Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #5: Gill1918 presents Tyson Graham "Philosophy of Setting Up Your Team"

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#5: Gill1918 presents Tyson Graham "Philosophy of Setting Up Your Team" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

0:00
Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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coaches, for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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you grow as a coach. We're bringing the once a year
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track clinic straight to your ears daily.
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Interested in creating your own episode?
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Everyone's welcome to participate.
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Check out the show notes below For more information.
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Now let's get into today's topic.
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Hello, my name is Tyson Graham. I am the head cross country
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coach at Springstead High School and I also help out with their
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pole vaulters and with their distance team.
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And then I also am the assistant coach at Zephyrhills High School
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where I coach pole vault and throws.
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I also do a little bit of club coaching with some multis and
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vault and former collegiate coach.
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I was a former NAIA coach and also was the cross country
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chairman of the MCC conference. I've coached for about 20 years
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now some various sports. Golf I was coached of the year,
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G1 year I coached basketball I was coach of the year in
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volleyball and then most of my coaching career has been around
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cross country and track and field. 1 Coach of the Year, 15
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of my 20 years of coaching. I have 18 years of all academic
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teams, over 40 school records, numerous conference records, all
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conference teams, all academic, all state performances, a number
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of all Americans, and a couple national qualifiers.
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I've had two Olympic Trials qualifiers and had the
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opportunity to actually officiate and coach at the
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Olympic Trials by a fluke, standing in the crowd and at
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Olympic Trials watching race walk and the official saw me and
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called me out of the crowd, actually inside me come run the
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disqualification board, which was kind of cool because I was
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certified so and they were short and official.
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So that's kind of my background. I have coached pretty much
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everything in track. I've been a sprint's coach,
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hurdle coach. I my background's kind of in the
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coaching world as I started out as a distance Maltese coach at
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the collegiate level and and then kind of went straight to
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distance. And then now it's kind of like
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since I have experienced the Maltese, wherever high school
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I'm at, it's hey, we need this coach.
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So I coach whatever they throw at me.
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My talk's going to be a little different than probably some of
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the other ones in this series of podcast.
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I think it's a really cool concept.
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I'm going to talk about a lot of the not things that are
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educational, but setting up of your team and kind of my
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philosophy and how a certain person shaped that philosophy in
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my coaching career. Couple notes on my philosophy as
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I'm really big about being positive.
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I don't allow kids to be negative about anything.
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If I hear it, I nip it right away and then talk with them as
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a team of how we need to be positive and why we need to be
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positive. Distance running especially is a
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little painful at times and you got to learn how to love pain a
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little bit. It's kind of a weird thing, but
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you know, I know from my own experience I was not the best
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distance runner when I first started and became a fairly
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elite distance runner quickly. I went from the summer of my
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freshman year of high school being the worst guy to the team
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to being the best guy of the team and running low fifteens in
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high school. So I, you know, it's a little
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painful at first. I always tell them you're going
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to be miserable for a month and a half and then you're going to
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learn to love it. And that's kind of been true
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throughout my careers that kids realize about a month and 1/2
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that this is actually, yeah, it's painful, but it's
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enjoyable. And so you got to learn that and
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not to be negative. Oh, we got to go on a 10 mile
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run today. No, no, no, it's yay.
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We get to go on a 10 mile to run today.
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I can do something that most people can't stab them.
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And so being that positive influence is huge.
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And then they're having a team that surrounds that positive
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helps everybody. So you have to understand rules
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and you have to have rules, but you also have to be
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understanding and meeting kids where they're at.
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So example, I have to miss practice because of a hair
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appointment. Not probably going to fly with
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me, but I got to miss. I got to miss practice because
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my mom's sick. Totally different situation.
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You know, kids go through some things sometimes and I know that
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first hand experience. So just understanding that
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there's good excuses and bad excuses.
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There's rules in order that we have to follow and there's some
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rules we have to bend. I'm a big event, big person on
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stats. Numbers don't lie.
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And The funny thing is kids that laugh because I know exactly
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their P Rs. I know exactly what they're
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capable of. I know their competitions P Rs.
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When I go into a meet, I know everybody.
