Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #286: College to HS Coaching (a panel!)

Transcript

#286: College to HS Coaching (a panel!) · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:10
  Track and Field world Juvenile tuned in to our humble servant
• 0:14
  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Guild
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  Athletics connections. All right, welcome back to the
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  Guild Athletics Connections Podcast.
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  So glad, so glad you pressed play today.
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  We're going to do something unique here.
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  We're going to break a few eggs, maybe hurt a few egos, I don't
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  know. But we're going to have a really
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  frank and I think important discussion about coaching, the
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  different levels, responsibilities, egos I'm sure
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  are going to come in here and to play in regards to decision
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  making. I'm really super excited.
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  So today we are going to talk to three gentlemen who have all
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  worked on the college side. They have been really high level
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  collegiate coaches. We'll find out more about their
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  backgrounds here in a second. And now all today or now a
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  little bit formally of today, but we'll get into that as well,
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  coach on the high school level. And I'm super excited about that
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  because, you know, you've been with me for, you know, nearly
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  300 episodes now. You know, there's not much of a
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  difference between a high school and a college coach in regards
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  to competencies and passions. It's just a different like goal
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  set. Like if you're in the blade,
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  maybe your goal is to go to nationals.
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  If you're in high school, you maybe your goal is to win state.
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  I don't know, we'll find out today.
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  But this whole myth busting I like to do here, this whole idea
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  that because a coach wears a university Insignia on their
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  polo, that they are a air quotes here.
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  Better coach or more knowledgeable coach is really
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  bunk. There's some amazing coaches
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  knowledgeable on the college side and on the high school
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  side. And honestly, I got three real
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  good ones here today. So help me welcome the world's
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  worst boy band names, Corey, Shawn and Brian.
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  I I thought about that all night.
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  By the way, gentlemen, that's that's what I do at night.
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  Help me welcome from Catholic High School down in Baton Rouge,
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  Corey Mastretta and Sean Brady. And then now just recently
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  formerly of Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy.
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  He's also got his own Guild connections podcast episode.
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  Mr. Brian Fetzer. Gentlemen, thank you guys for
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  being here today. Hey.
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  Thanks, Mike. I appreciate.
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  It now this is always difficult when we have more than one
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  guest, right, because of talk over and things like that.
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  But we're gonna do our very best that we, we're all they, they
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  all know each other. So they're all real respectful
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  of each other. So we're all good on, on those
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  kind of things. But we'll try to make sure that
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  we get as little talk over as possible.
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  So to get started, let's set the stage, if you will.
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  Why don't you do just kind of a, a 30,000 foot level, 3:00-ish
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  minute kind of introduction of yourself, where you've been,
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  where you've coached and where you're coaching today.
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  And I'm just going to point because of what's on my screen
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  here. And we're just going to start
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  right up here. It's like the Brady Bunch.
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  We're going to start right up here with the Brady Bunch with
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  Sean. Sean, give us a little bit of an
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  introduction of yourself, please.
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  Sure. So my my coaching journey began
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  in I guess 1995. I was started off as a, a
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  graduate student or a volunteer rather at LSU and was, was there
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  for a year, went to, to Europe to finish my postgraduate
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  degree, did some, did some coaching with the Scottish Track
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  and Field Coaching Association and then came back to finish my
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  thesis and, and, and I volunteered again as, as Aga at,
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  at LSU. From there I went to Utah State
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  University, spent some time in Logan, UT, and after that was
• 3:47
  fortunate enough to to come home to my alma mater, Southeastern
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  Louisiana University, where I spent 16 years from 2001 until
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  2017. And in 2017, I had an
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  opportunity to go to Texas A&M and spend five years coaching
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  with another Pat Henry and had a great experience there.
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  And then from that point, I threw a string of events I ended
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  up taking a job at at Catholic High School in Baton Rouge, LA,
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  and was able to come home and be close to family and friends.
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  And that's where I've been for the last 2 1/2 years.
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  I love it. I, I, I feel like that theme of
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  family and friends probably a little bit in almost everybody's
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  story, but probably should be more prevalent in a lot of our
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  coaches stories and journeys. We we sometimes tend to forget
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  that and we go off and forget coming back home and how
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  important that is. Sean, I appreciate that.
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  Thank you so much for for being here.
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  Corey, you want to hit, not clean up, hit second.
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  I don't know. I'm not, I'm not into baseball.
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  That was probably a terrible baseball joke.
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  You're next. Corey, how about that?
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  Yeah, I'll, I'll start now. For me, it, it didn't begin with
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  coaching. I think Brian and I have a lot
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  in common. We we come from coaching
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  backgrounds. I played high school football
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  for my dad. He's in the Hall of Fame here in
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  Louisiana and and we come from a very large Italian Catholic
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  family. And so growing up with with two
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  Catholic school teachers and coaches salaries, we didn't have
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  a whole lot when I was growing up.
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  So for me it was like, not me. My children are going to have
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  way more right like you. You're so naive as a child.
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  So I had this 12 year professional outside of academia
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  career before I realized something was missing in my
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  life, right? I wasn't passionate about it.
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  I didn't feel like it was who I was.
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  So I decided against my dad's best advice, not to do it, but
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  decided to go into education and coaching.
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  So that happened and I went back to my alma mater to coach and
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  teach, teaching theology and coaching football in track and
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  field. And I spent five years there.
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  And then I moved to Hammond to the Catholic High School there
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  right next to Southeastern for with a with a former college
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  teammate who was the principal asked me to come and join there.
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  So I went there for a couple of years, and then I went to
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  Virginia and was a track coach and an athletic director at
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  Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School in Virginia Beach.
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  And about 12 years in, 10 or 12 years in, I started kind of
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  dreaming about, hey, can I coach at the college level?
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  And so I started looking at what it's going to take.
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  What do you have to do? What are the prerequisites?
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  And a lot of things I was seeing was you had to have a master's
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  degree also, which I didn't have at the time.
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  So I started working on a master's degree.
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  And in that, while I was doing that, I would just look for job
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  postings just to see what's, what's it going to take, blah,
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  blah, blah, blah. And one day I saw Southeastern
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  was looking for a coach, so I called Sean.
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  Shawn and I were college teammates for a little while way
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  back in the day. We're both old men, so way, way
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  back in the day. And so I called him and you
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  know, it, it just kind of worked out.
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  So we could maybe talk about that a little bit later about
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  how it does take connections sometimes.
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  So I'm not going to be as naive as to say like, I was such a
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  great high school coach that Southeastern came and got me.
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  No, no, I called a friend who had an opening and we worked it
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  out. So I took a huge, huge, huge pay
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  cut to go and try to go coaching college for this opportunity.
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  Plus it was coming home back to Louisiana for me.
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  So just like Sean said, it's kind of family.
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  So I came back to to Southeastern and with Sean and
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  he and I were together for about 3 years when he left to go to
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  A&M. Then I became the head coach at
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  Southeastern and was there for five years.
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  And we can talk way more about this later, but another part of
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  my life was lacking that, that I wasn't getting at the college
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  level right. So when I started teaching
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  theology and and working with kids, my relationship with
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  Christ became so, so good. And then you just don't realize
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  when you go to college, it's not in the Christian School or
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  Catholic school. You just slowly, it's kind of
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  like when you're leave high school and go to college, it's
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  real easy to get away from your faith life.
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  And so just slowly it got away. And so I started missing that
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  and wanting that back in my life.
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  So I started looking to get back out and we could talk a little
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  later. There's a funny story about how
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  I got here. But now I'm at Catholic High
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  back with Sean, he and I working together in Baton Rouge and and
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  it's just been a lot of fun. So that's it was over 3 minutes
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  but. That was all right, that was
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  worth it. I love it.
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  I didn't know you were out in Virginia Beach for a stint.
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  That's pretty cool. I love it, love it.
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  All right, and let's have our 3rd guest here, Brian Fetzer.
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  Give us a little bit of a catch up and what you how the career
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  you've had and where you at today.
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  Yeah, no, I I spent 23 years coaching at the collegiate
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  level. I started off at coaching
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  football and a junior College in Texas.
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  That's why I played college football.
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  That was kind of all I ever wanted to do.
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  And you know, sometimes your, your life takes different
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  journeys, as we all know as coaches.
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  And you know, I started coaching track there, spent end up
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  spending 23 years, you know, coaching at 7 different schools,
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  Harvard, Berkeley, Mississippi State, Ball State, Gardner Webb,
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  and found finally at my last eight years, I was the director
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  of track and field and cross country at the University of
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  Virginia, which was which was amazing experience.
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  I decided in 2019 that it was time to, to move on and to, to
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  get out of college coaching, which was when we talk about
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  identity and you talk about what you've always wanted to do, you
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  make that change and, and you leave.
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  You know what you've always been known for?
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  I mean, I laugh every every day when you know, somebody checks
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  my, my Gmail and it says coach fets on it.
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  And they're like you coach and I say, no, I don't coach anymore
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  or, or somebody refers to people in the community we live in.
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  They still, they, they refer to me as coach.
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  And I've never, you know, they never knew me as a coach, but
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  but did that for 23 years left helped Paul Doyle get the the
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  American track league, the Puma America track League launched
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  after that and started a company, Iron Faith Nutrition
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  with the business partner, Eric Fijio.
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  And we, we, we had that role and we still have that role until
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  today. Then, you know, a few years ago,
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  Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy up in Cincinnati.
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  I went to high school up in Cincinnati, approached me when
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  we, I became the executive director of athletics for, for 2
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  1/2 years and it was, it was pretty fun.
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  It was definitely a different experience.
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  I actually went and hired 8 different programs, hired
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  college coaches to come in and be my head coach to run the
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  programs. Matt Eshey, who was at, at UAB
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  for a number of years, is, is now the, you know, the junior
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  high, you know, athletic director and the head cross
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  country coach and, and, and track coach.
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  And, you know, I mean, they just won another conference
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  championship and do an amazing job.
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  And you know what, that was fun. That was great.
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  And get approached, you know, late in 23 about potentially
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  finding and founding another company.
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  And since then, the company's called Cy Optimal Sports and the
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  president of it. We deal with mental optimization
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  and mental health issues among the, the professional team
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  ranks, college team ranks. We actually have a major soccer
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  club that we deal with in the youth level and we we've got
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  high schools as well with head sports psychologist of the
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  Oklahoma City Thunder and Rich Wayne Chappelle and Rich
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  Hemphill, who who was the CEO of E coach, which was a educational
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  platform for basketball. So we launched that company and
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  it's been, it's been interesting going from being in academia
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  from the college world and the high school world, you know, for
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  the better part of my adult life to, to, you know, really in the
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  entrepreneur side of things and in the business side that ends
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  up helping high schools and colleges.
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  So it's, it, it's been fun and it's, it's, it's obviously fun
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  to get on this. I mean, I listen to the podcast
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  and on a regular basis listening to some friends and, and now
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  nowadays it's kind of funny. I think Corey and and Sean will
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  both attest to it. You listen to some of the
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  coaches and you're thinking, man, I remember that kid was an
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  athlete or I remember when that kid just started.
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  And I'm thinking, hold on, that's not a kid, that's a grown
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  man, that's a grown woman. Because I mean, now they've got
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  kids and all those kind of things.
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  So it's kind of kind of funny. And I'm excited to, you know,
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  talk and share some experiences that they know that, you know,
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  that, you know, the three of us have had and, you know, having
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  an opportunity to be in the college ranked, but in the high
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  school ranks. It's, it's a different
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  perspective and but it's a great perspective because it's still
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  still growing and learning and teaching young men and women.
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  And that's what coaching is really about.
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  That's exactly right. You said perspective.
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  I think that's a keyword here that we're trying to explore
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  today in in you guys's three different journeys here.
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  You know, all three of you held positions on the college side
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  that a lot of the coaching body would be envious.
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  You know, being a coach at Texas A&M, that's a big deal.
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  Being a head coach of Division One, that is a big deal.
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  Working at UVA, Mississippi State, some of the great, you
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  know, universities, that's a big deal, Fetzer said.
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  This word that we don't talk a lot about, it's kind of always
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  in the back of our head, but we don't actually say it out loud
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  sometimes. And that's identity, right?
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  When we get to some place and we all get to define that place
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  differently, but we have that logo on our chest that becomes
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  an identity. The word the, the title.
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  Coach Brian, you, you've touched on this, you know, there's only,
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  I can only think of two titles. I'm sure there's a third.
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  Actually there is a third one, but there's only three out of
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  all the jobs in the world that your title goes with you 24/7,
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  right, Coach? Your neighbor is going to call
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  you. Your, your neighbor has no clue
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  about track and field, but that's coach.
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  But doctor is the other one, right?
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  If the doctor's a doctor, you don't call your neighbor Mr.
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  Smith or Joe. It's a doctor, Bob, Doctor
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  Smith, right? And then clergy, you know,
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  Father, sometimes that those will go, you know, 24/7 with us,
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  right? I don't call my accountant,
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  Accountant Joe, It's Joe or, you know, Mr. Thomas or whatever,
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  right? So identity is a big deal.
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  I'd like to know from you 3, when you initially started
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  looking towards moving from the college side to the high school
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  side, were there any? And I'm going to identify it as
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  ego. Ego's not bad, bad ego is bad.
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  But there may have been some ego and identity wrapped into Texas
• 15:28
  A&M, Virginia. I'm a head coach, Southeast
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  Louisiana. There might be been some
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  identity hang ups that maybe 'cause some pause or some
• 15:37
  concernation about moving to the high school level.
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  I'd like to know if there was any and how did you get over
• 15:43
  that? And Corey, if it's OK, I'd like
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  to start with you. I think probably because of the
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  ego side of it there, I think maybe you're blinded to anything
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  that might be there. So when I moved from the
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  business side to coaching in high school and teaching
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  theology, I found my purpose right in life.
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  And so for 10 years, that was who I was.
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  And that was like my identity, as Brian says, and it still is
• 16:21
  today. And there was that period in
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  there when I started coaching in college that I kind of started
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  losing a little bit of that, which is why I'm back in high
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  school now. But I didn't think about it when
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  I went to make the move. Like, this is who I am, and I'll
• 16:39
  be this person forever. But then the job happens and you
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  don't have like, I get to spend four to six hours a day talking
• 16:48
  about sweet baby Jesus, right? But on the college level, you
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  don't get to do that. You can maybe have a Bible study
• 16:55
  with some with a group of kids or, or, or go to an FCA meeting,
• 16:59
  but it's not like the daily connection.
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  And so that's what started missing.
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  And then I have another little story I could talk about later
• 17:07
  that that kind of caused me to start wanting to get back to
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  this, to this identity of who I am and what I'm doing right now.
• 17:18
  I like that, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:20
  You know, another word for identity is role.
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  And, you know, I had this exercise, I can't remember what
• 17:27
  the leadership class or something I was taking the
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  facilitator said, hey, picture yourself on a deserted island.
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  It's just you and write down all the things that you do back on
• 17:37
  the real world. And, you know, it's dad,
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  husband, father, you know, faith, you know, son of Christ,
• 17:43
  coach, etcetera. And it really struck me because
• 17:48
  when I talk to our coaches, a lot of times coaches number one
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  in there if they were to rank them and they forget about
• 17:56
  husband, wife, father, son, you know, brother, sister.
