Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #297: Mechelle Freeman-2024 Olympic Head Women's Relay Coach

Transcript

#297: Mechelle Freeman-2024 Olympic Head Women's Relay Coach · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world UNL tuned
• 0:12
  in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message for Gil Athletics Connections.
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  All right, you've hit play. So much for hitting play today
• 0:24
  right here on the Gill Connections podcast.
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  I'm your host, Mike Cunningham, National Business Development
• 0:29
  manager for track and field, but really the host of this podcast.
• 0:32
  That's really what I do around here, as well as messing around
• 0:35
  on Twitter every once in a while, you know, basically every
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  day. I'm super pumped.
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  I have been talking with today's guest for a while to get this
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  scheduled. You know, we're coming off the
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  Sprint 2 series and all that stuff on Netflix earlier this
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  year. You heard us have Tandra Buford
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  Bailey on the podcast. We got to learn about that and
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  kind of talk about it. So I'm really pumped to not only
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  talk about those kind of topics, but really to get to know the
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  story of today's guest and how she got to where she is today.
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  So help me welcome. She's got a lot of titles, so
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  we're just going to go with like 2 that I know we're going to
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  talk about. She's the head women's relays
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  coach for USATF. That's got its own connotations,
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  right? She also I really want to dig
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  into this track girls thing she started and what it does for our
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  sport and for young ladies that are in our sport and around our
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  sport. Help me welcome the wise, the
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  wonderful Mr. Mr. Oh my gosh, wow, this is going to be a long,
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  long day. The wise, the wonderful Michelle
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  Freeman. Michelle, how are you?
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  I'm doing well, thank you. Even after me saying Mr. I'm
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  sorry, that might be the biggest flub I've done on 300 episodes.
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  Holy. That's OK, It's all right.
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  I know Mrs. Yeah, that's kind of where Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  I was really focused on the Michelle part, right?
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  And not Michelle and that I just.
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  I just loved it. You know, I can give all excuses
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  in the world. We're recording a day or two
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  before Christmas and we just came back from USTFCCA.
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  I'm hopefully getting over this cold walking whatever the heck
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  this thing is. So you.
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  Get grace. You get grace.
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  That we need more of that, by the way, in this world.
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  So thank you thank you so much for saying that.
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  Hey, the first question I wanted to ask you, I I thought about
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  this immediately when we agreed they have you on the show and
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  everything. Has anybody called you Michelle
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  Free layman yet? What?
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  No. And I've been mistaken for
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  Michelle Freeman, the the wonderful Jamaican Olympic
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  athlete. Yeah, but no one's taken Relay
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  and Freeman and put free Layman into it.
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  No one. Never.
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  I'm trademarking that right now for anybody who hears that,
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  because that's a genius idea, right?
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  Free layman? Come on.
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  I'm not sure that's low hanging fruit that no one's given yet.
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  OK, there you go. Exactly, Exactly.
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  It's a it's a bumper sticker if people still do that.
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  And it's definitely. Now somebody has called me to
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  stick chick. Yeah, I, I am a, a narrow woman.
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  I, I, you know, in charge of the relays.
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  So it is my Bluetooth name on my phone, but is.
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  It really stick chick. Yeah, that was a joke, but I
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  actually just went along with it for a little bit.
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  I love. It yeah, there's a lot of, you
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  know, you can go good ways and bad ways with all that.
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  I'm just going to stick with free layman just to be safe here
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  and move on from there. Michelle.
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  So a lot of topics to discuss with you.
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  You've got a lot of experience with a lot of really cool parts
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  of our sport and definitely want to dig into that.
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  But here what we start with is we want to learn more about you.
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  How in the world did you get into this great sport?
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  How did you get into coaching? Really focusing on maybe mentors
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  along the way that have helped you out.
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  So why don't we hop in our Wayback Machine here and let's
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  just start with, first and foremost, how does Michelle
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  Freeman get into track and field?
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  Where does that even start for you?
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  Oh man, that starts in Oxon Hill, MD racing the boys in the
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  in the neighborhood streets. My sister and I, we were always
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  known as the fast twins and, and they always wanted to race us.
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  And I can go back as far as I can remember to just racing in
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  the streets and beating the boys and winning since then.
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  And that was my introduction into wanting to race.
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  Then I will say my first official introduction to track
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  and field was and not until high school.
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  My sister and I, of course, went through elementary school and
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  middle school still winning races, you know, PE Miles and
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  Presidents test and things like that.
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  But we weren't officially introduced to the sport of track
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  and field until high school. Did you say you're a twin?
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  Yes, there's two of me. I love that that makes me
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  automatically think, did you guys ever play tricks like, you
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  know, run around the building and then your twin hops on you
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  guys like they're able to do that's how you did the mile.
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  One of you did half a mile, the other one did the other and.
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  I mean, that's how we will have to do the mouth today.
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  But. No, yeah, we've, we've, you
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  know, exchanged roles and, you know, playing around with she
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  being me and and me being her. But yes, it's my, I'm the
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  youngest, my sister from Keisha, and we both married Freeman.
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  So we were the Lewis twins, and now we're the Freeman twins.
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  Yeah, I was going to kind of hop forward a little bit.
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  You recently were on a Good friend of mine, Good Friend of
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  Gil podcast, the ready set go podcast hosted by the bearded
• 5:16
  wonder. That's how he'll forever be
• 5:18
  known now, by the way, And good friend of mine known him
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  forever, Justin Gatlin. You guys, I thought it was a
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  they do a great job. They've certainly evolved and
• 5:27
  are doing a really, really great job with their interviews.
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  But I highly recommend if if you like this podcast, even if you
• 5:33
  don't like this podcast, you'll like that podcast.
• 5:35
  Go check out same app you're using right now.
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  Ready set go. But check out Michelle's episode
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  there. They really, you guys just had
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  it seemed like there's a lot of good chemistry and it was a lot
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  of fun because there's a lot of laughing and little inside jokes
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  and stuff. And I just really appreciated
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  listening to that. But one of the things that I
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  picked up from that was that you and your sister both married
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  different people with both of the last names of Freeman.
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  That's crazy. I know it's bizarre but I mean I
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  came in with a Lewis twin, now I got a Freeman twin, so same name
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  still from beginning of birth to death.
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  And, and those guys, they're, they're not twins, right?
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  These are totally separate people.
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  Totally separate people. Who who got married or started
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  dating a freeman first, you or your sister?
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  She she did. When when they started dating
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  and I don't know if they were married by the time you started
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  dating your Freeman, but you know, they had to be at least
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  somewhat like you knew him and did you when you met your
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  Freeman go. I don't know if I could do this.
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  That's just we like, or was it like, you know what?
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  This sounds right for twins. You know what?
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  We didn't even put two and two together, you know, until one
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  day I was like, wait a minute. But you know, even when I first
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  started dating my husband David, we I never thought about us
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  being Freeman's twins. Right.
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  Yeah, but it happened. I tell you, that's the kind of
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  thing go buy a lottery ticket or something.
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  I mean the the odds of that have to be pretty, pretty low.
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  I know, here we are. Well, you grew up in the east
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  side of the United States and the Maryland area.
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  What a great. I'm not sure it gets its due for
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  track and field. There's some amazing athletes
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  and track athletes that come out of that area.
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  As you got introduced to it as in high school, other sports or
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  did you stick to like, Oh yeah, this is my love, I'm going all
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  in over here. Yeah, I mean, we started out
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  with basketball as our first sport.
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  We didn't start doing organized sports till we were about 13.
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  We did Girl Scouts, theater, Just Dance, you know, just
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  different activities growing up. But sports really, you know,
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  just stuck with us once we got going.
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  But basketball was our first sport I actually started
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  playing. That's why Bullets and Masai and
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  Quincy and that whole Bullets, that's where I actually started
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  playing sports. Was that Bullets?
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  We used to go to our AAU games there all the time.
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  But but then soccer, you know, the basketball coach made the
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  basketball team become the soccer team so we can what he
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  called stay in shape. And I was the most running I
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  have ever done and continuous running.
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  But, you know, still, the speed there separated us and people,
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  you know, just wanted to make sure that by the time we got to
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  high school, we had to start running track so they could
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  recognize how fast we were in our other sports.
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  I love that you mentioned Bullis School head coach Joe Lee has
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  been on the show. I think he's got the record.
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  I think he's on three or four times sitting down talking about
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  his journey and then we talked about the Olympic trials and how
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  that worked out. And then we had him come back
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  after the Olympics and just share the whole experience.
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  So shout out to Joe Lee, love him to death and and what he's
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  doing guiding this young man and other.
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  You know, I know Quincy gets the headlines, but there's some
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  other people bullets that are really fast and he's doing a a
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  great job there. So what was it like as a high
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  school athlete? And what I, and what I mean by
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  that is, you know, today, you know, old people like me and
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  you, I'm more older than you are here, Michelle.
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  But we like to complain that young people today don't know
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  the, you know, the fast ones of the past of the, you know, they
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  don't know who the Carl Lewis's were and all these other things.
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  But when you were in high school, did you know, like did
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  you kind of have a, and you're a little bit younger than me, but
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  we're in that same kind of age bracket.
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  The internet's not what it is, what it was back then, what it
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  is today. Like we didn't really have that.
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  We had track and field news and that was basically it back when,
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  at least in my age and stage. But did you know, like who the
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  other fast people in the state or the region were or were you
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  just man, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to be the
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  fastest. I'm not even the fastest in my
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  family. Maybe I'm just trying to be the
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  fastest there. Yeah, you know, Yeah.
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  It's so 'cause and you're so much in your bubble, but my
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  sister and I didn't realize how talented we were.
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  But once you start getting exposed to the meats and you're
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  still winning, then you start to realize, you know, how how how
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  talented you really are. So it was a blessing for us to
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  continue to be successful as our competition increased, as we
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  started going to, you know, national high school, the indoor
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  and outdoor championships and and making a podium and then
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  going to USATF. You know, we say summer track
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  needs and winning the four by fours, winning, you know,
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  winning the relays. And my sister was the 400 meter
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  national champion for USATF, you know, some summer.
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  So we just started to realize how talented we were the more we
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  were exposed to national level competitions.
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  And and then also the people who we competed with, the Suzanne
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  Reeds, you know, that was during my time coming from the Maryland
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  area, seeing them go on and, and then competing at a high level
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  and being successful. We were competing against them
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  every day and not realizing, you know, as a group how talented we
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  were. So yeah, Maryland, we came away
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  with some great people. Well, you know, James Carter,
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  Bernard Williams, Joel Brown, we were all coming up at the same
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  time in that Maryland area, Baltimore Armory, you know,
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  setting records with our waffles on rubberized 200 meter indoor
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  tight tracks, you know, and just is making it happen.
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  You know, great point and you know, this is going to be my,
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  the old man here statement of tracks are different today,
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  especially indoors. I, I know services and all that
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  stuff are outdoors, but when you mention a tight flat track,
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  well, that was if there was a track, that was it.
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  There was no paint and hydraulics and all that stuff,
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  man. No, just flat tight rubberized
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  track and you had to run in your waffles.
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  That's right. I love it.
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  I love it. What, did you have the same
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  track coach during this whole time?
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  And then what was your relationship with him or her?
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  We had. That's another important, you
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  know, separator is the coaching. We were blessed to have a coach
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  that was really committed to our development.
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  But again, at the time you don't really understand that.
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  But now as a coach looking back, you can see it.
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  And he really knew what he was doing as far as taking talent
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  like my sister and I and making sure that we did develop and
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  reach out full potential. And so that was great.
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  We had a great community of coaches.
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  We have one of our assistant coaches, Coach Mary Brown, she
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  started an all girls track club, you know, so I was around strong
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  women leaders, you know, from high school age.
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  So it was not foreign to me to to expect to have women in
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  leadership roles. And I was guided by just really
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  committed mentors from a young age, you know, people who are
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  committed to the communities, you know, helping youth succeed.
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  So that's been instilled in me just because I received that.
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  And now, you know, on the opposite end of it, now being a
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  leader in the community, I just want to make sure that I'm
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  pouring in the same way that I was able to receive when I was a
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  young girl. I, I love hearing that you know,
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  you're, you're not of an agent stage.
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  We've had some older women coaches on here who expressed
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  the opposite, meaning they never saw another woman coach.
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  There was always coached by male.
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  So they, they, it was almost air quotes here.
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  Maybe it was harder for them to see that they could coach
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  because it wasn't in front of them.
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  It was always typically a white male that was in front of them.