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And so in a cross country meet, I can be like, hey, we're going
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after this blue team because they're a team that we can, we
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can might be a little better than us, but I think we can beat
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them. And they'll go into the middle
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of the race and all of a sudden see that blue jersey and the
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next thing you know, it, what coach Graham said goes into
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their mind and they go after it. So also finding an event that
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suits everybody. Obviously cross country is a
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little different. But in track, for instance, we
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have a kid right now on our team that wasn't being a big
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contributor. He didn't, but he fell in love
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with triple jump. Was he the best triple jumper?
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No, he started the year this year as the first year jumped
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32, I think the first meet, which obviously is not real
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great for a guy and just this week jumped 39, six or something
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like that because it over the course of three or four weeks,
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he's gotten better and better and better because he loves it.
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He's that kid that'll now stay after practice after everybody
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else is gone and try to get one-on-one attention.
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How can I fix my landing? So this week I worked on it with
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landings and it fixed that portion for him.
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So great kid and willing to work and get better.
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And so finding that event that maybe works for certain kids has
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been a really good thing for me as a coach.
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I'm really good at putting people where they belong.
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So if you can find an event for somebody and this will also go
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into effect. The story I'm going to tell you
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here in a second, the manual making sure you know the rules,
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the track and field is huge. There are 20 million rules out
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there. If you know the rules, you will
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be surprised at how many people get to you.
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The Officials Association is kind of upset with me right now
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because I stopped my certification because I got sick
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of officiating so many meats and not being able to coach.
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And I'm like here to coach because I love the kids and I
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like to work with those kids. And when I was officiating all
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the time, I didn't get a chance to to make them better.
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And so I dropped my officials license this year.
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But I still get calls from officials, from coaches, if they
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have a question or a rule, they know that I'm going to know it
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because I know that book front to back.
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I used to do videos and stuff to kind of help some of the
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vertical jumps coaches understand what's a rule, what's
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not, because there's always those misconceptions out there,
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like I got to hurry off the high jump mat.
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You can afford the bar falls. No, it doesn't matter.
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Those kind of things. And the last part is believing
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in your kids, which is going to kind of lead me into this story
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I'm going to tell you about an athlete of mine that really has
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shaped my coaching philosophy. And a lot of it's going to be
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red just because it's been a red typed out thing.
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I'm going to read what I wrote about this kid and then his
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response to me. And I'll try not to get too
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emotional because it is a little touching for me.
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But it's pretty much sums up the reason I coach.
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And if you ever get this a kind of kid on your program, you'll
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understand why. So every once in a while you get
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the opportunity to coach one of those kids.
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That is just a great story. This is my experience with Alex.
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I was in my second year of coaching college and I basically
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been given the green light on recruiting.
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I was given a quota that I needed to bring in seven kids
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for cross country. I had Alex's sister on my team
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and she was a great athlete, great person, naturally gifted
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and was my best distance runner. So Alex would naturally try to
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fall in his sister's footprints. I truthfully didn't want to
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recruit him as his high school times were just average.
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This kid averaged about 20-30 in a 5K.
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It's if you know anything about cross country, is not real
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stellar for a high school boy. He was pretty adamant and
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staying in contact with me, stayed in close contact.
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But most importantly he was a great academic student.
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He had a 4.0 GPA out of high school.
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Great academic student, great kid.
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All his coaches said wonderful things about him.
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As time passes, I just couldn't seem to find that seventh guy.
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I got rejection letter after rejection letter and in
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hindsight I think fate might have something to do with it.
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I waited to the last possible moment to sign him as he seemed
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to have great character, but that 5K time just kept bothering
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me. As a college athlete, I learned
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quickly that this kid was an incredible hard worker.
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I kid you not. Probably the hardest working kid
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I have ever coached, not only in the classroom but in the track.
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He's incredibly well mannered, had great character.
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Track season begins and we have him run well.
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As you can imagine, he was getting laughed a lot in any 5.
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Ki put him at three, Ki put him at indoor.
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So we kind of started doing this thing where, hey, you're going
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to run the first mile of this race as fast as you can and once
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you get laughed, you walk off the track.
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It was not a lot of fun for him. He was struggling, but he did
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whatever I asked him to. I kept thinking, maybe this week
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he'll last another lap. Maybe this week he'll last
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another lap. We need to get him down into the
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mid nineteens, but obviously a 5K in the nineteens at the
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college level is not real great. And this kid comes into my
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office and he goes, coach, I'm willing to do anything.
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What do I, what, what can I do to help this team?
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And I said, look, I want to try something.
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I said, let's try a different event.
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How would you feel about race walking?
