Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #162: Beth Alford-Sullivan -post University of Tennessee

Transcript

#162: Beth Alford-Sullivan -post University of Tennessee · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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• 1:00
  Welcome. Today's guest the wise, the
• 1:02
  wonderful Miss Beth Alfred, Sullivan Beth.
• 1:04
  How are you? I'm doing well, thank you for
• 1:06
  having me. Mike, well, we've been trying to
• 1:09
  get this connected for So I'm excited like these all good
• 1:12
  things. Come to those who wait.
• 1:13
  And so I'm just really excited to really just explore your
• 1:16
  journey. You have had, an are having an
• 1:18
  amazing career one that stretches back a while and has
• 1:23
  done some. What's the proverbial glass
• 1:25
  ceiling busting? I'm sorry, I don't know those
• 1:27
  terms and fortunately or unfortunately.
• 1:30
  So really just excited to just find out what you've done in
• 1:32
  this sport. How you've done it and really
• 1:35
  ultimately why why you've done it.
• 1:37
  So so I don't know. Are you a Are you a comic book
• 1:41
  fan on marvelmoviefan at all? Hi, I'm not.
• 1:44
  My husband is I'm not so much. No well I grew up reading all
• 1:48
  those and watching all the movies now and my favorite parts
• 1:51
  of those, the favorite episodes and issues in the comic books
• 1:54
  where the origin story like how did Spider-Man get his powers,
• 1:58
  right? So, Beth, how did you get your
• 2:00
  powers? Let's start with getting that
• 2:02
  way back machine here. Why did when did coaching like
• 2:06
  switch from something that happens to you to something in
• 2:09
  your mind? That was like, Wait, this
• 2:10
  actually might be like a profession of my like actually
• 2:13
  maybe do this for a job. What did coaching start looking
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  like that for you actually to to kind of go with okra the aha
• 2:20
  moment. Right?
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  You know, the I had to Aha Moments One was the final.
• 2:27
  I have final cross country season in college and I stayed
• 2:30
  and finished that out. And one of the freshmen we were
• 2:32
  on a run, one of the freshmen said to me, are you majoring in
• 2:36
  running? And I was like you can't major
• 2:39
  in running, you know, she No, but like you could be like, like
• 2:42
  Wilson because coach Wilson was my coach and and of course, you
• 2:46
  just goes by Wilson, you know? So I was, it was an aha moment.
• 2:49
  I was like, yeah. How do you do that?
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  You know, how do you do that? But I had a degree in social
• 2:55
  work. I was finishing up in December.
• 2:56
  I was done have a job lined up, everything was was in motion for
• 3:01
  the next steps and it was probably about six months later,
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  seven months of all. I'm not even that much maybe
• 3:07
  five or six months later. My high school called me back.
• 3:10
  I grew up in Minnetonka Minnesota and went to Hopkins,
• 3:12
  High School. My high school called me and
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  asked me if I would coach be an assistant coach with the
• 3:18
  distance runners in in, you know, for the outdoor track
• 3:23
  season. And so my employer was was
• 3:26
  willing to let me drop a 30 hours a week and I could, I
• 3:29
  could zip out to, you know, across town to get back to my
• 3:31
  high school and the very first day of practice, that's when I
• 3:36
  knew, I had the boys in the girls distance Runners and I
• 3:39
  absolutely Ali knew I drew out to my parents home and I said
• 3:42
  this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to be a college coach
• 3:45
  and so fascinating you, your Golden Gopher, which amazing
• 3:50
  love that place. Love the coaches that are there
• 3:52
  in the facility. That's one of my favorite place.
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  They just had big tens and really knocked it out of the
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  park. I mean, one of the funnest meets
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  I've been to and I've been like a lot of us here have been to a
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  lot of meets. They did an amazing job at being
• 4:02
  going. His complete crew.
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  Great job. So your are Collegiate athlete.
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  You're majoring in Social Work, coaching isn't even in It's just
• 4:10
  something that's done to you. And by the way, you mentioned
• 4:12
  Wilson, Gary Wilson Legend. So you must have had a great
• 4:17
  experience because that man is great.
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  But nah, nah, no nothing in your head.
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  Space was like, oh yeah, I want to be like Gary.
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  I want to be a coach. It was I'm gonna go do now, I'd
• 4:26
  like that. It's interesting, you were
• 4:27
  social work because that's to me a lot like coaching and I don't
• 4:29
  mean the type of work, it's a servant leadership type of work,
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  you're giving to other people. So you are already kind of
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  without it being Athletics. You were thinking coach as far
• 4:39
  as I want to serve people. People and then you get the call
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  back to the high school. Hopkins, High great, great
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  school there as well. No surprising the lineage.
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  You have therefore High School to college.
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  What was it? So you get called back, you work
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  on. You said, you work with the boys
• 4:53
  and girls. What was there?
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  A PR moment for a kid? Was it right?
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  And work out? What was it?
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  That was just like, oh wait a minute, this is it.
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  I think, I mean going stepping back just a little bit further
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  when my father was our dean of students and also the baseball
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  coach, my mom was a social worker.
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  So, coming up II was I tried to be a softball player, but I
• 5:14
  running found me. I got better at that.
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  I actually spent my freshman year because let's go back to
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  Title Nine to, I'm high school grad 284 Title Nine just came
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  into gig and the University of Minnesota didn't have anything
• 5:28
  really going on. I think they had a part-time
• 5:30
  coach going on, Gary Wilson. Was that lacrosse?
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  I went to La Crosse my freshman year.
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  At the end of my freshman year, he got the Minnesota job and I'm
• 5:39
  a Legacy kid, my dad played ball at Minnesota, they were national
• 5:43
  champions in 1961. I wanted to be there, but I
• 5:47
  wanted to run more than I wanted to be there.
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  So, when Wilson got Minnesota, I mean, I just I just packed up
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  and came home and have the best, you know, next three and a half
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  years of my of my life, seeing him be at a D3 school and seeing
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  how we were on top of the world. They're coming into Minnesota,
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  in a changing environment, you know, to where he was hired full
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  time. You put a sign up future home of
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  the Big Ten Champions, you know, and I was, I was his sidekick, I
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  came with them and I was able to, to Really, you know, be a
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  part of that transition of trying to turn over from D3 to
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  D1, Big Ten, you know, the cross.
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  We were beating Minnesota, you know, that was a big flag for
• 6:29
  him. He would love that and we came
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  up to their cross-country meet and beat them.
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  I remember that. And so, for me, I always looked
• 6:36
  at it from a coaching, I looking back on it now.
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  I never thought. About doing it.
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  I'm actually never ever experienced a female coach,
• 6:44
  never knew the path to being a coach like.
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  Now, there's sport management is so integral in so many programs
• 6:50
  and kids that come into college. I know here at Tennessee, I had
• 6:54
  a lot of people that were like, I want to do Kinesis and then be
• 6:57
  a coach, you know, Penn State, lot of kids want to do Kinesis
• 7:00
  and then be a coach and that just wasn't an option for me,
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  back in the 80s. And so, I think the, the st.
• 7:07
  Olaf coach was a female. I saw her every once in awhile.
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  I thought, wow you know how does she done this?
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  And so my aha moment was just pure and simple.
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  I got done I worked for a handful of months.
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  I missed it. I got the opportunity by hook or
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  by crook at my high school. I'm not even sure how that
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  evolved my coaches probably gave a call but I just knew that's
• 7:28
  what I want to do. But I did not want to do it at
• 7:30
  high school. I did that season.
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  We had a phenomenal season both of the guys and the gals did
• 7:36
  some great stuff, but I wanted to be a college coach and went
• 7:39
  right back to Will. Listen.
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  I said I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna be a college coach.
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  I want to be with you and he said, no, actually, you need to
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  fly the coop. You know, you've been with me
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  for five years. You know, everything you can
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  know from this program, go somewhere else.
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  Like I got so into, I did my I did my level one school while I
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  was still an undergrad so I'd already done my level one.
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  So you things for all kind of pointing me in that direction
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  and then he you know, went to he's like I don't know.
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  You got to find a graduate program.
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  UGA, there's no internet back then, you know, so I went to the
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  department chair at the University of Minnesota,
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  physical education department. And I asked him how to get
• 8:19
  involved in a graduate program in sport management.
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  I didn't have the science background and do science.
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  So he actually had just come from Southern Illinois and he'd
• 8:31
  been the chair. I don't remember his name.
• 8:32
  Use a chair at Southern Illinois and in their, in their sport
• 8:38
  management, physical education department, Ain't she called up
• 8:41
  and talk to the track, coach Don to noon.
• 8:43
  Don denoon had a g a ship. Next thing.
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  I knew I was driving down over the Fourth of July, to check out
• 8:51
  SIU. I've never been down there in my
• 8:53
  life and that with Coach to noon, he had a g, a ship met
• 8:58
  with the department to get into grad school.
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  Well, I was interviewing with the department to get into grad
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  school. They said, hey, do you want to
• 9:04
  do a teaching GA? And I said, well, I just got
• 9:07
  offered a coaching GA and they said, well, we Better.
• 9:10
  And so I went back to coach the new and I said, hey, Christian,
• 9:14
  can I volunteer with you and they and I'll teach classes and
• 9:17
  they pay me. They did pay quite a bit better
• 9:19
  than them. So I actually did that for two
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  years I was a ga in the in that physical education department.
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  I got my masters in sport management and I volunteer coach
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  bird on the noon and that's when I met Kathleen raske, she was a
• 9:35
  60 or she was finishing up her degree and we started together
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  at SIU Carbondale and had A great couple years.
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  I also met my husband there. So wow, holy cow.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know what I love about
• 9:47
  that. There's a lot of preparation but
• 9:51
  happenstance, it plays into this, you know, you talked to
• 9:54
  that advisor. If they didn't know about carbon
• 9:56
  Dale's GA, you could be at Square zero here.
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  Exactly it. Also, it also makes me think of
• 10:02
  like how spoiled we are. Because when you talk about
• 10:06
  finding GA right now, if someone wanted to find a ga or assistant
• 10:09
  or any Listen, you know, go to UST fca's website, and say, a
• 10:12
  website for good or bad. Go to, let's run.com and go to
• 10:16
  the, the most famous thread. There is, yeah, it's the one
• 10:21
  thread on the whole website that I read the rest, can it can be
• 10:25
  elsewhere. But so, we're so spoiled now.
• 10:29
  Like when you want to GA holy cow.
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  Yeah. How in the world did you find
• 10:32
  in? So happy that you're the
• 10:34
  advisor? There was able to know someone,
• 10:37
  you know, there was no way this episode was going.
• 10:39
  To go without Kathleen, raschi's name coming up, you know mutual
• 10:42
  friend of ours. I had no idea that you knew her
• 10:44
  from that far back though. I thought maybe yeah.
• 10:48
  That is awesome. That's really cool.
• 10:51
  It's really awesome. So now you get your first, I'm
• 10:54
  gonna call it air quotes here, real coaching, not because it's
• 10:58
  college versus high school. I don't find any difference
• 11:00
  there to be real Frank as far as what you do coaching in
• 11:03
  importance wise. But now you're getting paid to
• 11:06
  coach even though you're on the teaching GA.
• 11:07
  But now you're you're on this path.
• 11:10
  Those first couple years of GA and was it what you thought?
• 11:13
  Because again, it's different when it's done to you.
• 11:15
  Now you're the one even as a ga you're still, I'll say, barking
• 11:19
  out orders and writing workouts, and stuff, and travel and
• 11:22
  setting up travel. Was it a, did you get a little
• 11:26
  jaded? Like, oh wait, this is not what
• 11:27
  I thought, or was it like, the pot of gold?
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  Oh, I've Struck it. I this is it.
• 11:32
  Yeah, it was interesting. You know, the Wilsons words were
• 11:35
  strong in my head of going and learning and doing.
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  Something totally different. Because when you do it, what?
• 11:42
  You know, then that it's okay, it's acceptable, it's right.
• 11:45
  And then when you go somewhere else and it's different, you
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  know, I really looked at it, I was still running, I wasn't any,
• 11:51
  I wasn't very fast but I was still very fit and, you know,
• 11:54
  she came in with the gals and I started running with them and
• 11:58
  you know, Don denoon had his way of doing things and Don had a,
• 12:03
  had a tough tough phase. And it was he was the head coach
• 12:06
  and he had three GA spots. Well, actually had to I
• 12:10
  volunteered. So I kind of as a third but
• 12:12
  Kathleen had one and then a young lady had the throws and
• 12:15
  then I had the distance with Dawn and so, you know, I found a
• 12:20
  lot of things that I initially, I was like, wait, this isn't
• 12:23
  this isn't right. This isn't how you do it.
• 12:24
  You know, I had a I was a confident young kid, you know,
• 12:28
  that was coming in like wow we never did for hundreds on the
• 12:31
  track and Minnesota you know and but what it what it was able to
• 12:35
  do was you know for me to just stay as I I actually tell the
• 12:40
  athletes, I coach, you know, you have to, you have to stay open
• 12:44
  and you have to stay open to change and play it out and see
• 12:46
  how it works. And so, I learned quite a bit
• 12:49
  from Don and I was fortunate in the environment that he did my
• 12:53
  second year there, he turned the ropes over to me, and he allowed
• 12:57
  me to actually coach. And I look back on that now.
• 13:00
  And think that was such a, that was such a moment we're at the
• 13:06
  time. I thought I had earned it, you
• 13:08
  know, and I'm Course he's letting me coach these kids now
• 13:12
  but I look back on it now and I really see the value that he
• 13:15
  instilled in me to give me that kind of confidence and that nod
• 13:18
  and the confidence. He had to let go of some things
• 13:22
  and focus on what he needed as a as a head coach and and all of
• 13:26
  the pieces of the puzzle of a full program.
• 13:29
  And so I got to do that right off the bat and I loved my time
• 13:33
  at SIU, my husband and I met and fell in love there and he was
• 13:36
  doing his Ph.D and he's actually exercise.
• 13:39
  Science and exercise physiologist.
• 13:41
  So, I gained a lot of the science from behind that, you
• 13:45
  know, to between between our conversations and what he was
• 13:49
  doing and what I needed to know, and it led to just, you know,
• 13:54
  after two years I had opportunity at Southeast
• 13:56
  Missouri State and that was a 45 minutes, maybe 15 minutes, south
• 14:01
  of Carbondale. They were turning from D2 to D1.
• 14:06
  And Joey Haynes, was the head coach there.
• 14:08
  They were a course, just Powerhouses in DD to but I got
• 14:13
  to get there at a time back then there was no wait, time to go
• 14:16
  D1. We just went right into do one.
• 14:19
  Maybe they had been waiting but I didn't know.
• 14:20
  But the year I got there. They were D1, I filled in Bill
• 14:24
  goat. Here was the coach there he left
• 14:27
  and I was hired as the men's and women's head cross-country coach
• 14:31
  and assistant track and it was Joey and myself.
• 14:34
  And and Eric krummenacker who has actually now the head coach,
• 14:37
  there is still the head coach there.
• 14:39
  After all these years. So I had a great opportunity.
• 14:43
  I was I like that one. I really felt was a really big
• 14:47
  move for for an athletic department and a, an a coach to
• 14:53
  give me that much of responsibility.
• 14:56
  So I was driving 50 minutes, one way to get there, I was living
• 15:00
  in Carbondale, my husband, and I were engaged.
• 15:04
  And I was going back and forth, and coaching men and women.
• 15:06
  And man, we really had a great year.
• 15:09
  I The young man that was in see a runner-up D2 in the 801 149 or
• 15:14
  so, I got him down to 140 79 and didn't make the D1 Nationals
• 15:19
  that year, you know, and I recruited seven state champions
• 15:23
  from seven different states into the program in my first year.
• 15:27
  On the men's side, we went from kind of a Bolivian my first year
• 15:31
  to runner-up on both men and women and cross country and the
• 15:34
  ovc. So it was quite a good Stanton
• 15:38
  after two years. Jim was finishing up his PhD.
• 15:42
  I was wondering what was next? Not sure.
• 15:47
  I'm not a native of that area of the country.
• 15:50
  So we got married. We decided I got an opportunity
• 15:54
  to go on to Mankato State back in Minnesota.
• 15:59
  My dad had just had some health issues, had the opportunity to
• 16:03
  be the head coach for the women, they're separate programs D2,
• 16:08
  and that was ready to be a head coach.
• 16:09
  Which so that's where I stepped into it.
• 16:12
  So hot back to see more here. No, it's all good.
• 16:16
  I love it because what I'm interested in is so I work
• 16:20
  really hard at not asking the I'm going to call it the
• 16:23
  stereotypical questionable as well.
• 16:24
  So you were the men in the women's Coach there.
• 16:27
  So I'm not going to ask the question.
• 16:28
  Well, as a female, what was it like coaching males?
• 16:31
  However, you know, we've been blessed to have Sue Humphreys
• 16:34
  Sue Parks, Karen, Dennis women. Like yourself who have come
• 16:39
  through when There were no sport, you alluded to it with
• 16:41
  Title Nine that, you know, there were no operator and I say no
• 16:44
  very, very, very limited opportunities.
• 16:47
  Not only for athletics, but to coach.
• 16:49
  And, you know, if you think in your right, if you think this,
• 16:52
  that we don't have a lot or enough women coaching today,
• 16:56
  that's true. We certainly didn't have it back
• 16:59
  then but so my question is How did you know, you had no Role
• 17:07
  Models at that time? And I'm being very swath are,
• 17:09
  you know, you obviously, you mentioned, there was one that
• 17:12
  you had seen things like that but it wasn't Common Place, more
• 17:14
  as common places today. What was it?
• 17:16
  Like breaking that ground? What how did they respond to it?
• 17:19
  So I wouldn't ask you today how a male response to a women's
• 17:23
  Coach? Some will respond, right?
• 17:25
  And some respond wrong. But back then as a 19, 20
• 17:29
  year-old College male, the only one That I knew in my life would
• 17:33
  have been my mom. Probably not.
• 17:36
  And if it was a female, have been a teacher, not a coach.
• 17:39
  So, you're out there again, I use the Barking orders, but you
• 17:42
  know, yelling splits and hey, today we're going to do this
• 17:44
  workout and if you don't do this, you're not doing it right?
• 17:46
  Because you got to do is hit these times.
• 17:48
  How did they respond at such an early age of women in coaching?
• 17:53
  You know, you know, it this takes it back to 1991, right?
• 17:57
  And I was absolutely when I For the job I think I took Joey
• 18:04
  Haines by surprise I drove over for the interview and I think I
• 18:08
  sat in his office while he was on the phone for probably two
• 18:12
  hours and I kept thinking I'm not going to get this job like
• 18:15
  it's over my head. I've just been a ga for 22
• 18:18
  years, you know? And but I had had that great
• 18:22
  experience with the high school and in Minnesota with the boys,
• 18:25
  he knew of that and I just, you know, I just played who I I was
• 18:32
  and what I wanted to do. I didn't even think about the
• 18:36
  fact that there weren't other women or my scope was still
• 18:40
  pretty small, you know, I'd been at Carbondale and, you know, the
• 18:44
  women were in the Gateway, the men were in the Missouri Valley,
• 18:46
  we were separate, you know, conferences back then, they were
• 18:51
  separate programs, men and women.
• 18:53
  It was separate programs at Minnesota, you know, I got, I
• 18:56
  got to us to see know and I just went, I can do the job.
• 19:00
  That me do the job and and I think it was it was really that
• 19:04
  and again I give a lot of credit to people that gave me
• 19:07
  opportunity and Joey gave me some opportunity that was great
• 19:10
  and it was only two years. I mean, it just wasn't the place
• 19:13
  for me forever and I never really thought about it.
• 19:17
  Honestly, I'm going to be really honest about the lack of women
• 19:21
  in coaching until I got to Penn State.
• 19:23
  So many years later, you know, well, I guess eight years later
• 19:27
  it would have been, but, you know, felt like a lifetime
• 19:29
  difference in it, and it was really, then that I started.
• 19:32
  Arted to feel. I think what?
• 19:37
  I really thought I didn't feel it in the early days I just went
• 19:39
  in and coached, the guys were great, the recruits were great.
• 19:42
  I mean, I outcome, remember out coaching Jeff pigs and he was at
• 19:46
  Missouri at the time on the state champion.
• 19:49
  I got a kid named James McCracken, and he'd run 407 for
• 19:53
  the mile. And I talked this kid into
• 19:55
  Southeast Missouri State, you know?
• 19:57
  And and that I was going to be the greatest thing to get them
• 19:59
  where they need to be and, you know, dude, ran fast for me, he
• 20:02
  Really split a tooth 53 on a DMR Outdoors.
• 20:05
  If it's emotion relays, you know, he's just a great kid when
• 20:09
  I left. He transferred to Southwest
• 20:10
  Missouri and had a great career there.
• 20:14
  But, you know, it was one of those things where I just kind
• 20:17
  of did it without thinking about it.
