Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #14: Gill1918 presents Pat Parysz "Building Community Among Your Peers"

Transcript

#14: Gill1918 presents Pat Parysz "Building Community Among Your Peers" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
• 0:03
  coaches, for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
• 0:06
  Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
• 0:09
  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
• 0:12
  you grow as a coach. We're bringing the once a year
• 0:15
  track clinic straight to your ears daily.
• 0:17
  Interested in creating your own episode?
• 0:19
  Everyone's welcome to participate.
• 0:21
  Check out the show notes below For more information.
• 0:23
  Now let's get into today's topic.
• 0:27
  Hello, my name is Pat Parrish. I am a track and field coach
• 0:31
  located on Solon, Iowa. The topic I'm going to be
• 0:35
  discussing today is the ability to reach out to others within
• 0:40
  the track and field community with hopefully the goals of
• 0:44
  building your knowledge base, your recruiting database, and
• 0:48
  your brand. Why I picked this topic
• 0:51
  specifically is because I've seen a lot of coaches now like
• 0:56
  the only time we actually feel comfortable enough to reach out
• 1:00
  and ask questions it feels like is that coaching clinics or if
• 1:04
  you're within just amount of your inner circle of friends.
• 1:08
  I also picked this topic because this is basically the art of me
• 1:14
  going up to people and talking to them is what I owe my entire
• 1:18
  track and field coaching career to.
• 1:21
  My career started out with me getting asked with my former
• 1:25
  boss on how to like, hey, can you coach my son and running?
• 1:30
  And I just remember sitting there going, I have no idea on
• 1:35
  how to do any of this. I just like thought like, hey,
• 1:39
  here's what I'll do. I'll take what I did in club,
• 1:43
  I'll take what I did in high school, and I'll basically just
• 1:46
  copy and paste that and write it down and act like I know what
• 1:51
  I'm doing. And the kids, they get better.
• 1:54
  Like we did a little harder workouts from what they usually
• 1:57
  did during their high school season.
• 2:00
  But to be honest, I had absolutely no idea, no knowledge
• 2:05
  on how to build a workout plan, build a schedule for a season,
• 2:10
  or even build a week so you can get a weekly goal done for an
• 2:16
  athlete. All this gladly came to a great
• 2:20
  stop when I moved out to New Jersey.
• 2:24
  I was struggling to find work out there for a little bit.
• 2:28
  So I was like hey, maybe I could find a couple kids coach.
• 2:32
  And with that being said, I went to a middle school meet.
• 2:35
  I started talking to this gentleman and he told me he's
• 2:39
  like, hey, what are you doing here?
• 2:40
  I go, oh, I'm just looking for a couple of athletes that, you
• 2:44
  know, maybe I could get find them, talk to their parents, see
• 2:47
  if they want to get privately coach.
• 2:49
  And he goes, hey, well, if you want to coach, you got to meet
• 2:52
  this guy, man. His name's Al Jennings.
• 2:54
  Like you don't know who Coach Jennings is.
• 2:57
  And me being from middle of like jersey or say middle of nowhere,
• 3:03
  I was like, I have no idea who this man is.
• 3:08
  I just remember meeting them for the first time.
• 3:11
  I always have. He had a great smile.
• 3:13
  He was sitting there talking and jawing with me.
• 3:16
  But I just remember he told me he's like, hey, yeah, come here
• 3:18
  tomorrow. We have club practice.
• 3:22
  So I showed up the next day, did the interview process, which was
• 3:26
  coaching kid on blocks. And honestly, that's probably
• 3:30
  the only thing I ever did correctly in my first two years
• 3:34
  of coaching. And from then on, I was just
• 3:38
  under his tutelage for about five to seven years with Al.
• 3:45
  And this is where my life took probably the biggest turn,
• 3:48
  especially in my coaching career, because I just remember
• 3:53
  after spending a week with him, I felt like I knew nothing.
• 3:57
  I didn't even know how to talk to other coaches who felt like
• 4:01
  felt like every time I said something that was wrong or I
• 4:05
  didn't even know what muscle system or even if we were
• 4:08
  working the nervous system, like if I was even doing that right
• 4:12
  as a coach. Fortunately for me, this is when
• 4:15
  he took me under his wing. It really started to show me
• 4:20
  that I did know what I was talking about.
• 4:23
  I just needed to learn how to be able to communicate it with
• 4:27
  others within this community. Because in this community,
• 4:31
  you'll never know who knows what they know.
• 4:33
  I know that sounds weird, but I've met moms.