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  So for you to see that at a young age, we're going to talk
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  about this here in a little while, but that kind of makes
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  sense that there's a track girls theme going on with what you do.
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  Kind of like you're maybe bridging that gap and continuing
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  that legacy of other women that were in front of you leading and
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  showing you what was possible. For sure, 100%.
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  I mean, I, I'm Prince George's County, you know, we, we, being
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  a, a black girl is a normal thing, I hope, because, you
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  know, it's the, the most populated black community in, in
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  the US is one, one of the most strongest of, of just successful
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  black communities in the country.
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  So for us to have black leaders was a normal thing for us, which
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  I'm really grateful for because that's the expectation for me is
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  to see black women and, and, and just black leadership from a
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  young age. So yes, that's that.
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  I'm, I'm blessed to say that that is what I was raised around
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  and that was set up as a standard for me to see black
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  leadership from from a young age.
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  I love that you had that and had those opportunities and I love
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  and we're going to learn more about this again here in a
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  little while that you're making sure that other young girls are
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  able to see that as well and not have this dearth of of what's
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  possible out there for them. So I love that.
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  I love that women coaches. I love that.
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  I just agree, agree, agree. So when you OK, I'm always
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  curious about this. I don't necessarily want to talk
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  about your sister a lot and sibling rivalries and all this
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  stuff, but, well, we all have rivalries, whether it's another
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  school, whether it's someone on your team.
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  But you also mentioned that your sister was pretty good at track
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  as well. Was there ever like, like, were
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  you always trying to beat her and vice versa, or was it more?
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  Yeah. I can't imagine what it's like
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  being a twin, to be honest with you.
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  I had no, no siblings, so I don't even know what that's
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  like. But what?
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  What was it like growing up with someone who assumably looks just
• 15:32
  like you? Are you fraternal?
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  Is that what it? Is yeah, we're fraternal.
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  Yeah, we're fraternal. But when we're side by side, you
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  know, people always ask it's are we twins?
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  You know, yeah, Same stature. We look enough alike that people
• 15:45
  know that we're definitely sisters.
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  But half the half that same population acts as we're twins.
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  But you know, what's great about having Makisha was that I always
• 15:57
  had a friend. I always had somebody I could
• 16:00
  depend on, somebody I could trust, somebody that was this
• 16:06
  there for me and had my back. And I'm truly grateful for that,
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  Going into new environments and always having something
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  familiar. But you know, when it came to
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  competition, what was great about us is that we separated
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  ourselves as that. I was just the full explosive
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  100 meter sprinter. The 200 meters was long for me,
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  but I still got it done. And Keisha was the 400 meter
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  specialist. So we never directly competed
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  against each other. We always separated from the
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  very beginning. I handled the short sprints, she
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  handled the long sprints. And you'd meet up at the relays,
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  which seems appropriate like. The relays 4 by 1 and I have
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  always run the 4x4. I have always run the four by
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  four no matter what. I have run a 4 by 4 since the
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  first year I've started track and field.
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  I love that. That's so cool.
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  Well, shout out to your sister because again, I you know, I
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  don't have any brothers sisters. I can't imagine what it like
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  having a twin, but what you said there kind of warned my heart
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  when you're like, you know what, I always had a friend.
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  If we were in a situation where we were the strangers, no one
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  knew who we were. Well, we knew each other and and
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  I assume you know, I watch a lot of movies and stuff, so you
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  twins could talk to each other in your mind or so I don't know
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  that's. Our secret language.
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  Yeah, right. Exactly.
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  That's right. That's right.
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  OK. So senior year, you're doing
• 17:25
  really well. You guys are, you know, I love
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  the idea of that. As the competition got better,
• 17:30
  well, we kept doing our thing too.
• 17:33
  What did you, what were you looking for in a college?
• 17:36
  Where did you end up going and what were you thinking
• 17:39
  academically? Meaning like, you know, I don't
• 17:41
  know that we necessarily thought we were all going to be in track
• 17:43
  in some point in time, but maybe you want to be a doctor or a
• 17:45
  business owner. What were you thinking at that
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  time as a 1718 year old? Yeah, well, I mean, no, I I
• 17:54
  don't want to, you know, toot my own horn.
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  But you know, I've always been smart.
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  I someone said that I was astute when I was a young girl and at
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  first, you know, when they said that, I really didn't get it.
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  But you know, I understand what they mean by that.
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  Just because I've always been, you know, someone to pay
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  attention and observe, you know, my environment, observe the
• 18:16
  situation. I'm very much a problem solver,
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  always thinking ahead, seeing what's in front of me and being
• 18:23
  proactive of what needs to be done.
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  I was a straight A student since elementary school through middle
• 18:29
  school. I graduated with honors in high
• 18:32
  school. And so I've always been
• 18:35
  balanced. You know, my mom always taught
• 18:37
  me the importance of that being in control of your life
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  pathways. You know, just because you are
• 18:43
  talented track athlete, that's not all that you can offer the
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  world. So I've always been also a
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  social human being. So I, I like my, the trade of
• 18:56
  communications and marketing and has always been interesting,
• 19:02
  interesting to me. I used to watch the movies Big
• 19:05
  and Boomerang and when I saw them making like, you know,
• 19:08
  commercials and TV's and I'm like, oh, I want to do that, you
• 19:12
  know. So going into college, I always
• 19:15
  knew since my freshman year that I was going to major in mass
• 19:19
  Communications, which I did South Carolina, you know, ended
• 19:23
  up being such a blessing for, for my sister and I.
• 19:27
  We were getting recruited, you know, to UNLV, Yukon, Hampton,
• 19:36
  Rutgers, a lot of a lot of East Coast schools.
• 19:40
  But as far as the South, South Carolina was the only like SEC
• 19:47
  school that was recruiting us outside of Vanderbilt, actually.
• 19:55
  But but South Carolina, you know, was interesting because
• 19:59
  once we went on our visit, it was something you just can't
• 20:02
  describe. You just know And we had such a
• 20:06
  great. Visit, just meeting the, the
• 20:09
  coaches, the the facilities, the, the, the, the teammates.
• 20:14
  We had so much fun, but not only that, it was the recruiting
• 20:17
  class that we were going to be surrounded with some great
• 20:21
  amount of talent. I mean, you had the Barber
• 20:23
  twins, Demetria Washington. And yeah, we, we, we had some
• 20:29
  great people, but some other athletes that were coming in
• 20:33
  from the South that we had done research on.
• 20:35
  But we were most impressed with just being able to just iron
• 20:39
  sharpens iron, you know, being around the best athletes every
• 20:42
  single day. And, and we really trusted Coach
• 20:44
  Frye when he was talking about building, you know, building a
• 20:48
  team. That was his first recruiting
• 20:50
  class at the University of South Carolina and so we got excited
• 20:54
  about that and we can get 2 full scholarships for the two of us
• 20:58
  together. So I mean we went for it.
• 21:02
  It was our first visit and we never went on any other visit
• 21:06
  and and signed in that November after our visit.
• 21:10
  Wow, well I'm definitely going to dig into Curtis Fry, one of
• 21:13
  the all time legends. What a great human being.
• 21:16
  Besides also being an amazing coach.
• 21:19
  But before that, it's interesting something you said
• 21:21
  there about that you guys were interested in iron sharpens
• 21:26
  iron. And I'm curious, people that
• 21:29
  were very successful you talk about academically,
• 21:32
  athletically. You know, my words here sound
• 21:35
  like you're a little bit of a socialite like you, you maybe
• 21:37
  got along with a lot of different groups and things like
• 21:40
  that. You know, some people can't
• 21:45
  handle not being the big man on campus, right?
• 21:49
  In fact, there was a study and I, I wish I could actually
• 21:51
  remember more of the study, but they talked about the mental
• 21:55
  health of people that go to like a Harvard or Cornet.
• 21:58
  You know, these big academic school, these are all the top of
• 22:00
  the top, right? These are all valedictorians and
• 22:03
  things like that. And then they go to a, a school
• 22:05
  where everybody is the top of the top and they can't handle
• 22:09
  that because they're no longer, these are probably my words, not
• 22:12
  the study words, but they're no longer special.
• 22:13
  They're not they're everybody is friggin smart there.
• 22:16
  You seemed to want to lean into that like, oh, I want other
• 22:20
  people that maybe are as good or maybe even better in a group of
• 22:23
  them. So that iron sharpens iron.
• 22:25
  That's the definition of like, oh, we can all get better.
• 22:28
  Or if we don't all, maybe I will because there'd be other people
• 22:30
  better than me. But what, where does that come
• 22:33
  from? That's not necessarily, I don't
• 22:34
  know. You're born with that.
• 22:35
  That maybe is more modeled to you or taught to you.
• 22:38
  Where? Where might that come from?
• 22:41
  Well, I mean, again, just having a twin sister, I'm always used
• 22:45
  to, you know, just being with someone and, and challenging
• 22:49
  each other competing, you know, wanting, wanting to see some
• 22:55
  used to wanting to cheer for someone, wanting to see someone
• 22:58
  else to succeed. And and from coming from Oxen
• 23:03
  Hill, our high school team, we it wasn't just, you know, myself
• 23:07
  or my sister, but you know, our jumpers were good, our long
• 23:12
  distance, you know, we had some good things there at HEPS, you
• 23:14
  know, multi athletes. So whenever I'm like a crew,
• 23:18
  like I love having a dope crew. You know, when you walk in a
• 23:21
  room, they're going to track girls, You know, it's everyone.
• 23:24
  It's like the Justice League. You have somebody who can do
• 23:27
  this and somebody who can, you know, read mine, somebody who
• 23:31
  could fly, somebody could teleport, you know, and but when
• 23:34
  you come together, you know, that's where the power is.
• 23:37
  So that's just something I was used to, something I, you know,
• 23:39
  I came from and I just wanted to continue to take that to the
• 23:43
  next level. And I know when I looked around
• 23:45
  that, hey, I'm going to get better, you know, with, with
• 23:48
  great people, you know, you want to learn from great people, you
• 23:52
  want to be surrounded by great people.
• 23:54
  You always want to have a value exchange with your with your
• 23:56
  small bubble. I love that.
• 23:58
  That makes me, you know, I have to ask, so who?
• 24:00
  Who would you be if you were a superhero?
• 24:02
  You mentioned you. You kind of seem like, you know,
• 24:04
  some superhero stuff here. So who?
• 24:06
  Who would you be? Oh my gosh, if, if we, my
• 24:09
  husband, we, we talk about like, if you have superpowers, what
• 24:12
  would you do? But I mean, I don't know.
• 24:15
  I, I, I just, I don't know. I, I, maybe I always talk about
• 24:21
  like we always say, would you rather or not?
• 24:23
  But I always ended up just being like that person that could fly
• 24:28
  and be somewhere quick. I'm always want to do something
• 24:31
  quick. You know, I don't have a lot of
• 24:33
  patience, but I'm fast on the track.
• 24:36
  But I need to get somewhere, achieve something quick, do some
• 24:39
  things. So whatever I could do to be
• 24:40
  fast and like make it a impact quick.
• 24:43
  Somebody needs help, I can get there quick.
• 24:45
  I. Love that we didn't have a we
• 24:47
  had Flash and who was the other super speedy guy, but they're
• 24:51
  always I don't know that we ever had a woman that was like a
• 24:53
  comic book character that was like Flash.
• 24:55
  I don't. I can't remember that often.
• 24:57
  That's why I can't. That's why I said I just need to
• 25:00
  be able to fly and get somewhere quick.
• 25:02
  I know Wonder Woman and Captain, I mean Captain Marvel, Captain
• 25:08
  Marvel, you know, you could do some things quickly and get
• 25:10
  places. So, you know, things like that.
• 25:13
  I love it. I love it.
• 25:14
  Sorry you didn't. You know what?
• 25:15
  Justin didn't ask you that question.
• 25:16
  I'm just going to say that, Justin, you know, these are what
• 25:20
  the professionals do. We ask these crazy questions.
• 25:23
  OK, so I do tell us more. You know, I Revere Curtis Frye
• 25:29
  for several reasons. One, I love his longevity in our
• 25:32
  profession. He was a coach for many, many
• 25:35
  years. I love his success.
• 25:37
  He always had. You know, I was at Mississippi
• 25:39
  State for a couple years and I told you before we hit record,
• 25:42
  you know, I didn't like South Carolina because you guys
• 25:44
  whipped our butts all the time. So I wasn't a big fan of those
• 25:47
  Gamecocks over there in Columbia, but tell me, what was
• 25:49
  it like to to work on a daily basis with not only a great
• 25:54
  coach, you can't take that away from him, Hall of Fame, but
• 25:56
  really like, what a human being. I just love Curtis Fry the
• 26:01
  person, even more so than Coach Fry.
