Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #204: Jason Bryan-Catawba College

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#204: Jason Bryan-Catawba College · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field coach, the ones that point
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  people most every season. He's the voice of reason.
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  Speaking, the growth gotta prep for you carry the load.
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  Talk to the stove. For those of us, stay on the go
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  pop, the handle, staying in the zone.
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  What you packing for the role is more than one way to go taking
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  Listen with both ears, can't Mentor, without a mentor, kids
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  of experience, you can reinvent those kids.
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  Every plans got to stand and deliver in the price sacrifice,
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  can you give up Hugh its choice and to fight not to win or lose?
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  It's not a boy, but if I see, y'all can make more movies, not
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  about how to All about why you don't know what you're you know
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  who you are inside. Six, many ways to die.
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  It's all about Connections put together for the profession to
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  every track coach could be blessed.
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  Alright, welcome back to the gulf buttocks connections
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  podcast. We're so glad that you're here
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  today. I am just so pumped to bring you
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  another amazing coach from around the country.
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  You know, this is episode gosh, this is episode 204.
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  And so I just want to give a little bit of encouragement.
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  If this is your first time listening to the show, you
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  notice where episode 204, that means there are two hundred and
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  three other amazing people. In groups of people that have
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  been on this podcast. I'd encourage you in the podcast
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  app. App that you're listening right
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  now or if you're watching on YouTube go back and look through
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  episode 15. 1066 142. 199 look at some of the others.
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  I guarantee you. There are some other coaches and
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  we've had coaching staffs on here before that will will
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  challenge you and encourage you and what you do as a track coach
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  or as a track athlete. And So, speaking of that, we're
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  going to get to today's guest, help me.
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  Welcome head coach of Catawba. I made.
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  Sure, I pronounced it right Catawba College.
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  I hope there. I didn't look at the mask.
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  I love mascots. I hope we're like the catamounts
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  or something like that. We're going to find out here
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  soon. Help me welcome the head coach
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  of Catawba College, mr. Jason Brian Jason, how are you,
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  sir? Good.
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  Yeah, thanks for having me. What is it, Catawba?
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  It's got to be something with asea cougars catamounts.
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  Um, yeah, we're getting started on hot one already.
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  It is the Catawba Indians currently.
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  Oh, yeah. But we have, we have a
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  relationship with the kitab, Indian Nation down in Rock,
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  Hill, South Carolina. It started the college started
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  in Catawba County, which was named Obviously after did the
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  Indian Nation but we have a very close tie with a copy in the
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  nation. So we're allowed to have that,
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  that make but we are also working on like a kind of an
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  animal mascot right now. We've changed some branding
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  recently and I don't know, we'll do let me know what I can put on
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  my uniform. Yeah, as I say, I'm gonna go on
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  a limb and say you as the track coach Cross Country Coach, you
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  don't get to speak into that very much.
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  You just get to go? Yes, sir, yes, ma'am.
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  All right, well, where this exactly, exactly.
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  But we yeah, we're Yeah. We're you know, in a, I think in
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  a situation where we do have that relationship with the
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  kitabi animation and we, you know, are very grateful to have
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  that name and I think it's a, you know, we want to honor them
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  as well. When we start looking at mascots
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  as far as animal mascot, things like that.
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  So we're in talk to them about what would honor their that
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  specific Any Nation? And I think that, you know, I
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  think we'll find that out when they when they but I tell me.
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  Yeah. This is exactly what I love it.
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  Well that's good. Well I'm glad we just we get the
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  hot button right off the bat that's good.
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  No more controversy that all the time here well Jason super
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  excited to get to know you a little bit better and learn your
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  journey in this great profession of coaching track and field.
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  I start this the all these interviews kind of in the same
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  vein with a kind of the same question, you know, Jason
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  assuming that you were an athlete at whether it's tracker
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  other sport at some point in your life coaching change for
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  you. It went from from in your mind,
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  something that was done to you go run this goal.
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  If that go through this etcetera to to an idea of like, oh wait a
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  minute, like I could be a coach, like I love this coach or maybe
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  you dislike this coach? And so I want to do the opposite
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  of what this person does. But somewhere had to change and
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  be like, oh, this could actually be a profession where does
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  coaching begin for you in that thought process?
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  Yeah. So I did, I did compete in
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  college distance advancement distance events that actually
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  the Anderson University in South Carolina who is in our
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  conference and we compete against regularly and are very
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  good program but I would say probably my junior year in
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  college. I was named team captain and my
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  journey I wasn't very good in high school.
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  I got a little better in college and never Or you know, a
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  national class you know, kind of athlete but I got better in the
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  conference and contributed and I enjoyed that process and think
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  my senior year, we lost our distance coach going into my he
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  ended up leaving going into my last semester and I kind of
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  Coach myself / helped coach some of the guys on the team and I
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  enjoyed it. They, you know, they listen to
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  me because I've been the team captain and I So, that kind of
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  started me thinking, I could, I enjoy this and I really latched
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  onto the sport and I fully, you know, I was all in in college
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  and and so I wanted to stay in it and the way I could stand it,
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  you know, was not to compete at the pro obviously, but would be
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  to, you know, you know, staying in coaching and half.
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  I tell people, I never left College.
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  I still, I'm still in college environment.
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  I'm still out of college everyday and I enjoy I enjoy the
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  aspect of, you know, the college athlete and this time in their
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  life because what you kind of you're figuring out who you are
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  and if I can be a part of that help along the way.
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  That's that's why I enjoy about and I think that's all that as
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  an athlete, how much it changed me.
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  And I think that I love being a part of that.
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  Now, you know, something the way you said something kind of hit
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  me, it's something I've kind of worked towards when I Talk to
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  coaches. Pardon me.
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  If, if you've talked to me at the convention before or other
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  places, you've heard me and I think I've done here in the
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  podcast, to I rail against the word, just write, sometimes
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  they'll say I'm just a track coach.
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  I'm Justice and it's like, oh, you're devaluing yourself.
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  When you say, just write something, you said there and
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  I've heard it quite often. The way you just described
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  yourself when you talked about being an athlete.
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  You said, oh, I wasn't a national qualifier, you know,
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  anything like that, you know, but I was, you know, so I got
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  better and things like that. You kind of devalue yourself a
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  little bit there. Jason in what I say that is, you
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  know, you were a track athlete. First of all, how many get to
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  compete. How many track athletes get to
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  compete in the college level? This many this guy, that very,
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  very small. So you are right off the bat by
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  running in college in a very select group, my friend just by
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  running track even though it's the most participated sport on
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  the high school and Collegiate level.
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  Think about your high school there were depending on how big
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  it was. There were hundreds.
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  People who never had the hood, spur to go, run track.
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  So you don't devalue. What you ran track, that period.
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  That right there is enough of a qualifier for you whether you
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  want in there. So few winners there.
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  So few Conference champions and national champions, that's not
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  your worth is, whether you were first or not your worth is that
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  you went out there and you competed, you put yourself out
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  there. But if right now I have a kid
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  that just ran his first Middle School, sixth grade track.
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  And so I'm dealing with this in a whole different light.
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  Now of who our identity is, Is right, that it's like it's okay.
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  That you're not the fastest kid today, by the way, you're in
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  sixth grade for crying out loud. But, you know, you know, it's
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  not who your value is. So sorry.
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  I want a little rant there. When you describe that I was
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  like, oh no, Jason don't. Don't, don't put yourself, don't
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  compare yourself to what other people happen to have done.
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  You're awesome. And you were an athlete.
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  That's awesome and your Athlete on College.
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  I love that in. You're an athlete at Anderson
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  which I love because they just redid their facility.
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  You know what, two years really notes of a suit.
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  We were so honored to choose that and I love the design that
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  they did for all their equipment.
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  They didn't amazing amazing job there.
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  So shout out to hear all your alma mater, man.
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  They did an amazing job. Yeah.
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  So what did you must step off my soapbox here.
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  What did you go into college, thinking for our career?
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  We all think something, whether it's going to be firemen
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  business, owner, Bank clerk. I don't know.
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  You didn't go in thinking, you were going to be a coach.
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  What was the plan when you went to?
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  Ian. Yeah, I mean I was the
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  quintessential athlete who Waits until Midway through cellphone
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  the year which is when the NCAA makes you a jerk to you know
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  figure out what I wanted to major in it.
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  But I literally I think I had at that point you kind of go off
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  your, you know, mentors and influencers and things like
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  that. And I had a really good English
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  teacher my freshman year and I enjoyed the that side of it, and
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  maybe in journalism or something like that.
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  But Um, my dad and I had a conversation about it.
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  He was like, you know, I don't know what you're going to do.
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  It in English degree all this and so it came down to, you
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  know, pretty much a general business degree, is what I went
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  with and I, you know, you can do a lot with that.
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  And so I had a business degree and I think it's business
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  management was a specific degree and figured out very quickly
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  accounting was not for me I did like in this kind of maybe was
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  foreshadowing a little bit. I Of the leadership and the
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  marketing to be honest with you, side of things, which we can
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  talk about this, you know, later too.
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  But it's funny how things down, like, start to show you kind of
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  and things that you worked on in the past come back and help you
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  later on in your life. And you see, they like all the
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  taking that marketing class and really dive into that the
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  recruiting and helps with, you know, marketing our program in
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  our school, and my, you know, your mindset for that.
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  And so, Um, business was my degree in in college, and I
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  ended up getting my Masters in Business as well while I was
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  there. And so, you know, hopefully
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  being a resume sorter, one day, you know, put me in a different
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  pile of resumes, but it, yeah, it it helped me more than I
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  realized Looking Back, Zoo People, major, you're touching
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  on that word leadership which if you're going to be a coach with
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  the, you are great at the x's and o's.
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  Or not, you have to be a leader. You've got all these eyeballs
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  staring up at, you wanted to know, what do we do next coach?
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  So, I loved speaking about that topic.
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  It's a natural topic when we're talking to an about track
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  coaches and it started well not necessarily started but one of
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  the examples that you gave was in this junior senior year.
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  First of all, being named team captain and then as you know,
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  there's a vacancy on the coaching staff and you kind of
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  fill the void there. Where did that?
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  You know? Not not not.
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  Everyone can do that. Not everyone wants to do that by
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  obvious, that not every one of the people on your cross country
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  team, became team captains and help coach the team, right?
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  And isn't make them more or less of a person.
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  But where did that want for you come from?
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  Was there a high school coach that even in related?
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  Maybe it was the coach that left?
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  Where did that kind of that Vision?
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  Someone has to kind of you have to see it kind of first to do
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  it. Where did that come from?
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  Yeah I don't. Let's go pretty deep.
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  I don't have a thought about exactly where that came from but
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  I love sports from a very young age.
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  My my dad was a very good high school athlete interview at the
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  college level weren't as many opportunities out thing back
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  then. But yeah I mean I just I grew up
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  doing almost every sport there was and I from a very young age
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  this is kind of this is very specific but But I from a very
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  young age, my plan, I'm playing football at the University of
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  South Carolina. I was raised as a South Carolina
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  fan, which was not an easy life. It's much better today than it
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  was. But yeah, I was, I was so
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  dedicated. I remember going on the
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  playground and like, and to be honest with you, I guess I had,
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  I don't know what the ability to kind of wrangle everybody
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  together on a playground. Like this is what we're going to
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  play today. We're going to, you know, act
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  like we're running out of the tunnel at South Carolina like
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  the kids Do it on the playground and like I don't know about
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  maybe force them to do it or suggested it strongly, but for a
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  very young age, I like I was very I love Rudy was my favorite
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  movie like you know, I love that like sports and just it it I
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  don't know. It was very inspirational to me
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  and I think maybe that's why I just was like that's one being
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  this lifestyle and and I do think stepping into the role of
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  team. It in and we I was team captain,
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  my junior year and we ended up winning the conference
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  Championship that year and it was just the whole season was
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  just I mean it was amazing and I think that really solidified
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  kind of burned that into my Consciousness that like this,
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  this is that was fun. And I enjoyed that seeing
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  everybody maximize their potential and doing it as a team
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  and you know, you know, those guys still talk to him on a
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  weekly basis. You know, I want to hear Or.
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  And and so it's that is something that I wanted to be a
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  part of and I think maybe that was what they can back.
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  That's kind of what Really Gabby into the, into the coaching side
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  of things. Well, shout out to South
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  Carolina, football. Shane Beamer was actually a G8,
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  Mississippi State when I was at coaching at Mississippi State.
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  So, I got to know him a little bit as a young, and it was just
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  an all more because of his dad, to be honest with you.
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  But, but obviously, doing something right.
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  Not Otis is now coaches. And I think he's outside looking
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  in and come down. Do the day-to-day?
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  I don't know what, he, how he interacts with people there, but
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  you see those guys respond to him.
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  Yeah. And he's doing something right,
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  and he isn't that seeing. If you can tell they love him,
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  it's probably the highlight videos that he does that.
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  Yeah, but he seems to really, really generally care about
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  that. And, and that's their coaches
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  that, you know, there's not saying that other coaches don't,
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  but you can really, he's very authentic.
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  He's very, I think he's very vulnerable, puts herself out
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  there and in those High videos. Yeah.
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  Right. I appreciate that.
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  And, yeah, I look at that. Can I like a guy who put himself
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  out there and let people make fun of them?
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  Sure? Yeah.
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  Yeah, absolutely. That's authenticity, right?
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  I mean, I'd quite like that, you know, not trying to paint this
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  curated perfect SEC. Head coach image, if you will.
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  But it's like, I'm just, I'm ashamed job group of coaches kid
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  and, you know, we're speculating a lot, of course on them.
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  But I do, I do quite like the and it must work, because they
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  got that super stud Sprinter football player with Nicholas
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  Harbor. I think is his name.
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  Oh my, I can't wait to see this kid, man.
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  Oh my that's There's there's few people that come out of high
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  school that's like you know, if I don't have a connection like
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  I'm gonna watch their careers like well this kid I'm going to
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  watch his career so that's exciting.
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  And sure, Curtis is happy about that too.
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  Yeah, I haven't heard him. I haven't heard him complain
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  about it, that's for sure. Well, Jason.
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  So when you be, you know, team captain and going into the
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  senior year and you start feeling kind of a coaching void
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  there as well. And maybe that's when the
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  coaching bug, really solidified itself?
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  Did you did you do anything? For, as it relates to the
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  workouts, and I don't mean X. Is that?
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  We don't talk exynos. What I mean is again, you know,
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  freshman year, sophomore year, even junior year coach wrote the
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  work out for you and you did it and maybe you asked, well, why
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  are we doing this? And why are we doing this on the
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  next day? And those kind of things, but
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  then when you go into coaching, and it may not happen from the
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  very GetGo, especially as a college senior.
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  But some point in coaching, we start going, well, I need to
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  learn more. I know, this is what I did but I
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  need to learn why we did that and maybe why we shouldn't have
• 17:03
  done that. And what I should do here, did
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  you And looking at the workouts differently at any point, or was
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  it still just like, all right, I'm a runner.