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And he's like, what's that? I said, I don't know a lot about
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it, but I know that it we have it in our national
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championships. Let me do some of this research
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and I will get back to you. But I want you to train for this
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for about a week and a half. And I want you to try to run
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under like a nine or walk under a 930 mile.
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He says, great. He trains for this week and a
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half. I reach out for some resources
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that somebody hooked me up with Vince Peters at the time, who
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was one of the head honchos at USATF.
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And he gave me some resources. I talked to Coach Hannah, who
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was a pretty much race walk powerhouse and a state South of
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us, talked and got some resources from her.
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I come back in this week and a half and I say, Alex, let's do
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this time trial after we walk 930.
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It's worth our time doing. He walks a 930 on the dot
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completely exhausted, tired as all get out.
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I've never seen a kid more exhausted, but he did it.
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Lays down on the track and says I did it coach and so we start
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training for race walk. I then get some more resources
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from somebody introduces me to Tim Seaman, multi time record
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holder here in the United States and race walk and then his wife
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Rachel. I become really good friends
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with them. We go to a couple camps with
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them to learn some more techniques stuff.
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I get some books and we start going for it.
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All right, this kid would be walking around town.
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Kids are making fun of him non-stop because he looks, the
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race walk looks a little goofy, right?
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He's training super, super hard. He goes out on some longer walks
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on his own around town and kids are literally throwing bottles
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at this kid and he does not care.
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He's like, coach, I am going to be successful at this.
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So we go a couple more weeks, he's going and we could finish
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indoor season. He doesn't make nationals indoor
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his first year doing it, but he goes coach.
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I'm just starting. He's like, I am going to make
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outdoor nationals. And I say wait a second, Alex,
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you know that outdoor is not a 3K like it was indoor.
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It's 5K and the time is actually faster for the 5K at the 3K
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mark. And so you're going to have to
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walk faster than you did indoor to make outdoor season with a
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longer distance. And he goes coach.
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I don't care. I'm going to make nationals and
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unfortunately on my regrettably I doubted him.
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Even if I didn't say it out loud.
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I'm like it's a much it's a monster feat to get much faster
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in a short amount of time at a longer distance.
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I didn't think it was possible but Alex proved me wrong.
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Last meet outdoor season comes and he looks me in the eye and
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goes this is the meet coach. I'm qualifying for nationals.
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I said, OK, next, so we go guess what?
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He qualifies for outdoor nationals, makes the barely the
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B standard gets into nationals ends up getting DQ to nationals
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for bent need next season comes they lower the standard for
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indoor and outdoor. I'm like great, this is going to
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be tough. Alex goes Nah, I'm going to I'm
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going to beat the standard. So Alex proves me wrong again,
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beats the standards and becomes an all American indoor Start to
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believe him. Now outdoor season comes and
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Alex does it again, breaks the standard and decides I'm going
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to race 20K go out for the Olympic standard, does the goes
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out and was ranked in the top. I think it was top ten that year
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1015 at the 20K. He ends up becoming one of the
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most decorated athletes of all time out of the college.
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Multi time, all conference, multi time, all conference,
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national qualifier, multi time, all academic, and one of the
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most celebrated athletes of all time at the college.
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All right, just an incredible story in this, on this note,
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it's a reminder to myself of how I can learn from athletes.
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All right, Alex reminded me that hard work pays off.
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He reminded me I surely don't know everything.
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And he proved to me that when I was a doubter, he made me a
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believer. He showed me that popularity
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isn't important no matter who makes fun of you, That if you
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really believe in something your dreams can come true.
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And he probably taught me more about myself than anything.
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He brought me friends in the race walk community that I never
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would have had, gave me a chance to officiate and coach at
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Olympic trials with another athlete I had.
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He's probably still to this day the hardest working kid I've
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ever coached and probably taught me more than anybody ever has.
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And that story just changed my coaching philosophy so much
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because I didn't believe that it was possible, and he made me a
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believer. And so my emphasis now is on
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kids getting better, not necessarily that stud athlete
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all the time. Yeah, I want the stud athlete to
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get better too. But I also wanted to respond,
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talk about his response to me when I gave him that message.
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Because the response, we learn a lot about how us as coaches
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affect kids. So he goes, thank you coach, but
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it's you I need to thank for my accomplishments and
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achievements. If you did not take a gamble on
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me, I would never have gotten as far as I did.
