd be real from each other, even with bad news.
• 2:04:31
  And and that's the whole thing about it.
• 2:04:33
  You're talking to a guy who actually turned a profit every
• 2:04:36
  year. As a head coach, I think most of
• 2:04:39
  us do to be honest with you and check like I've never been over
• 2:04:42
  budget I've and that's even with fine uniforms.
• 2:04:44
  And things like that. Just because I'm I'm good with
• 2:04:46
  money. You know, when you've been poor,
• 2:04:48
  you get good at money if you when you get some hopefully
• 2:04:52
  knock on wood. Luckily for me, you know, I'm
• 2:04:54
  good with the county and so with with.
• 2:04:57
  All those things. And that's the whole, the more
• 2:04:59
  disappointing part about it. Yeah, you hired me because you
• 2:05:03
  told me you wanted me to do X and then now here I am.
• 2:05:07
  Actually. Doing it faster than you guys, I
• 2:05:11
  I know faster than you expected, but you also.
• 2:05:14
  Have a copy of my plan. And my plan said 20 kids to 80
• 2:05:19
  kids in four years. That's the plan.
• 2:05:22
  I because I need to have enough in each event group to make each
• 2:05:26
  event group competitive. Because whatever coaches that
• 2:05:29
  I'm going to have on staff, I want them to have success
• 2:05:32
  because I don't want them just to be here.
• 2:05:34
  I because in the G Mac, you have to have something of everything
• 2:05:38
  in every event group if you're going to be competitive for a
• 2:05:41
  team title, you know, because also I want to raise our
• 2:05:46
  clientele because of in order to attract more.
• 2:05:50
  We can't keep going to, you know, this meet that they don't
• 2:05:53
  turn all the lights on in the field house on one day on
• 2:05:56
  Sunday. OK, here we go.
• 2:05:58
  Like I took the group. Now here we go.
• 2:06:01
  Lonnie invited us over to Kentucky for for two day meet
• 2:06:06
  and we went down there and our group said over 50 PRS boys and
• 2:06:10
  girls competed fantastically. And the excitement was there
• 2:06:15
  because now the other kids in the state who I'm trying to
• 2:06:18
  recruit, hey, we see where he took them.
• 2:06:20
  I may not be able to good enough to run there, but he's going to
• 2:06:23
  get me to compete against them 100%.
• 2:06:27
  There we go there. And that was and there we went
• 2:06:30
  and. So the recruits.
• 2:06:32
  From Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, they are seeing, oh,
• 2:06:37
  he's going to take us somewhere. He we're going to go and tangle
• 2:06:41
  because our GMAC meat is that hard.
• 2:06:43
  You know, anybody knows anything about that?
• 2:06:45
  It's called the great Midwest people.
• 2:06:47
  I just keep saying GMAC, go look up some of those meat results
• 2:06:50
  from the conference and you're going to be like, wow, that's
• 2:06:52
  D2, you know, because running is running, throwing is throwing at
• 2:06:56
  the end of the day. And so I just accelerated it by
• 2:07:02
  doing too well of a job and literally they just called me in
• 2:07:07
  and told me to drive home safely.
• 2:07:10
  How do you do that? Literally, You know, we finished
• 2:07:13
  up the year, we finished up cross country.
• 2:07:15
  I cleaned out my. Office.
• 2:07:18
  And then I sat in Owensboro from November until we came back to
• 2:07:22
  Indianapolis and in July, because, you know, my wife's in
• 2:07:25
  education, she teaches, you know, and, and we have to keep
• 2:07:28
  her in the stability around the kids.
• 2:07:32
  And, and it just, I'll say again, here we are dark,
• 2:07:36
  traumatizing, you know, something that you've worked so
• 2:07:39
  hard for, literally, you know, stolen from you.
• 2:07:43
  And then it would be different if I, you know, I'll say
• 2:07:46
  committed, committed the crime, you know, but you know, 9090%
• 2:07:53
  high graduation rate, you know, the APR.
• 2:07:55
  All those things. You know, that's what I was
• 2:07:57
  going to be under budget, successful, you know, growing
• 2:08:01
  the program. I.
• 2:08:03
  I didn't. Do anything, as they say, wrong
• 2:08:07
  to end up in that situation. That's what I was going to ask
• 2:08:10
  you. So it's one thing to lose a job
• 2:08:13
  because, you know, the head coach doesn't.
• 2:08:15
  Agree with you and and you leave because it's like, yeah, we're,
• 2:08:18
  I'm not, we're not a good fit. I need to move on.