• 26:03
  What was it like to be able to work for years under him?
• 26:07
  Oh man, Coach Fry. I mean, I still call Coach Fry
• 26:13
  until this day. He's a, a mentor of mine,
• 26:17
  someone who took the 18 year old version of who I am and allow me
• 26:23
  to evolve into the woman I am today.
• 26:26
  Just just helping me through those those those critical years
• 26:30
  of transition from being, you know, a high school girl to
• 26:37
  becoming a young woman. So just those critical years of
• 26:41
  development into adulthood, he was there.
• 26:45
  He, he took this rough around the edge, you know, coming from
• 26:50
  Prince George's County, ready to fight at any, you know,
• 26:54
  opportunity just to like, stand for whatever I believed in.
• 26:59
  And just helped me to understand how to, you know, hone that in,
• 27:02
  how to control that and use it as a part of my power as a
• 27:09
  woman. And then, you know, just making
• 27:12
  sure he kept us. We trained.
• 27:15
  I mean, he taught us just how to train.
• 27:17
  We were in the best shape of our lives, you know, at that time.
• 27:20
  We showed up to practice and one thing that we work on every day
• 27:24
  was competing. So by the time we got to attract
• 27:27
  me, we competed every day at practice.
• 27:30
  Not only did we have, you know, some of the best collegiate
• 27:33
  women, but I was there at the time he was training.
• 27:36
  Melissa Morrison Howard and, you know, Calvin Smith and Alan
• 27:42
  Johnson and his whole pro group, you know, and Jeanette Kirkland.
• 27:47
  So we had everyone just, you know, in Monique Hennigan and we
• 27:52
  had everyone just in our every single day.
• 27:55
  Like, so you can just imagine that the expectations of
• 27:57
  performance was just a regular thing for us.
• 28:00
  Like, you know, us being the best every day was I just saw it
• 28:04
  every single day. You know what it took to the the
• 28:07
  Olympic people who win the Olympic gold medals where I was
• 28:10
  training with them, seeing them train every single day.
• 28:12
  Terence, you know, Terence Trammells, it was, it was a
• 28:16
  everyday thing for us. So I just think the best thing I
• 28:18
  got out of being under Coach Fry's tutelage was just again,
• 28:22
  learning how to show up every single day, surrounding yourself
• 28:25
  with the best people and normalizing the expectation of
• 28:28
  high performance. It's, it's hard to be, it feels
• 28:33
  like it would be hard. You know, I don't want to say
• 28:35
  like I was involved in any of these type of activities.
• 28:38
  You guys are amazing. Seems like it'd be hard to be
• 28:41
  complacent. You feel like you're just going
• 28:44
  to show up and just go through the motions one day and you get
• 28:46
  your tail. Right.
• 28:49
  And you know, every no one was coming there and taking any
• 28:52
  prisoners like every single day. You wanted to be the best.
• 28:55
  You wanted to make sure that you showed them why you were there.
• 28:59
  You have something to prove. You know, you were a part of
• 29:01
  this group and This is why. And so by the time we got to our
• 29:06
  senior year, I mean, he had gathered Lashinda Demas and you
• 29:09
  know, I know we had. So we, Erica, Michael Whipple,
• 29:15
  all those names. And so we brought that first
• 29:19
  national championship in any sport to our school, you know,
• 29:24
  my senior year just with some of the best women in the history of
• 29:31
  the sport, especially on the collegiate level, you know, and,
• 29:35
  and so I'm just grateful that again, that time at South
• 29:38
  Carolina just taught me how to level up, you know, how to level
• 29:42
  up every single day, the level of discipline, commitment that's
• 29:46
  necessary for you to have the outcome of being the best.
• 29:51
  What, what was that like winning the national title as a team?
• 29:54
  You know, when you, if I remember correctly, when you
• 29:56
  guys all came in, it wasn't like South Carolina was, you know,
• 29:59
  second or third at nationals. I'm not going to put you on the
• 30:03
  very bottom, like you were dead last at SEC and stuff, but I
• 30:06
  don't remember there being a great, great squad and you guys
• 30:09
  built from your recruiting class.
• 30:10
  The next one you mentioned all these people.
• 30:12
  You know, this is right during my time frame.
• 30:13
  So every time you mention these people, I'm like, oh man, that's
• 30:15
  right. Team is oh man, Whipple, I've
• 30:17
  never heard, you know, it's it's really the who's who of of track
• 30:21
  and field. During that time you build up,
• 30:24
  You guys kept getting better and better as a team.
• 30:27
  And then your senior year you, you win the national.
• 30:29
  I mean, it's hard to win. What was that like when you, you
• 30:33
  guys actually, you know, the 4 by 4 is over and you're named
• 30:37
  the national champions? Oh my gosh, it's, you know, it's
• 30:41
  my senior year. I'm again, you're surrounded
• 30:44
  with, you're watching the meet and seeing and seeing the all
• 30:48
  the different tools from the Aileen Bailey's going out there
• 30:51
  doing what she needed to do and, and people just showing up, you
• 30:56
  know, in the right moments. And that's what it took.
• 30:58
  And I remember I was actually hurt just coming off of a
• 31:02
  hamstring injury at NCAA. So I didn't get to contribute in
• 31:06
  the way that I wanted to and I only was able to run the the
• 31:10
  prelims and the four by 100m relay.
• 31:13
  So you it was a it it was a tad bit of disappointment, but at
• 31:18
  the same time, it's always a larger picture.
• 31:21
  And you think about your contribution over the four years
• 31:24
  to a program that you saw evolved from, like I said, Coach
• 31:29
  Fry's first recruiting class to in four years, you all become a
• 31:33
  national champion. So actually being named that, I
• 31:36
  mean, and then it was the first national championship to the
• 31:38
  University of South Carolina in any sport.
• 31:42
  Yeah. So I mean, we, we became a part
• 31:44
  of history at our university. So no, I just again, just
• 31:49
  thinking about my life is I'm just grateful so many times over
• 31:54
  and over again for just being chosen to be a part of some of
• 31:58
  the things that I've experienced, including that
• 32:00
  moment. Yeah, I can see you talk about
• 32:02
  your evolution of this from 18 year old, you know, high school
• 32:05
  girl that comes into college to 22 year old young woman as you
• 32:08
  know, coach, what Coach Fry LED you through, what your teammates
• 32:12
  LED you through as well. And then I can see that
• 32:14
  disappointment. And it's hard to see even as a
• 32:16
  22, you know, we think we think 22, we're about to graduate.
• 32:19
  It's like, oh, you know, I'm an adult.
• 32:20
  And now, as you know, real adults, we're like, oh, man, I
• 32:23
  still have a pup at 22. What did I know?
• 32:26
  It's hard to see that while you may not have been able to do the
• 32:29
  things athletically you wanted to do at that meet, the people
• 32:33
  that were on that team wouldn't be there without people like
• 32:35
  you. You helped recruit them, you
• 32:37
  helped train with them, etcetera.
• 32:38
  It's it's much bigger than what just happens to get first place
• 32:41
  or 8th place at that track meeting.
• 32:43
  Much bigger, much bigger. Yeah, I can see that.
• 32:46
  That's that's really cool. So what do you do?
• 32:48
  You have a mass communications degree coming off a little bit
• 32:51
  of an injury here, but you're amongst other Olympians.
• 32:56
  What? What does one do in that case?
• 32:58
  I know. So at that point, you know, I, I
• 33:00
  wanted to, it was 2002 and the upcoming Olympic Games were
• 33:04
  coming up in two years. I thought about training for a
• 33:07
  moment, but I just knew my body at the time.
• 33:10
  I just cannot shake this hamstring injury.
• 33:13
  So I just focused on the, my other path and that was again,
• 33:17
  communication. So I went, I stayed in South
• 33:19
  Carolina. All my friends were still there.
• 33:21
  All my teammates were still, you know, competing.
• 33:23
  And I didn't, I wasn't ready to go back to Maryland and I
• 33:27
  decided to stay at South Carolina and do the graduate
• 33:30
  program for integrated marketing communications.
• 33:33
  And once I did that, I mean, that was a two year program.
• 33:38
  We had a mandatory internship we had to complete.
• 33:42
  And while I was an undergrad, I had one, you know, one of these
• 33:45
  top 25 minorities and advertising in the country I'm
• 33:48
  awards and they have flown us to New York and I have met some of
• 33:51
  the top ad agencies at that moment.
• 33:53
  So I reached back out to this one agency I met Y&R and ended
• 33:58
  up getting the internship to complete my graduate degree,
• 34:01
  moved to New York City and from there, you know, I graduated in
• 34:07
  2004 and I actually started thinking about if I wanted to
• 34:11
  train again. And Long story short, you know,
• 34:14
  after I, I still work for another two years.
• 34:17
  So 2006 I officially quit my job and decided to go for the 2008
• 34:24
  Olympics after four year break. What in the world?
• 34:29
  So hold on, there's a little bit of audacity here.
• 34:32
  Michelle. You know, it's like, you know,
• 34:33
  people bust their hump their whole lives continually and
• 34:37
  don't make the Olympic team. You went out and had a started
• 34:42
  the the beginnings of a real career here as far as, you know,
• 34:44
  the professional sector, not not necessarily the athletic sector
• 34:47
  here. And you were just like, you
• 34:49
  know, let me try it. I was talented.
• 34:51
  Maybe it's still it's still there.
• 34:53
  How did that first real practice go?
• 34:57
  Meaning how sore were you after not doing these type of
• 35:00
  workouts? Oh my gosh, I never forget I
• 35:04
  caught AI mean a crazy Charlie horse.
• 35:06
  I I still have the marks on my legs from grabbing at it up with
• 35:11
  my nails. But I'm talking about out of
• 35:16
  shape coming back four years. I mean, living in New York City
• 35:22
  the last two years doing everything but training.
• 35:25
  So I, it was a tough, a tough first practice, but I, I kept, I
• 35:30
  kept it through. I trained there with Coach
• 35:33
  Solomon. He took me under his wing.
• 35:36
  I told him I was like, look, I'm going to make this Olympic team
• 35:39
  in two years. And he was, you know, had a
• 35:41
  track club in New York and let me start training with his
• 35:44
  group. But I just started to realize
• 35:46
  that New York City just wasn't conducive to like, the training
• 35:49
  I needed as a sprinter. And I, you know, Lisa Barber and
• 35:54
  a couple other of my previous teammates were still competing
• 35:57
  in the North Carolina and training there.
• 36:01
  And so I decided to move to North Carolina to continue
• 36:05
  training. And yeah, that's where I trained
• 36:07
  until I ended up making the World championship team nine
• 36:10
  months later. Ended up running 100 meters at
• 36:13
  Osaka 4 by 1, nine months after I moved to the train full time.
• 36:19
  Was it like the old saying, you know, you never forget how to
• 36:22
  ride a bike was? I mean while day one might have
• 36:25
  been real sore in the Charley horse within like 4 weeks, are
• 36:28
  you like OK, I'm kind of back in the rhythm.
• 36:30
  I still got training to do, but I'm back into this.
• 36:33
  Yeah, you know it is. It is.
• 36:35
  Once you start going, you know the talent is still there.
• 36:37
  It's just really about understanding, you know,
• 36:41
  recovery and movement and strength, like the science side
• 36:46
  of it. That was the difference.
• 36:49
  Coming back, I started to understand the technical aspect
• 36:52
  of it, the physics of it, the movement patterns and not just
• 36:57
  being in the best shape of my life, but understanding how to
• 37:00
  execute the technical, the technical aspects of 100m race.
• 37:07
  And that was the biggest difference, being in shape but
• 37:10
  also understanding the race from a student perspective, which was
• 37:14
  the biggest difference maker and my success being an elite
• 37:18
  athlete. What was it like?
• 37:20
  I mean, if I was a betting person, I probably would not
• 37:23
  have bet on you to make the world champs team in nine
• 37:25
  months, maybe. The two years Olympics, maybe.
• 37:28
  I was the last one in, I was the last one in and I was like #32
• 37:33
  out of 32 the O 7 USA championships that year.
• 37:40
  And each round I just, you know, kept getting better.
• 37:43
  Coach Fry actually gave me a new pair of spikes.
• 37:45
  I asked him, I think coach, I need a new pair of spikes and he
• 37:49
  gave me a new pair of spikes that like the night before.
• 37:52
  And then just round by round, I just kept getting it in.