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You gave me the first steps towards something that gave me a
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momentum to continue to pursue for years to come.
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You inspired me to go further and reach my goals that I never
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thought were possible and going for goals that could reach for
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the stars. You helped to increase my
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discipline and taught me the meaning of hard work.
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I believe that if I had been your, if you had been my coach
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all four years, it would have went even further.
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I did not coach him his senior year.
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You gave me the opportunity to take athletics to the next
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level. Why?
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In high school, I hope to be a part of the team and college
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level. You made that possible.
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You gave me a shot when nobody else would even look at me, and
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I didn't take it for granted. Your mentorship and
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encouragement cost me to keep pushing more than just
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athletics. My work ethic has continued to
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grow because of you and even though I was at the bottom rung,
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you helped me achieve things that I never knew possible.
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With race walking becoming a new sport at the school, you trained
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me as the best as you knew how. While you yourself were learning
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more about race walking, you stepped out of your box and took
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a leap of faith in me and the other recruits that you
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recruited in the future. You took us to special race
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walking events when you had had to, and you took us to special
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races just to give us a chance to qualify.
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If it wasn't for your dedication, we would not have
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gone to races 7 or 8 hours away that you personally drove us to.
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That is because you did believe in us, even though you didn't
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tell us. That makes you a standout coach
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that goes an extra mile for your athletes and I will forever be
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grateful with that, for that, with that information, with that
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inspiration of mine. I still enjoy racing to this
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day. With that, thank you, my friend.
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So that's just a lot like that meant a lot to me personally
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because I never felt like I believed enough in him until
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after he was successful. And the fact that he recognized
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the effort, I guess is the key. If you put effort into your
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kids, they will show that effort back.
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And so believing in your kids is essential.
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I am now a very back to front approach in my coaching.
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I really feel I'm only as good as my last athlete.
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That last athlete is just important as that first athlete
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and you want to celebrate their successes.
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They often work harder than the first person because they are
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not as naturally gifted and they are really the heart of your
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team. My captain of my girls cross
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country team right now is a sophomore.
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She is a JV kid that probably will never run varsity.
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With that being said she is the best leader I have ever had.
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She has never missed a practice. She's the first one to practice,
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the last person to leave practice.
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She will be the one that will stay after and ask how what she
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can do to get better. She has improved 15 minutes in a
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5K since her freshman year first meet.
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She has improved 2 minutes in the mile from her first meet
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during track season. She runs all of our warmups.
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She runs any of the social media contacts I need.
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She is what my cross country team is literally all about.
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It's about who she can be, not who anyone else is.
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And she is an extremely person, important person on our team.
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She's a straight A student, she runs our study halls.
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She is literally everything I want an athlete.
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Probably one of the most amazing kids I've ever met.
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Like you do not look at her and say this is a cross country
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runner. She comes out, she works hard
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and then we celebrate her successes because she is going
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to purse the next girl in our lineup who is going to push the
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next girl on our lineup, who is going to push the next slot girl
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in our lineup. And that is what it's about.
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Each individual kid being better.
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All right, we want to celebrate everyone's success.
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So if she PRS at a race, we celebrate it, not usually right
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after a meet, but like the Monday after.
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For example, if we have meet on the weekend, on Monday, when we
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come to practice, we're going to make sure we acknowledge those
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kids. Not just the best kid that does
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APR, but also that kid that's in the back that PRS because that's
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what's going to make us better because they're going to push
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each other. I've also done some things like
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Beast of the week awards. I know I've done a shoe that we
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all sign every week that every day that you're Beast of the
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week. I did T-shirts one year I got
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like 12 of them and every week it was like, hey, you're the
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Beast of the week. This is your T-shirt for being
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Beast of the week. I have done a shell one time
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that we just signed the shell and they posed for pictures and
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then post them on social media that that person was beast of
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the week and it can be a person that really stood out in
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practice. It can be a person who had a
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huge PR at a meet. It could be a person that worked
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super hard that week or you know, it could be anything.
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It's a coach's ward really. I also stopped or started doing
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top ten list. Our board here at Zephyrhills
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now is doing it as well. I did it at Springstead where we
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have the top ten all time at our school.
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And so you might not be able to break that school record, but
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hey, I'm on a goal to be at the top ten all time at our school.
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And so that 10th place time. And so kids look at the board
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and like, hey, can I even hit that number 10?