• 2:08:20
  It's another to, to just be fired, you know, for whatever
• 2:08:23
  reasons out there. It's another thing that your
• 2:08:26
  program is cut because it's like the ultimate death sentence,
• 2:08:30
  right? It's like, man, I I didn't get
• 2:08:31
  fired necessarily. I just had my job, not stolen,
• 2:08:34
  but taken from me, right? How do you it's a terrible
• 2:08:38
  experience. I mean, it's, you know, being
• 2:08:39
  fired is a terrible experience. Having your program cut
• 2:08:42
  obviously for many obvious reasons.
• 2:08:44
  Don't push that on anybody. How do you and I'm assuming that
• 2:08:49
  you're not, so correct me where I'm wrong.
• 2:08:51
  There, how do you not get jaded? With the profession after an
• 2:08:56
  event like that, because I've always understood that there are
• 2:09:02
  good and bad people in the world.
• 2:09:06
  There is honest and dishonest people.
• 2:09:08
  You know, they're, they're, I've had enough.
• 2:09:10
  Spirits as in life to where? There's a lot of people who are
• 2:09:14
  people of convenience when things are great, things are
• 2:09:17
  great, and then they're in touch with you or when they need
• 2:09:20
  something and when they don't, you know, you don't hear from
• 2:09:22
  them. You know, stuff like I, I have
• 2:09:25
  a, an abnormal sense of radar, you know, for people at times.
• 2:09:31
  It, it, it, it allowed me to sit at home and cry a lot, you know,
• 2:09:36
  turn on the PS-5, pray a lot. It, it let me come back to
• 2:09:41
  picking up the kids, taking the kids to school a lot, even
• 2:09:44
  though I, I always did that and I used to take them to practice
• 2:09:47
  because Owensboro is not that big, Anderson, You know, it's
• 2:09:50
  not that, not that big. So they've always, you know, my
• 2:09:53
  kids have grown up around the team like that.
• 2:09:57
  But it I just honestly assumed that because I've done right and
• 2:10:03
  done right by people that an opportunity would come back to
• 2:10:06
  me. And that's what's been the
• 2:10:10
  frustrating part about it. Now, I have had phone calls,
• 2:10:14
  I've talked with a DS, I've talked with a couple of
• 2:10:16
  presidents. I had one president call me
• 2:10:19
  after I spoke with his AD because of what the AD told him.
• 2:10:22
  I said, here's my first question.
• 2:10:24
  What are your goals? Don't tell me what I want to
• 2:10:26
  hear. What are you guys honestly
• 2:10:28
  trying to do at your program? And and I and I said and I and I
• 2:10:32
  mean that because you have to understand where I'm coming from
• 2:10:36
  and what my last experience was. I don't need anybody else to
• 2:10:39
  tell me anything that it's not only to treat me something
• 2:10:42
  different. Yeah, Amen.
• 2:10:43
  And I was like, then that's just let's we we don't need to go
• 2:10:46
  through any of it. And I talked.
• 2:10:48
  To one specific AD. And it was a good conversation.
• 2:10:51
  And I guess he went and told the president what I said because
• 2:10:55
  what they were trying to do at said school, I said that's the
• 2:10:59
  reason how I'm in this situation.
• 2:11:01
  What you guys are going to try to push a person for because we
• 2:11:05
  see those colleges that every three years there's a new head
• 2:11:08
  coach there, you know, and that's and I've basically
• 2:11:12
  explained what they were setting up was going to.
• 2:11:15
  Put themself in that position. And that's not what I want to
• 2:11:17
  be. I don't want to be a revolving
• 2:11:19
  door guy, you know, I want to get somewhere, find my people,
• 2:11:23
  stay put and we're good. Make it build wherever with the
• 2:11:26
  people that we're with. And so I just keep positivity.
• 2:11:31
  Now as I, I mentioned to you earlier when we were talking,
• 2:11:35
  the best part is, is that in this college time, I was still
• 2:11:38
  teaching classes because I'm a licensed PE health teacher by
• 2:11:42
  trade, you know, PK to 12, so. Even at Anderson I.
• 2:11:46
  Was still teaching classes. I'm I'm still teaching.
• 2:11:49
  So I basically when I didn't get any of the college things of
• 2:11:54
  that last year, we decided to come back here to Indianapolis
• 2:11:58
  and I literally got a call from Ben Davis High School and they
• 2:12:02
  had APE opening. And you know, and that's where
• 2:12:05
  you know, where I've, I'll say I've landed on my feet.