• 37:55
  And the real difference maker was, you know, that semi final,
• 37:59
  you know, the semi final, you either got that real tough heat,
• 38:01
  like I was saying on Justice podcast, so that the easy heat
• 38:03
  and I had that tough heat and top 4, you know, back then top
• 38:09
  four made it. And when I crossed that line and
• 38:12
  I got it by a thousandth of a second, 100th of a second,
• 38:15
  something like that point point O1, it was I got it by 100th of
• 38:20
  a second. And that right there changed
• 38:23
  everything. Once I got into the final, then,
• 38:25
  you know, it changes. The semi final 100 meters is, is
• 38:30
  where things can get go tricky. It either goes one way or
• 38:33
  another. But once you get to that final
• 38:35
  with anybody's game. So yeah, I, I just, you know,
• 38:38
  just took it round by round and it really happened.
• 38:41
  It really happened. Crazy.
• 38:45
  Does that, you know, I was trying to like non athlete.
• 38:49
  I mean, I tried, I ran track, but I was just terrible.
• 38:53
  So when I get to talk to amazing athletes like yourself, I try
• 38:55
  like put myself into like the mentality because I've been
• 38:58
  around a bunch of good at you know, I coached some some pretty
• 39:00
  good kids and stuff. But doing it in nine months and
• 39:04
  you make the team mentally wise. Did you was there like a a
• 39:09
  switch or what was your mindset in regards to like, do you think
• 39:12
  you're like invincible a little bit now?
• 39:14
  Like, oh, guys, this was nine months.
• 39:16
  We're talking about the Olympics next year.
• 39:17
  Give me a whole another year. You're all toast.
• 39:20
  Or was it still? Well, you know, the biggest
• 39:24
  thing I would say was a difference and also my faith.
• 39:29
  You know, when, when you are really locked in, in your faith
• 39:33
  and you, you're believing what you're reading in the word and
• 39:37
  the word says, then, then you're holding yourself accountable to
• 39:40
  your faith. And if I say I'm a faithful
• 39:42
  person, then I have to believe what I'm reading and what I'm
• 39:45
  believing. And so I really had that mindset
• 39:49
  that, you know, I could do anything and possible is
• 39:52
  nothing. I could do all things.
• 39:54
  And so that was the mindset that I had.
• 39:56
  And so my mind, my body, it didn't even know anything.
• 40:00
  It didn't know how to think any other way.
• 40:01
  But everything is possible. Like it is very possible for you
• 40:05
  to make this team. And so that's the mindset that I
• 40:07
  had. Going into that 2007
• 40:10
  championship, but coming off that, I mean that summer I went
• 40:14
  on to NACAC and became the NACAC 100m champion and I went on to
• 40:18
  Pan Am Games and you know, got the silver medal there.
• 40:21
  And then when I got on site at Osaka, Allison was supposed to
• 40:25
  double and she pulled out of the 102 days before the 100m was
• 40:30
  supposed to start and out the next one up.
• 40:32
  And so I ended up nine months later been in 100 meters at a
• 40:35
  world championship. And I didn't know, to be honest,
• 40:38
  at that moment, I didn't realize like where I was like in really
• 40:42
  retrospective, like the World Championships, I didn't know
• 40:47
  where I was. I just showed up on the line and
• 40:51
  ran 100 meters. It was a a pretty crazy moment,
• 40:58
  but just going on from there. Yeah.
• 41:00
  You are thinking that at that point you're like, whoa, God.
• 41:02
  OK, Well, you I hear. You.
• 41:06
  I hear you. Thank you for this World
• 41:08
  Championships. But you know, this Olympic Games
• 41:11
  is coming up, so can we keep this going?
• 41:18
  Yeah. So yeah, it was a pretty
• 41:20
  incredible journey those those next couple years as an elite
• 41:24
  athlete. Faith sounds pretty important.
• 41:27
  Is this something that came on late like college or beyond, or
• 41:30
  was this been in the family from It may be in the family, but
• 41:34
  sometimes it's not necessarily in US.
• 41:36
  Where does faith start for you there?
• 41:38
  Oh gosh, we, we grew up, my, my mom and dad, you know, we grew
• 41:42
  up in the church. And so it's always been a, a, a
• 41:45
  pillar of, of who we are as a family.
• 41:49
  But I say the difference is, is when you take the accountability
• 41:51
  as an adult or to lead with that.
• 41:55
  And that happened while I was in New York to start having my own
• 42:00
  journey of faith, you know, without being guided by someone
• 42:04
  else and taking that authority. So I would say, you know, coming
• 42:08
  out of New York, it just shaped me to walking on that path of,
• 42:13
  you know, walking in my full potential as a human.
• 42:16
  And in order for me to be in my full potential, I have to really
• 42:18
  understand the possibilities through my faith.
• 42:21
  And so that, you know, that has been a, a big part of who I am
• 42:25
  now as a coach, my decision making.
• 42:29
  And it's, it's, it's been a good part of, you know, why I was
• 42:32
  able to do some great things as an athlete.
• 42:35
  Yeah, I love that. You know, New York City, again,
• 42:37
  not from experience here, but feels like one of those places
• 42:40
  that can change you for the good or the bad.
• 42:42
  So it's it's good to hear that there was some good that came,
• 42:46
  not some. There seems like a lot of good
• 42:48
  that came out of your time at New York City, including the
• 42:50
  decision of like, I need to get back in the track and field.
• 42:53
  Oh, man, New York City is a very special place for me.
• 42:55
  And I think about it as a, a place of transformation of, you
• 43:00
  know, coming into who I was as a woman in New York.
• 43:04
  So every time I go back to New York, I mean, it's, it's for me,
• 43:08
  it's going to always bring back the memories of like stepping
• 43:11
  into Michelle. Yeah, that's cool.
• 43:15
  I love that. So where does you know a lot of
• 43:19
  our athletes, I don't want to say fall into coaching, but
• 43:21
  that's what we know, right? We maybe we're blessed to have a
• 43:25
  great coach that affected them positively.
• 43:27
  So we think about being coaches ourself.
• 43:29
  You went into advertising, not not coaching and then came back
• 43:32
  as an athlete and did pretty well.
• 43:34
  That's amazing. Where, where does the the
• 43:36
  thought, even the thought of like, well, maybe I could coach.
• 43:39
  Yeah. I mean, once you're you're, you
• 43:43
  have a gift at something, the gift is there.
• 43:48
  And so it just, you know, you just have to figure out, you
• 43:51
  know, how it evolved as you evolved as a person.
• 43:55
  So it just came down to whether or not I was going to focus in
• 43:58
  that on that, or if I was going to go back into advertising.
• 44:02
  And at first, I did go back into advertising.
• 44:05
  I went back into working at agencies.
• 44:09
  I'm, I'm, I mean, I've worked on, I've worked at Coca-Cola and
• 44:12
  managed their London 2012 sponsorship activation.
• 44:17
  I had some great experiences, the Super Bowl in Arizona.
• 44:20
  I had some great clients, Xerox, but it came when I met Terry
• 44:26
  Crawford and you know, Terry Crawford, she said, you know,
• 44:31
  you know, Michelle, we're having a program with our our coaching
• 44:36
  education where we want elite athletes to start, you know,
• 44:39
  coming on the coaching side. So, you know, if you do this
• 44:42
  USATF level 1, you can at least just do it and see where it
• 44:47
  takes you. But the elite athletes, you
• 44:49
  know, get a, a huge discount and you know, it'll be great for you
• 44:53
  to start there. So it always takes 1, you know,
• 44:56
  to see one, you know, and, and she saw me and, you know, a, a
• 45:02
  woman coach saw another opportunity for someone to be a
• 45:05
  woman coach. So it was, it was Terry Crawford
• 45:09
  who actually put that first, you know, bug in my ear to to to
• 45:14
  think about coaching, coming to the coaching side.
• 45:16
  So I did and I did the USATF level 1.
• 45:20
  At the time I was living in Arizona and I started coaching
• 45:24
  at a high school there. So I became the the sprint's
• 45:28
  coach and it was just coaching the boys and the girls of all
• 45:33
  the all the sprints, relays. And then it just started to grow
• 45:37
  from there. I went and moved to Minnesota.
• 45:39
  I was the sprints coach at Wisetta High School and I just
• 45:43
  developed so much, I mean, especially coaching sprints in
• 45:46
  Minnesota. But I mean, I'm talking about we
• 45:50
  were, I mean, just transforming teams, you know, teaching them
• 45:53
  how to compete, teaching them how to win, you know, taking
• 45:57
  them on a path of just understanding training, you
• 46:00
  know, being very intentional. They were, they were just used
• 46:02
  to coming out there and just, you know, just running whatever
• 46:05
  they were being told. But you need to understand why
• 46:07
  and what needed to be done. So just teaching them
• 46:10
  intentionality, You know what, why things matter, you know,
• 46:13
  input equals output. And so that's when my first
• 46:16
  coaching day started, was at the high school levels with Terry,
• 46:21
  you know, telling me to do these things.
• 46:24
  And, and from there I got a call and I have been, you know, still
• 46:32
  involved with USATF because I was on the athlete advisory
• 46:36
  committee. So I would still be around the
• 46:39
  athletes. I would still be, I was the
• 46:41
  USOPC athlete Rep. So I was still, you know, just
• 46:47
  responsible for policies and understanding what needed to be
• 46:53
  done from the athlete perspective and the
• 46:55
  organization. So Sue Humphrey, she was the
• 46:59
  women's chair at the time and another, another woman coach,
• 47:03
  you know, seeing. And Gil podcast alum, by the
• 47:06
  way, love Sue. Another, you know, so another
• 47:10
  woman coach, she said. You know, I see something in you
• 47:15
  and we have an opportunity for we want an elite athlete, a
• 47:21
  retired athlete to come back and assist our relay program.
• 47:24
  And at that point, I had, you know, been on relays, you know,
• 47:29
  in 2008, games 2007. Of course, all through high
• 47:34
  school and college, we were a relay program in South Carolina.
• 47:37
  Yeah, you were. Yeah.
• 47:38
  Yeah, I've been winning relay since I was 16 and I've been, I
• 47:42
  was known also to as a relay person to, I can run any leg,
• 47:48
  you know, and just, you know, I'm a I'm like I said, I observe
• 47:51
  and I learn and I teach. So it, you know, I had
• 47:53
  experiences of speaking up in moments just, you know, to make
• 47:58
  sure that we all understood the assignment or you know what?
• 48:02
  But I also, I also have like TT terriers like that.
• 48:05
  I always tell her she's going to be a coach one day.
• 48:07
  But you have those athletes that just, you know, see things and
• 48:11
  speak up in certain ways when they're athletes that stand out
• 48:15
  to to say that they really, you know, get things and see things.
• 48:19
  But I've always been that type of athlete, especially when it
• 48:22
  comes to the relays. So, but she saw something in me
• 48:24
  enough to ask me to apply for that opportunity.
• 48:28
  And so I applied for the opportunity and I was selected
• 48:32
  for the opportunity. And that was in 2015.
• 48:35
  So 2015. They just started out by having
• 48:38
  me come to different junior teams and start to see the
• 48:42
  process of like what was going on, how things worked.
• 48:46
  And I just started doing more and more of that every year,
• 48:49
  every year, and to the point where I can come and start
• 48:53
  taking over and teaching as the assistant relays coach and then
• 48:56
  managing the junior teams on my own.
• 48:59
  So between 2015 and 20/19, it was 4 years of me going through
• 49:03
  that process. 2019 was my first senior team that I traveled to
• 49:08
  Doha with Oren Richburg, who was the head coach at the time.
• 49:13
  And then, you know, just went on from there, went on from there.
• 49:17
  It's striking the people that have had influence on your life
• 49:22
  at this point of the journey that we're talking about
• 49:24
  because, you know, I have such reverence for a Terry Crawford,
• 49:28
  a Sue Humphries and Oren Richburg.
• 49:29
  I mean, these are just giants in our industry that have, you
• 49:33
  know, their fingerprints are all over what we're doing today in
• 49:35
  2024 and 2025, for crying out loud.
• 49:38
  I mean, those are amazing people to be around.
• 49:41
  What I'm wondering as you were coaching through the high
• 49:45
  school, right? And I don't know, again, the old
• 49:48
  man of me says everybody should should start by coaching high
• 49:51
  school. It's it's own unique beast that
• 49:53
  is, you know, it's not running 40 point in the men's 4 by 1.
• 49:57
  It is running 48 point. And that being really, really
• 50:01
  good. You know, I'm sorry, this is.
• 50:05
  Calling me that, That was Keisha calling me all right.
