Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #309: Dana Jaster-Waunakee (WI) High School

Transcript

#309: Dana Jaster-Waunakee (WI) High School · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world UNL tuned
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  in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message for Gil Athletics Connections.
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  All right, welcome back here to the Gil Athletics Connections
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  podcast. Again, this humbled you would
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  press play. I know I say that every episode,
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  but again, when I see the number of people that listen to our
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  show, it just blows me away. And that doesn't happen without
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  you guys and gals out there being interested in the amazing
• 0:35
  men and women that we have here on the podcast.
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  And we got another one today. This is fun.
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  It's always fun to me when someone gets nominated for the
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  podcast that that really says something about our guest,
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  right? Because that means this person
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  had to have influence positively over other people.
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  And you know what? That to me is exactly the
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  definition of a of a track and field coach.
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  So help me welcome from Wanakee High School in the great state
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  of Wisconsin. He's a high jumps coach.
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  I I bet you he's coached more than that.
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  We're going to find that out today.
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  Help me welcome the wise, the wonderful Mr. Dana Jaster.
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  Dana, how are you, Sir? Yeah, great.
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  Thanks to B is. Thanks for allowing me to be
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  here today. Brian.
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  Brian, Mike. It's all right, Dana.
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  We'll call each other whatever we want to.
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  Say you said it doesn't have to be perfect.
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  That's right, does. It right off.
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  In the curtains, listeners, before every episode, I always
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  tell people I strive for authenticity over perfection.
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  Well, you know what authenticity is.
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  Sometimes we make mistakes. My best friend who's like my
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  brother, his name is Brian. So calling me Brian, it's an
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  honor 'cause I love that deal. Not a bad.
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  Deal. That's not a bad deal.
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  Not a bad deal at all. Dana, I said you were from the
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  great state of Wisconsin, but if you're watching us on YouTube,
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  people see this background. I don't think I've ever seen
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  that in Wisconsin. Where?
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  Where in the world is that background from?
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  This is actually the central central Sierra Nevada mountains
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  about 3 1/2 hours east of San Francisco, the San Francisco Bay
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  Area. This is where I grew up.
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  We, my wife and I met in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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  We had with three children and at that point I was working in
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  electronic manufacturing and back in the 80s companies would
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  come and go really fast. And so it was 1992 and the
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  company I was working for closed down and my wife and I decided
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  to come to the Midwest. She is originally from here,
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  Monroe, WI, and she had all of her family here except for her
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  parents who are still living in in the Bay Area and came here.
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  And we've settled in at Waunakee for the last 32 years and become
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  a part of the community. And I've worked in the district
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  now for the entire 32 years. There was a coach, teacher, a
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  substitute teacher and a janitor for 21 years.
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  I've done a bunch of things and it's been really fun.
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  It's been a great move for us and for our kids.
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  I love that, you know, I I travel and part of my job is I
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  travel the country for many different reasons.
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  And you know, someone invariably will ask me is like, well,
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  what's your In fact, someone just asked me this past weekend,
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  what's your favorite place to go to?
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  And I tell him I was like, you know, I don't really have a
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  favorite place because every place has its own beauty.
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  Like I think about Wisconsin, you know, you're around the
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  Madison area. I go up there at least once a
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  year for the cross country meet to see Mick and Zim and all
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  those guys up there. They're great people up there.
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  And it's beautiful up there. I mean, it's, it's gorgeous up
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  there. And then I, I see Sierra Nevada
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  and I, you know, I've gone to California a couple times
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  myself. It's gorgeous out there and, and
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  everywhere in between. So I just, it's, it's, it's
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  interesting. I love that the beauty of every
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  place that we, you know, from Boston, Miami all the way to the
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  West Coast. It's, it's gorgeous.
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  Well, appreciate you being here, you know, getting one of the
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  most valuable things that you can give me as your time.
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  So I'm excited to dive in and figure out, you know, you did
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  something right. You've probably done a few
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  things right, but someone nominated you for the podcast.
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  That's a big deal. I only do 52 of these a year.
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  So it's, you know, it's a coveted time slot here.
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  You you mentioned about being in California working in the, you
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  know, the tech hub and how things came and go and probably
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  still come and go there. Where does track and field fit
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  in for you? Where does that start?
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  Crack and Field starts in 1968 as a 1/6 grader in middle school
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  in a small town called Twain Harte, CA.
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  I was introduced. It was like one of the first
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  main Olympic broadcasts that we had in the United States in the
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  Mexico City Games. And there was this young man
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  named Dick Fosbury who did this crazy thing jumping over a bar
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  backwards. And I said that is really cool.
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  And being kind of a daredevil myself, doing crazy things like
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  jumping in off of cliffs into rivers and lakes and things like
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  that. I said I'd like to try that.
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  And so in 6th grade, we had a track team at our very, very
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  small school. There was 71 kids in my high
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  school graduating class and we only had I think 30 or 48th
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  graders that graduated in my school.
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  Anyway. And this was back in the day of
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  sawdust pits. And I, I decided I was going to
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  give this a try and I raked the sawdust.
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  I remember raking the sawdust pit trying to get it as fluffy
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  and soft. You're talking about you, you,
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  you, you, you're. There's no way this is right.
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  Sawdust, sawdust pit. I can get that.
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  You're not talking about doing the Fosbury into sawdust?
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  Well, yes, I am literally. And I, I got that thing softened
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  up to the point where I thought it would work and I took off and
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  did the whole backwards over the bar thing.
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  And when I hit the ground it was a good 15 minutes before I could
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  breathe again. And that was because.
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  You survived. I can laugh, but Oh my goodness.
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  Nope, no broken bones, no fractured anything.
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  But I did realize that there was an easier way to do this, and
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  that was doing like the scissor jump.
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  So the western, the old western roll, which was very popular
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  during that time, you could do that on sawdust as well because
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  you're kind of continuously moving across.
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  Yeah. And so it wasn't as impactful as
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  doing the doing the flop. So I did that.
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  I did the western roll and I also did the scissor.
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  I actually was a better scissor jumper then.
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  I was a western roller because my primary leg was my right leg,
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  so and my left leg if I was going to.
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  So I was, I was born with only one arm and so I had to learn to
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  adapt and high jumping from the left side.
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  I couldn't, I didn't have an arm to to lead over the bar if I was
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  doing the western role. So I had to jump off my left,
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  which was not as strong as my right.
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  So I learned how to to Fosbury and scissor and I could scissor
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  much better with my my dominant right leg.
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  So. What was this is an interesting
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  time period for me because I only know the Fosbury right?
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  Like I graduate high school in 94.
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  So it was, you know, everybody was doing Fosbury.
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  I think as far as I knew, you know, in the 90s.
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  But but you know, it was such a drastic change from what people
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  were doing. Was, was there a, I almost want
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  to say like a, a fight, a tension between coaches and
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  athletes? Like, like, I can just imagine
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  kind of like he was a 6th grade. I imagine all these kids that
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  were western rolling and, and scissor kicking seeing Fosbury.
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  Because remember too, I, I, I had this like picture that it's
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  not like today where I can go to YouTube and watch 100 different
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  high jumps. Like you maybe only saw Fosbury
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  once every four years or once a year.
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  So you see this and I can just see a bunch of you rambunctious
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  kids like I want to try that. Was there a fight between
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  coaches of like, no, no man, we Western role here.
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  That Fosberry guy, he's crazy. Like was there a fight or was
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  there an an adoption of it? There there wasn't for me when I
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  when I got to high school, our the high school had now this was
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  our mats. If you, you know, you, you guys
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  sell, you know, high jump mats, pitcher, fishnet, fishing net
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  stuffed with with foam rubber. That was our high jump mat.
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  I actually got into, you know, actually doing the flop because
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  we couldn't, he wasn't half in the sawdust.
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  So for for the two years, my 7th and 8th grade year after my 6th
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  grade year, the first time I tried that flop, I didn't do
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  anything but scissor. So I could scissor 410 as a
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  little guy. I mean, I'm only 5-7, so 410 is
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  not bad. When I got to high school, that
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  completely changed and by then it had become, I started high
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  school in 71. So then after multiple people
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  had worked on them and perfected the the technique, it falls
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  where he did a lot of that work. It was, it was not, there wasn't
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  much tension. So I, I can tell you we only had
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  one track coach and he was coaching 9 different and so have
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  a lot of personal attention. We just like it to this day.
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  One of my main philosophies in coaching is do it better.
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  I mean, granted I do drill stuff like that nowadays, makes it
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  easier. You know, I just like to start
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  a, to start a kid that's never high jump before.
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  I literally have them fall a mat.
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  If they're not afraid to do that, then there's that right
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  there will tell me. He's not going to be afraid to
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  jump backward either. What was the adoption rate of
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  foam pit? I, I, I, I've seen these
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  pictures of these, you know, fishnet and scraps of foam and
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  stuff like that. Like in your area, like when you
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  guys go to meats, how many people had that at this stage or
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  were how many were still doing sawdust?
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  Most of them had mats. I remember most of the the big
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  meets that we would, we were up in the up in the mountains.
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  And so when we would go down into the valley where the big
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  schools were, they had everything that we have today.
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  So they had their school districts.
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  We had much more resources. We didn't have much.
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  So when we would go down to Gesto, which was the closest big
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  town, but if so, junior college had a huge track meet and so
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  they had really good stuff. And so when we would compete
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  there, it was on regular mats with, you know, so our our high
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  jump bars when I was in in middle school and in high school
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  were triangular, triangular aluminum.
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  Yeah. And the kids, the kids today
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  will land on one of those fiberglass things and go, oh,
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  that really hurt. And I said you don't even know
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  what campaign is. You know, our sport has many,
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  many, many super intelligent people.
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  I can't imagine who decided a a metal which maybe there was no
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  really other option. So OK, that maybe makes sense,
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  but could have been it. But but but triangle like 3 very
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  concentrated. It's for you to land for you to
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  oh, we have several, you know, from back in the day, back in
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  our archives. And I just every time I look at
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  them like how many like vertebrae?
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  Yeah, yeah. No, I I tell you it was, it was
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  incredibly painful. And when you when you landed on
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  the bar, it bent and it was never straight again.
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  Yeah, yeah, that's another thing.
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  You know, there would be guys, you know, the the maintenance
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  guys or the shop guys were always trying to straighten up
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  the bars so that we could get some kind of level, something to
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  jump across. That's the other thing is how is
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  any high jump mark legal from back in the day because there's
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  no way that bar. No way.
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  There was no way that bar was it was anywhere near flat and
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  straight, and the lowest point could have been way to the left.
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  Yeah, exactly. So Dana, you're doing high jump,
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  you're learning in a very fascinating time period of that
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  event specifically, Are you doing any other events?
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  You mentioned being born with one arm.
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  This is new to me, so forgive me if I say anything out of touch.
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  Were there other events that you were interested in and did or
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  was it just high jump? There I did every event in track
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  and field in high school, every single event, including pole
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  vault. My best friend Steve Kisling was
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  the one of our best pole vaulters.
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  He's 13 feet or something like that back then and we went to
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  this, it was called the Amador Relays and you needed to have
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  eyes pole vaulting. And so there was him and Guy and
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  so me that I should try to because I had been around with
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  it in practice, you know, and I just decided, you know, all
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  right, I'll give it a try and a real meat whatever.
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  So the starting height back then was 7 feet.
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  And so I carry the pole. And this is back when poles
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  didn't bend for us, I mean, because we had the cheap,
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  whatever cheap poles. And so it was like I.
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  Said you. It wasn't Was it fiberglass or
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  no I I. No, I don't know exactly what
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  they were made of, but they didn't bend.
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  It was nothing like today, right, Right.
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  And So what I did was I, I learned how to carry the pole
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  run down the runway. I could plant the pole in the
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  box, and then I jumped. And as I jumped, I would rotate
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  around and flop backwards over the bar.
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  You did a a pole assisted high jump.
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  Pole assisted high jump. So I've, I have told number of
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  kids that I've coached over the years that I cleared 7 feet as a
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  high jumpers sort of. But anyway, it was, it was
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  really fun and but I did, I threw the shot, I threw the
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  disk. I did all of those at least
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  once. I ran every, I ran every event
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  from the 100 yards up to the mile.
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  I was on a number of relays. So when I got to be a junior, I
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  got to be really good at, I was a sprinter.
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  I became a sprinter again. I said it was a little, I was a
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  little guy. I probably thinking back on it
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  now, would have been a really good distance runner because I,
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  I ended up down the road, many years down the road becoming a
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  distance runner. I've done a marathon number of
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  half marathons, hundreds of 10 KS and five KS.
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  But I, I could have easily, I, I should have done that, but I
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  became a sprinter and I wasn't very big and I wasn't very
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  strong, but I was really fast. And in California, I, you know,
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  here's another little tidbit. I'd never seen an indoor track
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  in California growing up until I moved to Wisconsin.
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  So everything was outdoors. So they didn't have if they
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  would have had indoor, the 60 meters would have been I could
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  have done that very, very well because I was good for six
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  between 60 and 80 meters. And then at 80 meters, it was
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  everybody's going past Dana. So, so that's really, you know,
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  that's really was, was my thing and that actually my, my speed
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  also helped me to perform at the Paralympic Games much later in
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  life as well, the 92 Barcelona Games.
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  But so I did the, I did everything in, in, in track and
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  field, but high Jumbo was my best.
