Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #70: Gill1918 Presents Coach/Author Dave Emeott “You Can't Catch Fish Unless You Go Fishing” Powered by Coach O

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#70: Gill1918 Presents Coach/Author Dave Emeott “You Can't Catch Fish Unless You Go Fishing” Powered by Coach O · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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  coaches for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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  Think of it as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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  you grow as a coach. This episode is part of the
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  Youth and Beginner Series, brought to you by Coach O.
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  In this series, we focus on topics relating to coaching
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  youth athletes, coaching beginner athletes of any age,
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  and supporting brand new coaches as they find their way.
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  With that in mind, let's grow. How big is your track across
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  country team? Do you have enough athletes to
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  accomplish your goals? Would you like more?
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  Let me ask you this, what would happen if your program doubled
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  in size or tripled in size? I'm Dave, MI, head track and
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  field coach at East Kentwood High School in Michigan, where I
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  also coach pole ball for both the boys and the girls.
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  Our team has grown to 180 boys and 160 girls.
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  And every year we work to grow those numbers, not just for
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  wins, for for something much bigger.
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  Let me give you the back story. First of all, I'm talking about
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  this today because somebody said, Dave, how do you get so
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  many people? They had heard me talking and
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  they said, how do you get so many people?
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  I said, well, maybe I need to spend a few minutes and let you
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  know all the little things we're doing to grow our team.
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  And maybe some of them can help you grow your team as well.
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  When I started in 2004, we had 56 boys on the team and on the
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  girls side. And I'll continue to reference
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  the girls because coach Stephanie Stevenson, our girls
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  coach, is my partner in crime and all this.
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  I would grow and she would grow. And so I would do, I would try
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  to get my team bigger and so would she.
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  So we did a lot of this together, but we had 56 boys and
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  less than 30 girls on the team back in 2004.
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  And we would win some some league titles and and be
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  competitive. But I had I had a theory.
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  I said, well, if we have 10 kids, I bet you one of them is
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  going to be good. And if we have 100 kids, one of
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  them is going to be great and I can win a lot of track meets
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  with 9 good athletes and 1 great 1.
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  So it was our goal to go out and try to win state titles and, and
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  championships and, and I knew I had to have some great athletes
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  if I was going to do that. So that theory, I'm not sure if
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  it if it has any statistics behind it whatsoever, but it
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  still drives me to this very day.
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  And we, we were always trying to be bigger and better.
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  So when we originally set our goal, we, we looked around and
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  we said, OK, what, what makes sense?
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  And so we had at the time, we had about 2500 kids in our
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  school. These days in our school, we
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  have about 2627 hundred, so pretty similar size.
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  And I figured that 10% of them could come out for track.
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  That was our goal we're going to hit.
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  We're going to try to find 10% of the school so far on the boys
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  side, that was 125 boys. And if we can get that, we could
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  change the culture. Every classroom is going to have
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  two to three track athletes in it.
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  People would take notice. Graduation couldn't never be
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  scheduled on the night of a big meet because we had we'd have
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  10% of the graduating class on our team.
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  It couldn't couldn't be done. So we were we mattered and we
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  were going to change the school ecosystem.
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  So I set a goal, A5 year goal 125 kids.
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  How do we get there? So here's here are all the, the
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  things that we did. We, we went to football games,
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  soccer matches, swim meets, cross country races, anywhere
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  that we could find potential athletes.
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  I visited classes on my prep hour.
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  I handed out Flyers in the hallway.
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  I stood in front of the freshman lunch and and had a bowl of
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  candy and said, anybody who signs up for track is going to
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  get a mini Snickers bars today. Come to come to our meeting.
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  You know, at the end of lunch, we're going to, we're going to
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  spend 5 minutes in in in. If you sign up, you get a
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  Snickers bar. But I'm going to tell you a
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  couple things that I think are important to you.
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  Here's how you earn a varsity letter.
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  Not all freshmen get to earn a varsity letter on other sports,
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  but you can on ours. No experience is required.
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  It's really hard to learn how to throw a baseball in at 14 years
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  old, but it's not hard to learn how to run.
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  Just show up. We just need bodies.
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  We need smart kids, dumb kids, tall kids, short kids.
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  It doesn't matter. We need them all on our team.
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  We, we didn't look for perfect athletes, we looked for kids.
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  I'd ask the I'd ask the teachers and the coaches.
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  Who's your hardest worker in class?
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  Who's tall? Who's funny?
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  Who who can't sit still? Who's who's got too much energy?
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  We're always shaking the trees and trying to and trying to get
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  as many kids as possible. Eventually I got access to the
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  parent e-mail list. And now nowadays most of us
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  probably have access to that or some sort of format.
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  But you know, back then we didn't really have that.
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  I would start to send weekly updates to all of the parents in
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  the offseason about track and field and I'd celebrate our
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  alumni. I did it so often I, I actually
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  got told I had to pull back a little bit, but I, I put the
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  messages out there. Hey, let me tell you about this
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  kid who's running in college somewhere.
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  Let me tell you about, you know, our, our, our GPA of our team,
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  whatever, whatever I could brag about.