• 2:12:08
  You know, I, we moved back at the end of July and I went back
• 2:12:12
  to Marion on a whim when we moved back and that was the
• 2:12:16
  deadline day for principal licensing programs and I turned
• 2:12:21
  it everything in within that hour paid here, here, here.
• 2:12:25
  This is what, because I, I just said, if I'm going to have to
• 2:12:29
  come back this way, I want to be able to create my Ave. for what
• 2:12:32
  I want. So I literally we moved back and
• 2:12:35
  a week later I was in class, you know, so I, I, I spent the whole
• 2:12:39
  year last year, I've been Davis and I got my principal's
• 2:12:42
  license. Well, because in Indiana they
• 2:12:44
  want the assistant principals, principals, but also the
• 2:12:47
  athletic directors, you know, to have this admin license, you
• 2:12:51
  know, so I, so I, I came back and that's the thing.
• 2:12:57
  I'm sitting there and I'm working.
• 2:12:59
  Mike Davison, Hall of Famer, you know, in the here in Indiana,
• 2:13:02
  great Sprint guy, great Sprint guy, great, great guy.
• 2:13:07
  He's a good guy, Good husband as well.
• 2:13:09
  Miss Davidson, She's part of the family.
• 2:13:12
  You know, he's on me about coming out to help, coming out
• 2:13:14
  to help coming out. I need you out here.
• 2:13:16
  I know what you can do with them.
• 2:13:17
  Hurdles. I I need you and I'm just saying
• 2:13:19
  to him, I'm still absolutely traumatized coach like never in
• 2:13:24
  my wildest dreams of what I thought that I would be back in
• 2:13:27
  a regular high school, you know, because I wanted to coach work
• 2:13:33
  my way up end up in administration and because of my
• 2:13:36
  academic, I'll say prowess and what I what I can see and how I
• 2:13:40
  can try to plan things. I wanted to get into student
• 2:13:43
  retention because because I know what it's like to not be pushed.
• 2:13:49
  I know what it's like to not. Go to class.
• 2:13:51
  I know what it's like to struggle.
• 2:13:52
  Through life, I know what it's like to be at college and not
• 2:13:55
  really know why you're there. You know, I know how to
• 2:13:59
  communicate those things. So I've all I'm OK, so I'm going
• 2:14:02
  to coach. And I'm going to get in the.
• 2:14:03
  Student retention. And then here I am at Ben Davis
• 2:14:07
  and they treated me great, by the way.
• 2:14:10
  And I, the AD came and talked to me one day and I just told her
• 2:14:14
  how I still felt. And she says, well, I'll tell
• 2:14:17
  everybody to give you your space for you to continue to heal
• 2:14:21
  because I needed healing. I, I'm, I'm, I'm just imagine
• 2:14:29
  working your way up, working your way up and then being
• 2:14:31
  successful. And then just right when you're
• 2:14:34
  about to turn the corner of all of these things, you get called
• 2:14:39
  into the office and get told to drive home safely.
• 2:14:42
  It's it's absolutely with just no regard of I still got two
• 2:14:45
  kids I need to feed right. You know, like it it was, it was
• 2:14:51
  something. But the best?
• 2:14:53
  Part is, and that's why I said the best and the worst is
• 2:14:56
  because now I know exactly what questions I need to ask and I'm
• 2:14:59
  going to talk to everybody else. I wish you could have learned
• 2:15:02
  that in a different way, because what what I've come to find out,
• 2:15:07
  Mike. I I my security.
• 2:15:12
  Your insecurities is not my fault and my your insecurities
• 2:15:15
  are not going to ruin my security.
• 2:15:18
  You know, I, I've, I've already, as they say, I've already danced
• 2:15:21
  with the devil twice, you know, and I'm still here with a smile,
• 2:15:26
  you know, So I'm, I'm just putting these pieces together to
• 2:15:30
  put these pieces together. But you know, cuz my puzzle is
• 2:15:33
  still forming. It strikes me again, this growth
• 2:15:37
  and maturity. And you saw, you know, when that
• 2:15:39
  happened at? Kentucky Wesleyan, I didn't hear
• 2:15:42
  you say, you know, if I'd have done this differently, maybe we
• 2:15:46
  could have saved the program if I wouldn't have done that or if
• 2:15:48
  I if I'd have been done, you know, whatever.
• 2:15:50
  All these things, which is the opposite of what happened during
• 2:15:54
  college when, you know, the Mike Tyson body blows, you know, when
• 2:15:57
  people close to your life pass away, like, oh man, if I
• 2:16:00
  wouldn't have gone to you, if I'd have become a or what you
• 2:16:03
  know, and all these, you know, ludicrous things like obviously
• 2:16:07
  they had no effect on what the bad things happened.