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  And I ended up I had APR of 6/2, which was not that good because
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  the guy that won conference jumped 6-8 or something like
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  that. And then my best friend Steve
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  jumped higher than me and everybody jumped higher than me.
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  But it was still, I still loved it and I just, that's really, so
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  my junior year is really when I fell in love with that.
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  I also long jumped. I was a 21 1/2 foot long jumper,
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  which was not bad. Again, that was mostly my speed
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  and my ability to jump so I could get myself up in the air
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  and fly and and hopefully it would go out far enough.
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  So as you go through high school, what I love the
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  experience you had in high school, by the way, as far as
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  like doing all the events. I mean, I think we, I think we
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  miss out on that sometimes in today's high school world for,
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  for many reasons, good and bad. But I just love that you were
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  able to have that experience as you were transitioning to senior
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  year and, and thinking about the next steps.
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  You mentioned you were in the tech industry for a profession.
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  Did you go to college? Did you go to college?
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  First of all? Did you study, you know,
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  engineering or something like that?
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  And did you do track at all? Where where does this track keep
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  going? Or is there a pause?
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  There's some pauses. When I left high school, I went
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  to Modesto Junior College and joined the track team there.
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  I didn't, I didn't compete when I was there because so back then
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  in 1975, which like 50 years ago, like the kids that are on
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  my team right now, all the seniors are doing what I did 50
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  years ago. And it's kind of fun to to think
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  about that. But back then there wasn't like
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  the Paralympic Games didn't exist for me.
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  I mean, they did exist, but you know, there was no Internet.
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  There was no Google. I can search for it, nothing.
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  And so I did go out for the track team, but I didn't, I was
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  like at that even at the junior college level in California, you
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  got to be really good. There was a, a young man that
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  was there. His name is Tyke Peacock, who
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  was a 7 foot 6 high jumper. You know, I was a 62.
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  I was a. 6. And I only cleared at Six 2
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  watts. So my average heights were
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  between 5:10 and 6:00 feet. So I didn't really pursue track
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  and field then. And then a couple years went by
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  in 1977, I, one of my coaches from from when I was in school
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  who had just become a Co, he was a distance coach, actually was
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  coaching and he they needed someone to coach high jump at my
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  high school. And so that was my first
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  coaching experience was in 1977. And that's really, that was the
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  the the trigger for me to fall in love with coaching.
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  Yeah, that's perfect. I love that you said that
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  because that that's kind of always my first question when I
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  hear stories like this of, you know, I didn't even set out to
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  become a coach, but then I started coaching at my local
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  high school or whatnot. You know, coaching is different
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  than being an athlete. We we like to kind of say that
• 19:43
  they're so close, but you know, as an athlete, your job is to be
• 19:46
  selfish, is to listen to coach. And how do I get better by what
• 19:49
  coach says as a coach, it's very selfless.
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  You're now trying to everything you learn, you're trying to help
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  push out to the other person. What do you remember about that
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  first time of you know, it's not about you clearing 6 foot 62
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  anymore. Now it's about helping this
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  little guy, this little girl do that.
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  What what was different about it that what attracted you about it
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  to the coaching side that you're like, oh man, this, I like this.
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  This so when it when a young man or woman would be successful, I
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  mean, and to me, and this is the way I've always been, success to
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  me is not going to the state meet, not going to the national
• 20:30
  championships, not going to the Olympic Games, although those
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  are those are definitely success things.
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  But I base everything with the kids that I coach on their PR.
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  So if your PR is 4 foot 2 and next day you go 4 foot 4, that's
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  APR. That's that's something to
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  celebrate. And and so when the first time I
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  had AI can't remember his name. It was 50 years ago or almost 50
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  years ago. I can't remember the young man's
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  name, but the first time he cleared 6 feet, it was a it was
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  a an amazing day. And he wouldn't he back in
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  California, you had to get through your conference first.
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  So conference was like a subsectionals or or regionals or
• 21:15
  whatever that we have here. And you know, he didn't, he
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  didn't get through that, but he PR Ed that day and we were as
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  happy as if he would have, you know, won A state championship.
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  And that's that's exactly how I coach all of my athletes.
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  It's not, you know, if you go and I've coached.
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  So I don't want to brag, but I have worked with a young man
• 21:37
  named Steve Lewis, who was the 1988 Olympic 400 meter champion,
• 21:42
  youngest 400 meter champion to this day.
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  And I believe he still holds the world record for under 2400
• 21:51
  meters at 4387. And to watch him and work with
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  him was just fabulous. But you know what, he was a
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  great kid. He he he was so humble and he
• 22:03
  was just the kind of guy that I would, I just want to be around
• 22:06
  with him all the time. I ended up actually we got him a
• 22:09
  job when he was in high school at the company that I worked
• 22:11
  for. And then the whole company kind
• 22:14
  of latched on to him and it was, it was amazing thing.
• 22:17
  Then I said he won the the gold medal in in Seoul because
• 22:21
  everybody celebrated the fact that Steve was part of our
• 22:24
  family. So yeah, that's, that's really
• 22:27
  again. And then I again, I've had high
• 22:30
  jumpers that can't, you know, go forth again.
• 22:34
  Where does Dana, you know, we're we're always it's similar like
• 22:38
  we're always we're chasing championships.
• 22:43
  You know, we we win the state title, which you know, in
• 22:45
  California is a every state's a big deal, but California super
• 22:48
  tough, you know, conference college championships, etcetera.
• 22:53
  But that attitude of, you know, if a kid has APR or 4 foot and
• 22:58
  they go 4 foot two, that needs to be I'm 100% on board.
• 23:01
  I, I, I love celebrating PRS. For one, you never did it.
• 23:05
  So you did something you never done.
• 23:06
  And two, you don't know when's your last PR until years later.
• 23:11
  You never know when the last one is and you don't find out until
• 23:13
  years later. Oh crap, that one back then,
• 23:15
  that was, that was as best as it ever got, right?
• 23:17
  What, where was that? That had to be, I assume that
• 23:20
  had to be modelled, whether it was through parents or family or
• 23:24
  your coaches somewhere. That had to be like, hey,
• 23:27
  championships are cool and we're certainly striving for those.
• 23:29
  But that only happens if you continue to improve.
• 23:32
  And so we're going to celebrate that.
• 23:33
  Right. And, you know, Coach de Janeiro,
• 23:36
  who was the the distance coach, I mean, running even especially
• 23:42
  in running, PRS were really highly important.
• 23:45
  I mean, granted, you know, you wanted to run a fast 100,
• 23:48
  whatever. But, you know, every day it
• 23:50
  seemed like the kids that were distance runners were always
• 23:53
  looking to PR, which, you know, is not a great way to train, but
• 23:57
  it still was, was a big deal for them.
• 24:00
  And and Mr. D really kind of instilled that in me is, you
• 24:04
  know, do your personal, but he was a he's such a great man.
• 24:07
  He just retired a year or so before COVID.
• 24:11
  And I actually went back for his retirement thing because he
• 24:15
  meant that much to me. And so he was probably the first
• 24:20
  person that said, you know, this is this is what, you know, track
• 24:25
  and field is really about what running is, what life is about
• 24:28
  doing something that maybe you've never done before.
• 24:31
  You know, like Dana being on a podcast, I've, you know, never
• 24:34
  done this. I was nervous, you know, I was.
• 24:38
  But now, I mean, you're such a great guy, Mike.
• 24:41
  I should have called you Brian, I guess, but whatever.
• 24:43
  Yeah, yeah. And and again, I always like to
• 24:44
  kind of pull the curtain back. When I first emailed Dana, he
• 24:47
  thought I was spam. So he ignored my e-mail.
• 24:49
  Just Full disclosure here of how great I am.
• 24:52
  He thought I was spam. I was going to open up.
• 24:54
  I was going to open up. Today's podcast going.
• 24:55
  Dana, look, it's really me. I'm not spam.
• 24:59
  That's good. I'm so sorry about that.
• 25:01
  But you know, we get coaches and and I, you know, I, Evan, the
• 25:08
  person who nominated me had not told me anything about what was
• 25:11
  going on. So I just, you know, don't look
• 25:13
  for Mike Cunningham. You know, I don't know, I don't
• 25:16
  know what they're looking for. But but anyway, that I think
• 25:19
  coach D was the was really the the person that instilled do
• 25:24
  your best, you know, work hard every day, do your best.
• 25:29
  Listening to that podcast before I before I came here to be with
• 25:33
  you, that was that was really what that coach was talking
• 25:38
  about as well. You know, it means, you know,
• 25:41
  the personal intimate relationship that you build with
• 25:44
  an athlete as a coach, you know, and I take on that
• 25:47
  responsibility of being a mentor.
• 25:49
  It means a lot to me because again, you know, that I, I go
• 25:54
  back to Coach D well, I have kids that I coached 40 years ago
• 25:59
  that I'm still connected with and it's just been, you know,
• 26:04
  that's just really who I am and who I want to be.
• 26:08
  It's just, it's just a, you know, I have a gift.
• 26:10
  I've been given a gift and I want to share it with everyone
• 26:14
  that I can that wants to listen to me talk.
• 26:17
  I mean, and you know, when you were talking about not doing X's
• 26:19
  and O's, I don't do X's and O's really well.
• 26:23
  I'm not AI can't look at a, at a video.
• 26:27
  I, I can sort of breakdown what's going on, but and I can
• 26:31
  do it well enough to help fix them.
• 26:33
  But really what I look at is I look at a child's attitude or a
• 26:37
  student's attitude, athlete's attitude.
• 26:40
  If you want to be here and work, I will work as hard as you're
• 26:42
  going to work. If you want to be here and just
• 26:44
  socialize with me, I'm good with that too.
• 26:47
  So as long as you're not jumping into my high jump pits when
• 26:50
  other jumpers are doing that, but which has happened.
• 26:53
  But anyway, so that's that's really where I think Mr. D was
• 26:58
  probably the guy that instilled that more in me than anybody
• 27:01
  else. I love that.
• 27:03
  That's a great example of the positive impact coaches make on
• 27:05
  young people. You know, I, I think I, I bet
• 27:08
  you, if we asked coach D, you know, you know, did you do it to
• 27:12
  help Dana become a Co, you know, one day.
• 27:14
  And I bet he was just like, you know what?
• 27:15
  No, he was a young kid in my program and I thought he
• 27:18
  deserved it. And so we worked really hard and
• 27:20
  and got better at it. So I, I, I just love that
• 27:22
  positive. Sometimes we sometimes we
• 27:24
  overthink and under think the role of a coach.
• 27:26
  And what I mean by that is sometimes we overstate our
• 27:29
  importance for the young person, not realizing we're one part of
• 27:32
  their entire, you know, their family, their teachers, friend
• 27:35
  group, etcetera. But then sometimes and probably
• 27:37
  more often this week, minimize our our influence on kids too
• 27:42
  and forget that you know what you are a positive leader for
• 27:45
  that kid, that sometimes that maybe you may be the only
• 27:48
  positive impact on that kid. More hopefully more so than not,
• 27:52
  you are a part of a cadre of other adults and stuff that are
• 27:55
  positive impacts on them. But what you do matters to these
• 27:59
  young people. They're very impressionable.
• 28:00
  They need leadership, they want leadership, they crave
• 28:03
  leadership. And you know, I think, you know,
• 28:05
  example by this podcast, we've had 300 plus men and women who
• 28:09
  live by that credo everyday. All right, so Dana, you're
• 28:12
  coaching you you kind of get bit by the coaching bug, if you
• 28:16
  will. You're like, man, that was
• 28:17
  pretty cool. I like when little Joey jumps
• 28:19
  higher than than what they did before.
• 28:21
  But you you were in the professional world, you're in
• 28:24
  the private sector world. How does you didn't go teach,
• 28:28
  you didn't go coach college that I'm hearing so far.
• 28:30
  How do you weave a private sector business while also
• 28:33
  coaching? Well, that was, that was one of
• 28:37
  my, the puzzle that I put together.
• 28:41
  I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1979, started working in
• 28:46
  electronic manufacturing and in I, I don't know how I, I figured
• 28:53
  this out or whatever, how I was contacted, but there was a,
• 28:56
  there's a track club there and I'm not sure if they even exist
• 28:58
  anymore. The San Jose Striders Youth
• 29:02
  Track club. I went to them and said I found
• 29:06
  out about them when said, hey, you know, do you guys, you guys
• 29:10
  need a coach or you're looking for coaches?
• 29:11
  And you know, I might have seen something that said they were
• 29:14
  looking for a coach. So I joined that.
• 29:17
  I joined that organization and coached there for a number of
• 29:22
  years, but I also worked full time during the day.
• 29:25
  High jump specifically or other events?
• 29:27
  As well, I worked, yes, high jump, but the other, the other
• 29:31
  thing I coached so way back to my Modesto junior college days,
• 29:35
  that track meet that I, we talked about the Cal Relays.
• 29:40
  I was there as AI was on the team with, with the Madison
• 29:45
  Junior college and we were setting up for the meet and I
• 29:48
  was there setting up, you know, like the rest of the guys on the
• 29:51
  team and stuff like that. I was in the manager, but I was
• 29:53
  helping set everything up and, and there was a guy there
• 29:57
  throwing a spear and I thought that is really cool.
• 30:02
  And so he was his name was Phil Wilson.
• 30:05
  He was from the University of Tennessee.
• 30:08
  He would eventually represent Canada in the Olympic Games.
• 30:13
  And I just started kind of shagging his his jazz.