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  What's the work out? Alright, let's go work on the
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  workout. Yeah, at that point, it was
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  still kind of like we're doing what we've done, what's were
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  than like I was in that world of like, that's the only thing I
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  knew was what we had done in Anderson and it did have been
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  working to my, I mean, I thought it had been looking back on it.
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  Funny, the things that you did we do that, or I can't believe
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  we did that every week. Your You know, and looked at the
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  end of his nose. Now from that lens and luckily,
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  I understand exactly what we did that happen.
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  But no, I think that came later because I actually ended up
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  after I got done, I had a, I was one of those, you know, I needed
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  to go a little bit longer to get my degree, so I had to come back
• 17:55
  for another semester but I was done with eligibility.
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  There's no covid your any back then.
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  Obviously I had to find something to do, so I ended up
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  going over to Erskine College which is 20 minutes away from
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  Anderson. That is another division to
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  program and a buddy of mine. He would ran it.
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  Her skin was, you know, they were like, hey, you're here.
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  We don't have a head coach, you're the head coach.
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  Now he had just graduated in the head coach.
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  And so you want to help me out and volunteer.
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  We had that vacancy at Anderson for our assistant coach who had
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  left and I was like, Mom, I'm easily going to get this.
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  I my head coach is going to hire me no doubt.
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  Like I was the guy who thought he knew everything, I thought I
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  knew everything young guy who thought he knew, you know,
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  everything there was to know about distance running it and my
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  head coach ended up interviewing people.
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  And I'm like, that's weird. Interviewing people on him, he
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  interviewed me. That's, you know he's just doing
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  that, right? He's got to do that right?
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  Yeah. I brought you a conference
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  Championship I'm like, you know, I'm just like head can't get in
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  the room and he didn't hire me. He hired another guy who
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  obviously had some coding experience and it, you know, it
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  really messed with me but also, you know, maybe mad and that's
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  all I was like, yeah, I need to go somewhere else.
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  Obviously, I'm not going to be here, helping out on it.
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  It's, it was terrible because I all my buddies are on the team
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  and like, I've been their team captain and like me, you know?
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  And so I ended up going over to Erskine for that semester and
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  driving over there, like three days a week volunteering, it was
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  just a volunteer role, and we ended up beating Anderson that
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  fall and cross-country on the inside and and it ended up not
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  working out with that, that coach, that was in Anderson that
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  had gotten a job. And so, in January, come January
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  next, semester my head coach was like, Hey, you know, we love to
• 19:48
  have you back and Obviously, it wasn't a good call that other
• 19:52
  guy and not to say that it would better astronomy.
• 19:55
  But he's like, you know, we do have a vacancy now and you know,
• 19:59
  we'd love to have you back and show who I part about their paws
• 20:03
  right there. Because first of all, I got to
• 20:05
  thank you for your openness and an authenticity.
• 20:08
  I mean, you know what? Some people don't maybe realize
• 20:10
  when they're listening to the podcast, there are no scripted
• 20:12
  questions. So, Jason here, there's nothing.
• 20:16
  We've pre talked about nothing is like, hey, Jason, make sure
• 20:19
  you talked about this or hey, that was a great story make.
• 20:21
  Bring this up. He gets the direct his own
• 20:23
  story. Like we if he killed someone in
• 20:25
  college, he gets to tell if he decides to tell her that story
• 20:27
  or not. Thank God, he did.
• 20:29
  I assume you did not do that Jason so they get to direct
• 20:32
  Their Own Story here on the connections podcast.
• 20:34
  So you didn't have to say that. I mean you were really like it
• 20:38
  and we're going to explore this as we move along here but
• 20:40
  there's obviously a lot of self-awareness that came to you
• 20:42
  because you were like Oh I thought I knew it all back.
• 20:45
  Then my head couldn't fit in the room.
• 20:47
  There those are the things that you just said there and people
• 20:49
  who still are Are like that today.
• 20:51
  Don't say that right there. Like, oh no, I died.
• 20:53
  I know what I'm doing. I can't believe that coach made
• 20:55
  the mistake and didn't hire me etcetera, etcetera.
• 20:57
  You you've gotten through some self-awareness of like, oh yeah,
• 21:01
  I was a little use this word but cocky or, you know, over
• 21:05
  confident in my skills. So I first of all, just totally,
• 21:08
  thank you for, you know, being that complete transparent with
• 21:12
  us because that's the type of things that will help other
• 21:14
  people. Like there's other people
• 21:15
  listening today, going, wait a minute.
• 21:17
  I need to take a step back and look at my legs.
• 21:19
  Is that why I didn't get hired at this other job?
• 21:21
  And I thought I should have, you know, that's super helpful to
• 21:24
  the coaching body. So just thank you.
• 21:25
  Thank you, thank you. Now the real question as you
• 21:29
  just talked about kind of your mindset and the ego.
• 21:32
  Remember ego is not bad, bad ego is bad, the ego is what helps us
• 21:37
  to dress nicer, get more educated, take shots that we
• 21:41
  quote unquote aren't supposed to take things like that.
• 21:43
  So egos good, bad ego is bad. So you just admitted, you know,
• 21:47
  kind of you're in the bad ego spot.
• 21:49
  At this point, you go to Earth skin.
• 21:51
  Can you beat the team that you were air quotes are supposed to
• 21:54
  have been coaching and then in January.
• 21:57
  So after crosses all over you win, you kind of a little bit of
• 21:59
  a little bit of the thumb and then you know knows the thumb
• 22:02
  whatever they say, you know, to your coach like hey man look
• 22:04
  what we did over here you know? I'm just volunteered over here
• 22:07
  and then he comes to you and says hey that one didn't work
• 22:10
  out, you know, you would you like the job?
• 22:15
  You've got a path here. You could have easily.
• 22:17
  I don't know, I didn't actually hear the answer.
• 22:19
  You could say, oh yeah, now you want me?
• 22:23
  I'm no one's second place. I'm no one.
• 22:25
  Second choice. I've heard those terms used a
• 22:27
  lot in our industry, and it's heard a lot of people because
• 22:31
  they can't let that ego go. Or you could have said, oh,
• 22:34
  thank goodness. I love much prefer to coach at
• 22:36
  my alma mater. So, okay.
• 22:38
  Yes, I'll take the job at Anderson.
• 22:40
  What did you do when coach came to you?
• 22:42
  What was your mindset? Your attitude as Is saying
• 22:45
  things that you knew. Hey, it didn't work out and now
• 22:48
  we'd like, for you to take the job.
• 22:49
  Tell us about that. Yeah, well, I think part of the
• 22:52
  blessing was that I had You know, looking at it.
• 22:56
  I had very little to do with that Erskine team.
• 23:00
  Beating Anderson the head coach. It's a lot of factors into those
• 23:03
  things. Sure, who my mind when I got
• 23:05
  there, I'd only been in one One World in college and what we had
• 23:10
  done, what we had focused on all that and it wasn't all bad.
• 23:14
  But then when I went there, hearing things about nutrition
• 23:17
  for the first time, specifics, about workouts, and of how you
• 23:21
  look at your competition and you shouldn't care about that.
• 23:23
  If you do your thing and like, I was like, well, I've never
• 23:25
  thought about and like hearing my buddy, you know, John Sell
• 23:29
  who's a great coach and was a good runner, it's, you know,
• 23:34
  explain those things. We had long talks and things
• 23:37
  like that and like He was a year ahead of me in school, so not
• 23:40
  that much older, you know. So we were, you know, friends
• 23:44
  but hearing him explain these things to me for the first time
• 23:48
  and hearing those things are first-time.
• 23:49
  Humbled me and showed me I didn't hot know half the stuff.
• 23:53
  I thought I did. Hmm.
• 23:54
  And so that, that brought me into the room the next time with
• 23:57
  my coaching interest and differently, I think and and
• 24:00
  with a different mindset and grateful to have the opportunity
• 24:03
  and not, you know, not expected in school about like oh yeah.
• 24:08
  Harvey it. So I that really never crossed
• 24:10
  my mind and the guy the guy had done a disasters job Anderson
• 24:14
  who he hired. And so like it was epically bad.
• 24:17
  And so it was and I kind of heard that stuff that it would
• 24:22
  be going that way. And so I knew it was kind of
• 24:24
  heading that way. So in January like I was you
• 24:27
  know I was grateful to have the opportunity and and work with my
• 24:31
  work, my friends and you know literally go back to the team
• 24:34
  that I was on and now I'm coaching.
• 24:37
  So That was an interesting kind of, I think I've had heard you
• 24:40
  and uh last week and I think the podcast came out with the young
• 24:44
  man who's in college. I wanted to coach and that
• 24:47
  concept came off of. Now, you're a coach and athlete
• 24:50
  and I was at the same school which happens a lot.
• 24:53
  But that was an interesting transition and to learn you
• 24:58
  know, what a coach's role is versus a teammate.
• 25:01
  Yeah. But I was grateful to have an
• 25:02
  opportunity so yeah, that's exactly where this next
• 25:05
  questions are going exactly right.
• 25:07
  Well, first, I'd love that. I just want to point out to
• 25:09
  listeners, listen to the difference in words of users
• 25:12
  when he was applying for the job.
• 25:14
  When Jason was applying for the job for that fall semester.
• 25:16
  It was like, well, of course he's going to hire me.
• 25:17
  I just, I brought you a championship and pretty much led
• 25:20
  the team this past year and things like that.
• 25:22
  And now the words Jason's using for this January opportunity is
• 25:25
  oh I'm grateful for this opportunity.
• 25:28
  I'm grateful coach, came back to me like this.
• 25:31
  Look at the difference in just wording.
• 25:32
  That's how you can tell if someone's where their mindset in
• 25:34
  their ego said is it's what are the words they're using.
• 25:37
  Expecting expectation. There's you can have
• 25:40
  expectations for yourself but to expect that you're going to be
• 25:43
  given this job even though you may think you've earned it
• 25:45
  versus I'm grateful for an opportunity.
• 25:47
  Like I hope like I'm pray that I get this opportunity so I can
• 25:50
  prove myself but nothing is given.
• 25:52
  So I love the the different word choices there as well.
• 25:56
  It's also interesting to me Jason When you were applying for
• 26:04
  the job in the fall and you didn't get it.
• 26:07
  I can imagine, especially the way you describe your ego state.
• 26:10
  That point some ill will you mentioned engines, you know, you
• 26:15
  know, I can't believe this is happening.
• 26:17
  What a mistake. Okay, I'm going to go volunteer
• 26:21
  at her skin almost like begrudgingly.
• 26:24
  Like I should be the distance coach at Anderson, but I'll go
• 26:27
  volunteer over here. And in that moment, it's really
• 26:30
  hard for us to see that maybe this is the best thing that will
• 26:34
  ever happen to us. And here and only in a semester
• 26:38
  that is a Blink of an eye In Our Lifetime in a semester.
• 26:43
  It changed you. It changed.
• 26:46
  I mean, it's obvious that it changed you in your mindset and
• 26:50
  your humbleness towards others, which athletes or other coaches
• 26:55
  or Superior. Could go ahead coaches, Etc.
• 26:57
  So, you know, and again, you know, hindsight is 2020 2020.
• 27:00
  So we can look back now because we have experience and be like,
• 27:02
  oh, thank God, I didn't get that job.
• 27:05
  I think goodness. I was able to go to her skin.
• 27:07
  Like, you've learned so much. I gotta I just think that's such
• 27:10
  a great lesson for us when you're in the moment, I know
• 27:12
  it's so hard when you're in the moment to go.
• 27:14
  Okay. I know, I didn't get what I
• 27:15
  wanted, but maybe I'm getting what I needed.
• 27:18
  I'm about to them about the need and that's what it sounds like.
• 27:21
  This this semester at her skin really was was for you.
• 27:23
  It's what you needed at the time.
• 27:26
  Yeah. And it's hard to see in a moment
• 27:28
  and in that would happen later in my career to that I would
• 27:30
  want this path but this path is probably best in the long term
• 27:34
  and Um, and that's something that you try to impart to these,
• 27:39
  you know, people on your team. It's hard.
• 27:41
  Yeah, yeah. Hey, look like this injury.
• 27:43
  This semester might be like, the worst thing ever, but it's maybe
• 27:47
  something that's going to make you so much for grateful for
• 27:49
  what you reach and, and, and, and, and, you know, a lot of
• 27:53
  times they're like, oh, you're supposed to say that coach or
• 27:55
  whatever. But being able to give examples
• 27:57
  like, look, this happened to me, and I think that's the beauty of
• 28:00
  like a senior athlete speaking, to an underclassmen and see, See
• 28:05
  the light, all these girls around mentoring, the younger
• 28:08
  guys, on the team. And but yeah, now it definitely
• 28:12
  changed me a lot and the, you know, I need to have it.
• 28:16
  I haven't talked to John a while if I need to reach out to him
• 28:18
  and got to tell him that we talked about this and they would
• 28:22
  be great for. I'm going to tell you it's on
• 28:24
  recording here. Jason.
• 28:25
  Yeah, you need to reach out to him.
• 28:27
  Absolutely 100%. Yes, that's your homework from
• 28:30
  the podcast. See you become a guest to get
• 28:31
  homework is so maybe you don't want to be a guest on the show,
• 28:34
  right? All right.
• 28:35
  One of my favorite topics to discuss is exactly what you
• 28:39
  described there. So, one day you're an athlete,
• 28:43
  you're playing Xbox with the boys on the weekend and then the
• 28:46
  next day and that was a semester later.
• 28:48
  But, you know, a blink of the eye and now you are barking out
• 28:52
  orders. Hey, we need to hit splits in
• 28:54
  this. Let's go on this run and you got
• 28:55
  to keep this threshold blah blah.
• 28:57
  I act like I know how to coach distance Runners, but I really
• 28:59
  don't, but you're still friends with you, you can set it, these
• 29:03
  are my friends, like, I won't change.
• 29:05
  A ship's with some of these kids, you know, some of the
• 29:07
  older ones. How did you or did you separate
• 29:11
  yourself that you're no longer? Jason, the teammate of Tommy?
• 29:15
  Oh, now you're coach. Brian, the coach of Tommy?
• 29:18
  How did you do that? How do you, how do you navigate
• 29:20
  that? Did you struggle with that at
• 29:21
  all? I think, looking back.
• 29:28
  Maybe did struggle with it and probably, you know, didn't
• 29:31
  separate myself as much as I should have at times.
• 29:34
  But yeah, I mean, I think I was a very Well, they're very pretty
• 29:43
  straightforward Stern Captain on the team, nickname for me, that
• 29:48
  I'll just leave out, but then that coach that when I got the
• 29:54
  job. So and I tried to, I was kept
• 29:58
  people in line and I, you know, they would say, you know, was a
• 30:02
  little obsessive about it at times when I was a captain.
• 30:04
  So, you know, not saying anything to like, pull myself
• 30:09
  up, but I think They had that respect that like okay he really
• 30:13
  cares about this and you know, saw that I did improve and said
• 30:18
  they wanted. You know, I think they believed
• 30:20
  in what we were doing but yeah II as far as hanging out and
• 30:25
  stuff like that, I did not do that as much for you know, we
• 30:30
  would you know, the cafeteria had a meal plan.