• 2:16:09
  It wasn't your fault. So to now have the maturity of
• 2:16:11
  like, OK, not to beat yourself up, not that we want to blame
• 2:16:15
  others, but there's a there's a balance in there of like, well,
• 2:16:17
  it's all their fault. It's all their fault, but not
• 2:16:20
  there's there's a mental health side of just not beating
• 2:16:22
  yourself up when it's not your fault.
• 2:16:23
  If there, if it had been your fault, if you'd have been like,
• 2:16:25
  yeah, you know what, I was over budget and I only brought in
• 2:16:28
  five kids a year. Maybe if I'd have done that
• 2:16:31
  differently, we could have had a program.
• 2:16:33
  So that's when you can, you know, learn lessons there.
• 2:16:35
  So what what I'm curious at is we start to wrap up here.
• 2:16:38
  So and I don't, I'm not a I'm not a chicken little guy.
• 2:16:42
  And what I mean by that is I push back when I see things on
• 2:16:47
  social media and have conversations with coaches about
• 2:16:49
  we're dropping track and field left and right and blah, blah,
• 2:16:51
  blah. I'm like, we actually, we're not
• 2:16:53
  guys. I mean, certainly programs are
• 2:16:54
  still dropping, not disputing that.
• 2:17:00
  But we are having schools add track and field too.
• 2:17:04
  It's funny, we don't in proportion have the same energy
• 2:17:07
  when a school adds a program as we do when a school drops.
• 2:17:10
  Maybe that's human nature, I guess, but you know, we will.
• 2:17:13
  You want to light up Twitter, drop a program, everybody and
• 2:17:16
  their brother will talk about how terrible it is.
• 2:17:17
  What a bad decision. All correct, by the way.
• 2:17:20
  But when someone adds a program, no one says, hey, great job does
• 2:17:23
  so and so for adding. You know, we just not in the
• 2:17:26
  same fervor. And we, we should be, by the
• 2:17:27
  way, we should be lifting up as much as we are expressing our
• 2:17:31
  disappointment. So I'm not that way, but I am
• 2:17:34
  curious because unfortunately you have this experience.
• 2:17:38
  I wish you did not have have this experience.
• 2:17:41
  Are there anything, you know, someone's listening right now
• 2:17:44
  and maybe they just have a little, you know, we have
• 2:17:46
  instincts, we have discernment, we have gut feelings of like,
• 2:17:52
  you know, I'm just not sure how healthy our program.
• 2:17:54
  And by program, I mean our athletic department or school,
• 2:17:57
  certainly, you know, much, much bigger than track and field.
• 2:18:00
  We have some financial concerns among some of our universities
• 2:18:03
  and institutions that are the the whole institution is
• 2:18:06
  dropping, not athletics. The whole school is closing
• 2:18:09
  down. Some bigger issues are post
• 2:18:12
  secondary schools right now for sure.
• 2:18:14
  But is there anything, any advice, any hey, look out for,
• 2:18:20
  hey, if you hear this kind of lane, anything, you know that
• 2:18:23
  maybe we can use your again, unfortunate experience with this
• 2:18:27
  that you can give to other coaches who are listening, who
• 2:18:29
  are just, you know, maybe think things they're not being told
• 2:18:32
  necessarily the truth. Anything you can think of like,
• 2:18:35
  hey, look out for this, ask these questions, anything like
• 2:18:39
  that, you can kind of put you on the spot here, especially in
• 2:18:41
  college. I would always tell when you
• 2:18:43
  start to. I'll say trigger words when you
• 2:18:45
  start. Hearing enrollment enrollment,
• 2:18:47
  enrollment so much you know, because enrollment under you
• 2:18:51
  know that's the butts in the seats that help pay the bills to
• 2:18:53
  keep the school open. Also, if they, if, if you start
• 2:18:57
  to hear talk about other programs successes or lack
• 2:19:02
  thereof, you know, because sometimes they may be tied into
• 2:19:06
  you as well, because then they will then either, you know,
• 2:19:11
  that's that's their wink of letting you know, Hey, we, we
• 2:19:14
  are watching, but also we may be coming to you saying now I need
• 2:19:19
  you to get 10 more. And then if you're struggling to
• 2:19:22
  get, you know, that 20 in the first place, where am I going to
• 2:19:25
  be able to get to? Yeah, you know, and then do we
• 2:19:29
  even have the staffing for all these things, right, You know,
• 2:19:32
  and, and. That's the whole thing.
• 2:19:33
  Too, I was told I was going to get staffing created for me.