• 50:09
  Her ears were ringing. She's like, who are you talking
• 50:11
  to? Terrible.
• 50:13
  I know, terrible, but I'm sorry about.
• 50:15
  That but oh, all good, all good. But so so when you were when you
• 50:20
  started working in Arizona and high schools and then you went
• 50:22
  to Minnesota, was there a moment?
• 50:25
  It could be relay or not. It could be an individual that
• 50:28
  where something happened because of you as coach, as coach
• 50:32
  Friedman now and and maybe it doesn't really matter.
• 50:35
  It could be Coach Lewis, obviously at that point too.
• 50:36
  It doesn't doesn't matter, but it's OK.
• 50:40
  But instead of Michelle the athlete, it was Coach Freeman
• 50:43
  because of instruction or something you said that you saw
• 50:47
  bear out. You said something to a kid and
• 50:49
  they trusted you and didn't. It was like, wait a minute,
• 50:51
  maybe, maybe Coach Freeman is, you know, I've been known as
• 50:55
  Michelle the athlete. Maybe it is Coach Freeman.
• 50:57
  That is where I was supposed to be on this earth, so to speak.
• 51:01
  Was there any moment during that high school coaching you can
• 51:03
  think of? Oh my gosh, why is that a high
• 51:06
  school? I mean, we those it was those
• 51:09
  four years that I was there just seeing them go from the the
• 51:15
  freshman girls who were didn't understand just how to seize a
• 51:20
  moment and that it could be you to the moment of the our last
• 51:26
  year together and pulling out a win at, you know, sectionals.
• 51:32
  And you know, I just telling them, you know, I remember this
• 51:36
  one race and I was talking to the anchor leg and, and I was
• 51:39
  like, look, it's going to come down to the last 100 meters, OK.
• 51:44
  And I was like, when she when you fill her, you know, just
• 51:47
  trust that you are prepared for this moment and, and, and just
• 51:52
  keep moving like you'll you'll be able to handle it.
• 51:54
  You'll know how to rise to the occasion.
• 51:56
  Just trust it. And it really happened that way.
• 51:59
  You know, we got to the game, to the anchor leg, the last 100
• 52:02
  meters. And so I just, it was really
• 52:04
  just a moment to see if she trusted me.
• 52:08
  And that's what's so special about coaching is really working
• 52:15
  with the athletes and and you all get into a place where you
• 52:19
  trust one another. And she was able to we I mean,
• 52:23
  again, you win by 100th of a second in a moment like that,
• 52:27
  but people don't even realize the moment that why is that a
• 52:31
  high school, you know, sectionals is something one of
• 52:34
  the best memories I'm going to have, you know, for the rest of
• 52:36
  my life, just because of a moment like that, you know, for
• 52:40
  her to cross the finish line and and do something that she didn't
• 52:43
  really believe she was capable of.
• 52:45
  Those are the things that, you know, drives me to to coach.
• 52:50
  Yeah, I love that. That's really cool.
• 52:53
  Let's hop into your relay coaching journey.
• 52:56
  You mentioned you started in 2015 and and by the way, as
• 52:58
  you're listening to this guys and gals, you know, one of my
• 53:02
  favorite quotes actually from when you talk about relay and
• 53:04
  relay coaches actually comes from our men's counterpart, Mike
• 53:07
  Marsh. Mike had an interview with track
• 53:10
  and field news and one of the quotes he said was as the relay
• 53:14
  coach for Team USA, you don't need to invite criticism.
• 53:18
  It comes with the territory. So I just want to put it out
• 53:21
  there that when, as I talked with Michelle here about her
• 53:25
  journey and I asked some questions about relays, this is
• 53:28
  not a comparison at all. I'm I'm not talking about Mike
• 53:31
  and the men's team at all. I'm, and I'm really actually not
• 53:33
  even talking about Michelle's results as far as the relays.
• 53:36
  She probably will bring up some. I know we've, we talked about TT
• 53:40
  Terry and some other really amazing relays and people you've
• 53:43
  been involved with, but it's not a comparison with that at all.
• 53:46
  So whatever conclusions you may want to jump to don't because
• 53:49
  they're not, they're not there at all.
• 53:52
  Michelle, what I'm curious about, So when I think about
• 53:56
  relay coaching, when I think about coaching, a lot of us when
• 54:01
  we first get into coaching, specifically if we were former
• 54:04
  athletes, no matter how good or not good we were, right?
• 54:07
  We, we are, we are light distances away, me and you on
• 54:10
  our talent levels, OK, as far as athletes, but we generally when
• 54:15
  we get into coaching, we fall back to how we were coach.
• 54:18
  It's it's what we know. That's the only thing we know is
• 54:19
  what did coach Fry do for us and what did our high school coach
• 54:22
  do for us? And then as we go through level
• 54:25
  ones and level twos and experience, we, we journey into
• 54:29
  our own style. How when you first popped in at
• 54:33
  2015 and you're helping with the junior teams and then you know,
• 54:36
  by, I think you said by 2019 you're running your own team and
• 54:39
  squad. How did you go from, you know,
• 54:43
  great base by the way, because again, South Carolina, I, I
• 54:45
  would, I would have also said you guys were a relay school in
• 54:47
  regards to like there was never a relay.
• 54:49
  You guys didn't win from shuttle hurdles to four by one to four
• 54:51
  by 4. Didn't ever matter.
• 54:53
  You guys were always hated. You guys, you guys were
• 54:55
  terrible. How did you begin When they
• 55:00
  said, OK, Michelle, we're going to have you as the, the relay
• 55:02
  coach, you're like, OK, cool. I've done that.
• 55:05
  I've I've got personal experience and I've done some
• 55:08
  high school experience. How did you start like
• 55:10
  formulating your own style of teaching that, that event
• 55:14
  specifically the, the, and really we're talking about the
• 55:16
  four by one, right? I know the, the handoffs are
• 55:18
  important in 4 by 4, but we got more leeway there than we do in
• 55:21
  the four by one. We got almost no in the four by
• 55:23
  one right. No, for sure.
• 55:25
  I mean the four by fours, you definitely you're still looking
• 55:28
  at talent and now especially with, you know, that 400 meter
• 55:31
  talent coming from all different events, whether it's the 400
• 55:33
  hurdles, the 800 to 200, you know, that's, you know, shape
• 55:36
  there. So it's more just about, you
• 55:38
  know, the selection process of putting the four best athletes
• 55:41
  in that 4 by 4. But when it came to the 4 by 1,
• 55:45
  you know, it just came when I started it just it comes back to
• 55:49
  who I am as a person. I know how to study.
• 55:52
  I I know how to prepare. And so I looked at what was in
• 55:56
  front of me and just say like, what do I need to know more of?
• 56:00
  You know, of course you go through the level ones and the
• 56:02
  level twos I've studied and still have mentorship for
• 56:05
  Charles Clinton. You know, I took the
• 56:07
  certification Sprint class from Boo, you know, so whatever I
• 56:12
  could do to study, you know, study, study, study the
• 56:15
  experiences of running the relays.
• 56:17
  I've been running championship relays for 20 years.
• 56:21
  So that's there, you know, the feel of it, the art of it, but
• 56:25
  you also have to respect the technicality of it.
• 56:28
  So I wanted to make sure that I studied, you know, I researched,
• 56:32
  I watched, I observed, you know, what, what was the process with
• 56:36
  the USA relays that that just what was what first?
• 56:43
  What was the state of state? You know, what, what are what
• 56:45
  are they doing? You know, what is happening, you
• 56:48
  know, so you're watching to see like where they are now.
• 56:51
  You can start, you know, after four years being on the junior
• 56:55
  teams, I can start to collect data and experiences and, and I
• 57:00
  started to realize that it was three main components that was
• 57:05
  where that measured the, the success or failure of a relay at
• 57:09
  the USA level. And it all was rooted in because
• 57:14
  you have the interchangeability of a team.
• 57:16
  You know, year over year the team is changing and that's
• 57:19
  rooted in the selection process that trickles down to USATF.
• 57:24
  You, you have to take the top three in 100.
• 57:26
  You only get so many discretionary selections and it
• 57:30
  comes from that day of AUS championship.
• 57:33
  So that's just what you have to deal with.
• 57:36
  So OK, if that's the case now, I realized everyone was coming
• 57:40
  from different programs and by the time you only had a short
• 57:44
  amount of time with them, everybody was doing different
• 57:46
  approaches. So my main thing was making sure
• 57:50
  that I created a process that we were all moving the same way,
• 57:54
  right? OK, whenever you come to the USA
• 57:56
  process, this is what we need to do the same.
• 58:00
  And the three things that I noticed was the take off, Mark
• 58:02
  Reed, the acceleration pattern, you know what, how people were
• 58:06
  moving through the zone. And then 3 was just the past,
• 58:09
  like you know how they handle past mechanics, you know,
• 58:12
  receiving and passing the baton. And I started to realize like,
• 58:16
  OK, I just needed to because we were collecting data.
• 58:19
  We have people who we've been working with through the years,
• 58:22
  like Andy Farrar, who has been giving U.S. data year over year,
• 58:25
  who goes to the highest point in stands and figures it out and
• 58:29
  gives me data from, you know, where the outgoing runner takes
• 58:32
  off, where the incoming runner hits the mark, you know, where
• 58:35
  the pass is made, how many steps.
• 58:38
  So I just started putting all the data together.
• 58:40
  You know, how what was the average of how many steps an
• 58:43
  athlete was taking before they got the baton And then the baton
• 58:47
  speed, like no one was really paying attention to the data
• 58:50
  point of the baton speed. So I just started to realize
• 58:55
  that, you know, from a science point, if all the things you got
• 58:59
  to think about Max velocity, how you know decelerates next
• 59:02
  celebrations of all the science, you know, all the science.
• 59:05
  I just sat down year over year and just started to put it
• 59:08
  together where I was singing like, OK, if I can manage those
• 59:13
  3 components, then I can make sure the baton is moving at a
• 59:18
  certain speed and you only have a certain amount of time.
• 59:22
  So that means that your decision making has to be rooted in the
• 59:25
  people who is executing these things.
• 59:29
  And it just came to a point that you had to like as since I've
• 59:34
  been the head coach, you're pushing history, history of
• 59:41
  fastest people with descending order.
• 59:44
  And when I started pushing this process of, you know, respecting
• 59:49
  the skill side of the relay, not just the speed side, then you
• 59:54
  had to hold people accountable for the demands of the legs, you
• 59:58
  know, executing the demands of the legs, executing the
• 1:00:00
  component. See, are you reading the mark
• 1:00:02
  right? Are you accelerating?
• 1:00:03
  You are some people have an issue with accelerating from
• 1:00:06
  zero to 20. You know, do you have enough
• 1:00:08
  time to get that adjustment and for them to get the zero to 20?
• 1:00:12
  Or if you don't, you have to know how to make the adjustment.
• 1:00:14
  You know, things like, so, you know, putting all that into
• 1:00:17
  place so that when it comes to my decision making, I'm putting
• 1:00:20
  the best people in the right places.
• 1:00:23
  And I have a predictive model of what we should be running, our
• 1:00:29
  full potential of what we should be running with the pool of
• 1:00:32
  people that we have now. I can hold my pool accountable
• 1:00:37
  to the performance that they can do that's in front of me based
• 1:00:40
  on the times that they've been running that year, based on the
• 1:00:44
  10m segments at the, you know, the end of their races, how
• 1:00:47
  they're covering that last part of the 100 meters.
• 1:00:51
  You know, having the athletes understand that it's not just
• 1:00:54
  100, it's 120 meters, 130 meters that you know, so I'm looking at
• 1:00:57
  people who can sustain, you know, maximum speed over 120,
• 1:01:03
  you know, fall over a straightaway or somebody who can
• 1:01:05
  do that on a curve, 130 meters on the curve.
• 1:01:08
  So it's just so that when I have those conversations about
• 1:01:10
  decisions, that is very clear on where is rooted in.
• 1:01:14
  And it just came back over years of just studying, studying,
• 1:01:17
  studying, studying, studying. I know it's easy when we're not
• 1:01:22
  involved to, you know, sit from the stands and and judge.
• 1:01:26
  And again, that's why I like Mike's comment of like, yeah, I
• 1:01:29
  ain't got to invite criticism. It it just comes with as soon as
• 1:01:32
  that title relays coach, boom, there it is.
• 1:01:35
  Everybody has the better way for you to do your job.
• 1:01:39
  But there's so many things that I don't think necessarily people
• 1:01:43
  know are going on. And what I mean by that is if we
• 1:01:46
  take a step back and think about what the relay event is it, it's
• 1:01:49
  hard to coach one person in let's say the 100 meter dash.