• 30:32
  So it was great that we were actually able after practice,
• 30:35
  I'd go to dinner, sometimes it would sit there and talk and
• 30:38
  still hang out with a lot of the team.
• 30:40
  That was what I think help that team be very close but other
• 30:44
  than that. Yeah.
• 30:45
  I mean I've kind of separated myself as far as like outside of
• 30:48
  practice a lot but it wasn't that difficult because I think I
• 30:53
  had set you know a certain standard maybe as a cat and kind
• 30:58
  of just went into that coaching and roll with it.
• 31:01
  Yeah it's yeah I can't imagine doing it.
• 31:03
  I mean you're asking for 30 year old decisions out of a 22
• 31:06
  year-old you're like man yesterday I was that was my
• 31:09
  best. That is my best friend.
• 31:10
  Still, but there is a difference in roles and and authority and
• 31:15
  responsibilities at that point. So yeah, it's really tough man.
• 31:17
  That's why I'm glad you're able to navigate.
• 31:18
  That may be a little easier than some of us others have done that
• 31:23
  so you get the job in January. Your back in Anderson you
• 31:27
  mentioned, you got a master. So are you doing grad work?
• 31:29
  It is point. Or what's the where we had in
• 31:32
  the career? Actual career path?
• 31:34
  Yeah, so I had actually started my masters right back up so I
• 31:39
  like it. To you know, you could just get
• 31:41
  off the bat from a bite you know for years and undergrad or a
• 31:45
  half maybe for some and then you go right back in the ring and I
• 31:49
  just felt like I just got punched right back in the face
• 31:51
  again, was homework all this stuff and but I got the
• 31:56
  opportunity to do that. We had just started master's
• 31:58
  program at Anderson. So I tell my business
• 32:01
  professors, were professors for that.
• 32:03
  So they had encouraged me and and I was like, yeah, let's
• 32:06
  let's do it. This is a smart idea to get this
• 32:08
  knocked out and You know, to be honest with you, I didn't I
• 32:13
  wasn't a grad assistant so I didn't get any help with that.
• 32:17
  I got a small stipend and I got to live on campus on again, a
• 32:20
  house, like a coach's house on campus and got a meal plan.
• 32:25
  So that's literally get any later on.
• 32:27
  They would pay for grass and since I was too early to get
• 32:30
  that, but yeah, I started grad school and then I was working at
• 32:35
  a running store and things like that and actually did another
• 32:39
  throwback to The most recent podcast.
• 32:41
  Yeah, man. I did my level 1.
• 32:44
  When I was in college, that's available.
• 32:46
  Yeah, I knocked that out. I went to Chapel Hill and did
• 32:51
  that my last semester in college.
• 32:54
  And so, I had done that already, and that next year, I would go
• 32:59
  to coaching convention for the first time.
• 33:01
  So, so, do you remember? I, you know, I have such a
• 33:04
  fondness for coaching education. Do you remember?
• 33:06
  Who your teachers were your instructors at level 1?
• 33:08
  It was he Was it throws coach at Clemson know.
• 33:13
  He's, I know he's listening, he's going to beat me up.
• 33:15
  Yes, it was. He was inhale, man for a little
• 33:18
  while. After that Heist.
• 33:19
  He's coached high school after that, a little bit.
• 33:21
  Hmm, he has faith. Is it something like that?
• 33:25
  When mcatee, he is an awesome person.
• 33:27
  Thank you for jogging my memory there.
• 33:29
  We've taught level ones before we've ruminated before it
• 33:34
  conventions that they side. Yeah, that's why I was like, oh
• 33:37
  no. - I'm getting to a point. Something's wrong with me.
• 33:40
  Memory. Honestly it's a little scary to
• 33:42
  be the real honest with you. So yeah.
• 33:45
  Glenn mcatee. Great.
• 33:46
  Great human being a great instructor.
• 33:49
  Yeah. So Glen he obviously didn't do
• 33:51
  your endurance. Who else did we have and your
• 33:53
  Alden? Of course.
• 33:54
  Yeah. Love it.
• 33:55
  Yeah, see great. I was asleep.
• 34:00
  Maybe did Lauren. Yeah.
• 34:01
  Okay. Yeah, that's awesome.
• 34:03
  That's a great class. And then you went to Convention
• 34:05
  the following year. Was that where would that have
• 34:07
  been Man, that first year was a struggle.
• 34:11
  Like, it's funny. You got those conventions early
• 34:13
  on and you like, you see the a void that is comment.
• 34:17
  This one thing we make some people mad, but you see the
• 34:20
  people that are getting paid the most, everything's getting paid
• 34:24
  for it at the attention. It's going on an expense
• 34:26
  through. It's like you from the big
• 34:29
  universities and the people who are making, the least existent,
• 34:32
  coaches are paying their way to get there.
• 34:34
  Roaring pieces to the room and that's what I ate the first
• 34:37
  three days. I went To a class and they
• 34:39
  hadn't opened meal situation. And I wasn't paying I think was
• 34:42
  fifty four dollars for a brunch at that hotel, right?
• 34:45
  Yeah, right. So I ordered a bunch of like
• 34:47
  Dominos Pizza that ate that for like two days.
• 34:50
  Straight that was my meals. They couldn't leave because we
• 34:53
  were out there. I think it was a fake.
• 34:54
  It was, they go as Florida. Well, what year would have been
• 35:00
  2008-9? So when they're yeah, so
• 35:03
  probably probably the Florida is we basically rotated Florida,
• 35:06
  Arizona and San So, but I think you're Florida around you and
• 35:10
  Antonio, I think the senator because I didn't fly here, I
• 35:12
  believe. Okay, you know, you probably a
• 35:15
  great point there Jason, you know?
• 35:16
  Because I again, the convention is I tell people, it's like my
• 35:19
  Super Bowl. I mean, I just love it.
• 35:21
  I am in a hotel with a thousand plus coaches, the track coaches.
• 35:26
  That can't go anywhere, you know, it's all enclosed and I
• 35:29
  love that aspect. I get to meet so many new people
• 35:32
  reconnect with people, it is my most favorite week in the whole
• 35:36
  stinking year on. Stephen over like college
• 35:40
  Nationals and stuff out. I truly love the convention for
• 35:42
  that aspect of one week. All coaches were just talking
• 35:46
  about life and their love and their passions.
• 35:48
  I love it. But you brought up a good point,
• 35:51
  you know, we get all in our own little bubble and, you know, you
• 35:55
  know, everything's paid for their I'm traveling for for
• 35:58
  business and other people trying to business.
• 36:00
  So I'm expense and everything and I have to pay fifty four
• 36:02
  dollars for brunch. It's so I don't like snow, I
• 36:04
  know it's not even my money, but I don't like spending that.
• 36:06
  But it's like okay what's with the table?
• 36:08
  It is. Yeah, I sometimes you know you
• 36:11
  have a good thing. I forget that there are people
• 36:13
  who are like, yeah man, I paid for everything here.
• 36:16
  Yeah, like my I'm paying for every meal here.
• 36:19
  Yes, a my coach ended up a head coach at the time he paid for my
• 36:23
  registration, which is a huge pretty big deep breath.
• 36:26
  I mean, you got to college guy who's making very little money
• 36:30
  and eating on a meal plan and all that and just getting
• 36:33
  coaching. And then I got a scholarship to
• 36:35
  the endurance specialist class. Scholarships and so that's
• 36:40
  great. But then if they didn't pay the
• 36:41
  scholarship didn't help you get there or hey.
• 36:44
  So I paid for the hotel white and any food and so like you're
• 36:49
  talking over $1000 at that point when, and for somebody who's
• 36:53
  making, that's, you know, that's probably 118 my yearly salary
• 36:58
  that I was well said, it's a couple of months of the salary,
• 37:01
  right? You know.
• 37:02
  And then that was that You know, I might get choked up a little
• 37:07
  bit. My dad is a huge support through
• 37:09
  all this stuff, but he ended up that was my Christmas gift was
• 37:12
  like. And so, you know, I mean,
• 37:15
  that's, that's something that I think about now and my
• 37:17
  assistants and stuff like that. Yeah.
• 37:20
  And shout out to Dad because I wouldn't know, I didn't know
• 37:23
  where you're going to go there because I could easily hit the
• 37:24
  scene. You say yeah.
• 37:26
  Dad's like hey Jason, what are you doing?
• 37:28
  Like, go get a job. You, you're working on a
• 37:30
  master's in business. You have a degree from a great
• 37:33
  University, go get a job, go to the bank.
• 37:35
  They'll hire You go do that. What are you doing with this
• 37:37
  tracks? That it's over?
• 37:39
  Jason. Come on.
• 37:40
  But instead he doubled down because he obviously had
• 37:43
  supported you through high school and college and things
• 37:45
  like that. He was like, oh, this is what
• 37:46
  you want to do. All right, man, I'll make it,
• 37:48
  your Christmas gift, I'll take care of you and I, that's
• 37:51
  amazing. Shout out to Dad like what a
• 37:53
  supporter of dreams and passions, and he's definitely
• 37:56
  gonna listen to this. So I'm, you know, I know he's
• 37:59
  gonna listen to this. He's been asking me all week,
• 38:01
  like, what is it? What is it called?
• 38:02
  What is it called? But will have at least one
• 38:05
  listener. ER yeah, thanks Dad.
• 38:10
  He is mine, is many times as he did tell me have a plan B, have
• 38:13
  a plan B and I was like this is the day.
• 38:16
  I'm gonna be the best college coach ever as much as he did
• 38:19
  that he also was, you know, supporting me through like not
• 38:24
  make a lot of money for a long time.
• 38:25
  And, you know, I was looking, I'm blessed enough to have that
• 38:28
  family situation but he, yeah, and he supported me in time and
• 38:33
  helped me get to where her Now and I think not a lot of people
• 38:37
  have that blessing but as much as he did say have a plan B, he
• 38:43
  supported me in support of plan a though, not love it.
• 38:47
  So why did you know, you're a smart guy?
• 38:49
  Jason. I'd love to explore, you know,
• 38:51
  you using a lot of resources dad's resources at such a, your
• 38:57
  own time resources and money resources to go to this
• 38:59
  convention easily. Like, no one would have blamed
• 39:02
  you for the said, hey, look man, I make like 12 Grand a year.
• 39:05
  I Just can't afford it when I can't afford it.
• 39:07
  I'll go. Absolutely.
• 39:08
  But, you know, I just can't right now, but you did.
• 39:11
  What was the, why was that important to you?
• 39:13
  And now, looking back, specifically at this first
• 39:16
  convention, what did it like? Did it pay off?
• 39:19
  Like whether it's networking or education, or just understanding
• 39:23
  more about the sport and the profession of coaching talk to
• 39:26
  us about why that was so important and did it actually
• 39:28
  pay off for you. Yeah, and looking back I didn't
• 39:32
  really notice the time but I was kind of doing what I do now is
• 39:36
  you got to be a presence in this industry.
• 39:39
  Like so like at that me or at the convention or this event
• 39:44
  world, this committee, like your name, you know, you want to get,
• 39:48
  you know, move up in the industry.
• 39:49
  You got a name has to keep coming up.
• 39:51
  As far as like, oh, he's here again.
• 39:53
  Hey, how you doing? You know, you know, the movers
• 39:55
  and shakers in our region, you know, as far as like the larger
• 39:57
  schools getting to know those coaches and getting Chip when
• 40:01
  you know her you know my computer to see what I have
• 40:03
  stayed and I was obviously straight distance of that point.
• 40:08
  You know I was only in distance World which we all know you're
• 40:11
  young. Your throws coaching all through
• 40:13
  the need to meet all the best throws coaches.
• 40:15
  That's all that matters are going to all the throws talks.
• 40:17
  It was years later at the convention.
• 40:19
  And I started going to the Hammer, you know, this is good
• 40:22
  for you and like you know, being a head coach that makes you open
• 40:26
  up your you know you gotta you gotta feel strongly about this
• 40:29
  but I think Back. Then it helps me to come just, I
• 40:33
  just kept showing up at things and, you know, all there's that
• 40:37
  kid again from Anderson and I guess, you know, he's going to
• 40:39
  be around, you know, because there's this coaches that move
• 40:42
  around and, you know, he's you disappear, you see him one year
• 40:44
  and not the next. But, yeah, I think that was my
• 40:47
  big thing is, I, that was where everybody was at in the world
• 40:51
  that I wanted to be a part of. And so I needed to be there too,
• 40:54
  and I still make that explanation to my wife
• 40:57
  sometimes. Now, we've got to be there,
• 40:58
  everybody. Yeah, back then it was it was
• 41:30
  just the black. I mean, I walk in the room and
• 41:32
  like you said, like, you know, Holloway, you know, Finland and
• 41:37
  I like all these like oh my gosh.
• 41:39
  Like, you know, and I'm just speaking out and, you know, I
• 41:44
  was definitely guilty of that and I call their young of like,
• 41:47
  wow, like that guy. This and you do look at the, you
• 41:51
  know, you look at the polo. So you got to look at the polo
• 41:53
  to the elevator. So it was it was a blast, it was
• 42:01
  fun and you know God really familiar with Domino's Pizza but
• 42:06
  I like how you got to be there when this airs a few weeks ago I
• 42:15
  one of the podcasts that I also listen to is from a guy named,
• 42:18
  Jon Acuff, he's awesome. He has a podcast, all it takes
• 42:21
  is a goal. I highly recommend it for you
• 42:23
  for any coaches out there and specific episode that I've
• 42:27
  listened to on the way. And today was like, five great
• 42:31
  quotes or something like that. And one of the tangents, if you
• 42:34
  will, it was going on. Was no.
• 42:36
  I know what it was is when these big-time people, like, Steve
• 42:39
  Jobs Elan musk, and all these people say, Follow Your Passion.
• 42:42
  He's like, that's such a terrible advice.
• 42:44
  He's like, they'll it's all rich people that tell you that
• 42:46
  advice, and they don't tell you that they actually worked in
• 42:49
  coal mining, ore, smelting or, you know, they busted their butt
• 42:52
  before they got 24. They became rich and now get to
• 42:54
  go do their passions right. And what he was talking about is
• 42:57
  that with the When they say go follow your passion, is because
• 43:00
  no one wants to admit, the effect of luck has on our on our
• 43:04
  lives, right? We don't want to admit, we can
• 43:06
  kind of, you know, we kind of say, yeah, luck, but we don't
• 43:08
  want to miss that. Sometimes we just got lucky.
• 43:10
  Now, his real Point here was about the more you work in, the
• 43:13
  more you hustle, the more you learn, the luckier, you get,
• 43:16
  we've all kind of heard that the harder you work, the luckier I
• 43:18
  get, right? But I think that showing up that
• 43:21
  showing up is not just show, you didn't just show up and was
• 43:23
  like, well, here I am the kid from Anderson, right?