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That's the thing we started doing and it's been really
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motivating for a lot of kids. Social media, obviously, if you
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can highlight anything on social media, that's kind of how I got
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to know Mike a little bit to be on Twitter or X as we call it
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now. Pasta parties and building that
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team culture there has become a big thing for my cross country
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kids. They love pasta parties.
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A family hosts us the night before a meet usually.
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We all meet together, play some games, hang out, chill.
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A lot of times they have a pool at their house too, which is
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always cool. Kids love swimming, but we keep
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it low key, hang out, have pasta parties, and it really builds a
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really good community because kids get really excited about
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those pasta parties. And the parents then become
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involved with our program and get to know the kids a lot more
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too. And it's really increased our
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parent and grandparent populations at our meet because
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they get to know the kids at our pasta parties.
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And then being able to get to know the community then allows
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them to come to our meets because they want to see these
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kids perform. Obviously nominations, awards,
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Pats on the back are big on your team culture.
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We talked about that kind of a little bit already.
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And then making practice is fun occasionally.
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Obviously we have to work hard on some days and I but I do some
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things we do with some pacemaking stuff or what we call
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beat the rabbit. I'm the kids like where I have a
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pace for you to go and if you hit the pace, it's not about how
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fast you go or how slow you go, but if you hit the pace I give
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you, you win and I'll give a Gatorade or something as a
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reward. Earlier in the season, sometimes
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on our easy run days, we'll do some ultimate frisbee, play
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ultimate frisbee and I'll have them keep track on the GPS is
25:28
how many miles they run during our ultimate Frisbee game.
25:30
So then we'll do an easy run after our ultimate game.
25:35
Obviously once we get closer to the end of the season, we kind
25:37
of get rid of those just because we want to be play it safer.
25:40
But I've done some scavenger hunts where they're running
25:43
around campus asking some different stuff for people.
25:47
Excuse me, they really enjoy that.
25:50
And then my personal favorite, Pandora's Box.
25:53
Sometimes I'll get 2 hard workouts and I'll be like, hey,
25:56
which one do I want to do? Well, I'll give them the
25:59
prescribed workout and then give them the option.
26:02
You can either do this workout or we can open Pandora's box.
26:06
And sometimes Pandora's box is a worse workout and sometimes it's
26:10
an easier workout. And so they all have to buy,
26:13
decide and vote whether to do. And the kids love it.
26:15
They think it's fun and then moving on, kind of talking about
26:23
some other things that I feel are important is professional
26:26
development. We, I know people push
26:31
professional development all the time.
26:33
There are a lot of things out there for you to use.
26:36
I personally have a USATFCCA coaching specialist certificate
26:43
and throws. I have a USATF Level 2 and
26:47
endurance. I have contemplated multiple
26:50
times getting multis because I love Maltese and that's kind of
26:54
one of my passions as Maltese, but I haven't got that one yet
26:59
but I might in the future. Other coaches are a huge
27:02
resource. I have gotten to the point now
27:05
where I know enough people in the area that coaches call me
27:08
all the time for advice. I call other coaches for advice.
27:12
My high school coach was smart enough to know himself.
27:16
I'm in my junior year of high school.
27:19
I was the only distance runner on the team and he said I don't
27:22
know anything about distance. Here is Will Freeman at Grinnell
27:26
College's contact information. You need to contact him so he
27:30
can help you with workouts and will help To me.
27:33
Most coaches, whether big or small, are willing to help and
27:37
they are willing to share information and they're huge
27:41
resources that you can follow websites you can check Google
27:48
search, AI search, anything now to help you out.
27:52
Symposiums I we have our USATFCCA convention.
27:57
Those things are wonderful, but even if I don't go from year to
28:02
year, I always check out the symposiums and information they
28:05
post online to go through the stuff that all the coaches are
28:08
talking about. We have YouTube.
28:09
A lot of the things I do with my throwers are from YouTube.
28:14
All the pillars and stuff I get from YouTube, I pause people's
28:18
videos and then compare it. So those are some good things.
28:21
And then obviously books, the lost art of books.
28:26
It is extremely important for you to pre plan, have a skeleton
28:31
plan, and realize that meats and practices are going to change.
28:35
You can't be too stringent with it because they're high school
28:39
kids or college kids. Injuries pop up, they're too
28:42
tired to do a certain workout. Things are going to change, but
28:46
you need a skeleton plan. Also, meat planning.