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  There's a lot of other rules that are more not arguably more
• 18:04
  important are more important. You, you being a husband, wife
• 18:09
  is, is more your partner is more important than coaching.
• 18:13
  You being a father or mother is more important than coaching.
• 18:16
  What I heard in your story there, Corey, was that you had a
• 18:20
  role and identity of someone who wanted to teach about Christ in
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  Christ love. But because of the jobs that you
• 18:27
  had that importance that the job requirement was lower to talk
• 18:32
  like that. And so your your journey was I
• 18:34
  want to talk more. I want to teach more on that
• 18:37
  side. So I'm going to go find a
• 18:38
  position that allows me to do that.
• 18:40
  Yeah, so here's a quick story. And I mean it might.
• 18:44
  Somebody might hear this and get mad, but.
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  I said we're going to break a few eggs today.
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  That's OK. Someone asked me one day, He
• 18:53
  said, hey, I'm not going to be here for the head coaches
• 18:59
  meeting. I need you to go sit in the head
• 19:01
  coaches meeting and you just sit there, don't say a word, just
• 19:06
  sit there and take notes for me. So I'm like, OK, he didn't
• 19:10
  understand. I can't do that.
• 19:11
  But so I go to this head coaches meeting and at this particular
• 19:18
  meeting, and this is probably year 3, so it's probably the
• 19:21
  year Sean's leaving the head coaches meeting, they were
• 19:24
  talking about re establishing the core values for the athletic
• 19:31
  department. And so they were coming up with
• 19:34
  terms. So the AD went around the room
• 19:38
  to every head coach and said, hey, what do you think?
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  Give me a word. So the coaches started going and
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  all the typical stuff that you would think, right?
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  And he got to me and someone said don't talk, but I couldn't
• 19:52
  help myself. So he got to me and I said love.
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  And he started laughing. And I said, Coach, if we don't
• 20:04
  love these kids, what are we doing?
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  And so it was kind of it, it was kind of like this awkward
• 20:12
  silence. And then he moved on.
• 20:17
  And then so as the next five years go, when I became the head
• 20:22
  coach, every time. And as head coaches, things, you
• 20:27
  know, go wrong and we have issues and, you know, when
• 20:30
  things get sour, sometimes every time something happened, it was
• 20:35
  easy for me go back and say he's acting this way, the AD because
• 20:42
  of that. Like, I know like his heart's
• 20:45
  not in the right place. And the frustrating thing about
• 20:49
  it is if you think when he was a coach, he was different.
• 20:53
  And Sean and I spoke about this when we were preparing for this,
• 20:56
  this podcast, like do have do athletic directors and Brian,
• 21:00
  you could speak about this. Maybe when you leave the
• 21:04
  coaching side, does the business side of it become so much,
• 21:09
  especially at the Division One level that you forget who you
• 21:14
  are in your heart, right. And so like, that was kind of
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  the, even though I didn't know it at that point, that was the
• 21:22
  beginning of the end because every time something difficult
• 21:25
  happened, I was like, there's no love here and I need to, I need
• 21:31
  to go find that again. That's there anything to add as
• 21:36
  AI? Think the only AD on this panel
• 21:39
  in regards to Corey's story there.
• 21:42
  Well, I mean I. Mean, I think when you, when I
• 21:44
  was in a unique situation being an athletic director at a, a
• 21:48
  Christian high school, I mean, our mission was what it was.
• 21:52
  So you know, you, you hired people for that.
• 21:57
  You know that mission that was that was number one and you
• 22:00
  defined individuals that met the the mission of the school.
• 22:07
  But also you wanted. Them success because don't
• 22:09
  you're all the parents at our school, you know they wanted to
• 22:13
  win and they're paying a lot of money to to send their send
• 22:17
  their you know their son or their daughter to a high school
• 22:20
  that had an extremely high number one public or private
• 22:25
  high school academically in the state of Ohio.
• 22:27
  I mean, you know, phenomenal school, but you, you know.
• 22:33
  You know you're. Hiring coaches that were
• 22:35
  successful and, and I think that we had a lot of coaches that
• 22:37
  that I hired and that that are still getting hired there.
• 22:40
  It's kind of become the trend now that of hiring college
• 22:43
  coaches that wanted more balance, that wanted a different
• 22:47
  fit from what they were used to at the college ranks.
• 22:51
  And we had, we hired the, the, almost the entire Olivet
• 22:54
  Nazarene football staff to be our football coaches.
• 22:59
  And it's very unique. Can you talk about, I mean, I, I
• 23:01
  think about the structure there. The offensive coordinator at
• 23:05
  Olivet Nazarene became the head football coach at CHCA and the
• 23:09
  head football coach at Olivet Nazarene became the offensive
• 23:13
  line coach at CHCA. There's kind of a mix, but there
• 23:17
  was, there was an ego. It was, hey, this is what we
• 23:19
  want to do and this is kind of where we're going.
• 23:21
  And I think that's a unique experience going from the
• 23:26
  college to high school level is, you know, why are you in
• 23:31
  coaching? I mean, I think that's the
• 23:33
  biggest thing. I mean, if if you're in it for
• 23:36
  national TV and all that kind of stuff, Well, First off, you
• 23:38
  shouldn't be coaching track and field.
• 23:40
  You should be coaching football or basketball because you're not
• 23:42
  going to get the ego boost that you might think that's going to
• 23:45
  happen. But but why are you coaching?
• 23:49
  You know, why are you there? I mean, I think of Matt Esche,
• 23:52
  who, you know, again, college coach hired him as the cross
• 23:55
  country coach and you know, just seeing his little kid Miles run
• 24:01
  around, you know, the high school and get the interact
• 24:04
  with, you know, the high school students.
• 24:07
  What a what a great opportunity, a lot more freedom to be able to
• 24:11
  do things. You know, you have weekends,
• 24:13
  you're not recruiting. You're, you know, you have that
• 24:16
  much better life balance than it was, you know, at the college
• 24:21
  level, which I mean, if I wasn't working, if I wasn't texting on
• 24:26
  Christmas Day or Thanksgiving or one of the holidays, I felt I
• 24:31
  was like, you know, doing a disservice to the team that I
• 24:36
  was coaching. I, I never took a a vacation the
• 24:40
  entire time in 23 years of coaching because I, I thought
• 24:43
  somebody's going to get better me.
• 24:44
  Somebody's going to do one up me.
• 24:47
  So I mean, when Corey's talking about mission and, and, and
• 24:50
  life, I think every coach needs to legitimately take a piece of
• 24:54
  paper and sit down in a quiet place and write down what your
• 24:59
  actual mission is. Like, why are you doing it?
• 25:02
  I mean, what, what's the objective?
• 25:04
  What's the, the true objective of what you're trying to
• 25:06
  accomplish? I.
• 25:09
  Don't know if I answered. That question I probably went up
• 25:11
  on a I'm going to. Get us back on the track.
• 25:14
  That was a great track. These are all tangents.
• 25:15
  We're all good for this. This is This is exactly why I
• 25:17
  have you 3 here the. The question.
• 25:20
  We're on that was great value add there.
• 25:22
  Thank you guys. Is what?
• 25:24
  Ego. What identity crisis, if you
• 25:27
  will, did you have when you first went to go back to coach
• 25:31
  high high school or become an athletic during high school?
• 25:35
  Meaning for you specifically, that's one day you had the V of
• 25:38
  Virginia that like whether I know where where I'm at, I know
• 25:41
  what that means. And now you go to CHCA.
• 25:44
  How did you handle any internal inks that that might have caused
• 25:48
  there there really. Wasn't any because I saw that my
• 25:52
  role had shifted. I went from, you know, leading
• 25:56
  A-Team to leading a a staff and coming up with policies and
• 26:01
  coming up with, you know, what we were trying to do.
• 26:04
  How are we going to fundraise? And I think track and field is
• 26:08
  so unique and just as a college coach is so unique with that is
• 26:13
  you do all the things that business people do.
• 26:16
  You do all the things that athletic directors do,
• 26:19
  especially in high school. You're doing those.
• 26:23
  Things so there wasn't really an ego.
• 26:25
  It was my biggest problem. And our head of school used to
• 26:29
  shake his head at me all the time is I was still thinking
• 26:33
  that I was at a, a, a power 5 conference.
• 26:37
  And so I'm like, well, why, why can't we do that?
• 26:39
  You know why, why? Well, that's, oh, that's, that's
• 26:42
  not that much money. He's like, well, that's $35,000.
• 26:46
  We, we don't have $35,000 to do something.
• 26:48
  You're like, oh, OK, well let's fundraise it.
• 26:52
  Well, we've never fundraised for that before.
• 26:55
  Let's do it. We parents, people pay for
• 26:57
  things, you know, So I mean, I think it, it's a mindset change,
• 27:00
  not necessarily an ego change. It it, it's just you're, you're
• 27:05
  in a different a different environment and your priorities
• 27:08
  become a little different. Sean.
• 27:10
  You had one of the more globally recognized logos on your chest
• 27:17
  at one point with Texas A&M. Any hang ups, concerns?
• 27:21
  How did you handle going? And I even hate saying going
• 27:26
  back down or going to, you know what I'm saying?
• 27:28
  Because to me it is. It's just a different a track
• 27:31
  coaches, A track coaches value is so tremendous.
• 27:35
  It doesn't. To me, it does not matter if
• 27:37
  you're coaching 14 to 18 year olds or 18 to 22 year olds.
• 27:40
  So I even try to be careful with my words here.
• 27:42
  As far as you know, you went back down to high school.
• 27:44
  You went to a different program that competed in the high school
• 27:47
  level. How did you handle any negative
• 27:50
  inner thoughts that might have happened for you?
• 27:53
  Yeah. Sure.
• 27:54
  I grapple with that and I think that many coaches in my
• 27:58
  situation or in all of our situations have their identity
• 28:03
  and their ego tied into into their job or their profession.
• 28:08
  You had mentioned. You know, some of the roles that
• 28:11
  we do have as as coaches and. We do.
• 28:15
  We wear. A lot of hats for me it, you
• 28:17
  know, I was, I was a, a husband and a father and A, and a coach
• 28:21
  and administrator, a psychologist that all those
• 28:25
  different hats we wear as, as, as people and as coaches or
• 28:30
  something that I, I did consider.
• 28:33
  I, I think the, the, the, the monetary benefits that I had at
• 28:39
  A&M was probably the hardest thing for me to, to step away
• 28:43
  from. I took a, a big pay cut to when
• 28:46
  I did come to Catholic High, yet it was still a, a, a salary that
• 28:53
  was, was better than, than the job I had left, you know, five
• 28:57
  years prior to. I, I do believe it, it is about
• 29:02
  balance for me. It was a, it was a decision that
• 29:05
  that boiled down to, you know. Where I am in in.
• 29:09
  My life and and was I I happy and and and being the best.
• 29:16
  At all of those. Different roles that that were
• 29:18
  were mentioned before I I thought that it it was pretty
• 29:23
  easy for me because I just got to a point where I I I was
• 29:29
  missing my son grow up. He was seven when when we left
• 29:33
  Hammond and moved to College Station and.
• 29:37
  I. He was in starting baseball and
• 29:41
  football and, and there were very few times that I was
• 29:44
  actually able to make a practice or even even a game and I would
• 29:50
  show up, show up and there'd be one inning left in his baseball
• 29:53
  game and, and. He would.
• 29:56
  Rush off the field and come give me a hug and say, dad, did you
• 29:59
  see see the hit that I made? And you know, unfortunately I, I
• 30:03
  missed that one. And then, you know, 2-3, four
• 30:06
  times into this and it, it became, it began to wear on me.
• 30:12
  Honestly, I think, you know, being at, at a Power 5 program
• 30:18
  there, it is very time consuming and you're never off the clock.
• 30:23
  As as Brian mentioned, you know, the phone is ringing all the
• 30:27
  time and you're returning texts and emails literally every day
• 30:32
  of the year. And I, I didn't feel like that
• 30:37
  my, my time at home was really my time.
• 30:39
  It was, it was still, I was still on the clock, you know,
• 30:42
  for Texas A&M. And there was no, no mistake
• 30:46
  that, that the job title at A&M was to win national
• 30:50
  championships. And there were, there was a
• 30:54
  point I think a few years into my job that we had finished,
• 31:01
  we'd gone to the SEC meet and from the SEC's we went to the
• 31:08
  national championships. From the national championships,
• 31:10
  I went to USA trials and then Jamaica trials and, and back to
• 31:17
  USA's, our, our juniors rather. And I was gone 40 days out of
• 31:25
  the 40 days that were included. All of those those competitions,
• 31:31
  I was home for four of them. So.
• 31:35
  That that was hard for me to reconcile with, with my, my son
• 31:39
  and, and, and with my wife, who, you know, she had, she had not
• 31:44
  grown up in an athletic family. She had married a coach and I
• 31:47
  got married late in life. And it was, it was a real
• 31:51
  challenge for me to, to, to justify that being away so much
• 31:57
  that that I, I, I, I had thought there was a time that I, I
• 32:03
  needed to make a change. I remember I was, I was in
• 32:08
  Jamaica for the Jamaican trials when I got a call from, from
• 32:12
  coach Pete Boudreaux, who's a legendary coach at, at Catholic
• 32:15
  High, was actually still on staff until last last year, 53
• 32:22
  years at, at Catholic High. And we had a very candid
• 32:27
  conversation, you know, just about life and, and about the,
• 32:31
  the quality of life that he had had and was afforded at
• 32:34
  Catholic. And I decided to, to make a call
• 32:39
  and, you know, a few weeks later, here I am in, in, in
• 32:43
  Baton Rouge, home, closer to family, close to friends.
• 32:47
  And it was a it was a real. A real.
• 32:51
  Change in, in rhythm, a real change in, in day-to-day
• 32:55
  operations, but it, it's been, it's been beautiful experience.
• 32:59
  My son is now at Catholic High. So he rides to, to to work with
• 33:02
  me every day. He, he's a wrestler and, and
• 33:05
  after his practice is over, he comes out to track practice and
• 33:08
  then we ride home together. So it was a just a, a unique
• 33:13
  opportunity for me to spend more time with my son and and to grow
• 33:17
  with him in in the years that I thought were very important in
• 33:20
  his development. I loved.
• 33:22
  Everything about that story except for that your son's a
• 33:25
  wrestler. I just, I'm I'm going to tick
• 33:27
  off every wrestler friend of a wrestler here.
• 33:30
  I'm not a not a fan, not a fan. We're going to double click into
• 33:34
  that word balance here in a second.
• 33:36
  But I want to get some logistics first before we start exploring
• 33:40
  those kind of topics. You guys have all done the job
• 33:44
  as a college coach and now you have done or are doing the job
• 33:47
  of a high school coach or AD or, you know, obviously very
• 33:50
  intimately involved in what a high school coach would do.
• 33:55
  What are if you could think of like?
• 33:57
  Maybe let's just pick one since we have three of us here and
• 33:59
  that's what we're going to start with you.
• 34:01
  What is one of the differences? So we're we're still a track
• 34:05
  code. The title is still the same.