• 43:25
  He was like, oh, I'm showing up and I'm going to the classes and
• 43:27
  I'm Talking to my peter group in the distance and lucky things
• 43:32
  happen to you. At that point you get picked for
• 43:33
  this committee or you get picked for this or you get this job
• 43:35
  Etc. So so I just kind of love that
• 43:37
  like showing up like I'm just kept showing up kept showing up
• 43:41
  volunteering, can I help? You know, let's talk about learn
• 43:44
  more about how you do things as a head coach and cetera and you
• 43:47
  get you get luckier that way too because you're you're preparing
• 43:50
  your doing the hard works. I absolutely love that and I
• 43:52
  think the convention is phenomenal for that alone.
• 43:55
  You there's some amazing educational.
• 43:58
  Seminars and talks from coaches, that are awesome.
• 44:01
  I wish there was on a committee work and legislation things that
• 44:04
  are going on. But it's, I've always said, it's
• 44:06
  the hallway talks. It's the sitting down at those
• 44:08
  tables and, you know, you're in my conference or you used to be
• 44:12
  my conference or hey, did did you run against my team?
• 44:14
  Like, I've seen you before and and just having these
• 44:16
  conversations and learning about people is really needle, moving
• 44:20
  activities for your career and for you as a person you get to
• 44:24
  build up new friendships and stuff that way.
• 44:26
  So highly recommend convention where In Denver this year in
• 44:30
  spoiler alert, for anybody that knew the what we did last year,
• 44:33
  the convention in Denver, that either participated.
• 44:36
  Thank you or wanted to participate.
• 44:38
  Thank you, or you should have participated.
• 44:41
  Thank you. We're gonna do it again.
• 44:43
  We're going to do the connections podcast live at the
• 44:47
  convention again. So, Jason.
• 44:48
  If you're there you got to pop in.
• 44:51
  It was a lot of fun. We had an absolute blast doing a
• 44:53
  live podcast there at the u.s. tfcc a convention.
• 44:57
  So okay, no more. Hershel Jason.
• 44:59
  Where are we at? So you're at Anderson.
• 45:02
  You're doing grad work. You're not a grad assistant.
• 45:03
  You paying for grad. Work your the distance coach.
• 45:07
  How long do we stay there? What's where we at here in life?
• 45:11
  Yeah. So I actually ended up staying
• 45:13
  there. We I was blessed the walk into
• 45:17
  really, really good athlete that they had the fruited.
• 45:20
  After, I was done and gone to Earth cannot semester.
• 45:23
  She had started Whitney Bischoff from Georgia, and She had come
• 45:28
  in and so I kind of walked into coaching her.
• 45:33
  And I, you know, being a, I tell this to my my guys T now even
• 45:36
  though, like, I think really hard thing to figure out is is
• 45:41
  you're an athlete, not everybody receives coaching the same way
• 45:47
  that you did, huh? I had no idea how to coach
• 45:50
  someone in Steam and I had never really paid attention to our
• 45:53
  women's team that much. I was really focused on our
• 45:55
  men's team getting better. I know that happens on all,
• 45:57
  that's it. Coming in and coaching women for
• 46:00
  the first time to learn their, you know, what's a fast pace
• 46:04
  like yo, what's good? What's not, and, and learning
• 46:06
  the basics of that, but also, just how to talk to them, you
• 46:09
  know, and encourage, you know, a whole nother side of the team
• 46:13
  and and I think that, you know, definitely got off to a rough
• 46:18
  start as far as like the workouts that we did because I
• 46:21
  pushed them way too hard and made him do some things.
• 46:26
  And now look back on our like golly Like that was a brutal
• 46:29
  workout. She was one that I think you
• 46:34
  know, you kind of look back and having like early success as a
• 46:39
  coach and she was one that helped me, you know help her get
• 46:43
  to the National level and cross-country, the an American,
• 46:46
  and his sophomore, and make it to Nationals and Outdoors, and
• 46:50
  indoors over the years and they Kind of helped me figure out
• 46:54
  like okay I'm not not too bad at this.
• 46:57
  I'm helping I'm there I think this is this is working to a
• 47:01
  degree. I think I'm going to be
• 47:03
  successful in this career but she would, she was a huge part
• 47:06
  of that and allowing it to trust in me.
• 47:09
  She's in the Hall of Fame. Now Anderson went back last fall
• 47:12
  and got her Fame. She's not on our conferences
• 47:15
  Hall of Fame. The first athlete at Anderson to
• 47:17
  ever be in the conference Hall of Fame.
• 47:19
  That's the one still, she'll text me.
• 47:23
  Me my girls team a national this past fall and had a text from
• 47:27
  her right? When I got in the van after
• 47:28
  work, our first have ever get a team to Nationals on the women's
• 47:31
  side in my career and she was so proud of you, you know, but I
• 47:39
  was blessed to coach her and some very good athletes.
• 47:41
  While the Anderson I was there for three and a half years to
• 47:44
  start in January, and has three years, four years.
• 47:49
  And we won, you know, once in conference championships and
• 47:51
  cross-country on the women's side, Came close on the men's
• 47:55
  side, my last year, but I got to the point where I kind of put an
• 48:01
  ultimatum on myself that I need it.
• 48:02
  I need a branch out, and experience something different.
• 48:05
  I've been acting Anderson, some degree for 8 years now,
• 48:08
  undergrad, graduate and coaching, and I loved it, and it
• 48:11
  was a place for me. And I'm very, I think I excelled
• 48:16
  there as a person. It was perfect fit, but I needed
• 48:19
  to try something different and Branch out and experience.
• 48:23
  Something else. And so that's what I put an
• 48:25
  ultimatum on myself and started looking for jobs.
• 48:28
  Actually College of Charleston came up that they were needing
• 48:32
  to do. Men's distance coach thought
• 48:34
  would be, you know, it's a mid-major division one.
• 48:36
  It's a level up and Charleston from South Carolina originally.
• 48:41
  So I know Charleston is a beautiful city, and again, I had
• 48:46
  an ego, a little bit going to sort of like, I could do better
• 48:48
  than what they're doing right now means to Holly.
• 48:50
  They're not very good. I had no idea.
• 48:53
  What they're, you know what, you know, restrictions, they had as
• 48:57
  far as Scholars and I, yeah, when I got there, I figure out
• 49:01
  it was a lot harder than I thought.
• 49:04
  But yeah, I mean, the coach that had been there that was leaving,
• 49:08
  reached out to me and Ended up going down.
• 49:11
  Interviewing. And yeah, that was my next step.
• 49:15
  So I moved onto College of Charleston in 2011-2012, think
• 49:22
  2012, and went down there, to coach them in Steam.
• 49:26
  You know, you just described one of the when I look at the body
• 49:31
  of coaching track and field, one of the problems that's judgment,
• 49:37
  you know? One of our, we started with a
• 49:41
  controversial topic, let's bring another one in.
• 49:44
  When you look at, let's run.com, you know, there's only one
• 49:48
  thread that I pay attention to him.
• 49:50
  Let's run.com every year, it's a traditional thread.
• 49:52
  It's the coaching threads. I like to know who's going where
• 49:54
  and all that kind of stuff, right?
• 49:56
  And I Am Lord, and I know it's not amiss people.
• 50:00
  And so people are kind of talking out there was ooh
• 50:03
  because they can, you know, no one has a name there, but I'm
• 50:07
  floored when people say, oh, Oh, I can't believe such and such
• 50:12
  University is a national champion there in this state and
• 50:15
  they're in this conference and all they need is that a died and
• 50:18
  they would win it all. And it's like oh you have no
• 50:21
  clue what goes on there. You don't know.
• 50:23
  Honestly, if they have zero scholarships for distant, if
• 50:26
  we're talking distance, your specifically, if they have Ciro
• 50:29
  scholarships for their or that they have know that their land
• 50:35
  lock like a cement University. So there's no trails and For
• 50:39
  distant, like there. It's hard to attract distance
• 50:41
  Runners to those type of activities places, Etc.
• 50:44
  So it's just amazing, how many people cast judgment when they
• 50:49
  have no idea of the situation? They have no idea.
• 50:52
  Even let's take it another step forward.
• 50:55
  Let's say the university is perfect.
• 50:57
  Perfect place location. Tons of scholarship for distance
• 51:00
  Runners. You have no idea if that coach
• 51:03
  is going through things, personal health wise
• 51:05
  relationships, and that's why they haven't recruited to the
• 51:09
  level that they could or should or that they want to it just
• 51:11
  amazes me that people think that there's someone doing the job
• 51:15
  and that that person is okay with mediocrity.
• 51:18
  Like they think they're like, oh yeah we rate than our
• 51:20
  conference. That's exactly where I wanted to
• 51:21
  be this. Exactly how things are.
• 51:23
  I want them to be a. This is perfect and it's like
• 51:26
  every coach wants to do better but especially in our sport.
• 51:30
  A lot of coaches are handcuffed whether its budget priority from
• 51:37
  the athletic department. Ownership Etc and it's just it
• 51:41
  floors me when other coaches will judge someone else.
• 51:45
  It's just amazing to me and in the end of day, because we all
• 51:48
  think that, those judgments are all about, like they should be
• 51:50
  winning conference, I should be winning National doable and then
• 51:53
  of the date when teens hard, there's only one team that gets
• 51:55
  to do it. So to think that any there's
• 51:58
  what in division three, there's 350 division to, there's like
• 52:01
  280, 290 there's 200, let's call it 300, there's 300 teams, only
• 52:07
  one gets to Win. And if you ask the none of those
• 52:12
  people on let's run, at least the other 299 should have one.
• 52:16
  Everybody should have one because because because there
• 52:19
  they answered, they were there. They would have their the
• 52:21
  answer. Yeah.
• 52:22
  Exactly. There the answer.
• 52:23
  If I was there we would do X and Y and Z and we would have waited
• 52:28
  on. It's like to do you have?
• 52:29
  I mean you talk about bad ego. That's bad ego, it's amazing to
• 52:33
  me. So so yes you're looking from
• 52:35
  the outside, you're like, oh, what's division?
• 52:37
  Want I did the same thing. The way I started coaching High
• 52:40
  School moved up to division. One fact, I moved my whole goal
• 52:43
  was to get to the SEC and I thought oh when I get to the SEC
• 52:47
  oh it's so much easier. Yeah, exactly.
• 52:50
  What I went from Ball State to Mississippi State softball
• 52:53
  state. When I called the kid to recruit
• 52:54
  I had to explain. Yeah we're Ball.
• 52:57
  State was and you know this stuff it's great school and it's
• 53:00
  like I'd explain this is calling India, actually some Indiana
• 53:03
  kids I had to call in. Tell them who Ball State was.
• 53:05
  I had no clue when I got the blessed to have the opportunity.
• 53:09
  Unity coach at Mississippi State.
• 53:10
  I thought, oh no matter who I call, they're going to know
• 53:13
  Mississippi State, we're in the SEC, we play on Saturday nights,
• 53:17
  bubbly blonde football. We're going to know in most did
• 53:20
  not everybody but most did but then I still remember the very
• 53:24
  first recruit that. I recruited great quarter mile
• 53:26
  ahead and set the indoor high school for namita record as a as
• 53:29
  a senior and I call them and I was like his name is LZ is like
• 53:33
  LZ. So who are your top five?
• 53:36
  And he's like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm looking at Florida, Texas,
• 53:39
  USC. And I think Baylor was the other
• 53:42
  one. And I was like, oh crap.
• 53:45
  I mean, I literally, I still remember my heart.
• 53:47
  Just dropping as like, wait a minute.
• 53:50
  Now, Mouse the guy that gets a mentor of mine coaching, like
• 53:54
  I'll he's on a pedestal to me. I got to go beat him for this
• 53:57
  recruit. Oh, wait a minute, I'm in
• 53:59
  Starkville. I got to beat La.
• 54:01
  Yeah, I've got to be pretty old Powerhouse, Texas.
• 54:05
  Baylor quarterback. Tyler you do it didn't get
• 54:08
  easier. My friend.
• 54:09
  It got harder like it was a real big check, punch to my gut and
• 54:14
  my ego of like, oh, you better all the hustle that you did to
• 54:17
  get here. Well, you got to double it down
• 54:19
  and do even more hustle to win these kids to start start Vegas
• 54:22
  baby. So it just the judgment to me is
• 54:26
  just the audacity of it is amazing.
• 54:29
  So, you get to the College of Charleston and then you learn
• 54:31
  all the things that are handcuffing College of
• 54:33
  Charleston, scholarship and Cetera blah.
• 54:36
  Ha how did that go as far as going into the next?
• 54:38
  The quote unquote, Next Level. So I don't, I don't really like
• 54:40
  saying D3, D2 e, you know, they're different levels.
• 54:43
  Yeah, on the Sara Lee. Now learning more about each
• 54:45
  level once a another level but it's a different level.
• 54:49
  So you go to the division. One level.
• 54:50
  How'd that pan out for you little little ego, check or or
• 54:54
  did you go anywhere in the National Title?
• 54:56
  Maybe came in to win the national title?
• 54:57
  I don't know. Jason, well, if you look back,
• 54:59
  we didn't hurt that when asked by the trying to not finish last
• 55:03
  in the Congress. Sure, sure.
• 55:06
  Both of us have been there so I get it.
• 55:07
  We get that little guy named Paul ciolino in our conference
• 55:10
  that year, so I walked into that conference and so, but yeah, and
• 55:17
  that, that will humbly probably the longest that will always say
• 55:20
  that I love. I love the guys who call the
• 55:22
  Charleston that year, we definitely I'm knocked heads
• 55:25
  with some guys. You have some, you know, some
• 55:28
  coming to Jesus talks. But in my big thing too, I went
• 55:34
  into that job. With what I've done and answers
• 55:38
  like it's because of me. We want these conference
• 55:40
  championships. Came in and I was very like I
• 56:07
  was trying to do things, I'll try to be flashy like I didn't
• 56:10
  wear a head, coach gave us a Nike hat and I had the new logo
• 56:14
  inside, but it had me on the front.
• 56:16
  I like that. Nobody knows who this logo is.
• 56:18
  I want to put and I think the girl that I was dating at the
• 56:21
  time was working at a Soccer Shop that had an embroidery
• 56:24
  thing and like I like you embroider Charleston
• 56:26
  cross-country on it and something little I just wanted
• 56:29
  it, you know, people to know who we were.
• 56:30
  And so I did that and like I did a couple other things where like
• 56:34
  we were trying to get at Assesses property to be able to
• 56:37
  run on these trails and I remember I went out there one
• 56:39
  day, how my own? They ended up like coming out
• 56:42
  there and but what are you doing?
• 56:43
  All this? I got back to my head coach and
• 56:45
  she sat down with me after a few months, I was like, look, you
• 56:48
  think you have all this figured out?
• 56:50
  You're going about this, you're at year, you're putting new
• 56:53
  stuff on their hats, you're trying to be special.
• 56:55
  What do you like it's not working out and like, we don't
• 56:59
  have to have you here next year. So this is not working out right
• 57:02
  now. You're going to bump ahead and
• 57:04
  edit a lot of. It wasn't really until You know,
• 57:06
  it was just me trying to you know make moves and do things
• 57:11
  and bad communication and I think we've misunderstood each
• 57:14
  other a lot but that hurt that conversation hurt to have.