• 30:17
  And so after a little while he goes, well, have you ever thrown
• 30:22
  1? And I said, no, I haven't.
• 30:25
  And so he goes, well, you know, showed me how to grip it.
• 30:29
  He showed me, you know, the step crossover, you know, the blog.
• 30:32
  He showed me a whole bunch of stuff about, I mean, we didn't
• 30:35
  spend that much time, but that was, that was my second
• 30:39
  favorite. And that today I still throw
• 30:42
  javelins at the age of 68 because I mean, I've, I
• 30:46
  progressed down to the, the women's javelin.
• 30:49
  It went from 800 meters to 700 meters.
• 30:51
  And every 10 years it drops down.
• 30:53
  So I'm, I'm throwing the six hundreds now and it's just, I
• 30:57
  just love, I just love it. And I don't train for I don't,
• 31:00
  you know, I don't spend I, I tried to be good.
• 31:03
  That was actually an event that I did when I went to the
• 31:06
  Paralympic Games that I had qualified to do, but I chose not
• 31:11
  to. That's kind of a long story
• 31:12
  because I was high jumping and running the hundreds and all,
• 31:15
  just all kinds of different stuff.
• 31:17
  But so I fell in love with that. So with the San Jose Striders, I
• 31:21
  ended up because in the club out there, they don't throw jabs.
• 31:25
  In high school in California, you have to go to North Oregon,
• 31:28
  Washington I believe. So I threw javelins and coached
• 31:33
  high jumpers. So that was that was just a ton
• 31:37
  of fun. I'm kind of, we're probably both
• 31:40
  prone to doing this, Dana. I kind of jump around sometimes.
• 31:44
  I'm interested. It's so last year I did this
• 31:49
  crazy journey with the podcast. I went out and I interviewed 1
• 31:52
  high school coach from every state and the goal of it was to
• 31:56
  find out like how you their, their outdoor state meets.
• 31:59
  So how you qualify what events, you know, because people do
• 32:03
  different events, right? So what events do you do things
• 32:05
  like that? And one of the things that came
• 32:08
  up as you can imagine interviewing it was 51 to
• 32:11
  Washington DC as well. But as you can imagine, as I
• 32:14
  started interviewing them and I kind of did them alphabetical,
• 32:16
  right? So Alabama and Alaska first all
• 32:18
  the way down to Wyoming, Wisconsin, etcetera, because I
• 32:22
  don't have any experience with it.
• 32:24
  But after about 3 to 4 states, it came up about adaptive or
• 32:31
  unified track and field. And so I had, I didn't have to,
• 32:35
  I, I started asking that question for every, and I was,
• 32:37
  you know, now sitting back, you know, having done all 51, I was
• 32:41
  amazed at how many states have some form of adaptive unified
• 32:47
  handicap participation for their, for their state series,
• 32:51
  for their, for their, for their track and field meet.
• 32:55
  I'm sure, you know, this always fascinates me because it's easy
• 32:57
  for us to sit here in 2025 and, you know, I can literally pick
• 33:01
  up my phone. I can go to ChatGPT and I, like,
• 33:03
  I'm the world's smartest guy in the world because I have this
• 33:06
  thing right here, right? But I do, you know, I graduated
• 33:09
  high school in 94. We didn't, we barely had the
• 33:12
  Internet. We certainly did not have the
• 33:13
  Internet as it is today. We certainly didn't have cell
• 33:16
  phones, but I remember like I, I kind of like wonder, like how in
• 33:19
  the world did I find my college that I went to?
• 33:21
  Like I, you know, again, I just picked up my phone today and I
• 33:24
  could find a hundred colleges back.
• 33:26
  As you're growing up, you said something really interesting
• 33:29
  about the Paralympic movement. You're like, I, you know, it was
• 33:33
  out there, but how in the world was I, they had to come find me.
• 33:36
  I couldn't find them. How in the world, you know how
• 33:38
  I'm just curious about this because you you said you went to
• 33:41
  the 92. I think you said Paralympics.
• 33:45
  So how did you that that? I mean, you're an Olympian, bro.
• 33:49
  That's come on, dude, That's a a a a club of less than 1%.
• 33:55
  That's an amazing fraternity to be in.
• 33:57
  So how did you find that And how did you like?
• 34:00
  OK, because that's a different thing than coaching, right?
• 34:02
  That's AI got to be an athlete. I got to go do things.
• 34:05
  So how how did that come about? Because that's fascinating to
• 34:07
  me. So, Mike, I, I can tell you I
• 34:10
  was involved with downhill skiing, downhill ski racing,
• 34:14
  Para, I wasn't very good. I never went to the Paralympic
• 34:17
  Games in downhill skiing, but I was involved with an
• 34:23
  organization called the National Handicap Sports.
• 34:26
  And, and I had asked them at some point about, you know,
• 34:33
  track and field and they didn't know anything about track and
• 34:36
  field. That was like in the 80s.
• 34:38
  So I ran, I, I ski raced from 1980 to 1985 at the disabled
• 34:44
  games all over the country, different ski resorts all over,
• 34:49
  but they hadn't heard of it either.
• 34:51
  And then so in 1989, I literally got a random sort of like your
• 34:58
  e-mail. I got a random letter from the
• 35:04
  United States Amputee Athletic Association in Bowling Green.
• 35:08
  OH, and I, you know, I open up this letter and I'm looking at
• 35:13
  its its entry forms for their track and field national
• 35:18
  championships. And I had no, I had no idea I
• 35:21
  was coaching. By that time I had gone from the
• 35:23
  San Jose Traders to American High School in Fremont, CA.
• 35:29
  And I'm like, I never heard of this.
• 35:33
  And I'm, I'm sitting at the, at the, the dinner table after I
• 35:36
  get home from work one day and, and I'm, I'm telling my wife, I
• 35:39
  go look at this. And this is, this is for track.
• 35:42
  And I don't know, I never heard of it.
• 35:45
  I was kind of call it a God thing because he just, you know,
• 35:48
  he just sent me this like. How did they get your address
• 35:52
  and know that you were eligible? And National Head Cap Sports
• 35:56
  said that they'd never given it out.
• 35:58
  So somewhere, I don't know, it's a God thing.
• 36:01
  So I took that and said, well, you know what, I'm going to have
• 36:06
  to do some research. And again, we goes back to the
• 36:08
  lack of Internet accessibility. I had to make some phone calls
• 36:13
  because, you know, there was a, there was a number that was on
• 36:17
  the, that was on the, the entry forms.
• 36:19
  And so I called that and said, Hey, you know what, what's going
• 36:22
  on? I've never heard of this, you
• 36:24
  know, and and the the national championship for coming up, AI
• 36:27
  think I got this in in I don't know about this time March,
• 36:31
  April, summer sometime and then the championships.
• 36:34
  We're going to be in June. And I said, you know, well, I
• 36:37
  tell you what, I'm because I was not in any kind of competition
• 36:42
  shape. I wasn't I've been coaching.
• 36:44
  So because I coached track and field and basketball at American
• 36:47
  High School. And so I, I did a lot of late
• 36:50
  night pizza nights and, you know, lots of pop to keep me
• 36:53
  awake. And so I said, this is what I'd
• 36:56
  like you to do. Can I get a, can I get a copy of
• 36:59
  the results? And and so, and this is again,
• 37:04
  this was before, you know. And then to mail you results.
• 37:07
  You can just go online and find results for each track meet in
• 37:09
  the world in the end of June I believe it was.
• 37:14
  I got AI got the letter back from them and it had, you know,
• 37:19
  times and stuff from people and I knew what my classification
• 37:22
  was because I'm a bubbly amputee from downhill ski racing.
• 37:29
  Basically had the same kind of classifications, a little
• 37:32
  different. But so I, I noticed that the,
• 37:35
  the, the times for the 100, the 200, the time or the height for
• 37:39
  the high jump, they, they were all well within, you know, my
• 37:44
  range at, at this point I was 33 years old.
• 37:47
  And I said, well, you know what? I just think God wants me to do
• 37:52
  this because otherwise I letter, right.
• 37:57
  And so I, to start off with, I dropped 20 lbs.
• 38:02
  I, I ran the San Francisco health marathon just to, and
• 38:06
  that was, you know, that was a six month thing.
• 38:08
  I ran the half marathon and right after that, it was 1990, I
• 38:12
  started training hard. I, I went to the coach that at
• 38:19
  Cal State University, Hayward, and at the time that he had a
• 38:23
  Sprint, they had a Sprint coach named Willie White, whose
• 38:26
  daughter was Kelly White, who was a sprinter back in the 90s.
• 38:32
  And I said, hey, I'm, I'm training for this.
• 38:34
  Can I come join your team? And he said sure.
• 38:39
  And so he came, he allowed me to come to practices.
• 38:43
  So that 02 years of craziness for us as a family, right?
• 38:49
  And by that time I had three kids.
• 38:53
  My wife was a stay at home mom. But I had to I had to reschedule
• 38:59
  everything for work. So like I would be up at 5:00 in
• 39:02
  the morning, go to work at six. At noon, I would leave and go to
• 39:05
  track practice because we practice from noon to two.
• 39:09
  And then at two, I would come back to work.
• 39:11
  I would work until, I don't know, 6 or 7 or whatever.
• 39:15
  I would help put the kids to bed.
• 39:17
  I would do all that stuff. And then I would head to the gym
• 39:20
  and I would lift until 10 and then I'd come back and do it all
• 39:23
  over. So I really I really felt that
• 39:28
  again, this was something that I was directed to do.
• 39:32
  And so I decided I'm going to put everything into it that I
• 39:36
  can next with Lee White. And I also worked with a guy
• 39:43
  that a lot of American coaches, older American track and field
• 39:48
  coaches will will know who Remy Kochemney was.
• 39:51
  Oh. Yeah.
• 39:52
  He was the steroid king. Field.
• 39:55
  For all the Russians, yeah, I can honestly say he never gave
• 39:59
  me anything and I never took anything.
• 40:01
  You know, I was going to ask Dana exactly.
• 40:02
  Yeah, because, you know, a, a 12400 meters, there isn't enough
• 40:08
  of that stuff on the planet to get me to go under 10.
• 40:11
  So there was really no reason to risk my eligibility to do that.
• 40:17
  So but anyway, I but you know, besides that stuff about Raimi,
• 40:24
  Raimi allowed me to to work with him for again, no cost.
• 40:29
  Yeah. And I had no cost at the
• 40:31
  university. It is interesting, you know,
• 40:33
  he's obviously tainted from his drug past, but I have heard
• 40:37
  besides that now that's a big besides, right?
• 40:40
  He was an excellent coach, excellent human being.
• 40:43
  Yes, I've, I mean like, gosh, if he wouldn't have gotten mixed up
• 40:47
  in that, he'd be in our coaches Hall of Fame.
• 40:50
  Oh yeah, without question. He.
• 40:52
  He at the time was the the one of the coaches for the US Army
• 40:56
  team, 'cause they were, they were the other group that I
• 41:00
  worked with that I trained with was those guys from the Army.
• 41:05
  And just, I still have great memories of those guys training
• 41:10
  with those guys and training with the kids at the university.
• 41:13
  They're just, they were just, they, they allowed me to come in
• 41:17
  and be a part of the team. I never ran in any college meets
• 41:20
  or anything, but they just accepted me as this old guy on
• 41:25
  the track team and it was just a ton of fun.
• 41:28
  That's awesome. And so I trained and trained and
• 41:31
  trained in 91. I competed in my first pair of
• 41:35
  games was in Austin, TX and I went down and I, I had just
• 41:42
  actually just shared this with the coaches on the coaching
• 41:44
  staff and, and a number of them I've known for a really long
• 41:47
  time was that I won my first ever 100m race at at the
• 41:53
  University of Texas in Austin because the guy that I was
• 41:57
  running against, his leg fell off.
• 42:01
  So he was he was an above the knee leg amputee and he was
• 42:06
  actually beating me at 80 meters.
• 42:09
  And then because back again, the early construction of of
• 42:15
  prosthetics and things like that, that didn't stay on.
• 42:20
  And so he fell and I went past him.
• 42:24
  One of my first, that was literally only that was the
• 42:27
  first 100 meters I ever won. And I only won another one at
• 42:31
  the Paralympic trials in Atlanta.
• 42:33
  That was the only 200 meter races I've ever won in my entire
• 42:36
  life. But Othello Henderson was his
• 42:40
  name, and he actually ended up being a Paralympic athlete as
• 42:43
  well. He was really fast.
• 42:46
  And it wasn't until, you know, the 92 trials that I could
• 42:50
  actually beat him because yeah. So anyway, I got involved in
• 42:56
  that. I, I raced a whole bunch.
• 42:58
  One of those things you really have to put yourself out there.
• 43:01
  So you have to try to be in as many pair of meats as you can.
• 43:05
  There's not a lot. And there was, there's a way
• 43:07
  more now, way 1000 times more now than there were in the early
• 43:12
  90s. I raced, I raced in New York and
• 43:15
  they called it the Victory Games and there was a number of
• 43:17
  countries that were there. I raced again in Texas.
• 43:21
  That was a lot of fun. I, I made the US team in 91 to
• 43:26
  go to Canada for the Canadian Paralympic National
• 43:31
  Championships and then in California, a couple of
• 43:36
  different places and Colorado wants and Washington state wants
• 43:40
  as well. But you have to, you have to put
• 43:42
  yourself out there. So I'm, I, I worked with a young
• 43:45
  lady last year. She was a bilateral below the
• 43:48
  knee amputee. She goes to some, probably West
• 43:51
  high School. She's a senior this year.