• 2:19:37
  Nope, didn't happen. You know, like what?
• 2:19:39
  Like I said. So now, like all the signs now
• 2:19:42
  that I was able to weather it because I went back and took
• 2:19:46
  notes from the very first time they called me and I went back
• 2:19:50
  through the conversations and I've written rewritten over
• 2:19:54
  them, you know, and that's kind of how I'm a middle school
• 2:19:57
  athletic director right now because I haven't my, my people
• 2:20:02
  haven't called me yet. You know, there's been
• 2:20:05
  opportunities and jobs opening that I, I was hoping that I
• 2:20:09
  would get a call for because I, you know, I would say I'm
• 2:20:11
  reasonably qualified, you know, more so because I'm a good,
• 2:20:15
  honest person. I'm going to work real hard but
• 2:20:19
  I just haven't gotten that call to where.
• 2:20:23
  I would be able to trust because it's not just me, it's my kids,
• 2:20:26
  it's my family, it's my wife, it's the peace at home.
• 2:20:29
  It's all those things, you know, that are a part of it.
• 2:20:33
  So as you for those who are at home listening and are looking
• 2:20:37
  even to look to move up to this, because different levels have
• 2:20:41
  different expectations and there's different, there's
• 2:20:44
  levels to all of it. You know, you have to find where
• 2:20:48
  your lane is and then just try to run your lane the fastest.
• 2:20:53
  You know, if I can give it that analogy.
• 2:20:55
  And that's how within all the things that happened, you know,
• 2:21:00
  life has still been a blessing. I, I, I knew that, you know,
• 2:21:03
  keep my teachers license active because of that way I would
• 2:21:06
  always have a fall back, you know, just because I know even
• 2:21:09
  before I got into college, how hostile that it may be.
• 2:21:13
  I don't know, because also, hey, I may not be good at this, you
• 2:21:17
  know, and then I have to go back.
• 2:21:18
  But what I do know, I know I'm good at working at a high school
• 2:21:21
  and coaching at that. I know I know how to do that
• 2:21:23
  because that's what my evaluation say prior to, you
• 2:21:26
  know, luckily for me, my evaluations post high school say
• 2:21:29
  they're that I'm above average on those as well too.
• 2:21:33
  You know, it's just that I would say to anyone, don't look at the
• 2:21:37
  school, look at the people on that staff, look at the
• 2:21:41
  leadership. Find out what people say about
• 2:21:44
  the people in leadership before you make a decision.
• 2:21:49
  Because as we know, there are some, even some big schools, you
• 2:21:55
  know, that turn over a member here or there, here or there
• 2:21:58
  you. Know you may.
• 2:21:59
  Not be a fit and and your fit has to be what the fit is
• 2:22:04
  because I there may be an opening on the staff but if it's
• 2:22:08
  throws related I love hammer. Don't get me wrong, I love
• 2:22:11
  hammer and jab, you know, but I'm not qualified to coach at
• 2:22:14
  that level and the hammer and the jab like I know it, but
• 2:22:17
  stop, you know? And then also, do we need, you
• 2:22:21
  know, what gender, what what event group?
• 2:22:23
  You know, there's all those pieces at play to where you just
• 2:22:28
  have to know where you're fits going to be, know where you're
• 2:22:31
  going to be supported and then know where you're going to a lot
• 2:22:35
  be allowed to be yourself. You know, I've had enough of
• 2:22:38
  this walk where I've had people not want me to be myself, but I
• 2:22:43
  can't help that. I can't.
• 2:22:44
  I can't turn down my light. I'm sorry.
• 2:22:47
  I can't and I won't because I'm not intentionally trying to hurt
• 2:22:53
  or shame or make you feel however you may feel, you know,
• 2:22:57
  because if you've ever really met me and spent some time with
• 2:23:00
  me, they're like, this dude is a halfway to stand up comedian.
• 2:23:04
  I just look and sound like this. Yeah, yeah, I because that's my
• 2:23:09
  look like. If you're not watching on
• 2:23:13
  YouTube, Go over just to see that look.
• 2:23:14
  Right there because it is true. You know, yeah, I just look and
• 2:23:17
  sound like this, but I'm actually a pretty funny guy.
• 2:23:20
  Clyde Morgan will tell you that. And you know, that's, oh, that's
• 2:23:24
  my guy right there, you know, but you know, I would just like
• 2:23:28
  I said, encourage you, you youngsters or even you older
• 2:23:32
  ones who were looking at maybe making a change, you know,
• 2:23:35
  because I'm also part of that group of, well, you know, my
• 2:23:37
  pension in high school and I'm close to retirement, but I
• 2:23:40
  really want to coach in college. All I can say is that if you can
• 2:23:44
  support it, you only live once. You got to go find it out if
• 2:23:47
  that's what you want to do. You know, you, you, you only
• 2:23:51
  live once and you have to go find it out.