• 57:20
  And again I think it was how I received it and it's sometimes
• 57:23
  not how kids on my team received those conversations but if you
• 57:26
  receive it in a certain way, we were like, wow.
• 57:27
  Okay. I messed up.
• 57:29
  What did I do? And reflect on it and say, what
• 57:32
  did I do? Not like, oh, you're yeah, you
• 57:33
  don't even know, you know and I think that Luckily I was at the
• 57:37
  point where I was able to reflect and because it hurt a
• 57:40
  conversation, I get, I was like man, I messed up like she's
• 57:43
  serious. Mike that's not what I've been
• 57:47
  like oh my gosh. And it ended up from then on
• 57:51
  like we ever we were on a recruiting trip and it's just
• 57:53
  her. And I in a band for like three
• 57:55
  hours, going through the state, V, and come back, and we talked
• 57:58
  about goals in life and her Papineau.
• 58:02
  She and Lee and things like that, and we've got to know each
• 58:05
  other a lot better. Veteran.
• 58:07
  I talked to her on a weekly basis almost every every month
• 58:10
  at least I'm going to ask advice on things and love seeing her.
• 58:14
  Now at least I think that second year we went into it it was a
• 58:18
  different relationship and she trusted me more and we had some
• 58:22
  more success and ended up leading to my my next job.
• 58:27
  And so probably the best recommendation letter I've ever
• 58:29
  gotten as far as her saying that.
• 58:32
  I don't want to write this letter.
• 58:34
  That's kind of how she let her know if she doesn't.
• 58:35
  She's that, I don't. Anna, I don't want to leave and
• 58:38
  and so we almost titled the podcast, the Gil can the Gil, I
• 58:43
  thought it's shout-out podcast because I love shouting out of
• 58:46
  the coaches. We keep saying her and but we
• 58:48
  gotta give a shout out. Yeah.
• 58:50
  Amy C go. She was he go to college for 20
• 58:55
  years now, they've recently and she's grown that program a lot
• 59:03
  over the years and there are a lot of issues with Having to
• 59:06
  downtown Charleston school that has to deal with it.
• 59:10
  People don't understand some of the things that they go through
• 59:12
  and they have to deal with it. You know, I mean, it's the most
• 59:15
  beautiful city in the u.s. if not in the world.
• 59:20
  And the think there's a tourist magazine that every year comes
• 59:23
  down into the top three in the world cities, but that comes
• 59:27
  along with people coming there, maybe for the wrong reason,
• 59:30
  right? He distracted, you know, it's
• 59:33
  difficult. It's, there's a lot of Founders
• 59:35
  people don't like all like, How do you not have success?
• 59:38
  You know best eating a to do then do track.
• 1:00:06
  Let me become a head coach and asking her advice and humbly, me
• 1:00:10
  and thankfully working with me and not just fire me on the spot
• 1:00:13
  that day. Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  But that sounds good. See, you know, shout out to Amy,
• 1:00:17
  you know, we talked a lot about the positive impact that our
• 1:00:20
  guests are coaches are making on young people today and we delved
• 1:00:24
  into a lot of the subject about how do we prepare assistant
• 1:00:27
  coaches? To be better head coaches.
• 1:00:28
  One day for the ones that do a want to be there and then and
• 1:00:32
  get to get that opportunity. You know what I love about that
• 1:00:35
  story with with Amy. Is you touched it right on
• 1:00:39
  there? It's like oh she didn't have to
• 1:00:41
  have that meeting with you. You know she could have been
• 1:00:44
  when she was dead serious when she was like, hey, we don't we
• 1:00:46
  don't have to have you here. Well, there were a lot of
• 1:00:48
  resumes. When you applied the wing go,
• 1:00:50
  find someone else pretty simple. That may be actually a sad part
• 1:00:53
  of our industry but we won't talk about maybe today but
• 1:00:56
  instead like she trusted of like hey I'm going to have this
• 1:00:59
  conversation with you and I'm going to trust that you're going
• 1:01:02
  to receive it and do better and had that conversation.
• 1:01:06
  You and I just want to shout out because it is a me, what you
• 1:01:10
  did, if you're listening, what you did is, you helped him
• 1:01:13
  become the person he is today and the person that he'll become
• 1:01:15
  next season and 10 seasons from now, and 20 Seasons.
• 1:01:18
  So, what a great impact you made on a coach, which means he's
• 1:01:23
  having a greater impact on athletes.
• 1:01:24
  So, I mean, that's just a direct correlation kind of that family
• 1:01:27
  tree. If you will, people that she's
• 1:01:29
  affecting young people that she's affected positively
• 1:01:31
  because she affected you positively by having a very
• 1:01:34
  difficult conversation. I kind of think all interviews
• 1:01:37
  should be three hours in a van. I think that's all interview
• 1:01:40
  should be like, let's spend some real time we get, you know, 30
• 1:01:43
  minutes to an hour with people on the interviews and, you know,
• 1:01:45
  and you're in an interview. So, you know, okay, I'm supposed
• 1:01:48
  to say this. I'm supposed to act this way,
• 1:01:50
  all these kind of things. And in reality, if we would just
• 1:01:53
  be ourselves, both the interviewer, and the
• 1:01:54
  interviewee, by the way, if we would just be ourselves and find
• 1:01:58
  out if we actually can mesh and do this job together or not,
• 1:02:01
  we'd be better off. It's like, oh, you know, you're
• 1:02:03
  really smart guy. We just don't Jive.
• 1:02:05
  We've been in this van for three.
• 1:02:06
  Hours. And I did not have a good time.
• 1:02:08
  I just can't see us going on. That's the best thing for both
• 1:02:11
  of you. You get to go your way and the
• 1:02:13
  other person gets go their way and tension, didn't happen
• 1:02:16
  because you fake your way through an interview.
• 1:02:18
  So I think it's all you had coaches out there that are
• 1:02:21
  interview and I highly encourage you three hours in a van with
• 1:02:23
  each of your. If you ease, and you'll find the
• 1:02:26
  real assistant coaches that you should have there.
• 1:02:28
  So, shout out to Amy and I love that store.
• 1:02:30
  That's a, that's a awesome, awesome experience.
• 1:02:35
  We're had a Question what? So we're how did it go?
• 1:02:38
  As far as you know you started your continuing to work on your
• 1:02:42
  ego man, which I love you continue to work on your bad
• 1:02:45
  ego, which I love your continued.
• 1:02:46
  Chiseling away there after you spent your Seasons there, where
• 1:02:50
  we go next after that. Yeah, so that was where actually
• 1:02:55
  I ended up the girl that I was dating at that soccer shop and
• 1:02:59
  ordered the hat for me in the past are very, be we got varied
• 1:03:03
  in Charleston and about six. Later.
• 1:03:07
  I had some guy, I was working at a Fleet Feet Sports down here
• 1:03:12
  and was heading towards being a manager.
• 1:03:14
  I kind of already was a manager but they were newer stores.
• 1:03:17
  They kind of had named anybody yet and they were going to be
• 1:03:20
  opening another store and they had talked to my wife and I
• 1:03:23
  about opening that store the second location and they have to
• 1:03:27
  be full-time. And so, I had some resumes out
• 1:03:32
  of the time to to a larger Division, 1 school and Smaller
• 1:03:36
  division to school in North Carolina and I my boss at The
• 1:03:43
  Running Store told me that he got to make a decision in his it
• 1:03:46
  coaching. Or, you know, ours is managing
• 1:03:48
  running. I love my love doing that and it
• 1:03:51
  had a lot of perks to it and it's fun.
• 1:03:53
  But my shout out to my wife, she sat down and talked about it
• 1:03:59
  because we're in a new family and out and she said, could you
• 1:04:02
  see your life without coaching? How could you see your life
• 1:04:06
  without The Running Store? I got to make my decision.
• 1:04:12
  So I ended up pursuing those two.
• 1:04:14
  I interviewed at that larger school, I interviewed here to
• 1:04:17
  table. I wanted that one of the largest
• 1:04:20
  schools, their resources like said you just like paint this,
• 1:04:23
  everything to know what they're going to, you know, it's just
• 1:04:25
  going to be so much easier and it was, you know, they had
• 1:04:32
  glucose and money and resources and out of been in the men's
• 1:04:35
  assistant, like I was going to college for Austin. and I've
• 1:04:39
  made, I was like top four finalists for that job and then
• 1:04:43
  I was a top three finals here and then they they offered me
• 1:04:46
  the job here before I had heard that they offered me a job here
• 1:04:49
  at the table, to be the first full-time, cross-country only
• 1:04:52
  coach that ever had and I ended up not hearing back from that.
• 1:04:59
  Large a school for a while and ABC go at College Charleston.
• 1:05:04
  Who knew the athletic director here in a written recommendation
• 1:05:06
  letter here at the table, she called me.
• 1:05:09
  And she's like hey D - Ava called me and said if you don't
• 1:05:12
  give them decision that you know next two or three days they're
• 1:05:15
  going to move on because they had offered me the job and I was
• 1:05:18
  kind of waiting on this better opportunity.
• 1:05:20
  So I kind of push the other one and I even held that code which
• 1:05:25
  and he got back to the I'll never forget the email was very
• 1:05:28
  misleading at the beginning. I was like well I've you know
• 1:05:31
  pleased to tell you that I think you should take that other
• 1:05:34
  opportunities now. Just like oh like was grievously
• 1:05:38
  per slide, please and tell you you're like, oh hell yeah.
• 1:05:45
  And at the time I was like because it was pretty much what
• 1:05:56
  it was when I got here. And I didn't have a job when we
• 1:06:04
  got here and struggled to find one for first couple months and
• 1:06:07
  even at that time and it was it was difficult transition but I
• 1:06:14
  got to make it my own thing and I you know very quickly I found
• 1:06:18
  out that other job would have been very stressful and probably
• 1:06:20
  get me out of coaching. They did they One Circle
• 1:06:23
  championships in a row and that was the main priority for the
• 1:06:26
  head coach to say whoever comes in next, got to keep this going
• 1:06:31
  and they did not end up winning the next year you know that
• 1:06:34
  staff the person they hired in today and it was a blessing and
• 1:06:39
  you know, I got the job here. I got to kind of make it my own.
• 1:06:42
  We were dead last in the conference the first year.
• 1:06:46
  Well we were second to last that was our One goal of don't be.
• 1:06:48
  Don't be last and I'll beat someone and so there was nothing
• 1:06:51
  but don't And so a lot of people you know, people tell you that
• 1:06:55
  me get the job you're like, yeah, thanks and you're trying
• 1:06:58
  to feel better. You get to make it your own
• 1:07:00
  that's neat, you know? But yeah, you know, I did and I
• 1:07:05
  got to kind of get things going and start that culture and we
• 1:07:10
  got it moving in a good direction and we had some, you
• 1:07:14
  know, for the time really good recruits come in for us and
• 1:07:18
  changed out of the performance side.
• 1:07:21
  Now, the culture side took a little bit longer, You're so
• 1:07:23
  let's pause right there because I want to spend our last time on
• 1:07:27
  the top blood and because what you do you do in there, you're
• 1:07:30
  describing, it happily is very unique, you know, Bill T, the
• 1:07:34
  whole, you know, putting your fingerprint on it, build it up,
• 1:07:36
  but a lot of that is not just building.
• 1:07:38
  A lot of people think about that is just building.
• 1:07:39
  Oh, I got every recruits. There's a whole more more to it
• 1:07:42
  recruits culture facilities, again priorities in the athletic
• 1:07:46
  department, Etc. So do I want to spend our last
• 1:07:48
  time on that? So before we get to to Catawba
• 1:07:51
  and what you've been doing there, You're doing today.
• 1:07:53
  And what will what you get? It's got.
• 1:07:55
  You excited in the future. Where are you always love to
• 1:07:58
  know about coaching education. You mentioned taking level one
• 1:08:00
  earlier. You've done conventions and gun
• 1:08:02
  there? Where are you coaching?
• 1:08:03
  Education wise? And when I asked that, I mean
• 1:08:06
  that both formally and informally.
• 1:08:08
  So formally did you go on to do any level two, you mentioned?
• 1:08:12
  You did u.s. tfcc a the endurance section, maybe the
• 1:08:16
  Altis need a formal ones. And then just as important,
• 1:08:19
  where are you at informally with coach and education with me?
• 1:08:22
  Mentor, someone you can call the bounce ideas off of whether it's
• 1:08:26
  X's and O's or hey, how did you deal with this situation?
• 1:08:29
  I'm, I've got a tough situation over here, where you at coaching
• 1:08:33
  education wise for you as you head into Catawba.
• 1:08:36
  Yeah, I think that was obviously a me college, Charleston with a
• 1:08:41
  big Mentor, I had worked a couple camps and apps.
• 1:08:45
  They might Curcio, was one of them that I really kind of
• 1:08:48
  picked his brain a little bit at some of the camps and and some
• 1:08:51
  of his athletes asking them, What they do and learn some
• 1:08:54
  different, you know different ways of going about it.
• 1:08:57
  And everybody goes about training and laying out the weak
• 1:09:00
  and the micro macro the same way and and so yeah, I think my
• 1:09:07
  Curcio perhaps State and then actually, you know, a few kind
• 1:09:14
  of peer Carson Blackwelder at USC Upstate.
• 1:09:21
  We kind of came Through that all that together, getting head
• 1:09:24
  coaching job, stuff like that. But as far as formal education,
• 1:09:29
  I did not do level to it. Never really worked out where I
• 1:09:31
  could I could go for a week and, you know, it forward it, to be
• 1:09:34
  honest with you. And through at that time and I
• 1:09:37
  wasn't gonna be able to pay for it out of this budget that we
• 1:09:39
  have here. And so, I did go to Convention
• 1:09:44
  every year, I took a few classes here and there at the
• 1:09:46
  conventions, over the years, with College of Charleston
• 1:09:48
  because they did have the means to do that and I was a blessing
• 1:09:50
  that they were able to pay for me too.
• 1:09:52
  Get to those conventions and also take some classes.
• 1:09:54
  So I took a few more, I think, I took a couple like Of the more
• 1:10:00
  General, like program, like, like running the program, those
• 1:10:04
  courses with USD scca. I think it was more generalized,
• 1:10:08
  like, how to run a meat, maybe and things like that.
• 1:10:12
  And then, yeah, I kind of was able that second year comes
• 1:10:18
  Charleston, take training over myself and make it my own kind
• 1:10:22
  of, learn from a lot of what a via done with the girls team.
• 1:10:26
  And so I had evolved And a little bit as far as that.
• 1:10:31
  But you know, I think the mentor side was I I don't regard this
• 1:10:37
  concerning Camp. I tried to get places in the
• 1:10:40
  summer that like you know different than a level 2 would
• 1:10:43
  be. They hire me instead of paying
• 1:10:45
  them you know that would be you know that was that was helpful.