• 20:18
  I really didn't think about. I just went and did, and, and
• 20:21
  jumped all in. And I think the biggest thing
• 20:24
  for me, looking back on all these years was that, I had a
• 20:27
  husband that just said, just do. Like, don't think just do.
• 20:31
  And I always Say the strongest suit with my husband is that
• 20:34
  he's that guy with the kind of the finger in the middle of my
• 20:37
  back. That's pushing me but also
• 20:39
  supporting me at the same time. And I think it's probably an
• 20:44
  interview with him that he saw the differences that I just
• 20:48
  wasn't, I was in and doing and having fun doing it and just
• 20:51
  loved it. The guys back that I keep up
• 20:54
  with those guys, I still you know, they're they're all in
• 20:56
  their forties they don't look anything the same.
• 20:58
  I still have that picture of them at 18 but you know, I keep
• 21:01
  up with them. And we had a great run in some
• 21:03
  of the young women back then to and it really propelled me
• 21:06
  forward. I knew when I was at SEMO that I
• 21:11
  wanted to be a head coach that was that was the next step,
• 21:13
  didn't know where, how, or what I wanted to do, but I wanted to
• 21:17
  be in charge of a program. Well, I think one of the
• 21:19
  important lessons there, when you talked about, when you went
• 21:22
  to Joey's office and he's on the phone for whatever and you're
• 21:25
  like, I'm not getting this, but you made the comment about how,
• 21:28
  you know what, I'm just gonna stay true to myself.
• 21:31
  I think that's really important. Important sometimes when we're
• 21:33
  interviewing sometimes when we think we're interviewing, and
• 21:37
  what I mean by that is the when people do, what I think is
• 21:40
  wrong, is going to be judgy here and say when they Network and
• 21:42
  correctly. So when we're at the convention
• 21:44
  or at a track meet, they're talking to someone and they're
• 21:47
  really just trying to figure out.
• 21:48
  Well, what can this person do for me?
• 21:50
  And yeah. And that's not Network.
• 21:52
  And we'll have a whole show on networking one day, but I think
• 21:55
  the authenticity side of that of, like, you know, what win or
• 21:58
  lose? Get the job or not.
• 22:00
  I've got to be myself because What people don't think about?
• 22:03
  I don't believe people think about is if I try to portray
• 22:07
  what I think in this case, Joey wants me to be and if I get the
• 22:11
  job well how do you hold up that end of the bargain?
• 22:14
  It's not you. Yeah, you got the job under
• 22:17
  really a false pretense. You're not going to be happy the
• 22:20
  head coach Joe. In this case would not have
• 22:22
  been, had it been a disaster if you didn't get the job because
• 22:24
  of who you are awesome. You both saved each other a lot
• 22:28
  of heartache and time. So I thought I just when you
• 22:30
  said that just really struck me about you know what?
• 22:32
  I'm I might not get a job, but I'm gonna be who I am.
• 22:34
  Because first of all, who else do I know who to be?
• 22:37
  So yeah. And you're the whole world in
• 22:42
  front of you. And, you know, I always tell
• 22:45
  this story from that experience as well.
• 22:47
  I absolutely love working with Joey and Eric, and great to see
• 22:50
  that program still thriving. I mean, Eric just got National
• 22:53
  Champion. The first national champions,
• 22:55
  unbelievable. It's amazing.
• 22:56
  It look back, you know, and they were transitioning from being
• 22:59
  top dog to struggle fast, you know, and it was it was really
• 23:03
  good and I just gone through that with Wilson, you know.
• 23:06
  I just gone through my college career of just like.
• 23:09
  Okay. How do you rebuild?
• 23:10
  How do you restart? You know, and it was it was very
• 23:12
  impactful, but one story I do tell about being a female that
• 23:16
  was the first time I ever felt anything and I was pretty young
• 23:18
  for it, but I was speaking in one of the ades during the
• 23:23
  interview process and you know, was engaged and getting married
• 23:28
  and the whole thing. And but he had the, he had the
• 23:33
  moment where he's like, we're not gonna you get this job.
• 23:36
  We're not gonna like have babies.
• 23:38
  Now are we and my, my That was to say no you and I are not
• 23:43
  going to have a baby if I say that I'm done, you know.
• 23:50
  So I said, do you know we're you know, whatever I answered.
• 23:55
  It has always stuck with me that you I came back.
• 23:58
  I told Jim that and I was like, what the heck?
• 24:00
  And he's like, yeah. That's a, you know, and what
• 24:03
  does 1991 and and I'm sure that was his concern.
• 24:06
  They want someone to come in and work hard and how do you deal
• 24:08
  with it back then compared to how they're dealing with it now?
• 24:11
  Now and you know, I think it was as inappropriate as it was it
• 24:15
  was a big eye-opener for me to like who who I am doing
• 24:19
  something that maybe a lot of people aren't used to people.
• 24:21
  It is different yeah, right. Yeah, it's interesting.
• 24:24
  So you mentioned you wanted you knew even at this point I want
• 24:28
  to be a head coach and you get to go to Mankato State.
• 24:31
  So don't worry the head coach of the program or cross-country or
• 24:35
  so crazy as it was, you know, I grew up in Minnesota.
• 24:38
  I knew about Mankato, they were D2.
• 24:40
  They're really pretty. Had my high school coach and run
• 24:42
  there, you know? And I thought is, it gets me
• 24:44
  back close to home. And so, we took a ringer, we
• 24:47
  took the job. I was a head, women's Coach
• 24:51
  James Lee was a head men's coach.
• 24:53
  We didn't know each other at the time, but we became we and we to
• 24:56
  this day are still very good friends, but it was I'm not
• 25:00
  joking here. When I took this job, it was 60%
• 25:02
  teaching 40% coaching. I had myself into gaas and it
• 25:08
  was crazy. But it was, it was absolutely
• 25:13
  awesome. My husband was hired adjunct.
• 25:16
  So it was, you know, he's done with his Ph.D.
• 25:18
  So it's his first, you know, job and so forth.
• 25:21
  And we went up there and it was a complete overhaul.
• 25:25
  I mean, we just had to completely overhaul it and I
• 25:29
  hired two gaas. Both of them ran in D3 up in
• 25:32
  Minnesota and Wisconsin. They were great young people and
• 25:36
  you know, went in the, my first, I'll never ever forget my
• 25:39
  intensity was so Much higher than the situation and the first
• 25:45
  indoor conference meet for the, north central conference.
• 25:48
  We scored 14 points and one of my young people won the race.
• 25:53
  So, everything else came from four points from everything that
• 25:56
  we were terrible. And so, I just went crank and I
• 26:00
  just crank down and we, you know, we came on strong.
• 26:04
  The next year, I was Coach of the Year.
• 26:06
  Same thing happened at SEMO. I got coach of the year, the
• 26:08
  next year and same thing happened here.
• 26:10
  We cranked it down. And I had a young lady that just
• 26:12
  excelled and that just built around it and Jim actually in
• 26:18
  our second year applied for and got a teaching job through a
• 26:24
  sister School in Japan. And before I knew Jim, he lived
• 26:27
  in Japan too. So instead of being adjunct and
• 26:31
  not really enjoying it and not really making any money.
• 26:33
  This was a nine-month position, The Following fall to go to
• 26:37
  Japan and and Rana, physical education department in.
• 26:41
  Our American System school. So we couldn't resist the money
• 26:45
  and the opportunity and you know, it wasn't going to go
• 26:48
  anywhere. It's Emo or Mankato for him.
• 26:53
  So we packed we were packing him up in the summer and I got a an
• 26:58
  opportunity we were actually out camping with my parents.
• 27:01
  This is a great story of how I transition from Mankato.
• 27:03
  I loved Mankato, we worked our butt off, we got really good.
• 27:08
  Didn't win the conference but got second place and And crushed
• 27:11
  it. In one year, turn around one
• 27:13
  year, but I was out in Colorado. Got a tip to call Vinland, Nana
• 27:18
  at Stanford. He's looking for a female coach
• 27:21
  to coach the distance Runners and I actually, you know, back
• 27:26
  then no cellphones you left a voicemail and then you called
• 27:29
  and checked your voicemails and check my voicemails and we had
• 27:33
  left a time and number to call. So not not making this up.
• 27:38
  I stood at a campsite Phone for two hours, talking the VIN
• 27:44
  Linnea. And there was a line for the
• 27:47
  phone of my dad actually said, she's interviewing with Stanford
• 27:50
  University, please move along and at the end of the phone
• 27:56
  call, Vin said, where are you guys?
• 27:58
  I'm in. I'm in, I was out of Colorado
• 28:00
  Springs, camping. And he said, can you get to to
• 28:03
  the airport? And I said, yeah, he said
• 28:06
  they'll be a ticket waiting for you.
• 28:07
  I'm going to fly you out right now, so that's what we did.
• 28:10
  We We packed up, I had on my cowboy hat, my hiking boots, I
• 28:16
  got on a plane that afternoon landed in the Bay Area.
• 28:20
  I never been to the Bay Area. Sure.
• 28:22
  Huh. Landed in the Bay Area and
• 28:25
  luckily that night I met Vin in my cowboy hat, in my hiking
• 28:29
  boots, literally in a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt or
• 28:31
  something and he put me in a hotel next to the Stanford mall
• 28:36
  and I was able to go buy an outfit.
• 28:39
  So So that's how that started and yeah, crazy stuff.
• 28:45
  So you wouldn't recommend someone who's getting ready for
• 28:47
  a job interview shorts cowboy hat.
• 28:50
  Don't recommend that okay. Just just want to make sure that
• 28:53
  was clear so it's interest. I think the situation you
• 29:03
  described of when you first got there you know 14 points and 10
• 29:08
  of that was one event, one athlete, winning it.
• 29:11
  Right? So really, let's call it, you
• 29:12
  know, no points not enough points for sure.
• 29:14
  And in the next year, you go up to Second, which means, radical
• 29:19
  change in who, and how many are scoring.
• 29:22
  I think it's a pretty common scenario.
• 29:26
  I'm going to give two things and maybe oversimplify this, but you
• 29:30
  add, if there's a third or fourth, how much of that type of
• 29:33
  transition transition, do you think is recruiting versus
• 29:38
  coaching up the athletes? You have there and maybe there's
• 29:41
  Third component that I'm not even thinking of, but those are
• 29:43
  the two that make me think. Like if you're going to make a
• 29:45
  change one year of the next you better, you still got it.
• 29:48
  People that are there so you better Coach your butt off to
• 29:50
  make them better. And you got to fill in with
• 29:51
  recruiting. How much is it, 50?
• 29:53
  50, 25 75. Am I missing something?
• 29:56
  That is also a component? Yeah.
• 29:58
  I mean this is what I've always done it and again in a theme of
• 30:02
  for me has been the rebuilt, right?
• 30:04
  Like, get what I get and make it great, right?
• 30:07
  So I have, at this point, I had so much.
• 30:11
  Entity that my g, a young woman was rooming with me, you know,
• 30:15
  on the road and the other was it was a young man and he had a had
• 30:18
  a single after about two or three trips.
• 30:22
  She said, hey, can I room with him versus you?
• 30:27
  And I was like, well, why she's? Like because you're just so
• 30:30
  intense. She's like, I, you know, we
• 30:33
  will, we can play cards and we can do, and they were friends,
• 30:36
  so it was, it was, you know, so tonic.
• 30:38
  But I was like, wow. So what's it like?
• 30:43
  Why isn't everybody like me like this, you know, so I think it's
• 30:46
  a combo of what I realized when I was at Mankato it.
• 30:50
  You have to know what you got. So the first thing I did was
• 30:53
  look at what I got. I had this young lady Jennifer
• 30:56
  Peck and she was a big, you know, she's from Iowa.
• 31:01
  She thought she was big puffy. She ran about 5505 for the mile
• 31:04
  but she looked the part and then I had a gal from Canada.
• 31:07
  That was a true distance Runner Emily, my Asia.
• 31:09
  She's actually one of Of the top runners in New Zealand now and
• 31:14
  still to this day. And, you know, I thought these
• 31:17
  two are actually decently talented and I got to get them
• 31:21
  going. And then I've got to recruit
• 31:23
  because I've always been bought into the team element to.
• 31:25
  I need shot, Putters, and jumpers, and throwers, and, you
• 31:28
  know, all of that kind of stuff. So we and I had this great one
• 31:31
  Denise B, the mother of Alex Miley, the great steepler from
• 31:37
  duke, couple years ago. She was she Was she was, she
• 31:42
  could high jump. She ran the 400 girls, a 4 by 1,
• 31:45
  the 4 by 4. So, you know, that's what I had
• 31:47
  when I got there. So that first year I mean, I
• 31:50
  recruited like crazy and you gotta know when you go there,
• 31:54
  whatever School you take, you got to know your clientele and
• 31:57
  recruit that clientele. So, you know, I'm in the process
• 32:01
  of interviewing right now, again and finding out and I'm picking
• 32:06
  an institution or institutions, I met in a apply for finding out
• 32:10
  what the A until is and if that clientele matches me and what I
• 32:14
  want to do, you know, okay, what's their Regional
• 32:16
  recruiting, you know, and we'll get to this at the different
• 32:20
  schools. I've been at Regional versus
• 32:22
  National versus International recruiting you know what do you
• 32:24
  want from that? And can you really pull it off?
• 32:26
  So it takes, it takes a ton of intensity and I look back, I
• 32:30
  think Wilson had a really hard time at Minnesota when I was
• 32:33
  there recruiting, he couldn't get anybody in state at that
• 32:36
  time. When I was there, he went all
• 32:38
  over the world, they really started his Connections with the
• 32:41
  Scandinavian countries. During my time there in the
• 32:43
  early days, you know, we brought him some kids from Alaska.
• 32:47
  We brought them in from all over and I remember thinking, wow,
• 32:51
  like this is Minnesota, like we need to do this.
• 32:53
  Like, we need to go all over the place for that.
• 32:56
  So is really and I always looked at it from a coaching, I, which
• 32:59
  I think I got from my dad and and at Mankato, you ask, what
• 33:03
  are the things, it's what you have and what you can make
• 33:05
  better, and then to its get out and recruit.
• 33:09
  You got to recruit, you gotta You gotta know your clientele
• 33:12
  and recruit that clientele I said Mankato State.
• 33:14
  I'm not getting somebody from anywhere but Wisconsin, Iowa
• 33:18
  Minnesota, North and South Dakota.
• 33:20
  So I was in my home base, I could hit all of that, you know,
• 33:24
  and I just went to town and you drive everywhere.
• 33:26
  Never flew on a recruiting trip. I didn't.
• 33:28
  I'm barely flew to attract me to that point, you know, so, you
• 33:31
  know, it was just hard work and a lot of, you know, getting it
• 33:36
  done. And I remember Jennifer Peck my
• 33:39
  first semester, I was driving home to Storm Lake.
• 33:43
  I think it was Storm Lake Iowa and for Thanksgiving break.
• 33:47
  And she got in a head-on collision and snowstorm.
• 33:50
  And she was as she was so low, but the driver of the other car
• 33:53
  passed away, people were injured.
• 33:56
  She was she was pretty severely injured punctured, lung, broken,
• 34:00
  collarbone and arm, and all that.
• 34:02
  And the entire time from Thanksgiving through, there
• 34:07
  wasn't a lot of people visiting and you just have to step up,
• 34:13
  you know, you just got to step up and fill that gap for her.
• 34:16
  And by the time I got her out of the hospital and back to On
• 34:20
  January. You know, she was up and move
• 34:22
  and enrolling in push, man. She would have, she would have
• 34:25
  run her legs off for me and not just took off, man.
• 34:28
  That first year, I just, I just I gave to someone in need and
• 34:33
  then she gave me everything she had.
• 34:35
  She went on the following year became a 20-4 half mile.
• 34:38
  ER, she was runner-up. Indoor/outdoor 1500s 800s with
• 34:44
  from the young lady Elva dryer who ran at Western Colorado.
• 34:50
  We couldn't beat Elva but we could beat everybody else.
• 34:52
  You never went on to be a lip so she's really good in.
• 34:56
  Jen went on to run post-collegiate, lie and do
• 34:58
  great things. And you know, so when I say is
• 35:01
  it what you have, or what you get, it's a combo because
• 35:04
  there's Diamonds in the Rough. And if you're a fresh new coach,
• 35:08
  make those kids yours, you know, make those kids yours and
• 35:11
  respect, who was their coach and what was going, well, and figure
• 35:15
  that out. And then and then, you know,
• 35:18
  give that that current team that loves Of because they're going
• 35:21
  to emerge and they're going to run for you and then your
• 35:25
  intensity. I'm sorry.
• 35:26
  You just can't do this job and do it well, without bringing
• 35:30
  your game everyday, people want to.
• 35:33
  And, you know, it's quite frankly why I want to pick and
• 35:38
  choose where I go next because you know my intensity at 56 is
• 35:42
  different than 26. But you know you have to you
• 35:46
  have to recognize that. This isn't a shut it down at
• 35:50
  5:00. Clock job, it's just not if you
• 35:51
  want to be good. So the two reasons we started
• 35:54
  this podcast. One was to uplift, an honor
• 35:57
  coaches, and their amazing Journeys.
• 35:59
  And I'm so blessed to have Beth here to do that today.
• 36:01
  The other one was to add value to those who would choose to.
• 36:04
  Listen, we've already had a couple of just amazing nuggets.
• 36:08
  I want to make sure I want to hit the highlights of making
• 36:11
  sure. We reiterate some of the things
• 36:12
  you said something that I hear the the problem with what you
• 36:17
  said, quite not quite often. Done enough.
• 36:20
  That it's kind of one of those little topics for me.
• 36:23
  You mentioned, when you go into a school recruiting I'm using my
• 36:27
  paraphrasing, using my words here.
• 36:28
  Recruiting is specific to that school?
• 36:30
  What you do at Mankato State is different than what you do at
• 36:32
  University of Texas versus what you did at Penn State vs,
• 36:35
  Stanford Harvard. And I oftentimes will hear and I
• 36:41
  hate to stereotype. It's usually from my younger
• 36:44
  coaches that say stuff like, you know, it doesn't matter what
• 36:48
  school I'm at. I can get anybody, it's because
• 36:52
  what they're thinking is, it's about me like, oh, I'm so in a
• 36:57
  magnetic think that might be the right word.
• 36:59
  I'm so, you know, my personality, my, my coaching
• 37:02
  ability. I'll build it attract anybody
• 37:04
  never body. And I look at you, I know the
• 37:07
  Harvard guys and gals real well, and I look at what they and how
• 37:09
  they recruit and what they recruit.
• 37:10
  It's like, well, that's that's way different than what I did
• 37:13
  when I was at Mississippi State. Trust me when I was at
• 37:16
  Mississippi state, that was way different than what, you know,
• 37:19
  friends of mine. Did it Indiana?
• 37:20
  Our city is your spot on, I think that can't be said enough
• 37:24
  that you have to learn it. You are part of the as the
• 37:28
  coach, the recruiting process of course.
• 37:30
  But what your school's regionality positives and
• 37:34
  negatives cost may be a positive cost maybe a - Majors Etc brand
• 37:40
  brand image like it or not is a factor into it as well.
• 37:44
  So I just you said that I was like, oh man we just got to make
• 37:47
  sure we highlight that because at its that's that's a problem.
• 37:51
  I think it holds back some coaches.
• 37:52
  That could be a little bit farther Advanced at a certain
• 37:55
  age until they finally learn exactly what you said there.
• 37:59
  And you know, I think you one thing I never, I never thought
• 38:04
  of while I was at a job was, how does this help me get my next
• 38:09
  job? It was doing everything I could.
• 38:13
  The best I could, I wanted to win, I wanted those young people
• 38:15
  to win. I wanted to be an impact on the
• 38:17
  institution. I wanted to make History
• 38:20
  everywhere. I was but it wasn't because I
• 38:23
  wanted to go to the next thing. Those things come to you if
• 38:27
  you're doing a good job. And that's, that's what
• 38:28
  happened. Each time, I kind of got rolling
• 38:31
  and I think that that's something people are working now
• 38:35
  for what they want later. And it's not the way to do it.
• 38:37
  You have to, you have to be all in.
• 38:41
  And I would also say what I think is is probably the best
• 38:45
  thing for me as I had. I had two things on learning and
• 38:49
  accepting where II was and what to recruit was my dad was a
• 38:53
  baseball guy and Northern baseball is hard to do, right?
• 38:58
  And he used to say that he's like, you know, it's hard for
• 39:01
  the Big Ten to get to the World Series.
• 39:03
  You know, it's hard to do this in the northern schools, we
• 39:05
  always played Texas and Texas always had the advantage and
• 39:08
  those things are all still true today, but I remember thinking.
• 39:12
  Wow, yeah, there's there's advantages and disadvantages.
• 39:15
  Everywhere you go. And you've got to know what
• 39:19
  you're doing. There you are.
• 39:21
  And I think I've done that really, really well.