• 43:54
  She'll actually be running for AD 3 school in Wisconsin, Ripon
• 43:58
  College. Yeah, she's she's got so much
• 44:02
  potential. She went to the Paralympic
• 44:04
  trials this year but didn't make the qualifying standards for.
• 44:08
  But she was only 17 and I can't remember the name of the woman
• 44:13
  from the Netherlands who is just a beast.
• 44:16
  She's a bilateral, the same as as Lily the Rosenthal.
• 44:20
  And I mean, she can long jump 22 feet.
• 44:22
  She runs 100 and I don't know, 12 seconds something.
• 44:26
  She's just amazing. But anyway, so that's how I got
• 44:32
  involved in the Paralympic Games.
• 44:33
  And then for a number of years after, up until 2000, I competed
• 44:39
  at the, the US National Championships, para National
• 44:42
  championships every year except for one, I think by the, again,
• 44:49
  by that time when I was, I was 35 years old when I went to the
• 44:53
  Paralympic Games. Had I, had I known about the
• 44:55
  Paralympic Games in 1972, then I, you know, I could have I, I
• 45:02
  held for the high jump at 1.75 meters, which is what, 5-9,
• 45:06
  something like that, not 5/8 and three chords. 59 for the longest
• 45:11
  time until Roderick Townsend showed up and.
• 45:14
  Just Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. 220 I think 2:20 is
• 45:19
  his, his PR anyway. So had I known about that stuff
• 45:25
  back in the day, I think I could have been, you know, But you
• 45:29
  know, again, I go back to the God thing.
• 45:30
  That was the time. That's right for me to do.
• 45:32
  It if I would have like if I would have been born in these,
• 45:36
  if I would have been 25 or 26 in these days chance, I wouldn't
• 45:40
  have gone. I wouldn't have been able to
• 45:42
  experience walking into a 65,000 seat stadium wearing red, white
• 45:46
  and blue and having it cross my chest.
• 45:49
  When would do you know the first time there was a Paralympics?
• 45:52
  The first Paralympic Games were in 1960.
• 45:57
  The the the Paralympic. Before the Paralympic game it
• 46:02
  was called the Stoke Mandeville Games.
• 46:06
  There was a doctor Goodman, who was hired by the British from
• 46:13
  Germany to work with spinal cord injury soldiers coming back from
• 46:22
  the war. And he used and they were 90
• 46:26
  percent, 95% wheelchair athletes.
• 46:30
  So he used sport as a rehabilitation tool to get guys
• 46:37
  to move forward in life. And so the first Stoke
• 46:41
  Mandeville Games were in 1948 and then the the first
• 46:46
  Paralympic Games were in 1960 and then in 1992 it was the
• 46:54
  first Paralympic Games when it was combined with the Olympic.
• 47:01
  Games. Juan Antonio Samurai, who was
• 47:04
  the the International Olympic Committee president at the time,
• 47:11
  made a, made a rule that said if you're going to host the Olympic
• 47:17
  Games, you must host the Paralympic Games.
• 47:21
  And it, it's was still to this day, it's like other than France
• 47:26
  was amazing this last summer, just amazing.
• 47:28
  I have a a a comparisons sheet that I put together for actually
• 47:33
  I'm doing a presentation at the University Wisconsin this this
• 47:40
  Wednesday or a class that I'm taking that's a whole nother
• 47:43
  thing. Yeah, nice.
• 47:44
  So. So you made the 92 team?
• 47:46
  I made the 92 team. 90 Any others or?
• 47:49
  Nope, 90. 6 so. In 96, an interesting thing,
• 47:53
  they didn't have enough athletes to compete in the high jump, so
• 47:59
  they haven't. Like today, they're combining
• 48:01
  classifications, so there's a number of athletes in each.
• 48:06
  So they didn't have that. So they didn't compete the high
• 48:09
  jump in 1996 in Atlanta. So actually I I tried to, I kind
• 48:15
  of completely switched and went to middle distance and was
• 48:17
  running an 800. But yeah, that was it.
• 48:21
  So we've had we've had several Olympians on the podcast before
• 48:25
  and I always like to ask them, So what was that like?
• 48:28
  So 92, you make the Olympic team for Team USA.
• 48:32
  You said it was in Barcelona, I think, if I remember correct.
• 48:35
  So I mean, what was that like? Because you know, that's just
• 48:37
  something I'll never know, buddy.
• 48:39
  So what was that like representing your country?
• 48:42
  Seriously, when I was so my first, my first vision of the
• 48:46
  Olympic Games was in 1972. I mean I I heard about 68 I'd
• 48:51
  watched a bit of but I was deep into track and field in 1972.
• 48:56
  Right, right. Excuse me.
• 48:59
  And I said to myself, I want to do that.
• 49:03
  And, you know, as a as a 15 year old kid, I believe that I could.
• 49:08
  And you know, it wasn't until much later, you know, that I
• 49:11
  said no. OK, Yeah.
• 49:13
  Reality. That's, that was #1 on my, on my
• 49:17
  list of things that I wanted to try to accomplish.
• 49:22
  I went to the 84 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
• 49:25
  My wife and another, another track geek and myself and his
• 49:31
  wife. And I've watched Carl Lewis take
• 49:35
  the baton on the four by one. I was sitting right on the
• 49:39
  corner when he did that. I'm just like, oh, and you know,
• 49:43
  in LA it was 100 and however many 1000 people.
• 49:47
  And I just said this would be the coolest thing ever.
• 49:50
  And when this whole thing happened, when I got to got the,
• 49:55
  the letter from the US, you know, whatever.
• 49:58
  And the day that I got the 1st letter that I made the US team
• 50:04
  was to go to Canada. And it said, you know,
• 50:07
  congratulations. You've been.
• 50:08
  Oh my God, I was crying. Yeah, story today, you know, 30
• 50:17
  plus years later, you'll be the fact that I got to that was a
• 50:22
  dream. Absolutely.
• 50:25
  To be a part of the Olympic Games and then going going to
• 50:29
  the Paralympic Games and having 65,000 people.
• 50:33
  So every night of the Paralympic Games in Barcelona, the track
• 50:37
  stadium was full. The only the other Paralympic
• 50:43
  Games that even came close to matching that was France just
• 50:48
  happened. So it took plus years to to draw
• 50:54
  in enough people consistently feel everything.
• 51:00
  It was so Mike I, I, I can't even no words.
• 51:05
  I mean, this is some car guy that gets a Chevy, you know,
• 51:11
  it's like, you know, and he's he's, you know, he's getting
• 51:14
  old. He's not going to be able to go
• 51:16
  anywhere, can't walk much. But you know, his kids all pull
• 51:20
  together and give him a 57 Chevy without telling him that this is
• 51:23
  what that was. I got my Olympic tree.
• 51:25
  I I didn't need to do anything else after that.
• 51:28
  I could, I could have been that, could you could have called it
• 51:30
  quits and said but going back to what we were talking about, the
• 51:35
  coaching bug was there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:38
  And I, I wanted to share that as much as I'm still sharing that
• 51:43
  with college students at the university.
• 51:45
  Of Wisconsin. This Wednesday, it's going to be
• 51:48
  really fun. So how did you take again, I
• 51:52
  love asking that question because like, I just can't
• 51:55
  imagine. I, you know, I, I've walked into
• 51:58
  a stadium at 30,000 as a, as a coach, but not, not as an
• 52:02
  athlete, not everybody. And by the way, you're
• 52:05
  representing Team USA for crying out loud.
• 52:08
  Come on man, that is. It is.
• 52:11
  Kudos the. Amazing.
• 52:12
  Mike, I, you know, and I've had the pleasure of knowing Zach
• 52:16
  Zymek. I met him.
• 52:18
  So one of the other coaches that has inspired me and mentored me
• 52:23
  over the last 12 years maybe is Nate Davis at the University of
• 52:29
  Wisconsin. I know Nate well.
• 52:31
  Talk about great human beings. He's a wonderful.
• 52:34
  His family, they're I, I love them so much.
• 52:37
  Big hockey guys. And he he introduced me to to
• 52:42
  Zach. It was again, a kid that I even
• 52:45
  if he wasn't an Olympian, I would fall in love with him
• 52:49
  because he's just an amazing human being.
• 52:53
  And you know, the fact that he's only the second American ever to
• 52:57
  be a three time Olympian in the Kahath gone and a bronze
• 53:02
  medalist in the World Championships, just, you know,
• 53:04
  he's just amazing. So to have that experience and
• 53:09
  know what Zach, because, you know, I've often compared myself
• 53:13
  to Zach because I did a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff.
• 53:15
  And it wasn't until that one special moment that it all came
• 53:18
  together and worked well. And I'm, I'm hoping, I'm rooting
• 53:21
  for him to be the only decathlete ever to go 4
• 53:25
  consecutive Olympic Games. Isn't that amazing?
• 53:28
  There's. Anybody in the world that's ever
• 53:30
  done that, but I know for a fact there's nobody in America that's
• 53:33
  ever done that. You know, I'm I've become
• 53:37
  through random chances or whatever, friends with a lot of
• 53:40
  the my, my former boss, now retired, was the 76 and 80
• 53:43
  Olympic team with Bruce Jenner for the yeah, the number one in
• 53:48
  the world in 77. So Fred, you know, through that
• 53:51
  I became friends with Ashton Eaton.
• 53:55
  You know, I shouldn't say I don't say I became friends.
• 53:56
  That's overstating. But I got to know Ashton and
• 53:58
  work with him and just, you know, talk to the earth.
• 54:01
  I helped coach Trey Hardy, you know, another Great American
• 54:05
  vault decathlete. And you know, these and Zach, I
• 54:08
  actually met as a high schooler. I his his high school coach won.
• 54:12
  We used to do the National high school Coach of the Year award
• 54:15
  and his coach up there in Lake Park, if I remember correctly,
• 54:20
  won it that year. And so I got to present it to
• 54:22
  him at a football game. And Zach was there from actually
• 54:25
  he was a freshman in Wisconsin. So he came back down anyway.
• 54:28
  Decathlons, decathlons, all events are tough.
• 54:31
  Decathletes are just it's so hard to stay healthy.
• 54:34
  I mean, you think about one event trying to stay healthy and
• 54:36
  they're trying to stay event for 10 of them.
• 54:37
  It's it's quite. Amazing.
• 54:39
  Yeah, that. Yeah.
• 54:41
  That's amazing. So how do you take this
• 54:44
  incredible experience of being an Olympian?
• 54:47
  How do you snowball it back into your coaching?
• 54:50
  Like I said, you got that coaching bug, so you know,
• 54:51
  that's back to where I want to go.
• 54:52
  How do you take all the things that you're learning and
• 54:55
  experience and people you're meeting?
• 54:56
  How do you continue that with coaching high schoolers?
• 54:59
  Well, I think I, I think I show the kids the passion for the
• 55:04
  sport, how much I love it. And that was, that was one of
• 55:09
  the, I mean, obviously it was the top of the, of the cake, but
• 55:15
  there's a lot of underneath. There's a lot of stuff, the eggs
• 55:18
  and the, and the flour and all that stuff that goes together to
• 55:21
  make that happen. And I try to instill that and I,
• 55:25
  and I don't like use it as leverage of any kind.
• 55:28
  I just want them to, to know and understand you can achieve
• 55:33
  whatever you think you can if you work hard enough.
• 55:36
  I mean, that's probably not true for like you said, 99% of the
• 55:41
  kids that we work with. So that could happen.
• 55:44
  But it certainly gives them a goal.
• 55:46
  And it certainly gives them, especially the high school kids
• 55:49
  that I work, you know, 15 to 18 year old kids.
• 55:52
  They're, they're full of life and they're full of energy And
• 55:55
  they, they, the ones that really grab on to what I expected or I
• 56:00
  accomplished, They are, they're after it.
• 56:03
  So I've had again, a number of kids that I worked at here in
• 56:07
  Wisconsin, 2 athletes that are now at Division One schools,
• 56:12
  Kayla Sala, who's a heptathlete at the UW and then Drew Rainier,
• 56:17
  who is running for North Carolina middle distance 400m
• 56:21
  runner. They, they both had the same
• 56:25
  passion that I did and they being, I being a mentor for them
• 56:32
  allowed them to take what I had and go, yeah, I can do that.
• 56:37
  And whether they do or not, I'm not sure if that'll happen, but
• 56:39
  they have that passion to do it and then they share it with
• 56:43
  their, the other kids on the team.
• 56:46
  So it might start with me, but I infect one and then it spreads
• 56:51
  to everybody. And so I, I, I don't like to
• 56:57
  call myself the, the favorite coach on the team, but I, you
• 57:01
  know, when kids have had things going on or when kids, you know,
• 57:04
  they come, they come to me because they know that I'm going
• 57:07
  to, that I'm going to understand, I'm going to listen
• 57:09
  to them and I'll be compassionate for them.
• 57:12
  I mean, the coaches, the coaches are good.
• 57:14
  The coaching staff is good and I love them and I, I love working
• 57:17
  with them. But you know, guys my age, we've
• 57:20
  seen a lot and we know over the years of, you know, 46 years of
• 57:27
  experience that I've been coaching either track and field
• 57:30
  or, or basketball. You just, you just know when
• 57:35
  someone needs that little extra boost.