• 34:06
  You're a track coach. Maybe the objective is still to
• 34:10
  make people as fast as possible or jump far as possible.
• 34:12
  You know, the, the athletic side.
• 34:14
  Maybe that's still the exact same.
• 34:15
  We're we're just maybe a different age in stage of
• 34:18
  whether you're coaching high school or college, What is the
• 34:20
  real difference for someone who's out there, who's thinking,
• 34:23
  man, I, I, I can't coach high school because they don't have
• 34:27
  standards. I don't know that, you know, we
• 34:28
  know they do, but like what? What's a difference, a concrete
• 34:31
  difference between coaching college and high school?
• 34:34
  That's I, I. I think one of the things that
• 34:37
  that we talked about, you know, you know, being athletic
• 34:42
  director is perspective and and I think that's probably the
• 34:46
  hardest to go. I mean, I mean, Sean, just
• 34:48
  talking about Texas A&M, the the.
• 34:51
  The perspective. Is at A&M, the expectation is to
• 34:56
  win a national championship. To contend for a national
• 34:59
  championship, send people the Olympics, send people to
• 35:02
  national nationals. Whereas perspective in a high
• 35:06
  school might be getting that kid that has never come out for a
• 35:11
  sport before to enjoy it and to be part of a team.
• 35:15
  And they'll learn to learn community and to learn
• 35:19
  understanding of why they're there.
• 35:24
  Perspective is such a a big thing because it in high school,
• 35:27
  you're going to have such a range of individuals.
• 35:31
  You literally will have a kid that is it has never run before
• 35:34
  in their life come out for a team that's right beside the kid
• 35:38
  that's going to win A state championship.
• 35:41
  I mean, I say cross country is probably the biggest range per
• 35:47
  SE of it that I mean, could you get a, you might have a kid
• 35:51
  that's a front runner on your team and then you literally
• 35:54
  might have the kid that's never run before come out because they
• 35:58
  need to PE credit or they need they, they're, you know, their
• 36:01
  parents have encouraged them to go.
• 36:03
  And the, the blooming side that, you know, the, the quote UN
• 36:06
  quote, late bloomers, you kids that are freshmen that, that
• 36:10
  are, you know, tiny and all of a sudden they had a growth spurt
• 36:14
  and they grew 5-6 inches. And that kid might have been a,
• 36:18
  you know, a sprinter and all of a sudden they're a shot putter
• 36:21
  or you're not going to have that in college.
• 36:23
  It's it's not going to happen. Somebody's not going to get
• 36:25
  recruited as a sprinter and all of a sudden they, you know, gain
• 36:28
  70 lbs and they, you know, they grow 8 inches and all of a
• 36:31
  sudden now they're a discus thrower.
• 36:33
  I mean that just. It's just not going to happen
• 36:35
  necessarily. So I think the perspective part
• 36:38
  is a big part of it. And I'd be really curious what
• 36:40
  Sean and and Corey had to say about it because, you know,
• 36:44
  they're actually doing it right now.
• 36:46
  I was talking to coaches about it.
• 36:49
  That's a perfect. Throw to you, Sean.
• 36:51
  Yes. There's a it's definitely a a
• 36:54
  difference. I I think it.
• 37:00
  It that was a challenge. It really was a challenge for me
• 37:04
  stepping down from a, an elite Division One program and then
• 37:08
  coaching kids that have never hurdled or never thrown or or
• 37:12
  never jumped before. So I, I found that it in my
• 37:16
  first year, I, I really, it really tried my patience.
• 37:21
  It, it really was a challenge to me as a coach to find ways that
• 37:27
  were, were different from what I've done in the past.
• 37:31
  This was my first high school gig, so I never started in, in
• 37:34
  high school. I, I went right into, into the
• 37:37
  collegiate ranks. And what I, what I've found is
• 37:42
  that the level of investment for some athletes was not as high as
• 37:47
  as I probably wanted it to be. And again, I, I, I, I deferred
• 37:54
  to, to, to Pete Boudreaux on this.
• 37:57
  And when I first took the program and, and we, I was
• 38:03
  handed this team or through the fall, I was really struggling
• 38:07
  because we had a group of athletes.
• 38:10
  So I said there's no way that we're ever going to be
• 38:13
  successful with the group that I have out here.
• 38:15
  We had about 45 kids or, or 50 kids.
• 38:18
  Well, we didn't have any of the kids that were multi sport
• 38:21
  athletes that were football or basketball players that also ran
• 38:24
  for us. And I, I, I was really, really
• 38:30
  worried to be quite. Honest with you.
• 38:32
  And. As as the seasons.
• 38:36
  Ended and the basketball team started coming out and football
• 38:40
  players started coming out OK I said OK here's here's the group
• 38:44
  that that we've got that that we can actually do something with
• 38:48
  and and and try and be successful I.
• 38:52
  I still. Grapple with that.
• 38:54
  I still grapple with the investment side and I, I, I know
• 38:58
  that I'm probably as invested as any one of our kids that are out
• 39:04
  there and the, the. Challenge is.
• 39:08
  To, to be inclusive, to give everyone the experience that,
• 39:12
  that they need. I, I don't think the coaching
• 39:16
  side is, is really that much different.
• 39:19
  It's, it's still, it's still a relationship business.
• 39:22
  It's still about people and it's still about, about people and,
• 39:26
  and about trust. And once you win the kids over
• 39:29
  and and once you trust them, then then the coaching is, is
• 39:32
  just, it's just coaching it. It really is.
• 39:36
  Now, do you have to dummy it down some?
• 39:39
  Yeah, a little bit. They're, they're those, those
• 39:43
  moments when, when you, you're pulling your hair out because
• 39:46
  you, you're trying to get a kid to, to do something that they
• 39:49
  just physically cannot do because they're not mature
• 39:53
  enough to do it. And as long as you can identify
• 39:56
  that and, and set up your practice and your your training
• 39:59
  planning to to accommodate the, you know, the.
• 40:03
  The the physical. Shortcomings then then it it's
• 40:07
  OK, but it it it definitely was a challenge.
• 40:11
  Now, Sean, something you brought up there.
• 40:12
  That I thought was interesting. You, you coached combined events
• 40:15
  too, right? Yes.
• 40:17
  So you mentioned your, your first statement.
• 40:19
  I think a lot of people could shake their heads and understand
• 40:22
  when you're talking about, you know, a kid, let's use A&M as
• 40:24
  example, a kid who comes to A&M. It's like, Oh well, they came to
• 40:27
  A&M for they were already at a fairly high level in their
• 40:30
  athleticism here I'm dealing in high school, I'm dealing with a
• 40:33
  freshman who, you know, maybe they don't even know what sport
• 40:36
  is to Brian's point, you know, there's the first time they're
• 40:38
  doing anything. And so you, you got to teach
• 40:40
  the, the rudimentary, the fundamentals even more.
• 40:43
  However, Sean, I have to imagine even at the, the vaunted A&M
• 40:49
  when you were first recruited, turning people into combined
• 40:52
  eventers, there were events that they had never done.
• 40:54
  So they were kind of that, that maybe they're, I was going to
• 40:57
  say they're, they're that little duckling, but maybe they're a
• 40:59
  little bit better than a duckling because they, they had
• 41:00
  some, we knew they had some athleticism, but still, even a
• 41:03
  kid who's running 13 flat in the hurdles, first time you throw
• 41:06
  them to the shot put or the pole vault is going to look like a
• 41:09
  little duckling. So you're, you're kind of
• 41:11
  dealing with that now on, on the, on a much bigger scale on
• 41:15
  the high school side. And that is a great analogy.
• 41:17
  Mike it there are a lot of parallels between them teaching
• 41:20
  multi event kids that you know, when I when I recruited multi
• 41:25
  eventers, I I looked for a couple of different events that
• 41:27
  I liked and here, you know, everything's new.
• 41:35
  We get. Kids that.
• 41:37
  Have had some experience in summer track and then kids that
• 41:42
  have, have run in middle school. But for the most part, you know,
• 41:45
  it was just about participation and, and this is a big step up
• 41:52
  from that. We, we have a history of, of
• 41:56
  winning. I think Pete won like 20 state
• 42:00
  titles in his time at Catholic. So I had big few shoes to fill
• 42:04
  and and Great Expectations when I came in.
• 42:10
  Our our staff is made-up of of former college coaches as as
• 42:16
  Brian mentioned earlier, our basketball coach was at
• 42:19
  Vanderbilt, at Louisiana Tech and at Uno.
• 42:22
  Our our baseball coach was a former player at at LSU and has
• 42:27
  had some collegiate experience. Our football coach came to us
• 42:31
  from TCU and from LSU as an analyst.
• 42:35
  Our soccer coach was at Kentucky for a while.
• 42:39
  So we I I. Did have some people to.
• 42:42
  Lean on and to, to, to get some advice from when I, when I did
• 42:46
  take the position and that, that was very helpful.
• 42:51
  Now again, there there are those days you know that, that, that
• 42:57
  you want more than than they possibly can give and you, you
• 43:02
  have to put it into perspective. You have to, to meet them where
• 43:05
  they are and figure out ways. I think it in a lot of ways it's
• 43:09
  made me a better coach because I've had to to digress in some,
• 43:14
  some areas and really take it from from step one.
• 43:18
  Whereas you know it at A&M, you got kids that were, were very
• 43:22
  talented, even even the multi inventors that that you brought
• 43:27
  in, you knew they had some talent at some areas.
• 43:30
  It, it, it, it's a unique challenge and, and, and one that
• 43:34
  I've I've grown to, to, to enjoy in some ways and, and other,
• 43:40
  other ways has has caused me some source of frustration.
• 43:45
  But at the end of the day, I think again, coaching is
• 43:50
  coaching and that's, that's the business we're in.
• 43:54
  Corey, what's been the biggest? Difference you've noticed
• 43:56
  between coaching college and coaching high school track and
• 43:59
  field well. Since since I did first of all,
• 44:03
  don't let Sean be so humble. He he has from the beginning be
• 44:08
  a guy, has been a guy who's about developing athletes.
• 44:13
  So he's, he's doing just fine. We don't have to hold any
• 44:17
  benefit dinners for Sean. He'll be.
• 44:20
  OK. But.
• 44:24
  Since I went. High school to college, back to
• 44:26
  high school. I have a different perspective
• 44:29
  on it as well, and I don't really see a whole lot of
• 44:32
  difference. It is still just coaching.
• 44:38
  And then there's so much available to kids today because
• 44:42
  of social media and because of just information availability to
• 44:47
  them. So the one thing that I noticed
• 44:50
  from my first time coaching high school to the second time is
• 44:55
  that because I have that college coach moniker, they listen a
• 45:01
  little more, right? So like, if you, you get just
• 45:05
  some dinky old high school coach, right?
• 45:07
  Like the kids are like, I saw something online that you don't,
• 45:12
  you know, you better show up every day knowing what you're
• 45:15
  talking about because the kids know, right?
• 45:19
  They have a lot of information already.
• 45:21
  So you can't fool them, right? And so like one of the things I
• 45:25
  like to say all the time is the kid, you give them the
• 45:27
  prescription for the day and you need to be able to explain to
• 45:32
  them why you're doing that. And if because you can't fool
• 45:36
  them, you can't lie to them, you know, like by my dad way back in
• 45:40
  the day, he could lie to kids. Ah, you just got to do it this
• 45:43
  way because that's the way we do it.
• 45:45
  And kids were like, yes, Sir, coach, right.
• 45:48
  And they would just go run through walls for you.
• 45:50
  You can't do that to kids anymore.
• 45:53
  But other than that, I really just think it's it's still just
• 45:56
  coaching and like Sean said, building relationships.
• 46:01
  Brian said something about these kids that come out and, and use
• 46:04
  cross country as an example. We had a kid show up cross
• 46:08
  country this year and again, I, I took over for Pete Boudreau
• 46:12
  like, so please don't screw it up.
• 46:14
  Please don't screw it up. Please don't screw it up, right.
• 46:17
  Sean said he won 20 state titles.
• 46:20
  That was he won 20 plus outdoor. He won 20 plus indoor, he won 20
• 46:25
  plus and cross. So he's a multiple time national
• 46:29
  coach of the year and he was here.
• 46:32
  Sean said 53. It was 57 years at one school,
• 46:38
  and it's just crazy. So to try to follow a guy like
• 46:41
  that is crazy. But if you're in the classroom,
• 46:44
  right, and you're building relationships in the classroom,
• 46:48
  those relationships help. Kids want to maybe come be part
• 46:51
  of what you're doing as a coach. So we were, we've been training
• 46:55
  for cross country all summer long.
• 46:57
  And then school starts and I build this relationship with my
• 47:00
  students. And then so in the middle of
• 47:02
  August, after school's already in a couple of weeks, this kid
• 47:06
  says, I want to come out for cross country.
• 47:09
  And we're like, man, like we've already been gone.
• 47:12
  But but come on, we'll just throw you out there.
• 47:15
  Well, he could not run like and he was so weak, like he couldn't
• 47:20
  even stand up to run. So he like ran in this squatted
• 47:24
  position. Well, he's been, he's probably
• 47:27
  going to be the most improved guy on the team because we keep
• 47:30
  him out there. And like he couldn't even finish
• 47:33
  like a warm up and now he's running and he just ran under 20
• 47:37
  minutes into three mile. And so like it's we're getting
• 47:40
  there. So it's fun to do that kind of
• 47:42
  stuff, but it's just coaching like again, and like while we're
• 47:47
  here, right, just to talk about how you can make the transition,
• 47:50
  it's really no different. It does help with kids if they
• 47:54
  know you coached in college and they kind of think, not that
• 47:57
  it's true, but they think that oh, he must know what he's
• 48:00
  talking about now 2. Things.
• 48:03
  I'm just going to lob this up and whoever wants to respond,
• 48:06
  two things that I thought I would hear that I didn't hear on
• 48:11
  the difference and I'm going to call them both negatives.
• 48:14
  So you have you have a negative on one but not the other.
• 48:17
  And when I say you don't have another, I know there is to a
• 48:21
  degree. So on the college side, now that
• 48:23
  you're on the high school side, you don't have recruiting.
• 48:27
  And, and yes, I know that we've had lots of high school coaches
• 48:30
  here and all of the successful ones have talked about how they
• 48:32
  recruit their hallway. So I know you have recruiting on
• 48:35
  the high school side, but you're not flying to Shawnee mentioned
• 48:38
  going to the Jamaica trials and you know the the youth
• 48:41
  championships. You're not doing that as a high
• 48:44
  school coach. On the other side, when you're a
• 48:47
  college coach, you don't have as much.
• 48:50
  I know there is some, but I would have to think it.
• 48:54
  Social media tells me that on the high school side, you're
• 48:57
  dealing with more with disgruntled parents.
• 49:01
  Why? Why?
• 49:02
  Why? Why isn't?
• 49:02
  Johnny in the starting lineup, Corey.
• 49:05
  I know this is his first day of cross country practice and
• 49:07
  you're halfway through season, but Johnny is my boy.
• 49:11
  Talk about those two. Those are.
• 49:13
  Those are. Major differences.