• 39:23
  And I think you know, my next step going from Mankato State to
• 39:28
  Stanford was an absolute mind-blowing opportunity and and
• 39:34
  you know just it changed my my whole thing and I didn't see it
• 39:37
  coming. Like I'm talking to a guy on a,
• 39:38
  you know, on a payphone in Colorado.
• 39:41
  So you know, it was one of those things where once you, you know,
• 39:46
  all of these things, I feel like my short stint at SEMO my
• 39:49
  shorts. Stidham ocado my time at
• 39:51
  Stanford. All set me up and gave me the
• 39:55
  next steps. But I wasn't thinking about the
• 39:58
  next steps. I was thinking about being all
• 40:00
  in. Yeah, I was going to say, you
• 40:01
  know, for the for that example, you gave of people who are
• 40:04
  looking, you know, their coaching to look for the next
• 40:05
  step guilty, that was my whole career.
• 40:08
  I was like, how do I get to the SEC?
• 40:09
  That's a grew up in the South. That's what I want to be.
• 40:11
  And so literally it was and I look back now and I've you know,
• 40:14
  I've probably Sue Parks as a former boss likes to I'm sorry.
• 40:16
  I was like she's like I knew you were short time as I well I'm
• 40:19
  glad you do that because that Was all about getting there
• 40:21
  buddy. How was it?
• 40:23
  So as you interview with vin and I don't know who Vin was then I
• 40:27
  know who then is now but also so not just then in regards to like
• 40:33
  intimidation because of who he is and I don't know necessarily
• 40:37
  what his status was at Stanford at that time.
• 40:40
  Although I mean, I know he did great things at Stanford but
• 40:43
  also Stanford, you know. I can't imagine.
• 40:48
  You know, I didn't apply to too many schools.
• 40:50
  Coming out of high school but I certainly didn't apply to the
• 40:53
  Georgia Tech's, northwestern's Harvard, Stanford Lee just, you
• 40:56
  know, top academic Elite. And while you're not going there
• 40:58
  necessarily to be a student, you're going there to work with
• 41:01
  the students. I mean, these are the brightest
• 41:03
  of the brightest, the overachievers of overachievers,
• 41:07
  was there any intimidation of like I'm not sure this the level
• 41:12
  and I don't mean Division 1, and pack would have been pack eight
• 41:14
  or pac-10 then pectin not don't mean that because I think you
• 41:19
  may be approved. Off as far as the level side of
• 41:22
  it but just the Colts. Maybe the culture is one of the
• 41:25
  culture of like wow, these students, these are, this is the
• 41:27
  next. This guy's going to create
• 41:29
  Amazon and YouTube before we even had those back.
• 41:31
  Then what intimidation what were you thinking?
• 41:34
  As far as you know, interviewing at Stanford with vin?
• 41:38
  Yeah, you know, it started. So, so back it up just a little
• 41:42
  bit. When I was in growing up.
• 41:46
  My neighbor just down. The street was guy named Bob
• 41:49
  Kemp in it? Bob camping and had an older
• 41:51
  brother who was an Olympic skier.
• 41:55
  Okay. Cross-country skier, because
• 41:56
  Minnesota, right cross country skier course, Bob and I are the
• 41:59
  same age grew up. He won the, you know, state
• 42:02
  championship. And you know we I ran on the
• 42:05
  state championship winning team but he wanted, you know.
• 42:07
  So Bob was his dad and he was a smart one and he went to
• 42:10
  Dartmouth and I was like, oh cool, you know he's a smarty
• 42:14
  pants, he's going to government and we'd see each other you know
• 42:18
  back home at Christmas break, whatever go for it.
• 42:20
  On that kind of thing. Well, when I was at SIU
• 42:25
  Minnesota made the national championship for the first time,
• 42:29
  so it was the year after. I graduated Wilson was on this
• 42:31
  drive and I think they've made it every year since and, yeah,
• 42:34
  the phenomenal. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:36
  So I went all the way out with, with my, with my future, husband
• 42:40
  with Jimbo, all the way out to the Naval Academy to see the
• 42:44
  national championship and see my team, you know, and see Bob
• 42:48
  confident, you know, cause Is Bobby K, as I knew them.
• 42:51
  You know, was running, he was in his fifth year and he was
• 42:54
  running. So Bobby K went ahead and I
• 42:56
  think it was runner-up and that's when the very first time
• 42:59
  I saw Vinland Anna dressed in Orange and around dressed in the
• 43:02
  green Dartmouth, right? Yeah, I saw him and I thought
• 43:07
  wow that's cool. Never thought about it again.
• 43:10
  You know, life goes on then I want.
• 43:12
  So I had a visual in my head that he was the guy in green and
• 43:15
  now he's over in at Stanford when I was talking to him on the
• 43:18
  phone but I didn't know what. So whole time.
• 43:21
  I interviewed I flew out there, it's Vinny, had me out there for
• 43:24
  four days. Offered me the job at the end of
• 43:26
  it. Wow, I was naive enough and I
• 43:30
  was so in love with Mankato, we were doing so many great things.
• 43:32
  I like I have to go back and talk to my my Mankato people
• 43:36
  before I can accept this job, I looked back thinking, what was I
• 43:38
  thinking? He went back in and we closed up
• 43:43
  shop. And at the end of the interview,
• 43:45
  though, and then been said, how come you've never brought up
• 43:49
  Bob? Canton in and I said, oh I said,
• 43:53
  yeah, you coach Bob because Bob was running professionally at
• 43:56
  that point in med school and then was still coaching him.
• 43:59
  He made the 96 Olympic team made the 2000 Olympic team in the
• 44:03
  marathon are 92 and 96 Olympics in the marathon.
• 44:06
  And you know at that point was actually I think or was just
• 44:09
  about to become the American record holder in the marathon
• 44:13
  and and the whole time I spend forward straight days with vin
• 44:16
  and he's like, you never brought up that you went to school and
• 44:19
  you know, Bob I said bob bobs like we're friends.
• 44:24
  He doesn't have anything to do with me as a coach and Vin
• 44:28
  respected it because I didn't use a name.
• 44:29
  I didn't I didn't name. He was.
• 44:30
  You do know and I said oh I know you coach him.
• 44:33
  I know all about it. You know.
• 44:34
  I keep up with Bob and it was a respecting because I didn't feel
• 44:38
  that that's my place to drop, name drop and get a job.
• 44:41
  Because I know who you are and who you coach, it was more that
• 44:45
  he had to have the confidence. In me, I didn't I didn't need
• 44:48
  anybody else to have a Evidence, you know?
• 44:51
  But as it turned out by he called Bob, you said this gal
• 44:54
  from Mankato State, you know? And so, Bob gave it a thumbs-up.
• 44:57
  And so he was waiting this whole time for me to bring it up, and
• 45:00
  I never did. And I think that was one of the
• 45:02
  pieces that I always took from that experience of like, wow, I
• 45:06
  he expected me to, I never even thought to do it and it made a
• 45:11
  difference and that's I still go to that example.
• 45:15
  When I'm dealing with other people, people that want to talk
• 45:18
  to me about things, people that want this and And drop an, or
• 45:21
  they're pushing an agenda. Instead of really letting me get
• 45:23
  to know them, they're just trying to see if I can help them
• 45:26
  as you said earlier. You know, I think that that's
• 45:29
  that's kind of the lesson I got from that.
• 45:31
  And so I little bit of a tangent there on that story.
• 45:35
  But yeah, I got, I was intimidated.
• 45:39
  I didn't know anything about the Bay Area.
• 45:41
  I didn't know anything about Stanford, and I was on a plane.
• 45:43
  As I said, in my hiking boots and my cowboy hat and I was on
• 45:48
  the, I'll see there was a couple on the Two seats inside and what
• 45:51
  are you doing it? So I'm going to Stanford.
• 45:53
  I have an interview and immediately this reaction for
• 45:57
  these people and I was like oh shit I was like I'm in I'm in
• 46:04
  for a big deal here you know, because I really didn't know.
• 46:06
  I mean I had my family telling me, but I really didn't know.
• 46:08
  And quite frankly we sat at a coffee shop one day and we talk
• 46:13
  training for two and a half, three hours and I was sold.
• 46:16
  I was it didn't matter how much of a big deal Was Vin want to
• 46:21
  win national championships? He wanted me, has died.
• 46:24
  He wanted to let go of the women.
• 46:26
  It was he was the men's coach a Dartmouth, he'd had two years
• 46:31
  with the women at Stanford, and he knew what he needed.
• 46:33
  He needed a woman to come in and Coach the women.
• 46:36
  He needed a woman to deal with is that, is that what the
• 46:40
  position was? The women's distance coach
• 46:43
  including cross-country, or well, actually, it was kind of
• 46:46
  interesting and it takes it way back so it's 1995. 5 and he
• 46:51
  hired me as the women's coordinator.
• 46:53
  So nowadays, I think that would be kind of be the woman's
• 46:56
  associate coach, the first to come up with the name and I was
• 47:01
  the women's coordinator and actually I coached for two
• 47:05
  years. I coached every running event.
• 47:08
  So from the hundred, oh, now, we weren't stacked.
• 47:12
  Trust me. We weren't that stacked in those
• 47:14
  other events, but it was something where I fit the mold,
• 47:17
  because rd2, I was coaching everything.
• 47:20
  You know, I was, I was coaching everything and I was teaching
• 47:23
  class. I also taught class at Stanford
• 47:25
  atomic weight training for women.
• 47:28
  And in the old, this old gym that was like from 1945.
• 47:32
  I started in this but I used to lie and said coach vo, I talked
• 47:37
  to biomechanics and all these pizzas.
• 47:42
  Yeah, I taught weight training for women but the end of the
• 47:45
  day, you know, it was it was a for me, it was An opportunity to
• 47:52
  latch onto a star with vin in the right place at the right
• 47:56
  time in his career. Have a very clear Mission have a
• 48:00
  very clear. I may have been a little bit
• 48:05
  naive to think how easy it's going to be, but it ended up
• 48:07
  being easy. And I'm just glad that I was a
• 48:09
  little naive, but I sit down with someone now and they say,
• 48:13
  I'm going to win national championships.
• 48:14
  I'm going to win national ain't that easy?
• 48:17
  Don't be that naive. People forget when he's hard,
• 48:23
  but I was to go and we just went to work and Vin VIN was a
• 48:28
  Visionary. Is a Visionary for our sport.
• 48:31
  He was in his Who I don't know how old he was.
• 48:34
  Maybe mid 40s at the time and early to mid 40s.
• 48:38
  We ran together every day. We had some great people with
• 48:42
  us. We had Andy Gerard.
• 48:44
  We had Robert. We're and we had Mike Riley.
• 48:48
  Wow, yeah, we just went to work, you know, we just went to work.
• 48:52
  We did everything. We built that program back.
• 48:56
  This is the first experience that I've had a long my way at
• 49:00
  this time where an athletic director made a big difference.
• 49:04
  Ted Leland was the Ada at Dartmouth took on the Stanford
• 49:08
  challenge, brought in Vin. We had an add that every single
• 49:14
  Monday. Walk down sat down at my desk
• 49:16
  and said, how is the weekend? How you doing, what's going on?
• 49:19
  And made his rounds as a real person.
• 49:22
  At the country's Premier, institution, both athletically
• 49:26
  and academically, and he was a real person.
• 49:28
  And it kept you grounded, we built a track at that.
• 49:33
  Time, we brought in a man that changed my life was Peyton,
• 49:36
  Jordan. He was a former Stanford coach,
• 49:39
  the 68 Olympic coach. At that time, he was in the Bay
• 49:43
  Area, he was in his early 80s, he was still running.
• 49:46
  He looked like he was 55. Wow!
• 49:49
  He bring his homemade blocks out to the track and rip to hundreds
• 49:53
  at 30, 30 32. I mean, he just, he was amazing,
• 49:57
  but he came in and he fund fund raised for for Stanford track
• 50:01
  and field to build the track. He came in every I don't
• 50:05
  remember what day of the week. It was but he came in my office
• 50:08
  and sat down and wrote his letters to his his his alumni
• 50:12
  and raise the money from Chuck Cobb and mr.
• 50:15
  Angel and you know, built the built, the Stanford track and
• 50:20
  raise the money to build the Stanford track and Ben, and I
• 50:22
  well then got that done and it was quite an amazing experience
• 50:26
  to see that from 0 to 60 because we had a six-lane track in the
• 50:30
  in the Stanford Stadium at the time.
• 50:33
  And then we built the Stanford track.
• 50:34
  And with that we built the Stanford invite.
• 50:37
  It was always there. It's been running since way
• 50:40
  before my life, you know, but we moved that we created that VIN.
• 50:44
  I have to I kept, I say we because I definitely did a lot
• 50:47
  of work. But Vin's Vision was to have the
• 50:50
  Stanford, invite cross country and have the Stanford inviting
• 50:53
  track and field. And man, we just blew that thing
• 50:55
  up and it was an amazing time. His goal was to win Nationals
• 51:00
  with American Kids. His goal was To rewrite American
• 51:05
  distance running and boy, did he pull it off?
• 51:09
  And I got to latch onto that that environment and just have
• 51:15
  an amazing ride going back to where you were talking about the
• 51:18
  uniqueness has and you need to learn them and run with them on
• 51:22
  recruiting. I'm always amazed, you know, I
• 51:25
  was at Mississippi State and Ball State, you know, the great
• 51:28
  institutions, but the academics aren't the same, as Stanford,
• 51:31
  and Harvard, and things like Like that.
• 51:34
  So it always amazes me like, well, I'm talking to those
• 51:36
  coaches at those type of schools, Stanford's Etc, you
• 51:39
  know, and not only the academic centers, but you are also trying
• 51:43
  to put your athletic stance on. You're trying to win the the
• 51:45
  NCAA division. 1 title in your conference, so you're recruiting
• 51:50
  numbers go. There's just not that many you
• 51:53
  can recruit if I can recruit every 18 plus a CT.
• 51:56
  Oh my pool of recruiting is the the call it the whole High
• 52:00
  School. You're trying to hit 30 plus and
• 52:03
  Been higher than that. How was that learning process
• 52:06
  for you, especially considering we're still early, you know,
• 52:10
  there's no internet so it's still harder to find transcripts
• 52:12
  and find the actual, you know, what's going to work here?
• 52:15
  What their actual times were verified times.
• 52:17
  How was that learning process for you of, man?
• 52:19
  I've got it in my pool of distance recruits is extremely
• 52:22
  small. And, by the way, those those
• 52:24
  guys and gals were all being recruited by all the other, the
• 52:27
  Harvard's, and I'm missing some great academic schools that are
• 52:29
  going to call me and yell at me for some reason, but other, you
• 52:32
  know, it's not Not like you're the only great Academic School,
• 52:35
  they do have their choices. How was that learning process of
• 52:38
  the very selective recruiting? Yeah, I will say, I just I
• 52:44
  followed the man, I mean Vin, VIN was recruiting machine.
• 52:48
  Like I said, I got there at the start of his third year so he
• 52:50
  had a few kids on the roster. They were young and we were able
• 52:55
  to build off of them. Then had a big big connection on
• 53:00
  the east coast and we you know all those years at Dartmouth And
• 53:03
  he had, he had a recruiting pool, he was at a smart
• 53:06
  institution, he knew how to do it.
• 53:09
  He for the first time for my experience, is I sat there and
• 53:14
  he would, you know, a recruit would come in, and he would beef
• 53:17
  me up as the assistant, I never had experienced that before I
• 53:20
  hadn't. I'd always sold myself.
• 53:22
  He was selling me now, and then was a, just a, he was
• 53:26
  relentless. I remember my very first so
• 53:29
  personally, what's going on with me at this time, his, my husband
• 53:31
  took this job and Pan so yeah, right.
• 53:34
  Yeah, we're Jim go, I forgot. For years.
• 53:39
  Now we drove ourselves to California got in got an
• 53:44
  apartment on Friday Sunday. He flew to Japan Monday, I go to
• 53:49
  work, I'll never forget Vin ask me when the first within the
• 53:53
  first hour of being, on the job. Hey, how you doing with that?
• 53:56
  And I broke down crying and I excuse myself to the bathroom
• 54:01
  and I went in the handicapped stall and I let it all loose,
• 54:04
  right? And I swear to goodness, I'm not
• 54:07
  sure. Of in has asked me how I'm
• 54:08
  doing. Doing sense, but that did not
• 54:13
  go. Well, he then bends very smart.
• 54:15
  He learns from his mistakes. He's like, yeah, I was just
• 54:18
  going to pass on. It's so end of the day you go
• 54:24
  back to recruiting and how to do it.
• 54:27
  I learned from him, we identified people we expanded
• 54:31
  our contacts, I got a kid from Hopkins, High School.
• 54:34
  I remember I recruited a gal named Colleen Flaherty.
• 54:38
  She was a super smarty from there.
• 54:40
  I remember thinking that was a great catch for my high school
• 54:42
  and, you know, just kind of, we just kind of knew what we
• 54:46
  needed, a new what we wanted and we identified.
• 54:48
  And then the part that comes in, In that people need to know, is
• 54:52
  it recruits itself? You know, if you're smart and
• 54:55
  you're building a distance Powerhouse, or your building,
• 54:58
  whatever it is, you're building it, it will recruit itself to.
• 55:02
  So once we got up and rolling, I don't think I lost a recruit if
• 55:05
  it's a recruitment wanted, you know, and that was that was
• 55:10
  where I learn. It's more than 50% recruiting,
• 55:13
  it's just more than fits and you have to know what you want and
• 55:17
  then and it changed from that Regional recruiting, right?
• 55:20
  I was at Mankato State these kids right anybody anywhere
• 55:24
  right from from that little region.
• 55:26
  But you go to Stanford and it's, it's it wasn't for us, it wasn't
• 55:29
  International, but it was all around the u.s. and it could be
• 55:32
  anywhere. And, you know, that's the first
• 55:35
  time I will say this, I'm super intense and I'm super, I can
• 55:39
  focus really well and I can go. I have a go button that will go.
• 55:43
  I went 136 days without a day off.
• 55:47
  My husband was in Japan. I didn't have any distraction.
• 55:50
  Yeah. Yeah, my boss could go just as
• 55:53
  hard. We like, and I remember on my
• 55:56
  137th day, I spent the day counting how many days that I
• 55:59
  hadn't had a day off. So that's why I remember it to
• 56:01
  this day. I'm like so when I when people
• 56:03
  are working hard like come on, man.
• 56:05
  That's nothing. You know, I had, I had something
• 56:08
  like forty four weekends of flights, you know?
• 56:10
  So it was it was boom to Boom, you know, and you just have to,
• 56:15
  you have to know what you're getting into, you have to
• 56:17
  completely commit to it, you don't know where it's going to
• 56:19
  take you, but If you're on with, whether you're the boss or
• 56:24
  you're the assistant to the boss, you latch onto that star,
• 56:28
  it can go anywhere, you want it to go and man, we had a great
• 56:30
  time. We accomplish more in that time
• 56:33
  there than I think anybody has done that rapidly during your
• 56:37
  time from their. Did you have Gabe Jennings?
• 56:39
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 56:43
  Oh yeah. I remember Gabe.
• 56:45
  I think it was at a national meet, I think.
• 56:48
  And he just happened to come sit next to me and my Little brother
• 56:51
  and I and you know, to your point about Stanford recruits
• 56:53
  yourself, you know, he had Stanford on his, I was like,
• 56:56
  I'll talk to you guys. You must be a genius and, you
• 56:58
  know, he was, he was one and, you know, you know, him way
• 57:01
  better. This is from one conversation
• 57:02
  and one of the most unique individual, I mean, that not
• 57:04
  positive ways. But one of the most unique
• 57:07
  friendly, I mean, I was, you know, nobody now but I was
• 57:09
  nobody. Then it was a stranger to him.
• 57:11
  And he was just all open about the, but I think because it
• 57:14
  wasn't he from Milwaukee Police from Wisconsin.
• 57:16
  I think he's really a California kid but he is, Dad was In his
• 57:20
  PhD at Wisconsin. Yeah.
• 57:21
  Okay. So he probably told me that, but
• 57:23
  I always remember, do your Wisconsin, can you and all the
• 57:25
  way out to California? I digress.
• 57:27
  I just, he was one of the most unique people I've met in my
• 57:29
  life. I just love that you mentioned
• 57:32
  your ad really and unique. I believe unique situation.
• 57:36
  You're talking about, the Ada would come in every Monday to
• 57:38
  ask. Hey, how's this weekend?
• 57:40
  We recently had Jamie Pollard, the Ed of Iowa State on the
• 57:43
  podcast and now he not only, you know, he was a 5k national champ
• 57:47
  for Oshkosh, I believe Yeah, so he sees a track guy, and of
• 57:52
  course, the sun is real good and has made, you know, USA junior
• 57:55
  teams and stuff. So he's as guys all in it, but I
• 57:58
  was struck by the level of involvement.