• 1:01:52
  There's a a million things that can go wrong in one person
• 1:01:55
  running 100 meter dash, you're dealing with four and that's
• 1:01:59
  just the four on the track. You have a pool.
• 1:02:01
  So there's other things, you know, there's more people that
• 1:02:03
  actually involved. So when you times that by 4,
• 1:02:06
  there's so many things that can go wrong or right and and you
• 1:02:10
  have a limited time. This isn't you know, I love the
• 1:02:13
  great, you know when you still even today.
• 1:02:15
  But when you guys were there at South Carolina, in my head, I
• 1:02:18
  also called you guys a relay team and that's no slam, just
• 1:02:20
  man relays. You guys have seen to really
• 1:02:21
  excel. I think about the Pat Henry
• 1:02:23
  teams that ran 4 by ones. I remember one year at LSU, they
• 1:02:27
  won the four by one men's national title and didn't have a
• 1:02:30
  single air quotes here, 100m specialist.
• 1:02:32
  They had like a long jumper or 400 or things like this.
• 1:02:35
  But but even with that, those four individuals and again,
• 1:02:38
  maybe 5 or 6 depending on you know, how they ran their team
• 1:02:41
  for that year. They were together from, let's
• 1:02:44
  call it Labor Day through May. You're dealing with four to six
• 1:02:48
  individuals that are together for could you, would you say
• 1:02:51
  it's fair to say measured in hours, not days of how much time
• 1:02:54
  you guys actually have together to practice?
• 1:02:58
  Yeah. I mean, you're looking at the
• 1:02:59
  OK, so the spring domestic program, we bring our top
• 1:03:02
  athletes from the previous year together, but you don't know
• 1:03:05
  your exact teams, you know, but you are working on the process.
• 1:03:08
  You know, for me, I want them to work on the process.
• 1:03:11
  You know, how you're reading the mark, how you're accelerating,
• 1:03:13
  how you're receiving it and passing it, the baton, how
• 1:03:16
  you're moving through the zones and building that camaraderie,
• 1:03:19
  you know, chemistry, understanding, like how people
• 1:03:22
  move, you know, things like that.
• 1:03:23
  So when you have that time with, of just that short amount of
• 1:03:27
  time with the exact team, you know, once you have the USA
• 1:03:30
  Championships, between the global championship, you're
• 1:03:32
  looking at 4 weeks and that four weeks you may have one or zero
• 1:03:37
  to 1 competitive opportunity with that exact team.
• 1:03:40
  I mean, this past summer we had, we did not have a competitive
• 1:03:43
  opportunity before the game. So that prelim team was the
• 1:03:46
  first time I was seeing our team run together.
• 1:03:50
  So you have 3 days of relay camp, you know, where you can
• 1:03:55
  get these athletes together. And if you say going to hours, I
• 1:03:58
  mean you're practicing what, 2 hours, 2, two hours a day.
• 1:04:03
  So you're looking for 6:00 to 8:00 hours of practice with your
• 1:04:07
  exact team. So you're looking at 3 to reps
• 1:04:10
  before you go out, right? Wow.
• 1:04:14
  Why can't? So these are all just random
• 1:04:17
  questions now, Michelle, you know, we take our top three from
• 1:04:21
  the 100m then we what are we allowed like three more people
• 1:04:24
  that can come from the two, the four discretionary or whatever.
• 1:04:27
  Get your two. Yeah, you get 2 discretionary
• 1:04:29
  selection in each relay SO4BY124BY42 and then mixed
• 1:04:32
  relays you get another. 2 Why can't we?
• 1:04:36
  You know, they always talk about, especially in America,
• 1:04:38
  you know, we have the fastest people overall.
• 1:04:40
  You know, whether we have the individual fastest, that depends
• 1:04:42
  on the year, right? But if you were to take our top
• 1:04:44
  4 people in the meter dash, they're faster aggregately than
• 1:04:48
  any other country out there. What?
• 1:04:50
  Why could so maybe the same could be said between our our
• 1:04:53
  fifth, 6-7, eighth as well. Why can't we?
• 1:04:55
  This is my crazy idea here. Why can't we take 5th through
• 1:04:58
  8th? So because again, another thing,
• 1:05:01
  another factor on your relay squad is all those people are in
• 1:05:06
  individual events. So they're also concerned about
• 1:05:07
  their 100 meter prelims or 200 meter prelims or either 400, you
• 1:05:11
  know, so they got these other things that are going on as
• 1:05:13
  well. What if you took 5th through 8th
• 1:05:15
  and you know, we get a big sponsor to give them 50 grand
• 1:05:20
  each for the rest of the year and those four just worked with
• 1:05:24
  you every day for the next three months leading up to the World
• 1:05:27
  champs or Olympics. Why can't we do that?
• 1:05:30
  Well, you mean well, you mean you still have the four week
• 1:05:33
  time Because you don't know. You know 5th through 8th is no.
• 1:05:37
  No, Agree. Agree.
• 1:05:38
  Yeah. After trials, right?
• 1:05:39
  Yeah. After trials, OK, that's, I
• 1:05:42
  mean, you could take 5 to 8th place.
• 1:05:47
  I mean, it's not saying that 5th to 8th place can't work.
• 1:05:50
  And that's the thing, you know, I've always been in that
• 1:05:53
  predicament of being who are you running your fastest?
• 1:05:57
  Are you running your most prepared?
• 1:05:59
  Because you've seen it, you, you have personally seen this.
• 1:06:02
  We, we've seen it on TV. Me anyway, you see these teams
• 1:06:05
  like what is it? Poland and Japan, teams that
• 1:06:10
  traditionally don't have anybody in the finals and they're first.
• 1:06:14
  Well, maybe not first, but sometimes they're first, but
• 1:06:16
  they're second, third. They're four.
• 1:06:17
  I mean, they are always in the finals, always placing.
• 1:06:20
  It's like, well, they're not the four fastest.
• 1:06:22
  Like our four would smoke that 4.
• 1:06:24
  Yeah, but they practice together all the time.
• 1:06:26
  It's just a crazy idea. I know, Michelle.
• 1:06:28
  I just, you know. No, I know people ask it all the
• 1:06:30
  time, but this is the way I look at it.
• 1:06:33
  As as long as one of my top three athletes are prepared
• 1:06:40
  enough that I've because my, my decision coming this way, 1:00,
• 1:06:44
  AM I sticking to the process that I've created?
• 1:06:48
  2nd is I'm maximizing performance.
• 1:06:50
  So I'm going to do as best as I can.
• 1:06:52
  But the third one has to be true too, which is minimizing risk.
• 1:06:55
  So if I'm making sure that all three of those are tapped in, So
• 1:06:59
  if my 1st through 3rd allows me to check, check, check those
• 1:07:03
  three boxes, then I'll do it. Now, if my 1st through 3rd
• 1:07:07
  compromises, compromises the risk, then I won't run them.
• 1:07:11
  And I have been in a predicament where I have not run my top
• 1:07:14
  three athletes on junior and senior teams.
• 1:07:17
  And of course you receive backlash on that, but we win.
• 1:07:21
  And, and so that's where I have learned a very, you know, in a
• 1:07:25
  hard way because at those times where I've lost, you know, on
• 1:07:27
  junior teams where, you know, sometimes I was like, oh, I'm
• 1:07:31
  going to run my fastest person. I got to run my fastest person
• 1:07:34
  and it just wasn't enough time for them to practice.
• 1:07:37
  And it failed every single time. So now when it comes to your
• 1:07:42
  decision making, because that's the what's critical in this job
• 1:07:46
  is that you have to make sure that for the betterment of the
• 1:07:49
  team and the outcome, best outcome for the team, you're
• 1:07:51
  minimizing risk. And if that means that you're
• 1:07:54
  top one of your top three athletes aren't running, then I
• 1:07:56
  have made the decision to do that.
• 1:07:59
  I, I love that minimizing risk again, especially because a
• 1:08:02
  relay specifically, right. But I also like how you take all
• 1:08:05
  these outside factors that are happening again, they're running
• 1:08:08
  their individual events. You're trying to practice for
• 1:08:11
  hours, not days, months, weeks together here.
• 1:08:15
  But it seems like you use a maybe a not great phrase because
• 1:08:19
  it may feel insulting to athletes, but it's, it's, it's
• 1:08:21
  not you dumbed it down. I like how you come up with like
• 1:08:24
  here, the three things we want to be successful ABC because
• 1:08:28
  there's a hundred other factors around there as well.
• 1:08:30
  But if we can do these three, it'll take care of 90% of the
• 1:08:33
  other stuff. And then, you know, at the end
• 1:08:35
  of the day, luck is still involved in these things.
• 1:08:37
  We, we tend to not give luck. It's due, but you know,
• 1:08:39
  sometimes luck and therefore bad luck is in these things as well.
• 1:08:43
  But if you can take care of these three things, we're we're
• 1:08:45
  going to minimize the risk of of bad luck happening here.
• 1:08:48
  I love how you've boiled it down to that essentialism.
• 1:08:53
  Yeah, and it took, it took experience for, you know, that
• 1:08:56
  to happen. I've been doing this for nine
• 1:08:57
  years now and it took some moments.
• 1:09:01
  I mean, because you, everyone has their own, you know,
• 1:09:06
  priority, you know, but the priority for me is the team.
• 1:09:09
  And, and I had to learn very quickly that that can never be
• 1:09:14
  compromised. Everybody wants the athletes to
• 1:09:16
  run. Every athlete wants to run, but
• 1:09:19
  it's always, it always comes down to who's prepared.
• 1:09:23
  And and that's what I, I, I, I just can never compromise who is
• 1:09:27
  best prepared based on the results that you see in front of
• 1:09:31
  you today. Let's talk a little bit about
• 1:09:34
  the makeup of the relay itself. You know, we're going to scare
• 1:09:37
  my rule of we don't talk XS and OS, but I I'd like to be able to
• 1:09:41
  give value to those who do listen.
• 1:09:42
  So there's certainly coaches that are listening, high school
• 1:09:44
  coaches, college coaches that are like, man, so how do I even
• 1:09:48
  make up my four by one team here?
• 1:09:50
  How true is it now knowing that there are some people who are
• 1:09:54
  better out of the blocks than others?
• 1:09:55
  So when you start like the lead off, maybe there's certainly
• 1:09:59
  people who can give a baton better than they can receive the
• 1:10:02
  baton. That's probably true.
• 1:10:05
  I'm I'm not sure I'm sold on the curve runner versus straight
• 1:10:09
  runner thing and only because I've seen so many air quote
• 1:10:13
  straight runners, people who were 100 meter dash specialist
• 1:10:16
  be on the third leg and absolutely demolished.
• 1:10:18
  I think of, you know, good friend Dennis Mitchell.
• 1:10:20
  I think of another guy who was a thorn in my side when I coached
• 1:10:23
  college, Tyson Gay, who was a third legger for Arkansas a lot
• 1:10:27
  and he was 100m guy. You know, those kind of things.
• 1:10:29
  How, how true, not true is it when you're putting together
• 1:10:33
  that quartet, think about a, a high school coach asking you
• 1:10:36
  that question. They've got maybe a pole vaulter
• 1:10:38
  is going to be on there of a 110 hurdler or maybe a couple of
• 1:10:41
  sprinters. How true are these?
• 1:10:46
  What would I call these axioms? You know, these things that we
• 1:10:48
  think of like, oh, you got to have a good starter and then you
• 1:10:51
  got to have somebody who can run 100 and 3000 and 40 because
• 1:10:53
  that's the second leg is longer and they better be a good curve
• 1:10:56
  runner if they're going to be third.
• 1:10:57
  How true are all those things as you're putting together a team?
• 1:11:00
  Yeah, I mean, well, you always want to think about, you know,
• 1:11:03
  the demand of each leg. You know what, what is each leg,
• 1:11:10
  what's being asked of each leg when it comes to the technical
• 1:11:14
  performance of it, Just like you will prepare for any race, you
• 1:11:18
  know, a, a technical performance, what it what, what
• 1:11:21
  is the demand of, of what needs to be done?
• 1:11:24
  And so you, you, you look at the strength of your pool, you know
• 1:11:29
  who are the athletes that are in front of me and you start to
• 1:11:32
  look at the historical context of their performance
• 1:11:35
  capabilities. You know what what they have
• 1:11:38
  been doing and you compare that to the demands of the leg.
• 1:11:42
  And so I always start there to at least start to narrow down
• 1:11:50
  where they feel most comfortable.