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  I wanted people to know, especially parents to know that
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  this was a positive place for their kids and they were going
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  to they were going to grow. If they came in and hung out
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  with us, remind them that you know, I would always try to
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  remind them. Most of our sport is is talent
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  based. You just needed to be talent, no
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  skill required. You didn't know, have to know
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  how to, you know, throw a ball or ice skater or dribble a
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  basketball. You you could start athletics,
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  track and field in high school if you had never done any other
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  sports before. It might be tough, but there
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  might be some talented kids out there.
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  There might just be kids who want to be a part of something.
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  We, we had a layered approach. Recruitment just didn't start in
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  9th grade. We, we started, you know, if
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  you, if you said OK, we got five years to build our, build our
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  program up. We started that that year doing
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  a lot of different things in for the younger kids.
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  So each week we would do speed and agility for, for an hour for
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  K through 2/3 through 5 and middle schools.
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  Those would be 5 week long sessions an hour a piece, so 551
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  hour sessions. And I'd have my current athletes
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  run the stations and while they were running the warm ups and
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  the whatever workout we were doing that day for that group or
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  for the younger kids, whatever game we were going to play to
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  just have them run around the gym.
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  I'd meet with all the parents and I'd tell them why I love
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  track and field and I would tell them why they should consider it
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  for their kids someday. I wasn't really trying to sell
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  track and field to them at this moment, just put that in as an
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  idea in their head. In the summer, we run Kentwood
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  Track Club. It's it's a, it's a group.
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  We meet two days a week. It goes 2nd grade through 12th
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  grade. We break into our groups of
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  elementary, middle school and high school kids.
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  It's we probably have around 200 kids at the beginning of each
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  summer. It whittles itself down by the
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  end of the summer, but it's low key.
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  It's no pressure. There's no scary elite club
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  vibe. We're not trying to win
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  nationals. We're trying to build a
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  connection and get people out on the team.
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  Our middle schools, our middle school strategy, we incentivize
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  middle school coaches to build numbers.
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  Back in the beginning, I would I would say whoever has the
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  biggest team, I'm going to buy your, your, your coach's gear.
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  When I started, we had 130 middle school kids total from
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  three middle schools, boys and girls.
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  Now we have over 400 kids in those in those three middle
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  schools feeding into into our high school.
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  We go to practices, we go to their meets and, and our big
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  middle school event for the year, it's called Battle of the
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  Woods. We started this years ago,
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  probably, you know, around that same time, 20 O 420 O 5 and it's
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  Pinewood versus valley wood versus Crestwood.
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  And we hand out medals and we shake hands and, and Coach
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  Stevenson, the girls coach and I, we sit at the 50 yard line
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  and we announce, you know, check out this race and, and Johnny
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  won and Susie was second and whatever it was.
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  And then they have to come to us to get their medals.
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  We hand each kid their medal And, and we don't do a medal
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  presentation. We, we hand them their medal.
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  We check them off our list and then we have a conversation with
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  them so we can meet them. Our cross country coaches, they
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  now come to the same thing and they're handing out Flyers for
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  cross country and they're writing personal invites.
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  They knew Johnny ran a really good mile time last week.
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  He gets a personal invite to join the cross country team.
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  It's all about building relationships.
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  The biggest event, the crown jewel of our entire pipeline of
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  East Kentwood track and field. This is the one that blows the
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  mind of most coaches that I tell them This is why we're great.
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  We have always in the history of our district done this meet.
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  It is called 5th grade field day.
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  It's a crown jewel of our pipeline.
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  It's a 2 day event. Every 5th grader in the
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  district, 5 schools on what? We have 10 elementary schools.
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  So 5 schools on one day, five schools on the next day.
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  Every single 5th grader participates.
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  For 20 years, I was the starter for this meet and Stephanie, the
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  girls coach that I keep telling you about, she was the clerk.
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  We touch every single kid face to face who gets to talk to
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  every kid. The starter who gets to talk to
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  every kid, the clerk, because when you're talking about 5th
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  graders, they're moving around and you get to go and, you know,
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  get your foot behind the line and build relationships with
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  them. Our high school athletes
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  officiate all the field events. We have a big long talk with our
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  kids about, hey, it doesn't matter who wins who, who throws
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  the softball the furthest or who long jumps the furthest.
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  That's not who we're recruiting. We're recruiting every single
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  kid to, to leave that day and think, man, track and field's a
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  cool sport. And I can't, I can't wait to be
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  a part of that. It's a, it's a rite of passage
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  for every 5th grader in in Carroll public schools.
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  And if you ask any kid what their favorite elementary school
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  memory was, field day is a top three, guaranteed.
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  It's usually a top one. It is always right in the mix
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  for what, what they do. So that that fifth grade field
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  day, I've defended that mission so many times.
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  People have tried to shut that down, curriculum directors and
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  teachers and, and, and you know, sometimes there's been PE
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  teachers and they run, they are the ones that coach the teams.
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  They've said, oh, it's so much work.
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  And the curriculum director is like, well, we, we should spend
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  that time, you know, you know, working on our other studies and
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  our standards. I fought so hard.