• 58:02
  He has for all of his Sports and that he talked about, he gave an
• 58:06
  example of. So it really important to him is
• 58:09
  the used to be called the Sears company was called the Linfield
• 58:13
  or learfield or something. I'm butchering a sponsor.
• 58:15
  I'm so sorry. If any paid all that money, they
• 58:17
  don't know your name, leaffilter, whatever.
• 58:19
  The rankings for nationally, which Stanford always does
• 58:22
  really well. That and then also the Big 12
• 58:24
  all sports cup. And so he talked about, you
• 58:27
  know, so it's so important to him.
• 58:29
  He will talk to a coach before they go.
• 58:31
  So whether it's the wrestling team going into conference, the
• 58:34
  course, the track team, he'll-he'll, d-mail the coach,
• 58:37
  and talk to the coach and be like a, okay?
• 58:38
  So your slaughtered 46. Well, if you get fifth, that
• 58:41
  gives us this many more points, and we'll put, and I was just
• 58:43
  like, wow, like because, you know, you get this stereotype
• 58:46
  and, you know, reading all the media about the ladies,
• 58:48
  especially at Power. A five schools that it's
• 58:51
  football, and basketball, Maybe baseball.
• 58:55
  And then it's they'll no, no, no i.d. air quotes here cares about
• 58:58
  track, no? Edie cares about the tennis team
• 59:00
  Etc. So to have that description,
• 59:03
  talked about your Ed there at Stanford, like every Monday,
• 59:06
  hate to have this. We can go ahead.
• 59:07
  We do like, that's like a special.
• 59:10
  It was super special because it was a, it was a, it was even
• 59:14
  more than just worrying about the end result, it was really a
• 59:16
  care about the people he was in charge.
• 59:19
  And it was really a care about it and you could go on about you
• 59:23
  know track coaches and go out about stats or whatever but but
• 59:26
  tab cared about how we were doing and yeah, Stanford was
• 59:29
  healthy when I was there. It was rolling along.
• 59:31
  It was winning this year's cup of.
• 59:33
  I still call it that too because, but it wasn't the
• 59:37
  pressure. It wasn't the, the, you know,
• 59:39
  evaluation of how it was going. It was a true care about what
• 59:43
  how are you doing? And then how are the young
• 59:45
  people are? He came to preseason camp with
• 59:47
  us, you know? And And ride in the van der in
• 59:50
  the long run, that kind of thing and he didn't.
• 59:52
  It also wasn't just you know his connection with Vinny did it.
• 59:55
  He was just a great leader and for the first, you know I
• 59:58
  remember this is a great story to I remember being in his
• 1:00:00
  office and he showed me a letter that Tiger Woods wrote to
• 1:00:04
  Stanford Athletics when he was 8 years old about how he's going
• 1:00:06
  to be a you know. And I was I was fortunate to be
• 1:00:09
  there stare at my first year at Stanford was Tigers first year
• 1:00:12
  Stanford and oh man I don't wow and Chelsey and Chelsey
• 1:00:17
  Clinton's first year you know I used to have these reoccurring
• 1:00:20
  That she want to be on the track team and she wasn't any good,
• 1:00:22
  but but yeah it was ever whatever event you want to run,
• 1:00:26
  Chelsea, whatever. It was and came to work.
• 1:00:32
  One day could there was traffic backed up everywhere and I'm
• 1:00:34
  like, what are the clintons in town?
• 1:00:36
  I'm like what's going on? And like no Tiger Woods and I'm
• 1:00:38
  like who yeah like he's playing today.
• 1:00:41
  I'm like, then that's funny because that that's a little bit
• 1:00:46
  about a touch for the gulf which I'll give you all, you know,
• 1:00:48
  empathy for that because he was a huge deal in high school.
• 1:00:52
  So it's not like you know this this wasn't the number one
• 1:00:54
  recruit. This was like whatever is above
• 1:00:56
  number one, I mean it was. Yeah.
• 1:00:57
  So he I didn't know he wrote Stanford at eight years old
• 1:00:59
  though. That's Some goal setting there.
• 1:01:02
  Yeah. So yes, my I told with, you
• 1:01:07
  know, a lot, a lot of work and a lot of Of and seeing that Vision
• 1:01:13
  come to life. That's what it was.
• 1:01:15
  Now, we don't talk X's and O's, you know, how to coach distance
• 1:01:18
  Runners, and you've coached everything.
• 1:01:19
  So we don't really talk that. However, I am interested in, you
• 1:01:22
  know, wouldn't typically when we start coaching as an athlete, we
• 1:01:26
  fall back to how we were coached.
• 1:01:27
  So in golly, you were coached by one of the best.
• 1:01:30
  Gary Wilson. Where are you at in your
• 1:01:33
  coaching philosophy and style at this point?
• 1:01:37
  So, you've now had a couple of years.
• 1:01:38
  I love Gary Wilson's, get, get out of the bird's nest.
• 1:01:42
  Go fly, learn other things. So you've had some other
• 1:01:45
  coaches. You now have been arguably one
• 1:01:47
  of the top distance coaches around specifically.
• 1:01:50
  I want to say specifically our college system and our distance
• 1:01:52
  running system, where are you, have you changed your
• 1:01:56
  philosophy? Is it still kind of the the same
• 1:02:00
  as what Gary taught you back in the day?
• 1:02:01
  What we're yet coaching wise education, life coaching
• 1:02:04
  education wise at this point. I've done kind of the, the trial
• 1:02:09
  and error, right? And I've had an opportunity, T
• 1:02:12
  to make mistakes. I used what Wilson did but then
• 1:02:15
  I got to SIU and sadananda new into a totally different.
• 1:02:18
  So I started at that, I didn't say this, but I started going to
• 1:02:21
  clinics, you know, and I was at SIU and see most are going to
• 1:02:24
  Clinic starting to listen to people, starting to, you know,
• 1:02:27
  take all the notes read, all the stuff you can and and talk to
• 1:02:30
  people and all that consuming of things led me to my own thing.
• 1:02:34
  But when I, when I interviewed with vin like I said, he just
• 1:02:37
  flew me out on a whim and I spent probably four days.
• 1:02:40
  One of the things that we did was to Training and he, you
• 1:02:44
  know, to completely my benefit. He really wanted to not have, he
• 1:02:51
  knew how special this was going to be and how special Stanford
• 1:02:55
  kids are. And he needed to have the focus
• 1:02:58
  on one gender and let the other gender be where they need to be
• 1:03:02
  with another person. And he, and I literally matched
• 1:03:06
  up in our philosophies really pretty.
• 1:03:09
  Well, there wasn't a moment we met Met every Monday.
• 1:03:13
  I would prepare my week's worth of training.
• 1:03:15
  We'd go over at his house on Monday mornings have coffee and
• 1:03:18
  talk through the week's training and he would tweak anything.
• 1:03:21
  And and if he liked anything, I came up with you would
• 1:03:24
  incorporate it. We just we did, we did training
• 1:03:27
  together but it was separate so I could coach and he could
• 1:03:30
  coach, and the kids could be 100% bought in.
• 1:03:34
  And we had a nice relationship with the other gender.
• 1:03:36
  We were always together, then it was clearly the boss.
• 1:03:39
  There's no question about it. He made the decisions and Things
• 1:03:42
  like that. But he allowed me to coach and
• 1:03:45
  he had the faith in me to coach. And I learned probably the
• 1:03:49
  biggest thing from Stanford was recovery and rest.
• 1:03:53
  Those kids were, you know, there's, you know, we're all
• 1:03:56
  type a right distance Runners type A Stanford kids at that
• 1:04:00
  time. Maybe they still are not.
• 1:04:02
  I want to speak for JJ but they were AAA.
• 1:04:04
  Yeah, tightly plus right there straight up and rest and
• 1:04:10
  Recovery was something that They came with, you know, the women
• 1:04:15
  were coming with days off or rest and recovery.
• 1:04:18
  So I created a term called the swing day and we it tends to be
• 1:04:23
  on Monday. I still do it to this day from a
• 1:04:25
  zero a day off Zero running up to about 30 minutes.
• 1:04:28
  Easy, kind of the pendulum swing of 02:30.
• 1:04:33
  It's my data to actually have some one-on-ones and talk about
• 1:04:37
  the weekend and, you know, have have a group meeting team
• 1:04:39
  meeting and then take an easy. A, and sometimes it's rest and
• 1:04:44
  sometimes it's a light run and stretch and ice and all the
• 1:04:47
  stuff that you got to do. That was probably the biggest
• 1:04:50
  thing I took away from it. I think the consistency Vin is
• 1:04:55
  an amazing coach and I he can out coach me every day of the
• 1:04:58
  week. There's no question about it,
• 1:04:59
  but he taught consistency to me to like this is the pattern,
• 1:05:05
  stay on the pattern, stay on the pattern.
• 1:05:08
  And and the fact that kids just need to run But yeah, there is
• 1:05:13
  no Quick Fix. You need to run and you need to
• 1:05:15
  run miles so and before we move on to the next step, my
• 1:05:20
  experience has been is much more around his time in Oregon and I
• 1:05:23
  was always impressed and you would mention this for your
• 1:05:25
  style of, you know, while he's the distance coach, I really got
• 1:05:29
  the feeling like he wanted a team.
• 1:05:31
  So he wanted throwers and jumpers and Etc sprinters you'd
• 1:05:35
  mentioned that as well. And your your background shows
• 1:05:38
  it. Go look at your past teams and
• 1:05:40
  there's good distance and jumpers and there's Distance
• 1:05:43
  coaches specifically get pigeonholed and get falsely
• 1:05:48
  blamed a lot of times and maybe what's the what's the opposite
• 1:05:52
  of falsely? Blamed truthfully, blamed of
• 1:05:55
  being only caring about distance, you know, I find it
• 1:05:59
  comical because right now, Northern Arizona is killing it.
• 1:06:02
  They got a great distance program, Mike Smith doing a
• 1:06:05
  great job and I hear people saying, oh yeah, it's all they
• 1:06:07
  care about, they actually win and then the top two or three in
• 1:06:09
  their conference, every they get great throwers jumper.
• 1:06:12
  Like they have a team. So it's a it's a false
• 1:06:14
  perception because there's this stereotype of distance.
• 1:06:18
  Coaches only caring about distance.
• 1:06:19
  If they could put all 18 and all 12.6 in a distance, they would,
• 1:06:23
  and they wouldn't care about that.
• 1:06:25
  They don't care about traveling throwers and Cetera.
• 1:06:28
  Where did that for you? Come from?
• 1:06:32
  Did you have a high school coach that really cared about all was?
• 1:06:34
  It was it Wilson? I could see that but where did
• 1:06:36
  that like hey you know what distance is important because
• 1:06:38
  that's what I do and that's my my specific passion but this is
• 1:06:40
  a track team. And we get to have to default to
• 1:06:43
  the spring semester. So so you know my early days I
• 1:06:49
  was I just Must be in programs that had everything right.
• 1:06:53
  You know, if you look at Minnesota, you look at Simo, you
• 1:06:56
  look at Mankato, you know, we just just had a full track team
• 1:07:00
  to and a distance component, so I could be all in and be that
• 1:07:04
  distance environment, but turn around and I had to track
• 1:07:08
  season. Every everywhere I went, you had
• 1:07:09
  track seasons and you had that environment.
• 1:07:11
  So for me, when I went to Stanford Ben was in a rebuild, a
• 1:07:14
  big rebuild, right? Stanford had been Had not won a
• 1:07:18
  national title and women said they were second with, you know,
• 1:07:21
  very, very few things that happen at that point.
• 1:07:23
  So we turned it around in the first phase was that distant
• 1:07:27
  side of it. My second year that we won the
• 1:07:29
  national championships together, men and women on the same day.
• 1:07:31
  Wow. And that was just my second
• 1:07:33
  year, so we started to build it out, you know, we started to
• 1:07:37
  build it out and we had the, to this day, my favorite athletic
• 1:07:41
  event was the big meet. You know, Cal versus Stanford.
• 1:07:44
  We hadn't won. I don't remember what year.
• 1:07:46
  This was, But we haven't wanted in 25 years on the men, then
• 1:07:51
  stood up and said I will shave my beard dudes.
• 1:07:53
  If you win this thing and, you know, we want it and he did it
• 1:07:56
  and, you know, and I realize how much fun and how many more
• 1:07:59
  persons are involved than just cross country.
• 1:08:02
  And I recognized, how many how many different type of people
• 1:08:07
  are involved in our sport when I, when we expanded in track and
• 1:08:11
  I loved it, I just absolutely loved it.
• 1:08:13
  And my I have to say, I I got some pretty good job offers
• 1:08:19
  while I was there that I didn't pursue, but at the end of the
• 1:08:24
  day, the right job knocked and and I went and I cried my eyes
• 1:08:28
  out because I left too early, I didn't want to leave but the
• 1:08:31
  right job called and the wrong time, but he did it.
• 1:08:36
  And, you know, it was one of those things where, you know, I
• 1:08:40
  just absolutely love what was going on there and, and love the
• 1:08:43
  people, I was working with love, the environment of the people
• 1:08:46
  love the student. Athletes, but I was still at
• 1:08:50
  that age. I still I man, I think I turned
• 1:08:53
  30 when I was at Stanford. I just remember turning 30 and
• 1:08:56
  at time and so I was still young.
• 1:08:57
  And my husband had been in Japan.
• 1:09:00
  For most of the time he come back, he was working as our
• 1:09:03
  strength coach and a pole vault coach at Stanford and you know
• 1:09:08
  we had a good thing going but we're living in a one-bedroom
• 1:09:12
  and paying, you know, 1,600 bucks for it.
• 1:09:15
  At that time. We weren't making a lot of Honey
• 1:09:18
  so life you know life moves on and I turn down a few jobs but
• 1:09:22
  the last one you know, Penn State knocked and we were able
• 1:09:25
  to take that next step and that led me to really formulate what
• 1:09:30
  I wanted. I wanted to be in the Big Ten.
• 1:09:32
  I was a big ten or so that was one thing this way in life I was
• 1:09:36
  starting to go. Okay.
• 1:09:37
  Where's my long-term gig? It's it can't be Stanford.
• 1:09:40
  We can't make a living here. We had one car and the whole
• 1:09:44
  thing middle of the.com boom. And he's Crazy.
• 1:09:48
  So I did start to think, man, I would love to be in the Big Ten
• 1:09:51
  and Penn State was I was a huge, Joe Paterno fan, huge Penn State
• 1:09:57
  and never been there. Well, actually been there one
• 1:09:59
  time and it was just, you know, kind of one of those things.
• 1:10:02
  They called it the right time. It was this for the head
• 1:10:04
  coaching job. It was for the women, for the
• 1:10:07
  women. Wow.
• 1:10:08
  So, I mean, you talk about being 30 and being young, which I
• 1:10:12
  agree with completely, I didn't get to my real, my lifelong
• 1:10:16
  career here, Gil. Until I was 30 and I coach for
• 1:10:18
  10 and then did the poker thing and then came here.
• 1:10:20
  So I love that story of, you know, still working to find what
• 1:10:25
  the goal is for the profession. Even at 30 your you don't have
• 1:10:28
  to have it all figured out at 30, folks.
• 1:10:29
  Don't don't don't. Don't listen to what the pundits
• 1:10:33
  say. You still have a lot of time.
• 1:10:34
  Runway front of you a lot of time.
• 1:10:35
  So so you go to Penn State is the woman's head coach there.
• 1:10:39
  What is this? Another rebuild?
• 1:10:40
  What was the status there when you go there?
• 1:10:42
  Yeah, you know I mean I didn't want to go, I really didn't want
• 1:10:46
  to go. We were we were Were just so hot
• 1:10:48
  at Stanford and it was a dynamic that I just loved and I knew
• 1:10:54
  what it, you know, would continue to be and I wanted to
• 1:10:57
  be a part of it, but Penn State was one of those places.
• 1:11:00
  They offered me the woman's position, head coach track and
• 1:11:04
  field cross-country to full-time assistance.
• 1:11:07
  It was Big Ten. I believed, I again, it it was a
• 1:11:11
  conscious decision for Penn State because it's on the
• 1:11:14
  Eastern Seaboard, it's a big time.
• 1:11:17
  Well, it's the only Big Ten school at the time is the only
• 1:11:19
  Big Ten school out there and you can recruit a track team and
• 1:11:23
  they built a brand new indoor track.
• 1:11:27
  So I was like, man, you know and it was, it was a cross kit, had
• 1:11:32
  great cross-country over the years up and down, but pretty
• 1:11:34
  darn good and not much of a track team but they'd won the
• 1:11:38
  A-10 forever. And then they came into the Big
• 1:11:40
  Ten in 92, I think, or something like that.
• 1:11:43
  Right? Yeah.
• 1:11:44
  And so they had been a 10 champs for Over and over and over.
• 1:11:48
  But when I got there, they were down and out, they recruited me
• 1:11:51
  the ad there. Again, another person that just
• 1:11:54
  made all the difference for me, you still have friends to this
• 1:11:58
  day. Tim Curley, great mentor, a
• 1:12:00
  great person but he he saw in me the fact that I wanted more than
• 1:12:07
  just distance and I wanted to track team and they had just
• 1:12:10
  built this beautiful 15 million dollar indoor.
• 1:12:12
  Track Harry was their hair grows?
• 1:12:16
  He was I could have sworn he was 78 but he's probably 68 of the
• 1:12:21
  time, probably even younger than that.
• 1:12:22
  And I knew Harry a little bit hairy and made a big impact on
• 1:12:26
  me, when I was at Stanford, by just being a fan, just being so
• 1:12:30
  proud of seeing me, pull off a championship and do what we did.
• 1:12:34
  And the next year, we got second by two points at Stanford, I
• 1:12:38
  lost its national championship by two points.
• 1:12:41
  And Harry was the guy that said, you know, I wanted to be you,
• 1:12:44
  but fuck up and don't let them see you cry.
• 1:12:46
  And I'm like, oh my gosh, how do I not cry baby after all, you
• 1:12:51
  know, and, you know, and so it was one of those moments where
• 1:12:56
  it just, it just was the right job.
• 1:12:58
  My husband was able to get in a teaching position as well.
• 1:13:01
  So that made a big difference and I went from a one bedroom
• 1:13:05
  apartment with parking on the street to a house on two acres
• 1:13:10
  of land for less money a month. You know, it's cost of living is
• 1:13:13
  a little different. Yeah.
• 1:13:17
  At this point. What, what year is this when you
• 1:13:19
  go to Penn State? Okay, it's crazy.
• 1:13:23
  I remember 99 like it was yesterday.
• 1:13:25
  So it wasn't that long ago. And you mentioned here, Groves,
• 1:13:29
  Legend, strong personality, lots of success.
• 1:13:34
  I don't know how long at that point had been a Penn State but
• 1:13:36
  I knew he had been at Penn State for a long time.
• 1:13:38
  For his career, what is the state of the woman's head coach
• 1:13:43
  and the head in the men's head coach?
• 1:13:45
  And what I mean by that is Were you really equals or was it
• 1:13:50
  like, oh yeah, you're the women's Coach but here he's
• 1:13:53
  going to set the schedule and the budgets and what not it?
• 1:13:57
  What was the relationship? Not necessarily the
• 1:13:59
  relationship? What was the status of, how at
• 1:14:02
  that time, Penn State looked at women's track and the head coach
• 1:14:06
  of that program? Sure.
• 1:14:08
  So to just digress up to this point, I've had a great run
• 1:14:12
  other than one ad kind of asked me about babies.
• 1:14:14
  I haven't felt any, I haven't felt.
• 1:14:17
  Of this stuff. You know, that's there.
• 1:14:19
  I was young. I was aggressive.
• 1:14:21
  I was going. I had, I laugh.
• 1:14:23
  Because everybody used to say, I was the nice one on the Stanford
• 1:14:26
  track staff. You know, and you know, the
• 1:14:28
  officials in the competitors and things like that, you know, the
• 1:14:32
  competiting coaches, I remember Cal staff was like, you know,
• 1:14:35
  the one we like, you know, this because they because it was
• 1:14:39
  tough, we were tough. You know, it was a tough place
• 1:14:41
  but I was I was having a blast and bringing a lot, you know,
• 1:14:45
  and I got to Penn State and I I didn't think twice about it.
• 1:14:48
  I knew Harry, I liked Harry told me to Buck up.
• 1:14:50
  He's tough like me, you know? I thought okay, would will be
• 1:14:52
  fine. Uh, I've got to rebuild the go
• 1:14:54
  through the women were not very good and so I thought, okay, no
• 1:14:59
  problem. So maybe a month into the job or
• 1:15:01
  so we sit down and start scheduling use of the indoor
• 1:15:05
  facility. No, Gran starting to kind of say
• 1:15:08
  how we're going to have track meets, you know, that kind of
• 1:15:10
  thing. So it's first, you know, they
• 1:15:12
  never had an indoor facility, but they use the football turf
• 1:15:15
  or whatever they were using. So the first thing.