• 4:36
  I have more knowledge than a lot of coaches I've ever met.
• 4:40
  But then on the flip side, you'll meet coaches who you just
• 4:43
  kind of figured out was like, wow, they they really just had
• 4:47
  some great athletes. With that being all said, after
• 4:51
  Al sort of sort of showed me how to actually be more confident
• 4:57
  and the ability on how to handle myself in a more professional
• 5:01
  matter. The biggest thing, well, not the
• 5:04
  biggest thing because he taught me so much, The one of the most
• 5:07
  important things he actually did teach me how to do was recruit
• 5:12
  your athlete. One of the first things he
• 5:15
  taught me to do was try to find every single junior College in
• 5:20
  Division Three college within your area.
• 5:23
  Make sure you know every coach there.
• 5:26
  Make sure you reach out and send the e-mail to them.
• 5:30
  But the other part you told me is always make sure you get on
• 5:36
  the phone with them, have a great talk with them, but more
• 5:39
  importantly, try to learn how they're how, what is their
• 5:44
  coaching philosophy? Because one of the worst things
• 5:47
  that we can do as coaches is, yeah, we hear about a program.
• 5:52
  They're all great, great, great, great.
• 5:55
  Of course they're going to court your athletes.
• 5:57
  They're going to tell them that, hey, you're really good, but
• 6:00
  after you figure out their coaching philosophy or their
• 6:03
  training philosophy, you know that it doesn't sync up well the
• 6:07
  way your athlete does well or what they need to do to get
• 6:11
  better. That little reaching out part,
• 6:16
  they're making sure like every time I have a phone call with
• 6:19
  the coach, these phone calls usually last about an hour,
• 6:24
  sometimes an hour and a half because I ask questions for
• 6:28
  every single event group that they have.
• 6:31
  I go, well, what's your and one of the biggest questions I
• 6:34
  always ask coaches, OK, so I give my athlete a here right now
• 6:39
  he's a 52 second 400 runner. What is your actual expectation
• 6:45
  for him after two years and after four years, is he going to
• 6:49
  see a major time drop in that first year or is he going to
• 6:53
  see, OK, he's going to maintain, but after four years for
• 6:57
  projected for him to drop 3 seconds during his college
• 7:01
  career? That information will also help
• 7:05
  you give more insight to how the coach trains.
• 7:09
  It's going to show you as a coach like OK, if I'm going to
• 7:12
  send the athlete here, does this coach actually actually feel
• 7:17
  like a great fit for my athlete? And also, do I trust this
• 7:21
  person? Well, a lot of people keep on
• 7:23
  forgetting just because they're a college coach or they're a
• 7:26
  Division One coach D2, coach D3 or NAIA or JUCO, it doesn't
• 7:33
  really matter. Just because they have those
• 7:35
  letters or that division number behind them might not be the
• 7:39
  best fit for you or your athlete and you're still trying to
• 7:43
  develop that relationship. If you don't reach out and call
• 7:47
  these coaches or take the time to actually hear them out on
• 7:51
  their philosophy, that little reaching out part is going to
• 7:55
  save your athlete or it's going to be a detriment.
• 7:58
  I mean, we've all seen it's coaches like we'll have a
• 8:01
  really, really good athlete. We send them off to Division One
• 8:06
  school and they don't improve at all or sometimes they even get
• 8:10
  worse. And it's just because that like
• 8:13
  the ability of just be able to make that one phone call before
• 8:16
  they head there or actually get more of a fit before you start
• 8:21
  recruiting your athlete to that school can make all the
• 8:24
  difference in the world. That's even why now like 2 of
• 8:30
  like some of my good friends in this community are coaching JUCO
• 8:35
  and and I, those two are Brent Ewing out of Indian Hills and
• 8:40
  Tyler Mulder. I was saying Ambrose.
• 8:44
  It's no secret now that what Ewing is building over there in
• 8:49
  Ottumwa, IA is becoming one of the national powerhouses and
• 8:54
  junior college track. And the only reason why I even
• 8:59
  know about Indian Hills too is not because of Kenny but Derek
• 9:04
  is because I took the time to reach out and call Brent and
• 9:08
  have about a 50 minute conversation with him about an
• 9:12
  athlete, his training philosophy, what he actually
• 9:16
  does, what's his graduation rate, what's his dropout rate,
• 9:22
  how he is as a person, what are his hobbies.
• 9:26
  And all that information has led to probably 1 the greatest
• 9:31
  relationships I had besides with my former high school coach and
• 9:36
  my and Al Same thing with coach Tyler Mulder.