• 1:10:49
  But seeing other coaches these camps and around nine talking
• 1:10:53
  about achieving High School coaches being some of the most
• 1:10:56
  valuable insights with some of these guys, The oldest 67 that
• 1:11:01
  have been around forever friend. Like, you know, I I was trained
• 1:11:05
  with Prefontaine and ivory with Rec shorter are, you know, and
• 1:11:09
  hearing those stories. You know, I think one of these
• 1:11:13
  running camps in the summer and sitting down and having
• 1:11:15
  conversations like you have in the van but around a campfire or
• 1:11:19
  around, you know the gym or something like that, it was
• 1:11:25
  valuable very valuable in and helped me kind of Meet people in
• 1:11:30
  giving tours. So that's kind of where I was at
• 1:11:32
  that point going into Catawba and you know my my old head
• 1:11:37
  coach at Anderson as well because when I got here we of
• 1:11:41
  course you know, just first I've had to coach these into it.
• 1:11:44
  We hosted conference my first year here so I never hosted a
• 1:11:47
  cross-country with my life. Oh yeah, dude, its second week,
• 1:11:50
  I got here and then we had to host Thompson and years of my
• 1:11:54
  head coach now is coming to be for the compass Championship so
• 1:11:57
  that was unique and But we approached down a little bit
• 1:12:01
  about that if they crush this that would be prohibited.
• 1:12:05
  Not worry about it too much. But yeah so that was a little
• 1:12:08
  bit of where I was out of town so he's into top here as you
• 1:12:13
  ease into hosting the conference meet right off the bat.
• 1:12:16
  Yeah, that's a tough feet. When you're a 10-year, veteran
• 1:12:19
  at your school off the bat, my friend.
• 1:12:22
  Wow you probably were still trying to figure out where was
• 1:12:24
  the cuss Country course when you have a clear Things are really
• 1:12:31
  informal that here at the time and he handed me like an
• 1:12:34
  envelope full of papers and sticky notes.
• 1:12:36
  He was like, here's the guy for your T-shirt.
• 1:12:38
  There's the kind of a trophies, here's the contact for the park
• 1:12:41
  and then here's the, you know, it was just like a bunch of
• 1:12:44
  sticky notes, phone number for something, had to go out there
• 1:12:49
  and the good news is you survived.
• 1:12:54
  Yeah, I talked with me, you know.
• 1:12:56
  And yeah, it was Again, I got the make it.
• 1:12:59
  Well, yeah, so so tell us what is the state of Catawba at that
• 1:13:05
  point you mentioned? You know, you obviously have a
• 1:13:08
  conference meets your, in conference, things like that.
• 1:13:10
  But track team, just a full staff, is it?
• 1:13:14
  Just you tell us a little bit kind of set.
• 1:13:15
  The picture of what Catawba is, what year is this?
• 1:13:18
  It's 2014. Okay?
• 1:13:20
  So to so, almost tenure, you know, nine years ago.
• 1:13:22
  Now, give us the set that set the table for is give us the
• 1:13:25
  scene of what Catawba cross country track and field is In
• 1:13:28
  2014. Yeah, when I always point at a
• 1:13:31
  picture in my office, where I point to the first team, I had
• 1:13:34
  up on the wall. There, it was cool.
• 1:13:35
  We had nine, we had nine athletes, and teams total.
• 1:13:38
  We had four girls Five Guys. So not a full team, not even
• 1:13:41
  able to build a team on the women's side and always tell
• 1:13:44
  people. Our number five guy was a
• 1:13:45
  linebacker. They kicked off the football
• 1:13:47
  team that kicked off, but he left the football team, to join
• 1:13:50
  the cross-country jiving Club at the time.
• 1:13:52
  But for real, the linebacker. Yeah, he's a linebacker, he was
• 1:13:54
  a good 225 and and only thing big Then his legs with his
• 1:14:00
  heart. No, that's a coach thing.
• 1:14:02
  I love that. It's awesome.
• 1:14:04
  But work here he worked without he's over like the volunteer at
• 1:14:06
  the volunteer coordinator. Cool.
• 1:14:08
  Yeah. You launch weather once a week,
• 1:14:10
  very cool. But yeah.
• 1:14:13
  So I had just me, I ended up, you know, I had I was the only
• 1:14:18
  coach I could drive a van if we could get everybody in One van,
• 1:14:21
  so I didn't need anybody really. And the school was needing to
• 1:14:27
  grow a little bit and Use Athletics to do that.
• 1:14:29
  Like a lot of smaller private school do, so they wanted me to
• 1:14:33
  come in and build the cross-country team up.
• 1:14:36
  We had no track team at the time we had no track on the horizon.
• 1:14:40
  I heard it mentioned when I got the job but you know, that kind
• 1:14:45
  of was all that happened that first year.
• 1:14:47
  That's all I heard about it was when I first got the job, so we
• 1:14:50
  went to some track meets in the spring.
• 1:14:52
  We could go 25 since we didn't have a track program and we did
• 1:14:55
  that. And I remember, we first meeting
• 1:15:00
  I had with all the athletes they asked me are we going to the
• 1:15:02
  Regency which is an all conversing cross-country.
• 1:15:04
  So you know, if you can make it, there you go there and the funny
• 1:15:08
  thing is that semester first semester I kept hearing
• 1:15:10
  everybody on campus. That all the old head coach used
• 1:15:13
  to eat. He used to brag about how they
• 1:15:15
  had been 28 straight Regional championships.
• 1:15:17
  They have made eight straight region championships and I was
• 1:15:20
  like, you just gotta secure bands.
• 1:15:23
  That's all you had to do to get there except you got to write
• 1:15:26
  the press release. That way he's really gonna hide
• 1:15:30
  from us but Alan has called marketing.
• 1:15:32
  Jason wee, wee, it was in Montebello, so it's eight hours
• 1:15:38
  away. Oh yeah, beautiful.
• 1:15:42
  We're going to be there and I don't know how long that would
• 1:15:46
  take. I don't think last time but I
• 1:15:50
  wanted to set that standard and that trip was a disaster.
• 1:15:55
  Like we like a kid, literally got a stress.
• 1:15:57
  Sure. I think on the warm-up, he's
• 1:15:59
  like Flats all popped in my leg. I can't had a kid throw up on
• 1:16:03
  the way to the beat had food poisoning.
• 1:16:06
  So then our men's team which was a blessing, we didn't scores a
• 1:16:10
  men's team and we did scores of on its team and Regional that
• 1:16:13
  year. And so we had like three guys
• 1:16:14
  finish and I think we would have finished last if he would have
• 1:16:17
  finished the team's. It was lucky that he didn't
• 1:16:19
  probably finish this team but that meat was a disaster and
• 1:16:27
  Yeah, it kind of set the bar for the next year, like we can only
• 1:16:31
  go up from here, guys. Yeah, that was a steak at the
• 1:16:34
  table at the time. It was it was not the school
• 1:16:36
  wasn't very healthy, you know, financially.
• 1:16:40
  And I think they were, we had a new Ada who's trying to try to
• 1:16:44
  do some exciting things but, you know, struggling to get things
• 1:16:48
  accomplished and so it wasn't, it wasn't a great when I stepped
• 1:16:52
  in. So when you get, when you're in
• 1:16:54
  a situation like that, there's a million things you can do.
• 1:16:57
  Do to make the program better. There's a million different
• 1:17:00
  ideas and thoughts and actions that you can do.
• 1:17:03
  But kind of the 80/20 rule, there's probably about three
• 1:17:07
  things that you really like we have to start doing these three
• 1:17:10
  things and accomplish these three things really.
• 1:17:12
  Well if we don't get the number 99 on the list will still be
• 1:17:16
  okay. But if we don't do number 1 2 or
• 1:17:18
  3 we're in trouble. What were as you start, you
• 1:17:21
  know, understand the landscape of what's in front of you that
• 1:17:24
  Regional meet and things like that.
• 1:17:26
  What were the two Three things that was like, okay, I know, I
• 1:17:29
  need to accomplish these tasks at a very high level for us to
• 1:17:33
  grow within our goals. Yeah, I think the main thing was
• 1:17:36
  setting expectations as far as practice just the basics of
• 1:17:42
  like, you need to show up for practice.
• 1:17:43
  Need to be on time tomorrow. You're going to practice.
• 1:17:46
  I mean that was not a given. Oh I think and and another
• 1:17:51
  shout-out you know he's no longer with us but you know No,
• 1:17:57
  the head coach Bill Haggerty that was here, before he was an
• 1:18:04
  older gentleman. It kind of been there, a long
• 1:18:06
  time. He was a great guy, but he had
• 1:18:09
  kind of just I mean again the things, you know, his life where
• 1:18:13
  he was at that point. He did put a lot of focus, and
• 1:18:15
  we didn't put a lot of time. He kind of just whoever showed
• 1:18:18
  up. He was, he was there to help him
• 1:18:20
  and he was very, very good at the support side.
• 1:18:22
  And if somebody had a mom in the hospital or somebody's aunt
• 1:18:26
  died, he was Be there like that from him because he was around a
• 1:18:30
  little bit. After I got the job, he was very
• 1:18:33
  good at that, but that the program had been left kind of
• 1:18:37
  just kind of do its own thing for a while.
• 1:18:40
  So nothing bad but just kind of just been left alone for a
• 1:18:44
  while. And so setting a precedent of
• 1:18:47
  like practices. At this time, we're going to
• 1:18:48
  practice this many times and this is the expectation that was
• 1:18:53
  huge. I bought new uniform, and I
• 1:18:55
  bought some shoes for the first time ever.
• 1:18:57
  Were and they were like, wow, I think that to a certain level,
• 1:19:02
  you know, you start to feel one of the girls.
• 1:19:04
  She said she expected to be like she was at a college program
• 1:19:08
  which went to college and she didn't feel like that she is
• 1:19:11
  that is that pride? And again you know some people
• 1:19:14
  challenge me that when I say egos, not bad baggy Betty goes
• 1:19:18
  bad but probably would be my example of like, okay.
• 1:19:21
  Can you can give me examples of good pride in bed?
• 1:19:23
  Probably can't you like Prides not bad?
• 1:19:25
  Bad light is bad prideful. It heavy pride in what you do,
• 1:19:28
  right? Yeah.
• 1:19:30
  Yeah. He'll be the only legitimate
• 1:19:32
  feeling like you're invested in feeling like you you know you
• 1:19:35
  matter and feeling like you, you're coming across country.
• 1:19:38
  I mean, it's not, they're not have a homecoming, cross-country
• 1:19:41
  meets in high school. I mean, at a lot of places are
• 1:19:44
  if anywhere we're already kind of the group that's like oh yeah
• 1:19:48
  they go wrong. I can't be that hard and doesn't
• 1:19:50
  have a lot of respect, our sport of track and field every four
• 1:19:53
  years, people care about it. But after that, they don't as a
• 1:19:56
  general public So you have to instill you know be proud to
• 1:20:00
  have pride in your sport has trying to what your college,
• 1:20:03
  like you said your college essay, no matter what, right?
• 1:20:06
  A lot of people get to do that and so, you know, I bought them
• 1:20:08
  uniforms have bottom shoes and not a lot of shoes one pair here
• 1:20:13
  you go. Yeah but and then the other
• 1:20:16
  thing I think was recruiting you just had to get better, athletes
• 1:20:22
  better Runners and people that you know the sport mattered to
• 1:20:26
  him The priority and we were had missed the first couple years
• 1:20:30
  because, you know, you're recruiting to what you have.
• 1:20:32
  I remember sitting down with a young man who came in and helped
• 1:20:36
  us a lot. He how's your team?
• 1:20:40
  How is horrible? We're terrible.
• 1:20:43
  He's like whoa really now the yeah that's why we need you I
• 1:20:46
  need you to come in. Help us out.
• 1:20:49
  You know I didn't mean that a bad against anybody here I just
• 1:20:51
  meant me hate or very good. That's why I won't bother
• 1:20:53
  talking to you, you could change it around, you know and So we
• 1:20:57
  needed to get better athletes to when it comes down to it and you
• 1:21:00
  have, you know, you have a guy running 10:30 in the two-mile
• 1:21:04
  and I've got a 9:30 and to home, you know, there's a lot of
• 1:21:08
  tangibles but like you know having a better athlete start
• 1:21:11
  with us. It's always the little bit
• 1:21:12
  better but you know that's Jason I hope as the host here that I'm
• 1:21:17
  doing a good job of helping you share your story and paint the
• 1:21:21
  pictures for our listeners. Because what you just described
• 1:21:25
  there, I feel like this spectrum of Going all the way back to
• 1:21:29
  Anderson of this will, of course he's going to hire me.
• 1:21:32
  I'm course, I'm gonna get a job. I brought you championships all
• 1:21:36
  the way over to. Now this side of the spectrum
• 1:21:37
  where you look at a recruit and instead of saying yeah, we're
• 1:21:40
  good. Yeah on the best coach for you.
• 1:21:42
  I'm the best coach there is we're going to be a, will you
• 1:21:44
  sign or not? We're going to be national
• 1:21:46
  champions here boss. But instead the ego, the bad ego
• 1:21:50
  dropped. The humility showed up and
• 1:21:52
  you're like yeah, we're not very good.
• 1:21:54
  Let me we need you like this is about you.
• 1:21:57
  Kid. We need you like the almost
• 1:22:01
  transformation of your I'm not sure the word here but the
• 1:22:07
  transformation of how you carried yourself.
• 1:22:09
  Thought of yourself thought of others is remarkable to this
• 1:22:14
  point Jason. I mean from really like I mean I
• 1:22:18
  kind of get this picture of like I don't know that I would have
• 1:22:20
  liked Jason back in Anderson and Erskine days.
• 1:22:23
  I'm not sure. I don't know, like maybe I voted
• 1:22:25
  Jason at conventional. Yeah Jason just gonna tell me
• 1:22:27
  how great they're doing and by the way they were seventh in
• 1:22:29
  their conference, you know, all this.
• 1:22:31
  And now it's like oh man. Jason like Jason is going to be
• 1:22:33
  real and open. Authentic and honest with me
• 1:22:36
  when I talk to him. Like, like I say I just hope
• 1:22:39
  that, you know, this is some of the responsibilities I have is
• 1:22:41
  the hotel. I just hope that people are
• 1:22:43
  hearing the listen to the change in words, go back and listen to
• 1:22:46
  the first 15. 20 minutes of the words, he was using to describe
• 1:22:50
  himself back then. And now look at the actions and
• 1:22:52
  the words that you're using Today.
• 1:22:53
  Jason I just that story, that seemed like a very kind of throw
• 1:22:57
  away story. Like, oh, yeah, we had to
• 1:22:58
  recruit and I just told them we weren't very good because when I
• 1:23:00
  was the truth that story shows a lot about your character.
• 1:23:04
  Development through these really short amount of years.
• 1:23:07
  By the way, we do you not 60 here we're not getting ready to
• 1:23:10
  retire. You still got a long career
• 1:23:11
  ahead of you. I'm just so impressed and proud
• 1:23:14
  of you for the transformation that you have occurred.