• 1:15:18
  So my staff and Harry staff. We all sit down and and Harry
• 1:15:22
  just takes it. He says, well, first of all,
• 1:15:24
  we're going to practice in the afternoon and you ladies can
• 1:15:26
  practice in the morning and when we have meet you go in the
• 1:15:29
  morning and we'll go in the afternoon and I was like, nope,
• 1:15:32
  Harry this isn't gonna happen and he's like that's it is I
• 1:15:35
  said hey this stuff is that's how you used to be.
• 1:15:37
  We're not doing it that way. And the whole before assistants
• 1:15:42
  were all just like You know, Stan because of the men's
• 1:15:45
  assistants were had been there for a long time.
• 1:15:48
  I kept the throws coach and then I had one other new person but
• 1:15:51
  the for them I remember looking for like support or something
• 1:15:54
  and they were just like, you know, jaw-dropping and no one
• 1:15:57
  had ever told Harry anything, you know.
• 1:15:59
  So I said that's not how we're doing this.
• 1:16:01
  I was hired to have a great track program.
• 1:16:04
  We're going to have great track when we're not going to take the
• 1:16:06
  leftovers here, we're going to work practice at the same time
• 1:16:09
  we're going to, you know, and hairy back down and went With it
• 1:16:14
  and it was amazing. And so that's how we started.
• 1:16:18
  And that was the first day, I remember thinking a whole while
• 1:16:21
  I had to really fight that and and it went my way, I like wow,
• 1:16:26
  it's a big deal. What?
• 1:16:27
  I just did and we did and we and Harry.
• 1:16:29
  And I just had a respect for each other and, you know, he
• 1:16:32
  didn't mess with the dudes and he didn't mess with the ladies
• 1:16:35
  and we did our own thing and and we just went to work and you
• 1:16:40
  know I had set a goal to win a Big Ten title in five Years.
• 1:16:44
  And I was very thankful. I said five because at 3:00 we
• 1:16:48
  were really good and we were s and second the next year you
• 1:16:51
  know, it sounds like it was five years but the end of the day you
• 1:16:56
  know, Harry just Harry Harry. He was that kind of a guy he was
• 1:17:00
  Gruff and and growly but if you pushed him if you held him and
• 1:17:03
  you pushed your own he respected it and that's what we did.
• 1:17:08
  I like that visual. I can imagine the assistance in
• 1:17:11
  there. It's usually the ones that have
• 1:17:12
  been with Harry. So they knew like That was not a
• 1:17:14
  shock, what he did for them and no judgment on Harry, By the way
• 1:17:17
  on this. But I have this vision of the
• 1:17:20
  assistant. Specially the young ones that
• 1:17:21
  are just come in to the program of like, oh, it's like Godzilla
• 1:17:24
  and Mothra. Like oh what's, what's going to
• 1:17:26
  happen to? These are two giants here?
• 1:17:28
  What's going on? I think really the moral of that
• 1:17:30
  story. When I say no judgment to hear
• 1:17:33
  e2coach grows. There is when you pushed back
• 1:17:37
  the rightfully so about, what's right for the program.
• 1:17:40
  He didn't dig his heels in, maybe he did a little bit, you
• 1:17:42
  know, there's nuance, Has to the story but he eventually came to
• 1:17:46
  the right place quickly. Not you know you didn't say a
• 1:17:49
  year later. We finally got what we deserved
• 1:17:51
  and things like that. We had fairness.
• 1:17:52
  It was like, you know what? No one's ever actually told me
• 1:17:55
  that that was fair and she seems to be right.
• 1:17:57
  So maybe I need to change and I think that's one of the hardest
• 1:18:01
  things in the world to do is to say, hey I might be wrong.
• 1:18:03
  Here I need to change here. It's much much easier to say oh
• 1:18:06
  no what I'm doing is right, you're wrong.
• 1:18:08
  So you know really like I said No I say no judgment to coach
• 1:18:11
  Groves. A lot of props.
• 1:18:12
  Yeah, exactly. And I think for young people to
• 1:18:15
  whether male or female, or any situation like that, I didn't
• 1:18:18
  look at it as a male and female situation.
• 1:18:21
  I knew it wasn't fair, I knew it was wrong.
• 1:18:23
  I knew that that was part of the battle from before, with the
• 1:18:26
  former coach, and, and I didn't look at it that way, I carry was
• 1:18:31
  a different era than me. Harry was.
• 1:18:33
  I'm this, I'm this young. You know, I was 31 years old, 32
• 1:18:37
  years old. I'm this young person and I'm
• 1:18:39
  just going to hold my ground, and I'm going to respect him.
• 1:18:41
  And I'm not going to threaten and bushes.
• 1:18:43
  Button. Right.
• 1:18:44
  Right. Fact.
• 1:18:45
  In the process. And in the meantime, it gave the
• 1:18:48
  respect back to me and that and we got along great Perry and I
• 1:18:53
  got along great. So three your career time at
• 1:18:56
  Penn State with a lot of successes you know within five
• 1:18:58
  years one of the Big Ten title which again you know, I think I
• 1:19:01
  think because we see winning all the time.
• 1:19:03
  So you know there's every year from the outside, I see a big 10
• 1:19:06
  Championship back to well, champ and NCAA champ.
• 1:19:09
  I hear Baseball champs to so it seems like winning just oh every
• 1:19:12
  day, someone's winning winning is Hard.
• 1:19:15
  But one of the things that may be new to your career at this
• 1:19:18
  point at Penn State throughout the career is now that you're
• 1:19:21
  the head coach and now that you actually have support not just
• 1:19:25
  gaas. God loved yeas, but full-time
• 1:19:27
  assistance, right now, you have a different component that we
• 1:19:30
  don't always think about as a track coach.
• 1:19:31
  We think about X's and O's on how to coach a long jumper and a
• 1:19:34
  shot putter that seems to be on our mind 24 hours a day 7 days a
• 1:19:38
  week. Sometimes, we don't think about
• 1:19:40
  that. Now you're running a Hesitate to
• 1:19:44
  say a business, but you're running a program where it means
• 1:19:47
  there's assistant, coaches mean, I have to hire assistant
• 1:19:49
  coaches. Sometimes I have to let go
• 1:19:51
  assistant coaches. How was that process?
• 1:19:53
  And you haven't done this to this point that I'm aware of,
• 1:19:55
  how was that learning process of?
• 1:19:56
  Like, I got to interview people and figure out who the best
• 1:19:59
  person for my program is at this point, how did you learn what
• 1:20:02
  any mentors you bounced off of that, or just trial and error,
• 1:20:05
  and how'd you figure that part out?
• 1:20:08
  I mean, that that's really Really what changed the most for
• 1:20:10
  me? My intensity was off the chain.
• 1:20:14
  I I landed in a little cow town, right, you know and I'm coming
• 1:20:17
  from trying to win a National Championship and when The Pact
• 1:20:20
  ends and we did wind up in fact ends and we did all that stuff.
• 1:20:23
  I had three NCAA trophies to my name, you know.
• 1:20:25
  And I was being brought in and introduced as the Stanford
• 1:20:29
  coach. You know, it was a big deal for
• 1:20:30
  Penn State to get me and you know, my the brakes I had to put
• 1:20:35
  on I was just like, whoa, like Harry did not have Have
• 1:20:39
  aspirations for those things. I had kept my throws coach, I
• 1:20:45
  knew her a little bit. She had thrown the jaf for Penn
• 1:20:49
  State and she was, she was great, she's great energy, I
• 1:20:52
  liked her in the interview process so I kept her and then I
• 1:20:55
  hired another young woman that that actually was is still a
• 1:20:59
  Tennessee School record holder. And she had had to choose from
• 1:21:03
  New Jersey. She was like, okay this is the
• 1:21:06
  right person to coach my Sprints and jumps.
• 1:21:09
  And so we bonded. We had, we had a lot of fun,
• 1:21:13
  those first handful of years, but it was, you know, I look
• 1:21:17
  back on it and there's certainly, the big change was
• 1:21:20
  managing people for the first time, not the athletes, but
• 1:21:24
  managing people and professional careers, right?
• 1:21:27
  And knowing that they're very different than me.
• 1:21:29
  And that part was hard, there was just very different
• 1:21:33
  motivations, very different experiences that gotten them to
• 1:21:36
  that point, very different Work ethics.
• 1:21:40
  Very different, just everything. And I never knew anything, but
• 1:21:44
  me and who I would latch onto because I was my choice to latch
• 1:21:48
  onto Vin, you know. So so now I have these hires and
• 1:21:51
  I'm like, oh wow, very different and we're not any good, you
• 1:21:55
  know, we're not any good. The Big Ten, my first outdoor
• 1:22:01
  Big Ten. We had a flight from steak the
• 1:22:04
  men flew separately. They flew separately, we
• 1:22:07
  obviously know chartering or anything like that.
• 1:22:09
  We had a flight, literally, this travel agent booked us to go
• 1:22:12
  from State College, to Bethlehem PA.
• 1:22:15
  It was a 15-minute flights. Hey, what's up and down?
• 1:22:19
  No idea, I didn't know what I got on the plane, right?
• 1:22:22
  And we land in Bethlehem. 12 hours later, we're stuck and I'm
• 1:22:28
  calling and they didn't let you travel an extra day early at
• 1:22:31
  Penn State so I'm calling Sam Bell.
• 1:22:35
  Who's the meet director or not to be directed the meat referee?
• 1:22:39
  And I'm just, I'm the new kid, right?
• 1:22:41
  I've lived through one indoor season and one Crossing and I
• 1:22:43
  said, Sam, we are delayed. We are not getting out the meat
• 1:22:46
  starts tomorrow. I need to you need to see if we
• 1:22:50
  can start late because we're going to reconnect in Chicago
• 1:22:52
  tomorrow. We're going to get there about.
• 1:22:54
  We were probably about four to five hours after the meat was
• 1:22:57
  starting. Oh the hammer, the pole, vault
• 1:23:02
  and the 10K, and I have entries and all those events and I said,
• 1:23:08
  you know, Baba, he said, I will have a, will have a coach's
• 1:23:12
  meeting and we'll take a vote to see what we can do.
• 1:23:15
  And I'm like, but you have to, like, in my perspective, like,
• 1:23:18
  because it was at Iowa, I was at Iowa and so long behold.
• 1:23:25
  They had a meeting the next morning before we're boarding
• 1:23:28
  in, I get this phone call from Sam and he says didn't pass,
• 1:23:33
  we're starting to meet without you, but we're going to let you
• 1:23:35
  catch up when you get here. I was like what do you mean
• 1:23:38
  catch up? And he's like well The Maltese
• 1:23:39
  can do the other events and catch into, you know, like doing
• 1:23:42
  back to back and then jump into wherever it is Hammer.
• 1:23:44
  Thrower probably can have three throws and see if they would
• 1:23:47
  have made the file. I was like, are you kidding me?
• 1:23:50
  And he said, young lady. Don't give me that piss and
• 1:23:54
  vinegar. It isn't going to help anybody.
• 1:23:56
  You did say this with Sam Bell, right Sam?
• 1:23:58
  Yeah. Respect the crap out of him.
• 1:24:01
  But man, I was like, are you kidding?
• 1:24:03
  So right then, and there my, my, my heart was like, I'm going to
• 1:24:08
  crush Body in this conference. And I, because they voted
• 1:24:11
  against it. That's right.
• 1:24:14
  So at the end of the day, that's how Edith Ann and and you have
• 1:24:18
  to, you have to at that point I had not had anybody that didn't
• 1:24:22
  like and I got the Big Ten and I had people voting to start a
• 1:24:27
  meat without me like, what's going on?
• 1:24:30
  And it was and we were terrible. I'm like I'm not even a threat
• 1:24:33
  to anybody end of the day. That's how it started.
• 1:24:36
  And I learned rapidly and quickly that you become a
• 1:24:39
  threat. And you lose, you lose you, you
• 1:24:43
  become different, you become different, and you're seeing
• 1:24:45
  differently. And, you know, I think my first
• 1:24:49
  five years at Penn State, I learned a lot of how I'm
• 1:24:53
  perceived versus never thought about how I was perceived
• 1:24:57
  before. Yeah, I learned a lot about how
• 1:25:00
  to publicly be acceptable and changing my tone.
• 1:25:07
  When I needed to get my glasses, they're did great with me.
• 1:25:11
  Yeah, that's an interesting insight there because I think
• 1:25:15
  about, you know, one of the the great things about track as a
• 1:25:18
  profession for coaching versus maybe football and baseball.
• 1:25:21
  And I'm guessing a little bit since I haven't been a football
• 1:25:23
  on a baseball coach, on that level, but I was always amazed
• 1:25:27
  during my time as a college coach at how open coaches are
• 1:25:31
  meaning, you know, you call a coach and pay.
• 1:25:33
  I got this question about how to coach a tuna meter.
• 1:25:35
  Runner, the majority of people will respond or help out my
• 1:25:40
  experience with that, as with boo schexnayder, which later
• 1:25:42
  would answer any email and I'm timeout.
• 1:25:46
  They're not yes or sure you're doing the right thing, you know,
• 1:25:50
  like it would give her a Lancers but it's interest.
• 1:25:53
  When you talk about what you kind of describe there was self
• 1:25:56
  awareness of how you're perceived by others.
• 1:25:58
  Like I hear Jocelyn times have a young coach and they're like,
• 1:26:01
  yeah, you know, who I'd really love to pick the brain of, you
• 1:26:03
  know, Mouse Holloway and I'm like, oh yeah, you know, great
• 1:26:06
  dude. Known forever.
• 1:26:07
  Like will talk to anybody. He's just a great guy and I
• 1:26:10
  thought I could never, that's like well, you know don't during
• 1:26:14
  the meet, maybe that's a bad. Idea that's like but certainly
• 1:26:18
  drop them emails. It's like I almost guarantee
• 1:26:20
  unless he's busy as I. Like I've never seen that guy.
• 1:26:22
  Not talk to people and that's been my experience with people
• 1:26:24
  like you and Vinland and Etc. But sometimes and I honestly
• 1:26:29
  think a lot of it comes from a place of humbleness of true
• 1:26:32
  humbleness. Like there was a story the other
• 1:26:35
  day with the Athletics, LLC group.
• 1:26:37
  And someone said, I they took a picture of the back of Mouse's
• 1:26:40
  head. That's why I used him as an
• 1:26:41
  example and they sent it to Marissa chew.
• 1:26:43
  Now at TCU, it was like, oh my God, they're here.
• 1:26:46
  Is like they wouldn't go up and talk to them but they like, oh
• 1:26:49
  look I could I get a picture of the back of his head and it's
• 1:26:50
  like in math and mouse was you know, just file.
• 1:26:53
  He was like, what does that sound like?
• 1:26:54
  Just like come say hi. Like what do you mean?
• 1:26:55
  Take the picture of, you know? And that's why I think this like
• 1:26:59
  humbleness of like, well, you know, I really am no different
• 1:27:02
  person. I may be the coach at Penn State
• 1:27:04
  or Florida or Stanford. It maybe I want some titles, you
• 1:27:07
  know, from doing my job and doing it, right?
• 1:27:09
  But you know, I'm still human, I'm still a person.
• 1:27:11
  I'm still a 50 year old man or a 46 year old woman.
• 1:27:14
  I'm just living my life at this time.
• 1:27:16
  Please be my profession. So, I like that understood that
• 1:27:18
  kind of that self-awareness like, oh, okay, maybe because
• 1:27:22
  I'm female maybe because I'm successful maybe because it's
• 1:27:24
  the combination of there's people that look at me, they're
• 1:27:28
  making judgment calls. They don't know me if they knew
• 1:27:30
  you would be 100% different, but they see me from the outside in
• 1:27:34
  automatically think, oh, well, to be a female who's successful
• 1:27:37
  in the Big Ten. She must be hard to talk to or
• 1:27:40
  tough or, you know, dismissive of others and it's like, hmm.
• 1:27:45
  That's not really the He's got to get to know him, you know?
• 1:27:48
  So I like that kind of self aware.
• 1:27:49
  I think it's really important as we from the beginning.
• 1:27:52
  When we're 25 year old coaches up to 65 year old coaches, have
• 1:27:54
  that self awareness of how others perceive us as well.
• 1:27:59
  Yeah, and it's a tough thing. It's a tough thing.
• 1:28:02
  You know, in one environment it was so well supported in another
• 1:28:07
  environment. It is seen as a threat.
• 1:28:09
  Hmm. Yeah, I had to really learn that
• 1:28:13
  quickly. Yeah, I remember.
• 1:28:16
  My team at Penn State to and first two examples in my first
• 1:28:20
  year, one was a discus thrower, and she was pretty good.
• 1:28:25
  She was a, she was in her sophomore year and she made the
• 1:28:27
  junior team that year before and her name, her name was, is desha
• 1:28:32
  a Williams. And she finally came in, maybe
• 1:28:35
  somewhere. I don't know somewhere along the
• 1:28:37
  line first year and she said, coach Sullivan, you make me
• 1:28:39
  nervous and I said why she said, will you show up at my practices
• 1:28:44
  and you look so intense. And this is the kid that picked
• 1:28:48
  a school that was no good, you know?
• 1:28:49
  So she wasn't looking for this, right?
• 1:28:52
  And she said, you just look so intense.
• 1:28:54
  And you look so upset all the time and I said, I am because
• 1:28:57
  we're not very good and she's like, I know but it stresses me
• 1:29:00
  out and I when you show up at just causes me all this stress
• 1:29:04
  and I can't really focus on what I'm trying to learn and do that
• 1:29:08
  day. And and I thought wow what a
• 1:29:11
  great thing that this young person just just gave to me
• 1:29:15
  because As I was able to change my face, you know, and chain,
• 1:29:19
  you know. Yes I am walking around every
• 1:29:22
  day going. Oh my God.
• 1:29:22
  We got to get there. Oh my God.
• 1:29:24
  And and she gave that feedback to me and in such a great way.
• 1:29:29
  I owe it to her forever from from that moment on, I'm not
• 1:29:31
  always been able to change my face.
• 1:29:33
  But she she made me aware and she went on to be our next First
• 1:29:36
  National Champion for Penn State.
• 1:29:38
  And, you know, it was quite a, quite a journey.
• 1:29:41
  And, and I remember learning that and thinking I got, I'll
• 1:29:45
  send them in this visible. Spot.
• 1:29:46
  That people are expecting me to be away.
• 1:29:50
  That was probably the biggest heart, they were experiment 11
• 1:29:54
  percent a year, we always red-faced.
• 1:29:56
  I'm like, I'm pink. I'm always pink.
• 1:29:59
  You know, it's not a red face, it's pink.
• 1:30:01
  I'm you know, but I'm intense and the intensity was more than
• 1:30:04
  anybody was used to there. And the second was in my first
• 1:30:08
  year, we were at an airport and I was in the in the stall and I
• 1:30:13
  heard some of my team come in. And one of them is like, yeah,
• 1:30:17
  coach Sullivan, man. She's just so intense.
• 1:30:20
  Like, what's the problem? You know, we just need to do
• 1:30:22
  track because she's so intense and I was like, yeah, I gotta
• 1:30:26
  get my people in here, you know, we got to get recruiting because
• 1:30:29
  because that that is that's what it's going to take for us to
• 1:30:32
  win. And I did, I really felt my I
• 1:30:34
  was 15 years at Penn State and I felt like the majority of that
• 1:30:37
  time. I brought the intensity that
• 1:30:39
  program and I brought the drive to that program.
• 1:30:42
  And when I became aware of those things that it just wasn't Like
• 1:30:45
  it was at Stanford, you know, I knew what I was doing and then I
• 1:30:49
  had to be careful in how people interpreted it, and I had some
• 1:30:54
  great adventures are, I mean, Tim Curley, my SWA was a woman
• 1:30:57
  named Ellen Perry, and she was such a great mentor for me.
• 1:31:01
  Harry was as well, you know, just getting through it and when
• 1:31:04
  Harry, you know, Harry announced his retirement the year before
• 1:31:09
  he did it. My boss brought me in, we had a
• 1:31:11
  conversation, he said I'm not going public with it, I'm just
• 1:31:14
  going to announce you You and we're going to do this thing.
• 1:31:17
  And so I knew from most of that, that year, his last year, that I
• 1:31:20
  had the job in Harry, didn't, and it was, it was a great
• 1:31:24
  Harry. When he heard it, he got on
• 1:31:27
  board and never ever had an issue with it.
• 1:31:31
  He I had, I inherited 80 guys, and only had one guy leave.
• 1:31:36
  That's hot. Harry stayed on board with it.
• 1:31:38
  I want to give a quick shout-out.
• 1:31:39
  Tell me the young lady's name. Again was a dish.
• 1:31:41
  A dish on the, the seye. I thought there were To a picked
• 1:31:46
  up onto amazing positive things there, one that she could have
• 1:31:50
  the ability to speak, truth to power.
• 1:31:52
  I mean, you're the head coach. She easily could be like I'm not
• 1:31:54
  saying anything to her, first of all, she's already intimidated.