28:50
Know your team. If you are in a developing team,
28:52
don't go to a superstar meet all the time.
28:55
I see a lot in our area where these coaches will go to these
28:59
giant meats and their kids are developing and it's not giving
29:02
them a chance to be successful. If you're a developing team, go
29:06
to developing meats. If you are a superstar team,
29:10
don't just go to developing meats and so on.
29:13
Both are true. Find similarities.
29:18
I think this is extremely important track, especially
29:21
maybe it's my Maltese background talking to me.
29:24
But like you got to find similarities, find something
29:27
that everyone can do together. Yes, we have throws and we have
29:30
jumps and we have sprints and we have distance.
29:32
But can you all do the same warm up?
29:34
There's some similar things in warm up, yes.
29:37
Can you all do a similar cool down?
29:39
Maybe. But mobilities, almost all of
29:42
those people are can have some benefit from Maltese weights,
29:46
etcetera. There's some similarities there
29:48
you can do with your team. It will add to team commodity if
29:52
you can find something for everybody can do together.
29:57
I usually use a spreadsheet for my planning.
30:00
And then the other thing is distance wise, I have been
30:03
shocked at the number of kids that have come to my program
30:06
from other programs that they're distance program.
30:09
They I give them a pace and they're like I've never been
30:12
given a pace before. I have an example.
30:15
I had a kid join my team a couple years ago, was running
30:18
about 25 minutes in his 5K. He comes to practice, he's the
30:22
first one done with warmups. All my other kids are running
30:25
sixteens and seventeens and he's running 25 and he is done with a
30:29
warm up almost 5 minutes before everybody else.
30:32
He sprinted the entire warm up and I said, what are you doing?
30:37
Like those are guys are all way faster than you and he said what
30:40
are you talking about? I all I ever know is my coaches
30:43
at my other school said run this distance as fast as you can and
30:47
that was practice every day. That is not a somebody that is
30:52
invested in their kid. We have to get to the point
30:56
where we are like, hey, I need you to run this distance at this
30:59
pace or are based on this feel because obviously tempos are a
31:04
little tricky. Most of my training is centered
31:07
around three guys, That is Jay Johnson, Scott Christensen, and
31:14
Jack Daniels. Those are my three big ones.
31:16
I kind of morph things that they all talk about into.
31:19
A lot of my talk about revving engines and stuff comes from
31:23
Jay. A lot of my Sprint work comes
31:25
from Christensen. A lot more of my endurance stuff
31:29
comes from Daniels. So I use all three.
31:31
I use a lot of VDO 2 calculations and we base a lot
31:36
of our things on pieces so but he is a that kid by the way is
31:42
improved leaps and bounds and was a state qualifier by the
31:45
time in three years so and ran 16 and some change I think from
31:51
almost 1615 I believe so went from 25 minutes to 1615 because
31:58
he had some structure. So don't be afraid to look into
32:02
things, ask for help. I know some of us financially
32:07
are better off than others, but for me personally, I spent a ton
32:11
of money in pole vault. So what I have done the past 20
32:14
years, this will be the first year I have collected a paycheck
32:17
for coaching. This year in cross country I
32:21
actually kept the paycheck for myself.
32:25
The past 20 years, pretty much every time I got a paycheck, I
32:28
bought a pole vault pole. I got lucky MF athletics.
32:33
I was stopped selling Altius and put everything half price and I
32:37
bought them out of stock basically and bought every pole
32:42
I possibly could. So I own it.
32:43
My entire pole vault club own everything and but my kids know
32:50
that I that I did that and them knowing it has made a dramatic
32:55
effect because they know I'm invested in them because I spent
32:58
that much money. So it like I understand if you
33:04
collect a paycheck, don't get me wrong, you'd more than deserve
33:07
it because you deserve it. We don't get paid much anyway,
33:12
so I understand. But the fact of the matter is my
33:15
kids know I care because I made that investment.
33:18
And I think it's important that your kids know you care by
33:21
investing your time. Just like Alex and my story, he
33:25
invested time, I invested travel and so they know I was invested
33:30
and them so they performed for me and for them.
33:33
So those important thing is that they know you're invested in one
33:37
way or another, whether it's financially, time, those kind of
33:40
things. That kind of brings up
33:42
relationships and the importance of relationships.