• 2:23:54
  I think that's the biggest thing that life, that's the biggest
• 2:23:56
  thing that track and field has taught.
• 2:24:00
  You. Have to go find it out something
• 2:24:02
  you said that was really important there.
• 2:24:05
  I want to highlight before we sign off today you talked about.
• 2:24:08
  You know, I'm not going to I got to be who I am.
• 2:24:10
  You're not going to dim your light for for the other person,
• 2:24:13
  for your insecurities, etcetera. I'm using a little paraphrasing
• 2:24:16
  here, but you know the the other reason why Saul is because doing
• 2:24:20
  so is such a disservice and discredit to all the people that
• 2:24:26
  have poured into you along the way.
• 2:24:28
  You know, a great philosopher once said we are who we are
• 2:24:32
  because of who we've been. Now that great philosopher is
• 2:24:35
  Vanilla Ice. That's actually his quote.
• 2:24:38
  But when you think about it, that's true.
• 2:24:40
  Yeah, we are. We we stand on the.
• 2:24:42
  Giants that we stand on the. Shoulders of others.
• 2:24:45
  You know you're you know this started out by by the most
• 2:24:49
  amazing 2nd grade teacher story I've ever heard.
• 2:24:54
  Your high school coaches, your family, your.
• 2:24:58
  Three amigo. Coaches back in Michigan.
• 2:25:00
  So I mean, those are all people that poured into you and it made
• 2:25:03
  who Saul is today for you to change who you are, to act like
• 2:25:09
  how I think you want me to be, to dim myself, to act like I'm
• 2:25:12
  not good at being a, a, a, a high school athletic director,
• 2:25:16
  teacher, coach. Well, that just tells 2nd grade
• 2:25:20
  Miss Breezy, you, you, your impact wasn't that good.
• 2:25:23
  It's not, it's not as important. It it, it tells the, the high
• 2:25:27
  school coach. You know what?
• 2:25:28
  I know you thought you saw something to me, but that's not
• 2:25:29
  important because I need to act meek over here to appease this
• 2:25:32
  part. That's the most biggest
• 2:25:35
  disservice you can do to all the people that believed in you
• 2:25:37
  believe in you today, have made sacrifices for you who went out
• 2:25:43
  of their way. Lawrence N coach went out of
• 2:25:44
  their way to say, hey, man, come in, come here.
• 2:25:47
  What's going on with you? You know, it diminishes of Mike
• 2:25:50
  Coleman and what he poured into you.
• 2:25:53
  And so being who you are because you're you talked about fit
• 2:25:56
  earlier. That's exactly right.
• 2:25:58
  You are not salt. You are not meant to be
• 2:26:00
  everywhere there There are some circles that you do not fit into
• 2:26:04
  my friend. There are some jobs you don't
• 2:26:07
  fit into. Found out Mike.
• 2:26:09
  There are people that don't want you.
• 2:26:11
  Around now that all sounds like it sucks and.
• 2:26:15
  It kind of does. But here's the good news.
• 2:26:18
  There are more places where not only do you fit in, you grow
• 2:26:23
  that circle. There are people that need to
• 2:26:26
  know who you are and have you in their lives.
• 2:26:31
  The challenge in life and you've you've expressed this
• 2:26:34
  tremendously today is finding that fit finding those places.
• 2:26:40
  Like I said, the good news is there's more than there isn't
• 2:26:43
  yes, but we yes it is. That's a good thing.
• 2:26:45
  And sometimes the places that we shouldn't be look way more
• 2:26:48
  attractive and we think. We're supposed to be over there
• 2:26:50
  and sometimes we we just have to go.
• 2:26:51
  Over and get our our toe stubbed and find out.
• 2:26:53
  Oh, oh crap. That's not my place.
• 2:26:55
  Yeah, that's so hot. Yeah, that's so hot.
• 2:26:57
  Let's get back over here. Exactly.
• 2:26:59
  So I think the you. Know the lessons that you've
• 2:27:02
  been through and you know I. On one hand, I can say why I
• 2:27:05
  wish you wouldn't have gone through some of those negative
• 2:27:07
  things because I don't want bad things to happen to people.
• 2:27:09
  But I'm glad you did because again, that makes you who you
• 2:27:12
  are today. And even more important because
• 2:27:15
  it's I'm a big believer in the people that pour into you.