• 1:11:53
  Because if you have a short amount of time with people, you
• 1:11:56
  only can ask them to do so much. And the brain needs to have some
• 1:12:02
  innate ability just to go out there and do what it knows to
• 1:12:05
  do. And then you need to have a
• 1:12:07
  small percentage of the technical I need to learn and
• 1:12:10
  make sure of so that you have a balance of, of just performing
• 1:12:15
  and overthinking, you know, not just thinking too much.
• 1:12:18
  So I, I want to make sure I put them in a position where you
• 1:12:21
  don't go out there thinking, you're just going out there and
• 1:12:25
  doing. So you need to have some level
• 1:12:29
  of familiarity when you're placing people in these roles.
• 1:12:34
  So that's what is really based off of.
• 1:12:37
  Once you do that, now you're talking about, OK, again, the
• 1:12:40
  strength of your pool. Do you have somebody that
• 1:12:42
  usually, you know, come out the blocks all the time?
• 1:12:44
  Are they, and if they're running the the championship, you've got
• 1:12:47
  your open people, they've been coming out the blocks the whole
• 1:12:49
  week in a competitive environment.
• 1:12:51
  So that's great. You know, you can have somebody
• 1:12:54
  who's, if they're running the open, then they've been coming
• 1:12:56
  out the blocks a lot. Again, familiarity put them out
• 1:12:58
  the whole they've been coming out the blocks the whole week.
• 1:13:00
  Great come out the blocks again on the backstretch it yes, if
• 1:13:05
  you have somebody that can manage that top end speed
• 1:13:09
  without breaking down and you can have that potential like in
• 1:13:12
  Budapest when TT had to run a whole 130 meters, then you need
• 1:13:16
  somebody who can run a whole 130 meters because it may come down
• 1:13:19
  to where you making that you're making that past at 129 meters
• 1:13:24
  and you need somebody who can have minimum deceleration.
• 1:13:27
  So yeah. So you do need to be looking at,
• 1:13:29
  you know, the potential of them executing a full 130 versus 100
• 1:13:33
  meters when it comes to curve runners.
• 1:13:37
  The curve on that is a has a, of course it has a different demand
• 1:13:41
  than straight. So if you again, if you have
• 1:13:44
  somebody who's familiar with that more than somebody else,
• 1:13:49
  then it's less for them to think about, you know, more for them
• 1:13:52
  to do what they've been doing. So if you have somebody like a
• 1:13:56
  like a 22 with Jennifer Andini who has been running, she was
• 1:14:01
  running 21 nines that year and she wouldn't, if you looked at
• 1:14:06
  her 130, she was always running her fast 130's, you know, 130's
• 1:14:11
  on the turn 1. She was always running fast
• 1:14:13
  130's. So when you look at your relay
• 1:14:15
  pool, if it was anybody else who was doing anything more for you
• 1:14:19
  not to start there, but if you're thinking about where you
• 1:14:23
  want to start, then you're checking off the boxes of this
• 1:14:26
  person runs, this one don't occur if this person runs, this
• 1:14:29
  person runs. Then again, it's familiarity.
• 1:14:32
  So I think when you're looking at it, you just have to look at
• 1:14:34
  the perspective of just supporting the innate ability to
• 1:14:37
  execute the demands of each leg. On your level, and let's call it
• 1:14:42
  one level down, the college level, the the people that
• 1:14:46
  you're dealing with that you get to work with, they have in
• 1:14:50
  general, I know some of them are different than others, but in
• 1:14:53
  general, they've all been studs since high school, meaning.
• 1:14:57
  And they probably all, and again, there's probably an
• 1:14:59
  exception here and there, they've all run relay, They've
• 1:15:02
  all run the four by one their entire lives.
• 1:15:05
  They, and maybe they all because they were studs, were the
• 1:15:07
  anchors in high school. But then in college they get
• 1:15:10
  moved to a third or second or first leg and then they come to
• 1:15:13
  you and you're like, yeah, but I think you should be third leg.
• 1:15:16
  I mean, don't they come to you a little bit when you say
• 1:15:19
  familiarity? And I get that, that makes a lot
• 1:15:21
  of sense. When I think of when you when
• 1:15:23
  you mention a Prandini, what is the first thing I think of for a
• 1:15:25
  relay? Oh, third leg.
• 1:15:26
  I mean, that's just my automatic, but I'm also like, I
• 1:15:28
  bet she ran the 2nd or the 4th either in college or in high
• 1:15:31
  school a lot as well. So she had to, she had to learn
• 1:15:34
  that third leg. I don't know where I'm really
• 1:15:36
  going with this question, but how do you you're dealing with
• 1:15:38
  experienced people in all four legs.
• 1:15:41
  I have to imagine in some form or fashion.
• 1:15:43
  How do you when you say familiarity, is it I'm going to
• 1:15:46
  use the word pigeonhole, Don't yell at me.
• 1:15:49
  Or is it just, you know, the context of decision making and
• 1:15:54
  minimizing risk? It 100% you are minimizing risk
• 1:16:00
  and you have to look at your pool like if you, if you have
• 1:16:03
  somebody, if you have more second legs and you need you
• 1:16:06
  only have one one third leg person, that's then you got to
• 1:16:09
  put them in a place where that third leg again, it goes back to
• 1:16:13
  minimizing risk. And if if you have more options
• 1:16:17
  of people to fill in two and four, then you just have to make
• 1:16:21
  them adjust. Of course, Prendi need to run 2.
• 1:16:23
  She's run 2 for me before. She's run 4 for me before on
• 1:16:26
  previous relays. But when it comes to that third
• 1:16:29
  leg, for some reason, well, it was very clear on why, but
• 1:16:34
  that's always the leg at the elite level that you're going to
• 1:16:37
  have to have someone make an adjustment.
• 1:16:39
  And so you want to minimize that risk with someone who again,
• 1:16:42
  goes back to familiarity on with on that space.
• 1:16:45
  But based on the strength of your pool, look at your pool, do
• 1:16:49
  the numbers who's had more experience where.
• 1:16:52
  And then if her number comes up because she's had more
• 1:16:55
  experience and you got to go 3 this time.
• 1:16:57
  Yeah. I love that.
• 1:16:59
  Well, Speaking of minimizing risk, and I'm sure I'm not
• 1:17:02
  asking you any question. No one else has never asked you
• 1:17:04
  here before. Again, as the relay coach, you
• 1:17:07
  ain't got to ask for feedback. You just you just get it unlike
• 1:17:12
  any other coach. By the way, the the sprints
• 1:17:14
  coach for the Olympic team does not get the same amount of
• 1:17:18
  advice, if you will. What about because I know
• 1:17:21
  there's coaches that are are going to ask this.
• 1:17:24
  Have you have I say you, you can only speak for yourself.
• 1:17:27
  Have you ever thought again, because you got a minimal amount
• 1:17:30
  of time, so this might be the reason why you haven't thought
• 1:17:32
  about doing this. You know, the up sweep of the
• 1:17:34
  baton used very again, I think by Poland and maybe a Japan, but
• 1:17:39
  but some certainly teams in every world champs Olympics
• 1:17:43
  finals are going to use the up sweep.
• 1:17:44
  Have you ever thought about doing the upsweep?
• 1:17:47
  I'm assuming what I hear is that that is a little bit less risky
• 1:17:51
  than the our our traditional push pass.
• 1:17:54
  Have you ever even thought about that?
• 1:17:55
  Or is it like, no, we can't, we can't do that.
• 1:17:59
  You know, it's funny because, you know, like I said, I'm
• 1:18:01
  always studying. So like Coach JT Ayers, the high
• 1:18:05
  school coach. That is who I had in mind when I
• 1:18:07
  said someone right now is like, ask her about the up sweep and
• 1:18:10
  he is one of the people. Absolutely.
• 1:18:12
  No, for sure. So I actually took his his high
• 1:18:14
  school relays coach on coach 2. I, I, I again, I'm, I'm looking
• 1:18:19
  at everything I I learned from coaches at all levels.
• 1:18:23
  I can always learn and receive information.
• 1:18:27
  So I actually took his course and and looked at what he his
• 1:18:31
  thoughts on the up suite. Again, it goes back down to you
• 1:18:36
  will have to change the US program's full approach and
• 1:18:41
  that's going to have to start in the spring and give you time to
• 1:18:48
  change a whole program culture and approach that you will have
• 1:18:52
  time to get everybody on board with.
• 1:18:56
  Not a lot of time in the summer. And then you may not even have
• 1:19:00
  touch points with those athletes in the spring.
• 1:19:03
  And so again, you're talking about 3 days, three to 12 reps
• 1:19:08
  and coming in with you're building off of a collegiate
• 1:19:12
  program, a high school program that they have had way more reps
• 1:19:17
  with a push pass than a up sweep.
• 1:19:19
  Like you're talking about zero to 10% of athletes who have ever
• 1:19:23
  even experienced the up sweep. So again, it just goes back down
• 1:19:27
  to minimize the risk. And if that was something that
• 1:19:29
  would have to, you know, you will have to take real
• 1:19:33
  investment and time to change that.
• 1:19:35
  And of course, I've, I've been looking into that and doing
• 1:19:37
  research on it as well, but it hasn't come to the point yet JT
• 1:19:45
  where, where I've just decided to like, you know, really
• 1:19:49
  invested make the switch. Yeah, I think you're right.
• 1:19:53
  The way you get study, I think about it has to almost be like a
• 1:19:56
  culture change that happens before you.
• 1:19:58
  You mentioned zero to 10%. Boy, that 10% might be way high
• 1:20:03
  high. I'm just California athletes
• 1:20:07
  who've been trying to, you know, push it that way.
• 1:20:09
  But 10% is how you're right. We're talking.
• 1:20:12
  Let's go zero to three. Yeah, that's closer.
• 1:20:15
  That's closer. So yeah, you almost have to have
• 1:20:17
  like this culture swell in the high school level where a
• 1:20:20
  majority people use it and therefore the college coaches
• 1:20:22
  go, OK, well maybe I need to start using it and then another
• 1:20:25
  swelling of college coaches that use it.
• 1:20:27
  And then maybe you could get there because you're right, if
• 1:20:29
  you were to look at, you know, 100% of all the relay passes
• 1:20:33
  that the the people you're working with have done zero to
• 1:20:38
  1% of that. So.
• 1:20:39
  Zero to 1. Let's take it down.
• 1:20:41
  Yeah, yeah. It'd be interesting for you to,
• 1:20:45
  you know, talk to to the team and be like, hey, have you guys
• 1:20:48
  ever heard of the upswing and just see how many have even
• 1:20:50
  heard of it. I bet that that's going to be a
• 1:20:54
  a single digit as well. So yeah, there's more to it than
• 1:20:57
  just, oh, well, you know, if it's safer, let's do it with our
• 1:20:59
  team. It's like, man, they they don't
• 1:21:01
  even know how to do this. They're used to.
• 1:21:03
  Yeah, we see. More and more of it, especially
• 1:21:05
  with the Japanese. Yeah, but, but, but yeah, it's
• 1:21:09
  just the level of commitment that takes.
• 1:21:11
  You know, it's a commitment at all levels that we will have to
• 1:21:15
  come together as coaches and really talk about, you know,
• 1:21:18
  what that looks like in the. US.
• 1:21:20
  Yeah, I love that. Well, let's do a terrible
• 1:21:22
  transition because I do want to spend a little bit of time here
• 1:21:25
  on this as well, because this seems to be your, You know, we
• 1:21:30
  make our legacy by the actions that we do and the people that
• 1:21:33
  we build. And you are certainly building a
• 1:21:36
  lot of things with our young ladies who are on our junior and
• 1:21:38
  senior teams in the relay specifically.
• 1:21:41
  But this track girls thing, I, I, I listened to it, you guys
• 1:21:44
  talked about a little bit on Justin's podcast and it got me
• 1:21:47
  more and more interested. I certainly have seen a couple
• 1:21:49
  of tweets or Instagram or something throughout my years,
• 1:21:52
  but I don't know a lot about it, but it seems like really, really
• 1:21:55
  important. So I want to shed some light on
• 1:21:56
  this thing. Talk to us about what track
• 1:21:58
  girls is when, when and how did you start it?
• 1:22:01
  What was the initial goal? What are you trying to do today
• 1:22:03
  with Track Girls? Yeah, I know.
• 1:22:05
  I mean, I've been called a track girl since I started at 13.