• 1:31:55
  So it's like nothing good can come from this, but she had the
• 1:32:00
  maturity to say it and to say it respectfully.
• 1:32:02
  There's a right way and a wrong way to say that by the way.
• 1:32:06
  But also kudos to you on that Beth because again, not easy to
• 1:32:10
  be able to say, oh, oh, okay. Maybe I'm not focusing on how
• 1:32:15
  I'm being I'm perceived to my athletes and that's that could
• 1:32:17
  be wrong. It's affecting them negatively.
• 1:32:19
  Maybe I do need to change their. You could have easily been like,
• 1:32:21
  Hey look, it's this is who I am. I'm 30-something this point.
• 1:32:26
  I'm not changing my face, so I like that again.
• 1:32:29
  There's just two Kudos, there's like, wow, what maturity from
• 1:32:31
  her. And then again, what maturity
• 1:32:32
  from you to be able to say, oh wow, I'm affecting my kids
• 1:32:35
  negatively. That's not good.
• 1:32:36
  That's not gonna help me out, you know, it's and I've had,
• 1:32:40
  I've had to struggle with it because my intensity is, is
• 1:32:43
  bigger than most people's. And my face show, I don't have a
• 1:32:47
  very good game face and so I have to work on it.
• 1:32:50
  I've had, I've had others say, I'm just, you know, mean and
• 1:32:53
  aggressive. And I'm like, I'm not, but I can
• 1:32:55
  see why you think it because you didn't do well and you're seeing
• 1:33:01
  my face. So if I fall, you know it.
• 1:33:03
  So it's those things happen not to belittle or take down.
• 1:33:09
  Anybody who's the head coach of a single-sex program.
• 1:33:12
  For the head coach of just a women's program.
• 1:33:13
  That is amazing. That's it.
• 1:33:15
  A ton of work. If you're the head coach of just
• 1:33:17
  a men's program ton of work, but there is something about being
• 1:33:20
  the head coach of men and women together.
• 1:33:23
  It's a lot more athletes, more staff, which just means more
• 1:33:28
  scheduling more, budgeting more Logistics, etcetera.
• 1:33:31
  So what's it, like you? I don't want to say that you had
• 1:33:35
  a year to prepare because no one knew about it.
• 1:33:37
  So it's not like you could be, do really doing anything here.
• 1:33:39
  He didn't even know I did that. That was news to me, like, well,
• 1:33:41
  I was like, Whoa, man. But now you're in the the
• 1:33:43
  quote-unquote big chair. Your We're seeing men and women.
• 1:33:47
  What's it like? I mean, I have to imagine no one
• 1:33:49
  you well enough. That it was like oh I'm ready
• 1:33:52
  for the challenge. Let's go.
• 1:33:55
  But was there any not hesitation?
• 1:33:57
  But again I go back to that intimidation word.
• 1:33:59
  What was it like of? Like, okay I got them all.
• 1:34:01
  Let's go. Yeah so it was it was
• 1:34:05
  interesting. I didn't think twice about it.
• 1:34:09
  That's what I wanted to do. Harry was Harry was retiring.
• 1:34:12
  It was time for change. It was time to combine the
• 1:34:14
  program. Mass respect from my boss
• 1:34:17
  letting Harry go out in his terms and change it before then.
• 1:34:22
  But, you know, it was, it was, it was a challenge.
• 1:34:25
  I, you know, did let some people go and rehire and hire some
• 1:34:29
  people get the staff I needed. Luckily, the women had had kind
• 1:34:34
  of arrived, we'd won, and I think we won pretty quickly.
• 1:34:39
  After that, I hired, you know, just the, the best one of them.
• 1:34:44
  I don't know. I've had some phenomenal.
• 1:34:45
  It coaches since that time. But I hired Chris Johnson who's
• 1:34:49
  now at Arkansas and it was his first coaching gig and Chris.
• 1:34:53
  Chris was with me for nine years.
• 1:34:56
  Yeah, nine years, maybe eight years, can't remember exactly
• 1:34:59
  but we you know I just hired him at the right time and we got
• 1:35:03
  that women's side going and it was up and rolling and my throws
• 1:35:07
  coach has stayed with me shortly after we combined my throws
• 1:35:12
  coach said this was more than I did off, you know to come in.
• 1:35:15
  To coaching and interested moved out.
• 1:35:17
  She got married and moved on with her life but still at Penn
• 1:35:19
  State. But yeah, it was, it was just
• 1:35:23
  kind of a take it and run with it.
• 1:35:24
  Let's make it great. The men were not super
• 1:35:27
  successful but not super terrible.
• 1:35:29
  There was a lot of Talent on the team.
• 1:35:31
  I had two great things that happen at the time.
• 1:35:33
  I didn't know his great as it is in this story.
• 1:35:36
  Today, our very first signee on the men was in November of that
• 1:35:40
  first year and it was Joe Kovacs.
• 1:35:45
  Wow, it was one of the great was one of the greatest recruiting
• 1:35:49
  exciting processes to get him but also to know now who he is.
• 1:35:54
  It was phenomenal. That's a story in itself.
• 1:35:57
  Jose Joseph story himself, and his and that spring we signed
• 1:36:01
  his best buddy. Blake, Blake eaten.
• 1:36:06
  I have a Blakey that's why there was two with yeah on Earth.
• 1:36:09
  And you know it was just too great signees and Dana wasn't
• 1:36:13
  woman and I was a woman and we just We crushed it with these
• 1:36:16
  two died, two dudes, and it was awesome, but the second thing
• 1:36:20
  was the men's cross country team had not been to the national
• 1:36:23
  championship in 19 years, Harry's last 19 years, they had
• 1:36:26
  made it. So, I was like, let's get this
• 1:36:29
  team to Nationals. I had a great volunteer coach at
• 1:36:33
  ran for Harry and is now the high school coach in State
• 1:36:35
  College and just wins everything.
• 1:36:38
  But he volunteered with me and knew the guys and could run with
• 1:36:41
  the guys. And man, we went to town A great
• 1:36:46
  volunteer coach, she's now an FBI agent Kim McGreevy who ran
• 1:36:48
  professionally for the Wild and stayed on.
• 1:36:51
  We just had a great situation going but she we that was my
• 1:36:56
  goal. I want to get this medicine in
• 1:36:58
  my second year. We got him there.
• 1:37:00
  So it was really super fun because everybody on the team
• 1:37:03
  had an Irish name so it was really a cool theme in the midst
• 1:37:07
  of it and they were Harry's guys.
• 1:37:09
  You know they were there was no freshman on the team.
• 1:37:11
  Well that's not true. I had one freshman on the team
• 1:37:13
  but it was it was one of those moments where it's like, okay,
• 1:37:16
  like these are the things that turn the turn, the doubt, you
• 1:37:20
  know, move the dial quickly for success and that's what I have
• 1:37:25
  picked. I picked a few things, like,
• 1:37:26
  let's get some high-profile guys.
• 1:37:29
  In events, we we are traditionally good at a tenant
• 1:37:33
  at Penn State, sorry. And then, let's get this
• 1:37:36
  cross-country thing going. So the alumni can respect it.
• 1:37:40
  Great alumni, just great alumni at Penn State.
• 1:37:43
  Greg, Frederick's was in town. I'm still in town.
• 1:37:46
  Backed me up, you know he's the he's got to beat Prefontaine,
• 1:37:49
  you know? Oh okay nominal dude, backs me
• 1:37:53
  up and many others did too and it just works, you know, just
• 1:37:57
  worked and we were able to make that transition without without
• 1:38:00
  really any trouble and then eventually hired all the right
• 1:38:03
  people. Yeah.
• 1:38:04
  That's what I was going to Pivot to because we've talked a lot
• 1:38:06
  about recruiting and in and that's the part of the lifeblood
• 1:38:10
  of coaching, but you mentioned hiring someone like Chris
• 1:38:14
  Johnson, you know, it is First year and you have in both staffs
• 1:38:19
  throughout your time at Penn State and your time at
• 1:38:22
  University of Tennessee, hired me, just phenomenal, coaches,
• 1:38:26
  what was it? And, you know, Chris Johnson.
• 1:38:27
  Now the head coach in waiting at Arkansas, he's pretty good.
• 1:38:30
  I think he had a decent little quarter quarter hurdler, this
• 1:38:32
  year plus a whole bunch of others.
• 1:38:36
  So there's Talent identification for recruiting not necessarily
• 1:38:40
  specifically to Chris since you talked to them being his first
• 1:38:43
  job. But in that vein, Of talent
• 1:38:46
  identification of coaches. What do you look for?
• 1:38:49
  As a head coach, who has looked over hundreds of resumes,
• 1:38:53
  hundreds of interviews of other male, female, throws, coached
• 1:38:57
  other distance, coaches, Etc. What do you look for when you're
• 1:39:01
  hiring? What's, there's an assistant
• 1:39:03
  coach out there right now that just, you know, I want to go
• 1:39:06
  from, I'll use my alma, mater, Troy University to Mississippi
• 1:39:09
  State. What what, what Duke head
• 1:39:11
  coaches look for? What do I got to do besides?
• 1:39:13
  Because I think it's table Stakes, you gotta be.
• 1:39:15
  The coach, let's just put that on the side.
• 1:39:16
  I think you have to that. What do you as a successful
• 1:39:19
  director of track and field? Who's hired many, many, great
• 1:39:21
  people? What do you look for?
• 1:39:22
  What's your, what's your talent identification for assistant
• 1:39:25
  coaches? Well, I have had a lot of
• 1:39:28
  assistant coaches, and I'm a lot of coaches that it hasn't worked
• 1:39:32
  that well with, and I made some mistakes at Penn State
• 1:39:34
  especially there and you live through those.
• 1:39:37
  But I think eventually I needed people that understood just
• 1:39:43
  like, just like Vincent me down and said I have a vision What I
• 1:39:45
  want. That's what I that's the first
• 1:39:48
  thing. Like, can you see what I'm
• 1:39:49
  seeing? Like, do you want this too?
• 1:39:53
  So I think, I think it's a combination of people that match
• 1:39:57
  me that can trigger that I can trust and that they can trust me
• 1:40:02
  and they match my intensity, don't have to agree with me,
• 1:40:05
  never never have, I had 100% ingredients but that that match
• 1:40:11
  me doesn't have to be the flash in the pan.
• 1:40:13
  Although I've had a lot of coaches with huge amount of
• 1:40:15
  success. Yes.
• 1:40:15
  But they have to match me. Made a couple mistakes and they
• 1:40:19
  and literally the mistakes I made.
• 1:40:21
  My husband said, don't hire that person and I did, you know, and
• 1:40:24
  so I think people that know you, well, you should get there
• 1:40:29
  inside whether that's your assistant coaches, whether
• 1:40:31
  that's your boss or your spouse, I think get them involved
• 1:40:34
  because ultimately they're going to be people that can read it a
• 1:40:38
  little differently than you are reading it, but they have to
• 1:40:42
  match you. They just have to match you.
• 1:40:45
  I moved to Tennessee from Penn State.
• 1:40:48
  I had to asked every single assistant coach I hire here.
• 1:40:52
  Can you work for me? Because it's, it's a different
• 1:40:55
  Target than just a sec. My target became the Tennessee
• 1:41:00
  team became Tennessee. Target to me when I got here,
• 1:41:04
  because I was the first and I was different and trust me.
• 1:41:09
  You think you can, but you're going to get asked a lot about
• 1:41:12
  me and so, can you can you do it?
• 1:41:16
  So those are the kinds of things that it really shifted through
• 1:41:19
  my time from from starting young at Penn State taking on the
• 1:41:23
  women's and just wanting to win the SEC or the Big Ten title,
• 1:41:27
  you know, having all the slogans of Big Ten time and all that
• 1:41:30
  stuff. Getting it going, and having the
• 1:41:31
  rah-rah getting the kids all that to.
• 1:41:34
  Wow. I'm managing, you know, five
• 1:41:37
  assistants volunteer. Which is husband was, you know,
• 1:41:41
  started volunteering with me at Stanford and then has ever since
• 1:41:45
  trainers, you know, all the others peripherals that came on
• 1:41:49
  board, right? That academic centers come into
• 1:41:51
  play now, the, you know, nutritionist start to come into
• 1:41:54
  play. Now, you know, it's all 2000 and
• 1:41:57
  all these new positions that have impact and, and currently
• 1:42:01
  This Moment In Time, the most impact on your, on your
• 1:42:05
  environment as a team that I've ever seen before.
• 1:42:09
  But at that time, those things were all new.
• 1:42:10
  So I had to have relationships with academics.
• 1:42:13
  I had to have, you know, not the teachers, but the academic
• 1:42:16
  service center and their Ambitions and their goals, the
• 1:42:19
  trainers and how they impact, you know, your kids, and I'm
• 1:42:24
  hiring my own trainers. So, picking the right people for
• 1:42:28
  that. You know, it becomes a much more
• 1:42:30
  management skill that I was not perfect at, and still, you know,
• 1:42:35
  claim to not be perfect. I don't know if anybody can be
• 1:42:38
  every head. Each has their stories but I
• 1:42:42
  enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it.
• 1:42:44
  So we're doing a lot of Mythbusters today.
• 1:42:46
  So I'm gonna throw another mythbuster at you.
• 1:42:49
  There's this myth and we've busted it.
• 1:42:51
  Go back and listen to my curb from Indiana University.
• 1:42:54
  An amazing story of how he got the University of Illinois,
• 1:42:57
  assistance job. He did not know Tanja.
• 1:42:59
  Who was the head coach at that point at all, but there's this
• 1:43:01
  myth that it's who, you know, and sometimes people stop it
• 1:43:05
  right there. Period Point Blank, it's all
• 1:43:07
  about who, you know, Have maybe not have you.
• 1:43:11
  What is your philosophy around? Have you ever?
• 1:43:12
  Yeah, I'll ask at the blunt way. Then you can make it much nicer.
• 1:43:15
  But have you ever hired a stranger?
• 1:43:18
  Meaning are all your hires. People like, oh yeah.
• 1:43:20
  I knew them because they were a former athlete or they were on
• 1:43:24
  the staff of Ben and I trust Ben, was there ever like I got a
• 1:43:27
  resume and said, okay, I may have seen this person but I
• 1:43:30
  don't know them. This looks interesting.
• 1:43:32
  Let me bring them in, I don't know.
• 1:43:35
  I think I've mostly gone off of recommendation of people.
• 1:43:39
  There was there was one Higher that I got a recommendation.
• 1:43:42
  So I followed up, but I didn't know him.
• 1:43:44
  And I did hire him. He was he was good in his way,
• 1:43:48
  but that's a stranger then, so it's not someone you knew as a
• 1:43:51
  recommendation. So there is a connection there,
• 1:43:53
  but you didn't necessarily know the person.
• 1:43:56
  Yeah. Okay.
• 1:43:57
  Chris, I had talked to Chris's brother a year before bogeyed it
• 1:44:01
  didn't work out. Then I talked to Chris but
• 1:44:05
  Lonnie was at Arkansas and Chris was I think of Volunteer there
• 1:44:09
  for a semester or two or something like that.
• 1:44:12
  So got to know him through them but but yeah, no, I think I've
• 1:44:16
  kind of always known people. There's a few people that I
• 1:44:20
  tried to hire that I ended up hiring here that I tried to hire
• 1:44:24
  Penn State, but didn't didn't work, there was like with Chris
• 1:44:28
  Johnson. One thing that really sold me
• 1:44:30
  was his wife. I remember being at the NCAA
• 1:44:33
  championships at Arkansas and Gigi Miller was her name.
• 1:44:37
  She was Triple jumper for our Stop and I watched this this
• 1:44:41
  athlete on the runway, command the whole entire track, and go
• 1:44:44
  and win the national championship at that.
• 1:44:46
  Wow, what a rockstar woman. This is and I think she anchored
• 1:44:49
  therefore by for whatever and I thought that I'd just a spark in
• 1:44:53
  this woman when I interviewed Chris, he said, well, I'm
• 1:44:55
  engaged and I said, oh, who you marrying said?
• 1:44:57
  GG Miller. I'm like you got a job like
• 1:45:00
  you're going to bring her, you know.
• 1:45:01
  So I was more enamored with GT than anything.
• 1:45:04
  She was came a world-class have tacitly, you know?
• 1:45:06
  So, and Chris was her coach. And, you know, so we had we just
• 1:45:11
  had a great connection all the way through, but I'm trying to
• 1:45:14
  think of if I didn't know anybody in a high that I didn't
• 1:45:18
  really know coach kahndaq when I hired him.
• 1:45:21
  And now he's, you know, the director at Penn State has done
• 1:45:23
  a great job. But when I got to Tennessee, I
• 1:45:28
  hired people. I knew it was critical for me.
• 1:45:31
  So real quick, let me do pause with you Beth here.
• 1:45:33
  We're getting close to our schedule time.
• 1:45:34
  Are you okay with that? I was being respectful.
• 1:45:36
  You, you good or deed? Do we do it?
• 1:45:38
  We can To New Orleans. We don't need to wrap up at this
• 1:45:40
  point. No, I'm good.
• 1:45:42
  I'm TimeWise. I'm good.
• 1:45:43
  Okay good, perfect. So great.
• 1:45:46
  Transition here. You know, you're doing an
• 1:45:49
  amazing job at Penn State. I still remember either at the
• 1:45:53
  08 or 12. It was Olympic trials.
• 1:45:56
  I saw you in the, we were at the coaches area, or whatever, and I
• 1:46:01
  didn't really know you all that well, but I went up in the kind
• 1:46:02
  of reduce myself. I was like, hey, you know,
• 1:46:04
  that's something. I'm just so impressed with,
• 1:46:06
  like, you've kept a staff together like that just doesn't
• 1:46:08
  happen. Everybody's moving and I think
• 1:46:10
  at that point, one of your coaches would art was already
• 1:46:12
  leaving because I remember you tell me the story afterwards.
• 1:46:14
  You're like yeah in my head I was like oh man this guy the
• 1:46:17
  where we got one leave n and then this get and then like
• 1:46:19
  within a year you know other guys and gals had moved on and I
• 1:46:22
  was like I think I cursed her. I was like, man.
• 1:46:23
  I was telling her how impressed I was and then it's a complete
• 1:46:26
  different change. But you're being very, you're
• 1:46:28
  very successful, Penn State, you know, kids are going to
• 1:46:31
  Nationals Big Ten titles. It's just a great culture.
• 1:46:35
  They're certainly people from the outside are looking at what
• 1:46:38
  you're doing. They're at Penn State.
• 1:46:39
  This isn't just another Big Ten program.
• 1:46:42
  This is like, you want to do some things, right?
• 1:46:44
  Go look at what they're doing. Why move on.
• 1:46:47
  Why go to Tennessee? Now, me, I'm a sec homer.
• 1:46:51
  So, to me, it makes all the sense in the world because I
• 1:46:53
  grew up in the South. So it's like, man, you know, you
• 1:46:56
  know, those guys that get criticized because they say the
• 1:46:58
  SEC is the best at no matter what sport like tennis.
• 1:47:01
  Yeah, that's why we must have like all the national titles
• 1:47:04
  that SEC football, of course, the of course, there's two teams
• 1:47:07
  in the National playoffs. It It should be all for to be
• 1:47:10
  real Frank with you, if it's SEC, right?
• 1:47:11
  Why for you? What was the was there a
• 1:47:14
  challenge? Was it just time?
• 1:47:16
  You know, sometimes it's, you know, we just need to change it
• 1:47:18
  at a point, our career, what was the reason of starting to look
• 1:47:20
  elsewhere and then landing at Tennessee?
• 1:47:22
  Well, I tell you in 2010, my husband and I said, let's make
• 1:47:27
  some decisions. And in our decision was stay at
• 1:47:30
  Penn State, we went and bought a great house on 5 acres of land,
• 1:47:35
  loved it. And it was it was what we wanted
• 1:47:38
  to do. since ourselves kronole The drama hit the Penn State
• 1:47:45
  drama hit. Yeah, sure. 11 and 12 and you
• 1:47:49
  know, the fall of 2011 and then into 12 and quite frankly, you
• 1:47:54
  know, I don't get into any opinion on it.
• 1:47:58
  I don't have those conversations anymore but from being a head
• 1:48:02
  coach that was extremely successful and having a having,
• 1:48:06
  you know, the goal in the Big Ten is the Big Ten.
• 1:48:09
  We had stretched Beyond and gotten two trophies at the
• 1:48:11
  national championships. At that time, I don't know the
• 1:48:15
  stats anymore with the Big Ten but that time, Michigan women
• 1:48:18
  had done it. Now we've done it, you know?
• 1:48:20
  And that was it. I think those are the four
• 1:48:22
  trophies in track for women in. I don't know if the men even had
• 1:48:26
  that many in the current ERA. So we, you know, we were dead
• 1:48:31
  set on staying dead. Set in love, we felt, we had the
• 1:48:33
  Camelot years, there was a wonderful place and it changed
• 1:48:38
  instantly. It's still hard to talk about
• 1:48:42
  because it just changed so much. So it's time we lived, we lived
• 1:48:47
  it, we're stuck, you know, we stuck in we were Troopers, um,
• 1:48:51
  but when you get, you know, that was kind of the fall of 11 all
• 1:48:55
  of 12, it consumed Us in 12, you get to the other side of it.