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  Field day teaches life, competition, effort, joy.
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  It's standing still today and it's going to, it's stronger
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  than ever and it's going to continue on.
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  And it's the lifeblood of East Kentwood track and field.
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  But a lot of East Kentwood athletics because it teaches
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  kids for the first time to go out and compete.
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  Many of them. I can tell you when you're
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  recruiting, when you're, when you're out recruiting kids and
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  parents and, and one thing you got to prepare yourself for is
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  rejection. You're going to get rejected and
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  you better be resilient. I've been rejected thousands and
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  thousands of times because I've invited every single kid to be a
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  part of our team. It doesn't matter who they are.
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  I've talked to all of them. And I said, man, you should be.
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  You know, you know, one of my great joys is when a kid, you
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  know what, their senior year, they didn't run track.
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  I, I run into them somewhere else and I'm like, yeah, you
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  wanted me on your team so bad. And I and I, I go, yeah, I did,
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  I did. But I giggle inside because I
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  wanted every kid on my team so bad and I and I tried to recruit
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  so everybody and I hope everybody felt like I really
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  wanted them there, even if even if maybe they didn't want to be
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  there. So, you know, like I said, I've
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  been rejected. I hate running track is boring.
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  I've never done done it before, but but I can tell you this, you
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  can't catch fish unless you go fishing.
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  And we fish a lot. We are always fishing.
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  In 2009, five years after my first year, we hit 132 boys on
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  our team for the first time. Also in 2009 we were we were
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  well. 2008 we were runner up at the state finals. 2009 we were
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  state champions for the first time and and those 132 boys
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  couldn't be more excited that they were part of the the first
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  ever state title in East Kentwood boys track and field.
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  We went on to win eight more state titles, three more runner
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  UPS. We've had an amazing time.
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  The only year that we weren't above 125 was in 2021 right
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  after COVID, which kind of slowed us our pace down a little
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  bit, couldn't meet and couldn't recruit as much.
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  But you know, we love our team. We love how big our team is.
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  We've won a lot of meets, but but more than that, we've
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  impacted a lot of lives. We've created a lot of smiles.
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  When a when a kid runs a time they never thought they could
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  hit, when they clear a bar that they they thought was too high,
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  those are the real trophies. And when we have 180 kids on the
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  team, we get a lot of trophies. We get a lot of smiles.
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  I understand coaches, I don't know if I understand coaches
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  that that are quality over quantity, but I but I get it.
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  You know, I see a team that's 25 kids, their whole roster is 25
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  kids. Somehow they've picked 25 elite
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  athletes and they go out and they win something.
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  I don't know. I don't know that I could do
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  that. Maybe maybe I would be happy
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  about it. Maybe I'd have a lot of fun with
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  it, but I like having big groups.
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  I like building fraternities. I love them getting together
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  and, and having memories, you know, till they're old.
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  I think if I had a small team, I'd, I'd miss the impact.
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  I, I certainly wouldn't have as big a staff as I have because
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  how I justify my staff is how, how you know, I have 15 people
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  on my coaching staff is because we have 350 kids on the team.
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  And so we have to have a big staff.
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  I think if you had 25, you might only have one or two staff
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  members. So life might be a little bit
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  harder. But I, I would, I would miss the
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  time with the kids. I would miss the time with my
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  staff and I can tell you I, I don't know that I'd laugh as
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  much as I do right now because when you have over 300 kids out
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  there on the track, man, there's something to laugh about every
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  single day. So my final message is, is to
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  you is, is to grow your team, not for the wins, but for the
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  joy. Make it a mission to say no rock
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  is left unturned. Every kid was asked to join this
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  team. We we gassed them all and, and
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  if and if you make that your mission, you're going to grow
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  your team and I know you're going to find some stars out
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  there somewhere. I can tell you I go to track
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  meets all the time. I look around and I ask myself
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  what I asked that kid to join the team.
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  If that kid was sitting in my third hour class in the front
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  row and they were quiet and they never said anything.
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  What I ever have asked them to join the team.
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  I know what my answer is. I would ask, I ask every kid to
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  be on the team, but I know the guys that are out there looking
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  for quality over quantity would would have a hard time looking
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  at some skinny little kid who who wasn't very tall and wasn't
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  very intimidating. Hey, hey, maybe that kids going
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  to be the next star. I asked the kid, I I want that
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  kid on my team and, and guess what?
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  A lot of those kids have turned out to be stars.
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  And so overturn all the rocks. Ask all the kids to join.
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  It's going to make your life a lot better, not only
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  competitively, but just you're going to have you're going to
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  have more fun. If you enjoyed this podcast and
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  want to hear more stories like this, check out my book coming
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  in late 2025, Beyond the finish Line, The Art of
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  Transformational Coaching. Thank you.
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  Have a good day. Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here.
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  Thanks for joining us for this episode in the Youth and
• 15:59
  beginner series Powered by Coach O Powered by Coach O is more
• 16:03
  than a platform. It's a movement to benefit track
• 16:05
  and field by supporting coaches, athletes, parents, officials and
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  event directors in countless ways.
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  Find out more and get yourself plugged in to the Powered by
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