• 49:15
  How have you handled those? Is social media wrong?
• 49:18
  Do you just have perfect and you know, I know we have to be
• 49:21
  sensitive. You're you're at Catholic now
• 49:22
  today. So let's not ruin our
• 49:24
  fundraising and our parent teacher conferences that we have
• 49:27
  coming up here. We we just recently.
• 49:32
  Went through tryouts and we had started the year.
• 49:37
  Had 130 kids that have signed up for track.
• 49:43
  Many of those were were cross country that that are just going
• 49:46
  to stay in cross and train for cross.
• 49:49
  But 130 we, we only have 5 on staff and we have a very
• 49:56
  accomplished veteran staff working with these kids.
• 50:00
  But at the end of the day, 130 is, was too many.
• 50:04
  So we, we decided to, to, to have some tryouts.
• 50:09
  And when after a couple of weeks of, of testing and, and a
• 50:17
  battery of different exercises and protocols, we put them
• 50:20
  through. We, we, we eliminated the, or
• 50:24
  we, we had to cut down about 21 people and another 20 that, that
• 50:29
  we're going to keep around through the fall and see how
• 50:32
  they, they grow and mature. But you made mention of this
• 50:36
  earlier. You never.
• 50:38
  Really know. What a 14 year old kid is going
• 50:40
  to, is going to turn into and that, that was something that
• 50:47
  that I, I grapple with our, our parents have been fantastic
• 50:51
  here, to be quite honest with you.
• 50:53
  They're very supportive for the most part.
• 50:55
  They, they show up, they help us run meets.
• 50:59
  There are fundraising arm they they run our concession stands
• 51:03
  and help us in, in, in a number of different ways.
• 51:08
  But because of that, they expect to, to see some, you know, some
• 51:13
  results and they expect to see their their son get some
• 51:15
  opportunities in the early season.
• 51:19
  We we have the opportunity for us to to enter more kids and
• 51:24
  meets. And then as the season
• 51:25
  progresses and we get into the championship season, that
• 51:29
  there's only two per entry, 2 entries per event.
• 51:33
  Rather there's, there's a lot of people that are, are, are left
• 51:37
  on the side and, and don't have that opportunity.
• 51:40
  And parents, they, they do want to know why we're, we're
• 51:46
  fortunate a Catholic that our administrators and, and our
• 51:50
  athletic director is, is very supportive and they field a lot
• 51:55
  of those questions for us so that we don't have to have a
• 51:58
  whole lot of, you know, one on ones with, with, with parents.
• 52:02
  Now there are those times at at meats where we get some some
• 52:07
  very poignant questions and as to why this is happening and
• 52:10
  this is happening. A lot of those we try and
• 52:14
  address at, at the at the parents meeting.
• 52:17
  We have a meeting with the with parents, which we'll have next
• 52:21
  month. And we'll go over a lot of the
• 52:25
  things and, and opportunities and how young men are, are, are
• 52:29
  going to be able to create opportunities for themselves.
• 52:32
  But at the end of the day, we're we're limited and with the
• 52:35
  number of kids that we have that have come out there just aren't
• 52:39
  that there's not a place for everybody and not a place I
• 52:45
  should say, let me get, let me get a little more specific.
• 52:48
  There's not a place for everybody to compete at every
• 52:50
  competition. And and that's not to unlike
• 52:55
  when I was at A&M, we had the 130 something kids on staff
• 52:59
  there and are on on the roster. And, and not everybody got to
• 53:03
  travel every week. Not everybody got to compete at
• 53:06
  every meet. They had to wait for some home
• 53:07
  meets for those opportunities. But the parents have been good
• 53:13
  for the most part. And we get some silly questions.
• 53:17
  I've got to a kid two years ago that I thought was going to be a
• 53:22
  fantastic long jumper. And his mother wanted to know
• 53:25
  why he wasn't coming from from a further run back that in middle
• 53:32
  school he came from 130 feet. And now I've got him at A at a
• 53:36
  12 step approach to, you know, just around 60 feet and and he's
• 53:41
  not jumping, you know, as far as she thought he should jump.
• 53:45
  Well, I explained that there's a process and, and that we're
• 53:49
  trying to, to teach your son the way to, to jump properly and
• 53:53
  with great technique. And then as he improves, we'll
• 53:56
  start to moving back. But just having those
• 53:58
  conversations sometimes is a little bit frustrating.
• 54:02
  Telling parents that, you know, their their kid is just not
• 54:05
  ready and that there are other people ahead of him on the on
• 54:10
  the depth chart that, that we feel are are are better situated
• 54:15
  and suited to to compete at that time.
• 54:17
  Those, those conversations, they do come up.
• 54:20
  But for the most part, you know, we try to address those early.
• 54:25
  We try to address that at at the coaches meeting so they have an
• 54:28
  idea of of what to expect going in the feds as a.
• 54:33
  Athletic director, how did you handle, I'm going to call it
• 54:37
  over parent involved because you know, they are still their
• 54:40
  children, right? So like like I'm think I have an
• 54:42
  8 year, 8 year old 8th grader and 5th grader.
• 54:45
  They're both doing sports and you know, they're still my kids.
• 54:47
  I still care. Now I've come from the coaching
• 54:50
  background, so I know what to ask and what, you know, what to
• 54:52
  just tell my son. Hey, you got to get better, I
• 54:54
  guess, you know? So Fetcher, I'm curious as the
• 54:57
  athletic director, how did you handle that and where did you
• 55:01
  learn it from? And what I mean by that is you
• 55:03
  weren't an athletic director your whole life, so you had to
• 55:06
  figure out your own culture of how you were going to be an
• 55:08
  athletic director. And you're still on mute, by the
• 55:10
  way. Please.
• 55:12
  Oh, sorry about that. No, I, I can tell you right now,
• 55:15
  I was the absolute worst at that.
• 55:17
  I mean, my head of school had multiple conversations with me
• 55:19
  because, you know, there was a couple meetings that especially
• 55:24
  early on that, that a parent would come in and be complaining
• 55:28
  about their 4th grade son being on the B team.
• 55:30
  And, and, and I, I think, you know, unfortunately I was like,
• 55:35
  does it really matter? Who cares?
• 55:36
  Your kids in 4th grade like, like get a life like that's
• 55:40
  ridiculous. But you know, I mean, him and I,
• 55:44
  Dean Nicholas was, it was a complete godsend as a head head
• 55:47
  of school at CHCA because trying to work through me learning as
• 55:53
  a, you know, a new athletic director coming from the college
• 55:56
  side, where again, they go back to that word perspective.
• 55:59
  The perspective was, you know, super high.
• 56:03
  And you know, I'm thinking like, like, who cares?
• 56:07
  About, you know. Playing time is a 6th grade
• 56:11
  level or, or you know, you know, what team you might be on at
• 56:15
  this time or what position you're playing because I was
• 56:18
  thinking a lot more, you know, longer term view.
• 56:22
  So it was definitely learning, but I think it's also it's
• 56:25
  educating parents and, and letting them know and, and kind
• 56:30
  of readjusting the narrative of what perspective is and what is
• 56:33
  important. And, and I think that's, that's
• 56:36
  part of a mission of a coach of an administrator is not
• 56:41
  necessarily, you know, saying, hey, what you're thinking is
• 56:44
  wrong, but letting them know what is actually best for the
• 56:50
  long term progression of, of your son or daughter learning.
• 56:55
  Life. I mean, because that's, I mean,
• 56:57
  you're trying to teach life skills.
• 56:58
  That's sport. Sports do life skills better
• 57:00
  than anything else that there is.
• 57:02
  You know, it's, it's, you know, teaching team teaching how to.
• 57:06
  Get along with. Other people, you know, how do
• 57:09
  you, how do you function as a, as a, as a group of people for,
• 57:14
  for a common, you know, good, what are you trying to
• 57:16
  accomplish? And it, and it's something that
• 57:19
  really can't be taught in any other form or fashion because
• 57:22
  there's pressure on you, because there is the pressure to win
• 57:25
  when you get to a certain level, when you get up to, you know,
• 57:29
  maybe varsity as opposed to, you know, junior high or to the
• 57:33
  youth side of things. And I think it's, it's, it's the
• 57:36
  job of a coach and an administrator at the high school
• 57:41
  level, but also at the college level is to to teach and
• 57:45
  understand the parents or the entities around you of what
• 57:50
  you're trying to accomplish. And I think when Sean or Corey,
• 57:53
  one of them said they have a team meeting right at the
• 57:55
  beginning of the year. And you got to set, you got to
• 57:58
  set the level of expectations. And this is what the expectation
• 58:01
  level is. This is what we're trying to
• 58:04
  accomplish. These are the goals.
• 58:05
  Are we meeting those goals? We meeting those expectations?
• 58:09
  We had parents sign a parent contract.
• 58:12
  That said, hey. This is your role as a parent
• 58:15
  and we set up guidelines along the way that said, hey, you
• 58:20
  know, if you want to talk about playing time, talk to the coach
• 58:23
  first. You want to talk, you know you.
• 58:26
  Still have an issue, then you're going to talk to whoever.
• 58:28
  Then we set up our our administrative side to be very
• 58:31
  collegiate where I had different athletic directors or different
• 58:33
  individuals that you know were the sports supervisors per SE
• 58:39
  and you to go through them. And the only time it would ever
• 58:42
  get up to me is if it was a serious issue in 90. 9.9% of.
• 58:47
  The time I wouldn't wasn't going to meet with it because again,
• 58:50
  it's setting that level expectation and and you know,
• 58:54
  amid expectation levels we set at college coaches, you want a
• 58:57
  scholarship increase, you've got to do XY or Z to get it.
• 59:01
  You know, you want to travel. This is where you're going to
• 59:02
  you want to go to Texas Relays, you better produce results that
• 59:06
  can get you to the Texas relays. We're not taking you on a field
• 59:09
  trip to hang out and you know, and hugging high 5.
• 59:13
  That's that's just not reality of life because that's not
• 59:16
  what's going to happen in life, in business, in the real world.
• 59:20
  You know, your boss isn't going to give you a pay raise because
• 59:22
  you showed up to work every day. You know your boss is going to
• 59:26
  give you a pay raise if you produce.
• 59:28
  And unfortunately, society today is kind of gotten that out of
• 59:32
  whack and there's a lot of kids and parents that think, well,
• 59:35
  hey, I, you know, I'm here so I deserve and it's very entitled,
• 59:41
  you know, type of generation, both at the parent level and the
• 59:44
  at the at the kid level. I think that is our.
• 59:47
  First old man get off my lawn Generational comments I I can't
• 59:52
  believe it took this long and I'm a little surprised it came
• 59:55
  from Fetzer Corey. I had also mentioned about
• 59:59
  recruiting. How much do you miss recruiting
• 1:00:02
  on the college level? I didn't recruit the.
• 1:00:11
  Same way these other two guys did.
• 1:00:14
  Our recruiting budget didn't allow me to recruit as far as
• 1:00:20
  travelling goes. So my recruiting and
• 1:00:25
  relationship building, because I think that's all recruiting is
• 1:00:29
  as well, is the same thing I do recruiting high school kids in
• 1:00:34
  the in the hallways, right, with building relationships with
• 1:00:37
  kids. So I don't miss that like I
• 1:00:43
  don't. Think that I miss that.
• 1:00:44
  Or see any difference than what's going on because I wasn't
• 1:00:48
  spending a lot of time traveling.
• 1:00:51
  I mean, Sean tells crazy stories, you know, about coming
• 1:00:55
  home from the national meet and just getting on an airplane the
• 1:00:58
  very next morning, right, to go somewhere.
• 1:01:00
  So I never experienced any of that stuff.
• 1:01:03
  So OK. And I talk that much about that.
• 1:01:07
  And I appreciate that you had a different.
• 1:01:08
  Experience because one of the things and you know, it's hard.
• 1:01:14
  No matter who and. Where we are, we are in a box
• 1:01:16
  and it is hard for us to get out of that box, right.
• 1:01:19
  And so some of the examples that Sean and Fetz, both of you have
• 1:01:22
  given, I, I've reminded myself that I needed to, to have this,
• 1:01:26
  this not not disclaimer, but the discussion of some of the things
• 1:01:30
  that you guys are describing for college coaching doesn't exist
• 1:01:34
  or the opposite does exist on the college level.
• 1:01:39
  You know, that's are I'll harken back to your Ranger Community
• 1:01:42
  College days. You had mentioned earlier.
• 1:01:45
  This is what kind of struck it to me is when you were talking
• 1:01:47
  about, oh, you know, on the college level, you're not going
• 1:01:49
  to necessarily have a kid. I kind of think of the fawn deer
• 1:01:52
  that comes in and becomes, you know, a big buck.
• 1:01:55
  That's not true. At some smaller schools.
• 1:01:57
  They're just trying to get kids to make a team.
• 1:02:00
  Right. So I'm not this is not me
• 1:02:01
  pointing fingers. It's just a, you know, Hey,
• 1:02:03
  there is a, there is a as great a scope between the, the most
• 1:02:09
  hardship college out there, meaning they're, they're trying
• 1:02:11
  to get 5 kids on a roster for cross country up to whatever you
• 1:02:14
  think the top, maybe A&M, Florida, what whatever.
• 1:02:17
  So there's a big difference there.
• 1:02:19
  So Corey, what I, what I, what made me think about that with
• 1:02:22
  the way you answered that is maybe you didn't have a budget
• 1:02:26
  to fly everywhere, anywhere that, you know, it's some, some
• 1:02:29
  of the schools that Fetzer had not every school Fetzer had and
• 1:02:31
  A&M maybe for sure, you know, I don't know.
• 1:02:34
  But did you have to be in the office at 7 o'clock 8:00 at
• 1:02:38
  night on a lot of nights to talk to 18 year old kids?
• 1:02:41
  Did you have 18 year old kids who, and this is a society
• 1:02:45
  thing. I don't necessarily blame 18
• 1:02:47
  year old kids, but did you have 18 year old kids that did not
• 1:02:49
  want to come to your school, but they did not want to tell you
• 1:02:51
  no? And so you spent a lot of time
• 1:02:53
  recruiting them and then they went to wherever else those what
• 1:02:56
  about those aspects of recruiting?
• 1:02:58
  Yeah, that. Definitely is is nice to not
• 1:03:01
  have to do that. Sean mentioned earlier and Brian
• 1:03:05
  also mentioned that they worked 365 S at the college level.
• 1:03:11
  You're working 365 and the phone doesn't stop ringing.
• 1:03:15
  You're recruiting like nowadays everybody's recruiting
• 1:03:18
  internationally. So the time change is all crazy.
• 1:03:22
  And if in the middle of the night, I mean, you might go to
• 1:03:25
  bed and the phone rings and your wife doesn't understand why
• 1:03:29
  you're picking the phone up because if I don't, the other
• 1:03:33
  college coach is going to pick it up and I might lose this kid.
• 1:03:37
  So you're always, you are always, always, always talking
• 1:03:40
  to kids on the phone. So that's different.
• 1:03:44
  Because when we leave here, Sean just joked the other day when we
• 1:03:47
  would leave and he was like, Yep, going home already.