• 57:38
  You know, like, just just the other day, one of my high
• 57:41
  jumpers on Saturday, just struggling.
• 57:44
  And she's not a jumper. Like, you know, Kyla could jump
• 57:48
  5-10. This girl is struggling getting
• 57:51
  over Oprah in height. And I just said, first of all,
• 57:57
  you are not failing. You're learning because this is
• 58:01
  her first year as a high jumper. You're not failing at all.
• 58:03
  This is not failure. It may feel like it, but it's
• 58:06
  not. And you're going to learn from
• 58:10
  your failures. What's that like the line?
• 58:12
  You learn failing more than you learn from winning.
• 58:16
  So you're going to learn from this.
• 58:18
  And I don't ever want you to stop trying, stop putting the
• 58:23
  effort in to do it. I mean, she's only jumped twice
• 58:26
  in a pit. So the fact that she can do open
• 58:28
  height does not surprise me one bit.
• 58:31
  And but it doesn't mean that I'm not going to say I know you can
• 58:34
  do this. I know you can't.
• 58:36
  And this will be the one of those kids that'll clear opening
• 58:38
  height for the first time in the third meet of the year.
• 58:41
  And that'll be because I'm not going to give up on her.
• 58:44
  I'm going to put her in meets. I'm going to put her in whatever
• 58:46
  JB stuff that I can put her in. So and we have a lot of that
• 58:50
  stuff this year. So she's going to have a
• 58:52
  opportunity to to go and work and, and.
• 58:56
  Did did you? Yeah, yeah.
• 58:57
  No, Your your brother, yours. Keep going.
• 59:01
  Trust me. We're going to continue on here.
• 59:03
  You're doing an amazing job. I'm so grateful for you, Dana.
• 59:07
  Did you? I want to talk a little bit
• 59:10
  about the transition from California to Wisconsin.
• 59:14
  And what I'm wondering is so you you kind of built up a a
• 59:20
  reputation that that's not a negative.
• 59:22
  Sometimes people can think that's a negative, a negative in
• 59:24
  California. Like people around in your area
• 59:26
  like, oh, yeah, we know Dana. You know, he coached here and
• 59:28
  here and went to Olympic, you know, like we kind of know like,
• 59:31
  oh, yeah. If Dana says something, yeah,
• 59:32
  you probably should listen. Like, you know, he's proven his
• 59:34
  chops. You go to Wisconsin, it's almost
• 59:38
  not completely starting over, but there's a little bit of
• 59:40
  reputation that leaves you. Like, you know, they didn't they
• 59:43
  didn't see you for the last 10 to 20 years, did you?
• 59:46
  Did you find any hurdles, so to speak, in your way of like
• 59:52
  trying to coach when you moved to Wisconsin was like, did you
• 59:55
  have to like prove yourself all over again in some form or
• 59:57
  fashion or? Yeah, I don't, I don't know if I
• 1:00:01
  actually had anything like that that, you know, I, I never got
• 1:00:06
  questioned about my ability or my knowledge of, of the sport.
• 1:00:11
  So I didn't, I don't think I really did.
• 1:00:15
  I mean the the adjustment was, you know, the the.
• 1:00:19
  The facilities, the facility or lack thereof, and the weather
• 1:00:25
  and, you know, in the, in the Bay Area, I, I never even heard
• 1:00:29
  of The Weather Channel because I knew, you know, it would be
• 1:00:33
  foggy until noon, it would burn off, it'd be 72 in the afternoon
• 1:00:36
  and we'd have track practice at three, you know, and there was,
• 1:00:39
  I can't remember, I. Very.
• 1:00:42
  Few day I mean they did happen, but very few days I ever had to
• 1:00:46
  do an indoor in the gym thing in California.
• 1:00:49
  My and so yeah, now my day starts with The Weather Channel.
• 1:00:53
  I what's the weather for the day?
• 1:00:54
  But like any, yeah, like any good coach, you're already one
• 1:00:57
  step ahead of me because that was going to be my follow up
• 1:00:59
  questions. Like, OK, well then how did you,
• 1:01:02
  you didn't deal with the, the amount of snow and bad weather
• 1:01:05
  that we deal with in Wisconsin here in the Midwest.
• 1:01:07
  How did you adapt in In what age did you move to Wisconsin?
• 1:01:11
  I was. It was like right after the
• 1:01:13
  Paralympic game. So I was 35.
• 1:01:15
  Oh. OK, so, you know, I don't want
• 1:01:17
  to pigeonhole and say, you know, if you're older it'd be harder.
• 1:01:20
  But 35, yeah, yeah, 30, not that old, but I don't don't, I was, I
• 1:01:25
  was around that age. Don't put me just yet.
• 1:01:29
  So I guess you started going into, you know, facilities and
• 1:01:32
  weather and and, you know, Wisconsin amazes me because the
• 1:01:36
  outdoor track season is so short.
• 1:01:38
  You basically have three months. You have a one month.
• 1:01:41
  Next month is conferences and then the next month is your
• 1:01:44
  national or your state series. It's quite impressive what comes
• 1:01:47
  out of Wisconsin knowing that what their practice, their
• 1:01:51
  outdoor season is like. How did you adjust to that?
• 1:01:53
  Were there any things you had to adjust as a as a coach and.
• 1:01:56
  Oh, yeah, I, I had to learn how to high jump in a gym.
• 1:02:00
  I had to learn how to, well, you know, I was, I was, I'm helping
• 1:02:04
  coach. I mean, it's just high jump
• 1:02:06
  isn't the only thing that I do. We do encourage our kids to do
• 1:02:10
  multiple events, so I would be helping if there's a spot in the
• 1:02:16
  long jump because I understood long jump.
• 1:02:18
  I did that. I think I coached long jump for
• 1:02:20
  the first couple of years and then we got a designated long
• 1:02:26
  jump coach. That guy that Erickson was, his
• 1:02:29
  name is really good, really good kid, young kid, just right out
• 1:02:31
  of college actually was a former well, had been a state
• 1:02:36
  competitor. So he took over the law.
• 1:02:39
  Just I focused on how I only had six kids total.
• 1:02:45
  So I mean, that's what happened with the high jump is, you know,
• 1:02:49
  after the few weeks kids will will.
• 1:02:56
  So I've had two really, really female high jumpers, years of
• 1:03:01
  COVID actually, and they other athletes.
• 1:03:06
  So that but I always try to encourage what she's doing.
• 1:03:11
  I want to see I'm making adjustments.
• 1:03:16
  Facilities has been just crazy and learning how to run a track
• 1:03:21
  meet in the, you know, 28° and and flurries and into a 20 mile
• 1:03:26
  an hour headwind, which makes it like -10 so those kind of
• 1:03:32
  things. I don't think I've ever actually
• 1:03:35
  fully adapted to this. You know, I, I get so wound up
• 1:03:42
  about the lack of facilities. I mean, you know that the whole
• 1:03:46
  thing going on with the UW, they, you know, it's, it's.
• 1:03:49
  It's criminal what is happening at University of Wisconsin
• 1:03:54
  related to our track Teams absolutely can't.
• 1:03:56
  Can't. Believe it.
• 1:03:57
  It's yes. And I, I did kind of go through
• 1:04:01
  something like this when I was at Cal State University.
• 1:04:03
  Hayward because in 92, that was the last year they were dropping
• 1:04:09
  both men's and women's track and field and cross country.
• 1:04:12
  And the the IT was just like, are you kidding me?
• 1:04:16
  Then the cross country team had been a division two national
• 1:04:20
  championship multiple times. And it's that's exactly what's
• 1:04:24
  happening with the lack of indoor facility.
• 1:04:28
  So. And yeah, so anyway, I, you
• 1:04:33
  know, I I've had to adjust to that and I do we do make it, you
• 1:04:38
  know, we still kind of make it fun and we do get some decent
• 1:04:40
  semi decent workouts in. And like, like you said, the
• 1:04:45
  season is so short here. So other sports, which I don't
• 1:04:50
  understand why Wisconsin track and field hasn't done this yet,
• 1:04:53
  pushed out their seasons baseball.
• 1:04:56
  So the the state championships for only the third week in June
• 1:05:01
  and that would be a perfect time because that would give our kids
• 1:05:06
  the ability to have a good solid 4 weeks of halfway decent
• 1:05:10
  weather that they really get some good training in.
• 1:05:15
  Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's amazing when I see the results
• 1:05:18
  out of Wisconsin because I just know what you're going through.
• 1:05:22
  It's like, man, you got such a short season and you know over
• 1:05:24
  half of it is freezing for Crown.
• 1:05:27
  More. Than half, yeah.
• 1:05:29
  Freezing, but you know, I whine a lot.
• 1:05:31
  I try to be positive. I'm just like, well, you know,
• 1:05:33
  let's let's just do this and and you know, we'll we'll get it
• 1:05:37
  done. You know, with monkey, we're
• 1:05:39
  we're competitive every year. I mean, we always have enough
• 1:05:45
  athletes that we're going to, we're going to travel N to
• 1:05:47
  lacrosse I and in the 32 years that I've been here, I don't
• 1:05:51
  think there's been a year we haven't travelled at least one
• 1:05:53
  child, one athlete that hasn't qualified.
• 1:05:57
  That doesn't mean they win anything, but they qualify and
• 1:06:00
  go there. So we have a pretty rich deep
• 1:06:05
  program. Django Barsky has done a great
• 1:06:07
  job of, of leading that for the last 25 years or 20 years.
• 1:06:11
  I think she's been on coaching for 25 so.
• 1:06:15
  How small sampling size here, but every person who is from
• 1:06:21
  California that I've not that I've met, but like like I'm I'm
• 1:06:25
  have a deep relationship with they all strive to move back to
• 1:06:29
  California. There is something about the the
• 1:06:32
  gravitational pull to California.
• 1:06:35
  You coached for a good amount of time with California kids and
• 1:06:38
  now you've coached for a good amount of time Wisconsin kids.
• 1:06:40
  Do you notice a difference between West Coast Midwest kids
• 1:06:44
  or are they all just 1418 year olds?
• 1:06:46
  Yeah, pretty much. I mean, you know, there's
• 1:06:50
  different cultures, definitely different cultures in the San
• 1:06:53
  Francisco Bay Area versus Wisconsin.
• 1:06:57
  I mean, Madison itself is the culture in Madison is pretty
• 1:07:02
  much like the culture in in the Bay Area.
• 1:07:06
  And then if you go outside of the Bay Area, the culture is
• 1:07:09
  completely, you know, where I grew up, the big thing was
• 1:07:13
  rodeos. So we had a, you know, we had a
• 1:07:16
  rodeo team at the high school. They were really good and, and
• 1:07:20
  every year at A state championship, there's far more
• 1:07:24
  opportunity in California than there is in Wisconsin.
• 1:07:28
  Like I, I don't know why, but I was just talking about this with
• 1:07:32
  the some of the kids the other day was, you know, we were
• 1:07:35
  talking, we were talking about badminton.
• 1:07:36
  I said, well, badminton *** is a CIF sport in California and
• 1:07:42
  water polo AF sport in California.
• 1:07:45
  So, but not at every school. I mean, we didn't in my school,
• 1:07:48
  we didn't have a pool. They do now, but it not even on
• 1:07:52
  campus, they use one that's down in the, in the town that the,
• 1:07:55
  the high school's in. So that's a little bit
• 1:08:00
  different. But the quality of kids, the
• 1:08:03
  quality of kids that I've been connected with is the same.
• 1:08:07
  I mean, they're, they're great kids.
• 1:08:10
  You know, they're, they're American kids.
• 1:08:11
  You know, we didn't when I was in California coaching, we
• 1:08:14
  didn't have cell phones we had to deal with.
• 1:08:16
  There was, there was no, you know, X or there was no
• 1:08:20
  Facebook. There was none of that.
• 1:08:21
  The kids didn't deal with that, but they still had their social
• 1:08:25
  things going on, their social issues, their own personal
• 1:08:28
  struggles that they had to deal with back then with different
• 1:08:31
  things. But when you get right down to
• 1:08:35
  to meeting them and knowing who they are, and yeah, they're
• 1:08:39
  just, they're both. I love both both places.
• 1:08:42
  So you kind of sort of touching on this too, because my, my next
• 1:08:45
  question would be then you've coached over multiple decades,
• 1:08:48
  right? So regardless if they're in
• 1:08:50
  California or Wisconsin, you know what I almost named the
• 1:08:55
  podcast, the Mythbusters podcast, like I wanted to bust
• 1:08:58
  myths that are out there. And you know, some of the myths
• 1:09:00
  out there today, you know, young people today, you know, they're
• 1:09:06
  just, they're just in their cell phones 24/7.
• 1:09:08
  They don't care about who's next to them.
• 1:09:09
  They don't. So they don't have
• 1:09:10
  relationships. It's hard to make a relationship
• 1:09:13
  with a coach and athlete because of these cell phones and social
• 1:09:16
  media young kids. They don't know who the big dogs
• 1:09:20
  in their the Olympians and their events.
• 1:09:22
  They don't know any of that stuff.
• 1:09:23
  And they're not real students of the game like we were back in
• 1:09:26
  the day. And all these kind of things
• 1:09:27
  you've coached over many, many decades.
• 1:09:30
  So you've seen kids, teenagers back in the day and today,
• 1:09:35
  literally today. What do you notice from your
• 1:09:38
  coaching lens? What do you notice is different
• 1:09:41
  coaching a kid in 2025 versus 1985?