• 1:48:59
  And in 14, we won the women's indoor, the women's outdoor big
• 1:49:06
  tent. And my dad said, man, we watched
• 1:49:10
  you on TV, we watched a win and you just didn't have the same
• 1:49:14
  reaction. Action.
• 1:49:15
  And this is your dad is my dad. I mean, who knows?
• 1:49:18
  You better than Dad. Nobody knows me better with this
• 1:49:20
  mic night. Wow, men were really good.
• 1:49:24
  We went on to Nationals had a good year but I was like, you
• 1:49:27
  know, it's not the same. I wasn't winning for the people.
• 1:49:33
  I came to win for and we hadn't quite honestly.
• 1:49:37
  So much drama that ran. So deep, they really weren't
• 1:49:41
  able to take care of us very well as coaches.
• 1:49:44
  I was Draw, I was tired. I was tired of Defending Penn
• 1:49:48
  State a place that I, you know, was bleeding blue.
• 1:49:52
  So it was, you know, it was just kind of that.
• 1:49:55
  And I remember saying to Jim after that, like, huh and then
• 1:49:59
  lo and behold, you know, I don't know if she saw the same track
• 1:50:03
  meet or some I interview or what or had the same Instinct but
• 1:50:05
  Tennessee called me and Donna Thomas was the senior woman
• 1:50:08
  administrator and so she'd had a d and she called and and
• 1:50:13
  literally You know, is a funny conversation.
• 1:50:17
  I had stopped answering my office phone because you're on
• 1:50:21
  cell phone all the time. Oh yeah.
• 1:50:22
  So I never was answering my office phone and it was it was
• 1:50:26
  June and my phone rang and I answered it and it was bizarre.
• 1:50:29
  I was even like I pick up my phone.
• 1:50:31
  Yeah. She's like, I'm calling from the
• 1:50:34
  University of Tennessee. Want to know if you have any
• 1:50:35
  interest in our position, and I was like For who like she will I
• 1:50:40
  was assuming she was asking me for reference you know for
• 1:50:43
  someone else and that's funny. Yeah it was it was a powerful
• 1:50:48
  moment because I realized when I got done with phone call how I
• 1:50:52
  hadn't been looked at by anybody and okay way that that really
• 1:50:57
  surprises me not a single job, offer does not like Tennessee
• 1:51:01
  was the first opportunity that came open during this timeframe
• 1:51:05
  of successive. Wow.
• 1:51:07
  Okay. All right, interesting to me
• 1:51:09
  because I hadn't thought about it when she's like, no, I'm
• 1:51:12
  calling about you and I'm like, yeah, she should be, I've done a
• 1:51:15
  lot like you're right, you are calling for me, it's all you
• 1:51:20
  know, life is all about timing opportunity and timing and in
• 1:51:23
  making those decisions in those moments Tennessee's the only SEC
• 1:51:28
  school. At that time I would have looked
• 1:51:30
  at because I'm not a deep south person very well.
• 1:51:37
  Um you got like the northern Mystics CCT we could have.
• 1:51:42
  They're basically pretty much. I mean I guess what?
• 1:51:46
  Oh sure. Yeah, sure.
• 1:51:50
  It became I wasn't I wasn't ready for the interview.
• 1:51:53
  I wasn't ready for the opportunity, it became a Trail
• 1:51:56
  Blazer moment and that's that's what sold it.
• 1:52:00
  I knew what the SEC demand was going to be and I wasn't sure I
• 1:52:04
  was wanting that but when it was presented, the way it was, I
• 1:52:10
  couldn't turn it down and I loved.
• 1:52:12
  I loved the boss. When you said Trailblazer,
• 1:52:15
  you're referring that you were. I believe?
• 1:52:17
  Correct me. You were the first women First
• 1:52:19
  woman to be a head coach of a men's program in the SEC.
• 1:52:23
  That correct. Yeah.
• 1:52:24
  Was that the case at Penn State where either first female to be
• 1:52:28
  a head coach of a meant? Wow, that's interesting.
• 1:52:31
  So you go to Tennessee now I've coached in for SEC championships
• 1:52:39
  and it is it's a bloodbath I was talking and that was before a.m.
• 1:52:45
  and Missouri got there when I was there and it was still just
• 1:52:48
  just a terrible. I'll meet because it's like,
• 1:52:50
  it's like doing Nationals, all over, you know, preheat you
• 1:52:53
  before you do because you get redo it all over again in a
• 1:52:54
  couple weeks. And then you know they had a
• 1:52:56
  Texas A&M in Missouri that makes it worse and now they're going
• 1:52:58
  to do you in Texas. I'd never want to coach them a
• 1:53:02
  good. What was it?
• 1:53:03
  Like and now, okay, I've also had not coached in it, but I've
• 1:53:08
  been to Big Ten championships and it certainly has its
• 1:53:11
  intensity. I'm not member.
• 1:53:13
  I'm and I'm an SEC homer. So, of course, I'm going to
• 1:53:15
  overplay this, you see me, but there's nothing like the SCC Eat
• 1:53:19
  in my opinion. What was it?
• 1:53:21
  Like you can, you can look at results.
• 1:53:24
  You can talk to other coaches but until you're in it it's like
• 1:53:30
  no other. What was that first moment?
• 1:53:33
  What was that first meet? You know, first where was it at?
• 1:53:35
  And you walk in. You've already seen all the heat
• 1:53:37
  for you know you're in for the muck it then you actually get
• 1:53:41
  into it and you know bodies are just fly.
• 1:53:42
  There's die in it's just it's an unbelievable me.
• 1:53:44
  What was that like that first like okay I'm in this, he see
• 1:53:47
  this is what I was what I wanted.
• 1:53:49
  So So so first of all just backing up just a little bit it
• 1:53:54
  was a Trailblazer moment. Donna Thomas, Dave Hart hired
• 1:53:56
  me, absolutely trust and love love their energy.
• 1:54:00
  What they wanted they needed to rebuild.
• 1:54:02
  We had nothing. I didn't have five in
• 1:54:05
  cross-country. I didn't have I didn't compete
• 1:54:09
  14, I turned Us in for not having the right numbers.
• 1:54:12
  That first year, we, the men had maybe about 20.
• 1:54:18
  The men were definitely ahead of the curve.
• 1:54:22
  The roster was decent. There was maybe 20 guys, but
• 1:54:26
  there was some Talent on it. I needed to hire people.
• 1:54:31
  I need to let people go and hire people the opportunity knowing
• 1:54:36
  what the opportunity was. I was up.
• 1:54:37
  For the challenge. And I wanted to break the glass
• 1:54:40
  ceiling, and I knew it was going to be hard, and I knew it was
• 1:54:44
  the SEC. I knew all these things but I
• 1:54:46
  said, if not now, when so we did it.
• 1:54:51
  My first experience, I can't, I can't even really remember
• 1:54:54
  cross-country, or the endure. I just remember the outdoor meet
• 1:54:57
  was at Mississippi State. Oh yeah.
• 1:54:59
  Okay, I was there then. Yeah, okay, yeah.
• 1:55:03
  Women we had eight women on the trip.
• 1:55:05
  That's all. I just I brought to the SEC.
• 1:55:08
  And I asked Donna by sport Edmond at the time.
• 1:55:11
  If I could sit on the bus the last day I said, I don't want to
• 1:55:16
  see this, we are terrible. I just want to be on the bus,
• 1:55:19
  and she wouldn't let me get this phrase, but it may have been
• 1:55:27
  someone else before or after whatever.
• 1:55:29
  But I do remember having lunch during at the coach's, you're
• 1:55:32
  grabbing lunch and I said someone asks how's your first
• 1:55:35
  sec? I said, well it came to a
• 1:55:37
  conference meet And a diamond League me haha.
• 1:55:40
  Yes, I love that. That is exactly it.
• 1:55:43
  Oh my goodness. Exactly.
• 1:55:45
  You're like, oh my goodness. You know, and I think I lucked
• 1:55:51
  out with. I had a great higher-end, Tim
• 1:55:53
  Hall. And we had a great freshman and
• 1:55:56
  Christian Coleman. A great kid.
• 1:56:00
  My first tiny Coleman and Nathan Strother were freshmen.
• 1:56:06
  Get there. Getting their doors.
• 1:56:08
  The little bit I had, I had inherited Chelsea Blaze, Chelsea
• 1:56:13
  flies, but we call their blazing Blaze, you know, and she ended
• 1:56:17
  up. She's still in the top 15 all
• 1:56:20
  time 10 K times for me. So she had a little bit of
• 1:56:23
  talent that first year and scored in the 5K.
• 1:56:26
  Feed Brown ended up being a great one for us.
• 1:56:30
  Took a little bit more time for her, but, you know, we were, we
• 1:56:32
  were on Slim slim Pickins but you know what we did?
• 1:56:37
  You know, the The goal for the directive.
• 1:56:40
  I was given by the bosses that hired me that I agreed to was to
• 1:56:44
  rebuild, they needed numbers. We had, we didn't have 14 women,
• 1:56:49
  they needed numbers, they needed to get the program back to
• 1:56:55
  National presence. It wasn't a national
• 1:56:57
  championship, it was a national presence.
• 1:56:59
  Yeah, it's a good like that. Terminology the present.
• 1:57:01
  You're right. You and you got to take ladder
• 1:57:03
  steps anyway. So yeah, I like that.
• 1:57:05
  They're actually smart and not just, hey, we hired you go in
• 1:57:07
  and ask I was like, man, we ain't even got 14 what we doing
• 1:57:09
  here, the national presence, God, get the academic.
• 1:57:13
  And at that point, the men's team in record had not maybe
• 1:57:17
  previous year's way back. When never had a 3.0 GPA.
• 1:57:22
  Their APR is for solo. So we have a lot of work to do.
• 1:57:28
  I had to hire a pretty good people.
• 1:57:30
  I kept Jon Newell and he stayed with me all the way through till
• 1:57:33
  this year, you know? And so we had a huge task in, we
• 1:57:37
  Had to put her head down and go to work and take our lumps and
• 1:57:40
  we did Christian Coleman. Nathan Strother, cam Brown, who
• 1:57:45
  was a great hammer and weight. Throw her for us.
• 1:57:48
  Cassie, women, Tavis, Bailey, all these kids were on the team
• 1:57:51
  when I got there, but they hadn't been achieving.
• 1:57:54
  We turned up, the we turned up the juice and we got going and
• 1:58:00
  we hit hard and fast and especially on the men, but, you
• 1:58:04
  know, two years later and 16, we were, you know, Trophy and at
• 1:58:07
  the NCAA. The women were six or seven that
• 1:58:09
  the ncaa's we got a lot from it. We created the winning
• 1:58:14
  environment, we got, we got going which led to change you
• 1:58:18
  know, Christian was able to. We could tell his junior year
• 1:58:23
  what he was going to do. And so we I think did one of the
• 1:58:26
  very first real marketing promos for a young person, we did the
• 1:58:31
  40-yard dash. Oh, that's right.
• 1:58:34
  It was my idea and he crushed it.
• 1:58:37
  Yeah, you did. Yeah, it took off, you know, it
• 1:58:40
  took him to the exposure level that people weren't used to it,
• 1:58:43
  and this is just a few years back, but we did it.
• 1:58:45
  Yeah, you know, we so he, you know, clearly wasn't in line to
• 1:58:51
  sign one of the best contracts coming out and people are still
• 1:58:54
  talking about that was, you know, there's a whole different
• 1:58:58
  topic on what we need to do for track and field and marketing
• 1:59:01
  and things like that. But that was unique at least
• 1:59:04
  unique in the sense of like you had a high-profile kid and what
• 1:59:07
  he ended Running with it. Like, that was really
• 1:59:10
  interesting and I was idea that the course, my spring coach
• 1:59:14
  coach Hall at the time was like, well, we can't do it before
• 1:59:16
  Nationals. I'm like, no, we can't do before
• 1:59:18
  Nationals and then we got back from Nationals and was like, he
• 1:59:21
  needs a break because it just gone and crushed it, you know?
• 1:59:24
  So literally I was probably five, six days, six, seven days
• 1:59:27
  into his break, where he hadn't done a thing.
• 1:59:29
  I called them up, like calming. Here's what we're doing.
• 1:59:32
  I'm like, just, just be in Tennessee gear and bring your
• 1:59:34
  spikes and we're going to, you know, when you try this thing
• 1:59:36
  and so you can see We're all just in sweats and get in the
• 1:59:40
  guy that did the video for us. Put it to the right song and
• 1:59:43
  caught the right moment and Christian grandpa.
• 1:59:45
  But we regretted because had we done it when he was in Peak
• 1:59:48
  form, I think he would have broken for, you know, and so
• 1:59:51
  it's, you know, because it was like, oh, it's so close to four
• 1:59:54
  but it was a, it was a huge moment in realizing the power of
• 1:59:59
  the brand of Tennessee and and it moved the dial for him to go
• 2:00:04
  out to outdoor you know? And he set the Collegiate record
• 2:00:06
  and No, we lost them a year, early.
• 2:00:09
  I think we would have been national champs the following
• 2:00:10
  year. So we have to start all over and
• 2:00:15
  Coach. You know, coach Hall moved on.
• 2:00:17
  We had a change over again, you know, it's just a, it's a lot at
• 2:00:21
  this level of management of things.
• 2:00:23
  And then kind of what people probably don't know what
• 2:00:27
  Tennessee, in my time I had for athletic directors.
• 2:00:30
  In this time, you know, the boss that hired me laughed after two
• 2:00:34
  years, retired after two years, we Then had another ad that
• 2:00:39
  didn't quite make it two years. Then we hired our former
• 2:00:42
  football coach, and we had a world pandemic.
• 2:00:46
  So, there was Zero moving the dial during that time.
• 2:00:48
  And the pandemic hit my women's team, pretty hard, which some
• 2:00:52
  did some didn't, and then we turned around and we, and we got
• 2:00:56
  our next day D, and, and things change quite rapidly.
• 2:00:59
  Now, that's interesting. When I first met, James Henry,
• 2:01:03
  recently, retired woman's head coach, from University of
• 2:01:06
  Michigan Legend. By the way, when I first met
• 2:01:09
  him, the first question I asked him cause he'd been at that
• 2:01:11
  point had been in Michigan for 30 years.
• 2:01:13
  I think you happy. I didn't realize it was an
• 2:01:15
  athlete there as well. He did, you see his retirement
• 2:01:19
  video and what do unique, dude, if you haven't seen this, it's
• 2:01:23
  amazing. He did the flashcard.
• 2:01:25
  I think he did it because he's a very emotional.
• 2:01:29
  He got to a certain part in here.
• 2:01:30
  You could see it. I think he's like, I can't
• 2:01:32
  verbalize it, so, I just got hoes It.
• 2:01:33
  Anyway, the first question, I asked him when I first met him
• 2:01:36
  was, hey, you've been there? R for 30-plus years.
• 2:01:39
  How many ades have you had during that time?
• 2:01:41
  And I think he said, yeah, I think I'm on my seventh now
• 2:01:43
  that's over 30 years, but it was super impressive.
• 2:01:46
  So I'm like, oh, every ad comes in with their own people and
• 2:01:50
  their own ideas and things like that as like that kind of says,
• 2:01:53
  a lot about you James, that you were able to that, that's not an
• 2:01:55
  easy. That's the Grand Rapids right
• 2:01:57
  there. That is not an easy path to
• 2:01:59
  navigate and still be as successful as a James Henry.
• 2:02:02
  Was you just mentioned in seven years?
• 2:02:05
  That's not even to recruiting is, right?
• 2:02:06
  You think about Blocks of recruiting.
• 2:02:09
  That's not even to recruiting Cycles, in that sense to have
• 2:02:12
  for a DS. And then, on top of just
• 2:02:14
  sprinkle a little little on top of that covid, the director of
• 2:02:22
  this whole thing. So you're very dependent on the
• 2:02:26
  the path that your ad sets for their goals of what they want
• 2:02:30
  for the program. I mean, how do you navigate
• 2:02:33
  that? I mean, it just feels like if I
• 2:02:35
  had here in the business world, the private sector, Thank God.
• 2:02:38
  I've had the same boss first 6 to 16 years.
• 2:02:40
  I've been here. Love him to death.
• 2:02:41
  Just in case you're listening boss.
• 2:02:42
  I love you to death but but we have consistency.
• 2:02:45
  Like I know his style. I know what he wants.
• 2:02:48
  We push each other. We're all pulling on the same
• 2:02:50
  rope, right? If I had had in the 16 years but
• 2:02:54
  I had four or five guys in that chair I don't know that I'd be
• 2:02:57
  here in 16 years to be real Frank with you.
• 2:03:00
  How do you just navigate that while you're also trying to
• 2:03:02
  coach for crying out loud? You're trying to be on the track
• 2:03:04
  and do things. Yeah.
• 2:03:08
  You know, it, you know, I think at this point, my skill set was
• 2:03:11
  pretty good, you know, not only. Did I have for 80s, I had three
• 2:03:16
  Sports supervisors. I had three Chancellor's into
• 2:03:19
  president, so the entire University was transitioning.
• 2:03:23
  Oh wow. It was exhausting quite frankly.
• 2:03:26
  I learned a lot there. So since I left Tennessee and
• 2:03:31
  it's, it looked back and it was exhausting and it was
• 2:03:34
  frustrating. I felt like the all energy for
• 2:03:38
  track and field, you know, went went just just down with all
• 2:03:44
  that change. And, you know, I think I look at
• 2:03:49
  it kind of, you know, I matched up with everybody that came
• 2:03:52
  through the door, I'm not sure I matched up with our current
• 2:03:54
  athletic director at Tennessee and that's okay.
• 2:03:57
  That's part of the process when, especially when you have so much
• 2:03:59
  change. But at the same time, you know,
• 2:04:04
  I've had the most success at Tennessee, in a decade.
• 2:04:06
  I have 33. National trophies, which is, I
• 2:04:10
  believe the most any coaches had in 10 years at Tennessee, but it
• 2:04:14
  just didn't work. And I think that that's the the
• 2:04:18
  fact of what people need to understand about any profession,
• 2:04:22
  but if we're specifically talking about track and field at
• 2:04:26
  the highest level of our game, because there's no argument that
• 2:04:29
  the SEC is the highest level of our game.
• 2:04:32
  That's right. Yeah, always be a fan but the
• 2:04:37
  the End of the day, you have to expect that you're you're not
• 2:04:42
  going to fit everybody's vision and it just isn't going to be
• 2:04:46
  that way. And you have to take your lunch,
• 2:04:49
  you have to live in a world understanding that change can
• 2:04:52
  happen at any moment and you didn't do anything wrong.
• 2:04:56
  No one did anything wrong. There's been no snow cloud over
• 2:05:00
  me. I didn't break any rules.
• 2:05:01
  I didn't make anybody mad, I didn't do anything.
• 2:05:03
  There's just a different Vision that came through the door and
• 2:05:06
  the different Vision. Came through the door and And
• 2:05:07
  you have to be able to handle yourself with that.
• 2:05:11
  And I think myself my staff did a great job in managing the last
• 2:05:15
  year-and-a-half knowing that we were probably not going to be be
• 2:05:19
  in his vision. I'm reminded of, you know, the
• 2:05:24
  Callback. Go back to Joey Haines and
• 2:05:26
  you're in there and you're like, I'm not getting this job but I'm
• 2:05:28
  gonna be myself. It makes me think of this time,
• 2:05:31
  period, for you of. Okay?
• 2:05:33
  I am who I am. Certainly, I can improve you
• 2:05:36
  seem like a person who is a Continuous Improvement.
• 2:05:38
  There's still certain things that.
• 2:05:39
  Okay, I need to get better here. Get better here, get better
• 2:05:41
  here. But you didn't when another ad
• 2:05:44
  comes in, it wasn't like, okay, well, I better fake it so that I
• 2:05:48
  appease this person so I can keep my job that just leaves the
• 2:05:52
  miserable for both that leads to bad, the separations, no, Mutual
• 2:05:56
  at that point. That's just bad separation.
• 2:05:58
  So, you know, this love that it's like, hey, here's what I've
• 2:06:01
  done, here's who I am. Here's my authenticity in
• 2:06:04
  liquid, it birthed, it gave trophies, it gave Champions, it
• 2:06:08
  gave many points and give lots of sec.
• 2:06:10
  I mean, you certainly didn't want to sit on the bus the last
• 2:06:13
  day of scc's for those last few years.
• 2:06:15
  That's for sure because you had a team going.
• 2:06:18
  So, I just love that authenticity of, man, I have to
• 2:06:20
  be who I am inside. I can't fake this.
• 2:06:23
  There is no fakeness here. Correct.