• 1:03:51
  You know, it was like 530 and we were going home and it was like,
• 1:03:55
  that's nice. And so those are the types of
• 1:03:58
  things that are different where you don't have to be available
• 1:04:03
  to these kids all day long, all night long or whatever.
• 1:04:08
  So I think when you. Get to high school.
• 1:04:14
  Some of that relationship building happens inside your
• 1:04:17
  classroom, some of it happens in the hallways.
• 1:04:19
  Sometimes it happens outside of, you know, at practice, but after
• 1:04:24
  you leave campus, that's not happening.
• 1:04:28
  You might have, you know, a certain position group that
• 1:04:31
  you're working with and you might, you know, text some kids.
• 1:04:34
  I send stuff to the cross country team.
• 1:04:36
  You know, I'll just on on a group app and send them
• 1:04:40
  something. But it's not like this ongoing
• 1:04:42
  thing constantly. So we kept.
• 1:04:45
  Talking about the word. Balance.
• 1:04:46
  And so I think it's time now to double click into that, but my.
• 1:04:52
  Question is going to. Be can a college coach have
• 1:04:56
  balance? And you know, balance is defined
• 1:04:58
  in a lot of different ways. It's also not always if if you
• 1:05:02
  were to think of balance is 5050, it's not 5050 every day
• 1:05:06
  either, right? We have seasons of things.
• 1:05:11
  I'm not hearing a lot of positivity towards college
• 1:05:13
  coaches having balance. I do know of, I won't bring up
• 1:05:16
  their names because they're not here, but I know of two coaches.
• 1:05:21
  Both. Both at at big.
• 1:05:26
  Programs try not to identify. Both at big programs.
• 1:05:31
  I'll tell you this way, both Division One coaches in
• 1:05:34
  different ways that they work at it, but they are very
• 1:05:38
  intentional at balance in regards to time off from
• 1:05:42
  coaching, time away from coaching, how they recruits.
• 1:05:45
  You mentioned, you know, timing of call calls and things like
• 1:05:49
  that and visiting recruits and stuff like that.
• 1:05:52
  So I'm not hearing a lot of positivity that a coach on the
• 1:05:56
  college level can have balance. Is that do you think it's
• 1:05:58
  possible? I think we're starting.
• 1:06:01
  With that's on this one. No, I, I, I say.
• 1:06:04
  I had a. Little bit more.
• 1:06:06
  Balance the end of my career and I would think that I would.
• 1:06:11
  Think if. I ever went back into it, which
• 1:06:14
  I honestly. Don't think that.
• 1:06:16
  Will ever be the case the Lord the Lord would have to do some
• 1:06:20
  serious convincing for that to happen and my wife would
• 1:06:24
  probably have to be a a big part of that but you know I think I
• 1:06:28
  could do a little bit better job but.
• 1:06:31
  I also. Understand it's your personality
• 1:06:35
  and every. Every coach is.
• 1:06:38
  Different, right, Right. I mean the the coaches have
• 1:06:41
  different personalities. I am very type A, very
• 1:06:46
  organizationally driven, very, you know, hey, we got to get it
• 1:06:50
  done. I'm competitive as all get out.
• 1:06:53
  I hate losing. I hate, you know, I hate not
• 1:06:56
  having success. You know, losing is is kind of a
• 1:07:00
  misnomer with track and field because everybody loses all the
• 1:07:03
  time. I mean, think about it's the
• 1:07:06
  only sport that you end on failure in some events.
• 1:07:09
  So, but you know, I, I, I think it's, it's, it's a little
• 1:07:14
  personality. There's some college coaches
• 1:07:16
  that can have great success. And, you know, I think the level
• 1:07:21
  depends whether you're in D2D3, you know, if you're, if you're,
• 1:07:25
  you know, a Power 5 or Power 4 school Now, I guess it is
• 1:07:31
  depending on where you're at and what the expectations are on
• 1:07:35
  from the administrative side of things.
• 1:07:36
  I mean, the reality of things is most administrators could give a
• 1:07:41
  crap less if you win a championship in track and field
• 1:07:44
  or not. As long as football is producing
• 1:07:47
  or as long as men's basketball or volleyball or whatever the
• 1:07:50
  the other sport is at the school.
• 1:07:52
  You know, they wouldn't make sure they don't have issues in
• 1:07:54
  in coming into their office. They don't want parents calling.
• 1:07:57
  They don't want the media, they don't want things on social
• 1:07:59
  media. They they want you just to just
• 1:08:03
  survive and stay out of out of the fast lane, right?
• 1:08:06
  I mean, that's, that's reality. But if you're at a junior
• 1:08:09
  college or Division Three, I mean, I have friends that are
• 1:08:12
  the head coaches, Division Three and absolutely have so much
• 1:08:15
  great work balance. The best work balance I ever had
• 1:08:17
  was at Harvard. I mean the Ivy.
• 1:08:21
  League, you had certain limitations.
• 1:08:22
  There were certain times when, hey, you could recruit, when you
• 1:08:26
  couldn't recruit, and when recruiting was done, recruiting
• 1:08:28
  was done. Like we weren't getting
• 1:08:29
  transfers in. I mean, they're even transfer
• 1:08:31
  portal age. Harvard's not getting transfers
• 1:08:33
  in. You know, they're not allowed.
• 1:08:35
  They're not allowed by the school policy to take transfers.
• 1:08:38
  So I mean, I think where you're at also depends if if I was if I
• 1:08:43
  would stay in it or recommendations both get in the
• 1:08:46
  Ivy League. If you can get in the Ivy
• 1:08:47
  League, if you can get into a Division Three conference, like,
• 1:08:50
  you know, with Williams and some of those, there's some great
• 1:08:53
  schools that would that that understand what athletics is and
• 1:08:57
  hasn't kind of lost sight of, you know, the craziness of name
• 1:09:01
  image and likeness in the transfer portal and all those
• 1:09:03
  kind of things. Because kids are going there to
• 1:09:06
  go to school. They're going there for life
• 1:09:08
  experiences. They're not going there thinking
• 1:09:10
  they're going to be an Olympian that they're going to be.
• 1:09:13
  And you can have some great kids.
• 1:09:14
  And we saw it in Division One this year.
• 1:09:16
  You know, there's a couple of transfers out of Division Three
• 1:09:19
  that end up going and, you know, doing amazing at the at the, at
• 1:09:22
  the, you know, with the national championships.
• 1:09:24
  So I, you know, I think, you know, balance it also goes to
• 1:09:28
  perspective where you're at and, and you know, where you're at in
• 1:09:32
  your career too. I think has a lot to do with it.
• 1:09:35
  If you're a young coach, you know, you're trying to build
• 1:09:39
  your career, you know, it's, it's a little different.
• 1:09:41
  I mean, obviously Corey's perspective comes from somebody
• 1:09:45
  that was business high school, one of the challenge of college,
• 1:09:49
  you know, and then goes back to high school, Sean, you know,
• 1:09:52
  major college level and goes, it goes into high school.
• 1:09:57
  You know, we aren't necessarily at that level that.
• 1:10:01
  That we're grinding. My perspective or my thought
• 1:10:04
  process was a lot different when I was coming out of Ranger
• 1:10:07
  Junior College in a Gardner Webb in Ball State because I was
• 1:10:11
  trying to get to the ANMI was trying to get to the to the
• 1:10:14
  major college level. So it was a different thought
• 1:10:18
  process I didn't care about. That I wasn't married either,
• 1:10:22
  which is. Another bit.
• 1:10:23
  I have kids. Now that I'm married.
• 1:10:27
  She, she gives me my balance pretty quick When she goes, hey,
• 1:10:32
  we're having dinner, there's no phone calls.
• 1:10:36
  I don't know. I.
• 1:10:37
  Don't know more if you. Guys, if you guys get that
• 1:10:39
  experience, but I mean, it's been a rude awakening for me to
• 1:10:42
  go, oh, sorry, dear Sean, that's why I was going to go to you.
• 1:10:45
  Next, if you agree with what Fetzer said, we're talking
• 1:10:49
  globally of college coaching, come a little bit out of your
• 1:10:53
  A&M cocoon experience there. But if you agree with Fetzer
• 1:10:58
  that let's say 90% of colleges, administrations aren't hammering
• 1:11:04
  that you have to win conference or nationals, which I know that
• 1:11:08
  was a big thing at A&M. So that's why I say come out,
• 1:11:10
  come out of that cocoon a little bit.
• 1:11:12
  Why do we generally decide to not have balance as a 25 to 30
• 1:11:21
  year old coach when we first it? Is it a is it to Fetzer's point
• 1:11:25
  there at the end? Is it an agent stage thing?
• 1:11:28
  Is it ego? Is it a wrong thought of how I
• 1:11:32
  should build my career? What what might your opinions be
• 1:11:35
  on that? I think it's a combination of a.
• 1:11:38
  Lot of those and having coached at, at a small mid major and at
• 1:11:44
  A, at A, at a mid major and, and then at a power 5, those were
• 1:11:48
  very different job descriptions. When I was a a head coach at
• 1:11:54
  Southeastern, The the, the, the, the amount of pressure and
• 1:11:59
  stress that I I I placed on myself far exceeded what my
• 1:12:03
  athletic director wanted for me or wanted from our program.
• 1:12:08
  I should say. Fast forward a few years to to
• 1:12:12
  AM very different. The expectations where we need
• 1:12:16
  to try and win or be in a position to win it a national
• 1:12:19
  title every single year. If if we were, if we were
• 1:12:26
  consistently in the top three while I was at Southeastern,
• 1:12:28
  that was, that was fantastic. And I was being praised and, and
• 1:12:33
  everything was, was good and I was right with the world and I,
• 1:12:37
  I did have an opportunity for some balance there as a head
• 1:12:42
  coach. I think it's different as an
• 1:12:43
  assistant coach. I really believe it it, it
• 1:12:47
  depends on the program you're in, the level you're in when
• 1:12:51
  you're young. And Brian made reference to
• 1:12:53
  this, you know, you're, you're, you're cutting your teeth,
• 1:12:55
  you're, you're trying to figure out how to, to move on and
• 1:12:58
  progress to the to the next stage.
• 1:13:01
  And so a lot of that is, is personal, but a, a lot of it
• 1:13:05
  depends on where you coach and who you coach for and, and the
• 1:13:09
  university that, that you currently is writing your
• 1:13:13
  paycheck. It, it, it, it, it is difficult.
• 1:13:20
  And, and my visceral response to, to, to the question about
• 1:13:23
  balance. Is this there, there's just not
• 1:13:25
  any balance there. There really is not as, as a
• 1:13:28
  coach, the, it, it, it really depends on, on your perspective
• 1:13:33
  and what you believe you want to go and how far you want to take
• 1:13:37
  this thing. And and it changes throughout
• 1:13:41
  throughout throughout your life, marriage.
• 1:13:45
  For me was a. Was a real turning point and
• 1:13:48
  that opened me up to to to some different perspectives and and
• 1:13:54
  you're not only doing this for for yourself, but again, you're
• 1:13:58
  doing this for your wife and for your family and it's a it's a
• 1:14:03
  real juggling act. It really is I when I got.
• 1:14:08
  Into to. To coaching, you know,
• 1:14:10
  philosophically I had some ideas of what I wanted to do and why I
• 1:14:15
  was doing what I was doing. I was AI was a teacher and an
• 1:14:19
  educator. I was a mentor.
• 1:14:21
  I wanted to, to, to see if I could create an environment for,
• 1:14:26
  for young men and women to to flourish and, and hone their
• 1:14:30
  skills and, and be the best they could be.
• 1:14:34
  And, and I still think that that's that's, you know, a part
• 1:14:38
  of my my, the pillars of of my philosophy as I.
• 1:14:43
  Was exiting. The the collegiate level NIL
• 1:14:47
  came into effect, the transfer portal came into effect and that
• 1:14:52
  really uprooted some of my philosophical beliefs and values
• 1:14:57
  about why I was in this sport. I'll give you one example.
• 1:15:01
  I had a young lady that was with me for 4 1/2 years or five years
• 1:15:06
  rather. She had a COVID year and then
• 1:15:11
  she was coming back for her 6th. Year.
• 1:15:15
  And decided that she had gotten a bigger and better deal from
• 1:15:20
  another College in state that was just, you know, about 90
• 1:15:25
  miles down the road. And we had the.
• 1:15:29
  Several discussions about this and she ended up taking a, a
• 1:15:34
  pretty big NIL deal to, to go compete for somebody else after
• 1:15:38
  she had, you know, been arguably one of the, the, the, the most
• 1:15:43
  successful athletes at, at the, at the college where she
• 1:15:47
  started. She, I mean, she was, she was in
• 1:15:50
  tremendous. She even set the collegiate
• 1:15:52
  record and then was was with with us all throughout her her
• 1:16:00
  four years and then into her her fall training season in the next
• 1:16:07
  next thing you know, she's she's competing for the other side and
• 1:16:11
  competing against us. And I had a real.
• 1:16:14
  Issue with. That as a coach, because we had
• 1:16:17
  developed a tremendous relationship and she had grown
• 1:16:21
  into to a fantastic athlete and had had all these accolades and
• 1:16:26
  all the success. And all of a sudden, you know,
• 1:16:30
  because the school down the road was paying her a little bit more
• 1:16:33
  money, she decided to up and leave.
• 1:16:36
  Now, she was from a family of eight and the money was pretty
• 1:16:40
  significant. And it was, it was meaningful to
• 1:16:43
  her as a, as a, as a young woman and moving forward after college
• 1:16:48
  that that was pretty significant.
• 1:16:51
  I, I just felt like, I felt I was hurt and to be quite honest,
• 1:16:56
  I was, I felt cheated and I felt that, you know, that all those
• 1:17:02
  things that I got into coaching for have been kind of turned
• 1:17:05
  upside down and I was glad to escape those type of situations.
• 1:17:11
  And not that that doesn't happen and kids don't transfer in high
• 1:17:16
  school, but it, it, it's a lot less likely.
• 1:17:19
  And the relationships that the, that you develop and foster
• 1:17:22
  throughout their, their, their time here is it, it's a little
• 1:17:28
  more sacred. I think we could do a whole. 10.
• 1:17:33
  Hour set. On nil transfer Porter all the
• 1:17:36
  whole night. We'll, we'll pass, yeah.
• 1:17:38
  Don't you pass? That for now, Corey, for you in
• 1:17:42
  the same vein of this question, I'm curious because you know,
• 1:17:44
  what we're describing here in regards to, you know, maybe at a
• 1:17:49
  younger in your first initial age and stage of your career,
• 1:17:52
  you know, throw balance out the window.
• 1:17:55
  I'm 90% coaching 10% of the rest of my life.
• 1:17:58
  And then, you know, as we move along at our age of stage,
• 1:18:00
  getting married, one of those potential marks that's no
• 1:18:03
  different than what we see in the business world.
• 1:18:06
  Other aspects of the word that that's not necessarily unique.
• 1:18:09
  However, I don't necessarily hear that for high school track
• 1:18:14
  coaches. I don't hear of a of of a kid
• 1:18:17
  that graduates with a, you know, secondary education degree and
• 1:18:21
  says, man, I'm going to go to such and such high school and
• 1:18:24
  we're going to win 20 state titles like Coach Boudreaux did.