• 1:23:17
  And I'm sure. I know your wife as spoken into
• 1:23:21
  that transformation, your dad and parents and mentors your Old
• 1:23:25
  Coach Anderson have been like the certainly Amy has been a
• 1:23:29
  part of that development of like, oh, you know what, I'm not
• 1:23:32
  the best by the way. I'm never going to be the best.
• 1:23:34
  What is the best? By the way, coaching check.
• 1:23:36
  If you don't know what that is, I really don't know.
• 1:23:38
  One wins national titles every year and has no transfers and
• 1:23:41
  all have 4.0 GPA. No one has that.
• 1:23:43
  That would be the best. But we're going to be the best
• 1:23:45
  that we can be and serve our young kids.
• 1:23:48
  And that's what you're doing at a much better way to day than
• 1:23:52
  you were yesterday and that is all we can.
• 1:23:54
  Ask is get better every day. I'm so impressed.
• 1:23:57
  Jason really am Thank you. Well, that don't you just said
• 1:24:00
  getting better every day. That's kind of what we ask of
• 1:24:02
  our athletes. So that's that's something that
• 1:24:07
  Yeah, I mean, we're all on a journey in our lives and I think
• 1:24:10
  Bingo, coaches, get really frustrated with athletes when
• 1:24:13
  they don't have a level of maturity that they think they
• 1:24:16
  should have, but it takes experiences, and to get there,
• 1:24:20
  and I was there on their own Journey.
• 1:24:23
  Yeah, I heard the Train on their own Journey, very frustrated
• 1:24:26
  with freshman, a lot of times, but like they don't know what
• 1:24:28
  they don't know. And like, and I have to
• 1:24:30
  sometimes step back and my assistant coaches, and I talked
• 1:24:33
  about it a lot and like, Yeah, they did.
• 1:24:36
  You know they wouldn't make these decisions if they were
• 1:24:38
  mature but they can't be mature without making these decisions.
• 1:24:42
  Oh well, he always say that again.
• 1:24:44
  Hold on. I feel like that was like a
• 1:24:46
  truth bomb right there. Say that again.
• 1:24:49
  Yeah, I mean they can't be, you know, they want to be mature,
• 1:24:53
  they can't be mature. They make these.
• 1:24:56
  I don't know. I can't believe we got to get
• 1:24:59
  this right? I believe you said, someone's
• 1:25:02
  going to Tweet me at this right now that you're listening to.
• 1:25:04
  So we get this right? We want them to be mature as
• 1:25:08
  freshmen in this example, but they can't be mature without
• 1:25:11
  making those mistakes. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:14
  Dude. Like a lot of us coaches.
• 1:25:17
  If we just remember, A bird that we would be able to let go of
• 1:25:20
  some of the stress. I mean, we get stressed.
• 1:25:22
  I'm a parent of a 12 year old and a 9 year old.
• 1:25:26
  And I get, I get stressed an angle.
• 1:25:28
  Like, why aren't they doing this?
• 1:25:30
  And I forget, I know, first of all, they're 12 and 9.
• 1:25:33
  Second of all, they're not going to become a great adult if they
• 1:25:35
  don't make these kind of mistakes.
• 1:25:37
  Yeah, I think it's a little bit of our, I don't know.
• 1:25:40
  Kind of ego State this would be. But this this not Napoleon cause
• 1:25:43
  some kind of complex of like, oh, but I'm their savior.
• 1:25:47
  I'm their coach, or I'm their dad.
• 1:25:48
  Dad, if they would just listen, they would live a perfectly
• 1:25:51
  great life. They, if they would just listen,
• 1:25:53
  and it's like, well, that's not true at all.
• 1:25:55
  Actually, the you have to go through those hardships.
• 1:25:57
  Those bad decisions. Those things that you don't have
• 1:25:59
  any control over happening to you and overcome them to become
• 1:26:02
  the person that you are today. The person I am today and
• 1:26:04
  cetera. So that was a truth bomb right
• 1:26:06
  there brother man. Wow.
• 1:26:09
  So give us where we are, what's that?
• 1:26:12
  I love metaphors. That truth that was Mom's loves,
• 1:26:15
  that's great, two hundred, and four episodes.
• 1:26:18
  And no one's ever said it that way, my friend, I love it.
• 1:26:21
  So don't put pause in the future.
• 1:26:24
  Don't step into the future here so but give us now today. 2022
• 1:26:28
  2023, what does Catawba look like you had nine kids?
• 1:26:32
  I linebacker as your number five.
• 1:26:35
  Shout out to that guy. Is that still what you're doing
• 1:26:37
  today? No, no, I'm so we added track
• 1:26:41
  and field and I literally have them 60-page right.
• 1:26:45
  Up that I wrote up, the plan salaries, coaches, scholarships
• 1:26:50
  budgets state of track and field in North Carolina and Southeast.
• 1:26:55
  And what we could bring in all this stuff and you know, we
• 1:26:58
  added track and field, they decided to go with that plan in
• 1:27:00
  2017, 2018. Because we aligned with what the
• 1:27:05
  school needed, we needed more people, and they saw track and
• 1:27:08
  field is way to do that. So that's what I think.
• 1:27:10
  I learned very early on, is, if you want to get something done,
• 1:27:13
  you gotta, you gotta find a way to make it, you know, beneficial
• 1:27:16
  to everybody and the pit specially.
• 1:27:17
  Once I can make it happen. So, yeah, we're currently, we
• 1:27:22
  have, you know, we have a full program of cross-country, indoor
• 1:27:24
  track and field. We have two full-time staff,
• 1:27:27
  myself, my Sprint hurdles coach, we have two part-time
• 1:27:31
  assistance, as well as jumps. Defensive coach and a assistant
• 1:27:36
  Cross Country. Coach is a former alumni.
• 1:27:40
  And yeah, we have 15 15, guys, 10 girls, this year on the
• 1:27:44
  distance team along with Wow, 65 on the roster and we've, yeah,
• 1:27:51
  we've had, my wife gives its respective all the time.
• 1:27:56
  I, you know, we look at all the schools in our conference and
• 1:27:59
  like everybody's so good. They're doing this.
• 1:28:01
  But we're not where we were. We've come a long way.
• 1:28:04
  I try to focus on that every once in a while, but, obviously
• 1:28:06
  coaching you're very competitive and you're in them, your heads
• 1:28:09
  down here, this meet next week and conference this season.
• 1:28:13
  We're not where we need. We need to be here in like
• 1:28:14
  recruiting and but when you step back yeah come a long ways.
• 1:28:18
  And it's been a lot of. I mean, another shout-out, Maxx.
• 1:28:21
  Coleman more Chico apparently mr.
• 1:28:26
  Lee Jones and our assistant coaches, that we've had have
• 1:28:29
  come along and help me do things that I couldn't have done by
• 1:28:33
  myself and That's huge. Shout out the Maxx Coleman who's
• 1:28:36
  at unc-wilmington now and also Bob marchenko, who's the head
• 1:28:40
  coach at 54 now who he changed the culture of our distance
• 1:28:43
  program and set us in a direction that we're in now
• 1:28:46
  where we've had a men's team qualified last year to National
• 1:28:49
  Women's team qualified this year.
• 1:28:50
  Hopefully think both teams will qualify next year and we'll be
• 1:28:54
  there every year from now on. That is the standard.
• 1:28:57
  And he, he set that up with the way he helped get the program
• 1:29:02
  going over the years. The problems and issues that you
• 1:29:07
  tackle today are different than what they were when you first
• 1:29:10
  started. I mean, for crying aloud, you
• 1:29:11
  have three times, the amount of kids on your team, just on the
• 1:29:14
  cross country, side, nine kids to 25.
• 1:29:17
  Not to mention these 60 plus on the entire program.
• 1:29:21
  You're hiring and evaluating assistant coaches.
• 1:29:23
  You're working with Administration on different
• 1:29:25
  things. Where are you at today?
• 1:29:29
  Mentor wise as far as like hey when I get into a pickle and
• 1:29:32
  there's a frustrated Or just can't figure out what my art.
• 1:29:35
  My, our next step might be, who is there anybody that you're
• 1:29:39
  comfortable with shouting out that you reach out to, for that
• 1:29:42
  kind of a, that's a different advice than you needed when you
• 1:29:45
  first started? Yeah.
• 1:29:46
  Well, Amy C, go comes to mind, and I still reach out to her
• 1:29:50
  last saw her to meet this past weekend and the week before
• 1:29:53
  that. I, you know, I I get a good
• 1:29:57
  perspective from her and we always have good conversations
• 1:30:01
  and we talked for maybe A thing from facilities, getting built
• 1:30:06
  the frustration with trying to get things done there.
• 1:30:08
  The administration to mental help, the current state of
• 1:30:12
  student athletes where things are heading and where things are
• 1:30:15
  now and how to handle things, and how to go about things, and
• 1:30:18
  to disciplinary issues on the team and how to set that
• 1:30:23
  standard how to deal with things like that.
• 1:30:26
  And then a lot of coaches in our conference.
• 1:30:28
  I'm very, very close with a couple of coaches are
• 1:30:30
  conference. We're very competitive against
• 1:30:32
  each other but also we Talk a lot about budget issues with
• 1:30:38
  kids on the team and administration and all those
• 1:30:40
  things too. And I think it's always good to
• 1:30:42
  just it's good to just sit around and, you know, this being
• 1:30:44
  a coach has you go to a meat? It's just good to sit around
• 1:30:47
  everybody and commiserate sometimes belly though, you got
• 1:30:49
  this weird. Listen to this well and like you
• 1:30:52
  just hear that everybody's issues, everybody got struggles
• 1:30:55
  and you know, like you said from Florida down to, you know,
• 1:30:58
  Florida Tech to, you know, anybody in between, you know,
• 1:31:02
  please God has their issues are. Dealing with their different
• 1:31:04
  issues, you know, issues to I wish I had, which I wish I had
• 1:31:08
  to make a decision on how many hurdles to buy beer.
• 1:31:13
  Yeah, it's everybody has issues and so right now, yeah, head
• 1:31:19
  coach that I had in Anderson Randy career.
• 1:31:22
  I don't think he's not coaching anymore, but, you know, I reach
• 1:31:25
  out to him and talk to him sometimes, to about how we used
• 1:31:28
  to do things and he's fun to talk about them, like
• 1:31:31
  perspective of how far, you know, Things have come as well.
• 1:31:35
  So, yeah, I want to encourage what you guys do, they're in the
• 1:31:39
  conference, you know, having those open conversations about
• 1:31:43
  well what are your resources? Look like, what's kind of
• 1:31:45
  budget? Do you guys have?
• 1:31:46
  What, what is your Administration telling you?
• 1:31:48
  What next year, might look like Etc along with salaries to be a
• 1:31:52
  real Frank, which is a tough conversation, I get it, you
• 1:31:55
  know, Marvin Bracy just had a great interview with Sidious I
• 1:32:02
  think is how you pronounce it magazine.
• 1:32:04
  Kind of opening up about how the professional track and field
• 1:32:06
  World Works in just a gal, has a podcast is first couple of
• 1:32:10
  episodes. He talks about, you know,
• 1:32:11
  contracts and things like that. Those are our conversations that
• 1:32:15
  help move the sport forward, those conversations that you and
• 1:32:19
  the conference coaches peers are having are really important.
• 1:32:23
  Like that's how we raise the entire profession of coaching
• 1:32:27
  track and field. We know we need to have salaries
• 1:32:30
  raise up, you know. We're I'd love for our top end
• 1:32:33
  guys to make More money. I want whoever those guys and
• 1:32:37
  gals are that make a ton of money.
• 1:32:38
  I want you to make double, I really do.
• 1:32:40
  And just as important, I need the floor.
• 1:32:41
  I want the the part. I don't want any more part-time
• 1:32:44
  assistant. I want them all full-time.
• 1:32:46
  Let's be honest with you, but I need those guys and gals be
• 1:32:48
  making 50 60, 80 90 100 thousand at the minimum.
• 1:32:51
  So they can support their families and their dreams our
• 1:32:53
  passions or Charities but we don't get that way.
• 1:32:56
  If we guard, if we have the that mindset, that there's a limited
• 1:32:59
  amount for everybody. You know.
• 1:33:01
  That's that the that salary and and Budgets are piece of pie.
• 1:33:05
  So if your pies bigger, that means I'm getting a smaller
• 1:33:07
  piece of pie. We need to have the abundance
• 1:33:08
  mindset that. Hey, if you know, what we're all
• 1:33:11
  making here that maybe gives me some impetus to go to my ID and
• 1:33:14
  say, hey boss man was, what's going on here?
• 1:33:17
  I mean, we're being successful, we're hitting the goals, whether
• 1:33:19
  its performance or roster, sizes, Etc, and you got me in
• 1:33:25
  11th, like there's only nine teams in the conference.
• 1:33:27
  I'm the 11th. Best paid person funny, funny,
• 1:33:30
  funny number for you pick there? This is sometimes I get lucky.
• 1:33:36
  I hit that dark down there in the middle.
• 1:33:38
  No. But I think that's the thing
• 1:33:39
  that. Yeah, it's good to have those
• 1:33:41
  conversations. A lot of times it's therapeutic
• 1:33:45
  as coaches to have this conversation was going to be
• 1:33:47
  struggling with the same thing you are and to know that you're
• 1:33:52
  not along deal with it. I mean, the first year we had a
• 1:33:54
  track. It was a disaster disaster.
• 1:33:58
  Like issues with kids on the team who get in trouble, people
• 1:34:01
  with drinking and all this stuff and like You know anything you
• 1:34:05
  name it like we had it. Yeah my phone.
• 1:34:07
  I was I would get nervous here phone, go off.
• 1:34:10
  And first two months we're just disaster and going invention
• 1:34:15
  that fall and talking to other coaches with started programs
• 1:34:18
  from scratch. And you're in like, oh man it
• 1:34:20
  was. Yeah, needs I got some stories
• 1:34:23
  for you. This is and seeing where they
• 1:34:25
  are now and getting some respect.
• 1:34:27
  I came back from that my assistant myself came back.
• 1:34:29
  Then being like God, man, that was awesome.
• 1:34:32
  Oh good, it's not me. Me.
• 1:34:36
  So I think that's the beauty of our sport is that.
• 1:34:40
  Yeah, we are so kind of Niche and we are so like on our own,
• 1:34:44
  we're not, you know, we're not Nick Saban, we're not, you know,
• 1:34:49
  college basketball, and all that, we're track and field and
• 1:34:52
  cross country. And people don't know a lot
• 1:34:53
  about our sport. But you know, when you have
• 1:34:56
  coaches, that really can identify with that know exactly
• 1:35:00
  what you're talking about dealing with, that's It is
• 1:35:04
  therapeutic to sense and I think that it's, you know, it's very
• 1:35:08
  very helpful. Yeah, I agree.
• 1:35:09
  And maybe the they already do this but you know, I'd encourage
• 1:35:12
  us tfcc a, to have a real deep dive into budgets which is
• 1:35:17
  support, and then salaries as well from not only a divisional
• 1:35:20
  level, but even down to the conference level, you know, you
• 1:35:22
  can and you should probably in and I make it Anonymous.