• 9:43
  Had a long conversation with him.
• 9:46
  Then he actually recruited the first kid I ever coached.
• 9:51
  He was starting to build a program over there at Iowa
• 9:54
  Hawkeye Community College. But even after knowing all this,
• 9:59
  I still took about 45 to 50 minutes on the phone, Start
• 10:04
  learning from him, trying to figure out what he does as a
• 10:08
  program, his graduation rates, his dropout rates, what his
• 10:13
  alumni do for work, like little things like that.
• 10:17
  Once you figure out that, hey, if I send my kid here, they're
• 10:20
  going to do well. And even when they're done, most
• 10:24
  of them actually use their degree because at the end of the
• 10:28
  day, we all know how like, their bodies won't last, but their
• 10:34
  minds will last forever. But at some point, everyone's
• 10:37
  going to be done running. At some point, everyone's going
• 10:40
  to PR for the last time. Now with all this said though,
• 10:45
  when you are recruiting an athlete, one of the best guys
• 10:49
  that I actually learned on how to get college coaches attention
• 10:54
  is Chris Parnell out of Minnesota State.
• 10:58
  I believe he's the associate head coach and he's head of
• 11:01
  men's and women's sprints right now.
• 11:04
  He gave me the best piece of advice with actually how to
• 11:08
  structure your e-mail or how to teach your athletes how to
• 11:12
  structure. The e-mail All college coaches
• 11:16
  want to see is your name, your graduation year, your GPA, your
• 11:23
  P, Rs, and contact information. If you're putting down contact
• 11:29
  information, make sure it's the people that will actually talk
• 11:33
  to the coach. So if it's the mom and the
• 11:36
  child, put the mother's phone number, e-mail, whatever they
• 11:42
  have, the child's e-mail number, whatever else they have.
• 11:46
  Also, coaches want to see if you take the SAT or the ACT and make
• 11:52
  sure you have the NCAA clearinghouse number.
• 11:55
  Do they? Most of the time they do not
• 11:58
  want to read the blurb about like, hey, Mike is the greatest.
• 12:03
  Just put these times down and also check on every single
• 12:08
  college's website, their sports website.
• 12:12
  If they have ask athlete recruiting questionnaire, send
• 12:17
  the e-mail and also fill that out.
• 12:21
  And more important too, if your athlete doesn't get emailed back
• 12:27
  after the first time, do not be afraid to just keep resending
• 12:33
  that e-mail. They will at some point in time
• 12:38
  check their e-mail and find it. I know it might take a little
• 12:42
  bit but the most important thing I've learned from anything is
• 12:45
  just keep resending that e-mail until you get an answer.
• 12:50
  There is no problem with you and your athlete being annoying is
• 12:56
  their future. Make sure at least you get some
• 12:59
  feedback. I've also, I've emailed a coach
• 13:02
  before one time about 12 times before I even got an e-mail back
• 13:07
  saying hey yes, they're not well for our program.
• 13:11
  Just make sure you keep getting the response with that too.
• 13:17
  Make sure also you can e-mail the coach directly as a coach,
• 13:22
  give him your cell phone number. Usually they will shoot you a
• 13:25
  call if they have time. I've met a lot of good coaches
• 13:28
  like this, like Coach Ferguson out of Kentucky.
• 13:31
  She's awesome. I remember having a 40 minute
• 13:34
  conversation with her and one of the things I had learned early
• 13:39
  in my career is not to take offense when they tell you that
• 13:43
  your athletes not good enough. That's going to be a hard thing.
• 13:47
  I think upcoming now, this whole new recruiting structure, how
• 13:51
  much money programs are giving, and we live in certain areas
• 13:57
  where if you live down Texas, you know, like 10-8 really is
• 14:01
  not that fast. You can go live in Iowa where
• 14:04
  I'm at, if you have a 10810 seven kid, they're probably a
• 14:08
  state champion. With all that being said too,
• 14:12
  just make sure as a coach you never cut off that connection
• 14:16
  after you've had a phone call or even a e-mail exchange with
• 14:21
  coaches like that. Because if you keep progressing
• 14:25
  as a coach and learning from these people that you reach out
• 14:29
  and contact, like don't be ever be afraid.
• 14:32
  Like I've had a lot of coaches like another good one of mine is
• 14:36
  a decent friend is a Houston Franks, all of LSU.
• 14:41
  The ability to ask him questions like, hey, is this program good?