• 1:18:27
  I don't necessarily hear that. Why?
• 1:18:30
  Why not? Or maybe I just don't have my
• 1:18:32
  ear in the right place. Why do?
• 1:18:35
  You think it's? Not we're, we're spending too
• 1:18:38
  much time doing it. You you started.
• 1:18:40
  Off as a high school coach, right?
• 1:18:42
  I didn't necessarily hear you say when I first started
• 1:18:46
  coaching high school, Mike Boy, it was all about how do I get
• 1:18:49
  that high school to the state championship.
• 1:18:52
  You had other responsibilities. I assume you're a teacher and
• 1:18:55
  things like that. I I don't necessarily hear that.
• 1:18:58
  You know, Fetzer and I share a lot of similarities that we had
• 1:19:01
  our eyes on the prize to get to the Power 5 and every step was
• 1:19:04
  calculated, some better than others, right, To get there,
• 1:19:07
  right. I don't hear that on the high
• 1:19:10
  school coaching side where a A1A coach says, man, I can't wait
• 1:19:13
  till I'm going to go to become a 2A and then a 5A and A6 at
• 1:19:15
  whatever. You know, I don't necessarily
• 1:19:17
  hear that in in, in mass. A in mass, Yeah, no, I think.
• 1:19:23
  I'm like Ryan, I, I, I think I hate losing more than I like
• 1:19:28
  winning. So, so I was, I was always
• 1:19:32
  wanting to win and you know, God had a plan for that.
• 1:19:37
  So I, there has been success that has followed me.
• 1:19:41
  I mean, just a quick story with football.
• 1:19:43
  When I first started coaching my brother, he was coaching for a
• 1:19:48
  long time at our alma mater and won a whole bunch of state
• 1:19:50
  titles, coaching and wrestling and a couple in football.
• 1:19:54
  And I would talk to him and I would say, how's the track team
• 1:19:57
  doing? And he was like, nobody cares
• 1:20:01
  about track, man. You know, with the football
• 1:20:04
  voice, right? And like no one cared about
• 1:20:07
  track. I'm like, there's no way you
• 1:20:10
  guys have won back-to-back football titles and don't have a
• 1:20:13
  state championship track team. If I was at that school, we
• 1:20:17
  would win state and track. And he's, he laughed at me.
• 1:20:21
  So my first job, when I go there, I go to football in, in
• 1:20:25
  the summer, the first day I show up and the kids start walking in
• 1:20:29
  and I'm like, man, look at that cat, look at that cat, look at
• 1:20:33
  that cat. There was some, there was some
• 1:20:34
  dudes, right? And so I just started talking to
• 1:20:38
  guys about track and getting them excited about it.
• 1:20:41
  And so we go to the state meet that year, we come in 6th place
• 1:20:46
  and that built some excitement around the school and so and
• 1:20:50
  around the football team. So that next summer at football
• 1:20:53
  practice, there were seven or eight guys at the end of the
• 1:20:56
  Sprint line racing each other saying, hey coach, next year I'm
• 1:21:00
  going to be on that relay team at the state meet.
• 1:21:03
  And so the next year we win this that year we win the state
• 1:21:06
  title, we win the state title the next year and we have some
• 1:21:09
  academic issues, so we don't do so well.
• 1:21:11
  And then we win the next the state title again.
• 1:21:14
  So we win three and four years and it wasn't anything
• 1:21:17
  necessarily that I was doing other than getting the right
• 1:21:20
  kids excited about doing what, you know, coming out and running
• 1:21:24
  track. So then I moved to another
• 1:21:27
  school and we did the same thing.
• 1:21:28
  We won again. And then I went to Virginia and
• 1:21:31
  we did the same thing, just getting kids excited, not
• 1:21:35
  putting them in the right places.
• 1:21:37
  Win the state's first state championship in the history of
• 1:21:40
  the school, right? So we go to Southeastern and and
• 1:21:43
  we're Sean and we have success and it's just through getting
• 1:21:46
  kids excited. So yes, I've always wanted to
• 1:21:50
  win. I don't think I was always
• 1:21:53
  interested about going necessarily to the highest
• 1:21:56
  level, but just wherever I was, I had to win.
• 1:22:01
  And so that's what we're going to do here, right?
• 1:22:03
  Like we're just trying to win and trying to get the right kids
• 1:22:07
  excited about it. We have a football team that
• 1:22:09
  just won the state championship last year, so we're trying to
• 1:22:12
  get those guys excited about coming out all the right ones
• 1:22:17
  and then we could put them in the right place.
• 1:22:20
  Right. So did that answer your
• 1:22:24
  question? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:22:26
  You know I have a. Lot of empathy for our high
• 1:22:28
  school coaches. You know, sometimes I'll catch
• 1:22:32
  wind of a College of a college coach that I'll say, you know,
• 1:22:35
  express some frustration of a high school coach.
• 1:22:37
  Well, how come they don't do this with their hurdlers or how
• 1:22:41
  come they can't develop XY or Z? And you know, I have to remind
• 1:22:44
  our college coaches sometimes like, Hey, don't forget, you
• 1:22:47
  know, the majority of our high school coaches are teachers as
• 1:22:50
  well. So they're doing, and my wife
• 1:22:52
  has recently last few years started perma sub and substitute
• 1:22:57
  teaching, but you know, on long term and you know, she comes
• 1:23:00
  home and you know, she's only doing it for a 30 day, 60 day
• 1:23:02
  block. And I'm like, Oh my God, think
• 1:23:03
  about it. The person you're subbing for
• 1:23:05
  does this for 8-9 months so that you're like, Oh my goodness.
• 1:23:08
  Oh, and by the way, you're supposed to also coach any
• 1:23:11
  sport, whether it's track and field or any sport.
• 1:23:14
  Where does that leave time for professional development inside
• 1:23:17
  that sport? Cuz they're, they're doing
• 1:23:18
  professional development in their teaching.
• 1:23:20
  Oh, and they're a husband or a wife and a pet.
• 1:23:22
  You know, we talked about those different roles.
• 1:23:23
  It's like, man, our high school coaches, God bless you that, you
• 1:23:26
  know, anything, for crying out loud.
• 1:23:29
  It's amazing. So no, that, that's, that's
• 1:23:31
  perfect. A little bit more of a tactical
• 1:23:34
  question. I'm going to start with you,
• 1:23:35
  Sean. You know, someone's listening
• 1:23:37
  right now and if they are like in their first or second year of
• 1:23:41
  coaching college and maybe you've had this inkling of
• 1:23:44
  coaching high school, maybe it's they can see like, oh, that's
• 1:23:48
  like, I could do that. Like I just graduated a year or
• 1:23:50
  two ago with a education major or whatnot.
• 1:23:54
  But maybe, you know, and you guys all did this later in your
• 1:23:57
  careers. You're 1020, thirty years into
• 1:23:59
  your career, you've got some, you know, PE degree or not even
• 1:24:03
  PE because you know, that's ethical to high school.
• 1:24:05
  You've got some history degree from 20 years ago.
• 1:24:08
  How does someone who's coaching college track?
• 1:24:11
  How do you even coach high school track?
• 1:24:14
  And, and what I mean by that is it's air quotes here, easy to go
• 1:24:18
  say, hey, I'm I'm not doing college anymore.
• 1:24:20
  I'm going to go volunteer or get a assistant job at the local
• 1:24:23
  high school. But that you know, we know what
• 1:24:25
  stipends are. They're nothing I'm talking
• 1:24:26
  about to actually work and make a like have a career.
• 1:24:30
  How does tactically, how does someone even begin to do that
• 1:24:35
  begin? To to coach.
• 1:24:36
  In college or no no to to go. You're 30, you've got a 30 year
• 1:24:40
  college career. How in the world, 'cause I know
• 1:24:42
  there isn't, there's teaching certificates, There is are there
• 1:24:46
  other opportunities besides being a teacher, you know, to
• 1:24:48
  still coach high school? How, how does someone who is 40
• 1:24:52
  years old right now do what you guys are doing?
• 1:24:55
  Well, I I was. I was fortunate that we are at
• 1:24:59
  A, at a private high school and a lot of the teaching
• 1:25:05
  certificates and things that are, are a qualifier to be a
• 1:25:10
  teacher coach in high school in the public schools are not
• 1:25:14
  required for the, for the private school.
• 1:25:18
  So I was, I was able to skirt around some of those those
• 1:25:21
  issues because I had a professional degree, because I
• 1:25:24
  had a master's degree and I had some other things on my resume
• 1:25:30
  that that allowed me to to come into this position.
• 1:25:35
  But it is. Difficult.
• 1:25:37
  And it it. Is hard harder than than it may
• 1:25:40
  than you may expect. Being a a qualified coach is not
• 1:25:45
  all that that you need to to be a high school coach.
• 1:25:49
  And actually it's easier going the other direction I would say
• 1:25:53
  in in some ways and that's not easy by.
• 1:25:56
  The way but I I think I would agree with you, it's not easy.
• 1:26:01
  I mean, becoming a college coach, you you've got to pay
• 1:26:04
  your dues and you do now have to have some certificates and show
• 1:26:11
  some show some some promise and expertise in in certain areas to
• 1:26:15
  to get to to even get an interview.
• 1:26:20
  But the going going the other direction.
• 1:26:23
  Yeah, there were. There were some challenges and
• 1:26:25
  there were a few, a few things that that I had not anticipated.
• 1:26:29
  Actually I did apply. For another high.
• 1:26:33
  School in Louisiana that it was a public school and I, I didn't
• 1:26:39
  even get an interview because I did not have the teaching
• 1:26:42
  certificate and the qualifications that that you
• 1:26:45
  needed. Although I was imminently
• 1:26:48
  qualified to on the coaching side, I wasn't, I did not have a
• 1:26:53
  teaching certificate and, and, and was not in their opinion,
• 1:26:57
  certified or qualified to, to, to teach what they needed.
• 1:27:01
  A lot of times it you know, I, I.
• 1:27:06
  I teach a. Health class here and I I am APE
• 1:27:09
  coach and I and I coach track and field, but it had I gone
• 1:27:14
  into. I had there been a position.
• 1:27:18
  Available in let's say chemistry or mathematics or or history, I
• 1:27:23
  don't know that I would have qualified for for those those
• 1:27:26
  jobs I I thought I was about to learn.
• 1:27:28
  Something new about Sean that he, they go some kind of
• 1:27:31
  chemistry geek that I never knew about.
• 1:27:32
  He's like, oh, I could have totally talked chemistry.
• 1:27:34
  Oh, you'd be surprised. Definitely not chemistry, but.
• 1:27:40
  Mechanics, yeah. So I, I, I did have some things
• 1:27:44
  that that allowed me to, to segue into, into this job that I
• 1:27:49
  may not have been qualified for, for in a public school setting.
• 1:27:55
  Corey. You.
• 1:27:57
  Coached high. School and then.
• 1:27:58
  College and back to high school. Was it easier for you because
• 1:28:01
  you had previous high school coaching experience?
• 1:28:05
  No, I think the same. Thing because I don't have an
• 1:28:08
  education degree as well. So with, and I've been in
• 1:28:12
  private schools my whole, my whole life to Catholic schools,
• 1:28:15
  Catholic private schools my whole career.
• 1:28:17
  So I agree that it is hard. It's sad that it's hard because
• 1:28:23
  there is a teacher shortage, right?
• 1:28:26
  And so like your, your, your wife is working because there's
• 1:28:30
  a teacher shortage, correct. And so like there's teacher
• 1:28:33
  shortages, but yet they won't hire people who are highly
• 1:28:36
  qualified to teach a particular subject just because they don't
• 1:28:40
  have the teaching degree that says that they know how to do
• 1:28:43
  it. But like, yeah, someone could
• 1:28:45
  teach, you know, a chemistry class or a bio mechanics class
• 1:28:49
  or something like that. Very about biology class, very
• 1:28:52
  easy. He teaches health and PE is
• 1:28:55
  fine, you know, so I think some of that can, you know, that's a
• 1:29:01
  state issue that that they have to, to fix.
• 1:29:04
  But as far as a college coach looking, I would, I would
• 1:29:07
  encourage them to, if they are thinking about doing it to try
• 1:29:12
  to start getting back into school.
• 1:29:15
  There are all kinds of teacher certifications, alternate
• 1:29:19
  certification programs out there that you can do if you want to
• 1:29:22
  go coach or teach in a public school.
• 1:29:25
  A lot of people want to do that because the money's better.
• 1:29:29
  Not always the case, but in some cases it's better.
• 1:29:32
  Sean and I have the advantage. We have a whole lot of years of
• 1:29:35
  experience, so that takes care of and your salary can be a
• 1:29:38
  little bit higher because of that.
• 1:29:40
  But yeah, look at some of the alternative certification
• 1:29:44
  programs. Every state has them.
• 1:29:46
  Look into getting into a private school if you can while you're
• 1:29:49
  working on that thing. If you if you sign up for an
• 1:29:55
  alternate certification program, sometimes you can still begin
• 1:30:00
  teaching as long as you're working through that program.
• 1:30:03
  So there there's opportunities out there to do it it it just
• 1:30:08
  might take some time. Brian, what about the?
• 1:30:10
  Administration side, I don't know of a certificate for ADI.
• 1:30:13
  Know there is professional development, but what about
• 1:30:16
  these type of jobs in the high school level?
• 1:30:17
  I would. Highly highly recommend for
• 1:30:23
  college coaches that want to get out but stay in sports, go in
• 1:30:29
  the high school. Administration.
• 1:30:31
  Especially if you still want to coach because there's a ton of
• 1:30:34
  schools across the country that are looking for individuals that
• 1:30:40
  are that are athletic directors and coaches.
• 1:30:43
  I was in a very unique spot that I was on the executive staff for
• 1:30:46
  the school. Actually trans out transitioned
• 1:30:48
  out of being the athletic director of the, you know, the
• 1:30:52
  director of athletics into a more.
• 1:30:56
  School. Wide role with strategic
• 1:30:58
  development and advancement was more in a fundraising.
• 1:31:01
  We were trying to do a, a big fundraising campaign, which all
• 1:31:04
  of us the, the coaching college. I mean, you don't raise money.
• 1:31:07
  I mean, shoot, you talk to donors all the time.
• 1:31:09
  I mean, that's part of the job. The skill set that you bring to
• 1:31:13
  an administrative side is, is vast.
• 1:31:16
  And just like Corey said, when you have that quote UN quote
• 1:31:21
  college coach, you know beside your name, parents are a lot.
• 1:31:25
  A little bit. More apt to listen to you
• 1:31:27
  because you've got this kind of, you know, persona that, Hey, you
• 1:31:31
  are a college coach, you can, you can help my kid get to the
• 1:31:34
  college level. So, so I mean, you have that
• 1:31:37
  kind of situation and you have the connections.
• 1:31:40
  I, I mean, you know, you mean you, you know, coaches from
• 1:31:43
  different sports. So, you know, if if a coach
• 1:31:46
  comes up, I mean there were several instances that I got on
• 1:31:49
  the phone and called friends that that were college coaches
• 1:31:53
  in various sports they were recruiting.