• 1:09:47
  South you you touched on it and that is that is sport literacy.
• 1:09:55
  I can I can name, you know, other than Usain Bolt, well,
• 1:10:00
  who's the third fastest guy? I used to know everybody and
• 1:10:06
  there were a couple of boys that were on my team when I first
• 1:10:09
  moved here in 94 or 93, actually 93, but started coaching in 94.
• 1:10:15
  There were there were two boys on the team that can tell you
• 1:10:19
  every single track meet result, every single.
• 1:10:25
  They were twin brothers, Brum and Smith, Keith and John Brum
• 1:10:28
  and Smith. John is the head boys track
• 1:10:31
  coach at Lake Forest, IL Great, just wonderful kids.
• 1:10:36
  I, I coached them from 94 to 98, went to John's wedding.
• 1:10:42
  I mean, these are the connections that, you know, that
• 1:10:44
  coaches love. They didn't start out that way.
• 1:10:47
  They were the kids that jumped into my high jump pit when I was
• 1:10:49
  right in the middle of practice. You know, I wanted to kill them
• 1:10:52
  then, but they were literate about the sport.
• 1:10:58
  So Kamasala, who is athlete at the university, the heptathlete,
• 1:11:06
  she was very literate about the sport.
• 1:11:09
  But the vast majority of the kids are not.
• 1:11:13
  They don't they? You know, they couldn't tell me
• 1:11:15
  who the best long jumper in the world is.
• 1:11:17
  You know, they couldn't tell me you know who Tara Woodall, you
• 1:11:22
  know the best female long jumper in the world, gold medalist
• 1:11:24
  married to a Paralympian gold medalist and hunter.
• 1:11:31
  They they don't do that. They don't know who those people
• 1:11:33
  are. Are the the the most the best
• 1:11:38
  tie jumper I have right now female, She can tell me most of
• 1:11:42
  who the high jumpers are in the world.
• 1:11:44
  Kyla, give me the top 20 and tell me exactly what their PRS
• 1:11:48
  are. You know, two O 9's world
• 1:11:50
  record. I can ask the girls.
• 1:11:52
  I can ask every girl high jumper what the what the world record
• 1:11:55
  is and they can't tell me. They can't tell me it just got
• 1:11:57
  broke. It's now 210.
• 1:11:58
  It's not two O 9 anymore. I, you know, I would know that
• 1:12:01
  kind of thing. But so I think that's the
• 1:12:05
  culture. I think it's, it's become and we
• 1:12:08
  have a very large number of you, we have 100 and 27130 kids on
• 1:12:13
  the team. So, you know, it's almost, it's
• 1:12:18
  impossible to get to know everybody.
• 1:12:21
  The but the ones that are, you know, that are standing out,
• 1:12:24
  that are either good or they're bad, they're trouble that you
• 1:12:28
  have to deal with, you know, freshmen, but so as so I think
• 1:12:35
  really, but other than that, I think the kids today, they just
• 1:12:39
  have different resources than what they did, you know, in
• 1:12:42
  1980859092. So they're different.
• 1:12:47
  If, if, if those, if these things would have been, you
• 1:12:51
  know, Oh my cell phone, if these things would have been available
• 1:12:55
  back then, the kids would have had them.
• 1:12:57
  I was a computer geek. That's how I ended up in
• 1:12:59
  electronic manufacturing, which I I have three boys, all adult.
• 1:13:05
  My youngest is 25, which is where I'm at right now, and he's
• 1:13:09
  an IT professional. And my other two one's at the
• 1:13:11
  University of Alaska Fairbanks as an IT professional.
• 1:13:15
  And then my other son is at Fort McCoy up in Tomah as an IT
• 1:13:20
  professional. We're all computer.
• 1:13:21
  They all have built their own computers.
• 1:13:23
  At. But that's what that was me.
• 1:13:26
  There was track and field, and then there was computers.
• 1:13:28
  That's what I did. So anyway, so the culture, the
• 1:13:32
  culture is different, but I think, you know, the kids are
• 1:13:37
  still kids. The kids today are still kids.
• 1:13:40
  So I mean, they're still doing kid.
• 1:13:41
  We had prom the other night, you know, so nobody showed up to
• 1:13:45
  practice. I opened up the track on
• 1:13:46
  Saturday, right? And the only people that showed
• 1:13:49
  up were my 4 high jumpers pearls and immediately following that
• 1:13:54
  at 10:00 they were going to either get their nails done or
• 1:13:57
  their hair done. Or what?
• 1:13:59
  Did I want that to happen? That's what I want.
• 1:14:01
  I want to make sure we're doing those kinds of things.
• 1:14:04
  Yeah. What about other parts of
• 1:14:07
  coaching? Track and field you've, you
• 1:14:09
  know, parents, summer club or track clubs?
• 1:14:15
  Recruiting. What, what?
• 1:14:16
  What have you seen change over these decades?
• 1:14:19
  Yeah, You know, I haven't. I've never been a head coach.
• 1:14:23
  So I've really steered away from that kind of thing.
• 1:14:28
  So I I was the head middle school coach here at Waunakee
• 1:14:32
  for the three years of COVID. So in 2020 I got the job.
• 1:14:39
  I had retired in 2019. I got the head coaching because
• 1:14:43
  I could do track then for a living and that's when I was
• 1:14:47
  retired. So this is where I'm going to
• 1:14:48
  spend my energy. So anyway, from 2020 to 2022, so
• 1:14:53
  three seasons, I was the head track coach for middle school
• 1:14:58
  and I had a lot of parent interaction and, but at the
• 1:15:03
  middle school level is not the same as at the high school
• 1:15:06
  level. And I've never, I've never been,
• 1:15:09
  you know, I hear the coaches talking about recruiting and I
• 1:15:12
  talk about, and I was not involved in either one of the
• 1:15:15
  two athletes that I worked with that are now Division One
• 1:15:20
  runners. That was the head coach.
• 1:15:23
  Everything is directed through the head coach.
• 1:15:25
  So I just completely avoided that.
• 1:15:29
  I did have my say. I could tell they would ask me
• 1:15:33
  and I, I told both of them, go someplace warm.
• 1:15:37
  Go someplace where you can train.
• 1:15:39
  Oh yeah, you know, you look at the.
• 1:15:41
  Spoken like a true Californian, by the way.
• 1:15:44
  I'm I'm giving this state away. You're right.
• 1:15:47
  I'm not moving right now because my wife is never going to move.
• 1:15:49
  But I will definitely at some point head somewhere.
• 1:15:57
  But if you look at, you know, you, and again we're talking, we
• 1:16:00
  were talking about the culture and the coaching and that kind
• 1:16:02
  of stuff. Again, I don't see much
• 1:16:04
  difference between the athletes themselves over the athletes
• 1:16:07
  that in 1977. The ones that I can still
• 1:16:10
  remember, I, I don't see much different.
• 1:16:14
  You know, there. You're always going to have the
• 1:16:15
  ones that you have to push. You're always going to have the
• 1:16:18
  ones that have talent that don't care.
• 1:16:19
  I have one of those on the team right now that I'd go if I could
• 1:16:24
  just get him to love it as much as I do then because that's
• 1:16:29
  where I struggle because I'm, I'm passionate for this.
• 1:16:32
  If I had that kind of talent, you know, I could could have,
• 1:16:36
  you know, written a check to go anywhere.
• 1:16:39
  But that's not his. That's not his gig.
• 1:16:42
  So I try to make it fun for him because maybe at some point,
• 1:16:45
  he's only a sophomore. So maybe at some point, like my
• 1:16:48
  two boys that, you know, were the pain in the rears as middle
• 1:16:52
  schoolers just flipped the switch and they just became deep
• 1:16:56
  into it. So I'm hoping that.
• 1:16:59
  That could happen. Let's your computer guy Dana,
• 1:17:03
  let's double click into that because that that was
• 1:17:06
  interesting right there. So you just described a
• 1:17:11
  situation that I bet every coach, high school and college,
• 1:17:16
  by the way, has either had had multiple times.
• 1:17:20
  And boy, if you're listening and you haven't had it, you will
• 1:17:22
  have this someone, someone with a lot of talent but doesn't, I'm
• 1:17:28
  going to say paraphrase it the way I heard you say it, but
• 1:17:31
  doesn't love it the way you love it, right.
• 1:17:34
  And so I coached for 10 years before I came to Gill.
• 1:17:38
  So I, I had this and I think I was probably the norm, meaning I
• 1:17:44
  bet a a lot of other coaches, you fight against it, you try to
• 1:17:49
  pour your love into them, you try to show them how they're
• 1:17:52
  making such a big mistake and oh, you're throwing away your
• 1:17:55
  talent and all these kind of stuff.
• 1:17:57
  You are taking a different approach that may not pay off in
• 1:18:03
  the short term, may not pay off at all, by the way, but maybe
• 1:18:07
  has a less likelihood to pay off in the short term, but maybe has
• 1:18:10
  a higher possibility of paying off in the long term of what I,
• 1:18:14
  again, I'm paraphrasing. So you, you correct me and, and
• 1:18:17
  add on to this. Instead of fighting against
• 1:18:20
  that, instead of telling this kid what a waste of time.
• 1:18:23
  You're, you're, you know, you know how many people would kill
• 1:18:25
  for your talent? You know, that's if you can hear
• 1:18:27
  someone saying that you're like, OK, so why don't I just at least
• 1:18:32
  make this fun for him, by the way, that'll make it fun for me.
• 1:18:34
  I don't have to get all angsty and go home and tell my wife why
• 1:18:38
  this kid is ruining my life, you know, and it's quite possible
• 1:18:42
  because you're making it a, a fun environment, a fun
• 1:18:46
  experience that this kid may get.
• 1:18:48
  It may not happen while he's in high school.
• 1:18:50
  Maybe he gets on a college team and goes, man, you know what, I
• 1:18:53
  had a lot of fun with coach Jester.
• 1:18:56
  Maybe I should try like, well, let's just see what happens if I
• 1:18:58
  try and maybe he becomes a 7276, whatever, you know what I'm
• 1:19:01
  saying? Like like instead of instead of
• 1:19:03
  like, because I think if you what, what is it for every
• 1:19:06
  reaction, there's a separate equal, right?
• 1:19:07
  So if you push against him, what what's we've all seen this,
• 1:19:10
  they're going to push back. So you're going to take, you're
• 1:19:13
  taking a. This is a kind of a unique
• 1:19:15
  approach I think a lot of us could learn from.
• 1:19:18
  Oh yeah, I, I try and, and I almost go too far on the fun
• 1:19:24
  thing. And so I try to, I try to make
• 1:19:29
  it a lot of fun without making just like a waste of time.
• 1:19:33
  So I, I always tell them, let's do this, do this, do this.
• 1:19:38
  And then when we get done with that, we'll do something else
• 1:19:40
  that's, you know, that's fun. Make it a competition during
• 1:19:43
  practice. Do you know, 'cause if I can
• 1:19:46
  get, if I can get him, my athlete that I have today to
• 1:19:52
  have one really successful meet, that could be all it takes.
• 1:19:57
  So go back to my two boys, middle school headaches,
• 1:20:00
  whatever. I vividly remember the moment
• 1:20:04
  that Keith Brum and Smith changed.
• 1:20:07
  It was a a 40 plus foot triple jump as a sophomore and he just
• 1:20:13
  went, hey, I'm kind of good at this and.
• 1:20:17
  From then on, they came to practice ready and John was the
• 1:20:23
  same way. And I might have gotten them
• 1:20:25
  mixed up because I they were identical twins.
• 1:20:27
  I got them mixed up all the time.
• 1:20:29
  But that's what it took and it, you know, I would harp at them a
• 1:20:35
  ton about, you know, you guys could be really good if you
• 1:20:38
  would just get in there to end. And finally, I just said, I'm
• 1:20:41
  not going to I'm not going to do that.
• 1:20:43
  I'm not going to push them anymore.
• 1:20:44
  And I just stopped, you know, halting on them and allowed them
• 1:20:49
  to do something that triggered that for them, triggered that
• 1:20:53
  for them. I think I, I don't know how
• 1:20:58
  close I am with this, with this young man that is now a
• 1:21:00
  sophomore as well. And, you know, there's a
• 1:21:02
  maturity level too, Mike, that I believe, you know, you know,
• 1:21:06
  between the freshman, the top of our year and sometimes it's a
• 1:21:08
  big jump. And so he could by the end of
• 1:21:13
  this season, I'm hoping that he could really just like blossom
• 1:21:17
  into something. I want him in my, my, I have a
• 1:21:20
  Senior High jumper. The young man that is is struck
• 1:21:25
  or 6. He has so much passion that I
• 1:21:29
  love it and and having them work together.
• 1:21:32
  Oh my gosh, It's fun. Because Riley Fitzsimmons is my
• 1:21:38
  senior and he's going to be either a coach, he's going to be
• 1:21:41
  either a coach or a teacher or a teacher and a coach, one of the
• 1:21:45
  two, because he's so good at communicating with the kids that
• 1:21:49
  I'm just sitting back. And I told one of the other
• 1:21:51
  assistant coaches on the team, I said, dude, I'm not even
• 1:21:53
  coaching this year. Riley's doing most of it.
• 1:21:55
  He's been injured, so he's not been able to.