• 2:27:18
  You, my friend, pour into others and you couldn't pour into other
• 2:27:21
  people as effectively if you didn't go through those things.
• 2:27:25
  You have a much better perspective and story to tell a
• 2:27:29
  young person today because of that crap you went through and
• 2:27:32
  that's going to help that person grow on to positivity.
• 2:27:35
  So that's that's very lucky to have you.
• 2:27:37
  That's a spot on call right there, Mike.
• 2:27:39
  I I still even when I lost the job, I was.
• 2:27:43
  Still mentoring, you know, I'm still having, having people call
• 2:27:47
  me experienced people too, because I've, I've always done
• 2:27:51
  that, even though I'm not coaching right now, more so
• 2:27:54
  because I'm, you know, I'm hoping maybe the Lord gives a
• 2:27:57
  call and we'll see what happens. But just last week, Hey, try
• 2:28:01
  this, try that, you know, for someone, you know, people still
• 2:28:04
  send me videos. I, I still get phone calls now
• 2:28:07
  just because it's, it's my knowledge is not for me to keep
• 2:28:11
  right. You know, I don't need to be the
• 2:28:13
  smartest track person in the cemetery at the end of the day,
• 2:28:16
  you know, I, I need to. So if I, if I can give it and
• 2:28:20
  pour it, you know, I give it in port, you know, my, my library
• 2:28:26
  is behind me and I tell people who do come over, Hey, get what
• 2:28:29
  you want, tell me what you want. Let's look at it, whatever it
• 2:28:32
  is, you know, because I I just want to make sure that I'm
• 2:28:37
  helping in the right way, you know, and that because I
• 2:28:40
  understand you may have some child that this may be their
• 2:28:43
  Ave. that may save them. I want to make sure that we are
• 2:28:48
  all trying to lift us up as we're all trying to climb.
• 2:28:51
  That's right. So man, I told you this was the
• 2:28:56
  right time to be on the show, not.
• 2:28:58
  Two years or whatever ago, this was the right time.
• 2:29:01
  You are a more advanced person today than you were two years
• 2:29:05
  ago. And honestly, isn't that the
• 2:29:06
  goal of life? To be better the next day than
• 2:29:08
  you were the previous day? And you have certainly are
• 2:29:12
  living that out. And obviously, you know, we're
• 2:29:14
  talking a lot about some external people, meaning, you
• 2:29:16
  know, you're athletes, former athletes, things like that.
• 2:29:18
  But boy, you know that there is no bigger place in prize than
• 2:29:22
  right there internally with your spouse and your the little ones
• 2:29:25
  and things like that. You're, you're, you know, all
• 2:29:27
  that leads to even better leadership for them.
• 2:29:30
  So I'm, I'm proud of you for internalizing and externalizing
• 2:29:34
  the lessons you've learned and helping other young people
• 2:29:37
  become better versions of themselves, my friend.
• 2:29:40
  Yeah. Now I'm like just coaching
• 2:29:41
  coaches for a living, you know? And even some of that has been
• 2:29:45
  something where. You know, I have a youngster on
• 2:29:47
  staff. Now look, my man, I don't think
• 2:29:49
  you should do that. But if you think you want to,
• 2:29:52
  we'll come back to it. And he went and tried it and he
• 2:29:56
  and he says, OK, it didn't work. Why didn't you not think it
• 2:30:01
  worked? I literally reached in the desk
• 2:30:03
  and pulled out an envelope. I wrote down the reasons why it
• 2:30:06
  wasn't going to work, and then I even put the year of an
• 2:30:09
  experience that I had of why it wasn't going to work.
• 2:30:11
  I just handed him the envelope. He opens it, starts reading it.
• 2:30:14
  He just looks at me. Well, why did you tell me?
• 2:30:17
  Because I just need you to find it out on your own, I said.
• 2:30:20
  Now I'm not. Going to let you go do anything.
• 2:30:22
  That's going to get you fired, you know, But I needed you to
• 2:30:25
  see because sometimes you do have to learn by trial and
• 2:30:29
  error. Yeah, it's typically the best
• 2:30:31
  way we learn, that's for sure. Because that's how I've learned
• 2:30:34
  a lot, my friend. Thank you so much.
• 2:30:37
  Man, you know the most valuable thing you can give me is your.
• 2:30:39
  Time you know you're you're a busy dude, just just with the.
• 2:30:42
  Family, it's busy and you know you're a professional.
• 2:30:44
  You're actually out there doing things, mentoring young coaches
• 2:30:46
  and many other aspects of your life.