• 1:31:56
  And they're and. They and they want to, Hey, you
• 1:31:58
  know, they're looking for a lacrosse player, they're looking
• 1:31:59
  for a tennis player. And, and you knew him from down
• 1:32:02
  the hall. I mean, I mean, how many great
• 1:32:04
  meetings, I mean, coffees and lunches and stuff that you have
• 1:32:08
  with with other colleagues and other sports as a college coach
• 1:32:11
  that, you know, you become friends.
• 1:32:14
  So I I mean, and there's tons of them.
• 1:32:16
  I mean there's a ton of different opportunities out
• 1:32:18
  there. Finley search group.
• 1:32:21
  I'm, I'm trying to think of a, a couple different instances.
• 1:32:24
  Isaacs, the national independent schools, you know, there's,
• 1:32:29
  there's, there's Southern Teachers Association, there's,
• 1:32:34
  like I said, Finley search group.
• 1:32:36
  There's a bunch of different means that you can find jobs out
• 1:32:40
  there at the high school level in an administrative role that
• 1:32:44
  you might also coach as well, because high schools are no
• 1:32:48
  different than college. They're trying to hire the best
• 1:32:50
  people. But at the same time, hey, hold
• 1:32:53
  on. You can be an administrator, but
• 1:32:54
  you also coach track. You also coach cross country.
• 1:32:57
  Well, hey, you just knocked out six sports for me or four sports
• 1:33:00
  for me that you can coach. And it might also raise up your,
• 1:33:04
  your salary that you're making because you're getting the
• 1:33:06
  stipends for, you know, all of those different sports.
• 1:33:10
  So, you know, there's a lot out there, especially, you know, the
• 1:33:14
  coaches that are in, you know, City Schools or, you know,
• 1:33:17
  school, Like if you're in the Philadelphia area or in the
• 1:33:20
  Miami area or whatever it might be, there's, there's tons and
• 1:33:24
  tons of schools out there. And I'm with those two guys.
• 1:33:27
  The private school realm is, is huge because a lot of them you
• 1:33:31
  don't need the, you know, the certifications and so forth to
• 1:33:36
  do certain things. Now, if you're listening.
• 1:33:39
  I want, I want to make a clear distinction here because I've
• 1:33:41
  known a few ADS and and I know a lot of high school coaches.
• 1:33:44
  We're not painting the picture that it is easier to coach or AD
• 1:33:49
  in the high school level. It's just a different level with
• 1:33:52
  different responsibilities and different priorities, if you
• 1:33:54
  will. So I was just thinking, I was
• 1:33:55
  like, man, fetch. Are you painting the picture
• 1:33:57
  like, wow, what am I doing? I was like, wait a minute, I've
• 1:34:00
  known enough ADS. You're there, you're there every
• 1:34:02
  football game, you know, you're locking up the gym.
• 1:34:05
  So I just wanted to and I know you weren't like, let's make
• 1:34:07
  sure that's clear. It is a different.
• 1:34:10
  The the nice thing about being in the high school setting is
• 1:34:13
  from, you know, mid-May to, you know, August, there's no games.
• 1:34:19
  You're still involved, but you're you're doing a lot of
• 1:34:22
  quote UN quote remote work. Yeah, got it.
• 1:34:25
  All right, I got it. It's just different
• 1:34:26
  perspectives. Different, you know, You know
• 1:34:29
  what? What do you value?
• 1:34:30
  What do you don't value? Yeah.
• 1:34:32
  What do you want to do? All right, I got two last.
• 1:34:34
  Questions to wrap up. I want to hear from everybody on
• 1:34:37
  these. The first question is, it's kind
• 1:34:40
  of a big question on its. Simplest form the question.
• 1:34:44
  Is would you do it again? And, and it's a little bit more
• 1:34:47
  complex question is, do you miss it?
• 1:34:51
  Do you miss coaching college if the right opportunity?
• 1:34:55
  And you know, those are kind of tough questions when you say the
• 1:34:57
  right opportunity, right? Because, I mean, you're talking
• 1:34:58
  about perfection at that point and you know, that just doesn't
• 1:35:01
  exist, right? You know, Fetcher, to your point
• 1:35:03
  about your wife is like, well, wherever, Yeah, sure, if there
• 1:35:05
  was a place where my wife would want to live that she also had a
• 1:35:07
  job and it paid me X and I only had to coach combined event shot
• 1:35:12
  put, you know. So the question is thinking
• 1:35:17
  about your careers and where they are today, very successful,
• 1:35:20
  what you have done in the past, which is LED up to your success
• 1:35:23
  today, Would you do it all over again?
• 1:35:26
  Would you still come to the high school level to coach?
• 1:35:29
  And I'm going to throw it up to whoever wants to answer that
• 1:35:31
  first, but I do want to hear from all three of you.
• 1:35:34
  Well, for me, I I'm. At the right place at the right
• 1:35:37
  time. And I, I really believe that
• 1:35:40
  it's, it's about trade-offs, you know, and I, I.
• 1:35:46
  Don't know that I. I work any any more or any less,
• 1:35:51
  but I do I, I do miss some aspects of, of the collegiate
• 1:35:56
  job. I do miss, you know, the
• 1:36:01
  coaching in, in, in the big situations at the, at the, at an
• 1:36:06
  NSCC meet or a conference meet or, or NCAA meet or, or even at,
• 1:36:13
  you know, some of the majors of the, the World Championships or,
• 1:36:16
  or the Olympics. Those are things that that I do
• 1:36:19
  miss. I was fortunate to, you know,
• 1:36:22
  throughout this coaching to career to, to check off some of
• 1:36:25
  those boxes as, as I was as a collegian coach.
• 1:36:29
  There's not that great draw for me to go back right now.
• 1:36:32
  Now it's, it's the situation that I'm, I'm supposed to be in
• 1:36:37
  and one that I'm happy in this role.
• 1:36:42
  I, I, I do miss it. I, I want to won't lie to you,
• 1:36:45
  but I tell you what you know as as Corey and I talked to a
• 1:36:51
  couple of weeks ago. We were done at 5:30.
• 1:36:55
  And the phone didn't ring and I wasn't at home recruiting and I
• 1:36:59
  wasn't trying to, to share time with the with the family and,
• 1:37:03
  and, and also do the job that that I was tasked to do.
• 1:37:10
  And so my time is, is more my time I feel right now.
• 1:37:16
  And that is, that is really something that that I, I have to
• 1:37:20
  keep reminding myself of, you know, when, when I'm watching,
• 1:37:25
  you know, athletes at the NCAA meet or I'm watching the
• 1:37:28
  Olympics on TV or, or things like that.
• 1:37:31
  So I I I would just say that. That it.
• 1:37:36
  Again, it's, it's just trade-offs and it's what is
• 1:37:38
  right for you at the time and, and what is right to what is the
• 1:37:42
  right situation for you at that particular time in your life.
• 1:37:45
  And we've headed around it with. NIL transfer portal and such,
• 1:37:49
  those are all part of it as well.
• 1:37:50
  And you know, we're getting an INIL on the high school side as
• 1:37:53
  well. So they're still, that's part of
• 1:37:55
  that trade off. Corey, that's you miss it, would
• 1:37:58
  you do it all over again? What's your thoughts?
• 1:38:05
  Don't make me call on you. You're not.
• 1:38:06
  Shy guys. I, I, I I'll go next.
• 1:38:11
  No, I mean, you know, do it all over again at the collegiate
• 1:38:14
  level. I, I think if, if the right
• 1:38:17
  situation ever occurred potentially, but I doubt it.
• 1:38:25
  You know, I enjoy the business side of things of what we're
• 1:38:27
  doing. It would take a very unique neat
• 1:38:31
  situation that, that I enjoy it 100%.
• 1:38:34
  Probably what I missed the most is the relationship piece with
• 1:38:38
  other coaches, you know, seeing people because you, you, you do,
• 1:38:42
  you get in, you know, a frame of seeing people on a regular
• 1:38:46
  basis, right? You, you get in a see, you see
• 1:38:49
  the, the same faces different times of the year.
• 1:38:52
  You're, you're and, and track and field is very different than
• 1:38:55
  football or very different than basketball or baseball where
• 1:38:58
  you're competing opposite individuals, track and field.
• 1:39:02
  You know, I might be standing next to Sean for for two hours,
• 1:39:05
  you know, during, you know, a, you know, and a multi
• 1:39:09
  competition or, you know, you know, hey, we're, we're having
• 1:39:12
  the deck and, and we're, we're there and you're talking
• 1:39:15
  intermittently. And then you also, you get to
• 1:39:17
  know coaches from other sports. Some of my closest friends never
• 1:39:21
  coached track and field. You know, they were basketball
• 1:39:24
  coaches or football coaches or tennis coaches that were down
• 1:39:28
  the hall from me. And we've stayed in touch, you
• 1:39:31
  know, people I met at at Ball State, you know, I mean, I mean,
• 1:39:34
  I think Stephanie White, I mean, she was basketball coach, she's
• 1:39:38
  head coach at the Connecticut Sun now.
• 1:39:40
  And Stephanie had become good friends for, you know, a long
• 1:39:44
  time. And, you know, I, I think other
• 1:39:46
  people that you meet along the way.
• 1:39:48
  So, you know, that's what you miss.
• 1:39:50
  You miss the relational piece of it.
• 1:39:53
  I would do some things different.
• 1:39:54
  If I went back, do I think going back into the high school
• 1:39:58
  situation is something I would ever do?
• 1:39:59
  Probably not. That wasn't for me.
• 1:40:03
  Again, I'm a little more business oriented.
• 1:40:05
  My thought process is a little different than than per SE.
• 1:40:09
  You know, the high school, like I said, my head of school, I
• 1:40:12
  used to think I used to drive nuts because.
• 1:40:14
  I was, you know, how do we become the best high school in
• 1:40:16
  the history of high schools? You know, you know, how do we do
• 1:40:19
  this Let's, you know, do and it and it's just not necessarily
• 1:40:22
  practical in certain aspects. But I mean, I enjoy doing the
• 1:40:27
  business side. You know, it's it's, you know,
• 1:40:29
  my mind's a little more entrepreneurial than it is
• 1:40:34
  educational per SE. Yeah, that's the.
• 1:40:36
  Point Corey, I think. It's always easy to to.
• 1:40:43
  You know, talk about what could have been right.
• 1:40:46
  We make the we have these defining moments in our lives.
• 1:40:51
  If to go back and do it all again.
• 1:40:53
  I would I would start teaching right out of college like I
• 1:40:57
  probably should have in high school.
• 1:41:00
  I can like in a perfect world, I could see me doing 30 years in
• 1:41:05
  high school and then go and find a small college to work at in
• 1:41:10
  retirement, if that makes sense. And, and doing that until I
• 1:41:17
  couldn't do it anymore. But right now I'm like Sean
• 1:41:22
  said, I think I'm in a great place.
• 1:41:25
  This school is awesome. We get to to be who we are.
• 1:41:31
  The the day-to-day is. Different, right?
• 1:41:33
  Like in high school, like we get.
• 1:41:36
  Here in the morning and. It's go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
• 1:41:39
  go, go, go, go all the way only until 5:00 or 5:30, but it is
• 1:41:44
  go. I mean, you don't have time.
• 1:41:46
  Like that's one of the things I missed the most is the time that
• 1:41:51
  you had to just chill. Like we could go, Hey, you
• 1:41:54
  might, might tell the staff, Hey, let's go get lunch.
• 1:41:58
  And you go sit at a Mexican restaurant for an hour and a
• 1:42:01
  half or so, right. Talking about the sport and what
• 1:42:05
  the the training sessions going to be that day and what, you
• 1:42:09
  know, who we're bringing to the meet this week.
• 1:42:11
  But like that relationship stuff and the the easiness of kind of
• 1:42:17
  the day-to-day, you know, it's different.
• 1:42:21
  And I do miss that. And like Brian said that the
• 1:42:24
  moments throughout the year, I had to smile when he was talking
• 1:42:28
  about it. Because you look forward to
• 1:42:29
  that, right? OK, we're going to Texas Relays.
• 1:42:32
  So I'm going to get to talk to all those guys that I talked to
• 1:42:35
  at Texas Relays every year. And then, OK, the regional meet
• 1:42:38
  is coming and I get to go to the regional meet and we get to all
• 1:42:41
  hang out, right? Or we get to go to Eugene for
• 1:42:44
  nationals. And you get to go to the Duck
• 1:42:46
  and you get to do all of the things that you do right at
• 1:42:49
  those events. That's you miss that kind of
• 1:42:51
  stuff, but right now I'm in a good place and I'm happy.
• 1:42:57
  That's that's a good. Point about the high school, you
• 1:43:00
  know it's go, go, go because you're regiment, you have
• 1:43:01
  periods and you know lunch period, things like that.
• 1:43:04
  We're in college, it is much more laid back, but there's like
• 1:43:08
  these spikes of intensity if you will, whether it's practice or a
• 1:43:11
  meet or traveling etcetera. That's really good.
• 1:43:14
  All right, gentlemen, my last question, it's really a request,
• 1:43:18
  not a question. You know, you got a large
• 1:43:21
  audience right now that are listening to the podcast and you
• 1:43:24
  know right now when we're actually recording this, so
• 1:43:28
  we're recording this in the middle of October.
• 1:43:29
  Not sure when you're actually listening to this.
• 1:43:32
  I'm a little torn. There's been a couple of social
• 1:43:35
  media posts from coaches that break my heart, however, because
• 1:43:41
  those. People were.
• 1:43:42
  Brave enough to talk about their experiences.
• 1:43:45
  It gives me hope and and for for the betterment of our people who
• 1:43:50
  choose to be track coaches there.
• 1:43:52
  There's a lot of you know, you gentlemen know this, there's a
• 1:43:55
  lot of sadness is probably the word I would use in the coaching
• 1:44:00
  community. And a lot of it comes to what,
• 1:44:02
  you know, some of the topics we talked today specifically
• 1:44:04
  balance, you know, whether it's parenthood relationship, you
• 1:44:10
  know, we have a lot of coaches financially relationships aren't
• 1:44:13
  aren't doing well. Their Corey, their relationship
• 1:44:18
  with their faith is not going very well.
• 1:44:20
  And they're there. There's a lot of sadness out
• 1:44:24
  there that's going on. So you've got an audience
• 1:44:28
  listening now. You have done something that I
• 1:44:32
  think a good number of coaches have thought about doing, but
• 1:44:36
  again, because of a lot of different reasons have chosen
• 1:44:40
  not to take that next step. What would be your advice to
• 1:44:46
  that coach that's listening right now, that's uncertain that
• 1:44:48
  they've they've they've thrown balance out the window and now
• 1:44:51
  they're starting to realize maybe maybe that was a mistake
• 1:44:54
  or maybe now it's time to have balance.
• 1:44:57
  Maybe high school is the right place for me.
• 1:44:59
  Maybe a private business is the right place for me.
• 1:45:01
  That's that's options as well. What would be your best advice
• 1:45:06
  to coaches that were in a lot of the same situations that you
• 1:45:09
  guys were in, in some of your past professions?