• 2:06:25
  And it was you know it's one of those things where I threw this
• 2:06:30
  time no one changed my directive.
• 2:06:32
  Everybody stayed with the same directive.
• 2:06:35
  You know like okay you're rebuilding this program, you're
• 2:06:37
  making us. Us academically important,
• 2:06:40
  you're making you the cultures great.
• 2:06:41
  Let's keep moving the dial. And you know, the understanding
• 2:06:45
  was okay, we may not win an SEC title, but we can play at the
• 2:06:48
  national championship. I think that we were doing those
• 2:06:52
  things and we had a rough go on the women post the the 21 after
• 2:06:59
  covid. But, you know, honestly, that
• 2:07:02
  that was hidden miss a little bit.
• 2:07:04
  I it's, it's an interesting thing.
• 2:07:06
  We You have to learn that one, put your head down and go to
• 2:07:13
  work. Like at the end of the day, not
• 2:07:16
  everybody's going to like you not, everybody's going to care
• 2:07:18
  about you. You gotta go do your job and do
• 2:07:20
  it the best you can. And so last summer, you know,
• 2:07:24
  the writing came on the wall that I was in my last year, my
• 2:07:26
  contract, it became very public. And we knew what we were up
• 2:07:32
  against and the staff said, let's go do the best we can do.
• 2:07:37
  I add two new hires that took the job knowing the situation.
• 2:07:42
  I had an opportunity to panic and you know, make it an awful
• 2:07:47
  day at the work and do all those things and we never did we, you
• 2:07:51
  know, we fought hard, I had one of the better cross-country
• 2:07:54
  Seasons again, it wasn't the directive to have cross country
• 2:07:57
  be the national prominence. It just wasn't and so and
• 2:08:02
  there's not a lot of money. So we had to make decisions and
• 2:08:06
  I gave up my Although I've had some amazing athletes, we've
• 2:08:10
  Rewritten over 35 school records at Tennessee, which many of them
• 2:08:14
  multiple times. So probably all in all we're
• 2:08:16
  over 50 times but let's just talk about this is Tennessee's
• 2:08:20
  as I say this ain't chump change great history in the sport.
• 2:08:24
  Yeah right we've had you know, I think 10 top 10 teams, we've had
• 2:08:30
  three trophy teams, we've had more success than I can even
• 2:08:35
  start to say and and just You know, a Barman winter Olympians.
• 2:08:39
  I mean the whole the whole kit and caboodle.
• 2:08:40
  We've done what the SEC does did we break into becoming what
• 2:08:46
  Mouse has created? No, or dentist?
• 2:08:49
  Or Pat duration is what they have, they have the duration and
• 2:08:54
  we were just getting up and going but a different Vision,
• 2:08:57
  came through the door. And and that's okay, so we put
• 2:09:01
  her head down and said, well let's just do the best we can
• 2:09:03
  and what we did, great, you know, we were 16th on the women
• 2:09:06
  and third on the man. The Indoor national
• 2:09:08
  championships and we had some injury outdoor with the women
• 2:09:11
  and then of course, a lot in the last two weeks of the Season
• 2:09:17
  happened, that I think really affected by women's team
• 2:09:19
  certainly. So so we really, you know, we
• 2:09:22
  battled my men, my men had a jump on it.
• 2:09:25
  They knew they could trophy again and they weren't going to
• 2:09:27
  let that Vision get lost you know started about four years
• 2:09:31
  ago with a slogan of Podium push getting on the podium and we
• 2:09:35
  pulled it off. You know we did we did what we
• 2:09:37
  can do in There's yeah, I'm passing a weather but the
• 2:09:41
  potato, the Baton has been given, or I'm passing it on to
• 2:09:45
  Dwayne into coach Carlson. You know, we left it in a
• 2:09:47
  healthy spot, a great spot, the best Tennessee's been and 20
• 2:09:51
  years, you know, our finishes this year, the best, it's been
• 2:09:54
  in 20 years and that was my mission.
• 2:09:56
  That was my role within Tennessee, track and field.
• 2:10:00
  I'm very proud of it and I'm ready to move on because the
• 2:10:03
  vision now is different than the one I was bought into.
• 2:10:07
  You know, so so it's been a mutual thing and it's been a
• 2:10:11
  good thing and we leave, we leave with it in a great spot
• 2:10:15
  and I hope that all my assistants land on their feet.
• 2:10:18
  There are certain, I'm excited for me.
• 2:10:20
  Yeah, I was super excited. I knew Jon Newell before you
• 2:10:24
  came to Tennessee. He's my my birthday.
• 2:10:26
  Twin we both have like, 25th as I've worked at.
• 2:10:28
  Yeah, and you know, he asked me when you got the job, he's a
• 2:10:33
  hey, do you know her? I was like yeah you know you
• 2:10:34
  know she's been to our Factory when you had big Ten's here and
• 2:10:37
  things like that. At, and he goes me, I really do
• 2:10:38
  want to stay and I was like, man, I was like, I'll put in a
• 2:10:40
  word. I was like, I'll shoot her.
• 2:10:42
  Probably had your cell phones. Like I'll shoot her a text, man,
• 2:10:44
  but, you know, how these things go, as I, but she'd be smart to
• 2:10:46
  keep you and I was so happy when you did to that.
• 2:10:50
  But as we start to wrap up to here today, this, it's a great
• 2:10:52
  transition. You know, people are there to
• 2:10:56
  know who you are, half the people who listened today, to
• 2:10:59
  this episode knew who you were because of the name and you've
• 2:11:02
  had an amazing career and he continued to have an amazing
• 2:11:04
  career. Another half of just learned who
• 2:11:06
  you are, maybe was like, oh That's about the.
• 2:11:08
  Okay, I've kind of heard or I knew Tennessee had a coaching
• 2:11:11
  change. What?
• 2:11:11
  Not the world really wants to know because you had an amazing
• 2:11:14
  career up to this point. If you stopped today it's a Hall
• 2:11:18
  of Fame career television career.
• 2:11:20
  The world wants to know is this it?
• 2:11:21
  Are we done? Are you going to move into?
• 2:11:24
  We haven't even talked about. And I kind of do want to talk
• 2:11:26
  about it before we actually hit stop recording your work with
• 2:11:29
  women's coaching. I know you were heavily involved
• 2:11:32
  in the u.s. tfcc a women's program with Rhonda Kathleen and
• 2:11:36
  other people. Diana I think was in Evolved and
• 2:11:37
  I think that's just an amazing program that we need to continue
• 2:11:40
  to grow and has grown phenomenally the mentorship
• 2:11:43
  program. So I definitely want to talk
• 2:11:44
  about that. Is that where you're going?
• 2:11:46
  Is that is that today's path or is the flame for coaching still
• 2:11:50
  there? Yeah, so a handful of things,
• 2:11:53
  it's a great question. It's, you know, I, I will take a
• 2:11:56
  moment just to just to say that, I think my time here, I always
• 2:12:02
  joke that the tea for Tennessee was a Target on my back because
• 2:12:05
  it was the first and I am, Very proud of that, because to this
• 2:12:10
  moment, there's three more women sitting at the table in the SEC.
• 2:12:13
  Yes, yes. I am just absolutely thrilled
• 2:12:16
  with how that has played out in those.
• 2:12:19
  Women are doing a great job and will continue to do a great job.
• 2:12:22
  And I feel like you have to be, sometimes you have to get out of
• 2:12:26
  your comfort zone, you have to get out of maybe what is safe
• 2:12:29
  and in and you've got it down and take some chances.
• 2:12:32
  And this chance has been nothing but great for me.
• 2:12:35
  I've absolutely feel like like we've powered down and done a
• 2:12:38
  great job and and even though I got let go, I got let go of the
• 2:12:42
  top of some critical of my career at 8, it's my eighth
• 2:12:46
  National Trophy and the way that my team honored me at the
• 2:12:50
  national championship was was probably one of if not the best
• 2:12:54
  moments in my career. And I had a year to prepare that
• 2:12:57
  this probably was going to be my last year and I went every day
• 2:13:01
  and decided do what do I want? What do I want?
• 2:13:04
  What do Jim and I want in Quite frankly I want a coach, I think
• 2:13:10
  I have a lot to offer and yet I'm going to be very selective
• 2:13:13
  on this next step, you know, there's it's not a okay, what's
• 2:13:17
  open? Let's apply.
• 2:13:19
  Its it's been a career that has due to just moving from
• 2:13:24
  different places and having to go where where I've chosen to go
• 2:13:27
  or we've chosen to go, it hasn't been around family.
• 2:13:31
  So this next decision, if there's an opportunity to be
• 2:13:33
  around family, that's going to influence it.
• 2:13:35
  I believe. And if the right thing doesn't
• 2:13:39
  come open, which you know how it is right now, what's open now?
• 2:13:42
  And by the end of July, it'll be set for the next year, you know.
• 2:13:45
  So so we're enjoying some downtime well during that time.
• 2:13:50
  Yes. Yes.
• 2:13:51
  And being selective and taking the summer to see where it goes.
• 2:13:55
  If I land my husband is continuing to just support me
• 2:13:59
  and what I want to do and if we land on our feet and coaching
• 2:14:02
  gig, you'll see a comment and it'll be fun if I don't.
• 2:14:08
  Then I do think I have a lot to give to our sport still and I
• 2:14:11
  want to I think I have in my recruiting Spiel, these last
• 2:14:17
  five or six years. I've said to the parents, it's
• 2:14:20
  much more important to me to, you know, I look at everybody in
• 2:14:24
  my roster, as a scholar, and what they're doing academically
• 2:14:27
  as a champion and what they're doing athletically and as a
• 2:14:30
  leader and that third piece is become more and more important
• 2:14:33
  to me because I think our world needs good leaders and I I have
• 2:14:37
  one of the best opportunities to impact people.
• 2:14:40
  In that our young people, our coaches have that opportunity.
• 2:14:44
  So, if there's a way for me to impact, maybe it's not the, the
• 2:14:48
  college age kids anymore, maybe it's the coaches, maybe it's
• 2:14:52
  people that are outside of their comfort zone, and how do you get
• 2:14:55
  comfortable with in it? I really believe I gave a great
• 2:14:59
  quote card to one of my athletes one time and said the world
• 2:15:02
  begins at the outside, your comfort zone at the end of your
• 2:15:04
  comfort zone and I believe that. And how do you get Well enough
• 2:15:08
  and confident enough to do that. So yeah they'll be something out
• 2:15:11
  there if it's not in the right coaching position is I'm not
• 2:15:15
  doing it just to do it. Then it'll be impacting our
• 2:15:20
  coaches. I hope.
• 2:15:21
  I hope I can find a way to do that.
• 2:15:23
  Yeah I think not I think I know representation matters.
• 2:15:26
  I love that. You talked about the three women
• 2:15:29
  who are leading SEC programs. Now Connie Althea and Carol
• 2:15:33
  three by the way, just stand out people.
• 2:15:35
  Whether they're coaches are not there.
• 2:15:36
  Just amazing. People, but I think so sorry, I
• 2:15:41
  know, representation matter. So I think part of your legacy
• 2:15:44
  Beyond eight trophies at Nationals is amazing.
• 2:15:47
  I was ribbon Mouse. I'll, you know, as like a lot of
• 2:15:50
  coaches will go through their career in they'll never win
• 2:15:52
  three trophies. You just didn't want year, man.
• 2:15:53
  You making it look too easy. The three National Title by the
• 2:15:56
  way, not just three trophies. Yeah, it's fairy tale.
• 2:16:00
  Someone write a book about this season, a lot of specialness but
• 2:16:04
  so you know coaching Wise, It's almost like I put that on the
• 2:16:07
  Because it's like, oh, I mean, that's again Hall of Fame.
• 2:16:09
  Coach Bar, None right now, but your legacy goes from a half
• 2:16:15
  passive half active, don't get caught up in the 50/50, but
• 2:16:18
  there's a passive up. Just you being who you are, and
• 2:16:20
  being in the seats that you've been.
• 2:16:22
  So another female athlete. Another coach that says, you
• 2:16:26
  know, that thought I cannot, I can't be a big 10 coach.
• 2:16:29
  I can't be an SEC men's program director.
• 2:16:32
  That's not, that's just not what we do.
• 2:16:34
  Is that one's going to hire me and they see you and go.
• 2:16:36
  We'll wait a minute. As I love that you started at
• 2:16:39
  Hopkins, Minnesota you coached at Carbondale, Illinois.
• 2:16:43
  And I'm not bashing those because I love those people
• 2:16:45
  there and I've been to each one of those cities.
• 2:16:46
  You didn't start out as a national champion, Big Ten and
• 2:16:51
  you know, the first job was Stanford, you'll work your way
• 2:16:54
  from the bottom of the pyramid to the top.
• 2:16:56
  So there's just a representation of just seen that you can do it
• 2:16:59
  Godly. If Beth can do it.
• 2:17:01
  Anybody. She is special, she is special,
• 2:17:04
  but you can do it to work and get to it.
• 2:17:06
  Like said, you know, work has been a great theme for today and
• 2:17:08
  then the other half of that Legacy.
• 2:17:10
  So half a passive, just people just seeing you in those seats
• 2:17:13
  and being successful. The other half is the work that
• 2:17:16
  you've done. The leadership that you've
• 2:17:17
  shown. Can you talk a little bit about
• 2:17:19
  specifically with you stfc a? Would that women's program and
• 2:17:23
  mentorship program? Some of the things you've done
• 2:17:24
  there. So I think those are just, you
• 2:17:25
  know, Rhonda and I of Rhonda and I have had lots of conversations
• 2:17:29
  about. I just I'm just a huge fan.
• 2:17:30
  I love that because I think that it's you know, diversity is
• 2:17:33
  good. So I love when there's more
• 2:17:35
  women involved and more minorities involved.
• 2:17:36
  And so talk to us a little bit about that program and kind of
• 2:17:39
  how did it start and where it is today?
• 2:17:41
  So it's funny because I'm not, I don't remember Kathleen and I
• 2:17:45
  were talking about this, we don't really remember how it
• 2:17:48
  started. Whether it came from Sam or it
• 2:17:51
  came from us. But, definitely in the early
• 2:17:54
  days before, Rhonda really took it on, Rhonda has grown it to be
• 2:17:58
  something amazing, but I got it. The agenda at the convention to
• 2:18:02
  be, you know, a luncheon a panel we did, we did a couple of years
• 2:18:07
  of just some panels of coaches. It's Sam brought in.
• 2:18:10
  I remember a couple of speakers and it grew a little bit longer
• 2:18:15
  than just a couple hours and and so in the beginning days, that
• 2:18:18
  was all that was all myself and Kathleen and and really putting
• 2:18:23
  it together on the agenda and it was awesome.
• 2:18:26
  And then Rhonda, you know, at some point I probably said, I
• 2:18:30
  can't do it. But Rhonda took it on and it has
• 2:18:34
  grown into something just with the mentorship program and all
• 2:18:36
  of its just got a life of its own right now.
• 2:18:39
  So very proud of those kinds of things and I think that there's,
• 2:18:43
  there's room for those things to go beyond just a half a day or a
• 2:18:48
  day at the convention, you know, I think what when I'm hearing
• 2:18:51
  from a lot of women in coaching is, you know, how do I maneuver
• 2:18:57
  these things? How do I, you know, how do I
• 2:19:01
  Stay. Let the let them water continue
• 2:19:03
  to flow, without damaging it up, and causing a problem.
• 2:19:07
  And I think it's very, very real, it's still very real.
• 2:19:11
  And so I would love to have that impact to find ways where maybe
• 2:19:16
  it's more of a You know, not just women in track and field
• 2:19:21
  but women and coaching women in the sport was sporting world of
• 2:19:25
  bringing together. Great people that have great
• 2:19:27
  impact and can help other people lead through the impact as well,
• 2:19:32
  because it's about leadership and it's about people in
• 2:19:34
  leadership and and teaching those leadership skills to be
• 2:19:37
  effective. And, you know, that's, that's
• 2:19:40
  really a legacy. I would like to continue with
• 2:19:42
  and whether that's in a continuation of coaching it
• 2:19:45
  will, or just I'm doing it because that's what I'm going to
• 2:19:49
  end up doing. But right now it's a, it's all
• 2:19:54
  thought-provoking and yet necessary within within the
• 2:19:57
  sport. Yeah, I think it's great for our
• 2:20:00
  sport that track people get into Administration and I think it's
• 2:20:03
  great for our representation of female coaches in the coaching
• 2:20:06
  ranks that we have females that are in administration as well.
• 2:20:10
  You know, the people that are making the decisions that are
• 2:20:12
  affecting our sport that people that are making the decisions of
• 2:20:14
  who we hire in this profession. So I think that's extremely
• 2:20:17
  important. Don't and who knows about, maybe
• 2:20:19
  that's maybe that's your next row.
• 2:20:20
  Maybe it's an Administration role, maybe it's your an
• 2:20:22
  organizer never know. Beth, you have you been a
• 2:20:28
  champion? You are champion and your future
• 2:20:30
  continues to be written as a champion.
• 2:20:32
  I'm just so thankful for you to be here today.
• 2:20:34
  It's it was for everybody who's listening to knows the situation
• 2:20:37
  over this past year and a half you had every excuse.
• 2:20:41
  I want to make sure by knows this Beth had every excuse not
• 2:20:44
  to be on the podcast today, not upset.
• 2:20:46
  In fact we had to set up a forward.
• 2:20:48
  With down and after went down, she reached out to me and said,
• 2:20:51
  hey, we still on and I was like, because I was like, oh yeah, she
• 2:20:53
  ain't gonna want to talk to me, you know, for maybe obvious
• 2:20:55
  reasons, but I think that is just another kind of Lego piece,
• 2:21:00
  if you will, of the type of person you are the leadership.
• 2:21:04
  You are the humbleness that you have and just boys, keep going
• 2:21:08
  back to a world leader, just a pure capital L leadership of
• 2:21:11
  showing up whether it's a good day, a bad day.
• 2:21:14
  Someone likes me. Someone doesn't like me.
• 2:21:16
  The job has to get done. I have to leave.
• 2:21:17
  Young people as a coach in a positive manner and you have
• 2:21:21
  done that and will continue to do that.
• 2:21:23
  I'm just so thankful for your time.
• 2:21:24
  So most valuable thing you can give me and I'm just so grateful
• 2:21:26
  for you and and one thing I think I was starting with this
• 2:21:29
  comment at will anybody that made it all the way to the end
• 2:21:32
  of this podcast? You deserve an A plus.
• 2:21:34
  I mean that's awesome. But I would be remiss, not to
• 2:21:37
  take at least one social media attempt at thanking my
• 2:21:41
  colleagues. Yes.
• 2:21:42
  Yeah, it's been amazing. It's not been an easy time but I
• 2:21:46
  have no shame. My staff has no.
• 2:21:47
  We are we are very proud of everything we've done and we
• 2:21:50
  wish the best for Tennessee as we move forward.
• 2:21:52
  But the people that I have known over this like this long time,
• 2:21:58
  in this board and the amount of support people showed it was
• 2:22:03
  amazing. It was just absolute amazing I
• 2:22:06
  heard from people I hadn't heard from in years and the amount of
• 2:22:09
  support you know made me just there wasn't it wasn't a need to
• 2:22:13
  feel like I tripped up. It was just more of propelling
• 2:22:16
  me forward and The women that supported me where I was
• 2:22:20
  standing the guys out there that just want me to get back in the
• 2:22:24
  saddle and, and, and beat people.
• 2:22:27
  I love it. I just love it.
• 2:22:29
  I love everybody and I'm so, so grateful for a full career, full
• 2:22:34
  lifetime of knowing great people that are doing great stuff.
• 2:22:37
  So and and of course, the student-athletes, well, I love
• 2:22:40
  documenting, people's Journeys. And what's amazing is, even
• 2:22:43
  though we're at the end of the podcast, the story continues to
• 2:22:46
  be written, I can't. To see what's next.
• 2:22:48
  I can't wait to hear and feel and see the impact that you're
• 2:22:51
  going to continue to make Beth Europe.
• 2:22:53
  Your game changer. And I'm just so thankful for
• 2:22:55
  that. So, thank you so much for being
• 2:22:56
  here today. You're awesome.
• 2:22:57
  Like I appreciate you. It's empowering to talk to you.
• 2:23:00
  I really appreciate that. Have an awesome day.
• 2:23:03
  Yep, you too. Thanks Mike what an incredible
• 2:23:12
  journey coach has been on so awesome to hear their story in
• 2:23:15
  their own words, tremendous proof of the positive effect
• 2:23:18
  coaches, make on a daily basis. Help us spread the word of this.
• 2:23:21
  Great journey by sharing on your favorite social, media channel.
• 2:23:24
  And don't forget to take a minute to rate and review the
• 2:23:27
  podcast. You just might get a shout out
• 2:23:29
  on a future episode. That's it for today.
• 2:23:31
  Join us next week, when we'll connect you with another amazing
• 2:23:35
  courage.