33:45
It is important you build relationships with other
33:47
coaches, not just for knowledge, but for meet scheduling and
33:51
those kind of things. College coaches, you know, I
33:55
just, I had a kid jump 14 foot in pole vault last year, which
34:01
is good, but not like crazy. But I had a Community College
34:05
coach I knew from a long time ago.
34:08
I, I called him up and I said, hey, I have this kid that's kind
34:11
of a decaf slash pole vault kid. Would you be interested?
34:15
And he's like, sure, he's doing decks at that school now.
34:19
But if I didn't have that coach relationship with him, I would
34:23
have never been able to get him on a team.
34:25
So it is important that you know some college coaches, get to
34:28
know them. It's going to help with getting
34:32
your kids recruited, administration.
34:34
Obviously you have to have a good relationship with them.
34:37
Your student athletes, you have to have a relationship with
34:40
them. The families, then your program
34:42
and for people for professional development purposes, the
34:46
relationships are everything. You have to show you care about
34:51
the kid. You have to show their health is
34:52
most important, their family is important, their faith is
34:57
important, their academics are important and then athletics are
35:01
important. So it's pretty far down the
35:03
line. All right.
35:05
I am big on the athlete first, coach second.
35:08
You got to be a little selfless. I talked about my money paying
35:12
forward forever. You have to be a little bit
35:15
selfless. It's not about you, it's about
35:17
them. Don't claim to know everything.
35:20
Another thing that Alex has really taught me is I am the
35:24
small man on the podium. The more if I believe that I
35:28
know everything, I am not going to get better.
35:31
I need to get better and that's always a goal through education
35:37
and determining what's best for that kid.
35:39
So you got to be willing to learn and learn more.
35:42
So here's my last couple pointers here.
35:45
Recruit everyone, especially if you're a high school coach, get
35:48
them out because that last person helps the second to last
35:51
person and so on and so forth. They are going to gain
35:54
confidence. They're going to learn more
35:56
about themselves and you're going to learn more about
35:58
yourself. They're going to get good work
36:00
habits. There's a lot more than track
36:03
and field and cross country here that they can put into their
36:06
life. And I've had kids that have
36:10
thanked me that have I have two kids that I used to coach their
36:14
Green Berets in the military. And they told me that literally
36:17
their cross country experience is what made them want to be
36:21
Green Berets and what morphed their their minds into being
36:26
able to be that. I have another kid that was a
36:28
pole vaulter that's in the Space Force right now.
36:30
Same thing. He's like, you have investing in
36:33
me is what made me to be who I am today.
36:37
And so that is so rewarding to me as a coach.
36:41
It's the best thing in the world to know that I have kids out
36:45
there that respect me that much and then infected my life so
36:50
much as well. It's it's a calling really and
36:54
it's it's a blessing. Be willing to learn and anything
37:00
and everything. I talked about the race walking
37:03
thing. Never in a million years did I
37:04
think I'd be a race walking coach.
37:06
Build relationships with everybody.
37:09
The more people, the better. You have to be firm with rules,
37:12
but you still got to follow rules and you got to be a little
37:15
lenient in between. Be a good example.
37:18
Be realistic. Evaluate talent meets
37:21
appropriately. Humor is nice.
37:23
I'm the king of corny dad jokes. The kids love it.
37:26
They think it's hilarious. They have T-shirts running
37:29
around with things. I have said that I one year I
37:34
had a bunch of kids show up to a meet with abs of steel shirts on
37:38
and they all thought it was hilarious with a picture of me
37:41
on them from middle school because I mentioned ABS of steel
37:44
one time and when we were doing ABS and they all thought it was
37:47
hilarious. So some humor is always nice.
37:51
Give goals, individual team and know your competition.
37:55
Once again I am coach Graham. You can find me.
37:59
The easiest way to find me is probably on X or Twitter or
38:02
whatever it's this Graham coach is usually my thing.
38:07
Thanks for listening to me and hopefully you guys have a great
38:12
day. Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here.
38:16
Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Guild 1918
38:19
Project series. It's really my mission, my
38:22
passion to bring you massive amounts of value and I hope this
38:26
one hit the mark. The Gilt 1918 Project is really
38:31
dependent on you if for you to build your own episode, to hear
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your voice, to have your voice heard you have something to say
38:38
and teach other coaches out there.
38:40
So please get a hold of me, E-mail, text message, Twitter,
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smoke signals, get a hold of me and let's help create your
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38:50
Hope you enjoy the day, they will see you tomorrow.