• 1:35:28
  I would School in Alabama. Sell really know these big words
• 1:35:30
  but keep it Anonymous whatever that means.
• 1:35:32
  But but again you know having eyesight on these things is
• 1:35:35
  important to our profession and will help us get better.
• 1:35:38
  And I go one step further and say that you know might like the
• 1:35:41
  way that the NCAA is put an emphasis recently and the world
• 1:35:44
  is what it helps us on Mental Health, act, lead student
• 1:35:47
  athletes is student-athlete student.
• 1:35:49
  These coaches are struggling, they men, I even hate like the
• 1:35:53
  things that we are attacked with on a daily basis of like you,
• 1:35:57
  did you say that wrong? What did you say that to did?
• 1:36:00
  You said, did you did you you can't do it now?
• 1:36:02
  And like the things that we are, you know, and in the budget
• 1:36:06
  concerns and this we need to do this.
• 1:36:08
  We can't have this, this is this resource and, but if you don't
• 1:36:11
  then and like and the family life and being away from family,
• 1:36:15
  all the time and being poor, I have a five-year-old and
• 1:36:18
  six-year-old that every weekend currently, like they're like,
• 1:36:22
  you know, it's there crying when I leave and like that's hard on
• 1:36:26
  somebody, you know, and it hopefully it's hard on people.
• 1:36:29
  You know, you want to be hard because it shouldn't matter.
• 1:36:31
  But like the The mental health aspect of the coaches in this
• 1:36:34
  profession and how coaches are. They're dropping like flies.
• 1:36:37
  People are like, I can't. I didn't get into this, and I
• 1:36:40
  think that's one thing that I talked to Amy seagull about, is
• 1:36:43
  it like, there's all these talks, that should be taking
• 1:36:46
  place about student-athletes mental health, and helping them.
• 1:36:49
  And they're obviously part of life or they're figuring out who
• 1:36:52
  they are, but I think coaches to like, have like, there's no
• 1:36:57
  resources really though? No formal resource or formal
• 1:37:00
  talks about like it's about the coaches.
• 1:37:02
  Helping them because then if they're healthy, they can help
• 1:37:05
  you student-athletes. I think you're spot on, in fact,
• 1:37:10
  you know what, you kind of just help me.
• 1:37:12
  There is here soon. We're going to have the great
• 1:37:15
  Dave Smith from Oklahoma State on the podcast.
• 1:37:19
  We haven't recorded yet, we have a date on the calendar and one
• 1:37:22
  of the topics that I'd love to talk with him because he's very
• 1:37:26
  influential on cross-country as it relates to track and things
• 1:37:29
  like that. And I really thought and I'm not
• 1:37:33
  sure you tell me if this happened in division to division
• 1:37:35
  three. Maybe I'm just naive to a but
• 1:37:36
  I'm division. One, because a covid, it went to
• 1:37:39
  the National Championship was like, March, I don't know.
• 1:37:41
  I'm saying March 13th. It was like a week the weekend
• 1:37:44
  after NCAA indoor Nationals. And I thought, even through all
• 1:37:49
  the, you know, difficulties that came because it was the first
• 1:37:51
  time we had it with had to cross country season during indoor,
• 1:37:54
  now that I was like, oh man, maybe this will be the impetus,
• 1:37:57
  maybe people will see like, oh man through the fall I didn't
• 1:38:00
  have to try because there's a distance coach and you know non
• 1:38:03
  Distance co-chair by was French jumps and hurdles, but I still
• 1:38:06
  every weekend travel Creating things like that but for
• 1:38:08
  distance coach. Your 365.
• 1:38:10
  You're either recruiting or at a meet every stinking weekend,
• 1:38:14
  right? And so, I thought I was like, oh
• 1:38:16
  man, this cross-country thing in March, I bet it went off like a
• 1:38:19
  bang, it was awesome. And all the coaches are going to
• 1:38:21
  be like, hey, you know what, it was really nice to have a fall
• 1:38:24
  off to where I could spend more time with my family and I
• 1:38:26
  thought it would stick, I really did.
• 1:38:28
  I was like, oh, this is going to be.
• 1:38:29
  This is gonna be the new way. This is going to be great.
• 1:38:32
  By the way, lines up with the international schedules for
• 1:38:34
  cross, I was like it's a no-brainer and here we are.
• 1:38:37
  Are back on Thanksgiving weekend or whatever it is, we're doing
• 1:38:40
  Cross Country Nationals again. So we're doing all the fall.
• 1:38:42
  So that's I was going to. I'm going to talk to Dave about
• 1:38:45
  that. But you helped me with kind of
• 1:38:47
  an angle of like, yeah. Like I want to know from him
• 1:38:49
  like, hey Dave, you know, your high-powered your I mean, no
• 1:38:51
  one's traveling, more than you for cross-country, meets and
• 1:38:54
  recruiting and stuff like that. What was the mental health for
• 1:38:57
  you and your family? Like, should we get back to
• 1:39:00
  that? Like I see a proponent or
• 1:39:01
  opponent of that. I'm going to ask that.
• 1:39:03
  I would dismiss. I appreciate you.
• 1:39:05
  You help with that cuz I agree 100%.
• 1:39:06
  I Our coaches are undervalued underpaid under appreciated and
• 1:39:12
  that's you know one of the things we started the podcast
• 1:39:13
  for was to help kind of raise that statue.
• 1:39:15
  No one was interviewing the rock stars that are the coaches and
• 1:39:18
  that's what we started to do. And we're going to continue
• 1:39:21
  doing for many, many seasons are adjacent.
• 1:39:24
  Wrap us up here. We're getting close to our time.
• 1:39:27
  We talked about what the the beginning of Catawba look like
• 1:39:31
  for you we got to today. What's got you excited about the
• 1:39:34
  future? And you dictate that with its
• 1:39:35
  this season 5 season? Ins, let's get you excited there
• 1:39:38
  for Catawba College. Yeah, I think there's the cliche
• 1:39:42
  thing that every coach is expected to say like, oh, it's
• 1:39:44
  going to be, everything's looking good.
• 1:39:46
  Like we're doing a lot better not, but it's true here like
• 1:39:50
  we're in a new kind of New Era at Catawba.
• 1:39:53
  We've had some, you know, as a small private school funding
• 1:39:57
  and, you know, budget and all that are always a concern,
• 1:40:01
  especially, you know, where its enrollment driven things like
• 1:40:04
  that. And we're still a little bit
• 1:40:06
  there, but Like, we've had some donors the past two years that
• 1:40:09
  have stepped up and gave been huge donation to the school that
• 1:40:13
  have gotten us out of some, you know, Financial issues that
• 1:40:16
  every school deals with and also a set us on a trajectory for
• 1:40:20
  like the future and kind of speeding up the future and
• 1:40:25
  bringing it more to, you know, maybe 15 to 20 year outlook is
• 1:40:30
  maybe a to, to five-year Outlook now.
• 1:40:31
  And so we have a new athletic director who was extremely
• 1:40:35
  supportive and extremely competitive.
• 1:40:37
  It, which is a breath of fresh air.
• 1:40:38
  That's good. I wasn't, but like, I think that
• 1:40:42
  the show cadogan, our new athletic director is, you know,
• 1:40:46
  she means what she says. And, and that that's something
• 1:40:49
  that is, you know, we had a certain brand before apparel and
• 1:40:56
  now we have a different brand of a all that came, you know,
• 1:40:58
  right? As she got here and she said,
• 1:40:59
  we're switching, we're moving. And we're you know, we're trying
• 1:41:02
  to make some changes and give these students excited and You
• 1:41:06
  know, facilities are in the talks right now and we're
• 1:41:10
  working with a, you know, possible collaboration with the
• 1:41:13
  community to build a community track facility.
• 1:41:15
  That would be our home. You know, I'm excited about that
• 1:41:19
  opportunity because I'm not the only person talking about it now
• 1:41:21
  which the track coach always, he doesn't have a track always
• 1:41:24
  talks about. We're maybe going to track maybe
• 1:41:26
  in the truck. We need others saying that too.
• 1:41:29
  Yeah, yeah but when the president and other people
• 1:41:32
  community and the school district and other people that
• 1:41:35
  you've heard on for her, Having this conversation, excited about
• 1:41:37
  partnering together and there's a timeline that's kind of close
• 1:41:41
  this exciting. When there's those kind of
• 1:41:44
  things on it, then it's excited. But also just, you know, the
• 1:41:49
  type of athletes we have. Now, the success we've had
• 1:41:52
  recently, you know, we won't, you know, to be a player every
• 1:41:55
  year, the national stage with cross-country and indoor outdoor
• 1:41:58
  and we've got to the point now where last year, I mean one of
• 1:42:02
  the things that I think I can and not to brag but like these
• 1:42:05
  athletes are Our team, we had of instruct country teammate
• 1:42:08
  Nationals last year, so that's the 10K.
• 1:42:12
  A tea, made it in the 10K, pretty much.
• 1:42:14
  And we had our men's 4x1 almost made it the outdoor Nationals.
• 1:42:17
  I'm sure they were the first team out which hurt, but you're
• 1:42:21
  talking about the range of 4 by 1, right?
• 1:42:25
  Hey Prue, make it into the national level.
• 1:42:27
  In fact, that's something that I think as a small school and the
• 1:42:30
  resources the excited about. We have some very good Crews,
• 1:42:36
  coming next year, funding and Facilities our athletic
• 1:42:40
  director, and, you know, nutrition and things like that.
• 1:42:43
  They're making changes here that are visible with it.
• 1:42:47
  It's the most exciting time we've ever had with the success
• 1:42:50
  that we had. In the fall.
• 1:42:51
  Our women's basketball team made it to the final four.
• 1:42:54
  I wanted soccer team of the extremely competitive and the
• 1:42:57
  students student athletes. Overall.
• 1:42:59
  The school of students at school are very proud of their school
• 1:43:03
  right now. That's, that's a good thing that
• 1:43:05
  you can't just Manufacturer. It run happen with the culture
• 1:43:09
  change. Yeah, I tell you to do
• 1:43:10
  something, you know, one of the things we believe in here is
• 1:43:12
  that healthy things grow, right? If you think about everything
• 1:43:15
  from a garden to yourself to you know, your children, healthy
• 1:43:19
  things grow and so it's so cool to see kattappa go from you
• 1:43:23
  know, barely nine cross country Runners to one step away from
• 1:43:27
  qualifying the four by one and the did I think that's so cool I
• 1:43:30
  really I thought that was a great example.
• 1:43:32
  I thought that's so cool about depth of your program.
• 1:43:34
  So I love we love. In that growth there we love
• 1:43:37
  seeing the growth of new facilities of course because
• 1:43:39
  that's going to help you. You've had this growth up to now
• 1:43:41
  a new facility is going to help you take another leap or for
• 1:43:45
  growth. And then the other thing really
• 1:43:46
  the most important thing. Jason the growth of you that
• 1:43:50
  we've touched on here, man, I just think, you know, I got you
• 1:43:52
  at the right time this podcast. It's going to be awesome to get
• 1:43:56
  you back on and season number 15 and see how the continued growth
• 1:44:00
  has been. Because you've you're a changed
• 1:44:02
  person who you are today is not who you were back in Anderson
• 1:44:05
  and It's awesome, is who you are tomorrow's, not who you were
• 1:44:08
  today. You continue to grow and develop
• 1:44:10
  and have great people like your wife and your family, and your
• 1:44:12
  kids, or your physical, your actual kids, and then your kids
• 1:44:15
  on the team, your Administration.
• 1:44:17
  Those are those kind of people are just pouring into you,
• 1:44:20
  making you a better Coach, a better person every day.
• 1:44:23
  So it's just been just awesome to see the growth that you're
• 1:44:26
  leading their Catawba and that you're leading with yourself as
• 1:44:29
  well. Thanks Jason.
• 1:44:33
  Thanks again for being here, man.
• 1:44:34
  You know I'm always just so humbled what?
• 1:44:37
  Coaches? Not only first of all, when you
• 1:44:39
  agree to be on the show because that's its own thing to be on
• 1:44:41
  the show and kind of bare your soul and and I give you know,
• 1:44:43
  guidance. So you're kind of like what is
• 1:44:45
  Mike going to ask me? What are we going to do?
• 1:44:46
  So I'm just so so grateful for that.
• 1:44:48
  But also to do it during the middle of track season to me is
• 1:44:51
  I know how busy you are. In fact, I don't know how busy,
• 1:44:53
  I just know you're extremely busy so to spend, you know, two
• 1:44:56
  hours with me man. I'm just so grateful, just so
• 1:44:59
  humbled that you do for us. And for our listeners and just
• 1:45:03
  so awesome to see and hear your story and share with our
• 1:45:06
  listeners in the fact that it's going to have on them.
• 1:45:09
  We brought us some amazing topics today, from mental health
• 1:45:12
  of coaches, that's extremely important leadership.
• 1:45:15
  You know, your three I put you on the spot and you nailed it,
• 1:45:18
  by the way, the three things that you had to accomplish.
• 1:45:20
  When you got there, those three things that you mentioned
• 1:45:22
  setting expectations, instilling pride in recruiting that's going
• 1:45:26
  to help. There's there's a coach at right
• 1:45:27
  now. That's listening that just took
• 1:45:28
  those notes was like oh thank you.
• 1:45:30
  Okay, now I have I've Direction I have focused on what I'm
• 1:45:33
  doing. So, you provided a lot of value
• 1:45:34
  today. And I'm just so thankful for you
• 1:45:37
  and what you're what you did today and what your continue to
• 1:45:40
  do, as a coach of young people in the college ranks.
• 1:45:44
  Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me.
• 1:45:45
  And thanks for thanks for joining by Castile.
• 1:45:47
  I have listened over the years a little bit, but I've definitely,
• 1:45:51
  you know, I appreciate the Insight kind of being able to,
• 1:45:55
  you know, go on those band Rod sometimes when you're in a van
• 1:45:57
  by yourself and turn this on and fear other coaches for Stuff.
• 1:46:01
  So thanks for having me and thanks for doing this.
• 1:46:03
  Awesome. And will you guys keep
• 1:46:04
  listening? We'll keep doing it.
• 1:46:05
  We've got, I've already got our next four or five guests lined
• 1:46:09
  up and it don't stop. You know, I told you it's kind
• 1:46:11
  of like Pokemon, I gotta catch em all.
• 1:46:12
  I want every coach on the program, and we only do 52 a
• 1:46:15
  year, so it's going to take me a while but, you know, I met
• 1:46:18
  already mentioned season 15, some kind of committed for at
• 1:46:20
  least another 11 years to do this.
• 1:46:22
  And we're going to keep doing it.
• 1:46:23
  Keep having fun. So, keep listening.
• 1:46:25
  Maybe, share it with another coach out there that could
• 1:46:27
  receive value from Jason and other people story.
• 1:46:30
  And we'll just I'll just come back next week and do it all
• 1:46:32
  over again. Thanks for being here guys.
• 1:46:33
  Have a great week.