• 1:21:58
  So instead of just sitting back and whining, he's helping the
• 1:22:02
  other kids be successful. So, so anyway, yeah, I think, I
• 1:22:07
  think some way I can show them that this is a this isn't work,
• 1:22:12
  this is fun. Yeah, you're gonna have to go to
• 1:22:15
  work in another six or seven years.
• 1:22:17
  You're going to have to go pay a bill.
• 1:22:19
  You're going to have to pay rent or mortgage.
• 1:22:22
  You're going to have food. You're going to have to buy.
• 1:22:23
  You're going to have a car. You're going to have to pay for
• 1:22:25
  that your, you know, your parents won't give you.
• 1:22:27
  You're going to have to do those kinds of things.
• 1:22:29
  Now's the time to have fun with this and really be the best that
• 1:22:33
  you can. I love because, you know, as as
• 1:22:36
  adults and as coaches, we have options, right?
• 1:22:39
  So there are different ways you could handle that.
• 1:22:40
  You could you could quit on the kid.
• 1:22:42
  You know, plenty of coaches have plenty of kids have been given
• 1:22:46
  up on you can yell and push on that kid.
• 1:22:49
  You can love on you can make it fun with that kid.
• 1:22:52
  And I just think about like beyond what's good for the kid.
• 1:22:56
  You know, there seems to be an obvious one which might be
• 1:22:58
  better for the kid. But but but I can see a coach
• 1:23:00
  also saying no, no, no, if I'm not hard nosed on them, they'll
• 1:23:02
  never learn to pay their own bills and things like that.
• 1:23:05
  I I see that and and maybe that works with some kids for sure,
• 1:23:08
  right. But then I think about you as a
• 1:23:10
  coach though, and you know, I'm that that's my passion, right,
• 1:23:12
  as you as a coach. And how do how do we help you be
• 1:23:15
  more successful, satisfied with your career longer in your
• 1:23:18
  career? How do we get more people like
• 1:23:19
  you dated a coach for decades, not a decade and they're out.
• 1:23:23
  And I think, wow, what environment would I want to be
• 1:23:26
  in as a coach? What I want to be with in that
• 1:23:29
  environment where I'm always yelling and, you know, trying to
• 1:23:32
  force the kids and frustrated or you know what, some kids are
• 1:23:36
  going to be into it and some kids aren't.
• 1:23:37
  This kids still choosing to be on my team.
• 1:23:39
  By the way, that kid could quit. They're not beholden to be on
• 1:23:42
  the team. They're still there for some
• 1:23:43
  reason. And So what if you made it fun?
• 1:23:47
  And so therefore maybe you had more fun.
• 1:23:48
  And, you know, if the kid jumped 6 feet or the kid jumped 7 feet,
• 1:23:51
  remember, he's not going to be an Olympian.
• 1:23:54
  I'm sorry. You know, again, no one.
• 1:23:56
  No one. Yeah.
• 1:23:57
  Yeah, Well, no one does, right. I mean, you know what I'm saying
• 1:23:59
  when I say no one's an Olympian. You know, you were, for crying
• 1:24:02
  out loud. But I mean, no one is else is an
• 1:24:04
  Olympian. It's such a small fraternity.
• 1:24:05
  So what's it matter? Why don't you have that kid,
• 1:24:07
  have a good experience? And that that has a more
• 1:24:12
  likelihood to be something positive for that kid as they
• 1:24:14
  grow up to be an adult college kid, an adult then the opposite
• 1:24:17
  side. So I, I just really, I really
• 1:24:19
  like that a lot. So another I just, you know,
• 1:24:24
  Dana, when I get Someone Like You, who's got decades worth of
• 1:24:26
  experience and your, your personality and energy levels
• 1:24:31
  are like, I hope I'm as energetic as you at your age,
• 1:24:34
  bro, you are, you're amazing, man.
• 1:24:36
  I love you. I like to, you know, like
• 1:24:39
  extract as much value. You, you, you, you've got years
• 1:24:42
  of experience behind you. So how do we like, like my goal
• 1:24:44
  is always like, how do I take that from Dana and give that to
• 1:24:46
  that 24 year old coach today, you know, like, how do I speed
• 1:24:49
  up their development? So I like to just like ask
• 1:24:52
  questions of what you've seen and what you've seen change.
• 1:24:53
  We talked about, you know, kind of a cheeky question when you
• 1:24:56
  asked about California kids versus Wisconsin kids, but more
• 1:24:59
  importantly asked you about, you know, 1980s kids versus
• 1:25:01
  nineties, 2000s, etcetera. What about the coaches?
• 1:25:05
  So you have interacted with other high jump coaches of their
• 1:25:08
  head coaches, other Sprint distance coaches.
• 1:25:12
  How have you seen coaches change positively or negatively?
• 1:25:16
  When you think about when you go see that 30 year old coach today
• 1:25:19
  in Wisconsin versus that 30 year old coach you saw back in the
• 1:25:23
  day in California, how different or the same are those
• 1:25:25
  individuals? Oh, I think, I think back in my
• 1:25:30
  day, what I can remember some of the coaches from some of the
• 1:25:35
  other club teams, you know, when I was coaching with the San Jose
• 1:25:38
  Striders, especially, there were some really highly intense guys.
• 1:25:43
  And I think when I saw that, I said, I don't want to be
• 1:25:47
  anything like that. I, I wanted, I want my program,
• 1:25:51
  you know, I want to work, but I want to make it fun.
• 1:25:55
  And, and so I think I see a lot I, I have a lot of fun with our,
• 1:26:02
  with the coaching staff that I'm with right now.
• 1:26:04
  And I, I get hugs from coaches from from Nate Campbell down and
• 1:26:10
  and and the there was a young man, Paul young man.
• 1:26:14
  He was easily is the same age as me up in Onalaska.
• 1:26:18
  Onalaska. I think it was that he had two
• 1:26:20
  girls that went to state in the in the jumps that, you know,
• 1:26:23
  when I see those guys, I hug them and we talk about, you
• 1:26:26
  know, how's life, how's the family, How's it?
• 1:26:28
  And I don't remember back in when I was coaching like it
• 1:26:33
  American high school. I literally cannot tell you the
• 1:26:36
  name of any of the which is on the other teams.
• 1:26:40
  I don't. There wasn't anybody that stood
• 1:26:42
  after me that I could say, you know.
• 1:26:46
  Yeah. I I wonder how he's doing.
• 1:26:47
  I'd like to, you know, get in touch with nobody.
• 1:26:50
  The coach that recruited me to come to American High School who
• 1:26:55
  has passed away not long after that with cancer.
• 1:27:01
  For me to watch him coach with the kids and, and he so I would
• 1:27:05
  have to say, you know, Diego, I can't remember his last name,
• 1:27:11
  but Diego was the one that that that really brought out the love
• 1:27:16
  on the kids. Make it fun, make it make it an
• 1:27:19
  enjoyable experience. Because even though we did have
• 1:27:22
  a guy that went on to win 3 Olympic gold medals, did we the
• 1:27:25
  rest of them didn't? No, that was one guy.
• 1:27:28
  And, and so, you know, and I see a lot more of that today.
• 1:27:33
  I, I see more younger coaches coming in that aren't world
• 1:27:39
  class athletes that, you know, didn't either go to the
• 1:27:41
  Paralympic or the Olympic Games that had a good experience in
• 1:27:47
  their college days of running or jumping or whatever, throwing,
• 1:27:51
  whatever they were doing. And so I want that to happen.
• 1:27:54
  If we want coaches, if we want coaches to coach later, then
• 1:28:00
  after they leave their, their athletic days, then we have to
• 1:28:05
  make their athletic days fun. We have to give them a, a love
• 1:28:09
  board. The kind of love that I had with
• 1:28:12
  like Coach D Janeiro, Coach D that, you know, he created an
• 1:28:17
  environment for me anyway that I loved and I wanted to go and it
• 1:28:22
  didn't. It wasn't the fact that I was
• 1:28:24
  pretty good at. It was a great.
• 1:28:25
  I didn't win any, you know, 100m races in high school ever.
• 1:28:29
  But Coach Dee did that for me and I want to do that.
• 1:28:34
  Like we have 4 kids on the team right now that are literally
• 1:28:39
  right out of high, right out of college that are coaching and
• 1:28:44
  they are a ton of fun. I mean they're they're serious
• 1:28:48
  about their sport. You know, they want to, but I
• 1:28:50
  want to make sure that they're having fun.
• 1:28:53
  And so I have fun with these guys.
• 1:28:55
  We have one lady to Caitlin Caldon Gallon that was a state,
• 1:29:00
  I believe a state champion or went to state did.
• 1:29:03
  She has a number of of records, middle distance records in
• 1:29:07
  Wanakee 800. She ran a 213 or something like
• 1:29:10
  that and 800 in high school. So anyway, she's she's coaching
• 1:29:14
  it now and the the kids love her.
• 1:29:19
  They, she has done a great job and she's, you know, she's
• 1:29:22
  closer in age, so the, the girls are connecting with her and
• 1:29:28
  they're doing extra training and, and Caitlin's still a
• 1:29:31
  runner. So she, they, she can jump right
• 1:29:34
  in And do I, I literally, when I came back from Barcelona and we
• 1:29:38
  moved here, I would do workouts with the kids all the time.
• 1:29:41
  I was, you know, 35 years old and I'll never forget running
• 1:29:44
  two hundreds with this one girl who cuz that's about how fast I
• 1:29:48
  was. I was not running with the guys.
• 1:29:51
  I could run with the girls and and I could keep up with them
• 1:29:54
  sort of. And so, but that was one of the,
• 1:29:57
  the most fun times we had kind of, you know, pushing each other
• 1:30:01
  along and doing that. And so it's her sister that is
• 1:30:06
  the head coach at Waunakee right now.
• 1:30:08
  And so Kristen and I, yeah, it was, it was really cool.
• 1:30:13
  So, so anyway, yeah, I mean, my, my thing is to make it, to make
• 1:30:17
  it fun. Pass that long to the, to the
• 1:30:20
  athletes and say, yeah, like Riley, Riley is going to be, if
• 1:30:23
  this is what he chooses in life, a teaching career.
• 1:30:26
  And then I know if he becomes a teacher, he'll become a coach
• 1:30:29
  because he's just really good at it.
• 1:30:31
  And we make it, I make it fun for him.
• 1:30:34
  And, you know, we, we, you know, poke at each other all the time.
• 1:30:38
  And, you know, and I know it's, it's kind of politically
• 1:30:42
  incorrect, but I do have a lot of disabled amputee jokes that
• 1:30:46
  I, that I throw. You know, one of my, one of my
• 1:30:49
  deepest regrets is the fact that I've never made a left-handed
• 1:30:52
  layup because I'm losing my I don't have a left hand.
• 1:30:55
  Yeah, I got it. And, you know, the kids, my
• 1:30:59
  kids, my four children have all done this to me all year long or
• 1:31:02
  all my lifetime or their lifetime.
• 1:31:04
  But you know, the kids will, the kids at the track team will go,
• 1:31:07
  you know, coach, that would be easier if you had another hand.
• 1:31:10
  And so we do those kinds of things, but we have built that
• 1:31:13
  relationship makes it okay. You know, somebody outside of
• 1:31:17
  our club might think it's not, you know, no, not that way.
• 1:31:21
  But but it's still, that's the kind of really ending.
• 1:31:24
  And they laugh and they enjoy it.
• 1:31:26
  If if I don't get my kids to laugh at least one day one time
• 1:31:30
  during practice, then I think I've failed my job of making
• 1:31:34
  them have fun. Well.
• 1:31:36
  And I got 4 girls to show up on prom morning.
• 1:31:38
  Yeah. Right.
• 1:31:39
  Yeah, That says a lot right there.
• 1:31:41
  Exactly. Yeah, that's going to start
• 1:31:43
  being the barrier to getting on the podcast.
• 1:31:45
  Like how many kids showed up the morning at prom?
• 1:31:47
  Zero. That's.
• 1:31:48
  Right. Yeah, that's.
• 1:31:49
  Right. Yeah, 'cause they wanted to be
• 1:31:51
  at the track like we have. Like I said, we have 130 on the
• 1:31:54
  team but I got 4 to show up. That's a that's amazing.
• 1:31:57
  I love. You.
• 1:31:57
  But anyway, I'll take those 4. So you probably just answered my
• 1:32:00
  last question here as we wrap up.
• 1:32:02
  You know, Dana is I listen to your story.
• 1:32:05
  It's amazing. Again, thank you so much for,
• 1:32:07
  you know, being so open and authentic with us about a lot of
• 1:32:10
  things. You know, you're, you're, I
• 1:32:12
  don't know, do is it PC kosher whatever to say you were born
• 1:32:17
  with a disability. Is.
• 1:32:18
  Is that how? I it was congenital birth
• 1:32:20
  defect, Yeah, so. You know, from that to, you
• 1:32:24
  know, what really kind of just pulls at my heart in a positive
• 1:32:28
  way is coach D. You know, you talk about you
• 1:32:32
  were talking about, you know, the influence you had some of
• 1:32:34
  these kids that you've had that have gone on to coach and things
• 1:32:36
  like that. And, and as you're telling the
• 1:32:37
  story and you know, it's amazing and you're, you're dead right
• 1:32:40
  with the influence, the positive influence you've had on kids
• 1:32:42
  and, and they go on and have positive influence on their
• 1:32:44
  kids, that that's, that's a testament to you.