• 1:45:13
  Who wants to go first? On that one.
• 1:45:16
  I'll go first. Please.
• 1:45:19
  I I think the first thing that you have to do just as a person,
• 1:45:25
  a man or a woman, is to know your why.
• 1:45:31
  Brian talked about. You know doing your own personal
• 1:45:34
  core values, but know your why. And you have to.
• 1:45:39
  Sit and and meditate and contemplate with that sometimes
• 1:45:46
  and maybe you need to go on a on on a retreat or maybe you just
• 1:45:49
  need to go on a walk on the beach or whatever, or go camping
• 1:45:53
  by yourself. But know you why.
• 1:45:56
  Once you do that, then some of the decisions can start becoming
• 1:46:00
  a little a little easier. You need to be humble, right?
• 1:46:05
  If you're going, if you're making that change, be humble
• 1:46:10
  and then like, like I think you have to when you start looking
• 1:46:15
  for a place and. This goes both ways.
• 1:46:19
  Whether you're trying to go from college from high school to
• 1:46:22
  college or college to high school, you need to recruit that
• 1:46:26
  next place the same way we ask recruits to recruit schools they
• 1:46:32
  want to go to right because. If you get.
• 1:46:35
  Into the wrong situation, everything.
• 1:46:39
  That you were. Dreaming that it was going to
• 1:46:42
  be, it could, it could not be that.
• 1:46:46
  And then you get like this bad taste in your mouth about
• 1:46:49
  something that could have been great had you spent the time
• 1:46:53
  recruiting the school better, right?
• 1:46:56
  And understand what the administration is like, want to
• 1:46:59
  understand what the expectation is?
• 1:47:03
  Brian mentioned earlier. Like in a lot of schools and
• 1:47:06
  small schools, the ADS, even big schools, they have no
• 1:47:09
  expectations of track and field, right?
• 1:47:12
  Don't. Get in.
• 1:47:13
  Trouble don't come to my office, right?
• 1:47:16
  So, but like what I saw at a small mid major was there were
• 1:47:20
  no expectations until as coaches, we raised the bar in
• 1:47:27
  our program and started asking for stuff, right?
• 1:47:31
  And then then all of a sudden like it, it caused this big
• 1:47:35
  stink. Like you, you have no
• 1:47:38
  expectations for us when we're bad.
• 1:47:42
  But now all of a sudden we have guys at the national meeting.
• 1:47:45
  We have guys going to the Olympic Games and like all of
• 1:47:47
  this stuff. And so we need more so we can
• 1:47:50
  keep getting better. And they're like, no, no, no,
• 1:47:52
  no, go back to being nobody, right?
• 1:47:54
  So that's frustrating. So you, you need to find out if
• 1:47:57
  that's what it's going to be at your place because there are
• 1:48:01
  small schools. And I think about what's his
• 1:48:05
  name in Florida, the fire. Oh.
• 1:48:09
  Yeah, Datsun. The Datsun, look what he's doing
• 1:48:12
  at that school, first year program.
• 1:48:14
  I'm like, they just, they just start the program and he has
• 1:48:17
  that place in Maine. They're crushing it, right?
• 1:48:21
  But he found a school that wanted to buy in the track and
• 1:48:24
  field. And so they're building
• 1:48:26
  something great. So do some homework just like at
• 1:48:30
  the college level when where kids come to recruit and he's
• 1:48:33
  like, hey, go recruit these schools.
• 1:48:36
  Find out a place that fits for you because you're going to be
• 1:48:39
  there for 4-5 or six years and it has to fit or you're going to
• 1:48:43
  you're going to get there and within the first semester you're
• 1:48:46
  going to want to go home or go somewhere else.
• 1:48:48
  That's great. I love that Corey.
• 1:48:50
  That's really, really good. Fetzer, Sean who?
• 1:48:54
  Wants to go next, yeah. Again.
• 1:48:57
  I. I I would.
• 1:49:00
  Agree with Corey that you, you got to figure out why you're
• 1:49:03
  doing it and what is important to you at the time.
• 1:49:07
  And again, life is just a, a series of choices and, and, and
• 1:49:13
  trade-offs. And the decisions that you make
• 1:49:17
  today might not be the same decision you'll make five years
• 1:49:21
  from now, but I do, I do agree that you you should should find
• 1:49:27
  out what you're getting into. And I would encourage high
• 1:49:31
  school coaches that that do want to make the jump to the
• 1:49:34
  collegiate level, talk to people, share, have them share
• 1:49:40
  some of the experiences, the experiences that they've had and
• 1:49:43
  ask them, you know, why, why you're in it and and what you
• 1:49:46
  love and what you don't love about it.
• 1:49:49
  For me coming back, it was a it was a homecoming.
• 1:49:52
  And I don't know what it is about Louisiana, but there's a
• 1:49:54
  whole hell of a lot of guys that that venture out away from here
• 1:49:59
  and end up coming back. I don't know, maybe maybe.
• 1:50:06
  That's another. Podcast for you.
• 1:50:08
  There's some great coaches in the state that, you know, would
• 1:50:12
  be very successful anywhere in the country, but to choose to
• 1:50:16
  stay here and then, you know. Talk to.
• 1:50:23
  Talk to your family and, and friends and, and see if this is
• 1:50:26
  a, a journey that they want to take.
• 1:50:27
  Because it's not just about you, especially when you're, when
• 1:50:31
  you're married and, and do have a family.
• 1:50:33
  It's it's about everybody and uprooting them and moving to a
• 1:50:39
  place at the, the, the OR an environment that that they don't
• 1:50:42
  they don't like or care for could.
• 1:50:45
  Could. Potentially be troublesome for
• 1:50:47
  you. That's really good advice.
• 1:50:50
  That you're, you're not. There's an old saying, if you
• 1:50:53
  want to travel fast, travel alone.
• 1:50:55
  If you want to travel far, travel with others.
• 1:50:57
  Well, if we're talking about careers and lives here, that
• 1:51:00
  means you've got others with you, family, friends, etcetera.
• 1:51:04
  That, that that's really good, Sean.
• 1:51:06
  All right, Fetzer, you've got the, you're the anchor leg here.
• 1:51:10
  What advice would you have? I mean I I, I.
• 1:51:13
  Need to be taking notes. I mean, I wish I would have
• 1:51:15
  heard this stuff when I was a younger coach.
• 1:51:18
  It's. It's so true.
• 1:51:19
  What? Sean said.
• 1:51:20
  I mean. If you don't have a mentor.
• 1:51:24
  Or if you don't have a group of of coaches that you can go to.
• 1:51:31
  I don't care what your high school.
• 1:51:31
  Level. College level doesn't matter.
• 1:51:33
  It does not matter if you don't have a core group of individuals
• 1:51:37
  that you can talk to and ask. Get them.
• 1:51:41
  There's plenty of coaches out there.
• 1:51:44
  This this thing's gone on two hours.
• 1:51:45
  You know, we all like to talk. You know, it's, it's it's not,
• 1:51:48
  it's not, it's not something that doesn't happen.
• 1:51:51
  So find people that you can talk to and and ask them and, and
• 1:51:56
  keep in mind, it is not always the greenest grass where you
• 1:52:00
  think it is. You know, you think Division One
• 1:52:02
  is think there's going to be issues.
• 1:52:04
  Division Three, division two, junior college, you know,
• 1:52:07
  private high school, big high school, rural city, it does not
• 1:52:10
  matter. You got to know what you're
• 1:52:12
  getting into, what Sean said, because what you think you might
• 1:52:16
  want, you might not actually want, but ask people, talk to
• 1:52:22
  people, you know, and, and, and find that group of, of people
• 1:52:26
  that you can combine with, whether you're a guy or a girl,
• 1:52:30
  you know, that, that group that you can sit down and have real
• 1:52:34
  conversations with. My choices being married are
• 1:52:39
  very different than my choices when I was single.
• 1:52:42
  And I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, I said the word
• 1:52:45
  perspective like 5,000,000 times, I think.
• 1:52:48
  But but it's so true, you know, So, you know, keep that in the
• 1:52:52
  back of your head of what you want to do and, and talk to
• 1:52:57
  individuals and, and see what it's like, you know, spend a lot
• 1:53:03
  of time. I mean, I'm a man of faith.
• 1:53:05
  Note, I don't make any decisions without, you know, praying about
• 1:53:09
  it and spending time with it. If that's what you do.
• 1:53:14
  Do that. Seek friends that they're in
• 1:53:16
  that same situation. If you're not, then seek.
• 1:53:20
  Friends that you. You admire their advice and, and
• 1:53:23
  where they're at. You know, coaching is an
• 1:53:27
  incredible opportunity. It also comes with, you know, a
• 1:53:31
  credible level of expectations and a very high level of, you
• 1:53:37
  know, you have to do things with integrity and you have to do
• 1:53:40
  things because you are shaping future generations.
• 1:53:44
  So keep that in mind. That's.
• 1:53:45
  Responsibility. And it's it.
• 1:53:48
  It's one of the last beacons of hope we have.
• 1:53:50
  So take it and take it well and love the journey.
• 1:53:55
  Fetz gave us our first. Old man on the wand.
• 1:53:59
  He also ends us with the the coach's version of the spider
• 1:54:02
  man. With great power comes great
• 1:54:04
  responsibility. I appreciate that Fetz.
• 1:54:06
  You just need a a pipe and a, you know, a little smoking bag.
• 1:54:10
  I've got, I've got a sweater on. I.
• 1:54:11
  Know, I kind of. I'm up in Pennsylvania, right?
• 1:54:13
  Now and I'm typically in Florida, so it's it's a
• 1:54:16
  different part for me, but I. I do.
• 1:54:18
  Miss seeing Fetz around at the track meets.
• 1:54:21
  So he was one of the good guys from the big schools that talk
• 1:54:27
  to the little guys like us and he he will always appreciated
• 1:54:31
  that he will text you a. Picture of himself so you can
• 1:54:34
  always have it with you gentlemen.
• 1:54:39
  What strikes me is that all three of you in your own unique
• 1:54:43
  awesome ways said about knowing your why.
• 1:54:47
  And I think it our ages and stages.
• 1:54:49
  I think that's easy to either look back on at times that we've
• 1:54:52
  done it or know that we've done it recently.
• 1:54:55
  When you are a 222325 year old GA first time assistant,
• 1:55:01
  volunteer assistant, it's a lot harder to sit down and
• 1:55:05
  realistically think about your why.
• 1:55:07
  So my advice to those listening is kind of a layer on top of
• 1:55:12
  your great advice there. And that is when you eventually
• 1:55:16
  get there, do it either that's 30 years old, 40 years old, 50
• 1:55:20
  years old, first job, second job.
• 1:55:22
  When you hopefully, my, my hope and prayer is that you, you are
• 1:55:27
  able to sit down and really dive into your why before disaster or
• 1:55:32
  emergency or crisis occurs. But a lot of times that's what
• 1:55:38
  brings us to our knees, if you will.
• 1:55:40
  And we sit down and go, why am I really into this and is what I'm
• 1:55:44
  doing today continuing? That journey or.
• 1:55:47
  Is it is it actually in the way of that journey?
• 1:55:50
  So just so grateful for you guys to be here.
• 1:55:55
  You know, this is a part of of the big puzzle to hopefully help
• 1:55:59
  people continue to have great, fulfilling, meaningful lives
• 1:56:03
  that hopefully center around coaching track and field.
• 1:56:05
  I still think you know what coaches do.
• 1:56:08
  You know, 99% of you guys have had amazing careers.
• 1:56:10
  All of you have coached unbelievable people that have
• 1:56:13
  made it to the very, very highest level.
• 1:56:14
  And still 99.9% of the kids that you coached didn't go on to be
• 1:56:19
  pro or Olympics, but 100% of them went on to be moms and dads
• 1:56:24
  and brothers and sisters and business owners, clergy,
• 1:56:28
  teachers, coaches. That to me is the real benefit
• 1:56:33
  that coaches like yourself give society and so anything that we
• 1:56:37
  can do, and I appreciate you guys be on the journey with me
• 1:56:40
  today on this to help those individuals that is that's going
• 1:56:44
  to help society. That's the real benefit.
• 1:56:46
  All right, that's you wanted the last last word.
• 1:56:47
  No, no, no, no. I'm just.
• 1:56:49
  Going to say, hey, if anybody you know that you know.
• 1:56:53
  Whatever. Need just somebody to talk to in
• 1:56:55
  coaching ranks. I know I've had a bunch of
• 1:56:57
  coaches that have gotten out that have reached out.
• 1:56:59
  Shoot me an e-mail. Mike, please leave.
• 1:57:02
  You know you can leave it in the in the thing direct.
• 1:57:05
  Message. On social media, whatever.
• 1:57:07
  And I I would probably say that Sean and and and Cora would say
• 1:57:11
  the same thing. I think that's, you know.
• 1:57:14
  Something. That can be helpful.
• 1:57:16
  Awesome, I love it. Gentlemen, thank you so much.
• 1:57:17
  I appreciate your time. It's the most valuable thing
• 1:57:19
  that you can give me. And just so grateful for your
• 1:57:21
  servant leadership. It's because of people like you
• 1:57:24
  and many, many others that you know aren't here today in this
• 1:57:27
  podcast, but there's many others that have the same heart stance
• 1:57:30
  towards others. And I'm just glad that we were
• 1:57:31
  able to get it on wax, as they say, and help others.
• 1:57:34
  So thank you so much for being here today, guys.
• 1:57:36
  Thank you for being here today listening.
• 1:57:38
  I hope you receive value. I really think maybe there's a
• 1:57:40
  lot of rewinds here and taking more notes and if this is a a
• 1:57:45
  concern of yours personally, to Fetzer's point, reach out to
• 1:57:49
  someone. If you have the same heart
• 1:57:52
  posture as these gentlemen do as well, then help someone.
• 1:57:55
  Go be that someone. Go be that mentor for someone
• 1:57:58
  else because we can, we can always use that.
• 1:58:00
  Not well. Thanks again.
• 1:58:01
  Join us next week. We'll do it all over again.
• 1:58:02
  Thanks guys. Thanks.
• 1:58:05
  If it goes to appreciate. The coach the ones that pour
• 1:58:08
  people most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the
• 1:58:11
  growth you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to
• 1:58:14
  the soul For those of us stay on the go proper handoff to stay in
• 1:58:18
  the zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:58:20
  There's more than one way to go taking notes that's paying.
• 1:58:23
  You're told it ain't practice if you're perfect Saint Clair, it
• 1:58:26
  can't happen until you listen with both is can't mentor
• 1:58:29
  without a mentor here of experience.
• 1:58:31
  You can reinvent those years every plan's got to stand and
• 1:58:34
  deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
• 1:58:37
  It's a choice and a fight, not a win or lose.
• 1:58:40
  It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
• 1:58:43
  It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
• 1:58:46
  you know who you are inside 6,000,000 waste of time choose
• 1:58:49
  none. So y'all of course finish line.
• 1:58:51
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts, but y'all got
• 1:58:54
  to put in the leg work. Kill Athletics is the network.
• 1:58:57
  It's all about connections put together for the profession to
• 1:59:00
  where every track coach could be blessing.