• 14:46
  Or hey, I have a runner. He's struggling with this.
• 14:50
  Would you like, what are your thoughts and your
• 14:52
  recommendations for that? After you build these
• 14:57
  relationships and you have these contacts, that's when too as a
• 15:03
  coach, having that ability to reach out to these certain
• 15:07
  people is how you can start building your program up and
• 15:12
  also building your brand. And what I mean by that, I'm
• 15:16
  talking more like in the club sphere, people want to have
• 15:21
  access to these people. Now it is also your
• 15:26
  responsibility to never, I would say always ask the coach first,
• 15:30
  am I allowed to give out your number or am I allowed to give
• 15:34
  out your e-mail? I would always say never do
• 15:39
  either of these two just because they need their private life and
• 15:43
  all that. But after you have these
• 15:46
  contacts, it is OK to say that you know these people and it is
• 15:52
  OK to say that you can get a response from these people.
• 15:57
  Now it is though your responsibility once you have
• 16:00
  these contacts to make sure you have a good enough relationship
• 16:05
  and you do not harass these coaches as well.
• 16:08
  And what I mean by that is if you're texting certain programs
• 16:13
  just realized that they do have a job to keep and it is not
• 16:19
  their responsibility to take every risk.
• 16:23
  They would not be in the positions that they are if they
• 16:27
  took a risk on every single kid you thought was the next Usain
• 16:31
  Bolt. And more importantly, try to
• 16:35
  make more friends with coaches that are at the lower levels
• 16:39
  like D3, JUCO and AIA Division Two.
• 16:44
  They're going to have a lot more opportunities for your kid to
• 16:47
  run and continue their career rather than D1 right now.
• 16:53
  Also some of those coaches too at the D2D3 and AIA and JUCO
• 16:59
  level. Let's be honest that some of
• 17:01
  them could coach circles around a couple D1 coaches.
• 17:06
  They just haven't had their shot or their opportunity yet.
• 17:12
  With all that being said, just always make sure like never be
• 17:17
  scared to call someone, e-mail someone, or reach out to them.
• 17:22
  Like they will respond if you keep trying.
• 17:27
  If I never tried, I would have never met Al Jennings.
• 17:31
  I would have never been able to have phone calls with certain
• 17:34
  coaches in this in this country and I would never, ever thought
• 17:40
  that I would be still coaching in nine years.
• 17:42
  Like I just couldn't believe now like the progressions we've made
• 17:47
  from some of the relationships I have built.
• 17:51
  Like in my high school, over the last four years we have broken 9
• 17:55
  school records. None of that would happens if I
• 17:59
  didn't pick up a phone or send the e-mail out to certain people
• 18:03
  just to get their responses or their ideas.
• 18:06
  I probably wouldn't have had the ability to help two female
• 18:11
  athletes go Division One because we kept emailing people.
• 18:16
  Those people I talked to and got emails back, they helped me
• 18:20
  train those two athletes. It's just been a blessing just
• 18:25
  because like the simple act of picking up a phone.
• 18:29
  A couple of people I want to give a shout out to real quick
• 18:33
  will be Houston Franks of LSU, Coach Brent Ewing out of Indian
• 18:39
  Hills, Coach Tyler Mulder out of St.
• 18:42
  Ambrose, Coach Littleton out of Co College, Coach Ferguson of
• 18:49
  Kentucky, Coach Parno out of Minnesota State, coach Wake
• 18:55
  Night out of Iowa, and my buddy and my lifelong friend, head
• 19:02
  coach of Sullen boys track Mark Sobers.
• 19:05
  I also like to give a shout out to Mike Cunningham.
• 19:08
  Thank you for letting me voice my opinion and hopefully this
• 19:13
  resonates with some people. Hopefully that this these little
• 19:18
  tips can help you and help further your program.
• 19:21
  Have a good night. Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here.
• 19:24
  Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Guild 1918
• 19:27
  Project series. It's really my mission, my
• 19:30
  passion to bring you massive amounts of value and I hope this
• 19:34
  one hit the mark. The Gill 1918 Project is really
• 19:39
  dependent on you if for you to build your own episode, to hear
• 19:42
  your voice, to have your voice heard you have something to say
• 19:46
  and teach other coaches out there.
• 19:48
  So please get a hold of me, e-mail, text message, Twitter,
• 19:53
  smoke signals, get a hold of me and let's help create your
• 19:56
  episode of the Gill 1918 Project.
• 19:58
  Hope you enjoy the day, they will see you tomorrow.