• 1:32:46
  And as you're telling that, I sit there and think about, well,
• 1:32:48
  that's a testament to Coach D. You know, coach D could have
• 1:32:51
  said, hey, Dana, you're not very fast, You're not a very good
• 1:32:56
  high jumper. I'm going to focus on these
• 1:32:58
  other kids and you have a miserable experience and you
• 1:33:01
  don't ever do anything in track and field.
• 1:33:02
  And then all these kids over these decades don't have the
• 1:33:05
  experience of working with, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:33:07
  So Coach, this is A and I, and I know there was someone who did
• 1:33:10
  that for Coach D, You know, it's just a.
• 1:33:13
  Yeah, he was a he was a distance runner in calm.
• 1:33:15
  Yeah, it's continual. I love it.
• 1:33:16
  So what I'm curious about then to and again, you may have, you
• 1:33:22
  may have already answered this to be real straight with you.
• 1:33:26
  After doing this for so many decades, no one would fault you
• 1:33:32
  for riding off into the sunset. You know, you, you got a, you
• 1:33:36
  got a bride. You, you have a pool to
• 1:33:38
  California and I know she has a pool in Wisconsin.
• 1:33:41
  And you know, there's other places, there's trips, there's
• 1:33:45
  beaches to walk, coffee to drink, maybe some times to make
• 1:33:50
  up for. And yet you're still coaching.
• 1:33:53
  What motivates you to still be out there with those young
• 1:33:57
  people on a on a near daily basis?
• 1:34:02
  So again, I'm an emotional guy. So to think about what you know,
• 1:34:08
  what keeps me it's it's the kids, Mike.
• 1:34:11
  I I love being around them. I love helping them.
• 1:34:17
  I I probably care too much about them to the point where I worry
• 1:34:24
  about them a lot. We have a better health and I
• 1:34:33
  want to fix them. I stepping 668 next month and I
• 1:34:45
  this out and everybody and they all just kind of roll their eyes
• 1:34:49
  at me and say Oh yeah, that's not going to end.
• 1:34:52
  So but when I turned 70, I've given myself a goal 70 because I
• 1:34:59
  think Urban Meyer retired when he and inner thing and 70 might
• 1:35:09
  be the good, might be a good time.
• 1:35:11
  And, and I think I have to prepare myself for not, you
• 1:35:16
  know, waking up and thinking about it and, and go, and we do,
• 1:35:21
  my wife, the Sierras, the mountains that you see in the
• 1:35:23
  background. I'm going to go spend some time
• 1:35:25
  there. I just literally spent time in
• 1:35:28
  this last fall in Glacier National Park.
• 1:35:31
  I'd never been there. I, you know, we did a, a cruise,
• 1:35:37
  my wife and I did a cruise in the fall from Boston to Quebec.
• 1:35:40
  You know those so those things, those things are there and we
• 1:35:45
  want to do them together. That and, and I believe when I
• 1:35:48
  was listening to your the podcast with the other coach
• 1:35:52
  this morning, you know, he was talking about how much the
• 1:35:56
  wives, how important the wives are, how much they put in.
• 1:36:02
  When I went to the Paralympic Games, we had three little kids
• 1:36:05
  and she was literally on her own most of the time.
• 1:36:10
  We did have an amazing support. Her parents we're close by and
• 1:36:16
  they helped a ton. But, and I've told my, my very
• 1:36:20
  good friend Zach Zymek, his wife Tori, I said, and whenever I've
• 1:36:26
  had them come do some things for me, like, you know, come to a
• 1:36:28
  track practice or something and I get to introduce him.
• 1:36:31
  And I will say he went to the Olympic Games, but she was the
• 1:36:35
  one that made that happen, you know, because she's the one, the
• 1:36:39
  energy, you know, he has all the energy and he has all that
• 1:36:42
  stuff. But she has, she's the support
• 1:36:46
  block. She is the cornerstone of
• 1:36:49
  whatever he succeeds in. And so, yeah, I think it'll be
• 1:36:56
  70. But again, going back to your
• 1:36:58
  original question, the kid, it's the kids.
• 1:37:01
  I, I take a class at the University of Wisconsin.
• 1:37:04
  They have a, a senior program and this is my second year of
• 1:37:09
  doing it. I do it in the spring.
• 1:37:10
  I don't know why. It's track season.
• 1:37:12
  It's ridiculous. I'm doing too much already.
• 1:37:15
  But it's a adaptive Fayed class, so it's PE class and we're
• 1:37:22
  learning about how to adapt things for children with
• 1:37:25
  disabilities. And, you know, having been a
• 1:37:29
  disabled person my whole life, I don't really consider myself
• 1:37:32
  being disabled, you know, unless it, you know, comes down to that
• 1:37:35
  left-handed layup thing. Otherwise, I've done everything
• 1:37:38
  that everybody else has done and more.
• 1:37:42
  So I don't consider, but there are people that that can't do
• 1:37:46
  that. And I want to make, like I said,
• 1:37:49
  I want to make my life. I want to make their lives
• 1:37:51
  better and show them that they can, you know, hire them to be
• 1:37:58
  whatever it possibly be. My wife is a educator in
• 1:38:03
  Waunakee. She's been doing that for 20
• 1:38:06
  years now. She retired a couple years ago,
• 1:38:08
  but she substitutes now and she's worked needs kids that
• 1:38:13
  whole time and and she treats them like able bodied people to
• 1:38:21
  capacity to their ability. If she's not letting that
• 1:38:28
  happen, she goes, I know you can do this.
• 1:38:32
  And that's the support I had when I went to to Spain and all
• 1:38:36
  the coaching and that I've done. So I'm now on, you know, on a a
• 1:38:42
  public platform. When I turn, I'm done.
• 1:38:46
  My my wife can laugh at me right now.
• 1:38:48
  My kids can all go. Yeah, right, Dad.
• 1:38:50
  You've. Seen this one before, but so
• 1:38:53
  that'll be it and I'm not, I'm not picking like in two years
• 1:38:58
  from now, possibly all the best athletes will be gone.
• 1:39:03
  They will have graduated and moved on.
• 1:39:05
  But that doesn't mean that next year there's not a freshman
• 1:39:07
  that's. Right.
• 1:39:09
  There's not a, there's not a sophomore kid that decides to
• 1:39:11
  come out or the there's that sophomore kid that decides he's
• 1:39:15
  he's going to do it. That means I would have to be 71
• 1:39:18
  in order to coach him through his senior year.
• 1:39:20
  So I have to, I have to say, Nope, that's it.
• 1:39:23
  That's what I'm going to put the ball down.
• 1:39:25
  Not that I won't stop enjoying watching.
• 1:39:28
  I'll go to meet. I can go to meet.
• 1:39:29
  I can go root for the kids. I can watch the Olympic Games
• 1:39:33
  like my family does. You know, every four years we
• 1:39:36
  just delve into track and field. That's so cool.
• 1:39:39
  And so anyway. Well, Dana, it's on.
• 1:39:41
  It's on wax, as they say. You know, it's recorded now at
• 1:39:44
  70. And, you know, thousands of
• 1:39:46
  people are going to hear this. So there's no backing down.
• 1:39:48
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's no.
• 1:39:49
  What'd you, What'd you the guy that said that he was going to
• 1:39:51
  try 70? Yeah.
• 1:39:53
  Wait a minute. Let me get my cane.
• 1:39:56
  Dana, dude, thank you so much, man.
• 1:39:59
  What a absolute blast. You know, it is something I
• 1:40:04
  don't take lightly when I do that.
• 1:40:08
  You know, again, after five years working on six years of
• 1:40:10
  this podcast, you know, I think of coaches like yourself and,
• 1:40:13
  and you know, much like we talked about earlier, in some
• 1:40:17
  cases of athleticism, you know, there's others like you.
• 1:40:20
  What I mean by that, there's other coaches that have been
• 1:40:22
  around for 30-40 for the years that have.
• 1:40:24
  Amazing experiences have, you know, affected positively young
• 1:40:27
  people throughout the country, throughout the world.
• 1:40:30
  And, and I think about that sometimes about getting their
• 1:40:32
  stories, getting your story on wax, as they say, you know, on
• 1:40:35
  record, because it's going to be important, you know, as you
• 1:40:38
  retire here in a couple years from, from coaching and, and
• 1:40:41
  past that, that, you know, it's going to be important in 10
• 1:40:43
  years, 20 years, 30 years that, you know, some 30 year old
• 1:40:46
  coach, you know, here, let's play the, the, the future game
• 1:40:50
  right now, 30 years from now, there's a, a coach who's 30
• 1:40:53
  years old listening to your story.
• 1:40:55
  Maybe they were born with, with one arm or one leg or whatever,
• 1:41:00
  or not, who cares. Doesn't even matter that they
• 1:41:02
  hear your story and are like, wait a minute, that guy could do
• 1:41:05
  it. Hold on.
• 1:41:06
  Now. I, I'm also, I thought, you
• 1:41:08
  know, I, I'm a, I'm working in the private sector.
• 1:41:09
  I didn't think I could coach if I wasn't a teacher or a
• 1:41:13
  professor or full time. Like they're going to hear your
• 1:41:15
  story and be like, oh man, I can do it too.
• 1:41:18
  And I think that's extremely important.
• 1:41:21
  And that is part of that legacy that you'll believe it's right
• 1:41:24
  now it's borne out by kids you coach and kids that you coach
• 1:41:27
  that have gone on to become business owners, clergy,
• 1:41:32
  teachers, moms, dads, spouses out there.
• 1:41:35
  And so I'm just so glad for this opportunity to be able to hear
• 1:41:39
  your story and to be able to share it with others.
• 1:41:41
  My friend, thank you so much. Yeah, you know, I've, I've been
• 1:41:44
  asked or you know, I've read different things about what
• 1:41:46
  people want their legacy to be. And I've always said I want some
• 1:41:56
  kid when they're 50 years old to think back about, you know, I
• 1:42:03
  had a one arm high jump coach. Coach Jaster was the best.
• 1:42:09
  That's what I want somebody long after I'm gone, just like I'm
• 1:42:15
  saying about Coach D, you know, I want to be the impact in their
• 1:42:20
  life. I want to be the positive.
• 1:42:22
  I want them to know that I'm there for them and, and I for
• 1:42:27
  like some of my high school kids from 30-40 years ago, you know,
• 1:42:31
  I still am so. Yeah, as I say, you might have
• 1:42:34
  to pick a new goal because that goal has certainly occurred
• 1:42:37
  multiple times. My friend, you need to strive
• 1:42:39
  for something more because that's already, that's already a
• 1:42:41
  good hit. Dana, thank you so much, man.
• 1:42:43
  Really am grateful for you, grateful for the life you live
• 1:42:46
  and the life you have lived. Again.
• 1:42:48
  You have positively impacted young people and and more, you
• 1:42:51
  know, not letting your disability be a disability going
• 1:42:55
  after the Olympics and making it for crying out loud, there are
• 1:42:59
  plenty. Here's the cool thing.
• 1:43:00
  I, I, I think about this sometimes.
• 1:43:02
  You have certainly and rightfully been thanked by
• 1:43:05
  hundreds, if not thousands of, of athletes, other coaches that
• 1:43:08
  you've helped, things like that. There is an infinite amount more
• 1:43:11
  of people that have, will never be able to get to see you or
• 1:43:14
  e-mail you to tell you thank you that you have affected.
• 1:43:17
  Like there are other people out there that you don't even know
• 1:43:19
  have seen you and been like, oh man, I want to be like that guy
• 1:43:22
  and have gone off into their own journey, man.
• 1:43:24
  So I'm just so grateful to be able to get this, the story on
• 1:43:28
  on record, get to the podcast, and I'm just so grateful for you
• 1:43:31
  and all that you do for our great sport.
• 1:43:33
  You, you as well, Mike, This is this is a great platform.
• 1:43:36
  I might even listen to one of your podcasts now.
• 1:43:40
  You got to become a podcast listener.
• 1:43:41
  That's right. All right, Dana, thank you so
• 1:43:43
  much for being here, you guys. Thank you for being here again,
• 1:43:45
  Just a blessed to be able to be in the position that I am.
• 1:43:48
  You know, this is not something I take lightly and just grateful
• 1:43:51
  to, you know, be able to expand my network and yours with great
• 1:43:54
  people like Chris Gaston. So join us next week.
• 1:43:57
  We'll do it all over again. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:44:00
  coach, the ones are poor people. Most every season needs a voice
• 1:44:04
  of reason speaking the growth. You got to prep before you carry
• 1:44:07
  the load. Ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:44:09
  For those of us staying to go proper handoff to stay in the
• 1:44:12
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:44:14
  There's more than one way to go. Taking notes that's paying.
• 1:44:16
  You're told it ain't practice. If your purpose ain't clear, it
• 1:44:19
  can't happen until you listen. With both is you can't mentor
• 1:44:22
  without a mentor of experience. You can reinvent those years.
• 1:44:26
  Every plan's got to stand and deliver two and the price
• 1:44:29
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
• 1:44:33
  win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:44:35
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
• 1:44:38
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
• 1:44:41
  6,000,000. Waste of time, choose none.
• 1:44:43
  So y'all cross finish line. The work ain't done so we learn
• 1:44:46
  from the experts but y'all got to put in the legwork.
• 1:44:49
  Guild athletics use the network. It's all about connections put
• 1:44:52
  together for the profession to where every track coach could be
• 1:44:55
  blessing.