• 2:30:49
  So I'm just so grateful for your time today.
• 2:30:51
  I'm so grateful you know your openness and authenticity to
• 2:30:54
  have discussions about tough things.
• 2:30:56
  That is when I think the real meat of this podcast happens.
• 2:31:00
  You know, sometimes we just don't get very deep and there's
• 2:31:02
  still value and you know someones bio and stuff like
• 2:31:05
  that. But when we can have open and
• 2:31:06
  honest conversations with each other about mistakes we've made,
• 2:31:09
  experiences that are good and bad that we've had, I think
• 2:31:11
  that's what, you know, takes this podcast to the next realm
• 2:31:14
  and helps build again. You know, we, I told you, we
• 2:31:16
  stand on the shoulders of others.
• 2:31:18
  It helps people to see, Oh man, you know what?
• 2:31:20
  And I've had this many times. It's it's a blessing and
• 2:31:23
  humbling where someone's like, Hey, I heard so and so story.
• 2:31:26
  And when they said they went through XY and Z, hey, that
• 2:31:28
  spoke to me, that helped me. I actually changed.
• 2:31:30
  I've got people, I've changed jobs because of that, like that,
• 2:31:33
  that was the impetus I needed. So your story is going to be
• 2:31:35
  that. I don't know if someone's going
• 2:31:36
  to change a job because of your story.
• 2:31:37
  You never know, but let's go learn from that and have a
• 2:31:41
  better life. It brings good.
• 2:31:42
  Hopefully it brings some good and bring some confidence into
• 2:31:45
  someone who has had that type of doubt from.
• 2:31:48
  Something that they couldn't control.
• 2:31:50
  That's right, you know, and that's that's why, like you
• 2:31:53
  said, the time is now. Like I said, we, I needed to, I
• 2:31:57
  needed to do some healing, needed to, you know, find, find
• 2:32:01
  a way to be able to express the hopefully maybe this lesson will
• 2:32:04
  then somebody here and say, you know, OK, it's not just me
• 2:32:09
  because believe it or not, not that we're both old enough.
• 2:32:11
  It's not just you, whoever's out there listening, It's not just
• 2:32:15
  you, you know, but just believe in yourself enough and work and
• 2:32:19
  do things the right way. And that time, when the time is
• 2:32:22
  right, you know you will be rewarded.
• 2:32:25
  You know, that's the best place to end it right there.
• 2:32:28
  Cuz that is true words. I love that Saul.
• 2:32:30
  Thank you so much my friend. I'm so blessed to be able to
• 2:32:33
  call you friend and I'm so glad we got to do this and we got to
• 2:32:35
  do this at the right time. Guys and gals listening.
• 2:32:37
  Thank you so much. We it's funny, we mentioned a
• 2:32:39
  lot, you know, this is how I know when people who and how
• 2:32:43
  they surround themselves with. We mentioned a ton of people
• 2:32:46
  that have been on the podcast, everybody from Trevor Bassett,
• 2:32:50
  he's been on the show at Bethea. We mentioned many others that
• 2:32:53
  have that have impacted his life.
• 2:32:55
  So I just love that I think that means a we're, we're probably
• 2:32:58
  maybe doing the right thing over here on the podcast.
• 2:32:59
  And obviously someone like Saul is doing the right thing in
• 2:33:01
  their life. So thank you so much for being
• 2:33:03
  here week after week. I'm again so humble that you
• 2:33:06
  press play. Join us next week and we'll do
• 2:33:08
  it all over again. Thanks everybody if it goes to
• 2:33:14
  appreciate the coach, the ones that point people most every
• 2:33:17
  season needs a voice of reason. Speaking the growth you got to
• 2:33:21
  prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
• 2:33:24
  For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
• 2:33:26
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 2:33:28
  There's more than one way to go taking those that's paying your
• 2:33:31
  toe. It ain't practice if your
• 2:33:33
  purpose ain't clear. It can't happen until you listen
• 2:33:35
  with both is you can't mentor without a mentor of years of
• 2:33:39
  experience. You can reinvent those years
• 2:33:41
  every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
• 2:33:44
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and the fight not
• 2:33:47
  a win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 2:33:50
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to it's all
• 2:33:53
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
• 2:33:56
  6,000,000 Waste of time, choose none.
• 2:33:58
  So y'all cross finish line, the work ain't done so we learn from
• 2:34:01
  the experts but y'all got to put in the leg work.
• 2:34:04
  Guild athletics use the network. It's all about connections put
• 2:34:07
  together for the profession to where every track coach could be
• 2:34:10
  the blessing.