• 1:22:08
  They're going to track girls. It was a, it's a real community
• 1:22:12
  of sisterhood. You know, I've experienced that
• 1:22:14
  South Carolina, just strong, talented women coming together,
• 1:22:19
  supporting one another, competing against one another,
• 1:22:23
  you know, challenging one another.
• 1:22:26
  But I just trademarked the name. You know, my marketing came into
• 1:22:30
  play and I was like, we're a real brand.
• 1:22:32
  You know, we're a real brand. And once I got started coaching,
• 1:22:37
  I trademarked track girls just so I can make sure that I have
• 1:22:41
  some community outreach and what I'm doing since I'm back in the
• 1:22:44
  sport in this way. And I, I started out by doing
• 1:22:48
  workshops just to directly provide mentorship to girls,
• 1:22:53
  especially in those marginalized communities.
• 1:22:55
  Because you know, like I said, starting at the grassroots
• 1:22:58
  level, those coaches are who made the difference for me.
• 1:23:02
  And so I want to make the difference for athletes, meeting
• 1:23:04
  them at that, in that certain space and, and just making sure
• 1:23:07
  we meet them at that grass roots level, making sure they know the
• 1:23:10
  opportunities and they have those special experiences to
• 1:23:13
  believe that they really, it can't be them.
• 1:23:16
  You know, I always talk about that.
• 1:23:17
  It can be you. And the workshops have been
• 1:23:20
  great. You know, we've gone into South
• 1:23:22
  Africa. I just got back from Guyana with
• 1:23:25
  the US Embassy. So all of.
• 1:23:29
  I know we've gone all over the world and of course in the US
• 1:23:31
  wherever I go, you know, with the trials or US championships,
• 1:23:35
  I'm always, you know, having ties there.
• 1:23:37
  So I have different ties in different communities around
• 1:23:40
  around the world, which has been awesome.
• 1:23:42
  We award grants to girls to make sure we're removing any barriers
• 1:23:45
  to the sport. I mean, track and field is the
• 1:23:47
  number one participatory sport for middle and high school girls
• 1:23:49
  in the US. And so we want to make sure that
• 1:23:52
  girls who want to continue to fill in that, that just that
• 1:23:58
  have that experience of the sport that we're giving them
• 1:24:00
  that. And it's not because of a
• 1:24:02
  barrier. And so we've awarded, you know,
• 1:24:04
  we're a small profit, but we've awarded over $80,000 in grants
• 1:24:08
  to girls to have access to the sport.
• 1:24:11
  And so my goal is, is that, you know, I just finished writing
• 1:24:14
  the curriculum, the third parties and title one schools
• 1:24:17
  and community, local community organizations.
• 1:24:19
  But any school to be able to teach what we teach at our
• 1:24:22
  workshops. It's based in social, mental and
• 1:24:25
  physical development through the through the sport, using stories
• 1:24:28
  of empowerment of track girls and women in the sport from all
• 1:24:32
  over the world. So my goal is just to expand,
• 1:24:35
  get our what we teach in the into third parties to be able to
• 1:24:39
  scale what we do and then just continue to fundraise so that we
• 1:24:43
  can the more we can receive and what we can give.
• 1:24:47
  I love, you know, no one person can know everything, but I love
• 1:24:52
  that there is this organization that you're running and you
• 1:24:54
  have, I assume you have a team that helps you as well that I
• 1:24:57
  didn't know much about. But you're going to Guyana.
• 1:24:59
  It's like this isn't like, oh, you know, we talked about doing
• 1:25:02
  that. You're doing, You're not
• 1:25:03
  talking, you're doing. That's quite amazing.
• 1:25:07
  Yeah. No, it has been again, I have
• 1:25:10
  some tremendous, I, it's a lot of things that I really thank
• 1:25:14
  God for choosing me for. I, I know it could be anybody
• 1:25:17
  else, but for some reason he chooses me and I take that
• 1:25:21
  assignment very seriously. If he chooses me, he means that
• 1:25:25
  it's for me. And I just make sure that I just
• 1:25:30
  take every responsibility, every, every gift that I'm
• 1:25:33
  giving very seriously just to make sure that I'm doing what
• 1:25:37
  what God sees in me. So, yeah, I mean, my life has
• 1:25:41
  been a true blessing since high school to this moment right now.
• 1:25:46
  And I don't know what the future holds, but I just trust, and I
• 1:25:49
  will continue to trust that wherever I'm placed, that means
• 1:25:52
  I'm equipped for it. And I'll continue to do that.
• 1:25:56
  For some reason I'm just thinking of that.
• 1:25:58
  I don't know if it's an actual verse or if it's just a saying
• 1:26:00
  of, you know, God doesn't call the qualified.
• 1:26:03
  He qualifies those who calls. And so I just love that, you
• 1:26:09
  know, you were, I don't want to say lucky because but again,
• 1:26:13
  luck is part of, you know, where you grew up.
• 1:26:15
  You didn't choose where you grew up and things like that.
• 1:26:16
  But you. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:26:22
  Yeah, like, you know those moments, you know it.
• 1:26:24
  It didn't have to be me. But that's why I tell everybody
• 1:26:27
  it can be you. Whatever I did in my life and my
• 1:26:30
  and my roles coming up into that moment, they felt like it.
• 1:26:33
  It should be me. And so you're qualified based on
• 1:26:37
  your own experience. Everybody's path of
• 1:26:39
  qualification is different. And then like I said, once
• 1:26:43
  you're called, then you, it's your responsibility to prepare
• 1:26:46
  yourself. And so I've always been
• 1:26:48
  committed to the preparation to be ready for every moment.
• 1:26:51
  Like you're not going to find me in a moment that I'm not
• 1:26:53
  prepared for. Yeah, I love that.
• 1:26:55
  Where is the best place someone is hearing this right now?
• 1:26:58
  They're like, wait, I want to, I want to know more either that
• 1:27:00
  I'd like to bring that program to my school or they want to
• 1:27:03
  help support financially or other ways.
• 1:27:05
  Is there a website or social media which what's the best
• 1:27:07
  place for us to go to? Track girls with AZ so you know,
• 1:27:10
  add a little finesse in there, but you know, track girls.org or
• 1:27:14
  on my Instagram track girls, you know, please reach out.
• 1:27:18
  I do a lot of speaking. So if you know, if anybody ever
• 1:27:22
  wants just to understand, you know, high performance, how to
• 1:27:24
  build winning teams, just how to better yourself, how to rise to
• 1:27:28
  the occasion at any moment, you know, just, you know, please
• 1:27:31
  reach out to me as Michelle Louis Freeman as my Instagram as
• 1:27:35
  well. Well, I do love that.
• 1:27:37
  You know, I think back to the stories that I've had the
• 1:27:40
  privilege to be able to share here with the, you know, Karen
• 1:27:43
  Dennis, now formerly of the Ohio State, Sue Humphreys, others.
• 1:27:48
  And, you know, it struck me of when they eventually whether was
• 1:27:52
  they were their kid or later on as adult saw someone that looked
• 1:27:55
  like them in that position. It was.
• 1:27:57
  Yeah, I came or who someone described it as almost like an
• 1:27:59
  aha moment of like, oh, wait a minute.
• 1:28:02
  Well, that means I can become that as well.
• 1:28:04
  And so I think, you know, an organization like yourself at
• 1:28:07
  trackgirls.org, you know, helps other, in this case mirror of
• 1:28:12
  you young, young black girls being able to see that, oh, I
• 1:28:17
  can be an Olympian, I can be a track coach, I can become a
• 1:28:20
  teacher. There are many other amazing
• 1:28:23
  things that sometimes kids, you know, through no fault of their
• 1:28:26
  own, their kids, they just don't know that it's even available
• 1:28:29
  even in today's world where everything's in our palm, in our
• 1:28:30
  hands, but not everybody has that in the palm in their hands.
• 1:28:32
  So with the cell phone and such. So I, I love that you're doing
• 1:28:35
  that and love the, the team that you have with you that is doing
• 1:28:38
  that as well. That's and it.
• 1:28:39
  Also takes like, you know, I had the Latonya Sheffield, like
• 1:28:42
  when, when nobody had my back, you know, and, and I'm in this
• 1:28:47
  role and you're making these decisions and you got to make
• 1:28:49
  some real tough decisions. But people who just stood up for
• 1:28:53
  me, the Tanya Sheffield, Sonya farmer Patrick, you know, they,
• 1:28:58
  they really stood up for me And it takes, that's why I'm just
• 1:29:02
  saying like it takes it for, for people to see you people to have
• 1:29:06
  your back. So I, I think I thank you all
• 1:29:10
  out there who have the women who have stood up for me, who saw me
• 1:29:14
  and I'm going to continue to do the same thing.
• 1:29:16
  I that's what trackers is about, seeing the next one.
• 1:29:19
  So yeah, it just takes a community of people, a
• 1:29:21
  sisterhood, a true sisterhood. And I've been surrounded by that
• 1:29:23
  from birth, from my sister to college to high school to
• 1:29:27
  college to pros to now. Well, Michelle, I plan on doing
• 1:29:31
  this podcast for at least 1020, thirty more years.
• 1:29:33
  I can't wait to have someone on the show and they go, you know
• 1:29:35
  who stood up for me? Michelle Freeman at the 2028
• 1:29:39
  Olympics? Man, I I had no business being
• 1:29:41
  on there, but she believes me. That's going to happen and and I
• 1:29:44
  can't wait to continue. Not only your legacy in regards
• 1:29:47
  to that, but a Sioux and a Terry and all these other Sandra
• 1:29:51
  Farmer. I mean, just that's a
• 1:29:53
  continuation of their legacy in looking at you right there in
• 1:29:56
  the mirror there. So Michelle, thank you so much.
• 1:29:59
  You know, the most valuable thing you can ever give me is
• 1:30:01
  your time. You are you obviously are very
• 1:30:04
  busy. You've already missing phone
• 1:30:06
  calls and everything that you need to get back, you got to get
• 1:30:10
  back. You know, I would have turned
• 1:30:11
  that off since my phone. My phone, yeah.
• 1:30:15
  No worries, no worries, it's all good.
• 1:30:18
  Just so grateful for you sitting down with us today sharing your
• 1:30:20
  journey. I do recommend for you guys and
• 1:30:23
  guys that are listening go to ready set go podcast.
• 1:30:26
  There were some things that we didn't get into here that I
• 1:30:28
  thought were just fantastic. Really some of the, I'll call it
• 1:30:33
  the scientific portion of relays with the baton speeds and how
• 1:30:36
  that is is grown up with Michelle through the program as
• 1:30:38
  well. Grown up in that program.
• 1:30:40
  And it's it's quite fascinating stuff.
• 1:30:42
  And then, of course, you have the experience of a Justin and
• 1:30:44
  who's been in a, you know, few relays himself that it makes for
• 1:30:47
  a good interview. So I just want to encourage you
• 1:30:49
  to head over there to that show as well.
• 1:30:51
  Michelle, thank you so much. Really, really grateful for your
• 1:30:53
  time and excited to see what, 20 LA 28.
• 1:30:58
  And there's a couple meets in between that I think you're
• 1:30:59
  going to have to have a hand in as well.
• 1:31:01
  And just really excited that you're leading our young women
• 1:31:04
  on the relay team specifically for Team USA.
• 1:31:07
  Thank you so much. Thanks for you having.
• 1:31:10
  Me, absolutely. Thank you guys for being here.
• 1:31:11
  Join us next week. We'll do it all over again.
• 1:31:13
  See you guys. The goals to appreciate the
• 1:31:17
  coach, the ones that pour people most every season needs a voice
• 1:31:21
  of reason speaking the growth you got to prep before you carry
• 1:31:24
  the load ice coffee to the soul. For those of us who stay on the
• 1:31:27
  go proper handoff to stay in the zone which you packing for the
• 1:31:30
  road. There's more than one way to go
• 1:31:32
  taking those that's paying you're told it ain't practice
• 1:31:35
  it's your purpose. Saint Clair.
• 1:31:36
  It can't happen until you listen with both is you can't mentor
• 1:31:39
  without a mentor of experience. You can reinvent those years.
• 1:31:43
  Every plan's got to stand and deliver to the price sacrifice.
• 1:31:47
  Can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
• 1:31:49
  win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:31:52
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
• 1:31:55
  about why. You don't know till you know who
• 1:31:57
  you are inside 6. When you waste the time, choose
• 1:32:00
  none. So y'all cross the finish line.
• 1:32:02
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got
• 1:32:05
  to put in the leg work. Guil Athletics is the network.
• 1:32:08
  It's all about connections put together for the profession to
• 1:32:11
  where every track coach could be blessing.